State Department Inspector General Memo

Floor Speech

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have always known that the Republicans have an obsession with Secretary Clinton's emails, but their obsession is a trumped up, partisan political crusade.

Today we received a new revelation about just how bankrupt the Republicans' campaign against Secretary Clinton truly is. The inspector general of the State Department issued something that is quite important. It is unclassified. He wrote a memo stating that emails received by former Secretary Colin Powell and aides to Secretary Condoleezza Rice may contain classified information.

This is the same trumped up allegation for which Republicans are currently trying to railroad Secretary Clinton.

As vice chairman Feinstein said last week: ``It has never made sense to me that Secretary Clinton can be held responsible for e-mail exchanges that originated with someone else.''

Yet Republicans would have us believe that these emails posed a grave threat.

Secretary Colin Powell said it best. Here is what he said upon reading such emails: ``A normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, `What's the issue?' ''

Just like they turned Benghazi into a political issue, Republicans are looking for anything that can be twisted into a partisan political tool--for former Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--and for obvious reasons.

The pursuit of her email records has caused the Republicans to waste millions of dollars of taxpayers' money and, of course, abuse the congressional oversight process. They have held up scores of State Department nominees--from USAID workers in Africa and around the world to the State Department's Legal Adviser. Because of what is being done here, the State Department--they have numerous people, I say numerous people, who should be confirmed so the State Department can operate. But, no, they are being held up--even the Legal Adviser. The State Department does not have its own lawyer because it is being held up. All they say is opposition to emails. It is an effort to develop opposition research for the campaign trail. This is what some would say is a watershed moment.

We can now hold Republicans' allegations up to the light and see them for the flimsy, transparent attempts to score political points that they always have been.

If we were to believe Republicans, then we would have to criminally charge Secretary Rice, Secretary Powell, their senior staff, and everyone else who received these emails. We might have to indict the entire senior level of America's national security community.

Of course General Powell should not be indicted. Of course Secretary Rice should not be indicted. But by Republicans' logic, they should be. This is absurd. It is absurd because the inspector general makes it very clear: These charges are a bunch of trumped up baloney. It is absurd because this campaign against Secretary Clinton has always been a ridiculously partisan, political waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

Today we see this more clearly than ever before, but no one has seen it more clearly than Secretary Powell. This man has held numerous positions in our government--Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a four-star general. I repeat what he said today, and I quote again: ``A normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, `What's the issue?''

There is no issue.

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