Benghazi Emails Won't Help Trump — Enough

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was handed her latest hurdle on the path to the White House. News broke that the FBI recovered 30 Benghazi-related emails that were not turned over with the rest of Clinton's work-related emails from her infamous private server. According to the Associated Press, the emails may contain content related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The Associated Press report stated, "Government lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta Tuesday that an undetermined number of the emails among the 30 were not included in the 55,000 pages previously provided by Clinton."

While there is legitimate potential for the freshly unearthed Benghazi emails to reveal terrifying new information, the question stands: Can those emails be worse than the concept of a Trump presidency to American voters?

As detailed by the Associated Press, a lawyer for the State Department requested until the end of September to investigate the content of the emails for classified information before releasing them to the public. However, Mehta not only questioned the proposed timeframe, but ordered that the department report back in a week with details that could justify a longer investigation. The hearing took place during a series of lawsuits filed by Judicial Watch, which has sued for access to government records involving Clinton. However, despite the growing mess surrounding Clinton's emails, the statistics on Politifact show that Clinton still leads Trump in her honesty ratings. That should be disheartening, if not terrifying, to Trump's campaign — especially considering the increasing public concerns about Clinton's email practices and potential motives for her private server.

While Clinton hasn't yet given a statement on the newest development, it may be harder to shirk the fact that these emails were left out of the 55,000 pages she previously submitted for review. However, can the developments really put Clinton in worse standing than electing a Trump who has invited Russia to hack Clinton's emails, claimed Obama founded ISIS, and suggested "Second Amendment people" could assassinate Clinton? As bad as the FBI discovery looks, in this presidential race to the bottom, it just may not dent Clinton the way Trump and his supporters would hope.

FBI director James Comey previously expressed his concern over Clinton's ongoing email scandal during the initial investigation. When he announced his decision not to recommend an indictment, he still stated:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

Unfortunately, depending on the nature of the information found in these emails, Comey's indictment of Clinton's carelessness could ring even truer — or be even worse. But the question is, will American voters be convinced that this latest email discovery is worse than Trump?