We’re just on Day 3 of the political fallout from Hillary Clinton’s collapse at the 9/11 memorial service in New York City, and the story has already moved from unusual to utterly bizarre.
Here’s a rundown of the latest updates to this still-developing story.
Stunning Admissions
President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton each held interviews that raised eyebrows on Monday night. First, President Clinton told CBS News’ Charlie Rose that his wife had previously had medical episodes like the one she experienced Sunday.
“Well if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors, because frequently—well not frequently, rarely—but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her when she got severely dehydrated,” he said.
Later, Hillary called in to Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN to discuss her health issues, and also addressed the lack of transparency over the issue.
“I was supposed to rest five days—that’s what they told me on Friday—and I didn’t follow that very wise advice,” she said. “Obviously I should have gotten some rest sooner—I probably would have been better off if I just pulled down my schedule on Friday, but like a lot of people, I thought that I could just keep going forward and power through it. And obviously that didn’t work out so well.”
Asked specifically by Cooper to explain why the pneumonia diagnosis wasn’t disclosed until several hours after her collapse on Sunday. Clinton said, “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal.”
She was also asked about her husband’s comment that she had suffered similar episodes in the past. Asked how many times it has happened before, Clinton said it was only twice “that I can recall.”
Secret Service Protocols
Two former Secret Service agents spoke out Monday about the incident and the videos of Clinton’s collapse. Specifically, they both noted that typical protocols weren’t followed, which created danger for both Clinton and her protective detail.
Former agent Dan Bongino, a 12-year veteran who worked protective duty for more than 500 events in his career, said he had never seen anything like what happened Sunday. He said he believed there was more to be concerned about than a simple overheating event.
“I’ve seen protectees get thirsty, get hungry, get a little woozy, sit down in a hold room,” she said. “I have never seen a protectee literally faint. I don’t think there’s any reasonable person who would question that she would have fell if it wasn’t for the agents.
“And one of the things about that video that kind of dictates to me how severe the situation was, is, if you look at that video of her getting in the van, look to the left, and you’ll see two white shirts with the NYPD. That means they’re supervisors. They’re probably lieutenants, or sergeants, meaning they probably have 10 years on the job, or above.
“These are seasoned street cops. They see her and watch how quickly they move right over to the vehicles. They don’t care about the Secret service, or anything. They walk right over to her. That says to me they saw something not in that camera angle, and they knew she was in a health crisis.”
Meanwhile, Gary Byrne—who worked as a uniformed Secret Service agent in President Bill Clinton’s White House—wrote an op-ed for the Independent Journal Review about why Hillary’s collapse “scares” him. “There is something seriously wrong with Mrs. Clinton,” he wrote:
One agent gets the door, but no one moves to enter. The Secret Service doesn’t like to wait—standing still in the eyes of the Service is waiting for an attack to happen. But the staffer can’t move Mrs. Clinton. Anything that holds up a motorcade is extremely dangerous and anything that ties up a Secret Service agent’s hands from drawing their pistol or intervening a threat is a hazard.
The female agent at the front of the van is scanning. She sees Mrs. Clinton odd behavior as well. The female agent begins backing up to the entrance of the van to shield both sight and anyone approaching—as is procedure. She keys her mic signaling that the van is about to move. The agent is to be commended for maintaining her blank expression …
Here’s what was very disturbing to me: After the medical episode, she went to her daughter’s apartment and not to an Emergency Room. Secret Service procedure for each detail dictates that everyone knows which hospital to go to depending on the event—heart failure, gunshot, you name it. It is very revealing that, whatever is wrong with her, she is being treated by her own private medical specialists in secret and, judging by the ballet-like reaction by her detail, they have dealt with this before.
Her detail knew that there was something very wrong with her and they were prepared.
He concluded that Clinton was putting herself, her party, and her Secret Service detail at risk, and that her health is “directly tied to the health of our country.” He said the nation’s citizens “deserve treatment.”
No Trip to the ER
The New York Post has reported that Clinton was headed to the ER, but her staff insisted upon going instead to Chelsea Clinton’s apartment. That decision was made to “avoid bad optics.”
According to the report:
Secret Service protocol called for the Democratic presidential nominee to be rushed to a state-designated Level I Trauma Center in the wake of her Sunday morning health crisis, sources said. In Manhattan, that would be Bellevue Hospital.
But a campaign operative decided to change course to avoid having Clinton seen by doctors, nurses and other medical workers who could leak details to reporters, according to a source.
In addition, Clinton’s van was supposed to be escorted by an NYPD detail, but the Secret Service whisked her away from Ground Zero before cops could accompany her, another source said.
As many Democratic Party and Republican operatives alike have pointed out, this further creates the impression that the Clinton camp “instinctively” seeks to hide important details from the public.
The Body Double Theory
By Monday evening, the story flew past “weird” and went straight to “bizarre” when a number of websites began discussing the possibility that a “body double” was used by the Clinton campaign to create the impression she was physically OK. Most of the reports focus on photographs taken during the day Sunday.
Anyone who has seen the movie “Dave” might recall that the use of a body double in place of an ailing presidential figure is the central plot point of a Hollywood movie. But, several websites identified Clinton lookalike Teresa Barnwell was in New York City that day and could have been used to portray the presidential candidate during her re-emergence from her daughter’s apartment.
Barnwell herself stoked the flames by posting an older photo of herself in front of Chelsea Clinton’s apartment. But, she later confirmed she was instead in Los Angeles on Sunday. But that hasn’t prevented some from continuing to scrutinize the photos from the 9/11 memorial service prior to her collapse and her re-emergence a few hours later.
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