Emailgate Just Gets Stupider and Stupider

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Well, it turns out the “unrelated case” that led the FBI to more Hillary Clinton emails was an investigation into Anthony Weiner’s sexting. Because of course it was. It is what we all deserve.

But it’s even stupider than that. In the past, I’ve found Pete Williams to be a pretty reliable guy, and here’s what he has to say:

If Williams is correct, investigators looked at Weiner’s laptop and discovered that Weiner’s wife—Clinton aide and all-around conservative boogeyman Huma Abedin—had also used it. So there are some emails from Abedin to Hillary Clinton on the hard drive. Here’s Williams:

Now they’ve got to go get court process to get the right to…take a wider look at these emails and begin that process. You said earlier this probably won’t be wrapped up before Election Day? Scratch probably.

In other words, nobody has even looked at these emails yet. The FBI has to get a court order first. So: are these emails that have already been turned over? Maybe. Are they routine emails about schedules and so forth? Maybe. Nobody, including the FBI, has the slightest idea. But there’s certainly no reason to think there are any bombshells here.

Needless to say, that didn’t stop every news outlet in the country from blaring this at the tops of their front pages. They never learn, do they? Email stories hyped by folks like Jason Chaffetz never pan out. But news orgs get suckered every time anyway. So just to make sure their shame is preserved for posterity, here they are:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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