The State Department’s report on Hillary Clinton’s insouciant attitude toward cyber-security would finish any other American politician. She ignored the law, flouted it repeatedly, and didn’t care; folks are in prison for less. The only thing that’s holding her up at this point is her Amen Corner in the media, most of whom know her personally and who long for a Clinton Restoration in order to reclaim their places as house courtiers. But 2016 is not 1992 or even 2008, and the retinue of retainers is as long in the tooth as the former first lady herself. They can’t protect her as they once could, and the multiplicity of media means that while the gatekeepers are still at the gates, the walls on either side have fallen. Meanwhile, State has publicly called her a liar and left a stinking mess on her doorstep that even her faithful house boys are going to find difficult to sweep aside. Now what? Maybe this what:

The Democratic National Committee is considering a plan to re-insert Vice President Joe Biden into the presidential race, Donald Trump said Wednesday in California, a stunning claim on a day when front-runner Hillary Clinton faced new questions about her classified email scandal. ‘I hear they’re gonna actually slip Joe Biden in and he’s going to take Bernie’s place,’ Trump told a rally audience of thousands in Anaheim, California, referring to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. ‘I hear they want to slip him in,’ he repeated. ‘Cause I will say, the system is rigged against Bernie, 100 per cent.’

Well, that’s certainly true. Mrs. Clinton was declared the nominee even before the first pro-forma ballots were counted, and nothing that’s happened since — including Sanders’s remarkable series of victories over Hillary — has changed the official narrative. But the State Department’s report is yet another straw on the staggering camel’s back.

Biden, who has been vice president since 2009, withdrew himself from presidential consideration in October, citing family pressures following the death of his 46-year-old son Beau. ‘I believe we’re out of time – the time necessary to mount a winning campaign,’ Biden said then. But if Clinton were forced out of the race, Sanders – who describes himself as a ‘democratic socialist.’– would become the presumptive favorite. That’s an outcome the Democratic Party could find undesirable. Trump was reacting to a damning report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General report that clobbered Clinton over the security of the private, homebrew email server she used exclusively during the four years she was America’s top diplomat. Among the report’s conclusions was that on at least two occasions hackers tried to penetrate the server, which was housed at the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York.

Sliding Biden into the top spot would not be all that difficult for a party that doesn’t care what the law says anyway. In fact, it would be a Torricelli Maneuver on a grand scale, the illegal replacement of an all-but-dead candidate with a party hack. There’s no way the establishment Democrats are going to hand over control of their cozy racket to a crazed geriatric communist who wasn’t even a member of their party a few months ago.

Whether they can get away with it, of course, is another story. The Clinton’s hold on the media is waning; she is a terrible candidate, even worse than she was eight years ago; and by the time the campaign hits the summer, her unfavorables will be far higher than Trump’s. For all their bravado, the Democrats are looking at a very bleak future. And if the FBI recommends prosecution…

It might actually be doing the Democrats a favor. Obama, crocodile tears in his eyes, can say he did his best, but guess what: Hillary ain’t that likable after all. Attorney General Lynch can move forward with an indictment, schocked, shocked to find gambling going on in the casino. Under pressure, Hillary pleads health issues and steps aside — but not before tossing her delegates to Biden. Riots ensue, but the party leaders don’t care: la cosa nostra is safe for another generation.

And here you thought the GOP had problems.

Trump smelled blood, and hammered Hillary on Wednesday at the Anaheim Convention Center. ‘Crooked Hillary!’ he boomed. ‘She’s as crooked as they come. She had a little bad news today … not so good. The inspector general’s report. Not good.’ ‘But I want to run against Hillary,’ he insisted, even if her legal problems make her candidacy untenable. ‘I just want to run against her. Look, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to. It could be we run against Crazy Bernie. That could be. He’s a crazy man, but that’s okay. We like crazy people,’ Trump said of Sanders.

Somebody call the men in white coats.