The email scandal engulfing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her response, is reminiscent of her behavior during the Clintons' time in the White House, according to political analyst Dick Morris, who appeared Friday on
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
"When I used to work for Bill Clinton, I realized that all of our scandals followed the same pattern," he said. "Hillary would conceal the evidence and if there was a straight-line path to take a small hit and get the scandal done or a long … illegal, quasi-legal route, which would prolong it and extend the pain and ultimately amplify it in the end, she would always choose the latter."
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"If she had used the
official email account, the emails would've come out sooner. They'll all come out in the end and she would've taken an earlier hit on Benghazi, but nothing like what she's doing now."
As a result, he said, the scandal will follow her during her presumed presidential bid.
"On the way to the Iowa caucus she'll have a subpoena," said Morris. "It takes a scandal that would be normally a fairly minor conservative scandal and makes it a New York Times scandal."
The entire Obama administration was complicit in Clinton's decision to forgo a government email account and instead have her own private server and email out of her New York home, said Morris, author of
"Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation."
"You're telling me Obama never got an email from Hillary and never noticed that it didn't say 'state.gov'"? he said. "The whole State Department, the whole national security establishment, every single person must, per force, have known that Hillary was using her own email because they all got the emails and it's right there in the title. They knew it and they didn't stop her.
"Go through the list of people who have faced criminal prosecution for doing the same damn thing. Taking classified information home is a crime, and keeping it there and all information you touch as secretary is a crime."
Morris said Clinton's problems may provide an opening for progressive Massachusetts
Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2016. Warren has thus far backed away from attempts to lure her into the race.
"Politically, it totally transforms the Elizabeth Warren options," according to Morris.
"Until now, people have said, 'If you run, you're putting your own ambition ahead of the party and you're saying that you want to be president, you're going to go after the front-runner who's going to be our candidate probably and mess her up.'
"That's kind of like what Ted Kennedy did to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and screwed up his chances for re-election. But now the Democrats are in a panic. What the hell do they do if Hillary's knocked out? What do they do if she's so damaged, she can't run? Are they going to nominate Bernie Sanders?
"They have no option, there's no other candidate there, so Warren is going to come out and say, 'I don't want to do this, I favor Hillary, but I'm going to let my name be entered so that there is an alternative if this thing metastasizes to that point.' That's a judgment that has to be made by September and October because that's when the filing deadlines are."
An investigation will determine whether Clinton violated a federal law, a State Department regulation or a customary procedure, Morris said, but "whatever it was, it wasn't right and was a unique effort to create one standard disclosure for her and one for the rest of the administration, including the president."