May 25, 2016

"The State Department’s inspector general sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had."

The NYT reports.
In a report delivered to members of Congress on Wednesday, the inspector general said that Mrs. Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with officials responsible for handling records and security but that inspectors found “no evidence” that she had.

59 comments:

Brando said...

I'd have been more surprised if the IG found otherwise. So the question is, will DOJ prosecute, and why is it taking them so long to decide whether to indict? Were they waiting for the IG report?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

But wait! Hasn't Hillary Clinton said (over and over again) that she "had permission" to handle her email that way?
I mean, it seems like every time she said that the reporter to whom she said it should have immediately asked "permission from whom?" and asked to see some evidence of that permission...but that'd mean doing their jobs and not being 100% behind Hillary, so that's just a silly expectation on my part.

Now, though, we have an official State Dept. IG report saying she didn't ask for permission. Can the Media possibly ignore the difference between that and what candidate Clinton has been saying for months now? Place your bets!

Michael The Magnificent said...

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." -- Hillary Clinton, quoted in Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries (p. 368), James B. Stewart, December 1993

TreeJoe said...

I'm more interested in this gem in the NYT: "The report also disclosed an attempt to hack into Mrs. Clinton’s server in January 2011.

It said a “nondepartmental adviser” to Bill Clinton – apparently Bryan Pagliano – informed the department that he had shut down the server because “someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didn’t want to let them have a chance.”

The attack continued later that day, prompting another official to write to two of Mrs. Clinton’s top aides, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, to warn them not to send Mrs. Clinton “anything sensitive.” She explained that she would “explain more in person.”"

So here we have...

- At least one known attempted hacking into the server. Successful hacks are, by their nature, hacks that may never even be found to have happened.

- Officials recognizing the weakness of her server in 2011, not attempting to rectify that weakness, and having to warn top aides not to send anything sensitive - therefore inferring that they routinely send "sensitive" information over non-secure e-mail.

Taken together, this is borderline bombshell material.

....

P.s. Love another NYT article describing her as "about to win", as if those superdelegates were just never going to switch.

Hagar said...

Covering asses after the fact.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

And here's the part where I have to give props to Jorge Ramos, as biased a "journalist" as there is but nevertheless someone with the guts to ask H. Clinton the actual question:

"So it seems that you issued one set of rules for yourself and a different set of rules for the rest of the State Department," Ramos said. "So who specifically gave you permission to operate your email system as you did. Was it President Obama?"

While saying the use of a private server "wasn't the best choice," Clinton replied that she didn't need permission. Her predecessors had done the same thing, she said.

"What you're talking about is retroactive classification," Clinton said. "Some of the parts of the government — we're not exactly sure who — has concluded that some of the emails should be now retroactively classified. They just said the same thing to former Secretary Colin Powell.

"Now I think he was right when he said this was an absurdity."

Clinton then got testy when Ramos pressed again and asked who gave her permission to operate the private email server.

"There was no permission to be asked," she said. "It had been done by my predecessors, it was permitted. I didn't have to ask anyone."


TheHill 3.9.16 Clinton on possibility of being indicted


So, ok, contra my earlier post, Clinton's line is that she didn't ask for or receive permission and she didn't need to. The State IG report sure seems to say that she should have asked permission from someone! What we have here, then, is someone running for chief executive after demonstrating clearly they don't think the normal rules of the bureaucracy apply to them and that they can unilaterally make whatever decisions they want for their own benefit/convenience, even when doing so may violate important safeguards and procedures (up to and including those that are designed to protect national security).

And the Media's line is that it's only Trump who is dangerous (from the POV of not respecting rules/laws/norms)? Good luck with that.

Tommy Duncan said...

TreeJoe said: Taken together, this is borderline bombshell material.

Perhaps that is true in an alternate universe where the press is fair and unbiased. In our current universe connecting those dots is not allowed.

Dan Hossley said...

I thought she told us it was approved. Maybe she was lying, again.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

TreeJoe: Yup! That's the part that really should sink all denials and handwaving now about whether this arrangement posed a threat/increased the risk of harm to national security. It clearly did, and they clearly knew it. They just didn't care! It was more important to control access to her emails (in direct violation of the spirit of FOIA and government transparency laws, of course) than it was to secure the communications of the Secretary of State. Hell, the BEST argument she's made for "why" so far is one of convenience, which is almost worse! She was willing to put official government secrets and national security itself at risk just for her own convenience.


The attack continued later that day, prompting another official to write to two of Mrs. Clinton’s top aides, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, to warn them not to send Mrs. Clinton “anything sensitive.” She explained that she would “explain more in person.”

How can a report not ask: "Mrs. Clinton, given that your privately-paid IT guy notified people within your private circle not to send sensitive info to your email because of the risk of a specific hack/cyber attack, how can you maintain that your use of a private, unsecured email server was safe? Is your private IT guy (who doesn't, as far as I know, have any kind of security clearance) better than the teams of IT security people on staff at the State Department and other official US government agencies? Why would you trust the security of your email (and all emails passing over that server) to a guy you hired as opposed to the State Dept. IT team already in place?"
Follow up: "After this 2011 cyber attack scare what additional security did you and your private IT guy put in place on the server? How can you be sure that your server was not successfully hacked (since a successful, sophisticated hack would be very difficult for your private IT guy to detect)?"

Scott M said...

...a glimmer of hope, perhaps?

Brando said...

"I thought she told us it was approved. Maybe she was lying, again."

Sounds like it was "approved" by one of her lackeys who said to her "yes this is totally okay".

And in all this discussion of was it a crime or not, the media is not bearing down on the troubling question here--WHY? Why did she go through so much trouble to route everything through a private server? Can she provide some legitimate reason that does not suggest she was trying to hide something shady or illegal?

Rick said...

"There was no permission to be asked," she said. "It had been done by my predecessors, it was permitted. I didn't have to ask anyone."

This is a lie, what Clinton did had never been done by anyone else. She's trying to claim Colin Powell's admitted housekeeping email [examples given include (paraphrased) 'Are we ready for the meeting tomorrow', and 'I'll be in later'] is a precedent for using solely her personal email on her own server for Top Secret - Compartmentalized information.

It's a ridiculous assertion no one could possibly believe.

Alex said...

Hillary is an innovator. No previous SOS even used email before her. It goes with the territory, having a private email server. For ya know, privacy. Why isn't she entitled to privacy wingnuts?

You fucking fascist pigs.

mikee said...

So now that Hillary has been "sharply criticized" are we supposed to stop believing that she should also be prosecuted at least as hard as Petraeus, or heck, Scooter Libby?

cubanbob said...

Brando said...
"I thought she told us it was approved. Maybe she was lying, again."

Sounds like it was "approved" by one of her lackeys who said to her "yes this is totally okay".

And in all this discussion of was it a crime or not, the media is not bearing down on the troubling question here--WHY? Why did she go through so much trouble to route everything through a private server? Can she provide some legitimate reason that does not suggest she was trying to hide something shady or illegal?

5/25/16, 11:01 AM"

Being a person of bad character she learned the wrong lesson from Watergate.
"What did the President know and when did he know it?"
Does Althouse have a Hillary as Nixon tag?

Static Ping said...

Let's be honest. If the political culture was similar to anything up through the 1980s, at a minimum Hillary would have been forced out of the race by her own party by now, assuming she ran at all. The further you go back, the more likely she would be in prison and or exiled in a foreign country, and the more likely she would be charged with treason. The facts that the DOJ is still mulling whether to prosecute when it is obvious she is guilty merely from what she has publicly admitted tells you the level of corruption. The fact that her party and the media do not seem to care is arguably worse.

Fabi said...

"Grab your helmet, Biden -- we're putting you in at quarterback."

"Thanks, Coach Obama!"

Fabi said...

I assume that Alex is performing satire. Hard to tell at times.

damikesc said...

But wait! Hasn't Hillary Clinton said (over and over again) that she "had permission" to handle her email that way?
I mean, it seems like every time she said that the reporter to whom she said it should have immediately asked "permission from whom?" and asked to see some evidence of that permission...but that'd mean doing their jobs and not being 100% behind Hillary, so that's just a silly expectation on my part.

Now, though, we have an official State Dept. IG report saying she didn't ask for permission. Can the Media possibly ignore the difference between that and what candidate Clinton has been saying for months now? Place your bets!


As the head of that cabinet branch, can't she authorize herself to do it? I suppose Obama could override her, but the IG couldn't. They can fire that person anytime they want (and Obama has done so a lot).

So, ok, contra my earlier post, Clinton's line is that she didn't ask for or receive permission and she didn't need to. The State IG report sure seems to say that she should have asked permission from someone! What we have here, then, is someone running for chief executive after demonstrating clearly they don't think the normal rules of the bureaucracy apply to them and that they can unilaterally make whatever decisions they want for their own benefit/convenience, even when doing so may violate important safeguards and procedures (up to and including those that are designed to protect national security).

And the Media's line is that it's only Trump who is dangerous (from the POV of not respecting rules/laws/norms)? Good luck with that.


Because she keeps conflating private email service (i.e Gmail) and her private email SERVER. One of them allows oversight to get the emails. The other does not. It's similar to the constant blurring of "illegal" and "legal" immigration.

TreeJoe: Yup! That's the part that really should sink all denials and handwaving now about whether this arrangement posed a threat/increased the risk of harm to national security. It clearly did, and they clearly knew it. They just didn't care! It was more important to control access to her emails (in direct violation of the spirit of FOIA and government transparency laws, of course) than it was to secure the communications of the Secretary of State. Hell, the BEST argument she's made for "why" so far is one of convenience, which is almost worse! She was willing to put official government secrets and national security itself at risk just for her own convenience.

It's why I'd advocate Trump saying he'd do away with FOIA. "After all, if the Sec of State cannot be expected to abide by it, how can we expect anybody else to do so?"

This is a lie, what Clinton did had never been done by anyone else. She's trying to claim Colin Powell's admitted housekeeping email [examples given include (paraphrased) 'Are we ready for the meeting tomorrow', and 'I'll be in later'] is a precedent for using solely her personal email on her own server for Top Secret - Compartmentalized information.

Again, it's WORSE than that. Nobody else set up their own personal SERVER. They used personal email accounts, but they couldn't run those servers that held their emails. She went a level above that. It's vital that this gets mentioned repeatedly. She wasn't using Gmail. She was using her own email service that she ran and she controlled completely. Nobody has done THAT.

Let's be honest. If the political culture was similar to anything up through the 1980s, at a minimum Hillary would have been forced out of the race by her own party by now, assuming she ran at all.

Gerry Studds was re-elected repeatedly after being caught up in the scandal of him fucking 17 year old pages in Congress. He is out of office only because he died.

So, no, Democrats wouldn't have done shit to her then, either.

Brando said...

"She's trying to claim Colin Powell's admitted housekeeping email [examples given include (paraphrased) 'Are we ready for the meeting tomorrow', and 'I'll be in later'] is a precedent for using solely her personal email on her own server for Top Secret - Compartmentalized information."

It's an obvious apples to oranges comparison. Periodic sending and receiving of business e-mails through a private account for convenience may be wrong, or even illegal (depending on the e-mails) but that is a whole different animal from proactively setting up a private server to do all your work and personal e-mail correspondence. In the former case, it's "I can't get to my work e-mail right now, send it to my gmail" and in the latter it's "from here on out, all my work business is off-grid".

The question is what legitimate reason could she have had for doing this? Can anyone even think of one, even if you were trying to be as charitable towards Hillary as possible?

damikesc said...

The question is what legitimate reason could she have had for doing this? Can anyone even think of one, even if you were trying to be as charitable towards Hillary as possible?

There isn't one. Gmail would be easier to use. Syncing Gmail to your phone would be a ton easier than trying to sync a private server instead.

You'd do it ONLY if you wanted control of all of your emails and to control what others saw. It should be noted that this bad shit is the least bad stuff she had there. She erased the rest.

Big Mike said...

1974 -- Congressmen, Senators, judges, and pundits solemnly intone that "no one is above the law."

2016 -- "Laws are for the little people," at least where the Clintons are concerned.

What a difference four decades makes!

Brando said...

"You'd do it ONLY if you wanted control of all of your emails and to control what others saw. It should be noted that this bad shit is the least bad stuff she had there. She erased the rest."

My assumption is there's plenty of e-mail that suggests (if not flat out proves) that she used her Secretary of State post to intercede on behalf of donors as a quid pro quo. I don't imagine they were dumb enough to state it clearly (e.g., "I will put another ten million in your account if you help me get that pipeline deal") but at least highly suggestive. When something is hidden like this, the hider deserves no benefit of the doubt. And worse, she planned this in advance by setting up the server.

Much of the media is still peddling this as "she did something dumb" as if they don't understand how unusual it is for a government employee to go through this--as if private servers were just something people set up all the time. Hillary is hoping that remains the common narrative.

sostander said...

See Matt Yglesias story above. Vince Foster made her do it.

tim maguire said...

Now what? I'm surprised the State Department admitted she did something wrong, but, having now done so, are they finished? Or is there a next step? And does their action tell us anything about what the AG will do with the FBI report?

tim in vermont said...

Doesn't Obama just fire inconvenient IGs?

Original Mike said...

"Grab your helmet, Biden -- we're putting you in at quarterback."

I'm thinking we all need to get use to the phrase "President Sanders".

Big Mike said...

@damikesc regardless of whether Hillary erased the rest, the really bad shit, we can always subpoena stuff from the Russian embassy. I'm quite certain that they and the Chinese and a whole bunch of other countries that are into cyber-espionage have the full text of everything she wrote and received.

@Brando, the media may be peddling this as "she did something dumb," but it goes way beyond dumb. Walking into a biker bar and yelling out "Harley riders are pansies!" would display more intelligence. Receiving and storing some of the most sensitive information that the federal government has on a poorly-protected server leads one to question whether there are two or more digits in her IQ.

David said...

It's unlikely that any influential Democrats will try to get Hillary off the ticket. They might be worried that she will lose, but they are more worried that she might win.

If you rise up against a Clinton and another Clinton gains a powerful office nevertheless, there will be no end to the punishment and pain you will endure at their hands. At least no earthly end. They still fear her and Bill, and until that fear is gone they will not rise against her. There might be something that would make it clear that she has no chance, but so far scandal, incompetence, bad campaigning, losing elections and all the other stuff have not made her any less fearsome to the people whose life is the Democratic Party.

And no, indictment won't be enough. She will run right past an indictment and claim that the people should decide. If the people elect her, she will claim that impeachment is the only remedy, and she won't be convicted in an impeachment trial.

Brando said...

"I'm thinking we all need to get use to the phrase "President Sanders"."

It says a lot about the quality of the candidates this year that I don't even consider that unthinkable.

"@Brando, the media may be peddling this as "she did something dumb," but it goes way beyond dumb. Walking into a biker bar and yelling out "Harley riders are pansies!" would display more intelligence. Receiving and storing some of the most sensitive information that the federal government has on a poorly-protected server leads one to question whether there are two or more digits in her IQ. "

Yes, but this is actually worse than dumb--accidentally leaving a laptop with top secret information in an unlocked car and having it stolen is dumb. Here, she knew exactly what she was doing and could only have done it to hide something big. By making it just look like she had a brain fart, the media is (perhaps willfully) missing the real scandal.

"If you rise up against a Clinton and another Clinton gains a powerful office nevertheless, there will be no end to the punishment and pain you will endure at their hands."

That's the only explanation for why she faced no top tier competitors this year. Considering how well Bernie Sanders is doing, it's clear that other Dems (Booker, Biden, Cuomo, Warren, Kaine) would have had a good shot, and yet they all fell in line very early. I refuse to believe they were all just enamored with Hillary and assumed she was the best candidate the party could nominate.

buwaya said...

" I'm quite certain that they and the Chinese and a whole bunch of other countries that are into cyber-espionage have the full text of everything she wrote and received."

I'm fairly certain that US intelligence agencies have this material as well.

damikesc said...

@damikesc regardless of whether Hillary erased the rest, the really bad shit, we can always subpoena stuff from the Russian embassy. I'm quite certain that they and the Chinese and a whole bunch of other countries that are into cyber-espionage have the full text of everything she wrote and received.

Never thought of that --- but can we? Embassies are officially foreign territory and I don't think they are obligated to honor any subpoenas from US courts...not that State would do shit to make it happen.

My assumption is there's plenty of e-mail that suggests (if not flat out proves) that she used her Secretary of State post to intercede on behalf of donors as a quid pro quo. I don't imagine they were dumb enough to state it clearly (e.g., "I will put another ten million in your account if you help me get that pipeline deal") but at least highly suggestive. When something is hidden like this, the hider deserves no benefit of the doubt. And worse, she planned this in advance by setting up the server.

That she has lied about every part of this problem from the get-go should kill her benefit of the doubt. And the press is bending over backwards to help her. Hate to break it to them, but INTENDING to break the law in regards to classified documents is immaterial. Negligence is enough --- but her emails ALSO show an intent to break the law.

n.n said...

The ball of yarns begins to unwind, causing whiplash to its spinners, trailers, and anyone unfortunate enough to have been sustained by its constructs.

Anonymous said...

"The Hill" also had this nugget:

Only five of the 26 current and former Clinton aides responded to questionnaires sent by the watchdog office. Clinton herself turned down a request to be interviewed.

In addition to Clinton, four close staffers conducted “extensive use of personal email accounts,” the inspector general said, adding up to nearly 72,000 pages worth of messages. In doing so, they also violated the State Department’s record-keeping policies.


so much for "fully cooperating".

In any other place, those 21 staff would instantly lose their clearances, and the other 5, perhaps after reviewing the questionnaires.

In an investigation of a security matter, pulling access till the investigation is over is standard practice. Non-cooperation makes it a no brainer for permanent termination of a clearance.

holdfast said...

I'm thinking we all need to get use to the phrase "President Sanders".

What's the matter? Chicken?

holdfast said...

Maybe Congress should subpoena the NSA for copies of her emails?

JAORE said...

Bah. The old Clinton play book will out.

I recall when the rumor broke that President Bill had sex with an intern. He'll HAVE to resign was the cry of the day. Deny.... delay.... trial balloons.... delay.... changes of story.... Well what do you know, that's old news, consenting adults, nothing to see here.

Hillary has already lied repeatedly about why she set up the server, that there was no secret information....uhhhh no information MARKED secret, anyway the Government over classifies.... blah, blah, same as Powell, blah, blah....

So when it turns out there was VERY sensitive material, Powell had a very different set up, she did NOT have permission, and on and on.... here will come the press and her minions to say, "Old news", "Been over this months ago", "Republicans won't let this die."

Obama has already said no harm, no foul....

Plenty of people already have this firmly tucked into the NBD cubby. Absent an honest press (riding winged unicorns) the IG report will fade away like fog in the sunlight.

Original Mike said...

@holdfast - Of Venezuala-style economics coming to the US? You bet I am.

khesanh0802 said...

"Clinton Wasn’t Cleared to Use Private Email, State Dept. Says" This is the NYT front page headline. I am sure over time they will soften their approach, but this is pretty clear. It is also typical of most of the internet news headlines. Since many don't read beyond the headlines this is clearly damning. I believe the IG's report was to Congress so I am sure that the rest of it will be leaking out. Presumably Congress can subpoena those who were unwilling to testify before the IG. Imagine what those people have to say that they would rather not. Taking the 5th will be a real winner on the campaign trail.

Obviously this is not going to stop and some point some committee of Congress using this report should call Comey to explain what the hell is taking so long. One thing Hillary can be sure of is that this is not going to get better.

James Pawlak said...

Is it still the case that such acts preclude any such violator from any office "under the United States by a provision of the US Code?

If so, does any such provision require a finding of guilt by a court-of-law?

Original Mike said...

"Only five of the 26 current and former Clinton aides responded to questionnaires sent by the [IG]. Clinton herself turned down a request to be interviewed."

Most transparent Aministration evah.

PB said...

Pretty clear and convincing evidence she broke the knowingly and conspired with others to do so.

The Godfather said...

OK, what's the game plan? It's late May and this story comes out. What's the half-life of a story about an IG report? In August, there's a leak that the FBI is recommending indicting Hillary!, but DOJ hasn't acted. The Hillary! team dismisses the leak as "old news". By Labor Day the media is calling it a "discredited" rumor.

Unless Obama wants her out. Does he?

Yancey Ward said...

"Now what? I'm surprised the State Department admitted she did something wrong, but, having now done so, are they finished? Or is there a next step? And does their action tell us anything about what the AG will do with the FBI report?

The State Department IG had to do something to save the department enforcement arm's credibility. Taking Clinton's line of defense was simply not going to serve that purpose since the defense is an bald-faced lie. Any investigation the office carried out after exonerating Clinton would be totally undermined by any such report. A similar thing happened in the case of the IRS abuse of conservative groups- the IG simply could not carry the lie being fed to him by the IRS department heads, so he did a faithful report that at least salvaged the reputation of his office and of himself.

That being said, the ball is now fully in the FBI's court. I will just add this- that this report was published now is telling in one respect- the IG wanted it out there before the FBI finishes the investigation. This suggests to me the investigation is going very badly for Clinton, and the people in the State Department are probably getting out of the way as quickly as possible.

Yancey Ward said...

As for the FBI investigation- I think it is almost 100% certain that they will recommend an indictment- what Clinton and her staff did is already much worse than what Petraeus was charged with- the FBI has a reputation to uphold as well. I would like to believe that the DOJ will be faced with the same dilemma with regards to reputation and will act appropriately, but we shall see- my cynicism suggests that an indictment depends on Clinton's polling numbers vs Trump in mid July.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

No, the State Department Inspector General did not "sharply criticize" Hillary Clinton. The NYT should know better. To criticize is to give an opinion. "Hillary was a very bad girl" would be to sharply criticize.

In contrast, the IG simply stated facts.

The IG said that Hillary had clearly failed to comply with certain important laws and procedures; further, after diligent search no evidence could be found that she and several of her minions had complied with certain other important laws and procedures.

And, dammitall, leave off the apostrophe abuse! "State Department Inspector General", not "State Department's Inspector General"

PB said...

I think the FBI has been waiting for Hillary to withdraw from the race so they don't have to pursue, though today's IG report presents clear and convincing evidence the Hillary lied, broke the law and conspired with other federal employees to do so. The FBI now has little choice to to recommend prosecution of Hillary for the added charges of mishandling classified information to an agregious extent. Also, the quid-pro-quo donations, payment for speeches and subsequent favorable State Department treatment leads to charges of extortion and denial of honest services charges.

I don't believe Hillary has any sense of what's better for our country and will continue in the race to fulfill her own narcissistic needs with the slim possibility if elected she can make this all go away. Democrats who vote for her show they have little regard for the law, the Constitution, ethics or honesty.

Nichevo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
cubanbob said...

The 800lb gorilla no one is seeing is that Obama himself is implicated by allowing this. There is no believable explanation that the White House can offer. Everyone in the government who received emails from her with confidential or classified information has a problem and that's probably why the FBI hasn't moved-too many targets to deal with.

Hagar said...

Qui vivra, verra, but if the FBI does not issue a formal recommendation for whatever reason, someone will leak the information.
But before or after the election?

How did Jerry Ford become president again?

YoungHegelian said...

You know, in many ways it doesn't matter what the FBI, DoJ, or State Dept does this with this new report from the IG, because no matter how much the Obama admin or the Clinton machine can enforce silence in the ranks, there's one giant mouth they can't silence: Donald Trump's.

Trump & the Republican slime machine are going use this information & what more is sure to come, to beat her like a rented mule. Bernie may have been nice about it, but Trump's going to get up in her grill in an incredibly public way when they debate. Her minions will stay her minions. But, independents are gonna go "Wait a minute....".

PianoLessons said...

Guccifer (recently extradited from a Romanian prison where he has been sitting since 2012) let the world see how Hillary and Sid corresponded about Benghazi via HER PRIVATE SERVRER and Sid's AOL account.....the Gowdy Benghazi Committee brok the Hillary Server Scandal because of this Guccifer link ....Guccifer's been in news lately. Pay attention.

This crazy email Guccifer Hack from the day AFTER Benghazi started it all:

https://www.rt.com/usa/complete-emails-guccifer-clinton-554/

Folks - he's been sitting in a Romanian prison since 2012 (media will never say) until Obama's DOJ brought him here two months ago to....cooperate.


SMS said...

"Grab your helmet, Biden -- we're putting you in at quarterback."

When I think of Joe Biden, I think of a different sort of helmet...

YoungHegelian said...

@PianoLessons,

Guccifer (recently extradited from a Romanian prison where he has been sitting since 2012) let the world see how Hillary and Sid corresponded about Benghazi via HER PRIVATE SERVRER and Sid's AOL account....

And do you know why Sid Blumenthal wasn't on Hillary's team at DoS? Because he was denied a security clearance! So, here's HRC, not only sharing classified info with someone without a clearance, she's sharing it with someone who's been explicitly denied a clearance!

These guys are just so precious...

Bruce Hayden said...

But what maybe worse about Blumenthal is that he sent her an email with highly classified information in it from the intelligence community within a couple hours after it was released in supposedly secure channels. The question is where did he get it, and get it that quickly, since the information was moving to her, instead of the other way. But, I suspect it was mostly running that way - he was her private intelligence collector, on the payroll of the Clinton's foundation, plus being paid by other parties interested in his connection to her. The problem though is that she appears to have made decisions based on his ntelligence, and it seems to have been faulty and self serving at times - in particular about what was happening in Lybia at the time, and maybe part of what helped cause the debacle in Benghazi.

tim in vermont said...

Inspector General Finds Hillary Clinton Violated Federal Records Act By Deleting Emails



Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

This is the best they got and Shill-o will come along any minute to tell us that after what the Democrats have done on immigration, they can run any piece of shit they want and Republicans will have no chance. It's just a Democrat talking point to try to suppress Republican turnout.

JAORE said...

Most of the DOS employees involved declined to be interviewed by the DOS's own IG? Wow. When I worked for the Feds that would have been unthinkable.

Some of these doofuses must still work for State.

Mr. Kerry, wha cha gonna do bout dat?

tim in vermont said...

Wow. When I worked for the Feds that would have been unthinkable.

LOL! This is the Obama Administration. Your old school ways of thinking are so dead!

Last week, Mr. Obama abruptly fired the watchdog, Gerald Walpin, the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service, who was a holdover from the Bush administration, saying little except that he had lost confidence in Mr. Walpin.

But the president quickly encountered resistance from the Senate, including from a fellow Democrat, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who said Mr. Obama had not provided sufficient reason for the dismissal, as required under a recent law intended to protect the independence of the corps of inspectors general. Mr. Walpin suggested in interviews that his dismissal was connected to two recent reports in which he was critical of programs that received money from AmeriCorps


Of course if it had been George Bush who fired somebody who had uncovered corruption among his political supporters, the press would have swept it under the rug too! We all know it, come on!

Actually, had the shoe been on the other foot, they would have impeached Bush for that. Which is what should have happened to Obama.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Hillary's response as reported on the radio this morning:

"I turned over all my emails"
"No one has been more transparent than me"
"This won't affect my campaign or my Presidency"


More of the same unchallenged lies. However, she may be right on the third quote. It seems so many are involved in this deception, the pressure must be intense to sweep it under the rug. It even extends to Obama. Because of that, I'm guessing he has already guaranteed her an escape from indictment. Any charges against her would be a black mark on his legacy. He won't allow that.