Darrell Issa's grip on government oversight has gone the way of his grip on credibility, but his legacy lives on in today's New York Times where we learn something-something-Hillary-something-something-emails-something.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was directly asked by congressional investigators in a December 2012 letter whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state, according to letters obtained by The New York Times.

Boy, that sounds bad. She could be in trouble for lying to Congress or something. No, wait.

But Mrs. Clinton did not reply to the letter.

Oh.

And when the State Department answered in March 2013, nearly two months after she left office, it ignored the question and provided no response...A congressional official provided The Times with a copy of Mr. Issa's letter and the response from the State Department on the condition of anonymity because the official did not want to jeopardize his access to such information.

I'll bet.

If Ms. Rodham Clinton had decided this was none of Issa's business because Issa demonstrated all the cool rationality and warm good faith of plague frenzy, then I'd say she was well within her rights to remain silent on the subject and let him pound sand. This is not a sentiment widely shared among our conservative brethren.

There are several major takeaways from this development, as it breathes brand new life into the scandal rocking Clinton as she just launched her 2016 presidential campaign this week. The first is that she was clearly aware that her private email account was a serious issue as far back as during her time at the State Department. Secondly, she deliberately decided to not respond to the inquiry—waiting for officials at the State Department to do so well after she resigned, and even further after the deadline for a response. The actual deadline was Jan. 7, 2013. The third major takeaway is that after Clinton was made aware this was an issue, she deleted upwards of 30,000 emails that she or her staff deemed to be private and not government-related. Since the full text of Gibbons' response to Issa at this time is unavailable, it's unclear what the official policy was—according to him—for preserving or archiving such records, or ensuring as Issa put it proper categorization of such messages.

Is the Law And Order dunk-dunk echoing in your head yet?

Well, of course she didn't reply. Why would she reply when she has nothing to hide? That's why she set up her own illegal e-mail server in the first place? Answer this one, teabaggers: If Hillary Clinton destroyed incriminating evidence, then where's the evidence? Huh? Where is it? Where's the evidence she supposedly destroyed? Come on, you can do it. Where's the evidence, you morons?

The Daily Caller -- Motto: A Safe Place To Call People Labiaface Since 2015 -- missed this story because it was chasing down the Great Van Nickname Plagiarism Scandal,and auditioning the next Gary Aldrich. I already hate 2016.

Headshot of Charles P. Pierce
Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.