I’ve been waiting for the Left to purge their party of the Clintons for a few years. After 2008, they had to keep the Clintons in the fold in order to get Obama re-elected in 2012. Purge the Clintons too soon and Hillary would primary Obama.  He is safely in his second term and everyone is plotting for 2016, so now is a good time to get rid of that miserable cu…Hillary. I think we’re seeing the first moves.

Martin O’Malley’s pollster had sobering news. Despite extensive time in the public eye and strong statements on controversial issues, the would-be candidate barely registered in a new survey.

The year was 1999, and O’Malley (D), a brash white city councilman in majority-black Baltimore, was contemplating a long-shot bid for mayor.

“To a lot of friends, even my closest friends, it seemed like a pretty outlandish idea initially,” he said. He won that election, and the next, and two terms as Maryland governor after that.

Now he is contemplating an odyssey with even steeper odds. By late January, when his time in Annapolis ends, O’Malley says he “probably” will have decided whether to run for president in 2016, a bid that would be likely to pit him against Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

This is a  puff piece by the ruling class rag. O’Malley was a Clinton partisan and could split her vote if he took on Hillary. That’s if Hillary is still running. The Obama people would like her gone for good and a scandal is a good way to do it.

A former State Department official has told lawmakers that Hillary Clinton allies privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the supposedly independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack.

The account from Raymond Maxwell, former head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), was first published in The Daily Signal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, confirmed to FoxNews.com on Monday that Maxwell told him and other lawmakers the same story when they privately interviewed him last year about the attacks and their aftermath.

Chaffetz said that Maxwell claimed Clinton’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were overseeing the document operation, which allegedly took place on a weekend in a basement office of the State Department.

“What they were looking for is anything that made them look bad. That’s the way it was described to us,” Chaffetz said.

According to Chaffetz’ account of his interview with Maxwell, as well as the Daily Signal report by Sharyl Attkisson, Maxwell said those scrubbing the documents were looking for information that would cast Clinton and senior leaders in a “bad light.”

Chaffetz said such documents were said to be removed, so that Congress and the Accountability Review Board — the board probing security lapses as well as the attack’s aftermath — would not see them.

Chaffetz described Maxwell’s account as “consistent” all this time. The congressman said he is speaking publicly about Maxwell’s allegations because Maxwell himself has gone public with them.

State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach denied the allegations in a statement to FoxNews.com.

“That allegation is totally without merit. It doesn’t remotely reflect the way the ARB actually obtained information,” he said in an email. He explained that an “all-points bulletin”-type request went out department-wide instructing “full and prompt cooperation” for anyone contacted by the ARB, and urging anyone with “relevant information” to contact the board.

“So individuals with information were reaching out proactively to the Board. And, the ARB was also directly engaged with individuals and the Department’s bureaus and offices to request information and pull on whichever threads it chose to. The range of sources that the ARB’s investigation drew on would have made it impossible for anyone outside of the ARB to control its access to information,” Gerlach said. He further noted that the leaders of the ARB have claimed they had unfettered access to information and people.

Maxwell was one of four State Department officials disciplined in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, in which four Americans were killed. He was put on administrative leave, and has spoken out before about how he felt he was scapegoated.

Maxwell was eventually cleared, but retired last year.

According to The Daily Signal report, Maxwell walked in on the weekend session on a Sunday afternoon after hearing about it. He reportedly claims he saw stacks of documents when he arrived as well as an office director who worked for him — but who hadn’t told him about the assignment.

Maxwell reportedly claimed she told him they were instructed to go through the stacks and pull out items that could put anybody in the NEA “front office” or seventh floor — where the secretary’s office is — in a “bad light.”

Maxwell said he “didn’t feel good about it” and left a short time later.

Chaffetz said that he was told then-Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan were there and overseeing the operation.

“For Hillary Clinton’s personal chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to be making a concerted effort to hide documents, make sure that the Accountability Review Board and Congress did not see those documents is unbelievable and absolutely wrong,” Chaffetz said.

Scandal plagued, old and ugly is no way to run for president. Martin O’Malley would be a good alternative for a lot of Clinton partisans. At least enough to clear the way for Fake Indian, the Obama choice to succeed him.