Her answer is that "you would have to ask that question to every single federal employee," since they all have the responsibility to decide whether to use their personal or work email addresses, depending on whether they're talking about something work-related or not....2. I've been fixated on Hillary's statement she destroyed her personal email, which I noticed she slipped in at the beginning of her press conference. Did she really mean that? Why would a woman who values her friends and family — and who has written 2 memoirs of her life — not want to preserve personal correspondence? The 9-page statement put out by her office is quite clear on this subject. It said, the L.A. Times reports, that there were "62,320 messages that she had sent or received between March 2009 and February 2013" and that "30,490 of these were provided to the State Department, and 31,830 were private records that were destroyed."
When she decided which emails to turn over, a long time had passed since she had sent them. She's had the time to reconsider things she said before. She's gotten to see which subjects have become controversial over time. She's had time to reflect on strategy for an upcoming presidential campaign. After all that time, then she decides which emails to call "work-related" — knowing that as long as she assigns that label to a given message, the public will likely see it.
And which kinds of messages have the most potential to be "unflattering" to a political candidate? Messages she sent on the spur of the moment, without much reflection or political calculation. Or messages about something we now know is a hotly debated issue, but that she didn't realize at the time would end up being a big issue.
None of that is true of a federal employee deciding whether to use their work email address or personal email address to send a message.
Now, maybe it's just a lie. She didn't really destroy these records and is only claiming that she destroyed them so that we won't attempt to gain access to them. But if she really did destroy them, why would she sacrifice so much? It could be that everything she cares about went to Chelsea and a few others who she knows will keep all of her email. Thus, it's retrievable. Maybe it's not such a huge sacrifice. But 31,830 private records destroyed? That sounds quite drastic, and it stokes the suspicion that she did shunt damaging work-related email into the "personal" category, then destroyed it all so that no one could ever check her work.
But if those damaging emails were sent, couldn't the recipients produce them? Hillary is fighting for the presidency, and the door is closing in a year and a half. The press would need not only to acquire these emails from recipients, detect that they were not somewhere in the pile of printed-out 30,490 emails given to the State Department, and then face the defense that it's not really surprising that in the sorting of 62,320 messages an inadvertent miscategorization could be made... and what difference at this point does it make?
The evidence is limited because she limited it, and I'm forced to infer that she is hiding some very important things — important enough that it was worth destroying the evidence. You know, President Nixon did not destroy the Watergate Tapes. He considered it though:
"I had bad advice, bad advice from well-intentioned lawyers who had sort of a cockeyed notion that I would be destroying evidence," Nixon said years later in a videotaped interview. "I should have destroyed them."Live and learn.
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169 comments:
Her excuses are transparent and you could drive a truck through the holes in them. Government employees are required to send all work emails through the government system, with few extraordinary exceptions. They don't "choose" what to hand over, except insofar as they "choose" not to violate that rule. She chose to violate it the minute she set up the private server and resolved to use it for her official e-mails, because it would put her in this exact position.
Her defense boils down to "trust me"--we have to trust that she turned over to the government all official e-mails from the private server. But even if we did trust her (and there's no reason to, considering that the only plausible purpose of the private server is to defy transparency and accountability) she still violated the rule by doing all her business on that server, and also by keeping the e-mails free from FOIA requests and congressional investigations for years.
Cut the old woman Clinton some slack. Destroying Evidence is a DC sporting event. The digital age has interfered some with how the game is played, but after a learning curve they will all get better.
I suppose with the damage done the best Hillary could have done would be to say "I did this to ensure better control of my official correspondence, and I realize that was wrong. However, I welcome the appointment of a competent third party to investigate the server to see all e-mails, deleted and undeleted, and determine which ones were purely personal and which ones should be released to the State Department. I apologize for this error in judgment and resolve to learn from this."
Of course, that wouldn't be the Clinton way. Instead, it's (1) confuse the issue, (2) claim it's a tempest in a teapot, (3) say everyone else is doing it, (4) blame it on partisan ideologues trying to make something out of nothing, and (5) say this is old news and we need to move on.
It's worked for Bill before, but we'll see if the '90s playbook hasn't gotten rusty.
The issue is that Hillary is so used to hiding things and hiding from things that she's incapable of behaving any other way. The larger issue is that why would we want someone to lead this country?
"Live and learn"
The Clintons learned:
1. Nixon slipped up. Gotta be more careful. Protect yourself.
2. If you are brazen enough, you can get away with anything.
3. GOP has pesky ethics and will turn on its own. Dems, not.
4. If you are the TINA liberal candidate, the Cohens and (most) Althouses of the world will still vote for you.
The email controversy began when a hacker published some emails between Hillary and Sidney Blumenthal, taken from the server. The emails ware about the Benghazi attack. Blumenthal is a private citizen. So if Hillary decided to treat the emails as private, it appears that she deleted them. A good question for the reporters to have asked at the press conference (needless to say, they didn't) is whether the Blumenthal emails were among those produced to DOS.
So much for her work on the Nixon impeachment. And his tapes were of confidential oral conversations.
My question is how long will the Democrats keep sleeping with this now dead and rotting corpse before the squirting necrosis becomes unbearable?
Brando's quite right. Anyone working in or around Washington, DC understands that you use your work Email for work and only for work. You're assumed to have a personal Email account for your personal business. Meanwhile you are not allowed to use your personal computer for work-related activities because electronic files sent from unsecured computers is a very common way for viruses to enter government systems.
For that matter -- and I think a lot of people outside the Washington Beltway might not believe this -- it's technically a firing offense to use your government work telephone for personal calls, even to tell the spouse you're working late tonight. (Not that any civil service employee actually ever gets fired from the Federal government. One agency could not terminate an employee who actually murdered his boss.)
Ron Fournier has an article titled "A Payphone Candidate in a I-Phone World.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-a-pay-phone-candidate-in-an-iphone-world-20150310
Dems don't care and she will get away with this because no one in Congress has the authority to subpoena a private server. But personally, I want her raked over the coals for this. Al Hunt, of Bloomberg, says this is a "3" on a 10 point scale and no one outside of DC and Manhattan cares about this.
According to a link that popped up in my twitter feed -- http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-hillary-humas-egypt-emails/ --
Mrs. Morsi has indeed claimed that she has incriminating e-mails from HRC. Of course, this was back last August, so it may be just talk.
Now, maybe it's just a lie.
Maybe?!? It's Hillary Clinton, Professor, and mendacity is the core of her being.
Regarding No. 1, having to ask every federal employee. Indeed we would. Any and every federal employee suspected of having work emails relevant to an investigation on their personal server would certainly be asked these same questions. And they'd be expected to provide better answers.
So what's Hillary's point?
Back-up tapes?
She claims that Bill's server (bought with his Ex-Potus funds?) was safeguarded? Was it ever backed up?
were the tape cartridges destroyed?
If the server now contains no personal email, there is no reason it cant immediately be turned over to NARA
She also twice dodged a question asking whether she had any conversations with govern personnel about what she was doing and possible security ramifications. Presumably the answer is no.
Are the emails she did disclose still on her server? That would also violate rules given she is a private citizen.
"You know, President Nixon did not destroy the Watergate Tapes."
What did Hillary delete and when did she delete it?
tim maguire said...
Regarding No. 1, having to ask every federal employee.
The spouse is a Federal attorney. She has made it clear that her work product can never leave the Federal machines...
We just need to get in touch with the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies. If she was sending emails from her laughably insecure private server to the white house and state department, I'm sure they have copies of everything she ever sent.
Her answer is that "you would have to ask that question to every single federal employee," since they all have the responsibility to decide whether to use their personal or work email addresses
This is so stupid, since most federal employees only use personal email for work stuff if they are unable to get to their work email.
As for the destroyed personal correspondence? Most personal correspondence is nothing you might keep. Maybe more would be for hilary (I'm sure she has more she would need to save), but my personal email is clogged with junk mail and the emails that aren't junk are mostly inconsequential. The only thing I save are passwords and addresses and now those are saved in my phone. Work is different, obviously.
I'm starting to sign on to the people who think Hillary's actual defense is going to be "Who gives a darn?"
The fecal matter will hit the fan when the House committee looks at the email timelines and discover gaps.
Already it's bubbling to the top. There is a classic picture of Clinton, working her Blackberry on a C-17 enroute to Libya. Apparently there are no Clinton emails about libya turned over during the 72 hours when every email should have been about Libya.
get her under oath soon...
So you're telling me that the NSA doesn't have copies of every email sent by a high ranking government official, regardless of whether it was sent through her work or through her private email? Right...
What's the point of having an omnipresent cyber police state if we're not actually going to use it?
Come on liberals, let's be bipartisan and sing you're favorite song: you've got nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide.
It strikes me that there is another element here I have not yet heard discussed. For each email HRC either sent or received, there is another person involved (either the receiver or sender) who may still have a copy. If emails surface from those other people, wouldn't it be easy to compare against the list she provided and see if any of them were not turned over? If so, wouldn't that prove that she did not turn over all relevant email?
It would seem to me quite possible that someone would come forward with said emails and it would be fairly easy to check.
Or am I missing something here?
At any rate, her arrogance disgusts me - always has. So the pressure on her is enjoyable to observe.
But rather than have her knocked out of the race at the primary stage, I'd much rather she get the nomination and then lose in the general.
I can hope, right?
It'd be really low hanging fruit for the Congress cons to cross reference HRC's disclosed emails with all the emails she sent to government workers, which would have been saved on government servers based on the folks on the other end of the emails.
For example, if HRC was sending and receiving Benghazi emails from other government folks (such as a stand down order), the cons in congress will see them because these emails will have been saved as part of the other peoples' email records.
Of course they've had her emails for a while, so presumably this was already done, and nothing came of it. If it's not done yet, surely it will be soon.
If Congress cons find that there are emails preserved because HRC was communicating with folks using government servers, but these same emails were not part of the emails HRC has turned over, then you have a smoking gun proving she did delete work related emails. The next step would be to look at the content of such emails.
But, if no such inconsistencies exist, the cons' only option is to make as much noise as possible and maximize their creativity regarding theoretical conspiracies (but they are limited here because they must make sure the conspiracies don't rely on HRC emailing any other government people, because those emails are knowable since they are saved outside of her own server).
Come on, New York Times- Crowdsourcing powers, activate!
Amy, PBandJ, et.al.
The problem there is that the rats might stick together - you and I have no way of knowing if the other government official also used a personal email account. So who knows what's out there in cyberspace?
Let's avoid the bullshit might-have-beens and go straight to the NSA. The assholes in charge made the program, lets get something for our tax dollars with it!
Give her a little credit. If she was going to send illegal/unethical/bad political orders to lackeys, she'd send them to her lackeys Clintonemail email, not their .gov email.
Amy, it's possible, but certainly not easy. It would require knowing who those people are and then either subpoenaing their email or depending on them to respond honestly.
With a Clinton at the heart of this, I'd say don't hold your breath.
I think that the destroyed emails that would cause her the most damage are the ones related to the Clinton Foundation. Its funny to listen to people try and defend the Clintons with the foundation... they make it sound like the Clintons are doing everything for other people - helping the poor etc..) by having the foundation. But in fact the foundation is just an extension of their own quest for popularity and power. What better way to become Rich and Powerful white limousine liberals than to control and direct a huge foundation. Its like the foundation money becomes your money. You attend all kids of events with the foundation. People love you, you dole out money for good works, etc.. You control all of it. You control were it goes and how it is spent. All the employees of the foundation serve you (as director of the foundation) and there is a constant revenue stream coming in from favor seekers that doesn't require that much work. If the Clintons were really "selfless" they would have traveled the world raising money for the Red Cross or some independent foundation that they cannot control or direct.
Why do states donate tens of millions to the Clinton Foundation. Why not donate to an independent outfit like the Red Cross or Salvation army that is controlled by independent director etc... Its because they are seeking access with their donation.
Its a huge scam that needs to be investigated.
"It strikes me that there is another element here I have not yet heard discussed."
Well, I discussed that in the post...
Amy said...
It strikes me that there is another element here I have not yet heard discussed. For each email HRC either sent or received, there is another person involved (either the receiver or sender) who may still have a copy. If emails surface from those other people, wouldn't it be easy to compare against the list she provided and see if any of them were not turned over? If so, wouldn't that prove that she did not turn over all relevant email?
It would seem to me quite possible that someone would come forward with said emails and it would be fairly easy to check.
Or am I missing something here?
Vince Foster?
Was that fair?
1. HRC has a server in her basement with thousands of EMails on it.
2. HRC was Secretary of State.
3. We know that the server has already been hacked, and now every hacker in the world knows about it.
4. National security.
5. The military/FBI/CIA/Homeland Security/ should be knocking, then breaking down their door, then disconnecting the server from the internet, then taking physical possession of it.
Of course, then you're in Lois Lerner land.
As I noted, and several of you are already doing, the cons will need to make as much noise and conspiracy theorizing as possible, where none of the conspirators use government emails.
As you note this sort of theorizing states that HRC and her coconspirators are too smart to use the gov emails. But, this theory still assumes they're idiotic enough to start committing evilness/lameness/etc-ness in a written format that is easily hackable and is completely uncontrollable once it's sent.
Hopefully other cons can come up with more creative conspiracy theories.
Hillary = Nixon.
Good catch.
She "Destroyed" her private emails.
Depends on what you mean by "destroyed".
"But rather than have her knocked out of the race at the primary stage, I'd much rather she get the nomination and then lose in the general."
While that may make for some great schadenfraude (sp?), I don't think I'd want to risk it--the GOP is excellent at blowing elections and there are some built-in advantages for the Dems going into 2016. If a Democrat had to get elected president then, I'd prefer just about anyone over this crooked family.
@annalthouse - I reread your original post, and yes, I see where you discussed it. I was moving too fast. My apologies...
Hillary is the New Nixon ©
At the press conference, Hillary said that no classified information appeared in or was attached to the emails on her server. This means that the emails she turned over to DOS contain no classified information. So if someone were to make a FOIA request for all the emails she turned over, none could be withheld on the ground that it discloses classified information. The request wouldn't be answered before the election, of course. And if an email did disclose classified information, it would likely be withheld on some other ground, like executive privilege (or whatever it's called when a high official instead of the president is involved).
This whole thing is a joke, and every moderately intelligent person knows it. If Hillary is elected after this, the American public deserves everything they will get.
"As you note this sort of theorizing states that HRC and her coconspirators are too smart to use the gov emails. But, this theory still assumes they're idiotic enough to start committing evilness/lameness/etc-ness in a written format that is easily hackable and is completely uncontrollable once it's sent."
-- Her emails HAVE been hacked in such a way that shows her lameness though. She's admitted to actions that are illegal. So, in this case, truth is stranger than fiction. She even acknowledged in the past that she should not be emailing people, but she does it anyway.
Convenience is why she said she did it, and I believe her. She suffered from the fatal conceit that she was just smarter than everyone else. Were it not for her being hacked combined with the Benghazi investigation, the world would never have known.
The theory that HRC was using email to sell out America to foreigners in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation does pass the test of not relying on intragovernmental email communication.
But, if you're smart enough to keep this evilness outside your government email addresses, isn't it unlikely that you're going to put this in any written form, especially one that is hackable, traceable to you, and completely uncontrollable after it's sent?
We'll see how far y'all can get with this theory.
It doesn't matter to most Dems because Dems can do no wrong to most Dems.
No one in the MSM has the guts to put in writing thr theory that Hillary does not trust Obama and so she set up the private email so Prez Obama would have a harder time throwing her under his bus.
What about her answer to the question about how secure her server was? She said, in effect, there were secret service agents guarding the server at all times.
Is she that tech illiterate?
"But, if you're smart enough to keep this evilness outside your government email addresses, isn't it unlikely that you're going to put this in any written form, especially one that is hackable, traceable to you, and completely uncontrollable after it's sent?"
-- She DIDN'T think it was hackable or traceable. Like all things Clinton, she also thought it was completely under her control.
She was just wrong.
AJ,
The only way she could implement your suggested motivation would be to never send email (from any email address) to anyone who is not 100% Clinton-certified. And, even then there's still the potential of hacking in transit or on the receiver's machines.
The only real solution is to never send/receive email with anyone.
@Amy
Thanks.
Matt S,
Your making my point. It's hard to imagine anyone anywhere who is as secretive, cautious, and familiar with legal inquiries as HRC. Until it's proven otherwise, it's only reasonable to believe that HRC would never put incriminating information in any emails, regardless of where the server was located.
Amichel said:
"We just need to get in touch with the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies. If she was sending emails from her laughably insecure private server to the white house and state department, I'm sure they have copies of everything she ever sent."
Alexander said:
"So you're telling me that the NSA doesn't have copies of every email sent by a high ranking government official, regardless of whether it was sent through her work or through her private email? Right...
"What's the point of having an omnipresent cyber police state if we're not actually going to use it?"
Of course the NSA has copies of every email she sent or received...as does, presumably, Google, or whomever her private email service provider is.
But this is just farce, as no one in Washington wants to actually force her to produce her emails, as this would place them in the same possible position later on of having to produce emails sent on their personal accounts, and we must assume use of persona emails for official business is rife in Washington, despite it being unlawful.
As for destroying the emails, so what? If the CIA can--as it did--illegally destroy videotapes of torture sessions they conducted and which they were expressly forbidden by a judge to destroy--and suffer no consequences, either institutionally or on the part of the individual agent(s) who had the tapes destroyed--we can assume this will be as easily ignored...despite it being unlawful.
Only the little people must obey the law, and the little people are we, not they.
"It doesn't matter to most Dems because Dems can do no wrong to most Dems."
Hahaha! And you're saying the Republicans are any different...any better?
"But this is just farce, as no one in Washington wants to actually force her to produce her emails, as this would place them in the same possible position later on of having to produce emails sent on their personal accounts, and we must assume use of persona emails for official business is rife in Washington, despite it being unlawful."
-- Sarah Palin was forced to reveal e-mails for much, much lesser reasons than this. Clinton SHOULD be made to produce every last email she illegally hid from the public because we're a nation of laws.
"Of course the NSA has copies of every email she sent or received...as does, presumably, Google, or whomever her private email service provider is."
You must have missed the part where she used her own server and her own private email account. She did not use gmail or yahoo or anything of the sort. SHE was her OWN email service provider.
"you are not allowed to use your personal computer for work-related activities because electronic files sent from unsecured computers is a very common way for viruses to enter government systems."
Or in private businesses as well, at least in large corporations and I have worked in both environments.
In fact a great deal of trouble is gone to to prevent unauthorized servers from being attached to secured networks and harden authorized servers.
People who are expected to work from home or on the road are provided laptops with encrypted hard drives so if the laptop is lost or stolen the data on the hard drive cannot be recovered by a third party. They use VPN software and encryption keys to encrypt any data that flows over the public Internet.
Firewalls and filters are deployed on the organization's network to prevent users from surfing to unauthorized web sites and to scan for attempts to intrude on the internal network.
Scans are conducted internally to search for unauthorized servers and WAPs and to ensure that authorized servers meet OS hardening standards, don't use default or easily cracked passwords, have an acceptable patch level, and are not using unauthorized software or showing signs of being infected with malware.
Hillary's server bypassed all of these safeguards.
As an email server it would have been constantly on the network with a broadband connection. In addition to handling email (SMTP over port 25? Using Sendmail? What version? Was it patched regularly? Or was this a Windows server running some email server software? God help us.) It would have been available over the Internet for remote administration. Did the server ever receive a security audit? If so, what credentials did the auditor possess?
Was the server being backed up? Were there any disaster recovery plans in place if the server became inoperative or unavailable due to flood, fire, electricity goes out, Internet connection goes down, etc?
Was the server on a wireless network? If so, what kind of encryption was used to safeguard the data traversing that network?
Setting up a server like that to handle official email is obviously a bad idea and is going to be contrary to IT policy.
I actually would be okay if Hillary never produced her emails to the public. All I want is for her emails to be in the possession of the State Department, where they belong. That way an orderly FOIA process can be vindicated.
At the very least, some public information officer will have to review the emails and make a professional judgment about whether the emails are required to be disclosed to the public. And if a requester is not satisfied with the result, litigation will ensue.
The statutory scheme in place serves a real purpose and should not be circumvented.
Hillary is a liar, but we already knew that. In the immortal words of Dennis Green, “They are who we thought they were.”
For everybody outside of Washington, it’s all over. The base for both parties has shrunk down to a miniscule loyal minority. For the rest of the country, Colonel Reno is up on the bluff and “it’s every man for himself”.
At the press conference, Hillary said that no classified information appeared in or was attached to the emails on her server. This means that the emails she turned over to DOS contain no classified information.
Did she actually say that? I need to read the transcripts. What I remember her saying was that she never sent classified email, and that set off an alarm in my head - because the much bigger case was receiving classified email. After all, she was the top of the department, and stuff like that would more likely roll up into her mailbox than down out of it. She was more likely a consumer than a creator of classified material. I would guess that a large percentage of the 30k or so emails that she turned over (after printing out, which eliminates much of the useful overhead information in the emails) were somehow classified or otherwise restricted in their distribution.
The other thing that was not apparently addressed was that some of her closest aids (e.g. Phillipe and Huma)had their own clintonemail.com email accounts. Since she provided the accounts, shouldn't she be responsible for what was sent to or from them. Oh, and the obvious - the state.gov servers would have no record of anything sent between her email account and their clintonemail.com accounts, no matter how relevant to her job as Secretary of State.
I suspect that, consistent with JAC's theory, one of the primary and specific reasons Hillary is hiding the "private" emails is because there are frank comments about her opinion of President Obama that would be....unhelpful to her in Democratic circles if they were to come to light.
For that matter, what about Tempest shielding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
"You must have missed the part where she used her own server and her own private email account. She did not use gmail or yahoo or anything of the sort. SHE was her OWN email service provider."
Nonetheless, (assuming this is true), her emails were conveyed over the internet...there is some larger service provider out there through whose networks those emails passed at some point.
And, to reiterate, of course, there are the copies possessed by the NSA.
Here comes Robert Cook with the democrat party drool bucket- I mean, trenchant political critique.
"-- Sarah Palin was forced to reveal e-mails for much, much lesser reasons than this."
Palin was never a Washington insider; she is one of the little people.
If Clinton at some point makes her emails available, it will only be because she feels she must do so to sustain her "viability" as a candidate for the presidency.
Iowahawk tweets "On Her Majesty's Secret Server."
"Here comes Robert Cook with the democrat party drool bucket- I mean, trenchant political critique."
Heh, if you think I'm at all warm-hearted toward the Democrats, you haven't been paying attention. They're just as much whores to Wall Street as the Republicans...their ranks are just not so rife with stone-dumb religious fanatics, (or pretend religious fanatics).
@Bruce, it's very plausible that there is no classified data in Hillary's Emails. The Federal government is rife with data that is unclassified but nevertheless extremely sensitive -- the FBI's data on violent gangs and confidential informants, as a concrete example. That there is no diplomatically sensitive information in the Emails is a far stretch.
@BDNYC, it might have been her OWN server, as you point out, but were the comms lines secured? How strong was the encryption of the messages sent to and from that server?
If we read about any colonels in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service getting shot, then they missed their opportunity to intercept all of the Email traffic for America's chief diplomatic officer. But I rather doubt they did.
I feel a little sorry for AA, that she won't be able have the same level of enthusiasm when voting for her first woman president that she had when voting for her first halfrican presided.
Her personal emails would contain trash talk about people that consider her a friend. Maybe jocular banter with Huma regarding Bills pecker compared to Anthonys Weiner.
What I don't hear reporters or many if any posters on this site asking the people spinning for her (while she tries to spin herself as no different from other federal employees) is how is she different from the average corporate employee?
At the companies I have worked for you are not allowed to conduct business on personal email or use a personal computer to perform tasks (like work on a spreadsheet). All pc's have had the ability to download or upload materials disabled. You want to work from home? You remote in to your office PC, preferably from an office laptop. Then they have people who all they do is monitor language and what materials you are attaching to emails. They catch the smallest things like forwarding a copy of your weeks calendar to your spouse or an off color joke sent to you by a friend. It is flagged and you are notified either in person or by email to stop. They even caught a man I worked with conducting an affair on his work email (nothing graphic, but making plans to meet) with someone outside the firm and he was reprimanded and any more emails like that and he would be fired. Then everything is stored - all faxes scanned, everything. To protect their products and protect themselves from embarrassment ( think Sony and its emails on movies Obama might enjoy).
Do reporters not know that this is the way the rest of us little people work and somehow the work of the sec'y of state is not working from such secure IT? Why is she exempt?
After Obama's stunning re-election in 2014, I think most Democrat strategist figured they have a lock on the electoral college. They will drag Hillary's fat, lying a@@ across the finish line to make her the first female POTUS.
After winning, she will start to look people in the eye again because she has nothing to be scared of. She has all the files and can tap all lines of communication.
We will come to appreciate Jonah Goldberg's insight about liberal fascism. It's unfortunate we wii have to learn the hard way.
Bruce said...What I remember her saying was that she never sent classified email, and that set off an alarm in my head - because the much bigger case was receiving classified email
Usually you are correct, but not this time.
Make a distinction between emails "marked" as Classified, and those containing material that should have been marked.
DoD or DoS has multiple networks. in DoD they are the Internet (U), NIPRNet (FOUO), SIPRNet (S), and JWICS (TS/SCI).
I don't know the names of the DOS nets, but the basic unclass State email behaves like an enclave of the Internet. There would be no material marked as SECRET on that net. It would be sent on higher nets using ZRTP protocols. Thus HRC's email server contained no emails marked Secret unless somebody transcribed a classified email onto the internet server and added the markings
What is the case, is that many/most/all of the communications by HRC would be at least FOUO, "For Official Use Only" and never should have been off a gov server. But they weren't marked that way.
If you create an email on a secure DoD or Intel community email system, before you can send it, you have to provide "marking instructions" that are added to the body and the subject. looks like this:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
======================================================
my point is that HRC in the course of business created classified material on her servers, but you will find none marked as such, because:
a. she didnt mark it
b. her system didnt have the processes in place to force marking
"Nonetheless, (assuming this is true), her emails were conveyed over the internet...there is some larger service provider out there through whose networks those emails passed at some point.
And, to reiterate, of course, there are the copies possessed by the NSA."
It's irrelevent even if it were the case that NSA has all her e-mails (which it certainly is not the case--NSA has been encroaching on people's private e-mails, but that by no means means that they have everything everyone ever sent). The fact remains that her e-mails were required to be exclusively sent and received via the government account (with few, rare exceptions, such as the government system being unaccessible). This isn't some technical rule that means nothing--it is in place to ensure accountability and transparency for government agencies--this way, FOIA requests, DOJ investigations and congressional inquiries can access these records.
By doing this ALL via a private server, Hillary could have only one purpose--to maintain control over the emails and decide what gets released and what doesn't. The rules are in place to prevent government officials from doing exactly that.
This is just another sign of what sort of presidency Hillary will preside over. Positively Nixonian.
"After Obama's stunning re-election in 2014, I think most Democrat strategist figured they have a lock on the electoral college. They will drag Hillary's fat, lying a@@ across the finish line to make her the first female POTUS."
If they think they have a lock, then why settle on Hillary? If I'm a Dem, why would I want to put someone in there who (with her husband) has never failed to support a war since Vietnam, sold out the gays and welfare recipients, and done more for Wall Street cronies than Bush and Obama combined? Why support that (especially considering her weaknesses as a politician, which suggest she could flop in a general election) when I could just as easily back another Democrat?
I think the answer is more that the Clintons have cowed strategists, donors and candidates to clear the field for her, and many Hillary supporters associate Bill's political skills with his wife and think (due to her high poll numbers) she's their best chance at winning in 2016.
I listen to a snippet of her press conference in the car with a friend yesterday and my friend said out loud "she can't mean the server was secure because the house was protected by Secret Service, right?" Then, a moment later when it was clear that was exactly what she meant, we both said "holy shit!" This is one of the dumbest lines of argument I could have imagined, and there she is putting it forward proudly. Hey, the physical server wasn't stolen, so therefore its electronic contents were secure. I really want to beleive people are smart enough to realize how batshit insane an argument that is, but so far I haven't seen heads popping on TV so maybe she'll actually get away with it.
Alexander said...
The problem there is that the rats might stick together - you and I have no way of knowing if the other government official also used a personal email account. So who knows what's out there in cyberspace?
As a matter of fact it's been widely reported that at least some of her aides also had email addresses on that domain, so the Hildozer and her people could have had a long chain talking about whatever they wanted (between each other's .clinton addresses) and tacked on "hey, I hope the weather's nice at my daughter's house" to the end--if Clinton deleted that chain since it contained "personal" information then we might never know. Pretty sneaky, sis.
"many/most/all of the communications by HRC would be at least FOUO, 'For Official Use Only'"
When I was in Korea we would run jobs concerning manning of units. How many people are supposed to be assigned to a unit, current staffing levels, who is on leave, what military occupational specialties each unit had and if the people filling them actually had attended the school for that MOS, readiness of the unit based on physical fitness tests, inspections, if they had the equipment they were supposed to have and the condition it was in. Etc, etc, etc.
None of that was classified. It was all FOUO and the North Koreans would have been very interested in obtaining it.
I have to assume that emails to and from the SOS would be at least as sensitive. In fact, it is a military intelligence truism that intel regarding capabilities is of less importance than intel regarding intentions. HRC's email as SOC would have been filled with intel concerning our government's intentions.
So the assumption has to be that at least one and possibly multiple foreign intelligence services gained access to HRC's personal email server and has embarrassing intelligence that could likely be used to blackmail her.
So do you really want to elect her President?
The most glaring issue with her emails is the numbers. Always refer to the numbers she has given. She claims that in 4 years she received or sent 30,000 business emails. That distinction is important. In most peoples minds we think she sent 30,000 emails but that is not the case. So we really don't know how many emails she actually sent. On top of that, only 30,000 emails in 4 years??? She is the head of state for the most powerful country in the world with the Middle East blowing up, Russia on the attack, NAfrica turning into a cesspool and only 20 emails a day. I could only imagine that Benghazi alone would have generated a couple hundred or thousands of emails. At the same time as our interests around the world are burning she is sending/receiving the same number of emails for personal and official business. I am in sales and I get more than 40 emails a day and even more if I include personal emails and I am talking just receiving not including sending emails. I bet if she just handed over her hard drives there would be nothing but a couple blush moments. This is the Clinton way of doing business. Always look like you have something to hide and when the Clinton way is in full affect you will have more than two of these types of issues going at the same time. Always keep them talking. Nothing to see about me breaking the law and receiving donations from foreign governments.
But again, look at those numbers. How is that believable?
Maybe this is arrogant, but the situation seems clear to me: the clintonemail.com server was a closed circle. She used it to communicate with Abedin, Reines, and her other flunkies, all of whom also had accounts on her server. These people were always, despite carrying lofty State Department positions, actually political advisors to Hillary Clinton, Future Presidential Candidate. Whenever a crisis comes up, this group has its own (semi-)private medium of communication that they use to game out the options available to Secretary Clinton with special care to consider the ramifications of each option to Future Candidate Clinton.
My untestable hypothesis, then, is: what you'd find on that server are email exchanges (among the Clintons, Abedin, Reines, Blumenthal and others) proving that Hillary's every major decision at State was determined more by her personal political needs than anything to do with the interests of the United States.
Venturing a little further, from 'untestable hypothesis' to 'wild speculation', I'd say: some of those emails were somewhere between dismissive and contemptuous of Barack Obama, and if revealed they would sink her with black voters and thereby cost her the nomination. They must be concealed at all costs.
But Nixon already released over 200 hours of audio tapes, so that should be enough!
-hdr22@clintonemail.com
With her track record of dishonesty, corruption, and lawlessness, she doesn't have the credibility to say "trust me".
Short version of long post: she can survive this weird record-keeping scandal; she has done that before. She can't survive a Democratic rival armed with 'Hillary Clinton email says Obama is a buffoon'.
Wired has a pretty good article written so that the lay person can understand it on why rolling her own email server was such a bad idea from a computer security perspective.
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/clintons-email-server-vulnerable/
"I listen to a snippet of her press conference in the car with a friend yesterday and my friend said out loud "she can't mean the server was secure because the house was protected by Secret Service, right?" "
My assumption was that she meant the Secret Service wasn't just guarding the physical server but was charged with providing anti-hacking services to protect the technical security of the system and anything sent to or from it. But this is something the media should be able to straighten out, if Hillary was open enough to subject herself to more than 8 questions.
I do not understand the logistics of the emails. Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State for approximately 1,461 days (the years 2010, 2011, 2012 plus ten months of 2009 and two months of 2013). The 31,830 private emails averaged 21.8/day, plus nearly that many for business. Call it 40 total/day. Assume Mrs. Clinton sleeps four hours/day, leaving 20 hours for everything else including emails (at an average of two emails/hour all day every day) and meetings with foreign ministers. Some of the business emails would have been complicated and would have required some thought and some time—multiple drafts and staff debate—in creating the reply. To be sure, threads with multiple emails would account for some of the total, but how many? I presume that Mrs. Clinton was not the person at the keyboard entering the reply. (Does she type?)
From my perch in the wilds of New Mexico, it appears that she had to have some help in managing this process. How did that work? What was the decision process with regard to eliminating the personal emails? Highlight all and hit delete?
At least one commenter touches on this obliquely, but Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills also had email accounts on the clinton server. So any emails among the three of them using these non-gov email accounts, would NOT be backed by .gov servers (as Clijnton suggested would happen for all her emails, but would happen only for emails sent to recipients with .gov addresses).
It's a shame the press corps didn't ask this obvious question.
Big Mike/Drill Sgt.
Obviously, I am not nearly as close to this as you two are, esp. here in regards to classified, etc. material.
But, could that have been part of what she was trying to get away with, making the same distinction that you did? That she didn't send any "classified" emails, cleverly ignoring that most of her work emails are sensitive at one level or another, but not technically "classified"?
This is really the way out of scandal for all politicians. Since you have the option to do the govt emial OR personal always go personal email. And then just turn over emails that exonorate you.
If Nixon did his own private tapes and didnt' do it on govt equipment, couldn't he have simply destroyed the tapes.
@Bruce Hayden
HRC's emails most likely wouldn't have been classified because there is a process that must be used to declare information classified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_United_States
See the section on the proper procedure for classifying government documents.
I believe HRC has claimed that she did not include any classified material in her emails which she could have done by attaching a classified document to an email or quoting classified material in the text of the email.
Wonder if NSA has copies of the e-mails that were destroyed?
Is Mrs. Clinton saying that she had nothing of sentimental value in those personal e-mails? No pictures of her recently born grandchild? No words of sentiment sent by close friends or family members? No words of wisdom received from a confidant? Every one of those "personal" e-mails were, "pick up the dry cleaning" and "I want three layers on that wedding cake"?
oops, forgot about derivative classification, if she did quote classified material in her email then the email would be classified.
the clintonemail.com server was a closed circle.
This has a ring of truth to it. Sounds much like what Journolist was designed to do, but in this case for the singular benefit of Clinton. Clintolist?
@Amy, very well said. While everyone here is obsessing on Hillary, this is really a far larger and more pernicious scandal. Hillary emailed any number of government officials emails regarding official business of the US and they in turned replied to a private email account-something all of these officials knew was improper starting with the president. What remains to be discovered is how many of these officials received Hillary's emails on their private email accounts and replied back using those accounts. This makes Watergate look absolutely trivial.
If her emails were classified (which many of them would be after being reviewed before being released due to a FOIA request) they would most likely be classified because they fall under the following categories:
1.4(d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources;
1.4(e) scientific, technological or economic matters relating to national security; which includes defense against transnational terrorism;
After around four years as SOS you would hope that a couple of her emails addressed those concerns. In fact, an enterprising journalist might ask her that question.
"MS Clinton, you were the SOS for around four years. Are you saying in that time none of your official emails dealt with foreign relations, confidential sources, economic matters relating to national security, or defense against transnational terrorism? Because information relating to those matters is subject to classification."
Ya know who never had their own email server?
Cooktards personal lord and savior "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
"Or are you saying that all of the information you dealt with was open source, available to the public at large and you were not provided with any confidential information that would, presumably, be required to fulfill your duties as SOS?"
Did she or her lawyer destroy the hard drive? If so, wouldn't that open up even wider the possibility that a foreign (or domestic) party seeking advantage could blackmail President Hillary Clinton by threatening to expose damaging emails which may or may not have actually been sent. Given that the custodial chain has been broken, how believable would her naked denials be? At least if the hard drive preserved all her emails, it would cut off truly spurious blackmail attempts (although the actual emails sent to, say, Clinton Foundation donors still present blackmail opportunity.)
"With her track record of dishonesty, corruption, and lawlessness, she doesn't have the credibility to say 'trust me.'"
No one in Washington has that credibility...now, or ever. This is one reason our Constitution and Bill of Rights are as they are...they were written with this as a guiding principle.
This makes Watergate look absolutely trivial."
Quit pretending, Cubanbob...admit you've always thought Watergate was absolutely trivial.
I'm surprised that no one has keyed in on the ratio of personal to business correspondence.
Clinton claims that it is roughly 50/50 with a slight edge to personal emails. Isn't that a red flag?
What is your personal to business email ratio? 1:4? 1:10? 1:20? How can a busy senior executive have time for so many personal emails? It seems implausible - even for a middle manager.
Robert Cook said...
This makes Watergate look absolutely trivial."
Quit pretending, Cubanbob...admit you've always thought Watergate was absolutely trivial.
3/11/15, 12:20 PM"
Compared to leftist Democrats aiding and abetting the enemy in wartime it was. And compared to this email scandal, it is. What's your excuse?
@Bruce, regarding your comment of 11:47. You got it. The whole point of saying "nothing classified" is to get people to think there was nothing sensitive with intelligence value in the correspondence. As the head of the entire Department of State, either the Emails were chock-a-block full of sensitive information that foreign intelligence services were happy to lay hands on, or else she was totally out of the loop on our most sensitive diplomatic efforts. There's no third alternative.
Thing is, if some "hacker" were to "find" and publish damaging e-mails, how could Hillary Clinton prove them bogus when she has none of her own Libyan e-mails to prove otherwise. With so much missing, wouldn't whole ranges of metadata be available for, er, use? Gotta be a better chance of success than with Dan Rather's memo.
Also, I'm curious about just how these emails were "deleted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence
Chances are, unless the drive was physically destroyed or other extreme measures were taken, at least some of the data is recoverable.
Thing is, if some "hacker" were to "find" and publish damaging e-mails, how could Hillary Clinton prove them bogus when she has none of her own Libyan e-mails to prove otherwise.
The thing is that it takes some work to fake real email. There are a number of email headers that don't typically get printed out when you print the emails. For example, they contain some of the routing information. This can be faked, but is much harder to fake correctly - e.g. you have to know the correct IP addresses of the servers that show up in that routing information. But, that doesn't work here, because the emails were printed out, and not raw, as would have been expected from most anyone else. Most of those headers are not printed out, and the ones that are, don't show IP addresses, often not all of the distribution list, etc.
So, yes, this is a great idea. Figure that we can do pretty much anything, once we see what some of her emails look like. Should be fun.
It is logical to assume that Hillary's Blackberry was government provided as private phones are not allowed to connect to government networks. So, for her phone to have been configured for private email only, it had to be done by State Dept. IT staff. Any competent IT staff doing their due diligence would have warned Hillary of the fact that professional networks have multiple, redundant security features, way beyond what is available on an individual private server. Despite all the security vulnerabilities and surely realizing the firestorm that would ensue WHEN all this became public knowledge, she still proceeded. It is mind-boggling the level paranoia that led her to take such risks.
Robert Cook said...
"It doesn't matter to most Dems because Dems can do no wrong to most Dems."
Hahaha! And you're saying the Republicans are any different...any better?
3/11/15, 10:09 AM
I wouldn't necessarily say that about Republicans, but I certainly would say that about conservatives. In general conservatives have an antagonistic relationship with government and specifically people in power. We believe that the best government is one in which power is diluted and no one person has inordinate influence over the other branches of government.
Thus a conservative is less likely to "worship" a political figure. For example I doubt you would ever see the equivalent of conservative children singing songs of praise for the leader (as was the case with Obama.)
Probably the closest figure who receives that level of affection is Reagan, but then again only to the extent that he advocated principles that would leave us alone and worked to diminish the scope and influence of government.
Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
The thing is that it takes some work to fake real email. There are a number of email headers that don't typically get printed out when you print the emails. For example, they contain some of the routing information. This can be faked, but is much harder to fake correctly
Then just print out the e-mail and don't supply the electronic files. I believe that is sufficient for Hillary and the State Dept. after all, so they would have no reason to complain.
If you just print the emails, all the metadata (where the REAL routing and destination servers and other key information are identified) are lost.
Hillary Cannot Claim Her E-Mail Was Secure
"It doesn't matter to most Dems because Dems can do no wrong to most Dems."
Hahaha! And you're saying the Republicans are any different...any better?
Nixon resigned because Republicans were willing to vote for his removal.
Can you imagine any situation where Democrats would do the same for a Dem President? I know I cannot.
Off topic, but wasn't it wrong to question Obama's patriotism a week ago but it's OK for Democrats to label 47 Republican Senators as traitors?
Damikesc:
You're talking about a time long, long ago and very far away. Can you imagine any Republicans doing that today?
"Probably the closest figure who receives that level of affection is Reagan...."
The expressions of regard by conservatives toward Reagan far exceed "affection" and amount, for the most part, to near-deification.
"Compared to leftist Democrats aiding and abetting the enemy in wartime it was. And compared to this email scandal, it is. What's your excuse?"
What's my excuse for what?
Also, what "leftist Democrats" have "aided and abetted (what) enemy?"
You're talking about a time long, long ago and very far away. Can you imagine any Republicans doing that today?
Can you name a time EVER where a Democrat would do this?
Historically.
I cannot name one single time it'd ever happen.
So, Republicans have done it (and conservatives dumped Bush ENTIRELY by this point, which is why his approval rating was in the 20% range). Progressives never have.
The expressions of regard by conservatives toward Reagan far exceed "affection" and amount, for the most part, to near-deification.
As opposed to Democrats who are all brilliant and sexy and the greatest thing since sliced bread?
Hell, finding a Democrat to actually criticize Obama for abusing power is a challenge.
Also, what "leftist Democrats" have "aided and abetted (what) enemy?"
Sen Kennedy asked the USSR to intervene in the 1984 election.
And they did basically ignore our part in the treaty to end the Vietnam War.
Were hilliary' state department minions using private emails as well? If so, then the state department may have no record.
Were hilliary' state department minions using private emails as well?
Yes. Huma, for one, had an email address on her server.
Also, what "leftist Democrats" have "aided and abetted (what) enemy?"
LT Kerry met with the NVA in Paris during the peace talks in 1970 while I was getting my a$$ shot at near Hue...
I know it sounds mean, but the more I learn about Hillary, the more certain that The USA really deserves to have her as its next president. Really, really deserves.
Let's do some figurin'.
In round numbers, 60,000 emails. Assume 5 seconds per email to decide whether it's public or private. That's 300,000 seconds. Divide by 60 secs times 60 minutes and you get about 80 hours. Simple question, who spent 80 hours on the server deleting emails and when did they do it?
"As opposed to Democrats who are all brilliant and sexy and the greatest thing since sliced bread?"
Ha...far from it!
"Hell, finding a Democrat to actually criticize Obama for abusing power is a challenge."
I doubt you'll ever find a Democrat extolling Obama's virtues after he has left office. Right now they're just standing up for their team, right or wrong.
"Also, what "leftist Democrats" have "aided and abetted (what) enemy?""
Jane Fonda was pretty egregious. Jim McDermott travelled to Saddam's Iraq just before our invasion to lend him diplomatic cover. And while Hugo Chavez may not have technically been our "enemy", a number of American leftists supported him while he was funding terrorists we were fighting in Colombia during the last decade.
"Sen Kennedy asked the USSR to intervene in the 1984 election.
"And they did basically ignore our part in the treaty to end the Vietnam War."
Elaborate, please.
I see that John Althouse Cohen has inherited the affliction of flying off on wild, speculative tangents based on his own misreading of a rather straightforward quote.
Nixon was only forced from office because the GOP would not support him once it became clear he had abused his office and violated the law. Had they behaved the way Democrats behave these days with their own presidents, the Republicans of 1974 would have banded together, gone on the media offensive, and called Watergate a partisan witch hunt and a distraction from more serious issues that affect Americans. They would have pointed out that there was no proof that Nixon had misused his office, no proof he knew about the break-in ahead of time, and that this was Congress running amok. They would have pointed out that Archie Cox and his successors were Democratic hacks, and demanded a "nonpartisan" counsel to investigate the affair. There would have been no Howard Baker or Barry Goldwater, telling Nixon it was time to give up.
The country should be thankful that the Republicans of 1974 put the country ahead of their party. I wonder if today's Democrats are capable of the same. Hillary is giving them a chance to show their mettle--support her like the slathering David Brock/Lanny Davis hacks, or publicly denounce her and ask whether there is anyone else they can run in 2016.
"Jane Fonda was pretty egregious."
I doubt very much if anyone, least of all Fonda herself, considered her a "Democrat" at the time she traveled to North Vietnam. Rather, she was considered (and surely considered herself) a "radical" in opposition to the war, scornful of both parties' complicity in the war.
"Jim McDermott travelled to Saddam's Iraq just before our invasion to lend him diplomatic cover."
What does that mean?
Also, our invasion of Iraq was needless, based on lies, and illegal, so, despite the legitimate condemnations of Saddam there are to be made, we were the offenders there and he the offended against.
"And while Hugo Chavez may not have technically been our 'enemy,' a number of American leftists supported him while he was funding terrorists we were fighting in Colombia during the last decade."
"A number of American leftists" does not describe any Washington Democrats does it?
"The country should be thankful that the Republicans of 1974 put the country ahead of their party. I wonder if today's Democrats are capable of the same."
I don't wonder; they don't.
"Also, our invasion of Iraq was needless, based on lies, and illegal, so, despite the legitimate condemnations of Saddam there are to be made, we were the offenders there and he the offended against."
Regardless of the wisdom of the war, supporting our enemy in that war is inexcusable. Vietnam was a bad idea too, but any American supporting the Viet Cong is a traitor.
""A number of American leftists" does not describe any Washington Democrats does it?"
Are we only talking elected officials, then? Because Sean Penn, Danny Glover and the rest have been prominent supporters of the Democrats. If we're talking only elected officials then there are far fewer examples.
sorry, but believing anything Hillary Clinton says is simply not something anyone should be prepared to do.
"Regardless of the wisdom of the war, supporting our enemy in that war is inexcusable."
How did Jim McDermott "support" Saddam?
Oh, and it's not a matter of whether our invasion of Iraq was "wise," or not; it certainly wasn't. More seriously, it was a premeditated and prolonged act of mass murder mounted on false pretenses, a war crime of the highest order.
"Are we only talking elected officials, then?"
They're all that really count, yes?
I doubt you'll ever find a Democrat extolling Obama's virtues after he has left office.
They give noted failure Carter seats of honor at the DNC to this day.
They will praise Obama until the day he dies.
Elaborate, please.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
As far as Vietnam, we promised to give S. Vietnam aid and to assist if N. Vietnam violated the Accords.
We stopped giving them aid and sat back and did nothing as N Vietnam conquered the country.
Also, our invasion of Iraq was needless, based on lies, and illegal, so, despite the legitimate condemnations of Saddam there are to be made, we were the offenders there and he the offended against.
No lies involved and it was quite legal. 0-2 there.
"As far as Vietnam, we promised to give S. Vietnam aid and to assist if N. Vietnam violated the Accords.
"We stopped giving them aid and sat back and did nothing as N Vietnam conquered the country."
That's a failure of our government as a whole to keep its promises after leaving a country we had devastated; that's hardly an example of Democrats giving "aid and comfort to the enemy."
"No lies involved and it was quite legal. 0-2 there."
Wrong, twice.
Thus a conservative is less likely to "worship" a political figure
Hahahaha. Good one.
That revelation about Kennedy is pret-tay, pret-tay damning, I must say.
Brando, another thing that might have happened differently in 1974, some wealthy foreigner with a criminal past would fund a group advocating the singular message that we just "move on."
That's a failure of our government as a whole to keep its promises after leaving a country we had devastated; that's hardly an example of Democrats giving "aid and comfort to the enemy."
Who do you think cut the aid and refused to offer assistance?
Hint: Not the Republicans. Ford was begging the Dems to do what we said we'd do for years and they refused.
Wrong, twice.
Bad intel caused by a madman bluffing people isn't "lying". It's going with the best info we had at the time.
It's not like Bush was the first President to state Saddam had WMD. Clinton made the same comments.
And we did find WMD in Iraq as well.
Then:
Everybody lies about sex (but wouldn't lie about corruption, graft, treason, rape, or murder.)
Now:
Everybody deletes email (but wouldn't destroy politically and criminally damaging communications.)
Indeed we did find, or at least get, iof find is the wrong word, WMDs in Iraq - but it was kept mostly secret.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0
The problem with permanently destroying evidence is that blackmail and any other kinds of profitable leverage arising from being able to prove complicity and collusion on the part of others become impossible.
Thus, only very rarely does evidence ever get completely destroyed among evil doers. It's almost as if some self-destructive narcissism compels little monsters to hold onto some level of proof of what they and others have done.
There are all kinds of things to notice on Hillary's press conference.
Like the fact that Hillary Clinton really did fool the Obama Administration.
The evidence was almost buried in her press conference where she she said something that was probably ture as to the substance and false as to the reason.
http://time.com/3739541/transcript-hillary-clinton-email-press-conference/#3739541/transcript-hillary-clinton-email-press-conference
Secondly, under the Federal Records Act, records are defined as reported information, regardless of its form or characteristics, and in meeting the record keeping obligations, it was my practice to email government officials on their state or other .gov accounts so that the emails were immediately captured and preserved.
Now, there are different rules governing the White House than there are governing the rest of the executive branch, and in order to address the requirements I was under, I did exactly what I have said. I emailed two people, and I not only knew, I expected that then to be captured in the State Department or any other government agency that I was emailing to at a .gov account.
In other words, her claim is that while the Federal Records Act requires that a copy be preserved of all work e-mail, that copy could be in the other person's e-mail records!!
Also, she copied over e-mail sent to the White House from hdr22@clintonemail.com to a state.gov address as she was supposed to do with ALL work email sent from clintonemail.com after about October, 2009.
But she only did that with email sent to the White House.
She was deceiving them. Whoever was getting that e-mail at the White House.
so if she sent 30,000+ WORK emails over 4 years and 31,000+ personal emails, how much work was she actually doing?
Hell, if she was trying to not hide stuff...why use an email address with her maiden name initials?
I'm late to the party here, but did anyone notice (As pointed out on Powerlineblog) her eyes?
That was very, very strange.
Watch just her opening statement. Her eyes never look at the people in front of her. For a few minutes, they go to the page in front of her, and then up and to the right, up and to the left, or up above the heads of those before her.
I didn't notice when I first watched it, but wow, after it was pointed out, it's seriously odd looking.
That's a failure of our government as a whole to keep its promises after leaving a country we had devastated; that's hardly an example of Democrats giving "aid and comfort to the enemy."
Don't know how old you are, but I distinctly remember President Ford begging Congress for the money to pay for the aid to S. Vietnam that we had promised. He almost seemed in tears, as the country fell, our embassy was overrun, etc., and we reneged on the agreement that might have kept hundreds of thousands, or more, alive, if we had just sent the aid that we had promised. But, the Dems controlled both Houses of Congress, and weren't going to give him a penny.
So, again, Dems are forcing us to cut and run, after winning a war - this time with Obama's likely intentional failure to come to a status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi govt. The JV, ISIS, now fielding many of the heavier arms that we left for the Iraqi military. At least we may have a chance for a partial do-over there, while we didn't in Vietnam.
Hillary is old and doesn't understand this internet stuff, these email questions. Listen, you dumb old woman, go to settings on your iphone and click on emails and add as many email accounts as you would like.
You don't need to carry two "devices" in your purse you old bag.
Maybe providing a bit more detail about the difference between classified and sensitive information made by Big Mike, et al., is this article by Andrew McCarthy at NRO: Hillary’s Specious Arguments about Her E-mail.
I see that John Althouse Cohen has inherited the affliction of flying off on wild, speculative tangents based on his own misreading of a rather straightforward quote.
Please enlighten me as to how I misconstrued what she said and how I should have construed it.
Since it has been HOURS since I tried to post two innocuous comments here at Outhouse and they have not been approved by Her Highness, the only conclusion I can make is that Ann and Hill similarly believe themselves superior to the rest of us, because their whiffs are redolent of stinking self-importance and hypocrisy while ours of honest sweat.
Since it has been HOURS since I posted two innocuous comments here at Outhouse and they have not been approved by Her Highness, the only conclusion I can make is that Ann, like Hill, believes herself superior to the rest of us; that she and Hill prefer that their whiffs be more redolent of stinking self-importance and hypocrisy than of honest sweat.
There is no civil and free expression at Outhouse. One must belong to her coven of approved acolytes, both right and left, in order to be given the floor on a thread here.
Robert Cook: "That revelation about Kennedy is pret-tay, pret-tay damning, I must say"
That is pret-tay rich coming from a hilariously moronic "October Surprise" conspiratorialist such as yourself!
LOL
Of course, being exposed in service with the Soviets to undermine a sitting conservative US President is "no vice" in Robert Cook's Book.
I like that last bit.
The one question the press should be asking to everyone they question about this, "Are you using a private email account? Is anyone in the government that you've Emailed using a private email account?"
The first question to ask was this: has anyone emailed you concerning your foundation, and if yes, have you shared any and all of such emails with the state department?
This is all too boring; been there done that....
paminwi @9:01 am said..."Dems don't care and she will get away with this because no one in Congress has the authority to subpoena a private server."
Paul Mirrengoff at Powerline says that, although Gowdy has said his committee doesn't have the authority to issue a subpoena for the server, the House of Representatives as a whole should give it a try:
Can Hillary’s server be obtained via a congressional subpoena? According to Gowdy, whether the House of Representatives as a whole can subpoena the server is “an open constitutional question.”
The question is one that I think Congress should put to the test, especially if the production of emails made available to Gowdy’s committee fails to fill in the gaps that Gowdy says exist during the time period relevant to his investigation.
To the extent that there’s an open constitutional question, the facts here seem favorable to a claim that Congress has the power to subpoena the server. It may be personal property, but the deleted emails are property that rightfully belonged to the government. And the deleted emails are the property Congress would really be seeking. The server is simply the means through which Clinton evaded her obligation to preserve documents.
If Congress subpoenas the server, the result will be a long court battle. But that’s okay. Let Clinton campaign for the presidency while fighting to keep tens of thousands of emails out of the public domain.
More here.
Robert Cook said...
Damikesc:
You're talking about a time long, long ago and very far away. Can you imagine any Republicans doing that today?
3/11/15, 1:57 PM
2005- Tom DeLay "In 2005, DeLay was indicted in Austin on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate election law in 2002 by a Travis County grand jury after having waived his rights under the statutes of limitations. In accordance with Republican Caucus rules, DeLay temporarily resigned from his position as House Majority Leader, and later, after pressure from fellow Republicans, announced that he would not seek to return to the position."
Did you read that Robert Cook? Especially the part where it says "in accordance with Republican Caucus rules" and "after pressure from fellow republicans"? In other words, the republican party has bylaws and principles which they abide by, The democrat party has no such rules or principles. After all that, it turned out DeLay was the victim of democrat party chicanery and conspiracy: "The trial court's judgment was overturned by the Texas Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court, on September 19, 2013, with a ruling that "the evidence in the case was 'legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions'", and DeLay was formally acquitted.[1] The State of Texas appealed the acquittal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which heard oral arguments on June 18, 2014.[2][3] On October 1, 2014, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the appellate court decision overturning DeLay's conviction, concluding in an 8-1 ruling that the state failed to prove that the corporate contributions at issue violated the Texas Election Code.[4]"
Now contrast the republican response to DeLay's trumped up charges to the democrat party's response one year later when representative William Jefferson was caught in an FBI sting. You may remember the first act of the Nancy Pelosi democrat party "Most Ethical Congress Ever" as holding a press conference to denounce the FBI for investigating a sitting congressman, and announcing that they would subvert the investigation and defend their democrat party colleague. Now, contrast the appellate court decision with that of the DeLay case:
"Suspecting Jefferson of bribery, the FBI raided his Congressional offices in May 2006, but he was re-elected later that year. On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted Jefferson on sixteen felony charges related to corruption.[24] Jefferson was defeated by Republican Joseph Cao on December 6, 2008,[22] being the most senior Democrat to lose re-election that year.[25] In 2009, he was tried in Virginia on corruption charges.[26] On August 5, 2009, he was found guilty of eleven of the sixteen corruption counts.[27] Jefferson's lawyers have promised to appeal, a gesture which New Orleans former U.S. attorney Harry Rosenberg told the Times-Picayune may work in Jefferson's favor because the jury failed to convict him on all sixteen of the indictment counts.[28] Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years on November 13, 2009, the longest sentence yet handed down to a congressman for bribery or any other crime.
On March 26, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Jefferson's conviction and sentence on ten of the eleven counts on which he was convicted.[29] The Court of Appeals vacated and remanded the conviction on one count of the indictment, involving alleged wire fraud, holding that venue on that count was improper in the federal court in Virginia.[29]"
Most ethical congress ever! Most transparent administration ever! LOL! Fucking democrat party members, utterly shameless and thoroughly corrupt. There is simply no comparison between the principled and responsible republican party and the morally bankrupt and corrupt criminal enterprise that is the democrat party.
"Bad intel caused by a madman bluffing people isn't "lying". It's going with the best info we had at the time."
It wasn't "bad intel," it was intel fabricated and slanted by the administration; people in the intelligence community at the time and later have said they were not seeing information that would indicate what the administration was asserting; their primary source for much of their claims, "Curveball," was known to be an unreliable liar. The administration wanted to invade Iraq, so they made sure to mold any stray inference or uncertainty to suit their case. They also claimed their evidence was "bullet-proof," "not conjecture," but solid, unimpeachable info. All lies.
It's not like Bush was the first President to state Saddam had WMD. Clinton made the same comments."
It's not like Bush was the first President to lie about Saddam's WMD. Clinton (and others, including Dems), promulgated the same lies.
"And we did find WMD in Iraq as well."
We did NOT find the vast stocks of new WMD Bush asserted Saddam was producing; we found stray remnants, buried here and there and forgotten, that were left from the much larger stocks of WMD Saddam had had destroyed back in the 90s. What we found was not usable and was not what we were told he had.
"Vast stocks of new WMD" is the final fallback lie of the left as "wast stocks of new WMD" was never an explicit or implicit argument made.
But then again, what else would one expect from our resident stalinist cookie?
It wasn't "bad intel," it was intel fabricated and slanted by the administration
...and prior admins.
...and other countries.
...for years on end.
Fabrication seems unlikely.
people in the intelligence community at the time and later have said they were not seeing information that would indicate what the administration was asserting; their primary source for much of their claims, "Curveball," was known to be an unreliable liar. The administration wanted to invade Iraq, so they made sure to mold any stray inference or uncertainty to suit their case. They also claimed their evidence was "bullet-proof," "not conjecture," but solid, unimpeachable info. All lies.
...except that the evidence didn't originate from Bush. Clinton and the Dems had IDENTICAL intel for years about it.
As did basically every intel service on Earth.
It's not like Bush was the first President to lie about Saddam's WMD. Clinton (and others, including Dems), promulgated the same lies.
So Clinton was ALSO gung-ho to invade Iraq for no reason?
...or was there simply bad intel caused by Saddam's attempt to bluff?
We did NOT find the vast stocks of new WMD Bush asserted Saddam was producing
Found plenty of old WMD he never declared and the concern was that he could easily reconstitute the WMD program.
And before you say "It would never happen", Obama is prepared to sign off on IRAN getting nukes.
So, yeah, it would've happened.
we found stray remnants, buried here and there and forgotten, that were left from the much larger stocks of WMD Saddam had had destroyed back in the 90s. What we found was not usable and was not what we were told he had.
Saddam was required to provide evidence of destruction of his WMD. He did not do so.
He violated the ceasefire. Repeatedly. Like it or not, Bush had plenty of justification to attack. The last trip to the UN was hardly necessary and shouldn't have been done as going to that collection of criminals for approval is a dumb idea for anybody.
"Please enlighten me as to how I misconstrued what she said and how I should have construed it."
Let's be clear...I did not say you misconstrued anything Hillary said, I said you misread her (unintentionally or intentionally). "Misconstrue" would imply, I think, an element of intent on your part which I did not assume, and which "misread" does not imply.
Now that we have established that you misread me, is it really necessary to spend much time wondering whether you have misread Hillary?
Anyway, what the heck do we do with this...
"When she decided which emails to turn over, a long time had passed since she had sent them. She's had the time to reconsider things she said before..."
What did Hillary say that suggested that "a long time had passed" before she deleted any e-mails, or that anything was "reconsidered?"
Do Hillary's words contain any logical basis for your flight of fancy? Or, did you misread her?
"'Vast stocks of new WMD' is the final fallback lie of the left as 'wast stocks of new WMD' was never an explicit or implicit argument made."
Sure it was. That was the whole point, that Saddam was producing WMD, and that he was "close" to having a bomb, that "aluminum tubes" in his possession could be used for nothing else but delivering nuclear bombs. There was never any claim or suggestion that Iraq should be invaded merely because there were unaccounted for remnants of old weapons.
The Bush administration worked to convince the American people that Saddam was bristling with weapons with which he was about to harm us, either directly through direct missle launches against us or indirectly through his (insinuated) ties with Al Qaeda.
The whole thing was a lie, and without UN Security Council approval, the invasion was illegal, a war crime.
What did Hillary say that suggested that "a long time had passed" before she deleted any e-mails, or that anything was "reconsidered?"
It was several months and, you know, since NOBODY but her had any oversight, she has zero proof that what she is saying is true.
That's why the Feds do NOT allow you to do ALL of your government work on a server and email domain you own.
...even if it's more "convenient" to set up your own server and email domain than to carry 2 phones...
The whole thing was a lie, and without UN Security Council approval, the invasion was illegal, a war crime.
The Security Council, honesty, is meaningless.
Saddam violated the 1991 ceasefire. Repeatedly.
When you violate a ceasefire, ANY signatory is allowed to assume conflict is still active.
That's why a treaty and a ceasefire aren't identical.
Do Hillary's words contain any logical basis for your flight of fancy? Or, did you misread her?
Can you name a person you'd trust to have sole discretion over what emails you see? Who has sole discretion over what is and what is not "personal"?
Who had their most trusted aides ALSO working on their personal server as well?
Why PRINT out emails instead of just forwarding them except to make oversight markedly more difficult?
"Vast stocks of new WMD" was NOT the argument at all.
The argument was (they assumed, based on what Saddam Hussein's twp sons-in-laws had said before Saddam persuaded them to come back and then killed them) that Saddam Hussein had X amount of chemical weapons at the time of the 1991 war.
And he hadn't openly destroyed them.
So they must still be there. It isn't marmalade.
It gets worse, because he misled generals in his army, many of whom thought some other unit had them.
Having Bush and Rumsfeld believe that he had stockpiles of chemical weapons ready to use was a key part of Saddam Hussein's strategy for preventing a U.S. led invasion.
That meant that U.S. soldiers had to be equipped with chemical warfare gear, and that, in turn, meant that Bush could not start the war after the beginning of April or so because it would be too hot to wear these chemical weapons protection suits.
For diplomatic and political reasons, Bush was prepared to wait until the last possible moment for Saddam Hussein to allow inspections, including questioning of scientists etc.
Part of the war plan was to invade from Turkey.
My feeling is, that some members of the Turkish Parliament were in Saddam Hussein's pocket.
At the last moment, Turkey withdrew its support for letting U.S> troops invade from Turkey, too late to come up with another war plan before it started to get hot.
Voila! Saddam Hussein prevented the invasion!!
Except that he didn't because President Bush the Younger went ahead without Turkey.
It turned out Turkish participation wasn't really needed and was there more for political than military reasons.
Saddam Hussein had assumed that possession of WMDs was not George W. Bush's real or main reason for wanting to invade Iraq, but it was, he thought because he was a cruel dictator, and maybe that he had tried to kill his father after Gulf War I, or because this was unfinished business from 1991 leaving him in power there was a stain on his family's honor or something.
Robert Cook: "Sure it was"
No, it wasn't.
But not to worry.
I'm sure you can conjure up an SR-71 with HWBush at the stick for any "vast and new" conspiracies you might be peddling today.
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