Shahram Amiri the first casualty of Hillary Clinton’s server

OPINION:

Exactly how damaging the classified information is that was discovered on Hillary Clinton’s server became clear this weekend when the Iranian government executed an alleged spy. He had been mentioned in at least one email from an aide to Hillary, which called him “our friend.”

The deceased Iranian was the nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who was executed for allegedly passing on information to the United States. Amiri had been in and out of the news since 2009 when he first defected, eventually turning up on our shores. After a series of contradictory appearances on YouTube and other videos in which he repeatedly changed his mind about residence in America, he returned home to be with his family. Then in 2010 he disappeared, presumably was put under arrest, and ultimately, according to an Iranian government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, “was hanged [this past Sunday] for revealing the country’s top secrets to the enemy.” That would be the United States, the West’s preeminent force in agreeing to President Obama’s reckless nuclear deal with Iran. The Iranian government calls us “the enemy.”

I have long argued that Hillary Clinton is incompetent and sometimes dangerous to those around her. If elected president she will be a danger to the country. Our president claims, “There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton.” This is sheerest pishposh. His qualification for office was being a community activist.

Actually, I have, after reviewing Hillary’s record over the years, devised a fitting term for her achievement: “the Clinton Curse.” For in her wake she has left an astounding number of casualties. Back in Arkansas there were the McDougals, Jim and Susan, who were the Clintons’ partners in the failed Whitewater land deal. They went to the hoosegow, Jim never to return. The Clintons escaped judgment. There was Hillary’s law partner, Webb Hubbell. He, too, ended up in jail. Another victim of the Clinton Curse was former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. I knew Jim Guy before he went to jail. He was a typical member of the Arkansas political machine, very amiable and very shifty.

Then there was Vince Foster, Hillary’s law partner from the ill-starred Rose Law Firm. He followed her to the White House. He was once, as had been reported at the time of his death, romantically involved with Hillary. Former Secret Serviceman Gary Byrne in his recent New York Times bestseller, “Crisis of Character,” reports that a vindictive Hillary blamed Foster for the Clintons’ early White House troubles. She humiliated him before the White House staff, and the distraught Foster went to Fort Marcy Park in Virginia and shot himself to death.

There are more recent victims of the Clinton Curse. There are various members of her State Department staff who accumulated huge legal bills defending themselves from the FBI. None got off lightly, and poor Huma Abedin is still tied to that lunkheaded exhibitionist, ex-congressman Anthony Weiner. He undoubtedly chose our racy ex-President, Bill Clinton, as a role model, and by the way, Bill looks to be at death’s door or am I just a health nut?

Yet now we are opening a new chapter on the Clinton Curse with her errant server and all her exposed classified and unclassified information. How many more innocent or compromised people living abroad will be executed because Hillary was not, as FBI Director James Comey said, “actually particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information.” And remember, if you will, our president’s ignorant boast about her qualifications.

I think a young United States senator who happens to be a generation younger than Hillary, and a war hero to boot, summed up the death of Shahram Amiri best. Sen. Tom Cotton said over the weekend on “Face the Nation”: “That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe.” Mr. Cotton is from the great state of Arkansas. He has seen the Clinton Curse up close.

• R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson Inc.