Though Hillary Clinton and her supporters have mocked those who have questioned whether her health problems would interfere with the demanding duties assigned to the presidency, Clinton herself said her head trauma caused her to limit her work as secretary of state to only “a few hours a day,” and to not recall briefings related to the secure handling of government records, FBI documents reveal.
“Hillary Clinton told federal investigators she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling government records while U.S. secretary of state because of a concussion suffered in 2012, according to a summary of the probe released on Friday,” says a Reuters report, suggesting that Clinton decided to continue with her duties as secretary of state despite the fact that her head trauma was preventing her from attending to important aspects of that job,including securing government records.
According to the report:
Clinton told investigators she could not recall getting any briefings on how to handle classified information or comply with laws governing the preservation of federal records, the summary of her interview shows.
“However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot,” the FBI’s summary said. “Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received.”
The concussion was widely reported at the time, and Republicans have since used it to attack the 68-year-old candidate’s health in a way her staff have said is unfounded.
In November of last year, watchdog organization Judicial Watch reported its review of pages of email from Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin, in which Abedin advised a State Department staffer that it was “very important” to review phone calls with Clinton because she was “often confused.”
Abedin had emailed Monica Hanley, a State Department Clinton aide and companion, from her Huma@clintonemail.com address to alert Hanley about the need to review phone calls with the then-Secretary of State.
According to the report, on January 26, 2013, Abedin had the following email exchange with Hanley:
- Abedin: Have you been going over her calls with her? So she knows singh is at 8? [India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh]
- Hanley: She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call. Will go over with her
- Abedin: Very imp to do that. She’s often confused.
Dr. Gerard Gianoli, who specializes in ear and balance disorders, writes:
What do we know about Mrs. Clinton’s health? We know that she has suffered two deep vein thromboses and an episode of cerebral venous thrombosis. Blood spontaneously clotting within one’s veins on three separate occasions is not a good thing. In fact, it is life-threatening. This tells us that she has a hypercoagulable state requiring the use of Coumadin (a “blood thinner”) for the rest of her life to try to prevent this from happening again. While Coumadin may prevent future blood clots, it can also lead to life-threatening hemorrhage if she has any future trauma.
We also know that she suffered a concussion and, according to her husband, she took 6 months to recover. How do we know she recovered? If she was a high school athlete, she would have had mandatory neuropsychological testing before being allowed to participate in sports again…
We also know from the Clinton camp that Mrs. Clinton has had a right transverse venous sinus thrombosis. This has been described as a blood clot in her brain, but that is not accurate. More specifically, it is a blood clot that formed in one of the two major veins that drain blood from the brain. Coumadin was prescribed, not to dissolve the clot (it won’t), but to prevent the clot from extending to the other transverse venous sinus, which could result in death. However, the right transverse sinus clot by itself will cause longstanding consequences. Since there are only two veins draining blood from the brain, the blockage of one results in increased intracranial pressure, which will remain a lifelong problem for such patients.
Gianoli explains the most common symptoms of increased intercranial pressure are “headaches, visual problems, and dizziness/balance problems.”
“We know that Ms. Clinton has had all three of these,” he adds. “Less commonly known are ‘brain fog,’ problems with concentration, and short-term memory problems. Sounds familiar?”
According to FBI documents, Clinton could not “recall” the answers to 27 different questions from the FBI about her private email server and said she could not “remember” details related to her email activities at least 12 times.
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