Joe Biden, yes, Joe Biden and not Hillary Clinton will be the nominee for the Democratic Party in the upcoming presidential election.
How can that be? He's not even in the race, that's not possible, is it?
It's more possible, and I would say more likely, than you may know.
After super Tuesday and the number of super delegates that Hillary Clinton has amassed she will in all likelihood receive the required number of delegates, 2368, needed to win the Democratic nomination.
So why won't she be the nominee?
Because she is going to be indicted...and could go to jail.
A friend of mine from the FBI recently told me that they have more than 200 people working on this case.
The FBI would not commit that kind of resources unless 1) it was a serious matter and 2) they want to make it stick.
So this is my theory.
Clinton will win the most delegates from the primaries, more than she needs to receive the nomination, she is already almost half way there with 1121 delegates. In the next couple of weeks with primaries in states like Florida, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio she could wrap up the nomination.
This is where it gets interesting.
Prior to, or possibly shortly after the convention in July Clinton will be indicted on very serious charges which will end any chance she has of winning the presidency and will force the DNC to ask her to step down.
Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't already asked her to end her campaign. If her surname wasn't Clinton I'm sure they would have.
If the indictment comes down prior to the convention then it's fairly simple. At that point the party will ask Joe Biden to step in and become their nominee, which, by the rules of the convention, he could do.
When a candidate leaves a race the delegates that they have already won are put into a state of limbo. Usually a candidate leaving the race does so because they know they cannot win and at that point they typically put their support behind a different candidate. At that point their delegates now become sort of obligated to that candidate.
This is a different situation.
Clinton, being a Clinton, will not drop out, after all, this is her destiny...as she sees it anyway.
In this situation I think the DNC will look at their options: Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, and they will choose Biden.
This has likely been the plan all along.
Earlier in the cycle there was a push to get Biden in the race, but he declined. I think they decided to play both sides; see what happens with Clinton and if that goes bad they can plug in Biden.
This theory would be rock solid if not for one thing, Hillary Clinton, is still a Clinton, and scandals have a way of going away when you are a Clinton. After all, she is the wife of a man who, at best, is a serial philanderer and, at worst, a serial rapist who has received little repercussions for his actions.
This time I have a feeling she isn't getting away with this.
Mishandling of classified information is a very serious matter.
Classified information and how it is handled has several different designations but the basics are:
Top Secret: Exceptionally grave damage to national security
Secret: Serious damage to national security
Confidential: Would cause damage of be prejudicial to national security
Unclassified: Is typically open to the public but is understood to be for official use only
So far it has been found that, out of the emails she has actually made available, that she disclosed 1675 emails with classified information, 22 with Top Secret information.
So, at least 22 times she disclosed information that is exceptionally grave to national security.
There are also times when she directly instructed her staff to strip classification labels from documents so that they could be sent in the clear.
So, if you think this was simply a mistake, made by an older woman fumbling around with multiple devices, or an oversight, it was not, it was on purpose.
I know a lot of people in the intelligence community who are angered that 1) she thought she could get away with this and 2) she could get away with this.
The amount of time and training that the IC as a whole put into handling classified has been completely ignored by this woman who believes that she is above reproach.
Obviously, many on the left don't believe that what she has done is so bad, or, maybe they just think this is another "vast right wing conspiracy," however, this is a very serious situation and is being handled that way.
From all accounts FBI Director Comey is taking great care to make sure that this one sticks.
If only she wasn't a Clinton.