Today in media scandal-mongering about non-scandals: a New York Times story headlined “Emails raise new questions about Clinton Foundation ties to State Dept.” What questions are raised? It’s really not clear. In short: Back in 2009, as former President Bill Clinton was preparing to go to North Korea to negotiate for the release of imprisoned journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, one of his aides wrote to Huma Abedin requesting diplomatic passports for himself and another aide.

“Need get me/justy and jd dip passports,” Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin on July 27, 2009, referring to passports for himself and two other aides to Mr. Clinton, Justin Cooper and John Davidson. “We had them years ago but they lapsed and we didn’t bother getting them,” Mr. Band wrote. Ms. Abedin emailed back six minutes later to say, “OK will figure it out.”

“OK will figure it out”!!! Scandal!!! Huma Abedin giving special access to Clinton Foundation people!!!!!

The problem with this particular effort at scandal is that, because the men were not eligible for diplomatic passports, they were not issued diplomatic passports. Apparently what Abedin “figured out” was “it’s not happening.” So the special access here was … a five-word response leading to a no. And let’s not forget the context of that initial request. Here’s how the New York Times covered the release of Ling and Lee:

Former President Bill Clinton arrived in the United States Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit to North Korea, in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea’s reclusive government and dined with the North’s ailing leader, Kim Jong-il. [...] “I want to thank President Bill Clinton — I had a chance to talk to him — for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists,” Mr. Obama said outside the White House on Wednesday morning.

But now that we know that the effort involved Clinton aides having the access to make a request that would ultimately be denied, everything has changed.