Clinton: '100 percent confident' nothing will come of FBI email probe

Hillary Clinton defiantly claimed at Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate that she is “100 percent confident” nothing will come of the FBI’s investigation of her email practices and has no concerns about the controversy’s impact on her chances in the race.
“I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever,” the former secretary of state said at the MSNBC-hosted debate in New Hampshire.
The comments come less than a week after the State Department confirmed that, as it releases thousands of Clinton emails, it is withholding 22 emails containing information too “top secret” to release.
But Clinton pointed Thursday to emerging reports that former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the immediate staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also received classified national security information on their personal email accounts. The details were included in a memo written by the State Department watchdog that was released Thursday.
IG Steve Linick said in the memo that two emails sent to Powell and 10 emails sent to Rice's staff contained classified national security information. Powell and Rice were the top diplomats under Republican President George W. Bush.
"None of the material was marked as classified, but the substance of the material and 'NODIS' (No Distribution) references in the body or subject lines of some of the documents suggested that the documents could be potentially sensitive," Linick wrote.
In a statement, Powell said the emails were from his executive assistant. He said that while the department now has said they are "confidential," which is a low level of classification, both messages were unclassified at the time and there was no reason not to forward them to his personal account. Powell's office said two FBI agents visited Powell in December for a general discussion about email practices during his time at State.
Clinton pointed to those developments in arguing that those officials are now facing the same scrutiny she’s facing, suggesting investigators are going too far in their handling of the “absurd situation of retroactive classification.”
She dismissed the controversy as similar to Republican criticism of her over the Benghazi terror attacks.
Earlier, however, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., challenged the campaign’s “everybody did it” defense.
“The attempt to paint her predecessors in the State Department as equal offenders in mishandling classified material is an insult to what we now know to be the truth,” Issa said in a statement. “Official investigations have confirmed that Secretary Clinton’s unsecure server stored more than 1,000 emails containing classified information, including some classified at the very highest levels. Her guarantee to the nation that the number was zero now seems more like desperation than news cycle spin.”
At Thursday’s debate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders once again declined to criticize Clinton over the email scandal.
“I will not politicize it,” he said.

Sparks fly at Clinton, Sanders debate over who is more progressive

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed sharply Thursday over who is more progressive, at a debate that saw the former secretary of state ratcheting up her criticism of the Vermont senator on several fronts – even accusing him of engineering an “artful smear” with suggestions she could be “bought” by donors.
The debate, the first since the Iowa caucuses and last before next week’s critical New Hampshire primary, was by far the most confrontational of the Democratic primary race.
Clinton, coming off a narrow Iowa win and trying to shrink Sanders’ huge lead in Granite State polls, stayed on offense for most of the night. She slammed Sanders’ campaign promises as too costly, while standing firm in claiming she’s a true “progressive” despite Sanders’ comments to the contrary.
Sanders, meanwhile, dug in as he questioned whether Clinton really “walks the walk” of the progressive cause – and described her as the candidate of the “establishment.”
“Secretary Clinton does represent the establishment. I represent, I hope, ordinary Americans,” he said, stressing that he, unlike Clinton, doesn’t enjoy super PAC backing and is funded in large part by small-dollar donations.
The verbal jabs flew quickly, and Clinton left few allegations unchallenged, visibly fed up with a campaign trail narrative that has painted her as the candidate of Wall Street. She rebutted Sanders’ “establishment” charge by questioning whether someone running to be the first female president can carry that label.
The most heated moment at the MSNBC-hosted debate in Durham, N.H., came when Clinton told Sanders she rejects the suggestion that anyone who takes donations or speaking fees from interest groups can be bought.
“Enough is enough,” Clinton said, telling Sanders the “attacks by insinuation” are not “worthy” of him. Clinton said if Sanders has something to allege, “say it directly,” but: “You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.”
She closed: “I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks.”
That line earned a groan from Sanders and some boos from the audience.
Sanders went on to link Wall Street deregulation with billions spent on lobbying and campaign contributions.
“Some people think, yeah, that had some influence,” he said.
Clinton, meanwhile, described herself as a “progressive who gets things done,” and ripped Sanders for suggesting Clinton cannot be a “moderate” and a “progressive” at the same time. She teased Sanders as being the “self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism” and said she doesn’t know anyone who fits his definition.
The fireworks underscored the tight state of the race going into New Hampshire’s contest next Tuesday. Clinton arrived on the debate stage clearly ready to rebut Sanders’ proposals and accusations – notably his oft-repeated criticism that she, as senator, erred by voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
“A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS,” she countered.
Yet as Clinton stressed her secretary of state experience and Sanders said that factor is “not arguable,” the Vermont senator noted experience is not the only point.
“Judgment is,” he said, again pointing to the 2002 Iraq vote. “One of us voted the right way, and one of us didn’t.”
As she has at prior debates, Clinton also challenged the senator’s proposals for free college and universal health care. “The numbers just don’t add up,” Clinton said.
She questioned how the country could, for instance, pay for free tuition at public colleges, as Sanders wants, and accused him of wanting to effectively scrap ObamaCare – a charge he denied.
Sanders defended his plans, particularly for universal health care.
“I do believe we should have health care for all,” he said.
The former secretary of state met the Vermont senator on stage in Durham, N.H., after eking out a narrow victory in Monday’s caucuses. While her campaign celebrated the win, Sanders’ strong showing in the state nevertheless has helped boost his fundraising – and he heads into New Hampshire with a steady double-digit lead in the polls.
There remains an ongoing dispute, however, over the Iowa results. The Des Moines Register editorial board earlier Thursday called for an audit of the Democratic caucus results, citing problems and confusion at polling sites.
Asked at Thursday’s debate about the editorial, Sanders said, “I agree with the Des Moines Register.”
He said after speaking with precinct captains, the campaign believes they may have “at least two more delegates.”
Yet Sanders, who has complained how some local delegates were allocated based on coin tosses, also said they should not “blow this out of proportion. “
“This is not the biggest deal in the world,” Sanders said.
Asked if she’d participate in an audit, Clinton said, “Whatever they decide to do, that’s fine.”
Clinton, separately, said she's "100 percent confident" nothing will come of the FBI probe into her personal email use as secretary of state.
The Democratic debate on Thursday was the first to feature Clinton and Sanders one-on-one, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley now out of the race following his distant third showing in Iowa.
The debate was one of four added to the calendar earlier this week, after the Democratic National Committee and the two campaigns agreed to the terms.  The party had come under criticism for its sparse schedule, and was accused of trying to shield Clinton from debates.

Cruz Cartoon

Pundits enjoy Trump's setback, but can he still make them losers?

Some in the media are openly celebrating Donald Trump’s loss in Iowa, others are doing it more subtly. 
But those who believe his candidacy has crashed and burned are making a mistake, succumbing to the heady Iowa elixir that makes caucus winners look unstoppable—usually for eight days or so.
Trump made his share of mistakes, chief among them blowing off the Fox News debate. I talked to a few Iowans during my week in Des Moines who felt aggravated by the move. But more important, he ceded the stage to Ted Cruz, who won Monday night, and Marco Rubio, whose late surge defied the polls and almost pushed him past Trump into second place. Trump’s “genius” move played well with the press, but in Ames and Cedar Rapids, not so much.
Still, Trump’s 4-point loss to the Texas senator suggests he probably would have lost the caucuses even if he hadn’t picked a fight with Fox and sidestepped the debate. Iowa was never a great fit for him, despite his inroads with the evangelical voters who dominate the GOP caucuses.
And yes, the ground game does matter. Trump never seemed all in on building the kind of sophisticated machinery that Cruz used to turn out the largest vote for a Republican in caucus history.
Still, a billionaire who had never run for anything managed to finish second in Iowa’s complicated caucuses, way ahead of several governors, not a bad first-time showing. (I wrote that sentence before Trump tweeted that the media were failing to give him his due.)
There was an unmistakable sense of vindication in the media reports that declared the man who talks so much about winning is now a loser. New York’s Daily News was the most unabashed, with its “DEAD CLOWN WALKING” headline.
For more than seven months, media skeptics warned that Trump was a sideshow, that he would implode, that doom was always just around the corner. Conservative commentators at Fox, National Review and elsewhere disparaged him as a fake right-winger.
In recent weeks, as polls had him pulling ahead of Cruz in Iowa, many pundits started hedging their bets, acknowledging that Trump could run the table and win the nomination. But the caucuses allowed them to slip back into told-you-so mode.
Of course, Cruz deserves credit for executing a flawless strategy, and especially for parrying Trump’s attacks as a nasty guy and Canadian interloper. Rubio deserves credit for threading the needle by appealing to the party’s establishment and tea party wings—and clobbering his mentor, Jeb Bush, who wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iowa.
Still, Cruz has to show that unlike the last two caucus winners, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, he can retrofit a made-for-Iowa vehicle to zoom to victory in bigger and more diverse states. And whatever bump Cruz gets from Iowa, Trump has big leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina, at least for now. And he doesn’t have to worry about donors.
So now we find out whether Trump can take a punch. A little dose of humility might be good for him. When I watched him say he was a little nervous in a Monday-morning interview, I remember thinking that the bombastic candidate was showing a side of himself that might appeal to voters turned off by the endless bragging.
In politics as in life, Americans like someone who can pick himself off the canvas. Ronald Reagan lost Iowa, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush lost New Hampshire, and all went on to win the White House. The press ought to be careful about once again writing Trump’s obituary.

Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

IRS computer problems shut down tax return e-file system

The IRS stopped accepting electronically filed tax returns Wednesday because of problems with some of its computer systems. The outage could affect refunds, but the agency said it doesn't anticipate "major disruptions."
A "hardware failure" forced the shutdown of several tax processing systems, including the e-file system, the IRS said in a statement. The IRS.gov website remains available, but "where's my refund" and other services are not working.
Some systems will be out of service at least until Thursday, the agency said. "The IRS is currently in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible," the IRS said.
Taxpayers can continue to send electronic returns to companies that serve as middlemen between taxpayers and the IRS. But those companies have to hold on to the tax returns until the IRS systems are up and running again, the IRS said.
While the IRS said it is still assessing the scope of the outage, it expects 90 percent of taxpayers will receive refunds within three weeks.
People who have already filed returns don't need to do anything more, the IRS said.

Clinton on $675G Goldman Sachs speech fee: 'That's what they offered'

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proved Wednesday to be unabashed about accepting millions of dollars in speaking fees from Wall Street firms amid an increasingly competitive race with self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
At a CNN town hall in Derry, N.H., moderator Anderson Cooper asked the former secretary of state, "Did you have to be paid $675,000?", a reference to her fees for three speeches to Goldman Sachs. Clinton responded, "I don't know. That's what they offered."
Clinton went on to say that she accepted the Goldman money after she left the State Department in 2013, when, as she put it "I wasn't committed to running" for president. An Associated Press analysis of public disclosure forms and records released by her campaign found that Clinton made $9 million from appearances sponsored by banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate businesses.

Clinton made her comments amid an ongoing battle with Sanders over their respective progressive credentials following Clinton's narrow victory in Monday's Iowa Caucuses.
“I don’t know any progressive who has a super PAC and takes $15 million from Wall Street,” said Sanders, whose campaign has been driven by modest contributions and has risen in the polls on his promise of more equality for the middle class.
For her part, Clinton dismissed criticism that she’s not a true progressive and the long-held argument that she is part of the political establishment.
“I’m not going to let that bother me. I know where I stand,” said Clinton, who argued that the Sanders campaign tagging her as an establishment candidate because she was endorsed by Planned Parenthood was “inappropriate.”
“I am a progressive who gets things done,” Clinton added, before wondering aloud how Sanders came to be a progressive “gatekeeper.” She also disagreed with several aspects of Sanders’ platform, questioning his pledge for a "political revolution" and his plan to provide universal health care through expanding Medicare. Clinton said she wants to improve on ObamaCare, not dismantle it.

Despite their philosophical disagreements, both were in harmony on wanting to keep the Republicans out of the White House.
"These guys play for keeps,” Clinton said, while Sanders reserved most of his GOP-related ire for Donald Trump.
“Everybody in this room doesn’t want a right wing Republican in the White House,” he said. “I want Trump to win the nomination. And frankly, I think we could win against him.”
Though Sanders is running an insurgent campaign, he relied on his time on Capitol Hill to answer questions about whether Congress would approve some of his campaign promises and whether Democrats or Republicans better serve veterans.
“I have a history of working with Republicans when there was common ground,” Sanders said. He also pointed out that he was a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. However, Sanders acknowledged that he and other members of Congress “should have done better” recognizing and fixing problems with patient care at VA facilities.
Clinton and Sanders agreed on the need to stop the ISIS terror group with the help of coalition of nations, including Middle Eastern allies. Sanders continued to trumpet his opposition to the war in Iraq, which critics say eventually led to the rise of ISIS. Clinton, who voted to authorize the Iraq War, said Wednesday, “I did make a mistake.”
Clinton, also acknowledged she must do more to appeal to young people -- a voting bloc Sanders won handily in Iowa, saying “I accept the fact that I have work to … convey what I want to do for young people ... They don't have to be for me. I will be for them."
Clinton and Sanders won't clash face-to-face until Thursday's debate at the University of New Hampshire. On Wednesday, each answered about an hour’s worth of questions from voters and moderator Cooper.
Most polls have Sanders holding a substatial lead over Clinton in New Hampshire. The most recent Fox News poll, from late January, shows the Vermont senator with a 22-point cushion, 56 percent to 34 percent.

Top House Republican demands Kerry explain $1.7 billion Iran payment

Kerry admits some Iran deal funds will likely go to terror. (No Joke)

 The chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee demanded Wednesday that Secretary of State John Kerry explain a $1.7 billion settlement paid to Iran that some Republicans have described as a "ransom" tied to last month's release of five American prisoners.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., complained in a letter to Kerry that his committee was not consulted about the settlement. The Obama administration claimed the agreement was made to settle a dispute with Iran dating back to 1979 over $400 million in frozen funds. The remaining $1.3 billion was described by the Obama administration as "interest".
"It is unclear how this $1.7 billion payment is in the national security interests of the United States," Royce wrote.
Royce's letter included 10 questions to Kerry about the settlement. Among them are how the administration calculated the $1.3 billion "interest" on the payment, a timeline of negotiations over the payment since this past summer's nuclear deal, and why the money was not used to "compensate American victims of Iranian terrorism who have been awarded judgments against Iran."
Royce's letter also asks for a list of U.S. officials who participated in negotiations with Iran over the payment, the prisoner release and the nuclear agreement.
The White House announced the payment on Jan. 17, the same day that Iran released five American prisoners, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati, and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini.
At the time, Obama defended the amount paid by the U.S., saying it was "much less than the amount Iran sought." The president added that the one-time payment was preferable to letting more interest accumulate while waiting for a judgement from the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, which is based in The Hague and was created in the deal that ended the Iran hostage crisis in 1981.
"I have a larger concern that in choosing to resolve this relatively minor bilateral dispute at this time, the Obama Administration is aggressively moving towards reestablishing diplomatic relations with Iran," Royce wrote. "Such action would clearly violate the President’s pledge to “remain vigilant” in countering the threat Iran poses to the United States and our allies in the region."
State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed to Reuters that Royce's letter had been received.
"As with all Congressional correspondence, we'll respond as appropriate," Kirby said. Royce's letter gives Kerry until Feb. 17 to respond to his questions.

Iowa Caucuses Cartoon