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The State Department has opened a formal inquiry into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information while she was the nations top diplomat, Fox News has learned. Despite being under investigation, Clinton and her staffers still have security clearances to access sensitive government information.

The departments investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBIs probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.

Depending on the outcome of the current State Department inquiry, Clinton and her aides could have their access to sensitive government documents terminated.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed to Fox News the departments formal inquiry.

Meanwhile, Grassleys committee launched its own inquiry into Clintons handling of emails, an inquiry that began in March. Grassley cited among his concerns the July 5 statement of former FBI Director James Comey that the agency found Clinton and her staff members were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. Grassley also contended there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information...

During the FBIs investigation of Clintons use of top-secret and classified information on her private server, Comey said there were seven email chains on Clintons computer that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level. Another 2,000 emails on her private server were found to have contained information deemed classified now, though not marked classified when sent. In addition, the server also contained 22 top-secret emails deemed too damaging to national security to be released.

Clintons spokesperson, Nick Merrill, told Fox News thatthe investigation into Clintons mishandling of classified information is done.

Nothing's been more thoroughly dissected. It's over. Case closed. Literally, said Merrill.

That's not a universally held view.

ChrisFarrell, of Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington-based government watchdog that has filed a number of lawsuits related to the Clinton email scandal,said he believes Clinton and her circle of national security criminals should not have access to any classified information for any reason.

Their conduct has cost them that privilegedposition of special trust and confidence, Farrell said.

Any other government employee would have beenprosecuted under 18 USC Sec. 793(f) (Mishandling National Defense Information) and be subject to a long prison sentence and large fines, Farrelladded.

This flagrant double standard for the gang thatexposed Top Secret Codeword material to the Russians, Chinese and others is both offensive and deeply corrosive to the intelligence community, Farrellsaid. There is no betterevidence that when it comes to Hillary Clinton and herctrie lawsare for the little people.

Malia Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter focusing on crime, homeland security, illegal immigration crime, terrorism and political corruption. Follow her on twitter at @MaliaMZimmerman

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State Department probes Clinton handling of government emails, could pull her security clearance - Fox News

Billie Jean King spoke at Northwestern University Friday, capping (pun intended) this years round of commencement speakers. 2017 had some memorable moments, including Mark Zuckerburg calling for a national minimum wage during his address at Harvard and three dozen students walking out on Vice President Michael Pence at the University of Notre Dame. But no commencement address was more closely watched and analyzed than the one Hillary Clinton gave at her alma mater, Wellesley.

I dont want to parse the speech she gave, because what is most striking about Clintons speech is what she didnt say. Here is the opportunity she missed: To share with young women what it is like to win the popular vote but still lose the election, and nevertheless get up in the morning to fight another day. In one way or another, this sort of thing happens to all of us (although in a less public and spectacular way).

Its too late now, but heres what I wish she would have said.

Years after they graduate, many people remark that they cant recall the name of the person who gave their college commencement speech, much less any advice they offered. Whether you remember that Hillary Clinton spoke to you years from now isnt really important to me. But the advice I am going to offer today is.

Your graduation is a day filled with excitement and hopes and dreams. And I dont want to dampen your enthusiasm or deter you from pursuing your passions; I want you to strive to make a mark on the world. But I also want to be honest with you. And I know that perhaps some of you are wondering how I am doing given the events of the past year.

You may have heard that things didnt exactly go the way I planned. Thats because, as much as we plan, prepare, and work to direct our lives in a certain way, other things often happen despite our best efforts. Some that happen are beyond our ability to control.

I lost an election everyone said was not possible to lose. In your life, the experience may be similar. You might fail the bar exam, or be denied admission to medical school. You might be passed over for a promotion, even though you are the most qualified person at the office. You might be fired from a company where you thought youd work until retirement. You might start a business with a brilliant idea, but the business fails.

Many commencement speakers are eager to tell you that anythings possible if you try; that if you only work hard enough and reach for the stars, you will achieve your goals. But, perhaps because they dont want to discourage you on what is such a happy day, many also dont offer any advice on what to do if things dont work out the way youd hoped.

The first thing Id like to point out is that failure does not give you permission to feel sorry for yourself. Remember: As a graduate of Wellesley, you have an education that already places you in an elite and envied position, and not just compared to women in the Third World, but also compared to women in impoverished areas of our own nationChicagos inner-city or rural Kentucky, for example. You now hold a degree from what is often considered the finest womens college in the country.

So, as difficult as it is to do, when things happen to you that are not fair, that are not right, or that disappoint you, dont indulge yourself in a pity party (or at least dont for very long). If you feelyouve been wronged, you should of course speak up and defend yourself. But if your best efforts cant rectify the situation, then be a person who sees the opportunity in the defeat.

Have you ever heard of the saying, Thank God for closed doors? It means that when things dont go the way weve planned despite our best efforts, our paths may be directed in a new way. A more interesting way. And, yes, perhaps, even a better way. The lost election, the exam failure, the job loss can actually be a gift, a blessing in disguisebut only if you allow it to be.

Second, I want you to know that some of the best things in life are the things we dont plan. Maybe you will meet the man of your dreams and marry sooner than you had thought you would. Or perhaps you will start volunteering at a nonprofit and realize that you want to leave the for-profit world and devote your life to a cause. The exciting part of life is that it doesnt need to read like a script, a series of boxes that you check off. Allow the unexpected, the surprise, to influence how you think and how you decide to live your future.

Third, I want you to understand that failure is hard. It stinks. People will say When life hands you lemons, make lemonade! I wish I could tell you it is as easy at that. It is not. But I have learned that what lessens the pain is to actively cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

I am so grateful for the people who supported me and believed in me, for the election I did win as a senator, for the promotions I did receive. From being our nations first lady to secretary of State, I have had so many wonderful experiences and opportunities that it would be absurd to focus on one lost election for very long.

Of course I was disappointed. I was angry, too. I felt that I let so many people down. Not only did I lose, but I lost before the eyes of the world. But, you know what? In the greater scheme of things that loss is not what defines me. The setbacks you may have along your way wont define you, either.

Finally, I want to assure you that no bad time in your life lasts forever. You will go through times when you may even question your own existence, but you need to know that the adventure of your life unfolds chapter by chapter. You wont know the end of the story until you get there. As a wise Catholic nun once said, Dont put a question mark where God has put a period.

When the inevitable disappointment comes along, dont waste valuable time asking why, replaying the day or the moment or the loss over and over in your head. It wont help you move forward. Go for a walk in the woods and regroup. Remember all you have available to you as a citizen of this country, a country whose freedoms give you the ability not just to succeed, but to get up and try again.

Dont let your disappointments stop you. Let them propel you. Congratulations, class of 2017.

Mary Hallan FioRito is an attorney and the Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

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Here's The Graceful Commencement Speech Hillary Clinton Should Have Given This Year - The Federalist

Hillary Clinton just doesnt know how to lose gracefully. She does, however, have a knack for coming up with ever more inventive excuses for her loss to Donald Trump.

Just last month, she chalked it up to voter suppression in Wisconsin. This spurious claim was a reference to the Badger States common-sense voter-ID law, which has been upheld by the courts. It followed on the heels of a tweet from Wisconsins Democratic senator, Tammy Baldwin, claimingthe law had reduced voter turnout by 200,000 statewide.

Both claims relied on a study commissioned by Priorities USA Action and conducted by CIVIS USA, two liberal groups that actively supported Clintons presidential bid. Unfortunately for Clinton and Baldwin, though, the study has been roundly debunked.

Politifact rated Baldwins claim as Mostly False, asserting that experts...question the methodology of the report and say there is no way to put a number on how many people in Wisconsin didnt vote because of the ID requirement.

While it is true that 2016 saw Wisconsins turnout drop from 2012, it is also true that the state still experienced higher turnout than in 2008, before the voter-ID law was passed. Moreover, according to the U.S. Elections Project, Wisconsin had the fifth-highest turnout rate in the country, far higher than that of many states with no ID requirement. 69.4 percent of the states eligible voters showed up to the polls, far surpassing the national average of 59.3 percent and the 56.8 percent rate in Clintons home state of New York, where there is no voter-ID law.

Wisconsins turnout decrease from 2012 is just as likely, or more likely, attributable to a natural regression from its unusually high 2012 turnout rate. President Obamas high-powered turnout operation, coupled with Wisconsins own Paul Ryan being on the GOP ticket, would easily explain the 2012 surge in statewide voter turnout. Hillary Clintons ineffective campaign, her decision not to visit the state, and the general leftward shift of the Democratic party may also have dampened enthusiasm for her candidacy.

Democrats have generally admitted that they failed to connect with blue-collar workers in 2016. In fact, their party chairman, Tom Perez, has organized a year-long outreach program to try to rectify the problem. Unfortunately for Democrats, these voters are highly concentrated in Rust Belt states, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, that proved especially susceptible to Trumps economic message. None of those states saw any increase in voter turnout, but it wasnt because of voter-ID laws, which vary widely among them; it was because Clinton failed to rally their working-class voters to her side, convinced that she could rely on Obamas winning coalition from 2008 and 2012 to put her over the top.

The problem with that strategy was two-fold: (1) The voters of the Obama coalition make up disproportionately high percentages of state populations in already deep-blue states such as New York and California; and (2) they were not nearly as enthusiastic about Clinton as they had been about Obama. FiveThirtyEights David Wasserman warned last September that the demographic groups the Clinton campaign was targeting were concentrated in non-swing states. The Clinton campaign failed to heed that warning.

In fact, turnout data from 2012 and 2016 do not show any voter suppression because of ID requirements. Nine of the eleven states that have implemented so-called strict ID Laws either saw an increase in turnout or exceeded the national average in turnout in 2016. Two of them, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, finished in the top five nationally. Meanwhile only two of the 17 states plus Washington, D.C., that have no ID requirement finished among the top five.

The debunked Wisconsin study is, unfortunately, not alone in misusing the data for political gain. A January 2017 study by three professors from the University of California San Diego and Bucknell University frequently referenced in liberal media outlets is another unfortunate example. The study erroneously claims that voter-ID laws have a disparate impact on minorities and diminish the participation of Democrats and those on the left, while doing little to deter the vote of Republicans and those on the right. This sensational finding generated a media storm, with the help of several opinion piecesfrom the authors making the politically charged (and false) claimthat voter-ID lawslower minority turnout and benefit the Republican Party.

But these claims, too, were recently debunked by a group of professors from Yale, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania. Upon examining the data in the original study, the group found no definitive relationship between strict voter ID laws and turnout. It also found that the original study contained measurement errors,omitted-variable bias, and misinterpreted data.

In reality, then, such studies are designed to obscure the truth. The Heritage Foundation has published numerous papers looking at turnout data in states that implemented voter-ID laws. All of those studies show that ID requirements do not keep voters from the polls, and that some states have even seen increases in turnout after their ID laws went into effect. A University of Missouri study found that Indianas turnout increased 2 percent after its voter-ID law was implemented, with no negative impact on minority voters in particular, and increased turnout for Democrats as a whole. Yet another study, this one by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, found that at both the aggregate and individual levels, voter-ID laws did not affect turnout across racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic lines during the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections.

In short, there is no credible evidence that voter-ID laws have impeded turnout, especially among minorities and Democrats, as their opponents suggest. Meanwhile, a Heritage Foundation database tracking documented voter fraud now contains 492 cases and 773 criminal convictions, with untold other cases unreported and unprosecuted.

It is thus more important than ever that we implement voter-ID laws, while also taking steps to prevent non-citizens and individuals registered in multiple states from voting. Across the country, as Heritages database shows, voter-fraud convictions include everything from impersonation fraud and false registrations to ineligible voting by felons and non-citizens. American voter fraud continues apace, and the United States remains one of the only democracies in the world without a uniform requirement for voter identification.

Ax-grinding politicians such as Clinton and Baldwin will doubtless continue to malign ID laws. But their spurious claims have not dissuaded state officials from trying to protect the integrity of their elections. Most recently, Arkansas instituted a law that requires voters to either show an ID when they vote or cast a provisional ballot and provide ID by the Monday after the election. After a long and contentious court battle, Texas recently amended its voter-ID law to require either photo ID or other documents listing the voters name and address. And even as Clinton was losing at the polls, Missouri voters last year overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that allows the state to require voters to prove they are whom they say they are when they vote, reversing a faulty decision by the states Supreme Court.

It is vital that states not let the politically expedient, dubious claims of Democrats hamper the important task of securing our elections integrity. Otherwise, our ability to function as a democratic republic will be imperiled.

READ MORE: Stop the Hysterics over Voter Suppression Voter Fraud Is Not a Myth When Election Officials Ignore Voter Fraud, We Need More Oversight

Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow and Benjamin Janacek is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation.

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No, Hillary, Voter-ID Laws Don't 'Suppress' Turnout - National Review

Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press/NewscomRobert Mueller's investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election is both a preview of Hillary Clinton's 2020 presidential campaign and a re-run of the insider-trading litigation of the past decade. It's a preview of the 2020 presidential campaign, because blaming the outcome of the election on illegal Russian interference takes the blame off Clinton for losing.

Clinton can already point out that she won the popular vote in 2016. If her electoral vote loss was the result of foreign interferencerather than, say, a poorly managed campaign, or a candidate who couldn't connect with out-of-work coal miners, or the wrong substantive messagethen perhaps a 2020 replay, without foreign interference, might yield a different outcome. It's the difference between, "you had your shot fair and square, now move aside and let the next person have their turn," and "we never even really got a chance to see what would have happened if we had had a fair election that hadn't been subject to illegal Russian manipulation."

She wouldn't be the first presidential candidate to need multiple chances to win. Reagan lost in 1976 and won in 1980. Nixon lost in 1960 but won in 1968.

Hillary Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, is out with a children's book titled "She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed The World." Though the "nevertheless, she persisted" phrase comes from Sen. Mitch McConnell's description of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, it could easily be adopted by Hillary Clinton as an informal slogan for a third presidential run.

It's not unreasonable that it would take three tries, rather than two, to be the first woman president. In some ways, having done it before might even help. She starts with a large donor list and high name recognition. Trying again would underscore Clinton's personality strengthsdoggedness, her ability to bounce back from setbacks like her husband's impeachment and her own 2008 loss to Barack Obama.

Some might raise age as an issue, but Clinton is younger than Trump.

For a sense of how the Clinton 2020 reasoning and the Mueller investigation are related, keep an eye on the timing. If the probe delivers results long enough before the 2020 primary season for Clinton to get a campaign in gear, watch out. If findings don't emerge until later, then they won't be much use to her.

As for the insider trading investigations, some of the key characters are the same. Mueller and James Comey both led the FBI as it pursued the insider trading investigations. Preet Bharara, who as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan led the insider trading charge, attended the recent Comey hearing on Capitol Hill and has been avidly commenting about the whole thing on Twitter.

As with insider trading, unauthorized leaks to the press about the investigations are an issue. As with insider trading, there's a risk of operating the whole thing backwardstarting with targets and theories, then proceeding to evidence gathering.

In the insider trading cases, it was rich hedge fund managers who were targeted by prosecutors who had already decided that insider trading was widespread. In the Russia probe, it is the president and his circle of advisers who are being targeted by prosecutors who have already decided that Russia improperly influenced the American election. In both instances, the warnings of Attorney General Robert H. Jackson in his classic 1940 speech titled "The Federal Prosecutor" apply.

Jackson, who later became a Supreme Court justice, warned that the "most dangerous power of the prosecutor" is "that he will pick people he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted." Jackson said, "It is in this realmin which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies."

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Mueller Probe Could Set the Stage For Hillary's 2020 Return - Reason

Hillary Clinton may find herself behindbars sooner thananyone expects; however, its not her private email server or much discussed pay-to-play scheme that is her main Achilles heel.

The financial and founding documents ofthe Clinton Foundation are most damning.

Lets start fromthe very beginning, Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the alleged charity fraud forabout two years and publishes his findings onhis website, says.

How It All Began

The United States has precise rules governing how charities spring intolife legally and then operate. Most charities are organized ina given US state (or Washington, D.C.) asnonprofit corporations. After completing this step, they frequently apply forfederal tax exemption here, they must complete a detailed application truthfully that explains, amongother things, the specific purposes they intend tocarry out, Ortel explained inan interview withSputnik.

These purposes must, infact, be tax-exempt inline withstatutory provisions that define which purposes serve the public, and which may not, he stressed.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, Inc. is somewhat different inthat it was organized tocomply withthe Presidential Libraries Act of1955, aslater amended, tohouse Presidential Records (this is a statutorily defined term that means items created or received duringBill Clintons presidential terms that ran fromJanuary 20, 1993, throughJanuary 20, 2001), tooperate a research facility forthose who wish tostudy these records, and toraise a capital endowment, Ortel clarified.

In addition, tooperate a charity lawfully acrossthe US or the whole world, one must comply withsolicitation requirements ineach ofour 50 states and incertain other jurisdictions, which require charities toregister and report beforeraising funds.

Wall Street Analyst Charles Ortel (Source: Youtube / CGTN America)

The analyst underscored that many states and places levy taxes oncharities and their potential donors, who are not exempt unless state and local registrations are completed truthfully.

Long before2002, when Bill Clinton, Ira Magaziner and others illegally began soliciting funds, allegedly to fight HIV/AIDS internationally, the original Clinton Foundation failed toregister truthfully innumerous states and localities. In addition, the Clinton Foundation filed raise and materially misleading federal tax forms concerning the status oftheir state and local filings, and other matters, the analyst highlighted.

He emphasized that underapplicable rules a charity must be organized lawfully and then operated lawfully atall times thereafter.

So, material defects inpublic filings forthe Clinton Foundation which was founded onOctober 23, 1997, inArkansas began long before2002, and have escalated right tothe present, Ortel told Sputnik.

Audit Problems

Yet another problem brought tolight bythe analyst is that the Clintons charity has never been audited infull compliance withthe law.

In this Sept. 22, 2014 file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton address the audience at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City. (Source: PolitiFact)

Thus, fromDecember 31, 1997, throughDecember 31, 2009, the Clinton Foundation attempted topass offaccounting work performed bya firm called BKD, LLP as audits, Ortel recalled, stressing that BKD couldnt be considered independent sinceit had certain ties tothe charity.

Afterwards, fromDecember 31, 2009, forward, no purported audit prepared byany accounting firm forany part ofthe Clinton Foundation opens witha formal audit ofthe starting position onDecember 31, 2009. This may be because no part ofthe Clinton Foundation was lawfully organized byDecember 2009, Ortel pointed outand added that, inhis opinion, the financial statements put intothe public domain byClinton Foundation trustees define reckless misconduct and seem actionable tome, onmany levels.

Indeed, the charitys financial documents contain suspicious gaps and omissions.

Commenting onthe foundations international activities, Ortel noted that what is missing is granular information required onthe local currency results ofthe Clinton Foundation and currency translation rates intoUS dollars foreach ofthese foreign operations.

Also missing is proof that each ofthese foreign operations was registered lawfully inany foreign nation where the Clinton Foundation operated or solicited donations, he highlighted.

What Lies atthe Root ofthe Gaps and Omissions inthe Documents

The question then arises what lay behindthese obvious discrepancies and negligence.

Is it ignorance ofthe law onthe part ofthe Clintons? Unlikely.

According tothe analyst, one could not exclude that these discrepancies point topotential fraud and mismanagement offunds.

For example, back in2015, Charles Ortel exposed the scheme, which was potentially used bythe Clinton Foundation todefraud air travelers withinthe framework ofthe charitys HIV/AIDS initiative. According tothe analyst, the Clintons could have defrauded an unsuspecting international public of hundreds ofmillions ofdollars forpersonal gain.

This is big, the analyst notes, calling attention tothe fact that the penalties underthe US state and federal law forcharity fraud, particularly involving disaster relief, are incredibly stiff.

Rep. Corrine Brown with Hillary Clinton (Source: The American Mirror)

One ofthe shining examples is Rep. Corrine Browns case: the 69-year-old Democrat has been recently indicted fora $800,000 charity fraud including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction and filing offalse tax returns. She is facing decades injail.

Normally, the IRS and Department ofJustice look atthe public filings todetermine how much private benefit may have been generated throughthe operation ofa supposed charity this test is performed ona collective basis. In other cases, a collective private benefit of $1,000 or more has been held tobe disqualifying, the analyst explained.

What Prevents IRS, FBI From Catching the Clintons Red-Handed

So, what prevented the IRS and FBI fromcatching the Clintons given their suspicious charity record?

Normally, the IRS holds enormous power when it chooses toinvestigate a charity whose public filings seem suspect, Ortel noted, adding that, similarly, the FBI has enough sophisticated resources to scan a charity.

There were reports that the Clinton Foundation had been investigated bythe IRS and FBI but, surprisingly, these inquiries have not borne any fruit.

The first investigation ofthe Clinton Foundation that I find mentioned inthe public domain was conducted bythe FBI from2001 through2005. During this time, two gentlemen now inthe news were involved: James Comey was US attorney and then deputy attorney general ofthe Justice Department, while Bob Mueller was head ofthe FBI, Ortel said.

Maybe here is the answer tothe question.

The Clintons have had decades toinsert their allies intothe IRS, the FBI and Justice, aswell asinto key state government positions, the analyst noted, So, untilnow, the Clintons, the Obamas and others have been able toblunt comprehensive inquiries that likely will expose bipartisan wrongdoing.

In this light, Donald Trumps words that former FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened toHillary Clinton acquires a new meaning.

That also means that the Clintons charity case could become especially explosive given the fact that so many operatives, trustees, donors, companies and even foreign government officials could have been involved inthe suspected fraud.

How the International Community May Contribute tothe Charity Probe

To tackle the issue and conclude an investigation intothe Clintons alleged charity fraud one needs to clean the house first, the analyst stressed. According toOrtel, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the best-qualified official tocarry outthis work.

Furthermore, the international community can also join the effort and contribute tothe investigation.

I am already incontact withcertain governments concerning the apparent legal status ofthe Clinton Foundation and the nature/amount ofsums solicited and received byClinton interests, supposedly forcharitable pursuits, the analyst said.

Around the world, the Clintons claim tohave operated their charities towardsnoble-sounding aims. I would be most grateful toreceive any information concerning potential infractions, Ortel stressed.

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How Hillary Clinton May Find Her Way to Jail - Center for Research on Globalization