In a twist ironic enough to send Alanis Morissette reeling in disbelief, the same congressional Democrats who pooh-poohed Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State have suddenly become terribly concerned over Trump’s use of a hackable smartphone for his Twitter habit.
Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) actually penned this letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis on Feb. 9, practically wringing their hands over the possibility that Trump’s personal Android phone might get hacked.
“We write today regarding the security concerns stemming from President Donald Trump’s reported use of his personal, unofficial, smartphone,” the duo wrote, alleging that Trump is continuing to his “old, unsecured Android phone” instead of an encrypted device.
“As you know, hackers often target smartphones in an attempt to obtain sensitive, personal information from the user,” they complained,
Carper and McCaskill added they’re concerned that Trump’s use of a personal phone may interfere with the “preservation of personal records.”
Now granted, cyber security risks are no laughing matter. But what’s absolutely fall-off-your-chair, pee-your-pants hilarious is the fact that Carper and McCaskill didn’t get all ruffled when Clinton decided to do State Department business on a private email server based out of her living room -- in fact, they defended her.
They also didn't miss a beat when the country found out Clinton had kept a whole bunch of State Department emails on said server after she’d resigned. Or when she and her non-security cleared staff deleted a whole bunch of "personal" emails before turning "the rest" over to the State Department.
Or when it came out that some of those “personal emails” weren’t personal at all, but were in fact government correspondence that contained classified information.
OR EVEN when intelligence officials said Clinton's private server containing said classified emails was likely hacked by as many as five foreign intelligence agencies.
At the time, McCaskill brushed the whole scandal under the rug, saying Clinton simply used the private server to protect her own "privacy." The Missouri senator later accused FBI Director James Comey of “blunting” Clinton’s momentum when he announced his agency was looking into old State Department emails Hillary had deleted off her private server.
As for Carper, he was one of Clinton’s top cheerleaders during the campaign (complete with this super-awkward introduction I wish I’d forgotten). He once accused the GOP of playing up Clinton’s email scandal for political gain, brushing the whole thing off and saying that “it’s time to move on.”
Carper also worked himself up into a tizzy after Comey reopened an investigation into Clinton’s email debacle mere weeks before the election in November.
I’ll let these two decide who wants to be the pot and who wants to be the kettle in this particular case. Because if a secretary of State swapping classified info over a laptop on her dining room table is A-Okay, but Trump tweeting from his Samsung gives you the vapors, maybe it’s not just the other side that's trying to score political points.