The Daily Mail reports that Hillary’s staffers knew in 2011 that Anthony Weiner was exchanging inappropriate messages with underage girls. And, as we’ll see, if you were reading a certain blog (a blog we all know and love!) in 2011, you knew it too!

Hillary Clinton’s staffers knew as early as 2011 that Anthony Weiner had been messaging an underage girl, but they did nothing about it, according to WikiLeaks emails published Monday.

John Podesta – now chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign – and Neera Tanden, another adviser, were forwarded news of an investigation into Weiner’s online contact with a 17-year-old Delaware high school student by Jennifer Palmieri, the current campaign communications director, in June 2011.

At the time he was married to Huma Abedin, another member of Clinton’s inner circle, who is now at the center of fresh FBI investigation into the handling of classified material while Clinton was in office.

The email detailed lurid claims of private messages to an underage girl being investigated by police – and was met with the response ‘oof’ by Podesta.

‘Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner,’ email read, quoting a Fox News article from the same time.

‘Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl’s home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl’s mother about the daughter’s contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later.’

Palmieri forwarded the news article to Podesta and Tanden.

This story is of special interest to me — for reasons you’ll learn in the following passage:

Back in April 2011, the then-teenager openly expressed her love for Weiner, who followed her on Twitter.

In her feed, she expressed her love of married men, according to Patterico.com.

At one point she said: ‘HE IS MINE ALL MINE HE LOVES ME AND NO ONE ELSE ILY ILY ILY!!!’ and added ‘@RepWeiner I’m in love with you’ two days later.

If the name “Patterico.com” sounds familiar, it should. That happens to be the blog you are reading right now. And, as it happens, I am the one who broke the story about Weiner’s creepy conversations with the high school girl in Delaware, in this post, which I followed up with this post.

To make a long story short, the girl — whom I termed “Ethel” to protect her real name — had written the following on her Tumblr blog, quoting her “favorite Congressman” as talking about “cape and tights shit”:

“I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit…” My favorite congressman<3

My post published evidence that the girl’s “favorite Congressman” was Weiner . . . and that Weiner had also used the “cape and tights” line in sexually explicit chats with a grown woman in Las Vegas. I was concerned that this evidence indicated that Weiner might have traded sexually explicit messages with the girl as well. After I published my post, Fox News reporter Jana Winter contacted me on the morning of June 9, 2011, saying: “Hi. I’m a reporter with FoxNews.com. Saw your post about Weiner—got a minute to talk?” She had seen the first post I linked above, and I sent her the second link as well.

Based on my posts, Winter was at the girl’s home later that day . . . when the police showed up to search the girl’s computer. Winter’s story went nationwide — and was the story that, we learned today, was sent to Podesta, which caused him to say: “Oof.”

Incidentally, two days later, I published evidence that there was a discrepancy between different news media reports regarding how many messages the girl had exchanged with Weiner. The evidence suggested the possibility that the New York Times, in reporting that there had been only five direct messages exchanged, had simply taken the girl’s word for it . . . and that, perhaps, there had been others.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that, over five years later, all this would become relevant to a presidential election.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Rigged.

Expect a resignation later today, I would guess. (On second thought, they may delay it until after the election as a ploy to try to deny oxygen to the story.)

Presumably even our biased and incompetent news media will manage to ask Hillary whether she received this question. She will lie, of course — and the lie will easily be seen by virtually all onlookers for what it is.

Last night, news broke on the campaign Web site of Hillary Clinton that several of her political supporters agree with her that James Comey is a big jerk for opening his mouth about the re-opened (that right, lefties, “re-opened”) Hillary email investigation. The twist: these particular political supporters used to work in the Department of Justice. Washington Times:

The Hillary Clinton campaign circulated Sunday night an open letter from former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials criticizing FBI Director James Comey for his actions in recent days in the Clinton email investigation.

The Clinton campaign website posted the letter, which had more than 90 signatories, the most prominent being Eric H. Holder Jr., the Obama administration’s first attorney general.

First, it’s worth asking: who are these people? Big Media will tell you they are former Department of Justice officials . . . and that’s all Big Media will say. Is there anything else we should know about them? Well, Eric Holder was President Obama’s partisan hack Attorney General. Andrew McCarthy has a great piece on the letter which notes a couple of other names on the list: “Jamie Gorelick (President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general) and Larry Thompson (Comey’s predecessor as President George W. Bush’s deputy attorney general and an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump).” Then there is Stuart Gerson, an acting Attorney General during the Clinton administration; James Cole, an Assistant A.G. appointed by Barack Obama, initially by a recess appointment; Donald Ayer, a Bush-era A.G. who signed a letter in August condemning Trump, and so forth.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? These people are not big fans of Donald Trump.

When you look at the arguments this partisan group makes, it quickly becomes apparent that they are filled with trickery, Hillary Clinton talking points (but I repeat myself), and internal contradictions. Take this key paragraph, for example:

It is out of our respect for such settled tenets of the United States Department of Justice that we are moved to express our concern with the recent letter issued by FBI Director James Comey to eight Congressional Committees. Many of us have worked with Director Comey; all of us respect him. But his unprecedented decision to publicly comment on evidence in what may be an ongoing inquiry just eleven days before a presidential election leaves us both astonished and perplexed. We cannot recall a prior instance where a senior Justice Department official—Republican or Democrat—has, on the eve of a major election, issued a public statement where the mere disclosure of information may impact the election’s outcome, yet the official acknowledges the information to be examined may not be significant or new.

There certainly are a lot of lawyerly qualifications in that sentence, aren’t there? Let me ask this question to these Trump haters: you say you never heard of an FBI official publicly commenting on evidence under these circumstances. Have you even heard of an FBI official withholding public comment under these circumstances? The answer is no, because they have so carefully circumscribed the description that it applies to this situation and this situation only.

Another relevant and related question: how often have we had a candidate for President under federal investigation in the final days of an election? See, Comey is having to make “unprecedented” decisions because he is in an unprecedented situation.

It’s also worth noting that it’s a situation that Comey contributed to himself — because of another unprecedented decision: his decision in July to publicly exonerate the target of an investigation (Hillary Clinton) before charges were ever submitted. And that decision, to all appearances, was prompted by another unprecedented action: Loretta Lynch chatting in a friendly manner with Bill Clinton, the spouse of the target of an investigation, before charges were submitted regarding that target. And, speaking of spouses, we have another unprecedented action here: the target of an investigation (Hillary Clinton) helping to raise half a million dollars for the campaign of the spouse of an FBI official who later supervised the investigation of the target.

So much unprecedented stuff going on there . . . and yet, I don’t recall reading a letter in July or since from these selfsame highly principled defenders of public integrity, complaining about any of these unprecedented actions. In fact, as we will see in the letter’s paragraph, they explicitly refuse to comment on the propriety of Comey’s comments in July. Hmmm. You know, the comments that benefited Hillary Clinton . . . by exonerating her of a crime when, under the language of the statute, she was clearly guilty.

Hmmmmmmmm.

What’s more, as you continue reading their letter, you see that right after complaining about Comey publicly commenting on evidence, these principled folks next complain that Comey is not commenting publicly in enough detail:

Director Comey’s letter is inconsistent with prevailing Department policy, and it breaks with longstanding practices followed by officials of both parties during past elections. Moreover, setting aside whether Director Comey’s original statements in July were warranted, by failing to responsibly supplement the public record with any substantive, explanatory information, his letter begs the question that further commentary was necessary. For example, the letter provides no details regarding the content, source or recipient of the material; whether the newly-discovered evidence contains any classified or confidential information; whether the information duplicates material previously reviewed by the FBI; or even “whether or not [the] material may be significant.”

You can’t have it both ways, partisan hacks. You can’t whine about the fact that Comey is talking about this in the first place, and then complain that he is not saying enough.

Even if those do happen to be the exact talking points of the Hillary Clinton campaign (and they do), that alone does not mean that they make sense.

It’s a partisan hit job by former DoJ officials against a sitting FBI Director. And that in itself seems — say it with me now! — unprecedented.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

P.S. The FBI is investigating the Clinton Foundation too.

[guest post by Dana]

Last Wednesday morning, a man identifying himself as James Otis, reportedly the heir to the Otis Elevator Company fortune, admitted he took a pickaxe to Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was later arrested for felony vandalism, and then released after posting $20,000 bail. Obviously unaware that you cannot auction off stolen property, he told reporters that he planned to sell some of the letters from Trump’s name for $1-$2 million and donate all the proceedings to women’s charities. He explained:

“I had to do it – to make myself feel whole and to be part of the democratic process, I had to do the nonviolent action,” Otis said.

He accused Trump of having “derailed the entire election” and said the vandalism was his way of dealing with his anger.

This weekend, after the star had been repaired, a homeless Trump supporter sat guard over it. While there, she posted a number of hand-written signs slamming Hillary Clinton, accusing President Obama of selling out the black community, and complaining about illegal immigrants. The scene quickly turned ugly as the woman was confronted by a taunting and hostile crowd that had gathered. In a very disturbing video, young men and women are seen and heard acting in an utterly deplorable manner. And at the end of the video, the homeless woman is down on the ground. (I’ve read reports that the woman was throwing out her own inflammatory rhetoric, but it was difficult for me to distinguish it from the loud crowd.)

A couple of things to note: After the last debate, Hillary Clinton’s camp hysterically accused Donald Trump of “menacingly stalking” her on stage. What I saw were two people in a fairly tight space, and the hulking 6’3″ 235 lb. Trump paced behind a 5’5″ Hillary Clinton. Not “menacingly stalking” her, but sure, go with your case of the vapors… However, in contrast, if you go to the 2:53 mark of the video below, you can see what it really looks like when a man stalks a woman. And it’s just awful.

A heavyset man with glasses and tattoos then moved in to tear up her signs, leading her to push back at him and fall to the ground.

As she lay prone, some onlookers jeered her with profanity.

“You spewed hate and you got hate,” one man is heard to say. “You got exactly what you were dishing out.”

Given that the media has inundated us with alleged and actual examples of Trump supporters behaving in an unacceptable manners, we have also recently had it confirmed from the Project Veritas videos that Democratic operatives have planted their own agitators at Trump’s rallies with the goal of stirring the pot and fomenting the media narrative of hateful Trump supporters acting out on his inflammatory rhetoric. (Preemptive strike: This does not excuse anyone’s horrid behavior at these rallies where violence has been witnessed and documented.) Yet in the video of the homeless woman, the events don’t appear to be staged as far as the surrounding hostile crowd is concerned. It seems like a group of people who viscerally hate Donald Trump, and by extension, his supporters. They are obviously taking out their anger and hostility on one single woman. If this is representative of Hillary Clinton supporters at large, then I would suggest that, just like Trump, she should be pressured to publicly disavow such actions immediately.

Postscript: Witnesses were disturbed by the lack of police intervention during the incident, and the LAPD responded:

The video prompted angry calls to police asking why they didn’t intervene.

LAPD Officer Tony Im said Friday that the woman incited the crowd with racial slurs and police at the scene “kept the peace.”

He said police will look for the woman to interview her.

“We had a lot of people upset that we didn’t do anything,” Im said. “If she’s a victim, she has a right to come forward.”

Of course, given the madness of this campaign, it may be that the homeless woman was an actress from Central Casting, hired by Democratic operatives to stir the pot. After all, this took place in Hollywood, land of the make-believe. (Preemptive strike: This does not excuse anyone’s horrid behavior toward the woman, which has been witnessed and documented.)

–Dana