The Real Slim Shaddy

An amusing exchange:

The context is not clear, but it suggests there was growing anxiety over how the system was managed and who would be held responsible. At about the time of that exchange, Platte River had been in discussions with Datto about the length of time Clinton e-mail data was preserved and whether copies were saved, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“If we had that email we are golden,” the employee wrote.

“Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shaddy [sic] shit,” the employee wrote.

Who, or what, is Datto, you ask? Allow the Washington Post to explain:

The FBI’s probe into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail has expanded to include a second private technology company, which said Tuesday it plans to provide the law enforcement agency with data it preserved from Clinton’s account.

The additional data, provided by Connecticut-based Datto Inc., could open a new avenue for investigators interested in recovering e-mails deleted by the former secretary of state — now the Democratic presidential front-runner — that have caught the interest of GOP lawmakers.

Datto’s work on the Clinton e-mail system became public Tuesday when the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee sent the company a lengthy letter seeking information about the role it and other firms played in managing the Clinton e-mail system.

Datto, it appears, was providing backup cloud storage of Hillary's emails, especially the "private" ones that were supposedly gone, can't find 'em, forget about it, don't even ask. And because they had this information, it's hardly surprising that Congress wants to know if they still do:

An official from Datto told The Washington Post on Tuesday about his company’s interactions with the federal investigators.

“Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation,” said Michael Fass, general counsel at Datto.

Fass said Datto had received consent to turn over data from the Clintons and from Platte River. A Datto official said the FBI would receive a “node,” a piece of hardware the company housed in Pennsylvania that allowed it to store data on its cloud.

Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms

If you don't think Team Clinton is worried about this, consider the vehemence of the response:

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, accused Johnson of “ripping a page from the House Benghazi Committee’s playbook and mounting his own, taxpayer-funded sham of an investigation with the sole purpose of attacking Hillary Clinton politically.”

“The Justice Department is already conducting a review concerning the security of her server equipment, and is fully aware of Datto’s role in providing services to Platte River Networks. The Justice Department’s independent review is led by nonpolitical, career professionals, and Ron Johnson has no business interfering with it for his own partisan ends,” he said in a statement.

Ron Johnson, in case you didn't know, is a senator from Wisconsin. He's also the aforementioned chairman of the senate committee on homeland security. But see, he needs to shut up now, because the Hillary campaign says so. In fact, he should sit down and shut up and leave things to the professionals, who should have all this wrapped up some time in 2017.

Somebody's out to get your lady
A few of your buddies they sure look shady
Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin' straight at your back
And I don't think they'll miss

Johnson is a partisan, no doubt about it. Everyone in Washington is a partisan. So what? One of the ways partisans actually serve the public good is by exposing the "shaddy shit" that their opponents do. There was never any question that the Democrats had a partisan agenda when they pursued Watergate, Iran-Contra, Plamegate and any other Republican scandal you'd care to name. And that's the reason Johnson went public with his request -- to move the story forward, you have to force the press organs in Washington to cover the story. If the Washington Post had taken President Nixon's assurances about his behavior at face value, history would look very different now.

Johnson doesn't have the jowly charm of Sam Ervin, but again, so what? Either Congress gets to perform oversight over the Executive Branch as a coequal branch of government, or it should just go home and we can get on with the business of serial monarchy that our ever benevolent betters would prefer.

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

Eliot left out Washington. We don't, though. And we shouldn't.