The past as they say, is prologue. The lies Hillary told in the past were merely precursors to the present lies. Hillary lied about having one device and a private server for “convenience”. She had 13 devices and multiple servers, some physically destroyed. Perhaps her campaign song should be “If I Had A Hammer”. The setting up of the server, the switching of devices, some destroyed, some lost, implies intent to circumvent laws and regulations, no matter what FBI Director Comey says.

Joe Isuzu was a fictional spokesperson for the car company of the same name in the late 1980s, the poster child for pathological liars everywhere who made outrageous claims about the cars he was selling. Much as William Safire described Hillary Clinton in a 1996 essay in the New York Times, he was a “congenital liar”. But Joe Isuzu was fictional; Hillary Clinton is not, and is running for president. Be afraid, be very afraid.

She lied about Colin Powell okaying her perfidy in advance. She lied about knowing what the “C” on classified documents meant, even though it’s the contents and not the markings that make them classified. She lied about sending and receiving and sending classified documents. She lied about turning over all work-related documents in her possession. She lied to the American people, she lied to the American people, and she lied to the FBI.

The mind harkens back to Scooter Libby, whose “crimes” included making “false” statements to the FBI in the case of the alleged “outing” of well-known CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame. If anyone has made false statements to the FBI, it is one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Saying you don’t recall more than three dozen times doesn’t past the Pinocchio test.

Plame was as noted a well-known desk jockey at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Hillary’s lies and reckless carelessness included the transmission of emails containing the names of actual CIA operatives in the field involved in clandestine operations. As the New York Post reported:

Hillary Clinton’s e-mails included the names of CIA officers serving overseas and foreigners who are on the spy agency’s payroll -- potentially endangering their lives, it was reported Monday. “It’s a death sentence,” a senior intelligence-community official told the Observer. “If we’re lucky, only [foreign] agents, not our officers, will get killed because of this.” The paper said the intelligence community is in panic mode trying to determine which agents may have been compromised. CIA officials assume foreign agencies intercepted unencrypted e-mails stored on Clinton’s home server while she was secretary of state.

We may have forgotten about things like Whitewater, Travelgate, the Rose Law Firm and the death of Vince Foster. But they bear a remarkable resemblance to current events. As Safire wrote prophetically:

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar. Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.

The Clintons have made a career of making a fortune on the dime of a public they intentionally deceive and defraud, using their positions of power to enrich themselves at the public’s expense. Before there was “pay for play” at the Clinton Foundation, perhaps the real reason for the private server and the deletion of 30,000 emails, Safire wrote of Hillary’s amazing 10,000 percent profit in commodities trading which Hillary credited to astute reading of the Wall Street Journal. Safire commented:

We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor's wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.

Before there was the email scandal, here was Whitewater, there was Travelgate, and there was the hiding of records from Vince Foster’s office after his apparent suicide in a way eerily similar to Hillary’s willful use of a private email server and the subsequent destruction of records under a Congressional subpoena. Safire observed:

Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster's White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years -- in Hillary's closet, in Web Hubbell's basement before his felony conviction, in the President's secretary's personal files -- before some were forced out last week. Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell's father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.

Hillary is the Joe Isuzu of modern American politics. Her actions past and present and her answers to the FBI demonstrate a pattern of criminal negligence, criminal conspiracy, a pattern of obstructing justice that make her unfit not only for the presidency. Maybe she can sell cars like Joe Isuzu, but would you buy a used car from Hillary Clinton?

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.