When the left-wing New York Times publishes an article that damages Hillary Clinton, it’s a safe bet the decision to do so is not to expose wrongdoing so much as it is to minimize any potential damage by getting in front of it. That premise notwithstanding, even the Times is having a difficult time softening the blow on this one.

According to the report, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has discovered that throughout her tenure as Secretary of State, Clinton used a personal email address to conduct government business and did not use a government email address at all:

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

It’s not difficult to imagine Hillary saying this in response to such concerns:

As the article points out, one of the effects of using a personal email address exclusively while conducting government business is that Clinton’s advisers were able to review them and determine on their own which ones could be turned over to the State Department:

The existence of Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account was discovered by a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi as it sought correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and her aides about the attack.

Two weeks ago, the State Department, after reviewing Mrs. Clinton’s emails, provided the committee with about 300 emails — amounting to roughly 900 pages — about the Benghazi attacks.

Mrs. Clinton and the committee declined to comment on the contents of the emails or whether they will be made public.

As Shoebat.com reported, it was revealed late last year that the State Department has been stonewalling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Associated Press for years. One such request has to do with the details surrounding an employment arrangement for one of Hillary’s advisers, Huma Abedin, a Muslim. At one point, the State Department pledged to release the information by September of 2014 but then said it wouldn’t be until April of this year.

Do Hillary’s Emails include correspondence with Abedin? If so, what?

At issue is her working as a Special Government Employee (SGE) beginning in June of 2012. Statute only permits an employee of either the executive or legislative branches to work as an SGE for no more than 130 days. By Abedin’s admission, she held the position for 240 days, as Shoebat.com reported.

Excerpt from Abedin letter in which she admits to working as SGE for 240 days.

It is not known if there was any email correspondence between Hillary and Huma regarding this SGE arrangement that could shed light, which is one precise reason why the FOIA request should be honored.

Do you remember all the left-wing pundits (and some on the right) who insisted that there was no need for a Benghazi Select Committee? Many pointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report that was released on the Friday before Thanksgiving last year. Led by a Republican in Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), HPSCI determined that there was no ‘there’ there.

That is proving to not be the truth as in just this one instance, the select Committee has found what National Archives and Records Administration officials have identified as a “serious breach” according to the Times.

Just this one discovery by the Select Committee puts the reaction of left-winger Bob Beckel last year to the announcement that the Select Committee would be formed, in a new light. Just hours after that announcement, Beckel became unhinged and helped launch the #BringBackOurGirls narrative among the left in a brazen act of misdirection. Before watching Bob’s feigned outrage, check out this timeline of events: