I don't really understand what explanation is possible. She's already said it was a mistake. What we can see now is that she had to know she was doing something that threatened national security and yet she continued to do it. What explanation could make the facts appear any better? I can only think of explanations that would make it worse. So I assume we'll never hear more from her about this.
Does that mean the USA Today editors are saying Hillary doesn't deserve to be President? No. Look how they worded it — in terms of whether voters will accept her.
I got to that editorial via Instapundit, who quotes, "Clinton broke the rules" and says: "If by breaking the rules you mean committed a felony, then yes."
But the USA Today editors clearly refrain from opining about criminal law, presumably because the FBI is still working on that:
While Clinton is under potential criminal investigation by the FBI for the mishandling of classified material sent through her email.... It's already clear that, in using the private email server, Clinton broke the rules. Now it remains to be seen whether she also broke the law.How can you be under a potential criminal investigation? That's an odd way to put it. Also, it's odd to make the distinction between breaking the rules and breaking the law. I'd like to ask Clinton to explain exactly what that means and whether, as President, she plans to insure that we all get the advantage of the rules/law distinction.
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108 comments:
It was not a mistake. It was intentional. I will explain.
Hillary had to have her own private server so she could run her bribery scheme with Bill and the Clinton Foundation. Simple.
Making money for Hillary was way more important than national security.
Lotta language contortions on the part of the liberal MSM to excuse the liberal harridan, n'est pas?
Obviously it's too much to admit what they and we know. Hillary is corrupt, devious, and incompetent in all areas.
I think *everyone* knows why Clinton made the reckless decision: She didn't want anyone to see evidence of her craven begging for quid pro quo money from foreign governments.
Oh come on.
We all know that the only question here is whether the law applies to someone as powerful as H Clinton.
And the answer to that tells you the nature of the regime ruling over you.
It's less than a half-million felonies. A trifle really.
There is something morally lazy about Hillary, starting when she hooked up with Bill.
Why the Gore tag?
An explanation is possible, but the only explanation I could think of would disqualify her from the presidency. That explanation is "I wanted to keep hidden certain e-mails that were sent and received as part of by business of Secretary of State, and I had to keep them hidden because I was conducting inappropriate (and possibly illegal) business from that post."
Could there be any other reason? If so, Hillary would have advanced it by now.
If she had any shame, she would have dropped out of the race. But the Clintons have no shame, and it now falls onto the Democrats to toss her out.
You should be listening to The Diane Rehm Show currently in progress. People sneer at college students for their delusional cognitive dissonance, but they're amateurs compared to the landscapes full of national institutions so psychologically invested in Hillary Clinton that they have no options remaining but to continue to lick her gently.
"That's an odd way to put it. Also, it's odd to make the distinction between breaking the rules and breaking the law." Faux oddity alert, right? Prog "journalists" shill for Hill: odd! But they do reflect Prog reality: Prog politicos can break rules all they want and not "break the law," provided they are needed to pursue Prog power. As long as Hill has a shot at the presidency, she can't be touched. The moment the tide turns, she's toast, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphors. Whether she "broke the law" is O's call. Nothing "odd" about it.
The most important thing isnt why Clinton did this or that, or even whether she is competent to be entrusted with an official position. Much more critical is whether the system as a whole is so currupted that she will get away with it.
If so, all the law professoring is entirely beside the point. You havent really got law, or process then. You just have arbitrary power. I have understood for a while that this is the case.
And imagine if Hillary actually was President. She would set up her own server again but this time she would do it right. She would also bug the Oval and all the phones. Big Data.
"Why the Gore tag?"
I had something about "no controlling legal authority," but then I took it out. Forgot to take out the tag.
Gore? I thought it had to do with this occurring on the Internet.
I assume the distinction (which I am seeing a lot on this issue) between "rules" and "laws" is: "Rules" are the internal guidelines of the State Department. "Laws" are passed by Congress. She definitely broke "rules".
The problem with the distinction is that any organization that is subject to a law creates guidelines for its employees. No one expects everyone at the hospital where I work to read or understand the full text of the HIPAA law that protects patient privacy. Instead, the hospital sets out (fairly) brief guidelines for its employees that will ensure that we don't break HIPAA. If we break the guidelines, we could be fired. However, we are probably also breaking HIPAA, as that's what the guidelines protect.
But the USA Today editors clearly refrain from opining about criminal law, presumably because the FBI is still working on that:
Really? I presumed that it was because they were in the tank for Hillary like the rest of the MSM.
Her explanation could be very simple, if possibly destructive to her efforts to become president:
I used a private server to avoid the possibility of oversight. And by oversight, I mean endless "witch hunts" by the vast right wing conspiracy. I wanted to avoid that distraction and it never occurred to little old me, that there might be security implications.
I doubt she would lose a single vote from the fairly large fraction of Democrats who still think HRC is honest.
"criminal law, presumably because the FBI is still working on that"
I remain fascinated by how many supposedly reliable sources have some kind of statement like, "Despite the IG report, it is _very unlikely_ that Clinton has broken any laws or could be indicted, as the FBI investigation has not yet been completed."
Makes absolutely no sense.
Much more critical is whether the system as a whole is so currupted that she will get away with it.
Exactly. This goes way beyond using a private email account occasionally which one of her shills was throwing out on the Sunday shows trying to accuse her behavior, that other Secretary's Of State had done the same thing.
No. They. Did. Not.
She had a personal email server set up. One that she had physical control of.
That takes some effort, even a half-assed setup like she had.
If she just wanted a personal email account she could have used any number of services, they would even have been glad to provide her a personal email domain. In addition they would have backed up her messages and, oh wait, there's the problem.
The very existence of the private server is proof that something nefarious was going on. Only the self-deluded can believe otherwise.
The rules regarding secure communications derive from the law. Break a rule and you've broken a law, maybe two, depending on why you broke the rule. Here's an example:
Last Friday Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier entered a plea of guilty to a charge of mishandling classified information. He used his cellphone to take a picture of a compartment aboard USS Alexandria, a Los Angles class attack submarine. He photographed the compartment, part of his routine duty assignment, in defiance of rules regarding nation security. According to his own testimony Saucier made the pictures for his family, and the inclusion of classified equipment in the background was accidental. However, he did try to evade arrest by destroying his laptop and an SD card when he learned he was under investigation. Saucer faces 30 years in prison just for mishandling classified information. He apparently had no intention of espionage.
What Clinton has apparently done was potentially more damaging to national security than Saucier's selfies. If this is a government of laws and not of men how can Hillary evade indictment?
An honest explanation of her need for a private server would expose the pay-for-play selling of official actions for donations to Clinton Foundation (as evidenced by Huma being paid by both the State Dept. and the Clinton Foundation). So, of course Hillary will never explain why she broke the "rules." Her defense now has shrunk to "Colin Powell did it too."
Those same rules prohibit a violator from ever holding public office. I wonder if that could affect her Presidential bid.
I see a parallel here to the Jennifer Lawrence phone hack. Jennifer's boobs lost a lot of their market value after that phone hack. Movie companies would have paid top dollar for a topless scene involving Jennifer, but after the hack not so much. A topless scene with Jennifer is now much less compelling and doesn't guarantee boffo box office........Thus so with the state secrets on the Clinton server. Chinese businessmen would have paid top dollar to Hillary to learn what she knows of state department deliberations. Instead, for a fraction of the cost, they got that same information for practically nothing from a cut rate Romanian hacker. If there's any victim here, it's Hillary. I would hope that some here take into account the sacrifices that Hillary has made for her country.
Also, it's odd to make the distinction between breaking the rules and breaking the law.
It's the rule of law vs. the law of rules.
buwaya puti said...
Much more critical is whether the system as a whole is so currupted that she will get away with it.
I'll bet you one thousand fifty quatloos that she won't be packing the rabbit.
"It was a mistake" is not an explanation.
I don't really understand what explanation is possible. She's already said it was a mistake.
This is the SECOND time she did it. She did it as FLOTUS as well. This isn't a "mistake". This is a pattern of behavior.
She owes an explanation but she is incapable of giving one as she is basically incapable of being honest.
Note: She didn't make these distinctions with Richard Nixon. Whose transgressions were far less egregious.
I assume the distinction (which I am seeing a lot on this issue) between "rules" and "laws" is: "Rules" are the internal guidelines of the State Department. "Laws" are passed by Congress. She definitely broke "rules".
The problem with the distinction is that any organization that is subject to a law creates guidelines for its employees.
That's one of her many attempts at lying, The "rules" she broke were done to enforce the "law" she ALSO broke. Just as her claim that it was authorized --- because SHE authorized herself to do it and nobody told her no. Or that the information was not marked "classified" because classification is a process, not a designation.
And this is, sadly, common. How many IRS hard drives and the like went "bad" all of a sudden?
But it needs repeating: SHE. DID. THIS. EXACT. SAME. THING. BEFORE. Emails went "missing" due to "glitches" in 1998 and 1999.
robother said...
An honest explanation of her need for a private server would expose the pay-for-play selling of official actions for donations to Clinton Foundation (as evidenced by Huma being paid by both the State Dept. and the Clinton Foundation). So, of course Hillary will never explain why she broke the "rules." Her defense now has shrunk to "Colin Powell did it too.
I'm glad everyone can see this. Well, of course, except for the MSM. They don't dare bring up the possibility. Heck, the MSM was shocked by the IG report. Imagine the MSM reaction when the FBI refers charges to the DOJ: "Wow, she broke the law in addition to breaking the rules. Never saw that coming."
Either she broke the laws or she didn't. If she did, then it's irrelevant what her motives were and what her desires for the job are. She would simply be unfit and ineligible to be president. Even if elected, if the evidence is clear and so far it appears that way, then the DoJ will have to act eventually as the department can't be under such an obvious cloud if it is to survive leaving her with two choices: resignation or impeachment and removal ( I assume she will be given those choices to avoid a trial). Others here have cited the relevant federal statute regarding federal records that destroying, mutilating,etc that encompass what Clinton is said to have done will result in a fine and prison sentence of up to three years per count and stripping one from the right to hold federal office for life. A conviction even with no jail time bars her from ever holding office so she couldn't serve. She really needs to go away and let someone legally qualified be the Democrat nominee.
She can't stop lying and it's not just a matter of admitting she made a mistake. If she tells the truth she'll be admitting to :
1. Multiple violations of the Federal Records Act along with conspiracy.
2. Multiple violations of the Espionage Act along with conspiracy
3. Muitiple violations of the Freedom of Information Act along with conspiracy
4. Multiple violations of Obstructions of Congress along with conspiracy.
5. Extortion and Embezzlement in conjunction with the Clinton Foundation along with conspiracy
6. Public corruption and denial of honest services.
Lastly, it will expose the Clinton foundations as sham charities, they and their contributors will be hit with massive tax bills and the foundation will close opening up Bill, Hillary and Chelsea along with many of their friends who were employed there with massive lawsuits and potential criminal charges.
The stakes are pretty big and she's all in. It seems it's the presidency or prison.
She did the same thing when Clinton was in the White House. This is a repeatable pattern for her and her husband. It's not an oversight.
http://nypost.com/2016/05/29/hillary-has-been-burying-emails-since-she-was-first-lady/
She is simply covering her tracks by shredding the documents as it were. We should not keep letting her get away with it.
An honest explanation of her need for a private server would expose the pay-for-play selling of official actions for donations to Clinton Foundation (as evidenced by Huma being paid by both the State Dept. and the Clinton Foundation). So, of course Hillary will never explain why she broke the "rules." Her defense now has shrunk to "Colin Powell did it too."
Which is also brutally dishonest. She's INTENTIONALLY "confusing" private email SERVICE with running a private email SERVER.
GMail is a private service. But your emails can still be accessed via subpoena. She went WAY above that and got a server --- and hired an IT guy with no knowledge on security and the like.
Well if Hecate, sorry, Hillary, does get arrested she can always plead Boomer. If it isn't a legal defense now it will be soon.
Of course, its not just Hillary. The IRS head failed to show up at his own impeachment hearing the other day. And Lois Lerner certainly doesn't seem to be sweating out any indictments. And what about Fast and Furious, anyone in trouble over that? What's the status of Civil Forfeiture reform? Those liberal AGs that tried to use lawfare to intimidate Climate Change skeptics, think they will ever see any adverse effects to their careers? And what about those John Doe investigations in Wisconsin meant to humiliate and intimidate people exercising their political rights of free speech and petitioning the government, think anybody will be prosecuted for that? I could go on and on.
To anyone paying any attention it is apparent that the government has become a conspiracy against the electorate.
"Exactly. This goes way beyond using a private email account occasionally which one of her shills was throwing out on the Sunday shows trying to accuse her behavior, that other Secretary's Of State had done the same thing.
No. They. Did. Not."
That's the distinction an honest news media would draw--that it's pure bunk that this is anything close to what Powell et al did. There's a significant difference between sending and receiving State e-mails through a private account, and setting up an actual server to do ALL of your State e-mail through. Why is this significant? Because ad hoc e-mails through private accounts can be understood as a matter of convenience (you may be at a device or computer that does not give you access to your work account), even if technically against the rules. No one seriously is asking "what was Colin Powell trying to hide?"
But the private server took forethought, planning and effort--though not the effort to actually check with anyone at State or the White House to see if this was okay, because of course the Clintonites knew it was not okay--with the intention of NEVER sending any work e-mail through the State server. Completely different from what Powell et al did, and interpreting the IG report to say "see, Powell did it too!" is pure BS.
The most likely reason I can think of for all of this is that Hillary planned to use her State Dept. influence to help donors to her foundation and future campaign (which are hopelessly intertwined), and the only way to make sure nothing was sent or received on her State e-mail that could look bad was to take everything to the private server. If there's any other plausible reason, I'd be happy to hear it.
You're right to point out the curious way USA Today framed the problem of Hillary moving classified information from the care, custody and control of the government to a private server located in the bathroom of her residence without permission from the government.
Reckless? Well, yes but why stop there?
Isn't it awful that ordinary democrats are not bothered by her corruption? Isn't it terrible that democrats are not demanding the democrat party step in and tell Hillary to get out and nominate a candidate who is qualified to run? What is wrong with democrats? Have they no decency?
That's one of her many attempts at lying, The "rules" she broke were done to enforce the "law" she ALSO broke.
When I was in the army they had a "rule" that you couldn't take you M16 to the local pawnship and sell it. I'm guessing anybody who did so would have been charged with breaking a whole host of laws.
In re: HRC' s pattern of behavior; to quote Auric Goldfinger:
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
There can be no doubt that Clinton grossly violated the law, in a manner....as has been stated above...that would lead to a mere pleb like myself...to be charged and incarcerated in short order. I am required to abide by a catalog of regulations, foreign disclosure procedures and non-disclosure agreement, in order to keep both my clearance and my job. How can Clinton look the media or voters in the eye, and continue this charade of whitewashing....while asking to be placed in the highest office of our Republic.
She's truly sickening in her quest to be Caesar.
I note a lot of the "tut tutting" from Democrats seems to focus on Hillary being "reckless" or "stupid", following the line that this was just some goofy hijinks. But to think that, you have to gloss over why she would have done this in the first place. It's not as though on orientation day she filled out a form that said "Set up your own server or do your business on the State network Y/N". This was a deliberate act, carried out without once asking permission at State or the WH. And to date, no plausible explanation besides "pre-meditated influence peddling cover up". And I believe this because if there was any other explanation, Hillary's toadies would have announced it by now.
But making this seem like a silly goof (and confusing the public with talk of whether something was "classified" or "over-classified") just serves to cover the central troubling question. Sadly, Bernie never wanted to win enough to challenge her on it, and Republicans are using their usual shotgun approach (which helps with the confusion), when simply boiling this down to the central question makes it clear that this person should not be given power of any sort, ever again.
She did it so that the State dept. would not see it if any of her Clinton, Inc. "private business" correspondence accidentally got mixed in with her "work" correspondence, and she thought she could get away with it because she was Secretary of State and top banana at the Dept.
So, now you want to make her President?
Was it reckless? If she'd used an official server, the odds are good that her emails would have ended up on WikiLeaks.
The phrase "rule of law" must confuse them.
Bit you know..hil suggested this situation is an opportunity to examine protocol. Now it's an opportunity to examine creative language.
She's a giver..
The bright light illuminates the crooks who work in the dark Trump is exposing them one at a time in all fields. He has blown the Trump and no one can unblow it.
I lol'd at that "potential criminal investigation" too. How many formulations do you think they tried to make the connection to lawbreakering seem as tenuous as possible.
"Trump that bitch! Blow that Trump!"
peccadilloes.
"I don't really understand what explanation is possible."
It's OK because social justice.
And we suddenly care, after all these years, about USA Today's muddy editorials and Hillary Rodham's lawbreaking and lies because ... ???
If an actual legal proceeding occurs, Hill will plead insanity because she cannot determine the difference between right and wrong but she can give a long speech on the difference between right and left.
Brando: "...Sadly, Bernie never wanted to win enough to challenge her on it,…" This is a great mystery to me, and a greater one as the story unfolds. Maybe early on he didn't want to go there. It was a heavily defended bastion and he might have to align with unpleasant comrades-at-arms in Republican uniforms. So, easier to attack her on other fronts.
But now? With this stuff stinking the way it does? Will he move against her? Or hope that The Donald and others do the hard work?
Bernie strikes me as somehow disconnected from the real game. Not just the overall position of his "platform" on the spectrum of political acceptability, but the generality of his ranting and the quality of his policy prescriptions (about par for that late night session in sophomore year) suggest to me that he is trying to run for President the way he ran for Mayor of Burlington. Almost not serious, and certainly not really informed.
Pass the popcorn.
"Hillary had to have her own private server so she could run her bribery scheme with Bill and the Clinton Foundation."
That explanation at least passes Ockham's Razor. Unlike her prior explanation, that she had the server set up for "convenience."
Because, it's so much more convenient to have someone set up a private email server for you than just to open one (or a dozen) gmail accounts?
Laws do not apply to democrat nominees. Only rules do, and rules were made to be broken.
As others here have pointed out, and this has to be remembered whenever you hear the false equivalence of her predecessors doing the same thing. No they did not. They used private email accounts for personal email, and govt email facilities and accounts for work related emails. Hillary used her private, home based, insecure email server for both work related and personal emails. She apparently never even got a govt email account, which means that any classified information sent to her by email, whatsoever, regardless, was sent to her personal server. And, then she went around the world logging into it probably numerous times a day often using her insecure private smart phone. It would be interesting to calculate the number of foreign countries from which she accessed her personal server. My guess is that her million miles of travel probably means high two digits, or low three digits. This is far, far different from Gen Powell sending email to his staff that he would be late to work using his personal email account.
As many people note, the purpose of all this was to allow Hillary to conduct "pay-for-play selling of official actions for donations to Clinton Foundation / speech fees" without leaving an electronic record.
If I were Bernie's advisers, I would tell him to go ahead and launch an attack on Hillary by saying that he had assumed that the only issues in all this were the email security issue, but after reading the State Department report and other recent revelations, he now thinks the whole setup was designed to hide her corrupt dealings. This is not a General Petraeus case where someone recklessly violated the security rules. This is a massive influence peddling corruption case where the email servers were merely a necessary part of the infrastructure.
I really wish Bernie would cry havoc and let loose. . .
Part of the "convenience" argument revolves around her only using her own personal smart phone. The staff at the State Dept apparently tried to get her to use one of their phones. But that probably came with a State Dept email account, and not her own private email server, so was apparently rejected.
During the time that she was Sec of State, I was in a decently large regional law firm. We could use Blackberrys, because they were designed with decent security built in. The managing partner wanted to use his iPhone, until the IT person showed him how she could hack it from a couple feet away n a minute or two. A year or so later, she found us some encryption software that hardened up iPhones enough that we could safely use them. The Android OS was open enough that she wasn't sure if or when she could protect the firm and its clients on such a platform. All we had was client confidential information. She had sensitive, secret, top secret, and above information to protect, and apparently didn't bother to do what our IT person did for us, providing encrypted end-to-end communications, as well as encrypted data on our phones.
As Brando and others have said the question of "why" is to get her to put forward something more plausible than "for convenience." I've stressed from the beginning that the correct line of attack was at that ridiculous answer--everyone can understand it makes not sense to claim convenience was the reason someone undertook a much less convenient course of action (hiring an outside IT guy [who by the way was classified as a political advisor!]; buying, setting up, and maintaining your own server; etc). It's not "the emails" it's "the reason H. Clinton took many deliberate actions to get around the system...a system that's set up (by law!) to record and preserve government records.
Why did you take deliberate, inconvenient actions to avoid the system the law says government employees must use, Hillary Clinton? She hasn't answered that, and I'm not sure she can. The Media is JUST NOW asking it, which is ridiculous in its own sadly predictable way...but here we are.
But she said she is sorry. And what difference does it make now?
Maybe Hillary could reply to USA Today using the complementary pack of crayons that comes with each issue.
Just like another Midwestern Crime Moll, Ma Barker, Hillary wanted to set up her own gang, with its own communication system. Shakedowns on the private communication system---at least private from the federal records preservation obligation--could go on unabated, and Ma Clinton hoped, undiscovered and undiscoverable.
"This all seems like mansplaining"
I think the editorial hedges on the law breaking aspect because they don't want to be sued for libel if she is never charged with breaking the law. The same way they say "allegedly" about other criminals.
Bruce Hayden said... It would be interesting to calculate the number of foreign countries from which she accessed her personal server. My guess is that her million miles of travel probably means high two digits, or low three digits.
Dang, nice one, that's some good ju-jitsu Bruce, I wish I'd have thought of that!
"Mrs. Clinton you say voters should choose you because of your experience and say your experience is demonstrated by the many foreign countries you visited while Secretary of State. New revelations indicate all your email went through your personal, insecure email server. Did you access your email while abroad, and if so how can you assure the American people that the Secretary of State's confidential communications weren't at risk while you were in these many foreign nations?"
I went back to college in my mid-twenties to a private university with a well-regarded law school. Though I was an undergrad I tended to make a lot of friends with law students, who were closer in age to me, and I observed a pattern. First-year students were idealistic, intent on doing good and changing the world. By the third year most had become enraptured with their new-found abilities to game the system. They went from rule of law to rule of lawyers. Hillary really took this to heart and never changed.
You guys must not ever read Gawker, cause those girls ( And they're all girls. Every single person that writes or posts there, ceptin me of course) will set yet ass straight in a Brooklyn or Grenwich Village second that everybody does this. You all just hate her because she's got a barely used, dusty vagina. Haters.
But now? With this stuff stinking the way it does? Will he move against her? Or hope that The Donald and others do the hard work?
Bernie has no desire to win. If he somehow won, he'd drop out regardless. It is doing good work in keeping attention off this issue while the press is reporting on the "horse race" here.
This is far, far different from Gen Powell sending email to his staff that he would be late to work using his personal email account.
It'd be lovely if Colin spelled that out, but he's all Dem now. He isn't going to say anything. I'd speak out if somebody was slandering me, but he's OK with it, it seems.
During the time that she was Sec of State, I was in a decently large regional law firm. We could use Blackberrys, because they were designed with decent security built in.
Thing is, I'm fairly certain Hillary was forbidden from using a Blackberry at her government office (I can't think of many government offices with highly secret info that lets people walk around with them). She just refused to give it up.
Bernie can't attack Hillary on this. The entire power structure that appointed her, confirmed her and supported her was a Democrat power structure. He doesn't dare damage the brand at this point. If he attacks her strenuously, he is basically challenging the most political DOJ in history to do something, which, of course, they will go to great lengths to avoid.
The irony here is that Bernie isn't a Democrat, he's a socialist. He's merely piggybacking on the national party and must maintain a certain amount of good will in his relationship with it.
The other large issue here, sometimes mentioned, is that there are an awful lot of people in the administration and the agencies that must have been complicit in this security breach.
How many knowingly got and sent classified communications, to the Secretary of State, to a non-secure private account? It must be in the hundreds. The Sec State is an important office and is privy to all sorts of briefings and information from around the government.
The White House had to have been in the loop.
All this chat about servers and so on is important and I thank you all for informing me of so much. But can't we look for a moment at a basic question? A government record is a government asset. When you write an email in the course of work that the government hired you to do, you create an asset that is not yours. Government property.
When you fail to protect that asset, fail to account for it, fail to include it in the agreed repository of such assets (for security and for future curation and assistance to your successors) you are failing in your duty. When you do so deliberately you are destroying government property or stealing it.
How exactly is this justified, again?
Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous. Apparently Colin Powell did it too and his was even more egregious because he was using the AOL server, not even some unknown server somewhere.
"Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous.'
Apparently they do things like organize invasions of other countries, and talk about that before it happens, among others with whatever other foreigners will cooperate, and etc. I think such things should be secret.
Iran-Contra did violate the "spirit" of the Congressional law that was intended to protect South American Marxists from any US opposition. But it did not violate the law at all, because none of the money involved passed through the US Treasury. It didn't even violate any rule, really, because the law was specific in restricting funds only from the Treasury.
I don't recall the media caring about that distinction back in the day. As far as they were concerned, violating the INTENT of protecting South American Marxists was equivalent to breaking the law, enough to spur years of hearings and show trials.
So what was the INTENT of the laws regarding Hillary's email?
"Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous. Apparently Colin Powell did it too and his was even more egregious because he was using the AOL server, not even some unknown server somewhere."
It is true that government agencies sometimes "overclassify" out of an abundance of caution, and maybe Clintonites can get into the weeds on each classified e-mail she sent or received to argue that they should not have been classified.
But that misses the point, because high officials like Secretaries of State get and send classified or sensitive e-mails all the time, and for the system to work everyone involved must adhere to the classification requirements. Can you picture any of her underlings getting away with this? For good reason, they wouldn't. The agencies have these rules for good reason, and Clinton decided that her own reasons were more important.
And--getting to what the real root of this is--she has not provided what her "reasons" for her private server setup were. If you have a more plausible explanation than my theory that she was conducting shady private business via her position at State and wanted to cover it up, I'd be interested in hearing it.
"Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous. Apparently Colin Powell did it too and his was even more egregious because he was using the AOL server, not even some unknown server somewhere."
I'll also note that while "some" of what these secretaries do is inconsequential, surely you are not suggesting that the top State Department official had no reason to send or receive consequential, sensitive and classified information, ever?
And let's drop the Powell comparison. He never set up a private server and never used private e-mails when the State e-mail network was available. Everyone knows that's a false comparison and only the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz would think anyone is fooled by that.
@pm317 -- You need to read this:
Powell requested permission for his personal account at a time when the rules actually were fuzzy. Powell's private line was set up by the State Department IT personnel in his State Department office. State Department email rules were clarified in 2005 after Powell's tenure ended. Clinton's tenure started in 2009.
Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous.
That's it? That's what you have?
State spokesman said on July 1 that about two dozen emails in the first tranche released under the Freedom of Information Act contained classified information. But he said he did not know if the information would have been classified at the time.
Last Friday, the count increased as State released another tranche in which 37 emails had to be cleansed of classified material.
But Valerie Plame was the hugest fucking deal since time began!
Still, compared to her fuckups in Syria and Libya, this is small potatoes.
Blogger pm317 said...
Another explanation is that what these secretaries do is so inconsequential that the hype about national security is ludicrous. Apparently Colin Powell did it too and his was even more egregious because he was using the AOL server, not even some unknown server somewhere.
We shouldn't vote for Powell for President if this is true. Just as we shouldn't vote for Hillary.
Shows a severe lack of judgement. And Hillary was smarter than Powell. If she would have done it on AOL servers, we could have gotten all the records. But because she controlled the servers, she could wipe the back ups.
Regardless, I'm with you buddy. Anyone who did this we shouldn't vote for president. Is it a y wonder Powell endorsed Obama for president?
SteveR said...
"It was a mistake" is not an explanation.
Yeah, "'Shut up,' she explained" works much better.
"While Clinton is under potential criminal investigation by the FBI ...."
The FBI conducts "potential civil" (as opposed to "potential criminal") investigations? Who knew?
Is it possible that the Clinton-complicit mediaswine fail to notice how corrupt and/or stupid this spinning makes them look?
Hillary is the smartest politician ever, according to all her press, and a woman also, which makes her perfect. Therefore, she does not make mistakes.
She intentionally set up a private server, likely to keep her emails from FOIA requests and internal executive branch snooping.
That she set up a very non-secure server cannot be a mistake, because she is wonderful. Therefore, if foreign or domestic hackers snooped on her government conversations and stole classified material, she must have wanted that to happen.
I say she is doing all this purposefully and therefore should not be president, but I am neither the smartest politician ever, nor a woman, so anything I say can be dismissed. As she should be dismissed, for thinking she is so smart and a woman, too, and yet doing such stupid, stupid things.
"Laws" are passed by Congress. She definitely broke "rules".
To give you a sense of agency implementing instructions, here is a little of what DOJ says about record keeping at DOJ:
What are the Risks of Poor Management of Records?
- Increased difficulty or inability to complete your work and meet your responsibilities
- Difficulties in fulfilling FOIA or litigation requests
- Criminal or civil penalties, fines and/or imprisonment for:
-- The unlawful removal or destruction of federal records (18 U.S.C. 2071)
-- The unlawful disclosure of national security information (18 U.S.C. 793,794,& 798).
The State rules that she broke were written as implementing instructions for the Congressionally passed Federal Records Act. Argueably she committed 30,000 felonies under that law, one for each email that she kept out of the FOIA process. “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same.” Each count IIRC amounts to a fine and up to 3 years in jail. That's 90,000 years :)
Now the Title 18 USC 793 National Security stuff is what has gotten the most FBI press. Likely not all of the records there, say only 20k of them contain something SBU or higher, but the penalties for each count are 10 years. So there is 200,000 year of jeopardy there :)
I heard David Muir announce the IG's report on the evening newscast last week. the way that it was obfuscated to soften the blow was amazing to behold. First, Muir combined the news that the IG had found that Hillary had made a "mistake" with the "news" that "some" were asking whether Hillary was hitting back hard enough against Trump's attacks. These two should have been separate items, but they were woven by Muir into the same sentence as headlines that would now be detailed by ABC News. "The weave". A new tool. Next, the IG's report was "covered" not by asking someone such as an AG, conlaw expert or other person with whatever bias for or against to comment on the seriousness of the allegations, but by ASKING HILLARY WHETHER SHE HAD VIOLATED THE LAW. Stunning. That was it. No more coverage. Just trusting Hillary to say of course she had not broken the law. thanks ABC
Brando wrote: "If she had any shame, she would have dropped out of the race. But the Clintons have no shame, and it now falls onto the Democrats to toss her out."
Yes, we can always depend on the Democrats to set things morally and ethically right. Lol.
From McMegan:
Powell says he set up a private e-mail account, in addition to his internal account, because at the time, the State Department “email system in place only only permitted communication among Department staff. He therefore requested that information technology staff install the private line so that he could use his personal account to communicate with people outside the Department.” This is a quite plausible reason that, around the turn of the millennium, a secretary of state would have wanted to use his own account. Powell seems not to have done enough to ensure that those records were maintained, which is a problem (though it’s not clear that he was aware that he should have turned those e-mails over). However, as far as I can tell, the most plausible explanation of Clinton’s behavior is that she set up her e-mail server for the express purpose of keeping those e-mails from being archived as records (and subject to Freedom of Information Act requests), which is a great deal more problematic than setting up an inadequately archived e-mail system because there’s no other way to use an increasingly vital communications technology.
"Yes, we can always depend on the Democrats to set things morally and ethically right. Lol."
Heh--yeah I'm not holding my breath either. However, if they see her as a general election loser due to this, they may cut bait.
"Hillary is the smartest politician ever, according to all her press, and a woman also, which makes her perfect. Therefore, she does not make mistakes."
This is why the Clintonites are trying to push the idea that this was a "mistake" that had more to do with some arcane IT rules and overclassification that was below the pay grade for a genius mandarin like Clinton, who was busy doing great statecraft. Sort of like finding out that Werner von Braun forgot to change his car's oil filter because he was so busy building rockets.
A mistake is typing in an incorrect password. What she did was a premeditated and deliberate violation of half a dozen laws. So far.
"If Clinton wants to become the president of the United States, she needs to explain how she could make such a reckless decision."
Conservatives, who have been dead-on about the Clintons since the beginning (the media only caught up later), have the answer to this question: Hillary fears the FOIA. When she was running the state department, Hillary would rather that the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians had access to her US government communications than the American tax payers.
One day, perhaps the press will become interested in why Hillary, with just eight years in public office, was chosen by Obama to implement the foreign policy of the United States. I mean, we all know why -- it was a political consolation prize for the loss of the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination -- but I have never heard anyone in the MSM actually say so.
Do the math. If you have decision 1 x decision 2 x decision 3 x decision 4 x decision 5 (where each of the decisions admits of a 1-10 integral answer) you have 1/10,000 possibility of stupid versus deliberate.
What are we seeing here? Whoopsei! Really?
Laws are for little people. The Clintons are not little people, ergo they did not break the law.
Emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including a level meant to protect some of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence, according to a document obtained by NBC News.
In a letter to lawmakers, the intelligence community’s internal watchdog says some of Clinton’s emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters...
The declarations cover “several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET/SAP information.”
From the Huffington Post. "Look out Hillary, here comes a falling house! Make your deal for a pardon now!"
What explanation could make the facts appear any better?
"Because Trump, and uterus."
Interesting response to Hillary claiming that everyone does it over at Legal Insurrection: Previous State Dept IG: Hillary Clinton’s Predecessors Did Not Use Personal Email
If I'm reading the info on Powell correctly, it seems that all he would've had to do to cover himself when emailing from his AOL account would've been to have courtesy-copied his State account.
DavidD said...
If I'm reading the info on Powell correctly, it seems that all he would've had to do to cover himself when emailing from his AOL account would've been to have courtesy-copied his State account.
not as I read it. It implied that State had No email system interfaced to the internet at that time
"Used my Gmail account for work" is not the same as "I set up my own email server and hired IT staff to run it".
The media is being willfully stupid in trying to blur this distinction.
Crimestop "includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments..., and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."
I don't really understand what explanation is possible.
None. It's the just milquetoast left/right-wing MSM's way of saying that they still wish upon a star that she will find a way to present herself to the public as having any ethical principles whatsoever. In the meantime, it makes them feel like early Hitler supporters who just wanted all that other bad stuff to not be so!
Say it ain't so, Hillary! We've shilled and shilled and shilled and shilled for you and this is how you repay us! Damn!
Fucking idiots. Serves them right. This must never be lived down. Ever. They should forever be disgraced for their shillarying.
My understanding of what Gen. Powell did was to use his private account for personal stuff and his govt. account for work related stuff, when he was Sec. of State. Which is precisely the difference that the Clinton people are trying to obscure. He did say at one point that he would sometimes tell the people at work that he was going to be late via his private email account (and this may have been close to the line, given Gen. Petreaus getting into trouble by retaining and disclosing his calendar to an uncleared biographer - but nowhere near what Hillary did, using her private server for ALL of her work email).
Tim in Vermont.
As I recall it, the NYT, CNN and MSNBC constantly yammered about Plame. And then the shameful case convicting Scooter Libby where Richard Armitage stayed silent and hung Lbby out to dry.
This Clinton email criminal case has received ten percent of the Plame coverage.
MSM and the voters are one thing.
Much worse within the agencies, FBI and DOD is the example.
This is terrible for discipline, especially if she's the boss.
Most compliance with security rules is up to the individual, most cant really be monitored.
Dana Milbank 'shillarying'":
The report’s revelations weren’t particularly revelatory: Clinton violated department policies and went further than predecessors in her use of private email, but she wasn’t the first to take this path. Beyond that, as my colleagues Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger reported, officials say the FBI has “found little evidence that Clinton maliciously flouted classification rules.”
"[A]s my colleagues Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger reported, officials say the FBI has “found little evidence that Clinton maliciously flouted classification rules.”" Milbank's colleagues say that unnamed officials say unnamed FBI sources say . . .
Now that is some solid sourcing! That is three layers of hearsay.
After that, the column gets more unhinged.
Milbank approvingly quotes himself from an earlier column:
Fifteen months ago, when the email scandal broke, I viewed her use of a private server as an extension of the “same flaws that have caused Clinton trouble in the past — terminal caution and its cousin, obsessive secrecy. In trying so hard to avoid mistakes — in this case, trying to make sure an embarrassing e-mail or two didn’t become public — Clinton made a whopper of an error.”
An "embarrassing email or two."
She resisted releasing records on the Whitewater land deal (causing the scandal to drag on, leading to the independent-counsel investigation that exposed the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal) and about her 1993 health-care task force (giving her opponents ammunition to defeat the plan). She again hunkered down.
Milbank, a journalist, apparently thinks that if a president commits serial adultery with a woman young enough to be his daughter, the scandal should not be exposed by the press. Also, for a journalist, Milbank has the heterodox opinion that health care reform -- a large portion of the US economy -- should not be deliberated in secret, but by people who are not publicly identified.
The U.N. refugee agency says survivors' accounts indicate that shipwrecks and capsized boats have claimed at least 880 lives over the last week in the Mediterranean.
UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said Tuesday this year is proving to be "particularly deadly" on the Mediterranean, with some 2,510 lives lost compared to 1,855 in the same span a year ago.
Authorities and international organizations had previously reported some 700 migrants and refugees had perished in Mediterranean shipwrecks over three days last week, the deadliest known tally in over a year.
- AP
Gee, I wonder why all of these people want to leave Libya? What could have happened there to create such a crisis? MSM minds don't want to know.
Bernie's right about one thing, the email scandal is small potatoes compared to her ham handed foreign policy.
The farce that launched a thousand ships, that's our Hillary.
This is why the Clintonites are trying to push the idea that this was a "mistake" that had more to do with some arcane IT rules and overclassification that was below the pay grade for a genius mandarin like Clinton, who was busy doing great statecraft. Sort of like finding out that Werner von Braun forgot to change his car's oil filter because he was so busy building rockets.
Or that Supreme Court Justice Kagan had a habit of leaving her car running when she parked somewhere because she was thinking about so many things.
Terry quoted Milfink saying She resisted releasing records on the Whitewater...
Boy that is really a nicely phrased way of obscuring the fact SHE STOLE THE RECORDS AND HID THEM FOR SIX YEARS and allowed them to be "discovered" in her room at the Whitehouse just after statute of limitations ran out on the theft and obstruction charge.
Check it Dana. This is how she "resisted" a lawful order and got away with several felonies. Asshat!
what they're really saying is "Hillary, please. give us something we can hang our hats on in mindlessly defending you."
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