'Are You Being Sarcastic?' Lawrence O'Donnell Says E-Mail Chain Will Absolve Hillary on Russian Uranium

April 23rd, 2015 5:25 PM

The controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation’s donations has raised the question as to whether or not they affected the State Department’s decision to approve the sale of a Canadian uranium-mining company to the Russians. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell expressed optimism on Thursday's Morning Joe that we will learn the truth because there is likely, “an advisory chain of e-mail in the State Department that can tell us exactly how this decision was made.”

He wasn’t kidding.

The shock of O'Donnell's statement was so powerful Joe Scarborough had to make sure that it wasn’t a sick joke. “The e-mail chain? You, are you being sarcastic? Are you being sarcastic? Because we don’t have...Hillary Clinton’s emails.”

O’Donnell doubled down, “Look, we’re going to get a lot of it. We will get a lot of that e-mail cause obviously there will be an investigation of this.”

In light of the fact that Hillary deleted her e-mails, one is tempted to conclude that no one has taught O’Donnell basic computer science: once you delete something it is gone. Forever.

More likely, Lawrence is assuming that Hillary would have had to consider it “State Department” material rather than “personal.” Considering Hillary’s connection to the Canadian miners took the form of an undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation, it's a bit sad to witness the desperation of Larry’s childlike hope.

Even if this “e-mail chain” does it exist, O’Donnell is divorced from reality if he thinks that the “investigation” is going to yield an e-mail saying something to the effect of “Hillary, you owe the Canadian miners a favor. Back their uranium deal with Russia.” Even if there are e-mails connected to this incident, Americans would still be left in the dark about what really happened.

When not entertaining optimistic delusions about Hillary’s e-mails, Lawrence tries to downplay the scope of Hillary’s possible cronyism by saying, “the State Department headed by anyone would have approved that at that time.”  

Al Haig, George P. Shultz and James Baker, of the Reagan and Bush Administrations would have okayed the selling of uranium to Russia?

In then end, O’Donnell has faith that Hillary did let the donation to the Clinton Foundation control her, “the part we don't know is did this actually change the outcome in the State Department. I would doubt that.”

One would expect nothing less from a self-described “European socialist.”