The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline
by
Paul Thompson (harlan2222 at yahoo.com), with illustration work by Katie Weddington and editing work by Jill Hacker
Source: The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline ©2016 #ClintonEmailTimeline
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/The_Clinton_Email_Scandal_Timeline
.
Source: The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline ©2016 #ClintonEmailTimeline
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/The_Clinton_Email_Scandal_Timeline
.
Why should you care about Hillary Clinton's email scandal enough to read detailed timelines about them? This essay is a good starting point: IS CLINTON'S EMAIL SCANDAL FOR REAL Also check out a two-hour interview of Paul Thompson by Mike Malloy and other news coverage of this timeline effort on the In The News page. Plus, we now have a page that contains just the Latest Timeline Entries. Also see a new forum to discuss the timeline. (Credit Left: Saul Loeb / Agence France Presse / Getty Images) (Center: Mandel Ngan / Agence France Presse) (Right: Kevin Lamarque / The Associated Press).
.
This is a complicated scandal, and there's no way it can be boiled down to a few thousand words. I first created the long timeline, which is now 80,000 words. But, realizing that's too long for many people, I created a 45,000 word medium version and a 25,000 word version. I think the short version is too short and I hope you'll at least try the medium version. Also, please don't miss The Clinton Foundation timeline, which is 15,000 words long and is almost entirely different content than any version of the main timeline.
.
This is an on-going project that will continually add and update all the timelines as new information is reported or discovered. The Main Timeline - Short Version Part 1 - 1993 to April 2013; Part 2 - April 2013 to today. The Main Timeline - Medium Version Part 1 - 1993 to March 2011; Part 2 - April 2011 to September 2014; Part 3 - September 2014 to September 2015; Part 4 - September 2015 to today. The Main Timeline - Long Version Part 1 - 1993 to July 2009; Part 2 - July 2009 to May 2012; Part 3 - May 2012 to February 2015; Part 4 - March 2015 to July 2015; Part 5 - July 2015 to October 2015; Part 6 - October 2015 to February 2016; Part 7 - March 2016 to April 2016; Part 8 - May 2016 to today. The Clinton Foundation Timeline Part 1 - 1993 to December 2009; Part 2 - January 2010 to today.
.
WHY I MADE THIS WEBSITE
.
I'm a political liberal, and up until a few months ago, I would have gladly supported Hillary Clinton. I didn't pay much attention to Clinton's email scandal, and what I heard about it made me suspect that it was another Republican-led scandal that never amounted to much. However, I eventually heard enough concerning news stories about it to make me want to take a closer look. The more I learned, the more shocked and convinced I became that this was a very real and very serious scandal.
.
During the last Bush administration, I was concerned about Islamist terrorism and especially the US government's poor response to it, so I wrote a book called The Terror Timeline, published by Harper Collins in 2004. That book was a timeline covering 25 years of terrorist acts based on thousands of news stories from the mainstream media. I decided the Clinton email scandal could best be understood through a timeline as well.
.
This is a complicated story. Is Clinton guilty of anything that could send her to prison? Most legal cases rely on large amounts of evidence. Imagine you're on a jury trying to decide if Clinton is guilty of anything in this case - you'd need to look at a lot of evidence as well. So I've read thousands of news stories, picked the most important ones, and boiled them down to their most important points so that the reader doesn't have to spend thousands of hours to understand all this.
.
I'm trying my hardest to be objective and summarize the news in neutral language without any personal spin. I've set this website up as a wiki so that other people can join the effort and make corrections and additions to aspects I've missed. I also have links to the source articles so you the reader can check that everything in the timeline is accurate and dig deeper if you want to. I've also tried hard to avoid using blatantly right-wing sources, to make clear this isn't just right wing spin.
.
That said, my aim is to document what Clinton did wrong, not what she did right. This website is attempting to make the case that the email scandal is a real scandal where real crimes were committed. I believe the facts are so strong that simply laying them out in an organized manner makes the case without any spin or extra commentary. I don't have a legal background and you may not either, so this is not about making a legal case on specific charges, but instead making a general case that serious wrongdoing occurred.
.
Since different people have different levels of free time and interest, I've created short, medium, and long versions of the main timeline. But I'll warn you that even the short version is fairly long - about 20,000 words. I recommend you read at least the medium length version, because it's a complicated case and the more you learn, the more compelling the evidence is. Furthermore, there's a separate timeline just on the conflict of interest about The Clinton Foundation. I highly recommend you read that too. The content there is disturbing in and of itself, but it also helps explain why Clinton would have been motivated to keep all her emails totally private in the first place.
.
THE POLITICAL LOGIC OF THIS WEBSITE
.
I'm a political liberal and a registered Democratic voter. So I'm sure I'm going to get criticism from other Democrats for criticizing Hillary Clinton when she is leading the race for the 2016 presidential nomination. Furthermore, as a liberal, I'm very concerned about Donald Trump becoming president. That said, I believe facts are facts, and if the facts point to someone being guilty of serious crimes, we can't simply bury our heads in the sand because that person has certain political beliefs or popularity.
.
During the last Bush administration, I made timelines about terrorism that were very critical of the Republicans then in power, but they were also sometimes critical of the previous Clinton administration, as well as prior administrations, Democratic and Republican. (My timelines then went back to the 1970s). I believe we have to follow the truth wherever it goes, regardless of political party. Criminal behavior is criminal behavior, period, and nobody should be exempt from criticism or punishment because of political power or belief. In fact, those at the top should be held to an even higher standard, because the idea of democracy is that we should be led by the best and the brightest.
.
That said, I certainly don't want this timeline to help elect Trump. Clinton has her email scandal, but Trump have their big problems too. And the polls show it: Trump AND Clinton have the highest dislike numbers of any major presidential candidates since favorability numbers began to be polled in the 1970s. It's bizarre that the two most disliked politicians of the last forty years at least are the ones winning the primaries so far. If you're a Democrat like I am, and you've come to believe as I do that Clinton committed serious crimes in her email scandal, then this presidential election could be a disaster.
.
Luckily, there still are other options. It is unprecedented to have a major presidential candidate with an FBI indictment recommendation hanging over her head in the middle of election season. The Democratic National Convention isn't until the end of July 2016, and a lot could happen between now and then. It's been reported that the FBI investigation is winding down and they want to make their decision whether or not to recommend the indictment of Clinton and/or her aides by the middle of May. That could be delayed two months and still happen before the convention.
.
So between now and late July, Democrats are going to have to decide whether Clinton's scandal is serious enough to disqualify her to be the next president. If the evidence and the resulting political mood are strong enough, then either Clinton will have no choice but to drop out or the super delegates will switch their support to Bernie Sanders or someone else.
.
Consider John Edwards and his presidential run in 2008. During Democratic primary season, it came out that he'd impregnated another woman while his wife was sick with cancer. The story became public early in the primary season, and Edwards wasn't the front-runner. Still, it would have been crazy to simply pretend that scandal didn't exist and vote for him anyway. That's what many were saying for several weeks, because the scandal first came out in the National Enquirer and people didn't know what to believe. I think we're at a similar stage now, because the facts about the email scandal exist and can't be denied, but most people don't know them yet, and more revelations are bound to come out.
.
This website is to help voters, especially Democratic voters, look at the raw evidence and decide for themselves if Clinton's email scandal is "for real" or not. If it is, and enough people realize that, there's plenty of time for the Democratic party to nominate someone else. Personally, I support Bernie Sanders, but if Clinton were to drop out, her delegates could nominate Joe Biden or someone else. It is not written in stone that Clinton has to win the nomination.
.
If, despite the scandal, the Democratic convention goes ahead and nominates Clinton, then I may have to reassess what I want to do with this timeline in what I would consider a terrible, no-win situation. Besides, the Republican Party has vast resources far beyond what a few private citizens can do in their spare time (the Republican National Committee already has a fancy website about the email scandal), and they'll be pushing this scandal hard regardless, probably even if Clinton isn't the nominee. I'm trying to get the facts known before the general election, while it still would be far easier for the Democrats to switch to someone else.
.
Consider John Edwards and his presidential run in 2008. During Democratic primary season, it came out that he'd impregnated another woman while his wife was sick with cancer. The story became public early in the primary season, and Edwards wasn't the front-runner. Still, it would have been crazy to simply pretend that scandal didn't exist and vote for him anyway. That's what many were saying for several weeks, because the scandal first came out in the National Enquirer and people didn't know what to believe. I think we're at a similar stage now, because the facts about the email scandal exist and can't be denied, but most people don't know them yet, and more revelations are bound to come out.
.
This website is to help voters, especially Democratic voters, look at the raw evidence and decide for themselves if Clinton's email scandal is "for real" or not. If it is, and enough people realize that, there's plenty of time for the Democratic party to nominate someone else. Personally, I support Bernie Sanders, but if Clinton were to drop out, her delegates could nominate Joe Biden or someone else. It is not written in stone that Clinton has to win the nomination.
.
If, despite the scandal, the Democratic convention goes ahead and nominates Clinton, then I may have to reassess what I want to do with this timeline in what I would consider a terrible, no-win situation. Besides, the Republican Party has vast resources far beyond what a few private citizens can do in their spare time (the Republican National Committee already has a fancy website about the email scandal), and they'll be pushing this scandal hard regardless, probably even if Clinton isn't the nominee. I'm trying to get the facts known before the general election, while it still would be far easier for the Democrats to switch to someone else.
.
In any case, the facts are the facts and Clinton's winning politically won't simply make them go away. This is likely to be a political issue for years to come as more evidence keeps coming out and more investigations, lawsuits, and legal processes keep moving forward. Any voter on the right or the left needs to understand this scandal in order to make an informed decision on whom to support and by how much.
.
APPEAL FOR HELP
.
I have done vast majority of the work on this timeline so far, but I hope it will become more of a collaborative project going forward. That's why I've made this website a wiki that uses the same software as Wikipedia. If you're interested in joining in to add or edit content, please contact me at the email address mentioned at the top of this page. I would especially appreciate people with the expertise to help analyze the legal ramifications, and also people who can help spread the word about the contents of these timelines to educate the general public. Any genuine help is appreciated, including help from people with different points of view interested in getting to the truth, but I also will attempt to weed out disruptors and saboteurs.
.
Source: The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline ©2016 #ClintonEmailTimeline
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/The_Clinton_Email_Scandal_Timeline
Source: The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline ©2016 #ClintonEmailTimeline
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/The_Clinton_Email_Scandal_Timeline
.
Join the discussion at our public group on FacebookSource: The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline ©2016
.
Paul,
Paul,
.
I want to thank you so much for this brilliant, objective, and meticulously researched document. You should, and very well may, receive a Pulitzer Prize for it (to be perfectly frank, I'm sorta jealous).
.
I'm spending the weekend going over it with a fine tooth comb, and taking notes. This information needs to be digested, compiled and disseminated in a way that the people can easily understand it with little effort, because the public doesn't really get what all of this is about. They think that Hillary was simply reckless and made a mistake with a few emails, but that's not it at all. Hillary is a criminal, and she's definitely going to be indicted - and if the people begin to recognize that this is a democracy and not an oligarchy, she just may go to prison.
.
The problem that we have in this country is there are some things so horrific and unbelievable that the people just can't wrap their heads around it. They have that "It could never happen here" mentality. And it's that exact mentality that the social manipulators are using to cut our throats. This stuff is scary.
.
Many people assume that I'm just some wild-eyed Bernie Sanders cultist upset over Bernie not winning the primary, but that's not it at all - I'm just desperate to see to it that a person with Hillary’s flawed character NEVER becomes President of the United States. She's just as much of a threat to this country as Donald Trump. Trump is just a dumb bigot; Hillary is not only malevolent, but calculating, and she has a very dark side to her nature.
.
People paid very little attention to the following piece that I wrote that is linked below, and it frustrated the hell out of me. Why are people ignoring this stuff!!!? Cluelessness has become one of the biggest threats to our freedom.
.
DID HILLARY CLINTON TRY TO 'DOG-WHISTLE' BARACK OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION?
.
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2016/01/bill-and-hillary-clinton-republicans-in.html
.
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2016/01/bill-and-hillary-clinton-republicans-in.html
Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.