In the video above, from yesterday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski spends ten minutes railing on Hillary Clinton following news from the state department—previously Clinton’s ally in the whole mess—that she had never received approval to use private email, that she never demonstrated her server’s security, and that she refused to sit for an interview with the investigating body. Brzezinski’s attack is, in itself, not all that surprising. She’s been one of the few mainstream left-leaning pundits who hasn’t shied from criticizing Hillary in this election cycle, and if anybody beyond Fox News was going to raise the issue, she was a likely bet.
What is surprising is that Andrea Mitchell—a loyal ally—leaps onto the pile, saying that Clinton “violated the official records act” and that it “completely undercuts the argument she’s been making for more than a year, just as she’s trying to persuade voters that she’s not untrustworthy,” and concluding, “I can’t see how this is anything but devastating.” What’s even more surprising is that the NYTimes, which endorsed Clinton, came out with an op-ed saying that she was “”drowning in email. And what’s most surprising at all is that the Washington Post opinion page, which has essentially served as a mouthpiece for the Clinton campaign, acknowledged that her email problems are worse than they’ve ever been. Chris Cillizza, the writer, even concluded with this line: “Trump’s task of casting her as “Crooked Hillary” just got easier.”
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There isn’t a major media outlet in the country who hasn’t acknowledged the blow to the Clinton campaign (conservatives are having a field day, obviously), and it comes at a time when her polling numbers get worse. As I wrote last week, it’s getting harder and harder to argue that she’s the favorite to beat Trump in November. Voters overwhelmingly believe she’s dishonest, and those metrics keep plummeting.
The big hope with the email scandal is that it would, eventually, go away. With this report, and the ongoing FBI investigation, it’s clear that it’s never going to happen. Worse, the Republicans have undoubtedly learned from the Benghazi fiasco—they know that rather than confront Clinton in a dramatic showdown, armed with sketchy evidence at best, it’s more damning to draw the battle out, and let the damage come drip by drip. Even if the FBI clears her, who’s to say they can’t extend the whole mess with legal challenges? The media has seized the issue like a dog on a bone, and at this point, it seems like the only person who won’t talk about it is her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. You have to guess that Donald Trump won’t be anywhere near as generous.