[guest post by Dana]

Remember when Hillary Clinton claimed that it was for reasons of “convenience” that she exclusively used personal email on a single device while at State and we all laughed?

Yes, well about that:

Hillary Rodham Clinton emailed her staff on an iPad as well as a BlackBerry while secretary of state, despite her explanation she exclusively used a personal email address on a homebrew server so that she could carry a single device, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

…

While limited, the emails offer one of the first looks into Clinton’s correspondence while secretary of state. The messages came from and were sent to her private email address, hosted on a server at her property in Chappaqua, New York, as opposed to a government-run email account.

They show that Clinton, on at least one occasion, accidentally mingled personal and work matters. In reply to a message sent in September 2011 by adviser Huma Abedin to Clinton’s personal email account, which contained an AP story about a drone strike in Pakistan, Clinton mistakenly replied with questions that appear to be about decorations.

“I like the idea of these,” she wrote to Abedin. “How high are they? What would the bench be made of? And I’d prefer two shelves or attractive boxes/baskets/ conmtainers (sic) on one. What do you think?”

Abedin replied, “Did u mean to send to me?” To which Clinton wrote, “No-sorry! Also, pls let me know if you got a reply from my ipad. I’m not sure replies go thru.”

The other emails between Clinton and her advisers provided by the State Department contained a summary of a 2011 meeting between Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and senior Egyptian officials in Cairo. It was uncensored and did not appear to contain sensitive information. That email was forwarded to Clinton’s private account from Abedin’s government email address.

Clinton’s spokesman acknowledged her use of an Ipad:

“She used her Ipad from time to time, but mostly just to read news clippings“.

(So both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton learned of major events by reading the news!)

Further, today the House Committee on Benghazi officially summoned Clinton to testify before the committee no later than May 1:

“We continue to believe Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement with herself is highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” Gowdy wrote. “The decision to delete these records during the pendency of a congressional investigation only exacerbates our need to better understand what the Secretary did, when she did it, and why she did it. While she has cited a variety of justifications for this arrangement, many questions and details about the arrangement remain unanswered. These questions relate to:

1. her decision to bypass official government email account;

2. whether she affirmatively turned over any relevant records during the pendency of the
Accountability Review Board investigation or at any time after Congress first began
investigating the Benghazi attack until December 2014;

3. her decision to retain those records upon separation from the Dept. of State;

4. the methodology by which those emails were subsequently searched for evidence of
official records; and

5. her decision to delete certain emails.

–Dana

Bloomberg:

This week has been an early test of whether [Ted Cruz] can bring in the contributions he’ll need to stay afloat throughout the course of a campaign.

Cruz is hoping to build on the $2 million he raised in the first three days after becoming the first official candidate for the White House. Tuesday marks the cut-off for first quarter fundraising for congressional and presidential candidates.

Cruz’s advisers have said he needs at least $30 million to compete ahead of next November. If he can post strong numbers from the opening week of his bid, it will help him combat perceptions that he isn’t a top-tier candidate with broad appeal.

“In less than 48 hours, my campaign faces its biggest challenge to date,” Cruz wrote in Monday night’s dispatch. Opponents and supporters “will be looking at this report to determine the strength of our campaign.”

I donated today. I believe it’s the first time I have ever given money to a politician.

Don’t read this post if you haven’t seen “House of Cards” and you plan to.

Anybody left? (I’m guessing there are plenty of you left, and that it’s a group comprising both a small handful of people who have already seen it, and a much larger group that never intends to.)

So. Bill Clinton recently told his pal Kevin Spacey, the star of the show, that real-life Washington D.C. is just like “House of Cards”:

According to Kevin Spacey, his friend Bill Clinton says 99 percent of what’s seen on “House of Cards” is true.

As the star of Netflix’s political thriller, Spacey plays the corrupt and conniving President Frank Underwood. Spacey, who counts former President Clinton among his pals, tells Gotham magazine, while doing his best Clinton impression, “Kevin, 99 percent of what you do on that show is real.”

Oh, just 99 percent. That’s a relief. You see, Spacey’s character Frank Underwood rises to the Oval Office through a manipulative and cynical brand of brass-knuckle politics that knows no moral bounds. Ruining reputations of good people, taking stances he doesn’t believe in, manipulating people like pieces on a chess board, and stabbing people in the back is the least of it. Spacey’s character also commits murder in his quest for power. More than once.

So it’s good to hear that only 99 percent of the storyline is accurate. Clearly, the 1 percent they got wrong is in making the President of the United States out to be such an amoral monster. Right, Bill?

Continuing with his impersonation of the 42nd president, Spacey says, as Clinton, that there’s one aspect of the show that’s pure fiction. “The 1 percent you get wrong is you could never get an education bill passed that fast.”

Oh.

Well, things will be different when Hillary is in office.