There were no prosecution in three years since publication of this article
Notable quotes:
"... New York Police Department detectives and prosecutors working an alleged underage sexting case against former Congressman Anthony
Weiner have turned over a newly-found laptop he shared with wife Huma Abedin to the FBI with enough evidence "to put Hillary (Clinton)
and her crew away for life," NYPD sources told True Pundit. ..."
"... NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department's highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice
Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now
in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices. ..."
"... Meanwhile, FBI sources said Abedin and Weiner were cooperating with federal agents, who have taken over the non-sexting portions
the case from NYPD. The husband-and-wife Clinton insiders are both shopping for separate immunity deals, sources said. ..."
"... Prosecutors in the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for Weiner's cell phones and travel records,
law enforcement sources confirmed. NYPD said it planned to order the same phone and travel records on Clinton and Abedin, however, the
FBI said it was in the process of requesting the identical records. Law enforcement sources are particularly interested in cell phone
activity and travel to the Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands and other locations that sources would not divulge. ..."
"... Both NYPD and FBI sources confirm based on the new emails they now believe Hillary Clinton traveled as Epstein's guest on at
least six occasions, probably more when all the evidence is combed, sources said. Bill Clinton, it has been confirmed in media reports
spanning recent years, that he too traveled with Epstein over 20 times to the island. ..."
"... Because Weiner's campaign website is managed by the third-party consultant and political email guru, FBI agents are burdened
with the task of trying to decipher just how many people had access to Weiner's server and emails and who were these people. Or if the
server was ever compromised by hackers, or other actors. ..."
"... Abedin told FBI agents in an April interview that she didn't know how to consistently print documents or emails from her secure
Dept. of State system. Instead, she would forward the sensitive emails to her yahoo, Clintonemail.com and her email linked to Weiner.
..."
"... Abedin said, according to FBI documents, she would then access those email accounts via webmail from an unclassified computer
system at the State Dept. and print the documents, many of which were classified and top secret, from the largely unprotected webmail
portals. ..."
New York Police Department detectives and prosecutors working an alleged underage sexting case against former Congressman
Anthony Weiner have turned over a newly-found laptop he shared with wife Huma Abedin to the FBI with enough evidence "to put Hillary
(Clinton) and her crew away for life," NYPD sources told True Pundit.
NYPD sources said Clinton's "crew" also included several unnamed yet implicated members of Congress in addition to her aides and
insiders.
The NYPD seized the computer from Weiner during a search warrant and detectives discovered a trove of over 500,000 emails to and
from Hillary Clinton, Abedin and other insiders during her tenure as secretary of state. The content of those emails sparked the
FBI to reopen its defunct email investigation into Clinton on Friday.
But new revelations on the contents of that laptop, according to law enforcement sources, implicate the Democratic presidential
candidate, her subordinates, and even select elected officials in far more alleged serious crimes than mishandling classified and
top secret emails, sources said. NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to:
Money laundering
Child exploitation
Sex crimes with minors (children)
Perjury
Pay to play through Clinton Foundation
Obstruction of justice
Other felony crimes
NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department's highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice
Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now
in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices.
"What's in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach," the NYPD Chief said. "There is not going to be
any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold
my own press conference if it comes to that."
The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton.
"People are going to prison," he said.
Meanwhile, FBI sources said Abedin and Weiner were cooperating with federal agents, who have taken over the non-sexting portions
the case from NYPD. The husband-and-wife Clinton insiders are both shopping for separate immunity deals, sources said.
"If they don't cooperate they are going to see long sentences," a federal law enforcement source said.
NYPD sources said Weiner or Abedin stored all the emails in a massive Microsoft Outlook program on the laptop. The emails
implicate other current and former members of Congress and one high-ranking Democratic Senator as having possibly engaged in criminal
activity too, sources said.
Prosecutors in the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for Weiner's cell phones and travel records,
law enforcement sources confirmed. NYPD said it planned to order the same phone and travel records on Clinton and Abedin, however,
the FBI said it was in the process of requesting the identical records. Law enforcement sources are particularly interested in cell
phone activity and travel to the Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands and other locations that sources would not divulge.
The new emails contain travel documents and itineraries indicating Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Weiner and multiple
members of Congress and other government officials accompanied convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on his Boeing 727
on multiple occasions to his private island in the US Virgin Islands, sources said. Epstein's island has also been dubbed
Orgy Island or
Sex Slave Island where Epstein allegedly pimps out underage girls and boys to international dignitaries.
Both NYPD and FBI sources confirm based on the new emails they now believe Hillary Clinton traveled as Epstein's guest on
at least six occasions, probably more when all the evidence is combed, sources said. Bill Clinton, it has been confirmed in media
reports spanning recent years, that he too traveled with Epstein over 20 times to the island.
Laptop Also Unveiled More Classified, Top Secret Breaches
According to other uncovered emails, Abedin and Clinton both sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents
to personal email accounts including Weiner's unsecured campaign web site which is managed by Democratic political consultants in
Washington D.C.
Weiner maintained little known email accounts that the couple shared on the website anthonyweiner.com. Weiner, a former seven-term
Democratic Congressman from New York, primarily used that domain to campaign for Congress and for his failed mayoral bid of New York
City.
At one point, FBI sources said, Abedin and Clinton's classified and top secret State Department documents and emails were stored
in Weiner's email on a server shared with a dog grooming service and a western Canadian bicycle shop.
However, Weiner and Abedin, who is Hillary Clinton's closest personal aide, weren't the only people with access to the Weiner's
email account. Potentially dozens of unknown individuals had access to Abedin's sensitive State Department emails that were stored
in Weiner's email account, FBI sources confirmed.
FEC records show Weiner paid more than $92,000 of congressional campaign funds to Anne Lewis Strategies LLC to manage his email
and web site. According to FBI sources, the D.C.-based political consulting firm has served as the official administrator of the
anthonyweiner.com domain since 2010, the same time Abedin was working at the State Department. This means technically Weiner and
Abedin's emails, including top secret State Department emails, could have been accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed
by untold numbers of personnel at the Anne Lewis consulting firm because they can control where the website and it emails are pointed,
FBI sources said.
According to FBI sources, the bureau's newly-minted probe into Clinton's use and handling of emails while she served as secretary
of state, has also been broadened to include investigating new email-related revelations, including:
Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner's email
Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived
State Department emails.
Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records
Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret
documents
A private consultant managed Weiner's site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state,
and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain's listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
Because Weiner's campaign website is managed by the third-party consultant and political email guru, FBI agents are burdened
with the task of trying to decipher just how many people had access to Weiner's server and emails and who were these people. Or if
the server was ever compromised by hackers, or other actors.
Abedin told FBI agents in an April interview that she didn't know how to consistently print documents or emails from her secure
Dept. of State system. Instead, she would forward the sensitive emails to her yahoo, Clintonemail.com and her email linked to Weiner.
Abedin said, according to FBI documents, she would then access those email accounts via webmail from an unclassified computer
system at the State Dept. and print the documents, many of which were classified and top secret, from the largely unprotected webmail
portals.
Clinton did not have a computer in her office on Mahogany Row at the State Dept. so she was not able to read timely intelligence
unless it was printed out for her, Abedin said. Abedin also said Clinton could not operate the secure State Dept. fax machine installed
in her Chappaqua, NY home without assistance.
Perhaps more alarming, according to the FBI's 302 Report detailing its interview with Abedin, none of the multiple FBI agents
and Justice Department officials who conducted the interview pressed Abedin to further detail the email address linked to Weiner.
There was never a follow up, according to the 302 report.
But now, all that has changed, with the FBI's decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation and the husband and wife seeking
immunity deals to testify against Clinton and other associates about the contents of the laptop's emails.
This was written in 2011 but it summarizes Obama presidency pretty nicely, even today. Betrayer
in chief, the master of bait and switch. That is the essence of Obama legacy. On "Great Democratic betrayal"...
Obama always was a closet neoliberal and neocon. A stooge of neoliberal financial oligarchy, a puppet,
if you want politically incorrect term. He just masked it well during hist first election campaigning
as a progressive democrat... And he faced Romney in his second campaign, who was even worse, so after
betraying American people once, he was reelected and did it twice. Much like Bush II. He like
another former cocaine addict -- George W Bush has never any intention of helping American people, only
oligarchy.
Notable quotes:
"... IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. ..."
"... We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues. ..."
"... These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power. ..."
"... Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back ..."
"... he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans. ..."
"... I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator. ..."
"... Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is. ..."
"... So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. ..."
"... I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans ..."
"... He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation. ..."
"... I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are. ..."
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans
were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost
their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even
the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment,
with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what
they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that
he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and
suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes,
was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This
was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated
with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated
regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And
it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods,
with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we
will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting
money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity
to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we
won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that
your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the
policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was
to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands.
That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given
Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans
and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement.
It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit
that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest
Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant
narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters,
but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut
themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share
for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of
his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his
first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had
happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president
had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building
the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis
out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden,
he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate
as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best
exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a
major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial
one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power
in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power
is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform
ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt
started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the
trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply,
and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill.
The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics
- in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness
and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for
at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait
for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking
with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police
dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or
a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his
true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic
inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack
Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the
people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that
decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind
it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story
of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them
for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem
other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer
confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked
the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his
temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration
that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
Bill Levine August 7, 2011
Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since
the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011
"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of
what they had just been through, what caused it,...
Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic
and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class;
and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly
push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican
and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would
be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social
Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in
the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this
road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!
Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President
Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying
not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly
why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant
and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will
we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric
of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well,
he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I
vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely
since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral
vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance
to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe
in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity
and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse
labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones
that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government
to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community,
opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed
the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at
GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to
lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum.
He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some
good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality,
where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all
Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our
national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem.
-->
I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a
person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a
centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA.
Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged
a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate
someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader
does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than
trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats
who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson,
have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed
are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not
the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic
about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see
anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure
of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this
column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures
to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins
of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans,
he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters
who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people.
That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who
acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible,
avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws
which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict
averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political
and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the
country as Republicans are.
This was written in 2011 but it summarizes Obama presidency pretty nicely, even today. Betrayer
in chief, the master of bait and switch. That is the essence of Obama legacy. On "Great Democratic betrayal"...
Obama always was a closet neoliberal and neocon. A stooge of neoliberal financial oligarchy, a puppet,
if you want politically incorrect term. He just masked it well during hist first election campaigning
as a progressive democrat... And he faced Romney in his second campaign, who was even worse, so after
betraying American people once, he was reelected and did it twice. Much like Bush II. He like
another former cocaine addict -- George W Bush has never any intention of helping American people, only
oligarchy.
Notable quotes:
"... IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. ..."
"... We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues. ..."
"... These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power. ..."
"... Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back ..."
"... he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans. ..."
"... I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator. ..."
"... Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is. ..."
"... So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. ..."
"... I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans ..."
"... He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation. ..."
"... I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are. ..."
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans
were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost
their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even
the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment,
with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what
they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that
he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and
suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes,
was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This
was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated
with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated
regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And
it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods,
with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we
will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting
money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity
to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we
won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that
your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the
policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was
to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands.
That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given
Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans
and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement.
It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit
that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest
Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant
narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters,
but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut
themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share
for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of
his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his
first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had
happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president
had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building
the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis
out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden,
he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate
as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best
exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a
major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial
one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power
in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power
is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform
ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt
started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the
trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply,
and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill.
The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics
- in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness
and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for
at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait
for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking
with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police
dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or
a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his
true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic
inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack
Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the
people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that
decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind
it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story
of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them
for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem
other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer
confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked
the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his
temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration
that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
Bill Levine August 7, 2011
Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since
the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011
"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of
what they had just been through, what caused it,...
Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic
and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class;
and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly
push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican
and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would
be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social
Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in
the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this
road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!
Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President
Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying
not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly
why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant
and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will
we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric
of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well,
he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I
vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely
since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral
vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance
to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe
in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity
and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse
labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones
that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government
to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community,
opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed
the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at
GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to
lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum.
He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some
good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality,
where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all
Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our
national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem.
-->
I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a
person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a
centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA.
Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged
a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate
someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader
does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than
trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats
who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson,
have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed
are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not
the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic
about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see
anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure
of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this
column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures
to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins
of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans,
he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters
who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people.
That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who
acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible,
avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws
which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict
averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political
and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the
country as Republicans are.
"... The Democratic Party as a Party (Sanders was an outlier) has nothing to do with "fair and equal
play for all". This is a party of soft neoliberals and it adheres to Washington consensus no less then
Republicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus ..."
"... If you read the key postulates it is clear that that they essentially behaved like an occupier
in this country. In this sense "Occupy Wall street" movement should actually be called "Liberation from
Wall Street occupation" movement. ..."
"... Bill Clinton realized that he can betray working class with impunity as "they have nowhere
to go" and will vote for Democrat anyway. In this sense Bill Clinton is a godfather of the right wing
nationalism in the USA. He sowed the "Teeth's of Dragon" and now we have, what we have. ..."
You guys should wake up and smell what country you live in. Here is a good place to start.
"Campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan told stories of Cadillac-driving "welfare
queens" and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. In trumpeting these
tales of welfare run amok, Reagan never needed to mention race, because he was blowing a dog
whistle: sending a message about racial minorities inaudible on one level, but clearly heard
on another. In doing so, he tapped into a long political tradition that started with George
Wallace and Richard Nixon, and is more relevant than ever in the age of the Tea Party and the
first black president.
In Dog Whistle Politics, Ian Haney L?pez offers a sweeping account of how politicians and
plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor
the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog whistle appeals generate middle-class
enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration,
and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes
for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and financial markets, and
aggressively curtail social services. White voters, convinced by powerful interests that minorities
are their true enemies, fail to see the connection between the political agendas they support
and the surging wealth inequality that takes an increasing toll on their lives. The tactic
continues at full force, with the Republican Party using racial provocations to drum up enthusiasm
for weakening unions and public pensions, defunding public schools, and opposing health care
reform.
Rejecting any simple story of malevolent and obvious racism, Haney L?pez links as never
before the two central themes that dominate American politics today: the decline of the middle
class and the Republican Party's increasing reliance on white voters. Dog Whistle Politics
will generate a lively and much-needed debate about how racial politics has destabilized the
American middle class -- white and nonwhite members alike."
Reading the above posts I am reminded that in November there was ONE Election with TWO Results:
Electoral Vote for Donald Trump by the margin of 3 formerly Democratic Voting states Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania
Popular Vote for Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 Million
The Democratic Party and its Candidates OBVIOUSLY need to get more votes in the Electoral States
that they lost in 2016, not change what they stand for, the principles of fair and equal play
for all.
And, in the 3 States that turned the Electoral Vote in Trump's favor and against Hillary, all
that is needed are 125,000 or more votes, probably fewer, and the DEMS win the Electoral vote
big too.
It is not any more complex than that.
So how does the Democratic Party get more votes in those States?
PANDER to their voters by delivering on KISS, not talking about it.
That is create living wage jobs and not taking them away as the Republican Party of 'Free Trade'
and the Clinton Democratic Party 'Free Trade' Elites did.
Understand this: It is not the responsibility of the USA, or in its best interests, to create
jobs in other nations (Mexico, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, etc.) that do not create jobs in
the USA equivalently, especially if the gain is offset by costly overseas confrontations and involvements
that would not otherwise exist.
"The Democratic Party and its Candidates OBVIOUSLY need to get more votes in the Electoral
States that they lost in 2016, not change what they stand for, the principles of fair and equal
play for all. "
The Democratic Party as a Party (Sanders was an outlier) has nothing to do with "fair and
equal play for all". This is a party of soft neoliberals and it adheres to Washington consensus
no less then Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus
If you read the key postulates it is clear that that they essentially behaved like an occupier
in this country. In this sense "Occupy Wall street" movement should actually be called "Liberation
from Wall Street occupation" movement.
Bill Clinton realized that he can betray working class with impunity as "they have nowhere
to go" and will vote for Democrat anyway. In this sense Bill Clinton is a godfather of the right
wing nationalism in the USA. He sowed the "Teeth's of Dragon" and now we have, what we have.
Blast from the past. Bill Clinton position on illegal immegtation.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again. ..."
"... President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported. ..."
"... However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong, and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime. ..."
Democrats remember that we are a nation of immigrants. We recognize the extraordinary contribution
of immigrants to America throughout our history. We welcome legal immigrants to America. We support
a legal immigration policy that is pro-family, pro-work, pro-responsibility, and pro-citizenship
, and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.
We know that citizenship is the cornerstone of full participation in American life. We are
proud that the President launched Citizenship USA to help eligible immigrants become United States
citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is streamlining procedures, cutting red tape,
and using new technology to make it easier for legal immigrants to accept the responsibilities
of citizenship and truly call America their home.
Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate
illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington
talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border
was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal
immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned
the very next day to commit crimes again.
President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and
illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in
El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone,
the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country.
Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them
on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported.
However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the
temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need
to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans
like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort
of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong,
and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime.
Democrats want to protect American jobs by increasing criminal and civil sanctions against
employers who hire illegal workers , but Republicans continue to favor inflammatory rhetoric over
real action. We will continue to enforce labor standards to protect workers in vulnerable industries.
We continue to firmly oppose welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We believe family members
who sponsor immigrants into this country should take financial responsibility for them, and be
held legally responsible for supporting them.
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the
government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success
of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, controlled press and a mere token opposition
party.
1. Dummy up . If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant . This is also known as the "how dare you" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news
blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors."
4. Knock down straw men . Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better,
create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk
all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot" and,
of course, "rumor monger." You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people
you have thus maligned.
6. Impugn motives . Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not
really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to
make money.
7. Invoke authority . Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."
9. Come half-clean . This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hang-out
route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively
harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back
position quite different from the one originally taken.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward , using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction,
troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of
evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma
City bombing they would have reported it. They haven't reported it, so there was no prior knowledge
by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a
press that would report it.
12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely.
13. Change the subject . This technique includes creating and/or reporting a distraction.
"... The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and disable
their dominance. ..."
"... It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the neoliberal
turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution of income
between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments. In Europe,
the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. ..."
"... When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features of
his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading money
center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New York Federal
Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury in the Obama Administration,
but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. The crisis served
to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political
power entirely into their hands as well. Simon Johnson called it a coup. ..."
"... Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980 drove
both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. ..."
"... It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility for
economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that just happened,
in a meteorological economics. ..."
"... This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could aid
the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting constraints.
..."
"... No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and draw
attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes the political
problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational clarity or
coherence. ..."
"... If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power,
Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional
critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected,
Obama isn't really trying. ..."
"... Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism, because
it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference. ..."
At the center of Great Depression politics was a political struggle over the distribution of
income, a struggle that was only decisively resolved during the War, by the Great Compression.
It was at center of farm policy where policymakers struggled to find ways to support farm incomes.
It was at the center of industrial relations politics, where rapidly expanding unions were seeking
higher industrial wages. It was at the center of banking policy, where predatory financial practices
were under attack. It was at the center of efforts to regulate electric utility rates and establish
public power projects. And, everywhere, the clear subtext was a struggle between rich and poor,
the economic royalists as FDR once called them and everyone else.
FDR, an unmistakeable patrician in manner and pedigree, was leading a not-quite-revolutionary
politics, which was nevertheless hostile to and suspicious of business elites, as a source of
economic pathology. The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek
to side-step and disable their dominance.
It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments.
In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle.
In retrospect, though the New Deal did use direct employment as a means of relief to good effect
economically and politically, it never undertook anything like a Keynesian stimulus on a Keynesian
scale - at least until the War.
Where the New Deal witnessed the institution of an elaborate system of financial repression,
accomplished in large part by imposing on the financial sector an explicitly mandated structure,
with types of firms and effective limits on firm size and scope, a series of regulatory reforms
and financial crises beginning with Carter and Reagan served to wipe this structure away.
When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New
York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five
banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well. Simon
Johnson called it a coup.
I don't know what considerations guided Obama in choosing the size of the stimulus or its composition
(as spending and tax cuts). Larry Summers was identified at the time as a voice of caution, not
"gambling", but not much is known about his detailed reasoning in severely trimming Christina
Romer's entirely conventional calculations. (One consideration might well have been worldwide
resource shortages, which had made themselves felt in 2007-8 as an inflationary spike in commodity
prices.) I do not see a case for connecting stimulus size policy to the health care reform. At
the time the stimulus was proposed, the Administration had also been considering whether various
big banks and other financial institutions should be nationalized, forced to insolvency or otherwise
restructured as part of a regulatory reform.
Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. Accelerating
the financialization of the economy from 1999 on made New York and Washington rich, but the same
economic policies and process were devastating the Rust Belt as de-industrialization. They were
two aspects of the same complex of economic trends and policies. The rise of China as a manufacturing
center was, in critical respects, a financial operation within the context of globalized trade
that made investment in new manufacturing plant in China, as part of globalized supply chains
and global brand management, (arguably artificially) low-risk and high-profit, while reinvestment
in manufacturing in the American mid-west became unattractive, except as a game of extracting
tax subsidies or ripping off workers.
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that
just happened, in a meteorological economics.
It is conceding too many good intentions to the Obama Administration to tie an inadequate stimulus
to a Rube Goldberg health care reform as the origin story for the final debacle of Democratic
neoliberal politics. There was a delicate balancing act going on, but they were not balancing
the recovery of the economy in general so much as they were balancing the recovery from insolvency
of a highly inefficient and arguably predatory financial sector, which was also not incidentally
financing the institutional core of the Democratic Party and staffing many key positions in the
Administration and in the regulatory apparatus.
This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints.
No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence.
The short version of my thinking on the Obama stimulus is this: Keynesian stimulus spending is
a free lunch; it doesn't really matter what you spend money on up to a very generous point, so
it seems ready-made for legislative log-rolling. If Obama could not get a very big stimulus
indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen
spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again,
if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really
trying.
Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
Great comment. Simply great. Hat tip to the author !
Notable quotes:
"… The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and
disable their dominance. …"
"… It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist
commitments. In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. …"
"… When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the
New York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top
five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well.
Simon Johnson called it a coup. … "
"… Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. …"
"… It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces"
that just happened, in a meteorological economics. …"
"… This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints. …"
"… No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence. …"
"… If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of
power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular
and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic
Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really trying. …"
"… Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
…"
In his first post-election
interview , Bernie Sanders
has declared to
should-be-disgraced Wolf Blitzer that Trump seeking to indict Hillary Clinton for her crimes
would be "an outrage beyond belief".
When asked if President Obama should pardon Hillary Clinton, Sanders seems almost confused as
to why a pardon would even be needed.
Blitzer notes that Ford pardoned Nixon before he could be charged, to which Bernie seemed again
incredulous as to the comparison was even being made.
He goes on to state:
That a winning candidate would try to imprison the losing candidate – that's what dictatorships
are about, that's what authoritarian countries are about. You do not imprison somebody you ran
against because you have differences of opinion. The vast majority of the American people would
find it unacceptable to even think about those things.
Either Senator Sanders is a drooling idiot, or he is being willfully obtuse.
No one wants to imprison Hillary Clinton because of her opinion. They want to imprison Hillary Clinton because she has committed criminal actions that any other
person lacking millions of dollars and hundreds of upper-echelon contacts would be imprisoned for.
Apparently, according to progressive hero Bernie Sanders, holding the elites to the same level
of justice as the peons is undemocratic, authoritarian, and perhaps even dictatorial!
Enough with the damn emails?
Enough with any hope that the Democrats have retained a minute shred of credibility.
Lost control of the Senate
Lost control of the House of Representatives
Lost control of dozens of state legislatures and Governorships.
The Republicans control 36 States of America - One more and they could in theory amend the Constitution.
In Wisconsin (notionally Democrat) the Legislature and Governor are both Republican controlled.
And Clinton didn't even campaign there when it was pretty obvious the State was not trending towards
her.
By John Cassidy conviniently forget that Hillary was/is a neocon warmonger, perfectly
cable of unleashing WWIII. Instead he pushes "Comey did it" bogeyman"...
EMichael and im1dc would rather have their head in the sand. We were told confidently by Clinton
surrogates like Krugman and DeLong that Brexit wouldn't happen again.
Since Tuesday night, there has been a lot of handwringing about how the media, with all its fancy
analytics, failed to foresee Donald Trump's victory. The Times alone has published three articles
on this theme, one of which ran under the headline "How Data Failed Us in Calling an Election." On
social media, Trump supporters have been mercilessly haranguing the press for getting it wrong.
Clearly, this was a real issue. It's safe to say that most journalists, myself included, were
surprised by Tuesday's outcome. That fact should be acknowledged. But journalists weren't the only
ones who were shocked. As late as Tuesday evening, even a senior adviser to Trump was telling the
press that "it will take a miracle for us to win."
It also shouldn't be forgotten that, in terms of the popular vote, Clinton didn't lose on Tuesday.
As of 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, a tally by CNN showed that Hillary Clinton had received 60,617,062
votes, while Trump got 60,118,567. The margin in her favor-now at 498,495-is likely to grow as the
remaining votes are counted in California. At the end of the day, Clinton may end up ahead by two
per cent of the total votes cast. If the United States had a direct system of voting, Clinton would
have been the one at the White House on Thursday meeting with President Obama. But, of course, Trump
won the Electoral College. If the final count in Michigan remains in his favor, Trump will end up
with three hundred and six Electoral College votes, to Clinton's two hundred and twenty-six.
Still, as journalists and commentators, we all knew the rules of the game: if Trump got to two
hundred and seventy votes in the Electoral College, he'd be President. Why did so few observers predict
he'd do it? Many Trump supporters insist it was East Coast insularity and ideological bias, and many
in the media are now ready to believe that. To be sure, it's easy to get sucked into the media bubble.
But there are also strong professional incentives for journalists to get things right. Why did that
prove so difficult this year?
It wasn't because journalists weren't legging it to Michigan or Wisconsin or West Virginia. In
this magazine alone, a number of writers-including Larissa MacFarquhar, Evan Osnos, George Packer,
and George Saunders-published long, reported pieces about the Trump phenomenon in different parts
of the country. Many other journalists spent a lot of time talking with Trump supporters. I'd point
you to the work of ProPublica's Alec MacGillis and the photojournalist Chris Arnade, but they were
just two among many. So many, in fact, that some Clinton supporters, such as Eric Boehlert, of Media
Matters, regularly complained about it on social media.
To the extent that there was a failure, it was a failure of analysis, rather than of observation
and reporting. And when you talk about how the media analyzed this election, you can't avoid the
polls, the forecasting models, and the organizing frames-particularly demographics-that people used
to interpret the incoming data.
It was clear from early in the race that Trump's electoral strategy was based on appealing
to working-class whites, particularly in the Midwest. The question all along was whether, in the
increasingly diverse America of 2016, there were enough alienated working-class whites to propel
Trump to victory.
Some analysts did suggest that there might be. Immediately after the 2012 election, Sean Trende,
of Real Clear Politics, pointed out that one of the main reasons for Mitt Romney's defeat was that
millions of white voters stayed home. Earlier this year, during the Republican primaries, Trende
returned to the same theme, writing, "The candidate who actually fits the profile of a 'missing white
voter' candidate is Donald Trump."
The Times' Nate Cohn was another who took Trump's strategy seriously. In June, pointing to
a new analysis of Census Bureau data and voter-registration files, Cohn wrote, "a growing body of
evidence suggests that there is still a path, albeit a narrow one, for Mr. Trump to win without gains
among nonwhite voters." As recently as Sunday, Cohn repeated this point, noting that Trump's "strength
among the white working class gives him a real chance at victory, a possibility that many discounted
as recently as the summer."
Among analysts and political demographers, however, the near-consensus of opinion was that Trump
wouldn't be able to turn back history. Back in March, I interviewed Ruy Teixeira, the co-author of
an influential 2004 book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority," which highlighted the growing number
of minority voters across the country, particularly Hispanics. Drawing on his latest data, Teixeira,
who is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress, offered some
estimates of how many more white working-class voters Trump would need to turn out to flip states
like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. "It's not crazy," he said. "But I think it would be very hard
to pull off."
Trump managed it, though. He enjoyed a thirty-nine-point advantage among whites without college
degrees, according to the network exit poll, compared to the twenty-six-point advantage Romney saw
in 2012. "What totally tanked the Democrats was the massive shift in the white non-college vote against
them, particularly in some of the swing states," Teixeira told me by telephone on Thursday. "And
that by itself is really enough to explain the outcome."
In the lead-up to the election, the possibility of Clinton winning the popular vote while losing
the Electoral College was well understood but, in hindsight, not taken seriously enough. In mid-September,
David Wasserman, an analyst at the Cook Political Report, laid out a scenario in which turnout among
white non-college voters surged and turnout among some parts of the Democratic coalition, particularly
African-Americans, fell. "Clinton would carry the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points," Wasserman
wrote. "However, Trump would win the Electoral College with 280 votes by holding all 24 Romney states
and flipping Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Maine's 2nd Congressional District."
In the days and weeks leading up to the election, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver also considered
the possibility of Clinton winning the popular vote and losing the election. But he, Wasserman, and
others who looked at the matter believed this was an unlikely outcome. On Tuesday, the FiveThirtyEight
forecasting model estimated that the probability of such a scenario happening was about one in ten.
There was a straightforward reason for all the skepticism about Trump's chances: when you looked
at the state-level polling, it looked like Clinton's "blue wall" was holding. Take Wisconsin, which
turned out to be a state that Trump won. The Huffington Post's polling database lists the results
of more than thirty polls that were taken in the Badger State since June: Trump didn't lead in any
of them. Three of the final four surveys showed Clinton ahead by six points or more, and the Huffpollster
poll average put her lead at 6.3 percentage points. Trump carried the state by one point. In other
key states, the pattern was similar. The final Huffington Post poll averages showed Trump losing
by nearly six points in Michigan, and by four points in Pennsylvania.
In a public statement issued on Wednesday, the American Association for Public Opinion Research
said bluntly, "The polls clearly got it wrong this time." The organization announced that it had
already put together a panel of "survey research and election polling experts" tasked with finding
some answers. Several possible explanations have already been floated.
First, it's possible there was a late swing to Trump among undecided voters, which the state polls,
in particular, failed to pick up. Another possibility is that some Trump voters didn't tell the pollsters
about their preferences-the "shy Trump supporter" hypothesis.
A third theory, which I suspect may be the right one, is that a lot of Trump voters refused
to answer the pollsters' calls in the first place, because they regarded them as part of the same
media-political establishment that Trump was out railing against on the campaign trail. Something
like this appears to have happened in Britain earlier this year, during the run-up to the Brexit
referendum. Turnout wound up being considerably higher than expected among lower-income voters in
the north of England, particularly elderly ones, and that swung the result.
Whatever went wrong with the polls in this country, they inevitably colored perceptions. "The
reason it surprised me was because, like everyone else, I was taken in by those pesky polls," Teixeira
told me. "It didn't look like, by and large, that he was running up as big a margin as he needed
among non-college whites."
The prediction models didn't help things. On Tuesday morning, FiveThirtyEight's "polls-only"
prediction model put the probability of Clinton winning the presidency at 71.4 per cent. And that
figure was perhaps the most conservative one. The Times' Upshot model said Clinton had an eighty-five
per cent chance of winning, the Huffington Post's figure was ninety-eight per cent, and the Princeton
Election Consortium's estimate was ninety-nine per cent.
These numbers had a big influence on how many people, including journalists and political professionals,
looked at the election. Plowing through all the new polls, or even keeping up with all the state
and national poll averages, can be a time-consuming process. It's much easier to click on the latest
update from the model of your choice. When you see it registering the chances of the election going
a certain way at ninety per cent, or ninety-five per cent, it's easy to dismiss the other outcome
as a live possibility-particularly if you haven't been schooled in how to think in probabilistic
terms, which many people haven't.
The problem with models is that they rely so much on the polls. Essentially, they aggregate
poll numbers and use some simulation software to covert them into unidimensional probabilistic forecasts.
The details are complicated, and each model is different, but the bottom line is straightforward:
when the polls are fairly accurate-as they were in 2008 and 2012-the models look good. When the polls
are off, so are the models.
Silver, to his credit, pointed this out numerous times before the election. His model also allowed
for the possibility that errors in the state polls were likely to be correlated-i.e., if the polls
in Wisconsin got it wrong, then most likely the Michigan polls would get it wrong, too. This was
a big reason why FiveThirtyEight's model consistently gave Trump a better chance of winning than
other models did. But the fact remains that FiveThirtyEight, like almost everyone else, got the result
wrong.
I got it wrong, too. Unlike in 2012, I didn't make any explicit predictions this year. But based
on the polls and poll averages-I didn't look at the models much-I largely accepted the conventional
wisdom that Clinton was running ahead of Trump and had an enduring advantage in the Electoral College.
In mid-October, after the "Access Hollywood" tape emerged, I suggested that Trump was done.
Clearly, he wasn't. In retrospect, the F.B.I. Director James Comey's intervention ten days before
the election-telling Congress that his agency was taking another look at e-mails related to Clinton's
private server-may have proved decisive. The news seems to have shifted the national polls against
Clinton by at least a couple of points, and some of the state polls-in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina,
and other places-also moved sharply in Trump's direction. Without any doubt, it energized Republicans
and demoralized Democrats.
One thing we know for sure, however, is that in mid-October, even some of the indicators that
the Trump campaign relied on were sending out alarm signals. "Flash back three weeks, to October
18," Bloomberg News's Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg reported on Thursday. "The Trump campaign's
internal election simulator, the 'Battleground Optimizer Path to Victory,' showed Trump with a 7.8
percent chance of winning. That's because his own model had him trailing in most of the states that
would decide the election, including the pivotal state of Florida."
Of course, neither the Battleground Optimizer Path to Victory software nor I knew that fate, in
the form of Comey, was about to take a hand.
@138 The woman is wrong. Chelsea Clinton was not paid $600 k from the Clinton Foundation.
Chelsea Clinton was paid $600 k per year from 2011 by NBC for 'work' as a special correspondent,
whilst also pocketing $300 k per year plus stock options as a 'board member' of IAC. Chelsea's
speaking fees were a mere $65 k per.
The NYT offers a more severe critique of the IAC board deal readable by clicking through
the links. There will be those who see nothing improper about a fifth-estate firm paying a 31
year-old graduate student $600 k, or awarding her a board seat and stock options at $300k. Others
may disagree, and perhaps with some good reason.
The defeat of the democratic candidate by a rodeo clown is a slap in the face. Contra Manta
@71 I do not believe that anything less than a slap in the face of this order would be enough
to jar the successful and well-fed out of their state of complacency and indifference to the plight
of both the blacks and whites left behind by 8 years of Democratic rule, and far longer when we're
talking about urban African-Americans.
As noted, I believe the Republican candidate to be far and away the more sober, safer choice
both on domestic and foreign policy. Now we'll find out.
Thanks for the kind words to Rich, Bruce, T, bob mc, and others.
"... Abedin had top secret information on a laptop in her home that she never disclosed to FBI interviwers. She and her husband had money, or a source of income, above & beyond what their salaries would indicate. The latter could be the former. ..."
"... If military intelligence folk gave Trump his insider knowledge about Weiner's laptop, maybe they suspected the source of leaking intelligence. Dig? ..."
Willing to go out on a speculative limb. Some people want answers like Giuliani, and not because
they're interested, as Holder shrilly claimed, in 'jail[ing] political opponents.'
Abedin had top secret information on a laptop in her home that she never disclosed to FBI
interviwers. She and her husband had money, or a source of income, above & beyond what their salaries
would indicate. The latter could be the former.
Disgusting as it is, yes, my understanding is Obama can do
exactly that. My guess is, want to or not, he probably will come under so much pressure
he will have to pass out plenty of pardons. Or maybe Lynch will give everyone involved
in the Clinton Foundation immunity to testify and then seal the testimony -- or never
bother to get any testimony. So many games.
For Obama, it might not even take all that much pressure. From about his second day
in office, from his body language, he's always looked like he was scared.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, which he would do, being the lawyer he is,
Giuliani has been screaming for the Clintons' scalps. That's exactly what a sharp lawyer
would do if he was trying to force Obama to pardon them. If he really meant to get them
he would be agreeing with the FBI, saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of wrong
doing, and then change his mind once (if) he's AG and it's too late for deals.
With so many lawyers, Obama, the Clintons, Lynch, Giuliani, Comey, no justice is
likely to come out of this.
@ Posted by: Ken Nari | Nov 11, 2016 2:51:53 PM | 55
I heard a podcast on Batchelor
with Charles Ortel which explained some things -- even if there are no obvious likely
criminal smoking guns -- given that foundations get away with a lot of "leniency"
because they are charities, incomplete financial statements and chartering documents, as
I recall. I was most interested in his description of the number of jurisdictions the
Foundation was operating under, some of whom, like New York were already investigating;
and others, foreign who might or might be, who also have very serious regulations,
opening the possibility that if the Feds drop their investigation, New York (with very
very strict law) might proceed, and that they might well be investigated
(prosecuted/banned??) in Europe.
The most recent leak wrt internal practices was just damning ... it sounded like a
playground of favors and sinecures ... no human resources department, no written
policies on many practices ...
This was an internal audit and OLD (2008, called "the Gibson Review") so corrective
action may have been taken, but I thought was damning enough to deter many donors (even
before Hillary's loss removed that incentive) particularly on top of the Band (2011)
memo. Unprofessional to the extreme.
It's part of my vast relief that Clinton lost and will not be in our lives 24/7/365
for the next 4 years. (I think Trump is an unprincipled horror, but that's as may be,
I'm not looking for a fight). After the mess Clinton made of Haiti (and the
accusations/recriminations) I somehow thought they'd have been more careful with their
"legacy" -- given that it was founded in 1997, 2008 is a very long time to be operating
without written procedures wrt donations, employment
I think email sandals essentially zeroed Hillary changes to win any traditional Republican states...
But we will know for sure in two days. It also exposed such a level of incompetence by Hillary
herself and her close entourage that is really staggering even after Bush II administration.
Notable quotes:
"... Pence was not having it. "Ladies and gentlemen, mishandling classified information is a crime." He reminded the audience that "Hillary Clinton said there's nothing marked classified on her emails, sent or received, and the FBI director told to Congress, that's not true." ..."
"... Separate emails also indicated that a top State Department official had attempted to offer the FBI quid pro quo if the bureau agreed to let Clinton alter the classified status of the documents found on her private server. ..."
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence tells New Hampshire residents that "mishandling
classified information is a crime" and is discussing Hillary Clinton's ethical lapses.
During a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, Pence taled about FBI Director James Comey, shortly
after news broke that Comey issued a written that the bureau had "not changed" its conclusions that
Clinton should not face indictment over her raucous email scandal.
Speaking at the Hickory Regional Airport, Pence said, "You have a four-star general that might
get five years in prison, before the end of this year, for mishandling classified information," of
retired Gen. James Cartwright who was charged with lying to the FBI about discussing classified information
with reporters about Iran's nuclear program, during a probe.
Pence continued, "you have a sailor that just went to jail for taking a half-a-dozen photographs
in a classified area of a nuclear submarine. So let me say this, if only for their decades of self-dealing
with the politics of personal enrichment, mishandling classified information and compromising our
national security, we must ensure that Hillary Clinton is never elected president of the United States
of America."
... ... ...
Comey wrote, "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July
with respect to Secretary Clinton."
Pence was not having it. "Ladies and gentlemen, mishandling classified information is a crime."
He reminded the audience that "Hillary Clinton said there's nothing marked classified on her emails,
sent or received, and the FBI director told to Congress, that's not true."
He also pointed out that Clinton said she did not email any classified information to anyone. "And
the head of the FBI told to Congress, there was classified information that was emailed."
Separate emails also indicated that a top State Department official had attempted to offer the
FBI quid pro quo if the bureau agreed to let Clinton alter the classified status of the documents
found on her private server.
RNC chairman Reince Priebus
issued a statement to Breitbart News, following Comey's announcement, making it clear that the
FBI's public corruption investigation of the Clinton Foundation - which has raised billions of dollars
- is ongoing:
The FBI's findings from its criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's secret email server
were a damning and unprecedented indictment of her judgment. The FBI found evidence Clinton broke
the law, that she placed highly classified national security information at risk and repeatedly
lied to the American people about her reckless conduct. None of this changes the fact that the
FBI continues to investigate the Clinton Foundation for corruption involving her tenure as secretary
of state. Hillary Clinton should never be president.
It is unclear whether it was actually hacked, but the server was so unprofessionally managed that
hacking it is within the reach of medium qualification hacker. It violates the USA guidelines
for setting government mail server in all major areas. The only thing that could saved it from
hacking is that it looked very much as honeypot. On state level hacking there are no idiots or
script kiddies. They would never attack the server directly. They would probably go first after 'no
so bright" Bryan Paglian home network, or, better, after home network of completely clueless in
computer security Huma Abedin. There are many ways to skin the cat, and after the USA
developed Flame and Stixnet the gloves went off. At least for Iranians, who were targeted by
those cyber attacks.
Notable quotes:
"... he is "100 percent confident" that Clinton's secret private email server was hacked by foreign enemies. ..."
"... Clinton could face espionage charges if FBI investigators find that she permitted national defense information to be "lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed" through "gross negligence," which includes dishonesty. ..."
"... Wouldn't we love to have in real time, the emails and the electronic communications of the Russian foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister, and the Chinese? They're going to use that to exploit their advantage in their global strategy. That is what was going on. Our enemies were getting information on our national security issues, our economic security issues, in real time to plan their strategy for how they will thwart American interest. ..."
"... So what did we lose? Did she identify some of our sources? Some of the people that were working for the United States getting information. If we did, then we've got to go back and get those people out of the field. People might have died because of the information that she left and put onto her server. ..."
Former House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that he is "100 percent
confident" that Clinton's secret private email server was hacked by foreign enemies.
"I said this right away when we found out she had a secret server. I said, 'OK, that thing was
hacked by the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and maybe some other governments,'" Hoekstra said
on "Breitbart News Saturday" on Sirius/XM Channel 125.
Clinton could face espionage charges if FBI investigators find that she permitted national
defense information to be "lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed" through "gross negligence," which
includes dishonesty.
... ... ...
Wouldn't we love to have in real time, the emails and the electronic communications of
the Russian foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister, and the Chinese? They're going to
use that to exploit their advantage in their global strategy. That is what was going on. Our enemies
were getting information on our national security issues, our economic security issues, in real
time to plan their strategy for how they will thwart American interest.
So what did we lose? Did she identify some of our sources? Some of the people that were
working for the United States getting information. If we did, then we've got to go back and get
those people out of the field. People might have died because of the information that she left
and put onto her server.
Breitbart News has led the media in exposing the national security ramifications of Clinton's private
email server. In a recent piece entitled, "Hillary Clinton Email Case Explained,"
Breitbart News reported:
Hillary's 2008 campaign IT specialist Bryan Pagliano
labored for months in a room on K Street in Washington, D.C., building the server for Clinton
to use.
Hillary Clinton kicked off her State Department career in Foggy Bottom in January 2009 with
a private Apple server, then switched to Pagliano's handcrafted server
in March 2009…
…Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to hide the fact that she was using a private email
server. She emailed with
President Obama while Obama was using a pseudonym. She kept her own State Department IT Help
Desk in the dark about her secret email activities, because her private email account
got flagged when she tried to send emails to her own staff. "It bounced back. She called the
email help desk at state (I guess assuming u had state email) and told them that. They had no
idea it was YOU," Abedin told her. Clinton even
paid a firm in Jacksonville called "Perfect Privacy LLC" to plug in phony owner names for
her email network on Internet databases.
The server
had an open webmail portal, making it easily vulnerable to run-of-the-mill hackers. James
Comey noted evidence showing
hacks by "hostile actors." Capitol Hill sources speak in hushed tones about
the "Russian
Files," which are said to include information about a Russian hack. Clinton was warned of
a security "vulnerability" on her BlackBerry on her first official trip to China, and the State
Department told her to stop using it. But Clinton decided to keep using it.
She told a private audience in a paid speech that her BlackBerry was under attack constantly
by the Chinese and Russians.
The State Department warned Clinton to stop using her Blackberry to conduct email
business after the Department flagged a major security "vulnerability" on Clinton's first
official trip to China as Secretary of State. But Clinton ignored the warning and kept using her
Blackberry.
Flynn said that the media is covering up Clinton's alleged crimes:
People need to know what this is and so the mainstream media-all of the media, basically 99 percent of the media-doesn't
even bother with it anymore. Nobody even covers it anymore. This is dangerous for our country and then you throw in all this
stuff from this past week-you have this case against Anthony Weiner and he's directly tied to Hillary Clinton.
He's under multiple investigations. Then you have the Clinton Foundation, which is under multiple investigations by the FBI,
and not just one but multiple.
You have the reopening of the national security investigation by the FBI directly against Hillary Clinton, that's another one
that's open.
So I mean we are stupid people, we are stupid people in this country is we elect Hillary Clinton to be our next president
because we're going to have nothing but scandal and dark cloud scandal over our country for the next four years and we cannot
afford it with all the problems we face in this country and all the problems we face around the world.
What we need is we need to drain the damn swamp .
We need to get new leadership in our country, we need to get fresh blood in our country, and we need to stop the madness we
are facing with this era of corruption in our country that has been going on for decades. We have got to stop it.
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
Now the question is: if this is true, why the invetigation was reopened in the first place?
For many voters, this story comes too late. More than 12m votes have already been cast across
the country in early voting, representing around 10% of the likely total votes in this election.
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, told Congress on Sunday that he
had seen no evidence in a recently discovered trove of emails to change his conclusion that
Hillary Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.
... ... ...
The letter was a dramatic final twist in a tumultuous nine days for
both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, who drew
widespread criticism for announcing that the F.B.I. had discovered new emails that might be
relevant to its investigation of Mrs. Clinton, which ended in July with no charges. That
criticism of Mr. Comey from both parties is likely to persist after the election.
"... according to the State Department, the previously undisclosed donation suggests there may be an ethics violation by the foundation, even though the State of Qatar is shown on the foundation's website as having given at least that amount. There is no date listed for the donation. ..."
"... Underscoring the potential flagrant abuse of ethical guidelines if the Qatar payment is confirmed, Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. government that while she served as secretary of state the foundation would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's ethics office . The agreement was designed to dispel concerns that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by donations to the foundation. ..."
"... She has another problem. Previous posts on ZH indicate that there exists a conflict between the Clinton Foundation and the CHAI the Clinton Health Access Initiative. ..."
"... The board of CHAI is upset that the CF accepts money intended for CHAI but this money never flows through to CHAI. The CF accepts funds and encourages donations based on CHAI activity but these funds do not appear to be transferrred to the legal entity undertaking the health work. ..."
"... "Pay my foundation": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GHth-bt0Qs ..."
"... We (CHAI) are very concerned about cases where we meet Clinton Foundation donors who believe they have given money to support CHAI's work because they have donated to the CF, when in reality CHAI does not receive the funds. ..."
"... only 5.7% goes to charitable causes. The remainder goes to salaries, travel and confrences. In other words, goes to pay Hillary's and Bill's personal and political expenses. ..."
"... The Clintons out Mafia the Mafia. ..."
"... "The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the investigation and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'" ..."
Three weeks ago,
when we first reported that Qatar had offered to pay the Clinton Foundation $1 million after
a hacked Podesta email disclosed that the ambassador of Qatar " Would like to see WJC [William Jefferson
Clinton] 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday
in 2011 ", we said that in this particular case, the Clinton Foundation may also be in violation
of State Department ethics codes.
As we said in early October, while this has been seen by critics of the Clinton Foundation as yet
another instance of influence pandering and "pay-to-play", this time there may actually be consequences
for the Clinton Foundation: according to the State Department, the previously undisclosed donation
suggests there may be an ethics violation by the foundation, even though the State of Qatar is shown
on the foundation's website as having given at least that amount. There is no date listed for the
donation.
Underscoring the potential flagrant abuse of ethical guidelines if the Qatar payment is confirmed,
Hillary Clinton promised the U.S. government that while she served as secretary of state the foundation
would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's
ethics office . The agreement was designed to dispel concerns that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed
by donations to the foundation.
Of course, US foreign policy could be very easily swayed if Hillary accepted money and simply
did not report it the receipt of such money.
She has another problem. Previous posts on ZH indicate that there exists a conflict between the
Clinton Foundation and the CHAI the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
The board of CHAI is upset that the CF accepts money intended for CHAI but this money never
flows through to CHAI. The CF accepts funds and encourages donations based on CHAI activity but
these funds do not appear to be transferrred to the legal entity undertaking the health work.
Next question is - Where does the money go? And who benefits? ,
CHAI is often portrayed by the Clinton Foundation (CF) as an initiative of the Foundation.
. . . We (CHAI) are very concerned about cases where we meet Clinton Foundation donors who believe
they have given money to support CHAI's work because they have donated to the CF, when in reality
CHAI does not receive the funds.
See paragraph 4 on page 3 of the full memo which is a part of the above ZH post.
Hillay said at one of the debates that the Clinton Foundation pays out 90% to charity.
NOT SO. Latest filing - 2014 - shows that only 5.7% goes to charitable causes. The remainder
goes to salaries, travel and confrences. In other words, goes to pay Hillary's and Bill's personal
and political expenses.
Ten years ago I considered setting up a Non-profit Family Charitable corporation, the minimum
yearly donation was 7% at that time, of course it may have changed.
Citing a "well-placed source" in the New York Police Department, Blackwater USA founder and
retired Navy SEAL Erik Prince.....said the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the
warrants and the additional arrests they were making in the Weiner investigation but received
"huge pushback" from the Justice Department.
"The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by
her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they
gave it to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the
investigation and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'"
Hillary Clinton deleted a 2009 email in which she forwarded classified information to her daughter,
Chelsea.
The email was released on Friday by the State Department. It is one of thousands of documents
recovered by the FBI from Clinton's private email server.
The Dec. 20, 2009 email chain , entitled "Update," started with a message from Michael Froman,
who served as a deputy assistant to President Obama and deputy national security adviser for international
economic affairs.
The email, which is redacted because it contains information classified as "Confidential," was
sent to Jake Sullivan, Clinton's foreign policy adivser at the State Department, and several Obama
aides. Sullivan sent it to Hillary Clinton who then forwarded it to Chelsea, who emailed under the
pseudonym "Diane Reynolds."
"... If this is so, Hillary Clinton as security risk ranks right up there with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, though they acted out of treasonous ideology and she out of Clintonian hubris. What do these foreign intelligence agencies know about Clinton that the voters do not? ..."
"... The second revelation from Baier is that the Clinton Foundation has been under active investigation by the white-collar crime division of the FBI for a year and is a "very high priority." ..."
"... The FBI told Baier that they anticipate indictments. ..."
"... Indeed, with the sums involved, and the intimate ties between high officials of Bill's foundation, and Hillary and her close aides at State, it strains credulity to believe that deals were not discussed and cut. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... And he knows better than any other high official the answer to a critical question that needs answering before Tuesday: has Baier been fed exaggerated or false information by FBI agents hostile to Clinton? Or has Baier been told the truth? In the latter case, we are facing a constitutional crisis if Clinton is elected. And the American people surely have a right to know that before they go to the polls on Tuesday. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is a founding editor of ..."
For, if true, Clinton could face charges in 2017 and impeachment and removal from office in 2018.
According to Baier, FBI agents have found new emails, believed to have originated on Clinton's
server, on the computer jointly used by close aide Huma Abedin and her disgraced husband, Anthony
Weiner.
Abedin's failure to turn this computer over to the State Department on leaving State appears to
be a violation of U.S. law.
Moreover, the laptops of close Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, thought destroyed
by the FBI, were apparently retained and are "being exploited" by the National Security division.
And here is the salient point. His FBI sources told Baier, "with 99 percent" certitude, that Clinton's
Chappaqua server "had been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence services."
If this is so, Hillary Clinton as security risk ranks right up there with Alger Hiss and Harry
Dexter White, though they acted out of treasonous ideology and she out of Clintonian hubris. What
do these foreign intelligence agencies know about Clinton that the voters do not?
The second revelation from Baier is that the Clinton Foundation has been under active investigation
by the white-collar crime division of the FBI for a year and is a "very high priority."
Specifically, the FBI is looking into published allegations of "pay-to-play." This is the charge
that the Clinton State Department traded access, influence, and policy decisions to foreign regimes
and to big donors who gave hundreds of millions to the Clinton Foundation, along with 15 years of
six-figure speaking fees for Bill and Hillary.
According to Baier's sources, FBI agents are "actively and aggressively" pursuing this case, have
interviewed and re-interviewed multiple persons, and are now being inundated in an "avalanche of
new information" from WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
The FBI told Baier that they anticipate indictments.
Indeed, with the sums involved, and the intimate ties between high officials of Bill's foundation,
and Hillary and her close aides at State, it strains credulity to believe that deals were not discussed
and cut.
Books have been written alleging and detailing them.
Also, not only Fox News but also the Wall Street Journal and other news sources are reporting
on what appears to be a rebellion inside the FBI against strictures on their investigations imposed
by higher ups in the Department of Justice of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Director Comey has come under fire from left and right-first for refusing to recommend the prosecution
of Clinton, then for last week's statement about the discovery of new and "pertinent" emails on the
Abedin-Weiner computer-but retains a reputation for integrity.
And he knows better than any other high official the answer to a critical question that needs
answering before Tuesday: has Baier been fed exaggerated or false information by FBI agents hostile
to Clinton? Or has Baier been told the truth? In the latter case, we are facing a constitutional crisis if Clinton is elected. And the American
people surely have a right to know that before they go to the polls on Tuesday.
What is predictable ahead?
Attorney General Lynch, whether she stays or goes, will be hauled before Congress to explain whether
she or top aides impeded the FBI investigations of the Clinton scandals. And witnesses from within
her Justice department and FBI will also be called to testify.
Moreover, Senate Republicans would block confirmation of any new attorney general who did not
first promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the email and pay-to-play scandals,
and any pressure from Lynch's Justice Department on the FBI.
Even Democrats would concede that a Department of Justice staffed by Hillary Clinton appointees
could not credibly be entrusted with investigating alleged high crimes and misdemeanors by former
Secretary of State Clinton and confidants like Abedin and Mills.
An independent counsel, a special prosecutor, appears inevitable.
And such individuals usually mark their success or failure by how many and how high are the indictments
and convictions they rack up.
Virtually the whole planet holds its collective breath at the prospect of Hillary Clinton possibly
becoming the next President of the United States (POTUS).
How's that humanly possible, as the (daily) Bonfire of The Scandals – relentlessly fed by WikiLeaks
revelations and now converging FBI investigations – can now be seen from interstellar space?
It's possible because Hillary Clinton, slouching through a paroxysm of manufactured hysteria,
is supported by virtually the whole US establishment, a consensual neocon/neoliberalcon War Party/Wall
Street/corporate media axis.
But History has a tendency to show us there's always a straw that breaks the camel's back.
... ... ...
As far as the Clinton machine is concerned, an interlocking influence peddling pile up is the
norm. John Podesta also happens to be the founder of the Center for American Progress – a George
Soros operation and prime recruiting ground for Obama administration officials, including US Treasury
operatives who decided which elite Too Big To Fail (TBTF) financial giants would be spared after
the 2008 crisis. DCLeaks.com , for its part, has
connected Soros Open Society foundations to global funding rackets directly leading to subversion
of governments and outright regime change (obviously sparing Clinton Foundation donors.)
Exceptional bananas, anyone?
The perfectly timed slow drip of WikiLeaks revelations, for the Clinton machine, feels like a
sophisticated form of Chinese torture. To alleviate the pain, the relentless standard spin has been
to change the subject, blame the messenger, and attribute it all to "evil" Russian hacking when the
real source for the leaks might have come straight from the
https://www.rt.com/news/365164-assange-interview-wikileaks-russia/
belly of the (Washington) beast.
At the Valdai discussion club last week, it took President Putin
"Another mythical and imaginary problem is what I can only call the hysteria the USA has
whipped up over supposed Russian meddling in the American presidential election. The United States
has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase
in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police. You would think that the election
debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with
which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing
instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth.
I have to ask myself and ask you too: Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow
influence the American people's choice? America is not some kind of 'banana republic', after all,
but is a great power. Do correct me if I am wrong."
Reality, though, continues to insist on offering multiple, overlapping banana republic instances,
configuring a giant black hole of transparency.
Anthropologist Janine Wedel has been one of the few in Clinton-linked US mainstream media
Now, less than a week before the election, we have come to the crucial juncture where the WikiLeaks
revelations are merging with the FBI investigations – all three of them.
this WikiLeaks bombshell; Peter Kadzik, who's now in charge of the Department of Justice (DOJ)
probe into the 650,000 emails found on the laptop shared by Clinton's right-hand woman Huma Abedin
and her estranged, pervert husband Anthony Wiener, is a Clinton asset.
Not only Kadzik was an attorney for Marc Rich when he was pardoned by Bill Clinton; Podesta
– as also revealed by WikiLeaks – thanked Kadzik for keeping him "out of jail"; and it was Kadzik
who gave Podesta a secret heads up
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150#efmABWAB8ACiACqACvADUADXAIF on the Clinton
email investigation.
The Clinton machine, starring a self-described virtuous Madonna, is actually a pretty nasty
business. Huma and her family's close connections to Saudi Arabia – and the Muslim Brotherhood –
are legendary (that includes his brother Hassan, who works for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi). Podesta,
by the way, is a handsomely remunerated lobbyist for Saudi Arabia in Washington; that's part of the
Clinton Foundation connection.
Yet now, with Huma in the spotlight – still maintaining she didn't know all those emails were
in her and Wiener's laptop – it's no wonder Hillary has instantly downgraded her, publicly, to "one
of my aides". She used to be Hillary's ersatz
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser "daughter"; now she's
being framed as The Fall Princess.
And that brings us to the intersection of those three FBI investigations; on Hillary's Subterranean
Email Server (in theory closed by FBI's Comey last summer); on the Clinton Foundation; and on Wiener's
sexting of minors. The FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for over a year now. Let's
try to cut a long story short.
Follow the evidence
Last July, the DOJ – under Clinton/Obama asset Loretta Lynch – decided not to prosecute anyone
on Emailgate. And yet FBI director Comey – who nonetheless stressed Hillary's "extreme carelessness"
– turbo-charged his no-denial mode on another investigation, as in the FBI "sought to refocus the
Clinton Foundation probe."
Soon we had Clinton Foundation FBI investigators trying to get access to all the emails turned
over in the Emailgate investigation. The East District of New York refused it. Very important point;
up to 2015, guess who was the US attorney at the East District; Clinton/Obama asset Lynch.
Enter an extra layer of legalese. Less than two months ago, the Clinton Foundation FBI investigators
discovered they could not have access to any Emailgate material that was connected to immunity agreements.
But then, roughly a month ago, another FBI team captured the by now famous laptop shared by
Huma and Wiener – using a warrant allowing only a probe on Weiner's sexting of a 15-year-old girl.
Subsequently they found Huma Abedin emails at all her accounts – from
[email protected]to the crucial
[email protected]. This meant not only that Huma
was forwarding State Dept. emails to her private accounts, but also that Hillary was sending emails
from the "secret" clintonemail.com to Huma at yahoo.com.
No one knew for sure, but some of these emails might be duplicates of those the Clinton Foundation
FBI investigators could not access because of the pesky immunity agreements.
What's established by now is that the metadata in the Huma/Wiener laptop was duly examined. Now
picture both teams of FBI investigators – Clinton Foundation and pervert Wiener – comparing notes.
And then they decide Huma's emails are "relevant".
Key questions apply; and the most pressing is how the emails were deemed "relevant" if the investigators
could only examine the metadata. What matters is that Comey certainly was made aware of the content
of the emails – a potential game-changer. That's why one of my sources
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201610311046920348-clinton-fbi-november-surprise/ insists
his decision to go public came from above.
The other key question now is whether the DOJ – via Kadzik? – will once again thwart another
investigation, this time on the Clinton Foundation. Senior, serious FBI agents won't take that –
massive euphemism – kindly. The FBI has been on the Clinton Foundation for over a year. Now, arguably,
they are loaded with evidence – and they won't quit. Winning the presidency now seems to be the least
of Hillary Clinton's Bonfire of Scandals' problems.
Eric, November 4, 2016 1:08 pm
After the Nixon Watergate scandal, which avoided discussion of his war crimes and
treasonous undermining of Vietnamese peace talks, and probable role in JFK's assassination.
And after the Iran Contra scandal which also involved illegal arms transfers, obstruction of
justice, end running around supplying arms to terrorists, drug dealing, etc., it is refreshing
that after Bill's impeachment on relatively minor charges (do older guys having affairs with
younger women occur, and they don't want to talk about it?), to see some Democrats, who have
always portrayed themselves as the good guys against the evil Nixons and Reagans and Bushes,
being caught red handed in good oldfashioned money laundering, gun running, supplying arms to
terrorists and cavorting with and accepting money from good old fashioned head chopping human
rights violators, in true treasonous style.
As the saying goes, "The country is run by gangsters, and the ones who win are called 'The
Government'.
Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince told Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that
according to one of his "well-placed sources" in the New York Police Department, "The NYPD wanted
to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making" in
the Anthony Weiner investigation, but received "huge pushback" from the Justice Department.
Prince began by saying he had no problem believing reports that the FBI was highly confident multiple
foreign agencies
hacked Hillary Clinton's private email server . "I mean, it's not like the foreign intelligence
agencies leave a thank-you note after they've hacked and stolen your data," Prince said to SiriusXM
host Alex Marlow.
Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director
James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton's email server last week.
"Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena,
through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found
way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,"
Prince claimed.
"They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information,
including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there
at least six times," he said.
"The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her
immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it
to the FBI, and they said, 'We're going to go public with this if you don't reopen the investigation
and you don't do the right thing with timely indictments,'" Prince explained.
"I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza
in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional
arrests they were making in this investigation, and they've gotten huge pushback, to the point of
coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone
that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago.
That's the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice
in the email and other related criminal matters," Prince said.
"There's five different parts of the FBI conducting investigations into these things, with constant
downdrafts from the Obama Justice Department. So in the, I hope, unlikely and very unfortunate event
that Hillary Clinton is elected president, we will have a constitutional crisis that we have not
seen since, I believe, 1860," Prince declared.
Marlow asked Prince to clarify these revelations.
"NYPD was the first one to look at that laptop," Prince elaborated. "Weiner and Huma Abedin, his
wife – the closest adviser of Hillary Clinton for 20 years – have both flipped. They are cooperating
with the government. They both have – they see potential jail time of many years for their crimes,
for Huma Abedin sending and receiving and even storing hundreds of thousands of messages from the
State Department server and from Hillary Clinton's own homebrew server, which contained classified
information. Weiner faces all kinds of exposure for the inappropriate sexting that was going on and
for other information that they found."
"So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything,
and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen
that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the
information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn't," Prince contended.
"There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they've seen of that 650,000,
including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate
handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to SAP level Special Access Programs,"
he stated.
"So the plot thickens. NYPD was pushing because, as an article quoted one of the chiefs – that's
the level just below commissioner – he said as a parent, as a father with daughters, he could not
let that level of evil continue," Prince said.
He noted that the FBI can investigate these matters, "but they can't convene a grand jury. They
can't file charges."
"The prosecutors, the Justice Department has to do that," he explained. "Now, as I understand
it, Preet Bharara, the Manhattan prosecutor, has gotten ahold of some of this. From what I hear,
he's a stand-up guy, and hopefully he does the right thing."
Marlow agreed that Bharara's "sterling reputation" as a determined prosecutor was "bad news for
the Clintons."
Prince agreed, but said, "If people are willing to bend or break the law and don't really care
about the Constitution or due process – if you're willing to use Stalinist tactics against someone
– who knows what level of pressure" could be brought to bear against even the most tenacious law
enforcement officials?
"The point being, fortunately, it's not just the FBI; [there are] five different offices that
are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well," Prince said, citing the Wall Street
Journal reporting that has "exposed downdraft, back pressure from the Justice Department" against
both the FBI and NYPD, in an effort to "keep the sunlight and the disinfecting effects of the truth
and transparency from shining on this great evil that has gone on, and is slowly being exposed."
"The Justice Department is trying to run out the clock, to elect Hillary Clinton, to prevent any
real justice from being done," he warned.
As for the mayor of New York City, Prince said he has heard that "de Blasio wants to stay away
from this."
"The evidence is so bad, the email content is so bad, that I think even he wants to stay away
from it, which is really telling," he said.
Prince reported that the other legislators involved in the case "have not been named yet," and
urged the NYPD to hold a press conference and name them.
"I wish they'd do it today," he said. "These are the unusual sliding-door moments of history,
that people can stand up and be counted, and make a real difference, and to save a Republic, save
a Constitution that we actually need and love, that our forefathers fought and died for. For any
cop that is aware of this level of wrongdoing, and they have veterans in their family, or deceased
veterans in their family, they owe it to them to stand up, to stand and be counted today ,
and shine the light of truth on this great evil."
"From what I understand, up to the commissioner or at least the chief level in NYPD, they wanted
to have a press conference, and DOJ, Washington people, political appointees have been exerting all
kinds of undue pressure on them to back down," he added.
Marlow suggested that some of those involved in keeping the details quiet might want to avoid
accusations of politicizing the case and seeking to influence the presidential election.
"Sure, that's it. That's the argument for it," Prince agreed. "But the fact is, you know that
if the Left had emails pointing to Donald Trump visiting, multiple times, an island with underage
sex slaves basically, emails, you know they'd be talking about it. They'd be shouting it from the
rooftops."
"This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton – look, you don't have to make any
judgments. Just release the emails," he urged. "Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see
the light of truth."
Prince dismissed the claims of people like Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta and DNC chair Donna
Brazile that some of the damaging emails already released by WikiLeaks were fabricated, noting that
"forensic analysis done shows that, indeed, they are not fabricated; they are really legitimate."
"This is stuff coming right off a hard drive that was owned by Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin,
Hillary's closest adviser for the last 20 years," he said of the new bombshells. "This is not from
some hacker or anybody else. This is a laptop seized from a warrant in a criminal investigation."
Prince confirmed that based on his information, Abedin is most likely looking at jail time, unless
she cuts a deal with prosecutors.
"There's a minimum of obstruction of justice and all kinds of unlawful handling of classified
information," he said. "Because remember, this laptop was in the possession of Weiner, who did not
have a security clearance. And many, many of those emails were from her Yahoo account, which had
State Department emails forwarded to them, so she could easier print these messages, scan them, and
send them on to Hillary. That's the carelessness that Hillary and her staff had for the classified
information that the intelligence community risks life and limb to collect in challenged, opposed
areas around the world."
"That's not who you want in the White House," Prince declared.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Eastern.
And the hits just keep on comin' with the Abedin email stash:
"These emails, CBS News' Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary
Clinton's private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are
significant to the FBI's investigation into Clinton."
Two sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI's investigations told
Fox News Wednesday that a probe of the Clinton Foundation is likely to lead to an indictment.
Fox News's Bret Baier said Wednesday that the FBI probe into a possible pay-to-play scheme between
Democratic presidential nominee and the Clinton Foundation
has been going on for over a year. Sources told the news network that the investigation, which is
conducted by the White Collar Crime division of the FBI, is a "very high priority."
One source further
stated that the bureau collected "a lot of" evidence, adding that "there is an avalanche of new information
coming every day." Baier also said that the Clinton Foundation probe is more expansive than previously
thought, and that many individuals have been interviewed several times throughout the course of the
investigation. Sources said that they are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case" and that
investigations are likely to continue. Baier added that when he pressed the sources about the details
of both probes, they told him that they are likely to lead to an indictment. Additionally, Baier
reported that according to Fox News's sources, Clinton's private email server had been breached by
at least five foreign intelligence hackers. FBI Director James Comey said in July that he could not
say definitively whether her server had been breached.
It's looking increasingly like there is an ongoing mutiny underway within the FBI as the
Wall Street Journal is reporting that, according to "officials at multiple agencies", FBI agents
felt they had adequate evidence, including "secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton
Foundation" , to pursue an investigation of the Clinton Foundation but were repeatedly obstructed
by officials at the Department of Justice.
Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle
between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements
as worthless hearsay, people familiar with the matter said.
The roots of the dispute lie in a disagreement over the strength of the case, these people
said, which broadly centered on whether Clinton Foundation contributors received favorable treatment
from the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
Senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI didn't think much of the evidence, while
investigators believed they had promising leads their bosses wouldn't let them pursue , they said.
Despite clear signals from the Justice Department to abandon the Clinton Foundation inquiries,
many FBI agents refused to stand down. Then, earlier this year in February 2016, the FBI presented
initial evidence at a meeting with Leslie Caldwell, the head of the DOJ's criminal division, after
which agents were delivered a clear message that "we're done here." But, as the WSJ points out, DOJ
became increasing frustrated with FBI agents that were " disregarding or disobeying their instructions"
which subsequently prompted an emphatic "stand down" message from the DOJ to "all the offices involved."
As 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither
side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first.
In February, a meeting was held in Washington among FBI officials, public-integrity prosecutors
and Leslie Caldwell, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Prosecutors from
the Eastern District of New York-Mr. Capers' office-didn't attend, these people said.
The public-integrity prosecutors weren't impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar
with the discussion said. "The message was, 'We're done here,' " a person familiar with the matter
said.
Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding
or disobeying their instructions.
Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message
to all the offices involved to " stand down ,'' a person familiar with the matter said.
The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking
about alleged deals the Clintons made , these people said. The agents listening to the recordings
couldn't tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was,
they thought, worth checking out.
Obama can GTFO. He created this situation by allowing Loretta Lynch to be compromised, as well
as himself. The BFBI was left with little choice but to go public in a legal way via FOIA requests,
something that the corrupt DoJ can't stop. Jason Chaffetz has now formally asked another member
of the corrupt Government to recuse himself, as he too is compromised and was tipping off the
Clintons. We have yet to find out just how far these rabbit holes go, but the Illuminati appear
to be worried - $150M is a lot to explain away...
BillFromBoston 10h ago
Obama criticizes the FBI today...but didn't have a single bloody word to say when BillyBob
(that's Bill Clinton to you Brits) happened to bump into the nation's Attorney General several
days before she declared Hillary to be a candidate for sainthood.
But that's understandable...after all, all they talked about was grandchildren and golf.Just
ask them,they'll tell you!
curiouschak 10h ago
Idiot democrat primary voters. They actually ended up selecting such a toxic, defensive,
shifty corrupt candidate that she may up handing the election to an orange turd with a dead
raccoon on its head.
They couldn't do the right and smart thing and elect Sanders. He would have wiped the floor
with this tangerine blowhard
Chuckman 10h ago
You are pathetic, Obama, absolutely pathetic. Who ever heard of the chief magistrate criticizing
law enforcement during an investigation about which he indeed knows very little.
Or, maybe that should be, pretends to know very little. There are suggestions that some
material could be dangerous to Obama.
His previous testimony that he knew nothing about illegal, insecure computers being used
at State appears contradicted by the fact we now know from Wiki-Leaks material he had a pseudonym
and had e-mails back and forth from Hills and Company.
In an
interview with House magazine, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux – the former Chief of the Defence
staff – said Mr. Trump is "wise enough to get good people round him and probably knows that he's
got to listen to them and therefore I think we should not automatically think it will be less safe".
He added: "It's non-state actors like Isis that are the biggest threat to our security. If
countries and states could coalesce better to deal with these people – and I think Trump's instinct
is to go down that route – then I think there's the case for saying that the world certainly won't
be any less safe.
"It's that lack of understanding and empathy with each other as big power players that is a
risk to us all at the moment.
"Therefore I think he would reinvigorate big power relationships, which might make the world
ironically safer."
During the interview Lord Richards also discussed the somewhat controversial view that the
West should partner with Russia and Bashar al-Assad to take back the Syrian city of Aleppo.
He said: "If the humanitarian situation in Syria is our major concern, which it should be –
millions of lives have been ruined, hundreds of thousands have been killed – I believe there is
a strong case for allowing Assad to get in there and take the city back.
"The opposition groups – many of whom are not friends of ours, they're extremists – are now
intermingled with the original good opposition groups, are fighting from amongst the people. The
only quick way of solving it is to allow Assad to win. There's no way the opposition groups are
going to win."
Lord Richards added: "We want the humanitarian horror of Aleppo to come to a rapid halt. The
best and quickest way of doing that is to encourage the opposition groups to leave. The Russians
are undoubtedly using their weapons indiscriminately. If they're going to attack those groups
then there is inevitably going to be civilian casualties.
"The alternative is for the West to declare a no-fly zone and that means you've got to be prepared
to go to war with Russia ultimately. I see no appetite for that and nor, frankly, do I see much
sense in it. It sticks in my throat to say it because I have no love for Assad.
"The fact is, the only way to get it to stop now is to allow Assad to win and win quickly and
then turn on Isis with the Russians."
Fox News Channel's Bret Baier reports the latest news about the Clinton Foundation
investigation from two sources inside the FBI. He reveals five important new pieces of
information in these two short clips:
Senior FBI officials were informed about the discovery of new emails potentially relevant to the
investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server at least two weeks before Director James
B. Comey notified Congress, according to federal officials familiar with the investigation.
The officials said that Comey was told that there were new emails before he received a formal
briefing last Thursday, although the precise timing is unclear.
The information goes beyond the details provided in the letter that Comey sent to lawmakers last
week declaring that he was restarting the inquiry into whether Clinton mishandled classified material
during her tenure as secretary of state. He wrote in the Friday letter that "the investigative team
briefed me yesterday" about the additional emails.
The people familiar with the investigation said that senior officials had been informed weeks
earlier that a computer belonging to former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) contained emails
potentially pertinent to the Clinton investigation. Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, shared the computer
with her husband, from whom she is now separated.
"... The Presidency is the Clinton's last chance to protect their empire. ..."
"... People are theorizing that the Clinton emails were in a folder marked life insurance because Uma feared for her life and thought that the folder would protect from being murdered. Good thinking Uma! ..."
"... You know, Huma looks so totally clueless about everything mechanical or technical that I might actually believe it if she were to nailgun herself to death. Same for Hillary, for that matter. ..."
Changing subject lines of classified e-mails days before attorneys delete e-mails of personal
nature by...subject line contents!?!?! Intent motherfuckers.
Holy crap.....they are both changing this email to be personal so it can be deleted and not
turned over! This is obstruction of justice!
Podesta replies, changes the subject line, and adds personal comments a month later because
that is when the lawyers were sorting through the emails to determine which ones were personal.
Hillary replied too!
· "They do not plan to release anything publicly, so no posting online or anything public-facing,
just to the committee."
· "That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear
to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over.
It also includes emails that HRC had that Sid didn't."
· "Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That's the heart of his exec privilege. We
could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will."
· "We brought up the existence of emails in reserach this summer but were told that everything
was taken care of."
· "That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear
to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over."
· The State Department was:
o (1) Coordinating with the Clinton political campaign.
o (2) Colluding with the press to spin it positively.
o (3) Doing so BEFORE they released it to AN EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. The Clinton campaign
was always a step ahead of the committee investigating them. Shameful.
· Nick states "Just spoke to State" He goes on to reveal that State colluded with him about
which emails are being revealed to committee and that the State plans to plant a story with AP.
· Shows intent to withhold emails from the subpoena.
People are theorizing that the Clinton emails were in a folder marked life insurance because Uma
feared for her life and thought that the folder would protect from being murdered. Good thinking
Uma!
You know, Huma looks so totally clueless about everything mechanical or technical that I might
actually believe it if she were to nailgun herself to death. Same for Hillary, for that matter.
"... Now being reported that the Cheryl Millls laptop, thought to have been destroyed as part of her immunity deal, is actually intact and being reviewed by the FBI. Ruh Roh. Not sure if it will contain emails related to yoga classes or national security ..."
Now being reported that the Cheryl Millls laptop, thought to have been destroyed as part of
her immunity deal, is actually intact and being reviewed by the FBI. Ruh Roh. Not sure if it will
contain emails related to yoga classes or national security
Rouvas -> stratplaya 45m ago
Why does she get immunity anyway? Usually you give someone immunity in return for getting
them to blab on someone...
Oh yes, silly me, it's the Clinton's we are talking about... different rules apply
Today's release follows dramatic revelations in which we learned that the DOJ's Peter Kadzik had
colluded with John Podesta in the early days of the Clinton campaign, while in a serpate email we
found more evidence of collusion between the Clinton campaign, the NYT and the State Department in
drafting the "breaking" story that exposed Hillary's possession of a home email server.
"... In the latest update from Fox's Bret Baier , we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation about ongoing conflicts of interest. ..."
"... FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI 302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources. ..."
"... As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian, told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies." ..."
"... Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans. ..."
"... The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations. ..."
"... Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with. ..."
"... In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago. ..."
Now that thanks to first the
WSJ, and then
Fox News, the public is aware that a probe into the Clinton Foundation is not only a hot topic
for both the FBI and the DOJ (and has managed to split the law enforcement organizations along ideological
party lines), but is also actively ongoing despite the DOJ's attempts to squash it.
In the latest update from
Fox's Bret Baier, we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high
priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive
element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included
the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation
about ongoing conflicts of interest.
As Baier also notes, the Clinton Foundation probe has been proceeding for more than a year, led
by the White-Collar Crime division.
Fox adds that even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign,
FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, and FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed
multiple people regarding the case.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told
Fox News, adding some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and
interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also
are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI
302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian,
told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and
we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies."
Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have
been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans.
The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four
FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in
addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that
if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations.
"This is not just going to go away … if she ends up winning the election," Rep. Ron DeSantis,
R-Fla., told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" earlier this week.
Donald Trump has referenced this scenario, repeatedly saying on the stump this past week that
her election could trigger a "crisis."
Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about
a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and
taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge
of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which
found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with.
The revelation led House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul to describe Clinton's
handling of her email system during her tenure as secretary of state as "treason."
"She exposed [information] to our enemies," McCaul said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning. "Our
adversaries have this very sensitive information. … In my opinion, quite frankly, it's treason."
McCaul, R-Texas, said that FBI Director James Comey told him previously that foreign adversaries
likely had gotten into her server. When Comey publicly discussed the Clinton email case back in
July, he also said that while there was no evidence hostile actors breached the server, it was
"possible" they had gained access.
Clinton herself later pushed back, saying the director was merely "speculating."
But sources told Fox News that Comey should have said at the time there is an "almost certainty"
that several foreign intelligence agencies hacked into the server.
The claims come as Comey's FBI not only revisits the email investigation following the discovery
of additional emails on the laptop of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner – the estranged husband of Clinton aide
Huma Abedin – but is proceeding in its investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary
Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which
incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago.
A summary of Baier's latest reporting is in the clip below...
The FBI has unexpectedly published papers from an over ten-year-old investigation of former president
Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of a financier, reports
NTB.
The case against Clinton was dismissed without charges in 2005, and several Democrats therefore question
why the 129-page report of the investigation is published right now, a few days before the election,
in which Bill Clinton's wife Hillary Clinton is trying to become president.
The rage against the FBI is already great in the Democratic Party after the federal police last week
announced they will investigate new emails relating to Hillary Clinton.
Financier Marc Rich was indicted for tax fraud and lived in exile in Switzerland when Bill Clinton
pardoned him on his last day as president on January 20, 2001. Several reacted to the pardon, especially
since Rich's ex-wife was a major donor to the Democratic Party.
The FBI started to investigate the pardon the year after.
"Huma Abedin is a US citizen who was raised in Saudi Arabia. Her father is director of an academic
revue – of which, for many years, she was the sub-editor – which regularly prints comments from the
Muslim Brotherhood. Her mother is president of the Saudi association of female members of the Brotherhood,
and worked with the wife of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Her brother Hassan works for Sheikh
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the religious authority of the Brotherhood and spiritual counsellor of Al-Jazeera."
... ... ...
Huma Abedin is today a central figure of the Clinton campaign, alongside the campaign director,
John Podesta, ex-General Secretary of the White House under the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Podesta
is also the appointed Congressional lobbyist for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – for the modest amount
of $200,000 per month. On 12 June 2016, Petra, the official Press agency of Jordan, published an
interview with the crown prince of Arabia, Mohamed Ben Salmane, in which he affirmed the modernity
of his family, which had illegally financed Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign to the tune of
20%, despite the fact that she is a woman. The day after this publication, the agency cancelled the
dispatch and claimed that its Internet site had been hacked.
... ... ...
As it happens, in the team of her challenger, Donald Trump, we note the presence of General Michael
T. Flynn, who attempted to oppose the creation of the Caliphate by the White House, and resigned
from the direction of the Defense Intelligence Agency in order to signal his disapproval. He works
alongside Frank Gaffney, a historical "Cold Warrior", now qualified as a "conspiracy theorist" for
having denounced the presence of the Brotherhood in the Federal State.
It goes without saying that from the FBI's point of view, any support for jihadist organisations
is a crime, whatever the policy of the CIA may be. In 1991, the police – and Senator John Kerry –
had provoked the ecollapse of BCCI, a Pakistani bank (although it is registered in the Cayman Islands),
which the CIA used for all sorts of secret operations with the Muslim Brotherhood and also the Latino
drug cartels.
"... What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing her hands. ..."
It's obvious the American political system is breaking down. It's been crumbling for some time now,
and the establishment elite know it and they're properly frightened.
Donald Trump, the vulgarian at their gates, is a symptom, not a cause. Hillary Clinton and husband
Bill are both cause and effect.
FBI director
James Comey's announcement about the renewed Clinton email investigation is the bombshell in
the presidential campaign. That he announced this so close to Election Day should tell every thinking
person that what the FBI is looking at is extremely serious.
This can't be about pervert Anthony Weiner and his reported desire for a teenage girl. But it
can be about the laptop of Weiner's wife, Clinton aide
Huma Abedin, and emails between her and Hillary. It comes after the FBI investigation in which
Comey concluded Clinton had lied and been "reckless" with national secrets, but said he could not
recommend prosecution.>
... ... ...
What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in
the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional
investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing
her hands.
The best thing would be for Democrats to ask her to step down now. It would be the most responsible
thing to do, if the nation were more important to them than power. And the American news media -
fairly or not firmly identified in the public mind as Mrs. Clinton's political action committee -
should begin demanding it.
... ... ...
The Clintons weren't skilled merchants. They weren't traders or manufacturers. The Clintons never
produced anything tangible. They had no science, patents or devices to make them millions upon millions
of dollars.
All they had to sell, really, was influence. And they used our federal government to leverage it.
If a presidential election is as much about the people as it is about the candidates, then we'll
learn plenty about ourselves in the coming days, won't we?
After Podesta mentions in the original email chain 'Yes and interesting but not for this channel.',
he then sends this email back to Hillary's inbox a month later with a subject line of 'Congrats!'.
Could this be an example of altering email subject lines for the purpose of getting deleted as 'personal'
emails? This chain appears to have classified material. I would assume Clinton would not want this
email in her system, and Podesta very blatantly was aware of it not belonging there. (More aware
than Clinton herself, which is quite frightening).
Can we compare this email to the emails that were turned over to state? Or, compare it to the
date that Congress sent the order to provide all emails? When was that again? I'm assuming it's certainly
not there.
EDIT: The dates line up. This email subject was changed and sent at the same time Hillary's team
was wiping personal emails.
EDIT 2: This needs to get out to everyone. Media / FBI / Wikileaks / TYT / You name it. Please
share/tweet/whatever!
"... FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation. ..."
"... Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News. ..."
"... "There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails. ..."
A second FBI investigation involving Hillary Clinton is ongoing. The investigation to uncover
corruption by the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton, is given high priority and now runs parallel
with the reopened FBI case of her using a private email server to avoid the Federal Records Act.
The FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year
has now taken a "very high priority," separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell
Fox News .
FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which
is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation.
Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents
had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News,
who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing
the same people again, some for the third time, sources said.
Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and
the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
"... "And Valerie Jarrett was under explicit orders – I know people say, 'Well, you never really tell the Attorney General exactly what to do; you kind of wink.' There was no wink. She was told in no uncertain terms, according to my sources, that under no circumstances should Hillary Clinton be indicted because Barack Obama wants desperately for Hillary Clinton to succeed him in the White House, and not to have Donald Trump in the White House because Donald Trump will completely undo everything that Obama thinks is his legacy," he added. ..."
"... Obama's real endgame is to get Clinton over the finish line in the 2016 election, then let her running mate, Tim Kaine, the "real Obama guy," take over if she's removed from office. ..."
"... Tim Kaine and the Clintons were never good friends because Tim Kaine backed Obama in 2008 against Hillary, and one of the deals for Obama to back Hillary this time was for her to pick Tim Kaine, Obama's boy, as her vice president." ..."
"In my view, what has not been reported, and what I think is very significant, is that we've all
forgotten that Anthony Weiner is under investigation for what amounts to child pornography, alleged
child pornography," said Klein.
"Now, if he's found guilty on multiple charges, they can put him away for life because each
charge brings 15, 20 years. So if you're his attorney, you say to him, 'Tony, what can you give the
prosecutors in exchange for bringing down the number of years you're gonna have to serve?' And it's
my view that what he offered them was the computer, and that in exchange, he has gotten an agreement
to reduce his charges," he speculated.
"This computer apparently was unknown to the FBI, and I think the reason that it took two, three,
or even four weeks between the time that they stumbled on this computer – because Weiner made it
available in exchange for a deal – and the time that [James] Comey knew about it, the director of
the FBI, was because they were in the process of cutting this arrangement," Klein continued.
"Finally, it came to Comey's attention, as we know, and it became obvious to him and imperative
to him that he do something about it – because if he didn't, can you imagine what would happen after
the election, and it became knowledge that he knew about this, did nothing about it? Clearly, the
Congress would open a probe of the FBI and why it did nothing about it. And Comey would be, not only
on the hot seat, but perhaps even impeachable. So I think that this is the untold story of behind-the-scenes
maneuvering on these emails," he said.
Klein was convinced the allegations of Weiner "sexting" with underage children were "the alpha
and the omega of this whole story" because "otherwise, this computer would never have come to light."
Another factor Klein highlighted was the revolt among FBI agents angry at political interference
in their investigations of Hillary Clinton.
"That's not my opinion; this is my reporting," he said. "My reporting indicates from several sources
that the atmosphere at the FBI has never been, the morale has never been lower, that there is a stack,
literally a stack of resignations waiting on Comey's desk for him to sign, which he has yet to do,
that people, when they meet him in the hallway, and he says, 'Good morning' to them, many of them
don't even reply because they're not talking to him; that the sense within the FBI is that he disgraced
the institution back in July, when he knew quite well, obviously, that Mrs. Clinton had violated
not one, but several federal statutes in jeopardizing national security, and raked her over the coals
verbally – and then, for reasons that I think had to do with his not wanting to interfere in the
presidential race, let her off legally."
"Many of the people in the FBI thought that that was disgraceful," Klein asserted. "I think he's
been under huge pressure ever since to redeem himself. I'm told his wife even – who is not only his
most personal, deepest relationship, but also a major adviser in his career – has been telling him,
'Jim, you've got to do something about this.'"
"This is a guy who goes to church every Sunday. He's an evangelical Catholic," he said of Comey.
"He gets on his knees every night, prays to God, prays about his dead child that he lost, two or
three days after the child was born, believes deeply in his own moral rectitude and constantly thinks
that he is on the side of the angels. And I think he felt that what he did this time around, which
was to send this letter to the Congress, was the highest right, moral thing to do. Whether it was
or not, I think that's what motivated him."
Marlow suggested Comey would not have reopened the Clinton investigation "unless he knows he's
got the goods."
"I agree with you. I think the disgrace is not James Comey. I think the disgrace is the White
House and the Justice Department because as I report in my book Guilty as Sin, despite what
Loretta Lynch said about how independent she was or is, she and Valerie Jarrett were having secret
meetings last summer about the email investigation, keeping the President and the White House up
to date on everything that Jim Comey was doing," Klein said.
"And Valerie Jarrett was under explicit orders – I know people say, 'Well, you never really
tell the Attorney General exactly what to do; you kind of wink.' There was no wink. She was told
in no uncertain terms, according to my sources, that under no circumstances should Hillary Clinton
be indicted because Barack Obama wants desperately for Hillary Clinton to succeed him in the White
House, and not to have Donald Trump in the White House because Donald Trump will completely undo
everything that Obama thinks is his legacy," he added.
"So I think the disgrace is the Attorney General, and the Attorney General trying to interfere
with the FBI's investigations – both of the emails and the Clinton Foundation," Klein reiterated.
Marlow mentioned a theory proposed by Breitbart News Daily callers that Obama's real
endgame is to get Clinton over the finish line in the 2016 election, then let her running mate, Tim
Kaine, the "real Obama guy," take over if she's removed from office.
"That's not such a crazy theory," said Klein. "It may be a little far-fetched, but your callers
are completely right: Tim Kaine and the Clintons were never good friends because Tim Kaine backed
Obama in 2008 against Hillary, and one of the deals for Obama to back Hillary this time was for her
to pick Tim Kaine, Obama's boy, as her vice president."
"... 'The people he trusts the most have been the angriest at him,' the source continued. 'And that includes his wife, Pat. She kept urging him to admit that he had been wrong when he refused to press charges against the former secretary of state. ..."
"... 'He talks about the damage that he's done to himself and the institution [of the FBI], and how he's been shunned by the men and women who he admires and work for him. It's taken a tremendous toll on him. ..."
"... 'It shattered his ego. He looks like he's aged 10 years in the past four months.' ..."
"... But Comey's decision to reopen the case was more than an effort to heal the wound he inflicted on the FBI. He was also worried that after the presidential election, Republicans in Congress would mount a probe of how he had granted Hillary political favoritism. His announcement about the revived investigation, which came just 11 days before the presidential election, was greeted with shock and dismay by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the prosecutors at the Justice Department. ..."
"... 'Lynch and Obama haven't contacted Jim directly,' said the source, 'but they've made it crystal clear through third parties that they disapprove of his effort to save face.' ..."
'The people he trusts the most have been the angriest at him,' the source continued. 'And that
includes his wife, Pat. She kept urging him to admit that he had been wrong when he refused to
press charges against the former secretary of state.
'He talks about the damage that he's done to himself and the institution [of the FBI], and
how he's been shunned by the men and women who he admires and work for him. It's taken a tremendous
toll on him.
'It shattered his ego. He looks like he's aged 10 years in the past four months.'
But Comey's decision to reopen the case was more than an effort to heal the wound he inflicted
on the FBI. He was also worried that after the presidential election, Republicans in Congress would mount
a probe of how he had granted Hillary political favoritism. His announcement about the revived investigation, which came just 11 days before the presidential
election, was greeted with shock and dismay by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the prosecutors
at the Justice Department.
'Jim told me that Lynch and Obama are furious with him,' the source said. As I revealed in my latest New York Times bestseller
Guilty As Sin Obama said that appointing Comey as FBI direct was 'my worst mistake as president.'
'Lynch and Obama haven't contacted Jim directly,' said the source, 'but they've made it crystal
clear through third parties that they disapprove of his effort to save face.'
"... You can disagree with the timing of Comey's disclosure, but that is not a matter for the Hatch Act or even an ethical charge in my view. ..."
"... Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to scandals during the 1938 congressional elections and intended the Act to bar federal employees from using "[their] official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." Comey is not doing that in communicating with Congress on a matter of oversight. ..."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid alleges that FBI Director Comey has violated the law by announcing
the re-opened investigation into Clinton emails so close to the presidential election.
In his letter to Comey, Reid raised the the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan politicking
by government employees.
5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1) prohibits a government employee from "us[ing] his official authority
or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election."
Reid argued:
"Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the
treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political
party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these
actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority
to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law."
The reference to "months" is curious. Comey has kept Congress informed in compliance with
oversight functions of the congressional committees but has been circumspect in the extent
of such disclosures. It is troubling to see Democrats (who historically favor both transparency
and checks on executive powers) argue against such disclosure and cooperation with oversight
committees. More importantly, the Hatch Act is simply a dog that will not hunt.
Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the chief ethics
lawyer in the George W. Bush White House from 2005 to 2007, has filed a Hatch Act complaint
against Comey with the federal Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics. He
argues that "We cannot allow F.B.I. or Justice Department officials to unnecessarily publicize
pending investigations concerning candidates of either party while an election is underway."
However, Comey was between the horns of a dilemma. He could be accused of acts of commission
in making the disclosure or omission in withholding the disclosure in an election year. Quite
frankly, I found
Painter's justification for his filing remarkably speculative. He admits that he has no
evidence to suggest that Comey wants to influence the election or favors either candidate.
Intent is key under the Hatch investigations. You can disagree with the timing of Comey's disclosure,
but that is not a matter for the Hatch Act or even an ethical charge in my view.
Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to scandals during the 1938 congressional elections
and intended the Act to bar federal employees from using "[their] official authority or influence
for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." Comey is not doing
that in communicating with Congress on a matter of oversight.
Such violations under the Hatch Act, even if proven, are not criminal matters . The Office
of Special Counsel can investigate such matters and seek discipline - a matter than can ultimately
go before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
"Jen you probably have more on this but it looks like POTUS just said he found out HRC was using her personal email when he
saw it in the news we need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov"
"How is that not classified?" Huma Abedin to FBI when shown email between Clinton & Obama using his pseudonym. Abedin then
expressed her amazement at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email."
I can't state how huge this is, it's a cover up involving the President of the United States. There are a lot of emails implying
this, but this email states it very clearly so anyone can understand. The email proves obstruction of justice and shows how they
lied to the FBI, and likely perjury of Congress. This at the very least proves intent by her Chief of Staff.
Obama used executive privilege on their correspondence. Cheryl Mills (who was given immunity) states they need to "clean up"
the Clinton/Obama e-mails because they lacked state.gov.
Additionally, Obama on video publicly denied knowing
about the server. He also claimed on video that he learned
about the secret server through the news like everyone else. The corruption goes all the way to the top! Obama is lying to the
American public.
Hillary Clinton set up her private server to hide her pay to play deals discovered throughout these leaks, and to prevent FOIA
(Freedom of Information Act) requests.
Paul Combetta was hired to modify the email headers that referred to a VERY VERY VIP individual, i.e. change the name of who
it was from. If you
read Stonetear/Combetta
story , it's easy to see this is exactly what he was attempting. He wanted to change header information on already sent mail
to show "state.gov" instead of Hillary's private email address. Multiple people informed him of the infeasibility (and illegality)
of it, so somewhere in the next 6 days it was decided that simply eradicating them was the only option left.
The FBI said they could not find intent of trying to break the law, therefore no recommendation of prosecution. This email
proves, in plain language, that there was intention, and knowingly broke the law.
Ask yourselves: why would they both be communicating on a secret server to each other? Why not through normal proper channels?
What were they hiding? We may soon find out
(Source: The Top 100 Most
Damaging WikiLeaks )
_ _ _
For the uninitiated this breakdown essentially says that President Barack Obama is stone-cold guilty of crimes and cover-ups that
would make Watergate look like a walk in the park .
In fact, Obama is so deeply involved with the criminal workings of State that he had no choice but to lie about his knowledge
of Clinton's private server and personal email account. This is why Emailgate is so HUGE- it's a massive cover-up of the greatest
crimes EVER committed by the US Government . And Obama lied his way all through the never-ending conspiratorial saga. As follows:
"... The Wall Street Journal today added to its so far excellent reporting on the Clinton issues by revealing the much bigger story behind it: FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe - Laptop may contain thousands of messages sent to or from Mrs. Clinton's private server (open copy here ). ..."
"... B, you're dead right, Hillary is screwed either way. Uncle Bill won't get to wave his mouldy bratwurst in the East Wing for long if she does get through this. ..."
"... Seems the entire "Atlantic media"(bbc, cnn etc etc, aka msm) have all put their collective eggs in Killary's leaky basket. Any pretence of balanced journalism's been thrown out of the window and replaced with brutal yellow propaganda - one which will make chairman Mao blush. ..."
"... The only downside of this for voters and for the people of the world is that a wounded Hillary Clinton may be even MORE likely to push for confrontation leading to WWIII. ..."
"... So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy? ..."
"... Agree with WorldBLee. Hillary has virtually no mandate, little trust, and little support from we, the people...unless she can make the case for a big war. ..."
"... To rule, she will have to rely on her friends on Wall Street, the security establishment, and the media...all of whom find war to be lucrative. ..."
"... The dirt unearthed on HRC ought to have her facing prison for life. ..."
"... If HRC should somehow get elected, more than enough evidence already exists to Impeach and Convict ..."
"... b, you don't list the significance of the 650,000 (!) emails themselves among your bullets. That number of emails may well represent an image of Hillary's private server email store. It's said that several of her aides were tasked with their destruction ... but it now looks like Abedin 'forgot' about the copy on this machine. Once they're loose ... you're right when you say of Hillary that ... ..."
"... @7 stumpy, 'So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy?' Very succinctly and well-put. ..."
According to the reporting, based on FBI sources, FBI agents in New York and elsewhere have been
looking into the Clinton Foundation for several months. They suspect that this "charity" was selling
political favors by then Secretary of State Clinton in exchange for donations that personally benefited
the Clinton family.
The Justice Department blocked further aggressive investigations into the issue, allegedly because
of the ongoing election. A high FBI official, Andrew McCabe, also showed disinterest in a further
pursuit of the issue. McCabe's wife had just tried to get elected as state senator and had receive
a campaign donation of nearly $500,000 from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton friend and at
times board member of the Clinton Foundation. The FBI agents pursuing the investigation into the
Clinton Foundation were not amused.
The separate investigation into former Congressman Weiner for sexual contacts with minors was
looking for pedophile stuff on Weiner's electronic devices. It didn't find any as far as we can tell,
but found some 650,000 emails archived on a laptop.
Several thousand of these emails were sent or received by Weiner's spouse, the intimate Clinton
aide Huma Abedin. They came through Clinton's private email server. At least some of these thousands
of emails are likely copies
of those that were deleted from Clinton's server when the (separate) investigation into it started.
They may be evidence that Clinton sent and received classified documents through her unsecured
system. Some of these emails may also contain serious dirt related to the Clinton Foundation. (It
is highly likely that at least some FBI agents know "unofficially" what these emails contain. Legally
they could not look at them without a warrant which they only got today.)
Thus we have three ongoing FBI investigations:
into Clinton's private email-server used illegally for official State Department business;
into the Clinton Foundation and its role in peddling political influence in exchange for donations;
into the personal conduct of Anthony Weiner.
Additional investigations that may come up are on:
the mixing of donations to the Clinton Foundation and personal compensation for Bill Clinton
for holding highly paid speeches;
for profit activities by the group of people
running Bill Clinton's businesses as well as the Clinton Foundation financing;
inappropriate hindering of the FBI investigations by the Justice Department and/or by McCabe.
With such a list of potentially very serious scandals pending it is highly understandable that
FBI director Comey went public and did not follow the advice from the Justice Department to pursue
these issues only on a reduced level. It would have been political suicide to try to keep this silent.
Way too many FBI agents eager to pursue these case were in the known and would have talked, as they
do now, to the media.
If Clinton gets elected she will be hampered by these scandals for the next two years. The
Republicans in Congress will jump on these issues as soon as possible. There will be endless hearings
with large media coverage. The only question is when the first attempts at an impeachment process
will be made - before or after she moves back into the White House. She and her family may be better
off with her losing the campaign.
If I'm not mistaken Eric Holder was a recurring chatacter in that 80's TV show CHIPS was he not...?
Something about that greasy B-Grade pornstar moustache.
B, you're dead right, Hillary is screwed either way. Uncle Bill won't get to wave his mouldy
bratwurst in the East Wing for long if she does get through this.
But she wont. Hillary has fallen off the cliff (see poll below) in the poll below and we're
all gonna get to Pitch'n'Putt a nice little 18 holes around the White House lawns on the back
of The Don.
No MSM poll is worth anything, especially with so many closet Trump voters this election...
but the USC/Dornslife Daybreak differs a little in it's methodology that's worthy of inspection
(random selection of 600-800 of the same 3000 participants emailed each day being the main feature).
Also worth checking the Characteristics of Candidate graphs - really interesting to get
ro know the demographics of what is going to drive what is now a likely landslide win.
Seems the entire "Atlantic media"(bbc, cnn etc etc, aka msm) have all put their collective
eggs in Killary's leaky basket. Any pretence of balanced journalism's been thrown out of the window
and replaced with brutal yellow propaganda - one which will make chairman Mao blush.
Trump is gunning for the WH those concerned better get use to it. The sad part is, the American
people are f*cked either way. Killary will only hasten America's decline and Trump will make it
a slow motion one.
What I don't get is, out of the approximately 300 million US citizens, couldn't they find any
smart,less crooked person to lead them???
Comey caved to right-wing criticism and pressure. In the U.S. there is a law that prohibits
a public official from influencing, or attempting to influence, an election and yet he took this
incomprehensible step against the advice of the Justice Dep't. lawyers.
The only downside of this for voters and for the people of the world is that a wounded Hillary
Clinton may be even MORE likely to push for confrontation leading to WWIII. Once talk of
war starts, all concern over illegal wrongdoing will fade to the background as everyone rallies
in the US to support the "Commander in Chief".
Many people have already voted via early voting and can't take back their votes even if they
wanted to. However, I suspect that dyed in the wool Clinton/DNC/Democrat zealots will continue
to shout that this is all a vast alt-right conspiracy to tarnish their sweet, innocent Hillary.
Agree with WorldBLee. Hillary has virtually no mandate, little trust, and little support from
we, the people...unless she can make the case for a big war.
To rule, she will have
to rely on her friends on Wall Street, the security establishment, and the media...all of whom
find war to be lucrative.
You do not want to give the GOP control of three branches of government, unless you really hate
the American people and want to see them suffer. Actually now it makes sense...
I suggest a triumvirat Trump-Johnson-Wilders or The Three Blond Mops to rule Amerikka and let
the rest of the world be a safer place without their interventionism (but if we look at the UK,
France or the Turks not to mention KSA and Qatar or Israel, it is hard to believe it would work
out).
The dirt unearthed on HRC ought to have her facing prison for life. Never knew about
the quaint rule chet380 @4 alludes to until I read Wheeler's item--a rule that grossly undermines
the Rule of Law and shouldn't exist!
If HRC should somehow get elected, more than enough evidence already exists to Impeach
and Convict -- but then the same was true regarding WJC's impeachment.
b, you don't list the significance of the 650,000 (!) emails themselves among your bullets.
That number of emails may well represent an image of Hillary's private server email store. It's
said that several of her aides were tasked with their destruction ... but it now looks like Abedin
'forgot' about the copy on this machine. Once they're loose ... you're right when you say of Hillary
that ...
She and her family may be better off with her losing the campaign.
... and the people on the other end of all those emails will be able to see that - and even more
clearly that they may be better off with her losing her campaign - even if dogged determination
keeps the blinders on the Clintons themselves.
Maybe Clinton will withdraw from the race. The DNC apparatchniks and the establishment have a
stake in defeating Trump. At what point do they bail on Hillary?
@7 stumpy, 'So did the FBI find Abedin's get out of jail insurance policy, and has that now
become Comey's get out of jail insurance policy?' Very succinctly and well-put.
Team Clinton was keeping tabs on Anthony Weiner's sexting habits as far back as 2011, according to
WikiLeaks emails.
One disturbing report came to the attention of John Podesta, now chair of Clinton's presidential
campaign, and Neera Tanden, a Senate aide and 2008 presidential campaign staffer, when Jennifer Palmieri,
the current campaign communications director, forwarded news of an investigation into Weiner's contacts
with a Delaware teenager.
"Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about
direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner," read the report dated June 10,
2011.
"Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl's home around 4:30
p.m. and asked to speak with the girl's mother about the daughter's contact with Weiner. Another
officer appeared at the home a short time later."
Palmeiri passed along the news story to Podesta and Tanden with a one-word comment: "Oof."
Weiner resigned from Congress on June 21, 2011, after he accidentally tweeted a picture of himself
in bulging briefs.
He apparently intended to send the photo privately to a woman he communicated with online - and
though he first insisted his Twitter account had been hacked, he later admitted wrongdoing and stepped
down from Congress.
"... We must forgive Mark Twain for his error when he declared that "history never repeats itself but it often rhymes." After all, he'd never met the Clintons. ..."
"... Why didn't you turn that computer over to the FBI during its initial investigation? ..."
"... Did you lie to the FBI about having work-related emails on it? ..."
"... Also, did Weiner have access to classified material? ..."
We must forgive Mark Twain for his error when he declared that "history never repeats itself but
it often rhymes." After all, he'd never met the Clintons.
... ... ...
...Clinton is understandably panicked because the timing of Comey's announcement could cost her
the election. Her demand that he release everything immediately is also understandable, even as she
knows it is impossible for him to release potential evidence before it is examined.
Clinton created the mess with her incredibly stupid decision to use a private server as secretary
of state.
... ... ...
She could simply order Abedin to hold a press conference and answer any and every question about
the newest batch of emails. Let reporters ask Abedin directly:
What's in those emails?
Did any contain classified material?
Why didn't you turn that computer over to the FBI during its initial investigation?
Did you lie to the FBI about having work-related emails on it?
Also, did Weiner have access to classified material?
Was the computer ever hacked?
... ... ...
Hillary won't do any of that because the potential downside is also huge.
My guess is she
fears the worst, and may secretly subscribe to the idea that Comey wouldn't have acted in such a
bold and controversial way without some conviction that he had stumbled on a potential bombshell.
"... told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. ..."
"... Justice Department officials told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn't authorize more aggressive investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But the FBI officials believed they were still well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods already under way, these people said. ..."
The continuing work means that if Mrs. Clinton wins the White House, she will likely do so amid
at least one ongoing investigation into her inner circle being handled by law-enforcement officials
who are deeply divided over how to manage such cases.
The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew
McCabe, the bureau's second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending
sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they
said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that both Mr. Weiner
and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn't previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said
in late August that the couple were separating.
The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the
matter said, but the warrant they used didn't give them authority to search for matters related to
Mrs. Clinton's email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit
or indecent messages to the teenager.
In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands,
that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton's home that had been the
focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner
investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back
to them.
At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department's
senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with
the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these
people said.
... ... ...
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength
of the evidence in that probe, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort,
and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the
case.
That led to frustrations among some investigators, who viewed FBI leadership as uninterested in
probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and
saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control
between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.
Such internal tensions are common, and it isn't unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive
approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited. But the internal debates about the Clinton
Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running
for president.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, received $467,500
in campaign funds in late 2015 from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe,
a longtime ally of the Clintons and, until he was elected governor in November 2013, a Clinton Foundation
board member.
Mr. McAuliffe had supported Dr. McCabe in the hopes she and a handful of other Democrats might
help win a majority in the state Senate, giving Mr. McAuliffe more sway in the state capitol. Dr.
McCabe lost her race last November, and Democrats failed to win their majority.
A spokesman for the governor has said that "any insinuation that his support was tied to anything
other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous."
Dr. McCabe told the Journal, "Once I decided to run, my husband had no formal role in my campaign
other than to be a supportive husband to me and our children."
In February of this year, Mr. McCabe ascended from the No. 3 position at the FBI to the deputy
director post, making him second only to Mr. Comey. When he assumed that role, officials say, he
started overseeing the probe into Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server for government work
when she was secretary of state.
FBI officials have said Mr. McCabe had no role in the Clinton email probe until he became deputy
director, and there was no conflict of interest because by then his wife's campaign was over.
But other Clinton-related investigations were under way within the FBI, and they have been the
subject of internal debate for months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Early this year, four FBI field offices-New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark.-were
collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes
or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.
Los Angeles agents had picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated public
corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records related to the foundation, these people
said.
The Washington field office was probing financial relationships involving Mr. McAuliffe before
he became a Clinton Foundation board member, these people said. Mr. McAuliffe has denied any wrongdoing,
and his lawyer has said the probe is focused on whether he failed to register as an agent of a foreign
entity.
Clinton Foundation officials have long denied any wrongdoing, saying it is a well-run charity
that has done immense good around the world.
The FBI field office in New York had done the most work on the Clinton Foundation case and received
help from the FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar with the matter said.
In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people.
By all accounts, the meeting didn't go well.
... ... ...
Justice Department officials told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn't authorize more aggressive
investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But
the FBI officials believed they were still well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods
already under way, these people said.
In July, Mr. Comey announced he was recommending against any prosecution in the Clinton email
case. About a week later, the FBI sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe, with Mr. McCabe
deciding the FBI's New York office would take the lead with assistance from Little Rock.
The Washington field office, FBI officials decided, would focus on a separate matter involving
Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. McCabe had decided earlier in the spring that he would continue to recuse himself
from that probe, given the governor's contributions to his wife's former political campaign.
Within the FBI, the decision was viewed with skepticism by some, who felt the probe would be stronger
if the foundation and McAuliffe matters were combined. Others, particularly senior officials at the
Justice Department, felt that both probes were weak, based largely on publicly available information,
and had found little that would merit expanded investigative authority.
According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official
called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly
pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe, despite the department's refusal to allow more aggressive
investigative methods in the case. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue
as long as they didn't use those methods.
... ... ...
Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker
instruction on the case: "Stand down." When agents questioned why they weren't allowed to take more
aggressive steps, they said they were told the order had come from the deputy director-Mr. McCabe.
Others familiar with the matter deny Mr. McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such
a stand-down instruction.
For agents who already felt uneasy about FBI leadership's handling of the Clinton Foundation case,
the moment only deepened their concerns, these people said. For those who felt the probe hadn't yet
found significant evidence of criminal conduct, the leadership's approach was the right response
to the facts on the ground.
In September, agents on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on nongovernment
laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton email case, but that request was rejected by
prosecutors at the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were given to the
FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use agreements, meaning agents could only use
them for the purpose of investigating possible mishandling of classified information.
Some FBI agents were dissatisfied with that answer, and asked for permission to make a similar
request to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. McCabe,
these people said, told them no and added that they could not "go prosecutor-shopping."
Not long after that discussion, FBI agents informed the bureau's leaders about the Weiner laptop,
prompting Mr. Comey's disclosure to Congress and setting of the furor that promises to consume the
final days of a tumultuous campaign.
Their IT guy, Justin Cooper I believe, put spyware on Bill's phone (per Chelsea in one of the
Wikileaks emails) and also embezzled CF money (again, per Chelsea).
Also, he's apparently kind of dim as he had to get IT advice from Reddit. So either JC was
deep undercover for the feds and he set them up, or, when Huma was working from home during his
pregnancy he set up auto-sync on her devices. Or...if they were using iPhones and Macs, they idiot
proof syncing and it happens without someone who isn't computer literate even knowing.
The most likely scenario IMO is simply hubris and stupidity. IT guy set that laptop on auto-sync,
they forgot about it when the FBI came calling the first time because that computer had fallen
into Weiner's sticky fingers full-time for a few years by that point.
Carelessness and poor judgement seem most likely here--remember thesee folks can get the best
Google IT people to their home anytime to deal with their IT needs. They could have gotten the
best people at the NSA. They didn't even get the best guy out of the phone book. As their colleagues
say in various Wikileaked emails, they have terrible judgement.....
"... In the second act of this movie, Comey learns that the Weiner laptop had emails that were so damning it would be a crime against the public to allow them to vote without first seeing a big red flag. And a flag was the best he could do because it was too early in the investigation to leak out bits and pieces of the evidence. That would violate Clinton's rights. ..."
"... In this movie, Comey did the hero thing. He alerted the public to the fact that the FBI found DISQUALIFYING information on the Weiner laptop. And he took a second bullet to his reputation. ..."
"... I start by assuming Comey is the same man now as the one who was carefully vetted before being hired to protect the integrity of one of our most important institutions. And even Comey's critics concede he's smart. ..."
"... The way you know the new emails are disqualifying for Clinton is because otherwise our hero would have privately informed Congress and honored the tradition of not influencing elections. Comey is smart enough to know his options. And unless he suddenly turned rotten at his current age, he's got the character to jump in front of a second bullet for the Republic. ..."
I'm hearing several interpretations for these two observations:
1. Comey seemed pro -Clinton when he dropped the initial email case.
2. Comey seems anti -Clinton this week because he announced a new round of investigations
right before the election.
How can both behaviors be explained? Or, as I like to ask, which movie does the best job of explaining
our observations and also predicting the future?
Some say Comey is a political pawn in a rigged system. By that movie script we can explain why
he dropped the initial email case. But we can't explain why he's acting against Clinton's interests
now. What changed?
Well, some say Comey had to reopen the case against Clinton after discovering the Weiner laptop
emails. If he failed to act, there might be a revolt at the FBI and maybe a whistleblower would come
forward. But that leaves unexplained why Comey detailed to Congress how Clinton appeared to be guilty
of crimes at the same time he said the FBI was dropping the case. If Comey had been protecting Clinton
on the first round, he would have softened his description of her misdeeds, wouldn't he? But he didn't
seem to hold back anything.
And none of those hypotheses explain why the people who know Comey have high regard for his integrity.
Comey also has the security of a 10-year appointment as Director, so he has a low chance of getting
fired or politically influenced. That's exactly why the job has a 10-year term. Given what we know
of Comey before any of the Clinton emails, any movie that casts Comey as an ass-covering weasel is
probably making a casting mistake.
So allow me to offer an interpretation of events that casts Comey as more of a patriot and hero
than an ass-covering weasel. Compare my interpretation with whatever movie you have in your head
and see which one works best for explaining and predicting.
My movie says Comey had good evidence against Clinton during the initial investigation but made
a judgment call to leave the decision to the American public. For reasons of conscience, and acting
as a patriot, Comey explained in clear language to the public exactly what evidence the FBI found
against Clinton. The evidence looked damning because it was. Under this interpretation, Comey took
a bullet to his reputation for the sake of the Republic. He didn't want the FBI to steal this important
decision away from the people, but at the same time he couldn't let the people decide blind. So he
divulged the evidence and stepped away, like the action hero who doesn't look back at the explosion.
In the second act of this movie, Comey learns that the Weiner laptop had emails that were so damning
it would be a crime against the public to allow them to vote without first seeing a big red flag.
And a flag was the best he could do because it was too early in the investigation to leak out bits
and pieces of the evidence. That would violate Clinton's rights.
But Comey couldn't easily raise a red flag to warn the public because it was against FBI policy
to announce a criminal investigation about a candidate so close to election day. So Comey had a choice
of either taking another bullet for the Republic or screwing the very country that
he has spent his career protecting.
In this movie, Comey did the hero thing. He alerted the public to the fact that the FBI found
DISQUALIFYING information on the Weiner laptop. And he took a second bullet to his
reputation.
How do I know the new emails are that bad?
I start by assuming Comey is the same man now as the one who was carefully vetted before being
hired to protect the integrity of one of our most important institutions. And even Comey's critics
concede he's smart.
So…
The way you know the new emails are disqualifying for Clinton is because otherwise our hero would
have privately informed Congress and honored the tradition of not influencing elections. Comey is
smart enough to know his options. And unless he suddenly turned rotten at his current age, he's got
the character to jump in front of a second bullet for the Republic.
According to this movie, no matter who gets elected, we'll eventually learn of something disqualifying
in the Weiner emails.
And we can't say we weren't warned. Comey took two bullets to do it.
So compare this movie to your own movie and see which one does the best job of explaining the
observed facts. And when we find out what is in the Weiner laptop emails, compare that news to my
prediction that the information is disqualifying.
The Persuasion Filter says there is no prefered reality. We all see our own movies. In my movie,
Comey's has a consistent personality from start to finish. He starts out his career as a smart, competent
patriot and he later proves it by taking two bullets for the Republic. If your movie script has Comey
suddenly changing his basic character for this election season, don't expect an Oscar.
Twelve facts reveal what everyone needs to know about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's
email server.
Those twelve facts consist of:
On October 3, FBI agents
seized a laptop, an iPhone, and an iPad from disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner,
as part of the investigation into a report that he was sexting a 15-year-old girl. While searching
the laptop, FBI agents uncovered new emails that are likely connected to the agency's investigation
of Hillary Clinton's private email server. The laptop was used by Anthony Weiner and his wife
Huma Abedin and
reportedly has 650,000 emails on it. Earlier in the investigation, Huma Abedin
swore under oath in a deposition that she had turned over the devices that may have been used
to email Clinton: two laptops, a BlackBerry, files she found in her apartment. Huma Abedin reportedly
did not know about emails that were on the computer the FBI discovered. "The possibility that
this device contains any emails of hers is news to her," a source familiar with the investigation
told CNN . Anthony Weiner is cooperating with the FBI's investigation, according to Fox News
anchor Bret
Baier . FBI Director James Comey was
reportedly informed about the new emails last Thursday. He notified Congress the following
day. Comey had testified to Congress that the investigation was complete. He sent a letter on
Friday to both Democrats and Republican members of Congress to clarify that the case remained
open. Justice Department officials tried to stop James Comey from sending the letter, according
to the
New York Times , warning that it would be a break of longstanding policy. Investigators
believe that some of the emails deleted from Hillary Clinton's private server are on this laptop,
according
to CNN . Many of the emails were "either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs.
Clinton's home," according to the
Wall Street Journal . Officials received a
court order during the weekend to investigate the emails. The process has begun, but it will
take weeks, according to several sources.
Huma Abedin has VOIDED her immunity deal with the FBI. She will be facing jail time or give up
dirt on Hillary Clinton. Hillary has got to be crying big ol' gator tears right about now…
Huma Abedin has been by Hillary's side for a long time. After those emails were found on her husband
Anthony Weiner's computer. Hillary Clinton does not want her around anymore. According to Hillary's
campaign, Abedin is now sitting in a different section of the plane when it was traveling to Florida.
"... Abedin was deeply involved with the establishment of Hillary's private email server, which was used for all of her work as Secretary of State. Now, since we know Hillary had hundreds of classified or top-secret documents on her vulnerable server (despite her early lies saying she did not), any faith in Huma's judgment - at the very least - has been demolished. You will soon ask yourself, "how did this woman get a security clearance?" ..."
"... There is no doubt that she and Hillary have an extremely close relationship. She has been loyal and faithful to Hillary for twenty years. "I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would be Huma." So spoke Hillary in 2010. She even visited with Huma's mother Saleha in Saudi Arabia in 2011, telling her that Huma's position was "very important and sensitive." Saleha is reportedly an outspoken advocate for genital mutilation for girls in the Islamic world. ..."
"... One exception to this was the February 2016 issue of Vanity Fair . Author William D Cohen's story, titled "Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton's Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?" tackled some of the issues I have gone over in this piece. It was well written, informative, and controversial. The backlash was immediate. ..."
Chic gal pal? Mild mannered politician's wife? Harmless clotheshorse? Saudi plant? Innocent aide?
Handler?
Huma Abedin is Vice Chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. But Huma is more, much
more than that. She is the person closest to the most powerful woman in American politics and perhaps
the next President. Huma has been described variously as Hillary's "body woman," a sort of glorified
go-to personal maid, gentle confidant, and by others as an Islamic spy. She may be all of these things,
because as we shall see, Huma Abedin has an interesting and complex career history.
Abedin was
deeply involved with the establishment of Hillary's private email server, which was used for
all of her work as Secretary of State. Now, since we know Hillary had hundreds of classified or top-secret
documents on her vulnerable server (despite her early lies saying she did not), any faith in Huma's
judgment - at the very least - has been demolished. You will soon ask yourself, "how did this woman
get a security clearance?"
She was born Huma Mahmood Abedin in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her father, Syed Zainul Abedin,
was Indian and born in New Delhi. In the early 1970s, he was affiliated with the Muslim Students
Association at Western Michigan University. The Muslim Students Association or MSA was
started in 1963 by
Saudi Arabia's biggest charity, the Muslim World League,
a group formed
and funded by the Kingdom to spread Islam throughout the world.
... ... ...
There were several issues being investigated both internally by the State Department and Sen.
Charles Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee for
conflicts of interest and embezzlement . She filed inaccurate time sheets overpaying herself
$10,000. Mr. Grassley has also questioned whether the deal with Abedin really met the requirements
for a special government employee status. One of those requirements is that someone's work as a contractor
be different enough from the original job to warrant giving the person contractor status. Documents
acquired by the Washington Times show that she told State officials that she planned to do the same
kind of work as an SGE that she did as Deputy Chief of Staff.
She became part of Hillary's transition team in 2013, helping her to return to private life. She
continued her work at the Clinton Foundation and set up her own consulting firm,
Zain Endeavors LLC .
On October 16, 2015, Abedin
testified in a closed session before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, in a session that
was expected to focus on the 2012 Benghazi attack during which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens
and three other Americans were killed. She said, "I came here today to be as helpful as I could be
to the committee. I wanted to honor the service of those lost and injured in the Benghazi attacks,"
adding she was "honored" to work for Clinton at State and "proud" of her service there. Representative
Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican panel member, said Abedin frequently answered questions with responses
of "'I don't remember' and 'I don't recollect.'"
There is no doubt that she and Hillary have an extremely close relationship. She has been loyal
and faithful to Hillary for twenty years. "I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it
would be Huma." So spoke Hillary in 2010. She even visited with Huma's mother Saleha in Saudi Arabia
in 2011, telling her that Huma's position was "very important and sensitive." Saleha is reportedly
an outspoken advocate for genital mutilation for girls in the Islamic world.
So how has the media dealt with Huma Abedin? In short, they haven't. The family's critics have
been attacked and labeled as conspiracy theorists.
One exception to this was the February 2016 issue of Vanity Fair . Author William D Cohen's
story, titled "Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton's Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?" tackled
some of the issues I have gone over in this piece. It was well written, informative, and controversial.
The backlash was immediate.
"... I watch the Post twist itself into a pretzel, trying to explain, carefully walking through this latest Clinton mess, picking certain facts, ignoring others, not asking the obvious questions ..."
"... In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known that Huma Abedin had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal yahoo email account. ..."
"... I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS for four years. Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? ..."
"... And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails? The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include some of the missing emails. ..."
"... "We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are..." ..."
As I watch the Post twist itself into a pretzel, trying to explain, carefully walking through
this latest Clinton mess, picking certain facts, ignoring others, not asking the obvious questions
(e.g. are some of the emails found on Weiner's laptop copies of the 30,000 emails that Clinton
destroyed, even though she was under subpoena to turn them over to the State Dept.?) it makes
me believe that there is not an honest, moral, trustworthy person, left in our government, our
political leadership, or our press corps.
In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known
that Huma Abedin had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal
yahoo email account.
The new bit of news today, is that the FBI found TENS OF THOUSANDS of Clinton
related emails on Weiner's (shared with Abedin?) laptop. I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS
for four years. Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it
can be a batch operation, they must have been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed
(by Clinton) emails? The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include
some of the missing emails. As Carl Bernstein (one of the two original Post reporters who broke
the Watergate story, which led to Nixon's resignation) said yesterday:
"We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that
the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to
the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified
e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation.
So that's where we are..."
Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended
up on a device she viewed as her husband's computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton
email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over
the matter.
The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a
regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department
for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her
messages to be there.
….
Abedin told the FBI in an interview in April that her attorneys asked for guidance from the State
Department on how to conduct that review but did not receive a response.
Summarizing Abedin's interview, FBI agents wrote that she told them the attorneys "erred on
the side of caution and opted to include anything that they were unsure about."
In a sworn deposition in June, Abedin said she "looked for all the devices that may have any
of my State Department work on it and returned - returned - gave them to my attorneys for them to
review for all relevant documents."
============================================================= Curiouser and curiouser.
Sherlock Holmes: How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
We have a Russian Weiner in our computers…
And in an abundance of caution, I am checking my drawers…
"... I have to take the same or similar training as Hillary Clinton must have taken when she was secretary of state. The difference is that I do not have selective memory like Hillary nor am I a pathological liar. If I had done what Hillary has done no doubt I would be in federal prison! ..."
"... IMO either one is disqualifying to be President of the United States. Her extraordinary incompetence need not rise to the level of criminality. The court of public opinion is not a court of law, and candidates running for public office are judged in the court of public opinion accordingly. ..."
"... Apparently Weiner is "cooperating" with the FBI, which gives them the right to search emails on the laptop without an additional warrant... including the Abedin emails. I would likely think this would involve a plea deal for Weiner for throwing Abedin and Hillary under the bus. Despicable , but this is Weiner we're talking about. ..."
I work with classified data and create derivative classifications as part of my job as a civilian
with the Navy. Classified information is a pain in the ass, but it has to be dealt with properly
and securely. That is why we have SIPRNET to e-mail classified data.
The SIPRNET system forces a header at the top of all e-mail messages stating the classification
level and if foreign nationalities can view the data, etc. Additonally when creating a derivative
classification one has to consult the security classification guide for the program and mark the
data properly in any files.
I have to take the same or similar training as Hillary Clinton must have taken when she was
secretary of state. The difference is that I do not have selective memory like Hillary nor am
I a pathological liar. If I had done what Hillary has done no doubt I would be in federal prison!
IMO either one is disqualifying to be President of the United States. Her extraordinary incompetence
need not rise to the level of criminality. The court of public opinion is not a court of law,
and candidates running for public office are judged in the court of public opinion accordingly.
What may have been confusing you is that POP3 clients (generally speaking, unless told NOT
to) remove e-mail from the server and keep it locally. IMAP and MS Exchange can do that too but
you have to take extra configuration steps to ensure that the client removes the mail and stores
it locally (instead of the e-mail simultaneously residing on both the client and the server).
Apparently Weiner is "cooperating" with the FBI, which gives them the right to search emails
on the laptop without an additional warrant... including the Abedin emails. I would likely think
this would involve a plea deal for Weiner for throwing Abedin and Hillary under the bus. Despicable
, but this is Weiner we're talking about.
This morning the FBI also secured a warrant for the notebook, so warrant-less search is no
longer an issue to discuss. It has also been reported that there are somewhere around 650,000
emails to sort through between Weiner's and Abedin's emails. That has to be a very distasteful
task.. separating the wheat from the shaft.
I believe the first one indicates this scenario is unfolding:
1. laptop went with Weiner when they split, so the FBI did not review it during the initial
investigation. (Gross incompetence on their part.)
2. In the later investigation for Weiner's weenie wagging the FBI obtained the laptop and reviewed
HIS emails. In the process they found some to or from HER, most likely in a separate login account.
The warrant they were using for his investigation did not apply to the Clinton investigation,
and they passed the observation up the chain of command but did not read those emails (or will
not admit to reading them.)
which brings us to today
3. Huma says she doesn't know what is on that laptop and does not know how any of her emails
got there.
We have been speculating previously about what mail protocols were used. The presence of
a large number of emails when she expected none suggests to me that at some point she borrowed
his machine to check her emails. (Hers being on the blink or left at the office or some such thing.)
The email client used may have employed IMAP and while she thought it was just showing her the
couple of emails she needed to look at, in the background it was downloading a full copy of each
folder she accessed. She may not have expected that because on her machine whichever email client
this was was configured to not make local copies.
Why thousands of emails were forwarded to unsecured computer shared by Abedin with her husband?
How they were forwarded, were they forwarded individually or as a batch operation ?
How many of them are those 30K deleted by Hillary "private" emails ?
Does this batch contains any of previously discovered classified emails?
What was the purpose of forwarding those emails to home computer.
Notable quotes:
"... Somebody at the F.B.I. must have picked up on the fact that the "FIX" was exposed hence on Friday an announcement was made by the F.B.I. that they had found further e-mails, I suspect that all the e-mails will have to be re-examined in the light of the lenient views taken by some F.B. I. Officers taken at the first pass or some more deletions will of necessity have to take place. ..."
"... Meanwhile Clinton is shouting and screaming at the F.B.I. because she now knows that a new fix will be very difficult or impossible in the light of the revealed information and her "charity donations" of over $800,000 have not only been wasted but have exposed her flank! ..."
"... ...the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials ..."
"... Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it can be a batch operation, they must have been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails? ..."
"... "We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are..." ..."
The other day I was reading an article which was talking about two "charity donations" given to the wife of an F.B.I. Officer
involved in the e-mail investigation by "friends of the Clinton's".
The article was very low key it's author briefly wondered if the officer concerned should have excused himself from the investigation.
I also thought it strange that the officers interest had not been declared. Some time later I was reading about details concerning
the e-mails sent from Clinton's staff to members of the F.B.I. ,basically what was happening was that the security rating of the
information contained in non deleted mails was being talked down, at which point for me at least alarm bells were ringing loud
and clear but I did not expect there to be any reaction. O.K. So I'm that cynical.
Somebody at the F.B.I. must have picked up on the fact that the "FIX" was exposed hence on Friday an announcement was made
by the F.B.I. that they had found further e-mails, I suspect that all the e-mails will have to be re-examined in the light of
the lenient views taken by some F.B. I. Officers taken at the first pass or some more deletions will of necessity have to take
place.
Meanwhile Clinton is shouting and screaming at the F.B.I. because she now knows that a new fix will be very difficult or
impossible in the light of the revealed information and her "charity donations" of over $800,000 have not only been wasted but
have exposed her flank!
My Fellow Americans - Here is what the NYT is reporting in contrast to the WaPost's email count of more than 1,000, in terms of
an actual number of emails to be reviewed:
"...the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other
Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials."
Subsequently, that could change what the initial investigation by the Bureau had to look at this summer, and the understanding
that all of the parties acknowledge that about 30k emails were deleted. So the "tens of thousands" may be duplicates or perhaps
copies of the "thumb-drive" that one of HRC's lawyers was said to have been given?
At any rate, this must bring into play at least 18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally - and raise
the question about whether conflicting DOJ internal "policy" has any affect on any of the Administration's current or former appointees,
in terms of their "oath of office" or moving forward. And that would bring 5 U.S. Code § 3331 - Oath of office - into play as
well as the 5-year statute of limitations.
We're likely still "Doomed" - so don't get too happy just yet, because EPA could still disallow "draining" anything as a result
of the Clean Water Act, as amended.
CanardNoir 2:41 PM EDT
And here's the Sec. 2071 reason "why":
(b) "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..."
[Edited] Lynch had to recuse herself after meeting with Bill Clinton. Had there not been information showing intent to violate
espionage laws, Comey would have never acted. The fact is she is a criminal and cannot be elected . Image an elected Hillary who
is impeached. The USA deserves better than a this and must turn the Clintons out to pasture forever.
The FBI used to be a respected agency. Now, not so much. Working for, and in collusion with Obama, Loretta Lynch, the Clinton's
and the media makes their "investigation" suspect, to say the least.
Hillary "will say anything and do anything" (Obama's words, not mine) to get elected. Trying to blame her malfeasance on the
FBI is simply stupid. She is so obsessed with money and power that she openly states "I have spent my life helping children and
women". Right. Like when she was an 8 year Senator who only introduced 3 bills naming a couple highways and a bank. Her followers
are dupes and dunces and we can only hope they don't outnumber rationally thinking people.
To think that Weiner and who knows who else had access to U.S. National Security information on the Weiner/Abedin computer.
Sure sounds like the FBI is after Abedin not Clinton.
Dems loved Comey when he slapped Clinton on the wrist for playing loose with U.S. National Security on her email server. Now
those same Dems want to burn Comey at the stake.
Let's not forget how Comey has come to be such a respected official http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced,
sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength
to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's
presence in the room, turned and left.
ad_icon
The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that,
according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller
and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several
weeks without Justice approval, wheresthechow
2:27 AM EST The Clinton's are just so amazing in their cavalier above-the-law attitude that they can't even renovate their
house without breaking the law.
Mr. Weiner has not aged well.....and it is not over....avoid park benches do not visit remote areas.....People you and I know
may have a Boat moored in a slip at a Dock or a Yacht club that's Normal Americana....Yet A.G.Loretta Lynch was waiting on the
Tarmac in her Jet Plane as Bill Clinton leaves His Jet Plane to chat with Loretta ....this is an area of privilege far above yacht
club status....and this meeting broke several laws very quickly...so the A.G. has no authority to comment on what the head of
F.B.I. has done regarding The Weiner Email discovery and whatever Bill had swindled for future favors or past I.O.U's has now
become a waste of AA jet fuel for the,"IN", crowd.....Hillary is starting to look a little like Mr.Weiner; facial tension ,gaunt,hollow
cheeks,terse lips,Bill was supposed to take care of all this....right?Now Mr. Comey had taken the J. Edgar Hoover pledge to Serve
and protect and that would have been us under all other circumstances.....but he has to be loyal to his associates for they are
the top 2% of the entire population and they deserve to be treated as the most important the bureau has....what transpired on
the first pass left them in Mayberry P.D. limbo and will never happen could someone help Loretta Lynch to see the light or the
exit sign ....Please
711810943 10/29/2016 10:56 PM EST
Yep, we're definitely talking about the battle of the twin dumpster fires here...
Celebrity gossip trumps policy, if you'll forgive the expression. But what can you expect in a country that can name three
Kardashian sisters, but not one foreign head of state.
Hmmm... Those deck chairs need rearranging... See ya...
Laptop or PC is property of US once claissified info discovered. 18USC 798, right? Who says a warrant is needed to seize, protect?
No so. And, for sure, they will read, use of which may or may not be impeded thereby. Still, there is allot to investigate, incl.
numerous apparent violations of ethics in govt. act, etc, failures to disclose gifts / income, etc.
The Clintons run a morally corrupt RICO that holds itself above the law. With Obama's support, the Justice Dept., IRS, FBI,
State Dept. have aided and abetted the Clinton corruption of our government. This illustrates Hayek's point in The Road To Serfdom
that when very powerful government institutions are created, "the worst rise to the top". Public power and money attract the least
scrupulous, least honest, most power hungry, and most determined. Though Clinton's cabal publicly poses themselves as humanitarian
progressives, the Doug Band statement of operations among Teneo, CGI, the Foundation, and the Clintons presents the underlying
purpose of selling influence and the crony capital structure devised to split the proceeds. The Clinton Foundation operates outside
the law. So where's the MSM, the IRS, the FBI, Justice...what justice?
To think that Weiner and who knows who else had access to U.S. National Security information on the Weiner/Abedin computer.
Sure sounds like the FBI is after Abedin not Clinton.
Dems loved Comey when he slapped Clinton on the wrist for playing loose with U.S. National Security on her email server. Now
those same Dems want to burn Comey at the stake.
Let's not forget how Comey has come to be such a respected official http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced,
sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength
to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's
presence in the room, turned and left.
ad_icon
The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that,
according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller
and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several
weeks without Justice approval, he said.
"I was angry," Comey testified. "I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have
the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."
[Edited] In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known that Huma Abedin
had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal yahoo email account.
The new bit of news today, is that the FBI found TENS OF THOUSANDS of Clinton related emails on Weiner's (shared with Abedin?)
laptop. I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS for four years.
Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it can be a batch operation, they must have
been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails?
The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include some of the missing emails. As Carl Bernstein
(one of the two original Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, which led to Nixon's resignation) said yesterday:
"We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the
FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is
more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring
serious investigation. So that's where we are..."
"... The US has one thing in common with the UK. A massive hidden disenfranchised underclass, who are often unemployed or underemployed . He will get that vote, just as brexit did, and the reason he invited Farage over was because he knows this. ..."
"... When you see all the corruption and fraud that goes on around the world by the wealthy and powerful you see that change by grass root movements doesn't stand a chance. ..."
"... Politicians with their nepotism and cronyism , CEO's, Bankers/Hedge Funnd Managers, Big Business, Big Pharma, Lobbyists, Industrialists, Multi-Nationals...all part part of a Global Cabal that doesn't care about the poor or the working class. ..."
"... it is my belief that they are already relatively certain that at least one State Department email with classified information, and perhaps many more, reside on a laptop computer owned by Anthony Weiner and used by him to exchange sexually explicit content with supposedly underage women -- and I say "supposedly" because posing as an available member of the opposite sex is a common clandestine maneuver. ..."
"... The war candidate is and always has been Hillary. Never met a war she didn't like. Trump OTOH is much more interested in money than in war. He is an isolationist. It's one reason I like his platform, I am tired of the wars. Hillary would continue them. ..."
"... The problem with Hillary (which the DNC should have thought about as they sabotaged Bernie Sander's bid in the primaries) is that there is more then enough kindling in her background to create a decent fire....and lots and lots of smoke! ..."
"... exactly - enough skeletons in her closet to fill a good sized cemetery. ..."
"... "Pseudo-scandal"? Or pseduo-journalism. Richard Wolffe's credibility as a journalist just went up in flames. If you want to read Hillary Clinton's media releases, cut out the middle man and go directly to her campaign website. ..."
"... Clinton is unpopular because, at the innermost core, she's unlikable. Sort of an evil stepmother type who's trying to look more motherly. ..."
"... Into this mess is the media, which refuses to provide serious discussion and analysis over important economic, social, environmental and foreign policy issues. Instead it turns everything into theatre with a focus on sex scandals, rumours, hair cuts and what the candidate is wearing. ..."
"... Elections are being won or lost on wafer thin margins because the choice of candidate are so poor. Policy is ignored or even mostly absent. Instead we have what is little better than a game show. ..."
"... It is like a choice between Pepsi and Coke, whatever choice you make you only get highly sugared and fizzy lolly water that won't do your health any good in the long run. ..."
"... Perhaps all politicians close to an election should be immune from the law for a period? ..."
"... No spin from the neoliberal establishment will save their queen Hillary. ..."
"... Because we're talking about the Big Circumcised Weiner, someone who self-identifies as "a perpetually horny middle-aged man", we've got the fun prospects of one or more sex crimes, along with volumes of sorta' consensual sex, being documented among the, possibly, famous and the soon to famous; and a little wealthier too. ..."
"... When the the swamp is drained the American people will be shocked and sickened by the crimes of the people behind the so-called progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin that the bankster cabal sent among the people to destroy the United States. By all means, the corrupt politicians and their masters must be investigated. So too the people who run the disgusting corporate media and scurrilous vermin behind groups like "Media Matters" "Open Societies" etc. etc. etc. ..."
"... The trouble with your argument is that the Conservative side has analogous front organisations backed by oil and other interest groups which are intent on imposing their will regardless of the popular will. The Conservatives have indeed been outgunned by the Liberal mafia this time. ..."
"... " progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin"... How are the "bankster cabal" you conjure in any way progressive and/or socialist? Do you have any clue, or are these just two of your go-to slurs? ..."
"... She doesn't mind the disgusting behaviour and carryings-on of Trump being exposed before an election and it shouldn't be any different for her either. We hear a lot about the accusations against Donald Trump in this country and we don't hear much about what Hillary has done with all her emails or what is alleged to have been written in them. ..."
"... You have got to be joking. How about the War in Yemen, 90% + casualty rates with drone strikes and targeted assassination, Saudi Arabia weapons deals, vetoing JASTA, War in Syria and Libya disaster, NSA surveillance continuing, Civil Asset forfeiture equitable sharing program, NDAA 2012 - 17 including indefinite detention and now women's draft, 2nd Amendment infringement and calls for Australian gun control , Guantanamo still open, still pursuing REAL ID, TSA groping, Biometric database and associated ID card to track movements 24/7, Militarization of the police under 1033 program, Federal government procurement of Stingrays and ALPR readers, smart meter program spying, CISA, IRS and Fast and Furious scandals, prosecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, pursuance of TPP, TISA and TTIP ? ..."
"... "The latest pseudo-scandal to hit Clinton is unlikely to rob her of the presidency. But it sure isn't going to impress voters already sickened by a shocking campaign." ..."
"... Even a number of actions such as the possible destruction of 31,000 emails and several mobiles after receiving a Congressional subpoena to produce them was not enough to persuade him otherwise. ..."
"... A reasonable conclusion must be the latest criminal investigation concerns not the finding of these additional emails but the actual content of the emails. This matter therefore -far from a pseudo-scandal- must take a very serious form if it causes the FBI at this acutely sensitive time for the election to reopen criminal investigations. ..."
"... Comey has not re-opened the investigation, he simply notified Congress he is looking at "newly obtained info" to determine what it is and how should something be found) it might relate to a decision to re-open the investigation. Basically he is simply covering his ass, although, he now screwed that up and has Justice on his ass also calling for him to make a full disclosure. He will have to make public the info or possibly face a Justice Department investigation of his agency. Major error on his part. ..."
"... How many "non-stories" did Hillary generate in her lifetime? 50? 100? 200? It seems to me that wherever she goes, a "non-story" or two is sure to follow. This may be a non-story that broke the camel's back. Yes, Virginia, you can politically die of one "non-story" too many. ..."
"... Are they a banana republic? They are a great power, correct me if I'm wrong. ..."
"... It's bad enough that the 47 year old Jennifer Lopez, dressed in boots and suspenders is prancing about on stage in Miami. But she brings onto the stage the almost 70 year old Hillary Clinton who, as one of the worst speakers in political history, has the crowd silenced within seconds as she rants about how "we're not going to let Donald Trump get away with it". ..."
"... Her campaign is a fucking joke and they and the MSM are trying to sell this fetid pile of shit to the whole world ..."
"... Obama, Hillary, the Clinton Foundation, and Wall Street decided eight years ago she would be president in 2017. Americans are fed up with that sort of bullshit. ..."
"... Clinton's attacks on Russia are deeply worrying. I have no doubt at all that she'll try and impose a no fly zone in Syria, which will mean direct confrontation, risking an all out war. This woman is a warmonger and she needs to be stopped. ..."
"... People, this whole thing is merely a diversion to move attention from corruption in high places, onto Huma and Anthony Weiner. Comey's had to do something to move attention from the fact that Obama lied to the people, he lied to Congress concerning not knowing about Clinton's private e-mail arrangement and even used a pseudonym to connect with her. This is public knowledge now and not speculation. ..."
"... Clinton will make sure that the NWO gains control. It is being implemented in the background as all this is going. Many people are not the least bit interested in how their children are being brainwashed, how borders have been dissolved, how Obama has been quietly taking unilateral control of government. It seems that they will sit through the pantomime that is this election enjoying every diversionary twist, then when Clinton is elected, they will be unaware that the tentacles of the enemy of the people have penetrated every compartment of government. Vote for Clinton and you are voting for a one world government. There is a war going on and it is truly a battle between good and evil! God help the world. ..."
I think the reason people don't like Obama is because he has bombed 7 countries. Maybe Clinton
can get to 8 if she goes after Russia.
NotKindOrGentle 29 Oct 2016 17:52
How do the Americans ever get anything done when 18 months of their electoral cycle is taken
up with campaigning for the next one.
riggbeck -> NotKindOrGentle 29 Oct 2016 18:13
Then there's the lunacy of mid-term elections. Four years isn't very long for a president to
deliver on major election promises, yet the constitution potentially halves that time with the
threat of losing majorities in the House of Representatives or the Senate.
Checks and balances turn into gridlock.
GeeDeeSea 29 Oct 2016 17:54
It's not the FBI that made her use a private e-mail account. It's not the FBI that decided
to install a private server. Get real. These were her decisions in an attempt to conceal her activities
while in public office.
Preparetobeoffended 29 Oct 2016 17:58
And so it goes on.
Clinton, still heading for the White House? What planet are you on!
Will Bernie supporters vote for Clinton knowing the Democrats conspired to steal the nomination
from him. Will they, really.
Will Wikileaks and Project Veritas`s most damning offerings be ignored by these sheep with hands
covering ears yelling I`m not listening! Will they, really.
Trump is the less frightening of two frightening options, but at least he has going for him the
fact that he has tenaciously attacked the corruption clear to all capable of an independent thought.
Trump is going to win, and going to win comfortably. Get used to it.
GeeDeeSea 29 Oct 2016 18:01
2006 Audio Emerges of Hillary Clinton Proposing Rigging Palestine Election
"I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think
that was a big mistake," said Sen. Clinton. "And if we were going to push for an election, then
we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."
We don't know what the emails are, I wouldn't expect us to. If there's an investigation then
you don't release confidential information. But the information that we have gleaned from Wikileaks
shows that the State authorities have been involved in shutting things down, as has the Clinton
campaign and we know that a large and suspicious payment was made to a close relative of an investigator.
We also know that the IRS has been used over a period in a partisan manner to the disadvantage
of the Republicans and that the previous decision on the emails not to take action was met with
incredulity within the FBI.
If the FBI is making this announcement now then it must have discovered something that has worried
it. It made the announcement soon after the matter arose as it should have done given that this
is a very important piece of information of which voters need to be aware.
The press to date has handled Clinton with kid gloves and it still wants to do so. Fortunately
the revelations coming out and probably the true polls have been making them think again and so
they are allowing a little doubt to enter their coverage.
Hopefully this will be the end of the Clinton campaign, but with the money, contacts and other
resources available to it there will be an immense effort, from the State and campaign, to blacken
the reputation of a body which previously has served Clinton so well.
absentlyadjustable 29 Oct 2016 18:16
Can I point out as well how biased the reporting of the Presidential campaign has been in the
UK? Most of the media have been acting as the publicity wing of the Democrats and the only people
to be interviewed, especially on the BBC, seem to have been from the liberal Clinton supporting
press
AndyPandy1968 29 Oct 2016 18:29
I am sorry to say my personal feeling is that this is the last straw and Trump will win.
I don't support him but he is not stupid, and he was running too close for comfort even before
this. He is not playing to the Guardian, he is playing to an American audience, many of whom have
a totally different view of the world.
The US has one thing in common with the UK. A massive hidden disenfranchised underclass, who
are often unemployed or underemployed . He will get that vote, just as brexit did, and the reason
he invited Farage over was because he knows this.
That is why he says these clumsy things. Not because he is stupid. He says them because he is
playing to that audience. It is deliberate.
Let's hope I am wrong.
DogsLivesMatter 29 Oct 2016 18:31
When you see all the corruption and fraud that goes on around the world by the wealthy
and powerful you see that change by grass root movements doesn't stand a chance.
Politicians with their nepotism and cronyism , CEO's, Bankers/Hedge Funnd Managers, Big
Business, Big Pharma, Lobbyists, Industrialists, Multi-Nationals...all part part of a Global Cabal
that doesn't care about the poor or the working class.
Even the UN and WHO are stacked with those who have influential connections. Pay to Play has
become the norm. What choice does anyone have anymore other than going with the devil you know?
None!
Sappho53 29 Oct 2016 18:35
The world wants a complete investigation into the illegal Iraq War with consequences. The world
is still reeling form this Republican LIE and it has cost US allies dearly in lives, finances,
and terrorism. The Republicans have hidden from the biggest scandal of the past one hundred years.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice must answer and so must all of their supporters in the Republican
Party.
Glenn Smith 29 Oct 2016 18:40
Contrary to your interpretation, Mr. Wolffe, I think the FBI's brave action is going to have
precisely the result of denying Hillary the election, and justifiably so (and not that I think
Trump is any better): it is my belief that they are already relatively certain that at least
one State Department email with classified information, and perhaps many more, reside on a laptop
computer owned by Anthony Weiner and used by him to exchange sexually explicit content with supposedly
underage women -- and I say "supposedly" because posing as an available member of the opposite
sex is a common clandestine maneuver.
providenciales -> BlueberryCompote 29 Oct 2016 19:12
Actually, people will be able to buy the insurance they can afford and that they want if we
get rid of Obamacare. You wouldn't like unaffordable insurance with deductibles that mean you
don't have any coverage either.
Trump has already said who he would nominate to SCOTUS so you can't scaremonger on that score.
He gave a list in fact.
The war candidate is and always has been Hillary. Never met a war she didn't like. Trump OTOH
is much more interested in money than in war. He is an isolationist. It's one reason I like his
platform, I am tired of the wars. Hillary would continue them.
Casey13 29 Oct 2016 18:51
Once Hillary is elected the whole stinking cesspit of Clinton Inc will start crashing down
around her in a hodgepodge of scandals that make Watergate look like Jay walking. She will be
Impeached within a year.
JavaZee 29 Oct 2016 18:56
The problem with Hillary (which the DNC should have thought about as they sabotaged Bernie
Sander's bid in the primaries) is that there is more then enough kindling in her background to
create a decent fire....and lots and lots of smoke!
boxcarwillie -> JavaZee 29 Oct 2016 19:08
exactly - enough skeletons in her closet to fill a good sized cemetery.
Theleme1532 29 Oct 2016 19:03
"Pseudo-scandal"? Or pseduo-journalism. Richard Wolffe's credibility as a journalist just
went up in flames. If you want to read Hillary Clinton's media releases, cut out the middle man
and go directly to her campaign website.
boxcarwillie 29 Oct 2016 19:06
Clinton is unpopular because, at the innermost core, she's unlikable. Sort of an evil stepmother
type who's trying to look more motherly. doesn't work. with that said, the article is right
- this has been a dumpster fire campaign and i'll be glad to see it over. i doubt HRC will make
good on any of her campaign promises, but i would be afraid Trump would. Hope it's better next
time. Bernie would be 78, but that's not as old as it used to be.
Reality_Man 29 Oct 2016 19:14
On the web I read that the NY FBI office is in open rebellion with the DC FBI and that during
the Antony Wiener investigation they found classified emails on a shared laptop PC. Who knows
maybe Huma will be under arrest before November the 8th. One way or another it was done for a
reason I would suggest that the FBI is still a law enforcement agency not a political organization.
As the end of the Obama administration comes to pass it's only natural that the Chinese made him
get out of the back of air force one to show a lack of respect and other countries and agencies
may be showing what they feel. Strong Together may not work if Huma is separated from her baby.
She just may sing terrified bird. Just Saying.
Arcane 29 Oct 2016 19:15
This election is a sad reflection on the current state of democracy across much of the Western
World. The major political parties are so compromised with insider politics and a lack of genuine
concern for the long-term benefit of the voters they purport to represent that they keep on producing
candidates of the worst quality.
Into this mess is the media, which refuses to provide serious discussion and analysis over
important economic, social, environmental and foreign policy issues. Instead it turns everything
into theatre with a focus on sex scandals, rumours, hair cuts and what the candidate is wearing.
Our democracies - not just in the United States but around the world - are under threat from this
same malaise. It starts with political parties that care more about protecting the interests of
a few insiders and influential interest groups. These political movements no longer appeal to
the majority of voters.
Elections are being won or lost on wafer thin margins because the choice of candidate are
so poor. Policy is ignored or even mostly absent. Instead we have what is little better than a
game show.
It is like a choice between Pepsi and Coke, whatever choice you make you only get highly sugared
and fizzy lolly water that won't do your health any good in the long run.
BlueberryCompote -> Arcane 29 Oct 2016 19:22
You've got to admit, however, that America has the worst and most extreme version of this problem
with little sign of anyway out.
bookworm7 29 Oct 2016 19:29
This raises the obvious question: what on earth was the FBI director thinking when he
dropped his letter on Friday making it crystal clear that he knew nothing?
He said the investigation was being re-opened in the light of new evidence. If the investigators
'knew everything' why would they investigate? The above is a piece of sophistry conflating the
knowledge of the facts with the knowledge that the facts are to be investigated.
I can see how the timing looks suspect, but consider the alternative; if he knew about the new
evidence necessitating the re-opening of the investigation, and withheld telling Congress on purpose
because Clinton was a politician close to an electron, would this also not look bad? Could he
not be accused of withholding pertinent information for political purposes?
Perhaps all politicians close to an election should be immune from the law for a period?
PlayaGiron 29 Oct 2016 19:32
No spin from the neoliberal establishment will save their queen Hillary.
Gangoffour -> Bifocal 29 Oct 2016 20:52
Because we're talking about the Big Circumcised Weiner, someone who self-identifies as
"a perpetually horny middle-aged man", we've got the fun prospects of one or more sex crimes,
along with volumes of sorta' consensual sex, being documented among the, possibly, famous and
the soon to famous; and a little wealthier too.
I'm sure it's a lot easier to pick up honey pots when they provide a sympathetic shoulder to snuggle
into because your wife refuses to satisfy your needs since she's doing all of Hillary's work.
Who wouldn't want to be part of the Clinton matchmaking machine?
Berkeley2013 29 Oct 2016 20:22
Mr Wolffe writes:
"From the Clinton Foundation to the private email server, from Benghazi to Weiner, from
Whitewater to Monica, the list is as long as it is utterly spurious. Whatever crumbs of wrongdoing
there may be, they don't amount to something worthy of Watergate, or even the myriad gate-suffixed
scandals since. Questionable behavior is not the same as criminal or even impeachable conduct."
How could anything involving the protocols and laws regarding national security communications
be called "spurious?"
How can anything involving many separate pieces of DoS communication be called "crumbs of wrongdoing?"
gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:41
When the the swamp is drained the American people will be shocked and sickened by the crimes
of the people behind the so-called progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin
that the bankster cabal sent among the people to destroy the United States. By all means, the
corrupt politicians and their masters must be investigated. So too the people who run the disgusting
corporate media and scurrilous vermin behind groups like "Media Matters" "Open Societies" etc.
etc. etc.
BlueberryCompote -> gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:45
The trouble with your argument is that the Conservative side has analogous front organisations
backed by oil and other interest groups which are intent on imposing their will regardless of
the popular will. The Conservatives have indeed been outgunned by the Liberal mafia this time.
nostrobo -> gladiointurkey 29 Oct 2016 20:57
" progressive, globalist, socialist, thieving, murdering vermin"... How are the "bankster
cabal" you conjure in any way progressive and/or socialist? Do you have any clue, or are these
just two of your go-to slurs?
AdamEdward88 29 Oct 2016 21:10
She doesn't mind the disgusting behaviour and carryings-on of Trump being exposed before
an election and it shouldn't be any different for her either. We hear a lot about the accusations
against Donald Trump in this country and we don't hear much about what Hillary has done with all
her emails or what is alleged to have been written in them. I'd be quite interested to find
out what was in any she might have sent to Tony Blair. She hasn't got a good track record on the
Middle-East and we base our opinions in this country on a different set of media reports to people
in the US.
Starwars102 29 Oct 2016 21:11
The integrity of the Obama administration.
You have got to be joking. How about the War in Yemen, 90% + casualty rates with drone
strikes and targeted assassination, Saudi Arabia weapons deals, vetoing JASTA, War in Syria and
Libya disaster, NSA surveillance continuing, Civil Asset forfeiture equitable sharing program,
NDAA 2012 - 17 including indefinite detention and now women's draft, 2nd Amendment infringement
and calls for Australian gun control , Guantanamo still open, still pursuing REAL ID, TSA groping,
Biometric database and associated ID card to track movements 24/7, Militarization of the police
under 1033 program, Federal government procurement of Stingrays and ALPR readers, smart meter
program spying, CISA, IRS and Fast and Furious scandals, prosecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian
Assange, Edward Snowden, pursuance of TPP, TISA and TTIP ?
That list of problems was a mile long and there is probably a lot more I have not mentioned. Says
a lot about Obama's time in office.
mrjonno 29 Oct 2016 21:26
And we still look to the USA for leadership in the world? Give me a break. This is a country
that is responsible for destroying much of the world through the economic paradigm of neoliberalism
which has seen the introduction of economy based in 'throw away and buy new' along with 'dodgy
money' to create the 1% leading to resource overshoot. On current trends we are well in deficit.
From World Footprint -
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue,
by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only
have one.
Neither Clinton nor Trump are suitable presidential material but when has the USA ever been
about being suitable for the world? Never.
BTW Earth Overshoot Day happened on August 8 this year. Since then we are using more than the
planet Earth can absorb or replenish. We are on a collision course with catastrophe.
Well done America....
unlywnted 29 Oct 2016 21:34
"The latest pseudo-scandal to hit Clinton is unlikely to rob her of the presidency.
But it sure isn't going to impress voters already sickened by a shocking campaign."
Pseudo-scandal??!! Where in Gods name are you coming from to arrive at that conclusion? FBI
Director Comey closed the file on further investigation a few months ago saying while Clinton's
casual handling of certain State Dept classified emails was reprehensible, he was not recommending
criminal action because there was an absence of any evidence she had acted with criminal intent.
Even a number of actions such as the possible destruction of 31,000 emails and several
mobiles after receiving a Congressional subpoena to produce them was not enough to persuade him
otherwise.
Yet now, despite clearly realising its dramatic effect on the impending presidential election
Comey informs all interested parties that the file on the criminal investigation is to be re-opened
because of new emails that have come to light. However, since his original ruling was that he
saw no criminal intent in Clinton's careless dissemination of State emails to private servers
it is difficult to understand why that ruling doesn't also cover the latest emails that presumably
are from Clinton's secretary's -or spouse- computer.
A reasonable conclusion must be the latest criminal investigation concerns not the finding
of these additional emails but the actual content of the emails. This matter therefore -far from
a pseudo-scandal- must take a very serious form if it causes the FBI at this acutely sensitive
time for the election to reopen criminal investigations.
OXIOXI20 -> unlywnted 29 Oct 2016 21:44
Comey informs all interested parties that the file on the criminal investigation is to be re-opened
because of new emails that have come to light.
NOT TRUE. That's the bullshit Trump is spewing. Comey has not re-opened the investigation,
he simply notified Congress he is looking at "newly obtained info" to determine what it is and
how should something be found) it might relate to a decision to re-open the investigation. Basically
he is simply covering his ass, although, he now screwed that up and has Justice on his ass also
calling for him to make a full disclosure. He will have to make public the info or possibly face
a Justice Department investigation of his agency. Major error on his part.
HerrPrincip -> sgwnmr 29 Oct 2016 22:38
How many "non-stories" did Hillary generate in her lifetime? 50? 100? 200? It seems to
me that wherever she goes, a "non-story" or two is sure to follow. This may be a non-story
that broke the camel's back. Yes, Virginia, you can politically die of one "non-story" too many.
pfox33 29 Oct 2016 22:13
Are they a banana republic? They are a great power, correct me if I'm wrong.
JuicyMinion 29 Oct 2016 22:15
It's bad enough that the 47 year old Jennifer Lopez, dressed in boots and suspenders is prancing
about on stage in Miami. But she brings onto the stage the almost 70 year old Hillary Clinton
who, as one of the worst speakers in political history, has the crowd silenced within seconds
as she rants about how "we're not going to let Donald Trump get away with it".
Her campaign is a fucking joke and they and the MSM are trying to sell this fetid pile
of shit to the whole world
antobojar -> JuicyMinion 29 Oct 2016 22:29
..Do you expect that declining empire, led by arrogant, corrupt and greedy "elite" can act
rationally..?
Look, who they chosen as a prospective saviours.. he he..
AveAtqueCave 29 Oct 2016 23:13
Obama, Hillary, the Clinton Foundation, and Wall Street decided eight years ago she would
be president in 2017. Americans are fed up with that sort of bullshit.
irishguy 30 Oct 2016 0:33
The author is baffled as to why the FBI has intervened this late in the election by opening
an apparent pseudo-scandal case against Clinton? Here's my theory why:
Maybe it's all about managing the psychology of the the majority voters through the media.
Maybe this whole episode has been orchestrated by the establishment (who want Clinton in);
is designed to go nowhere and allow Clinton to ultimately claim she was vindicated in the whole
email affair while at the same time with the purpose of maintaining a perceived sense of tension
in the minds of the US public in the run up to election day – in the sense that the election result
is not perceived to be a foregone conclusion already.
However, when you take a step back, it's not realistic to think Trump has a chance of getting
in at this point. He's alienated too much of the electorate already.
But the majority voters need to be made feel they're doing something positive by averting the
danger of Trump through voting Clinton – not simply voting for Clinton as the establishment's
chosen candidate in a foregone conclusion.
HarryFlashman 30 Oct 2016 1:26
Hillary Nixon. I mean would you buy a used car from her?
JVRTRL -> HarryFlashman 30 Oct 2016 3:19
It depends who the customer is. The Clintons have always taken very good care of their biggest
money donors. For ordinary people, it would be a bad idea. For their connected donors, it's a
completely different reality. The dealership and the other employees would have the problem, not
the rich and connected customer.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, would pawn off the lemons on unsuspecting customers, loot the
dealership purely for his own benefit, somehow get a tax credit for his trouble, and brag to the
world about what a smart and ethical guy he is.
europeangrayling 30 Oct 2016 1:35
Looks to me like the FBI got done taken over by Putin. This Putin guy, he is everywhere. Pike
fishing on horseback in Siberia while banging some hot Russian gold medal gymnast and overthrowing
the US government and running the FBI now. Putin is on a whole new level, he is changing the game.
And a few days ago, I got a pizza with hamburger and mushroom, and I didn't like it as much, the
regular mushroom one was better, and I said 'f-ing Putin man'. This guy, he did it again, made
me question myself and order that hamburger, meddling in our democracy. It was still OK, I ate
it, but that's 20 bucks I could have spent on a much better regular mushroom instead of that Russian
hamburger crap. Or at least put some chicken on it. Putin man.
furminator 30 Oct 2016 1:53
Anyway Howard Dean, you know primal scream Dean, is saying on his twitter that Comney is on
the side of Putin. Yes the Director of the FBI is really a Russian stooge, a sleeper agent. Poor
Hillary, the FBI, which is controlled by the Justice Department, which is controlled by the Obama
White House, is out to get her coz Russia. She's the victim of a vast right and left wing conspiracy.
Henrychan 30 Oct 2016 2:31
John Pilger's latest article:
"Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education –
Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia – and with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York
Times, the Washington Post.
These organisations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive
tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT.
And they love war.
While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless
women, including the right to life."
Clinton's attacks on Russia are deeply worrying. I have no doubt at all that she'll try
and impose a no fly zone in Syria, which will mean direct confrontation, risking an all out war.
This woman is a warmonger and she needs to be stopped.
Kess 30 Oct 2016 3:00
The media hasn't exactly cover itself in glory either. Throughout the nomination process Clinton
was given an incredibly easy ride. If the media (including the Guardian) had highlighted her issues
earlier then perhaps the DNC would'be been forced to nominate a candidate with a little more integrity,
and Trump wouldn't stand a chance.
BelieveItsTrue 30 Oct 2016 3:13
People, this whole thing is merely a diversion to move attention from corruption in
high places, onto Huma and Anthony Weiner. Comey's had to do something to move attention from
the fact that Obama lied to the people, he lied to Congress concerning not knowing about
Clinton's private e-mail arrangement and even used a pseudonym to connect with her. This is
public knowledge now and not speculation.
Of course HC has said publicise everything but she does not have to wait for the FBI to do
this, she could have done this to begin with, before she bleached her server, before evidence
was destroyed by the Democratic campaign (13 smart-phones) and lap tops destroyed by the FBI.
It is a croc and if you do not wake up to this, the world is lost.
Clinton will make sure that the NWO gains control. It is being implemented in the
background as all this is going. Many people are not the least bit interested in how their
children are being brainwashed, how borders have been dissolved, how Obama has been quietly
taking unilateral control of government. It seems that they will sit through the pantomime
that is this election enjoying every diversionary twist, then when Clinton is elected, they
will be unaware that the tentacles of the enemy of the people have penetrated every
compartment of government. Vote for Clinton and you are voting for a one world government.
There is a war going on and it is truly a battle between good and evil! God help the world.
"... Schrodinger's Election: Simultaneously hacked by Russia to make Trump win and not rigged at all if Killary wins. ..."
"... Hillary's tech guy asking questions on Reddit about how to manipulate/destroy email info for a VIP; ..."
"... Immunity given to virtually everyone involved that was close to Hillary. I believe that the number was 5 people. This seems overly generous and not in keeping with good investigative practice. ..."
"... Yes, people less well connected have gone to jail for lesser offenses than Hillary Clinton and her unsecured email thing. However, I think this issue is being deliberately raised specifically to shield Hillary Clinton and boost her candidacy. It's being used to flood the airwaves, and drive out the even more damning evidence against her. ..."
"... I mean, consider what she did in Libya: attacked a relatively prosperous and stable nation that was not a threat to us and was actually trying to cooperate, she allied us with Al Qaeda (!! why is this not blowing people's minds !!) blew it all to smithereens leaving behind a Mad max-style dystopia. And that's just for starters. There is her apparent desire to attack Russian forces in Syria, her desire to loot social security and give it all to her buddies in Wall Street, her desire to tear up the constitution and give supreme plenary power to multinational corporations... She is the Queen of Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and War. ..."
"... I think the FBI suddenly raised this issue because the polls are tightening, and the establishment would prefer that in the remaining few days the airwaves be filled with lesser offenses that many Americans regard as technical, than with solid coverage of just what a corrupt monster Clinton really is. I mean, do you really think that any high governmeant official does anything that is not scripted and approved in advance? ..."
"... This would all be funny if it didn't represent the machinations of our overlords. This is like a carousel that is spinning out of control and now the pieces are starting to break off. ..."
"... Looks like he was wrong a lot farther back than July. Now we know that there was never a grand jury. Even the astute, ex-judge Andrew Napolitano claimed on more than one occasion that a GJ must be sitting. For instance, when the FIB gave immunity to Pagliano, that signaled to many in the know that a GJ had to be sitting. Not so. W/out a GJ, there was no real investigation. 147 FIB agents working on a sham. ..."
"... Napolitano also predicted a Saturday Massacre if Hilton was not indicted -- dozens of FIB agents would resign. ..."
"... He is doing Hilton a favor by trying to keep pissed-off FIB agents from jumping ship and spilling beans in the week before the election. ..."
"... Hillary is taking a risk in asking the FBI for more details. It could backfire. If Comey is put under heavy pressure to unveil the reasons that made him send this warning to the Congress, he may admit that at least one email his team checked was classified. ..."
"... That would be a huge blow to Hillary's campaign. She may have either to withdraw from the elections or risk been prosecuted after she is elected. She should pray that the FBI does not release more details... ..."
"... The funny aspect of this struggle is three women are involved in the justice abuse drama: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin and Loretta Lynch, while three men are involved in the sexual abuse drama: Trump, Bill Clinton and Weiner. ..."
"... Let me tell you, if the FIB ever got a search warrant for your husband's computer and found your criminal em's on that computer, the original search warrant for the computer would be more than enough to allow them to open your em's. But the rules are different for Hilton, Bilton, and the entire Clinton RICO team. ..."
"... Sounds like FIB is going to Abedin's suits and asking for permission to look at the em's. Like WTF???? Since when does FIB or any law enforcement seek permission from a target's legal team to carry out an investigation? ..."
"... (there are reports that Abedin -- as is customary -- swore under oath that she had scrubbed all state department documents from all of her personal devices ... and -- FWIW -- she was granted immunity during the earlier investigation ... ..."
"... So Comey didn't use any of the Podesta files as evidence ? He's still an establishment coward. Comedy is a A lower class of criminal still serving a higher class of partisan criminals. ..."
"... I think Abedin's career is over ... which is a good thing since the reports of Clinton's cult-like oh-so-"loyal" inner circle were dismaying (cough). ..."
"... If most of these people never really look at urls, their tech people and security people, did. They passed it as acceptable. ..."
"... Comey couldn't prosecute Clinton without prosecuting all those people too, which is impossible ..."
"... Huma no sign of today 30th on or near Clingon campaign plane Florida this AM. ..."
"... Obviously Huma had an email account on Weiner's computer. It seems that the existence of this account and its email contents were found while looking at Wiener's email account. ..."
"... My suspicion was always that Comey was trying to preempt a leak ... likely by some FBI-well connected congress critter ..."
"... Calling for the FBI to release information is double edged. If the emails are copies of the ones that Hillary destroyed from her server because they were too compromising then she will be in deep trouble. ..."
"... Gee! What could go wrong with a scenario like that – a high-ranking government official seeking to become president who exhibits callous disregard for national security protocols, a trusted aide who worked in her family magazine in Saudi Arabia on behalf of radical Islamic causes who was married to a Jewish member of Congress who had a propensity for compromising himself through illicit and bizarre sexual activity? ..."
"... Demanding that the DOJ or FBI "release all the information" is simply grandstanding ... they can't (they apparently don't have legal access and haven't reviewed it) ... and Weiner and Abedin are entitled to privacy protection for all non-related content, and the various government agencies also have security and other concerns ... ..."
"... Demand away!!! Film at 11!!! Shake that fist, hold your breath until your face is read and your eyes bulge ... show the world just how well you can simulate OUTRAGE. ..."
"... Let's recall 24 years ago the 11th hr indictment of Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger that doomed the re-election of president George H.W. Bush . ..."
"... The Clintons seized on the new indictment, howling about a "culture of corruption" that supposedly pervaded the administration. Bush's poll numbers declined and Bill Clinton won the election. ..."
"... Brace for more bombshells – up next, The Clinton Family Foundation. ..."
"... Question of the day. Over half million emails on Weiner's computer, are the 33,000 deleted emails in this trove? ..."
"... According to a NYPD source, the emails on Weiner's laptop are NOT about state secrets, but are in fact pointing to a pedophilia ring with the Clintons at the center. ..."
"... New headaches for VP nominee Tim Kaine as alleged mistress comes forward with tape of thr ..."
"... FWIW, I read today Huma was also getting paid by Tedeo ... she is always described as "like a daughter", working for clinton since SHE was a 19 year old intern ... she's now 40 ... shudder ... meaning 21 years or 1996 ... ..."
"... The Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that came to light in 1998, referring to a sexual relationship between 1995 and 1996 with then 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. ..."
"... I've always wondered how Chelsea feels about the oh-so-elegant like-a-daughter Abedin ..."
"... Still, while Bill was destroying long-term Clinton family relationships via Lewinsky (and demands that people lie for him), Hillary had "Huma" to lean" on and "mentor" ... It sounds so co-dependent. (and I suggest zero other impropriety) I've witnessed some very dysfunctional boss/assistant relationships ... shudder. ..."
"... This is what I like about Donald Trump... (not exactly the same words) If I'm elected you will go to jail and to Ford's executives in Detroit. If you move productions to Mexico, I'll impost a 35% on all vehicles from Mexico and no one will buy Ford! ..."
"... The #1 meme about Donald Trump is his racism ... and the racism of his supporters ... this has been the drumbeat since last Spring ... daily, constant, unrelenting and without exception ... and unfair and ridiculous, without nuance, rejecting all other explanations and flatly rejecting any number of contradicting Trump rally witness reports ... ..."
"... The meme has been: Support Trump and you are a racist ... full stop. That all Trump supporters want to go back to pre-Civil Rights, pre-Women's liberation, and support for Trump is a rage-induced quest regain lost "white privilege" ... ..."
Comey is under pressure. Either thru his own reading of the situation and head banging
("I have to act now"), because threats of new/other leaks are looming, or because some
are pushing to break the dams (e.g. internal to FBI) or just becos the info is so
damning covering it up if it ever comes out will spark disaster for him in any case. Or
a combination, or even other, extra, reasons.
He is compelled, or wishes to as a white knight, I doubt that actually, to 're-open'
with vague, indeterminate words, the HRC e-mail private-server matter. Obviously
coverin' his ass but waiting on decisions from the VIPs. (Lynch. Clinton.)
3 FBI investigs. are ongoing:
1) Into the Clinton Foundation, which was never halted but seems to limp along (held
back? bogged down as very complicated, e.g. insider trading?) See also the Bill Clinton
foundation, though afaik it is not under scrutiny?
2) Into the sexting Wiener scandal, which was 'independent'? Not, imho, an FBI
matter, but NY authorities? - Charges of sexting to minors, one person, one count, not
too hard to deal with, but when huma - clinton - govmt. e-mails were found on 'his'
laptop, another dimension came into play…
3) Killary private server, e-mail scandal, bis repetita
…> there might even be other unknowns
Imho these 3 investigs. have now become intertwined, there is simply no way for the
FBI to keep up any Chinese Walls any longer.
I wrote about Comey and the newly discovered emails on the Open Thread
here
and
here
There's still lots of questions.
Some thought that Comey was part of the 'fix' when Bill Clinton met with Lynch on the
tarmac and Comey subsequently made the judgment call to NOT recommend prosecution.
We then heard about flaws in the investigation:
1. Hillary's tech guy asking questions on Reddit about how to manipulate/destroy
email info for a VIP;
2. Immunity given to virtually everyone involved that was close to Hillary. I
believe that the number was 5 people. This seems overly generous and not in keeping
with good investigative practice.
Comey's letter to Congress has reinvigorated the Trump campaign but also:
1. served as a distraction to Wikileaks release of the Podesta emails
(MSMS wrote
more about Russian hacking than about the Podesta emails)
2. allowed Hillary & Co. to grandstand and beat their chests
It's likely that Huma has told Hillary what these emails are
(if Hillary didn't
already know)
. So look at how hard Obama/Hillary fight the FBI to get a sense for
how important these emails are.
There's a possibility that these emails are a nothingburger and that the Hillary
campaign
ultimately benefits
from the perception that Republicans are after
Hillary.
Have you ever been party to a bureaucracy with electronic mail policies? If you are
anal-retentive, have no family life and sleep an hour a day, you could possibly comply
with the panoply written by lawyers covering the legal ass of the organization. Other
than that….
"He should have pressed for charges against Clinton..."
Sorry, no. It is not his
position to press for charges or to advocate against him. It is his job to perform the
investigation and turn to facts over to the prosecutor who decides whether or not a
prosecution is warranted. He may decide that duties assigned to him are not consistent
with the law and refuse to perform them, and has done so, but he does not decide how the
law should be enforced.
The weiner-abedin computer that carries sexting and US state emails has certainly been
hacked. US state secrets are intermixed with porno emails and available to the public.
yes america is great!
I would like to propose an alternative explanation.
Yes, people less well connected
have gone to jail for lesser offenses than Hillary Clinton and her unsecured email
thing. However, I think this issue is being deliberately raised specifically to shield
Hillary Clinton and boost her candidacy. It's being used to flood the airwaves, and
drive out the even more damning evidence against her.
I mean, consider what she did in Libya: attacked a relatively prosperous and stable
nation that was not a threat to us and was actually trying to cooperate, she allied us
with Al Qaeda (!! why is this not blowing people's minds !!) blew it all to smithereens
leaving behind a Mad max-style dystopia. And that's just for starters. There is her
apparent desire to attack Russian forces in Syria, her desire to loot social security
and give it all to her buddies in Wall Street, her desire to tear up the constitution
and give supreme plenary power to multinational corporations... She is the Queen of
Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and War. She is Vlad the Impaler on crack.
I think the FBI suddenly raised this issue because the polls are tightening, and the
establishment would prefer that in the remaining few days the airwaves be filled with
lesser offenses that many Americans regard as technical, than with solid coverage of
just what a corrupt monster Clinton really is. I mean, do you really think that any high
governmeant official does anything that is not scripted and approved in advance?
This would all be funny if it didn't represent the machinations of our overlords. This
is like a carousel that is spinning out of control and now the pieces are starting to
break off.
I hope that question that the rest of the world is asking itself is: Why
the heck are we continuing to buy American T-bills?
The global plutocrats have had since 2008 to set this casting of throwing the US
under the bus up. The US public will rise up but have been too brainwashed to do
anything intelligent, unfortunately.
We need to rid ourselves of the tools that the global plutocrats use to retain
control of the West, Private Finance and unfettered inheritance.
And yes, I voted for Jill Stein again because I want to see the Green party get to at
least 5% so we can build another choice than the bifurcated one before Americans
currently.
b: "I for one believe that Comey was wrong in July and is right today. He should have
pressed for charges against Clinton early on."
Looks like he was wrong a lot farther
back than July. Now we know that there was never a grand jury. Even the astute, ex-judge
Andrew Napolitano claimed on more than one occasion that a GJ must be sitting. For
instance, when the FIB gave immunity to Pagliano, that signaled to many in the know that
a GJ had to be sitting. Not so. W/out a GJ, there was no real investigation. 147 FIB
agents working on a sham.
Napolitano also predicted a Saturday Massacre if Hilton was not indicted -- dozens of
FIB agents would resign. Two days day before Comey's October IED Napolitano claimed that
was now happening -- FIB agents are resigning and once they are out, the leaks will
become a flood. Comey is the Dutch boy with his thumb stuck
up his ass
in the dike. He is doing Hilton a favor by trying to keep pissed-off FIB agents from
jumping ship and spilling beans in the week before the election.
There is one certainty in this election: Whoever loses it will be someone most
Americans absolutely despise. (It is important to emphasize the positive.)
Hillary is taking a risk in asking the FBI for more details. It could backfire. If Comey
is put under heavy pressure to unveil the reasons that made him send this warning to the
Congress, he may admit that at least one email his team checked was classified.
That would be a huge blow to Hillary's campaign. She may have either to withdraw from
the elections or risk been prosecuted after she is elected. She should pray that the FBI
does not release more details...
The funny aspect of this struggle is three women are involved in the justice abuse
drama: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin and Loretta Lynch, while three men are involved in
the sexual abuse drama: Trump, Bill Clinton and Weiner.
This will make the next successful series on HBO: Sex, power and politic!
The story now is that FIB agents investigating Weiner's kiddie sexting stumbled on
Abedin's em's on Weiner's laptop. Apparently, they think they have to have a special
search warrant to look at her em's.
Let me tell you, if the FIB ever got a search warrant for your husband's computer and
found your criminal em's on that computer, the original search warrant for the computer
would be more than enough to allow them to open your em's. But the rules are different
for Hilton, Bilton, and the entire Clinton RICO team.
Sounds like FIB is going to Abedin's suits and asking for permission to look at the
em's. Like WTF???? Since when does FIB or any law enforcement seek permission from a
target's legal team to carry out an investigation?
CNN also raises the specter of spousal privilege between Wiener and Abedin. Shouldn't
be a problem. Spousal privilege means one spouse cannot be compelled to testify against
another. It does not provide a safe haven on one spouse's computer for illegal em's of
the other . . . well, you know, unless you are on the Clinton RICO team. CNN's theory
(probably from Jeffrey Toobin) would be like saying, the cops can't look in a wife's
underwear drawer for a pistol used by the husband to commit a murder. What BS.
As far as I can tell, Comey knew that getting an expanded warrant (to cover actually
opening Abedin's newly discovered email trove) would be leaked and that that would be
more damaging (in many ways to many people) ... so he bit the bullet and is being
subjected to massive criticism from everyone ...
Imagine the bombshell if they had attempted to keep this secret and it had been
revealed next week or after the election ...
""The issue is complicated because the computer is considered to belong to Anthony
Weiner, her estranged husband, and the case may raise spousal privilege legal
protections for Abedin.
Government lawyers hope to secure the warrant to permit investigators to review
thousands of emails on a computer Abedin shared with Weiner, officials said.The new
search warrant is needed because the existing authorization, covered by a subpoena,
related only to the ongoing investigation of Weiner, who is accused of having
sexually explicit communications with an underage girl.Investigators from the FBI's
New York field office who are conducting the Weiner investigation " ""
cnn: Justice Department seeks approval for email search
(there are reports that Abedin -- as is customary -- swore under oath that she had
scrubbed all state department documents from all of her personal devices ... and -- FWIW
-- she was granted immunity during the earlier investigation ...
A political commentator believes the polls in the United States are being "manipulated,"
adding that they are not reflecting the will of the American people.
"Trump is an outsider. He is coming in new. He does not have any political history,
he has no political experience. He is coming as an agent of change," Mike Harris told
Press TV in an interview on Sunday.
Sometimes right on time, almost as if using a calendar(!), like 2011 when they
decided to sacrifice MF Global.
Or 2011 also when they ended their murderous bombing of Libya, started earlier MAR 31 by
those uncouth frenchie fokkers.
Sometimes "celebrated" late, as in 1956 NOV 5 with Brits sending invasion force to
take back Suez that Nasser just nationalized, or 1979 NOV 4 Iran US embassy hostages
(not like that wasn't due...Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953).
So Comey didn't use any of the Podesta files as evidence ? He's still an establishment
coward. Comedy is a A lower class of criminal still serving a higher class of partisan
criminals.
Sure drove WikiLeaks' (damning) Band memo out of discussion or consideration ... and the
irony is that this probably -- ultimately -- has nothing to do with Clinton ... I think Abedin's career is over ... which is a good thing since the reports of Clinton's
cult-like oh-so-"loyal" inner circle were dismaying (cough).
GOP congresscritters were already having kittens over the number of Clinton insiders
granted immunity during the long tangled course of the investigation ..
Cnn 09/23/201
.
Caveat: I previously found mention of Abedin getting immunity prior to July and now
cannot find a confirming source .... sigh
If using a private server to get around FOIA was a problem, it was a problem then, not
now. But getting around FOIA was something everybody else, as well as Clinton wanted.
That's why they had no problems sending and receiving emails from another server. If
most of these people never really look at urls, their tech people and security people,
did. They passed it as acceptable.
Comey couldn't prosecute Clinton without prosecuting
all those people too, which is impossible. Pretending you really give a shit about the
server when you don' care about all those other people who committed the same crime just
proves one thing: It's a political prosecution aimed exclusively at an opponent. Another
phrase for political prosecution is "show trial." You can't always make sure only the
people you don't like get prosecuted.
And, security issues? In the world of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and wikileaks,
no sensible and honest person thinks using government equipment means security.
The only use for this fake scandal is to pander to mad dog reactionaries.
Huma no sign of today 30th on or near Clingon campaign plane Florida this AM.
Supposedly Lord O tried but failed to directly intercede to block the FBI from searching
Anthony's computer.
Maybe that 'suicided' top US missile general a day ago was the start of the cleanup
crew moving, & the rats are doing what they always do---ratting, or scurrying for cover.
Obviously Huma had an email account on Weiner's computer. It seems that the existence of
this account and its email contents were found while looking at Wiener's email account.
Possibly it is a pop3 account (connected to Hillary server) meaning that these emails
have been downloaded from the server and are physically on the computer probably without
any password. If these emails are duplicates of 'classified' emails that Hillary has
purposely deleted from her server, then she and Huma could be in deep trouble. In any
case Huma is in trouble even if the emails are not classified as she did not declare
their existence to the FBI. I understand the Wiener computer is in the hands of the
Wiener's case investigators.
My guess is that the FBI has already had access to that computer and had a peek at these
emails. I think that after examining some of them, they realize they were relevant to
the investigation. As they have no warrant, they cannot announce anything officially.
The FBI is now waiting for a warrant from Huma's lawers to officially view the account.
If Hillary is so keen to have details from these email, Huma should immediately give the
ok for a warrant.
My opinion is that Hillary is terrified that these emails are very damaging so she needs
to obstruct their release, while still accusing the FBI of backstabbing. It seems that
her only chance is to discredit Comey and she is working on that now.
My suspicion was always that Comey was trying to preempt a leak ... likely by some
FBI-well connected congress critter ... According to the NYT, while Weiner investigators
(and god knows who else) have known about the e-mails for weeks, Comey was not informed
until shortly before his announcement (he must have been angry and horrified).
I still think that the shit-storm that would have erupted from a "leak" of a "secret"
newly expanded arm of a "closed" investigation would have been far worse ... wrt to the
whole "undermining" or "rigging" the election meme being sold -- by both parties ...
I'm getting conflicting impressions of "plausible deniability" by folks claiming to
have been blind-sided by Comey's announcement ... I think (as I've said before) Comey is
the designated whipping boy, and perhaps even volunteered to be just that, as everyone
and their brother expresses horror at something that cannot be undone ...
Calling for the FBI to release information is double edged.
If the emails are copies
of the ones that Hillary destroyed from her server because they were too compromising
then she will be in deep trouble.
I guess her only way out is to discredit Comey and get him out of the way. Is Comey
strong enough to stand against the war Clinton will start on him?
Gee! What could go wrong with a scenario like that – a high-ranking government
official seeking to become president who exhibits callous disregard for national
security protocols, a trusted aide who worked in her family magazine in Saudi Arabia
on behalf of radical Islamic causes who was married to a Jewish member of Congress
who had a propensity for compromising himself through illicit and bizarre sexual
activity?
"I have an idea! Let's make the architect of this mess the president of the United
States." That's what the Democratic Party decided.
Demanding that the DOJ or FBI "release all the information" is simply grandstanding ...
they can't (they apparently don't have legal access and haven't reviewed it) ... and
Weiner and Abedin are entitled to privacy protection for all non-related content, and
the various government agencies also have security and other concerns ...
Demand away!!! Film at 11!!! Shake that fist, hold your breath until your face is
read and your eyes bulge ... show the world just how well you can simulate OUTRAGE.
and let's not forget -- as everyone seems to be doing -- that these e-mails are years
old and that there is no genuine urgency to this matter, no matter how much outrage and
urgency and panic and other theatrics are demonstrated.
This investigation is (almost certainly) a dead parrot ... but like Weiner's sexting,
it's something everyone can quite safely be OUTRAGED!!! about. Democrats and Clinton
supporter long ago announce they didn't give a flying fig about Clinton's disregard for
rules or transparency or truthfulness ... and the Republicans demonstrated -- that like
Whitewater and Benghazi that came before -- that they didn't care about a lack of
actionable findings as determined by those empowered to make such determinations ...
There were no indictments because even the wrongdoing that was found was "determined" to
not rise to the criteria necessary wrt to intent.
so, they cry ... let's have another investigation, more hearings, maybe a change in
venues, leadership, oversight authority ...
(is it rigged? almost certainly, but more more and more isn't likely to change the
outcome)
Probably just a coincidence, but as for Kaine making demands on
Comey, one has to wonder why he doesn't just pick up the phone and call him?
How close they are (were) is hard to say, but they are certainly well acquainted.
Both lived in Richmond, and taught at the University of Richmond Law School, a small,
private school. Both moved in the same Richmond social circle and have friends in
common.
Believe me, I do not move in that social circle, or have many friends in Richmond,
but at least two are also friends of both Kaine and Comey. Maybe Kaine's wife could just
call Comey's wife to find out what's going on. Or maybe Kaine is starting to get cold
feet about running with Hillary and put Comey up to this. :-)
Small world. Just another oddity of this comedy-horror show of an election.
2 - Putin rigs elections
2.1 - Trump and Putin poisoned Hillary
2.2 - Assange sucks Putin's dick
2.3 - McCarthy runs for president
3 - News of Putin's rigging of election makes Americans question integrity of
election
3.1 - Obama threatens WW3 with Russia
3.2 - Obama launches cyber attack on Russia
3.3 - Trump won't accept result if he loses
4 - Obama cancels elections
5 - Hillary grabs pussy
6 - Historians find signs of intelligent life
7 - The ballots
Everything is sourced to the most reliable sources, like the
Washington Post
,
Wall Street Journal
, and
The New York Times
.
I do believe that Trump is a safer
candidate than Clinton, but he is still seriously flawed. He stands out as a peace
candidate next to Clinton, but he still makes statements about bombing ISIS and their
family members. Two war crimes in that statement seeing as the US is in Syria illegally.
He also wants to increase the defense budget... WTF, it's already more than half of the
federal discretionary spending. His choice of Pence is also a huge warning sign.
Stein is the only candidate that I have heard make a rational statement regarding
Syria... stop sending in more weapons. I'll concede that I may be naive, but as a true
outsider she has the best chance to rein in the military. We could discuss the deep
state and who calls the shots, but at point it wouldn't matter who gets elected.
Baraka's Soros connection should be considered, but let's not forget that Rothschild
helped bailout Trump with his casino. I'm also very concerned about his dealings and
potential ties with organized crime.
I think the possibility that there were "rogue" FBI investigators keeping Comey in the
dark -- to create an "October surprise" -- may be the most significant (and scary) part
of this story (if true) ... shades of the numerous other "rogue" factions we've seen
under Obama ... see also the 50 anonymous state department dissenters to Obama's
policies (obviously endorsing Hillary). I'm curious if they and this ruse will ever be
mentioned again.
Another failure of the chain of command ... lack of respect for authority within the
highest levels of government. I'm thinking some people understood the message in too
many movies glorifying renegades and mavericks. This isn't whistleblowing because no one
will listen, this is subverting the process because you didn't like the outcome ... will
cheating and fabrication come next to these ideology driven zealots? Has it already?
The Bezos' Wapo rag is expected to be selective. Credibility destroyed. Now, with all
the howling from The Clinton gang. The best display of what goes around, comes around!
……
Let's recall 24 years ago the 11th hr indictment of Secretary of Defense Casper
Weinberger that doomed the re-election of president George H.W. Bush .
This was the
weekend before the election!
Bill Clinton cheered 11th hour indictment that doomed Bush re-election
[24 years ago], as former President George H.W. Bush was surging back against
challenger Bill Clinton, a special prosecutor raised new charges against Bush in the
Iran-Contra probe, prompting Clinton to claim he was running against a "culture of
corruption."
[.] Many Republicans claimed that the indictment made by special prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh against former Reagan-era Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger the weekend before
the 1992 election cost Bush a second term. The indictment, later thrown out, challenged
Bush's claim that he did not know about a controversial arms-for-hostages deal that
dogged the Reagan-Bush administration."
[.]The Clintons seized on the new indictment, howling about a "culture of corruption"
that supposedly pervaded the administration. Bush's poll numbers declined and Bill
Clinton won the election.
Shortly after the election, a federal judge threw out the new indictment because it
violated the five-year statute of limitations and improperly broadened the original
charges. President Bush then pardoned Weinberger.
I think the possibility that there were "rogue" FBI investigators keeping Comey in
the dark -- to create an "October surprise" -- may be the most significant (and scary)
part of this story (if true) ... shades of the numerous other "rogue" factions we've
seen under Obama ... see also the 50 anonymous state department dissenters to Obama's
policies (obviously endorsing Hillary). I'm curious if they and this ruse will ever be
mentioned again.
It's called Mutiny
in D.C. Comey's hand was forced.
and, add this to the mix – I read an article on a credible site of a new bombshell
but before I link to it, the contents should be confirmed during week of November 1st.
However, this gem was included in the article:
"people at the Pentagon are aligned:
Will not silently sit still as one of their 4-Star generals get ramrodded for MUCH
less than Hillary did. They are aligned with the insurrectionists at the FBI.
"It was wrong for me to mislead the F.B.I. on Nov. 2, 2012, and I accept full
responsibility for this," General Cartwright said. "I knew I was not the source of the
story and I didn't want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the
reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to
this day to do everything I can to defend it."
~ ~ ~ ~
Brace for more bombshells – up next, The Clinton Family Foundation.
Question of the day. Over half million emails on Weiner's computer, are the 33,000
deleted emails in this trove?
There is another, rather adventurous accounting of the investigation. According to
this transcript
from a chat board,
some anonymous analyst at the Bureau turned to the public, basically saying they can't
do anything about the Clinton Foundation because the case is too big - it would mean
taking on the totally implied government, and exposing deeds that they fear might lead
to foreign declarations of war. He proceeded to ask the public instead to go after the
Foundation. But after seeing this route did actually not work out, the people at the
Bureau might have come up with plan B. This seems consistent; as long as you accept the
assumption. The transcript is a bit hard to read, but the story rather thrilling, and
definitely "se non è vero, è ben trovato".
You also might appreciate
Bill Still's
narration
of the Phoenix incident with Loretta Lynch.
The Clinton administration was bombing Iraq
three times a week during 1999 and 2000 at a cost of over $2 billion a year. Regardless
of who the next president was going to be, I think you could make a strong case that
they were going to war in Iraq. The war record of Clinton, followed by Bush, followed by
Obama lends credence to this assumption. Note that the attack on Afghanistan began on
October 7, 2001, less than a month after September 11. I'm not a military expert, but
that seems incredibly quick. Bush hadn't even been president for a year.
The Clinton Family Foundation seems so slushy ... the funds are totally at the family's
"discretion" and it's hard to imagine a genuine "scandal" The Foundation/CGI (Clinton
Global Initiative) really only needs a credible "dissatified customer" with records
saying they didn't get the quid-pro-quo what they paid for ... however, two credible
above-reproach dissatisified customers each other would be better. I've figured someone
like that exists (or even that one could have been created/manufactured for this
purpose) ... however, it's the bridgeburning involved in going public ....
(!) According to a NYPD source, the emails on Weiner's laptop are NOT about state
secrets, but are in fact pointing to a pedophilia ring with the Clintons at the center.
Looks like Bill wasn't alone on Epsteins Lolita Express. Hillary has a well documented
preference for underage girls.
Look into
-Jared Fogle
-Cathy O'^Brien
-the 'Hillary Clinton Tapes'
-Tim Kaine (WikiLeaks, VP choice since 07.2015(!))
The problem for the FBI, which once was a trusted American institution, but no
longer is, is that there is no longer any doubt that Donald Trump will win the
popular vote for president of the United States. His appearances are so heavily
attended that thousands are turned away by local fire/occupancy regulations. In
contrast, Hillary has curtailed her appearances, because she doesn't draw more than
30 or 40 people.
Americans are sick to death of the corrupt Clintons and the corrupt American
media. The Clintons are so completely bought-and-paid-for by the Oligarchy that they
were able to outspend Hollywood on their daughter's wedding, dropping $3,000,000 on
the event.
It's hard to imagine what "bombshell" could involve the Family
Foundation unless they's paying for the upkeep of Bill's baby-mamas and kiddy-farm ...
would anyone care?
Soon, more facts will be revealed - there is the probe of the Clinton Foundation that
the DOJ tried blocking but there is the mutiny.
One of the 7 appetizers before the main course:
via ZH:
Doug Band To John Podesta: "If This Story Gets Out, We Are Screwed"
Until the Friday blockbuster news that the FBI was reopening its probe into the
Hillary email server, the biggest overhang facing the Clinton Campaign was the
escalating scandal involving the Clinton Foundation, Doug Band's consultancy firm Teneo,
and Bill Clinton who as a result of a leaked memo emerged was generously compensated for
potential political favors by prominent corporate clients using Teneo as a passthru
vehicle for purchasing influence.
In a section of the memo entitled "Leveraging Teneo For The Foundation," Band spelled
out all of the donations he solicited from Teneo "clients" for the Clinton Foundation.
In all, there are roughly $14mm of donations listed with the largest contributors being
Coca-Cola, Barclays, The Rockefeller Foundation and Laureate International Universities.
Some of these are shown below (the full details can be found in "Leaked Memo Exposes
Shady Dealings Between Clinton Foundation Donors And Bill's "For-Profit" Activities")
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Do read the article and embedded links within.
Influence – peddling. I do recall some congress critters being charged and sent to
the other big house. This is more than pay-for-play
Added to what has already been exposed about the Clinton Foundation, here also ZH via
WSJ:
I had heard (sorry no memory of where and no cite) that the meeting on the tarmac was
actually about the Foundation probe ... it was ridiculous. That video is certainly
"partisan" but I had wondered who initiated the meeting and whose plane they met on ...
(as I recall those details somehow never made it into any article I read). So, if
accurate, Bill Clinton is an overbearing intimidating azzhole -- to his loyal long-term
"protégé" ... so what else is new. She can commiserate with the ex-Clinton-friend club
FWIW, I read today Huma was also getting paid by Tedeo ... she is always described as
"like a daughter", working for clinton since SHE was a 19 year old intern ... she's now
40 ... shudder ... meaning 21 years or 1996 ...
wiki:
The Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that came to light in
1998, referring to a sexual relationship between 1995 and 1996 with then 49-year-old
President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
I've always wondered how Chelsea feels about the oh-so-elegant like-a-daughter
Abedin. I saw a picture of her on the phone "on the tarmac" in 4-5 inch stilettos ...
Even when slender and glammed up, Chelsea looks just like her "rather dumpy" mother ...
blech... forgive me. Weiner, by reports, is whip smart and very funny, very well read
and delightful company ... he's just a compulsive wanker -- apparently in need of
constant re-assurance and praise and attention ... blech.
Still, while Bill was destroying long-term Clinton family relationships via Lewinsky
(and demands that people lie for him), Hillary had "Huma" to lean" on and "mentor" ...
It sounds so co-dependent. (and I suggest zero other impropriety) I've witnessed some
very dysfunctional boss/assistant relationships ... shudder.
This is what I like about Donald Trump... (not exactly the same words) If I'm elected
you will go to jail and to Ford's executives in Detroit. If you move productions to
Mexico, I'll impost a 35% on all vehicles from Mexico and no one will buy Ford!
The #1 meme about Donald Trump is his racism ... and the racism of his supporters ...
this has been the drumbeat since last Spring ... daily, constant, unrelenting and
without exception ... and unfair and ridiculous, without nuance, rejecting all other
explanations and flatly rejecting any number of contradicting Trump rally witness
reports ...
The meme has been: Support Trump and you are a racist ... full stop. That all Trump
supporters want to go back to pre-Civil Rights, pre-Women's liberation, and support for
Trump is a rage-induced quest regain lost "white privilege" ...
It's not true ... but that's the drill... utter ostracism, forever, long past the
election ... it's very destructive and dangerous ... it's a red-line, unforegivable ...
Moore's movie challenged that mindset and he was criticised for his "tolerance" of and
reaching out to Trump voters... to the point that the "claim" more was supporting Trump
has been widely repeated (sliming Moore) ... Sorry I was so emphatic, it's just I
supported Moore's outreach (because it's humane and reality-based) ... and I hated
seeing him slimed by the intolerant ... ghastly election.
As you have heard, the 30% import tax is an absolute non-starter ... in that the
president does not have that power and there is probably still too many automotive jobs
and the auto lobby too strong for congress is spank them in that way ... Driving the
auto industry into bankruptcy isn't good for "America's bottom line" either.
"... It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation. Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation were combined. ..."
"... FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to pour more resources into the investigation. ..."
"... The story gets more complicated when you factor in that McCabe's wife, Dr. Jill McCabe had received a $467,500 campaign contribution in 2015 for a state senate race from McAuliffe . ..."
"... CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. ..."
FBI investigators from across the country have been following leads into reports of bribery
involving the Clinton Foundation. Multiple field offices have been involved in the investigation.
A report in Sunday's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Devlin Barrett revealed that agents assigned
to the New York field office have been carrying the bulk of the work in investigating the Clinton
Foundations. They have received assistance from the FBI field office in Little Rock according to
"people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported. Other offices, including Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., have been collecting evidence to regarding "financial crimes or influence-peddling."
As far back as February 2016, FBI agents made presentation to the Department of Justice (DOJ),
the WSJ's sources stated. "The meeting didn't go well," they wrote. While some sources said
the FBI's evidence was not strong enough, others believed the DOJ had no intention from the start
of going any further. Barrett wrote that the DOJ officials were "stern, icy and dismissive of the
case."
Barrett wrote, "'That was one of the weirdest meetings I've ever been to,' one participant told
others afterward, according to people familiar with the matter."
It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation.
Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions
of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the
FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation
were combined.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials
who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to
pour more resources into the investigation.
Barrett wrote, "'Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?'
Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official
replied, 'Of course not,' these people said."
Some of the WSJ sources told Barrett that a "stand down" order had been given to the FBI
agents by McCabe. Others denied that no such order was given.
Preet Bharara, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appears to have
taken in interest in moving forward from the DOJ side, the Daily Caller's Richard Pollock
reported in August.
Pollock wrote:
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District
of New York. Bharara's prosecutorial aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions
of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street insiders.
He said prosecutorial support could come from multiple U.S. Attorneys Offices and stated this
was a major departure from other "centralized FBI investigations."
CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation
should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported
the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts
by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, may have committed
perjury in testimony before Congress, two separate U.S. House committee chairmen detailed late Monday.
In
a letter from House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz
(R-UT) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) to U.S. Attorney for the
District of Columbia Channing Phillips, the two top House Republicans made their case that Clinton
committed perjury.
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote to Phillips:
On August 2, 2016, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik confirmed that you received the
Committees' request for an investigation regarding certain statements made by former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton during her testimony before Congress and will 'take appropriate action
as necessary. To assist the investigation, this letter identifies several pieces of Secretary
Clinton's testimony that appear to implicate 18 U.S.C. §§1621 and 1001 the criminal statutes that
prohibit perjury and false statements, respectively. The evidence collected by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email
system during her time as Secretary of State appears to directly contradict several aspects of
her sworn testimony, which are described in greater detail below.
Before detailing at least four specific instances in which Clinton allegedly committed perjury,
the House Republicans explained the matter a bit further:
During a House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing on October 22, 2015, Secretary Clinton
testified with respect to (1) whether she sent or received emails that were marked classified
at the time; (2) whether her attorneys reviewed each of the emails on her personal email system;
(3) whether there was one, or more servers that stored work-related emails during her time as
Secretary of State; and (4) whether she provided all her work-related emails to the Department
of State. Although there may be other aspects of Secretary Clinton's sworn testimony that are
at odds with the FBI's findings, her testimony in those four areas bears specific scrutiny in
light of the facts and evidence FBI Director James Comey described in his public statement on
July 5, 2016 and in testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July
7, 2016.
The first of four main areas where Hillary Clinton allegedly perjured herself before the U.S.
Congress was with her claim in sworn testimony that she never sent or received emails on her illicit
home-brew email server-which was in violation of State Department guidelines, and according to FBI
director James Comey "extremely careless."
"With respect to whether she sent or received emails that were marked classified at the time,
Secretary Clinton testified under oath to the Select Committee that she did not," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote to the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. "Specifically, during questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan,
Secretary Clinton stated 'there was nothing marked classified on my emails, either sent or received.'"
Chaffetz and Goodlatte further quoted from Clinton's testimony by including this quote:
[M]any Americans have no idea how the classification process works. And therefore I wanted
to make it clear that there is a system within our government, certainly within the State Department
. . . where material that is thought to be classified is marked such, so that people have the
opportunity to know how they are supposed to be handling those materials . . . and that's why
it became clearer, I believe, to say that nothing was marked classified at the time I sent or
received it.
The two House Committee chairmen detail in the letter to the U.S. Attorney for D.C. that Clinton,
according to the FBI Director, was not telling the truth in that testimony before Congress:
The FBI, however, found several of Secretary Clinton's emails did in fact contain markings
that identified classified information therein. In Director Comey's public statement on July 5,
2016, he said, 'a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore the markings
indicating the presence of classified information.' When Director Comey testified on July 7, 2016,
he specifically addressed this issue. Rep. Trey Gowdy asked, 'Secretary Clinton said there was
nothing marked classified either sent or received. Was it true?' He said it was not. Director
Comey also stated, 'There was classified material emailed.' Specifically, he stated that three
documents on Secretary Clinton's private server contained classified information clearly marked
'Confidential.' He further testified, 'In the one involving 'top secret' information, Secretary
Clinton not only received but also sent emails that talked about the same subject.'
The second claim on which Hillary Clinton appears to have been caught perjuring herself according
to the two top House Republicans was with regard to her statements that her lawyers read all of her
emails.
"With respect to whether her attorneys reviewed each of the emails on her personal email system,
Secretary Clinton testified that her attorneys used search terms and reviewed every single email
to identify any that were work-related and should therefore be returned to the Department of State,"
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote, before quoting directly from Clinton's transcript from when she testified
under oath:
Rep. Jordan: But I'm asking how - I'm asking how it was done. Was
- did someone physically look at the 62,000 e-mails, or did you use search terms, date parameters?
I want to know the specifics.
Mrs. Clinton: They did all of that, and I did not look over their shoulders, because I thought
it would be appropriate for them to conduct that search, and they did.
Rep. Jordan: Will you provide this committee - or can you answer today, what were the search
terms?
Mrs. Clinton: The search terms were everything you could imagine that might be related to anything,
but they also went through every single e-mail.
"The FBI found, however, that Secretary Clinton's lawyers did not in fact read all of her emails-they
relied exclusively on a set of search terms to identify work-related messages," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote, before quoting from Comey's July 5 testimony:
The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content
of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information
and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000
total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton's personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their
search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the
mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. It is also likely that there are
other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere,
and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers
cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.
The third area where Hillary Clinton seems to have perjured herself according to the two House
Committee chairmen is when she testified that she only used one server or device.
"With respect to whether there was one, or more servers that stored work-related emails during
her time as Secretary of State, Secretary Clinton testified there was only one server," Goodlatte
and Chaffetz wrote to the D.C. U.S. Attorney, before pulling another transcript of congressional
testimony:
Rep. Jordan: In March, you also said this: your server was physically located on your property,
which is protected by the Secret Service. I'm having a hard time figuring this out, because this
story's been all over the place. But - there was one server on your property in New York, and
a second server hosted by a Colorado company in - housed in New Jersey. Is that right? There were
two servers?
Mrs. Clinton: No.
Rep. Jordan: OK.
Mrs. Clinton: There was a - there was a server…
Rep. Jordan: Just one?
Mrs. Clinton: . . . that was already being used by my husband's team. An existing system in
our home that I used, and then later, again, my husband's office decided that they wanted to change
their arrangements, and that's when they contracted with the company in Colorado.
Rep. Jordan: And so there's only one server? Is that what you're telling me? And it's the one
server that the FBI has?
Mrs. Clinton: The FBI has the server that was used during the tenure of my State Department
service.
Goodlatte and Chaffetz also wrote:
The FBI, however, found Secretary Clinton stored work-related emails on several servers. In
Director Comey's public statement, he said, 'Secretary Clinton used several different servers
and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous
mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain.' In Director Comey's testimony
on July 7, 2016, he stated that Secretary Clinton used several devices to send and receive work-related
emails during her tenure as Secretary of State. He testified, 'She used multiple devices during
her four years as secretary of state.'
The fourth and final area where Clinton seems to have, according to Chaffetz and Goodlatte, perjured
herself while under oath was during her claim that she provided all of her work-related emails to
the Department of State.
"Finally, with respect to whether she provided all her work-related emails to the Department of
State, Secretary Clinton testified to the Select Committee that she had," Chaffetz and Goodlatte
wrote, before again pulling a transcript of Clinton's testimony before Congress.
Mrs. Clinton: Well, Congressman, I have said repeatedly that I take responsibility for my use
of personal e-mail. I've said it was a mistake. I've said that it was allowed, but it was not
a good choice. When I got to the department, we were faced with a global financial crisis, major
troop decisions on Afghanistan, the imperative to rebuild our alliances in Europe and Asia, an
ongoing war in Iraq, and so much else. E-mail was not my primary means of communication, as I
have said earlier. I did not have a computer on my desk. I've described how I did work: in meetings,
secure and unsecured phone calls, reviewing many, many pages of materials every day, attending
. . .
Rep. Jordan: I - I - I appreciate (inaudible).
Mrs. Clinton: . . . a great deal of meetings, and I provided the department, which has been
providing you, with all of my work-related e-mails, all that I had. Approximately 55,000 pages.
And they are being publicly released.
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote:
The FBI found, however, 'several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of
30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014.' In the course of its investigation,
the FBI recovered 'still others . . . from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments
dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.' When Director Comey appeared
before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 7, 2016, he confirmed that Secretary
Clinton did not turn over all work-related emails to the FBI. He stated, 'We found work-related
emails, thousands, that were not returned.'
Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrapped their letter to the U.S. Attorney for D.C. by noting that the FBI's
findings prove Hillary Clinton was not telling the truth when she testified under oath before Congress.
"The four pieces of sworn testimony by Secretary Clinton described herein are incompatible with
the FBI's findings," Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin said she doesn't know
how her emails wound up on a device she said was her husband's computer, according to a person
familiar with the investigation.
The person, who requested anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer and
her lawyers did not search it for materials, thinking no messages would be there even after she
agreed to turn over her messages to the State Department for record-keeping, the
Washington Post reported.
On June 28, 2016, Abedin swore under oath that she looked for all devices containing work information
so the records could be given to the State Department, the
Daily Beast reported.
In the sworn oath, she said she "looked for all the devices that may have any of my State Department
work on it and returned - returned - gave them to my attorneys for them to review for all relevant
documents."
Investigators found thousands of emails on Weiner's computer that they believe to be relevant
to the Clinton investigation, according to federal law enforcement officials.
It is still unknown how the emails are relevant or whether or not they are significant.
Officials say it is possible that the messages could be duplicates of already investigated
emails, but that will not be determined until a computer program goes through the emails to weed
out the duplicates so officials can closely examine the emails for classified information.
"... "The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled, I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that." ..."
"... Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation was held back, but not the rest of the bureau. ..."
"... "The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said. ..."
A former FBI official said Sunday that Bill and Hillary Clinton are part of a "crime family"
and added that top officials impeded the investigation into Clinton's email server while she was
secretary of state.
Former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom praised Donald Trump before he offered a take down
of the Clintons in a radio interview with John Catsimatidis,
The Hill reported.
"The Clintons, that's a crime family, basically," Kallstrom said. "It's like organized crime.
I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool."
Kallstrom, best known for spearheading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800
in the late '90s, called Clinton a "pathological liar" and blamed Attorney General Loretta Lynch
for botching the Clinton email server investigation.
"The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the
problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled,
I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that."
"God forbid we put someone like that in the White House," he added of Clinton.
Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation
was held back, but not the rest of the bureau.
"The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said.
Saturday on CNN while discussing the FBI reopening the investigation into Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private unsecured email server during her tenure as secretary
of state, former Assistant Director of the FBI Thomas Fuentes said, "The FBI has an intensive investigation
ongoing into the Clinton Foundation."
He added, "The FBI made the determination that the investigation would go forward as a comprehensive
unified case and be coordinated, so that investigation is ongoing and Huma Abedin and her role and
activities concerning secretary of state in the nature of the foundation and possible pay to play,
that's still being looked at and now."
"... But the Clinton team also had to deal with a newly emboldened Mr. Trump, who urged voters at a rally on Saturday in Golden, Colo., to oppose Mrs. Clinton because of her "criminal action" that was "willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful." ..."
"... Handed a new opening against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump used the moment to baselessly claim there had been an internal F.B.I. "revolt" and made a sexually suggestive joke about Mr. Weiner. ..."
"... "As Podesta said, she's got bad instincts," Mr. Trump said, distorting a comment in one of the thousands of Mr. Podesta's hacked emails recently released by WikiLeaks. "Well, she's got bad instincts when her emails are on Anthony Weiner's wherever." ..."
"... The paramount fear among Clinton advisers and Democratic officials was that an election that had become a referendum on Mr. Trump's fitness for office, and that had increasingly seemed to be Mrs. Clinton's to lose, would now become just as much about her conduct. ..."
"... "This is like an 18-wheeler smacking into us, and it just becomes a huge distraction at the worst possible time," said Donna Brazile, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and a close Clinton ally. ..."
"... a reflection of 18 months of frustration that her personal decisions about her email practices and privacy were still generating unhelpful political drama. ..."
"... Two Clinton aides, for example, pointedly noted in interviews that it was difficult to press a counterattack without fully knowing what was in Ms. Abedin's emails. ..."
"... While some voters are undecided, about 20 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting, and millions more long ago concluded which candidate they would support. ..."
"... In a polarized country where many are unwaveringly contemptuous of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, the latest development in the email story prompted a mix of shrugs and renewed determination from the left and told-you-so claims of Clinton perfidy from the right. ..."
'Some prominent Democratic women, meanwhile, were angry that a murky announcement from the F.B.I.
might impede the election of the first female president of the United States.
"It worries me because it gives the Republicans something to blow up and fan folks' anger with,"
said former Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, who considered a run for the Democratic
nomination for president in 1988. "I was on the Judiciary Committee when I was in Congress, and
I have never seen the F.B.I. handle any case the way they have handled hers."'
Hillary Clinton Assails James Comey, Calling Email
Decision 'Deeply Troubling' http://nyti.ms/2dYalYs
NYT - PATRICK HEALY and JONATHAN MARTIN - Oct 29
Hillary Clinton and her allies sprang onto a war footing on Saturday, opening a ferocious attack
on the F.B.I.'s director, James B. Comey, a day after he disclosed that his agency was looking
into a potential new batch of messages from her private email server.
Treating Mr. Comey as a threat to her candidacy, Mrs. Clinton took aim at the law enforcement
officer who had recommended no criminal charges less than four months earlier for her handling
of classified information as secretary of state.
"It's pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before
an election," Mrs. Clinton said at a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. "In fact, it's not just strange;
it's unprecedented and it is deeply troubling."
For Democrats, it was also deeply worrying. Mrs. Clinton's advisers expressed concern that
the F.B.I.'s renewed attention to emails relating to the nominee would turn some voters against
her, hurt party candidates in competitive House and Senate races, and complicate efforts to win
over undecided Americans in the final days of the election.
So after stepping gingerly around the issue on Friday, calling on Mr. Comey to release more
specific information but not overtly criticizing him, her campaign made it personal on Saturday,
accusing the director of smearing Mrs. Clinton with innuendo late in the race and of violating
Justice Department rules.
The decision to target Mr. Comey for his unusual decision to publicly disclose the inquiry
came during an 8 a.m. internal conference call, after aides saw reports that Justice Department
officials were furious, believing he had violated longstanding guidelines advising against such
actions so close to an election.
Even before Mrs. Clinton spoke in Florida, her campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, and campaign
manager, Robby Mook, criticized Mr. Comey for putting out incomplete information and breaking
with Justice Department protocol.
"By providing selective information, he has allowed partisans to distort and exaggerate
to inflict maximum political damage," Mr. Podesta said during a conference call with reporters.
"Comey has not been forthcoming with the facts," he added, describing the director's letter to
Congress on Friday as "long on innuendo."
Whatever shortcomings Mrs. Clinton may have as a candidate, Saturday's coordinated effort showed
that the political organization that she, her husband and her allies had built over decades remained
potent and would not let what seemed like victory erode easily. By midday, Mr. Comey, a Republican
appointed by President Obama and confirmed nearly unanimously by the Senate, found himself in
its cross hairs.
Encouraged by Mrs. Clinton's senior aides to reframe the story and make it about Mr. Comey's
actions, liberal groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus demanded that he release more information.
Other surrogates were emailed talking points prodding them to deem it "extraordinary that 11 days
before the election a letter like this - with so few details - would be sent to 8 Republican committee
chairmen." (Ranking Democrats on the committees also received copies.)
Mr. Comey has not publicly commented on the investigation, other than with the letter saying
that more emails were being examined. He also wrote an email to F.B.I. employees explaining that
he felt he had to inform Congress even though the agency did not yet know "the significance of
this newly discovered collection of emails."
With Mrs. Clinton leading Donald J. Trump in nearly every battleground state, Clinton advisers
were emphatic that they would not be thrown off stride. They said they would not change any political
strategy, television advertising or campaign travel plans.
For months, the F.B.I. had investigated whether Mrs. Clinton had broken any laws by using a
private email server while she was secretary of state. This past summer, Mr. Comey said that Mrs.
Clinton had been "extremely careless" by allowing sensitive information to be discussed outside
secure government servers, but that the agency had concluded that Mrs. Clinton had not committed
a crime. The investigation was closed.
But on Friday, Mr. Comey notified Congress that the agency had discovered emails, possibly
relevant to the investigation, that belonged to Mrs. Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin. The emails
were discovered on the computer of Ms. Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony D. Weiner, during a
separate investigation into allegations that he had exchanged sexually explicit messages with
a teenager.
According to several Clinton advisers, Mrs. Clinton told them overnight and on Saturday that
she wanted the campaign to operate normally, not rashly, while pressuring Mr. Comey to dispel
any possibility that her candidacy was under legal threat.
But the Clinton team also had to deal with a newly emboldened Mr. Trump, who urged voters
at a rally on Saturday in Golden, Colo., to oppose Mrs. Clinton because of her "criminal action"
that was "willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful."
Handed a new opening against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump used the moment to baselessly claim
there had been an internal F.B.I. "revolt" and made a sexually suggestive joke about Mr. Weiner.
"As Podesta said, she's got bad instincts," Mr. Trump said, distorting a comment in one
of the thousands of Mr. Podesta's hacked emails recently released by WikiLeaks. "Well, she's got
bad instincts when her emails are on Anthony Weiner's wherever."
The paramount fear among Clinton advisers and Democratic officials was that an election that
had become a referendum on Mr. Trump's fitness for office, and that had increasingly seemed to
be Mrs. Clinton's to lose, would now become just as much about her conduct.
In phone calls, email chains and text messages on Saturday, Clinton aides and allies were by
turns confident that the F.B.I. would find nothing to hurt Mrs. Clinton and concerned that the
inquiry would nudge demoralized Republicans to show up to vote for down-ballot candidates - and
perhaps even cast ballots, however reluctantly, for the battered Mr. Trump.
"This is like an 18-wheeler smacking into us, and it just becomes a huge distraction at the
worst possible time," said Donna Brazile, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee
and a close Clinton ally. "We don't want it to knock us off our game. But on the second-to-last
weekend of the race, we find ourselves having to tell voters, 'Keep your focus; keep your eyes
on the prize.'"
As much as Clinton advisers stressed that they were not panicking, some of them radiated anger
at Mr. Comey, Mr. Weiner and even Mrs. Clinton - a reflection of 18 months of frustration that
her personal decisions about her email practices and privacy were still generating unhelpful political
drama.Two Clinton aides, for example, pointedly noted in interviews that it was difficult to
press a counterattack without fully knowing what was in Ms. Abedin's emails.
Some prominent Democratic women, meanwhile, were angry that a murky announcement from the F.B.I.
might impede the election of the first female president of the United States.
"It worries me because it gives the Republicans something to blow up and fan folks' anger with,"
said former Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, who considered a run for the Democratic
nomination for president in 1988. "I was on the Judiciary Committee when I was in Congress, and
I have never seen the F.B.I. handle any case the way they have handled hers."
While some voters are undecided, about 20 million Americans have already cast ballots in
early voting, and millions more long ago concluded which candidate they would support.
In a polarized country where many are unwaveringly contemptuous of either Mr. Trump or
Mrs. Clinton, the latest development in the email story prompted a mix of shrugs and renewed determination
from the left and told-you-so claims of Clinton perfidy from the right.
'Hopefully, it will infuriate & motivate
Dem voters more than it will please
& energize GOPsters.'
likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
"Encouraged by Mrs. Clinton's senior aides to reframe the story and make it about Mr. Comey's
actions"
Reminds me a reaction of a cornered rat...
It was she who created private "Shadow IT" within the State Department.
It was she who hired Huma Abedin who proved to be completely clueless in computer security
(and not only in computer security) and, as such, represented probably even higher level of security
risks then Mrs Clinton herself. Forwarding email to her private Web mail account for printing
because direct printing from the State Department email account was convoluted is an interesting
solution for a high level State Department official, who signed various non-disclosure documents.
It was she who was eliminated incriminating emails by claiming the they are private after investigation
was already opened and she was asked to provide them. Elimination was done using special software
to prevent recovery.
"... So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS. ..."
WASHINGTON - Senior Justice Department officials warned the FBI that Director James B. Comey's
decision to notify Congress about renewing the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private
email server was not consistent with long-standing practices of the department, according to
officials familiar with the discussions.
"Comely went off the farm all on his own and must answer for his actions. Simple as that."
IMHO that's extremely naïve. Such a "career limiting move"(CLM) in Washington-speak almost
never done "on his own". Exception are whistleblowers like William Binney, who already decided
for themselves that "this is the last stand" and are ready to face consequences.
Few Washington bureaucrats want to became outcasts within the administration, even the lame
duck administration. Bureaucracy, at the end, is just another flavor of a political coalition
and they tend to cling to power by whatever means possible including criminal.
Moreover, Comey so far was viewed as an "Obama man" who abruptly squashed the "emailgate"
investigation instead of expanding it investigating Bill Clinton for his "accidental" meeting
with Loretta Lynch and possibly putting the old fogey on the bench for the obstruction of justice.
And who at the end granted immunity to all key members of Clinton entourage including Huma Abedin
who proved to be, security wise, not the sharpest tool in the shed.
The only plausible explanation that I see is that Comey action reflects a deep split within
the USA elite including internal cracks and pressure within FBI brass (possibly from rank-and-file
investigators, who understand what's going on) as for viability Hillary as the next POTUS.
I would ask you a very simple question: do you really want a POTUS that has, say, 80% probability
to be impeached by the House during the first year of his/her administration?
And any security specialist will tell you that Hillary creation of "shadow IT" within the
State Department is a crime. The behavior that would never be tolerated not only in super-secretive
State Department (which recently assumed some functions previously performed by CIA), but in any
large corporation.
It also might well be that there are new highly compromising evidence (not necessary from
Wiener case) which changed the "grand calculation".
Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):
So here's the REAL story.
Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger
missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission.
Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi.
Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military.
It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers,
but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to
land anyway.
An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache
of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA
Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the
rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders
given to multiple commando teams.
It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus
wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft.
Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the
BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.
Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about,
why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama,
two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video,
even though everyone knew it was not.
Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without
Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing
the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a
pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor.
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman
that is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for
POTUS.
Only the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why
no military aircraft was called in because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.
"... FBI agents looking at Weiners weiner on his laptop, sees tons of Huma emails and Clinton emails, turn and tell their boss they are disgusted with all this and he needs to disrupt her winning office or they are going public. That's what happened! ..."
"... I think you are spot on with that observation. Comey was forced to tell Congress the Clinton e-mail investigation was being reopened. If he did not then sure as hell the existence of those e-mails on the Weiner computer would be leaked. ..."
"... I agree, it is all puppet theatre with some humor added. The more outrageous the more believable, right? ..."
"... It achieves some "unity" around Trump when there wasn't enough going down the home stretch, it became OBVIOUS she's not a winner, which anyone with half a brain has known since she announced? So maybe they are pulling the plug and she's been beat officially? Which leaves the question is Trump for real? ..."
"... I must say, fake or not he fought hard? I like Trump. I hope he realizes if he did decide to do GOOD, he could become very powerful. Why these leaders get to these positions and give it all up for a little greed is beyond me? They could be 10 times more powerful by just being GOOD? You've got the money Trump, if your GOOD, you'll obtain the power? Trump has some political capital and makes him more attractive to the establishment. My guess is, im being too optimistic for good things to happen? I hope Im wrong. ..."
"... The Clintons are a great success story. They never set out to be legal, only not to get sent to jail. By this standard they have succeeded. They have wealth and power and are 2 of the most admired people on earth. Lawyers and fines are just businesses expenses. ..."
"... I want to share my intentions with my fellow ZH Bloggers and Patriots, beginning today, I am going to be sending a series of communications directly to Paul Ryan by using his WEBSITE found at the following URL: http://www.speaker.gov/contact ..."
"... I plan to both encourage and challenge the Speaker. I know many on ZH look at Paul Ryan as a hypocrite. I understand why you may hold this position. I too am very disappointed with recent REPUBLICAN positions and communications. However, now is the time to unite as "WE THE PEOPLE". All of the data is suggesting that leadership within US Government Agencies is corrupted by special interests and their own fleshly nature. We see evidence of TREASON everywhere. But I believe brighter days lie ahead for America at least in the short term. ..."
"... AMERICA has lost her way and this needs to be corrected. ..."
FBI agents looking at Weiners weiner on his laptop, sees tons of Huma emails and Clinton emails, turn and tell their boss
they are disgusted with all this and he needs to disrupt her winning office or they are going public. That's what happened!
I think you are spot on with that observation. Comey was forced to tell Congress the Clinton e-mail investigation was being
reopened. If he did not then sure as hell the existence of those e-mails on the Weiner computer would be leaked.
I agree, it is all puppet theatre with some humor added. The more outrageous the more believable, right?
It achieves some "unity" around Trump when there wasn't enough going down the home stretch, it became OBVIOUS she's not
a winner, which anyone with half a brain has known since she announced? So maybe they are pulling the plug and she's been beat
officially? Which leaves the question is Trump for real?
I must say, fake or not he fought hard? I like Trump. I hope he realizes if he did decide to do GOOD, he could become very
powerful. Why these leaders get to these positions and give it all up for a little greed is beyond me? They could be 10 times
more powerful by just being GOOD? You've got the money Trump, if your GOOD, you'll obtain the power? Trump has some political
capital and makes him more attractive to the establishment. My guess is, im being too optimistic for good things to happen? I
hope Im wrong.
I've been burned so many times by BIG GOV. both DEM & REP? I just cant trust anyone that is near it?
They take lots of ideas from ZH these days, and its not good..... ZH offers them the ideas, the power, and the creativity of
the crowd. They use it against us, a very powerful tool.
The Clintons are a great success story. They never set out to be legal, only not to get sent to jail. By this standard they
have succeeded. They have wealth and power and are 2 of the most admired people on earth. Lawyers and fines are just businesses
expenses.
I want to share my intentions with my fellow ZH Bloggers and Patriots, beginning today, I am going to be sending a series
of communications directly to Paul Ryan by using his WEBSITE found at the following URL:
http://www.speaker.gov/contact
I plan to both encourage and challenge the Speaker. I know many on ZH look at Paul Ryan as a hypocrite. I understand why
you may hold this position. I too am very disappointed with recent REPUBLICAN positions and communications. However, now is the
time to unite as "WE THE PEOPLE". All of the data is suggesting that leadership within US Government Agencies is corrupted by
special interests and their own fleshly nature. We see evidence of TREASON everywhere. But I believe brighter days lie ahead for
America at least in the short term.
AMERICA has lost her way and this needs to be corrected.
I encourage everyone who reads this message to send a note to the SPEAKER encouraging him to do four things:
Get on board the TRUMP/PENCE train no matter what it takes which includes eating "HUMBLE PIE".
Go after Hillary R. Clinton and press for swift and immediate justice.
Enforce existing laws for TREASON that are on the books.
Do whatever it takes to ensure the integrity of the American POTUS Election process. MAKE OUR VOTE COUNT.
I plan to do this today and will be sending the speaker notes and comments from ZH.
If everyone contacts the SPEAKER, he will get the POINT.
GOD's SPEED in whatever you decide to do as a CITIZEN of these UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The FBI announcement comes on the heels of a report yesterday
by journalist Paul Sperry, who gave new details about Abedin's role in the email scandal.
Protective detail assigned to guard former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her two residences
complained that her closest aide Huma Abedin often overrode standard security protocols during
trips to the Middle East, and personally changed procedures for handling classified information,
including highly sensitive intelligence briefs the CIA prepared for the president, newly released
FBI documents reveal.
The security agents, who were interviewed as witnesses in the FBI's investigation of Clinton's
use of an unauthorized private email server to send classified information, complained that Abedin
had unusual sway over security policies during Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure at Foggy Bottom.
Abedin's influence in these matters, including the revelation in Sperry's article that "Abedin
possessed much more power" over Clinton's staff, schedule, and security than other former chiefs
of staffs, is especially concerning given the links that Abedin has to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia
and to the Muslim World League, a group that Hillary Clinton herself said in 2009 was funding terrorism.
Hillary Clinton has stated publicly
that she helped "start and support" the Media Matters group, and that organization has consistently
come to her rescue with misinformation, half-truths, and smears that invariably get repeated by the
established media.
The Vanity Fair article apparently sent shockwaves through the Clinton camp. Any mainstream
press coverage of Huma Abedin is rare, and what coverage there is almost universally laudatory. Despite
the fawning coverage she has received, there are many unanswered questions about Abedin, especially
given Abedin's complete access to Hillary Clinton, one of the most powerful people in the world,
a former Secretary of State and possible future president.
As Vanity Fair's William Cohan
writes in his piece:
Over the years Huma has served in several positions, with increasingly important-sounding titles.
She has been Hillary's "body woman," her traveling chief of staff, a senior adviser, and a deputy
chief of staff when Hillary was secretary of state. Now, based in Brooklyn, she is the vice-chair
of Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign.
The Vanity Fair piece on the secretive Abedin confirmed a number of facts that have been
reported by conservative media for a couple of years but have been twisted and convoluted by the
mainstream media.
For example, the Vanity Fair article flatly lays out the information that Huma Abedin was
an assistant editor at a publication called the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996
until 2008. He writes:
When (Huma) Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with
the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father
founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of
its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which stated its mission as "shedding light" on minority
Muslim communities around the world in the hope of "securing the legitimate rights of these communities."…
It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business. Huma was
an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008. Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book-review editor
at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman
of the board of trustees. Huma's sister, Heba, 26, is an assistant editor at the Journal.
Breitbart News added information this year that shows that the "Abedin family business" is housed
in the offices of the Muslim World League.
The webpage for the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs site says how to reach the Journal
: "Editorial Correspondence including submission of articles and books for review should be addressed
to: Editor, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 46 Goodge Street, London WIP 1FJ, U.K."
The current official Journal
website also lists the same 46 Goodge Street address, which is the same exact address listed
on the Muslim World League's London office address.
The official website for the Muslim World
League's London office lists its address as 46 Goodge Street.
A
Yelp! listing for the Muslim World League shows the same 46 Goodge Address and a photo of the
entrance.
Google Maps from 2008 -the earliest
date available-shows the Muslim Word League London office entrance, which appears to have office
space above a pizza restaurant .
This direct connection to the Muslim World League and a child organization called the World Arab
Muslim Youth Association (WAMY)-also housed at Goodge Street offices-is significant due to a 2009
State Department memo which reveals that while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and Huma Abedin
was her top aide, and the Secretary of State's office was engaged in talks with Saudi Arabia about
stopping the Muslim World League from funding terrorism at the same time the "Abedin family business"
was operating out of the Muslim World League's London office.
This revelation shows that while Huma Abedin was serving at the highest level of government as
Hillary Clinton's aide and had access to this information, Abedin had a direct connection to a group
that was suspected of actively funding groups like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hamas, which had not
only killed civilians around the world but also U.S. servicemen.
The memo, which
was originally
published by WikiLeaks , was sent on December 30, 2009 from the Secretary of State to the Department
of Treasury and ambassadors in several Gulf region countries including Saudi Arabia. The stated goal
of the memo is that "all action posts deliver the general talking points" to those countries.
The connection to terror funding is also listed in the infamous "missing 28 pages" from a report
by the 9/11 commission that were kept hidden for years until their release on a Friday afternoon
earlier this year. Page 24 of the 28-page report discusses Osama Bin Laden's half-brother and says
in part:
According to the FBI, Abdullah Bin Ladin has a number of connections to terrorist organizations.
He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute
of Islamic and Arabic Science in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is "closely associated with the
funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical
support to individuals wishing to to fight in the Afghan War." In 1998, the CIA published a paper
characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding. logistical support and training with possible
connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists and Philippine militants.
Although the 28 pages make no mention of Abedin at all, the information in the 28 pages lays out
a timeline of events during the planning and execution of the 9/11 terror attack that shows that,
at all times, Huma Abedin was working for both Hillary Clinton and the WAMY organization the Institute
for Muslim Minority Affairs.
Another guard assigned to Clinton's residence in Chappaqua, N.Y., recalled in a February FBI
interview that new security procedures for handling delivery of the diplomatic pouch and receiving
via fax the highly classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) had been "established by Abedin."
The witness added that Abedin controlled the operations of a secure room known as a SCIF located
on the third floor of the residence.
In her own April 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin contended that she "did not know that
Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago, when it became public knowledge."
The clintonemail.com server was set up in the basement of the Chappaqua residence.
However, another witness told agents that he and another Clinton aide with an IT background
built the new server system "at the recommendation of Huma Abedin," who first broached the idea
of an off-the-grid email server as early as the "fall (of) 2008," ostensibly after Barack Obama
was elected president.
With the FBI investigation reopened, it will be interesting to see if the mainstream media finally
begins to do their job and ask tough questions about Huma Abedin.
"... James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug runners and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a horrible record as director of the FBI and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed, and is a completely horrible person. ..."
"... Mark Felt was of the same mind when it came to being passed over after J. Edgar Hoover died. And recall that he gained notoriety as Deep Throat. ..."
"... Here is a chance to redeem himself and stop Hillary. ..."
"... In a situation where one has an truly abysmal leader, that leader will need sidekicks who are obviously worse. The abysmal leader can position herself to the reasonable / competent side of the "bad cop" sidekicks, thus being not exactly the "good cop" but the "better cop" while still going in the desired direction of crazy and misery for all. ..."
"... If things get a bit out of hand, the blame can be pinned on the sidekick "going overboard" and the sidekick publicly sacrificed to "restore confidence" and "look forward". ..."
"... I think there is some possibilities, The rusty old ship "The Foundation" has simply sprung yet another leak and there is more evidence for FBI to dismiss and immunities to be doled out to fix the situation ..."
"... Something so nasty has come up so that the oligarch factions forming the "inner party" decided that Something Must be Done About The Situation – or Else. Jeffrey Epstein did home movies, apparently. ..."
James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug runners
and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a
horrible record as director of the FBI
and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed,
and is a completely horrible person.
Mark Felt had already gained notoriety before Watergate because he was
one of the FBI's special agents who was charged for conducting illegal surveillance
on American leftists. It's one of those things all those conspiracy theorists
don't emphasis about COINTELPRO and other programs. The only people actually
charged and convicted in the matter were FBI agents.
He was also general counsel of the largest defense contractor in the world
(Lockheed Martin) and
general counsel of the largest hedge fund / personality cult in the world (Bridgewater).
Just a small town lawyer. If the town is Davos.
In a situation where one has an truly abysmal leader, that leader will need sidekicks who are
obviously worse. The abysmal leader can position herself to the reasonable / competent side of the
"bad cop" sidekicks, thus being not exactly the "good cop" but the "better cop" while still going
in the desired direction of crazy and misery for all.
If things get a bit out of hand, the blame can be pinned on the sidekick "going overboard" and
the sidekick publicly sacrificed to "restore confidence" and "look forward".
Why Obama needed Biden around, George Bush had Cheney … The European Left has the Islamists and
the Social Democrats has the neo-liberals to bisect against.
PS:
I think there is some possibilities, The rusty old ship "The Foundation" has simply sprung yet another
leak and there is more evidence for FBI to dismiss and immunities to be doled out to fix the situation
Enough mail-votes have come in to predict a crushing victory for Trump. Comey realizes that he
is maybe on the wrong side of this whole thing and goes for "incompetence" being part of his legacy
rather than "conspiracy"
Something so nasty has come up so that the oligarch factions forming the "inner party" decided
that Something Must be Done About The Situation – or Else. Jeffrey Epstein did home movies, apparently.
However, I think that it is just FBI doing another fix for Hillary.
"... Just like 0bama finding out about HRC's private email from the press … after he'd been corresponding with her from his own
private email address. ..."
"... With daily practice, the faux naif act comes easy. :-) ..."
"... I gather that Clintonland is honestly shocked, though. They're having to expose their talking points unmodified pushed directly
by people like Krugman, instead of their normal process of using CTR trolls for cover. ..."
"... It's also possible that the emails are more about Clinton Foundation corruption than they are State Department rule breaking,
so there wouldn't be any reason to notify State. (Although how that would connect to the original case without being at least in part
about transmitting classified information insecurely is beyond me.) ..."
UHH @4:30…State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday that the department knows nothing about why the FBI reopened its
investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server just hours earlier.
"First, what do we know? Not much more than you know, in fact. About the same," Toner said. "We just learned about this when
we saw news reports of the letter."
"What emails they may be looking at, what they're looking for, any more details at all, we just don't know anything about the
scope of this new–I'm not even sure it's an investigation, but this effort to look at additional emails," Toner continued.
I gather that Clintonland is honestly shocked, though. They're having to expose their talking points unmodified pushed
directly by people like Krugman, instead of their normal process of using CTR trolls for cover.
I don't have an explanation for why Comey would start acting like a law enforcement official at this late date, but it does
look like he didn't notify Clintonland ahead of time, and apparently the State Department has basically been a Clinton sleeper
cell for the last four years, so that would include State.
It's also possible that the emails are more about Clinton Foundation corruption than they are State Department rule breaking,
so there wouldn't be any reason to notify State. (Although how that would connect to the original case without being at least
in part about transmitting classified information insecurely is beyond me.)
"... Intriguing. Maybe these emails have survived so far is, because Abedin's laptop was shared, it wasn't on the list of agreed-to-be-destroyed laptops (so far, at least). ..."
"... I wonder if there will be any public pressure on FBI to go after some of the numerous devices/servers you posted about on other threads about a week ago. If so, no one is talking about it yet. ..."
Cyberspace opened up the Clinton Foundation's Pay for Play scams for scrutiny despite the best efforts
of corporate media and the connected elite to keep it closed; the endless wars at Saudi Arabia and Israel's
bequest, the purposeful burdening of debt on anyone who needs housing, medical care or education, and
the utter contempt for the little people. Corruption so inept that missing Hillary Clinton e-mails are
in Carlos Danger's explicit underage passion filled smartphone in FBI's possession.
Intriguing. Maybe these emails have survived so far is, because Abedin's
laptop was shared, it wasn't on the list of agreed-to-be-destroyed laptops
(so far, at least).
I wonder if there will be any public pressure on FBI to go after some of the numerous devices/servers
you posted about on other threads about a week ago. If so, no one is talking about it yet.
maybe clinton made the decision unilaterally, which is quite possible.
seems like the campaign would want to bury the email scandal instead of
going on the offensive. i do so hope this means their internal polling
is scaring them.
"... After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy. ..."
"... She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again. ..."
"... So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change - with the same old Clinton-first approach. ..."
"... Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to mention those that show little concern for women's rights. ..."
It was 25 years ago that Martin Scorsese delighted audiences with his movie rendition of the Jim
Thompson novel, "The Grifters."
The story is an ingenious tale of deception and betrayal. By definition a grifter is someone who
has made money dishonestly, in a swindle or a confidence game.
After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising
tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet
dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy.
She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises
and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again.
So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to
meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe
that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could
argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out
for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change
- with the same old Clinton-first approach.
Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national
security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement
that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to
the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that
would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about
the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to
mention those that show little concern for women's rights.
The most recent set of Clinton emails that have come to light are of such great concern to national
security that the FBI has announced they will conduct a new investigation of Clinton's emails. This
is just ELEVEN days before the country goes to the polls and decides on our next president.
Where has the leadership gone in this country? Since when do reputable news outlets stand behind
candidates who have proven themselves over and over to be out for themselves and dangerous, even?
It used to be that newspapers and legislators and leaders who speak from a platform would find themselves
offering wisdom. Wisdom about which candidate was best for the job – based on the facts. Instead
we find ourselves sifting through the list of endorsements for Clinton with little or no mention
of her disregard for the law, her lack of concern for those she serves, and the careless nature in
which she has proven herself to lead.
Now that the newspapers know better and have written about the truth in their own words, how can
the media and elected officials stand by their decision to endorse her? They need to rescind their
endorsement. That includes President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
In a quote from his book Thompson describes one of the characters, "Anyone who deprived her of
something she wanted, deserved what he got."
Sounds all too familiar to the Democratic nominee for grifter-in-chief. If she's not changed by
now, who is to say she'd be any different when she was the most powerful elected official in the
United States. Once a grifter, always a grifter.
Sharon Day is the Republican National Committee Co-Chair.
"... Wow, they clearly state Bill Clinton uses golfing to establish communication with donors ..."
"... "People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation. But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton had declared her own presidential run the month before." - source ..."
"... In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million total to the foundation. ..."
"... Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations and that is it. ..."
"... so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; ..."
"... This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole... ..."
"... This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for quid pro quo. ..."
"... Does any of it contradict the MOU she signed when appointed Sec State? https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34993 ..."
He also said they were talking about golf when he called Donald trump last year before trump decided
to run.
"People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton
and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation.
But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton
had declared her own presidential run the month before." -
source
Question-Are we to assume that any OTHER speaking engagements that WJC did were not because of
the foundation, but from when his wife was SOS?
In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the
Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping
for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million
total to the foundation.
Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require
significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are
giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations
and that is it.
so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle
of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; because it sure
doesn't seem to be going to Haiti or many other charities.
This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they
have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole...
so this gives credence to the suspicion that the CF is hiding money somewhere (laundering money
to Clintons and friends). Also this document shows how teneo made Bill Clinton " more than $50
million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date
or the $66 million in future contracts" as of 2011.
This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly
it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear
to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding
the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for
quid pro quo.
Her immunity deal does not cover this incident. They now can force her sing...
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton's most trusted State Department aide Huma Abedin once left classified papers in the pocket behind the front seat of a staff car she was assigned in India, according to an email released Monday. ..."
"... Abedin wrote to Clinton's personal assistant Lauren Jiloty on July 20, 2009 to ask her to move the material to her trunk so an ambassador wouldn't see them when he rode with her in the back seat. ..."
"... She told Jiloty that the papers consisted of 'burn stuff,' indicating that they were classified documents that belonged among materials that agency rules required employees to place in 'burn bags' for incineration. ... ..."
"... New emails the FBI is examining related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private computer server were discovered after the agency seized electronic devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing law enforcement officials. ... ..."
(So, more sloppy handling of classified
material going on, looks like. Not
by Hillary Clinton however.)
Bombshell email shows Huma Abedin left classified material in her CAR
http://dailym.ai/2bz34lU via @MailOnline
- Aug 23
Hillary Clinton's most trusted State Department aide Huma Abedin once left classified papers
in the pocket behind the front seat of a staff car she was assigned in India, according to an
email released Monday.
Abedin wrote to Clinton's personal assistant Lauren Jiloty on July 20, 2009 to ask her to move
the material to her trunk so an ambassador wouldn't see them when he rode with her in the back
seat.
She told Jiloty that the papers consisted of 'burn stuff,' indicating that they were classified
documents that belonged among materials that agency rules required employees to place in 'burn
bags' for incineration. ...
FBI found Clinton-related emails on devices belonging to Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner http://aol.it/2ejHtuo via @AOL - Oct 28
New emails the FBI is examining related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's
use of a private computer server were discovered after the agency seized electronic devices belonging
to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Times reported on Friday,
citing law enforcement officials. ...
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Someone at FBI missed the cease and desist memo....
"... The discussion, which was released by WikiLeaks from a batch of messages apparently stolen from Podesta's account, sheds additional light on the campaign's lack of preparation for questions about Clinton's bespoke setup. The private email arrangement has become a cloud over the Democratic presidential nominee and spurred a yearlong FBI investigation. ..."
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign-in-waiting appeared unprepared for a New York Times story
last year that exposed her exclusive use of private email account and server for government business,
according to a newly released email.
The day the
Times story was published, John Podesta, who would later be named campaign chairman, asked future
campaign manager Robby Mook
if he had seen it coming
.
"Did you have any idea of the depth of this story?" Podesta asked Mook in an email late on the evening
of March 2, 2015, roughly a month before Clinton launched her bid for the White House.
"Nope," Mook responded after 1 a.m. that night. "We brought up the existence of emails in research
(sic) this summer, but were told that everything was taken care of."
The discussion, which was released by WikiLeaks from a batch of messages apparently stolen from
Podesta's account, sheds additional light on the campaign's lack of preparation for questions about
Clinton's bespoke setup. The private email arrangement has become a cloud over the Democratic presidential
nominee and spurred a yearlong FBI investigation.
The email released on Thursday is one of several published by WikiLeaks detailing the Clinton
campaign's scurrying response to revelations about her email server.
Days later, President Obama would say that he was unaware of Clinton's email setup until it
became public knowledge.
However, Clinton's aides knew that he and the former secretary of State had exchanged emails,
and they worried that contradicted Obama's public statement.
"[W]e need to clean this up - he has emails from her - they do not say state.gov," Cheryl Mills,
Clinton's former State Department chief of staff,
told other aides on March 7.
The White House later said Obama was aware of Clinton's email address but did not know the
full scope of her unusual setup. Notes from the FBI investigation into Clinton's arrangement revealed
that Obama
used a pseudonym for emailing with Clinton and others.
"... The announcement comes at a pivotal time in Clinton's presidential campaign, as recent polls have suggested she is strongly favored to win the presidential election. But with this recent development-coupled with embarrassing revelations recently released by WikiLeaks implicating the Clinton Foundation and exposing Clinton's policies as little more than political expediency --- a victory that seemed almost inevitable is now in jeopardy. ..."
"... What's more likely is that James Comey chose to announce the new evidence under the review in the investigation shortly after it was discovered, rather than wait to announce its review after the election, as that would politicize the investigation. If Democrats didn't want an FBI investigation impacting their presidential candidate, then they shouldn't have propped up a candidate who was under a FBI criminal investigation. ..."
The
FBI announced on October 28 that they are reopening their investigation into
Hillary Clinton's private email server.
"In connection with an unrelated case, the
FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.
I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed
that the
FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these
emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance
to our investigation," wrote FBI Director
James Comey in a
statement
.
The announcement comes at a pivotal time in
Clinton's presidential campaign, as recent polls have suggested she is strongly favored to win
the presidential election. But with this recent development-coupled with embarrassing revelations
recently released by
WikiLeaks implicating the
Clinton Foundation and exposing
Clinton's policies as little more than political expediency --- a victory that seemed almost
inevitable is now in jeopardy.
WikiLeaks emails from
Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta confirmed criticisms of
Clinton's private email server. In the
leaked emails , her staff is shown coordinating with the State Department, the
White House , the Department of Justice, and
mainstream media to cover up the scandal and distort it as a partisan issue to protect
Clinton's presidential candidacy. Reports from the
State
Department Inspector General , FBI Director Comey, and two reports on the
FBI's investigation have effectively disproven every defense of
Clinton's private email server that has been utilized by
Clinton partisans since it's use was first revealed in early 2015.
And pro-Clinton
journalists are already trying to spin the FBI's latest announcement.
Newsweek 's Kurt Eichenwald
falsely claimed the FBI wasn't re-opening their investigation but that FBI Director Comey had
to amend his previous testimony. But Comey never testified the FBI reviewed all the evidence-rather,
he testified there is a list of evidence we saw in the investigation. If Eichenwald is correct about
Comey needing to amend his testimony, it is because the FBI found new evidence that suggests
Clinton is guilty. Eichenwald, notorious for touting disproven assumptions and theories-as with
a
Russian conspiracy theory he still pushes, which
The Washington Post , BuzzFeed and other news outlets have debunked-is incorrect. The FBI
investigation is being reopened because new emails were discovered, and the FBI is going to review
them.
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress , founded by Podesta,
called Comey
"extremely careless" for reopening the investigation before the election, and claimed the FBI director
was meddling in the election by doing so because he is a Republican. This is the same argument
Clinton partisans refuted when critics argued politics played a role in Comey's initial decision
not to recommend an indictment.
MSNBC's Joy
Reid made the same claim that Comey was meddling in the election.
What's more likely is that James Comey chose to announce the new evidence under the review
in the investigation shortly after it was discovered, rather than wait to announce its review after
the election, as that would politicize the investigation. If
Democrats
didn't want an FBI investigation impacting their presidential candidate, then they shouldn't
have propped up a candidate who was under a FBI criminal investigation.
"... The New York Times is reporting that the emails came from the FBI's investigation into the sexting habits of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner , who was married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's all-purpose factotum. The idea that another hack by persons unknown has truly opened Pandora's Box for Clinton, Inc. less than two weeks before the election, seems too delicious for some Republicans to contemplate. ..."
"... It could be the long-awaited "smoking gun" that establishes serious criminality by Clinton, Inc.-or it could be more emails of Hillary discussing yoga and how to figure out the DVR. ..."
"... That said, Democrats who are wordsmithing this development and prematurely declaring that it's no big deal-or worse, some nefarious Trumpian plot-need to step back and let the FBI do its job. It seems unlikely that the Bureau will wrap this up before November 8, and since Comey has informed Congress what's going on, the FBI director won't be telling the public much either. ..."
"... Just over a year ago I predicted that EmailGate was far from over, and it remains very much alive today, despite the best efforts of Hillary Clinton, her staff, and her ardent defenders in the media. Nobody should expect that the Democratic nominee will be charged with any crimes in EmailGate: the naked interference of President Obama's Justice Department in this case demonstrates that reality. ..."
"... However, this scandal remains very much alive as a political matter, and less than two weeks before the election, politics is what matters now. Hillary has never come up with very good answers about why she strictly avoided the use of State Department email when she was the boss at Foggy Bottom, much less why her "unclassified" emails contained so much highly classified information -and she seems unlikely to, all of a sudden. ..."
"... Throughout this scandal, Friday news-dumps have been a regular feature, per well-honed Beltway bureaucratic practice. This one may be the biggest of all. ..."
Newly incriminating Clinton emails may have been found during the FBI's investigation into the
sexting habits of former NY Congressman Anthony Weiner
FBI Is Re-Opening Clinton E-Mail Investigation Oct. 28 -- The inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use
of private e-mail as secretary of state is being re-opened by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congressional committee chairman alerting them of his decision.
Bloomberg's Margaret Talev reports on "Bloomberg Markets."
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in the
news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who
less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal
server when the Democratic nominee was secretary of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp knew
about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today sent
a
letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly, the
House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees -- that blows EmailGate wide open all over again.
He says:
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email
server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that
appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative
team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative
steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain
classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and
I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important
to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony."
Having
taken Comey to task for his serious mishandling of the FBI's year-long EmailGate investigation-particularly
how his account of what the Bureau discovered made Hillary's guilt clear, but he still declined to
ask the Department of Justice to seek prosecution-he deserves some credit for due diligence here.
It requires some political fortitude to do this practically on an election's eve.
Clearly the FBI has uncovered new emails-the mention of "connection with an unrelated case" is
intriguingly vague-that may (or may not) have relevance to the investigation. We don't yet know what
that information might be, or how it was obtained, but rumors are swirling as usual. Some are pointing
a finger at a leaker inside the U.S. Government; other rumors point to a foreign origin of these
newly discovered emails. The New York Times is reporting that the emails came from the
FBI's investigation into the sexting habits of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner , who
was married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's all-purpose factotum. The idea that another hack by
persons unknown has truly opened Pandora's Box for Clinton, Inc. less than two weeks before the election,
seems too delicious for some Republicans to contemplate.
In truth, the FBI isn't reopening the EmailGate investigation because it was never actually closed.
Director Comey here is merely doing what he's legally required to: inform the relevant Congressional
committees that new information which may have relevance has been discovered, and the FBI is now
assessing its value to the on-going investigation.
Republicans shouldn't get too excited just yet, since Comey hasn't told us anything about the
provenance of these emails. It could be the long-awaited "smoking gun" that establishes serious criminality
by Clinton, Inc.-or it could be more emails of Hillary discussing yoga and how to figure out the DVR.
That said,
Democrats who are wordsmithing this development and prematurely declaring that it's no big deal-or
worse, some nefarious Trumpian plot-need to step back and let the FBI do its job. It seems unlikely
that the Bureau will wrap this up before November 8, and since Comey has informed Congress what's
going on, the FBI director won't be telling the public much either.
Just over a year ago I
predicted that EmailGate was far from over, and it remains very much alive today, despite the
best efforts of Hillary Clinton, her staff, and her ardent defenders in the media. Nobody should
expect that the Democratic nominee will be charged with any crimes in EmailGate: the naked interference
of President Obama's Justice Department in this case demonstrates that reality.
However, this scandal remains very much alive as a political matter, and less than two weeks before
the election, politics is what matters now. Hillary has never come up with very good answers about
why she strictly avoided the use of State Department email when she was the boss at Foggy Bottom,
much less why her "unclassified" emails contained
so much highly classified information -and she seems unlikely to, all of a sudden.
For Team Clinton, EmailGate remains a nightmare that they would really prefer not to talk about.
But here we are, talking about it all over again, thanks to Director Comey. Throughout this scandal,
Friday news-dumps have been a regular feature, per well-honed Beltway bureaucratic practice. This
one may be the biggest of all.
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in
the news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton
a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal server when the Democratic nominee was secretary
of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp
knew about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today
sent a letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly,
the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees-that blows EmailGate wide open all
over again. He says:
ADVERTISING
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due
to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear
to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed
me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot
predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to
update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony." ...
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Devices Once
Used by Anthony Weiner http://nyti.ms/2dU5zed
NYT - Oct 28
Just 11 days before our presidential election, the explosive issue of EmailGate is back in
the news, thanks to James Comey, the FBI director who less than four months ago gave Hillary Clinton
a pass on her illegal use of email and a personal server when the Democratic nominee was secretary
of state.
After weeks of damaging revelations care of Wikileaks about just how much the Clinton camp
knew about EmailGate for years, and tried to downplay its significance in the media, Comey today
sent a letter to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional committees-including, significantly,
the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees-that blows EmailGate wide open all
over again. He says:
ADVERTISING
"In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due
to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear
to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed
me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot
predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to
update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony." ...
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Devices Once
Used by Anthony Weiner http://nyti.ms/2dU5zed
NYT - Oct 28
ilsm : , -1
Suddenly, the FBI finding 'stuff'.
Too many 'agency' whistleblowers have been talking to congress persons!
Will the country be better off with a 'Nixon' gone in a few months or Trump with no public
trial of the crooked [yes, redundant word use] DNC 'establishment'?
As
CNBC adds , Donald Trump seized on the news Friday that the FBI is probing new emails related to Hillary Clinton's private server,
contending that she threatens United States security and cannot be trusted in the White House. "I have great respect for the fact
that the FBI and Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made," Trump said
at a rally in New Hampshire. "This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood and is about to be
corrected."
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.
I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate
investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information,
as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," Comey wrote.
"Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take
us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous
testimony," he concluded.
Trump claimed that "Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before."
Update:
More details from
CNN which writes that after recommending this year that the Department of Justice not press charges against the Secretary of
State, Comey said in the letter to eight congressional committee chairman that "recent developments" urged him to take another look.
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,"
Comey wrote the chairmen. "I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that
the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they
contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation."
Comey said that he was not sure how long the additional review would take and said the FBI "cannot yet assess whether or not this
material may be significant."
Law enforcement sources say the newly discovered emails are not related to WikiLeaks or the Clinton Foundation. They would not
describe in further detail the content of the emails. It's also unclear whether the emails in question are from Clinton herself.
Clinton's campaign learned of the news while they were aboard a flight to Iowa. "We're learning about this just like you all are,"
a Clinton aide told CNN.
The surprising news jolts a presidential race that had largely settled as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump struggled
in national and key battleground polls. Now, Clinton will be placed back on the defensive and forced to confront yet again questions
about her trustworthiness.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, in a stunning development moments ago Jason Chaffetz tweeted that the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton
emails has been reopened: saying that "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
FBI Dir just informed me, "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
Case reopened
After being briefed by his investigative team, Comey "agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed
to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to asses their
importance to our investigation." Comey said he could not predict how long it would take the bureau to assess whether the new emails
are "significant."
Moments later, NBC News reported that the agency was reopening the investigation and shared a letter from FBI director James Comey
informing key lawmakers of the investigation.. .
"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,"
Comey wrote.
"I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take
appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified
information," Comey wrote
The full letter to members of Congress, in which FBI director James Comey said the agency had "learned of the existence of emails
that appear to be pertinent to the investigation" in connection with an unrelated case, is shown below.
No, it's not for real. How much more evidence can you possibly need? She is guilty of at least 5 violations of federal law by
any objective measure and they let her walk. Anyone thinking this will go any different hasn't been paying attention. Banana republic,
two sets of laws.
Blink and you missed it: in a brief, 3 minute 47 second address to the press, a defiant Hillary slammed the FBI, said that she hopes
that whatever information the Bureau has will be shared with the American people and added that she is confident that no charges
will be brought against her by the FBI, while taking the opportunity to ask people to go out and vote for her.
She took three questions which some have mockingly said were drafted and/or preapproved by Clinton campaign direction of communications
Jennifer Palmier.
"We are 11 days out from perhaps the most important national election of our lifetimes," Clinton said during the brief press conference
in Des Moines, Iowa. "Voting is already underway in our country, so the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts
immediately."
Hillary revealed that the FBI had not contacted her before or since Comey sent a letter to lawmakers Friday afternoon.
"So we don't know the facts, which is why we are calling on the FBI to release all the information that it has," she said.
"Even Director Comey noted that this new information may not be significant, so let's get it out."
Comey's letter said that the FBI was reviewing pertinent emails that it found in an unrelated investigation, but did not reveal
much more than that. Republicans and the GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump quickly pounced on the news.
Clinton was asked about a New York Times report that said the FBI had found the new emails in its separate investigation into
Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal.
"We've heard these rumors," she said "We don't know what to believe. And I'm sure there will be even more rumors. That's why it's
incumbent on the FBI to tell us what they're talking about, Jeff. Your guess is as good as mine and I don't think that's not good
enough."
Watch the brief recording below:
BREAKING: Hillary Clinton addresses FBI director's revelation of new review related to private email server case.
https://t.co/vSxftfXcIZ
Hillary's statement was similar to what Tim Kaine said earlier: it's "very, very troubling" that the FBI is releasing information
about a new probe into emails that may relate to Hillary Clinton just 11 days before the election. The Democratic vice presidential
nominee is commenting on the development in an interview with Vice News. Kaine says the FBI director needs to provide more details
on the situation. He suggests it's troubling that members of the press are finding out information before campaign officials. Kaine's
comments in turn echo the a statement made by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and thus by Hillary.
* * *
Finally, President Obama is staying silent - for now - on the FBI director's announcement of an investigation into new emails
related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Obama is in Orlando, Florida, where according to AP he is encouraging
voters - young voters in particular - to take advantage of their opportunity to cast their ballots before Election Day on Nov. 8.
by
Tyler Durden
Oct 28, 2016 3:22 PM
0
SHARES
In the latest stunning revelation in today's saga involving the FBI's second probe,
moments ago the
NYT reported
that the
new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into
Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized
electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to
a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina
. The bureau told Congress on Friday
that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case - one federal official
said they numbered in the thousands - potentially reigniting an issue that has
weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less
than two weeks before the election.
Until recently Anthony Weiner was married to Hillary Clinton's closest aide, Huma
Abedin, who separated from Weiner recently after news emerged that Weiner had engaged in
an online affair with an underage girl
.
The F.B.I. told Congress that it had uncovered new emails related to the closed
investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified
information, potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential
campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the
election.
One clue as to what the FBI may have uncovered comes courtesy of FOIAed Judicial
Watch email disclosures, revealed one month ago, according to which Hillary Clinton's
chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills, had received classified national
security information through one of two or three personal, unsecured email accounts she
regularly used to communicate with Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Approximately 10 percent of Abedin's emails released through Judicial Watch Freedom
of Information Act requests were addressed to one of Mills' various personal email
addresses. As
WND reported at the time
,
several were found to contain such highly
sensitive material that the State Department redacted 100 percent of the content pages,
marking many pages with a bold stamp reading "PAGE DENIED
."
Of the more than 160 emails in the latest Judicial Watch release, some 110
emails – two-thirds of the total – were forwarded by Abedin to two personal addresses
she controlled
. The Washington Times reported in August 2015 that the State
Department had admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and Mills used personal email
accounts to conduct government business in addition to Clinton's private
clintonemail.com to transact State Department business.
In a curious twist, one heavily redacted email, dated May 15, 2009, was sent by the
infamous Doug Band (who until today was the primary source of headaches for Hillary
Clinton due to his role as head of the Clinton Foundation-linked Teneo consulting firm
whose recently leaked confidential memo exposed the fund flows involving Bill Clinton),
to Mills at a personal address and to Huma Abedin at her State Department address.
Band was forwarding to Mills and Abedin an email request from an associate who was
seeking a State Department position in Charleston, South Carolina. Attached was a letter
that the office-seeker had first sent to Bill Clinton containing the office-seeker's
resume . In the email Band was making a State Department job request on behalf of a
Clinton Foundation and/or Teneo-related person.
The email from Band was completely redacted, except for a salutation and first
sentence. The letter the office-seeker had sent to President Clinton, as well as the
office-seeker's résumé, was redacted except for a phrase that reads, "Well organized,
driven professional."
A second email dated May 15, 2009, was sent by Abedin from her State Department email
to her personal email, presumably
[email protected]
. Abedin apparently was archiving in her personal
email account an email Hillary Clinton sent her from Clinton's private email server at
[email protected]. Abedin was asked to print out attachments to an email Mills
sent via a private address the previous day to Clinton involving "timetables and
deliverables" for her review via Alec Ross, a technology policy expert who then held the
title of senior adviser for innovation to Secretary Clinton.
The two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent
redacted, with "PAGE DENIED" stamped across the first redacted page.
DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON HILLARY CLINTON'S BAD JUDGMENT
"Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be
far better off without h
im. I only worry for the country in that Hillary
Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to
highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just
another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country
and its security have been greatly compromised by this.
" - Donald J. Trump
and then, previously with this August 3, 2015 tweet:
It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary's private
illegal emails. Huma's PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.
Well, maybe not tell the world, but certainly drag Hillary into another scandal just
as she appeared certain to win the election with less than 2 weeks until D-Day.
"... The revelations that - as Secretary of State - Clinton had committed such a huge security gaffe was quickly picked up on - and has since extensively been used by - Republican candidate Donald Trump, as an example of how Clinton is unfit for the presidency. ..."
"... "This is a change election: people (even those who support Obama) are not interested in the status quo. Therefore they want a candidate who will make change, actually fight the status quo." ..."
"... It is believed they will continue to be dripped out ahead of the presidential election on November 8. Apart from the embarrassment over the email account, the leaks show Clinton changing her position on free trade agreements. ..."
"... The question is not whether or not Donald or Hillary are fit to be US President. The question should be is the United States fit to exist in a civilized world? The answer is; not in its current form! Perhaps if the US returned to following its Constitution, but not otherwise! ..."
Whoever advised US Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton that she could use private
emails while in office should have been "drawn and quartered," according to the latest batch of emails
of the campaign chairman John Podesta, published by WikiLeaks on October 27.Clinton ran into huge
trouble when it was revealed that - while Secretary of State - she had been using insecure private
email accounts based on non-government servers, exposing the US administration to hacking or surveillance
from foreign nations.
In the latest cache of emails, one of Clinton's advisers, Neera Tanden wrote to Podesta asking: "Do
we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and
quartered? Like whole thing is f****** insane."
One of the 'Podesta Emails' released by Wikileaks An investigation by the FBI concluded that 110
e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information
at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top
Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight
contained Confidential information.
The revelations that - as Secretary of State - Clinton had committed such a huge security
gaffe was quickly picked up on - and has since extensively been used by - Republican candidate Donald
Trump, as an example of how Clinton is unfit for the presidency.
Apology Enough?
Another chain of emails delivered Clinton's advisers' verdict on her round of interviews with
the media apologizing for the email gaffe and saying: "As I look back at it now, even though it was
allowed, I should have used two accounts. That was a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility."
Tanden responded: "She rocked it!" in a suggestion that the plan had been to admit culpability
personally - an honest appeal for empathy to kill the political furore.
Another adviser, Jennifer Palmieri replied: "I actually cried a little bit with relief."
However, John Podesta replied that Clinton may not have gone far enough and that Trump had
found her weak spot. "No good deed goes unpunished. Press takeaway was the whine of but 'she really
didn't apologize to the American people' I am beginning to think Trump is on to something," Podesta
wrote
Too 'Establishment'?
Meanwhile, another email - also from Tanden - show the sense of vulnerability within the Clinton
camp: her need to appeal to voters who conceive of her as being part of the establishment and - in
particular - part of the Obama set who promised much, but delivered little. "So if she attacks [Trump]
from the right (say on taxes), she will sound establishment/centrist and that hurts her. She needs
to reaffirm her liberal credentials, not just her doer credentials," Tanden wrote.
"This is a change election: people (even those who support Obama) are not interested in the
status quo. Therefore they want a candidate who will make change, actually fight the status quo."
Wikileaks has gradually been releasing more than 30,000 emails hacked from the account belonging
to Podesta since October 7, 2016, giving an insight into the background thinking within her team.
It is believed they will continue to be dripped out ahead of the presidential election on
November 8. Apart from the embarrassment over the email account, the leaks show Clinton changing
her position on free trade agreements.
The question is not whether or not Donald or Hillary are fit to be US President. The question
should be is the United States fit to exist in a civilized world? The answer is; not in its current
form! Perhaps if the US returned to following its Constitution, but not otherwise!
President Barack Obama used a pseudonym in email communications with Hillary Clinton and others,
according to FBI records made public Friday.
The disclosure came as the FBI released its second batch of documents from its investigation
into Clinton's private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Story Continued Below
The
189 pages the bureau released includes interviews with some of Clinton's closest aides, such
as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills; senior State Department officials; and even Marcel Lazar, better
known as the Romanian hacker "Guccifer." In an April 5, 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin was
shown an email exchange between Clinton and Obama, but the longtime Clinton aide did not recognize
the name of the sender.
"Once informed that the sender's name is believed to be a pseudonym used by the president,
Abedin exclaimed: 'How is this not classified?'" the report says. "Abedin then expressed her amazement
at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email."
"... It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and ex-parliamentarian. ..."
"... Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration. In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004. ..."
"... Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. ..."
A sinister atmosphere surrounds the Clinton Foundation's role in Ukrainian military coup of February
2014, experts point out.
It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's
European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was
the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while
Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many
of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman
and ex-parliamentarian.
Remarkably, among individual donors contributing to the Clinton Foundation in the period between
1999 and 2014, Ukrainian sponsors took first place in the list, providing the charity with almost
$10 million and pushing England and Saudi Arabia to second and third places respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation alone transferred at least $8.6 million
to the Clinton charity between 2009 and 2013. Pinchuk, who acquired his fortune from a pipe-making
business, served twice as a parliamentarian in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and was married to the daughter
of ex-president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
Although the Clinton's charity denies that the donations were somehow connected with political
matters, experts doubt that international private sponsors received no political support in return.
In 2008 Pinchuk pledged to make a five-year $29 million contribution to the Clinton Global Initiative
in order to fund a program aimed at training future Ukrainian leaders and "modernizers." Remarkably,
several alumni of these courses are current members of Ukrainian parliament. Because of the global
financial crisis, the Pinchuk Foundation sent only $1.8 million.
Experts note that during Mrs. Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Viktor Pinchuk was introduced
to some influential American lobbyists. Curiously enough, he tried to use his powerful "friends"
to pressure Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free Yulia Tymoshenko, who served a jail
term.
Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration.
In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board
including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice,
Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent
figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004.
No one would argue that proponents of Ukraine's pro-Western course played the main role in organizing
the coup of February 2014 in Kiev. Furthermore, the exceptional role of the United States in ousting
then-president Viktor Yanukovich has also been recognized by political analysts, participants of
Euromaidan and even by Barack Obama, the US President.
Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet
government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment
banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the
Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have
previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.
So far, experts note, the recent "game of thrones" in Ukraine has been apparently instigated by
a few powerful clans of the US and Ukraine, who are evidently benefitting from the ongoing turmoil.
In this light the Clinton Foundation looks like something more than just a charity: in today's world
of fraudulent oligopoly we are facing with global cronyism, experts point out, warning against its
devastating consequences.
"... A former [key] IT staffer at the State Department who oversaw technology for senior officials invoked his Fifth Amendment right in a sworn deposition on Monday when asked about Hillary Clinton's private email server. ..."
John Bentel is one of the key future of "private email server" scandal, the manager who squashed
concerns of other IOt personnel about legality of the so called "bathroom server".
October 24, 2016
A former [key] IT staffer at the State Department who oversaw technology for senior officials invoked
his Fifth Amendment right in a sworn deposition on Monday when asked about Hillary Clinton's private
email server.
Bentel answered over 90 questions that were submitted him to by Judicial Watch, the conservative
watchdog group that has been leading the charge for more information from Clinton and her associates
regarding her email server. Bentel was ordered by a federal judge to answer the questions similarly
to how Clinton had been.
Judicial Watch says that the topics of the questions they submitted to Bentel included whether
Clinton was paying Bentel's legal fees or had offered him other compensation.
"On advice from my legal counsel, I decline to answer the question and I invoke my Fifth
Amendment rights," Bentel answered each question.
Bentel invoking the Fifth Amendment "highlights the disturbing implication that criminal acts
took place related to the Clinton email and our Freedom of Information Act requests," Judicial
Watch President Tom Fitton said Monday.
Qatar, like most Muslim countries, treats women as second-class citizens, but
champion-of-women Hillary never lets a little thing like that stop her from doing business. (See:
"On favors.") And a far greater threat than murderous Muslims adhering to a fanatical 7th-century
religious ideology lurks right here at home - those pesky Roman Catholics and their silly
2,000-year-old faith. (See: "On Catholics.")
"... Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, helped steer $675,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an FBI official who went on to lead the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email system, according to a report. ..."
"... The money directed by McAuliffe began flowing two months after the FBI investigation into Clinton began in July 2015. Around that time, the candidate's husband was promoted from running the Washington field office for the FBI to the No. 3 position at the bureau. ..."
"... In a statement to the Journal, the FBI said McCabe "played no role, attended no events, and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position, he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton's emails." ..."
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, helped steer $675,000 to the
election campaign of the wife of an FBI official who went on to lead the probe into Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email system, according to a report.
The political action committee of McAuliffe, the Clinton loyalist, gave $467,500 to the state
Senate campaign of the wife of Andrew McCabe, who is now deputy director of the FBI, according to
the Wall Street Journal.
The report states Jill McCabe received an additional $207,788 from the Virginia Democratic Party,
which is heavily influenced by McAuliffe.
The money directed by McAuliffe began flowing two months after the FBI investigation into
Clinton began in July 2015. Around that time, the candidate's husband was promoted from running
the Washington field office for the FBI to the No. 3 position at the bureau.
Within a year, McCabe was promoted to deputy director, the second-highest position in the bureau.
In a statement to the Journal, the FBI said McCabe "played no role, attended no events, and
did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her
campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position,
he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton's
emails."
The governor's office claimed the FBI's McCabe met the governor only once - on March 7, 2015,
when McAuliffe persuaded Jill McCabe to run.
The 2015 Virginia state Senate run - her first attempt to gain public office - was unsuccessful
as she lost to the incumbent Republican.
McAuliffe "supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a
customary practice for Virginia governors … Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything
other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous," a
spokesman for the Virginia governor told the Journal.
McAuliffe has been a longtime backer of the Clintons, even serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign
chair in 2008.
That's explains vicious campaign by neoliberal MSM against Trump and swiping under the carpet all
criminal deeds of Clinton family. They feel the threat...
Notable quotes:
"... It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives: socialism and communism. ..."
"... That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness. That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. ..."
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by
race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously
the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge.
The North's abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War
had more to do a desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from
the competition of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.[…]
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to
screw Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core
of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten
her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In other words it's all part of a grand plan when the Clintonoids aren't busy debating the finer
points of her marketing and "mark"–a term normally applied to the graphic logo on a commercial product.
"... Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the mishandling of classified information." ..."
Speaking Monday on Fox News with host Neil Cavuto, former Democratic presidential candidate
and United States House of Representatives Member from Ohio Dennis Kucinich opined that, from
early on, the US government's investigation of Hillary Clinton for mishandling confidential
information while she was Secretary of State was fixed in her favor.
Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it
was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in
which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of
government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that
Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the
mishandling of classified information."
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
Feeling the heat from congressional critics, Comey last week argued that the case was investigated by career FBI agents, "So
if I blew it, they blew it, too."
But agents say Comey tied investigators' hands by agreeing to unheard-of ground rules and other demands by the lawyers for
Clinton and her aides that limited their investigation.
"In my 25 years with the bureau, I never had any ground rules in my interviews," said retired agent Dennis V. Hughes, the first
chief of the FBI's computer investigations unit.
Instead of going to prosecutors and insisting on using grand jury leverage to compel testimony and seize evidence, Comey allowed
immunity for several key witnesses, including potential targets.
What's more, Comey cut a deal to give Clinton a "voluntary" witness interview on a major holiday, and even let her ex-chief
of staff sit in on the interview as a lawyer, even though she, too, was under investigation.
Agreed retired FBI agent Michael M. Biasello: "Comey has singlehandedly ruined the reputation of the organization."
Comey made the 25 agents who worked on the case sign nondisclosure agreements. But others say morale has sunk inside the bureau.
"The director is giving the bureau a bad rap with all the gaps in the investigation," one agent in the Washington field office
said. "There's a perception that the FBI has been politicized and let down the country."
While the above article focused on the opinions of retired agents, today's article zeros in on the growing frustrations of current
agency employees.
FBI agents say the bureau is alarmed over Director James Comey deciding not to suggest that the Justice Department prosecute
Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified information.
According to an interview transcript given to The Daily Caller, provided by an intermediary who spoke to two federal agents
with the bureau last Friday, agents are frustrated by Comey's leadership.
"This is a textbook case where a grand jury should have convened but was not. That is appalling," an FBI special agent who
has worked public corruption and criminal cases said of the decision. "We talk about it in the office and don't know how Comey
can keep going."
Another special agent for the bureau that worked counter-terrorism and criminal cases said he is offended by Comey's saying:
"we" and "I've been an investigator."
After graduating from law school, Comey became a law clerk to a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan and later became an associate
in a law firm in the city. After becoming a U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Comey's career moved through the
U.S. Attorney's Office until he became Deputy Attorney General during the George W. Bush administration.
After Bush left office, Comey entered the private sector and became general counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed
Martin, among other private sector posts. President Barack Obama appointed him to FBI director in 2013 replacing out going-director
Robert Mueller.
"Comey was never an investigator or special agent. The special agents are trained investigators and they are insulted that
Comey included them in 'collective we' statements in his testimony to imply that the SAs agreed that there was nothing there to
prosecute," the second agent said. "All the trained investigators agree that there is a lot to prosecuted but he stood in the
way."
In light of the latest revelations that the
NSA is spying on the communications of millions of Verizon customers courtesy of information provided by the FBI, it probably
makes sense to know a little more about Obama's nominee to head that Bureau. That man is James Comey, and he was a top Department
of Justice attorney under John Ashcroft during the George W. Bush Administration (since then he has worked at Lockheed Martin
and at the enormous Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates). This guy defines the revolving door cancer ruining these United
States.
Now back to The Daily Caller.
According to Washington D.C. attorney Joe DiGenova, more FBI agents will be talking about the problems at bureau and specifically
the handling of the Clinton case by Comey when Congress comes back into session and decides to force them to testify by subpoena.
DiGenova told WMAL radio's
Drive at Five last week, "People are starting to talk. They're calling their former friends outside the bureau asking for
help. We were asked to day to provide legal representation to people inside the bureau and agreed to do so and to former agents
who want to come forward and talk. Comey thought this was going to go away."
He explained, "It's not. People inside the bureau are furious. They are embarrassed. They feel like they are being led by a
hack but more than that that they think he's a crook. They think he's fundamentally dishonest. They have no confidence in him.
The bureau inside right now is a mess."
He added, "The most important thing of all is that the agents have decided that they are going to talk."
Corruption in the USA has now reached the level where it starts destroying the entire fabric of society itself. This is a very
dangerous moment.
It's already been done. After the Boston Marathon false flag, a number of FBI agents were assigned to the case. Two in particular
probably got too close to the hoax because suddenly they were sent on a naval training assignment. The FBI on a naval training
assignment in the middle of an investigation?
Excellent post pods. These agents are using the Nazi excuse of "just following orders". We'll, a corrupt order is corrupt.....and
so are you if you blindly follow it.
The NDAs were obviously procured through fraud thereby nullifying their binding nature. Dirty hands all over the Washington D.C.
cesspool. Are we ready to clean house yet?
The FBI has lost total street cred first after failing to indict Crooked Hillary, and then granting immunity to her co-conspirators.
the icing on the cake was Comey blaming other FBI.
When I was wanering thru the sports store yesterday, the feeling of animosity toward the FBI was very high. Once they were
highly respected...Comey has trashed that agency badly...People like John Malone 9who once heade the NYC FBI office), Tompkins
in the louisville area, etc would be revolted by Crooked Comey.
... I'm not implying that those 900(?) FBI files of prominent Americans given by the FBI to the Klinton Krime Kartel were being
used for blackmail ... and perhaps the reason why the dynamic duo keeps getting "get-out-of-jail-free" cards whenever they need
it ...
@hedgeless horseman: The FBI did not release the "Dancing Israelis." It was Judge Michael Chertoff. He was in charge of the Criminal
Division in the Justice Department on 9/11. Essentially responsible for the 9/11 non-investigation. He let hundreds of Israeli
spies who were arrested prior to and on 9/11 go back home to Israel. He was also a prosecuting judge in the first terrorist attack
on the WTC in 1993. Chertoff purportedly holds dual citizenship with the US and Israel. His family is one of the founding families
of the state of Israel and his mother was one of the first ever agents of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency. His father and uncle
are ordained rabbis and teachers of the Talmud.
He was subsequently named head of the Dept of Homeland Security. His company arranged for placement of Rapascan nude scanners
in American airports. Who says crime doesn't pay?
..... Comey last week argued that the case was investigated by career FBI agents, "So if I blew it, they blew it, too."
...... agents say Comey tied investigators' hands by agreeing to unheard-of ground rules and other demands by the lawyers
for Clinton and her aides that limited their investigation.
...... In my 25 years with the bureau, I never had any ground rules in my interviews," said retired agent Dennis V.
Hughes, the first chief of the FBI's computer investigations unit.
Time for Comey, Bill, Hillary, Lynch, Obama, MSM Media, and on, and on, to ALL
DANCE ON THE FUCKING AIR !!!
(Method of neck suspension, NOT rope.....piano wire..)
I get a kick out of these career FBI agents worrying that Comey has sullied the reputation of the FBI (he has). Here is a fucking
news flash for you assholes, if Clinton gets elected there is an almost certain chance that she starts a fucking thermo nuclear
war with Russia. You, your families and the precious FBI won't exist 30 minutes after that starts seeing that you are sitting
at ground zero. Does that do anything to get you off your asses and perhaps do your fucking jobs?
There is now about 30 minutes of video that proves the Clinton campaign conspired to incite violence at Trump rallys. How about
you fuckers get off your ass and start investigating this and the "pay to play" shit the Podesta tapes came out with? Or, how
about the email that indicates POTUS illegally influenced the Supreme Court Justice on ACA??? Christ, it's a target rich environment
for felony convictions out there and you guys are doing what????
Allegedly, there was a much larger contingent of Mossad agents that were detained immediately after 9/11. An additional 100 or
so were in the States "studying art" and similar cover stories when in fact they were carefully casing various buildings including
banks and Federal sites. For reasons never made public, the FBI let them all go back to Israel. Without waterboarding Dick Cheney,
the public will never know the truth.
" Sorry, intentions are one thing actions another at least among adults."
Actually, it can also be part of the game. Eisenhower is well known for his MIC warning on TV just as he was leaving office.
However, if you look at what he did, and what he allowed Allen Dulles to do, he was part of it. Making fake apologies after the
fact provides some balm but doesnt undo the damage.
I'm tellin ya.... rank-and-file aren't sitting around giggling that this fucking cunt is walking on water on shit they would be
hung out to dry for. The Podesta leaks are NSA standard intercepts. Anyone could have grabbed them from a standard intercept.
Tja, that's the problem when you go hooovering up the entire internet. Pretty fucking hard to compartmentalize collection efforts
on that scale.
We applaud and support the members of our armed forces and intelligence community who take their oath of office seriously and
refuse to let these murderous internationalists tear down our country without a fucking fight.
When Hillary gets in there all these old FBI white boyz will be shown the door and replaced with pussylesbo power. These are the
good old days,be afraid.
"... Among the initial emails to stand out is this extensive exchange showing just how intimiately the narrative of Hillary's server
had been coached. The following September 2015 email exchange between Podesta and Nick Merrill, framed the "core language" to be used
in response to questions Clinton could be asked about her email server, and the decision to "bleach" emails from it. The emails contain
long and short versions of responses for Clinton. ..."
The daily dump continues. In the now traditional daily routine, one which forces the Clinton campaign to resort to ever more stark
sexual scandals involving Trump to provide a media distraction, moments ago Wikileaks released yet another 1,803 emails in Part 12
of its ongoing Podesta Email dump, which brings the total number of released emails to 18,953.
As a reminder among the most recent revelations we got further insights into Hillary's desire to see Obamacare "
unravel" , her contempt
for "doofus" Bernie Sanders, staff exchanges on handling media queries about Clinton "flip-flopping" on gay marriage, galvanizing
Latino support and locking down Clinton's healthcare policy. Just as notable has been the ongoing revelation of just how "captured"
the so-called independent press has been in its "off the record" discussions with John Podesta which got the head Politico correspondent,
Glenn Thrush, to admit he is a "hack" for allowing Podesta to dictate the content of his article.
The release comes on the day of the third and final presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and as a result
we are confident it will be scrutinized especially carefully for any last minute clues that would allow Trump to lob a much needed
Hail Mary to boost his standing in the polls.
As there is a total of 50,000 emails, Wikileaks will keep the media busy over the next three weeks until the elections with another
30,000 emails still expected to be released.
* * *
Among the initial emails to stand out is this extensive exchange showing just how intimiately the narrative of Hillary's server
had been coached. The following September 2015 email
exchange between Podesta and Nick Merrill, framed the "core language" to be used in response to questions Clinton could be asked
about her email server, and the decision to "bleach" emails from it. The emails contain long and short versions of responses for
Clinton.
"Because the government already had everything that was work-related, and my personal emails were just that – personal – I
didn't see a reason to keep them so I asked that they be deleted, and that's what the company that managed my server did. And
we notified Congress of that back in March"
She was then presented with the following hypothetical scenario:
* "Why won't you say whether you wiped it?"
"After we went through the process to determine what was work related and what was not and provided the work related
emails to State, I decided not to keep the personal ones."
"We saved the work-related ones on a thumb drive that is now with the Department of Justice. And as I said in March, I chose
not to keep the personal ones. I asked that they be deleted, how that happened was up to the company that managed the server.
And they are cooperating fully with anyone that has questions."
* * *
Another notable email reveals the close
relationship between the Clinton Foundation and Ukraine billionaire Victor Pinchuk, a
prominent
donor to the Clinton Foundation , in which we see the latter's attempt to get a meeting with Bill Clinton to show support for
Ukraine:
From: Tina Flournoy < [email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 9:58:55 AM
To: Amitabh Desai
Cc: Jon Davidson; Margaret Steenburg; Jake Sullivan; Dan Schwerin; Huma Abedin; John Podesta
Subject: Re: Victor Pinchuk
Team HRC - we'll get back to you on this
> On Mar 30, 2015, at 9:53 AM, Amitabh Desai < [email protected]> wrote:
>
> Victor Pinchuk is relentlessly following up (including this morning) about a meeting with WJC in London or anywhere in Europe.
Ideally he wants to bring together a few western leaders to show support for Ukraine, with WJC probably their most important participant.
If that's not palatable for us, then he'd like a bilat with WJC.
>
> If it's not next week, that's fine, but he wants a date. I keep saying we have no Europe plans, although we do have those events
in London in June. Are folks comfortable offering Victor a private meeting on one of those dates? At this point I get
the impression that although I keep saying WJC cares about Ukraine, Pinchuk feels like WJC hasn't taken enough action to demonstrate
that, particularly during this existential moment for the county and for him.
>
> I sense this is so important because Pinchuk is under Putin's heel right now, feeling a great degree of pressure and pain for
his many years of nurturing stronger ties with the West.
>
> I get all the downsides and share the concerns. I am happy to go back and say no. It would just be good to
know what WJC (and HRC and you all) would like to do, because this will likely impact the future of this relationship, and slow
walking our reply will only reinforce his growing angst.
>
> Thanks, and sorry for the glum note on a Monday morning...
Sure. Sorry for the delay I was on a plane.
On Apr 30, 2015 9:44 AM, "Glenn Thrush" < [email protected]> wrote:
> Can I send u a couple of grafs, OTR, to make sure I'm not fucking
> anything up?
* * *
Another notable moment emerges in the emails, involving Hillary Clinton's selective memory. Clinton's description of herself as
a moderate Democrat at a September 2015 event in Ohio caused an uproar amongst her team. In a
mail from Clinton advisor Neera Tanden to Podesta
in the days following the comment she asks why she said this.
"I pushed her on this on Sunday night. She claims she didn't remember saying it. Not sure I believe her," Podesta replies.
Tanden insists that the comment has made her job more difficult after "telling every reporter I know she's actually progressive".
" It worries me more that she doesn't seem to know what planet we are all living in at the moment ," she adds.
* * *
We also get additional insight into Clinton courting the Latino minority. A November 2008
email from Federico Peña , who was on the Obama-Biden
transition team, called for a "Latino media person" to be added to the list of staff to appeal to Latino voters. Federico de Jesus
or Vince Casillas are seen as ideal candidates, both of whom were working in the Chicago operations.
"More importantly, it would helpful (sic) to Barack to do pro-active outreach to Latino media across the country to get our
positive message out before people start spreading negative rumors," Peña writes.
* * *
Another email between Clinton's foreign policy adviser
Jake Sullivan and Tanden from March 2016 discussed how it was "REALLY dicey territory" for Clinton to comment on strengthening
"bribery laws to ensure that politicians don't change legislation for political donations." Tanden agrees with Sullivan:
" She may be so tainted she's really vulnerable - if so, maybe a message of I've seen how this sausage is
made, it needs to stop, I'm going to stop it will actually work."
* * *
One email suggested, sarcastically, to kneecap
bernie Sanders : Clinton's team issued advise regarding her tactics for the "make or break" Democratic presidential debate with
Sanders in Milwaukee on February 11, 2016. The mail to Podesta came from Philip Munger, a Democratic Party donor. He sent the mail
using an encrypted anonymous email service.
"She's going to have to kneecap him. She is going to have to take him down from his morally superior perch. She has done so
tentatively. She must go further," he says.
Clearly, the desire to get Sanders' supporters was a key imperative for the Clinton campaign. In a
September 2015 email to Podesta , Hill columnist
Brent Budowsky criticized the campaign for allegedly giving Clinton surrogates talking points to attack Bernie Sanders. "I cannot
think of anything more stupid and self-destructive for a campaign to do," he says. "Especially for a candidate who has dangerously
low levels of public trust," and in light of Sanders' campaign being based on "cleaning up politics."
Budowsky warns voters would be "disgusted" by attacks against Sanders and says he wouldn't discourage Podesta from sharing the
note with Clinton because "if she wants to become president she needs to understand the point I am making with crystal clarity."
"Make love to Bernie and his idealistic supporters, and co-opt as many of his progressive issues as possible."
Budowsky then adds that he was at a Washington university where " not one student gave enough of a damn for Hillary to
open a booth, or even wear a Hillary button. "
* * *
One email focused on how to address with the
topic of the TPP. National Policy Director for Hillary for America Amanda Renteria explains, "The goal here was to minimize our vulnerability
to the authenticity attack and not piss off the WH any more than necessary."
Democratic pollster Joel Benenson says, "the reality is HRC is more pro trade than anti and trying to turn her into something
she is not could reinforce our negative [sic] around authenticity. This is an agreement that she pushed for and largely advocated
for."
* * *
While claiming she is part of the people, an email exposes Hillary as being "
part of the system ." Clinton's team acknowledges
she is "part of the system" in an email regarding her strategies. As Stan Greenberg told Podesta:
" We are also going to test some messages that include acknowledgement of being part of the system, and know how much
has to change ,"
* * *
Some more on the topic of Hillary being extensively coached and all her words rehearsed, we find an email which reveals that
Clinton's words have to be tightly managed by her
team who are wary of what she might say. After the Iowa Democratic Party's presidential debate in November 2015 adviser Ron Klain
mails Podesta to say, "If she says something three times as an aside during practice (Wall Street supports me due to 9/11), we need
to assume she will say it in the debate, and tell her not to do so." Klain's mail reveals Sanders was their biggest fear in the debate.
"The only thing that would have been awful – a Sanders break out – didn't happen. So all in all, we were fine," he says.
The mail also reveals Klain's role in securing his daughter Hannah a position on Clinton's team. "I'm not asking anyone to make
a job, or put her in some place where she isn't wanted – it just needs a nudge over the finish line," Klain says. Hannah Klain worked
on Clinton's Surrogates team for nine months commencing in the month after her father's mail to Podesta, according to her Linkedin.
I love this...Assange is incommunicado, yet the data dumps keep coming!
Horse face looks like such a fool to the world as a result; & due to John Kerry's stupidity which is drawing major attention to
the whole matter; Americans are finally beginning to wake up & pay attention to this shit!
Looks like the Hitlery for Prez ship is starting to take on MASSIVE amounts of water!
I believe they are beyond the point where any more news of 'pussy grabbing' will save them from themselves (and Mr. Assange)!
The new lowered expectations federal government just expects to get lucre + bennies for sitting on their asses and holding
the door for gangsters. Traitors. Spies. Enemies foreign and domestic. Amphisbaegenic pot boiling.
With Creamer's tricks effective in Obama's re-election, it now makes sense why Obama was so confident when he said Trump would
never be president.
Trump is still ahead in the only poll I track. But i conduct my own personal poll on a daily basis and loads of Trump supporters
are in the closet and won't come out until they pull the lever for Trump on election day.
The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice,
with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously
believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.
The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said Obama appointee FBI Director James Comey's dramatic July
5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General's office that the former secretary of state be charged left members
of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys
from the DOJ's National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.
"No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute - it was a top-down decision,"
said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.
A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, "It was unanimous that we all
wanted her [Clinton's] security clearance yanked."
"It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted," the senior FBI official told Fox News. "We were floored while
listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said 'but we are doing nothing,' which made no sense to us."
The FBI declined to comment directly, but instead referred Fox News to multiple public statements Comey has made in which he has
thrown water on the idea that politics played a role in the agency's decision not to recommend charges.
"... The Federal Bureau of Investigation [sic] revealed Friday that President Barack Obama used a private email address and pseudonym to communicate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary R. Clinton and her own private email account as early as June 2012. ..."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
[sic]
revealed
Friday that President Barack Obama used a private email address
and pseudonym to communicate with Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary R. Clinton and her own private email account as
early as June 2012.
Posted at the FBI's Vault site, the revelation was part of a
189-page document dump of interview notes from conversations its
agents conducted about how Clinton handled classified electronic
correspondence, other documents, and her private email scheme
during her tenure as secretary of State.
Obama told CBS News March 7, 2015 that he did not know about
Clinton's private email while she was his secretary of state
from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013.
Q: Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton
used an email system outside the U.S. government for official
business while she was secretary of state?
Obama: The same time everybody else learned it through news
reports.
In one of the
more
interesting threads
to emerge from today's latest, seventh Wikileaks dump of Podesta
emails, we read a detailed exchange between Clinton press secretaries Brian Fallon and
Nick Merrill, in which we learn how on June 24, 2015 the Clinton Campaign was preparing
for the upcoming news release in which the State Department, and the mainstream press,
would acknowledge for the first time that Hillary Clinton had deleted a certain number
of Sid Blumenthal emails from the 55k pages of material produced by Hillary Clinton from
her personal server.
By way of background, this is what Fallon wrote in preparation
for the official and unofficial response the Clinton campaign would provide to the State
Department:
Q: The State Department says that at least 16 of the emails that Sid
Blumenthal turned over to the Benghazi Select Committee were not included in the
55,000 pages of materials produced by Hillary Clinton. Doesn't this prove that
Hillary Clinton deleted certain emails at some point before producing them to the
Department?
ON-THE-RECORD RESPONSE FROM SPOKESMAN NICK MERRILL:
"Hillary Clinton has turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State
Department, including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal."
ADDITIONAL POINTS ON BACKGROUND FROM CLINTON AIDE:
Not only did Clinton turn over all emails that she has from Blumenthal, she
actually turned over more than a dozen emails that were not included in what Mr.
Blumenthal handed over to the House committee.
We do not have a record of other correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and Mr.
Blumenthal beyond that which was turned over to the State Department. In terms of the
documents provided by Mr. Blumenthal to the House committee, we do not recognize many
of those materials and cannot speak to their origin.
OFF RECORD, if pressed on whether we are essentially admitting the
possibility that she deleted some emails:
Look, we do not know what these materials are, or where they came from. Just take
a look at them: many of the documents are not even formatted as emails.
For all we know, it could be that, in the course of reproducing his emails after
his account was hacked,
Sid misremembered which memos he actually forwarded
to her and which he did not.
And hey, even if Sid is right and some of these documents were at some point sent
to Clinton, this is unremarkable anyway for two key reasons:
One, she would have been under no obligation to preserve them since Blumenthal
wasn't a government employee.
Two, there is nothing in any of these emails that is remotely new or interesting.
Indeed, none of these 16 emails are qualtitatively different than the dozens
of others that Hillary already produced to the State Department
.
So it is completely ridiculous to
suggest that there might have been any nefarious basis for her to want to delete any
of Sid's correspondence
.
After one turn of comments he revised his "Off the Record" statement to omit the "Sid
misremembered" part to end up with the following:
OFF RECORD, if pressed on whether we are essentially admitting the
possibility that she deleted some emails:
Look, we do not know what these materials are, or where they came from. Just take
a look at them: many of the documents are not even formatted as emails.
But even if Sid is right and some of these documents were at some point sent to
Clinton, there is nothing in any of these emails that is remotely new or interesting.
Indeed, none of these 16 emails are qualitatively different than the dozens of others
that Hillary already produced to the State Department. So it is completely ridiculous
to suggest that there might have been any nefarious basis for her to want to delete
any of Sid's correspondence.
The revision took place after Nick Merrill confirmed - yet again - that there had
been collusion between the State Department and the Clinton campaign when he said that "
Just
spoke to State a little more about this.
" He then noted the following updates:
1. The plan at the moment is for them to do this tomorrow, first thing in the
morning.
2. What that means specifically is that they are going to turn over all
the Blumenthal emails to the Committee that they hav along with some other HRC emails
that include
a slightly broader set of search terms
than
the original batch.
That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that
HRC didn't, which will make clear to them that she didn't have them in the first
place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over
. It also includes emails that
HRC had that Sid didn't, as Brian noted.
Then, providing further evidence of ongoing collusion not just between Hillary's
campaign and the State Department, but also the press, Merrill then adds the following
note to explain how the State Department hoped to use the Associated Press to product a
piece that "lays this out" before the "committee has a chance to realize what they
have.":
3.
They do not plan to release anything publicly, so no posting online or
anything public-facing, just to the committee
. That said,
they are
considering placing a story with a friendly at the AP (Matt Lee or Bradley Klapper
),
that would lay this out before the
majority on the committee has a chance to realize what they have and distort it
.
On that last piece, we think it would make sense to work with State and
the AP to deploy the below.
So assuming everyone is in agreement we'll
proceed. It would be good to frame this a little, and frankly to have it break
tomorrow when we'll likely be close to or in the midst of a SCOTUS decision taking
over the news hyenas.
But what is the most interesing part of this exchange is not what is in the email,
but what may have been discussed offline, for one reason: a curious discrepancy emerges
just one day later, when the
AP wrote an article,
as expected by the "friendly" AP reporters Bradley Klapper and
Matt Lee, which laid out the narrative precisely as the Clinton campaign wanted it.
While we are confident many readers recall it from when it first appeared last June,
from AP
:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department cannot find in its records all or part of
15 work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server
that were released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in
Benghazi, Libya, officials said Thursday.
The emails all predate the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and
include scant words written by Clinton herself, the officials said. They consist of
more in a series of would-be intelligence reports passed to her by longtime political
confidant Sidney Blumenthal, the officials said.
Nevertheless, the fact that the State Department says it can't find them among
emails she provided surely will raise new questions about Clinton's use of a personal
email account and server while secretary of state and whether she has provided the
agency all of her work-related correspondence, as she claims.
The State Department has not been able to find emails from former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's private server in its archives, State Department officials
said Thursday.
The officials said the State Department is missing all or part of
15
emails
from longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal released this week by a
House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in
Benghazi, Libya. Blumenthal provided the Select Committee on Benghazi with the
emails.
The State Department cannot find in its records all or part
of 15
work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server that were
released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya,
officials said Thursday.
The State Department said on Thursday
that 15 emails sent or received
by Hillary Rodham Clinton were missing from records that she has turned
over, raising new questions about whether she deleted work-related emails from the
private account she used exclusively while in office.
The State Department cannot find in its records all or part of
15
work-related emails
from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server that were
released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya,
officials said Thursday.
And so on, but
notice something similar: every press reports note
15
emails from Blumenthal were missing
.
Why is "
15
" strange? Because recall what the Clinton campaign was
discussing just one day prior in the preparation of its talking points to the State
Department:
... the State Department may acknowledge as soon as today
that
there were 16 Sid emails
missing from the 55k pages of material produced by HRC...
... none of
these 16 emails
are qualitatively different than the dozens of
others that Hillary already produced to the State Department...
... The State Department says that
at least 16 of the emails
that Sid Blumenthal turned over to the Benghazi Select Committee were not
included in the 55,000 pages of materials produced by Hillary Clinton...
We have just one question: how - and why - in the span of 24 hours, did a confirmed
sample of
16 deleted Sidney Blumenthal emails,
as discussed off the
record within the Clinton campaign, become
15 deleted emails
overnight
when the State Depratment unveiled its "official", and massaged especially for the
press, version of what Hillary had stated she had done with the Blumenthal's emails.
Was the publicly announced "embarrassing" deletion of
15 Blumenthal emails
merely a smokescreen to cover up the real malfeasance: the elimination of
just one
Blumenthal email which the State Department, in collusion with
Hillary, deemed would be too damaging to even disclose had been produced?
And if so, who at the State Department lied
and why
?
Actually we have another question: what was in the missing
, and (twice?)
deleted 16th
, email?
Alas, since one of the many pathways of undisputed coordinated, and collusion,
exposed thanks to this latest Wikileaks release is that between the government, the
mainstream press, and Hillary Clinton, we are confident we will never find out, and are
even more confident this question will never emerge.
still no mention of the clincher - that proves the entire democrat party has no respect for the office of president - or any other
government office for that matter..
stay on target!!!
(b) 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 .
"... [Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous aides, including Doug Brand ..."
"... No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how that's playing in Florida? ..."
"[Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that
Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous
aides, including Doug Brand [isc]. "Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti
- particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are
happy to consider projects we suggest. I'm collecting input from CF Haiti team."
No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how
that's playing in Florida?
Donald Trump is accusing the Clintons of cashing in on Haiti's deadly 2010 earthquake.
The Republican nominee cited State Department emails obtained by the Republican National
Committee through a public records request and detailed in an ABC News story.
At issue is whether friends of former President Bill Clinton, referred to as "friends of Bill,"
or "FOB," in the emails, received preferential treatment or contracts from the State Department
in the immediate aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. More than 230,000
people died, the U.S. has said.
"... Clinton talked of the need to have "both a public and a private position" on controversial issues. The former first lady also said her family's wealth had made her "kind of far removed" from the problems facing the middle class. ..."
"... one of the leaked Podesta emails appeared to show that the Clinton campaign had been in contact with the Justice Department during an open records court case in which it was not a party. The Trump campaign said the email "shows a level of collusion which calls into question the entire investigation into her private server." ..."
"... Trump has also seized on an email that revealed Clinton in one speech said that terrorism is "not a threat to us as a nation," clarifying, "it is not going to endanger our economy or our society, but it is a real threat." ..."
"... In "a speech made behind closed doors, crooked Hillary Clinton said that terrorism was not a threat - quote, 'not a threat to the nation,' " Trump said during a rally on Monday evening in Pennsylvania. ..."
On Tuesday, one of the leaked Podesta emails appeared to show that the Clinton campaign had
been in contact with the Justice Department during an open records court case in which it was not
a party. The Trump campaign said the email "shows a level of collusion which calls into question
the entire investigation into her private server."
Trump has also seized on an email that revealed Clinton in one speech said that terrorism
is "not a threat to us as a nation," clarifying, "it is not going to endanger our economy or our
society, but it is a real threat."
In "a speech made behind closed doors, crooked Hillary Clinton said that terrorism was not
a threat - quote, 'not a threat to the nation,' " Trump said during a rally on Monday evening in
Pennsylvania.
"During one of the secret speeches - amazing how nothing is secret today when you talk about the
internet - Hillary admitted that ISIS could infiltrate with the refugees," he added, referring to
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. "Then why is she letting so many people into our country?"
Some of the emails released have no bearing on the campaign at all.
In one message, Podesta offers advice for cooking risotto (don't add the water all at once). In
others, the former guitarist for pop-punk band Blink-182, Tom DeLonge, suggests that Podesta
meet with a variety
of individuals, seemingly
to discuss UFOs.
The release comes at a time when the intelligence community is casting doubt on WikiLeaks and
its motives.
"... it's obvious why Hillary Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the media would want to ignore bad news from hacked emails in favor of decade-old comments Donald Trump made about women. ..."
"... On Friday we learned that the Obama administration actively worked to crush stories relating to Clinton's emails after the story broke in early 2015. In one email, White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri emailed her counterpart at the State Department: "between us on the shows… think we can get this done so he is not asked about email." Palmieri was trying to make sure Secretary of State John Kerry would not be asked about the email scandal on his Face the Nation ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... This is exactly what Sanders warned about during the primary -- that Clinton took money from Wall Street but was not adopting his position against the banks because it was politically popular. It was hard to believe that Clinton would be just as harsh against the banks privately as she was publicly. ..."
"... Clinton awkwardly defended this comment at the debate on Sunday by speaking at length about Lincoln. But it certainly plays into the notion of Clinton's corruption; that she will say anything to anyone to get elected. It also begs the question: Who is being told the truth? Is her private position the one that she will institute in the Oval Office or will she stick with the public position? How can we trust anything she says? ..."
"... Other hacked emails revealed Clinton's campaign privately insulting journalists who didn't praise the Democratic nominee. In one email, campaign Press Secretary Nick Merrill called New York Times ..."
"... Merrill also said he had tried "to shame" the Intercept's Emily Kopp's "lousy reporting" on Clinton using her campaign account as a slush fund. ..."
"... More emails were released on Monday, and they were just as bad. In one email , former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band called Hillary's daughter Chelsea "a spoiled brat kid." ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
The Left must stop pretending this is a nonstory
•
10/10/16
We're just a month away from the election, so it's obvious why Hillary
Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the media would want to ignore bad
news from hacked emails in favor of decade-old comments Donald Trump made about
women.
But the story isn't going away-especially if Clinton becomes president.
On Friday we learned that the Obama administration
actively worked to crush stories
relating to Clinton's emails after the
story broke in early 2015. In one email, White House Communications Director
Jennifer Palmieri emailed her counterpart at the State Department: "between us
on the shows… think we can get this done so he is not asked about email."
Palmieri was trying to make sure Secretary of State John Kerry would not be
asked about the email scandal on his
Face the Nation
appearance that
occurred three days later.
The next day, State Department Communications Director Jennifer
Psaki
responded: "Good to go on killing CBS idea." And guess what? Kerry
wasn't asked about the emails.
Also on Friday, leaked transcripts from Clinton's Wall Street speeches were
revealed by Wikileaks.
The New York Times
reported that
"The tone and language of the excerpts clash with the fiery
liberal approach she used later in her bitter primary battle with Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont and could have undermined her candidacy had they
become public."
Ouch.
Clinton said in the transcripts that she dreamed of "open trade and open
borders." She also spoke about how Abraham Lincoln twisted arms behind the
scenes to get things done, and said it was important to have "both a public and
a private position."
This is exactly what Sanders warned about during the primary -- that Clinton
took money from Wall Street but was not adopting his position against the banks
because it was politically popular. It was hard to believe that Clinton would
be just as harsh against the banks privately as she was publicly.
Clinton
awkwardly defended
this comment at the debate on Sunday by speaking at
length about Lincoln. But it certainly plays into the notion of Clinton's
corruption; that she will say anything to anyone to get elected. It also begs
the question: Who is being told the truth? Is her private position the one that
she will institute in the Oval Office or will she stick with the public
position? How can we trust anything she says?
While Trump's comments predictably dominated the news cycle over the
weekend, more damaging information was linked about Clinton.
Other hacked emails revealed Clinton's campaign
privately insulting journalists
who didn't praise the Democratic nominee.
In one email, campaign Press Secretary Nick Merrill called
New York Times
reporter Amy Chozick an "idiot" for writing an article about supporters
becoming wary of Campaign Manager Robby Mook after Clinton narrowly eked out a
win against Sanders.
Merrill also said he had tried "to shame" the Intercept's Emily Kopp's
"lousy reporting" on Clinton using her campaign account as a slush fund.
More emails were released on Monday, and they were just as bad. In
one email
, former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band called Hillary's daughter
Chelsea "a spoiled brat kid."
"I don't deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a
direct dialogue for me to explain these things," Band wrote in response to a
dispute with Chelsea over the Clinton Foundation. "She is acting like a spoiled
brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she's
doing."
Band founded Teneo Strategies, which for a brief time employed Clinton aide
Huma Abedin while she was also working for the State Department.
Perhaps most damaging of all, it appears Team Clinton was "
petrified
"
of any GOP presidential nominee except Trump.
"Right now I am petrified that Hillary is almost totally dependent on
Republicans nominating Trump," wrote Brent Budowsky, a former Capitol Hill
staffer (and Observer
columnist
).
"She has huge endemic political weaknesses that she would be wise to rectify …
even a clown like Ted Cruz would be an even money bet to beat and this scares
the hell of out me."
Clinton's own campaign knew she wasn't a strong candidate and that the email
scandal was damaging-that's why they worked behind the scenes to crush stories
about the emails and disparaged reporters who didn't fall in line. They also
worked to make Trump the GOP nominee
because anyone else would have run
away with the election against such a flawed candidate.
The Left's response is always the same: Either this is a nonstory or it's
"old news." The more they make such proclamations, the more it's clear that
they just want the story to go away because they know how bad it is for
Clinton. Voters care about this issue; it's part of why Clinton is routinely
described as "untrustworthy."
The Left wouldn't be calling this a nonstory if the Secretary of State in
question were Condoleeza Rice (and to be fair, Republicans would then be the
ones claiming it was a non-story).
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the
publisher of Observer Media.
"... Yes, on all points, especially this: "I don't know whether this obfuscation is due to the journalists themselves believing that Clinton is a crook and therefore shouting "Thief, thief!" to distract attention from this, or whether they're just being opportunistic and throwing raw meat to the rubes. But it's not a good sign for the future of American civil society either way." I say both . The donor class 1% that own the media, especially the new media, are solidly behind Hillary to an extent that I wonder whether we can call any of the media 'liberal.' Trump correctly noted that to even refer to the 33,000 documents she destroyed after receiving a federal subpoena as 'email' clouds the key facts: the FBI and government inspectors had to have access to all the documents to determine their status. ..."
"... In the short term, it's all upside. They won't be fighting in any of Hillary's wars. They aren't going to be drafted and they aren't going to be bombed. The are almost all staunchly and proudly anti-Republican and that's the sole metric by which actions are judged both morally and legally. ..."
"... When the elephant starts to take heat for the crap effect of donor class policies, the donor class simply pour money into donkey coffers to ensure the continuation of the donor class crap policies. ..."
"... Politically-motivated prosecutions of former presidents would obviously not be good, but prosecutions motivated by their legitimately criminal actions would be a welcome change. ..."
"... It's equally clear that you're quite comfortable with Clinton Inc. taking de facto control of the Democratic party so that Hillary did not have to face the kind of opposition she did in 2008. ..."
"... You're obviously equally cool with her 7 in a row coin toss escapade that 'won' her the Iowa primary, and the numerous cases of collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC, you know – the ones that forced Wasserman-Schultz to run fleeing from the podium during the train wreck called the Democratic Convention. ..."
"... Then there are the wars, none of which Hillary is responsible for. We came, we saw, he died has the character and the temperament to be in the oval office because she wouldn't say shit when she obviously has more than a mouthful, but a guy who engages in lewd locker room talk can credibly be compared to Hitler. ..."
"... She wants to confront Russia over control of Syrian airspace, an act that could well put America on a collision course with both Russia and Iran. Speaking of which, you can learn a little bit more of the kinds of geopolitical changes Bush-Clinton-Obama and their doofus allies have wrought in the ME. ..."
"... Her corruption is the corruption of the 1%, whom she serves. Her wars are the wars of the 1%. Her supporters are the elite 1%. The recent leaks confirm collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC to tilt the primary in favor of Hillary. The most recent leaks confirm the Obama WH and the Kerry State department worked to suppress evidence and FOI requests. ..."
"... Let's not dismiss this as ancient history. Do you know who else is being charged under the Espionage Acts of 1917? Snowden. This is still very much living U.S. law, ..."
"... "They were emailed to her personal server, for her own personal use." Wrong. The government owned emails were mailed to her government-purposed (at least in part) server for her professional use as an employee of the federal government. ..."
"... The entire exercise is, of course, absurd. As we've learned, US and UK politicians lie routinely to investigators over starting wars, torturing people, targeting dissidents for special treatment, punishing whistle-blowers, lying to the public, etc. with complete impunity. ..."
"... The mere suggestion that Ted Kennedy, or George Bush, or Hillary Clinton would ever be charged with any crime is laughable. Punishments and trials are for 'ordinary' citizens. ..."
"... Everyone knows that. Which is why Trump will win. ..."
@5 MFB Yes, on all points, especially this: "I don't know whether this obfuscation is due
to the journalists themselves believing that Clinton is a crook and therefore shouting "Thief,
thief!" to distract attention from this, or whether they're just being opportunistic and throwing
raw meat to the rubes. But it's not a good sign for the future of American civil society either
way."
I say both . The donor class 1% that own the media, especially the new media,
are solidly behind Hillary to an extent that I wonder whether we can call any of the media 'liberal.'
Trump correctly noted that to even refer to the 33,000 documents she destroyed after receiving
a federal subpoena as 'email' clouds the key facts: the FBI and government inspectors had to have
access to all the documents to determine their status.
The press understands all this, of course. They are neither forgetful, or entirely stupid.
They, however, quite blind to the damage they are doing to institutions they claim to care about.
In the short term, it's all upside. They won't be fighting in any of Hillary's wars. They
aren't going to be drafted and they aren't going to be bombed. The are almost all staunchly and
proudly anti-Republican and that's the sole metric by which actions are judged both morally and
legally.
Which makes them the perfect dupes of the donor class.
When the elephant starts to take heat for the crap effect of donor class policies, the
donor class simply pour money into donkey coffers to ensure the continuation of the donor class
crap policies.
Ezra and Ryan and their ilk are all aspiring VSPs. They'll get their 'one-on-one' interviews
to boost clicks and Hillary will simply forget to schedule more than one actual press conference
per year.
Liberals will clap and high five each other over the goofus they helped remove.
Politically-motivated prosecutions of former presidents would obviously not be good, but prosecutions
motivated by their legitimately criminal actions would be a welcome change. Everyone knows
that elite politicians (Bushes, Clintons) are basically immune from serious legal consequences,
and fury regarding the unfairness of our two-tiered justice system is part of what fuels the current
populism.
@19 Your legal expertise consists of exactly what? I have none but I know how to read and the
reading makes it quite clear that Hillary's use of the private server for State business was not
sanctioned, that mixing Foundation documents with government documents did not give her the authority
to destroy documents on the server after she received the subpoena, she was certainly not entitled
to destroy devices with a hammer, bleach her hard drives and otherwise do everything possible
to obstruct the FBI and justice department investigation.
Most tellingly, as the linked piece above at the NRO makes clear, Trump did not threaten to
put Hillary in jail. Unlike Obama, who used one arm of his administration, his own Justice department,
to investigate another arm of his own administration, the Secretary of State, Trump stipulated
clearly that he would distance himself and his administration from any investigation by appointing
a special prosecutor. His explicit remark re: jail was a counter-factual.
Had he been President, Hillary would have been in jail.
But you're clever enough (I hope) to know and understand all this. It's equally clear that
you're quite comfortable with Clinton Inc. taking de facto control of the Democratic party so
that Hillary did not have to face the kind of opposition she did in 2008.
You're obviously equally
cool with her 7 in a row coin toss escapade that 'won' her the Iowa primary, and the numerous
cases of collusion between the Hillary campaign and the DNC, you know – the ones that forced Wasserman-Schultz
to run fleeing from the podium during the train wreck called the Democratic Convention.
Down the
memory hole go the empty seats, the chain link fences, and emails suggesting Hillary's only obstacle
to power then was 'possibly' an agnostic, or a Jew. She gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
a pop to give secret speeches to bankers and her daughter collected three six-figure salaries,
one from NBC the folks who sat on the tape until just the right moment.
If she and Bill hadn't harassed Jones et al, why then was she so shocked and rattled to see
them up close? No desire for reconciliation? A healing hug? Bill banged a few of them, of that
there's no doubt and one credibly claimed he raped while serving as state attorney general.
Then there are the wars, none of which Hillary is responsible for. We came, we saw, he died
has the character and the temperament to be in the oval office because she wouldn't say shit when
she obviously has more than a mouthful, but a guy who engages in lewd locker room talk can credibly
be compared to Hitler.
Lee above says that Donald 'loomed' over Hillary. Ooooh. Well, she was sitting down half the
time and he six-foot.
I suppose Trump could have just stretched out on the floor staring at the ceiling microphone
in hand. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do.
She wants to confront Russia over control of Syrian airspace, an act that could well put
America on a collision course with both Russia and Iran. Speaking of which, you can learn a little
bit more of the kinds of geopolitical changes Bush-Clinton-Obama and their doofus allies have
wrought in the ME.
One set of laws for the ruling class, and another for the rest of us. The FBI director stipulated
that any other suspected felon could not expect the same exceptional treatment.
Had she been charged and facing trial she would have been out of the race right now.
kidneystones @48 People in authority, which includes law enforcement, knew while Clinton
was Secretary of State she was taking emails on a private server. They had to know, because
the address for the emails had to be available or they couldn't have emailed her. If it wasn't
a problem then, it isn't a problem now.
That's true, even if a corrupt police bureaucrat like Comey wants to pretend his political
opinions are anything but an improper intervention. Unsafe to use a private server? After Snowden,
Manning and the entire career of wikileaks, not to mention the allegations about Russian and north
Korean cyberwarfare, Comey needs to explain how using a government server is safe! It's not even
unprecedented. Powell did the same, even if dumbasses want to excuse this as being somehow slipping
in before some regs.
No, sorry to say that buying into email scandal as anything but business as usual, especially
by people who vocally approve the American way of exceptional profits, is nothing but…sorry, no
way to be properly forceful but to correctly call it "dumbfuckery." This is probably why people
are looking for things like chauvinism or internalizing the decades of insane attacks by mad dog
reactionaries as the causes of such flagrant stupidity.
And yes, political prosecutions are legal, but highly destructive to any system that permits
such nonsense. I mean, really, it was the threat of a political prosecution that "forced" Caesar
to cross the Rubicon. The effects are rarely helpful. Consider for example one of the most notorious
political prosecutions in recent times, the impeachment of Bill Clinton. (Isn't the glee over
the Trump tape exactly like the glee over the blue dress? And just as likely to lead to anything
worthwhile?) Prof. Robin has either forgotten, or for some inexplicable reason things deems it
a good thing.
As for the election being over, the polls for Brexit or the polls for the FARC peace treaty
show that it's not over til the votes are counted, or not, as intimidation and fraud may (or may
not) determine. There isn't the slightest reason to be sure the down ballot Republican Party is
going to be dragged down by the candidate the party has resisted from the beginning.
It all depends on turnout. The relentless assault on Clinton will probably have its desired
effect of suppressing turnout. The humane feelings of the population at large have always suggested
the majority will endorse Clinton, who passes for human much better than Trump. But the US political
system is designed for minority rule. It's still too possible for Trump to win the electoral college.
Although CT and its commentariat unhesitatingly support the same viciously reactionary policies
in action under Obama (even as they pretend on occasion to oppose them as they predict Clinton's
future,) those same fundamentally incompetent policies leave Trump hope for a disaster that seemingly
vindicates him.
Last and least, the question of Trump's precedents is irrelevant when the gravity of Trump's
precedents are falsified. Trump's closest precedent is Nixon. The historical revisionism where
Nixon was just another conservative implicitly tells us Watergate was an unjust power grab by
malign liberal media. This is part and parcel of the increasing move towards reaction.
53@ The majority of Americans wanted her charged for her actions.
You're welcome to believe that her use of the private server (in direct violation of State
department guidelines, but useful when avoiding FOI requests), mishandling of classified materials,
and destruction of evidence merit no charges, or even investigation, as long as you understand
most Americans wanted her charged for her actions.
Her corruption is the corruption of the 1%, whom she serves. Her wars are the wars of the
1%. Her supporters are the elite 1%. The recent leaks confirm collusion between the Hillary campaign
and the DNC to tilt the primary in favor of Hillary. The most recent leaks confirm the Obama WH
and the Kerry State department worked to suppress evidence and FOI requests.
I don't dispute that parts of the Trump campaign are about 'revenge' or at least replying in
kind. The attacks on Bill's predatory sexual behavior is certainly that. The email case is simply
an illustrative example of elite corruption involving various branches of government, the media,
the Clinton foundation and a global list of grifters.
Some partisans suggest that Clinton was never going to be charged because the WH has known
from day 1 that charging Clinton would also mean charging Obama, who knew of the server from day
1, and well aware how insecure the system for handling State documents actually was. Hard as it
may be to imagine (and it is hard to imagine at this juncture) Clinton might not be the only one
indicted should Trump win and get his special prosecutor.
The world will certainly look very different should he pull this out. Hard to imagine.
@ 55 stevenjohnson. I have no problem with much of this, or most of your comments. You're quite
right to draw our attention to the grave insecurities in America's cyber defenses. I'm certainly
not one who sees the outcome as certain. The health of the Republicans at the state level is very
good already, in many cases, and the revulsion for the corruption in the media and government
that is fueling Trump_vs_deep_state and support for Bernie is unlikely to decline should Trump be defeated.
marcel proust: "Furthermore, he was not singled out for prosecution & jailing; many others (thousands?)
who actively opposed US participation in WW1 also went to jail: socialists and other pacifists
including religious objectors, as well as many of German (and perhaps Irish) ancestry."
Which is how the U.S. government broke the IWW: they had had an anti-war position for as long
as they existed, but backed down on doing any actual, coordinated resistance in favor of preserving
their ability to organize workers. But that wasn't enough and they were broken anyways.
Let's not dismiss this as ancient history. Do you know who else is being charged under
the Espionage Acts of 1917? Snowden. This is still very much living U.S. law, and the people
who say that we must elect HRC at all costs are generally the same people who don't care that
Obama is using it.
This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating
to the end of the cold war. Perhaps a detour into the history of some 3rd world banana republics,
those that many Americans deem as deplorable as a Trump supporter, can shed some light.
Starting in the 50's, and with the expressed goal of modernizing their countries (meaning an
accelerated capitalist development with the US as its model and as the only possible model) military
and terror regimes took over South America (Paraguay: 1954-1991, Chile: 1973-1990, Argentina:
1976-1982, Uruguay: 1966- 1985). For the most part, before being forced out of power, these military
regimes declared amnesty for themselves. Enter truth commissions, whose purpose is to investigate
the causes of violence and human rights violations and to establish judicial responsibility.
Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as torture,
extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and the mere
mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered in undemocratic
bad taste.
Conclusion: perhaps more than a special prosecutor, a commission of truth is in order, but
not at the moment, after the US crumbles as the USSR did. Only then can 3rd worlders hope to see
Kissinger, Bush, Blair, Aznar, Obama, and all their enablers brought to justice. For the moment,
we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at preemptive amnesty, outraged
at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar is not above suspicion and that
they themselves are better than 3rd worlders.
kidneystones @48 People in authority, which includes law enforcement, knew while Clinton
was Secretary of State she was taking emails on a private server. They had to know, because
the address for the emails had to be available or they couldn't have emailed her. If it wasn't
a problem then, it isn't a problem now.
This is technically incorrect. SMTP mail is very old and pretty convoluted protocol.
Existance of private address means only that the email server exists but it does not determine
where the mailbox is located (multiple layers of redirection are possible).
the level of incompetence and malevolence that Clinton and her associated demonstrated is simple
staggering for any specialist or lawyer. Which aspects of it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt
is an interesting theoretical question, but for any specialist it is clear that Hillary not only
cut corners and but also had driven on red light. As simple as that.
The essence of emailgate is not existence of email server per se. the strongest part of evidence
against her is the saga of destroying "non-essential" emails while being under investigation and
indirectly instructing technical personnel to use special technical means which make deleted emails
unrecoverable. You might wish to look at
Based on the amount of evidence collected my personal opinion is that this might well be a
provable offence.
That means that Hillary risks impeachment if elected. So the idea of assigning special prosecutor
is baked in the case independently of who wins in November.
18 U.S. Code § 793(e) and (f). This offense carries a potential penalty of ten years imprisonment.
Executive Order 13526 "The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed
to cause damage to the national security." , Sec. 1.1(4)(d) (for violations committed after December
29, 2009)
44 U.S. Code § 3106 – Unlawful removal, destruction of records
A very simple question to you: Is not the notion of a "note relating to the national defense"
include emails, for example, emails related to the targets of drone strikes, which were present
in the steam?
As for "proper place of custody" this argument is not applicable to the deletion of emails
when a person is under federal or Congressional investigation. In this case the act of deletion
itself constitute the violation of the statute independently of the "proper place of custody"
and sensitivity of information in the email.
I would recommend to read (or re-read) URLs that were provided above. They contain wealth of
information and arguments both pro and contra. The one about 'shadow It" created by Hillary is
slightly outdated, but still useful. And they might help to answer your next questions :-)
I tend to view Hillary Clinton as a person, who escaped prosecution due to Obama pardon delivered
via Comey (probably under pressure from Bill Clinton via Loretta Lynch). Essentially putting herself
above the law, by the fact of belonging to "ruling neoliberal elite", the 0.01%. Your mileage
can vary.
Back to the OP. There's a bumper crop of new email on the topic of the press and debate moderators
colluding with the Hillary campaign to: screw Sanders (Boston Herald – also on board for anti-Trump),
minimize damage from the email fallout, and best of all (for me) John Harwood (neutral debate
moderator) providing written evidence that even that venue was tilted to damage Trump and protect
Hillary.
"They were emailed to her personal server, for her own personal use." Wrong.
The government owned emails were mailed to her government-purposed (at least in part) server
for her professional use as an employee of the federal government.
As an employee of the federal government she is bound by all (not some) federal laws respecting
government property, and by all (not some) State Department regulations regarding the handling
of government documents and electronic devices.
And whether she 'removed' the documents from their proper place for the purpose of espionage,
or not, the fact that we're now reading these emails, we are told by the Clinton campaign, thanks
to the insecurity of her private unsecured system – she's wide open to charges of gross negligence
in the handling of government documents, especially when State department regulations demand that
those with any kind of security clearance understand how government documents are to be handled
and fully comply with all protective measures.
Comey called her handling of sensitive documents 'extremely careless.'
That alone provides solid grounds for charges and a trial.
@112 Thanks for the clarity – you agree that she acted well outside the law. You agree there are
grounds to charge her and to proceed with a trial. Good.
I'm quite comfortable leaving charges and the trial to a special prosecutor, as Trump promises.
The majority of Americans certainly held the view that charges and a trial are warranted.
If you're of the opinion that she shouldn't be charged for possible crimes until after the
election, go ahead and make that case.
@119 Determining guilt, or innocence is not the job of the FBI. The job of the FBI is to determine
if there are grounds for charges to be laid.
"I said it appeared plausible she might have obstructed justice."
Let's first provide Hillary with a trial in order to determine if she actually committed
any crime. That's normally how it works. Then after the verdict if she's found guilty,
you're welcome to suggest appropriate punishment.
Still waiting for an answer: put Hillary on trial now, or after the election.
The entire exercise is, of course, absurd. As we've learned, US and UK politicians lie routinely
to investigators over starting wars, torturing people, targeting dissidents for special treatment,
punishing whistle-blowers, lying to the public, etc. with complete impunity.
The mere suggestion that Ted Kennedy, or George Bush, or Hillary Clinton would ever be
charged with any crime is laughable. Punishments and trials are for 'ordinary' citizens.
Obama called Sanders a 'shiny new object' while praising Clinton for
overcoming adversity
•
10/10/16 2:30pm
In an
interview
with Fox News this past April, President
Obama
asserted that he did not put pressure on the FBI's criminal
investigation into
Hillary Clinton's
private email server
. "I guarantee that there is no political influence in
any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI-not just in
this case but in any case," he said. There is now mounting evidence suggesting
Obama's claim was false.
"Newly disclosed emails show top
Obama
Administration officials were in close contact with
Hillary
Clinton
's nascent presidential campaign in early 2015 about the potential
fallout from revelations that the former secretary of state used a private
email server,"
reported
Bryon Tau for
The Wall Street Journal
on October 7. The
emails were obtained by the Republican National Committee through a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
requesting those records.
A few months before White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri
went to work for her campaign, emails show her in damage control for
Clinton
as early as 2015, when news first broke that Clinton's private
server existed. In one chain of emails between Palmieri and State Department
spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, Palmieri asked Psaki to ensure that Secretary of
State John Kerry wasn't asked about
Clinton's
private email server
during an upcoming CBS interview. "Good to go on
killing CBS idea," Psaki responded back to Palmieri, according to the
Journal
,
adding, "going to hold on any other TV options just given the swirl of crap out
there."
In March 2015,
The New York Times
reported
that
Obama
said he didn't know
Clinton
was using a private email address. That turned out to be false, as
the second
FBI
report on their investigation into
Clinton's
private server
revealed
that the president used a pseudonym in email communications with
her. "How is this not classified?"
Clinton
aide Huma Abedin
asked
the FBI during their interview. Obama's use of a pseudonym suggests
he not only was aware of Clinton's private server, but he knew it wasn't
secured to communicate with
Clinton
, as there were no security officers to mark the correspondence as
classified.
Obama's administration has intervened to delay several FOIA requests until
after Election Day to shield
Clinton
from further scrutiny.
In October 2015, the White House
stopped
the release of emails between
Clinton
and Obama, citing the need to keep presidential communications
confidential.
In June, the Obama administration stepped in to
delay
the State Department fulfilling an FOIA request from International
Business Times for emails regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership until 2017.
"The delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a
court
motion
to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to
more quickly comply with open records requests for
Clinton
-era State Department documents,"
reported
David
Sirota.
President Obama has also repeatedly
defended
Clinton
when questioned about her
private server
,
blaming
the controversy on politics. But while the
FBI
was conducting an investigation, Obama should have refrained from
making his own judgment on the case.
This was the consensus among the
Democratic
Party
establishment: provide
Clinton
with impunity. No presidential candidate has ever won their party's
nomination while under a FBI investigation, yet the
Democratic Party
, with the president's support, protected
Clinton
throughout the private email server controversy. Though Obama
waited until after the end of the
Democratic primaries
to formally endorse
Clinton
, his support and praise throughout the primaries favored her. In
October 2015, CNN
reported
a top
Obama
strategist said he would support
Clinton
.
In a January interview with Politico, Obama
denigrated
Sen.
Bernie
Sanders'
support, calling him a "shiny new object" while praising Clinton
for overcoming adversity.
The
State Department Inspector General
and
FBI
Director
James Comey
issued severe criticisms in their reports on Hillary Clinton's
use of a
private server
. But to merit an indictment, the
FBI
would have been forced to be even more aggressive in their
investigation than usual. The investigation had already been polarized
politically, while
Clinton's
staff were granted immunity and a team of lawyers guided
Clinton
every step of the way throughout the investigation. For similar
reasons to why big bankers don't get indicted anymore,
Clinton
managed to avoid the FBI recommending an indictment. The political
climate in which all
Democratic Party
leaders stood behind
Clinton
,
that Obama affirmed repeatedly, made it virtually impossible for
Clinton
to be held accountable.
"... Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice ..."
"... Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Sidney Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties. She was lead counsel in more than 500 federal appeals. She is the author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice -a legal thriller that tells the inside story of high-profile prosecutions. ..."
"... Face the Nation ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Many Americans, you once told students at the University of New Hampshire, "don't seem to appreciate the link between what happens abroad and what happens here at home." Can you think of ways to strengthen that weak link? ..."
"... Name three people aside from yourself that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton should pick as the next Secretary of State? ..."
"... So forgive and forget? ..."
"... This interview was edited and condensed ..."
"... Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media. ..."
"... City & State ..."
"... City & State ..."
"... The New Republic ..."
"... International Business Times ..."
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... Social Science and Medicine ..."
"... Health Psychology ..."
"... John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. He can be reached at ..."
"... This story has been updated to clarify that the state's plan to rebuild the its transportation system includes federal funds and other sources. ..."
Former federal prosecutor says that Hillary obstructed justice and destroyed evidence-with
the support of the president himself • 10/11/16 8:30am
Just when one thinks the cavalier cabal of Clinton and her cronies has exhausted all manner of corruption,
yet another outrage surfaces, implicating even more people.
The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary's
closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson-who, despite being attorneys, destroyed
evidence right and left-but, in a secret side deal, agreed to
limit the FBI's review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops
when the FBI review was complete.
Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction
of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.
We no longer have a Department of Justice: We have a Department of Obstructing and Corrupting
Justice to protect the power elite of the chosen side.
It's easy to see now why Lynch
secretly met Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac on June 27. Only a few days later, the FBI had
its little chat with Hillary-neither under oath nor with a rights warning-in the presence of her
coconspirators. Then, Hillary announced she would keep Lynch as Attorney General if she is elected
president. Surely by coincidence, the very next day Comey does his song and dance ending the "investigation."
Comey's "investigation" was a
farce . Any former prosecutor worth a flip would have convened a grand jury, issued subpoenas,
gotten search warrants, seized computers, run wire taps, indicted the Clinton cabal, and squeezed
the underlings to plead guilty and cooperate. This business of friendly chats, immunity agreements
handed out like party favors, and side deals that include the Attorney General approving the destruction
of evidence to keep it from Congress doesn't happen for others targeted by the feds.
Just ask any number of
Wall Street executives who for various reasons found themselves on the opposite side of the Department
of "Justice." In fact, my former client, Jim Brown, served a year in prison convicted of perjury
and obstruction of justice for testifying about his personal understanding of a telephone call to
which he was not even a party. Yes, you read that correctly. Read
Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice . It becomes more
relevant every day.
How did we get here?
Thanks to the work of
Judicial Watch and others, we learned over a year ago now that Hillary Clinton ran the most important
and confidential of world affairs and the United States Department of State through an unsecured
computer server assembled by her minions and ensconced in the basement of her New York home. She
did so despite repeated warnings of security risks, against protocol, and contrary to her
own memo to all of her underlings. That posed no problem simply because the rules don't apply
to
Clinton .
Conveniently, her server also handled
Clinton Foundation correspondence that facilitated the personal enrichment of Hillary and Bill
by hundreds of millions of dollars. That money came from Bill's remarkable "
speaking fees " at hundreds of events around the world-each of which was quickly approved as
requested by Clinton crony
Cheryl Mills at the State Department-as if there were no
conflict of interest . Simultaneously, foreign entities made "donations" of hundreds of millions
of dollars to the Clinton Foundation to obtain the immediate attention of and curry favor with the
secretary of state-and it worked.
The personal home server allowed Hillary Clinton to send and receive all of her emails and run
the State Department free from protected, secure, and
required government channels. It was established deliberately to circumvent the Federal Records
Act and the Freedom of Information Act-both of which applied to her work-related correspondence.
That was no problem for Clinton however, as she simply "didn't know how to use a computer," apparently
was incapable of learning to do so (unlike most toddlers in the country), and she liked her Blackberry-which
was reason enough for her highness to ignore the national security interests of the entire country.
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: 'My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.'
Clinton's insistence on operating outside the government security protocols demonstrated at best
deliberate disregard for the law and national security-and, at worst, conduct that was treasonous.
That is why 18 USC 793 (d) and (f) make it a crime punishable by imprisonment for
10 years to even move
any information relating to the national defense from secure conditions or to fail to return it upon
demand. Clinton did both-repeatedly.
The unsecure server also facilitated the clearly conflicting roles of Clinton confidant and protégé
Huma Abedin, who was paid simultaneously by the Clinton Foundation and the taxpayers through the
State Department. That made it easier for the double-dipping Abedin to schedule meetings quickly
for Clinton with those who had paid to play-substantial donors to the Foundation, such as the Crown
Prince of Bahrain, who had been denied a face-to-face through those pesky State Department protocols
in place for mere mortals. His millions in contributions to the Foundation got him an appointment
with Clinton through Abedin in a matter of hours.
We wrote more than a year ago-as soon as we heard one Clinton server was "wiped"-about
the Countless Crimes of Hillary Clinton . We foresaw the need for a special prosecutor and predicted
that if emails could be found, they would likely implicate high ranking people across the government,
including the president.
Lo and behold, President Obama, who told the country he heard of Clinton's
private email from news reports, was in reality emailing her at Clintonemail.com and using an
alias. He must have forgotten. But, wait-just this week, we get more emails, and there's now evidence
that the
White House and the State Department coordinated an attempt
to minimize the problem.
Now we have a candidate for president of the United States who has committed lie after lie, obstructed
justice, and destroyed evidence with the support of the president himself-conduct for which many
people are in prison. Sometimes it's called False Statements to federal officials, punishable by
up to five years in prison under 18 USC
1001 . Under other circumstances, such as in sworn statements to federal judges or testimony
to Congress, it can be perjury under
18 USC 1621 or 1623.
And let's not forget obstruction of justice under 18 USC 1519. That statute was tailor-made to
fit the facts of the Clinton cabal's destruction of evidence. It reads:
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a
false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence
the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department
or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation
of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or
both.
Remember the man relentlessly prosecuted by the feds for throwing a few fish overboard?
That
case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for them to decide that fish weren't the kind
of tangible objects/evidence to which Congress intended the new obstruction statute to apply. But
emails, computers, and servers are. Senator Clinton voted for that new statute-but it doesn't apply
to her. Well, it would, but Loretta Lynch and James Comey just agreed to destroy evidence of it themselves.
These false statement and obstruction offenses are so easy to prove that prosecutors often tack
them on to already multi-count indictments just for good measure when they want to hammer Wall Street
bankers or other citizens and business people who actually work for a living.
How many of these federal criminal offenses are established by the limited evidence that has been
pried out of the Clintons' hands or resurrected from unsuccessful although mighty attempts to destroy
it? They are truly countless, as each email would be a separate charge but, for the sake of brevity,
we'll just pick three or four-that don't even include all the conspiracy charge options routinely
used by "reasonable" prosecutors.
First, Clinton
testified to Congress that she "turned over all of her work-related emails." Second, she "only
wanted to use one device." Later, she chose her words carefully, claiming "nothing was marked classified
when it was sent or received." That sounds good to people who are not lawyers, but it's Clintonese
and not the law.
She "turned over all her work emails"?
First, her friend Sidney Blumenthal found a number of emails he exchanged with her about confidential
matters of State that she didn't produce. Next, that pesky Pentagon found over 1,000 emails between
Hillary and General Petraeus alone. Most recently, the FBI found roughly
15,000 Clinton thought had been erased completely when she had her servers "wiped" professionally
with BleachBit. We'll never know how many were deliberately destroyed to protect her incompetence
and corruption. Mills, Samuelson, and others at Platte River Networks destroyed whatever they wanted.
As both secretary of state and an attorney who had long been paid by the taxpayers, Clinton should
know that information "relating to the national defense" is what is protected under 18 USC 793(f).
It doesn't have to be "classified"-marked or unmarked-even though much of it was.
Sure, let's give her the presidency and the nuclear codes and access to every national secret-ISIS
can just hack her and use our own missiles to destroy us. They won't have to worry about trying to
bring nukes into the country.
Clinton may have only wanted "one device," but the truth is that
she had 13 "personal mobile devices that were lost, discarded, or destroyed."
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson has an excellent timeline of irrefutable, no-spin facts derived from
the part of the FBI's file that has been made public. The timeline of events alone is damning.
Not surprisingly, Attkisson reports that "[a]fter the State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her
records would be sought by the House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her
attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with Bleachbit, and the FBI couldn't review
them. After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton's email archive was also permanently deleted
from her then-server 'PRN' with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn't review it."
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: "My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation."
I guess that's why they invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination, had
hard-drives wiped, destroyed devices with hammers, put the selected emails in the hands
of her attorney and refused to produce them for weeks, while her staff all refused to speak without
grants of immunity or took the Fifth. I guess it just depends on how you define "cooperation."
Enter stage left James Comey, Director of the FBI, who fills himself with righteous indignation
to tell Congress what a great job the FBI did in this "investigation." As Congressman
Trey Gowdy said , and I concur, "This isn't the FBI I used to work with."
Clinton ran her shenanigans without an Inspector General in the State Department. An Inspector
General is appointed by the President, but his or her job is to serve as a watchdog on behalf of
the taxpayers. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Clinton
declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure-so there
was no internal oversight, and President Obama allowed that. More than a year ago, the Inspector
Generals for State and for the Intelligence Community conducted a limited review of only 40 of Clinton's
emails. They quickly found several containing
classified information which they immediately reported to the executive branch and advised Congress.
They
wrote : "This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal
system."
Remember Richard Nixon? Remember Attorney General John Mitchell? Remember White House Counsel
John Dean? Nixon White House cronies Haldeman and Erlichman?
They all went
to prison .
It's not just the private server. It's not about personal emails or even a few business emails
sent from a personal account.
It is about the fair administration of justice and trust in our justice system. It is about the
accountability of our highest officials. It is about destroying evidence in the face of a serious
investigation. It is about national security breaches of the highest order, and it's about the privatization
and sale of our State Department for personal enrichment. The conduct of the Clintons, their cronies,
their Foundation, and now our highest law enforcement officials make the entire Watergate scandal
look like an insignificant computer hack.
Where is the Congress? Where are what used to be our great newspapers? The sounds of silence are
terrifying indicators of how government-controlled our mainstream media has become. I guess that's
why Reporters Without Borders has dropped our Freedom of Press rank to 46 th world-wide.
FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch should be impeached for their roles
in whitewashing
Clinton's crimes and their own participation in the destruction of evidence . They facilitated
and participated in the obstruction of justice-spitting in the face of the Congressional investigation.
Congress should be able to name a special prosecutor when the Attorney General has a clear conflict-such
as meeting secretly with Bill Clinton during the "investigation" and receiving a promise of continuing
as Attorney General if Hillary is elected President. The timeline of events and their conduct reek
of corruption.
Stay tuned. Clinton's answers under oath to D.C. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan are due October
13. Remember, he's the judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Department of
Justice following the Bush administration's corrupted prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
And it was Judge John Sirica-combined with what was then the great Washington Post -who
exposed the Nixon corruption.
With more and more government intrusion in every aspect of our individual businesses and lives,
we are quickly losing the land of the free, and we now must wonder if any of the brave are home.
Who has the chutzpah to stand up to the Clintons? Where are the real Americans? Hopefully, on election
day, they will pour out in droves and resoundingly demand real change. The election and Judge Sullivan
are our only chances for justice at all.
Sidney Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts
under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties. She was lead counsel in more than
500 federal appeals. She is the author of
Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice -a legal thriller that tells
the inside story of high-profile prosecutions.
"... Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete documents without providing anyone outside her circle a chance to weigh in. It smacks of acting above the law ..."
"... That sums up the Clintons right there: It smacks of acting above the law ..."
"... I've been browsing through #PodestaEmails2 and jeezus, there are some pretty incriminating docs there. Of course the MSM are doing their best to ignore them, but it looks like a real firestorm to me. ..."
More wikileaks, some interesting detail on Hill's emails I hadn't run
across before:
why the "twisted truth" (not my words) on why – with the two
problematic areas being (a) emails to bill (when they were to bill's
staff) and (b) i only used one device - BB, when 2 weeks earlier, it was
an iphone, BB and ipad. As Ann and I discussed, hopefully that's a timing
issue and whilst in state, she only used one. :)
While we all know of the occasional use of personal email addresses
for business, none of my friends circle can understand how it was viewed
as ok/secure/appropriate to use a private server for secure documents AND
why further
Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete
documents without providing anyone outside her circle a chance to weigh
in. It smacks of acting above the law
and it smacks of the type of
thing I've either gotten discovery sanctions for, fired people for, etc.
My emphasis
From Erika Rottenberg (former Linked In General Counsel)
To Stephanie Hannon (CTO of Hillary For America), Ann O'Leary (senior policy
advisor)
CC Lindsay Roitman
Fwded to Podesta
That sums up the Clintons right there: It smacks of acting above
the law
I've been browsing through #PodestaEmails2 and jeezus, there are
some pretty incriminating docs there. Of course the MSM are doing their
best to ignore them, but it looks like a real firestorm to me.
"... Contradicting FBI view, Clinton's leaked speeches portray her as computer savvy McClatchy ..."
"... charged with a computer facilitated crime – computer illiterate ..."
"... charged with generating funds from Silicon valley financiers – computer savvy… ..."
"... Public position, private position, Dan. She has been completely forthright about this. ;-) ..."
"... Similar to choosing Clinton for President despite her record of leading from behind on good things and disastrously wrong choices in financial policy and oversight, Foreign Policy and civil rights, choosing to listen to one thing Richard Rubin says after decades of evidence that he couldn't find his hands in front of his face on a sunny day… Oh wait these are only failures and disasters if you aren't part of the in crowd. ..."
"... there is a ton of material both in those emails AND from the hurricane where Clinton is extremely vulnerable. Attack her on the record of her actions and of the Foundation in Haiti and tie her to the dead from the hurricane (justified). Point out what her statements regarding the trade deals, Social Security, Medicare. even sending your kids to war. He has an opportunity and material, but can he or will he use it? ..."
Contradicting FBI view, Clinton's leaked speeches portray her as computer savvy McClatchy
Pretty simple charged with a computer facilitated crime – computer illiterate charged with generating funds from Silicon valley financiers – computer savvy…
Similar to choosing Clinton for President despite her record of leading from behind on good
things and disastrously wrong choices in financial policy and oversight, Foreign Policy and civil
rights, choosing to listen to one thing Richard Rubin says after decades of evidence that he couldn't
find his hands in front of his face on a sunny day… Oh wait these are only failures and disasters
if you aren't part of the in crowd.
I believe we will know how serious Trump is if he manages to shift the conversation tonight
to Clinton's own quotes and what they mean. He will have to say his prepared piece in answer to
the planted questions and refuse to let them get under his skin, ignore the bait to attack back
on that. Who knows if he can.
But there is a ton of material both in those emails AND from the
hurricane where Clinton is extremely vulnerable. Attack her on the record of her actions and of
the Foundation in Haiti and tie her to the dead from the hurricane (justified). Point out what
her statements regarding the trade deals, Social Security, Medicare. even sending your kids to
war. He has an opportunity and material, but can he or will he use it?
And WikiLeaks makes it official, Obama knew about Hilary's email, of
course he knew. So a bald-faced lie from the president of the United
States to millions of Americans:
"... Marshall's central importance to the Clintons' political operations was realized earlier this year by Citizens United. The conservative watchdog group filed a federal lawsuit for Marshall's State Department emails. ..."
"... At State, Marshall served as chief of protocol from 2009 to 2013. In that role, she helped the State Department and White House manage issues related to diplomatic protocol. ..."
"... The emails, which appear to be from Marshall's Gmail account, span the period from March 2015 through June 2016. ..."
Marshall's central importance to the Clintons' political operations was realized earlier this
year by Citizens United. The conservative watchdog group
filed a federal lawsuit for Marshall's State Department emails.
At State, Marshall served as chief of protocol from 2009 to 2013. In that role, she helped the
State Department and White House manage issues related to diplomatic protocol.
She entered the Clinton sphere during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, working as a
special assistant to Hillary Clinton. She later worked on Clinton's senatorial and presidential campaigns,
helping lead fundraising efforts.
The DC Leaks emails appear to be authentic.
The emails, which appear to be from Marshall's Gmail account, span the period from March 2015
through June 2016.
EMAIL RELEASE: Citizens United Releases 198 Pages Of Emails Between State Department And Clinton
Foundation
10/05/2016
Today Citizens United is releasing 198 pages of emails between the State Department and Clinton
Foundation on a host of issues.
43 of the pages have to do with the creation of the "Friends of the Clinton Centre" 501c3,
its connection to an official State Department trip to Ireland, and a dinner that Secretary Clinton
attended that doesn't appear on her schedule.
Other topics include China, Haiti, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, and more.
The specter of foreign influence and the appearance of conflicts of interest are critically
important issues. We will continue to release emails such as these in the weeks and months to
come.
In these emails, you'll find the following:
• "Is this accurate?"
• "Following Secretary Clinton's lecture at Dublin City University…Patrick McDermott will provide
a room for us for a brief discussion on the Friends of the Clinton Centre 501…"
• "And what does Megan Rodham have to do with this"
• "…asked wjc to help avoid currency legislation b/c it'll mean lots of Chinese businesses
collapsing…"
• "When HRC visited Sarajevo, she proposed a program to train Bosnian entrepreneurs through
the Clinton Foundation(?)"
• "Oh come on…you can make this happen…"
• "Jake - unfortunately, like a bad penny, I'll keep turning up one way or another."
• "Kicking DS off"
• "Greetings from Jet Li"
• "[REDACTED] wants barbados"
• "I think it should be okay. We have interacted with this guy."
Sadly, this is just business as usual for the FBI. Hoover accepted valuable gifts from wealthy
friends and refused to acknowledge the existence of the mob, much less prosecute them.
The entire hearings and so-called investigations surrounding Hillary's emails are a theatrical
production designed to make it appear as though the US Feral gangster government actually cares
about enforcing the Rule of Law. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone of the posturing
DemonRat–ReplutoRat Party political parasites have been bribed to NOT enforce the Law against
other political parasites, the banking gangsters, Con Street swindlers, criminal crony capitalist
conporations and filthy Oligarchs.
Not one single current or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster will ever be charged with
a crime by our corrupt US Department of Corruption, Injustice & Persecution. Not one single current
or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster will ever be prosecuted for their violations of any
US Federal criminal statutes. Not one single current or former KKK (Klinton Krime Klan) gangster
will ever see the inside of a prison cell regarding the innumerable Federal felonies committed
by the KKK (Klinton Krime Klan).
The investigations and hearings are all smoke and mirrors political theater. Enjoy it for the
sick display of utter corruption and indifference on display by the political parasites and government
gangster thugs (FBi). Remember it well when these criminals are begging for mercy at the gallows
and guillotines. Don't be swayed by their protestations of innocence at that time. They are all
very corrupt, very willing participants in the looting of America and the destruction of the Rule
of Law. They all richly deserve their eventual dates at the gallows and guillotines.
"... Today, Jason Chaffetz, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a follow-up letter requesting additional information and blasting the investigative process in which the "FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters." ..."
"... But, perhaps the most startling takeaway from the Chaffetz letter is that limitations imposed by "side agreements" with Mills and Samuelson strictly prohibited the FBI from investigating the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional subpoena . ..."
"... Even more disturbing, Chaffetz points out that the FBI agreed to the "side agreements" in June 2016 at which point they were already aware that Combetta deleted Hillary's emails using Bleachbit on 3/31/15 after a conference call with Cheryl Mills and Hillary attorney, David Kendall. That said, the restrictions imposed by the "side agreements" strictly prohibited the FBI from reviewing Mills' emails during that period which could have spoken to her intent to destroy evidence. ..."
Two days ago the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), wrote a letter
to AG Lynch that, for the first time, revealed that the FBI apparently struck "side agreements"
with both Cheryl Mills an Heather Samuelson to, among other things, "destroy" their "laptops after
concluding their search" (see "
FBI Allowed 2 Hillary Aides To "Destroy" Their Laptops In Newly Exposed 'Side Agreements' ").
Today, Jason Chaffetz, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a follow-up
letter requesting additional information and blasting the investigative process in which the
"FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject
of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters."
But, perhaps the most startling takeaway from the Chaffetz letter is that limitations
imposed by "side agreements" with Mills and Samuelson strictly prohibited the FBI from investigating
the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional
subpoena . As pointed out by Chaffetz, the "side agreements" allowed the FBI to
only review emails between 6/1/14 through 2/1/15 and only those sent/received by one of Clinton's
four email addresses used during her tenure as Secretary of State .
Even more disturbing, Chaffetz points out that the FBI agreed to the "side agreements" in June
2016 at which point they were already aware that Combetta deleted Hillary's emails using Bleachbit
on 3/31/15 after a conference call with Cheryl Mills and Hillary attorney, David Kendall. That said,
the restrictions imposed by the "side agreements" strictly prohibited the FBI from reviewing Mills'
emails during that period which could have spoken to her intent to destroy evidence.
But, as always, we're sure the DOJ and FBI will promptly clarify all of these new questions in
a completely open and transparent way.
"prohibited the FBI from investigating the "intent" of Hillary's staff to obstruct justice
and/or destroy evidence subject to a Congressional subpoena"
Um… yeah, that was the whole purpose of the exercise..
People should be impeached here.
Start with Loretta for her tarmac golf and grandkid discussions with Bill and supervision of
the Hillary/FBI travesty.
Their hubris is what is shocking and frightening. Like a blitz they are trying to overwhelm the
rule of law. Like rabid dogs they are willing to take some hits if they can make it to the throats
of the system. Conspiracy theories of sleeper cells and fifth columns have nothing on the pervasive
nature of the threat we face.
While this election may be the last chance it is only the start since to root out this threat
to the Republic makes cancer look like a mild cold. These people are insidious and liberty loving
people better be prepared to stand on Election Day and beyond.
The Clinton Dynasty might be seeing what is happening and buying "no extradition agreement" with
some foreign countries and the getting the money "out of Dodge" before she loses. Every American
should read this and linked followups of this:
"... Only three references to Comey as a "Treas-Weasel" appear in a Google search. ..."
"... Are there no longer any "deep throats" left at the FBI? Because now would be an excellent opportunity for one of them to start making phone calls – but to who? Greenwald maybe? He seems to be the only investigative journalist left but he doesn't even live in this country .. ..."
"I knew there were going to be all kinds of rocks thrown, but this organization and the people who did this are honest,
independent people."
Well Comey, it is not that we do not trust the agents, we do not trust the leadership. If any of the
underground reports I have seen are indications, the agents were trying and struggling to do their jobs.
Are there no longer any "deep throats" left at the FBI? Because now would be an excellent opportunity for one of them to start
making phone calls – but to who? Greenwald maybe? He seems to be the only investigative journalist left but he doesn't even live
in this country ..
"... GOP lawmakers focused in particular on the Justice Department's decision to give a form of immunity to Clinton lawyers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson to obtain computers containing emails related to the case. ..."
"... Republicans also questioned why Mills and Samuelson were allowed to attend Clinton's July 2 interview at FBI headquarters as her attorneys, given that they had been interviewed as witnesses in the email probe. ..."
"... "I don't think there's any reasonable prosecutor out there who would have allowed two immunized witnesses central to the prosecution and proving the case against her to sit in the room with the FBI interview of the subject of that investigation," said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a former U.S. attorney. He said those circumstances signaled that the decision not to prosecute Clinton was already made when she sat down for the interview. ..."
"... Ratcliffe said Clinton and the others should have been called to a grand jury, where no one is allowed to accompany the witness. ..."
"You can call us wrong, but don't call us weasels. We are not weasels," Comey declared
Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. "We are honest people and whether or not you
agree with the result, this was done the way you want it to be done."
... ... ...
"I would be in big trouble, and I should be in big trouble, if I did something like that,"
said Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). "There seems to be different strokes for different folks.
I think there's a heavy hand coming from someplace else."
Comey insisted there is no double standard, though he said there would be serious consequences -
short of criminal prosecution - if FBI personnel handled classified information as Clinton and
her aides did.
... ... ...
Republicans suggested there were numerous potential targets of prosecution in the case and
repeatedly questioned prosecutors' decisions to grant forms of immunity to at least five people
in connection with the probe.
"You cleaned the slate before you even knew. You gave immunity to people that you were going to
need to make a case if a case was to be made," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
GOP lawmakers focused in particular on the Justice Department's decision to give a form of
immunity to Clinton lawyers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson to obtain computers containing
emails related to the case.
"Laptops don't go to the Bureau of Prisons," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said. "The immunity was
not for the laptop, it was for Cheryl Mills."
The FBI director repeated an explanation he gave for the first time at a Senate hearing Tuesday,
that the deal to get the laptops was wise because subpoenaing computers from an attorney would be
complex and time consuming.
"Anytime you know you're subpoenaing a laptop from a lawyer that involved a lawyer's practice
of law, you know you're getting into a big megillah," Comey said.
Republicans also questioned why Mills and Samuelson were allowed to attend Clinton's July 2
interview at FBI headquarters as her attorneys, given that they had been interviewed as witnesses
in the email probe.
"I don't think there's any reasonable prosecutor out there who would have allowed two immunized
witnesses central to the prosecution and proving the case against her to sit in the room with the
FBI interview of the subject of that investigation," said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a former
U.S. attorney. He said those circumstances signaled that the decision not to prosecute Clinton
was already made when she sat down for the interview.
"I don't think there's any reasonable prosecutor out there who would have allowed two
immunized witnesses central to the prosecution and proving the case against her to sit in the
room with the FBI interview of the subject of that investigation," said Rep. John Ratcliffe
(R-Texas), a former U.S. attorney. He said those circumstances signaled that the decision not to
prosecute Clinton was already made when she sat down for the interview.
"If colleagues of ours believe I am lying about when I made this decision, please urge them to
contact me privately so we can have a conversation about this," Comey said. "The decision was
made after that because I didn't know what was going to happen during the interview. She would
maybe lie in the interview in a way we could prove."
Comey also said it wasn't the FBI's role to dictate who could or couldn't act as Clinton's
lawyers. "I would also urge you to tell me what tools we have as prosecutors and investigators to
kick out of the interview someone that the subject says is their lawyer," the FBI chief said,
while acknowledging he'd never encountered such a situation before.
Ratcliffe said Clinton and the others should have been called to a grand jury, where no one
is allowed to accompany the witness.
Comey did say there was no chance of charges against Mills or Samuelson by the time of the
Clinton interview.
"... He said he wasn't aware one of Mrs. Clinton 's tech staffers called the deletion of her emails a "coverup operation," but said none of the other information made public about grants of immunity or efforts to delete the messages has changed his mind. ..."
"... Mr. Comey also said he couldn't remember another instance where the subject of an investigation - Mrs. Clinton 's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, sat in on the FBI 's interview with another subject, in this case Mrs. Clinton . ..."
He said he wasn't aware one of
Mrs. Clinton
's tech staffers called the deletion of her emails a "coverup operation," but said none of the other
information made public about grants of immunity or efforts to delete the messages has changed his
mind.
Mr. Comey also
said he couldn't remember another instance where the subject of an investigation -
Mrs. Clinton
's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, sat in on the
FBI 's interview with another subject, in this case
Mrs. Clinton
.
Imagine that while George W. Bush was governor of
Texas and president of the United States, various people and companies decided
to write him checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars, just because they
thought he was a great guy. Those people and companies, just coincidentally,
happened to have interests that were affected by the policies of Texas and the
United States. But when he thanked them for their money, Bush never promised to
do anything in particular for them. You would be suspicious, right?
Now, that's roughly what has been happening with the Clinton Foundation.
Various people and companies have been writing checks for millions of dollars
to the Foundation during the same time that Hillary Clinton was secretary of
state and, following that, the most likely next president of the United
States-a title she has held since the day Barack Obama's second term began.
(The Clintons finally decided to
scale back the Foundation
earlier this week.)
... ... ...
So the real question is this: Do you think it would be appropriate for people and companies
affected by U.S. policy to be writing $1 million checks directly to the Clintons? If the answer
is yes, then you should be against any campaign finance rules whatsoever. If the answer is no,
you should be worried about the Clinton Foundation.
Vinny Idol
|
August 25, 2016 at 8:02 pm
|
I disagree whole heartedly with this post. The clinton foundation is a
big deal, because its proof positive that America was founded on Money
laundering, the elite that run this country make and made their money
through money laundering; and no one wants that in the White House. Thats
ok for the rest of America sociery, but not the government where peoples
lives hang on the balance through every speech, law and policy that is
conducted on capitol hill.
The Clintons destroyed Libya, Honduras, Haiti through their money
laundering scheme called the clinton foundation. Theres no justification
for that.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 12:40 am
|
Trump thinks very highly of Reagan, but very lowly of Mexicans, so if
Trump were to win I suspect he will secretly sell some of our nukes, this
finally giving him the financial boost needed to overtake Carlos Slim on
the list of the world's richest men. This 'deal of deals' then also
harkens back to another historical 'deal' (Iran/Contra), and of course
Reagan, while simultaneously eliminating Trump's deepest regret which is
that of being bested by a Mexican. This being the real reason that he
decided to run in the first place.
Probably though, HRC will win. The
problem there being that all of the scrutiny that she has been receiving
for so long, coupled with Bills' infidelities, and other various setbacks
and slights, have left her very angry and bitter. Combining this seething
hatred of all humans, especially men, with the fact that there has never
been a women president to look up to, HRC's only influence is a secretary
who worked for Woodrow Wilson by the name of Mildred Jingowitz, or Ms.
Jingo as she was called. Ms. Jingo stands out for HRC because she
actually wrote the Espionage Act of 1917 and the the Sedition Act of
1918. Those combining to "cover a broader range of offenses, notably
speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war
effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government
bonds."
"The Sedition Act of 1918 stated that people or countries cannot say
negative things about the government or the war."
"It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive
language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed
forces or that caused others to view the American government or its
institutions with contempt." Most importantly though, these acts gave the
Government the legal right to prosecute draft dodgers, and …these could
bring an end to at least some of the scrutiny that has plagued HRC for so
long just so long as we remain at war.
So, if you are wondering what any of this has to do with the Clinton
Foundation, well, HRC used the Foundation to facilitate at least one very
large arms deal with at least one Royal Gulfie. But it matters little
whether she used the foundation or not, HRC used her tenure at Foggy
Bottom to arrange a record number of weapons deals, and of course she is
mad as hell and determined to prove just how tough women can be (and
there is of course one man who she respects, H. Kissinger).
Anyway, it doesn't take a historian specializing in the build-up
leading to the two World Wars to figure out the rest. BOOM!!!
I'm a long-time reader. I admire what you and Simon have
done educating us about the financial crisis and its aftermath, and I
agree with most of your political positions, especially related to the
corrupting influence of money in politics. I have seen this first hand
over my years in politics and government, and I believe it is the single
most important issue we face because progress on all others depends on
it.
But in taking yet another hack at Hillary Clinton in this post, you've
contradicted yourself in a way that unravels your argument, while
engaging in false equivalencies and blowing a key fact out of proportion.
First, the internal contradiction:
"Bill and Hillary are getting on in years, they only have one child,
and she is married to a hedge fund manager. When you have that much
money, a dollar in your foundation is as good as a dollar in your bank
account. Once you have all your consumption needs covered, what do you
need money for?"
You imply, here, that the Clintons' wealth and Marc Mezvinsky's hedge
fund income have made the marginal value of another dollar in income de
minimis for the Clintons' personal finances. Then you write,
paraphrasing, that a dollar donated to the Foundation is as good as a
dollar deposited in their personal bank account; therefore, you imply,
money that goes to their foundation is as corrupting as money that goes
into their personal accounts.
You see the problem in claiming that a contribution to the Clinton
Foundation is a powerful incentive for HRC to tilt her foreign policy
positions, right? You just made the case for why a donation to the
Foundation has little personal value to the Clintons:
MV of $ to bank account = 0.
MV of $ to Foundation = MV of $ to bank account.
But you don't proceed to: Therefore, MV of $ to Foundation = 0. So,
according to your logic, there can be no corrupting influence.
You follow this, writing:
"If you're a Clinton, you want to have an impact in the world, reward
your friends, and burnish your legacy. A foundation is an excellent
vehicle for all of those purposes, for obvious reasons. It is also an
excellent way to transfer money to your daughter free of estate tax,
since she can control it after you die."
Your imply that the Clintons give equal weight to their desires to
reward their friends, burnish their legacy, and have an impact on the
world. What evidence do you have of this? Also, you implicitly denigrate
their charitable motives by describing them as a desire "to have an
impact on the world" without a nod to their clear intent to have an
impact that is profoundly constructive. You also speculate, without
providing any support, that the Foundation is a tax avoidance scheme to
enrich their daughter. I think you've crossed a line here.
Now for the false equivalencies:
"Imagine that while George W. Bush was governor of Texas and president
of the United States, various people and companies decided to write him
checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars, just because they thought he
was a great guy. Those people and companies, just coincidentally,
happened to have interests that were affected by the policies of Texas
and the United States. But when he thanked them for their money, Bush
never promised to do anything in particular for them. You would be
suspicious, right?"
Why imagine? We have the real-world case of the Saudis bailing out
George W's Harken Energy while his father was president. Of course, this
is only one example of how the lucrative Bush-Saudi relationship
generated income that went straight into the Bush "coffers".
So you implicitly compare HRC's alleged conflict related to the
family's charity with the Bush family conflict related to their own
personal bank accounts. While HW Bush, as president, made use of his long
friendship with the Saudis for the family's personal gain, HRC gave
access to the likes of the crown prince of Bahrain and Nobel Peace Prize
Winner Muhammad Yunus. Not equivalent. Not even close. I wonder how
routine it is for a Secretary of State to meet with the crown prince of
an oil-producing nation or a Nobel Prize winner versus how routine is it
for foreign oligarchs friendly to a president to bailout his son.
But at least the Saudis were allies of the US. Today, the GOP nominee
has undisclosed but apparently significant business ties to close allies
of the president of our greatest strategic adversary, and expresses his
admiration for an autocrat who is seizing territory in Europe and
terminating his opponents. I've missed your post on this one, though I'm
sure there is one.
One last point: This controversy involved some 85 meetings or
telephone calls HRC granted to Foundation donors. The media have morphed
this into 85 meetings, dropping the "and telephone calls," and made this
out to be a pretty big number. Naive readers and Hillary haters have
accepted it as such. If fact, 85 meetings and telephone calls over four
years are, well, de minimis.
Many of these donors had standing sufficient to get them in the door
whether they gave to the Foundation or not. But let's say all of them
gained access solely as a result of their donations. Over the four years
HRC was Secretary of State, 85 meetings and telephone calls work out to
1.8 meetings/calls per month. Let's make a guess that she met or talked
on the phone with an average of 15 people a day. So, one of every 250
people HRC met or had a phone call with each month, or 21 out of 3000
each year, would have secured their contact with her by donating to the
Foundation. 85 doesn't look so big in context, especially since no one
has presented any evidence of any quid pro quos.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 2:42 am
|
Philip,
The 85 meetings occurred during about half of HRC's term and I've not
heard anyone else dilute things with "phone calls".
Plus, the Bahrainis
were approved for a major arms deal after donating. The Prince tried to
make an appointment with HRC privately, but was made to go through State
Dept. channels before being allowed a meeting.
HRC was also involved in the selling of more weapons in her term than
all of those occurring during the Bush 43 terms combined.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 2:50 am
|
Philip.
Also, there is this:
"You had a situation, that The Wall Street Journal reported, where
Hillary Clinton herself intervened in a case dealing with taxes with UBS,
a Swiss bank, and then, suddenly, after that, UBS began donating big to
the Clinton Foundation. So there are many examples of-I mean, there's oil
companies-that's another one I should mention right now, which is that
oil companies were giving big to the Clinton Foundation while lobbying
the State Department-successfully-for the passage of the Alberta Clipper,
the tar sands pipeline."
David Sarota, interview:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/25/weapons_pipelines_wall_st_did_clinton
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 9:40 am
|
Other noteworthy donors to the Clinton Foundation:
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch
Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media
Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters
Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,000-$1,000,000
Google
News Corporation Foundation
Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent company
$250,000-$500,000
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publisher
Richard Mellon Scaife
Owner of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
$100,000-$250,000
Abigail Disney
Documentary filmmaker
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Howard Stringer
Former CBS, CBS News and Sony executive
Intermountain West Communications Company
Local television affiliate owner (formerly Sunbelt Communications)
$50,000-$100,000
Bloomberg L.P.
Discovery Communications Inc.
George Stephanopoulos
ABC News chief anchor and chief political correspondent
Mort Zuckerman
Owner of New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report
Time Warner Inc.
Owner of CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting
First, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a cite
supporting the statement that move arms sales occurred during HRC's four
years than during W's eight years. I'd like to look under the cover of
that one.
Also, it's important to note that a lot more people are involved in
approving arms sales than the SoS, including Republicans on the Hill.
Second, the AP touted its original story as being "meetings" but when
you read the story itself you found it was "meetings and phone calls."
Subsequently, the media and commentariat referred to 85 meetings,
dropping reference to phone calls.
Now for the arms sales to Bahrain. This one is especially juicy
because it's an excellent example of how HRC is being tarred.
The US has massive military assets in Bahrain, which hosts the largest
US military outpost in the Gulf. We've been making massive arms sale to
Bahrain for many years. So no surprise that we'd make some when HRC was
SoS.
And considering the strategic importance of Bahrain, there's no
surprise in HRC meeting with the crown prince. The surprise would be if
she declined to do so.
Now, if memory serves, and I encourage you to check me on this, the US
suspended arms sales to Bahrain while HRC was SoS in response to the
Bahrain's suppression of dissent among its Shia minority. Later, we
partially lifted the suspension to allow sales of arms Related to
protecting our huge naval base in Bahrain. I think this decision also
came while HRC was SoS.
So, the arm sales to Bahrain illustrates my objections to the facile
claims that contributions to the CF suggest that HRC is corrupt. These
claims bring one sliver of information to the discussion: so and so
donated money to the CF and then talked to HRC on the phone (or got a
meeting). No evidence is produced that there's a causal relationship
between the two much less a quid pro quo in which the donation and
meeting led HRC to act in an official capacity to benefit the
contributor.
All of the examples I've seen so far, the oil companies, UBS, etc. are
like this. No context, no evidence of a quid pro quo, all inuendo.
publiustex
|
August 26, 2016 at 10:20 am
|
I consider some of these contributors to be unsavory, and I wish they'd
give the Clinton Foundation a lot more money so they'd have less to sink
into GOP House and Senate races.
Philip Diehl
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:05 am
|
Ray LaPan-Love: You left out this quote from the interview with David
Sirota. Context matters.
'DAVID SIROTA: Well, my reaction to it is that
I think that if you look at some of these individual examples, I think
Paul is right that it's hard to argue that their donations to the
foundation got them access. They are - a lot of these people in the AP
story are people who knew her."
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:21 am
|
Pub,
I can't remember where I saw the comparison between the arms sales of HRC
and the shrub. But, if it comes to me I'll add it later. Meanwhile, here
is a link to lots of related info:
And yes, "no context, no evidence of a quid pro quo", and almost as if
she knew she might run for the prez job.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:41 am
|
Sorry Phillip, but gee whiz, am I to assume that nobody else has any
'context' on a story that is difficult to miss. Where does one draw such
lines? And the spin you are hoping for is somewhat unwound by David using
the phrase "hard to argue". That could be interpreted to simply mean that
the CF is good at obfuscating. And as someone who has worked in politics
and even for a large NPO, I can atably assure you
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:59 am
|
….!!!!!! my cursor got stuck on the previous comment as I tried to use
spell-check.
Anyway, I was trying to comfratably assure you that these organizations
are commonly structured to allow for deceptive practices. The Sierra Club
for example has affiliates that collect donations and then those funds
are used to pay the overhead of the affiliate 'before' any money is
donated to the Sierra Club. Thus, the Sierra club's solicitation costs
are not reflected in the percentage of funds used toward whatever cause.
This is not of course very subtle, and a Foundation such the CF could not
likely get away something this obvious, but…schemes such those exposed by
the Panama Papers should make us all hesitant to assume anything.
I'm a long-time fan of your smart writing and the important work that
you (and Simon) do. But what's with this constant Clinton Derangement
Syndrome? Why look so hard to find some morsel of "scandal" with the
Clintons when there's an entire herd of elephants in the room with the
Republican candidate??
As a wealth manager of many years, I must disagree with your
dismissive assessment of the Clintons' personal philanthropy as a
personal piggy bank. For sure, in a regular family foundation (many of my
clients!) the grants and donations are entirely at the discretion of the
controlling family, and very often it's all about shiny brass plaques and
photo ops with museum directors or mayors. Fine, that's our system, and
at least something gets done. And then the donors die and the plaques
fade. A shawl has no pockets.
But the Clinton operation is unique: they choose specific issues,
partner with competent outside groups, and then direct enormous extra
outside funds - not just their own meager foundation money - to tackle
the problems. This is only possible because of their international
status; not a Gates nor a Slim nor a Zuckerberg could engineer the same.
One can certainly speculate about who got access (a phone call,
seriously?) or who was schmoozed in what way in order to secure their
donations. But to broad-brush the whole of the Clinton philanthropy as
personal corruption is truly unfair. And it sure doesn't make sense when
there's so much worse and genuinely scandalous material on the other side
just waiting to be uncovered.
Keep the faith!
Bruce E. Woych
|
August 27, 2016 at 2:39 pm
|
Note: (from Global Research critique @ (eg:
https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/suite
) cited above:
"Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, Andre
Vltchek has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest
books are: "Exposing Lies Of The Empire" and "Fighting Against Western
Imperialism". Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point
of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a
book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book
about Indonesia: "Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear". Andre is making
films for teleSUR and Press TV.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 27, 2016 at 3:42 pm
|
Bruce, (been awhile),
High grade stuff there. Yet, I'm not as taken by Caros' comment as you
seem to be. Near the end, this part: "The Clinton family business is
benefiting themselves AND OTHERS by way of their prominence."
To begin with, the Clinton's influence in arming the royal gulfies may
get us all killed, and so his comparison to the Bushs, while apt in a
current sense, it may well be…dangerously premature. Then too, Caro is of
course taking sides as if the Clintons don't fully realize the P.R.
benefits of giving away other peoples money. Which segs the question of
how could the Clintons have put so much time and effort into Hillary's
run, while creating so many pitfalls for themselves? Did they think the
Repubs might get nice? Are they stupid, arrogant maybe? Or just so
corrupt that they just can't stop like so many kleptomaniacs? In any
case, it isn't only Trump's fitness that we should be questioning.
While the Press celebrates the Democratic Party victory of the first female billionaire in history,
a somber legal battle is going on in the shadows.
The State Department report on Hillary Clinton's emails, and the different legal proceedings which
followed, establish that she is guilty of :
Obstruction of Justice by Mrs. Clinton and her advisors (Section 1410) ;
Obstruction of Criminal Enquiries (Section 1511) ;
Obstruction of the application of local and Federal laws (Section 1411) ;
Federal crime of negligence with classified information and documents (Section 1924) ;
Detention in her computer, at home and on a non-secure server, of 1,200 secret documents (Section
1924)
Felony – Mrs. Clinton declared under oath to a Federal judge that she had given all her emails
to the State Department. However, the Inspector General of the State Department declared this
week that this was a lie (Section 798) ;
Moreover, she declared under oath that the State Department had authorised her to use her
personal computer to work at home. The Inspector General of the State Department declared this
week that this was a lie (Section 798) ;
Mrs. Clinton did not alert the authorities, nor even her own Department, that her personal
computer had been hacked several times. Yet she had asked her system administrator to try to protect
her computer.
Misappropriation and Concealment. The Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clinton were corrupted so
that the State Department would close their eyes to various practices (Rico Law and Section 1503).
In principle, and since the facts and their gravity have been established by the FBI, the State
Departement, and a Federal judge, Hillary Clinton should have been arrested this week.
Bernie Sanders, the other candidate for the Democratic nomination, was counting on Mrs. Clinton's
arrest before their party's convention. He therefore decided to stay in the running, although he
does not have enough delegates. But he was summoned to the White House, and informed that President
Barack Obama would prevent his administration from applying the law. Obama then followed through
by publicly announcing his support for the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton.
It was a cover up operation. No questions about that. Such instruction by a person under any investigation clearly mean tha attempt
of cover up...
Notable quotes:
"... There was a document dump on Friday, that we learned from the FBI that an IT contractor managing Hillary Clinton's private email server made reference to the "Hillary coverup operation" in a work ticket. He used those words after a senior Clinton aide asked him to automatically delete emails after 60 days. This IT worker certainly sounded like he was covering something up, no? ..."
"... The FBI dumped another 189 pages of documents pertaining to Clinton's use of an unsecured private server during her time as Secretary of State online Friday, with one note about a "coverup" raising eyebrows: ..."
"... After reviewing an email dated December 11, 2014 with the subject line 'RE: 2 items for IT support,' and a December 12, 2014 work ticket referencing email retention changes and archive/email cleanup, [redacted] stated his reference in the email to ' the Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation ' was probably due to the requested change to a 60 day email retention policy and the comment was a joke. ..."
"... "The fact an IT staffer maintaining Clinton's secret server called a new retention policy designed to delete emails after 60 days a 'Hillary coverup operation' suggests there was a concerted effort to systematically destroy potentially incriminating information. It's no wonder that at least five individuals tied to the email scandal, including Clinton's top State Department aide and attorney Cheryl Mills, secured immunity deals from the Obama Justice Department to avoid prosecution," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller in a statement on Friday. ..."
"... Comey told the House Oversight Committee on July 7 that the FBI "did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt to meet that - the intent standard" while claiming that prosecuting Clinton for gross negligence would perpetuate a "double standard." ..."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper confronted
Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook Sunday over an IT worker handling her private email server joking in a 2014 email about
a "Hillary coverup operation," with Mook dodging the question and blaming Republicans for "selectively leaking documents."
TAPPER:There was a document dump on Friday, that we learned from the FBI that an IT contractor managing Hillary
Clinton's private email server made reference to the "Hillary coverup operation" in a work ticket. He used those words after a
senior Clinton aide asked him to automatically delete emails after 60 days. This IT worker certainly sounded like he was covering
something up, no?
MOOK: Look, Jake, I'm - first of all I'm glad you asked that question. A lot of this stuff is swirling around in the
ether. It's important to pull back and look at the facts here. The FBI did a comprehensive and deep investigation into this. And
at the conclusion of that, FBI Director Comey came out and said to the world that there was no case here, that they have no evidence
of wrongdoing on Hillary's part.
TAPPER: So what's the "Hillary coverup operation" that the IT worker was referring to?
MOOK: Well, well, but this is - but this is - this is the perfect example of what's going on here. Republicans on the
House side are selectively leaking documents for the purpose of making Hillary look bad. We've asked the FBI to release all information
that they've shared with Republicans so they can get the full picture. But again, I would trust the career professionals at the
FBI and the Justice Department who looked into this matter, concluded that was no case, than I would Republicans who are selectively
leaking information.
The FBI dumped another 189 pages of documents pertaining to Clinton's use of an unsecured private server during her time as Secretary
of State online Friday,
with one
note about a "coverup" raising eyebrows:
After reviewing an email dated December 11, 2014 with the subject line 'RE: 2 items for IT support,' and a December 12,
2014 work ticket referencing email retention changes and archive/email cleanup, [redacted] stated his reference in the email to
' the Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation ' was probably due to the requested change to a 60 day email retention policy and the
comment was a joke.
The Trump campaign quickly leapt on the FBI's findings.
"The fact an IT staffer maintaining Clinton's secret server called a new retention policy designed to delete emails after
60 days a 'Hillary coverup operation' suggests there was a concerted effort to systematically destroy potentially incriminating information.
It's no wonder that at least five individuals tied to the email scandal, including Clinton's top State Department aide and attorney
Cheryl Mills, secured immunity deals from the Obama Justice Department to avoid prosecution," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller in
a statement on Friday.
Comey
told the House Oversight Committee on July 7 that the FBI "did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was
sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt to meet that - the intent standard" while claiming that prosecuting Clinton
for gross negligence would perpetuate a "double standard."
"... Were I advising Trump I would have him cite the two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue..... by title and section. The rest of the questioning is inconsequential in relation to the huge favor the FBI gave Mrs. Clinton. ..."
"... Might be a wrong advice. This would be more directed at Obama, then Hillary. It was Obama who pardoned Hillary by exerting pressure on FBI. ..."
Were I advising Trump I would have him cite the two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue..... by title and section.
The rest of the questioning is inconsequential in relation to the huge favor the FBI gave Mrs. Clinton.
likbez -> ilsm... , -1
ilsm,
"...two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue....."
Might be a wrong advice. This would be more directed at Obama, then Hillary. It was Obama who pardoned Hillary by exerting
pressure on FBI.
"... So Obama sent Emails to Clinton's private Email address that contained classified information. Was his handle "BBC"? Truly funny! ..."
"... I find this revelation to be particularly galling, how richly this entire crew deserves ankle bracelets at a very minimum for perjury. When the president and the SoS lie and break the law and nothing happens…um precisely where do we go from there? ..."
I find this revelation to be particularly galling, how richly this entire crew deserves ankle
bracelets at a very minimum for perjury. When the president and the SoS lie and break the law
and nothing happens…um precisely where do we go from there?
Zero Hedge
Earlier this week, a twitter user named " Katica " seemingly proved
the "intent" of the Hillary campaign to destroy and/or tamper with federal records by revealing the
Reddit thread of Paul Combetta (aka the "Oh Shit" guy; aka "stonetear"). But
what's most crazy about this story is that "Katica" was able to discover the greatest "bombshell" of the entire Hillary email
scandal with just a couple of internet searches while the FBI, with unlimited access to government records, spent
months "investigating" this case and missed it all . The only question now is whether the FBI "missed" this evidence because
of gross incompetence or because of other motivating factors ?
Now, courtesy of an opinion piece posted on
The Daily Caller
, we know exactly how "Katica" pieced her "bombshell" discovery together... the folks at the FBI may want to take some notes.
Per the twitter discussion below with @RepStevenSmith , "Katica"
discovered Combetta's Reddit thread on September 16th. But while she suspected that Paul Combetta and the Reddit user known
as "stonetear" were, in fact, the same person, she had to prove it...
Mr. Galifianakis then briefly interrupted the interview to play a campaign commercial for Mr.
Trump, claiming the billionaire businessman was the show's top sponsor. He then wrapped up the
exchange by telling Mrs. Clinton the two should stay in touch.
"What's the best way to reach you? Email?" he said.
The State Department said Friday it likely has more than 2,800 new emails former Secretary Hillary Clinton never turned over but
were recovered by the FBI, and will begin releasing them in batches beginning next month.
But only a small percentage will be processed before the election, the department said in court, arguing its resources are stretched
too thin to get them done.
All told, the FBI turned over 15,171 emails it recovered that involved Mrs. Clinton, and of those about 60 percent have been deemed
purely personal. That leaves some 5,600 that are work-related, but based on a sample of data, nearly half of those are duplicates,
leaving the 2,800 or so that are new.
Does that mean that he knewq that he is sending email to an unsecure private server?
Notable quotes:
"... The president's previously unreported use of a pen name is referenced in notes from federal investigators' April 5, 2016 interview with Huma Abedin ..."
President Obama emailed
Hillary Clinton
using a pseudonym while she served as his secretary of state, according to
FBI documents released Friday.
The president's previously unreported use of a pen name
is referenced in notes from federal investigators' April 5, 2016 interview with
Huma Abedin,
one of Mrs.
Clinton's closest aides, contained within 189 pages of records released late Friday afternoon
by the
FBI concerning its review of the Democratic presidential nominee's use of a private email
server while in office.
During that interview, investigators showed the aide an email exchange dated June 28, 2012
with the subject "Re: Congratulations!"
"Abedin did
not recognize the name of the sender. Once informed that the sender's name is believed to be a
pseudonym used by the president,
Abedin exclaimed
'How is this not classified?'" according to the
FBI's summary of the interview.
"Abedin then
expressed her amazement at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy
of the email."
The
FBI's revelation quickly spurred questions about the president's past claims concerning his
knowledge of
Mrs. Clinton's private email server.
Mrs. Clinton's
non-governmental email address was first revealed in 2013 when a Romanian computer hacker
breached the AOL account of Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime
Clinton
confidant, and subsequently leaked messages to the media that were sent to an account operated by
Mrs. Clinton's
outside of the .gov realm.
"... When Samuelson described the sorting process in her FBI interview , she said that her first step was to find all the emails to or from Clinton and the people she regularly worked with in the State Department, and put all of those emails in the "work-related" category. ..."
"... But from the Abedin emails released so far, about 200 are previously unreleased emails between her and Clinton . Anyone who looks at these can see that the vast majority, if not all, of them are work-related. ..."
"... The Abedin emails released so far are only a small percentage of all her emails that are going to be released on a monthly basis well into 2017 . It is likely that Clinton's supposed 31,000 "personal" emails contain thousands of work-related emails to and from Abedin alone. Consider that only about 15% of the 30,000 Clinton emails released so far were between her and Abedin. ..."
"... It is further worth noting that these emails were not handed over with the rest of Clinton's 30,000 work-related emails, despite clearly being work-related, but were somehow uncovered by the State Department inspector general 's office. Those very emails are good examples of the kind of material Clinton may have tried to keep secret by controlling the sorting process. ..."
"... How many more headlines like that would there be if all 31,000 deleted emails became public before the November 2016 presidential election? It's easy to imagine a political motive for Clinton wanting to keep some work-related emails secret. ..."
"... on or around December 2014 or January 2015 , Mills and Samuelson requested that [Platte River Networks (PRN) employee Paul Combetta] remove from their laptops all of the emails from the July and September 2014 exports. [Combetta] used a program called BleachBit to delete the email-related files so they could not be recovered." ..."
"... With the emails of Mills and Samuelson wiped clean, and the old version of the server wiped clean, that left just two known copies of the emails: one on the new server, and one on the back-up Datto SIRIS device connected to the new server. ..."
"... Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 . She claimed that in December 2014 , Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her emails older than 60 days . Note that this came not long after the State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails, on October 28, 2014 . Mills told the FBI that she instructed Combetta to modify the email retention policy on Clinton's clintonemail.com email account to reflect this change. Emails older than 60 days would then be overwritten several times, wiping them just as effectively as BleachBit. ..."
"... So although the retention policy change sounds like a mere technicality, in fact, Clinton passed the message through Mills that she wanted all her emails from when she was secretary of state to be permanently wiped. ..."
"... Think about Clinton wanting to delete all her old "personal" emails. As a politician with a wide network of contributors and supporters, the information in them could be highly valuable for her. For instance, if a major donor contacted her, she probably would want to review their past correspondence before responding. She'd preserved these emails for nearly two years, but just when investigators started to demand to see them, she decided she didn't want ANY of them, and all traces of them should be permanently wiped. And yet we're supposed to believe the timing is just a coincidence? ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... According to what Combetta later told the FBI, at some point between these two calls, he had an "Oh shit!" moment and remembered that he'd forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December . So, even though he told the FBI that he was aware of the emails from Mills mentioning the Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton's emails, he took action. ..."
"... the Datto backups of the server were also manually deleted during this timeframe ." ..."
"... Already, Combetta's behavior is damning. He didn't just change the data retention policy, as Mills had asked him to do, causing them to be permanently deleted 60 days later. He immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails and then wiped them for good measure, and almost certainly deleted them from the Datto back-up device too. ..."
"... To make matters worse for Combetta, on March 20, 2015 , the House Benghazi Committee sent a letter to Clinton's lawyer Kendall , asking Clinton to turn her server over to a neutral third party so it could be examined to see if any work-related emails were still on it. This was reported in the New York Times ..."
"... However, despite all these clear signs that the emails should be preserved, not only did Combetta confess in an FBI interview that "at the time he made the deletions in March 2015 , he was aware of the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton's email data on the [server]," he said that " he did not receive guidance from other PRN personnel, PRN's legal counsel or others regarding the meaning of the preservation request." So he confessed to obstruction of justice and other possible crimes, all to the apparent benefit of Clinton instead of himself! ..."
"... The FBI interviewed PRN's staff in September 2015. This almost certainly included Combetta and Bill Thornton, because they were the only two PRN employees actively managing Clinton's server. ..."
"... The fact that the FBI falsely claimed Combetta was only interviewed twice grows in importance given a recent New York Times ..."
"... Then, in May 2016 , he completely changed his story. He said that in fact he did make the deletions in late March 2015 after all, plus he'd wiped her emails with BleachBit, as described earlier. He also confessed to being aware of the Mills email with the preservation request. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... For the FBI to give Combetta an immunity deal and then still not learn if he had been told to delete the emails by anyone working for Clinton due to a completely legally indefensible "attorney-client privilege" excuse is beyond belief. It would make sense, however, if the FBI was actually trying to protect Clinton from prosecution instead of trying to find evidence to prosecute her. ..."
"... In one Reddit post , he asked other server managers: "I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a .pst file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?" ..."
"... Recall how Clinton allegedly claimed she didn't want to keep any of her deleted emails. It looks like that wasn't true after all. It sounds exactly as if Mills or someone else working for Clinton told him to make it look like all the "personal" emails were permanently deleted due to the 60 day policy change, while actually keeping copies of emails they still wanted. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... First off, it's interesting that he said he did "a bunch" of "email filters and cleanup," because what has been reported by the FBI is that he only made a copy of all of Clinton's email and sent them off to be sorted in late July 2014 . That fits with his July 2014 Reddit post where he was trying to modify somebody's email address. ..."
"... For now, let us turn back to events in the fall of 2015 . In mid-August 2015 , Senator Ron Johnson (R) asked for and got a staff-level briefing from PRN about the management of Clinton's server, as part of Republican Congressional oversight of the FBI's investigation. It seems very likely that Combetta was a part of that briefing, or at least his knowledge heavily informed the briefing, because again only two PRN employees actively managed her server, and he was one of them. ..."
"... The dishonesty or ignorance of PRN in this time period can be clearly seen due to a September 12, 2015 Washington Post ..."
"... Datto expressed a willingness to cooperate. But because Datto had been subcontracted by PRN to help manage Clinton's server, they needed PRN's permission to share any information relating to that account. When PRN was first asked in early October 2015 , they gave permission. But about a week later, they changed their mind , forcing Datto to stay quiet. ..."
"... But more importantly, consider what was mentioned in an NBC News ..."
"... In an August 18, 2015 email, Combetta expressed concern that CESC, the Clinton family company, had directed PRN to reduce the length of time backups, and PRN wanted proof of this so they wouldn't be blamed. But he said in the email, "this was all phone comms [communications]." ..."
"... On September 2, 2016 , the FBI's final report of their Clinton email investigation was released (along with a summary of Clinton's FBI interview). This report revealed the late March 2015 deletions for the first time. Combetta's name was redacted, but his role, as well as his immunity deal, was revealed in the New York Times ..."
"... Chaffetz also wants an explanation from PRN how Combetta could refuse to talk to the FBI about the conference calls if the only lawyers involved in the call were Clinton's. ..."
"... PRN employees Combetta and Thornton were also given subpoenas on September 8 , ordering them to testify at a Congressional hearing on September 13, 2016 . Both of them showed up with their lawyers, but both of them pled the Fifth , leaving many questions unanswered. ..."
"... In a Senate speech on September 12, 2016 , Senator Charles Grassley (R) accused the FBI of manipulating which information about the Clinton email investigation becomes public . He said that although the FBI has taken the unusual step of releasing the FBI's final report, "its summary is misleading or inaccurate in some key details and leaves out other important facts altogether." He pointed in particular to Combetta's deletions, saying: "[T]here is key information related to that issue that is still being kept secret, even though it is unclassified. If I honor the FBI's 'instruction' not to disclose the unclassified information it provided to Congress, I cannot explain why." ..."
"... Regarding the FBI's failure to inform Congressional oversight committees of Combetta's immunity deal, Representative Trey Gowdy (R) recently commented, "If there is a reason to withhold the immunity agreement from Congress-and by extension, the people we represent-I cannot think of what it would be." ..."
"... The behavior of the FBI is even stranger. Comey was a registered Republican most of his life, and it is well known that most FBI agents are politically conservative. Be that as it may, if Comey made a decision beforehand based on some political calculation to avoid indicting Clinton no matter what the actual evidence was, that the FBI's peculiar behavior specifically relating to the Combetta deletions make much more sense. It would be an unprecedented and bold move to recommend indicting someone with Hillary Clinton's power right in the middle of her presidential election campaign. ..."
"... In this scenario, the FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making a secret immunity deal with him is a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. Note that Combetta's confession about making the deletions came in his May 2016 FBI interview, which came after Mills' April 2016 interview in which she claimed she'd never heard of any deletions. Thus, the only way to have Combetta take the fall for the deletions without Mills getting caught clearly lying to the FBI is by dodging the issue of what was said in the March 31, 2015 conference with a nonsensical claim of "attorney-client privilege." ..."
"... I believe that criminal behavior needs to be properly investigated and prosecuted, regardless of political persuasion and regardless of the election calendar. Combetta clearly committed a crime and he even confessed to do so, given what he admitted in his last FBI interview. If he got a limited immunity deal instead of blanket immunity, which is highly likely, it still would be possible to indict and convict him based on evidence outside of his interviews. That would help explain why he recently pled the Fifth, because he's still in legal danger. ..."
"... But more importantly, who else is guilty with him? Logic and the available evidence strongly suggest that Clinton's lawyer Cheryl Mills at least knew about the deletions at the time they happened. Combetta has already confessed to criminal behavior-and yet somehow hasn't even been fired by PRN. If he didn't at least tell Mills and the others in the conference call about the deletions, there would be no logical reason to assert attorney-client privilege in the first place. Only the nonsensical assertion of this privilege is preventing the evidence coming out that should lead to Mills being charged with lying to the FBI at a minimum. And if Mills knew, can anyone seriously believe that Clinton didn't know too? ..."
Fast forward to the middle of 2014 . The
House Benghazi Committee was formed to investigate the US government's actions surrounding the 2012 terrorist
attack in Benghazi, Libya , and
soon a handful of emails were discovered relating to this attack involving Clinton's [email protected]
email address. At this point, nobody outside of Clinton's inner circle of associates knew she had exclusively used that private email
account for all her email communications while she was secretary of state, or that she'd hosted it on her own private email server.
It was decided that over 30,000 emails were work-related, and those were
turned over to the State Department on December 5, 2014 . These have all since been publicly released, though
with redactions. Another over 31,000 emails were
deemed personal , and Clinton kept those. They were later deleted in controversial circumstances that this essay explores in
detail.
It has become increasingly clear in recent months that this sorting process was highly flawed. Clinton has said any emails that
were borderline cases were given to the State Department, just to be on the safe side. But in fact,
the FBI later recovered about 17,500 of Clinton's "personal" emails . It is probable no government agency has yet gone through
all of these to officially determine which ones were work-related and which ones were not, but FBI Director
James Comey has said that "
thousands " were work-related.
We can get a glimpse of just how flawed the sorting process was because hundreds of emails from
Huma Abedin have been released in recent months, as
part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit . Abedin was Clinton's deputy chief of staff and still is one of her closest
aides.
When
Samuelson described the sorting process in her FBI interview , she said that her first step was to find all the emails to or
from Clinton and the people she regularly worked with in the State Department, and put all of those emails in the "work-related"
category.
But from the Abedin emails released so far,
about 200 are previously unreleased emails between her and Clinton . Anyone who looks at these can see that the vast majority,
if not all, of them are work-related. Many involve Abedin's state.gov government address, not her clintonemail.com
private address, so how on Earth did Samuelson's sorting process miss those? It has even come to light recently that a small
number of emails mentioning "Benghazi" have been found in the 17,500 recovered by the FBI, but
Samuelson told the FBI she had specifically searched for all emails using that word.
A sample of an email between Clinton and Abedin using her state.gov address. (Credit: public domain)
The
Abedin emails released so far are only a small percentage of all her emails that are going to be released on a monthly basis
well into 2017 . It is likely that Clinton's supposed 31,000 "personal" emails contain thousands of work-related
emails to and from Abedin alone. Consider that only about 15% of the 30,000 Clinton emails released so far were between her and Abedin.
If the rest of her deleted emails follow the same pattern as the Abedin ones, it is highly likely that the majority, and maybe
even the vast majority, of Clinton's deleted "personal" emails in fact are work-related.
... ... ...
FBI Director Comey has said he trusts that Clinton had made a sincere sorting effort, but the sheer number of
work-related emails that keep getting discovered suggests otherwise. Furthermore, logic and other evidence also suggest otherwise.
For instance,
in home
video footage from a private fundraiser in 2000 , Clinton talked about how she had deliberately avoided using
email so she wouldn't leave a paper trail: "As much as I've been investigated and all of that, you know, why would I? I don't even
want Why would I ever want to do email? Can you imagine?"
Practical considerations forced her to start using email a few years later. But what if her exclusive use of a private email address
on her own private server was not done out of "
convenience " as she claims, but so she could retain control of them, only turning over emails to FOIA requests and later government
investigators that she wanted to?
Note also that in a November 2010 email exchange between Clinton and Abedin, Abedin suggested that Clinton might
want to use a State Department email account due because the department computer system kept flagging emails from her private email
account as spam. Clinton replied that she was open to some kind of change, but "
I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible ." It is further worth noting that these emails were not handed over
with the rest of Clinton's 30,000 work-related emails, despite clearly being work-related, but were somehow uncovered by the
State Department inspector
general 's office. Those very emails are good examples of the kind of material Clinton may have tried to keep secret by controlling
the sorting process.
This essay will explore this possibility more later. But if it is the case that she wanted to keep those 31,000 "personal" emails
out of the public eye, she had obstacles to overcome. In 2014 , PRN had managerial control of both Clinton's new
and old server. Thus,
in July 2014 and
again in September 2014 , PRN employee Combetta had to send copies of all the emails to the laptop of Clinton
lawyer Cheryl Mills, and another copy to the laptop of Clinton lawyer Heather Samuelson, to be used for the sorting process.
With the sorting done, if Clinton didn't want the public to ever see her deleted emails, you would expect all these copies of
those emails to be permanently deleted, and that's exactly what happened. According to a later FBI report, "
on or around December 2014 or January 2015 , Mills and Samuelson requested that [Platte
River Networks (PRN) employee Paul Combetta] remove from their laptops all of the emails from the July and September 2014 exports.
[Combetta] used a program called BleachBit to delete the email-related files so they could not be recovered."
The FBI report explained, "BleachBit is open source software that allows users to 'shred' files, clear Internet history, delete
system and temporary files, and wipe free space on a hard drive. Free space is the area of the hard drive that can contain data that
has been deleted. BleachBit's 'shred files' function claims to securely erase files by overwriting data to make the data unrecoverable."
BleachBit advertises that it can "shred" files so they can never be recovered again.
With the emails of Mills and Samuelson wiped clean, and the old version of the server wiped clean, that left just two known
copies of the emails: one on the new server, and one on the back-up Datto SIRIS device connected to the new server.
Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 . She claimed that in December 2014 ,
Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her emails older than 60 days . Note that this came not long after the
State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails,
on October 28, 2014 . Mills told the FBI that she instructed Combetta to modify the email retention policy on
Clinton's clintonemail.com email account to reflect this change. Emails older than 60 days would then be overwritten several times,
wiping them just as effectively as BleachBit.
Clinton essentially said the same thing as Mills
when she was interviewed by the FBI . Clinton also was interviewed by the FBI. According to the FBI summary of the interview,
she claimed that after her staff sent the 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department on December 5, 2014
, "she was asked what she wanted to do with her remaining [31,000] personal emails.
Clinton instructed her staff she no longer needed the emails."
So although the retention policy change sounds like a mere technicality, in fact, Clinton passed the message through Mills
that she wanted all her emails from when she was secretary of state to be permanently wiped.
Think about Clinton wanting to delete all her old "personal" emails. As a politician with a wide network of contributors and
supporters, the information in them could be highly valuable for her. For instance, if a major donor contacted her, she probably
would want to review their past correspondence before responding. She'd preserved these emails for nearly two years, but just when
investigators started to demand to see them, she decided she didn't want ANY of them, and all traces of them should be permanently
wiped. And yet we're supposed to believe the timing is just a coincidence?
But there was a problem with deleting them. Combetta later claimed that he simply forgot to make this change.
Then, on March 2, 2015 ,
the headline on the front page of the New York Times was a story revealing that while Clinton was secretary of state,
she had exclusively used a private email address hosted on her private server, thus keeping all of her email communications secret.
This became THE big story of the month, and the start of a high-profile controversy that continues until today.
Then, a day after that, on March 4, 2015 ,
the committee issued two subpoenas to her . One subpoena ordered her to turn over all emails relating to the Benghazi attack.
The committee had already
received about 300 such emails from the State Department in February 2015 , but after the Times story,
the committee worried that the department might not have some of her relevant emails. (That would later prove to be the case, given
the small number of Benghazi emails eventually recovered by the FBI.) The second subpoena ordered her to turn over documents it requested
in November 2014 but still has not received from the State Department, relating to communications between Clinton
and ten senior department officials.
Cheryl Mills (Credit: Twitter)
If Clinton had already deleted her emails to keep them from future investigators, these requests shouldn't have been a problem.
On March 9, 2015 ,
Mills sent an email to PRN employees , including Combetta, to make sure they were aware of the committee's request that all of
Clinton's emails be preserved. One can see this as a CYA ("cover your ass") move, since Mills would have believed all copies of Clinton's
"personal" emails had been permanently deleted and wiped by this time. The Times story and the requests for copies of Clinton's
emails that followed had seemingly come too late.
But that wasn't actually the case, since Combetta had forgotten to make the deletions!
Combetta deletes everything that is left
Sitting behind Combetta is co-founder of Platte River Brent Allshouse (left) and PRN attorney, Ken Eichner. (Credit: CSpan)
According to a later Combetta FBI interview, he claimed that on March 25, 2015,
there was a conference call between PRN employees , including himself, and some members of Bill Clinton's staff. (Hillary Clinton's
private server hosted the emails of Bill Clinton's staff too, and one unnamed staffer hired PRN back in 2013 .)
There was another conference call between PRN and Clinton staffers on March 31, 2015 , with at least Combetta,
Mills, and Clinton lawyer David Kendall taking part in that later call.
According to what Combetta later told the FBI, at some point between these two calls, he had an "Oh shit!" moment and remembered
that he'd forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December . So, even though he told the
FBI that he was aware of the emails from Mills mentioning the Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton's emails, he took
action. Instead of simply making the retention policy change, which would have preserved the emails for another two months,
he immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails from her server. Then he used BleachBit to permanently wipe them.
The Datto SIRIS S2000 was used for back-up services. (Credit: Datto, Inc.)
However, recall that there was a Datto SIRIS back-up device connected to the server and periodically making copies of all the
data on the server. Apparently, Combetta didn't mention this to the FBI, but the FBI found "evidence of these [server] deletions
and determined the Datto backups of the server were
also manually deleted during this timeframe ." The Datto device sent a records log back to the Datto company whenever any
changes were made, and according to a letter from Datto to the FBI that later became public, the deletions on the device were made
around noon on March 31, 2015 , the same date as the second conference call. (Although the server and Datto device
were in New Jersey and Combetta was working remotely from Rhode Island, he could make changes remotely, as he or other PRN employees
did on other occasions.)
A recent Congressional committee letter mentioned that the other deletions were also made on or around March 31, 2015
. So it's probable they were all done at the same time by the same person: Combetta.
Already, Combetta's behavior is damning. He didn't just change the data retention policy, as Mills had asked him to do, causing
them to be permanently deleted 60 days later. He immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails and then wiped them for good measure,
and almost certainly deleted them from the Datto back-up device too.
To make matters worse for Combetta, on March 20, 2015 ,
the House Benghazi Committee sent a letter to Clinton's lawyer Kendall , asking Clinton to turn her server over to a neutral
third party so it could be examined to see if any work-related emails were still on it. This was reported in the New York Times
and other media outlets.
Then, on March 27, 2015 ,
Kendall replied to the committee in a letter that also was reported on by the Times and others that same day. Kendall
wrote, "There is no basis to support the proposed third-party review of the server To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be
academic, I have confirmed with the secretary's IT [information technology] support that no emails for the time period January
21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server."
David Kendall (Credit: Above the Law)
When Kendall mentioned Clinton's IT support, that had to have been a reference to PRN. So what actually happened? Did Kendall
or someone else working for Clinton ask Combetta and/or other PRN employees if there were any emails still on the server in the
March 25, 2015 conference call, just two days before he sent his letter? Did Combetta lie in that
call and say they were already deleted and then rush to delete them afterwards to cover up his mistake? Or did someone working for
Clinton tell or hint that he should delete them now if they hadn't been deleted already? We don't know, because the FBI has revealed
nothing about what was said in that conference call or the one that took place a week later.
However, despite all these clear signs that the emails should be preserved, not only did Combetta confess in an FBI interview
that "at the time he made the deletions in March 2015 , he was aware of the existence of the preservation request
and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton's email data on the [server]," he said that "
he did not receive guidance from other PRN personnel, PRN's legal counsel or others regarding the meaning of the preservation
request." So he confessed to obstruction of justice and other possible crimes, all to the apparent benefit of Clinton instead of
himself!
Investigations and cover-ups
This is perplexing enough already, but it gets stranger still, if we continue to follow the behavior of Combetta and PRN as a
whole.
An inside look at the Equinix facility in Secaucus, NJ. (Credit: Chang W. Lee / New York Time)
By August 2015 , the FBI's Clinton investigation was in full swing, and they began interviewing witnesses and
confiscating equipment for analysis. Because the FBI never empanelled a grand jury, it didn't have subpoena power, so it had to ask
Clinton for permission to seize her server.
She gave that permission on August 11, 2015 , and the server was
picked up from the data center in New Jersey the next day . But remember that there actually were two servers
there, an old one and a new one. All the data had been wiped from the old one and moved to the new one, so the new one was the more
important one to analyze. But the FBI only picked up the old one.
According to the FBI's final report, "At the time of the FBI's acquisition of the [server], Williams & Connolly [the law firm
of Clinton's personal lawyer David Kendall] did not advise the US government of the existence of the additional equipment associated
with the [old server], or that Clinton's clintonemail.com emails had been migrated to the successor [server] remaining at [the] Equinix
[data center]. The FBI's subsequent investigation identified this additional equipment and revealed the email migration." As a result,
the
FBI finally picked up the new server on October 3, 2015 .
A snippet from the invoice published by Complete Colorado on October 19, 2015. (Credit: Todd Shepherd / Complete Colorado) (Used
with express permission from CompleteColorado.com. Do not duplicate or republish.)
It's particularly important to know if Combetta was interviewed at this time. The FBI's final report clearly stated that
he was interviewed twice, in February 2016 and May 2016 , and repeatedly referred to what was
said in his "first interview" and "second interview." However, we luckily know that he was interviewed in September 2015
as well, because of a PRN invoice billed to Clinton Executive Service Corp. (CESC), a Clinton family company, that was made
public later in 2015 . The invoice made clear that Combetta, who was working remotely from Rhode Island, flew to
Colorado on September 14, 2015, and then "federal interviews" took place on September 15 . Combetta's
rental car, hotel, and return airfare costs were itemized as well. As this essay later makes clear, PRN was refusing to cooperate
with anyone else in the US government but the FBI by this time, so "federal interviews" can only mean the FBI.
One other person in the investigation, Bryan Pagliano, was given immunity as well. But his immunity deal was leaked to the media
and
had been widely reported on since March 2016 . By contrast, Combetta's immunity wasn't even mentioned in the
FBI's final report, and members of Congress were upset to first read about it in the Times , because they had never been
told about it either.
The mystery of this situation deepens when one looks at the FBI report regarding what Combetta said in his February 2016
and May 2016 interviews.
In February 2016 , he claimed that he remembered in late March 2015 that he forgot to make
the change to the email retention policy on Clinton's server, but that was it. He claimed he never did make any deletions. He also
claimed that he was unaware of the March 9, 2015 email from Mills warning of the Congressional request to preserve
all of Clinton's emails.
Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)
Then, in May 2016 , he completely changed his story. He said that in fact he did make the deletions in
late March 2015 after all, plus he'd wiped her emails with BleachBit, as described earlier. He also confessed to
being aware of the Mills email with the preservation request.
It still hasn't been reported when Combetta's immunity deal was made. However, it seems probable that this took place between
his February 2016 and May 2016 interviews, causing the drastic change in his account. Yet, it looks
that he still hasn't been fully honest or forthcoming. Note that he didn't confess to the deletion of data on the Datto back-up device,
even though it took place at the same time as the other deletions. The FBI learned that on their own by analyzing the device.
Attorney-client privilege?!
More crucially, we know that Combetta has not revealed what took place in the second conference call between PRN and Clinton employees.
Here is all the FBI's final report has to say about that: "Investigation identified a PRN work ticket, which referenced a conference
call among PRN, Kendall, and Mills on March 31, 2015. PRN's attorney advised [Combetta] not to comment on the conversation with Kendall,
based upon the assertion of the attorney-client privilege ."
Sitting behind Paul Combetta at the House Oversight Committee hearing on September 13, 2016, is Platte River Networks attorney
Ken Eichner. (Credit: CSpan)
This is extremely bizarre. What "attorney-client privilege"?! That would only apply for communications between Combetta and his
lawyer or lawyers. It's clear that Combetta's lawyer isn't Mills or Kendall. The New York Times article about the immunity
deal made a passing reference to his lawyer, and, when Combetta showed up for a Congressional hearing on September 12
, he was accompanied by a lawyer who photographs from the hearing make clear is Ken Eichner, who has been the legal counsel
for PRN as a whole regarding Clinton's server.
Even if Combetta's lawyer Eichner was participating in the call, there is no way that should protect Combetta from having to tell
what he said to Clinton employees like Mills or Kendall. If that's how the law works, criminals could simply always travel with a
lawyer and then claim anything they do or say with the lawyer present is inadmissible as evidence due to attorney-client privilege.
It's absurd.
For the FBI to give Combetta an immunity deal and then still not learn if he had been told to delete the emails by anyone
working for Clinton due to a completely legally indefensible "attorney-client privilege" excuse is beyond belief. It would make sense,
however, if the FBI was actually trying to protect Clinton from prosecution instead of trying to find evidence to prosecute her.
Combetta's Reddit posts
A photo comparison of Combetta at the House Oversight Committee hearing (left) and a captured shot of Combetta as stonetear (right).
(Credit: CSpan and public domain)
Furthermore, how much can Combetta be trusted, even in an FBI interview? It has recently come to light that he made Reddit posts
under the username "stonetear." There can be no doubt this was him, because the details match perfectly, including him signing a
post "Paul," having another social media account for a Paul Combetta with the username "stonetear," having a combetta.com website
mentioning his "stonetear" alias, and even posting a photo of "stonetear" that matches other known photos of Combetta.
In one Reddit post , he asked other server managers: "I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip
out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a .pst
file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the
email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. Does anyone have experience with something like this,
and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?"
The date of the post- July 24, 2014 -is very significant, because that was just one day after
Combetta sent CESE (the Clinton family company) DVDs containing some of Clinton's emails , so Clinton's lawyers could start the
sorting process. Also on July 23, 2014 , an unnamed PRN employee sent Samuelson and Mills the same emails electronically
directly to their laptops.
A response captured in the Reddit chat warning stonetear aka Combetta that what he wants to do could result in major legal issues.
(Credit: Reddit)
Popular software made by companies like Microsoft have tried to make it impossible for people to change email records, so people
facing legal trouble can't tamper with emails after they've been sent. Thus, when Combetta posed his problem at Reddit, other Reddit
users told him that what he wanted to do "could result in major legal issues." But that didn't deter him, and he kept asking for
various ways to get it accomplished anyway.
It isn't clear why Clinton would have wanted her email address removed from all her emails, since her exact address had already
been exposed in the media back in March 2013 by the hacker known as Guccifer. One Gawker reporter even used it to
email Clinton on March 20, 2013 : "[W] ere your emails to and from the [email protected] account archived according
to the provisions of the President Records Act and Freedom of Information Act?" (Clinton never replied, maybe because it's clear
in hindsight that an honest answer would have been "no.") But the fact that Combetta was willing to at least try to do this raises
questions, especially his seeming willingness to do something illegal for his "VIP" customer Hillary Clinton.
Combetta made another important Reddit post a few months later:
"Hello- I have a client who wants to push out a 60 day email retention policy for certain users. However, they also want these
users to have a 'Save Folder' in their Exchange folder list where the users can drop items that they want to hang onto longer than
the 60 day window. All email in any other folder in the mailbox should purge anything older than 60 days (should not apply to calendar
or contact items of course). How would I go about this? Some combination of retention and managed folder policy?"
Another question was captured of 'stonetear' aka Combetta asking Reddit users for technical help. (Credit: Reddit)
A captured shot of Combetta's 'stonetear' Gmail account with picture included. (Credit: public domain)
Recall how Clinton allegedly claimed she didn't want to keep any of her deleted emails. It looks like that wasn't true after
all. It sounds exactly as if Mills or someone else working for Clinton told him to make it look like all the "personal" emails were
permanently deleted due to the 60 day policy change, while actually keeping copies of emails they still wanted.
Looking at Combetta's two Reddit posts detailed above, there are only two possibilities. One is that Combetta failed to disclose
crucial information to the FBI, despite his immunity deal. The second is that he did, but the FBI didn't mention it in its final
report. Either way, it's already clear that the FBI has failed to present the full story of Combetta's actions to the public. And
how much of what Combetta has said can be trusted, even in his most recent and supposedly most forthcoming FBI interview?
David DeCamillis (Credit: Twitter)
Remarkably, there is a hint that Combetta was being dishonest even before his late March 2015 deletions. On
March 3, 2015 , one day after the front-page New York Times story revealing Clinton's use of a private
server, PRN's vice president of sales David DeCamillis sent an email to some or all of the other PRN employees. The email has only
been paraphrased in news reports so far, but he was already
wondering what Clinton emails the company might be asked to turn over .
Combetta replied to the email , "I've done quite a bit already in the last few months related to this. Her [Clinton's] team had
me do a bunch of exports and email filters and cleanup to provide a .pst [personal storage file] of all of HRC's [Hillary Rodham
Clinton's] emails to/from any .gov addresses. I billed probably close to 10 hours in on-call tickets with CESC related to it :)."
First off, it's interesting that he said he did "a bunch" of "email filters and cleanup," because what has been reported by
the FBI is that he only made a copy of all of Clinton's email and sent them off to be sorted in late July 2014 .
That fits with his July 2014 Reddit post where he was trying to modify somebody's email address.
But also, assuming that there aren't important parts to his email that haven't been mentioned by the media, consider what he didn't
say. The topic was possibly turning over Clinton's emails, and yet by this time Combetta had already deleted and wiped all of Clinton's
emails from the laptops of two Clinton lawyers and been asked to change the email retention policy on Clinton's server so that all
her emails would be permanently deleted there too, and yet he didn't bother to mention this to anyone else at PRN. Why?
We can only speculate based on the limited amount of information made public so far. But it seems as if Combetta was covering
up for Clinton and/or the people working for her even BEFORE he made his late March 2015 deletions!
Who knows about the deletions, and how?
Senator Ron Johnson (Credit: John Shinkle / Politico)
For now, let us turn back to events in the fall of 2015 . In mid-August 2015 ,
Senator Ron Johnson (R) asked for and got a staff-level briefing from PRN about the management of Clinton's server, as part of
Republican Congressional oversight of the FBI's investigation. It seems very likely that Combetta was a part of that briefing, or
at least his knowledge heavily informed the briefing, because again only two PRN employees actively managed her server, and he was
one of them.
Regardless of whether he was there or not, it is clear that PRN was not honest in the briefing. Almost nothing is publicly known
about the briefing except that it took place. However, from questions Johnson asked PRN in later letters, one can see that he knew
nothing about the March 2015 deletions by Combetta. In fact, just like the FBI, there is no indication he knew anything
about the transfer of the data from the old server to the new in that time period, which would be a basic fact in any such briefing.
Andy Boian (Credit: public domain)
The dishonesty or ignorance of PRN in this time period can be clearly seen due to a September 12, 2015 Washington Post article. In it, PRN spokesperson Andy Boian said, "
Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped ." He added, "All the information we have is that the server wasn't wiped."
We now know that not only was this untrue, but a PRN employee did the wiping!
This leads to two possibilities. One is that Combetta lied to his PRN bosses, so in September 2015 nobody else
in PRN knew about the deletions he'd made. The other is that additional people at PRN knew, but they joined in a cover-up.
At this point, it's impossible to know which of these is true, but one of them must be. PRN employees created work tickets and
other documentary evidence of the work they made, so one would think the company leadership would have quickly learned about the
deletions if they did any examination of their managerial actions to prepare for investigative briefings and interviews.
But either way, PRN as a whole began acting as if there was something to hide. Although the company agreed to the briefing of
Congressional staffers in mid-August 2015 , when
Senator Johnson wanted to follow this up with interviews of individual PRN employees in early September, PRN said no . When Congressional
committees began asking PRN for documents, they also said no, and kept saying no. Recently, as we shall see later, they've even defied
a Congressional subpoena for documents.
Austin McChord, founder and CEO of Datto, Inc. (Credit: Erik Traufmann / Hearst Connecticut Media)
At the same time Congressional committees began asking PRN for documents and interviews, they made those requests to Datto as
well.
Datto expressed a willingness to cooperate. But because Datto had been subcontracted by PRN to help manage Clinton's server,
they needed PRN's permission to share any information relating to that account. When PRN was first asked in early October
2015 , they gave permission.
But about a week later, they changed their mind , forcing Datto to stay quiet.
To make matters worse, in early November 2015 , PRN spokesperson Andy Boian gave a completely bogus public excuse
about this, saying that PRN and Datto had mutually agreed it was more convenient for investigators to deal with just one company.
Datto immediately complained in a letter sent to PRN and Senator Johnson that no such discussion or agreement between PRN and
Datto had ever taken place.
What is PRN hiding?
The Datto cloud mystery
There is another strange twist to Datto's involvement. Back in June 2013 when Datto was first subcontracted to
help with backing up the server data,
the Clinton family company CESC made explicit that they didn't want any of the data to be stored remotely . But due to some snafu
or miscommunication, it turns out that in addition to local back-ups being stored on the Datto device connected to the server, Datto
had been making periodic copies of the server data the whole time in the "cloud!" That means back-up copies of the data were being
transferred over the Internet and stored remotely, probably on other servers controlled by Datto.
Co-founders of PRN are Brent Allshouse (left) and Treve Suazo (right) (Credit: PRN)
PRN only
discovered this in early August 2015 , around the time the roles of PRN and Datto had with the server began
to be made public. PRN contacted Datto, told them to stop doing this, put all the data on a thumb drive, send it to them, and then
permanently wipe their remote copies of the server data.
It is unclear what happened after that. The FBI's final report
mentions a Datto back-up made on June 29, 2013 , just after all the data had been moved from the old server
to the new sever with the back-up, had been useful to investigators and allowed them to find some Clinton emails dating all the way
back to the first two months of her secretary of state tenure. However, it isn't clear if this is due to the local Datto SIRIS device
or the accidental Datto cloud back-up. Congressional committee letters show that they don't know either and have been trying to find
out.
Adding to the mystery, one would think that if Datto was making periodic back-ups either or both ways, the FBI would have been
able to recover all of Clinton's over 31,000 deleted emails and not just 17,000 of them. Consider that when PRN employees sent Clinton's
lawyers all of Clinton's emails to be sorted in July and September 2014 , they simply copied what
was on the server at the time, which presumably was the same amount of emails from years earlier than had been there in June
2013 , and thus backed up by Datto many times.
It's likely there are more twists to the cloud back-up story that have yet to be revealed.
What did Clinton and her aides know about the deletions?
Meanwhile, let's consider what Clinton and her aides may have known and when they knew it. When
Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 , according to the FBI, "Mills stated she was unaware that [Combetta]
had conducted these deletions and modifications in March 2015 ." Then,
when Clinton was interviewed by the FBI in July 2016 , "Clinton stated she was unaware of the March 2015 email
deletions by PRN."
This is pretty hard to believe. Mills was and still is one of Clinton's lawyers, and even attended Clinton's FBI interview. So
why wouldn't she have mentioned the deletions to Clinton between April and July 2016 , after she learned about them
from the FBI's questions to her? One would think Clinton would have been extremely curious to know anything about the FBI's possible
recovery of her deleted emails.
Clinton making a joking wipe gesture while speaking at a town hall on August 18, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Credit: John Locher
/ The Associated Press)
But more importantly, consider what was mentioned in an NBC News report on August 19, 2015 . Clinton's
campaign acknowledged "that
there was an attempt to wipe [Clinton's] server before it was turned over last week to the FBI. But two sources with direct knowledge
of the investigation told NBC News that the [FBI] may be able to recover at least some data."
Is it plausible that people within Clinton's campaign knew this, and yet neither Mills nor Clinton did? How could that be? Note
that just one day before the NBC News report, Clinton had been directly asked if her server had been wiped.
She dodged the question by making the joke , " What-like with a cloth, or something?" Then she said she didn't "know how it works
digitally at all." Despite the controversy at the time about the cloth joke, her spokesperson claimed one month later, "I don't know
what 'wiped' means."
It's highly likely the issue had to have been discussed with Clinton at the time, but there was a conscious effort not to have
her admit to knowing anything, due to the on-going FBI investigation.
But more crucially, how could anyone at all working for Clinton know about the deletions as far back as August 2015
? Recall that this was within days of PRN giving a briefing to Congressional staffers and not telling them, and several
weeks prior to a PRN public comment that there was no evidence the server had been wiped.
Moreover, we have no evidence that the FBI knew about the deletions yet. Datto conducted an analysis of its device that had been
attached to Clinton's new server, and in an October 23, 2015 email,
told the FBI for the first time that deletions had taken place on that device on March 31, 2015 . Keep in mind
that even in his February 2016 FBI interview, Combetta claimed that no deletions had taken place in that time frame.
Does it make sense that he would have said that if he had reason to believe that PRN had been talking to Clinton's staff about it
in the months before? (None of the interviews in the FBI"s investigations were done under oath, but lying to the FBI is a felony
with a maximum five-year prison sentence.)
A sample of the email sent to the FBI by Datto attorney, Steven Cash on October 23, 2015. (Credit: House Science Committee)
So, again, how could Clinton's campaign know about the wiping in August 2015 ? The logical answer is that it
had been discussed in the conference call on March 31, 2015 , that took place within hours of the deletions.
Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)
Perhaps Mills, Kendall, or someone else working for Clinton told Combetta to make the deletions, possibly during the first conference
call on March 25, 2015 . If that is the case, there should be obstruction of justice charges brought against anyone
involved. Or maybe Combetta did that on his own to cover his earlier mistake and then mentioned what he'd done in the second conference
call. If either scenario is true, Mills should be charged with lying to the FBI for claiming in her FBI interview that she knew nothing
about any of this. Clinton might be charged for the same if it could be proved what she knew and when.
Just as the email retention policy on the Clinton server was changed on the orders of people working for Clinton, so was the retention
policy on the Datto device connected to the server, in the same time period.
In an August 18, 2015 email, Combetta expressed concern that CESC, the Clinton family company, had directed
PRN to reduce the length of time backups, and PRN wanted proof of this so they wouldn't be blamed. But he said in the email, "this
was all phone comms [communications]."
Paul Combetta (left) Bill Thornton (right) (Credit: The Associated Press)
The next day , there was another email,
this one written by Thornton to Combetta and possibly others in PRN . The email has the subject heading "CESC Datto." Thornton
wrote: "Any chance you found an old email with their directive to cut the backup back in Oct-Feb. I know they had you cut it once
in Oct-Nov, then again to 30 days in Feb-ish." (Presumably this refers to October 2014 through February
2015 .)
Thornton continued: "If we had that email, then we're golden. [ ] Wondering how we can sneak an email in now after the fact asking
them when they told us to cut the backups and have them confirm it for our records. Starting to think this whole thing really is
covering up some shady shit. I just think if we have it in writing that they [CESC] told us to cut the backups, and we can go public
with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE
LOT better."
Combetta replied: "I'll look again, but I'm almost positive we don't have anything about the 60 day cut. [ ] It's up to lawyer
crap now, so just sit back and enjoy the silly headlines."
As an aside, it's curious that Combetta made some unsolicited additional comments in that same email that was supportive of Clinton's
position in the email controversy: "It wasn't the law to be required to use government email servers at the State Department, believe
it or not. Colin Powell used an AOL address for communicating with his staff, believe it or not."
If we take this email exchange at face value, then it appears that Clinton employees requested an email retention policy change
that would result in more deletion of data on the Datto back-up device in the October to November 2014 time range.
Keep in mind that the
State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails , on October 28, 2014 , after informally
asking starting in July 2014 . Then, around February 2015 , Clinton employees asked for another
change that would have resulted in more deletions. Plus, they did this on the phone, leaving no paper trail. Is it any wonder that
Thornton wrote, "Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shady shit?"
News about PRN went quiet for the first half of 2016 . Congressional committees kept asking PRN and Datto for
more information (including another request for interviews in January 2016 ), and PRN kept saying no as well as
not giving Datto permission to respond.
James Comey (Credit: Fox News)
Then, on July 5, 2016 , FBI Director James Comey gave a surprise public speech in which
he announced he wouldn't recommend any criminal charges against Clinton or anyone else in the investigation. In the course of
his speech, he said it was "likely" that some emails may have disappeared forever because Clinton's lawyers "deleted all emails they
did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery." But he said
that after interviews and technical examination, "we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence
there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort."
Two days later, on July 7, 2016 , Comey had to explain his decision in front of a Congressional committee. During
that hearing, he was asked by Representative Trey Gowdy (R), "Secretary Clinton said neither she nor anyone else deleted work-related
emails from her personal account. Was that true?"
Comey replied: "That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work-related emails in-on devices or in slack space. Whether
they were deleted or whether when the server was changed out, something happened to them. There's no doubt that the work-related
emails were removed electronically from the email system."
Consider that response. By the time Comey made those comments, the FBI's final report had already been finished, the report that
detailed Combetta's confession of deliberately deleting and then wiping all of Clinton's emails from her server. Comey was explicitly
asked if "anyone" had made such deletions, and yet he said he wasn't sure. Comey should be investigated for lying to Congress! Had
he revealed even the rough outlines of Combetta's late March 2015 deletions in his July 5, 2016
public speech or his Congressional testimony two days later , it would have significantly changed the public perception
of the results of the FBI investigation. That also would have allowed Congressional committees to start focusing on this
two months earlier than they did, enabling them to uncover more in the limited time before the November
presidential election.
The SECNAP Logo (Credit: SECNAP)
Despite the fact that the Combetta deletions were still unknown, Congressional committees began putting increasing pressure on
PRN anyway.
On July 12, 2016 , two committees jointly wrote a letter to PRN , threatening subpoenas if they still refused
to cooperate. The letter listed seven PRN employees they wanted to interview, including Combetta and Thornton. Similar letters went
out to Datto and SECNAP. (SECNAP was subcontracted by PRN to carry out threat monitoring of the network connected to Clinton's server.)
On August 22, 2016 , after all three companies still refused to cooperate, Representative Lamar Smith (R), chair
of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology,
issued subpoenas for PRN, Datto, and SECNAP .
On September 2, 2016 ,
the FBI's final report of their Clinton email investigation was released (along with a summary of Clinton's FBI interview). This
report revealed the late March 2015 deletions for the first time. Combetta's name was redacted, but his role, as
well as his immunity deal, was revealed in the New York Times article published a few days later.
Congressional investigators fight back
Channing Phillips (Credit: public domain)
Since the report has been released, Congressional Republicans have stepped up their efforts to get answers about the Combetta
mystery, using the powers of the committees they control. On September 6, 2016 , Representative Jason Chaffetz (R),
chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,
wrote a letter to Channing Phillips , the US attorney for the District of Columbia. He asked the Justice Department to "investigate
and determine whether Secretary Clinton or her employees and contractors violated statutes that prohibit destruction of records,
obstruction of congressional inquiries, and concealment or cover up of evidence material to a congressional investigation." Clearly,
this relates to the Combetta deletions.
Representative Jason Chaffetz. (Credit: Cliff Owen / The Associated Press)
On the same day ,
Chaffetz sent a letter to PRN warning that Combetta could face federal charges for deleting and wiping Clinton's emails in
late March 2015 , due to the Congressional request to preserve them earlier in the month that he admitted he was
aware of. Chaffetz also wants an explanation from PRN how Combetta could refuse to talk to the FBI about the conference calls
if the only lawyers involved in the call were Clinton's.
Chaffetz serves the FBI a subpoena during a House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee hearing on September 9, 2016. (Credit:
ABC News)
On September 9 ,
Chaffetz served the FBI a subpoena for all the unredacted interviews from the FBI's Clinton investigation, especially those of
Combetta and the other PRN employees. This came after an FBI official testifying at a hearing remarkably suggested that Chaffetz
should file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get the documents, just like any private citizen can.
On September 8, 2016 ,
Congressional committees served the subpoenas they'd threatened in August. PRN, Datto, and SECNAP were given until the end of
September 12 to finally turn over the documents the committees had been requesting for year. Datto complied and
turned over the documents in time. However, PRN and SECNAP did not.
Representative Lamar Smith (Credit: public domain)
The next day, September 13 , Representative Lamar Smith (R) said , "just this morning SECNAP's [legal] counsel
confirmed to my staff that the Clinton's private LLC [Clinton Executive Service Corp.] is actively engaged in directing their obstructionist
responses to Congressional subpoenas."
PRN employees Combetta and Thornton were also given subpoenas on September 8 , ordering them to testify at
a Congressional hearing on September 13, 2016 . Both of them showed up with their lawyers, but
both of them pled the Fifth , leaving many questions unanswered.
An FBI cover-up?
In a Senate speech on September 12, 2016 , Senator Charles Grassley (R)
accused the FBI of manipulating which information about the Clinton email investigation becomes public . He said that although
the FBI has taken the unusual step of releasing the FBI's final report, "its summary is misleading or inaccurate in some key details
and leaves out other important facts altogether." He pointed in particular to Combetta's deletions, saying: "[T]here is key information
related to that issue that is still being kept secret, even though it is unclassified. If I honor the FBI's 'instruction' not to
disclose the unclassified information it provided to Congress, I cannot explain why."
Senator Charles Grassley takes to the Senate floor on September 12, 2016. (Credit: CSpan)
He also said there are dozens of completely unclassified witness reports, but even some of his Congressional staffers can't see
them "because the FBI improperly bundled [them] with a small amount of classified information, and told the Senate to treat it all
as if it were classified." The normal procedure is for documents to have the classified portions marked. Then the unclassified portions
can be released. But in defiance of regulations and a clear executive order on how such material should be handled, "the FBI has
'instructed' the Senate office that handles classified information not to separate the unclassified information." As a result, Grassley
claims: "Inaccuracies are spreading because of the FBI's selective release. For example, the FBI's recently released summary memo
may be contradicted by other unclassified interview summaries that are being kept locked away from the public."
He said he has been fighting the FBI on this, but without success so far, as the FBI isn't even replying to his letters.
Thus, it seems that Comey failing to mention anything about the Combetta deletions in the July 7, 2016 Congressional
hearing, even when directly asked about it, was no accident. Having the FBI report claim that Combetta was only interviewed twice
when there is clear evidence of three interviews also fits a pattern of concealment related to the deletions.
James Comey testifies to the House Benghazi Committee on July 7, 2016. (Credit: Jack Gruber / USA Today)
Regarding the FBI's failure to inform Congressional oversight committees of Combetta's immunity deal, Representative Trey
Gowdy (R) recently commented, "If there is a reason to withhold the immunity agreement from Congress-and by extension, the people
we represent-I cannot think of what it would be."
Gowdy, who is a former federal prosecutor, also
said on September 9 that there are two types of immunity Combetta could have received : use and transactional.
"If the FBI and the Department of Justice gave this witness transactional immunity, it is tantamount to giving the triggerman immunity
in a robbery case." He added that he is "stunned" because "It looks like they gave immunity to the very person you would most want
to prosecute."
This is as much as we know so far, but surely the story won't stop there. PRN has been served a new subpoena. It is likely the
requested documents will be seized from them soon if they continue to resist.
Taking the fall and running out the clock
But why does PRN resist so much? Computer companies often resist sharing information with the government so their reputation with
their clients won't be harmed. But defying a subpoena when there clearly are legitimate questions to be answered goes way beyond
what companies normally do and threatens PRN's reputation in a different way. Could it be that PRN-an inexplicable choice to manage
Clinton's server-was chosen precisely because whatever Clinton aide hired them had reason to believe they would be loyal if a problem
like this arose?
David DeCamillis (Credit: public domain)
There is some anecdotal evidence to support this. It has been
reported that PRN has ties to prominent Democrats . For instance, the company's vice president of sales David DeCamillis is said
to be a prominent supporter of Democratic politicians, and once offered to let Senator Joe Biden (D) stay in his house in
2008 , not long before Biden became Obama's vice president. The company also has done work for John Hickenlooper, the Democratic
governor of Colorado. And recall the email in which Combetta brought up points to defend Clinton in her email controversy, even though
the email exchange was on a different topic.
The behavior of the FBI is even stranger. Comey was a registered Republican most of his life, and it is well known that most
FBI agents are politically conservative. Be that as it may, if Comey made a decision beforehand based on some political calculation
to avoid indicting Clinton no matter what the actual evidence was, that the FBI's peculiar behavior specifically relating to the
Combetta deletions make much more sense. It would be an unprecedented and bold move to recommend indicting someone with Hillary Clinton's
power right in the middle of her presidential election campaign.
It's naive to think that political factors don't play a role, on both sides. Consider that virtually every Democratic politician
has been supportive of Clinton in her email controversy, or at least silent about it, while virtually every Republican has been critical
of her about it or silent. Comey was appointed by Obama, and if the odds makers are right and Clinton wins in November
, Comey will continue to be the FBI director under President Clinton. (Comey was appointed to a ten-year term, but Congress
needs to vote to reappoint him after the election.) How could that not affect his thinking?
Comey could be trying to run out the clock, first delaying the revelations of the Combetta's deletions as much as possible, then
releasing only selected facts to diminish the attention on the story.
In this scenario, the FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making a secret immunity deal with him is
a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. Note that Combetta's confession about making the deletions came
in his May 2016 FBI interview, which came after Mills' April 2016 interview in which she claimed
she'd never heard of any deletions. Thus, the only way to have Combetta take the fall for the deletions without Mills getting caught
clearly lying to the FBI is by dodging the issue of what was said in the March 31, 2015 conference with a nonsensical
claim of "attorney-client privilege."
Unfortunately, if that is Comey's plan, it looks like it's working. Since the FBI's final report came out on September
2, 2016 , the mainstream media has largely failed to grasp the significance of Combetta and his deletions, focusing on far
less important matters instead, such as the destruction of a couple of Clinton's BlackBerry devices with hammers-which actually was
better than not destroying them and possibly letting them fall into the wrong hands.
The House Benghazi Committee in session in 2015. (Credit: C-SPAN3)
What happens next appears to largely be in the hands of Congressional Republicans, who no doubt will keep pushing to find out
more, if only to politically hurt Clinton before the election. But it's also in the hands of you, the members of the general public.
If enough people pay attention, then it will be impossible to sweep this controversy under the rug.
I believe that criminal behavior needs to be properly investigated and prosecuted, regardless of political persuasion and
regardless of the election calendar. Combetta clearly committed a crime and he even confessed to do so, given what he admitted in
his last FBI interview. If he got a limited immunity deal instead of blanket immunity, which is highly likely, it still would be
possible to indict and convict him based on evidence outside of his interviews. That would help explain why he recently pled the
Fifth, because he's still in legal danger.
Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton plead the Fifth on September 13, 2016. (Credit: CSpan)
But more importantly, who else is guilty with him? Logic and the available evidence strongly suggest that Clinton's lawyer
Cheryl Mills at least knew about the deletions at the time they happened. Combetta has already confessed to criminal behavior-and
yet somehow hasn't even been fired by PRN. If he didn't at least tell Mills and the others in the conference call about the deletions,
there would be no logical reason to assert attorney-client privilege in the first place. Only the nonsensical assertion of this privilege
is preventing the evidence coming out that should lead to Mills being charged with lying to the FBI at a minimum. And if Mills knew,
can anyone seriously believe that Clinton didn't know too?
As the saying goes, "it's not the crime, it's the cover up." This is an important story, and not just election season mudslinging.
The public needs to know what really happened.
"... "emails" has been the most frequently recalled word in Americans' reports of news about Mrs. Clinton - the exceptions being the week of the Democratic convention, when emails fell to second place, and this past week when "pneumonia" and "health" eclipsed emails. ..."
"... the research shows that the relevance of Mrs. Clinton's emails is very real in the minds of average Americans. ..."
"... Americans are certainly not ignoring the election and they appear to be closely following what constitutes the campaign as it unfolds. As a result, the public may be learning about the candidates' temperament, character, personality and health issues, but from what they tell us, Americans aren't getting much in the way of real substance. ..."
Since July we have asked more than 30,000 Americans to say exactly what
it was they read, saw or heard about the two major party candidates over the
past several days. The type of information getting through to Americans
varies significantly depending on whether the candidate in question is Mr.
Trump or Mrs. Clinton. Americans' daily reports about Mr. Trump are directly
tied to what he is doing and saying. If Mr. Trump talks about Muslim parents
and their son who was killed in action, that's what the public remembers. If
he goes to Mexico or Louisiana, that's what they recall reading or hearing
about him. If Mr. Trump calls President Obama the founder of the Islamic
State, "ISIS" moves to the top of the list of what Americans tell us they
are hearing about the Republican candidate.
What Americans recall hearing about Mrs. Clinton is significantly less
varied. Specifically - and to an extraordinary degree - Americans have
consistently told us that they are reading and hearing about her handling of
emails while she was secretary of state during President Obama's first term.
In eight of the past 10 weeks, "emails" has been the most frequently
recalled word in Americans' reports of news about Mrs. Clinton - the
exceptions being the week of the Democratic convention, when emails fell to
second place, and this past week when "pneumonia" and "health" eclipsed
emails.
When Matt Lauer of NBC News questioned Clinton about her emails for a
third of the allotted time during the commander-in-chief forum on MSNBC
earlier this month, he was criticized for focusing on an irrelevant issue.
But the research shows that the relevance of Mrs. Clinton's emails is
very real in the minds of average Americans.
... ... ...
For as long as I have been involved in election year research, the
absence of serious discussion of issues and policies by the candidates has
been a source of disgruntlement with the campaign process. So far, it
doesn't look like 2016 is providing an exception. Americans are
certainly not ignoring the election and they appear to be closely following
what constitutes the campaign as it unfolds. As a result, the public may be
learning about the candidates' temperament, character, personality and
health issues, but from what they tell us, Americans aren't getting much in
the way of real substance.
The moderators of the coming series of debates will most likely focus
directly on the candidates' positions on issues. This may shift what
Americans tell us they are learning about the candidates, and if so, it
could signal a significant upgrade in the way the process is working.
But that also means that a lot still depends on the candidates themselves
and how they end up shaping the contours of the debates.
"... Rooster coming home to roost! I would wager the reason the DNC email server was compromised was due to the lack of security on Clinton's "personal" (read political) email server. HRC left the IT Security door open and that exposed everyone she was in contact with – government, DNC and friends! ..."
Everyone is proposing those toxic DNC emails that roiled the Democrat National
Convention this weekend were hacked by Russia. Which I actually do not doubt.
But please understand, to hack into a system someone needs to be sloppy and
"invite" the hackers in! So how is it that HRC emails and DNC emails were both
exposed to the voters during this election year?
Clinton's server was configured to allow users to connect openly from
the Internet and control it remotely using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services.
[64] It is known that hackers in Russia were aware of
Clinton's non-public email address as early as 2011 . [71]
It is also known that Secretary Clinton and her staff were aware of
hacking attempts in 2011, and were worried about them. [72]
In 2012, according to server records, a hacker in Serbia scanned
Clinton's Chappaqua server at least twice , in August and in December
2012. It was unclear whether the hacker knew the server belonged to Clinton,
although it did identify itself as providing email services for clintonemail.com
. [64] During 2014, Clinton's server was the target
of repeated intrusions originating in Germany, China, and South Korea.
Threat monitoring software on the server blocked at least five
such attempts. The software was installed in October 2013, and for three
months prior to that, no such software had been installed.
Now we know for a fact the "personal" side of Clinton's electronic communication
was to pave the way for her second run at the presidential election. In fact,
the server originated in 2008 to support her first run. Clinton would not want
"Personal Political" emails to become public – for many reasons! (especially
to hide any nexus between
Bill's speaking fees and State Department Policy decisions ).
Everyone knows Politicians set up one account for "official business" and
one for political business – a separation required by federal law. So if HRC
was in communication with politicians and the DNC, it was through her personal
server!
We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private
commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in
regular contact from her personal account . We also assess that
Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a
large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal
e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and
receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.
Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile
actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account.
Rooster coming home to roost! I would wager the reason the DNC email
server was compromised was due to the lack of security on Clinton's "personal"
(read political) email server. HRC left the IT Security door open and that exposed
everyone she was in contact with – government, DNC and friends!
"... Because many members of Congress do not believe that the FBI acted free of political interference, they demanded to see the full FBI files in the case, not just the selected portions of the files that the FBI had released. In the case of the House, the FBI declined to surrender its files, and the agent it sent to testify about them declined to reveal their contents. This led to a dramatic service of a subpoena by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on that FBI agent while he was testifying - all captured on live nationally broadcast television. ..."
"... According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI violated federal law by commingling classified and unclassified materials in the safe room, thereby making it unlawful for senators to discuss publicly the unclassified material. ..."
"... Imposing such a burden of silence on U.S. senators about unclassified materials is unlawful and unconstitutional. What does the FBI have to hide? Whence comes the authority of the FBI to bar senators from commenting on unclassified materials? ..."
"... What is going on here? The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has not served the rule of law. The rule of law - a pillar of American constitutional freedom since the end of the Civil War - mandates that the laws are to be enforced equally. No one is beneath their protection, and no one is above ..."
It is hard to believe that the FBI was free to do its work, and it is probably true that the FBI was restrained by the White House
early on. There were numerous aberrations in the investigation. There was no grand jury; no subpoenas were issued; no search warrants
were served. Two people claimed to have received immunity, yet the statutory prerequisite for immunity - giving testimony before
a grand or trial jury - was never present.
Because many members of Congress do not believe that the FBI acted free of political interference, they demanded to see the full
FBI files in the case, not just the selected portions of the files that the FBI had released. In the case of the House, the FBI declined
to surrender its files, and the agent it sent to testify about them declined to reveal their contents. This led to a dramatic service
of a subpoena by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on that FBI agent while he was testifying -
all captured on live nationally broadcast television.
Now the FBI, which usually serves subpoenas and executes search warrants, is left with the alternative of complying with this
unwanted subpoena by producing its entire file or arguing to a federal judge why it should not be compelled to do so.
On the Senate side, matters are even more out of hand. There, in response to a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee, the
FBI sent both classified and unclassified materials to the Senate safe room. The Senate safe room is a secure location that is available
only to senators and their senior staff, all of whom must surrender their mobile devices and writing materials and swear in writing
not to reveal whatever they see while in the room before they are permitted to enter.
According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI violated federal law by commingling classified
and unclassified materials in the safe room, thereby making it unlawful for senators to discuss publicly the unclassified material.
Imposing such a burden of silence on U.S. senators about unclassified materials is unlawful and unconstitutional. What does the
FBI have to hide? Whence comes the authority of the FBI to bar senators from commenting on unclassified materials?
Who cares about this? Everyone who believes that the government works for us should care because we have a right to know what
the government - here the FBI - has done in our names. Sen. Grassley has opined that if he could reveal what he has seen in the FBI
unclassified records, it would be of profound interest to American voters.
What is going on here? The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has not served the rule of law. The rule of law - a pillar of
American constitutional freedom since the end of the Civil War - mandates that the laws are to be enforced equally. No one is beneath
their protection, and no one is above
Short Squeeze •Sep 16, 2016 12:12 PM
My theory is that when Comey stated "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute", he already knew of her health issues. Would
a prosecutor go after someone with 6 months to live?
saloonsf •Sep 16, 2016 12:03 PM
That's not FBI's responsibilities-exposing the elites cupabilities. The FBI primary objective is to protect the elites and
the system that benefit them.
Atomizer •Sep 16, 2016 12:10 PM
The wagons are circling around the Clinton Foundation. Chelsea's husband is going to get nicked.
withglee •Sep 16, 2016 12:25 PM
Sen. Grassley has opined that if he could reveal what he has seen in the FBI unclassified records, it would be of
profound interest to American voters.
So what's keeping Grassley from asking that those unclassified documents be taken from the room and laid on his desk. He is
not allowed to talk about what he saw in the room. But for sure he is allowed to talk about unclassified documents laid upon his
desk ... even if they were once in the room. If that wasn't the case, the government would just run every document through the
room ... to give it official immunity from inspection and exposure.
"... The State Deptartment had been using Blackberries since 2006, and diplomats overseas had been using them for just as long. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton didn't need to use a fancy NSA-approved smartphone to access classified data. Whenever she went overseas, she had a team of IT specialists who was able to provide her with ClassNet access, and they're able to do so without any technical support from a US Embassy. ..."
"... The Exchange and BES software were likely purchased by Hillary '08, and properly licensed for that usage. But as far as after that.... ..."
"... In a country where a standing governer running as VP could be found explicitly and intentionally using Yahoo email for the express purpose of avoiding FOIA on relevant government business, and there be no investigation whatsoever well. Let's just say there's an exceedingly strong whiff of double standards in the air. ..."
"... Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times. From your link, an individual email account on the server was breached. ..."
"... This happens all the time, for varying reasons, mostly due to a phishing compromise of the account, and occasionally due to password re-use and related vectors of compromise. While it's bad for the individual account's contents, it's absolutely irrelevant beyond that. ..."
"... If that's the worst they can find then personally I'm actually impressed. I was expecting that the server(s) had been root/fully compromised at least once, given how they get perennially described. If that turns out to not be the case, then they've actually been run better and more securely than the State Department's [at least non-classified] servers, from all reports. ..."
"... A 'breach' of an account is not a breach of the server. The account being access via TOR implies the user credentials were acquired through some means. Was this 'breached' account a classified account? ..."
"... "multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server that was breached, it was 1 person's email. ..."
Hillary Clinton didn't need to use her own Blackberry. The State
Deptartment had been using Blackberries since 2006, and diplomats overseas
had been using them for just as long.
Hillary Clinton didn't need to use a fancy NSA-approved smartphone
to access classified data. Whenever she went overseas, she had a team of
IT specialists who was able to provide her with ClassNet access, and they're
able to do so without any technical support from a US Embassy.
Quote: First, the Clintons had requested, according to a
PRN employee interviewed by the FBI, that the contents of the server be
encrypted so that only mail recipients could read the content. This was
not done, largely so that PRN technicians could "troubleshoot problems occurring
within user accounts," the FBI memo reports.
Also, while the Clintons had requested only local backups, the Datto
appliance initially also used Datto's secure cloud backup service until
August of 2015. \
Sounds like some of the problem was the contractor not following the
procedures established by the client.
Just to clarify, the move to a hosted solution - with requested encryption
- was initiated after Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State (January 21,
2009 – February 1, 2013) was completed in February, 2013, and FOIA requests
were no longer applicable as she was no longer a government employee.
I think that would depend on the scope of the migration. Did they migrate
all of the history over to the hosted solution? i.e. Did they migrate the
OS, Exchange and BES servers into PRN's datacenter? Or, did they start from
scratch with a clean slate, fresh install and no data migration. If it's
the former and not the latter, I'd be pretty damned certain it'd still be
subject to FOIA requests.
In a country where a standing governer running as VP could be
found explicitly and intentionally using Yahoo email for the express
purpose of avoiding FOIA on relevant government business, and there
be no investigation whatsoever well. Let's just say there's an exceedingly
strong whiff of double standards in the air.
I'm not fond of this private server crap. I think it's bullshit and
it never should have been allowed in the first place. She should have
simply been told that it's not permissible, whatsoever. But I also think
the classified email issues are red herrings in the context of the use
of private servers, as they would have been just as much an issue on
State Department non classified servers.
And I think that it's been made abundantly clear that the tools to
do business over email and modern mobile computing were extremely lacking,
outside of a solution like this, and what tools were available were
purposefully withheld over what sounds like ridiculous political fighting
under the guise of bureaucracy.
None of this means what she did was ok, but it's also hard to not
look askance at the relentless witchhunting when it's placed in that
broader context.
Personally I've reached a point where I'm done caring on the topic.
There doesn't seem to be any kind of smoking gun, just a lot of hemming
and hawing. Normally I would care about this, but honestly I'm a bit
inured at this point. Where is the show of her using these specifically
to avoid FOIA on work material actually relevant to FOIA?
That's really the only true relevant question when it comes to moving
to private servers. Classified material isn't supposed to be on unclassified
government servers either, so the attempt to focus on that (mostly with
retroactive or improperly labeled material and a few other issues) really
seems awkward when we're supposed to care about the private servers
as if they're damning.
Most interesting to me was confirmation that the
server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.
From your link, an individual email account on the server was breached.
This happens all the time, for varying reasons, mostly due to a phishing
compromise of the account, and occasionally due to password re-use and related
vectors of compromise. While it's bad for the individual account's contents,
it's absolutely irrelevant beyond that.
If that's the worst they can find then personally I'm actually impressed.
I was expecting that the server(s) had been root/fully compromised at least
once, given how they get perennially described. If that turns out to not
be the case, then they've actually been run better and more securely than
the State Department's [at least non-classified] servers, from all reports.
Look, getting all up in arms over crap like that link is why people like
me are no longer convinced there's anything here worth paying attention
to. I'm actually willing to listen if there's some kind of smoking gun,
but that's some petty bullshit right there.
Not sure why you are being down voted on newly revealed information that
seems to confirm that one of the servers email accounts was breached.
If you're down voting him, perhaps an explanation as to why?
Do you say that "google's servers got breached" every time an individual
email account on them is compromised?
What he said is factually incorrect. The server was not breached. An
individual email account was accessed. They're not the same thing. Not even
an OS user level account. An email account.
Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the
server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple
times.
"multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server that
was breached, it was 1 person's email.
Even if this person was clinton herself, we already know there was not
much damaging information stored on this server. And considering this seems
more like someone used a weak password or was phished, this is a vulnerability
no matter what email provider you're using.
Not sure why you are being down voted on newly revealed information that
seems to confirm that one of the servers email accounts was breached.
If you're down voting him, perhaps an explanation as to why?
Probably because we know DOJ email servers have also been breached. He's
implying that her servers were less secure and somehow put information in
harms way. History seems to show us that it wasn't at any more risk.
I didn't imply that at all. Here we have fairly solid evidence that a
breach of Hillary's server happened. That seems to contradict the FBI's
stance, Comey's statement and testimony, and is a first as far as I know.
And in comparison, the DOJs non-classified email systems were hacked.
There is no evidence that the classified system ever was.
A 'breach' of an account is not a breach of the server. The account
being access via TOR implies the user credentials were acquired through
some means. Was this 'breached' account a classified account?
I could be wrong, but I think that all classified emails from DoD and
State have to go through SIPRNet.
If this was strictly respected, then Clinton's server should contain
no classified information. In real-life, we saw that a few classified things
went through her personal email system, so it wasn't fully respected, or
some of the info was not yet classified.
Story Author Popular
omniron wrote:
Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the
server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.
"multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server
that was breached, it was 1 person's email.
Even if this person was clinton herself, we already know there was not
much damaging information stored on this server. And considering this seems
more like someone used a weak password or was phished, this is a vulnerability
no matter what email provider you're using.
We're going to get into this in a story I'm currently writing (probably
for next week, so it's not a Friday newsdumpster move). But it's worth noting
THE ENTIRETY OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S UNCLAS EMAIL SYSTEM WAS PWNED FOR
OVER A YEAR. I'm sorry, did I type that in all-caps? Also, between Chelsea
Manning/ Wikileaks and the repeated hacks of State, the White House, etc
between 2009 and 2014, it is highly likely that everything short of the
TS/SAP stuff (and even some of that) that Clinton touched was already breached.
This does not excuse Clinton and her staff's-I'm looking at you, Jake
Sullivan-for the extreme error of passing Top Secret/ Special Access Program
classified data back and forth over Blackberries and a non-governmental
e-mail system. I would expect that Sullivan, at a minimum, will have his
clearance revoked and he will not be getting a job as a national security
adviser if Clinton wins the election. Or at least, I think that's a reasonable
expectation.
LordDaMan Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
reply
Sep 2, 2016 7:24 PM
arcite wrote: She wanted to use her Blackberry, and she wanted all her
accounts in one easy to access place. The solution was sloppy, but there
was no ill-intent.
Except she used multiple devices. She also ignored the repeated comments
towards her to not to have a private server. The server was deliberately
wiped violating the various laws about data retention. She used an alias
to send e-mails to her daughter. She, despite being first lady. many years
in congress, and sec. of state somehow didn't understand what classified
material is or how even without marking some info is "born" classified.
She lied multiple times under oath about all of this.
In an enterprise environment? 50/50. For some "side work" from an IT
guy in the government? Id almost guarantee either CALs were missing, or
the entire thing was running on images Pagliano "got" from his day job.
Doubly so when the client is buying used servers and networking gear.
Ok so that will be $2,900 for hardware, and it looks like it will be
right around 9,000 for software licenses.
Pfff, here is 3,000, just make it work and keep the change for yourself
Not sure why you are being down voted on newly revealed information that
seems to confirm that one of the servers email accounts was breached.
If you're down voting him, perhaps an explanation as to why?
Probably because we know DOJ email servers have also been breached. He's
implying that her servers were less secure and somehow put information in
harms way. History seems to show us that it wasn't at any more risk.
Yeah, but the FBI is saying there was no evidence that the server was
hacked.
And then we find out that one of the email accounts was accessed over the
TOR network and the user of the email account had never heard of TOR much
less used it to access email.
That seems like yet another skewing of the finding to put them in the
best possible light. (EDIT: not saying she was or was not, but I would say
that there was indicators that it was possibly compromised)
DOJ, OPM, Pentagon, doesnt have any relevance on if she was irresponsible
for having this whole set up. That same article states they werent even
able to confirm if TLS was ever enabled. And Why? Because Clinton/IT took
steps to make sure it couldnt be found out before turning over the equipment.
You know, this level of twisting is why you and Rommel are not credible
on the topic. You just come off sounding like a conspiracy nut when you
can go from the article linked to "her servers got hacked."
Let's be clear: if there had been a full breach, there would have been
no need to be accessing an individual account over Exchange via TOR. You
could just grab the whole thing directly, instead. This is, if anything,
evidence of a lack of a full breach, at least by whatever actor was accessing
the particular account in question.
But, you know, why don't you two just keep shooting yourselves in the
kneecaps over this. It's not like your hyperbolic approach to this is hurting
your credibility at all. We can either assume you're both excessively biased
or incompetent on the topic from how you're running with that story.
Not that I'm calling you technically incompetent, mind. Unless you actually
believe there's not a distinction between an email account being individually
compromised and a "server being hacked." I expect you're just intentionally
twisting what you're saying. But hey, maybe you don't actually know better?
The way you two are trying to play this is why you have so many people
turning away in disgust-not at Hillary, but at the ongoing digging for gold
and related hyperbole and even outright lies in what is more and more clearly
a dustbowl, with the only apparent motivation being a smear campaign rather
than anything to do with actual justice or a real care about security.
A perfectly valid reason for accessing Exchange via Tor is exactly to
prevent the intrusion from being detected. Create yourself a valid account,
access it as any other normal user would and your hack will look like normal
user traffic.
'grabbing the whole thing directly' has only a fleeting value; taking
exchange offline to copy the mailboxes as you describe will certainly alert
someone to your presence and encourage them to mediate the intrusion.
Now, lets pretend you are Russia, and you have persistent access to her
and other email systems.
.
Now when you need to claim some new land in Georgia or Ukraine.. we get
reliable information about what the world police will actually do about
it. Not merely what they say they will do.
Sep 2, 2016 10:11 PM Popular
Rommel102 wrote: if one random person was able to get into the server
via TOR, that implies that the server was known to the hacking community.
You're making it sound much more dramatic than reality.
The one random person didn't "get into the server" in any meaningful
way. They accessed an email account.
As for the server being "known to the hacking community", DNS records
are public, so in reality the server was "known" to the entire world. As
are billions of others.
For practical purposes, every device on the internet is "known" to everybody.
Either DNS records point to it, or you can just scan IP address ranges to
find it.
RAH Seniorius Lurkius
reply
Sep 2, 2016 10:18 PM New Poster Popular A missing piece of this whole
conversation is what IT would be in place for the Secretary of State instead
of personal email servers. Government servers that have been known to be
all too easily hacked? And, just which department has the responsibility
for government security? As with all bureaucracies, the responsibility is
spread among many departments, including the FBI.
It is NSA's responsibility to provide communications for the heads of
departments, including the Secretary of State. Clinton supposedly asked
for a secure Blackberry like Obama's, but the NSA refused, siting cost.
The NSA seems to think the Secretary of State only needs the security found
within the SCIF in the State Department offices, and not portable security.
Really? No one travels more than the Secretary of State.
John Kerry's mobile systems (now that they finally have them) were updated
just weeks ago, and if you look at what he now has, you will find that those
systems are five years behind the times.
I am much more concerned about IT security within all departments of
the federal government than I am what Clinton did or did not do.
The question is whether there was any intention to skirt the legal requirements
for security and confidentiality. I don't believe Hillary had the technical
savvy to even begin to think about that.
Also, despite Comey's caustic remarks to Congress about recklessness,
etc., let's remember that he's not exactly credible, either, when it comes
to technology. I mean, he's the same guy who thinks the government should
have a backdoor into what would otherwise be secure private systems.
Red Foreman Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
reply
Sep 3, 2016 12:32 AM
RAH wrote: ...It is NSA's responsibility to provide communications for
the heads of departments, including the Secretary of State. Clinton supposedly
asked for a secure Blackberry like Obama's, but the NSA refused, siting
cost. The NSA seems to think the Secretary of State only needs the security
found within the SCIF in the State Department offices, and not portable
security. Really? No one travels more than the Secretary of State...
BREAKING NEWS: NSA Rejected Hillary Clinton's request for a Blackberry
That's the headline I keep reading. And it looks like you've read it
too. What they don't tell us is that instead they wanted her to use a General
Dynamics Sectéra Edge. Which while NSA approved for mobile SCIF classified
communication, it wasn't cool enough for Hillary.
It's a breach of protocol. She mishandled classified information she
otherwise had clearance to see. It's about equivalent to discussing state
secrets over an unsecured phone line in a seedy motel, or leaving top secret
information lying out on your kitchen table while you have your friends
over for a BBQ. It was incredibly stupid of her, and she's lucky there's
only theoretical evidence of a possibility of a leak, but it's not criminal.
I agree with Comey's conclusion on the matter. It's something any "regular"
person would've been fired over, probably blackballed from any sensitive
government position for life, though it's nothing anyone would go to jail
over.
Last edited by
Renzatic on Sat Sep 03, 2016 12:01 am
symphony3 Ars Centurion
reply
Sep 3, 2016 3:18 AM
RAH wrote: A missing piece of this whole conversation is what IT would
be in place for the Secretary of State instead of personal email servers.
Government servers that have been known to be all too easily hacked? And,
just which department has the responsibility for government security? As
with all bureaucracies, the responsibility is spread among many departments,
including the FBI.
It is NSA's responsibility to provide communications for the heads of
departments, including the Secretary of State. Clinton supposedly asked
for a secure Blackberry like Obama's, but the NSA refused, siting cost.
The NSA seems to think the Secretary of State only needs the security found
within the SCIF in the State Department offices, and not portable security.
Really? No one travels more than the Secretary of State.
John Kerry's mobile systems (now that they finally have them) were updated
just weeks ago, and if you look at what he now has, you will find that those
systems are five years behind the times.
I am much more concerned about IT security within all departments of
the federal government than I am what Clinton did or did not do.
I'm concerned about IT security, which makes me very concerned about
finally funding IT so it can succeed. Every government organization I've
worked with, even with top level universities, fund their landscaping better
than their IT. And that means the buck stops with whatever boss determines
funding.
Please don't tell me this is about the taxpayer deciding funding for
IT, because we know that Social Security was better prepared for Y2K than
almost any other government department. If the unknown director of Social
Security could wrangle a decent IT budget (past tense on that), then it
can still be done by much bigger names & departments. (Not singling out
one department, too many hacks to choose from)
None of this means what she did was ok, but it's also hard to not look
askance at the relentless witchhunting when it's placed in that broader
context.
...
My personal evolution on this issue has gone from "having a privately
controlled email server sounds really really bad, and was probably done
to avoid monitoring! I'm really upset about this!" to "wow, these allegations
sound extremely serious!" to "oh, those allegations were not really true
at all" to "yikes, this again? how much more whining and knashing of the
the teeth am I going to have to put up with?" If this had been any other
politican, like, literally any other politician would we have heard more
than a week or two about it? Would we have the FBI releasing their investigation
documents to the public? Would all of Clinton's emails been open to the
public like this? The amount of transparency, the lack of smoking guns,
and the irrationally emotional anger have made me completely turn around
on this issue.
The reason it keeps coming back is that each new revelation seems to
reveal more lies and more proof of lies by Hillary Clinton. You suggest
if it was any other politician it would be instantly forgotten. Not exactly.
Not if they stood a very good chance of being the next president of the
United States. And certainly not if they had the same background of corruption,
lying, and disastrous job performance as Clinton does (getting Americans
killed in Benghazi and then lying to their families about it, her lies about
being under sniper attack on the tarmac in the Balkans years ago, etc etc).
Nixon was forced to resign for far less dishonesty than this woman has been
caught in. So yes, it is a big deal, and it should be. Not only did she
take the classified workflow outside of the secure state department infrastructure,
she did it to avoid accountability and just exactly the kind of scandal
that would ensue if it was ever found out, which it obviously was. She put
national security at risk for her own political gain, and then lied about
it repeatedly on many occasions and in all kinds of settings. Not only did
she commit crimes and SHOULD have been charged by DOJ (her hubby's little
illicit chit-chat w/ Lynch on the Phoenix tarmac notwithstanding), but she
demonstrated by all she has done she doesn't have the one thing a real president
needs: good judgement. Plenty of other things as well, honesty, etc, should
also be requirements, but generally aren't, lately. But having better judgement
than a 2 year old is crucial, and she's proven she hasn't got that.
A recap ( Comey's testimony) of just some of the lies told by Clinton,
to both the public, Congress, and the FBI, about her emails, server, etc
:
ArchieG Smack-Fu Master, in training
reply
Sep 3, 2016 6:37 AM Quote: The reason it keeps coming back is
that each new revelation seems to reveal more lies and more proof of lies
by Hillary Clinton. You suggest if it was any other politician it would
be instantly forgotten. Not exactly. Not if they stood a very good chance
of being the next president of the United States. And certainly not if they
had the same background of corruption, lying, and disastrous job performance
as Clinton does (getting Americans killed in Benghazi and then lying to
their families about it, her lies about being under sniper attack on the
tarmac in the Balkans years ago, etc etc). Nixon was forced to resign for
far less dishonesty than this woman has been caught in. So yes, it is a
big deal, and it should be. Not only did she take the classified workflow
outside of the secure state department infrastructure, she did it to avoid
accountability and just exactly the kind of scandal that would ensue if
it was ever found out, which it obviously was. She put national security
at risk for her own political gain, and then lied about it repeatedly on
many occasions and in all kinds of settings. Not only did she commit crimes
and SHOULD have been charged by DOJ (her hubby's little illicit chit-chat
w/ Lynch on the Phoenix tarmac notwithstanding), but she demonstrated by
all she has done she doesn't have the one thing a real president needs:
good judgement. Plenty of other things as well, honesty, etc, should also
be requirements, but generally aren't, lately. But having better judgement
than a 2 year old is crucial, and she's proven she hasn't got that.
Could you at least break your thoughts into paragraphs? Also, back up
your whining with actual facts. Yeah, that would be nice.
bthylafh Ars Praefectus
reply
Sep 3, 2016 8:54 AM
mat735 wrote: Wow. Not only is this article misleading and poorly composed,
it is factually incorrect (pic being one example). At the time this happened
was it uncommon for a company to manage their own email servers/hardware?
What were BlackBerry recommendations on hosting? Who actually ordered the
hardware? Who is PRN and what other clients do they represent?
This is the point anyone who cares about the country should be making,
and I really wish Hillary had raised it early on. Federal IT is bad not
because of the usual right-wing tropes about government workers but because
there are too many barriers enshrined in federal law and policy. Things
like procurement, hiring, and even the simple ability to deploy an application
have slow, expensive processes full of counter-productive incentives. The
pay-scale for federal staff tops out well below the private sector, there's
been a couple decades of Congress trying to encourage outsourcing (I'm sure
it's just a coincidence that large contracting companies can make campaign
donations), and a lot of senior management and policy have tried to treat
IT as a purchase rather than a skill to be developed, all of which means
that the federal workforce is aging and the best people are routinely asking
themselves whether they believe in their agency's mission enough to keep
turning down a hefty pay raise. GitHub's Ben Balter, a former Presidential
Innovation Fellow, has written a lot about this – see
What's next for federal IT policy, IMHO ,
Three things you learn going from the most bureaucratic organization in
the world to the least ,
Want to innovate government? Focus on culture , etc.
This has already been a big deal during the Obama administration and
I think it's going to become critical for the next president as both our
dependencies on IT continue to increase – remember that due to decades of
budget cuts, many agencies are still relatively early in the migration to
fully electronic processes – and the demands increase, both for general
worker productivity and especially for across-the-board security improvements
as the sophistication of attacks has gone up. Security is one of the hardest
parts of IT because it's not a commodity which you can purchase, requires
broader skills and constant adjustment, and the field is full of hucksters
peddling purchases or bureaucratic process as easy solutions. The low federal
pay-scale is especially bad since there's so much private sector demand,
which means that it's hard to keep skilled practitioners on staff and that
reduces the pool of qualified people getting hired into management.
This is the kind of thing people should be asking the candidates to talk
about but due to the prolonged bad-faith attempts to trump up scandals from
things like these emails it's really hard to see any sort of honest policy
discussion breaking out. Every citizen should care about changing that dynamic
since in addition to the areas where the failures are themselves major crises
everywhere else they're behind the scenes making projects more expensive
and less successful across the board.
Sep 3, 2016 11:01 AM
roman wrote:
mat735 wrote: Wow. Not only is this article misleading and poorly composed,
it is factually incorrect (pic being one example). At the time this happened
was it uncommon for a company to manage their own email servers/hardware?
What were BlackBerry recommendations on hosting? Who actually ordered the
hardware? Who is PRN and what other clients do they represent?
During the "growing" age of the Internet but before cloud computing (I'd
say early 1990's to mid 2000's) it was very easy/common to run your own
servers. All you needed was a constant internet connection and a static
IP addr.
This was especially common among non-IT centric businesses in my experience
– doctors, lawyers, non-profits, etc. would pay a consultant to set something
up and give their front-office staff instructions about changing backup
tapes, etc. but they didn't want to have to deal with the complexity and
expense of a real data center operation, hiring staff, etc. You probably
wanted a business cable/DSL connection anyway, buy a copy of
Windows Small business Server or
OS X
Server depending on your tastes and you have everything "done" for a
fixed up-front cost. A lot of consultants made good livings doing the same
setup for a bunch of clients which weren't quite big enough to have IT staffing
or balked at paying someone above desktop-support level.
The biggest things which killed that market were security and disaster
recovery, as maintaining an email server became a full-time job and stories
about someone losing everything in a hack / fire / flood / etc. became fairly
common, coupled with the availability of high-quality services (
Google Apps for Your Domain launched in 2006 ) at prices which were
much less than you could match for things like spam filtering, user interface
quality, and performance at a scale of less than hundreds of users. Things
like PCI or HIPAA accelerated that process by telling entire fields it was
no longer a good area to skimp.
By now it's assumed most small operations will use a cloud provider but
it took years to establish that the service quality and pricing would stick.
By the time Hillary took office, however, that was still in transition.
It doesn't surprise me at all that someone – especially someone mid-career
or older – would go back to what was familiar when their boss asked them
to get something done in a hurry. It's the same process you can find all
over the business world where someone has a "mission critical" Access database,
Excel file, PHP app on a shared host, etc. because they were told to get
it done ASAP and didn't have time to learn something new, especially if
this wasn't a core part of their job. It'll just be a temporary fix until
we do things the right way
gbjbaanb Ars Scholae Palatinae
reply
Sep 3, 2016 2:11 PM Well it does get a little more interesting every
day. Today the news is of a missing laptop and thumbdrive containing an
archive of emails that were not handed over to the FBI (apparently they
were forgotten).
Quote: In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and
tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without
success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person's
personal Gmail account and there were problems around Apple software not
being compatible with that of Microsoft.
"Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts
of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI
does not have either item in its possession."
One thing, regardless of the political affiliation of the commenters
and voters here, this is all sloppy IT work that should never be allowed
to go unchallenged. If you're going to do this kind of thing, at least get
someone who knows what they're doing to do it properly. As an IT professional,
this kind of lackadaisical attitude to IT administration offends me.
That doesn't make it OK and he should be under investigation as well.
haven't you heard the law doesn't apply to republicans.
They were no laws broken by clinton than we can tell, it's just a weird
thing. Powell clearly used private email to skirt records requests (and
IIRC the Bush admin lost millions of emails). But Clinton seemed aware information
is public record no matter how it's sent.
And if we compare the number of times this server was breached to government
breaches, i don't know if this makes the idea of using your own server look
like a bad idea. most intrusions are via social engineering, and there's
probably a lot more weak points in the staff of gov email than this private
one.
What i find strange is that Clinton was secretary of state, and was probably
handling classified information constantly. How is it after the FBI has
reviewed 45,000 of the 60,0000 emails there are so few classified emails
being sent around (only 1 was sent BY clinton). Does the government just
not send classified information through email at all? I'm more interested,
from a technological perspective, in how this is handled.
She violated quite a few laws the press is willfully ignoring
As someone who has gone through the hassle of trying to get a Security Clearance
AND clearance to work on classified networks we were clearly told of the
laws and penalties to be incurred for misuse of the resources
Hillary went above and beyond to try and keep knowingly and marked classified
documents out of the "secure" White House network, there is the violations
of the laws. You notice how they handled the acquisition of the hardware?
She and her minions KNEW what they were doing and purposely used Bills staff
to hide it and keep the supplier in the dark to keep their illegal behavior
as secret as possible
But no, she didn't do anything wrong and definitely didn't violate a
dozen or so laws, nope, just another "right wing conspiracy" she swears
is always going on
And it's the Democratic party, not the Democrat party.
And she's not the Commander-in-Chief so I don't even know how you got
the notion that she's responsible for American citizens getting killed.
If we put government officials in jail according to how many people died
under their watch, George W Bush would be in prison for hundreds and hundreds
of years for all the dead in the 911 attack, the thousands of military service
personnel that died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the millions of
innocent civilian lives that were lost because of his stupidity, not to
mention all the lies that were told to justify the war in the first place.
Take your partisan bullshit somewhere else.
Lol....she violated the espionage act! And she had every intent in doing
so. If that's not illegal then I don't know what is.
And yes, she may well be responsible for getting Americans killed. If
her server was hacked then no doubt she put American lives at risk.
Clearly, Crooked Hillary was more concerned about protecting her own
secrets and the Clinton Foundation's secrets more than she was about protecting
America's secrets.
She's not fit for any government job, let alone president.
JaxMac Smack-Fu Master, in training
et Subscriptor
reply
Sep 3, 2016 7:45 PM New Poster The Power Mac G4 was sold prior to the
release of OS X. Thus it's operating system was the Classical Mac OS. The
Classical Mac OS had no command line, thus it was practically unhackable
remotely. I believe that this was also true of the Power Mac G5.
If the Clinton email had been maintained on either of these two Macs
there would be no questions about infiltration by anyone.
Andrew Norton Ars Scholae Palatinae
reply
Sep 3, 2016 11:42 PM
davecadron wrote: Did everyone miss the part where hillary decided to
wipe the server after foia requests were made and after records were subpoenaed
by Congress?
Obstruction of justice is a felony.
Everything you say may be true.
However the first paragraph has absolutely zero relevance to the last (separate)
line.
The stuff up top might get you 'contempt of congress', or violation of
a court order that doesn't actually exist.
Obstruction of justice is a whole 'nother matter and has nothing to do
with FOIA's or congressional subpoenas.
Obstruction of justice is a felony.
Everything you say may be true.
However the first paragraph has absolutely zero relevance to the last (separate)
line.
The stuff up top might get you 'contempt of congress', or violation of
a court order that doesn't actually exist.
Obstruction of justice is a whole 'nother matter and has nothing to do
with FOIA's or congressional subpoenas.
As always seems to be the case the coverup is worse then the crime, certainly
so with the Clintons given their history. If any the obstruction of justice
hasn't been their attempting to conceal their public records from being
properly archived, as required by law and thus being open to being disclosed
under FOIA.
Rather it's their efforts after the fact. And that would be potentially
lying under oath to investigators and or destruction of/concealing of evidence,
in an attempt to explain away the email scandal, and of course try to publicly
cast it in the light of just another illegitimate "vast right-wing conspiracy"
to get them. Because that's what the Clintons always do when they're backed
into a corner.
Red Foreman Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
reply
Sep 4, 2016 10:07 PM
Renzatic wrote:
Red Foreman wrote: The Clinton email saga with it's oh-so-typical Clinton-esque
coverup that's far worse then the original fuck-up isn't a non-story. And
it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.
I've said this elsewhere, but I feel it bears repeating here.
For roughly 30 years now, Hillary Clinton has been dogged by a party
made up primarily of lawyers, judges, DAs, and others in the legal profession,
with millions of dollars and all the institutions of government at their
fingertips.
In all this time, with all this knowledge, power and influence at their
disposal, what have they discovered? That the Clintons tend to bend the
rules if it benefits them, and like to scratch the backs of people who can
and will scratch theirs. For all their efforts, they haven't discovered
evidence of anything truly heinous or illegal. Rather, they've merely uncovered
the fact they're a little seedy.
...so how are they any different than any other politician in Washington?
How is it any different? This one it running for President of the United
States at the moment. As such scrutinizing her dealings is fair game. After
all, as you said the Clintons are a little seedy, tend to bend the rules
if it benefits themselves, and like to scratch the backs of people who can
and will scratch theirs.
Speaking of which...
Bill, Hillary, Loretta Lynch, James Comey and the emails
Corruption in plain sight
Tuesday, June 28: Former President Bill Clinton suddenly appears to Attorney
General Loretta Lynch in the cabin of her airplane parked on the tarmac
in Phoenix, Arizona. Secret Service agents deny access to news photos and
videos of the visit. They visit for 30 minutes.
Thursday, June 29: Lynch denies that any discussion with Bill Clinton
of the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's email scandal took place,
and states that she expects to accept the recommendation of the FBI as to
further actions in the Clinton case. She does not, however, recuse herself
or appoint a Special Prosecutor. The FBI also announces that the Clinton
interview will take place on this coming Saturday, during the holiday weekend.
Friday, June 30: Hillary Clinton campaign leaks that Loretta Lynch may
be retained in her present job under a Hillary Clinton administration.
Saturday, July 1: Hillary Clinton's long-delayed interview with the FBI
takes place. It lasts 3 1/2 hours. Clinton not under oath. FBI Director
Comey does not attend, will not reveal who was in attendance.
Tuesday, July 5: FBI Director Comey conducts a press conference without
questions. Details a long list of Clinton's violations, but concludes that
he met with prosecutors and decided not to make a criminal referral for
either convening a Grand Jury or an indictment because she didn't mean to
do anything bad. He cited "reasonable prosecutors" (presumably the ones
he consulted) who would not want to prosecute the case.
Tuesday, July 5: While Comey was making his announcement, President Barack
Obama, in a previously scheduled appearance, was campaigning in North Carolina
with Hillary Clinton.
Wednesday, July 6: Attorney General Lynch announces that she accepts
the recommendation of Comey and will not review the evidence herself.
What really happened appears to be that Bill Clinton successfully conveyed
to Loretta Lynch that she would keep her job if Hillary is elected. Lynch
then successfully conveyed to Comey that she expected a clean referral from
the FBI. Finally, Comey undertook a nearly unprecedented step by publicly
announcing all the reasons for a criminal referral, then refusing to follow
his own logic. In the meantime, Obama, boss of Lynch and Comey, obviously
knew well in advance what the outcome of this charade would be and scheduled
accordingly."
(arstechnica.com)
223
Posted
by
BeauHD
on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:10PM
from the
data-capturing-devices
dept.
An anonymous reader shares with us an excerpt from a
report via Ars Technica:
As she was being
confirmed as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
contacted Colin Powell to ask him about his use of a
Blackberry while in the same role. According to a
Federal Bureau of Investigations memorandum
published today
(PDF), Powell warned Clinton
that if it became public that she was using a
Blackberry to "do business," her e-mails would be
treated as "official" record and be subject to the
law. "Be very careful," Powell said according to the
FBI. "I got around it all by not saying much and not
using systems that captured the data."
Perhaps Clinton's troubles began when she
switched from a Blackberry-hosted e-mail account to
an account on her Clintonemail.com domain -- a
domain
hosted on an Apple Power Mac "G4 or G5" tower
running in the Clintons' Chappaqua, New York
residence. The switch to the Power Mac as a server
occurred the same month she exchanged messages with
Powell.
The Power Mac, originally purchased in 2007 by
former President Clinton's aide Justin Cooper, had
acted as the server for presidentclinton.com and
wjcoffice.com. Cooper managed most of the technology
support for Bill Clinton and took charge of setting
up Hillary Clinton's new personal mail system on the
Power Mac, which sat alongside a firewall and
network switching hardware in the basement of the
Clintons' home.
But the Power Mac was having difficulty
handling the additional load created by Blackberry
usage from Secretary Clinton and her staff, so a
decision was made quickly to upgrade the server
hardware. Secretary Clinton's deputy chief of staff
at the State Department, Huma Abedin, connected
Cooper with Brian Pagliano, who had worked in IT for
the secretary's 2008 presidential campaign. Cooper
inquired with Pagliano about getting some of the
campaign's computer hardware as a replacement for
the Power Mac, and Pagliano was in the process of
selling the equipment off.
by
quantaman
(
517394
)
writes:
on
Saturday
September
03,
2016
@03:20AM
(
#52820193
)
A
sailor
going
and
photographing
classified
sections
of a
submarine
over
a
period
of
months.
Basically
looking
like
he
was
engaged
in
active
espionage.
Oooh,
"10
people
were
actually
punished
for
similar
or
lesser
offenses
than
what
Mrs.
Clinton
got
away
with
yesterday".
This
should
be
good
for
a
laugh.
1.
"pleaded
guilty
in
2005
to
illegally
sneaking
classified
documents
from
the
National
Archives
by
stuffing
papers
in
his
suit.
He
later
destroyed
some
of
them
in
his
office
and
lied
about
it."
Nope,
he
was
deliberately
removed
classified
documents
and
they
proved
he
lied
about
it.
2.
"Peter
Van
Buren,
a
foreign
service
officer
for
Hillary's
State
Department,
was
fired
and
his
security
clearance
revoked
for
quoting
a
Wikileaks
document
AFTER
publishing
a
book
critical
of
Clinton.
In
fact,
the
Washington
Post
reported
that
one
of
his
firing
infractions
was
"showing
'bad
judgement'
by
criticizing
Clinton
and
then-Rep.
Michele
Bachmann
on
his
blog."
Sounds
more
like
someone
being
punished
for
writing
a
book
critical
of
their
employer.
3.
Was
a
CIA
director
storing
classified
info
at
home.
This
is
the
most
comparable
though
the
CIA
director
was
dealing
with
more
sensitive
information,
should
have
been
more
aware
than
Hillary,
and
it
sounds
like
he
knew
he
had
mishandled
classified
intel.
So a
little
worse
than
Hillary
though
roughly
comparable.
He
also
got
pardoned
by
Bill
Clinton
before
he
even
finished
the
plea
deal.
So
that
actually
kinda
sets
a no
jail-time
incident.
4.
"A
Navy
intelligence
specialist
admitted
Thursday
that
he
smuggled
classified
documents
out
of
Fort
Bragg
in
folders
and
his
pants
pockets,
then
sold
them
for
$11,500
to a
man
he
believed
was
a
Chinese
agent."
Wow,
#4
and
they're
already
claiming
a
guy
trying
to
sell
classified
intelligence
to
the
Chinese
was
a
lesser
offence
than
Hillary?
I
seriously
checked
all
of
the
examples
and
even
read
the
links
on a
few
that
looked
promising.
This
one
was
actually
hilarious:
Lab
Tech
Steals
Data
from
Nuclear
Facility.
Jessica
Lynn
Quintana,
a
former
worker
at
the
Los
Alamos
National
Laboratory,
pleaded
guilty
in
federal
court
to
"knowingly
removing
classified
information
from
the
national
security
research
laboratory,
after
she
took
home
sensitive
documents
and
data
from
the
lab
last
year."
Talk
about
misrepresenting
the
facts.
She
was
charged
because
she
was
running
a
meth
lab!!
Still
I
learned
something,
don't
believe
a
damn
thing
you
read
on
"The
Political
Insider".
(f) Whoever,
being entrusted
with or having
lawful
possession or
control of any
document,
writing, code
book, signal
book, sketch,
photograph,
photographic
negative,
blueprint, plan,
map, model,
instrument,
appliance, note,
or information,
relating to the
national
defense, (1)
through gross
negligence
permits the same
to be removed
from its proper
place of custody
or delivered to
anyone in
violation of his
trust, or to be
lost, stolen,
abstracted, or
destroyed, or
(2) having
knowledge that
the same has
been illegally
removed from its
proper place of
custody or
delivered to
anyone in
violation of its
trust, or lost,
or stolen,
abstracted, or
destroyed, and
fails to make
prompt report of
such loss,
theft,
abstraction, or
destruction to
his superior
officer-
Shall be fined
under this title
or imprisoned
not more than
ten years, or
both.
tl;dr - she didn't
have to know it was
wrong, she simply had to
be "extremely careless"
(aka, "grossly
negligent")
tl;dr - she
didn't have
to know it
was wrong,
she simply
had to be
"extremely
careless"
(aka,
"grossly
negligent")
And despite the
fact the FBI
director used the
phrase "extreme
carelessness" wrt
the handling of
sensitive info,
somehow the
defenders of
lawlessness still
admit to the fact
that she very
clearly committed
multiple crimes.
I know you
paid shills
like to try
to sway
people to
your side
with a good
bit of
cherry
picking, you
really
should pick
your targets
better.
And
did
that
"extreme
carelessness"
result
in
confidential
information
being
destroyed
or
delivered
to
people
in
violation
of
trust?
Interesting
how you
removed half
a clause
from your
copy & paste
from above,
specifically:
through
gross
negligence
permits
the
same
to
be
removed
from
its
proper
place
of
custody
Was
Clinton's
email server
a proper
place of
custody? If
not, then
she violated
that statute
through
gross
negligence
at minimum.
One,
we
don't
know
what/if
anything
was
stolen,
we
just
know
that
there
was
at
least
one
successful
login
to
the
server
via
Tor
on a
user
account
where
the
owner
claimed
no
knowledge
of
the
software:
http://www.politico.com/story/...
[politico.com]
Two,
Clinton
did
not
do
the
reasonable
thing
in
the
setting
up
of
the
server,
nor
recognizing
classified
information,
nor
allowing
her
aids
to
re-handle
the
information
in
rather
careless
ways,
so
by
your
very
own
logic,
she
should
be
held
criminally
responsible
for
her
actions.
"... "State Department Delays Records Request About Clinton-Linked Firm Until After The 2016 Election" [ International Business Times ]. "Beacon Global Strategies is a shadowy consulting firm that's stacked with former Obama administration officials, high profile Republicans and a number of Hillary Clinton's closest foreign policy advisers. But beyond its billing as a firm that works with the defense industry, it is unclear for whom specifically the company works, exactly what it does, and if Beacon employees have tried to influence national security policy since the firm's founding in 2013. ..."
"... UPDATE "New York-based Teneo, with 575 employees, markets itself as a one-stop shop for CEOs to get advice on a wide range of issues, including mergers and acquisitions, handling crises and managing public relations. For its services, it generally charges clients monthly retainer fees of $100,000 to $300,000." [ Wall Street Journal , "Teneo, Consulting Firm with Clinton Ties, Eyes $1 Billion IPO"]. Founder Douglas Band was Bill Clinton's body man . One can only wonder what a body man does to become worth $1 billion to, well, the people who made him worth a billion. ..."
"... The donors expect that their support of the Clinton Foundation will help them get access to the State Department, [Doug] Band see above] expects that he can count on [Huma] Abedin to help, and Abedin seems to understand that she needs to be responsive to Band. This would be a lot of effort for powerful people to expend, if it led to nothing at all. ..."
"... UPDATE "Even as the Clintons are touting plans to distance themselves from their foundation and limit its fundraising if Hillary Clinton is elected president, they're planning one last glitzy fundraising bash on Friday to belatedly celebrate Bill Clinton's 70th birthday" [ Politico ]. ..."
"... "Plans called for performances by Wynton Marsalis, Jon Bon Jovi and Barbra Streisand, according to people briefed on the planning. They said that major donors are being asked to give $250,000 to be listed as a chair for the party, $100,000 to be listed a co-chair and $50,000 to be listed as a vice-chair." Sounds lovely! How I wish I could go… ..."
"State Department Delays Records Request About Clinton-Linked Firm Until
After The 2016 Election" [
International Business Times ]. "Beacon Global Strategies is a shadowy consulting
firm that's stacked with former Obama administration officials, high profile
Republicans and a number of Hillary Clinton's closest foreign policy advisers.
But beyond its billing as a firm that works with the defense industry, it is
unclear for whom specifically the company works, exactly what it does, and if
Beacon employees have tried to influence national security policy since the
firm's founding in 2013.
UPDATE "New York-based Teneo, with 575 employees, markets itself as a one-stop
shop for CEOs to get advice on a wide range of issues, including mergers and
acquisitions, handling crises and managing public relations. For its services,
it generally charges clients monthly retainer fees of $100,000 to $300,000."
[
Wall Street Journal , "Teneo, Consulting Firm with Clinton Ties, Eyes $1
Billion IPO"]. Founder Douglas Band was Bill Clinton's
body man
. One can only wonder what a body man does to become worth $1 billion to,
well, the people who made him worth a billion.
"[I]n many of these [Clinton Foundation] episodes you can see expectations
operating like an electrical circuit. The donors expect that their support of
the Clinton Foundation will help them get access to the State Department, [Doug]
Band see above] expects that he can count on [Huma] Abedin to help, and Abedin
seems to understand that she needs to be responsive to Band. This would be a
lot of effort for powerful people to expend, if it led to nothing at all. There
are two obvious possibilities. One is that the State Department actually was
granting important favors to Clinton Foundation donors that the many sustained
investigations have somehow failed to detect. The other, which is more likely,
is that someone, somewhere along the line, was getting played" [
The New Yorker ]. Surely those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive?
And public office is being used for private gain in either case?
UPDATE "Even as the Clintons are touting plans to distance themselves from
their foundation and limit its fundraising if Hillary Clinton is elected president,
they're planning one last glitzy fundraising bash on Friday to belatedly celebrate
Bill Clinton's 70th birthday" [
Politico ].
"Plans called for performances by Wynton Marsalis, Jon Bon Jovi
and Barbra Streisand, according to people briefed on the planning. They said
that major donors are being asked to give $250,000 to be listed as a chair for
the party, $100,000 to be listed a co-chair and $50,000 to be listed as a vice-chair."
Sounds lovely! How I wish I could go…
13. How can we know you won't (again) impulsively damage
relationships with crucial allies to preserve your own ego?
Hillary Clinton added,
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S.
politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get
elected. #Trump2016
Is such incompetence in messaging a reflection of Hillary Clinton
own confusion? Or are the categories "terrorist and dictator" versus
"crucial allies" solely depending on the size of payments to the
Clinton Foundation?
She is sliding to throwing mud ,. what ever will stick will do
the trick I guess .This started after some polls showing the
Donald ahead a few points .
I recognize election season is always crazy in the states,
especially as an outside observer looking in, but this cycle
seems so far beyond that norm compared even to 4 years ago it
makes me quite uncomfortable. It reeks of a growing desperation
by the elites to me. The 2012 campaigns of the two major parties
were a circus by any measure, but they seem completely measured
and intellectual by this year's standards.
I understand American culture dwells a lot on violence, but
the new standards of political rhetoric disturb me greatly. It
seems most of the country's population is either willfully
ignorant of the destruction their country creates or cheers it
on wildly and willingly. How anybody could advocate carpet
bombing without irony or rebuttal is frightenening. That it
could drum up support - well that's just depressing.
The two most important topics in this election, nuclear
weapons and global warming, both candidates have been decidedly
silent about. It scares me that neither party even attempts to
appeal to the left anymore, except by manipulating them by fear
and non existent 'security' issues. If it's all about PR and
perception management anyways, I wonder why Clinton wears her
right leaning nature and war mongering history on her sleeve?
Maybe content and debate matters less than I assume it does to
the average American voter. Maybe it's totally about spectacle
and personality now and nothing else. Sad, sad days for those
who live in the middle of the Empire but it's hard to be
sympathetic sometimes. It seems the hot new consumer electronic
device gets more of a thorough analysis and debate than does
either major party candidates' platform (if you could even call
it that).
Vote republican and catastrophic, irreversible climate change
is almost guaranteed, with a hearty chance of more war and more
regime change operations (despite attempts to paint the
candidate as 'isolationist').
Vote democrat for more wars and regime change, with the
status quo of environmental destruction happily maintained
(despite the attempts to paint the candidate as an
'environmentalist').
this us election is much more pathetic then usual... witnessing
the standing president refer to putin akin to saddam hussain is
frankly insane, but shows how depraved the usa has gotten...
and, besides that, since when did the average usa person even
know where any place outside the usa was on a map, let alone
having actually been their? oh - i guess it doesn't matter...
as @1 originalone says basically 'putin did it'...
The Obama administration authorized CIA backing of the
rebellion almost before it started. In all likelihood, it
started several years before the revolt, and the authorization
was to provide legal cover for activity that was already
ongoing.
Unfortunately, your observations are sharp,
correct and to the point. All I can weakly offer is something
Ralph Nader said. Ralph Nader once noted that the difference
between the democrats and republicans is the difference between
a car hitting a wall at 60 miles per hour versus 120 miles per
hour. Not so anymore. Now both cars will hit the wall going as
fast as they can. And the passengers will jump for joy at the
speed.
"... He said they took an innocuous email that she had received from one of her underlings and put the markings on it that indicated it was an email classified as SECRET. They asked Hillary if she had ever seen the email before, she said, "No." ..."
"... The FBI by marking the email with the markings that indicated that it was SECRET was only attempting to get Hillary to indicate that she understood what the markings meant and she did. ..."
The FBI set up a trap for Hillary Clinton during their questioning of her
and she fell right into it, according to Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Judge Napolitano appeared yesterday morning on the Don Imus Show on WABC
radio and told Imus that at one point early in their questioning of her they
lied to her. He said that, under law, they are allowed to do so and did so
to set a trap.
He said they took an innocuous email that she had received from one of
her underlings and put the markings on it that indicated it was an email
classified as SECRET. They asked Hillary if she had ever seen the email
before, she said, "No."
But upon reading the email, she went on to say, "I don't know why this is
marked secret. There is nothing classified in it." Bam, she fell into the
trap.
The FBI by marking the email with the markings that indicated that it
was SECRET was only attempting to get Hillary to indicate that she
understood what the markings meant and she did.
Judge Napolitano also told Imus that there will be more negative news coming
out about the Clintons, especially the Clinton Foundation, He did not
provide details.
This is Christopher Hitchens biting analysis from previous Presidential elections,
but still relevant
Notable quotes:
"... The last time that Clinton foreign-policy associations came up for congressional review, the investigations ended in a cloud of murk that still has not been dispelled. ..."
"... the real problem is otherwise. Both President and Sen. Clinton, while in office, made it obvious to foreign powers that they and their relatives were wide open to suggestions from lobbyists and middlemen. ..."
"... If you recall the names John Huang, James Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and others, you will remember the pattern of acquired amnesia syndrome and stubborn reluctance to testify, followed by sudden willingness on the part of the Democratic National Committee to return quite large sums of money from foreign sources. Much of this cash had been raised at political events held in the public rooms of the White House, the sort of events that featured the adorable Roger Tamraz , for another example. ..."
"... It found that the Clinton administration's attitude toward Chinese penetration had been abysmally lax (as lax, I would say, as its attitude toward easy money from businessmen with Chinese military-industrial associations). ..."
"... Many quids and many quos were mooted by these investigations (still incomplete at the time of writing) though perhaps not enough un-ambivalent pros . You can't say that about the Marc Rich and other pardons-the vulgar bonanza with which the last Clinton era came to an end. Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, gave large sums to Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign and to Bill Clinton's library, and Marc Rich got a pardon. ..."
"... Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory, convicted of bank fraud, hired Hillary Clinton's brother Tony and paid him $250,000, and they got a pardon. Carlos Vignali Jr. and Almon Glenn Braswell paid $400,000 to Hillary Clinton's other brother, Hugh , and, hey, they , respectively, got a presidential commutation and a presidential pardon, too. ..."
"... Does this sibling and fraternal squalor have foreign-policy implications, too? Yes. Until late 1999, the fabulous Rodham boys were toiling on another scheme to get the hazelnut concession from the newly independent republic of Georgia. There was something quixotically awful about this scheme-something simultaneously too small-time and too big-time-but it also involved a partnership with the main political foe of the then-Georgian president (who may conceivably have had political aspirations), so once again the United States was made to look as if its extended first family were operating like a banana republic. ..."
"... In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. ..."
"... Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me. ..."
It was apt in a small way that the first
endorser of Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of state should have been
Henry Kissinger. The last time he was nominated for any position of responsibility-the
chairmanship of the 9/11 commission-he accepted with many florid words about
the great honor and responsibility, and then he withdrew when it became clear
that he would have to disclose the client list of Kissinger Associates. (See,
for the article that began this embarrassing process for him, my Slate
column "The
Latest Kissinger Outrage.")
It is possible that the Senate will be as much of a club as the undistinguished
fraternity/sorority of our ex-secretaries of state, but even so, it's difficult
to see Sen. Clinton achieving confirmation unless our elected representatives
are ready to ask a few questions about conflict of interest along similar lines.
And how can they not? The last time that Clinton foreign-policy associations
came up for congressional review, the investigations ended in a cloud of murk
that still has not been dispelled. Former President Bill Clinton has recently
and rather disingenuously offered to submit his own foundation to scrutiny (see
the
work of my Vanity Fair colleague Todd Purdum on the delightful friends
and associates that Clinton has acquired since he left office), but
the real problem is otherwise. Both President and Sen. Clinton, while in
office, made it obvious to foreign powers that they and their relatives were
wide open to suggestions from lobbyists and middlemen.
Just to give the most salient examples from the Clinton fundraising scandals
of the late 1990s: The House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight published
a list of witnesses called before it who had either "fled
or pled"-in other words, who had left the country to avoid testifying or
invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination. Some Democratic members
of the committee said that this was unfair to, say, the Buddhist nuns who raised
the unlawful California temple dough for then-Vice President
Al Gore, but however fair you want to be, the number of those who found
it highly inconvenient to testify fluctuates between 94 and 120. If you
recall the names John Huang, James Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and others,
you will remember the pattern of acquired amnesia syndrome and stubborn reluctance
to testify, followed by sudden willingness on the part of the Democratic National
Committee to return quite large sums of money from foreign sources. Much of
this cash had been raised at political events held in the public rooms of the
White House, the sort of events that featured the adorable
Roger Tamraz, for another example.
Related was the result of a House select
committee
on Chinese espionage in the United States and the illegal transfer to China
of advanced military technology. Chaired by Christopher Cox, R-Calif., the committee
issued a
report
in 1999 with no dissenting or "minority" signature. It found that the Clinton
administration's attitude toward Chinese penetration had been abysmally lax
(as lax, I would say, as its attitude toward easy money from businessmen with
Chinese military-industrial associations).
Many quids and many quos were mooted by these investigations
(still incomplete at the time of writing) though perhaps not enough un-ambivalent
pros. You can't say that about the Marc Rich and other pardons-the vulgar
bonanza with which the last Clinton era came to an end. Rich's ex-wife, Denise
Rich, gave large sums to Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign and to Bill
Clinton's library, and Marc Rich got a pardon.
Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory, convicted of bank fraud,
hired Hillary Clinton's brother Tony and paid him $250,000, and they
got a pardon. Carlos Vignali Jr. and Almon Glenn Braswell paid $400,000 to Hillary
Clinton's other brother,
Hugh, and, hey, they, respectively, got a presidential commutation
and a presidential pardon, too. In the Hugh case, the money was returned
as being too embarrassing for words (and as though following the hallowed custom,
when busted or flustered, of the Clinton-era DNC). But I would say that it was
more embarrassing to realize that a former first lady, and a candidate for secretary
of state, was a full partner in years of seedy overseas money-grubbing and has
two greedy brothers to whom she cannot say no.
Does this sibling and fraternal squalor have foreign-policy implications,
too? Yes. Until late 1999, the fabulous Rodham boys were toiling on another
scheme to get the hazelnut concession from the newly independent republic of
Georgia. There was something quixotically awful about this scheme-something
simultaneously too small-time and too big-time-but it also involved a partnership
with the main political foe of the then-Georgian president (who may conceivably
have had political aspirations), so once again the United States was made to
look as if its extended first family were operating like a banana republic.
China, Indonesia, Georgia-these are not exactly negligible countries on our
defense and financial and ideological peripheries. In each country, there are
important special interests that equate the name Clinton with the word pushover.
And did I forget to add what President Clinton pleaded when the revulsion at
the Rich pardons became too acute? He claimed that he had concerted the deal
with the government of Israel in the intervals of the Camp David "agreement"!
So anyone who criticized the pardons had better have been careful if they didn't
want to hear from the Anti-Defamation League. Another splendid way of showing
that all is aboveboard and of convincing the Muslim world of our evenhandedness.
In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the
Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. A president absolutely
has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other
agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this
is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty
is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is
ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either
of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently
was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of
her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him
for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What
may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness
and masochism to me.
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a columnist for Vanity Fair and
the author, most recently, of
Arguably, a collection of essays.
"... "There never was, at any time, data belonging to the Clintons stored in Denver. Ever," said Dovetail Solutions CEO Andy Boian, who added that Clinton's server was always in a New Jersey data center. "We do not store data in any bathrooms." ..."
"... Private e-mail servers are unusual because they carry greater risks of getting hacked, said Scott W. Burt, president and CEO of Integro, a Denver e-mail management company. ..."
"... Platte River, which submitted a bid for the e-mail job, stepped in four months after Clinton left the secretary job on Feb. 1, 2013, and three months after Sidney Blumenthal , a former Clinton White House staffer, reported that his e-mail account had been hacked, exposing messages sent to Clinton. ..."
"... "We were literally hired in June 2013," Boian said, "and because we use industry best practices, we had (Clinton's) server moved to a data center in New Jersey. It remained in that spot until last week," when the FBI picked it up Aug. 12. ..."
"... "The role of Platte River Networks was to upgrade, secure and manage the e-mail server for both the Clintons and their staff beginning June 2013. Platte River Networks is not under investigation. We were never under investigation. And we will fully comply with the FBI," he said. ..."
"... Platte River Networks opened in September 2002, offering information technology services to small businesses. Services included computer maintenance, virus and malware control, and emergency technical support, according to an archive of its old website. ..."
"... Two years later, the company moved into a condo owned by company co-founder Treve Suazo at Ajax Lofts, 2955 Inca St., a few blocks from the South Platte River. ..."
"... A year later, the company began offering cloud-based services, which makes company data available online so employees can access software and services from any device. ..."
"... Platte River continues to win awards and has grown. Last week, it was named, for the fourth consecutive year, to CRN's Next-Gen 250 . The list highlights companies that are " ahead of the curve " in their IT offerings. ..."
And when Platte River became the latest name to emerge in the Clinton e-mail
controversy, the company maintained its silence - until last week, when it hired
a crisis-communications expert to defend against political innuendo, death threats
and allegations that it stored her e-mail in the bathroom of a downtown Denver
loft.
"There never was, at any time, data belonging to the Clintons stored
in Denver. Ever," said Dovetail Solutions CEO Andy Boian, who added that Clinton's
server was always in a New Jersey data center. "We do not store data in any
bathrooms."
Hillary Clinton's decision to have an employee set up a
private e-mail server in her New York home in 2008 has plagued the former
secretary of state's presidential campaign.
The FBI is investigating whether any of her private e-mails contained sensitive
information and should have been classified - and not stored on a computer inside
her house.
Private e-mail servers are unusual because they carry greater risks of getting
hacked, said Scott W. Burt, president and CEO of Integro, a Denver e-mail management
company.
"There are a lot of people you could hire, and they would set up (an e-mail
server) and run it. That's not hard. But there's no real reason to do that,"
Burt said. "The main motivator is you're nervous about what is in your e-mail.
It's a control thing."
Boian said Platte River had nothing to do with Clinton's private home server.
Platte River, which submitted a bid for the e-mail job, stepped in four months
after Clinton left the secretary job on Feb. 1, 2013, and three months after
Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton White House staffer, reported that his
e-mail account had been hacked, exposing messages sent to Clinton.
"We were literally hired in June 2013," Boian said, "and because we use
industry best practices, we had (Clinton's) server moved to a data center in
New Jersey. It remained in that spot until last week," when the FBI picked it
up Aug. 12.
Platte River also is not in possession of any Clinton e-mail backups, he
said.
"The role of Platte River Networks was to upgrade, secure and manage
the e-mail server for both the Clintons and their staff beginning June 2013.
Platte River Networks is not under investigation. We were never under investigation.
And we will fully comply with the FBI," he said.
Platte River Networks opened in September 2002, offering information
technology services to small businesses. Services included computer maintenance,
virus and malware control, and emergency technical support, according to an
archive of its old website.
Two years later, the company moved into a condo owned by company co-founder
Treve Suazo at Ajax Lofts, 2955 Inca St., a few blocks from the South Platte
River.
A year later, the company began offering cloud-based services, which
makes company data available online so employees can access software and services
from any device.
Today, Platte touts itself as a full-service IT management firm.
It also lists Suazo, its CEO, and Brent Allshouse, its chief financial officer,
as co-founders. According to
industry publication CRN, Platte River expected to grow to $6 million in
sales in 2014, from $4.7 million a year earlier.
But as early as 2006, Tom Welch was listed as a partner, the same title given
to Suazo and Allshouse.
Before the Clinton scandal blew up, Platte River Networks welcomed attention.
David DeCamillis joined the company in 2008 and, as its director of business
development, became its public face, using news releases to promote industry
awards and appearing on
Fox31 Denver's
"Good Day Colorado" as a tech expert.
In 2012, Platte River was
named Ingram Micro's Rainmaker of the Western Region, an honor that California
technology distributor gives its fastest-growing business partners based on
revenue, peer-to-peer leadership and use of Ingram Micro's cloud services.
That same year, the company won the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce's
Small Business of the Year award. The award is vetted by the chamber and
independent judges, said Abram Sloss, executive director of the chamber's small-business
development center.
"We really look for companies that have a good chance for a strong uptick
and have solid growth," Sloss said. While the chamber can offer advice to members
who suddenly are thrown into the media spotlight - for good or bad - Sloss said
he has not heard from the company.
"Gosh, if I was the company who the Clintons hired, it'd be hard not to say,
'We are a trusted provider that one of the influential families in the United
States hired,' " Sloss said.
Platte River continues to win awards and has grown. Last week, it was
named, for the fourth consecutive year, to
CRN's Next-Gen 250 . The list highlights companies that are "
ahead of the curve" in their IT offerings.
In June, it moved to a 12,000-square-foot building at 5700 Washington St.
A photo on Platte River's
blog shows 30 people posing in the new building.
Platte River did not make DeCamillis, now its vice president of sales and
marketing, available for comment.
But DeCamillis
told The Washington Post that no one at the company had expected this kind
of attention, which he said included death threats that caused the company to
pull employee information from its website.
If they had, he said, "we would never have taken it on."
Platte River Networks timeline
2002: Platte River Networks founded
2004: Moves to 2955 Inca St., Unit 2K
Feb. 1, 2013: Hillary Clinton's last day as secretary of state
June 2013: Hired to manage Clinton-family e-mail server, which
is moved from their Chappaqua, N.Y., home to a secure data center in New
Jersey
June 18, 2015: Hosts
open house for new headquarters at 4700 Washington St.
Aug. 11, 2015: FBI asks for Clinton's e-mail server
Aug. 12, 2015: Delivers Clinton's server to the FBI from New
Jersey
"... Which means she broke the law. Being "cleared to see it" doesn't mean you can see it anywhere you want, any time you want. There are requirements for handling the information. And a server in her basement that did not use encrypted connections for months, and then had the default VPN keys on the VPN appliance once they started using encryption, and an Internet-connected printer on the same network is nowhere near close to meeting those requirements. ..."
"... His journalist girlfriend had a clearance. According to your gross misunderstanding of our classification system, what crime did Petraeus commit? He had a clearance, and his girlfriend had a clearance. If "had a clearance" is good enough to excuse Clinton, then why was it not good enough to excuse Patraeus? ..."
"... Here's the problem -- Clinton deleted these emails AFTER they were requested from the House as part of an official investigation. She chose to print out everything she claimed was relevant (probably to avoid giving away metadata in headers, etc.) ..."
"... Being that Clinton didn't give a damn about securing the physical server and didn't give a damn about securing the messages sent through the server, it seems strange that she suddenly cares about security practices when deleting e-mail messages about yoga classes. ..."
"... Oh, did I mention that deleting the e-mail messages would be considered an obstruction of justice if it were done by a typical citizen? ..."
All indications are she wasn't very careful while actively using the
server. However, once she started getting requests to produce data from
it, then she suddenly got very careful. Even if she did do nothing wrong,
that is a very stark change in behavior that just happened to coincide with
legal requests to hand over data.
The FBI found the "key piece(s)". Comey then said "No prosecutor would
pursue this case" and dropped it. He was probably right--but only because
of her last name. If I did that, I might get out after 5 years or so. Heck,
one of my counterparts got in trouble for a single line in a controlled
document which had the same info in the public domain. I'm sick of these
"Nothing to see here" claims--just look at any security briefing and it's
spelled out. We just had another one, and according to it I would be required
to report her if she was in my office.
That whole 'we little people would be in prison if we did this' meme
is such bullshit.
You used the wrong tense. It's not "would be". It's "are". There are
"little people" currently in prison for negligent handling of classified.
Right now. Actually in prison.
She didn't do anything, beyond send and receive stuff she was cleared
to see.
Which means she broke the law. Being "cleared to see it" doesn't mean
you can see it anywhere you want, any time you want. There are requirements
for handling the information. And a server in her basement that did not
use encrypted connections for months, and then had the default VPN keys
on the VPN appliance once they started using encryption, and an Internet-connected
printer on the same network is nowhere near close to meeting those requirements.
Petreus is brought up endlessly. Y'know, the guy who gave classified
stuff to his journalist girlfriend
His journalist girlfriend had a clearance. According to your gross misunderstanding
of our classification system, what crime did Petraeus commit? He had a clearance,
and his girlfriend had a clearance. If "had a clearance" is good enough
to excuse Clinton, then why was it not good enough to excuse Patraeus?
but you ought to at least acknowledge that it was a tiny percentage
of the traffic
Please cite where the statute states the percentage of allowable leaks.
and that stuff probably would've been sent on the unclassified DOS
server had she been using that
First, government servers are regularly scanned for classified, so it
would have been caught long before there were thousands of classified in
her email. Second, the unclassified DoS server is far, far, far more secure
than her basement server. For example, they don't have default VPN keys
installed.
What we have here is a witch hunt for something - anything - about
Benghazi that could paint Clinton in a politically unfavorable light.
No, this has absolutely nothing to do with Benghazi. But shouting "Benghazi!!!!"
does a great job getting people like you to turn off their critical thinking
and accept this week's excuse.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday August 26, 2016 @06:31PM (
#52778125 )
Yes it does, read the laws. There is a Navy person who facing 20 years
to life for disposing of a phone which had his picture while inside the
sub. That is one of the more extreme cases, but it's literally a Web Search
to prove you are wrong (shill?) Intent comes in to play _only_ for the penalty.
Comey spent hours in front of Congress explaining, very patiently,
over and over, that the reason he could not recommend prosecution against
Clinton is because all of the suspected crimes required proof of intent,
which the FBI did not have.
Transcript of Gowdy questioning Comey. Lots of context, but note the
bolded section :
Gowdy : Secretary Clinton said "I did not e-mail any classified
information to anyone on my e-mail there was no classified material." That
is true?
Comey : There was classified information emailed.
Gowdy : Secretary Clinton used one device, was that true?
Comey : She used multiple devices during the four years of her
term as Secretary of State.
Gowdy : Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned
to the State Department. Was that true?
Comey : No. We found work related email, thousands, that were
not returned.
Gowdy : Secretary Clinton said neither she or anyone else deleted
work related emails from her personal account.
Comey : That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work
related emails in - on devices or in space. Whether they were deleted or
when a server was changed out something happened to them, there's no doubt
that the work related emails that were removed electronically from the email
system.
Gowdy : Secretary Clinton said her lawyers read every one of the
emails and were overly inclusive. Did her lawyers read the email content
individually?
Comey : No.
Gowdy : Well, in the interest of time and because I have a
plane to catch tomorrow afternoon, I'm not going to go through any more
of the false statements but I am going to ask you to put on your old hat.
False exculpatory statements are used for what?
Comey : Well, either for a substantive prosecution or evidence
of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Gowdy : Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
Comey : That is right?
Gowdy : Consciousness of guilt and intent? In your old job
you would prove intent as you referenced by showing the jury evidence of
a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the
public record and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction
that you and i just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve. You
would argue all of that under the heading of content. You would also - intent.
You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme when it started,
when it ended and the number of emails whether They were originally classified
or of classified under the heading of intent. You would also, probably,
under common scheme or plan, argue the burn bags of daily calendar entries
or the missing daily calendar entries as a common scheme or plan to conceal.
Two days ago, Director, you said a reasonable person in her position should
have known a private email was no place to send and receive classified information.
You're right. An average person does know not to do that.
This is no average person. This is a former First Lady, a former United
States senator, and a former Secretary of State that the president now contends
is the most competent, qualified person to be president since Jefferson.
He didn't say that in '08 but says it now.
She affirmatively rejected efforts to give her a state.gov account, kept
the private emails for almost two years and only turned them over to Congress
because we found out she had a private email account.
So you have a rogue email system set up before she took the oath of office,
thousands of what we now know to be classified emails, some of which were
classified at the time. One of her more frequent email comrades was hacked
and you don't know whether or not she was.
And this scheme took place over a long period of time and resulted in the
destruction of public records and yet you say there is insufficient evidence
of intent. You say she was extremely careless, but not intentionally so.
You and I both know intent is really difficult to prove. Very rarely
do defendants announce 'On this date I intend to break this criminal code
section. Just to put everyone on notice, I am going to break the law on
this date.' It never happens that way. You have to do it with circumstantial
evidence or if you're Congress and you realize how difficult it is prove,
specific intent, you will formulate a statute that allows for gross negligence.
My time is out but this is really important. You mentioned there's no precedent
for criminal prosecution. My fear is there still isn't. There's nothing
to keep a future Secretary of State or President from this exact same email
scheme or their staff.
And my real fear is this, what the chairman touched upon, this double track
justice system that is rightly or wrongly perceived in this country. That
if you are a private in the Army and email yourself classified information
you will be kicked out. But if you are Hillary Clinton, and you seek a promotion
to Commander in Chief, you will not be. So what I hope you can do today
is help the average person, the reasonable person you made reference to,
the reasonable person understand why she appears to be treated differently
than the rest of us would be. With that I would yield back.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday August 26, 2016 @05:50PM (
#52777831 )
Powell used an aol account. He did NOT put a private server in his house!
Same for Rice. Powell used it for non-state NON-classified business.
Hillary has lied so many times about this server, is is clear to any
hones observer that she was hiding activities of corruption with the Clinton
foundation and did not want FOIA to discover her activities.
Hillary was supposed to have government archivists sort through the mails,
not her personal attorneys. That was a violation of the federal records
act.
She had classified information on the server, despite assertions that
she did not- caught in another lie. She said all work related mails were
turned over. Another lie- the FBI found thousands of work related mails
not turned over, including classified.
Sure, Clinton sucks, but the big knock against her and her email
server was that she wasn't secure enough with it.
My quibble was the blatant arrogance of the act. That private server
was clearly a move to preserve final editing rights of her tenure at the
State Department and evade any future FOIA requests that may crop up during
her next run for the presidency; and was there ever any doubt that she would
run again? The fact that she thought she could get away with it after experiencing
the fallout from the exact same move by members of the Bush administration
while she was a sitting Senator in Washington reinforces the feeling that
her arrogance knows no bounds. She took a page out of the neocon playbook
and figured she would show them how it's done.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday August 26, 2016 @08:13PM (
#52778643 )
1. She put classified info on a private unsecured server where it was
vulnerable, contrary to the law which she was fully advised of upon taking
office.
2. She did all her work through that server, hiding it from all 3 government
branches (congressional oversight, executive oversight, and the courts)
and public FOIA requests.
3. When the material was sought by the courts and congress, she and the
state department people lied under oath claiming the material did not exist
(perhaps Nixon cronies should have all lied about tapes existing).
4. After her people knew the material was being sought, the server's files
were transferred (by private IT people w/o clearances) to her lawyers (no
clearances).
5. She and her lawyers deleted over 30000 e-mails, claiming they were only
about yoga and her daughter's wedding dress (Nixon cut a few minutes of
tape).
6. They then wiped the files with bit bleach (a step not needed for yoga
or wedding dress e-mails). (Nixon did not degauss all his tapes)
7. They handed the wiped server to the FBI, and hillary publicly played
ignorant with her "with a CLOTH?" comment (absolute iin-you-face arrogance
against the rule of law) (Nixon did not hand tape recorders with erased
tapes to the FBI)
Prove you are sincere, and not a total unprincipled partisan hack:
Are you a Nixon supporter?
Would you accept this behavior from Donald Trump or Dick Cheney?
Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday August 26, 2016 @08:24PM (
#52778703 )
Hillary Clinton's IT guy purchased an MS Exchange hosting contract from
Platte River. The standard package came with a periodic backup to a Datto
appliance, which takes snapshots of the Windows disk image several times
a day. The appliance copies the snapshot to Datto's data center in real
time. You can erase or even destroy the Windows machine drives and still
use the snapshots to restore the disks to the snapshot of the time and date
of your chosing.
The FBI confiscated the appliance from Platte River and seized the server
from Datto. They have all the emails she sent and received since the start
of her State Department tenure.
Hillary Clinton co-mingled personal and official government communications
on her private email server. All of those communications are subject to
the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
Her personal emails ceased to be personal when she co-mingled them with
official government communications. HRC and her lawyers were not authorized
to decide what is relevant to FRA and FOIA and what is not.
HRC and her lawyers deleted 30,000 or so emails that are not recoverable
- therefore she is in violation of both the FRA and FOIA.
HRC should be, at the very least, in front of a jury to answer for her
actions.
I guess the people that are making accusations over that are either
ignorant, or disingenuous.
Here's the problem -- Clinton deleted these emails AFTER they were requested
from the House as part of an official investigation. She chose to print
out everything she claimed was relevant (probably to avoid giving away
metadata in headers, etc.) and then effectively "burned" the server, including
(by her lawyer's own admission) tens of thousands of messages.
FBI investigations have now come up with thousands of emails which were
NOT turned over in that paper dump. How many could have been part of those
that were deleted and then lost when the server was wiped? We'll never know.
Many of them were likely deleted in error, with her lawyers not realizing
which ones should have been retained as they were going through tens of
thousands of documents. But were ALL of these official state department
emails recovered by the FBI (now 15,000+) deleted "in error"?
That's what's troubling about all of this. We have no way of knowing
whether there may have been significant spoliation of evidence here (that's
the legal term for intentionally, recklessly, or negligently destroying
evidence). If this were a corporation who had been issued a subpoena and
they acted in this manner, and it was later proven that they "lost" over
ten thousand relevant documents in the process of their destruction of "irrelevant"
documents, they would likely face significant legal sanctions, perhaps even
criminal charges.
Legally, the safe course in this instance would have been to put the
server in a secure location with legal supervision by Clinton's counsel
until the matter could be resolved. Clinton's use of BleachBit is not surprising
here -- not because it's proper protocol to delete secure information, but
because it's the only reasonable way to delete potentially incriminating
evidence of spoliation (even if most of it was accidental or whatever).
If they hadn't used a very secure deletion protocol, then Clinton's attorneys
would have been doing a VERY poor job at protecting her legally.
Personally, I'm not sure it's likely there was any "evil memo" buried
among the State Department correspondence that could prove anything. (And
if there were, I'm not convinced Clinton realized it.) On the other hand,
I'm sure she had a bunch of private email dealings that she wouldn't want
to get out -- if for nothing else then for bad public relations. Hence the
destruction of everything on the server -- it's in line with the privacy
paranoia that likely caused her to set up the server in the first place.
But could there have been worse stuff there too? Maybe. Doesn't seem like
we'll ever know, though, does it?
Here's the problem -- Clinton deleted these emails AFTER they
were requested from the House as part of an official investigation.
She chose to print out everything she claimed was relevant (probably
to avoid giving away metadata in headers, etc.)
In other words, she willingly destroyed information she was required
to hand over.
The full Headers and all Metadata are part of the Record and part of
the E-mail; If you are requested to hand over the e-mails: you have no right
to exclude or remove headers, even if your standard e-mail software does
not normally display the headers when you are reading the message.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday August 26, 2016 @09:10PM (
#52778941 )
A: "But anyone could hack in and see her emails, it's totally unsecure!"
B: "She used BleachBit."
A: "That proves she had something to hide!"
Being that Clinton didn't give a damn about securing the physical server
and didn't give a damn about securing the messages sent through the server,
it seems strange that she suddenly cares about security practices when deleting
e-mail messages about yoga classes.
Oh, did I mention that deleting the e-mail messages would be considered
an obstruction of justice if it were done by a typical citizen?
Congress committees have a couple really tough prosecutors as chairs and that
created a ground for Hillary impeachment if she is elected. Also "August
break" due to Hillary deteriorating health creates a problem for Hillary campaign
as the candidate now is considered by many voters as too frail to hold a POTUS position.
This negative impression is supported now by so many facts that it can 't be changed
by rabid attacks on Trump. Some Clinton actions in "bathroom server" scandal now
can be attributed to her senility.
Notable quotes:
"... Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon is calling the FBI's move to give the notes to Congress "an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI." ..."
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign says it wants FBI documents on the
investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server to be shared publicly
and not just with members of Congress.
Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon is calling the FBI's move to give the
notes to Congress "an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans
for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the
FBI."
Fallon says if the material is going to be shared outside the Justice Department,
it "should be released widely so that the public can see them for themselves."
He says Republicans should not be allowed to "mischaracterize" the information
"through selective, partisan leaks."
A Republican-led House oversight panel is reviewing the documents that have
been classified as secret.
According to Gowdy, "the committee immediately subpoenaed Clinton personally
after learning the full extent of her unusual email arrangement with herself, and
would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming
that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton herself
had her records when Congress first requested them."
Notable quotes:
"... According to Gowdy, "the committee immediately subpoenaed Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her unusual email arrangement with herself, and would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton herself had her records when Congress first requested them." ..."
"... Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. The Republicans chant while Rome burns. How about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.... ..."
"... Did Clinton say she's never had a subpoena? Yes. Did a subpoena get issued? Yes. Was the whole interview at that point discussing a point in time months before the subpoena got issued? Yes. ..."
"... Karl Rove has so often said that it is who DOES NOT vote that determines the outcome, and now we have the Tea Party. ..."
"... The Clintons ARE very close personal family friends with the entire Bush clan. When the TV cameras are off and the reporters are gone, they are a very tight group who see the world thru like greedy eyes. Check this out. ..."
"... Having someone who is the brother of one former president and the son of another run against the wife of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class mobility. ..."
"... Wall Street has long been unable to contain its collective glee over a likely Hillary Clinton presidency. ..."
"... the matriarch of the Bush family (former First Lady Barbara) has described the Clinton patriarch (former President Bill) as a virtual family member, noting that her son, George W., affectionately calls his predecessor "my brother by another mother." ..."
"... If this happens, the 2016 election would vividly underscore how the American political class functions: by dynasty, plutocracy, fundamental alignment of interests masquerading as deep ideological divisions, and political power translating into vast private wealth and back again. ..."
"... Most of our presidents were horn dogs. Their wives know about it in many cases, but they knew that it was part of the package. The only difference was that before Clinton, the press would never think of reporting about sexual dalliances. ..."
"... Clinton is not materially different to many GOP candidates outside the loons. ..."
"... She has stiff competition: Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power, Carly Fiorina, etc. She might win the title, though. ..."
"... So after years of trying to turn Benghazi into a scandal, the email thing is mostly meaningless to Democrats. So congratulations Republicans, you blew your chance. ..."
In a statement on Wednesday, Republican congressman Trey Gowdy accused the
former secretary of state of making an "inaccurate claim" during an interview
on Tuesday. Responding to a question about the controversy surrounding her email
server while at the US state department, Clinton had told CNN: "I've never had
a subpoena."
But Gowdy said: "The committee has issued several subpoenas, but I have not
sought to make them public. I would not make this one public now, but after
Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have
no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy."
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told the Guardian that Gowdy's accusation
itself was inaccurate, insisting that the congressman had not issued a subpoena
until March.
"She was asked about her decision to not to retain her personal emails after
providing all those that were work-related, and the suggestion was made that
a subpoena was pending at that time. That was not accurate," Merrill wrote in
an email.
Gowdy also posted a copy of the subpoena on the Benghazi committee's website.
According to Gowdy, "the committee immediately subpoenaed Clinton personally
after learning the full extent of her unusual email arrangement with herself,
and would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming
that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton
herself had her records when Congress first requested them."
Lester Smithson 9 Jul 2015 16:00
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. The Republicans chant while
Rome burns. How about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq....
kattw 9 Jul 2015 12:41
Gotta love when people say they have no choice but to do something absurd,
then choose to do something absurd rather than not.
Did Clinton say she's never had a subpoena? Yes. Did a subpoena get
issued? Yes. Was the whole interview at that point discussing a point in
time months before the subpoena got issued? Yes.
Yes, Mr. Legislator: you DID subpoena Clinton. Several months AFTER she
did the thing in question, which the interviewer wanted to know why she
did in light of subpoenas. And really, what was she thinking? After all,
a subpoena had already been issued, ummm, 3 months into the future! Why
was she not psychic? Why did she not alter her actions based on something
that congress would do eventually? How DARE she not know what the fates
had decried!
Mr. Legislator, you were given the opportunity to not spin this as a
political issue, and to be honest about the committee's actions. You chose
to do otherwise. Nobody forced you to do so. You had plenty of choices -
you made one. Don't try to shift that onto a lie Clinton never told. She's
got plenty of lies in her closet, many stupidly obvious - calling one of
her truths a lie just shows how much of an ideological buffoon you really
are.
ExcaliburDefender -> Dan Wipper 8 Jul 2015 23:47
Whatever. Dick Cheney should have been tried in the Hague and incarcerated
for 50 lifetimes. Most voters have decided to vote party lines, the next
16 months is for the 10% undecided and a few that can be swayed.
Karl Rove has so often said that it is who DOES NOT vote that determines
the outcome, and now we have the Tea Party.
Plenty of time for outrage, faux or real. We haven't had a single debate
yet. Still get to hear from Chafee on the metric system and whether evolution
is real or not from the GOP.
Jill Stein for President <-------|) Paid for by David Koch and Friends
Herr_Settembrini 8 Jul 2015 23:25
Quite frankly, I've long since passed the point of caring about Benghazi,
and the reason why is extremely simple: this has been a nakedly partisan
investigation, stretching on for years now, that has tried to manufacture
a scandal and fake outrage in order to deny Obama re-election in 2012, and
now (since that didn't work) to deny Clinton the election in 2016.
The GOP doesn't have one shred of credibility left about this issue--
to the point that if they were able to produce photographs of Obama and
Clinton personally storming the embassy, America would collectively shrug
(except of course for the AM talk radio crowd, who are perpetually angry
anyway, so nobody would notice).
TET68HUE -> StevePrimus 8 Jul 2015 23:08
The Clintons ARE very close personal family friends with the entire
Bush clan. When the TV cameras are off and the reporters are gone, they
are a very tight group who see the world thru like greedy eyes. Check this
out.
JEB BUSH V. HILLARY CLINTON: THE PERFECTLY ILLUSTRATIVE ELECTION
BY GLENN GREENWALD
@ggreenwald
12/17/2014
Jeb Bush yesterday strongly suggested he was running for President in
2016. If he wins the GOP nomination, it is highly likely that his opponent
for the presidency would be Hillary Clinton. Having someone who is the
brother of one former president and the son of another run against the wife
of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts
of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class
mobility. That one of those two families exploited its vast wealth
to obtain political power, while the other exploited its political power
to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually
complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally
oligarchical framework that drives American political life.
Then there are their similar constituencies: what Politico termed "money
men" instantly celebrated Jeb Bush's likely candidacy, while the same publication
noted just last month how Wall Street has long been unable to contain
its collective glee over a likely Hillary Clinton presidency. The two
ruling families have, unsurprisingly, developed a movingly warm relationship
befitting their position: the matriarch of the Bush family (former First
Lady Barbara) has described the Clinton patriarch (former President Bill)
as a virtual family member, noting that her son, George W., affectionately
calls his predecessor "my brother by another mother."
If this happens, the 2016 election would vividly underscore how the
American political class functions: by dynasty, plutocracy, fundamental
alignment of interests masquerading as deep ideological divisions, and political
power translating into vast private wealth and back again. The educative
value would be undeniable: somewhat like how the torture report did, it
would rub everyone's noses in exactly those truths they are most eager to
avoid acknowledge. Email the author:
[email protected]
StevePrimus 8 Jul 2015 22:33
Clinton's nomination as a democratic candidate for president is a fait
accompli, as is Bush's nomination on the GOP card. The amusing side show
with Rubio, Trump, Sanders, Paul, Walker, Perry, Cruz, et al can be entertaining,
but note that Clinton and Bush seem much closer aligned with each other
than either sueems to be to Sanders on the left and Graham on the right.
MtnClimber -> CitizenCarrier 8 Jul 2015 20:41
Read some history books and learn.
Most of our presidents were horn dogs. Their wives know about it
in many cases, but they knew that it was part of the package. The only difference
was that before Clinton, the press would never think of reporting about
sexual dalliances.
Among those that cheated are:
Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
Harding
FDR
Eisenhower
JFK
LBJ
Clinton
Not bad company, but they all cheated. It seems like greater sexual drive
is part of the package for people that choose to be president.
RossBest 8 Jul 2015 20:24
There is an obvious possible explanation here. She was talking about
things in the past and ineptly shifted in effect into the "historical present"
or "dramatic present" and didn't realize she was creating an ambiguity.
That is, she was talking about the times when she set up the email system
and used it and later deleted personal emails and she intended to deny having
received any relevant subpoenas AT THOSE TIMES.
I'm not a Clinton supporter but this seems plausible. But inept.
zchabj6 8 Jul 2015 20:10
The state of US politics...
Clinton is not materially different to many GOP candidates outside
the loons.
CitizenCarrier -> Carambaman 8 Jul 2015 17:54
My personal favorite was when as 1st Lady during a trip to New Zealand
she told reporters she'd been named in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary.
She was born before he climbed Everest. He was at that time an obscure
chicken farmer.
BorninUkraine -> duncandunnit 8 Jul 2015 17:44
You mean, she lies, like Bill? But as snakes go, she is a lot more dangerous
than him.
BorninUkraine -> Barry_Seal 8 Jul 2015 17:40
She has stiff competition: Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power, Carly
Fiorina, etc. She might win the title, though.
Dennis Myers 8 Jul 2015 16:30
This sort of thing is exactly why anything they throw at her won't stick.
Like the boy who cried wolf, when the wolf actually came, no one was listening
anymore. So after years of trying to turn Benghazi into a scandal, the
email thing is mostly meaningless to Democrats. So congratulations Republicans,
you blew your chance.
"... Guciffer found top secret E-mail on Blumenthal's (I think that is the guy) account according to the agents who studied Guciffer's computer. ..."
"... The legality of her choice has yet to be determined and will likely hinge on the degree to which classified government documents were exposed or disseminated. It was - and still is - against the rules published by the State Department. ..."
"... It is also an amazingly arrogant act by a politician who often attacked previous administrations for their use of "private emails" and overall lack of transparency. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has been insecure for years and for many reasons. ..."
"... A person is insecure, a network is unsecured. No? ..."
"... I saw a video where Alabama State troopers are talking about how Hillary and Bill used to swap women. She also apparently has a big affinity for cocaine..though I guess in all fairness that's most of Hollywood and liberal Washington. ..."
Guciffer found top secret E-mail on Blumenthal's (I think that is
the guy) account according to the agents who studied Guciffer's computer.
You can always tell when a politician lies; their lips are moving.
DLivesInTexas
"The arrangement, while it appears unusual, was and is acceptable
and legal, according to the State Department."
The legality of her choice has yet to be determined and will likely
hinge on the degree to which classified government documents were exposed
or disseminated. It was - and still is - against the rules published by
the State Department.
It is also an amazingly arrogant act by a politician who often attacked
previous administrations for their use of "private emails" and overall lack
of transparency.
Genny G
Hillary Clinton has been insecure for years and for many reasons.
StrongHarm
A person is insecure, a network is unsecured. No? Author should
correct title.
I saw a video where Alabama State troopers are talking about how
Hillary and Bill used to swap women. She also apparently has a big affinity
for cocaine..though I guess in all fairness that's most of Hollywood and
liberal Washington. As a conservative myself, what I detest about the
woman most is not how she affects republicans, but how she affects her own
supporters. She claims to be 'looking out for the little guy' and minorities
so she can get votes, but when the cameras aren't rolling, she's doing business
with corrupt corporations and trying to live like a queen. A lot of politicians
are dishonest, but she really takes the cake.
"... But potentially opening an important view on the US diplomatic correspondence for four years to any state with the desire to read it is something really special. A unique achievement of Secretary Clinton. ..."
"... for any specialist with even superficial knowledge of computer security the level of incompetence and arrogance demonstrated is simply unreal. Especially after the latest FBI documents. ..."
And here's a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate's character are
to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she
is proposing.
... ... ...
In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can't afford another
election tipped by innuendo.
After Bush II administration it is generally unclear what should be the
level of crime committed to be arrested.
But potentially opening an important view on the US diplomatic correspondence
for four years to any state with the desire to read it is something really
special. A unique achievement of Secretary Clinton.
Now I am not so sure that the level of incompetence of Hillary and her
aides in this sordid saga is less it was for the key figures of Bush II
administration (who also used a private email server for a while with impunity,
although not for State Department activities).
But for any specialist with even superficial knowledge of computer
security the level of incompetence and arrogance demonstrated is simply
unreal. Especially after the latest FBI documents.
Can you imagine that they have no technical knowledge of how to create
the archive of emails in Windows Server directly and used Apple laptop and
then Gmail account and then intermediaries to achieve the necessary result.
This is something so stupid and reckless that there is no words for it.
Also wiping out this "bathroom" mail server with BleachKit is a very
suspicious activity for any person under investigation.
All indications are she wasn't very careful while actively using the
server. However, once she started getting requests to produce data from
it, then she suddenly got very careful. Even if she did do nothing wrong,
that is a very stark change in behavior that just happened to coincide with
legal requests to hand over data.
...The FBI found the "key piece(s)". Comey then said "No prosecutor would
pursue this case" and dropped it. He was probably right--but only because
of her last name. If I did that, I might get out after 5 years or so. Heck,
one of my counterparts got in trouble for a single line in a controlled
document which had the same info in the public domain. I'm sick of these
"Nothing to see here" claims--just look at any security briefing and it's
spelled out. We just had another one, and according to it I would be required
to report her if she was in my office.
...Yes it does, read the laws. There is a Navy person who facing 20 years
to life for disposing of a phone which had his picture while inside the
sub. That is one of the more extreme cases, but it's literally a Web Search
to prove you are wrong (shill?) Intent comes in to play _only_ for the penalty.
...I like how the argument has devolved here to "If Bush did it, then
it's ok". PopeRatzo, is Dubya really your moral compass? Your guiding light?
...Except ALL 22 MILLION Bush administrative emails were recovered from
tape backups. Clinton wiped the data AFTER the FOIA request. I don't know
of a single person that has decided one day to delete ALL their personal
emails, except Clinton.
https://www.wired.com/2009/12/...
[wired.com] another source
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
[npr.org] , another
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
[npr.org] . Yep you're idiot.
...My quibble was the blatant arrogance of the act. That private server
was clearly a move to preserve final editing rights of her tenure at the
State Department and evade any future FOIA requests that may crop up during
her next run for the presidency; and was there ever any doubt that she would
run again? The fact that she thought she could get away with it after experiencing
the fallout from the exact same move by members of the Bush administration
while she was a sitting Senator in Washington reinforces the feeling that
her arrogance knows no bounds. She took a page out of the neocon playbook
and figured she would show them how it's done.
...1. She put classified info on a private unsecured server where it
was vulnerable, contrary to the law which she was fully advised of upon
taking office.
2. She did all her work through that server, hiding it from all 3 government
branches (congressional oversight, executive oversight, and the courts)
and public FOIA requests.
3. When the material was sought by the courts and congress, she and the
state department people lied under oath claiming the material did not exist
(perhaps Nixon cronies should have all lied about tapes existing).
4. After her people knew the material was being sought, the server's
files were transferred (by private IT people w/o clearances) to her lawyers
(no clearances).
5. She and her lawyers deleted over 30000 e-mails, claiming they were
only about yoga and her daughter's wedding dress (Nixon cut a few minutes
of tape).
6. They then wiped the files with bit bleach (a step not needed for yoga
or wedding dress e-mails). (Nixon did not degauss all his tapes)
7. They handed the wiped server to the FBI, and hillary publicly played
ignorant with her "with a CLOTH?" comment (absolute iin-you-face arrogance
against the rule of law) (Nixon did not hand tape recorders with erased
tapes to the FBI)
Prove you are sincere, and not a total unprincipled partisan hack: Are
you a Nixon supporter? Would you accept this behavior from Donald Trump
or Dick Cheney?
"... Clintons crimes with national security leaks and destruction of federal records investigators got no prosecution. The democrat camp has no convictions. The curve Hillary is on is the same one any tin pot dictator enjoys. ..."
"... False equivalence. The world was different in 2008-2012 , Powell had far fewer hackers when he was lying about Iraq. The tech world was much less threatening. Powell learned from his training, knew better than to go past secure networks for sensitive information. He also knew about federal records act and penalties. ..."
"... Clinton crimes are called scandals. She got no convictions. ..."
"... Should Trump take the brass ring, let us hope he isn't really as brash or inept as Bush Jr, but that's asking a LOT ..."
"... And if Hillary does win (as expected), let's look forward to having that charming rogue in the White House at her side. Let's manage to bring the wars to an end & have peace rule the planet, mostly. ..."
"... That last sentence is certainly something we can and should hope for. However, given her somewhat hawkish disposition and likely need to demonstrate that she has the balls to be commander in Chief, I would not preclude the possibility of a little fighting somewhere. However, the consolation is that she did not ask the generals "if we have nukes why don't we use them"? Turns out there are worser things than bad. ..."
"... As someone who has been involved in the national security system for more than four decades, I can't help but nearly vomit when I read Hillary's answers to the FBI's questions. Had I or any other cleared employee of lesser stature given the same answers, we would have been fired if not prosecuted for our behavior. Here irresponsible behavior was dangerous to our security and disgusting. ..."
"... You think Clinton is going to turn out to be bolder and more progressive than her elite and plutocratic backers suspect. Maybe. Time will tell. But I'm just saying that if part of the Democrats' goal was to generate the kind of electoral groundswell that would sweep a whole new progressive House into power, you don't get that kind of result by nominating party royalty and an old guard representative of the national establishment and the administrations of the last century. ..."
"... Not once has an indictment, no arrests, how do people keep holding on to some belief that there must be something to it? I know people will say the euphemism, where there is smoke there is fire, but come on. Mind you the secrecy the Clintons exhibit does their cause no good, but just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you! ..."
"... If any of the scandals went to a jury instead of being swept under the rug, we might have judgements. If I did what Clinton did with information security I would be in jail. If I did that with federal records I would do time as well! ..."
And here's a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate's character are
to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she
is proposing.
... ... ...
In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can't afford another
election tipped by innuendo.
"True, there aren't many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon
of honesty. But it's hard to escape the impression that he's being graded
on a curve."
Trump supporters would have you believe his immigration policy is the
same as that of Jeb! and little Marco. Never mind what he told that white
audience. They would also have you believe he is all for equal rights for
black people. Never mind what he told that white audience.
Krugman is saying that Bush was the most dishonest candidate ever in
2000. Well - that was so 16 years ago. Romney 2012 was much worse. And Trump
2016 is reminding me of Romney 2012.
A curve! while Clintons crimes with national security leaks and destruction
of federal records investigators got no prosecution. The democrat camp has
no convictions. The curve Hillary is on is the same one any tin pot dictator
enjoys.
It's actually the same one Colin Powell enjoyed, except Hillary's private
email system was far more secured and, unlike Powell's janky use of an AOL
account that got hacked, there's no evidence HRC's was compromised.
False equivalence. The world was different in 2008-2012 , Powell had
far fewer hackers when he was lying about Iraq. The tech world was much
less threatening. Powell learned from his training, knew better than to
go past secure networks for sensitive information. He also knew about federal
records act and penalties.
Yes isn't it remarkable how Trump can say opposite things within the same
month, week or even in the same speech - and just be considered to have
"evolved" rather than being chastised for trying to pander to all sides.
Again if he were judged by a standard even half as critical as a Clinton
he would have evaporated long time ago.
George Bush Jr (particularly with 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the financial
crash) was a spectacularly inept president and considered one of the worst
ever.
His predecessor was a largely successful yet quite 'colorful' president,
who had great economic success with the internet boom, which VP Al Gore
did have a minor legislative hand in dontchaknow. Barely fought a war. Got
impeached.
Both fellows were loved or hated by a lot of people, who don't talk to
one another much.
It has now come to pass that a guy who reminds us of the former is running
against the spouse of the latter. Complications ensue. Go figure.
Should Trump take the brass ring, let us hope he isn't really as
brash or inept as Bush Jr, but that's asking a LOT, so don't chance
it, please.
And if Hillary does win (as expected), let's look forward to having
that charming rogue in the White House at her side. Let's manage to bring
the wars to an end & have peace rule the planet, mostly.
That last sentence is certainly something we can and should hope for.
However, given her somewhat hawkish disposition and likely need to demonstrate
that she has the balls to be commander in Chief, I would not preclude the
possibility of a little fighting somewhere. However, the consolation is
that she did not ask the generals "if we have nukes why don't we use them"?
Turns out there are worser things than bad.
And which Clinton robots are running around like tailgunner Joe screaming
that Putin is trying to out do AIPAC?
The democrat peace movement steps aside for spreading organized murder
from expensive weapons system to do "civilian protective operations" and
the Saudi's bidding against Shiites.
Keep the money flowing and the drones causing justifiable at lest to
Lockheed and Boeing shareholders "militarily proportional collateral damage".
"Barely fought a war." Bill's little wars in the Balkans rubber the Tsar's
nose in it, broke up a several small countries, bombed the Chinese embassy
at great profit from a B-2 (it did not rain that day) and US still pays
NATO for a huge military base there.
Obama and Hill Clinton are Saudi tools same as W. Keeping AUMF going the
past 8 years lets W off a lot of the Iraq/WMD and Afghanistan hooks!
Bill's adventures included firing a general for commenting on the craziness
of losing people over Serbia.
Bill's evolutionary adventures in the Balkans are anti Russian neocon
trials. Their exceptionalism pushed Russia around and moved NATO eastward
reneging on deals Bush Sr. had with the Russians.
Hillary, extending Bill's neocon meme* over Ukraine and Libya are nearing
W level insanity.
Nuland (married to the neocon Kagan family) came with Strobe Talbot in
1993.
We really facing a vote for a person who would probably be convicted
by Nuremberg tribunal. All those factors that are often discussed like Supreme
court nominations, estate tax, etc, are of secondary importance to the cardinal
question -- "war vs peace" question.
A lot of commenters here do not understand the danger of yet another
neocon warmonger as POTUS. A person who never have a war she did not like.
They never experienced the horrors of wars in their lives. Only highly sanitized
coverage from MSM.
Demonizing of Trump went way too far in this forum. And a lot of commenters
like most Web hamsters enjoy denigrating him, forgetting the fact that a
vote for Hillary is the vote for a war criminal. "Trump this and Trump that"
blabbing can't hide this important consideration.
Moreover, lesser evilism considerations are not working for war criminals.
They are like absolute zero in Kelvin scale. You just can't go lower.
Moreover, after Bush II there is a consensus that are very few people
in the USA who are unqualified to the run the country. From this point of
view Trump is extremely qualified (and actually managed to master English
language unlike Bush II with his famous Bushisms ).
But again those are secondary considerations. "War vs peace" question
in the one that matters most. Another reckless warmonger and all bets might
be off for the country (with an unexpected solution for global warming problem)
W been out for over 7 years and the body bag strategy is the same. Obama
ran on ending Iraq and he did NOT vote for AUMF!
I suggest the collateral damage caused by Obama and Clinton is surging
past W, who had only 6 years to do it.
Clinton and Obama will be at it 8 years and for Libya and Syria are [related
to percent of population] past Iraq. Syria has military appropriate collateral
damage more than Iraq since 1993.
You cannot call someone nut so you can ignore facts.
As someone who has been involved in the national security system for
more than four decades, I can't help but nearly vomit when I read Hillary's
answers to the FBI's questions. Had I or any other cleared employee of lesser
stature given the same answers, we would have been fired if not prosecuted
for our behavior. Here irresponsible behavior was dangerous to our security
and disgusting.
Hillary is every bit as honest as her husband was when he answered "I
have not had sex with that woman." The two of them deserve each other. The
rest of the country deserves neither of them.
As someone who also knows a little about network security and the umpteen
bazillion ways most people violate stated policies, including Secretaries
Rice and Powell who established the precedent at State for Hillary's use
of a private email system ...
I think you're overreacting, and myopic, and possibly concern trolling.
I agree the 2nd trolly paragraph the commenter paints himself as a kook
still luridly fascinated with Bill Clinton's sex life. haha
But I think it's worth pointing out that people who work or have worked
for the government in less illustrious (non political) positions are subject
to a lot of what seems like nit-picky draconian rules, under threat of having
one's work life made miserable, at least for a time, for breaking any little
one of them.
It's just the nature of the beast of that type of govt employment. It's
a lot of stress. And politically appointed & elected government workers
at least seem to get away with a lot comparatively.
So I think it's worth acknowledging, when seen from that position, the
attitude, and feelings, are understandable, even if you don't agree with
it.
I would drop the 2nd paragraph in future if you want to be heard. Because
otherwise people don't think about what you said before it because you've
just come across as one of those kind of people who were telling lame old
tired monica jokes a decade after the fact. *sigh*
The key question is whether that will be better or worse for the country.
I think Hillary is a more dangerous war criminal, then just corrupt businessman
like Trump. Trump university is less important then the vote for Iraq war,
IMHO.
You think Clinton is going to turn out to be bolder and more progressive
than her elite and plutocratic backers suspect. Maybe. Time will tell. But
I'm just saying that if part of the Democrats' goal was to generate the
kind of electoral groundswell that would sweep a whole new progressive House
into power, you don't get that kind of result by nominating party royalty
and an old guard representative of the national establishment and the administrations
of the last century.
That would be more (arguably) true if Hillary weren't drawing votes from
such Republicans. Which naturally concerns progressive Dems. This is perhaps
a wave that alters the GOP for a long time.
According to the Clinton Rules, the appearance of the possibility of
impropriety, no matter how trivial or technical in nature, is to be deemed
prima facie as credible evidence of guilt, and any and all innuendo brought
forth is to be treated as serious.
Thus, Whitewater. And Vince Foster. And Benghazi. And "Wall Street speeches."
And everything related to the word "emails." And State Dept "access". And
whatever else is the manufact-roversy of the day.
Meanwhile, the media and the public widely regard both Hillary and Trump
as "dishonest", as if there were any semblance of equivalence.
It's clear why this happens ... there is a confluence of interest, among
Republicans, Bernie Busters, and the media, in manufacturing controversy
surrounding Hillary Clinton. The GOP wants to weaken her. The Busters resent
her. And the media desperately wants a horse race and to be able to create
"both sides do it" equivalence in order to bolster their own reputations
for objectivity. The sad thing is that so many Americans are gullible enough
to buy it.
This whole thing is amazing. For thirty years, the republicans discover
a scandal on average about twice a year, starting I think with White Water.
Oh sure all official and all, Congressional Hearings, investigators and
in the end nada. Not once has an indictment, no arrests, how do people
keep holding on to some belief that there must be something to it? I know
people will say the euphemism, where there is smoke there is fire, but come
on. Mind you the secrecy the Clintons exhibit does their cause no good,
but just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get
you!
After Bush II administration it is generally unclear what should be the
level of crime committed to be arrested.
But potentially opening an important view on the US diplomatic correspondence
for four years to any state with the desire to read it is something really
special. A unique achievement of Secretary Hillary.
Now I am not so sure that the level of incompetence of Hillary and her
aides in this sordid saga is less it was for the key figures of Bush II
administration (who also used a private email server for a while with impunity,
although not for State Department activities).
But for any specialist with even superficial knowledge of computer security
the level of incompetence and arrogance demonstrated is simply unreal. Especially
after the latest FBI documents.
Can you imagine that they have no technical knowledge of how to create
the archive of emails in Windows Server directly and used Apple laptop and
then Gmail account and intermediaries to achieve the necessary result. This
is something so stupid and reckless that there is no words for it.
Also wiping out this "bathroom" mail server with BleachKit is a very
suspicious activity for any person under investigation.
All indications are she wasn't very careful while actively using the
server. However, once she started getting requests to produce data from
it, then she suddenly got very careful. Even if she did do nothing wrong,
that is a very stark change in behavior that just happened to coincide with
legal requests to hand over data.
...The FBI found the "key piece(s)". Comey then said "No prosecutor would
pursue this case" and dropped it. He was probably right--but only because
of her last name. If I did that, I might get out after 5 years or so. Heck,
one of my counterparts got in trouble for a single line in a controlled
document which had the same info in the public domain. I'm sick of these
"Nothing to see here" claims--just look at any security briefing and it's
spelled out. We just had another one, and according to it I would be required
to report her if she was in my office.
...Yes it does, read the laws. There is a Navy person who facing 20 years
to life for disposing of a phone which had his picture while inside the
sub. That is one of the more extreme cases, but it's literally a Web Search
to prove you are wrong (shill?) Intent comes in to play _only_ for the penalty.
...I like how the argument has devolved here to "If Bush did it, then
it's ok". PopeRatzo, is Dubya really your moral compass? Your guiding light?
...Except ALL 22 MILLION Bush administrative emails were recovered from
tape backups. Clinton wiped the data AFTER the FOIA request. I don't know
of a single person that has decided one day to delete ALL their personal
emails, except Clinton.
https://www.wired.com/2009/12/...
[wired.com] another source
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
[npr.org] , another
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
[npr.org] . Yep you're idiot.
...My quibble was the blatant arrogance of the act. That private server
was clearly a move to preserve final editing rights of her tenure at the
State Department and evade any future FOIA requests that may crop up during
her next run for the presidency; and was there ever any doubt that she would
run again? The fact that she thought she could get away with it after experiencing
the fallout from the exact same move by members of the Bush administration
while she was a sitting Senator in Washington reinforces the feeling that
her arrogance knows no bounds. She took a page out of the neocon playbook
and figured she would show them how it's done.
...1. She put classified info on a private unsecured server where it
was vulnerable, contrary to the law which she was fully advised of upon
taking office.
2. She did all her work through that server, hiding it from all 3 government
branches (congressional oversight, executive oversight, and the courts)
and public FOIA requests.
3. When the material was sought by the courts and congress, she and the
state department people lied under oath claiming the material did not exist
(perhaps Nixon cronies should have all lied about tapes existing).
4. After her people knew the material was being sought, the server's files
were transferred (by private IT people w/o clearances) to her lawyers (no
clearances).
5. She and her lawyers deleted over 30000 e-mails, claiming they were only
about yoga and her daughter's wedding dress (Nixon cut a few minutes of
tape).
6. They then wiped the files with bit bleach (a step not needed for yoga
or wedding dress e-mails). (Nixon did not degauss all his tapes)
7. They handed the wiped server to the FBI, and hillary publicly played
ignorant with her "with a CLOTH?" comment (absolute iin-you-face arrogance
against the rule of law) (Nixon did not hand tape recorders with erased
tapes to the FBI)
Prove you are sincere, and not a total unprincipled partisan hack:
Are you a Nixon supporter?
Would you accept this behavior from Donald Trump or Dick Cheney?
One law for the king another for me. If any of the scandals went to
a jury instead of being swept under the rug, we might have judgements. If
I did what Clinton did with information security I would be in jail. If
I did that with federal records I would do time as well!
Bill Clinton was a regular neoliberal bottom feeder (in essence not that different from drunkard
Yeltsin) without any strategical vision or political courage, He destroyed the golden possibility of
rapprochement of the USA and Russia (which would require something like Marshall plan to help Russia).
Instead he decided to plunder the country. It's sad that now Hillary will continue his policies, only
in more jingoistic, dangerous fashion. She learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency. ..."
"... Russia simply ceased to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic horizon. ..."
"... The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian leadership. ..."
"... This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward: they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999), this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high . ..."
America won the Cold War. But in addition to the USSR, has it defeated Russia? This question,
which is still in the nineties sounded absurd to most people, began to appear in the last decade,
thanks to the work of historians such as Dimitri Simes, John Lewis Gaddis, or in Italy, Adriano Roccucci.
In the United States is widely believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused in large
part by strategic decisions of the Reagan administration. Surely the military and economic pressure
exerted by these contributed to the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and then the final crisis of
the Soviet system. However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution
of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency.
This has resulted, in retrospect, in an overestimation of U.S. policy choices in the mid-eighties
onwards, and in a parallel underestimation of the role played by the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev
came to power in 1985 determined to solve the problems left behind by Brezhnev: overexposure military
in Afghanistan and subsequent explosion of spending on defense, imposed on an economy tremendously
inefficient. But if Reagan pushed the USSR on the edge of the precipice, Gorbachev was disposable,
albeit unwittingly, triggering reforms that escaped the hands of his own theorist.
That fact has been largely removed from public debate and U.S. historiography which has led America
in the second mistake: underestimating the enemy defeated, confusing the defunct Soviet Union with
what was left of his heart - Russia.
In fact, Reagan and Bush Sr. after him fully understand the dangers inherent in the collapse of
the superpower enemy, dealing with Gorbachev touch, even without discounts: the Soviet leader was
refused the pressing demands for economic aid, incompatible with the military escalation Reagan once
to crush the Soviet Union under the weight of war spending.
Even the first Gulf War (1990-91), who saw the massive American intervention in a country (Iraq)
at the time near the borders of the USSR, did not provoke a diplomatic rupture between the two superpowers.
This Soviet weakness undoubtedly was the result of an empire in decline, but remember that even in
1990 no one - least of all, the leadership in Moscow - the Soviet Union finally gave up on us yet.
Despite an election campaign played on the charge to GH Bush to focus too much on foreign policy,
ignoring the economics (It's the economy, stupid), newly installed in the White House Bill Clinton
was not spared aid to Russia, agreeing to this line of credit to be logged on to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), from June 1992. Clinton's support was directed mainly toward the figure of Yeltsin
and his policies, with the exception of waging war against Chechen separatism, in 1994.
If Clinton with these moves proved to understand, like its two predecessors, the importance of
"accompany" the Russian transition, avoiding - or at least contain - the chaos following the collapse
of a continental empire, the other part of his administration demonstrated sinful paternalism and,
above all, acquired the illusion of omnipotence that he saw in the "unipolar moment" end not only
the U.S. opposed the US-USSR, but also of any power ambitions of Russia. Russia simply ceased
to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic
horizon.
The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time
the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost
of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a
power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its
projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian
leadership.
This went hand in hand with growing resentment for the permanent position of inferiority which
they were relegated by Washington. To the point that even the then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,
known by the nickname "Yes sir" for his acquiescence to the dictates of Americans, showed growing
impatience with the brutal Russian downgrading by America.
Indeed, the United States administration did not lack critics: former President Nixon, a number
of businessmen and experts of Russia expressed skepticism or opposition to the Clinton administration
attitude that did not seem to pay particular attention to wounded pride and the strategic interests
of a nation that continued to think of itself as empire. However, these positions does not affect
the dominant view in the administration of the establishment and much of the U.S., where consencus
was that Russia in no longer entitled to have an independent foreign policy.
This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward:
they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999),
this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction
of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high .
Everything, absolutely everything demonstrates really terrifying level of incompetence: the transfer of emails to Apple laptop,
to Gmail account, then transfer back to window system, handing of USB drive. Amazing level of incompetence. This is really devastating
level of incompetence for the organization that took over a lot of CIA functions. Essentially Hillary kept the position which is close
to the role of the director of CIA What a tragedy for the country...
Notable quotes:
"... It is painfully clear that she traded access and favors for money and reciprocal favors. It is painfully clear that she made little distinction between working for the State Department, the Clinton foundation and her family and tried to keep the records of what was going on inaccessible. The more honest defense would be, all politicians do it, and you have to suck it up because Trump is worse. Which is true. But trying to downplay this and explain it away is offensive, not all of the public are complete idiots. ..."
"... Her brazen air of arrogance and entitlement is about to fade as she comes to realise, that albeit Comey having been got at, he has still succeeded in striking a severe blow against her, and in addition, at the not-so-tin-hat conspiracy of inappropriate, and increasingly overt, institutional support. ..."
"... All this in the face of documented lies, in your face hypocrisy, and unbridled corruption, oozing from every orifice of a maverick administration. ..."
"... Clinton is the one waging war in the middle east. She is the one being bullish and provocative with Russia. Trump has only been conciliatory with these issues, he has been against the war on Iraq ..."
"... HRC is still likely to be the next President, but this scandal does have legs. She put herself in a corner by claiming lack of recall due to a medical condition (i.e., the concussion). This leaves two possibilities, neither of which is helpful to her cause, to wit: either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired. ..."
"... Reagan was certainly not someone I admired but at least he tried to reduce the chance of nuclear war. Clinton is an out and out Hawke with the blood of many innocent people on her hands in both Syria and Libya. She is hiding her communications because she does not want to be exposed for the role she played in The destruction of Libya and the gun running of weapons to terrorists in Syria. That is to Al Qaeda and ISIS. World War 3 is more likely under Clinton than any other world leader. Even Trump. ..."
"... Not forgetting that she was key in making sure the US didn't side with Assad. Had the US done at the beginning, instead of being at the behest of the Saudis and the petrodollar, then the whole thing would have been over in 6 months and IS would never have got more than a dusty district of northern Iraq. ..."
"... So the applicant to the US presidency does not know what (c) stands for in her emails, archives high security data on a laptop and then losses it for years, uploads same emails on Google's gmail account and then losses devices again. She does not recall many things, not even the training she received on handling the confidential and secure communication. She couldn't recall the procces of drone strikes. (Will she be killing people at a whim, without an accountable protocol?) She is either demented or dangerously reckless or lying. All of these conditions disbar her form her candidacy. ..."
"... If she could only manage a couple of hours a day because of concussion and a blood clot she should have temporarily stood down until she recovered fully, and had a senior official take over her duties until she was well. You can't have a brain-damaged person in charge of the US's affairs - even though there is a long history of nutters the State Dept. ( ie the Military Industrial Complex HQ). ..."
"... the clinton foundation does not pay taxes..and dont forget that slick willie has been on the paedophile plane more times than the pilot ..."
"... She failed to keep up with recordkeeping she agreed to, then when asked to turn over records, somebody destroyed them, but Clinton did not order destruction, or does not remember having done so. Turned over all records-oops I thought WE did! She either lied or has alzheimers ..."
"... Political baggage is a bitch. If this election cycle has demonstrated anything it is that the leadership of both parties is totally out of touch with the voters and really has no interest except supporting the Neoliberal tenet of fiscal nonintervention. This laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests is paralysing the American government. ..."
"... I cannot believe Clinton has got this far in the election, I believe Obama wants her in to hide many of his embarrassing warmongering mistakes. ..."
"... Today of all days Hillary Clinton puts out a tweet with the following: 'America needs leadership in the White House, not a liability' -- As we have to assume she's not referring to herself it confirms people's suspicion that the person who writes Hillary's tweets is a hostile to her campaign. The tweets are often completely off the mark. ..."
"... Either Comey is on their payroll, or they have threatened his family. Either way it is business as usual. The NWO decided a long time ago that Hillary was their next puppet PONTUS. ..."
"... I was a low-level officer at US Embassies and Consulates in various foreign countries. Clinton's claim that she didn't know what (C) was, or that she "she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential" and "could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information." Are beyond ridiculous. Any fool knows enough to be aware of different levels of classified info, and the obvious fact that you don't get sloppy with classified info. ..."
"... to paraphrase Leona Helmsley's comment about paying taxes, "security is for little people." So in that respect Hillary is no different from the rest of them. ..."
"... You'd better hope she's lying, because if the incompetence is genuine she shouldn't be allowed near any confidential information ever again. I hate to admit it but Trump is right on this one. Jesus wept. ..."
"... The fact that the Sec State could have an email server built at her home and operate with such laughable gross negligence when it comes to national security is surreal and appalling. ..."
"... If the FBI were not themselves co-conspirators and hopelessly corrupt, they would indict some of the lower level actors and offer them immunity. They could start with the imbecile who put that laptop in the mail and couldn't remember if it was UPS or USPS. ..."
"... Caddell has voiced an interesting concern that others are beginning to share: that the news media has crawled so far in bed with Hillary Clinton they won't be able to get back out. That the news media in America has lost its soul. Even Jake Tapper started asking this question several weeks ago in the middle of his own show. ..."
"... The pyramid scheme of created debt has destroyed capitalism and democracy within 40 years of full operation. Captured Govt has bailed out incompetence and failure at every turn, and in so doing, inverted the yield curve and destroyed the future. It is for this reason alone I cannot respect these financial paedophiles or support anything they do. In this contest for the White House, Clinton is the manifestation of the establishment. ..."
"... "The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's private server, including what appeared to be a frantic effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested they be preserved." -NY Times ..."
"... Hillary's treatment of top-secret US documents was willful and uncorrected. If she had done the same thing with medical records, the individuals whose medical records had been mishandled could have filed charges and Hillary would have been personally liable for up to $50,000 fine per incident. ..."
"... Clinton is an absolute liability. Apart from this scandal she's a status quo candidate for a status quo that no longer exists. She stands for neo-liberalism, US hegemony and capitalist globalization all of which are deader than the dodo. That makes her very dangerous in terms of world peace and of course she will do absolutely nothing for the millions of Americans facing joblessness, hunger, bankruptcy and homelessness except make things worse ..."
"... The entire corrupt establishment want Clinton at all cost, so that they can continue fleecing the future and enslaving the entire world in created debt. All right minded individuals should this as a flashing red light to turn round and vote the other way. ..."
A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive
Hillary
Clinton's emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday.
The phrase "Clinton could not recall" litters the summary of the FBI's investigation, which concluded in July
that
she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate, the party's nominee,
Donald Trump released a statement which said "Hillary Clinton's answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief" and
added that he did not "understand how she was able to get away from prosecution".
he FBI documents describe how Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, received assistance in spring 2013 from Justin Cooper, a former
aide to Bill Clinton, in creating an archive of Hillary Clinton's emails. Cooper provided Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from
the Clinton Foundation – the family organisation currently
embroiled in controversy – and talked her through the process of transferring emails from Clinton's private server to the laptop
and a thumb drive.
"Hanley completed this task from her personal residence," the notes record. The devices were intended to be stored at Clinton's
homes in New York and Washington. However, Hanley "forgot" to provide the archive laptop and thumb drive to Clinton's staff.
In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without
success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person's personal Gmail account and there were problems around
Apple software not being compatible with that of Microsoft.
The unnamed person "told the FBI that, after the transfer was complete, he deleted the emails from the archive laptop but did
not wipe the laptop. The laptop was then put in the mail, only to go missing. [Redacted] told the FBI that she never received the
laptop from [redacted]; however, she advised that Clinton's staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for
the package to get lost during the transition period.
"Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive,
and the FBI does not have either item in its possession."
... ... ...
The FBI identified a total of 13 mobile devices associated with Clinton's two known phone numbers that potentially were used to
send emails using clintonemail.com addresses.
The 58 pages of notes released on Friday, several of which were redacted, also related that Hanley often purchased replacement
BlackBerry devices for Clinton during Clinton's time at the state department. Hanley recalled buying most of them at AT&T stores
in the Washington area. Cooper was usually responsible for setting them up and synching them to the server.
Clinton's closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley "indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's devices would frequently become unknown
once she transitioned to a new device", the documents state. "Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton's old mobile
devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer."
The notes also contain a string of admissions by Clinton about points she did not know or could not recall: "When asked about
the email chain containing '(C)' portion markings that state determined to currently contain CONFIDENTIAL information, Clinton stated
that she did not know what the '(C)' meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked
in alphabetical order."
Clinton said she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential but "took all classified
information seriously". She did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She also
stated she received no particular guidance as to how she should use the president's email address.
In addition, the notes say: "Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with
her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the
retention of federal records or handling of classified information."
Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again "could not recall how often
she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of
a document was determined."
... ... ...
The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said: "These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton's reckless and downright dangerous handling of
classified information during her tenure as secretary of state. They also cast further doubt on the justice department's decision
to avoid prosecuting what is a clear violation of the law. This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified
information."
Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, said: "The FBI's summary of their interview with Hillary Clinton is
a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency. Clinton's answers either show she is completely incompetent
or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public.
"Either way it's clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency."
The Clinton campaign insisted that it was pleased the notes had been made public. Spokesman Brian Fallon said: "While her use
of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the justice
department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case."
Terrence James 3h ago
This is the equivalent of the dog ate my homework. This woman could not utter an honest sentence if her life depended on it.
She is a corrupt and evil person, I cannot stand Trump but I think I hate her more. Trump is just crazy and cannot help himself
but she is calculatingly evil. We are doomed either way, but he would be more darkly entertaining.
Smallworld5 3h ago
Has any of Clinton's state department employees purposely built their own server in their basement on which to conduct official
government business, in gross violation of department policy, protocols, and regulations, they would have been summarily fired
at a minimum and, yes, quite possibly prosecuted. That's a fact.
The issue at hand is why Clinton sycophants are so agreeable to the Clinton Double Standard.
The presumptive next president of the U.S. being held to a lower standard than the average U.S. civil servant. Sickening.
Laurence Johnson 8h ago
Hillary's use of gender has no place in politics. When it comes to the top job, the people need the best person for the job,
not someone who is given a GO because they represent a group that are encouraged to feel discriminated against.
foggy2 9h ago
For the FBI's (or Comey's) this is also a devastating indictment of their or his judgment, honesty and basic competency.
YANKSOPINION 10h ago
Perhaps she has early onset of Alzheimers and should not be considered for the job of POTUS. Or maybe she is just a liar.
AlexLeo 10h ago
It is painfully clear that she traded access and favors for money and reciprocal favors. It is painfully clear that she
made little distinction between working for the State Department, the Clinton foundation and her family and tried to keep the
records of what was going on inaccessible. The more honest defense would be, all politicians do it, and you have to suck it up
because Trump is worse. Which is true. But trying to downplay this and explain it away is offensive, not all of the public are
complete idiots.
KaleidoscopeWars
Actually, after you get over all of the baffooning around Trump has done, he actually would make an ideal president. He loves
his country, he delegates jobs well to people who show the best results, he's good at building stuff and he wants to do a good
job. I'm sure after he purges the terribly corrupted system that he'll be given, he'll have the very best advisors around him
to make good decisions for the American people. I'm sure Theresa May and her cabinet will be quick to welcome him and re-solidify
the relationship that has affected British politics so much in the past decade. Boris Johnson is perfect for our relations with
America under a Trump administration. Shame on you Barack and Hillary. Hopefully Trump will say ''I came, I saw, they died!''
Ullu001 12h ago
Ah, The Clintons. They have done it all: destruction of evidence, witness tampering, fraud, lying under oath, murder, witness
disappearance. Did I leave anything? Yet, they go unpunished. Too clever, I guess too clever for their own good!
samwoods77 12h ago
Hillary wants to be the most powerful person on earth yet claims she doesn't understand the classification system that even
the most most junior secretary can....deeply troubling.
Mistaron 13h ago
The 'masters' in the shadows are about to throw the harridan under the bus. Her brazen air of arrogance and entitlement
is about to fade as she comes to realise, that albeit Comey having been got at, he has still succeeded in striking a severe blow
against her, and in addition, at the not-so-tin-hat conspiracy of inappropriate, and increasingly overt, institutional support.
All this in the face of documented lies, in your face hypocrisy, and unbridled corruption, oozing from every orifice of
a maverick administration.
The seeds have been planted for a defense of diminished responsibility. Don't fall for it! Hillary, (and her illustrious spouse),
deserve not a smidgen of pity.
''We came, we saw, he died'', she enthusiastically and unempathically cackled.
Just about sums her up.
wtfbollos 14h ago
hiliary clinton beheaded libya and created a hell on earth. here is the proof:
Again, total misunderstanding about what is going on. Clinton is the one waging war in the middle east. She is the one
being bullish and provocative with Russia. Trump has only been conciliatory with these issues, he has been against the war on
Iraq. So far all evidences point to the fact that the Clintons want another big war and all evidence points to the fact that
Trump wants co operation. This has totally escape your analysis. It is a choice between the Plague and the Cholera, I agree, but
FGS try to be a little less biased.
ungruntled 15h ago
The best case for HC looks pretty grim.
She has no recollection of......??
Laptops and Thumb drives laying about unattended
Total lack of understanding about even the most basic of Data Securit arrangements
All of these things giver her the benefit of the doubt....That she wasnt a liar and a corrupted politician manipulating events
and people to suit her own ends.
So, with the benefit of the doubt given, ask yourself if this level of incompetance and unreliabilty makes a suitable candidate
for office?
In both cases, with and without BOTD, she shouldnt be allowed anywhere near the corridors of power, let alone the White House.
IAtheist 17h ago
Mrs Clinton is deeply divisive. Bought out since her husbands presidency by vested interests in Wall Street and the HMO's (private
healthcare insurance management businesses) and having shown lamentable judgement, Benghazi, private Email server used for classified
documents and material.
She has failed to motivate the Democrats white and blue collar working voters male and female. These are the voting demographic
who have turned to Trump is significant numbers as he does address their concerns, iniquitous tax rules meaning multi millionaires
pay less tax on capital gains and share dividends than employees do on their basic wages, immigration and high levels of drug
and gun crime in working class communities Black, White and Hispanic, funding illegal immigrants and failed American youth living
on a black economy in the absence of affordable healthcare or a basic welfare system.
Trump may very well win and is likely to be better for the US than Hilary Clinton.
digamey 18h ago
I sympathize with the American electorate - they have to choose between the Devil and the deep blue sea. Given their situation,
however, I would definitely choose the Devil I know over the Devil I don't! And that Devil is - - - ?
MoneyCircus -> digamey 10h ago
That willful ignorance is your choice! A public businessman can be examined more closely than most.
Besides, there is a long history of "placemen" presidents whose performance is determined by those they appoint to do the work.
Just look in the White House right now.
As for the Clinton record (they come, incontrovertibly, as a package) from Mena, Arkansas, to her husband's deregulation of
the banks which heralded the financial crash that devastated millions of lives... the same banks that are currently HRC's most
enthusiastic funders... is something that any genuine Democrat should not be able to stomach...
ID9761679 19h ago
My feeling is that she had more to worry about than the location of a thumb drive (I can't recall how many of those I've lost)
or even a laptop. When a Secretary of State moves around, I doubt that look after their own appliances. Has anyone asked her where
the fan is?
Karega ID9761679 18h ago
Problem is she handled top secret and classified information which would endanger her country's security and strategic interests.
She was then US Secretary of State. That is why how she handled her thumb drive, laptop nd desktops matter. And there lies the
difference between your numerous lost thumb drives and hers. I thought this was obvious?
EightEyedSpy 23h ago
HRC is still likely to be the next President, but this scandal does have legs. She put herself in a corner by claiming
lack of recall due to a medical condition (i.e., the concussion). This leaves two possibilities, neither of which is helpful to
her cause, to wit: either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired.
1iJack -> EightEyedSpy 22h ago
either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired.
Its entirely possible its both.
Dick York 24h ago
California survived Arnold Schwarzenegger, the U.S. survived Ronald Reagan, Minnesota survived Jesse "The Body" Ventura and
I believe that we will survive Donald Trump. He's only one more celebrity on the road.
providenciales -> Dick York 23h ago
You forgot Al Franken.
antipodes -> Dick York 21h ago
Reagan was certainly not someone I admired but at least he tried to reduce the chance of nuclear war. Clinton is an out
and out Hawke with the blood of many innocent people on her hands in both Syria and Libya. She is hiding her communications because
she does not want to be exposed for the role she played in The destruction of Libya and the gun running of weapons to terrorists
in Syria. That is to Al Qaeda and ISIS. World War 3 is more likely under Clinton than any other world leader. Even Trump.
The Democrats must disendorse her because the details of her criminality are now becoming available and unless she can stop it
Trump will win. Get rid of her Democrats and bring back Bernie Sanders.
Sam3456 1d ago
We cannot afford a lying, neo-liberal who is more than willing to make her role in government a for profit endeavor.
Four years of anyone else is preferable to someone who is more than willing for the right contribution to her foundation, sell
out the American worker and middle class.
MakeBeerNotWar 1d ago
I'm more interested $250k a pop speeches HRC gave to the unindicted Wall St bankster felon scum who nearly took down their
country and the global economy yet received a taxpayer bailout and their bonuses paid for being greedy incompetent crooks. How
soon we forget....
Its seems there is just one scandal after another with this women but she seems to be bullet proof mainly because the msm media
will not go after her for reasons best known to themselves this is causing them to lose credibility and readers who are deserting
them for alternative media .
bashh1 1d ago
Finally today in an article in The NY Times we learn where Clinton has been for a good part of the summer. In the Hamptons
and elsewhere at receptions for celebrities and her biggest donors like Calvin Klein and Harvey Weinstein, raking in the millions
for her campaign. Trump on the other hand has appeared in towns in Pennsylvania like Scranton, Erie and Altoona where job are
disappearing and times can be tough. Coronations cost money I guess.
chiefwiley -> bashh1 1d ago
She is doing what she does best --- raise money.
ksenak 1d ago
Not forgetting that she was key in making sure the US didn't side with Assad. Had the US done at the beginning, instead
of being at the behest of the Saudis and the petrodollar, then the whole thing would have been over in 6 months and IS would never
have got more than a dusty district of northern Iraq.
ksenak 1d ago
Hillary is humiliated woman. Humiliated to the core by her cheating hubby she would rather kill than let him go. She is paying
her evil revenge to the whole world. As a president of USA Hillary Clinton would destabilise the world and lead it to conflicts
that threaten to be very heavy.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was part of the "Arab Spring" (also part of the "Jasmine Revolution), which overthrew
leaders such as Gaddafi to Mubarak. Before Gaddafi was overthrown he told the US that without him IS will take over Libya. They
did.
-Benghazi Scandal which ended up killing a US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans.
The Arab Spring destabilized the Middle East, contributed to the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS and the exodus of Middle Eastern
Muslims.
Sam3456 OXIOXI20 1d ago
Meh. Obama characterized ISIS as the "JV Team" and refused to acknowledge the threat. I assume he was acting on information
provided by his Secretary of State, Clinton.
Michael109 1d ago
It's quite possible that Clinton, because she had a fall in 2012 and bonked her head, believes she is telling the truth when
she is lying, except that it is not lying when you believe you are telling the truth even though you are lying.
She said she did not recall 30 times in her interviews with the FBI. She could be suffering from some sort of early degeneration
disease. Either way, between her health and the lying and corruption she should be withdrawn as the Dem frontrunner.
1iJack -> LakumbaDaGreat 1d ago
She's going to blow it.
I think she already did. Its like all the shit in her life is coming back on her at once.
Early on, when it was announced she would run again, I remember one Democrat pundit in particular that didn't think she could
survive the existence of the Internet in the general election (I can't remember who it was, though). But it has turned out to
be a pretty astute prediction.
When asked what he meant by that remark, he went on to say "the staying power of the Internet will overwhelm Clinton with her
dirty laundry once she gets to the general election. The Clintons were made for the 24 hour news cycles of the past and not the
permanent unmanaged exposure of the digital world. Everything is new again on the internet. Its Groundhog Day forever on the Internet."
That's my best paraphrase of his thoughts. He felt Clinton was the last of the "old school" politicians bringing too much baggage
to an election. That with digital "bread crumbs" of some kind or another (email, microphones and cameras in phones, etc) the new
generation of politicians will be a cleaner lot, not through virtue, but out of necessity.
I've often thought back to his remarks while watching Hillary head into the general.
ImperialAhmed 1d ago
So the applicant to the US presidency does not know what (c) stands for in her emails, archives high security data on a
laptop and then losses it for years, uploads same emails on Google's gmail account and then losses devices again.
She does not recall many things, not even the training she received on handling the confidential and secure communication.
She couldn't recall the procces of drone strikes. (Will she be killing people at a whim, without an accountable protocol?)
She is either demented or dangerously reckless or lying. All of these conditions disbar her form her candidacy.
AudieTer 1d ago
If she could only manage a couple of hours a day because of concussion and a blood clot she should have temporarily stood
down until she recovered fully, and had a senior official take over her duties until she was well. You can't have a brain-damaged
person in charge of the US's affairs - even though there is a long history of nutters the State Dept. ( ie the Military Industrial
Complex HQ). And in the White House for that matter ...Nurse -- nurse -- Dubya needs his meds!
thedingo8 -> Lenthelurker 1d ago
the clinton foundation does not pay taxes..and dont forget that slick willie has been on the paedophile plane more times
than the pilot
Littlefella 1d ago
She destroyed devices and emails after they were told that all evidence had to be preserved. There are then two issues and
the FBI and DOJ have not taken any action on either.
It's no longer just about the emails, it's the corruption.
DaveG123 1d ago
Clinton's closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley "indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's devices would frequently become unknown
once she transitioned to a new device"
-------------
Probably in the hands of a foreign government. Pretty careless behaviour. Incompetent. Part of a pattern of incompetance that
includes bad foreign policy decisions (Libya) and disrespect for rules surrounding conflict of interest (Clinton Foundation).
YANKSOPINION -> HansB09 1d ago
She failed to keep up with recordkeeping she agreed to, then when asked to turn over records, somebody destroyed them,
but Clinton did not order destruction, or does not remember having done so. Turned over all records-oops I thought WE did! She
either lied or has alzheimers
Andy White 1d ago
In addition, the notes say:
"Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity
from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal
records or handling of classified information."
Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again "could not recall how often
she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification
of a document was determined." ...................secretary of state and could not recall basic security protocols???
....and people complain about trump....this basic security was mentioned in the bloody west wing series for god's sake.....in
comparison even trump is a f'ing genius.......love him or hate him trump has to win over clinton,there is something very,very
wrong with her....she should NEVER be in charge of a till at asda......and she is a clinton so we all know a very practised liar
but this beggers belief,i can see why trump is angry if that was him he would have been publicly burnt at the stake.....this clinton
crap just stink's of the political elite....a total joke cover up and a terrible obvious one to....clinton is just a liar and
mentally i think she is very unstable....makes the DON look like hawking lol.....
namora 1d ago
Political baggage is a bitch. If this election cycle has demonstrated anything it is that the leadership of both parties
is totally out of touch with the voters and really has no interest except supporting the Neoliberal tenet of fiscal nonintervention.
This laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests is paralysing the American government.
duncandunnit 1d ago
I cannot believe Clinton has got this far in the election, I believe Obama wants her in to hide many of his embarrassing
warmongering mistakes.
fedback 1d ago
Today of all days Hillary Clinton puts out a tweet with the following: 'America needs leadership in the White House, not
a liability' -- As we have to assume she's not referring to herself it confirms people's suspicion that the person who writes
Hillary's tweets is a hostile to her campaign. The tweets are often completely off the mark.
Hercolubus 1d ago
Either Comey is on their payroll, or they have threatened his family. Either way it is business as usual. The NWO decided
a long time ago that Hillary was their next puppet PONTUS.
BG Davis 2d ago
Clinton has always been a devious weasel, but this reveals a new low. I was a low-level officer at US Embassies and Consulates
in various foreign countries. Clinton's claim that she didn't know what (C) was, or that she "she did not pay attention to the
difference between top secret, secret and confidential" and "could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the
retention of federal records or handling of classified information." Are beyond ridiculous. Any fool knows enough to be aware
of different levels of classified info, and the obvious fact that you don't get sloppy with classified info.
That said, over the past few years the entire handling of classified info has become beyond sloppy - laptops left in taxis,
General Petraeus was sharing classified info with his mistress, etc. I guess nowadays, to paraphrase Leona Helmsley's comment
about paying taxes, "security is for little people." So in that respect Hillary is no different from the rest of them.
Scaff1 2d ago
You'd better hope she's lying, because if the incompetence is genuine she shouldn't be allowed near any confidential information
ever again. I hate to admit it but Trump is right on this one. Jesus wept. I said it before: Clinton is the only candidate
who could possibly make a tyrant like Trump electable.
charlieblue -> gizadog 2d ago
Where are you getting "looses 13 devices"? (Try loses, nobody is accusing Sec.Clinton of making things loose) I actually read
the article, so my information might not be as exciting as yours, but this article states that from the 13 devices that had access
to the Clinton server, two (a laptop and a thumb drive) used by one of her aids, are missing. This article doesn't specify whether
any "classified" information was on either of them. The FBI doesn't know, because, well... they are missing.
What the fuck is it with you people and your loose relationship with actual facts? Do you realize that just making shit up
undermines whatever point you imagine you are trying to make?
gizadog 2d ago
Also: Clinton told FBI she thought classified markings were alphabetical paragraphs
"When asked what the parenthetical 'C' meant before a paragraph ... Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate
it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," the FBI wrote in notes from its interview with her."
Wow...and there are people that want her to be president.
Casey13 2d ago
In my job as a government contractor we are extremely vigilant about not connecting removable devices to work computers, no
work email access outside of work, software algorithms that scan our work mails for any sensitive information, and regular required
training on information security. The fact that the Sec State could have an email server built at her home and operate with
such laughable gross negligence when it comes to national security is surreal and appalling. I could never vote for her and
neither could I vote for Trump.
MonotonousLanguor 2d ago
>>> A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as secretary of state
are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday.<<<
Oh golly gee, what a surprise. Should we offer a reward??? Maybe Amelia Earhart has the laptop and thumb drive. Were these
missing items taken by the Great Right Wing Conspiracy???
Dani Jenkins 2d ago
Wtf, from the sublime to the ridiculous, springs to mind..
Time to get a grip of the gravity involved, here at the Guardian.. This is a total whitewash of the absurd kind.. That leaves
people laughing in pure unadultered astonishment..
SHE lost not just a MacBook & thumb drive with such BS..
So Trump it is then , like many of us have stated ALL ALONG. Sanders was the only serious contender.. A complete mockery of
democracy & the so called Democrats have made the way for Trump to cruise all the way to the Whitewash House..
Well done Debbie , did the Don pay you?
chiefwiley -> Lenthelurker 2d ago
Because the revelations are essentially contradicting all of Hillary's defenses regarding her handling of highly classified
information. None of the requirements of the State Department mattered to her or her personal staff. It won't go away --- it will
get worse as information trickles out.
Casey13 2d ago
Being President of the USA used to be about communicating a vision and inspiring Americans to get behind that dream . Think
Lincoln abolishing slavery or JFK setting a goal to put man on the moon. Hillary is boring,has no charisma,and no vision for her
Presidency beyond using corruption and intimidation to secure greater power for her and her cronies . Nobody wants to listen to
her speeches because she is boring, uninspiring, and has no wit beyond tired cliches. Trump has a vision but that vision is a
nightmare for many Americans.
imperfetto 2d ago
Clinton is a dangerous warmonger. She is a danger to us Europeans, as she might drag us into a conflict with Russia. We must
get rid of her, politically, and re-educate the Americas to respect other nations, and give up exporting their corrupting values.
"After reading these documents, I really don't understand how she was able to get away from prosecution."
If the FBI were not themselves co-conspirators and hopelessly corrupt, they would indict some of the lower level actors
and offer them immunity. They could start with the imbecile who put that laptop in the mail and couldn't remember if it was UPS
or USPS. Or did he actually send it to the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK by accident?
1iJack 2d ago
"The job of the media historically, in terms of the First Amendment – what I call the unspoken compact in the First Amendment
– is that the free press, without restraint, without checks and balances, is there in order to protect the people from power.
Its job is to be a check on government, and those who rule the country, and not to be their lapdogs, and their support system.
That's what we're seeing in this election.
There is an argument to make that the major news media in this country, the mainstream media, is essentially serving against
the people's interest. They have made themselves an open ally of protecting a political order that the American people are
rejecting, by three quarters or more of the American people. That makes them a legitimate issue, in a sense they never have
been before, if Trump takes advantage of it."
Pat Caddell, 2 Sept 2016
Caddell has voiced an interesting concern that others are beginning to share: that the news media has crawled so far in
bed with Hillary Clinton they won't be able to get back out. That the news media in America has lost its soul. Even Jake Tapper
started asking this question several weeks ago in the middle of his own show.
Will the American press ever have credibility with Americans again? Even Democrats see it and will remember this the next time
the press turns against them. There was a new and overt power grab in this election that is still being processed by the American
people: the American press "saving" America from Donald Trump. They may never recover from this.
It even scares my Democrat friends.
ConBrio 2d ago
"An unknown individual using the encrypted privacy tool Tor to hide their tracks accessed an email account on a Clinton family
server, the FBI revealed Friday.
"The incident appears to be the first confirmed intrusion into a piece of hardware associated with Hillary Clinton's private
email system, which originated with a server established for her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
The FBI disclosed the event in its newly released report on the former secretary of state's handling of classified information.
Clinton is a very dodgy character and cannot be trusted.
Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary on Clinton: "She's got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a
sadistic nurse in a mental hospital"
CleanPool330 2d ago
The collective mind of the establishment is mentally ill and spinning out of control. In all rites they should be removed but
their arrogance, corruption and self-entitlement mean they are incapable of admitting guilt. They have corrupted the weak minds
of the majority and will take everybody down with them.
The pyramid scheme of created debt has destroyed capitalism and democracy within 40 years of full operation. Captured Govt
has bailed out incompetence and failure at every turn, and in so doing, inverted the yield curve and destroyed the future. It
is for this reason alone I cannot respect these financial paedophiles or support anything they do. In this contest for the White
House, Clinton is the manifestation of the establishment.
unusedusername 2d ago
If I understand this correctly a laptop and a flashdrive full of classified emails was put in a jiffy bag and stuck in the
post and now they're missing and this is, apparently, just one of those things? Amazing!
Blair Hess 2d ago
I'm in the military. Not a high rank mind you. It defies all common logic that HRC has never had a briefing, training, or just
side conversation about classified information handling when i have about 50 trainings a year on it and i barely handle it. Sheeple
wake up and stop drinking the kool aid
Ullu001 2d ago
The Clintons have always operated on the edge of the law: extremely clever and dangerous lawyers they are.
USADanny -> Ullu001
Hillary may be criminally clever but legally: not so much. You do know that she failed the Washington DC bar exam and all of
her legal "success" after that was a result of being very spouse of a powerful politician.
calderonparalapaz 2d ago
"The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's private server, including what appeared to be a frantic
effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested they be
preserved." -NY Times
Virtually every American healthcare worker has to take annual HIPAA training, pass a multiple-choice test and signed a document
attesting that they have taken the training and are fully aware of the serious consequences of inadvertent and willful violations
of HIPAA. Oh the irony – HIPAA is a Clinton era law.
Hillary's treatment of top-secret US documents was willful and uncorrected. If she had done the same thing with medical
records, the individuals whose medical records had been mishandled could have filed charges and Hillary would have been personally
liable for up to $50,000 fine per incident.
Other than Hillary negligently handling top-secret documents, having a head injury that by her own admission has impaired her
memory and using her relationship with the Clinton foundation when she was Secretary of State to extort hundreds of millions of
dollars, she is an excellent candidate for the president.
oeparty 2d ago
Clinton is an absolute liability. Apart from this scandal she's a status quo candidate for a status quo that no longer
exists. She stands for neo-liberalism, US hegemony and capitalist globalization all of which are deader than the dodo. That makes
her very dangerous in terms of world peace and of course she will do absolutely nothing for the millions of Americans facing joblessness,
hunger, bankruptcy and homelessness except make things worse.
And yet, and yet, we must vote Clinton simply to Stop Trump. He is a proto-fascist determined to smash resistance to the 1%
in America and abroad via military means. He is a realist who realises capitalism is over and only the purest and most overwhelming
violence can save the super rich and the elites now. Certainly their economy gives them nothing any more. The American Dream is
toast. The Green Stein will simply draw a few votes from Clinton and give Trump the victory and it is not like she is a genuinely
progressive candidate herself being something of a Putin fan just like Trump. No, vote Clinton to Stop Trump but only so that
we can use the next four years to build the revolutionary socialist alternative. To build the future.
dongerdo 2d ago
The Americans are screwed anyways because both easily are the most despicable and awful front runners I can think of in any
election of a western democracy in decades (and that is quite an achievement in itself to be honest), the only thing left to hope
for is a winner not outright horrible for the rest of the world on which front Clinton loses big time: electing her equals pouring
gasoline over half the world, she is up for finishing the disastrous job in the Middle East and North Africa started by her as
Secretary of State. Her stance on relations with Russia and China are utterly horrific, listening to her makes even the die-hard
GOP neo-cons faction sound like peace corps ambassadors.
If the choice is between that and some isolationist dimwit busy with making America great again I truly hope for the latter.
Who would have thought that one day world peace would depend on the vote of the American redneck.....
Michael109 2d ago
Clinton's "dog ate my server", I can't (30 times) remember, didn't know what C meant on top of emails - why it means Coventry
City, M'amm - excuses are the Dems trying to stagger over the line, everyone holding their noses. But even if she is elected,
which is doubtful, this is not going away and she could be arrested as USA President.
The FBI will rue the day they did not recommend charges against her when they had the chance. She's make Tony Soprano look
like the Dalia Lama.
CleanPool330 2d ago
The entire corrupt establishment want Clinton at all cost, so that they can continue fleecing the future and enslaving
the entire world in created debt. All right minded individuals should this as a flashing red light to turn round and vote the
other way.
"... "the prosecutor has all the power. The Supreme Court's suggestion that a plea bargain is a fair and voluntary contractual arrangement between two relatively equal parties is a total myth… What really puts the prosecutor in the driver's seat is the fact that he - because of mandatory minimums, sentencing guidelines (which, though no longer mandatory in the federal system, are still widely followed by most judges), and simply his ability to shape whatever charges are brought - can effectively dictate the sentence by how he publicly describes the offense". ..."
"... Prosecutorial discretion is now practically unlimited in the United States. This discretion is an essential feature of any dictatorship . It's the essence of any system that separates people into aristocrats, who are above the law, versus the public, upon whom their 'law' is enforced. It's the essence of "a nation of men, not of laws". ..."
"... Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system" ..."
"... Clinton stated she did not remember the email specifically. Clinton stated a 'nonpaper' was a document with no official heading, or identifying marks of any kind, that can not be attributed to the US Government. Clinton thought a 'nonpaper' was a way to convey the unofficial stance of the US Government to a foreign government and believed this practice went back '200 years.' When viewing the displayed email, Clinton believed she was asking Sullivan to remove the State letterhead and provide unclassified talking points. Clinton stated she had no intention to remove classification markings" ..."
"... issues sending secure fax" ..."
"... They say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it" ..."
"... "If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure". So: she knew that it was classified information but wanted to receive it so that she would be able to say, "I didn't know that it was classified information". ..."
"... The FBI avoided using the standard means to investigate a suspect higher-up ..."
"... That alone proves the Obama Administration's 'investigation' of Clinton's email system to have been a farce ..."
"... the prosecutor in Hillary's case (the Obama Administration) clearly didn't want her in the big house; they wanted her in the White House. ..."
The famous judge Jed Rakoff
has accurately and succinctly
said that, in the American criminal 'justice' system, since 1980 and especially after 2000, and
most especially after 2010, "the prosecutor has all the power. The Supreme Court's suggestion
that a plea bargain is a fair and voluntary contractual arrangement between two relatively equal
parties is a total myth… What really puts the prosecutor in the driver's seat is the fact that he
- because of mandatory minimums, sentencing guidelines (which, though no longer mandatory in the
federal system, are still widely followed by most judges), and simply his ability to shape whatever
charges are brought - can effectively dictate the sentence by how he publicly describes the offense".
If an Administration wants to be merely pretending an 'investigation', it's easy: identify, as
the topic for the alleged 'investigation', not the criminal laws that indisputably describe what
the suspect can clearly be proven to have done, but instead criminal laws that don't. Prosecutorial
discretion is now practically unlimited in the United States. This discretion is an essential feature
of any
dictatorship . It's the essence of any system that separates people into aristocrats, who are
above the law, versus the public, upon whom their 'law' is enforced. It's the essence of
"a nation
of men, not of laws".
But, different people focus on different aspects of it.
Conservatives notice it in Clinton's case because she was not prosecuted.
Progressives notice it in Clinton's case because other people (ones without the clout) who did
what she did (but only less of it), have been prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced for it. The result,
either way, is
dictatorship , regardless of anyone's particular perspective on the matter. Calling a nation
like that a 'democracy' is to strip "democracy" of its basic meaning - it is foolishness. Such a
nation is
an aristocracy, otherwise called an "oligarchy". That's the opposite of a democracy (even if
it's set up so as to pretend to be a democracy).
2: The FBI chose to believe her allegations, instead of to investigate or challenge them.
For example: On page 4 of
the FBI's record of their interview with Hillary dated 2 July 2016 , they noted: " Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system"
. But they already had seen
this email . So,
they asked her about that specific one: " Clinton stated she did not remember the email
specifically. Clinton stated a 'nonpaper' was a document with no official heading, or identifying
marks of any kind, that can not be attributed to the US Government. Clinton thought a 'nonpaper'
was a way to convey the unofficial stance of the US Government to a foreign government and believed
this practice went back '200 years.' When viewing the displayed email, Clinton believed she was asking
Sullivan to remove the State letterhead and provide unclassified talking points. Clinton stated she
had no intention to remove classification markings" .
Look at the email
: is her statement about it - that " issues sending secure fax" had nothing
to do with the illegality of sending classified U.S. Government information over a non-secured, even
privatized, system - even credible? Is the implication by Clinton's remark, that changing the letterhead
and removing the document'a classified stamp, would solve the problem that Jake Sullivan - a highly
skilled attorney himself - had brought to her attention, even credible? Well, if so, then wouldn't
the FBI have asked Sullivan what he was referring to when his email to Clinton said " They say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it" .
The FBI provided no indication that there was any such follow-up, at all. They could have plea-bargained
with Sullivan, to get him to testify first, so that his testimony could be used in questioning of
her, but they seem not to have been interested in doing any such thing. They believed what she said
(even though it made no sense as a response to the problem that Sullivan had just brought to her
attention: the problem that emailing to her this information would violate several federal criminal
statutes.
Clinton, in other words, didn't really care about the legality. And, apparently, neither did the
FBI. Her email in response to Sullivan's said simply: "If they can't, turn into nonpaper
w no identifying heading and send nonsecure". So: she knew that it was classified information but
wanted to receive it so that she would be able to say, "I didn't know that it was classified information".
In other words: she was instructing her advisor: hide the fact that it's classified information,
so that when I receive it, there will be no indication on it that what was sent to me is classified
information.
3:
The FBI avoided using the standard means to investigate a suspect higher-up:
obtaining plea-deals with subordinates, requiring them to cooperate, answer questions and
not to plead the Fifth Amendment (not to refuse to answer) . (In Hillary's case, the Obama Administration
actually did plea-deals in which they allowed the person who was supposed to answer all questions,
to plea the Fifth Amendment to all questions instead. This is allowed only when the government doesn't
want to prosecute the higher-up - which in this case was Clinton. That alone proves the Obama Administration's
'investigation' of Clinton's email system to have been a farce.)
A plea-deal isn't a Constitutional process:
Jed Rakoff's article explained why it's not. The process is informal, but nowadays it's used
in more than 97% of cases in which charges are brought, and in more than 99% of all cases (including
the 92% of cases that are simply dropped without any charges being brought). That's the main reason
why nowadays "the prosecutor has all the power". Well, the prosecutor in Hillary's case (the Obama
Administration) clearly didn't want her in the big house; they wanted her in the White House.
The whole thing smells to high heaven. The only reason to trust that there are no direct quid
pro quos is, perversely, that there are so many donations and so many speeches and interactions
that they all begin to seem normal.
Yes, there may be smoke and no fire, in the legal sense, but let us not pretend there are no
issues here.
FBI officials failed to aggressively question Hillary Clinton about her intentions in setting up a private email system, Rep.
Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) claimed this week, exposing a potential key vulnerability in the bureau's investigation.
"I didn't see that many questions on that issue," Gowdy told Fox News's "The Kelly File" on Wednesday evening.
The detail could be crucial for Republican critics of the FBI's decision not to recommend charges be filed against the former
secretary of State for mishandling classified information.
... ... ...
"I looked to see what witnesses were questioned on the issue of intent, including her," he said on Fox News. "I didn't see that
many questions on that issue."
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz(R-Utah) has called for the FBI to create unclassified versions of the Clinton
case file that it gave to Congress, so that the material can be released publicly. Gowdy reiterated the call on Fox News.
"There's no reason in the world you could not and should not be able to look at the same witness interviews that I had to go to
Washington and look at in a classified setting," he said.
The lost in mail laptop and disappear thumb drive with archived emails story is incredibly fishy.
The whole story in incredible. Both Hillary and her close aides (especially Huma ) come out as completely
incompetent idiots, who can't be trusted any sensitive information. This level of incompetence combined
with recklessness is pretty typical for female sociopath
Notable quotes:
"... The Donald Trump campaign has already called for Clinton to be "locked up" for her carelessness handling sensitive information. The missing laptop and thumb drive raise a new possibility that Clinton's emails could have been obtained by people for whom they weren't intended. ..."
"... The archives on the laptop and thumbdrive were constructed by Clinton aides in 2013, using a convoluted process, before her emails were turned over to State Department officials and later scrubbed to determine which ones had classified information and should either be withheld from public view or could be released with redactions. The archive of messages would contain none of those safeguards, potentially exposing classified information if it were ever opened and its contents read. ..."
"... The archive was created nearly a year before the State Department contacted former secretaries of state and asked them to turn over any emails that they had sent using private accounts that pertained to official business. A senior Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, told the FBI that the archive on the laptop and thumb drive were meant to be "a reference for the future production of a book," according to the FBI report. ..."
"... Whatever the rationale, the transfer of Clinton's emails onto two new storage devices, one of which was shipped twice, created new opportunities for messages to be lost or exposed to people who weren't authorized to see them, according to the FBI report. (The Clinton campaign didn't immediately respond to a request to comment for this story.) ..."
"... The disappearing laptop and thumb drive story is incredibly fishy. Either Team Hillary is lying about it, or they are spectacularly incompetent and reckless with national security information. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton: Incompetent, Or Criminal? Both. ..."
"... Dear God, from the Daily Beast article, apparently they were using one of the laptops as a way to transfer the emails to a contractor they had hired. Since no one knew how to do it, they effected the transfer by sending the entire archive to a personal gmail account, then transfering it again to the contractor. So we have a massive store containing quite classified information going to a major tech company, entirely over the internet with only ssl protection I can only presume, because they could not figure out how to transfer a file system. The incompetence here is astonishing. Even a Google employee who forwards sensitive information to a personal gmail account would risk being fired. ..."
"... Of course the most important detail to come out of this is the use of BleachBit. You don't use that software to delete emails about yoga classes. ..."
"... The employee "transferred all of the Clinton e-mail content to a personal Google e-mail (Gmail) address he created," the FBI found. From that Gmail address, he downloaded the emails into a mailbox named "HRC Archive" on the Platte River server. ..."
"... Honestly, Rod you should highlight this. I can assure you that if something this mindbogglingly reckless were ever done at a major tech company the employee would either be fired or told to find work elsewhere but never enter the office again (because severance is expensive and bad pr). I assume the same is true of the government as well. ..."
Why, exactly, did the FBI wait until Labor Day Weekend to dump
this startling news about Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal? Hard to believe it was a coincidence
that official Washington wanted this story to have the best chance of going away. From the Daily
Beast:
A laptop containing a copy, or "archive," of the emails on Hillary Clinton's
private server was apparently lost-in the postal mail-according to an FBI report released
Friday. Along with it, a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton's emails has been
lost and is not in the FBI's possession.
The Donald Trump campaign has already called for Clinton to be "locked up" for her carelessness
handling sensitive information. The missing laptop and thumb drive raise a new possibility that
Clinton's emails could have been obtained by people for whom they weren't intended. The FBI
director has already said it's possible Clinton's email system could have been
remotely accessed by foreign hackers.
The revelation of the two archives is contained in a detailed
report about the FBI's investigation of Clinton's private email account. The report contained
new information about how the archives were handled, as well as how a private company deleted
emails in its possession, at the same time that congressional investigators were demanding copies.
More:
The archives on the laptop and thumbdrive were constructed by Clinton aides in 2013, using
a convoluted process, before her emails were turned over to State Department officials and later
scrubbed to determine which ones had classified information and should either be withheld from
public view or could be released with redactions. The archive of messages would contain none of
those safeguards, potentially exposing classified information if it were ever opened and its contents
read.
The FBI has found that Clinton's emails contained classified information, including information
derived from U.S. intelligence. Her campaign has disputed the classification of some of the emails.
The archive was created nearly a year before the State Department contacted former secretaries
of state and asked them to turn over any emails that they had sent using private accounts that
pertained to official business. A senior Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, told the FBI that the archive
on the laptop and thumb drive were meant to be "a reference for the future production of a book,"
according to the FBI report. Another aide, however, said that the archive was set up after
the email account of a Clinton confidante and longtime adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, was compromised
by a Romanian hacker.
Whatever the rationale, the transfer of Clinton's emails onto two new storage devices,
one of which was shipped twice, created new opportunities for messages to be lost or exposed to
people who weren't authorized to see them, according to the FBI report. (The Clinton campaign
didn't immediately respond to a request to comment for this story.)
Read it all. The disappearing laptop and thumb drive story is incredibly fishy. Either
Team Hillary is lying about it, or they are spectacularly incompetent and reckless with national
security information.
It is like going through a red light because you weren't paying close enough attention as
opposed to consciously choosing to run a red light
Lousy analogy. Running a red is a momentary lapse, not a years-long, well-thought-out conspiracy,
with considerable effort given to covering tracks (BleachBit).
No one in the media wants to say it, but this report almost entirely exonerates Clinton. Yes,
she's lawyerly and is inclined to walk too close to the line, but no – she didn't do anything
immoral or unethical. If at some point it turns out that she's actually done something wrong then
we revisit, but the obsession with this 'crimeless coverup' prevents us from stating the obvious
– Clinton is a solid candidate for President, intelligent, diligent and serious enough to guide
the nation through difficult times. Trump is uncontroversially not.
The moral equivalence games the media plays with the two candidates amounts to a cancer in
our civic fiber that allows us not to put away our childish things.
We could have had Carly Fiorina dealing with the challenge of cyber warfare in the 21st century.
Voters are choosing a woman who put an insecure server containing national security communications
in her basement, and sold our intention and opportunities to do good in the world to rich people
for her own financial gain.
(I lean toward voting for Trump. My issue is the immense paperwork drag on health care delivery
and the increase in cost caused by the "affordable" care act. I expect more of the same with Clinton.
)
Dear God, from the Daily Beast article, apparently they were using one of the laptops as a
way to transfer the emails to a contractor they had hired. Since no one knew how to do it, they
effected the transfer by sending the entire archive to a personal gmail account, then transfering
it again to the contractor. So we have a massive store containing quite classified information
going to a major tech company, entirely over the internet with only ssl protection I can only
presume, because they could not figure out how to transfer a file system. The incompetence here
is astonishing. Even a Google employee who forwards sensitive information to a personal gmail
account would risk being fired.
This sort of astonishing incompetence is exactly why I originally thought this was a big deal.
The reason you don't want HRC running her own server is because she plainly doesn't know how to
manage, or even hire for, all the inane details of information security.
Of course the most important detail to come out of this is the use of BleachBit. You don't
use that software to delete emails about yoga classes.
Jay, or, and hear me out, like the other Bill, there has to come a point in time where the shear
amount of claims of criminal behavior has to be considered. The other Bill got away with rape
for years, maybe its time to consider that this Bill and his wife lack credibility in the face
of accusers that HRC has denigrated and called Bimbos.
Leftists make me sick in this. They will cry that we should always believe the victim unless
one of their political leaders are accused. You want to take out a conservative? Give credible
evidence that he is guilty of rape or sexual harassment. We quit voting for them. Your side, deny,
deny, deny….and ultimately demand we move on, just like a previous poster's five stages of a Clinton
scandal.
The only exception to this I can think of is Weiner, not because he did something that is horrible.
No, you guys abandoned him because he was pathetic and embarrassing.
This is the direct quote from the Daily Beast article:
After trying unsuccessfully to remotely transfer the emails to a Platte River server, Hanley
shipped the laptop to the employee's home in February 2014. He then "migrated Clinton's emails"
from the laptop to a Platte River server.
That task was hardly straightforward, however, and ended up exposing the email archive yet
again, this time to another commercial email service.
The employee "transferred all of the Clinton e-mail content to a personal Google e-mail
(Gmail) address he created," the FBI found. From that Gmail address, he downloaded the emails
into a mailbox named "HRC Archive" on the Platte River server.
Honestly, Rod you should highlight this. I can assure you that if something this mindbogglingly
reckless were ever done at a major tech company the employee would either be fired or told to
find work elsewhere but never enter the office again (because severance is expensive and bad pr).
I assume the same is true of the government as well.
It really makes the Nixon comparisons seem apt, except she has an out for her supporters in
simply claiming that she is a bumbling idiot.
The good liberals here who are starting the writing on the wall with Crooked Hillary should begin
considering the fact that Trump isn't that bad and is actually pretty good in many ways. Come
on over, you will be welcomed warmly.
"... Does it get money because of the Clintons involvement in raising money? Undoubtedly, without their participation it can't raise anywhere near that amount of money, and the reason is that their high public profile means that people believe that by giving to them they can influence policy, ..."
Low level personnel in the US government are expected to reject gifts, or if culturally they cannot,
then they turn them over to their agency, unless it is something like a coffee or a sandwich.
There is an expectation that people are going to not just not actually corrupt their job by doing
favors for people who give them gifts or do them favors, but that they will avoid the appearance of
corruption that is generated by accepting gifts.
The supreme court doesn't agree with that anymore. Anyone can accept any kind of bribe as long as
they don't let it influence their actions. You can't see the desk for the treasure that's being dumped
onto political tables to fund campaigns and line their personal pockets.
This is a foreign practice, one that is corrupt and should be rooted out nationally. Accepting gifts
creates a corrupting environment, no matter what the recipient does, because EVERYONE understands that
the gift is intended to influence policy or gain access so that the person can influence policy. The
person giving the gift knows it, or they wouldn't give it, the person receiving the gift knows it, but
"deep down in their honest hearts" they're not going to allow it to influence their work and decisions?
No of course not. Buying access is the same as putting a stack of cash into someone's pocket to get
them to vote one way or another on a bill of interest.
Does the Clinton foundation do good work? Sure. Does it get money because of the Clintons involvement
in raising money? Undoubtedly, without their participation it can't raise anywhere near that amount
of money, and the reason is that their high public profile means that people believe that by giving
to them they can influence policy, even if those people are not in office (through backchannels
and whispers and introductions).
Does every person donating to the Clinton foundation want to influence policy, or are they primarily
motivated by wanting to fund it's good works? This is impossible to tell. Even someone as prominent
and perhaps morally blameless Elie Wiesel isn't there to eat cookies and have tea and talk about the
weather if he's in Hillary Clinton's office. That is not what he is there for. That kind of meeting
is not purely a social call, it's an effort to influence policy, whether it is related to statements
on the Armenian genocide or the Sudan or god knows what.
Is he a person that she should meet with, whether he gives a donation to her foundation or not? Maybe
that is her job. Probably most of these meetings are that way. That's why public officials are expected
to put investments and charities into trusts and blinds and under separate management when they're in
office, to help establish the boundary between their public responsibilities and their private interests
including their charitable interests.
It doesn't matter to me whether she did anything that she shouldn't have done, legally. The letter
of the law is insufficient to dictate the actions of moral people. Is it disqualifying? She's already
been disqualified in my mind, this is just another thing.
Is it disturbing and annoying to me to see the double standard where promoters are willing to weasel
and explain away whatever the Clintons have done that for any person on the other side of the aisle
would be moral issues that disqualify them from office?
Yeah. the first image I got when I read that headline was the scene in Breaking Bad when a
phone rings, Walter opens a drawer and has to look through about a dozen phones to find the one
that is ringing.
The most significant thing we learn is that "The employee "transferred all of the Clinton e-mail
content to a personal Google e-mail (Gmail) address he created," the FBI found. From that Gmail
address, he downloaded the emails into a mailbox named "HRC Archive" on the Platte River server."
Americans must be (or are at least expected to be) the most schizophrenic of all people on
the earth. They are not only supposed to believe that the FBI/NSA (the former Marcy Wheeler, I
believe, thinks is also spying on Americans' emails) cannot locate a copy of the deleted emails,
but that the FBI can't get a warrant to get the 'deleted' emails from Google. Who on earth, on
any other day, or in reference to anything else, actually believes that an email deleted from
a Gmail account is simultaneously deleted from Google's servers & archives?
Even the Hardy Boys would have conducted a harder hitting investigation. What ever happened
to the vaunted tough-as-nails FBI? Talk about pulling your punches. Yeesh!
"... The deletion took place between March 25 and March 31, the FBI learned in a May 3 interview. The name of the person who deleted the emails was redacted from the FBI's notes. ..."
"... The Times story was published on March 2. ..."
"... I am unsympathetic to any person involved in such a discussion that circumvents state secrets protocol because they don't have access to a secure computer. That is an excuse not acceptable. That is saying "I didn't know any better" to folks who are sitting at the highest levels of state secrets! That is plain B.S. in my opinion. ..."
"... A urinating contest between State and CIA operatives who really didn't need State permission to pull the trigger on drone strikes is not an excuse for Hillary to have 22-SAP running loose on her email un-secure un-authorized servers/storage units. I remain unsympathetic to Hillary or anyone else who compromises state secrets at that level because it is inconvenient to find a secure means to communicate. ..."
The deletion took place between March 25 and March 31, the FBI learned in a May 3 interview.
The name of the person who deleted the emails was redacted from the FBI's notes.
"In a follow-up FBI interview on May 3, 2016, ------ Indicated he believed he had an 'oh s--t'
moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from PRN server
and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server system
containing Clinton;s e-mails," the FBI notes released on Friday stated.
This is crazy. 3 weeks after NYT publish Clinton email
server story, there was a big wipe of her emails conducted
BleachBit is a special computer software that is designed to "prevent recovery" of files so
that, as House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman
Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said last week, "even God can't read them."
After the conclusion of the investigation in July, the FBI Director James Comey recommended no
charges against Clinton but added that the Democratic presidential nominee was "extremely
careless" in handling classified material.
The fact that the FBI had this info but excluded it from their deliberations on whether or not to
indict, then did a Labor Day weekend dump when most Americans won't be paying attention, is pretty
conclusive evidence that the FBI under Comey & Lynch is actively working to shield Clinton.
..painfull to realize we have all be played for years by the democrats and yes republicans and large
corporate businesses. Time to take back our control of ourselves and choices, real choices, and not
sell our votes for a freaking free cell phone or promises of free this, free that.....
Actually if you dig deeper you will find that both parties are VERY corrupt. The only way to get
things done is to make deals and cover for each other. Our political system has totally gone amuck.
Actually, I have... and the RNC is fairly clean. The party learned a lesson with Nixon. Sure people
may not have liked the Bush's, but at least they were fairly honest. And Reagan was an awesome President.
Also, Trump can't be bought and is a political outsider.
The DNC and DemocRATs, haven't learned their lesson yet... Slick Willy was almost fully impeached
(House not Senate impeached)... but DemocRATs played party politics and let him go. We ALL know he
was guilty and repeatedly lied under oath (perjury and obstruction)... something you or I would go
to prison for.
Well said. And it fact, as someone commented above, this entire political process & "election" is
little more than a charade. (A bad one at that.)
...Don't be too surprised if/when, sometime in the few weeks, some sort of (manufactured/contrived)
'national emergency' develops, necessitating the 'temporary suspension' of: a) the election process;
b) the Bill of Rights; or c) the entire US Constitution -- and imposition of martial law -- 'Just
until Order can be Restored.' (Or some such bunch of gibberish.)
Given what we've seen over the
last 7+ years, it's darn near predictable: Americans should anticipate an "October Surprise" the
likes of which the world has never seen.
IMPORTANT: when writing "HiLlARy" be sure to use a lowercase L (l), not an uppercase i (I), so it
appears as "hillary" to internet search engines and won't be censored. All corporate media, including
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are filtering the unique word "hiliary." You must spell "hillary" correctly,
so that means using a lowercase L in place of the uppercase i in HiLlARy.
The twitter screen cap clearly shows, "PRN held a conference call
with President Clinton's staff"??
Then, the person who's name is redacted, who was evidently interviewed by the FBI, "deleted the
Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server...
... and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server system containing
Clinton's e-mails"
Kind of unclear, since the conference call was with PRESIDENT Clinton's staff, is this PRESIDENT
Clinton's archive mailbox, on the PRN server containing PRESIDENT Clinton's emails???
Thanks, so in Dec of 2014, Cheryl Mills told 'him' to make changes to email retention setting for
Clinton's emails, and after the PRN conference call, 3/25/15, 'he' realized that 'he' didn't do what
Cheryl told 'him' to do in Dec of 2014, so 'he' did what Cheryl told 'him' to do, 3+ months late,
and wiped 'his' butt with BleachBit on some exported .PST files 'he' created??
Somehow it doesn't
look very much like the headline of this story makes it out to be??
Oh and there is the small minor point that on Nov. 26, 2014 President Obama signs into law an updated
Federal Records Act requiring public officials to forward all work-related email to their government
address. Then comes the Cheryl Mills directive to change retention settings. THEN he/she remembers
didn't follow orders ("the Oh S***" moment) so deletes all pst files plus back ups. NOTHING TO SEE
HERE!!!! /sarcasm
A reminder, the data this firm had in its possession had state secrets including 22-Top Secret-Special
Access Programs. None of these firms had clearance for such. Wonder if everyone whose fingerprints
were on these files got vetted by the FBI and or Intel to determine if they read what they had in
their hands if for no other reason than curiosity?
We are assuming that the server in PRN's management had 'all' Hillary's emails on it, but has there
been proof shown to the public that the server in New Jersey had 'all' Hillary's emails?
The 7
email chains, with 22 TS/SAP information containing emails seem to be from 2011 and 2012, with the
2012 very likely being the New Years Holliday.
Back in June, WSJ reported that the majority seemed to be discussions about a planned CIA drone
strike in Pakistan, that did not end up happening, and it started because the CIA let the US diplomat
in Islamabad know, a day or so before Christmas, so State could weigh in.
Well said. We, the People, may very well never know the details on this batch of state secrets...nothing
new about the Intel folks being tight-lipped. Nothing I've read on-line has given any info on what
the SAP email contained...but, T.S./SAP is the most rigidly controlled/guarded state secret and I
doubt any will become public knowledge. Any way this Hillary state secrets compromise is sliced,
it is a violation of state secrets protocol in my opinion. From the gist of the FBI notes provided
so far, there was little or no effort by the FBI personnel to 'dig' into 'intent,' thus glossing
over a specific state secret statutes. Nor did the FBI team devote much time to 'chasing' the means
by which these 22-T.S./SAP jumped the gap from State's closed-loop secure email system to Hillary's
rogue system...why not?
Lastly, I wonder if anyone from the Intel folks sat-in and or participated
in Hillary's 'walk-in-the-park soft-ball' not under oath chat with the FBI...the Intel folks got
'hurt' badly with Hillary's compromise of the 22 SAP in my opinion.
Many of today's cable news talking heads are mentioning the planned Pakistan drone strike discussions
as if it is now a forgone conclusion. Those of us who don't pay WSJ can read the story from other
sources...
"Some of those emails were then sent by Clinton's aides to her personal email account, officials
told the Journal.
The vaguely worded messages didn't mention the "CIA," "drones" or details about the targets, the
Journal reported.
The emails were written within the often-narrow time frame in which State Department officials
had to decide whether or not to object to drone strikes before the CIA pulled the trigger, officials
told the newspaper. The still-secret emails are still a part of the ongoing FBI investigation.
One exchange reported by the Journal came before Christmas in 2011 when the U.S. ambassador sent
a note about a planned strike that sparked an email chain between Clinton's senior advisers. Officials
said the exchange was clear those involved in the email were having discussions because they were
away from their offices and didn't have access to a classified computer."
I am unsympathetic to any person involved in such a discussion that circumvents state secrets protocol
because they don't have access to a secure computer. That is an excuse not acceptable. That is saying
"I didn't know any better" to folks who are sitting at the highest levels of state secrets! That
is plain B.S. in my opinion.
And, yet, Hillary's fawning faithful followers are buying the ruse.
Such rationalization of compromising state secrets infuriates men and women in the field who can
die (Amb. Stevens and the men who rushed to their own deaths to help protect Stevens) because of
such bureaucratic idiocy in my opinion beginning with Hillary and her immediate minions merits the
wrath of We, the People not admiration...some of whom questioned Hillary's email mess early-on such
as Amadin who believed Hillary's email stuff was 'outrageous!"
"Outrageous" is an understatement on steroids in my opinion that would get anyone else prison time.
Our Amb. to Pakistan initiated these 'chains', because CIA 'requested input'; those requests seems
to have been off the secure system. The drone operators were not in danger.
If the CIA had pulled
the trigger, it would have before State gave the input CIA asked for, if they traveled to secure
lines.
This is one of the reasons the CIA is dropping out of drone strikes; moving forwards the Defense
Dept. will pull the trigger.
The argument between State and CIA over these discussions does not seem to have started because
of Hillary, and it doesn't seem to have ended because of Hillary. It is only because of the FOIA
disclosures that we know they seem to have agreed to disagree on this subject.
A urinating contest between State and CIA operatives who really didn't need State permission to pull
the trigger on drone strikes is not an excuse for Hillary to have 22-SAP running loose on her email
un-secure un-authorized servers/storage units. I remain unsympathetic to Hillary or anyone else who
compromises state secrets at that level because it is inconvenient to find a secure means to communicate.
Did you read the ViceNews article about the Vaughn Index they received on the 7 'chains' that contain
the 22 emails? You do realize that in at least one chain, a news agency article link, and possible
quote, is being forwarded, and the article is likely the source of the TS/SAP information, don't
you? Even after it is leaked to someone like the NYT or Guardian, a TS/SAP document is still considered
TS/SAP by the NSA, right? Even after everyone on the planet who is interested has read the information,
discussing it on the non-secure system is considered against procedures, right?
"A large number of emails at the center of the Clinton FBI probe appear to have been between U.S.
diplomats in Pakistan and the State Department in Washington D.C. discussing planned drone strikes."
http://www.inquisitr.com/31881... ... "The emails were sent in 2011 and 2012 through a private
server and contained information that allowed the State Department input into a potential drone strike,
where they had the opportunity to voice either opposition or support for the planned strike."
Based on the The Inquisitor article, and the ViceNews article, 8 emails seem to be regarding the
CIA drone strike, and one of the remaining 3 chains was about the news article.
I still remain unsympathetic to anyone caught-up in this compromise of state secrets. Too many lessor
mortals have been severely punished for a lot less and the powerful escape any consequences for Hillary's
mess. The RULE OF LAW is being 'shaded' if not outright lost in this mess!
William Card > iRon Madden
Hillary is a walking psyop. NOTHING about her is real.
Chez Kiva > Chez Kiva • 20 hours ago
A memory lapse? I don't think so. Careless? Yes, careless to a fault. People died. Agents
were outed.
And, the entire thing is a ruse to keep we the Americans from discussing the real infraction,
which is that these CIA players were involved in destroying Libya and simultaneously causing
the Syrian civil war. It wasn't an 'embassy' it was a safe house for all the lettered covert
operatives and arms dealers. That's why she believes here role as 'guardian of State secrets'
is safe.
Mark this "Classified:" We are deliberately involved in destroying 7 countries mid-east in a
row. Iran (read nuclear) comes next!- General Wesley Clark.
CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkey > Fred_Shrinka
"Accidently" used BLEACHBIT "guaranteed unrecoverable" Secure Data Erase program?
"... A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday, raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department. ..."
"... The exchange about the passport, between Mr. Band and Huma Abedin, who was then a top State Department aide to Mrs. Clinton, was included in a set of more than 500 pages of emails made public by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that sued for their release. ..."
"... "Need get me/justy and jd dip passports," Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin on July 27, 2009, referring to passports for himself and two other aides to Mr. Clinton, Justin Cooper and John Davidson. ..."
"... Traveling with a former president does not convey any special diplomatic status, the State Department indicated in a statement regarding the emails. "Diplomatic passports are issued to Foreign Service officers or a person having diplomatic or comparable status," the statement said. ..."
"... "Any individuals who do not have this status are not issued diplomatic passports," it said, adding that "the staff of former presidents are not included among those eligible to be issued a diplomatic passport." ..."
A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic
passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday,
raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access
at the department.
The request by the adviser, Douglas J. Band, who started one arm of the Clintons' charitable foundation,
was unusual, and the State Department never issued the passport. Only department employees and others
with diplomatic status are eligible for the special passports, which help envoys facilitate travel,
officials said.
... ... ...
The exchange about the passport, between Mr. Band and Huma Abedin, who was then a top State Department
aide to Mrs. Clinton, was included in a set of more than 500 pages of emails made public by Judicial
Watch, a conservative legal group that sued for their release.
"Need get me/justy and jd dip passports," Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin on July 27, 2009, referring
to passports for himself and two other aides to Mr. Clinton, Justin Cooper and John Davidson.
... ... ...
But a person with knowledge of the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the
three men were arranging to travel with Mr. Clinton to Pyongyang less than a week later for the former
president's secret negotiations. Mr. Clinton already had a diplomatic passport as a former president.
... ... ...
Traveling with a former president does not convey any special diplomatic status, the State Department
indicated in a statement regarding the emails. "Diplomatic passports are issued to Foreign Service officers or a person having diplomatic or
comparable status," the statement said.
"Any individuals who do not have this status are not issued diplomatic passports," it said, adding
that "the staff of former presidents are not included among those eligible to be issued a diplomatic
passport."
The emails released by Judicial Watch also include discussions about meetings between Mrs. Clinton
and a number of people involved in major donations to the Clinton Foundation.
In one exchange in July 2009, Ms. Abedin told Mrs. Clinton's scheduler that Mr. Clinton "wants
to be sure" that Mrs. Clinton would be able to see Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical,
at an event the next night. Dow Chemical has been one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation,
giving $1 million to $5 million, records show.
Ms. Abedin arranged what she called "a pull-aside" for Mr. Liveris to speak with Mrs. Clinton
in a private room after she arrived to give a speech, according to the emails, which did not explain
the reason for the meeting.
The person with knowledge of the issue said that this email chain also related to Mr. Clinton's
North Korea trip because Mr. Liveris had offered to let Mr. Clinton use his private plane.
A separate batch of State Department documents
released by Judicial Watch last month also revealed contacts between the State Department and Clinton
Foundation donors. In one such exchange, Mr. Band sought to put a billionaire donor in touch with
the department's former ambassador to Lebanon.
Donald J. Trump, Mrs. Clinton's Republican opponent, has seized on the documents, saying they
revealed a "pay to play" operation.
Hillary lied again claiming that the existence of her bathroom mail server was a common knoleadge.
Some of Mrs. Clinton's closest aides were unaware of the server
Notable quotes:
"... some State Department employees interviewed by the F.B.I. explained that emails by Clinton
only contained the letter 'H' in the sender field and did not display her email address ..."
"... The F.B.I. said that some of Mrs. Clinton's closest aides were aware she used a private email
address but did not know she had set up a private server. The aides said they were "unaware of the existence
of the private server until after Clinton's tenure at State or when it became public knowledge." ..."
Mrs. Clinton said in her interview it was "common knowledge" that she had a private email address
because it was "displayed to anyone with whom she exchanged emails." But the F.B.I. said in a summary
of its findings that "some State Department employees interviewed by the F.B.I. explained that
emails by Clinton only contained the letter 'H' in the sender field and did not display her email
address."
The F.B.I. said that some of Mrs. Clinton's closest aides were aware she used a private email
address but did not know she had set up a private server. The aides said they were "unaware of the
existence of the private server until after Clinton's tenure at State or when it became public knowledge."
"some State Department employees interviewed by the F.B.I. explained that emails by Clinton
only contained the letter 'H' in the sender field and did not display her email address." I have
no idea what kind of email client would hide the contents of the from/reply-to field. How does
their spam filter work if it doesn't reveal who sent it? Why do they read stuff when they don't
have any idea who sent it? Did the F.B.I. really simply accept these statements as facts? Maybe
they all just use cell phones and could care less who else is in the loop.
"Three weeks later, a Platte River employee realized he had not deleted the emails as instructed.
The employee said he then used a special program called BleachBit to delete the files." He was
told to delete files that any nitwit knows shouldn't be deleted and delete only means delete if
they can't be found again but now it turns out he was supposed to shred them after removing the
staples.
The clear signal is that if you are going to break laws, hide information from future legal
discovery and generally stonewall investigators with easily disproven statements be very certain
that it at the behest of your liege lord. Laws are for the peasants. Justice is blind for the
elite because no one dares look.
fresno dan
Now we find out a laptop was "lost" in the mail.
Damn, this is gonna be really bad….for the post office.
Of course, it will be hard to spin when it turns out it was addressed to Putin in Hillary's handwriting…
Bunk McNulty, September 3, 2016 at 9:57 am
"The sh!t has hit the fan."
Higgs Boson
What sh!t? What fan? Remember, the FBI gave HRC a pass. Nothing to see. It was all a big "nothingburger".
The only people that keep harping on this are right-wing rubes who get their marching orders from
Putin's army of hackers. It's been assimilated into the Clinton Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy mythos.
Now go vote for Her, because "love [of what, they don't specify] Trumps hate."
"During [Sysadmin's] December 22, 2015 FBI interview, Pagliano recalled a conversation with
[Redacted] at the beginning of Clinton's tenure, in which [Redacted] advised he would not be
surprised if classified information was being transmitted to Clinton's personal server." (Page
28)
Clinton could not give an example of how the classification of a document was determined;
rather she stated there was a process in place at State before her tenure, and she relied on
career foreign service professionals to appropriately mark and handle classified information.
Clinton believed information should be classified when it relates to [Redacted] the use of
sensitive sources, or sensitive deliberations." (Page 26)
She relied on State officials to use their judgment when e-mailing her and could not recall
anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received
at her e-mail address. The FBI provided Clinton with copies of her classified e-mails ranging
from CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET/SAP and Clinton said she did not believe the e-mails contained
classified information." (Page 26)
"State employees interviewed by the FBI explained that emails from Clinton only contained
the letter "H" in the sender field and did not display their e-mail address. The majority of
the State employees interviewed by the FBI who were in e-mail contact with Clinton indicated
they had no knowledge of the private server in her Chappaqua residence. Clinton's immediate
aides, to include Mills, Abedin, Jacob Sullivan, and [Redacted] told the FBI they were unaware
of the existence of the private server until after Clinton's tenure at the State or when it
became public knowledge.
Possible Censorship
There were no e-mails provided by Williams & Connolly to State or the FBI dated from January
21, 2009 to March 18, 2009. FBI investigation identified an additional 18 days where Clinton
did not provide State any responsive e-mail. FBI investigation determined 14 of the 18 days
where Clinton did not provide State any responsive e-mail correspond with e-mail outages affecting
Clinton's personal server systems as a result of both Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy.
FBI investigation indicated other explanations for gaps in Clinton's e-mail production could
include user deletion prior to PRN's transfer of Clinton's e-mails for review…" (Page 27)
Security Threats
"Forensic analysis noted that on January 5, 2013, three IP addresses matching known Tor
exit nodes were observed accessing a user e-mail account on the Pagliano Server believe to
belong to President Clinton staffer [Redacted] FBI investigation indicated the Tor user logged
in to [Redacted] email account and browsed e-mail folders and attachments. When asked during
her interview, [Redacted] stated to the FBI she is not familiar with nor has she ever used
Tor Software" (Page 29)
"The FBI does not have in its possession any of Clinton's 13 mobile devices which potentially
were used to send e-mails using Clinton's clintonemail.com e-mail addresses. As a result, the
FBI could not make a determination as to whether any of the devices were subject to compromise.
Similarly, the FBI does not have in its possession two of the five iPad devices which potentially
were used by Clinton to send and receive e-mails during her tenure… (Page 30)
"Investigation identified multiple occurrences of phishing and/or spear-phishing e-mails
sent to Clinton's account during her tenure as Secretary of State. [Paragraph Redacted]…
Clinton received another phishing e-mail, purportedly sent from the personal e-mail account
of State official [Redacted]. The email contained a potentially malicious link. Clinton replied
to the email [Redacted] stating, "Is this really from you? I was worried about opening it!"
… Open source information indicated, if opened the targeted user's device may have been infected,
and information would have been sent to at least three computers overseas, including one in
Russia." (page 31)
Pages 33 – 47 are redacted. About one third of the entire review is redacted.
However email tag data works, her name appears as "H" because she isn't using her typical
address. The address I have seen H appear in is [email protected].
Something about the contact data shows her as H.
There is an exchange between her and mega donor Ms. Rothschild that I saw this in. In the
email Clinton apologizes for inconveniencing her and literally says, "Let me know what penance
I owe you."
I have no idea what kind of email client would hide the contents of the from/reply-to
field.
"Friendly" ones, like, say, Outlook. Some people just don't care for all that gobbledygook,
and Microsoft aims to please. Of course, the sender can put whatever they want in the comment
field.
If this is not obstruction of justice then what is: " ...Representative
Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, said that the deletion of the emails violated an order his committee issued to Mrs.
Clinton in 2012 and a subpoena issued by the Benghazi committee in 2015."
Notable quotes:
"... These were not Hillary Clinton's emails - they were government records, and this was potentially one of the largest security breaches at the State Department because they had all these years of security records that just went out the door, ..."
"... Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the F.B.I. documents "a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency."\ ..."
According to the F.B.I., in December 2014 a top aide to Mrs. Clinton told the company that
housed her server to delete an archive of emails from her account. The company, Platte River
Networks, apparently never followed those instructions. On March 2, 2015, The New York Times
reported that Mrs. Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account when she was secretary
of state. Two days later, the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi,
Libya, and Mrs. Clinton's response to them, told the technology firms associated with the email
account that they had to retain "all relevant documents" related to its inquiry.
Three weeks later, a Platte River employee realized he had not deleted the emails as instructed.
The employee said he then used a special program called BleachBit to delete the files. The F.B.I.
said Mrs. Clinton was unaware of the deletions.
The F.B.I. said it was later able to find some of the emails, but did not say how many emails
were deleted, or whether they were included in the 60,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton said she sent
and received while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
But Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and the chairman of the House Oversight
and Government Reform Committee, said that the deletion of the emails violated an order his
committee issued to Mrs. Clinton in 2012 and a subpoena issued by the Benghazi committee in 2015.
He said he planned to seek answers from Mrs. Clinton about the deletions. "These were not
Hillary Clinton's emails - they were government records, and this was potentially one of the
largest security breaches at the State Department because they had all these years of security
records that just went out the door," Mr. Chaffetz said. "It's a very black-and-white order.
There's no wiggle room."
Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the F.B.I.
documents "a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency."\
The F.B.I. released only small portions of its thick files on the Clinton investigation, and
Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee,
accused the F.B.I. of withholding key documents - including many unclassified ones - from public
view.
The selective release, he said, produced "an incomplete and possibly misleading picture of the
facts without the other unclassified information that is still locked away from the public and
even most congressional staff."
"... "When I was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush," You knew exactly where this article was going once you read the first 14 words. ..."
"... The author was chief ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush Administration. Why does that bother me? I realize this guy's term was from 2005 to 2007 and the Abu Ghraib story pretty much broke in early 2005, ..."
"... How much did the Clinton campaign pay for this Op-Ed? 'Every one does it' and 'it's not illegal'. 'It's how business is done.' How about doing a real in-depth investigation on the Clinton Foundation and perceived favors to donors NYT, instead of more opinion? ..."
"... Clearly a planted article. Nice try. Is everyone aware that the Foundation paid off Clinton's '08 campaign debt? They gave $400,000 and considered "payment for the campaign's mailing lists" ..."
"... According to former Justice Department Deputy Assistant Attorney General Shannen Coffin, there are at least three different categories of federal laws which may be implicated. ..."
"... One, the ethics and government act, which says you can't use a public office for private gain for yourself or even for a charity. So in giving special access to the donors for the Clinton Foundation, the ethics and government act is implicated. So perhaps Mr. Painter is a bit hasty dismissing such claims. ..."
"... If it was only about getting a government post or an arranged meeting, I would agree. But this seems different because significant amounts of money changed hands as a result of State Department intervention. And a lot of that money ended up at the Foundation or as speaking fees to Bill Clinton. How is this not seen as foreign donations effecting an American election - which I believe is illegal. ..."
"... Mr. Painter: You say "There is little if any evidence that federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton". So if there is even "little" evidence that the laws were broken, then shouldn't American electorate consider it when making their election day decisions? ..."
"... You did not mention that there was no independent investigation on this subject, so there is no way to know whether there was "little" or "significant" or "overwhelming" evidence that the laws were broken. ..."
"... And finally, even if the written laws were not broken, what about the immorality of what Clintons did? Has morality been completely removed from the public square in this once great country? ..."
"... If there was no evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, then why did Bill Clinton's speaking fees increase astronomically (from roughly $100,000 to $850,000) during Hillary's tenure at the State Department? ..."
"... as the neocons and neolibs in power withdraw from the govt's former "general welfare" Constitutional role and concentrate on enriching themselves and their friends - it would pay for citizens to become more aware of how the sector works. ..."
"... the system they devised inevitably empowers some groups more than others. Since democratic theory defines government officials as representatives of the voters, it encourages constituents to influence the decisions of those agents. Ideally, politicians should not favor the interests of some groups over others, but reality dictates otherwise. ..."
"... In the contest for influence, money inevitably plays a major, although not always decisive, role. In an effort to limit this role, we have developed both formal and informal methods to constrain human greed. The law prohibits bribery, for example. To discourage subtler forms of influence-buying, we have developed codes of ethics that pressure officials to limit financial connections with groups or individuals who might seek their help. ..."
"... Public opinion can serve as a powerful tool to enforce these codes. This explains the informal requirement that a president divest herself of financial connections that might affect her decisions. If Clinton rejects this tradition, she will undermine an important method of limiting the influence of moneyed interests in government. We have too few such tools as it is. ..."
"... Our laws are relatively stringent and prevent the crassest forms of corruption, and our culture makes lesser but legal offenses dangerous politically. But to imagine that any government, anywhere, could function without either those sorts of alliances or some equally corruptible strongman central oversight is is as naive and dangerously idealistic. ..."
"... How would someone feel if they found out that a doctor who prescribed them a medication is also paid large sums by a pharmaceutical company to promote the drug? Or, if the doctors owns substantial amount of stock in the company? Appearances do matter and it is likely that such conflicts do impact judgement. These kinds of allowances are being cleaned up across the country, at least in medicine. ..."
"... I am fine if they get higher salaries, but it is time to clean up the political corruption and crony capitalism. It is a shame that we hold our politicians to such incredible low standards and it is not a surprise that so many people don't bother to vote. ..."
"... It doesn't matter how good or bad the work of the Clinton Foundation is. That is not the question. The question is the motivation of many who contribute to the foundation. Are they motivated by altruism or is donating in a big way a ploy to gain access to Mrs. Clinton. ..."
"... I doubt that Clinton breached a fundamental legal boundary. However, the Clinton's have always seen the bright line and have decided to test the boundaries. From using police to secure women while governor to taking money from Walmart to major financial institutions to the email scandal, the Clinton's do it again and again and blame a vast right wing conspiracy. The Clinton foundation used Doug Band as a bag man securing commercial contracts for Bill and Hilary while he had a senior role at the foundation (flashing red lights). Huma took money off the state department books as did other Clinton confidants (flashing red lights), etc. They can't help themselves. Are these actives illegal? Probably not. However, we seek to be inspired by our leaders, we want leaders who are better than the average, better than us. ..."
"... When Bill can trot off to Russia, get 750k for a speech at the same time that business interests of the donor is before the State Department, it smells. The crux of the matter is the rotten judgement. ..."
"... You want a POTUS who has good judgement. The relentless chasing of a buck mixed with the appearance of impropriety, real or imagined, is the problem. When mixed with her poor judgement on the emails and her poor judgement on invading Iraq and disrupting Libya, you have a problem which explains her low approval rating. She is just fortunate that she has Trump to run against. ..."
"... If we look back to the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, those that were screaming the loudest for justice were having extramarital affairs during the "investigation". Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde. And then there was Dennis Hastert. ..."
"... You bring up yet another problem with Hilary. She has covered for her sexual predator husband for decades, including harassing and publicly shaming her husband's sexual assault victims. And there are many going back to his Oxford days. How is that ok? ..."
"... The Trumpster won the Republican nomination precisely because of voter disgust over the in-crowd culture of politicians and donors. Bernie Sanders came close to winning the Democratic nomination for much of the same reason. Hilary and her entire family need to wake up fast if she has any hope or desire to get elected. We all know where Hilary's money is coming from. Does Hilary know where her voters are coming from and where they are now? ..."
"... To put this in a nutshell, The Clinton's self-enriching behavior- and use of public office for private gain - is troubling in the extreme ..."
"... During her tenure as Secretary of State (as reported by the AP) of the 154 non-official meetings at least 85 of those individuals were private-sector donors who contributed up to $156 million to Clinton Foundation initiatives. ..."
"... The report comes on top of other far more incriminating investigations revealing the appearance of quid pro quo with foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps the worst example was when investors who profited from the Clinton State Department's approval of a deal for Russia's atomic energy agency's acquisition of a fifth of America's uranium mining rights subsequently pumped money into the Clinton Foundation. ..."
"... I hate to say this but the Clintons are America's version of Russian Oligarchs - and their Foundation almost a glorified form of money laundering. I can only pray that in 2020, us Dems may find a better president ,and that the Clintons be soon forgotten. ..."
"... Without seeing the 30,000 deleted emails, how is anyone qualified to say no laws were broken? Besides, who cares what the chief ethics lawyer for a president who authorized torture thinks? ..."
This is not the typical foundation funded by family wealth earned by
an industrialist or financier. This foundation was funded almost entirely by donors, and to the
extent anyone in the Clinton family "earned" the money, it was largely through speaking fees for
former President Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton when she was not secretary of state. This
dependence on donations - a scenario remarkably similar to that of many political campaigns -
means that the motivations of every single donor will be questioned whenever a President Clinton
does anything that could conceivably benefit such donors.
... ... ...
This kind of access is the most corrupting brand of favoritism and
pervades the entire government. Under both Republican and Democratic presidents, top
ambassadorial posts routinely go to campaign contributors. Yet more campaign contributors hound
these and other State Department employees for introductions abroad, preferred access and
advancement of trade and other policy agendas. More often than not the State Department does
their bidding.
... ... ...
The problem is that it does not matter that no laws were broken, or
that the Clinton Foundation is principally about doing good deeds. It does not matter that
favoritism is inescapable in the federal government and that the Clinton Foundation stories are
really nothing new. The appearances surrounding the foundation are problematic, and it is and
will be an albatross around Mrs. Clinton's neck.
... ... ...
As for Chelsea Clinton, anti-nepotism laws, strengthened after
President Kennedy appointed his brother Robert as attorney general, could prevent her mother from
appointing her to some of the highest government positions. But she could give her mother
informal advice, and there are a great many government jobs for which she would be eligible. She
does not need the Clinton Foundation to succeed in life.
Richard W. Painter, a professor of law at the University of
Minnesota, was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007.
Majortrout, is a trusted commenter Montreal 2 days ago
"When I was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush," You knew
exactly where this article was going once you read the first 14 words.
chichimax, albany, ny 2 days ago
I have a hard time focusing on this article. The author was chief ethics lawyer for the
George W. Bush Administration. Why does that bother me? I realize this guy's term was from
2005 to 2007 and the Abu Ghraib story pretty much broke in early 2005, but, thinking
about those other lawyers for that Bush and what they said was okay, it really gives me the
creeps to think about focusing on anything this guy might say about ethics. Just sayin'.
Lori, San Francisco 2 days ago
How much did the Clinton campaign pay for this Op-Ed? 'Every
one does it' and 'it's not illegal'. 'It's how business is done.' How about doing a real
in-depth investigation on the Clinton Foundation and perceived favors to donors NYT, instead
of more opinion?
If the foundation is so squeaky clean there should be no problem.
Or has Hilary made it clear you won't get a front row seat at her next mythical press
conference? Or has she threatened to stop sending you the press releases from her campaign you
report as news?
Ange, Boston 2 days ago
Clearly a planted article. Nice try. Is everyone aware that
the Foundation paid off Clinton's '08 campaign debt? They gave $400,000 and considered
"payment for the campaign's mailing lists"
Crabby Hayes, Virginia 2 days ago
According to former Justice Department Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Shannen Coffin, there are at least three different categories of federal laws
which may be implicated.
One, the ethics and government act, which says you can't use
a public office for private gain for yourself or even for a charity. So in giving special
access to the donors for the Clinton Foundation, the ethics and government act is implicated.
So perhaps Mr. Painter is a bit hasty dismissing such claims.
Randy, Largent 2 days ago
If it was only about getting a government post or an arranged
meeting, I would agree. But this seems different because significant amounts of money changed
hands as a result of State Department intervention. And a lot of that money ended up at the
Foundation or as speaking fees to Bill Clinton. How is this not seen as foreign donations
effecting an American election - which I believe is illegal.
Isa Ten, CA 2 days ago
Mr. Painter: You say "There is little if any evidence that
federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton". So if there is even "little" evidence that
the laws were broken, then shouldn't American electorate consider it when making their
election day decisions?
You did not mention that there was no independent
investigation on this subject, so there is no way to know whether there was "little" or
"significant" or "overwhelming" evidence that the laws were broken.
Your main argument is that "everyone" does that. Perhaps, it is
time to change that and Trump is the man who can do it. Is it fear of this kind of change that
frightens so many NeverTrumpsters into rejecting him?
And finally, even if the written laws were not broken, what
about the immorality of what Clintons did? Has morality been completely removed from the
public square in this once great country?
David Keltz, Brooklyn 2 days ago
If there was no evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, then why did Bill
Clinton's speaking fees increase astronomically (from roughly $100,000 to $850,000) during
Hillary's tenure at the State Department?
Did he suddenly become more sought after, nearly 8 or 9 years after his presidency? If
there was no evidence of corruption, then why did Hillary Clinton use her authority to appoint
herself onto the Haiti Relief Fund Board, where her sole relief efforts entailed asking people
not to donate to the Red Cross, but to the Clinton Foundation?
John D., Out West 2 days ago
One thing that comes through loud & clear in the comments: a lot
of people don't have a clue how non-profit organizations work. For a sector that's responsible
for most of the good things in this country these days - as the neocons and neolibs in
power withdraw from the govt's former "general welfare" Constitutional role and concentrate on
enriching themselves and their friends - it would pay for citizens to become more aware of how
the sector works.
James Lee, Arlington, Texas August 31, 2016
The framers of our Constitution had no illusions about the weaknesses of human nature. They
carefully crafted our charter of government to pit the officials of each branch against each
other, to obstruct the kind of collusion that could undermine the foundations of a free
society.
Despite their best efforts, however, the system they devised inevitably empowers some
groups more than others. Since democratic theory defines government officials as
representatives of the voters, it encourages constituents to influence the decisions of those
agents. Ideally, politicians should not favor the interests of some groups over others, but
reality dictates otherwise.
In the contest for influence, money inevitably plays a major, although not always
decisive, role. In an effort to limit this role, we have developed both formal and informal
methods to constrain human greed. The law prohibits bribery, for example. To discourage
subtler forms of influence-buying, we have developed codes of ethics that pressure officials
to limit financial connections with groups or individuals who might seek their help.
Public opinion can serve as a powerful tool to enforce these codes. This explains the
informal requirement that a president divest herself of financial connections that might
affect her decisions. If Clinton rejects this tradition, she will undermine an important
method of limiting the influence of moneyed interests in government. We have too few such
tools as it is.
confetti, MD August 31, 2016
I don't think that favoritism in political life will ever go
away, for the simple reason that political power isn't attained in a vacuum. It requires
sturdy alliances by definition, and those are forged via exchange of valued items - material
goods, policy compromises, position, status, assistance and other durable support. Our
laws are relatively stringent and prevent the crassest forms of corruption, and our culture
makes lesser but legal offenses dangerous politically. But to imagine that any government,
anywhere, could function without either those sorts of alliances or some equally corruptible
strongman central oversight is is as naive and dangerously idealistic.
Of course the Clintons wheeled and dealed - but well within the
law.
I'm more interested in what end that served and the real
consequences than the fact that it occurred. In their case, an effective charity that aided
many very vulnerable people was sustained, and no demonstrable compromises that negatively
affected global policies occurred.
It's the Republicans and truly sold out Democrats, who have
forever been deep in the pocket of big money and whose 'deals' in that department cause
tangible harm to the populace, that I'm more concerned with. This is their smoke and mirrors
show.
Alexander K., Minnesota August 31, 2016
How would someone feel if they found out that a doctor who prescribed them a medication
is also paid large sums by a pharmaceutical company to promote the drug? Or, if the doctors
owns substantial amount of stock in the company? Appearances do matter and it is likely that
such conflicts do impact judgement. These kinds of allowances are being cleaned up across the
country, at least in medicine.
It is time that conflict of interest for politicians at all levels is taken seriously by
the public. I am fine if they get higher salaries, but it is time to clean up the
political corruption and crony capitalism. It is a shame that we hold our politicians to such
incredible low standards and it is not a surprise that so many people don't bother to vote.
Great editorial.
Michael Belmont, Hewitt, New Jersey 2 days ago
It doesn't matter how good or bad the work of the Clinton
Foundation is. That is not the question. The question is the motivation of many who contribute
to the foundation. Are they motivated by altruism or is donating in a big way a ploy to gain
access to Mrs. Clinton. The AP analysis suggests that is just what went on. At the very
least it looks bad. Appearances are everything in politics.
Hillary doesn't need to appear to be unethical should she
be elected. Bad enough she has Bill by her side. She doesn't need a special prosecutor
investigator distracting her presidency with an influence peddling scandal. Like it or not,
Republicans will be hunting for her political hide. Hillary doesn't need to paint a bulls-eye
for them.
Chris, 10013 2 days ago
I doubt that Clinton breached a fundamental legal boundary. However, the Clinton's have
always seen the bright line and have decided to test the boundaries. From using police to
secure women while governor to taking money from Walmart to major financial institutions to
the email scandal, the Clinton's do it again and again and blame a vast right wing conspiracy.
The Clinton foundation used Doug Band as a bag man securing commercial contracts for Bill and
Hilary while he had a senior role at the foundation (flashing red lights). Huma took money off
the state department books as did other Clinton confidants (flashing red lights), etc. They
can't help themselves. Are these actives illegal? Probably not. However, we seek to be
inspired by our leaders, we want leaders who are better than the average, better than us.
In the Clintons, we have highly competent, experienced, politicians who have repeated
shown deep ethical problems. She is the best candidate by far. It's unfortunate that our
future President never learned what ethics are.
Robert, Minneapolis 2 days ago
An interesting article. It is probably true that many, if not most, politicians are
influence sellers to a degree. I suspect that the Clintons are just better at it. It is fair
to say that we do not know if laws have been broken. But it is also fair to say that
appearances matter, and that the Clintons are very good at lining their own pockets at the
same time the foundation does it's good work.
When Bill can trot off to Russia, get 750k for a speech at the same time that business
interests of the donor is before the State Department, it smells. The crux of the matter is
the rotten judgement.
You want a POTUS who has good judgement. The relentless chasing of a buck mixed with
the appearance of impropriety, real or imagined, is the problem. When mixed with her poor
judgement on the emails and her poor judgement on invading Iraq and disrupting Libya, you have
a problem which explains her low approval rating. She is just fortunate that she has Trump to
run against.
Madelyn Harris, Portland, OR 2 days ago
So glad to see many NYT readers here recognize the hypocrisy in this opinion piece. The
message is "All of them do it, it's mostly legal, though it's distasteful and problematic.
However, Hillary is the only one who should stop doing it because it looks bad."
The loudest voices of this partisan attack should be under the same scrutiny and be
compelled to practice what they preach. If we look back to the Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky scandal, those that were screaming the loudest for justice were having extramarital
affairs during the "investigation". Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde. And then there
was Dennis Hastert.
Let's start looking into the personal emails of Paul Ryan, Jason Chaffetz, Donald Trump,
Trey Gowdy, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz. Imagine what we would find! Legal, but ethically
problematic exchanges and clearly illegal exchanges that would justify imprisonment. If they
ask for justice, we should provide it.
Lori, San Francisco 2 days ago
You bring up yet another problem with Hilary. She has covered for her sexual predator
husband for decades, including harassing and publicly shaming her husband's sexual assault
victims. And there are many going back to his Oxford days. How is that ok?
John D., Out West 2 days ago
An excellent piece, actually tethered to reality and non-profit law and practice ...
finally! Yes, all the Clinton clan needs to divorce themselves from the foundation, and I'm
not sure why they would wait until after the election to do so.
It seems the loudest critics are of the tribe that created campaign finance law as it
stands today, with the CU case having created a legal system of bribery across the board in
government. C'mon guys, be consistent, or it's the big H word for you!
RNW, Albany, CA 2 days ago
When it comes to ethics and public officials, appearances do in indeed MATTER! Cronyism and
conflicts of interest might elicit a big yawn from the political class, their fellow travelers
and camp followers but arouse anger and indignation from voters. Remember those guys?
We're the ones that politicians suddenly remember every few years with they come. hats in
hand, begging for donations and, most of all, our votes. (The plea for donations is a farce.
Except for a few outliers, they don't really need or want OUR donations.)
The Trumpster won the Republican nomination precisely because of voter disgust over the
in-crowd culture of politicians and donors. Bernie Sanders came close to winning the
Democratic nomination for much of the same reason. Hilary and her entire family need to wake
up fast if she has any hope or desire to get elected. We all know where Hilary's money is
coming from. Does Hilary know where her voters are coming from and where they are now?
Tembrach, Connecticut 2 days ago
I preface this by saying that I am proud Democrat & will vote for Mrs. Clinton, as Mr.
Trump is beyond the pale of decency
To put this in a nutshell, The Clinton's self-enriching behavior- and use of public
office for private gain - is troubling in the extreme
During her tenure as Secretary of State (as reported by the AP) of the 154 non-official
meetings at least 85 of those individuals were private-sector donors who contributed up to
$156 million to Clinton Foundation initiatives.
The report comes on top of other far more incriminating investigations revealing the
appearance of quid pro quo with foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps the worst
example was when investors who profited from the Clinton State Department's approval of a deal
for Russia's atomic energy agency's acquisition of a fifth of America's uranium mining rights
subsequently pumped money into the Clinton Foundation.
Mrs Clinton rightly condemns Trump for playing footsy with Putin. But pray tell, what
exactly was this?
I hate to say this but the Clintons are America's version of Russian Oligarchs - and
their Foundation almost a glorified form of money laundering. I can only pray that in 2020, us
Dems may find a better president ,and that the Clintons be soon forgotten.
Thought Bubble, New Jersey 2 days ago
Without seeing the 30,000 deleted emails, how is anyone qualified to say no laws were
broken? Besides, who cares what the chief ethics lawyer for a president who authorized torture
thinks?
More than half of the people who managed to score a personal one on one meeting with Hillary Clinton
while she was Secretary of State donated money to the Clinton Foundation, either as an individual
or through a company where they worked. "Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million.
At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million," the Associated Press
reported.
Does that make Hillary corrupt? Yes. It does.
At this writing, there is
no evidence that anyone received any special favors as a result of their special access to Clinton.
Not that treats were not requested. They were. (The most amusing was Bono's
request to stream his band's music into the international space station, which was mercifully
rejected.)
That's irrelevant. She's still corrupt.
Clinton's defenders like to point out that neither she nor her husband
draw a salary from their foundation. But that's a technicality.
The Clintons
extract millions of dollars in travel expenditures, including luxurious airplane accommodations
and hotel suites, from their purported do-gooder outfit. They exploit the foundation as a patronage
mill, arranging for it to hire their loyalists at extravagant six-figure salaries. Charity Navigator,
the Yelp of non-profits, doesn't bother to issue a rating for the Clinton foundation due to the pathetically
low portion of money
($9 million out of $140 million in 2013) that makes its way to someone who needs it.
"It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a
slush fund for the Clintons," says Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog
group.
As a measure of how institutionally bankrupt American politics is, all this
crap is technically
legal. But that doesn't mean it's not corrupt.
Public relations experts
caution politicians like the Clintons that the
appearance of impropriety is almost as bad as its actuality. If it looks
bad, it will hurt you with the polls. True, but that's not really the point.
The point is: access is corruption.
It doesn't matter that the lead singer of U2 didn't get to live out his rocker
astronaut fantasy. It's disgusting that he was ever in a position to have it
considered. To put a finer point on it, ethics require that someone in Hillary
Clinton's position never, ever take a meeting or correspond by email or offer a
job to someone who donated money to her and her husband's foundation. Failure
to build an unscalable wall between government and money necessarily creates a
corrupt quid pro quo:
"Just got a call from the Clinton Foundation. They're
shaking us down for a donation. Should we cough up a few bucks?"
"Hillary could be president someday. Chelsea could end up in the Senate. It
couldn't hurt to be remembered as someone who threw them some money when they
asked."
This, I 100% guarantee you, was the calculus when Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary for a one- or two-hour speech. She doesn't have anything new to say that everyone hasn't already heard million times before. It's not like she shared any valuable stock tips during those talks. Wealthy individuals and corporations pay politicians for one thing: access.
Ted Rall, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for ANewDomain.net, is the author of the
book "Snowden," the biography of the NSA whistleblower.
Just as we predicted on a sleepy Friday afternoon ahead of a long weekend, The FBI has released a detailed report on its
investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, as well as a
summary of her interview with agents, providing, what The Washington Post says is the most thorough look yet at
the probe that has dogged the campaign of the Democratic presidential nominee.
Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the
FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used
during her tenure .
We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter. We are making these materials
available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA.
Additional information related to this investigation that the FBI releases in the future will be placed on The Vault,
the FBI's electronic FOIA library.
As The Washington Post adds, the documents released total 58 pages, though large portions and sometimes entire pages are
redacted.
FBI Director James B. Comey announced in July that his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her
use of a private email server. Comey said that Clinton and her staffers were "extremely careless" in how they treated
classified information, but investigators did not find they intended to mishandle such material. Nor did investigators
uncover exacerbating factors - like efforts to obstruct justice - that often lead to charges in similar cases, Comey said.
The FBI turned over to several Congressional committees documents related to the probe and required they only be viewed
by those with appropriate security clearances, even though not all of the material was classified, legislators and their staffers
have said.
Those documents included an investigative report and summaries of interviews with more than a dozen senior Clinton staffers,
other State Department officials, former secretary of state Colin Powell and at least one other person. The documents released
Friday appear to be but a fraction of those.
...
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon has said turning over the documents was "an extraordinarily rare step that
was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI."
But he has said if the material were going to be shared outside the Justice Department, "they should be released widely
so that the public can see them for themselves, rather than allow Republicans to mischaracterize them through selective, partisan
leaks."
Though Fallon seems to have gotten his wish, the public release of the documents will undoubtedly draw more attention
to a topic that seems to have fueled negative perceptions of Clinton . A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found 41
percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Clinton, while 56 percent had an unfavorable one.
Key Excerpts...
*CLINTON DENIED USING PRIVATE EMAIL TO AVOID FEDERAL RECORDS ACT
*CLINTON KNEW SHE HAD DUTY TO PRESERVE FEDERAL RECORDS: FBI
*COLIN POWELL WARNED CLINTON PRIVATE E-MAILS COULD BE PUBLIC:FBI
*FBI SAYS CLINTON LAWYERS UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY OF 13 DEVICES
*AT LEAST 100 STATE DEPT. WORKERS HAD CLINTON'S E-MAIL ADDRESS
CLINTON SAID SHE NEVER DELETED, NOR INSTRUCTED ANYONE TO DELETE, HER EMAIL TO AVOID COMPLYING WITH FEDERAL RECORDS LAWS OR FBI
OR STATE REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION
CLINTON AIDES SAID SHE FREQUENTLY REPLACED HER BLACKBERRY PHONE AND THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE OLD DEVICE WOULD "FREQUENTLY
BECOME UNKOWN"
CLINTON CONTACTED POWELL IN JANUARY 2009 TO INQUIRE ABOUT HIS USE OF A BLACKBERRY WHILE IN OFFICE; POWELL ADVISED CLINTON
TO 'BE VERY CAREFUL
Hillary Clinton used 13 mobile devices and 5 iPads to access clintonemail.com. The FBI only had access to 2 of
the iPads and The FBI found no evidence of hacking on those 2...
And here is the email from Colin Powell telling her that emails would need to be part of the "government records"
...
And here is Clinton denying that she used a private server to "avoid [the] Federal Records Act" as she just assumed
that "based on her practice of emailing staff on their state.gov accounts, [that] communications were captured by State systems."
Yes, well what about the "official" communications had with people outside of the State Department? Did retention
of those emails ever cross Hillary's mind? * * * Full Report below...
That means that Justin Cooper has full access to all Hillary email information, which is illegal.
Notable quotes:
"... Longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, who helped set up the private email account that Hillary Clinton used as secretary of state, was the person "usually responsible" for setting up her new devices and syncing them to the server. ..."
"... another person whose name is redacted, also helped Clinton set up her BlackBerry. ..."
Longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, who helped set up the private email account that Hillary
Clinton used as secretary of state, was the person "usually responsible" for setting up her new devices
and syncing them to the server.Top aides Huma Abedin and Monica Hanley, as well as
another person
whose name is redacted, also helped Clinton set up her BlackBerry.
According to Abedin and Hanley, Clinton's old devices would often disappear to parts "unknown
once she transitioned to a new device."
Cooper, according to the report, "did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton's old mobile
devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer."
The FBI said it uncovered multiple instances
of phishing or spear-phishing emails sent to Clinton's account, including one
that appeared to be sent from another State official's account. Clinton
responded to the email by trying to confirm that the person actually sent it,
adding, "I was worried about opening it!"
But in another incident, the FBI noted that Abedin emailed someone (whose
name is redacted) conveying Clinton's concern that "someone [was] hacking into
her email" after receiving an email from a "known [redacted] associate
containing a link to a website with pornographic material."
"There is no additional information as to why Clinton was concerned about
someone hacking into her e-mail account, or if the specific link referenced by
Abedin was used as a vector to infect Clinton's device," the FBI's report
states, and after roughly two lines of redacted text goes on to note that "open
source information indicated, if opened, the targeted user's device may have
been infected, and information would have been sent to at least three computers
overseas, including one in Russia."
The former secretary of state's email server was in fact a series of three servers used over a
period of time from approximately 2007 to 2015, beginning with an Apple server installed by a
former aide to her husband.
That server was replaced in 2009 with a server installed by a former
IT specialist for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, which was then supplanted in 2013 by a
server installed by a vendor, Denver-based Platte River Networks.
That server, housed in a data
center in New Jersey, was voluntarily handed over to the FBI in 2015.
The report said there was "no additional information" about the email or more about why Clinton was
concerned about the hack, or whether the link Abedin referred to in her email was "used as a vector
to infect Clinton's device."
Following roughly two lines of redacted text, the report states, "Open
source information indicated, if opened, the targeted user's device may have been infected, and information
would have been sent to at least three computers overseas, including one in Russia."
In its investigation, the FBI turned up 13 total mobile devices connected to two different phone
numbers that had potentially been used to send emails from Clinton's personal account, including
eight email-capable BlackBerrys that she used during her tenure as secretary of state. Lawyers for
Clinton said in late February of 2016 that they were unable to find any of the 13 devices identified
by the bureau.
The FBI also identified five iPads "associated with Clinton" that were potentially used to send
emails from Clinton's private system. The bureau managed to obtain three of those iPads, none of
which contained any potentially classified information.
As she transitioned between mobile devices, two people interviewed by the FBI said the whereabouts
of Clinton's previous devices would "frequently become unknown." One aide to former President Bill
Clinton who also helped the family set up the initial personal email server in their Chappaqua, New
York, home said that on two occasions he "destroyed Clinton's old mobile devices by breaking them
in half or hitting them with a hammer."
"... The unnamed staffer deleted the files after remembering an earlier request from longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills that changed "email retention policies" for Clinton's server. ..."
But weeks after the Times published its story, the FBI's investigation found that an individual,
whose name was redacted, used an online program called BleachBit to delete a file on the server containing
Clinton's emails.
The unnamed staffer deleted the files after remembering an earlier request from
longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills that changed "email retention policies" for Clinton's server.
Speaking to the FBI on May 3, 2016, "[redacted] indicated he believed he had an 'oh shit'
moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN
server and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server
system containing Clinton's e-mails."
"... Hillary Clinton lost several mobile telephones carrying e-mails from her private server during her time in office ..."
"... "[Huma] Abedin and [former Clinton aide Monica] Hanley indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's [mobile] devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device," one report indicates. ..."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost several mobile telephones carrying e-mails from
her private server during her time in office, according to newly-released FBI documents on the investigation
into her mishandling of classified information.
"[Huma] Abedin and [former Clinton aide Monica] Hanley indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's
[mobile] devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device," one report
indicates.
On other occasions, a staffer would destroy Clinton's old mobile phones "by breaking them in half
or hitting them with a hammer," the FBI documents reveal.
When reviewing an email from October of 2012, for example, Clinton said that
while she did not recall the message specifically, she described an individual
involved with the communication as "someone who was well acquainted with
handling classified information" and "described him as someone she held in high
regard."
She said she "relied on" the individual, whose name is redacted in
the FBI notes, and she had "no concern over his judgement and ability to handle
classified information."
"... In addition, Clinton said she did not remember a State email going out in late June 2011 informing employees of the importance of securing their personal email accounts in correlation with the upgrading of her clintonemail.com server. ..."
Clinton "did recall the frustration over State's information technology systems," the FBI said in
its notes from the interview.
In addition, Clinton said she did not remember a State email
going out in late June 2011 informing employees of the importance of securing their personal email
accounts in correlation with the upgrading of her clintonemail.com server.
Clinton said she did not consider switching over to a State.gov account, as she, according to
the report, "understood the email system used by her husband's personal staff had an excellent track
record with respect to security and had never been breached."
Any reasonable investigator would instantly understand that she is trying to sell him the
Brooklyn bridge. In no way with her career she can be unaware of such things.
Clinton told the FBI that she did not know what the
"(C)" portion markings on an email chain signified, explaining that she thought
it meant the paragraphs were marked in alphabetical order.
As far as her knowledge of the various classification levels of U.S.
government information, Clinton responded that she took all classified material
seriously regardless of the "level," be it "TOP SECRET," "SECRET" or
"CONFIDENTIAL."
"... Clinton "had no knowledge of the reasons for selecting it to install it in the basement" of her Chappaqua, New York, home. ..."
"... Clinton also denied using the server to avoid the Federal Records Act, and did not have any conversations about using the server to avoid the Freedom of Information Act, according to the FBI's investigation notes. ..."
Clinton was not part of the decision to move from the Apple server managed by Cooper to a [windows]
server built by Bryan Pagliano, according to the report, which stated that Clinton "had no knowledge
of the reasons for selecting it to install it in the basement" of her Chappaqua, New York, home.
Clinton also denied using the server to avoid the Federal Records Act, and did not have
any conversations about using the server to avoid the Freedom of Information Act, according to
the FBI's investigation notes.
NYT comments are just overflowing from neoliberal supported of this neocon warmonger Hillary.
Amazing !!!
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that Hillary or any senior elected official can operate outside of a secure system without automated detection/correction is the real issue here. I expect many more govt' officials are doing the same, but in a less politically charged atmosphere. No investigations in their cases as there is no trophy at the end. ..."
"... So who is minding the computer farm? Government computer systems/policies need to be reviewed, training reinforced, and automatic incident tracking of activity to and from undocumented server IP addresses. Automated systems should prevent government officials through their lack of knowledge from using systems that do not comply. ..."
"... There is something fishy about her desire to maintain a private email server at her home at the same time she is working as a public official in the role of secretary of state. There is also the perceived conflict of interest between this role as the nation's top diplomat and her connection with the Clinton foundation. ..."
"... If she exchanged favors for contributions to the foundation, which many suspect she did, the smoking guns have probably been deleted by now. She was given plenty of time to sort through her emails to cover her tracks before turning them over to investigators. ..."
"... Her evasiveness and attempt to avoid FOIA requests have certainly earned her the nickname crooked Hillary. ..."
"... The fact that so many people support Clinton, in the face of her egregious and arguably criminal behavior, speaks to the fact that a large number of people vote strictly party line. ..."
"... The bottom line is that we are a very partisan nation whose voters support their candidate no matter how flawed is that person. ..."
"... IF HRC played by the rules like everyone must, and simply used the State Department email, all of this could have been avoided. Yet she refused to use her State email even though it was offered to her. ..."
"... ultimately, this shows the incompetence of the IT people in the government agencies handling her communications. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton is ultimately responsible for making sure her classified communications are secure, and she should have been asking people questions to make sure this was the case. I am a Democrat but I have grave misgivings regarding her judgement and handling of this matter. ..."
"... The most important finding is that the federal government is woefully incompetent in designing, implementing, and maintaining large information systems. ..."
"... These are plainly false statements to the FBI, and so crimes. She did not do it "out of convenience" but to avoid public records act, and to get more privacy. Huma admitted that much, as have others. She got repeated warnings. We've heard that from those who warned her, who were told not to say it again. "I don't recall" any of them is just not credible. She is supposed to recall being warned. ..."
"... She did not think those things were classified? She's Sec of State. She knows which subjects are classified, and many of those were. She knew that. She got the most classified stuff there is, because she was Sec of State. ..."
"... The biggest concern of all is that she did this in deliberate defiance of the requirements of law, the public records requirements, for the express purpose of violating that law. The FBI just decided that it was not investigating THAT law, and so ignored it. Yet those are felonies, not just little things. ..."
"... I am not concerned by Hillary's emails. I am very upset by the refusal of the media and politicians to address the real issues of our classification system. We have known since at least the Pentagon Papers, and probably earlier, that the purpose of classifying information is to keep it from the American people more than from our adversaries. ..."
"... "But Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which has used the email issue as one of its main weapons against Mrs. Clinton, called the documents "a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency." ..."
"... Clinton apparently didn't know an email server from a jar of mayonnaise. I can understand that -- not sure I would either. ..."
"... But if I were starting out on a 4-year stint as US Secretary of State, it would occur to me that I'd probably send or receive a sensitive email or two somewhere along the way, and I'd wonder whether sending and receiving those emails over a private server located in my home might be a good idea. ..."
"... Lame very lame Hillary excuses . But the problem comes from both sides Democrat or Republican and there lame excuses . From the deficit from the Trickle down economy , deregulation to Trade-deal and the lost of jobs . Tax cut to tax inversion .. If we want change , Then why are voter still voting in Incumbents . The ones that made the problems we have . Shame us who do.. Vote the incumbents out of office .. ..."
"... With over 75% of the country stating Hillary cannot be trusted, it's important to also consider the severe lack of accountability and level of arrogance displayed. If she's willing to take the lowest road possible, voting her into office will be a huge mistake. ..."
"... You gotta be kidding me. All we get each day, all day is more breathless Trump 'News'. On the front page no less. Each smirk and foible is covered ad nauseum as if it were actually new worthy. You rarely hear about the other candidate. No policy comparisons for pete's sake. Until today. ..."
Among the other key findings in the F.B.I. documents:
■ Mrs. Clinton regarded emails containing classified discussions about planned drone strikes as
"routine."
■ She said she was either unaware of or misunderstood some classification procedures.
■ Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state, had advised her to "be very careful" in how she
used email.
Scot, Seattle 7 hours ago
Until I hear crowds chanting "lock him up" in relation to George Bush or Dick Cheney and
the Iraq war, I'm going to have a hard time taking this gross witch hunt seriously. The
contrast between Clinton's email administration screw-up and the unbroken daisy-chain of
once-in-a-century global catastrophes committed by the Bush administration is so huge as to be
hard to grasp.
Paul, Canada 6 hours ago
Sorry folks, but time to point out what has been missed by everyone as they attempt to make
this a political election issue.
There is no way Hillary or any elected official should be given the opportunity to use a
private email server. Any technology org worth its salt will have its systems and computer
usage policies locked down tight.
Any action by a user that falls outside these policies must be automatically detected and
investigated by the systems teams. Wrongs identified, computer users advised on proper usage,
and corrective action taken to prevent reoccurrence.
The fact that Hillary or any senior elected official can operate outside of a secure
system without automated detection/correction is the real issue here. I expect many more govt'
officials are doing the same, but in a less politically charged atmosphere. No investigations
in their cases as there is no trophy at the end.
So who is minding the computer farm? Government computer systems/policies need to be
reviewed, training reinforced, and automatic incident tracking of activity to and from
undocumented server IP addresses. Automated systems should prevent government officials
through their lack of knowledge from using systems that do not comply.
Hillary nor other officials are computer experts. They should not be expected to be
responsible for this. I would say there is a greater risk in how these systems are being
currently managed.
Peter, New York 6 hours ago
Sadly this supports the Donald's charge about Hillary's questionable judgment. There is
something fishy about her desire to maintain a private email server at her home at the same
time she is working as a public official in the role of secretary of state. There is also the
perceived conflict of interest between this role as the nation's top diplomat and her
connection with the Clinton foundation.
If she exchanged favors for contributions to the foundation, which many suspect she
did, the smoking guns have probably been deleted by now. She was given plenty of time to sort
through her emails to cover her tracks before turning them over to investigators.
Her evasiveness and attempt to avoid FOIA requests have certainly earned her the
nickname crooked Hillary. Even if you don't like Trump, it is very difficult to make the
case that Clinton is a better alternative.
Lois Brenneman, New Milford, PA 3 hours ago
The fact that so many people support Clinton, in the face of her egregious and arguably
criminal behavior, speaks to the fact that a large number of people vote strictly party line.
In their view, no matter what Clinton has done, she is still better than having a
Republican in the White House and, most esp, better than Donald Trump. I am hardly one who can
complain, however, as I basically do the same thing. I'd probably vote for my dog before I
would a Democrat even if it means voting for a flawed candidate. I find Clinton to be the very
pits of all possible candidates, much like the Dems view of Trump.
The bottom line is that we are a very partisan nation whose voters support their
candidate no matter how flawed is that person. If anyone else was heading the Dem ticket,
I suspect that person would win by a landslide in 2016. With Clinton heading up the party,
Trump just may win. Choosing her as the candidate was arguably the stupidest thing the Dems
could have possibly done
Wally Wolf, Texas 6 hours ago
ENOUGH!! Compared to what G.W. Bush did (the facts are known to all) while president and
what Donald Trump did as a business man (Trump University, numerous bankruptcies, tax evasion
and/or avoidance, questionable modeling agency practices, and on and on), Hillary Clinton's
emails are small potatoes. If people allow this ridiculous email situation to cripple Hillary
and allow Trump to become president then they will have to live with the fallout and, believe
me, it will be disastrous.
Joseph, NYC 4 hours ago
IF HRC played by the rules like everyone must, and simply used the State Department
email, all of this could have been avoided. Yet she refused to use her State email even though
it was offered to her.
If she did not do this to cover up her activities then she really bad judgement, and if she
did it to cover up her activities, why did she do so? Either way, she is not a person to be
entrusted with the Presidency. This is what is causing the nightmare Trump to still be
competitive and to be catching up with her in the polls. If he wins HRC and the DNC have noone
to blame but themselves.
gary, Washington state 6 hours ago
Congress asked Bush-Cheney in 2007 for emails surrounding the firing of eight U.S.
attorneys. AG Gonzales could not produce the email because it was sent on a non-government
email server, gwb43.com, which was run by the RNC. No smoking gun--sorry about that.
Over time it was revealed that 22 White House officials including Karl Rove used private RNC
email accounts for government business. In April 2007, Dana Perino admitted that approximately
5 million messages may have been deleted from that server. In 2009, watchdog groups announced
that technicians had recovered 22 million emails that were deleted somehow from gwb43.com.
Many of these messages were recovered from other government email servers.
Clearly gwb43.com was under the legal obligations of the Presidential Records Act, which each
of these 22 million deletions violated. Republican leaders (like Chris Christie, Karl Rove,
etc.) who are now enraged by Hillary Clinton's email server were then uncritical of the Bush
administration and its behavior.
Is this American exceptionalism--hypocrisy, political pretense, and selective enforcement of
laws?
Sam Crow, SF Bay Area 3 hours ago
ultimately, this shows the incompetence of the IT people in the government agencies
handling her communications. As the Secretary of State, how can they not have procedures
in place which would prevent this from happening? Hillary Clinton is ultimately
responsible for making sure her classified communications are secure, and she should have been
asking people questions to make sure this was the case. I am a Democrat but I have grave
misgivings regarding her judgement and handling of this matter.
Thomas MacLachlan, Highland Moors, Scotland 5 hours ago
Having read through these 58 pages, it's clear that all they say is that Hillary is not a
savvy technologist. She made her decision to use a private email system without understanding
the implications of it regarding security, access control, data integrity, or retention. Also,
none of her staff was competent in the technology involved, either. At a low level, perhaps.
But not at a high level, where the architecture defines how all these pieces of the system
work together. It was that area that fell apart and has caused her the myriad of political
problems she now faces with this.
The most important finding is that the federal government is woefully incompetent in
designing, implementing, and maintaining large information systems. At State back then,
the system was full of holes and was very hackable. By comparison, Hillary's system was more
secure, though unauthorized. But you can't have a parade of different administrators or
consultants go stomping through the implementation and expect it to hold together, either.
The government needs to get their act together to provide systems which are actually secure
and globally available. This isn't just a technology statement. The workflows involved and
usage processes need to be well defined, and users need to be trained on them. And the
technical staff needs to show some leadership so that they can help guide senior staff to the
right solutions.
The buck stops with Hillary, but she is certainly not the guilty party in this.
Mark Thomason, is a trusted commenter Clawson, Mich 8 hours ago
These are plainly false statements to the FBI, and so crimes. She did not do it "out of
convenience" but to avoid public records act, and to get more privacy. Huma admitted that
much, as have others. She got repeated warnings. We've heard that from those who warned her,
who were told not to say it again. "I don't recall" any of them is just not credible. She is
supposed to recall being warned.
She did not think those things were classified? She's Sec of State. She knows which
subjects are classified, and many of those were. She knew that. She got the most classified
stuff there is, because she was Sec of State.
The biggest concern of all is that she did this in deliberate defiance of the requirements
of law, the public records requirements, for the express purpose of violating that law. The
FBI just decided that it was not investigating THAT law, and so ignored it. Yet those are
felonies, not just little things.
This is an outrage. It has grown far beyond just a few emails.
EdBx, Bronx, NY 7 hours ago
I am not concerned by Hillary's emails. I am very upset by the refusal of the media and
politicians to address the real issues of our classification system. We have known since at
least the Pentagon Papers, and probably earlier, that the purpose of classifying information
is to keep it from the American people more than from our adversaries.
There is no conclusive evidence that our nation has been harmed by the classified
information released by Daniel Ellsburg, Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden. On the other hand
it is certainly known that great harm was done by the misuse and abuse of classified
information by duly authorized government officials in getting us into the war in Iraq. The
lesson is that it is more important who we choose as president than how they maintained their
email accounts several years ago.
Also, while we may not have known it in 2008, we should know now that government officials
should operate under the assumption that anything on a computer is subject to hacking, no
matter how secure we think the system is.
chichimax, albany, ny 7 hours ago
It is amazing how much scrutiny this and the Clinton Foundation have gotten and how little
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and the "torture memos" got. Not to
mention the whole sum of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo episodes. Scrutiny of Hillary Clinton, thy
name is petty. Lack of scrutiny of the entire Bush Administration's misdeeds, thy name is
HUGE.
DCC, NYC 4 hours ago
"But Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which has used
the email issue as one of its main weapons against Mrs. Clinton, called the documents "a
devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency."
Wow, the head of the RNC finds that Hillary has a lack of judgment and honesty and is
incompetent. And we value his assessment because
he..........helped.............nominate......... Trump. Yep, his opinion really matters!
MyThreeCents, San Francisco 4 hours ago
Clinton apparently didn't know an email server from a jar of mayonnaise. I can
understand that -- not sure I would either.
But if I were starting out on a 4-year stint as US Secretary of State, it would occur
to me that I'd probably send or receive a sensitive email or two somewhere along the way, and
I'd wonder whether sending and receiving those emails over a private server located in my home
might be a good idea.
I'd probably conclude that it was advisable to get myself a State Department email address,
and use it every now and then. True, US enemies reportedly hacked the State Department server,
along with the personal emails of several top Clinton aides, which may make one think it's
pointless even to try to keep one's emails secure. But it's much easier to hack a private
server located in someone's home than it is to hack a State Department email server.
A bored 14-year old kid probably could have hacked Clinton's private server in 15 minutes.
Kathryn Horvat, Salt Lake City 57 minutes ago
More and more I find myself upset with the poor judgment of the leaders of the Democratic
Party, who allowed and encouraged her to run for president. She already was encumbered by a
lot of baggage, not to mention her loss to Obama in 2008. I also wonder about the judgment of
the New York Times , which engaged in the most openly biased reporting and opinion pieces I
have ever seen.
How could so many seasoned politicians have been so blind?
David Howell, 33541 57 minutes ago
Lame very lame Hillary excuses . But the problem comes from both sides Democrat or
Republican and there lame excuses . From the deficit from the Trickle down economy ,
deregulation to Trade-deal and the lost of jobs . Tax cut to tax inversion .. If we want
change , Then why are voter still voting in Incumbents . The ones that made the problems we
have . Shame us who do.. Vote the incumbents out of office ..
fmofcali, orange county 1 hour ago
With over 75% of the country stating Hillary cannot be trusted, it's important to also
consider the severe lack of accountability and level of arrogance displayed. If she's willing
to take the lowest road possible, voting her into office will be a huge mistake. How can
you have a commander in chief that refuses to simply take accountability and always blames her
staff for the issues she clearly creates?!
moviebuff, Los Angeles 1 hour ago
If this were Nixon - a man I detested, mind you - we'd have empowered Senate and House
committees to look into disqualifying him as a candidate. Did those who still support Hillary
Milhous Clinton even read the article on which they're commenting? Sending the emails
privately, the order to delete, the use of Bleach bit after she was ordered to preserve the
emails, throwing her aides under the bus… her behavior makes RMN look like Abe Lincoln.
J.D., USA 1 hour ago
I've worked as a tech consultant for years and I've seen this same ignorance from so many
people, that it's not surprising. E-mail is something most people use, but it's not something
most people understand, so they don't really get how unsecured it is. Was it a potentially
dangerous mistake to make? Yes. Was it surprising? Absolutely not. But, more because most
people don't understand e-mail, than because of any lapse in reasoning or malicious intent on
her part.
... ... ..
Malebranchem, Ontario, NY 1 hour ago
You gotta be kidding me. All we get each day, all day is more breathless Trump 'News'.
On the front page no less. Each smirk and foible is covered ad nauseum as if it were actually
new worthy. You rarely hear about the other candidate. No policy comparisons for pete's sake.
Until today.
"The newly disclosed documents, while largely reinforcing what had already been known
about the F.B.I. investigation, provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's use
of a private email system, which has shadowed her presidential campaign for more than a
year."
As another commenter said, "There's no there there." It is the NYT that is casting a shadow
over Secretary Clinton's campaign. Wake me when you actually start covering this Presidential
race.
"... The FBI that conducted a criminal investigation into Clinton's email server is serving under a Democratic administration. The director, appointed by Barack Obama, said Clinton was "Extremely careless" in handling classified material. The State Dept's Inspector General found that Clinton lied when she said she had permission to use a private server. ..."
"... she definitely had poor email practice. but so did 3 of her four immediate predecessors at state, who used private email; at least 2 of their inboxes also contained material later classified. so did Karl Rove, who used private servers while running two wars as presidential chief of staff. 3 million of the last administration's emails are missing, rather tnan 30,000. so yes, she continued past poor email practices, but nothing that was illegal or even unusual. So why is only her email under investigation. ..."
"... Anybody remember Valerie Plame? You want to talk about compromising national security? How about the Bush Administration revealing the secret identity of a covert CIA operative working on Iran's Nuclear Program capabilities?? ..."
"... After she gets elected they will start the impeachment process along with a complete cold shoulder to all her attempts at getting anything accomplished. We could have had Bernie. ..."
"... So, she's in great health for opening pickle jars, but not so great when it comes to her memory. And on top of her failing memory, Colin Powell essentially went public to say her camp is lying and using him as a defense for using a private server. ..."
"... She didn't recall "all the briefings she received on handling gov documents"? Well maybe she wasn't fit for the job of handling gov documents then. ..."
"... It's called mishandling classified documents, and it is a crime. She's not facing consequences because of who she is and the influence she has. Had it been random Jane Doe however, there'd be serious repercussions. ..."
"... I am stunned by reading the responses to this article. It doesn't matter what Hillary does, most of you will simply defend her or ignore her issues ..."
"... Hillary could drive through a soccer field in a drunken stupor, killing dozens of kids and you sheep would blame the car or the booze! ..."
"... The fact that not a single person who originated any of these emails, nor anyone else who were on the email distribution lists, have ever received so much as an administrative rebuke about any of these, and Comey testified that there were no plans at all to investigate ANYONE who were responsible for actually writing and sending these emails. ..."
"... James Constantino What do you not comprehend about "classified at the time" you just proved Tom Johnson correct when he stated " It doesn't matter what Hillary does, most of you will simply defend her or ignore her issues" ..."
"... She set up a private server in her house, used that server to exchange classified materials and then claims a loss of memory of briefings to safeguard those materials after her term was over at State to explain the erasure of thousands of emails. I'm no Trump fan but this is just as bad as Nixon's white house tapes. This is why I voted for Bernie. ..."
"... So Hillary couldn't remember security briefings she received in 2009 because of a concussion she received in 2012? This doesn't pass the laugh test. Nothing is every her responsibility and she has never ever done anything wrong. Is the concussion still impacting her memory? ..."
"... If the globalist media wasn't bought, they would have such information in a few days from deciding to find such information which should be available. I have worked for government departments before not only are policies and procedures issued to you and/or read out to you, you are also required to sign on the dotted line that you have understood them. Whats happening around HRC is just a shameful cover-up and surely the people know it by now? ..."
"... Yes, this is someone we want to be President. Someone who can't rememeber security breifings. "The extraordinary disclosure was made as the FBI published details of its agents' interview with the former secretary of state which was conducted days before the agency's director ruled out any charges against her. ..."
"... Queue health rumors again(Re: concussion). Also, I like how the I don't recall defense worked just fine for regean and Iran contra, but republicans don't apply the same standard when concerning Clinton ..."
"... Awww. I see.. She's in perfect health but when it is convenient she will use her illnesses to her advantage. Got it. ..."
"... Our records show that Clinton sent & received thousands of cables with "(C)" paragraph classification markings. The FBI report, although not fatal for Democratic loyalists but I think it is devastating to average Americans. ..."
"... So, what about the bit where she claimed she turned over ALL work-related e-mails, yet we keep finding ones that weren't turned over, and even more that were deleted with specialty wiping software? ..."
"... Wow! this is so damaging! cant' remember anything , lost so many phones and didn't know how to read a classified documents! She is unfit to run a lemonde stand! With all her handlers and executive assistance and Huma for 24/7, you would think she will know more! ..."
"... You can all sleep good tonight. Once all your children die in the wars she wants to continue she will say, "in hindsight, I regretted using bombs on all those innocent kids while president." Kudos DNC. ..."
"... Hillary's new defense: If you've had a FALL you can't RECALL ..."
"... Holy crap, - Clinton was also asked about the (C) markings within several documents that FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress represented classified information. Clinton told the FBI she was unaware of what the marking meant. "Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," the interview notes stated. Hillary Clinton told the FBI she did not recall all of the briefings she received due to a concussion she suffered in 2012. This woman is unfit period. http://www.cnn.com/.../hillary-clinton-fbi-interview-notes/ ..."
"... Kat Hathaway - Clinton repeatedly told the FBI she lacked recollection of key events. She said she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the FBI's notes of their July 2 interview with Clinton. The notes revealed that Clinton relied heavily on her staff and aides determining what was classified information and how it should be handled. ..."
"... So bringing up her health issues us an "unfounded attack" but then she uses those very same health issues to cover her ass? ..."
"... We invaded Iraq in 2003 GWB was reelected in 2004, this peanuts compared to that. ..."
Clinton told investigators she could not recall getting any briefings on how to handle classified
information or comply with laws governing the preservation of federal records, the summary of her
interview shows.
"However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the
New Year had a blood clot," the FBI's summary said. "Based on her doctor's advice, she could only
work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received."
A Clinton campaign aide said Clinton only referenced her concussion to explain she was not at
work but for a few hours a day at that time, not that she did not remember things from that period.
The concussion was widely reported then, and Republicans have since used it to attack the 68-year-old
candidate's health in a way her staff have said is unfounded.
The FBI report, which does not quote Clinton directly, is ambiguous about whether it was her concussion
that affected her ability to recall briefings.
- SEPTEMBER 02 2016 -
DONALD J. TRUMP
STATEMENT ON FBI
RELEASING CLINTON
INTERVIEW NOTES
★ ★ ★
"Hillary Clinton's answers to the FBI about
her private email server defy belief. I was
absolutely shocked to see that her answers
to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to
what she told the American people. After
reading these documents, I really don't
understand how she was able to get away
from prosecution." - Donald J. Trump
The FBI that conducted a criminal investigation into Clinton's email server is serving under
a Democratic administration. The director, appointed by Barack Obama, said Clinton was "Extremely
careless" in handling classified material. The State Dept's Inspector General found that Clinton
lied when she said she had permission to use a private server.
These are departments in a Democratic administration, not a vast right wing conspiracy. The
fact that Republicans try to make hay out of the facts in this case do not change the fact that
Clinton, according to a Democrat's STate Dept and FBI, acted carelessly and was less than truthful.
Anthony Zenkus she definitely had poor email practice. but so did 3 of her four immediate
predecessors at state, who used private email; at least 2 of their inboxes also contained material
later classified. so did Karl Rove, who used private servers while running two wars as presidential
chief of staff. 3 million of the last administration's emails are missing, rather tnan 30,000.
so yes, she continued past poor email practices, but nothing that was illegal or even unusual.
So why is only her email under investigation.
Anybody remember Valerie Plame? You want to talk about compromising national security? How
about the Bush Administration revealing the secret identity of a covert CIA operative working
on Iran's Nuclear Program capabilities??
How about Bush commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby who obstructed and derailed the investigation??
How about the way Republicans attacked Plame who was a loyal employee of the CIA for over 20
years??
Republicans are the true threats to our national security,not Hillary Clinton.
The attacks on Hillary will only get worse over the next month, then they break out the big one,
the October surprise. Everyone that chose her over Bernie should have seen this. After she
gets elected they will start the impeachment process along with a complete cold shoulder to all
her attempts at getting anything accomplished. We could have had Bernie.
Michelle Becker Wrong. The Stamford Study shows without question that the states without paper
trails had her way outperforming the exit polls where it wasn't statistically possible without
some kind of tampering. Add to that the placebo ballots in California, the voter purge in AZ,
IL, NY, and it would have been a much different result. Could she have won legitimately? We'll
never know thanks to the DNC leaks of collusion with the HRC camp, the media, and others. But
hey, enjoy the status quo, your fracking, your endless wars, your corporate influence in Congress.
This is what you wanted. Knock yourself out. USA. USA.
So, she's in great health for opening pickle jars, but not so great when it comes to her memory.
And on top of her failing memory, Colin Powell essentially went public to say her camp is lying
and using him as a defense for using a private server. I simply don't know how establishment
Dems keep trying to cover this obviously nagging problem they have with their candidate. What
a horrible choice between these two awful major party nominees.
It's called mishandling classified documents, and it is a crime. She's not facing consequences
because of who she is and the influence she has. Had it been random Jane Doe however, there'd
be serious repercussions.
Here is a question for all the angry white male Trump supporters.
Republicans control the Senate
and the House. Republicans control 31 states as governors including the rust belt states. So if
republicans are in control why haven't they created high wage jobs that you whine about? Why has
the economy slowed with republicans running government? Why haven't they fixed the immigration
problem? The republican congress can pass a bill tomorrow to build Trump's wall and hire a deportation
force. The republican congress can pass a balanced budget anytime the want? Taxes too high? Republicans
can cut the tax rate to zero if they want. My point is why do republicans want to blame the president
and Hillary for every problem known to man while their republican leaders sit on their butts doing
nothing to solve a single problem. Maybe you need to tell congress to stop investigating and pass
a Jobs Bill.
I am stunned by reading the responses to this article. It doesn't matter what Hillary does,
most of you will simply defend her or ignore her issues. The article clearly states:
The
FBI has concluded Clinton was wrong: At least 81 email threads contained information that was
classified at the time, although the final number may be more than 2,000, the report says. Some
of the emails appear to include discussion of planned future attacks by unmanned US Military drones,
the FBI report says.
Hillary could drive through a soccer field in a drunken stupor, killing dozens of kids
and you sheep would blame the car or the booze!
Here's the thing... all 81 email chains that the FBI claims were "classified" didn't originate
with Clinton. All were sent to her... none were marked as classified... and no one who actually
composed and sent these emails thought that they should have been classified at the time.
The fact that not a single person who originated any of these emails, nor anyone else who
were on the email distribution lists, have ever received so much as an administrative rebuke about
any of these, and Comey testified that there were no plans at all to investigate ANYONE who were
responsible for actually writing and sending these emails.
If you really expect me to take this seriously as anything other than a republican fever dream,
please show me ANY wrongdoing on Clinton's part that involves more than being copied on someone
else's email chain... because as evil master plans go, that's kind of reaching.
James Constantino What do you not comprehend about "classified at the time" you just proved
Tom Johnson correct when he stated " It doesn't matter what Hillary does, most of you will simply
defend her or ignore her issues"
She set up a private server in her house, used that server to exchange classified materials
and then claims a loss of memory of briefings to safeguard those materials after her term was
over at State to explain the erasure of thousands of emails. I'm no Trump fan but this is just
as bad as Nixon's white house tapes. This is why I voted for Bernie.
So Hillary couldn't remember security briefings she received in 2009 because of a concussion
she received in 2012? This doesn't pass the laugh test. Nothing is every her responsibility and
she has never ever done anything wrong. Is the concussion still impacting her memory?
Since I'm sure you won't believe me from over in your fact free world, here is the exact quote
from the Reuter's article: "Clinton said she received no instructions or direction regarding the
preservation or production of records from (the) State (Department) during the transition out
of her role as Secretary of State in 2013.
"However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a
concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot (in her head). Based on her doctor's
advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing
she received," the report said.
Whether she intended to use a private server and/or was briefed about the Department's policies
and procedures is one thing. Surely the State Department has records of whether HRC was briefed
or not and the main question is whether she then decided not to comply.
If the globalist media wasn't bought, they would have such information in a few days from
deciding to find such information which should be available. I have worked for government departments
before not only are policies and procedures issued to you and/or read out to you, you are also
required to sign on the dotted line that you have understood them. Whats happening around HRC
is just a shameful cover-up and surely the people know it by now?
Actually she should have been briefed when she was the FIrst Lady..and then again when she was
a senator..and then again when she was secretary of state.
Yes, this is someone we want to be President. Someone who can't rememeber security breifings.
"The extraordinary disclosure was made as the FBI published details of its agents' interview with
the former secretary of state which was conducted days before the agency's director ruled out
any charges against her.
Agents noted that Clinton could not recall being trained to handle classified materials as
secretary of state, and had no memory of anyone raising concerns about the sensitive information
she received at her private address.
The Democratic presidential nominee also 'did not recall receiving any emails she thought should
not be on an unclassified system,' the FBI's report declared.
She did not recall all of the briefings she received on handling sensitive information as she
made the transition from her post as secretary of state, due to a concussion she suffered in 2012."
Nodens Caedmon
"Couldn't recall all briefings on preserving documents."
Who needs to remember security briefings
definitely not someone running for president.
Why even mention the concussion? She can't remember more than 10% of her briefings even if she
is far above average, she would have to review the notes to jog her memory for even partial recall
as everyone must do when asked to testify about events like this.
With the number of briefings
and variety of subjects, her memory is the least useful way to recreate those meetings, with or
without a concussion, if ten people at the meetings recounted their memories, it would sound like
ten different meetings, the notes and minutes are the only reliable sources.
For some important decisions, she might remember quite a bit but there are natural limits to
memory that are quite severe unless you have unique innate skills.
Queue health rumors again(Re: concussion). Also, I like how the I don't recall defense worked
just fine for regean and Iran contra, but republicans don't apply the same standard when concerning
Clinton
Nancy Gilbert
Awww. I see.. She's in perfect health but when it is convenient she will use her illnesses
to her advantage. Got it.
Obviously the powers that be want Hillary. That's why we've got a choice between her and trump.
As bad as she is, she looks like a saint next that madman. Ha! For now on I will be sitting next
to the overweight peeps. That way I will look slim.
From Wikileaks: Note on Clinton FBI report: Our records show that Clinton sent & received
thousands of cables with "(C)" paragraph classification markings.
The FBI report, although not fatal for Democratic loyalists but I think it is devastating to average
Americans.
So, what about the bit where she claimed she turned over ALL work-related e-mails, yet we
keep finding ones that weren't turned over, and even more that were deleted with specialty wiping
software?
Mani Rand
Wow! this is so damaging! cant' remember anything , lost so many phones and didn't know how
to read a classified documents! She is unfit to run a lemonde stand! With all her handlers and
executive assistance and Huma for 24/7, you would think she will know more!
Now let's watch all the Libs quantify all of this LOL. She could run naked through Times Square
and the Huffpos would somehow justify her actions as bold and showing off her leadership capabilities
You can all sleep good tonight. Once all your children die in the wars she wants to continue
she will say, "in hindsight, I regretted using bombs on all those innocent kids while president."
Kudos DNC.
Holy crap, - Clinton was also asked about the (C) markings within several documents that FBI
Director James Comey testified before Congress represented classified information. Clinton told
the FBI she was unaware of what the marking meant. "Clinton stated she did not know and could
only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," the interview notes
stated. Hillary Clinton told the FBI she did not recall all of the briefings she received due
to a concussion she suffered in 2012. This woman is unfit period.
http://www.cnn.com/.../hillary-clinton-fbi-interview-notes/
Kat Hathaway - Clinton repeatedly told the FBI she lacked recollection of key events. She
said she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal
records or handling classified information," according to the FBI's notes of their July 2 interview
with Clinton. The notes revealed that Clinton relied heavily on her staff and aides determining
what was classified information and how it should be handled.
"We are also reminded that Clinton repeatedly vowed she'd surrendered
every single government business-related email upon the State Department's
request" [
New
York Post
].
This was an extraordinary lie: She hoarded and attempted to destroy
thousands of emails which, like the one The Post describes, involved
government business - some of it highly sensitive and significant (such
as the 30 emails related to the Benghazi massacre that the FBI recovered
but the State Department has yet to disclose). Converting government
records to one's own use and destroying them are serious crimes, even if
no classified information is involved.
I rarely find myself agreeing with a
National Reviewcolumnist
writing in the New York Post, but "converting government records to one's
own use and destroying them":
Yes, exactly
.
Just scanned through the report – there's a whole lot that Clinton didn't
recall. She also said that she relied on the judgment of the people that sent
her emails, when it came to the proper handling of classified material. So, in
other words, this detail-oriented policy wonk couldn't remember anything about
this and besides, it's somebody else's fault if classified information was
handled improperly.
I still have a hard time understanding why people find her dishonest.
CLINTON was not involved in the decision to move from the Apple server
managed by JUSTIN COOPER to a server built by BRYAN PAGLIANO. Therefore,
CLINTON had no knowledge of the reasons for selecting to install it in
the basement of CLINTON's New York residence.
When Clinton had technical issues with her email account, she
contacted COOPER to resolve the issues. She could not recall ever
contacting PAGLIANO for technical support.
Brazen, brazen lies. Compare:
Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department IT specialist who managed
Hillary Clinton's private email server, was hired by the State Department
as a political appointee. Pagliano had previously worked as an IT
director for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.
[Pagliano] was ultimately involved in setting up Clinton's email
server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, and maintained it while
working at the State Department.
The Clinton campaign says he was paid
separately by the Clintons for all work on the server during that time.
Pagliano was a former Clinton campaign staffer, shoehorned into State as
a Clinton political appointee, separately paid
by the Clintons
to set
up a server
in their house
… but
Hillary never even talked to him
,
so she claims. Here is a photo of Pagliano posing with Hillary, as she
remained mute:
Needless to say, given Pagliano's immunized testimony to the FBI, plenty
of evidence is available to indict Hillary for lying to the FBI, totally
aside from her premeditated federal records crimes.
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the picture of
Pagliano and Clinton. He must have attended one of those $5,000 a plate
dinners which entitles you to a quick photo in the reception line. You
can't possibly expect her to remember all of the people who have anted up
for one of those!
I just want to point out that the release of this on a Friday before a 3
day weekend is simply a coincidence and has absolutely nothing to do with
trying to "throw shade" or diminish the impact of the release. I mean there
are people who posit that things are released on Friday for news management
purposes. Poppycock says I – PURE COINCIDENCE. When have the Clintoons ever
done something like that????
I just do this because there are a lot of cynical people at NC who might
ponder if the FBI is in cahoots with Hillary and does this to in some way to
try and lessen the newsworthiness of this release, or simply out of a
bureaucratic self protection instinct because it might show the
investigation of the FBI was less than stellar…
I am so glad I'm not cynical…
"... According to the bureau's review of server logs, someone accessed an email account on Jan. 5, 2013, using three IP addresses known to serve as Tor "exit nodes" - jumping-off points from the anonymity network to the public internet. ..."
An unknown individual using the encrypted privacy tool Tor to hide their tracks
accessed an email account on a Clinton family server, the FBI revealed Friday.
The incident appears to be the first confirmed intrusion into a piece of
hardware associated with Hillary Clinton's private email system, which
originated with a server established for her husband, former President Bill
Clinton.
The FBI disclosed the event in its newly released
report
on the former secretary of state's handling of classified information.
According to the bureau's review of server logs, someone accessed an
email account on Jan. 5, 2013, using three IP addresses known to serve as Tor
"exit nodes" - jumping-off points from the anonymity network to the public
internet.
The owner of the account, whose name is redacted in the report, said she was
"not familiar with nor [had] she ever used Tor software."
Good question, this NC reader is just pretty fed up with the status quo (maybe others want
to chime in):
– Unlimited immunity from prosecution for banking executive criminals
–
More shiny new undeclared "nation-building" and "RTP" wars
– Globalist trade deals that
enshrine unaccountable corporate tribunals over national sovereignty, environmental and worker
protection, and self-determination
– America's national business conducted in secrecy at
the behest of corporate donors to tax-exempt foundations
– Paid-for quid-pro-quo media
manipulation of candidate and election coverage
– Health care system reform designed to
benefit entrenched insurance providers over providing access to reasonable-cost basic care.
Based on the above I'd say the 11:2 ratio looks about right.
Really enjoyed Atrios easy-breezy
summation
of Clinton Foundation / State Department skullduggery…
"…a bit unseemly in that way that the sausage factory is a bit gross, but it
basically seems to fall in 'this is how things work' territory as far as I can
tell…"
Breezy is right. It does lead me to ask if this were not the Clinton
Foundation but was the Bush Foundation or the Rubio Foundation or…would this
still be just be the way things work? I do not think so.
Don't get me wrong I have great admiration for Atrios (he is right on the
money regarding Social Security and self-driving cars), but the double
standard where both Obama and Clinton are concerned is strong at Eschaton,
and I'm sorry to say with him as well.
Accepting this as the way things work is just accepting that corruption
is the norm and there is nothing to be done about it. So unless you are
willing to shut up about supposed misdeeds of all elected officials and
political candidates because this is the way it is done, you need to get the
f*ck over the idea that this is NORMAL and ACCEPTABLE.
And I don't see that happening over there, or at Daily Kos, or… once the
subject is out is out of the tribe.
I can understand the "it's OK when
our people
do it" double
standard. Family/tribe/team, we are all trained to do that. What I don't
understand is how one could ever arrive at Clinton Foundation = our
people prerequisite to applying it in this instance. WT actual F?
I think you are coming at this from far too realistic a point of
view. You aren't looking at this as the Foundation is a tool, like a
speech or a fundraiser, in order to provide
wealthy
worthy
individuals/groups/corporations/nations a means to expedite access to
the government official, in this case Clinton. You think of it as a
false charity. But for the greasing the wheels is normal operating
procedure, what this was was a gift to open more avenues for the
wheels to be greased. It's up to you…or me…or even the people of Flint
among others to use that opportunity.
Breezy is right. It does lead me to ask if this were not the
Clinton War With Russia
but was the
Bush War With Iraq
or the
Rubio War With Syria
or…would this still be just
be the way things work? I do not think so.
Don't get me wrong I have great admiration for Atrios (he is right on
the money regarding Social Security and self-driving cars), but the
double standard where both Obama and Clinton are concerned is strong at
Eschaton, and I'm sorry to say with him as well.
Accepting this as the way things work is just accepting that
endless and new wars
is the norm and there is nothing to be done
about it. So unless you are willing to shut up about supposed
endless new wars
of all elected officials and political
candidates because this is the way it is done, you need to get the f*ck
over the idea that this is NORMAL and ACCEPTABLE.
And I don't see that happening over there, or at Daily Kos, or… once
the subject is out is out of the tribe.
Excellent interview. I've bookmarked Ortel's website and am looking
forward to his forthcoming writings. I was not aware of the differences
between laws regulating charities versus other forms of organizations, so
the interview as a starting point was very useful for me.
"... the person who set up her email should have set up "filters and alerts that said any email that came with a classified header." ..."
"... You know, create an alert that says this shouldn't be on this system and deal with it so that you don't, you know, consume it in this way. But the administrator didn't do it and she didn't know to do it because the whole time she had a very specific process in place. If it is classified, print it out and let me deal with it in hard copy, which is why she had complete confidence to say, 'I never dealt with anything marked classified.'" ..."
Monday night on "CNN Tonight," supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, billionaire
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, said Clinton did nothing wrong because the person who set up her
email should have set up "filters and alerts that said any email that came with a classified header."
...
And so you go - look, I was in this business. My first career, my first company, all I did was install
local area networks and messaging and email systems and I had my own personal server in my office
until about 2010, and so I've been through this whole process. And so she talks to the admin who
is responsible, she doesn't know any better, and takes his or her advice."
"I think it was a he,"
he continued. "And it just so happens that he was given immunity by the Justice Department so we
haven't had a chance to hear any of this. But for that personal server, if that admin had done his
job like I had done my job doing the same thing, I would have set up filters and alerts that said
any email that came with a classified header or any of the determined classified markings like the
little 'c' Director Comey mentioned, pop it out, right?
You know, create an alert that says this shouldn't be on this system and deal with it so that
you don't, you know, consume it in this way. But the administrator didn't do it and she didn't know
to do it because the whole time she had a very specific process in place. If it is classified, print
it out and let me deal with it in hard copy, which is why she had complete confidence to say, 'I
never dealt with anything marked classified.'"
"... With Huma becoming a lightening rod of the whole access issue, the cynical part of me figures this is not an ill timed, but well timed family tragedy with a sympathetic hard working mistreated wife… ..."
"... It isn't that it happened. It is the timing. ..."
"... Oh for heaven's sake! Clearly the man is compulsive, he will never stop. And he is willing to risk job, career and family for his addiction. Kudos to Huma for putting the well-being of her child first and leaving him sort out his addiction by himself .! ..."
"... "I think it's a little – it's often a little more challenging when you're in politics because your private life, and I think everybody craves their own privacy, and so I think your private life is displayed to the world in a way that you otherwise wouldn't have to deal with if one spouse is a private person and the other person's in politics as was the case certainly in my marriage," Abedin said. ..."
"... "But I think it works if you fully support each other." During the podcast, she mentioned she is on out on the campaign trail a lot of the time and her husband helps to care for her son. " I have a four-year-old son and I don't think I could do this if I didn't have the support of a spouse who is willing to basically be a stay-at- home dad as much as he possibly can so I'm able to be on the road," Abedin said. ..."
"... "I miss my son but I don't worry about him because I know between this little village we've created between Anthony and my in-laws and my mom and our families and this wonderful woman who we have helping us I can go out and be the best professional woman that I can be because I have that support." ..."
With Huma becoming a lightening rod of the whole access issue, the cynical part of me figures
this is not an ill timed, but well timed family tragedy with a sympathetic hard working mistreated
wife…
I mean if the mayoral campaign blowup of his career comeback for the same issues… (done on
camera no less).
No, it isn't beyond credulity. I never said he didn't do it. But apparently this has been going
on since last year with a woman he has never met. And unless I missed something, she leaked this.
Why out this now? Other times he goofed and it was public, OR was done to upset his comeback weak
though it might have been. But why now? At some point in the next few days some advantage for
the woman may change my mind, but otherwise it is very convenient.
Read the comments on the little Abedin story, and one has to conclude that our species is mostly
Fokked. I particularly like this one:
Oh for heaven's sake! Clearly the man is compulsive, he will never stop. And he is willing
to risk job, career and family for his addiction. Kudos to Huma for putting the well-being
of her child first and leaving him sort out his addiction by himself .!
Which follows this text from the article:
"I think it's a little – it's often a little more challenging when you're in politics
because your private life, and I think everybody craves their own privacy, and so I think your
private life is displayed to the world in a way that you otherwise wouldn't have to deal with
if one spouse is a private person and the other person's in politics as was the case certainly
in my marriage," Abedin said.
"But I think it works if you fully support each other."
During the podcast, she mentioned she is on out on the campaign trail a lot of the time
and her husband helps to care for her son.
" I have a four-year-old son and I don't think I could do this if I didn't have
the support of a spouse who is willing to basically be a stay-at- home dad as much as he possibly
can so I'm able to be on the road," Abedin said.
"I miss my son but I don't worry about him because I know between this little village
we've created between Anthony and my in-laws and my mom and our families and this wonderful
woman who we have helping us I can go out and be the best professional woman that I can be
because I have that support."
Big Jim Thompson, former US Attorney in Chicago and former Governor of Illinois, got married
to a former assistant US attorney and a child was somehow produced. Little Samantha was, like
the marriage from the gossip I heard and pontificating in the papers, just popped out to scotch
rumors about Thompson's polarity.
The salient part of the tale is that while Thompson was out campaigning with his spouse, with
Baby Samantha in tow, neither parent noticed that the kid was, like, seriously sick, fever as
I recall of over 104 degrees, and some brave campaign worker had to do the parenting thing and
see the kid got medical attention.
Reported that Thompson et ux were irked that this threw the campaign schedule off. Did not
keep him from getting elected… This guy was also on the "9/11 Commission," and has lots of other
notable corruption connection credentials:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Thompson
One claim to fame was obtaining conviction of former Governor Otto Kerner for public corruption,
taking race track stock for helping the track owners get more racing dates. Chief witness was
Marge Everett, attorney for the racetrack corporation. She got disbarred in IL, so Thompson flew
her personally to CA and testified on her behalf before the "fitness committee" of the CA bar,
that she was an upright moral person fit to be admitted to the CA bar. Shortly after, as I recall,
ol' Marge got in trouble for peddling stock and other valuables to the CA officials who oversaw
the doling out of racing dates (ka-ching!) to her new client, a CA racetrack corporation…
"I have a four-year-old son and I don't think I could do this if I didn't have the support
of a spouse who is willing to basically be a stay-at- home dad as much as he possibly can so
I'm able to be on the road," Abedin said.
With Basic Income, maybe she can stay home as well…
Hillary Clinton's pay-for-play scandal is threatening to derail her campaign.
Public outrage follows revelations that the Foundation took foreign cash during
Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, that Clinton aide Huma Abedin was
helping Foundation donors get favors and access from the State Department, and
that Clinton aide Cheryl Mills was doing assignments for the Clinton Foundation
while on the State Department payroll.
In a letter Monday to Foundation president Donna Shalala, Priebus demands
transparency.
"I am writing to you to call on the Clinton Foundation and all of the entities
under its umbrella to release all correspondence its officials had with the State
Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state," Priebus added.
As I am sure you are well aware, a spate of recent news reports involving
the Clinton Foundation's relationship with the Clinton State Department has
renewed serious concerns about conflicts of interest and whether donors to the
foundation benefitted from official acts under then-Secretary Clinton.
"It isn't just "suspicious." It's influence peddling, which is corrupt
by definition. And there's a whole infrastructure, institutional and technical, to support it." Lambert Strether of
Corrente.
Notable quotes:
"... here you have Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having this Clinton Foundation, with billions of dollars pouring into it from some of the world's worst tyrannies ..."
"... Bill and Hillary Clinton are being personally enriched by those same people, doing speeches, for many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in front of them, at the same time that she's running the State Department, getting ready to run for president, and soon will be running the executive branch. ..."
"... the problem here is that the Clintons have essentially become the pioneers of eliminating all of these lines, of amassing massive wealth from around the world, and using that to boost their own political power, and then using that political power to boost the interests of the people who are enriching them in all kinds of ways. ..."
[W]hat Donna Brazile said in that video that you played is nothing short of laughable. It's not
questioned when Republicans do favors for their donors? Of course it is. In fact, it's been a core,
central critique of the Democratic Party, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for years, that
Republicans are corrupt because they serve the interest of their big donors. One of the primary positions
of the Democratic Party is that the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court has corrupted politics
because it allows huge money to flow into the political process in a way that ensures, or at least
creates the appearance, that people are doing favors for donors.
And so, here you have Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having this Clinton Foundation, with billions
of dollars pouring into it from some of the world's worst tyrannies, like Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates and Qatar and other Gulf states, other people who have all kinds of vested interests
in the policies of the United States government. And at the same time, in many cases, both Bill and
Hillary Clinton are being personally enriched by those same people, doing speeches, for many hundreds
of thousands of dollars, in front of them, at the same time that she's running the State Department,
getting ready to run for president, and soon will be running the executive branch. …
And so, the problem here is that the Clintons have essentially become the pioneers of eliminating
all of these lines, of amassing massive wealth from around the world, and using that to boost their
own political power, and then using that political power to boost the interests of the people who
are enriching them in all kinds of ways. And of course questions need to be asked, and suspicions
are necessarily raised, because this kind of behavior is inherently suspicious. And it needs a lot
of media scrutiny and a lot of attention, and I'm glad it's getting that.
"... On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress' legitimate interest in preventing the money that is spent on elections from exerting an "'undue influence on an officeholder's judgment"' and from creating "4he appearance of such influence,"' beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. I ..."
"... Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf. ..."
"... Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority's apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences docs not accord with the theory or reality of politics. ..."
On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress' legitimate interest in preventing the money that
is spent on elections from exerting an "'undue influence on an officeholder's judgment"' and from
creating "4he appearance of such influence,"' beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. Id.,
at 150; see also. e.g., id., at 143-144. 152-154; Colorado II, 533 U. S.. at 441; Shrink Missouri.
528 U. S., at 389.
Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference
between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is
not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf.
Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority's apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements
can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences docs not accord with the theory or reality
of politics.
It certainly does not accord with the record Congress developed in passing BCRA. a record
that stands as a remarkable testament to the energy and ingenuity with which corporations, unions,
lobbyists, and politicians may go about scratching each other's backs - and which amply supported
Congress' determination to target a limited set of especially destructive
"... Hillary Clinton, a neoliberal, neocon, corporatist PACster politician, is unlikely to inspire millennials or progressives ..."
"... Hillary Clinton is a sitting duck. And her vulnerability has nothing to do with the manufactured hype ..."
"... This on top of charges by the FBI that she was reckless, make her uniquely vulnerable ..."
"... Then there's her numerous "sniper fire in Bosnia" type gaffs, and a record of flip-flops on the issues that is virtually unprecedented in modern politics. And if the flip-flops in the primary weren't enough, her personnel appointments so far show she's going to try to go from corporate centrist to progressive to corporate centrist in the space of a year. You'd almost have to be an idiot to lose to her. ..."
Hillary Clinton, a neoliberal, neocon, corporatist
PACster politician, is unlikely to inspire millennials or progressives,
and some version of 2014 could easily play out again. As I've said all
along, Hillary Clinton is a sitting duck. And her vulnerability has
nothing to do with the manufactured hype or the …er… trumped up charges
Republicans have been ginning up for years now. In fact, in some strange
way, they may help Clinton, by discrediting some of the legitimate issues
that could yet dog her.
The emails – a self-inflicted tragedy of almost
Shakespearean proportions – won't go away, and now they suggest a pattern of
appointments with supporters of the Clinton Foundation while Secretary of
State that was, at best, inappropriate, at worst, illegal. This on top
of charges by the FBI that she was reckless, make her uniquely vulnerable
to attack ads.
Then there's her numerous "sniper fire in Bosnia"
type gaffs, and a record of flip-flops on the issues that is virtually
unprecedented in modern politics. And if the flip-flops in the primary
weren't enough, her personnel appointments so far show she's going to try to
go from corporate centrist to progressive to corporate centrist in the space
of a year. You'd almost have to be an idiot to lose to her.
... ... ...
But if Trumps' new team manages to reel him in, and
formulate a coherent attack on Clinton, all bets are off.
"... Hillary will win, and it will be more than business as usual. Influence peddling and pay to play will accelerate. The neocon money will flow into the system and foreign policy will be a debacle. We may very well be approaching WWIII. ..."
"... Under a Clinton II presidency, long-term international turmoil and confrontation lie ahead no matter what their family foundation may attempt to achieve. ..."
If Clinton gets elected, she will be under investigation prior to the inauguration. The Republicans
will use their hold on the house to start several investigations on November 9.
However, the GOP (continuing a party tradition) will cruise right past several true issues,
and lock onto the one thing they believe will hold the most shock value. This will turn out to
not be provable, or not be all that interesting to anyone but die-hard GOP supporters, and she
will exit the investigations as powerful, if not more so, than before.
There are plenty of reasons to investigate the Clinton machine, but if you expect this clown
show to do it competently I have a bridge to sell you…
No this one is backfiring already as most of the donors were people HRC would have met anyway,
including Nobel Peace winners! and the 89 out of 154 people has not been released. And the article
does not note any mischief but that there were meetings!
Or that there are a ton of other government officials have spouses that run well run charities.
Matt Yglesias has de-bunked this one a lot and my guess disappears relatively quickly.
This is as worthless evidence as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
Hillary will win, and it will be more than business as usual. Influence peddling and pay to
play will accelerate. The neocon money will flow into the system and foreign policy will be a
debacle. We may very well be approaching WWIII.
The economy will continue to hollow out due to central bank hubris, government stimulus, and
non-free trade deals. Income inequality will get worse. The middle class will continue to shrink.
After leaving office, Bill Clinton could have devoted his energies to Habitat for Humanity (like
Jimmy Carter) or thrown his energies into helping an existing organisation (like the Bill & Melinda
Gates foundation). He didn't, because he wanted the "fruits" of his philanthropic work to accrue
to him and his family. And so it is not unreasonable to ask exactly what those fruits are, especially
those gained while Hillary Clinton was serving as the nation's chief diplomat.
Under a Clinton II presidency, long-term international turmoil and confrontation lie ahead
no matter what their family foundation may attempt to achieve.
The two sources of her problems are beginning to merge much as two weather depressions might
collide and become a hurricane. One is the already well-trodden matter of her use of a private
email server while Secretary of State. The other relates to the Clinton Foundation and whether
donors received preferential access to her while she served in that post.
Two bombs dropped on the Clinton campaign at once on Monday. First it emerged that the FBI has
collected and delivered to the State Department almost 15,000 new emails not previously seen and
a federal judge ordered the department to accelerate their release to the public. Meanwhile, a
conservative group called Judicial Watch released details of still more emails detailing exactly
how donors to the foundation set about trying to get Ms Clinton's attention.
... ... ...
Questions have been swirling for weeks about whether or not Ms Clinton was drawn into giving
special favours to some of her husband's pals in return for their giving generously to the
charitable foundation he set up after leaving the presidency – a pay and play arrangement. On
Monday, Judicial Watch unveiled details that showed exactly how that might have happened thanks
to emails it had accessed through the courts sent to and from Huma Abedin, a close Clinton
confidante and her deputy chief of staff during her four years at the State Department.
... ... ...
In attempt to forestall the trouble that is already upon his wife, Mr Clinton announced this
week that should she win the presidency, several things will change at his Foundation. First and
foremost it would cease to take money from any foreign governments and donors and only from
US-based charities and individuals. He would also step down from the foundation entirely and
cease personally to raise funds for it.
...many voters are simply afraid that with Ms Clinton in the White House the whole tawdry
cycle will just start all over again and nothing else with get done in Washington
It was only one in a long parade of late-August fundraisers Ms Clinton has attended, but it
stands out for the generosity required of those who attended. The price of admission for the
20-odd guests who obliged was a stunning $200,000. That was double the $100,000 charged for
guests who mingled recently with Ms Clinton in Omaha at the home of Susan Buffett, the daughter
of Warren Buffett, the veteran investment oracle.
... ... ...
As of Monday, she and Mr Kaine had harvested no less than $32 million for the Hillary Victory
Fund, which will be distributed to her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state
parties. A lot of was raised in last week as Ms Clinton hopscotched from party to party on
Martha's Vineyard and Cape Code in Massachusetts.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., argued on Thursday that the FBI failed to asked Hillary
Clinton the right questions during its interview last month, if it was truly
trying to decide her intent in using a private, unsecured, unauthorized email
server.
Appearing on Fox's
America's Newsroom
, Gowdy said he thoroughly
reviewed the FBI's notes from the interview and was surprised there were no
questions addressing the former secretary of state's intent.
"Remember [FBI director] James Comey said she
was not indicted because he didn't have sufficient evidence on the issue of
intent? I didn't see any questions on the issue of intent," the congressman said.
Is that Huma in a blue dress under the Resolute desk?
Pairadimes d Here2Go •Aug 27, 2016 9:14 PM
Ramirez is a genius.
zeronetwork d debtor of last resort •Aug 27, 2016 8:15 PM
The thought process Donald has started is not going to fade very soon. Still
few weeks before election. I am sure Donald got some more cards in his sleeve.
are we there yet •Aug 27, 2016 8:36 PM
I have a solution for Hillary's in-continuance and mobility declining problems.
The chair behind the presidents desk should be a wheelchair with a bedpan.
Otherwise the term 'campaign trail' will take on a whole new meaning.
"... The issue we've always asked ourselves here is, why was she hiding this in the first place? Why did she have a private server? Obviously it was concealing, what was she concealing? And the most obvious possible answer was the [Clinton] Foundation. ..."
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Look, we've been speculating for a year about what the email scandal was
all about and I think we were diverted for a year about the classification. It's a real issue, serious
issue, but that was never the issue.
The issue we've always asked ourselves here is, why was she
hiding this in the first place? Why did she have a private server? Obviously it was concealing, what
was she concealing? And the most obvious possible answer was the [Clinton] Foundation.
"... The clearest evidence that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had something to hide in her emails is the way she made sure their contents stayed hidden, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. said Thursday. ..."
"... Clinton famously laughed off a question about whether she had wiped her private email server. ..."
The clearest evidence that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had something to
hide in her emails is the way she made sure their contents stayed hidden, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
said Thursday.
Clinton famously laughed off a question about whether she had wiped her private email server.
"What?
Like with a cloth or something?" she asked. "I don't know how it works digitally at all."
"... The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference with the AP's lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules around Dec. 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated. ..."
(Associated Press) Seven months after a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing
monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time
as secretary of state, the government told The Associated Press it won't finish the job before Election
Day.
The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference
with the AP's lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules
around Dec. 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated.
The AP's lawyers late Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that
the department could provide all Clinton's minute-by-minute schedules by Oct. 15. The agency did
not immediately respond.
Verbatim reenactment of highlights
of the deposition transcript. For more information and to
support this project, please go to
www.ClintonEmailsOnFilm.com
"... A letter from Clintons' top advisor Sidney Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton in 2011, proves that the West was losing control of the situation in Libya, very fast, already since 2011. Dangerous weapons were going to wrong hands through the black market. ..."
"... (Source Comment: According to very sensitive sources, the Libyan rebels are concerned that AQIM may also obtain SPIGOTT wire-guided anti-tank missiles and an unspecified number of Russian anti-tank mines made of plastic and undetectable by anti-mine equipment. This equipment again was coming through Niger and Mali, and was intended for the rebels in Libya. They note that AQIM is very strong in this region of Northwest Africa.) ..."
"... Yet, despite the absolute mess, the Western vultures are racing above the Libyan corpse to take as much as they can. ..."
"... Their primary goal was probably to overthrow the Chinese economic influence and prevent Russia to expand its sphere of influence. Apparently, preventing the destruction of a whole country is not a top priority issue for them. ..."
On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for 30,322 emails & email attachments
sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547
pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014. 7,570 of the documents were sent by
Hillary Clinton.
The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department as
a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The final PDFs were made available on February
29, 2016.
A letter from
Clintons' top advisor Sidney Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton in 2011, proves that the West was
losing control of the situation in Libya, very fast, already since 2011. Dangerous weapons were going
to wrong hands through the black market.
The Western clowns have failed, one more time, to bring stability and led another country to absolute
chaos and destruction. Waves of desperate people are now trying to reach European shores to save
themselves from the hell in Libya, as it happens in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
Key parts:
During the early morning of May 2, 2011 sources with access to the leadership of the Libyan
rebellion's ruling Transitional National Council (TNC) stated in confidence that they are concerned
that the death of al Qa'ida leader Osama Bin Laden will inspire al Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) to use weapons they have obtained, which were originally intended for the rebels in Libya,
to retaliate against the United States and its allies for this attack in Pakistan. These individuals
fear that the use of the weapons in this manner will complicate the TNC's relationship with NATO
and the United States, whose support is vital to them in their struggle with the forces of Muammar
al Qaddafi.
These individuals note that the TNC officials are reacting to reports received during the
week of April 25 from their own sources of information, the French General Directorate for External
Security (DGSE), and British external intelligence service (MI-6), stating that AQIM has acquired
about 10 SAM 7- Grail/Streela man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) from illegal
weapons markets in Western Niger and Northern Mali. These weapons were originally intended for
sale to the rebel forces in Libya, but AQIM operatives were able to meet secretly with these arms
dealers and purchase the equipment. The acquisition of these sophisticated weapons creates a serious
threat to air traffic in Southern Morocco, Algeria, Northern Mali, Western Niger, and Eastern
Mauritania.
(Source Comment: According to very sensitive sources, the Libyan rebels are concerned
that AQIM may also obtain SPIGOTT wire-guided anti-tank missiles and an unspecified number of
Russian anti-tank mines made of plastic and undetectable by anti-mine equipment. This equipment
again was coming through Niger and Mali, and was intended for the rebels in Libya. They note that
AQIM is very strong in this region of Northwest Africa.)
... Libyan rebel commanders are also concerned that the death of Bin Laden comes at a time
when sensitive information indicates that the leaders of AQIM are planning to launch attacks across
North Africa and Europe in an effort to reassert their relevance during the ongoing upheavals
in Libya, as well as the rest of North Africa and the Middle East. They believe the first step
in this campaign was the April 30 bombing of a café in Marrakesh, Morocco that is frequented by
Western tourists.
Their primary goal was probably to overthrow the Chinese economic influence and prevent Russia
to expand its sphere of influence. Apparently, preventing the destruction of a whole country is not
a top priority issue for them.
"... FBI Admits Clinton Used Software Designed To "Prevent Recovery" And "Hide Traces Of" Deleted Emails ..."
"... Assange: Clinton's Campaign is Full of 'Disturbing' Anti-Russia 'Hysteria' http://sputniknews.com/us/20160826/1044654512/assange-clinton-russia-hysteria.html ..."
AUGUST 25, 2016
State Admits Benghazi Material in New Cache of Emails Clinton Failed to Produce
(Washington DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that a federal court has ordered the
State Department to review newly found Clinton emails and turn over responsive records
by September 13. And, in two other Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, the State
Department is scheduled to release additional emails from former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's non-state.gov email system beginning September 30. In a court filing
this week, the State Department admitted it had found Benghazi-related documents among
the 14,900 Clinton emails and attachments uncovered by the FBI that Mrs. Clinton deleted
and withheld from the State Department.
~ ~ ~ ~
Is this not a reminder of the missing 18 minutes in the Nixon tapes that helped to put
him down?
74 days ahead; so breathe normally. They could use the same route as those FBI Vince
Foster investigation docs – vanished, disappeared from the National Archives.
The State Department must start releasing the additional 15,000 emails uncovered during the
FBI's investigation into
Hillary
Clinton 's private server starting on Sept. 13.
...
As she faces increasing scrutiny, allies acknowledge it highlights the larger problem that
looms over her campaign: Trust.
...the foundation and email controversies are both problems for Clinton.
Pomkiwi
GreatUncle
Aug 25, 2016 7:02 PM
As a matter of habit I run CC Cleaner after I close my browser. Imagine
my surprise when I get a message 'Firefox is still running - needs to be
closed to continue cleaning'. I click ok close it then get a message '
not closing would you like to force it to close?' That works - perhaps I
should disconnect my router to be sure lol.
GreatUncle
css1971
Aug 25, 2016 6:21 PM
Got to admit I use CC cleaner and leave it to always destructively clean.
Then by the time more data is overewritten hundreds of times you exceed the
20 layer or so limit of being able to peal bakc the layer.
Microsoft is
lazy or more to the point it intentionally leaves you exposed for failing to
do this as standard.
Makes the spooks job alot harder.
Dre4dwolf
Aug 25, 2016 5:53 PM
All the emails are out there on the internet, the server had no encryption, out
there somewhere is some nerd with all of Hillary Clintons Emails hanging on his
wall as a testament to his great conquest over " the server ".
Hillary
Clintons emails are like pokemon, they are all over the place, you just gota
"catch um all " by finding people willing to "trade".
Also, there are always two copies on an email chain
1 copy on Hillary Clintons Server
and
1 copy on the recipient/sending server, you need two servers to have a "
back and forth" conversation on the internet between two different email
domains.
So one way to get all the emails would be:
1) Compile a list of known email contacts from the pool of emails you
already have
2) Get a judge to sign a warrant to force the domains / hosting companies of
those email contacts to turn over their data
3) ? Profit as 90% of the missing emails are recovered?
There is a very small chance that the 30,000 emails missing were each from
30,000 unique people.
Most likeley its less than 1000 contacts and most of them will have benign
emails associated with them that were not deleted (so they are in the contact
list pool).
The NSA has all this data, everyone knows the NSA has all this data, thus
far most of the leaked emails PROBABLY COME FROM NSA AGENTS who are concerned
about the future of the country.
asierguti
Aug 25, 2016 5:48 PM
I worked for a big data recovery company, and there is more effective and
easier way to destoy de data. Just take out the hard drive, open it and scratch
every platter. That's it, the data is now gone forever, unless you (insert the
NSA here) have a copy.
I rembeber we had a law enforcement agency coming with a hard drive from a
guy they wanted to prosecute. That bastard opened the hard drive, scratched
every platter, even bent them, and smashed every single chip.
Rubicon727
Aug 25, 2016 5:57 PM
Here's what one website questioning WHO can call for and "Independent Counsels,
Special Prosecutors, Special Counsels, and the Role of Congress
| By Jack Maskell | Legislative Attorney | June 20, 2013 |
.. Congress may
also have a legislative role in designing a statutory mechanism for the
appointment of "independent counsels" or "special prosecutors," as it did in
title VI of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Under the provisions of that
law relating to the appointment of "independent counsels" (called "special
prosecutors" until 1983), the Attorney General was directed to petition a
special three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals to name an independent
counsel upon the receipt of credible allegations of criminal misconduct by
certain high-level personnel in the executive branch of the federal government
whose prosecution by the Administration might give rise to an appearance of a
conflict of interest. In 1999, Congress allowed the "independent counsel"
provisions of law to expire. Upon the expiration of the law in June of 1999, no
new "independent counsels" or "special prosecutors" may be appointed by a
three-judge panel upon the application of the Attorney General.
The Attorney General retains the general authority to designate or name
individuals as "special counsels" to conduct investigations or prosecutions of
particular matters or individuals on behalf of the United States. Under
regulations issued by the Attorney General in 1999, the Attorney General may
appoint a "special counsel" from outside of the Department of Justice who acts
as a special employee of the Department of Justice under the direction of the
Attorney General.
The NSA has all of Killary's Emails in triplicate. .. If they were encrypted in transit
they can have them cracked and broken in about 10 minutes apiece.
They can search them and have them and all metadata that goes with them in a
few clicks of a mouse. .. They know what routers the Emails went through on
their way to China and Soros.
Hackers, my ass, that's what the NSA does and it has a budget of billions
and billions. ... What do people not understand about spying on the web?
Live Hard, If The FBI Wants Emails They Dial NSA-2001 And Ask For Alex, Die
Free
~ DC v2.0
smacker
Aug 25, 2016 6:20 PM
I've had BleachBit running on my system for a fair while and never been that
impressed with it, although all of these programs delete some stuff.
A far
better one that actually works well to clean stuff up is:
(Nirsoft have a huge range of small free progs for doing all sorts of
things)
Still, if the Clintonista had BleachBit running, she had
intent
.
LN
Aug 25, 2016 6:22 PM
"
FBI Admits Clinton Used Software Designed To "Prevent Recovery"
"
"Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as
shredding files to prevent recovery
, wiping free disk space to
hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to
make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source."
Besides for nefarious reasons, why else would someone use this type of
software? And to top it off, this software is open source shareware... in her
world that means free.....
It' sad that Trump campaign does not exploit this weakness of Hillary to the fullest extent...
Actually the author is wrong about "Clinton, a verb, emails." more correct is "Clinton,
a verb, to jail"
That headline is Hillary Clinton's biggest current problem. At this point, it has become akin to
how Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign used to be described: "a noun, a verb, 9/11."
Clinton has
entered similar linguistic territory, because any headline using the word "Clinton" and the word
"emails" now triggers a consistent reaction from the public. Details, even fresh new ones, don't
even really matter all that much at this point - all people are really hearing now is: "Clinton,
a verb, emails."
"... Hillary made the huge mistake of mixing public and private messages while using her personalized email server – before risking a massive scandal by refusing to make the documents public. ..."
"... Hillary is particularly concerned about intimate emails to longtime aide Huma Abedin – who married U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner in a ceremony that many ridiculed as a political arrangement. ..."
Hillary Clinton isn't just caught in a political scandal over her missing emails from her stint
as secretary of state – she's also terrified of personal revelations about a secret lesbian lifestyle!
Now a world-exclusive investigation by The National ENQUIRER reveals that some of the presidential
candidate's famously "deleted" emails are packed full of lesbian references and her lovers' names.
"I don't think she's so concerned about emails referring to her as secretly gay," said a Clinton
insider. "That's been out for years – her real fear is that the names of some of her lovers would
be made public!"
The ENQUIRER learned the list of Hillary's lesbian lovers includes a beauty in her early 30s who
has often traveled with Hillary; a popular TV and movie star; the daughter of a top government official;
and a stunning model who got a career boost after allegedly sleeping with Hillary. Hillary made
the huge mistake of mixing public and private messages while using her personalized email server
– before risking a massive scandal by refusing to make the documents public.
"That's clearly why she went to the extraordinary step of deleting everything," the high-ranking
source told The ENQUIRER .
Hillary is particularly concerned about intimate emails to longtime aide Huma Abedin – who
married U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner in a ceremony that many ridiculed as a political arrangement.
"... congressional Republicans subpoenaed three technology companies involved in her unusual home server setup. ..."
"... The subpoenas were issued after the companies did not cooperate with a House committee's investigation into the issue, said House Science panel Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas. ..."
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill Monday, congressional Republicans subpoenaed
three technology companies involved in her unusual home server setup.
The subpoenas were issued after the companies did not cooperate with
a House committee's investigation into the issue, said House Science panel Chairman
Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
"... A congressional source confirmed to Fox News Tuesday that the House Government Oversight Committee had received a heavily redacted FBI summary of Hillary Clinton's session last month with FBI agents who interviewed her about her use of a private server for government business. The agents' notes were provided as well. ..."
"... Separately, the Republican chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee confirmed that even he does not have a high enough security clearance to read the documents in full. ..."
"... "As the chairman of the chief investigative body in the House, it is significant I can't even read these documents in their entirety," Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News."This shows how dangerous it was to have this intelligence, highly classified to this day, on the former Secretary's unsecured personal server where it was vulnerable." ..."
"... The fact that portions of the FBI investigative file are heavily redacted and must be held and read by lawmakers in a secure facility on Capitol Hill shows how classified the material remains, despite claims made by the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... The campaign's call to release the FBI agents' notes appears suspect because the material is too highly classified to make public.The FBI told the committee that the documents cannot be released in part or in full without prior agency approval. ..."
"... "This information being highly classified according to the FBI is in direct conflict with what the State Department and Ms. Clinton have said is on the server. You could not have it both ways," former military intelligence officer Tony Shaffer said. "You cannot say one day this is unclassified 'nothing to see here' and the next day, only certain people can see this and you must not be able to take it outside of a secure facility." ..."
Republicans in Congress demanded the FBI turn over their notes from the
agency's interview with Hillary regarding her private email server.
The
agency dragged their feet.
But when the documents were turned over, most of the information was
hidden.
Hillary's emails contained so much classified information that the
notes were heavily redacted.
Not even members of Congress possessed the appropriate security
clearance to view the notes.
Fox News reports:
A congressional source confirmed to Fox News Tuesday that the
House Government Oversight Committee had received a heavily redacted
FBI summary of Hillary Clinton's session last month with FBI agents
who interviewed her about her use of a private server for government
business. The agents' notes were provided as well.
Separately, the Republican chairman of the House Government
Oversight Committee confirmed that even he does not have a high enough
security clearance to read the documents in full.
"As the chairman of the chief investigative body in the House,
it is significant I can't even read these documents in their
entirety," Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News."This shows how
dangerous it was to have this intelligence, highly classified to this
day, on the former Secretary's unsecured personal server where it was
vulnerable."
The fact that portions of the FBI investigative file are
heavily redacted and must be held and read by lawmakers in a secure
facility on Capitol Hill shows how classified the material remains,
despite claims made by the Clinton campaign.
The campaign's call to release the FBI agents' notes appears
suspect because the material is too highly classified to make
public.The FBI told the committee that the documents cannot be
released in part or in full without prior agency approval.
"This information being highly classified according to the FBI
is in direct conflict with what the State Department and Ms. Clinton
have said is on the server. You could not have it both ways," former
military intelligence officer Tony Shaffer said. "You cannot say one
day this is unclassified 'nothing to see here' and the next day, only
certain people can see this and you must not be able to take it
outside of a secure facility."
This just proves Hillary Clinton is a liar.
She claimed she never sent or received any information that was marked
classified.
But the redacted notes - clearly hiding information that was so
classified not even a committee chair could read it - indicate Hillary
should have known classified intelligence was on her server.
The redacted notes also call into question FBI Director Comey's
decision not to recommend criminal charges be brought against Hillary.
As more details emerge, critics are convinced Director Comey failed to
recommend charges because Obama endorsed Hillary for President.
Announcing Hillary should be charged just weeks before she was to
accept the Democrat Party's nomination for president would have thrown
the race into chaos.
It also may have handed the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a candidate
many believe because of his socialist views was too extreme to win a
presidential election.
If Hillary was indicted and lost to Trump, Republicans could dismantle
Obama's entire agenda.
Protecting his achievements - namely ObamaCare - is a central reason
Obama endorsed Hillary and has fiercely attacked Donald Trump.
And many believe the FBI took a dive on the investigation because the
Director got cold feet about involving the Bureau during a presidential
election.
"... "The truth is, she was using it for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did." (Powell added, "It doesn't bother me. But it's okay; I'm free.") ..."
"... The Clintons' blatantly dishonest attempts to cover-up and deny their scandals are almost always worse than the scandals themselves. They are shameless and believe they are above reproach ..."
"... Ha. You realize that the first time that Hillary Clinton used the term "vast right wing conspiracy" was regarding the Monica Lewinsky scandal? How did the GOP force Bill to take advantage of a subordinate? ..."
When People spoke with Powell Sunday night in the Hamptons, he was
blunter. "Her people have been trying to pin it on me,"
he said. "The truth is, she was using it for a year before I sent her a memo telling her
what I did." (Powell added, "It doesn't bother me. But it's okay; I'm free.")
JerseyCowboy > xplosneer
The Clintons' blatantly dishonest attempts to cover-up and deny their
scandals are almost always worse than the scandals themselves. They are shameless and believe
they are above reproach.
spudwhisperer > JerseyCowboy
I disagree - I think the scandals would be disqualifying and liable for prosecution even if
there were no cover-up.
mtbr1975 > xplosneer
I think a lot of that developed because of all the attempts to pin scandals on her... Can
you really blame her? Look at all the garbage she's been accused of... Everything from murder
to enabling Bill Clinton to cheat on her.
Uncle Luie > mtbr1975
100% true! From her lawyer billings in the early 80s, to Whitewater to Vince Foster,
Travel-gate and on and on. The most accurate thing she ever said was about the "vast right
wing conspiracy", also 100% true, just like Mconnell's plan to oppose and obstruct everything
Obama tries to accomplish. These people are dirt
oracle > Uncle Luie
"The most accurate thing she ever said was about the "vast right wing conspiracy", also
100% true"
Ha. You realize that the first time that Hillary Clinton used the term "vast right wing
conspiracy" was regarding the Monica Lewinsky scandal? How did the GOP force Bill to take
advantage of a subordinate?
Disqus 30 > qaz zaq
Don't forget she's the devil and founded ISIS. Those are the best ones.
Lexi > Disqus
It's true trolly. Proof is all over the place. Wow- you are defending her like she's a
saint. Nobody is doing that. You seem full of morality (Not) to defend a serial liar who
corrupted our country in the worst possible ways. Sad you.
bookish1 > mtbr1975
Sorry, but it was Hillary who decided to set up her own email server, send classified
material, refuse to authorize a Benghazi rescue mission, make millions off the Russian uranium
deal, and "mistakenly" delete 30,000 emails. If she wasn't so inept and corrupt, she wouldn't
be hit with all these "scandals."
See how that works?
jar > xplosneer
This one is particularly mendacious as she has previously publicly stated that she chose
the private server so she would only have to carry one device. Of what relevance is Powell's
prior practice if this was her motivation? The fact is that she will throw up as many excuses
and deflections as she can, without any regard for the consistency of her arguments. This is
why over 60% of the American people find her dishonest and untrustworthy (or, as a recent poll
indicated, only 11% of the public finds her honest and trustworthy).
Yoch Man > Lew
The world has NOT changed much in 25 years and being young has nothing to do with it. I
have worked in IT for 26 years at a state level. If I had done what Clinton did back in 1989 I
would have been fired and gone to jail for several reasons. aside from top secret or
classified information. FERPA and the Federal records act are just two reasons. The Federal
records act is as old as 1950. Every single document that is compiled on work computers OR
work hours belongs to the state or Federal government. I also have an obligation to protect
emails addresses, employees that I work with. I must keep their personal information
confidential. Add on top of that a nations secrets.
In 1995 Bill Clinton passed legislation and clarified the Federal records act and classified
information. See state department manual "5 FAM". It has been there for 21 years. Hillary
Clinton is lying to you.
DB > Lew • 7 hours ago
Clinton hired her own IT boy. He was not in his 60s. You can make excuses for her age all
you like..... but it doesn't work. Btw, I have friends in their 60s who run major IT depts.
Being old yourself, you should know people can stay sharp barring some physical/cognitive
issues.
Lew > bookish1
How would you grant control of 1/5 of Americas Uranium? You believe if you owned 20% of
Berkshire Hathaway you'd start pushing Buffets buttons?
You think you'd be telling the board; I'll be taking home six tractor trailer loads of wrigley
gum for my son's birthday party?
You think you'd be telling "fruit of the loom" how to put a better cheaper elastic on their
underwear?...
This company will share in Corp. profit, little more...
Tyfereth > Admiral Nelson
Loathing Donald Trump and finding Hillary Clinton's serial mendaciousness and corruption
upsetting are not mutually exclusive propositions. There is literally no one who Hillary
Clinton won't blame to avoid personal responsibility for her actions, and while it may not
matter to her supporters that she's throwing General Powell under the bus, its a sign that we
are in for 8 years of Hillary Clinton making poor decisions, and deflecting blame onto others.
Raubüberfall
Hillary's reason for using a private email server was so she could control that source of
information, which the public and other State Dept. officials would now have access to only
through her. A shadow Secretary of State, that is, unaccountable to president, public, and law
enforcement alike.
The State Department has announced that all work-related emails recovered from Hillary Clinton's
private servers will be released. In response to a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, State said
it will disclose the FBI-recovered messages. Thousands will be released to the conservative watchdog
group, which has routinely released documents obtained through open-records lawsuits. The department
stated that it had "voluntarily agreed to produce non-exempt agency records responsive to plaintiff's
[Freedom of Information Act] request."
The State Department has not set a timeline for releasing the emails, although Reince Priebus,
chairman of the Republican National Committee, has implored the department to release the emails
prior to the election in November. A court conference to discuss the case is scheduled for Aug. 22.
... the revelation that investigators found a cache of information perhaps half the size of what
Clinton initially disclosed raised questions about how she and her lawyers determined which emails
they wanted to disclose or keep private, and how extensive a search they mounted.
... ... ...
David Kendall, Clinton's attorney, didn't respond to a request for comment on the methodology,
search terms, or other techniques that he and his colleagues used.
But in July, Comey gave some insight into the process, noting that unlike FBI investigators, Clinton's
attorneys didn't actually read all her emails.
..."Is it possible because of what her lawyers did that they were erasing things that were incriminating,
maybe involving items that you were not particularly investigating but these have now been destroyed
forever?" Rep. Glenn Grothman asked the FBI director.
...In another matter related to Clinton's email server, Judicial Watch released a series of emails
to and from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin that the group said showed Clinton had offered special favors
and access to top donors to the Clinton Foundation.
The emails show that Abedin fielded requests for meetings with Clinton, which came from big donors
via other intermediaries, including a top foundation official.
This article raises two interesting questions: "Did Pagliano committed a tax fraud by not
reporting his income from Clinton foundation?" and "What information his yet unreleased emails
to Clinton and her Huma Abedin contain? Also the article does not mention that there was a
second sysadmin, which was not granted immunity from prosecution by FBI and who probably know even
more the Pagliano about the setup of the server.
Notable quotes:
"... Pagliano also had an unusual employment arrangement. He was pulling down a six-figure salary at the State Department, which put him at the high-end of the pay scale for what appeared to be an ordinary tech support job. ..."
"... Paliano was also being paid on the side in cash by the Clinton family, something his immediate supervisors didn't know ..."
"... they were never clear on precisely what his job was and didn't know that during office hours, Pagliano was working for Clinton personally to maintain her private email system ..."
"... The only statement he has given on the record was to the FBI, which has never released a transcript of the interview. ..."
"... What started out as a dream job more than a decade ago has landed Pagliano a most unenviable role-a key witness in an election year scandal. ..."
"... Pagliano first came to work for Clinton in 2006, as part of her first presidential campaign, having worked as a systems engineer for a company that provides technical support and advice to nonprofits. ..."
"... Pagliano was responsible for the campaign headquarters' data center, oversight of other technology staff in the field, and working with contractors. ..."
"... Pagliano was paid, among other sources, by Clinton's Senate leadership PAC, according to campaign finance records. A leadership PAC is used for expenses that can't be paid out of campaign or committee funds. Clinton's was set up in part to help fund other Democratic races. But an investigation by The Intercept found that money from the PAC was used more to benefit Clinton's own campaign and her staff than other candidates. ..."
"... In the first four months of 2009-just before Pagliano took a job at the State Department working for the newly installed secretary-he was paid a total of $27,850 from the leadership PAC and two other campaign funds. ..."
"... In May 2009, Pagliano was hired at the State Department, as a "Schedule C" employee, a political appointee. ..."
"... Pagliano's job came with a handsome salary-around $140,000 per year, according to personnel information compiled by FedSmith, an analysis company. That put him on the very high end of State Department earners. For example, Pagliano was making about $13,000 more than the highest base salary allowed for Foreign Service employees, which includes career diplomats who serve in overseas posts, sometimes dangerous ones ..."
"... Hiring Pagliano, a technology specialist, was itself unusual since the department is filled with similarly skilled personnel. ..."
"... Pagliano was also hired at the highest "grade," 15, on the government pay scale. Career employees spend years climbing the pay ladder. ..."
"... What exactly Pagliano did at the department, however, wasn't clear to his bosses. And later, they would question whether his employment arrangement was above board. ..."
"... That's because while earning that hefty salary as a State Department employee, Pagliano was also being paid to perform "technology services for the Clinton family," ..."
"... Between 2009 and 2013, Pagliano was paid "by check or wire transfer in varying amounts and various times," the State IG found. He worked out of State Department headquarters but also made trips to New York to check on the server and maintain it. ..."
"... he top technology officials who oversaw Pagliano and wrote his performance evaluations-told investigators that during the four years Pagliano worked there, they didn't even know he was working on Clinton's email system ..."
"... What's more, Pagliano failed to list his outside income on a required personal financial disclosure that he filed each year, The Washington Post reported. ..."
"... The government gave Pagliano what's known as "use" immunity, which means that anything he told the FBI in the course of its investigation of Clinton's email system cannot be used to bring charges against him. (If evidence of a crime emerges from other sources, the government could still prosecute Pagliano.) ..."
"... "It's hard to believe that an IT staffer who set up Hillary Clinton's reckless email server never sent or received a single work-related email in the four years he worked at the State Department," Raj Shah, the deputy communications director for the RNC, told The Daily Beast at the time. ..."
"... For him, the biggest question of all may be, "How long can you stay quiet?" ..."
...Of all the characters in the political drama of Hillary Clinton's private email server,
none has been more mysterious-and potentially more important-than a 40-year-old technology
specialist named Bryan Pagliano.
... ... ...
But Pagliano also had an unusual employment arrangement. He was pulling down a six-figure
salary at the State Department, which put him at the high-end of the pay scale for what appeared
to be an ordinary tech support job. But Paliano was also being paid on the side in cash
by the Clinton family, something his immediate supervisors didn't know. In fact, they
were never clear on precisely what his job was and didn't know that during office hours, Pagliano
was working for Clinton personally to maintain her private email system.
...Congressional Republicans have seized on the FBI's findings of multiple devices as evidence
that Clinton is lying, and they have now asked the bureau to investigate whether she perjured
herself in testimony last year that touched on the email system.
... ... ...
... a federal judge in Washington is weighing whether Clinton should be deposed under
oath by a conservative watchdog group that has been one of the Clinton family's tireless
political foes.
... ... ...
...Pagliano has remained almost entirely silent in the face of his inquisitors. He has
rebuffed congressional requests. When he was ordered to give a deposition to the conservative
watchdog group, Judicial Watch, he declined to answer every question posed to him, invoking his
Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself 125 times. The only statement he has given
on the record was to the FBI, which has never released a transcript of the interview.
For Pagliano, working for Clinton was a major career booster, and personally enriching. But it
has come at a cost. What started out as a dream job more than a decade ago has landed
Pagliano a most unenviable role-a key witness in an election year scandal.
... ... ...
Pagliano first came to work for Clinton in 2006, as part of her first presidential
campaign, having worked as a systems engineer for a company that provides technical support and
advice to nonprofits. With Clinton, he started out as a kind of assistant, "providing
technical engineering and support," but worked his way up to leading the campaign's information
technology operations, according to his LinkedIn profile. The two were friendly. On his Facebook
page, Pagliano posted photos of him posing with the secretary, as well as her husband. They have
since been removed.
Pagliano was responsible for the campaign headquarters' data center, oversight of other
technology staff in the field, and working with contractors. When Clinton accepted Barack
Obama's nomination to become secretary of state, Pagliano set up the server in the Clintons' home
in Chappaqua, New York. Bill Clinton had already been using a server for his emails, but it was
deemed too small for the workload of a cabinet secretary.
Pagliano was paid, among other sources, by Clinton's Senate leadership PAC, according to
campaign finance records. A leadership PAC is used for expenses that can't be paid out of
campaign or committee funds. Clinton's was set up in part to help fund other Democratic races.
But an investigation by The Intercept found that money from the PAC was used more to benefit
Clinton's own campaign and her staff than other candidates.
Pagliano was well compensated. In the first four months of 2009-just before Pagliano took
a job at the State Department working for the newly installed secretary-he was paid a total of
$27,850 from the leadership PAC and two other campaign funds.
In May 2009, Pagliano was hired at the State Department, as a "Schedule C" employee, a
political appointee. It's easier to hire and fire such employees than it is career
government workers, but they're also subject to strict ethics rules. Pagliano's job came with
a handsome salary-around $140,000 per year, according to personnel information compiled by
FedSmith, an analysis company. That put him on the very high end of State Department earners. For
example, Pagliano was making about $13,000 more than the highest base salary allowed for Foreign
Service employees, which includes career diplomats who serve in overseas posts, sometimes
dangerous ones.
Hiring Pagliano, a technology specialist, was itself unusual since the department is
filled with similarly skilled personnel. But Schedule C employees also have a "confidential
or policy-determining relationship to their supervisor and agency head," according to the Office
of Personnel Management. The agency head in this case was Clinton. Schedule C authorities let a
cabinet official hire whomever she thinks is best suited for the job, even if that person doesn't
meet the on-paper requirements or is creating a redundant position.
Pagliano was also hired at the highest "grade," 15, on the government pay scale. Career
employees spend years climbing the pay ladder. Pagliano had no prior government service. And
while Schedule C employees may earn higher salaries than their career counterparts-indeed, the
authorities are sometimes used to attract highly paid, skilled workers from the private
sector-Pagliano appears to have been exceptionally well compensated for someone with his
background, which aside from working for the non-profit was limited to being Clinton's technology
director.
What exactly Pagliano did at the department, however, wasn't clear to his bosses. And
later, they would question whether his employment arrangement was above board.
That's because while earning that hefty salary as a State Department employee, Pagliano
was also being paid to perform "technology services for the Clinton family," Hillary
Clinton's lawyer told the State Department inspector general (PDF), which issued a blistering
report in May on Clinton's unorthodox use of a private email server-the one Pagliano installed
and maintained for her while she was the secretary.
Between 2009 and 2013, Pagliano was paid "by check or wire transfer in varying amounts and
various times," the State IG found. He worked out of State Department headquarters but also made
trips to New York to check on the server and maintain it.
Pagliano's arrangement raised many questions for his direct supervisors at the department when
it was revealed by the IG investigation. The State Department's chief information officer and the
deputy chief information officer-the top technology officials who oversaw Pagliano and wrote
his performance evaluations-told investigators that during the four years Pagliano worked there,
they didn't even know he was working on Clinton's email system. The impression at Foggy
Bottom was that Pagliano had been brought on to support "mobile computing issues across the
entire department." His bosses thought he was at State to work for everyone, not exclusively for
Clinton.
The officials told the IG that they "questioned whether [Pagliano] could support a private
client during work hours, given his capacity as a full-time employee."
***
What's more, Pagliano failed to list his outside income on a required personal financial
disclosure that he filed each year, The Washington Post reported. Government personnel rules
don't prohibit a political appointee like Pagliano also earning a side income, but there are
limits on how much he could earn, and the amounts must be disclosed. He would also have to report
the income on his tax returns.
How much the Clintons paid Pagliano while he worked at the State Department is unclear. He
declined to grant an interview to the State Department inspector general, as did Clinton and five
of her top aides.
Neither his lawyer nor the FBI have said whether Pagliano's immunity agreement covers his
employment arrangement and any violations that could have occurred as a result of his collecting
outside income or failing to report it. But immunity agreements can be fashioned to cover any
manner of subjects.
The government gave Pagliano what's known as "use" immunity, which means that anything he
told the FBI in the course of its investigation of Clinton's email system cannot be used to bring
charges against him. (If evidence of a crime emerges from other sources, the government could
still prosecute Pagliano.)
The full details of the immunity deal haven't been revealed publicly. But some key aspects
were revealed in a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, which is seeking information on another
unusual employment arrangement-that of Huma Abedin, Clinton's senior aide. She was allowed to
hold multiple outside jobs, including for the Clinton Foundation, while also serving as Clinton's
deputy chief of staff at the State Department.
"The mere fact that the government was willing to offer Pagliano 'use' immunity here in
exchange for his testimony indicates that his fear of prosecution is more than fanciful or
speculative," Pagliano's lawyer, Mark MacDougall, wrote in a legal filing with the court hearing
Judicial Watch's case. The watchdog group also wanted to depose Pagliano. But his lawyer argued
that would put him at risk.
"Mr. Pagliano's prospective deposition will inevitably cover matters that might 'furnish a
link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute,'" MacDougall wrote. "The Court has authorized
Judicial Watch to obtain discovery relating to 'the creation and operation of clintonemail.com
for State Department business."
That subject was also the focus of the FBI investigation. So, Pagliano had reason to believe
that what he might say to Judicial Watch could put him at risk for prosecution, MacDougall
argued. As a result, Pagliano intended to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege and not answer any
of Judicial Watch's questions. The group didn't try to force him. But they wanted to videotape
the deposition. Pagliano would be captured on film, declining to answer dozens of questions about
his old boss and her complicated, careless email system. The judge ultimately ruled the
deposition would be recorded. He also required Pagliano to hand over a copy of his immunity
agreement, which was placed under seal. Judicial Watch isn't the only Clinton adversary that has
locked on Pagliano and what he knows.
Earlier this month, members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
questioned FBI Director James Comey about the findings of the bureau's investigation. Comey, who
had by then already said that Clinton was "extremely careless," left little doubt that Pagliano
was a key witness.
"What about Bryan Pagliano?… Do you know if he knew that she [Clinton] was not following
proper protocol here?" asked Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, in regards to using a
private email system, which the inspector general had determined was at odds with department
rules.
"He helped set it up," Comey replied.
"He helped set it up? So obviously he knew," Carter said.
"Yeah. Obviously he knew that," Comey said.
... Comey said that the FBI had spent "thousands of hours" figuring out the architecture of
Clinton's email system, which was far more complex than the public had realized.
"Piecing all of that back together-to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in
which personal email was used for government work-has been a painstaking undertaking," Comey
said, made harder by the complex way in which the system was maintained.
"For example, when one of Secretary Clinton's original personal servers was decommissioned in
2013, the email software was removed," Comey said. "Doing that didn't remove the email content,
but it was like removing the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on
the floor. The effect was that millions of email fragments end up unsorted in the server's
unused-or 'slack'-space. We searched through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of
the puzzle could be put back together."
Clinton's emails weren't the only ones that have been hard to piece back together. Pagliano's
have also been difficult to find.
***
In the many lawsuits brought under the Freedom of Information Act to force the release of
Clinton's emails and those of her aides-including one filed by The Daily Beast-Pagliano's emails
have been the hardest for State Department officials to locate. Initially, the State Department
claimed that there were no Pagliano emails-at least none that its investigators could discover. A
State Department official explained to The Daily Beast in May that the department had searched
for copies of Pagliano's emails in a backup known as a .pst file, but that officials couldn't
locate one for the period of time that covers Clinton's tenure as secretary. The Republican
National Committee, which had filed a lawsuit seeking copies of Pagliano's emails, was
incredulous. "It's hard to believe that an IT staffer who set up Hillary Clinton's reckless
email server never sent or received a single work-related email in the four years he worked at
the State Department," Raj Shah, the deputy communications director for the RNC, told The Daily
Beast at the time.
Also curious was that while the department found no .pst file for Pagliano's work during
Clinton's tenure, officials did find one for his work as a contractor-after Clinton had left
office. In order to reconstruct Pagliano's email record, the State Department looked for emails
of people who were likely to have corresponded with him or about him. (One such message actually
turned up in a batch of Clinton's own emails, which have been released for months now on a
rolling basis. Pagliano wrote to his boss to wish her a happy birthday. "To many more!" he wrote.
Clinton forwarded the message to an aide with a request to "Pls respond.")
...just this month, State came back with new information. Somehow, it had managed to narrow
down that giant universe of emails to just 1,300 that were either to or from Pagliano or "cc'd"
to him. The department was now confident that it could locate Pagliano's emails and turn them
over to the RNC. What may appear to some to be a willful effort to keep Pagliano's emails from
the public could also be sheer incompetence in record keeping. The inspector general criticized
the department's archiving system, and department officials have acknowledged that they need to
do a better job keeping track of officials' emails. But Republicans have seized on the missing
emails as an indication of a possible coverup, meant to protect the Democratic nominee. "Such
records might shed light on [Pagliano's] role in setting up Clinton's server, and why he was
granted immunity by the FBI," Shah told The Daily Beast. "But it seems that his emails were
either destroyed or never turned over, adding yet another layer to the secrecy surrounding his
role."
... Two technology employees told the inspector general that in late 2010 they "discussed
their concerns about Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email account" with John Bentel, who
was then the director of Information Resource Management in the office of the Executive
Secretariat, where Pagliano worked.
"In one meeting, one staff member raised concerns that information sent and received on
Secretary Clinton's account could contain Federal records that needed to be preserved in order to
satisfy Federal recordkeeping requirements," the IG found. "According to the staff member, the
Director [Bentel] stated that the Secretary's personal system had been reviewed and approved by
Department legal staff and that the matter was not to be discussed any further."
But that review didn't happen. Judicial Watch now wants to depose Bentel under oath, too. The
judge hearing the case, Emmet Sullivan, said this month that he thought the deposition should
proceed... ...Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, respectively the powerful chairmen of the
committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, have been after
Pagliano since last year to testify about the email system. Given that he has a immunity
protection, the senators have questioned why he won't speak.
... Refusing to answer questions doesn't constitute any admission of guilt on Pagliano's part.
But his silence has only fanned the flames of intrigue surrounding his role in the email scandal
and what more he may know about it.
...For him, the biggest question of all may be, "How long can you stay quiet?"
What a bunch of neoliberal piranha, devouring the poorest country in Europe, where pernneers exist
on $1 a day or less, with the help of installed by Washington corrupt oligarchs (Yanukovich was installed
with Washington blessing and was controlled by Washington, who was fully aware about the level of corruption
of its government; especially his big friend vice-president Biden).
Notable quotes:
"... Mr. Kalyuzhny was also a founding board member of a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, that hired the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm that received $1.02 million to promote an agenda generally aligned with the Party of Regions. ..."
"... Because the payment was made through a nongovernmental organization, the Podesta Group did not register as a lobbyist for a foreign entity. A co-founder of the Podesta Group, John D. Podesta, is chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, and his brother, Tony Podesta, runs the firm now. ..."
"... The Podesta Group, in a statement, said its in-house counsel determined the company had no obligation to register as a representative of a foreign entity in part because the nonprofit offered assurances it was not "directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party." ..."
"... On Monday, Mr. Manafort issued a heated statement in response to an article in The New York Times that first disclosed that the ledgers - a document described by Ukrainian investigators as an under-the-table payment system for the Party of Regions - referenced a total of $12.7 million in cash payments to him over a five-year period. ..."
"... In that statement, Mr. Manafort, who was removed from day-to-day management of the Trump campaign on Wednesday though he retained his title, denied that he had personally received any off-the-books cash payments. "The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly and nonsensical," he said. ..."
MOSCOW - The Ukrainian authorities, under pressure to bolster their assertion that once-secret
accounting documents show cash payments from a pro-Russian political party earmarked for Donald J.
Trump's campaign chairman, on Thursday released line-item entries, some for millions of dollars.
The revelations also point to an outsize role for a former senior member of the pro-Russian political
party, the Party of Regions, in directing money to both Republican and Democratic advisers and lobbyists
from the United States as the party tried to burnish its image in Washington.
The former party member, Vitaly A. Kalyuzhny, for a time chairman of the Ukraine Parliament's
International Relations Committee, had signed nine times for receipt of payments designated for the
Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, according to Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament
who has studied the documents. The ledger covered payments from 2007 to 2012, when Mr. Manafort worked
for the party and its leader, Viktor F. Yanukovych, Ukraine's former president who was deposed.
Mr. Kalyuzhny was also a founding board member of a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization,
the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, that hired the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm
that received $1.02 million to promote an agenda generally aligned with the Party of Regions.
Because the payment was made through a nongovernmental organization, the Podesta Group did
not register as a lobbyist for a foreign entity. A co-founder of the Podesta Group, John D. Podesta,
is chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, and his brother, Tony Podesta, runs the firm now.
The role of Mr. Kalyuzhny, a onetime computer programmer from the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk,
in directing funds to the companies of the chairmen of both presidential campaigns, had not previously
been reported. Mr. Kalyuzhny was one of three Party of Regions members of Parliament who founded
the nonprofit.
The Associated Press, citing emails it had obtained, also reported Thursday that Mr. Manafort's
work for Ukraine included a secret lobbying effort in Washington that he operated with an associate,
Rick Gates, and that was aimed at influencing American news organizations and government officials.
Mr. Gates noted in the emails that he conducted the work through two lobbying firms, including
the Podesta Group, because Ukraine's foreign minister did not want the country's embassy involved.
The A.P. said one of Mr. Gates's campaigns sought to turn public opinion in the West against Yulia
Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister who was imprisoned during Mr. Yanukovych's administration.
The Podesta Group, in a statement, said its in-house counsel determined the company had no
obligation to register as a representative of a foreign entity in part because the nonprofit offered
assurances it was not "directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized
in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party."
Reached by phone on Thursday, a former aide to Mr. Kalyuzhny said he had lost contact with the
politician and was unsure whether he remained in Kiev or had returned to Donetsk, now the capital
of a Russian-backed separatist enclave.
Ukrainian officials emphasized that they did not know as yet if the cash payments reflected in
the ledgers were actually made. In all 22 instances, people other than Mr. Manafort appear to have
signed for the money. But the ledger entries are highly specific with funds earmarked for services
such as exit polling, equipment and other services.
On Monday, Mr. Manafort issued a heated statement in response to an article in The New York
Times that first disclosed that the ledgers - a document described by Ukrainian investigators as
an under-the-table payment system for the Party of Regions - referenced a total of $12.7 million
in cash payments to him over a five-year period.
In that statement, Mr. Manafort, who was removed from day-to-day management of the Trump campaign
on Wednesday though he retained his title, denied that he had personally received any off-the-books
cash payments. "The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly and nonsensical,"
he said.
Mr. Manafort's statement, however, left open the possibility that cash payments had been made
to his firm or associates. And details from the ledgers released Thursday by anticorruption investigators
suggest that may have occurred. Three separate payments, for example, totaling nearly $5.7 million
are earmarked for Mr. Manafort's "contract."
Another, from October 2012, suggests a payment to Mr. Manafort of $400,000 for exit polling, a
legitimate campaign outlay.
Two smaller entries, for $4,632 and $854, show payments for seven personal computers and a computer
server.
The payments do not appear to have been reported by the Party of Regions in campaign finance disclosures
in Ukraine. The party's 2012 filing indicates outlays for expenses other than advertising of just
under $2 million, at the exchange rate at the time. This is less than a single payment in the black
ledger designated for "Paul Manafort contract" in June of that year for $3.4 million.
Ukrainian investigators say they consider any under-the-table payments illegal, and that the ledger
also describes disbursements to members of the central election committee, the group that counts
votes.
Correction: August 20, 2016
Because of an editing error, an article on Friday about the political activities in Ukraine of
Donald J. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, misidentified the office once held by
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a rival of Mr. Manafort's client, the former president Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Ms. Tymoshenko served as prime minister of Ukraine, not its president.
"... The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The
draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character
string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code
associated with the same program, SECONDDATE. ..."
On Monday, a hacking group calling itself the "ShadowBrokers" announced an auction for what it claimed
were "cyber weapons" made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower
Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software,
part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.
The provenance
of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it
remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered
with the NSA's virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency.
The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public.
The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific
16-character string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers
leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE plays a specialized role inside a complex global system built by the U.S. government
to infect and monitor what one document
estimated to be millions of computers around the world. Its release by ShadowBrokers, alongside
dozens of other malicious tools, marks the first time any full copies of the NSA's offensive software
have been available to the public, providing a glimpse at how an elaborate system outlined in the
Snowden documents looks when deployed in the real world, as well as concrete evidence that NSA hackers
don't always have the last word when it comes to computer exploitation.
But malicious software of this sophistication doesn't just pose a threat to foreign governments,
Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green told The Intercept:
The danger of these exploits is that they can be used to target anyone who is using a vulnerable
router. This is the equivalent of leaving lockpicking tools lying around a high school cafeteria.
It's worse, in fact, because many of these exploits are not available through any other means,
so they're just now coming to the attention of the firewall and router manufacturers that need
to fix them, as well as the customers that are vulnerable.
So the risk is twofold: first, that the person or persons who stole this information might
have used them against us. If this is indeed Russia, then one assumes that they probably have
their own exploits, but there's no need to give them any more. And now that the exploits have
been released, we run the risk that ordinary criminals will use them against corporate targets.
The NSA did not respond to questions concerning ShadowBrokers, the Snowden documents, or its malware.
A Memorable SECONDDATE
The offensive tools released by ShadowBrokers are organized under a litany of code names such
as POLARSNEEZE and ELIGIBLE BOMBSHELL, and their exact purpose is still being assessed. But we do
know more about one of the weapons: SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE is a tool designed to intercept web requests and redirect browsers on target computers
to an NSA web server. That server, in turn, is designed to infect them with malware. SECONDDATE's
existence was
first reported by The Intercept in 2014, as part of a look at a global computer exploitation
effort code-named TURBINE. The malware server, known as FOXACID, has also been
described in previously released Snowden documents.
Other documents released by The Intercept today not only tie SECONDDATE to the ShadowBrokers
leak but also provide new detail on how it fits into the NSA's broader surveillance and infection
network. They also show how SECONDDATE has been used, including to spy on Pakistan and a computer
system in Lebanon.
The top-secret manual that authenticates the SECONDDATE found in the wild as the same one used
within the NSA is a 31-page document titled "FOXACID
SOP for Operational Management" and marked as a draft. It dates to no earlier than 2010. A section
within the manual describes administrative tools for tracking how victims are funneled into FOXACID,
including a set of tags used to catalogue servers. When such a tag is created in relation to a SECONDDATE-related
infection, the document says, a certain distinctive identifier must be used:
The same SECONDDATE MSGID string appears in 14 different files throughout the ShadowBrokers leak,
including in a file titled SecondDate-3021.exe. Viewed through a code-editing program (screenshot
below), the NSA's secret number can be found hiding in plain sight:
All told, throughout many of the folders contained in the ShadowBrokers' package (screenshot below),
there are 47 files with SECONDDATE-related names, including different versions of the raw code required
to execute a SECONDDATE attack, instructions for how to use it, and other related files.
.
After viewing the code, Green told The Intercept the MSGID string's occurrence in both
an NSA training document and this week's leak is "unlikely to be a coincidence." Computer security
researcher Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based cybersecurity startup Comae Technologies, who has been
particularly vocal in his analysis of the ShadowBrokers this week, told The Intercept "there
is no way" the MSGID string's appearance in both places is a coincidence.
Where SECONDDATE Fits In
This overview jibes with previously unpublished classified files provided by Snowden that illustrate
how SECONDDATE is a component of BADDECISION, a broader NSA infiltration tool. SECONDDATE helps the
NSA pull off a "man in the middle" attack against users on a wireless network, tricking them into
thinking they're talking to a safe website when in reality they've been sent a malicious payload
from an NSA server.
According to one December 2010 PowerPoint presentation titled "Introduction
to BADDECISION," that tool is also designed to send users of a wireless network, sometimes referred
to as an 802.11 network, to FOXACID malware servers. Or, as the presentation puts it, BADDECISION
is an "802.11 CNE [computer network exploitation] tool that uses a true man-in-the-middle attack
and a frame injection technique to redirect a target client to a FOXACID server." As another
top-secret slide puts it, the attack homes in on "the greatest vulnerability to your computer:
your web browser."
One slide points out that the attack works on users with an encrypted wireless connection to the
internet.
That trick, it seems, often involves BADDECISION and SECONDDATE, with the latter described as
a "component" for the former. A series of diagrams in the "Introduction to BADDECISION" presentation
show how an NSA operator "uses SECONDDATE to inject a redirection payload at [a] Target Client,"
invisibly hijacking a user's web browser as the user attempts to visit a benign website (in the example
given, it's CNN.com). Executed correctly, the file explains, a "Target Client continues normal webpage
browsing, completely unaware," lands on a malware-filled NSA server, and becomes infected with as
much of that malware as possible - or as the presentation puts it, the user will be left "WHACKED!"
In the other top-secret presentations, it's put plainly: "How
do we redirect the target to the FOXACID server without being noticed"? Simple: "Use NIGHTSTAND
or BADDECISION."
The sheer number of interlocking tools available to crack a computer is dizzying. In the
FOXACID manual, government hackers are told an NSA hacker ought to be familiar with using SECONDDATE
along with similar man-in-the-middle wi-fi attacks code-named MAGIC SQUIRREL and MAGICBEAN. A top-secret
presentation on FOXACID lists further ways to redirect targets to the malware server system.
To position themselves within range of a vulnerable wireless network, NSA operators can use a
mobile antenna system running software code-named BLINDDATE, depicted in the field in what appears
to be Kabul. The software can even be attached to a drone. BLINDDATE in turn can run BADDECISION,
which allows for a SECONDDATE attack:
Elsewhere in these files, there are at least two documented cases of SECONDDATE being used to
successfully infect computers overseas: An April 2013
presentation boasts of successful attacks against computer systems in both Pakistan and Lebanon.
In the first, NSA hackers used SECONDDATE to breach "targets in Pakistan's National Telecommunications
Corporation's (NTC) VIP Division," which contained documents pertaining to "the backbone of Pakistan's
Green Line communications network" used by "civilian and military leadership."
In the latter, the NSA used SECONDDATE to pull off a man-in-the-middle attack in Lebanon "for
the first time ever," infecting a Lebanese ISP to extract "100+ MB of Hizballah Unit 1800 data,"
a special subset of the terrorist group dedicated to aiding Palestinian militants.
SECONDDATE is just one method that the NSA uses to get its target's browser pointed at a FOXACID
server. Other methods include sending spam that attempts to exploit bugs in popular web-based email
providers or entices targets to click on malicious links that lead to a FOXACID server. One
document, a newsletter for the NSA's Special Source Operations division, describes how NSA software
other than SECONDDATE was used to repeatedly direct targets in Pakistan to FOXACID malware web servers,
eventually infecting the targets' computers.
A Potentially Mundane Hack
Snowden, who worked for NSA contractors Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, has offered some context
and a relatively mundane possible explanation for the leak: that the NSA headquarters was not hacked,
but rather one of the computers the agency uses to plan and execute attacks was compromised. In a
series of tweets,
he pointed out that the NSA often lurks on systems that are supposed to be controlled by others,
and it's possible someone at the agency took control of a server and failed to clean up after themselves.
A regime, hacker group, or intelligence agency could have seized the files and the opportunity to
embarrass the agency.
"... Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. ..."
"... Separately, in a 2009 email exchange that also emerged during the F.B.I. questioning, Mrs. Clinton, who had already decided to use private email, asked Mr. Powell about his email practices when he was the nation's top diplomat under George W. Bush, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Powell's appearance in the documents, who would not speak for attribution. ..."
After months of "short circuiting" on her excuses for and defense of her use of a private
email server, Hillary Clinton has finally "revealed" why she used one in the first place. ... ...
...
Now, it turns out Hillary's trying to push blame for the whole fiasco on someone else entirely:
Colin Powell. As the
New York Times writes:
Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary
Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to
use a personal email account.
The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to
Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton
in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau's director, not to pursue
criminal charges against her.
Separately, in a 2009 email exchange that also emerged during the F.B.I. questioning,
Mrs. Clinton, who had already decided to use private email, asked Mr. Powell about his email
practices when he was the nation's top diplomat under George W. Bush, according to a person
with direct knowledge of Mr. Powell's appearance in the documents, who would not speak for
attribution.
The journalist Joe Conason first reported the conversation between Mrs. Clinton and Mr.
Powell in his coming book about Bill Clinton's postpresidency, "Man of the World: The Further
Endeavors of Bill Clinton," which The Times received an advanced copy of.
... Powell's office released a statement Friday saying the former secretary "has no
recollection of the dinner conversation." The statement did admit, however, that Powell "did
write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of a personal AOL email
account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State
Department."
The statement emphasized, however, that "at the time, there was no equivalent system within
the department." Also, Powell "used a secure state computer on his desk to manage classified
information."
As Townhall's Guy Benson explained in February, there are two key distinctions: Powell did
not set up a "recklessly unsecure private emails server" and conduct all official business on
it, and Powell only received two emails which were retroactively classified (at the lowest
level of classification!).
Clinton's email was not through a company like AOL, but on her own private server, which
was likely hacked by foreign powers like the Russians and the Chinese, according to former
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Even the Times admitted that "Powell did not have a server
at his house or rely on outside contractors, as Mrs. Clinton did at her home in Chappaqua,
N.Y."
"... Now the former first lady is refusing to even take blame for the use of the server, saying that the practice has been around for decades and that another former secretary of state. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has been an expert at bobbing and weaving around controversy during this election cycle, but the sheer magnitude of her recent scandals may end up blindsiding her with excuses this sloppy. ..."
Hillary Clinton has insisted from day one that her illegal use of a private email server was
no big deal at all, even if it put many Americans' lives at risk.
Now the former first lady is refusing to even take blame for the use of the server, saying
that the practice has been around for decades and that another former secretary of state.
"Now, it turns out Hillary's trying to push blame for the whole fiasco on someone else
entirely: Colin Powell. As the New York Times writes: Pressed by the F.B.I.about her email
practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account."
Colin Powell has denied using a private email account for anything other than non-classified
material.
"And as we know, Hillary did use that email server for sending and receiving classified
information, while Powell did not. This is yet another case of Hillary trying to push her poor
judgement onto someone else. Unfortunately for her, Colin Powell isn't willing to quietly take
the fall for her."
Hillary Clinton has been an expert at bobbing and weaving around controversy during this
election cycle, but the sheer magnitude of her recent scandals may end up blindsiding her with
excuses this sloppy.
"... The host also criticized attempts by Hillary's campaign to downplay the damage wrought by FBI Director James Comey's detailed examination of Clinton's "homebrew" server that many intelligence professionals worry compromised US state secrets. "It's not like he gave her a stellar review and an A+" said Ruhle. ..."
"... only three of them had any markings whatsoever suggesting a possible classification, and I – there's a clip from that I wish you guys would run -." Ruhle jumped in and hammered the Congressman saying, "But only three is not zero… You either did it or you didn't do it. No?" ..."
Speaking on "MSNBC Live" Congressman Matt Cartwright (D-PA) was grilled
by host Stephanie Ruhle who demanded the Clinton surrogate who was appealing to Hillary's trustworthiness
explain how the former Secretary of State did not commit perjury.
... ... ...
Laying out a montage of Hillary Clinton's statements before the Benghazi Select Committee,
host Stephanie Ruhle couldn't help but ask her guest, Clinton surrogate and Pennsylvania Congressman
Matt Cartwright, "How is that not perjury?"
The host also criticized attempts by Hillary's campaign to downplay the damage wrought by
FBI Director James Comey's detailed examination of Clinton's "homebrew" server that many intelligence
professionals worry compromised US state secrets. "It's not like he gave her a stellar review and
an A+" said Ruhle.
The Congressman responded, "Here's what we established, when I questioned Director Comey. The
Question was, well, were there things marked classified that she sent or received? And out of tens
of thousands of emails that they were reviewing, only three of them had any markings whatsoever
suggesting a possible classification, and I – there's a clip from that I wish you guys would run
-."
Ruhle jumped in and hammered the Congressman saying, "But only three is not zero… You either did
it or you didn't do it. No?"
This is a huge danger for Hillary... Now all those materials got into the hand of hostile and
very competent prosecutors.
Notable quotes:
"... "The FBI has turned over a 'number of documents' related to their investigation of former Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email server. Committee staff is currently reviewing the information that is classified SECRET. There are no further details at this time," a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee said on Tuesday afternoon. ..."
"... The handover of the records all but guarantees the email issue will continue to dog Clinton this election cycle, although it is unclear what Republicans can do with them, given that they are classified materials. Still, her decision to set up a private server at the State Department, and the subsequent fallout, remains a sizable self-inflicted wound for Clinton, even as Donald Trump's various missteps have found him lagging behind the Democrat in national and battleground state polls. ..."
The FBI on Tuesday handed over to Congress classified records from its investigation into Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email server, the latest development in the scandal that the Democratic
nominee just can't shake.
Among the materials turned over to Capitol Hill was an FBI summary of
the 3½-hour interview Clinton submitted to at FBI headquarters early last month, according to the
ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also confirmed receiving a package of records
from the FBI about the Clinton email probe.
"The FBI has turned over a 'number of documents' related to their investigation of former Secretary
Clinton's use of a personal email server. Committee staff is currently reviewing the information
that is classified SECRET. There are no further details at this time," a spokesperson for the House
Oversight Committee said on Tuesday afternoon.
The handover of the records all but guarantees the email issue will continue to dog Clinton this
election cycle, although it is unclear what Republicans can do with them, given that they are classified
materials. Still, her decision to set up a private server at the State Department, and the subsequent
fallout, remains a sizable self-inflicted wound for Clinton, even as Donald Trump's various missteps
have found him lagging behind the Democrat in national and battleground state polls.
As it sent the materials up on Tuesday, the FBI warned publicly against leaking the documents.
"The material contains classified and other sensitive information and is being provided with the
expectation it will not be disseminated or disclosed without FBI concurrence," an FBI spokesperson
said in a statement.
But top Republicans are already pushing back, urging the FBI to publicly release of some of the
information.
"On initial review, it seems that much of the material given to the Senate today, other than copies
of the large number of emails on Secretary Clinton's server containing classified information, is
marked 'unclassified/for official use.' The FBI should make as much of the material available as
possible," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a statement. "The public's business
ought to be public, with few exceptions. The people's interest would be served in seeing the documents
that are unclassified. The FBI has made public statements in describing its handling of the case,
so sharing documents in support of those statements wherever appropriate would make sense."
"... After Clinton recognized that even her strongest supporters doubted her statement, she attempted to walk it back. In doing so, she repeatedly lied again, but offered as an excuse a bizarre claim that she had "short-circuited" her answer. ..."
"... Who knows what that means? She claimed that she and Wallace were talking over each other and her answer had been misunderstood and misconstrued. Yet, Clinton said that Comey exonerated her as being "truthful" to the public when in fact he stated that she had been truthful during her three-hour, closed-door, unrecorded interview with the FBI. ..."
"... Could Clinton have legally received, opened, stored or sent a secret or top secret email without knowing it, as she has claimed? In a word: NO. ..."
"... That's because, on her first day in office, Clinton swore under oath that she recognized her legal obligation to recognize state secrets and treat them according to law - that is, to keep them in a secure government venue - whether they are marked as secrets or not. ..."
"... Last Sunday, Iran executed a scientist who sold Iranian nuclear secrets to the U.S. The secrets were eventually passed on to Secretary of State John Kerry for his use during the negotiations that led to the recent U.S.-Iran nuclear accord. But the sale of the secrets and the U.S.'s payments for them (several million dollars) were consummated under then-Secretary Clinton's watch. The scientist was lured back to Iran, fearing harm to his family. Upon his return, he was arrested, tried and convicted of treason. ..."
When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked last week if she has misled the American
people on the issue of her failure to safeguard state secrets contained in her emails, she told my
Fox News colleague, Chris Wallace, that the FBI had exonerated her. When pressed by Wallace, she
argued that FBI Director James Comey said that her answers to the American people were truthful.
After Clinton recognized that even her strongest supporters doubted her statement, she attempted
to walk it back. In doing so, she repeatedly lied again, but offered as an excuse a bizarre claim
that she had "short-circuited" her answer.
Who knows what that means? She claimed that she and Wallace were talking over each other and her
answer had been misunderstood and misconstrued. Yet, Clinton said that Comey exonerated her as being
"truthful" to the public when in fact he stated that she had been truthful during her three-hour,
closed-door, unrecorded interview with the FBI.
Clinton told a group of largely pro-Clinton journalists that she had short-circuited her remarks.
Then, she acknowledged that Comey had only referred to whatever she told the FBI as being truthful.
Then, she lied again, by insisting that she told the FBI the same things she has told the press and
the public since this scandal erupted in March 2015.
But that cannot be so, because she has issued a litany of lies to the press and to the public,
which the FBI would have caught. In her so-called clarifying remarks, she again told journalists
her oft-stated lie about returning all work-related emails to the State Department. She could not
have told that to the FBI because Director Comey revealed in July that the FBI found "thousands"
of unreturned work-related emails on her servers, some of which she attempted to destroy.
On the state secrets issue, she has told the public countless times that she never sent or received
anything marked classified. She could not have said that to the FBI, because even a novice FBI agent
would have recognized such a statement as a trick answer. Nothing is marked "classified." The markings
used by the federal government are "confidential" or "secret" or "top secret." When Director Comey
announced last month that the FBI was recommending against indictment, he revealed nevertheless that
his agents found 110 emails in 52 email threads containing materials that were confidential, secret
or top secret.
The agents also found seven email chains on her servers that were select access privilege, or
SAP. SAP emails cannot be received, opened or sent without knowing what they are, as a special alphanumeric
code, one that changes continually, must be requested and employed in order to do so. SAP is so secret
that the FBI agents investigating Clinton lacked access to the code.
Could Clinton have legally received, opened, stored or sent a secret or top secret email without
knowing it, as she has claimed? In a word: NO.
That's because, on her first day in office, Clinton swore under oath that she recognized her
legal obligation to recognize state secrets and treat them according to law - that is, to keep them
in a secure government venue - whether they are marked as secrets or not.
This past weekend, we learned how deadly the consequences of Clinton's failure to secure secrets
can be.
Last Sunday, Iran executed a scientist who sold Iranian nuclear secrets to the U.S. The secrets
were eventually passed on to Secretary of State John Kerry for his use during the negotiations that
led to the recent U.S.-Iran nuclear accord. But the sale of the secrets and the U.S.'s payments for
them (several million dollars) were consummated under then-Secretary Clinton's watch. The scientist
was lured back to Iran, fearing harm to his family. Upon his return, he was arrested, tried and convicted
of treason.
One email sent to Clinton, from Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for
Eurasian energy, referred to this scientist as "our friend." The fact that Clinton's aides referenced
this spying scientist as "our friend" shows a conscious awareness of their duty to hide and secure
state secrets - his name and what he had done for the U.S. Yet, at the same time, Clinton put these
state secrets at risk by having them sent to her via her nonsecure home servers. This "our friend"
email was a top-secret email, which Clinton failed to keep secure. It was either one of the 110 that
the FBI found on her servers or one of the work-related emails she did surrender.
Could this email have been used as evidence in the treason trial of the now-executed scientist?
That is not an academic question. Most of the intelligence community seriously mistrusts Clinton,
as her recklessness has jeopardized their work. Some feared that many of their undercover colleagues
were compromised or even killed due to Clinton's emails.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has established a clear and unambiguous record of deception. Her deceptions
are not about the time of day or the day of the week; they are about matters material to her former
job as Secretary of State and material to national security.
Do you know any rational person who continues to trust her?
Copyright 2016 Andrew P. Napolitano.
Distributed by Creators.com.
If the lamestream media were not fully in the bag for the harpy,
questions would be being asked about the mysterious death of the man whom
Assange says was the leaker to wikileaks of the Democratic National
Committee emails. Others have noted that several other people have died
mysteriously during the last few weeks including a UN figure who died from a
suspicous home weightlifting accident and an anti-Clinton researcher who
unexpectedly committed "suicide."
The Libya thing is still on record as a war crime and the fact is
indisputable that Clinton was the spearhead who convinced Obama, who has
indicated it was against his better judgment, to carry through on the
overthrow. Meanwhile, we have on record Clinton's barbaric gloat, "we came,
we saw, he died" with a horror movie type cackle. Also on record is the fact
that the jihadi element Clinton sponsored in the overthrow effort committed
a crime against humanity, a mass liquidation of Sub-saharan Africans
Khaddafi had settled in the city of Sirte in the wake of their seizure of
that city. It has been documented again in an article in this week's
blackagendareport by their regular reporter, Danny Haiphong.
Of course Trump is accused based on an ambiguous off-the-cuff comment he
made about 2nd amendment rights that he suggested violence against the
harpy. The media's cashing in on this issues makes relevant the harpy's own
statement in July, 2008 when she had been beaten by Obama but before the
convention which would confirm that defeat, that she was staying in the race
in case a "Robert Kennedy" incident occurs. This is a much more unambiguous
statement which could be construed as hoping for something favorable. Her
status as a major party candidate is a disgrace, particularly now that the
wikileaks disclosures have revealed the fraud engaged in to secure it.
Sanders, meanwhile, appears craven in light of these new disclosures. If she
triumphs, the last shreds of legitimacy will be gone from the yankee
imperium.
state secrets – just the words give me the creeps. reminds of police
states. state secrets keep the people, the employers of the united states
government, in the dark. criminal regimes everywhere flourish without
sunlight. states secrets are used as a cya tactic, as well. if the citizens
don't know what their government does, they can't object. we, the people,
are kept ignorant, which allows corruption to proliferate and produce people
like bill & hillary clinton.
hillary lied to congress, didn't she? why isn't she prosecuted?
donald trump is a braggart who lies so often and so much, the mind reels.
hillary clinton is a serial prevaricator, part-time criminal, thoroughly
corrupt, massively entitled, political hack who should have been yesterday's
news 25 years ago.
trump or clinton.
try not to cry.
Essentially Rand Paul accused Hillary of perjury before Congress that should
be punished by five year imprisonment. He is the first senator that asked for her
imprisonment.
I love Rand Paul. Sad thing tho is Rand.. we the general public is think
she has the entire government wrapped around her finger.
louis santiago
I know it, and that tells me one thing. The system creates the illusion
that we have a say on who is president, but im starting to believe we don't,
it's all a facade. It's all rigged, I think Hillary will be president, seems
to me that either the democratic party is much more powerful or because
of the fact they are running the administration it gives them leverage to
call all thr shots, even our votes.
Look at what happened with Sander's votes, all rigged.
D Googolize
How obvious does it have to be when all the evidence of corruption is
out there? Director Comey laying out all the evidence of numerous lies and
not being able to prove intent is just obvious signs of bribery, threats
or both. Same thing with the dirtbag Loretta Lynch not answering any questions
in the press conference. How many damning emails will it take??
The subtext is that it was Clinton's carelessness with classified material which got him killed. And the probability that the
reason for his return to Tehran was that his minders had assessed it was now safe for him to go back and be Washington's ear in
Tehran.
... leak also revealed anti-gay slurs, mocking African Americans and attempts to con reputable
news outlets with fake Trump videos.
The computer network used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign was
hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with
the matter told Reuters. The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows reports
of two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee and the party's fundraising committee for
candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The U.S. Department of Justice national security division is investigating whether cyber hacking
attacks on Democratic political organizations threatened U.S. security, sources familiar with the
matter said on Friday.
A very important, informative interview. Outlines complexity of challenges of modern society and
the real power of "alphabet agencies" in the modern societies (not only in the USA) pretty
vividly. You need to listen to it several times to understand better the current environment.
Very sloppy security was the immanent feature both of Hillary "bathroom" server and DNC emails hacks.
So there probably were multiple parties that has access to those data not a single one (anti Russian
hysteria presumes that the only party are Russian and that's silly; what about China, Iran and
Israel?).
Russian government would not use a "known attack" as they would immediately be traced back.
Anything, any communications that goes over the network are totally. 100% exposed to NSA data
collection infrastructure. Clinton email messages are not exception. NSA does have
information on them, including all envelopes (the body of the message might be encrypted and that's
slightly complicate the matter, but there is no signs that Clinton of DNC used encryption of them)
NSA has the technical capabilities to trace the data back and they most probably have most if not
all of deleted mail. The "total surveillance", the total data mailing used by NSA definitely includes
the mail envelopes which makes possible to enumerate all the missing mails.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Agency (NSA) has "all" of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails and the FBI could gain access to them if they so desired, William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official, declared in a radio interview broadcast on Sunday. ..."
"... Binney referenced testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track down known and suspected terrorists." ..."
"... "Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails." ..."
"... Listen to the full interview here: ... ..."
"... And the other point is that Hillary, according to an article published by the Observer ..."
The National Security Agency (NSA) has "all" of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails and the FBI
could gain access to them if they so desired, William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official,
declared in a radio interview broadcast on Sunday.
Speaking as an analyst, Binney raised the possibility that the hack of the Democratic National
Committee's server was done not by Russia but by a disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker concerned
about Clinton's compromise of national security secrets via her personal email use.
Binney was an architect of the NSA's surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when
he resigned on October 31, 2001, after spending more than 30 years with the agency.
He was speaking on this reporter's Sunday radio program, "Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio," broadcast on New York's AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia's NewsTalk
990 AM.
Binney referenced
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S.
Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track
down known and suspected terrorists."
Stated Binney:
"Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown
of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA
database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that
NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails."
"So if the FBI really wanted them they can go into that database and get them right now," he stated
of Clinton's emails as well as DNC emails.
Asked point blank if he believed the NSA has copies of "all" of Clinton's emails, including the
deleted correspondence, Binney replied in the affirmative.
"Yes," he responded. "That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right
there."
Listen to the full interview here: ...
Binney surmised that the hack of the DNC could have been coordinated by someone inside the U.S.
intelligence community angry over Clinton's compromise of national security data with her email use.
And the other point is that Hillary, according to an
article published
by the Observer in March of this year, has a problem with NSA because she compromised Gamma
material. Now that is the most sensitive material at NSA. And so there were a number of NSA
officials complaining to the press or to the people who wrote the article that she did that. She
lifted the material that was in her emails directly out of Gamma reporting. That is a direct compromise
of the most sensitive material at the NSA. So she's got a real problem there. So there are many
people who have problems with what she has done in the past. So I don't necessarily look at the Russians
as the only one(s) who got into those emails.
The Observer defined the GAMMA classification:
GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive
information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was).
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He
is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio." Follow him on
Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow
him on Facebook.
Progressives who are fed up with the Democratic leadership's adherence to the status quo are
calling for a major #DemExit on July 29. However, progressive groups, such as Black Men for
Bernie, are urging voters to stay in the party until they have a chance to vote in their states'
primaries, especially if they live in closed or semi-closed primary states.
Abstaining from #DemExit until after state and local primaries is especially important for Florida,
which has a closed primary. On August 30, Professor and legal expert Tim Canova has a chance to unseat
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whose tenure as the head of the Democratic
Party has been fraught with controversy and more recently, allegations of election fraud and rigging.
A mass exodus, therefore, could sabotage progressives' own agenda to elect officials who are challenging
incumbents and establishment candidates. As of now, 23 states and territories have local and state
primaries up until September 13, so it is imperative for current members of the Democratic party
to stay until they've voted and then commit to #DemExit.
"... We write to request an investigation to determine whether Former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton committed perjury and made false statements during her testimony under oath before congressional
committees. ..."
"... While testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 7, 2016,
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey stated the truthfulness of Secretary's testimony
before Congress was not within the scope of the FBI's investigation. Nor had the FBI even considered
any of Secretary Clinton's testimony. ..."
"... Director Comey further testified the Department of Justice requires a criminal referral from
Congress to initiate an investigation of Secretary Clinton's congressional testimony. We are writing
for that purpose. ..."
"... The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a
personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony. ..."
"... In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to
prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress,
or any other relevant statutes. ..."
"... Thank you for your attention to this important matter. ..."
"... During FBI Director Comey's testimony before Congress, he admitted that statements made by
Clinton under oath were "not true" and that her handling of this nation's classified material was "extremely
careless." ..."
It is only one more scandal. The Congressional website which contained a call from
2 Congressmen to prosecute Hillary for perjury has mysteriously been taken down.
On July 11, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) sent the following letter to US Attorney Phillps. I have been waiting
for action on this item.
I went to the Congressional website where I expected to see an update and the site is down
and has been down for 2 days. Does Hillary Clinton have that kind of power to erase this kind
of evidence with regard to sociopathic criminality?
Here is the letter written by Chaffetz and Goodlatte:
Dear Mr. Phillips:
We write to request an investigation to determine whether Former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton committed perjury and made false statements during her testimony
under oath before congressional committees.
While testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
on July 7, 2016, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey stated the truthfulness
of Secretary's testimony before Congress was not within the scope of the FBI's investigation.
Nor had the FBI even considered any of Secretary Clinton's testimony.
Director Comey further testified the Department of Justice requires a criminal
referral from Congress to initiate an investigation of Secretary Clinton's congressional
testimony. We are writing for that purpose. The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's
use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn
testimony.
In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine
whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and
false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
During FBI Director Comey's testimony before Congress, he admitted that statements
made by Clinton under oath were "not true" and that her handling of this nation's classified
material was "extremely careless."
Clinton has escaped the prosecution the Congressmen called for based upon a technicality
because she was not under oath when she was questioned. However, I have a source that said
they strongly suspect Clinton's aids in taking down this Congressional website until the Democrats
can get the above letter removed. You see, it's now to the point that even die-hard Democrats
have had it with her criminality. One more revelation could be the tipping point for many of
her supporters.
Now, the website is mysteriously down. How convenient for Hillary that this website malfunction
has taken place during the GOP convention where they could capitalize on the political fall-out
from this letter to the US Deputy Attorney.
Do want to bet that the letter from the two Congressman to the US Deputy Attorney requesting
an investigation into Clinton for perjury diappears when the website comes back up?
Here it is America, I could not make this stuff up. The following site has been down since
yesterday.
Site Under Maintenance
The site you requested is currently undergoing maintenance. Please try again later.
I'm Hillary goddamn Clinton. I'm a political prodigy, have been since I was 16. I have an insane
network of powerful friends. I'm willing to spend the next eight years catching shit on all sides,
all so I can fix this fucking country for you. And all you little bitches need to do is get off your
asses one goddamn day in November.
"Oh but what about your eeeemaaaaillls???" Shut the fuck up. Seriously, shut the fuck up and listen
for one fucking second...
But you know what? I don't fucking care. If I gave two shits about the haters I would've dropped
the game decades ago.
Many of Clinton's leading critics, among them two dozen former CIA agents, have presented a myth
that Hillary's main offence is her 'carelessness in handling official documents and her deliberate
deceptions and lies to the government.
These critics have trivialized, personalized and moralized
what is really deliberate, highly politicized state behavior. Mme. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
was not 'careless in managing an insecure mail server'. If Clinton was engaged in political liaison
with foreign officials she deliberately used a private email server to avoid political detection
by security elements within the US government. She lied to the US government on the use and destruction
of official state documents because the documents were political exchanges between a traitor and
its host
The 22 top secret reports on 'Special Access Programs' which Clinton handled via her private computer
provided foreign governments with the names and dates of US operatives and proxies; allowed for counterresponses
inflicting losses of billions of dollars in program damages and possibly lost lives.
The Inspector General Report (IGP) deals only with the surface misdeeds. The Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) has gone a step further in identifying the political linkages, but faces enormous
obstacles from Hilary's domestic allies in pursuing a criminal investigation. The FBI, whose director
is a political appointee, has suffered a series of defeats in its attempts to investigate and prosecute
spying to Israel, including the AIPAC espionage case of Rosen and Weismann and in their long held
opposition to the release of the notorious US-Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard. The power of the Zionists
within the government halted their investigation of a dozen Israeli spies captured in the US right
after the attacks of September 11,
2001.
Clinton's choice of conducting secret private communications, despite several years of State Department
warnings to abide by their strict security regulations, is an indication of her Zionist power base,
and not a mere reflection of her personal hubris or individual arrogance.
Clinton has circulated more vital top-secret documents and classified material than Jonathan Pollard.
"... FBI agents who worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server reportedly had to sign an unusual non-disclosure form banning them from talking about the case unless they were called to testify. ..."
"... Unnamed sources tell the New York Post they'd never heard of the special form - known as a "case briefing acknowledgment" - being used before, though all agents initially have to sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance. ..."
FBI agents who worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server reportedly had to sign an unusual
non-disclosure form banning them from talking about the case unless they were called to testify.
Unnamed
sources tell the New York Post they'd never heard of the special form - known as a "case briefing acknowledgment" - being
used before, though all agents initially have to sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance.
"This is very, very unusual. I've never signed one, never circulated one to others," one unnamed retired FBI chief tells the Post.
"I have never heard of such a form. Sounds strange," an anonymous FBI agent said.
The Post additionally reports some FBI agents are disappointed that Director James Comey decided against recommending that
charges be broughtagainst Clinton for her mishandling of classified information.
"FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the [Attorney
General] Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting" just hours before the release of a House report on the Benghazi, Libya
terror attack in 2012, one unnamed source tells the Post.
Another Justice Department source tells the newspaper he was "furious" with Comey, deriding him for having "managed to piss off right
and left."
"... Campaign manager Robbie Mook and communications director Jennifer Palmieri-who would later help coax the candidate into issuing an apology-agreed, according to people close to the situation. ..."
"... One thing was quite clear: Clinton was in no mood to apologize for, or even admit to, an error in judgment. She'd repeatedly tell her staff "I have done nothing wrong" and maintained she was simply following the example set by George W. Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, who had transacted much of his own State Department business over private email. ..."
Hillary Clinton is a hard woman to counsel during
a crisis. She is at times warm, at times withering-when staffers offer excuses, her favorite rejoinder
is "shoulda, woulda, coulda!"-and she's prone to fretting that her staff doesn't have her back.
For all the dysfunction on her famously infighting 2008 campaign, Clinton's team that year was
made up of many old friends who knew how to navigate her moods and reassure her when things went
sour. Facing the server scandal, Clinton headed into battle surrounded by people she hardly knew,
and a staff so new that many weren't even officially on the payroll yet. The fact that she spent
most of her time working out of a Manhattan office and seldom visited her cubicle-farm headquarters
in seriously un-hip downtown Brooklyn didn't help either.
When the story splashed onto the New York Times website on the evening of March 2, Clinton
was above all angry, and in the first strategy sessions-over the phone -- she defaulted to what old
Clinton hands refer to as "pity party mode," dismissing the media frenzy over the emails as a whiffle-ball
Whitewater while railing against the very real right-wing campaign amassed against her.
Podesta, often speaking on the road or from his home in Washington, counseled transparency and
disclosure within the legal restrictions placed on him by Kendall. Clinton's new pollster and strategist,
Joel Benenson-a longtime Obama adviser with no longstanding personal relationship with the candidate
-- advised her to take responsibility for what had been, at the least, a political mistake. Campaign
managerRobbie Mook and communications director Jennifer Palmieri-who would later help coax
the candidate into issuing an apology-agreed, according to people close to the situation.
Even Mills, Clinton's most trusted and protective adviser-a lawyer who had been aware of the server
setup as Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department-agreed on the politics. Nonetheless, Mills
had a knack for expressing the advice in the most frightening terms possible: Air your linen, she'd
say, but you'll pay a terrible personal price.
One thing was quite clear: Clinton was in no mood to apologize for, or even admit to, an error
in judgment. She'd repeatedly tell her staff "I have done nothing wrong" and maintained she was simply
following the example set by George W. Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, who had transacted
much of his own State Department business over private email.
Guardian presstitutes are ready to defend even indefensible Hillary Clinton behaviour.
Notable quotes:
"... I think that the moment she mixed personal and work related or classified information, she loses the right to claim that any of the emails were personal. Hence, all emails become connected to her work as SOS, and none of the emails can be deleted. None of her emails can be treated as personal anymore, they have now become government property. She had no right to delete anything. ..."
"... In Hillary's case, I suspect "personal emails" is a euphemism for ANY correspondence she does not want exposed in official governmental records, including that which could be used against her politically in the future, i.e. backroom deals, dubious policies, nefarious schemes, etc. ..."
This is disheartening and outrageous, with State and Justice skirting around the issues,
and as one commenter said, covering for Hillary in a partisan way.
The departments have
been largely silent on rules and legalities, and now they've evolved to tiptoeing.
Pathetic.
The comparison of government server deletions versus private server deletions
and
wipes
is inapt. Government employees and service members -- the millions who aren't as
special as Hillary with private off-site servers for their work -- surely can delete any
emails they choose, work or personal. But backup records are controlled by government IT
departments, who ideally are following records-keeping regulations.
Not so with the queen's server and email setup. She's deplorable, as is this State and
Justice mockery.
If the President continues to stand for this, I have no interest in voting. I haven't
pulled him into my disgust with this topic until now ... Justice is full of crap.
1. The media covers it but not in a
comprehensive or responsible way. The NY Times barely touches it. Same with The Economist.
The Post pushes it to those vacuous bloggers, DM and CC. The New Yorker is hiding under a
rock.
2. You would expect all to write "Calls to Action" of some kind.
3. Some kind of legal clarifications is order--several, actually. All the Title 18 items
need to be clarified for the public. Do they apply?
4. Damage analysis. What possible damage could have been done?
5. Role of the administration? How did this situation last for four years?
6. Are the deleted e-mails going to surface?
7. Cost. Why should public pay for the legal and administrative chaos of a rogue SoS?
All these issues lead to more questions. In this case, who authorized the use? Who knew?
Who responded to the existence of this rogue communications network? Who maintained? Which
if any clearances did they have? Did they share any of what they knew with others? And this
is just the most basic of this whole tsunami of needless problems. Just this avenue leads
to millions of dollars of investigative hours. Many millions...
The Guardian is being quite irresponsible here. You need to quote/date your sources and
supply links to the full documents. Which case? When? Who? It looks to me as though you are
just grabbing an article by a disreputable Metro DC publication that I am not going to
dignify by naming.
Also, assuming that something like this story is accurate, why would
DOJ do this?
Am not sure why you add a click-bait article to this complex topic--you should just
stick with the tabloid, sports, Hollywood junk articles that fill your virtual space these
days.
She simply used a classified government email system, or more likely, approved
hardcopy classified draft messages for a member of her staff to send with her
approval.
No, she didn't use a government email system (classified or not). She
used a private email system, completely outside the government.
And no, she didn't set up her own server for the purpose of having hard copies of
message drafts. So far, she has suggested a range of different reasons:
- To have just one device for both her official and personal
communications....which is a lie: she had two devices.
- She was "not thinking very much about it"... which is a lie: she had a private
server installed in her house, a domain registered under a former aide's name, and
key staffers conducting official government business on that server. And she paid
$5000 to a former IT aide to set up the system.
Report
In short, she wrongly used a private server and
personal email address for the majority of her official work, which of course is not
permissible for classified information, and questionable at best for unclassified content.
And she has wrongly lied to the American public in response to related questions.
But just because she used her private account does not mean she did not have a largely
inactive .gov address. And she also likely had a government address on a classified
government system, which she or her staff likely used when receiving or sending
marked
classified information.
Of course she had the right to delete to personal emails - keep in mind that had she used a
gov't-provided account like almost all other State Department employees she would have had
to follow the rules governing personal use of tax payer-provided equipment and services.
Ms Clinton certainly did not have the right to process classified information on a
personal computer system. That's illegal. You'd think the top executive would know such
things.
I think that the moment she mixed personal and work related or classified information,
she loses the right to claim that any of the emails were personal. Hence, all emails become
connected to her work as SOS, and none of the emails can be deleted. None of her emails can
be treated as personal anymore, they have now become government property. She had no right
to delete anything.
In Hillary's case, I suspect "personal emails" is a euphemism for ANY correspondence
she does not want exposed in official governmental records, including that which could be
used against her politically in the future, i.e. backroom deals, dubious policies,
nefarious schemes, etc.
How very cynical of you! If ever there was an opening for a 'Mr. Clean' named Joe Biden,
this is it. Hillary is plummeting in the polls. Biden is not in the race, yet he polls 20%.
After his appearance on Colbert on Thursday evening, I think that if he were to declare,
his support would double, at least. At 40%, he would be ahead of Hillary. In addition to
being thoroughly unethical, Hillary is not liked even by those who work with her.
For many, Hillary's very existence is a crime, so no amount of exoneration by the
Justice Dept... or indeed anyone else.... will change anything. The relentless
attacks will continue, and many of us will continue to see them as a clear indication
of how vulnerable the Republicans feel about their own Presidential prospects, with a
campaign that's in complete disarray, and a front runner who seems determined to
systematically alienate every single one of the demographic groups that the GOP had
hoped to court this time around. Frankly, I'd be worried too if I were a Republican!
Report
The Justice Department run by a political democratic appointee says Hillary has "rights" I
wonder.....Fast and Furious, NSA spying, Waco, refusal to disseminate information after
numerous court orders as directed under freedom of information act etc etc.. So you say we
we should stand behind whatever the justice department says....LOL. Seems they are even
more guilt of lying and cover ups then she is.
For almost all of us when using the company's equipment our emails become the property of
the company. All mail on a company server is backed up for a period of time and it is the
responsibility of the user to insure critical Emails are saved or archived properly to
prevent them from being deleted thru periodic routine house keeping by the IT department.
Being that all emails become company property and subject to review at any time by the
company it seems quite obvious this was unacceptable to the Clinton's and could lead to
problems similar to the Nixon fiasco on which Hillary cut her teeth just out of school. She
as arrogant as she is decided she could ignore the the rules and keep all her
communications to herself. She thinks if she says she did no wrong long enough people will
give up. They usually do. While that still won't make her right it certainly makes her
someone not to be trusted.
Here is the deal folks.... This person wants to be president and have the responsibilities
that go along with the office. If she can't even be competent with the little data she was
entrusted why should she be given more responsibility? Because she is a woman?
Why are we rewarding incompetence? Obama was re-elected despite the incredibly low labor
usage, declining wage growth, and skyrocketing health care costs. He made it his mission to
provide "affordable" care with the ACA, yet my rates doubled up to $500/month (compare this
with my ever decreasing car insurance rates… only $25/month from Insurance Panda now). Yet
we voted him in for 8 years? And we want to elect Hillary?
I am sorry but when you do a poor job at any job they don't promote you unless they just
want to go out of business. Also what this woman did was a crime. Nixon was impeached for
less, Edward Snowden did the same thing and is in hiding in Russia and the Government won't
let him come home, and General Petraeus was forced to resign from his position in the CIA
yet this woman is not facing any charges so far and is running for the highest office in
the land. What is wrong with this picture?
Read the entire section under 5 FAM 443.5. Nothing in the system is considered "personal"
and there is no expectation of privacy expected or granted. Cherry picking or rephrasing a
rule that anybody can read in two minutes is also no way to go about your day.
Every email has a sender and a receiver. Usually multiple servers are involved. Every email
in the system is recorded at numerous points, even if deleted at the source or destination.
A day or two with a talented engineer and a high speed search engine would recover just
about all of it. No warrant would be required for anything with a government connection. --
only the will to do it or an order from the appropriate judge.
a corrupt woman with such poor judgment and a Tory attitude toward the working class should
not be president. No wonder Sanders is rising in the polls.
To Clinton's supporters ... here's a nice summary of everything she's done wrong on this
subject, most of it intentional with no respect for most anyone.
She has purposely circumvented maintaining public records, dragged her feet in providing
records as required, and botched public attempts to claim her actions have been aboveboard
... because they haven't been.
However legal or illegal, unbelievable gullibility is
needed to assert she's done nothing wrong.
She's trying to play us, people of all political beliefs. And despite notable executive
and media support, she's largely failing, as both public responses and her reactions have
demonstrated.
Another biased article that fails to include the context of the allegations (that Clinton
had the right to delete emails) and consequently it provides a misleading impression.
This is NO vindication for Hillary Clinton - it is a defence filing in a case where the
Judge Emmet Sullivan has already decided at an earlier hearing that Clinton has violated
Government Policy with regard to the handling of emails.
As a result of his decision he ordered the State Department to tell the FBI to go
through all the emails (that are recovered - assuming they can be recovered), both business
and personal, on her home brew server to see if Hillary deleted any emails she should have
handed over to him as part of the FOI case.
Now Clinton's people are up in arms - Why? Is it because she deleted embarrassing emails
regarding Benghazi? Is it because the FBI (having been instructed by a Federal Judge) might
end up reading emails relating to dodgy dealings at the Clinton Foundation?
In the deeply Politicised US Civil Service both the State Department and the Justice
Department are objecting to the Judge's decision and are attempting to limit the inquiry.
For those that naively (or perhaps because they support Hillary) believe this is simply
a political attack by GOP opponents - It is worth remembering the FBI investigation was
launch by the Inspector General and decision to have ALL emails examined was made by a
member of the Judiciary (appointed ironically by Bill Clinton).
Both parties cited above are independent of the GOP.
Also for the record Hillary did NOT delete the emails at the time - She deleted them
some 18 months after leaving office (according to her lawyer some time after October last
year) and AFTER several investigations had been launched.
If Hillary Clinton deleted info relating to matters under investigation after an
investigation was launched (destroying evidence) then that is a felony offence.
Hillary understood the seriousness of the question when asked did she wipe the server -
That is why she replied along these lines: With a cloth or something.
Again this is no vindication of Clinton - Instead it is a lame defence to a serious
charge to a Federal Judge who has already decided in the matter.
What do you Brits know about the "Fast and Furious" scandal in the Dept. of Justice ?
; to have a perspective of how outrageous this was , consider this hypothetical
situation.
In Manhattan , a narcotics squad interdicts a gang of drug dealers , a
"shoot-out" erupts, and one of the squad members is murdered. The firearm that was
used to commit the murder is seized , and an investigation reveals the "Source" of
the murder weapon was-- the Office of the District Attorney on New York County!! (
Manhattan)
The D- A's Office was supplying drug criminals with firearms?; would never happen
you might say. But that's EXACTLY what happened in the "Fast and Furious" scandal
when Eric Holder was Attorney-General; the ATF division of the U. S. Dept. of Justice
was selling firearms to members of Mexican drug cartels , and a Border Agent was
murdered by a weapon supplied by the ATF division of the Justice Dept.
So much for the Dept. of Justice under the current President. The present A-G ,
Loretta Lynch , is loyal to the President and the Democratic Party , but not loyal to
"Justice".
Report
"I believe in an open, transparent government that is
accountable to the people. Excessive government secrecy harms democratic governance and can
weaken our system of checks and balances by shielding officials from oversight and inviting
misconduct or error. ... To me, openness and accountability are not platitudes _ they are
essential elements of our democracy."
-- Hillary Clinton, May 2008 in response to Sunshine Week survey of presidential
candidates.
Hillary just needs to lie the U.S. into a very costly war in terms of American and
indigenous deaths, trillions of dollars and significant more destabilization in the
Mideast.
The State Department guidelines for emails had prohibited use of a private server since
2005.
Yet she still keeps saying that what she did was allowed.
Hillary's State Department fired U.S. Ambassador Scott Gration (Kenya) in part for using
private emails to evade agency rules.
Hillary said the emails she deleted included private ones between her and her husband.
Her husband's spokesman, within days, announced surprise at that, since Bill Clinton has
only sent two emails in his entire life...and not to Hillary.
She is a liar. And a felon in violation of the Espionage Act.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives formally
referred Hillary Clinton's testimony to the FBI for investigation into
perjury/false statements under oath.
Hillary Clinton, as you well know, made no less than three false
statements under oath during her previous Congressional testimony.
She declared she never sent any emails with information marked
classified.
She did
.
She asserted that she handed over all of her work-related emails.
She didn't
.
And she claimed that her attorneys went through all of her emails
before deciding what to turn over and what to delete.
They didn't
.
The FBI will now investigate and submit a recommendation to Loretta
Lynch.
But after yesterday's joke of a hearing, does anyone really think that
Lynch would prosecute Hillary Clinton? Lynch refused to answer at least
74 questions pertaining to the Clinton email scandal.
She was asked point-blank to explain her reasoning in declining to
indict Hillary Clinton and each time, she just refused to answer.
Unfortunately, after yesterday's performance, it is clear that even if
the FBI does find evidence that Hillary Clinton committed perjury or made
false statements under oath – which is absolutely obvious – Lynch will
protect the Clintons once again.
But there is a way to take Loretta Lynch out of the equation entirely.
There is a way to ensure that a Grand Jury is impaneled and that both the
FBI and DOJ would be powerless to stop it.
When the House refers a matter to the FBI, there is no guarantee that
anything will come of it. Technically, the FBI doesn't even need to
accept the referral.
Even when there are so many clear lies and false statements, the Obama
administration can still derail such an investigation at every level.
The same is not true for
Contempt of Congress
charges.
When Congress charges someone with Contempt, the law is actually
written to take the DOJ and FBI pretty much out of the equation.
According to the law, the Attorney General has a "duty" to impanel a
Grand Jury for action on a Congressional Contempt charge. The law does
not allow the DOJ or FBI to insert themselves into the case if they don't
agree with the findings. It the House votes to charge someone with
Contempt of Congress, the Sergeant at Arms is instructed to have that
individual arrested and, if necessary, is given the power to imprison
someone in the Capitol Jail pending the Grand Jury's decision.
In 1983, the House of Representatives held Rita Lavelle, an EPA
administrator, in Contempt of Congress for lying under oath. The Attorney
General impaneled a Grand Jury, as the law requires, and Rita Lavelle was
convicted and ultimately served three months of her six month sentence.
This isn't some obscure function that hasn't been used since the
1800s. This is a legitimate method for Congress to hold administration
officials accountable without having to deal with corruption in the
Executive Branch.
One floor vote. That's all it takes. One House of Representatives
vote.
It takes 218 "yes" votes and then the House can force the Attorney
General to impanel a Grand Jury. Just to put it in perspective,
twenty-nine RINOs could vote with the Democrats and there would still be
enough votes to hold Hillary in Contempt.
No more political interference… no more re-interpreting the law to get
Hillary off the hook…
"... The classified status of her emails was not her only lie under oath. She also testified that she had submitted all her work related emails to the FBI. Now it is apparent that was also a complete fabrication, as the FBI reports thousands of other work related emails retrieved from the recipient's servers. ..."
"... The biggest example of her intentional deception is that she testified that she only had one server and Comey said she had several. Since those are physical objects she had to know that she had more than one. To claim ignorance not only asserts that she didn't know simple math, but that as a former senator who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that she didn't understand what classified information meant, the same Hillary Clinton who earned her law degree from Yale. ..."
Cary
Aguillard, Opinions are like a**holes; everybody's got one and nobody wants to hear yours!
237 Views
She unquestionably lied under oath at the Benghazi hearings about the sending of classified
emails through her personal server. Mrs. Clinton clearly stated that she sent no classified information
through her emails. Period. Now we know this is a big, fat lie. Under sworn oath.
The classified status of her emails was not her only lie under oath. She also testified that
she had submitted all her work related emails to the FBI. Now it is apparent that was also a complete
fabrication, as the FBI reports thousands of other work related emails retrieved from the recipient's
servers.
Multiple lies under oath. Perjury. If you or I distorted the truth to that extent under oath,
they would lock us up and destroy the key. The time for perversion of justice in
favor of this habitual criminal offender is over. If charges of perjury are not brought then our
entire justice system will be proven corrupt in the eyes of America and the world. End this embarrassment,
and let justice be served!
"All of my work related emails, yes." All that weren't erased and all the hard copies that
were put into burn bags don't count by her reasoning. If she had nothing to hide why did her staff
take the 5th so frequently? Of course she committed perjury.
Drew McCormick , No,
Hillary did not lie about Benghazi 91 Views
No. She instructed her lawyers to release all work related emails and they, based on the headings,
separated out all of those that seemed to be work related. They then told her that they had released
all her work related emails.
Apparently the Lawyers did the job competently but not thoroughly, as the FBI did identify
a few emails that should have been released.
Since Hillary believed her Lawyers and their statements, she did not lie. She may have
been mistaken, but it does not meet minimal standards for perjury.
A couple of points for those who didn't pay attention the last time a Clinton was baselessly
charged: Lying is not perjury. It has to be material to the investigation in order to be perjury.
Obviously this didn't meet that standard since none of her emails were informative to the case.
The second is that being mistaken is not a lie. If a New York Times reader believed that there
were extant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they would be mistaken, but their statements
would not knowingly be false. When the British politicians stated that, however, they were lying.
I believe she did. She certainly made false statements under oath, and I think there is sufficient
evidence to show that she knowingly and intentionally made false statements. The continuous references
to "marked" emails as a qualifier is used by her supporters as a safety net that is irrelevant
since classified information is classified whether or not it is marked. Moreover, since so many
emails were kept on her private servers they could not have been passed on to officials whose
job it was to make markings.
The biggest example of her intentional deception is that she testified that she only had one
server and Comey said she had several. Since those are physical objects she had to know that she
had more than one. To claim ignorance not only asserts that she didn't know simple math, but that
as a former senator who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that she didn't understand what
classified information meant, the same Hillary Clinton who earned her law degree from Yale.
Does this mean that she will be recommended for an indictment, prosecution or any penalty?
Probably not. She could probably order a hit squad and leaders of her party would protect her
as her supporters would cheer her on.
TEL AVIV – Did former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commit perjury when she claimed in a
Senate hearing that she did not know whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or
transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries?
The goal of the alleged weapons shipments was to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's regime.
Any training or arming of the Syrian rebels would be considered highly controversial. A major
issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army
and other Syrian opposition groups
During the recent hearings over the Obama administration's handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack
on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Clinton was directly asked about alleged U.S. weapons shipments
out of Libya.
Clinton claimed she did not know whether the U.S. was aiding Turkey and other Arab countries in
procuring weapons.
The exchange took place with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Paul asked Clinton: "Is the U. S. involved with any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons,
buying, selling, anyhow transferring weapons to Turkey out of Libya?"
"To Turkey?" Clinton asked. "I will have to take that question for the record. Nobody has ever
raised that with me."
Continued Paul: "It's been in news reports that ships have been leaving from Libya and that may
have weapons, and what I'd like to know is the annex that was close by, were they involved with
procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons, and were any of these weapons being transferred to
other countries, any countries, Turkey included?"
Clinton replied, "Well, Senator, you'll have to direct that question to the agency that ran
the annex. I will see what information is available."
"You're saying you don't know?" asked Paul.
"I do not know," Clinton said. "I don't have any information on that."
Clinton's claims seem to now be unraveling.
Confirming WND's exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times earlier this week
reported that since early 2012, the CIA has been aiding Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining
and shipping weapons to the Syrian rebels.
Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND have said U.S.-aided weapons shipments go back
more than a year, escalating before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. facilities in
Benghazi.
In fact, the Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND since last year describe the U.S.
mission in Benghazi and nearby CIA annex attacked last September as an intelligence and planning
center for U.S. aid to the rebels in the Middle East, particularly those fighting Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The aid, the sources stated, included weapons shipments and was being coordinated with Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The specifics of the New York Times reporting, meanwhile, open major holes in Clinton's sworn
claims to be in the dark about the alleged weapons shipments.
U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the Times that American intelligence
officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons and then helped to vet rebel
commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.
The plan mirrors one the Times reported last month in a separate article that was proposed by
Clinton herself. The Times described Clinton as one of the driving forces advocating for arming
the Syrian rebels.
Last month, the New York Times reported Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus had
concocted a plan calling for vetting rebels and arming Syrian fighters with the assistance of
Arab countries.
The Times report from earlier this week of U.S. arms shipments and vetting seems to be the
Clinton-Petraeus plan put in action.
It may be difficult for most to believe the secretary of state was not aware that her alleged
plan was being implemented, especially when arming the Syrian rebels is a serious policy with
obvious major repercussions internationally.
Clinton is not the only one in hot water.
As WND reported yesterday, the New York Times report threatens the longstanding White House
narrative that claims the Obama administration has only supplied nonlethal aid to the rebels.
The White House has repeatedly denied directly arming the rebels.
Recruiting jihadists
Days after the Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, WND broke the
story that Stevens himself played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Assad's regime
in Syria, according to Egyptian and other Middle Eastern security officials.
Stevens served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of
Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya. The jihadists were sent to Syria via Turkey to
attack Assad's forces, said the security officials.
The officials said Stevens also worked with the Saudis to send names of potential jihadi recruits
to U.S. security organizations for review. Names found to be directly involved in previous
attacks against the U.S., including in Iraq and Afghanistan, were ultimately not recruited by the
Saudis to fight in Syria, said the officials.
The latest New York Times report has bolstered WND's reporting, citing air traffic data,
interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders describing
how the CIA has been working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase arms shipments
to Syrian rebels in recent months.
The Times reported that the weapons airlifts began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued
intermittently through last fall, expanding into a steady and much heavier flow late last year,
the data shows.
The Times further revealed that from offices at "secret locations," American intelligence
officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from
Croatia. They have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons
as they arrive.
The CIA declined to comment to the Times on the shipments or its role in them.
The Times quoted a former American official as saying that David H. Petraeus, the CIA director
until November, had been instrumental in helping set up an aviation network to fly in the
weapons. The paper said Petraeus had prodded various countries to work together on the plan.
Petraeus did not return multiple emails from the Times asking for comment.
Both WND's reporting, which first revealed the U.S.-coordinated arms shipments, and the Times
reporting starkly contrast with statements from top U.S. officials who have denied aiding the
supply of weapons to the rebels.
Rebel training
It's not the first time WND's original investigative reporting on U.S. support for the Syrian
rebels was later confirmed by reporting in major media outlets. Other WND reporting indicates
support for the Syrian rebels that goes beyond supplying arms, painting a larger picture of U.S.
involvement in the Middle East revolutions.
A story by the German weekly Der Spiegel earlier this month reporting the U.S. is training Syrian
rebels in Jordan was exclusively exposed by WND 13 months ago.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not
clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine
said some organizers wore uniforms.
The training in Jordan reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months
amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the
south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan
along with British and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the
Der Spiegel report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also
would not comment to Reuters.
While Der Spiegel quoted sources discussing training of the rebels in Jordan over the last three
months, WND was first to report the training as far back as February 2012.
At the time, WND quoted knowledgeable Egyptian and Arab security officials claimed the U.S.,
Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of
Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
Editor's note: Additional research by Joshua Klein
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/did-hillary-commit-perjury/#GD9uo2OOii2wJdpE.99
"... Wheeler thinks Comey is covering for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, his boss, whose reputation for impartiality was damaged by her recent tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton. Wheeler writes, "By overstepping the proper role of the FBI here, Comey surely gave Lynch cover - now she can back his decision without looking like Bill Clinton convinced her to do so on the tarmac." ..."
"... That's the money line right there. Just as back in the 50's, all of this is based on simplistic moralistic arguments concerning intent to harm the state. HRC virtually embodies the modern state, and thus, her intent cannot and will not ever ..."
"... I agree absolutely. And I would add that the "state" now a days is far more of an ideological monolith than 60 or even 40 years ago. Any "serious" person in the upper echelons of the US governing class believes in the all security state, and whatever is necessary to maintain it. ..."
"... If Daniel Ellsberg had done today what he did in the '70's, he would be in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison, and there would be NONE in the high reaches of the US governing class opposed to this outcome. ..."
"... Or by Exxon and JP Morgan so they could get even more details on how to make a fortune off our tragic foreign policy. http://www.ibtimes.com/campaign-2016-hillary-clinton-pitched-iraq-business-opportunity-us-corporations-2121999 ..."
"... The government tries to stuff this hero/traitor dichotomy up our butts but Manning, Sterling, and Drake are human rights defenders. Manning defended our right to information freedom. Sterling defended our human right to peace by denouncing illegal war propaganda. Drake defended our human right to privacy from illegal NSA surveillance. ..."
"... Chelsea Manning's trial was a classic case for Francis Boyle's civil resistance framework. The issue was not only information freedom but denunciation of war crimes. Under federal law and the Army Field Manual, disobedience was Manning's legal duty. But we heard this drumbeat of he wouldn't dare, he wouldn't dare The implication was, he'd be punished more harshly for explicitly complying with the federal law of war crimes. ..."
"... Human rights defenders like Sakharov, Sharansky, and Slepak helped reform the USSR out of existence. Manning, Sterling, Drake, and the ones who come after them will do the same for all of us Americans trapped in the USA. ..."
"... I like the way you think. Those who defend human rights by pointing fingers at the state for its transgressions are considered traitors, while those who embody the state, yet violate its laws are exonerated. Isn't that pretty close to placing the state above the law – a police state? ..."
"... Yeah depending on to whom she was trading our government secrets for, it doesn't really matter that it was (for example) through intermediaries like Blumenthal in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation and not out of loyalty to a foreign country. There is still the potential that she did things that constituted espionage. ..."
"... Hillary's email debacle and subsequent lack of prosecution is an important milestone on the road to widespread recognition that America has become a third world banana republic. This has undermined belief in the system, credibility of government, and ultimately the global empire. ..."
"... Four months after Clinton left the State Dept, she was still keeping her emails at home, in violation of a requirement to turn them over for official archiving. Had it not been for Guccifer, she would never have turned them over. ..."
"... The commenter is looking at Comey's unusual public statement through the lens of DOJ group-think makes it seem driven by "the need for absolute transparency." This is how they pass the buck in that organization. Comey's statement makes perfect sense inside the DOJ - his assertion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would file charges only makes sense to a careerist to whom pleasing their superiors is the only "sensible" and "reasonable" behavior, and to whom actual justice is a mere abstraction. ..."
"... Apparently at the DOJ, as with Antonin Scalia*, the law is not about right and wrong, innocence or guilt. Its about CYA and protecting the prerogatives of the state. ..."
"... Read Bill Moushey's 10-part "Win at All Costs" series on the federal conviction mill, and you would not even want an "AUSA" living in your neighborhood, for fear of being swept up in their mindless criminal dragnet. ..."
"... As a prosecutor of 32 years successful legal practice, let me just say: "You're wrong." The only mens rea ..."
"... This sort of violation is the easiest thing in the world to prove to a judge or jury, and I've personally taken scores of unanimous jury verdicts involving General Intent crimes. Petraeus was easily convicted of this violation, and many men and women have been cashiered and/or imprisoned for it, especially by the Obama Justice Department. No Ken Starr crusade required - the evidence is beyond dispute ..."
"... My brother is in the service with a security clearance and they are all furious. They said what she did is illegal and if anyone else did it they would be prosecuted . ..."
"... The Clintons are grifters and it would not surprise me if most of those deleted emails involved starting wars in other countries, TPP and scamming for the foundation. The claim she was too stupid to know what she was doing was wrong is ludicrous. If she wins the presidency we need a congress full of tea partiers so she cannot enact anything. ..."
"... The retired LTG who was vetted by Trump for veep also said if it was him, he would be doing jail time for what Hill did. I'm sure that's why Trump would love to have this guy as an attack dog on the campaign trail. ..."
"... I have a cousin who is a commander in the Navy with Southern Command who nearly never talks publicly about "politics" or much that is in the media. He speaks with his near family and very close friends, but widely or on any sort of social media, no way. He is irate about Clinton not being prosecuted. He sees this as an issue of justice and national security and is very public about his views. I asked him why he was willing to be so public with his views in this instance and he explained it is based on the seriousness of the crimes and the undermining of all he believes he is serving for. ..."
"... I used to be a USAFA nuclear launch officer. One of my fellow officers (unthinkingly) brought a crew bag into the classified vault where we were processing a rev change (a periodic change to procedures, methods and/or targets). One of the sheets from the old rev slipped into his crew bag. He took the crew bag into the (occupied) squadron office where it sat for several hours. The destruction inventory came up short. The sheet was found in the officer's crew bag. Consequences were brutal. He was immediately relieved of duty. I never saw him again. The entire squadron was given a mandatory security refresher and told that the consequences for being *involved* in such negligence would, at the least, result in a dishonorable discharge and quite likely would involve an extended stay in Leavenworth, KS. Involvement could include just being in the line of sight of unauthorized containers such as a crew bag. ..."
"... I think this is a basic feature of a totalitarian or fascist state. Make a lot of laws and then enforce only the ones that serve your ends. Whether it's the Espionage Act or a traffic violation, it's then up to the state to decide who they want to punish. Now every time I hear the phrase "rule of law", I think of this. I don't know if we were ever "a nation of laws, not a nation of men", but we can safely say now that we are officially not. ..."
"... To wit, Either Comey, loyal Republican that he is, wants to see Trump elected president and figures that the best thing he can do in that respect is to issue a scathing non-indictment of Clinton, thereby wounding but not killing her candidacy ..."
"... I would argue that the very fact that Comey issued a public opinion on prosecution (completely outside the FBI remit) should be clear evidence of bias and invalidate their investigation and his statements on the basis they were prejudiced. A clever counsel could, in fact, use this as a defence if HRC is indeed tried. Comey, like Lynch, should have been recused. There is bias written all over this entire debacle. ..."
"... The true smoking gun will be the Clinton Foundation, variously described by others as a fraud, a giant slush fund,or a private criminal hedge fund. Just the optics of the pay-for-play circumstances of arms deals, corporate takeovers, mineral concessions, etc. should be more than sufficient to empanel a Grand Jury. Less than $1billion of the $4billion raised for Haiti's earthquake relief effort was ever spent. Where's the rest? Remember the commercials? Poppy Bush and Bill sitting side by side pleading for money. ..."
"... This article doesn't explain why a punishment such as the one given to Petraeus was not considered by Comey or the DOJ. Petraeus was an elite insider who was not a spy and did not threaten the state, yet he still received a minor punishment so as not to delegitimatize the legal system and in order to give at least a minimal impression of fairness. Since Comey said it was possible - and most experts say very possible - that foreign governments read Hillary's emails, she may have caused significant damage to the US national interest over four years. Therefore even a loyal elite could expect to be at least fined for such gross negligence. Why wouldn't a fine and a reprimand and/or temporary loss of security clearance be normal even for a loyal DC insider? This suggests that the power of the Clinton Machine and its real-world ability to deliver retribution was the deciding factor in the lack of any suggestion of indictment. Comey surely wants to keep his job. ..."
"... The article also fails to deal with the fact that Comey mistakenly claimed that only one person had ever been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act. This is clearly not the case, and you list some of those prosecuted. There have also been several other convictions, including US vs. McGuinness in 1992 (see Andrew C. McCarthy, "Military Prosecutions Show That A Gross Negligence Prosecution Would Not Unfairly Single Out Mrs. Clinton" National Review (7/7/2016), CIA director John Deutch in 1997 (pardoned by Bill Clinton), James Hitselberger (who carried classified documents off his naval base in 1997 and simply kept them), and Jason Brezler, a Marine Major who sent classified information about a dangerous Afghan mayor in order to warn a colleague in 2014 (he is now appealing his conviction based on Comey's criteria). Also please see Jared Beck, "Why Hillary Clinton's Emails Matter: A Legal Analysis" (6/6/2016): Beck lists 4 convictions under 793(f) alone. Also see Beck's "Comey's Volley, Or The Indictment That Wasn't" (7/11/2016). You also need to deal with the question of why Comey ignored the obvious fact that Hillary willfully and knowingly broke State Department rules in setting up the private server and therefore knew she was endangering security. The fact that Comey gave a false number of prosecutions under s. 793 and avoided mention of willful, knowing acts by Hillary suggests his decision to oppose indictment was a political decision, not a legal decision. ..."
"... Let's say Comey and Lynch get together and agree that Clinton should be indicted. That's fine, but what, they ask, are the chances be of having a fair trial in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. before a Clinton inauguration made one meaningless)? What are the chances of it not turning into a highly politicized media circus? The answer of course is zero. ..."
"... Jill Stein and Gary Johnson take more support from Clinton than Trump. Many Millennials or 35 and under will either go with Stein or Johnson. It may be enough to keep her out of the White House. ..."
"... I will point out that regardless of the motives we impute to Comey his presentation on July 5 did real damage to HRC. She has lost ground in the polls taken since then and the GOP has resurrected this issue as a cudgel. Not sure if that makes people around here feel better or not. ..."
"... Comey (in his mind) fatally wounded Hillary Clinton without exposing himself as a coverup merchant. He is wrong of course but he definitely resides in a fool's bubble. Comey handed enough specifics of evidence to enable a wholesale demolition any credibility HRC had left. The dogs of war are out baying for her blood as a result. ..."
"... My guess is that Comeys antics will drive the detestation of HRC harder and deeper to point where she will have little margin with Trump. ..."
By Gaius
Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent
contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter
@Gaius_Publius ,
Tumblr and
Facebook . Originally published
at
at Down With Tyranny . GP article
here
It's going to be a while before the jury of informed comment returns a verdict regarding James
Comey's pre-emptive declaration of "no prosecution" for Hillary Clinton. But let's see what a
first look gets us. I want to start with a couple of points made by Marcy Wheeler, then amplify
them from other sources. The questions at issue are:
Should James Comey have made the call not to prosecute? Should Clinton be prosecuted at all?
If she should be prosecuted, why? If she should have been prosecuted, why wasn't she?
Some of these questions we can answer now. Others will have to wait until the people who specialize
in this material discuss it more fully, which could take a while.
Comey Had No Business Making a Prosecutorial Decision
Before we get into his argument, consider a more basic point: It is not Jim Comey's job
to make prosecutorial decisions . Someone else - whichever US Attorney oversaw the prosecutors
on this case, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, or Loretta Lynch - makes that decision.
[H]e has no business making this decision, and even less business making it public
in the way he did (the latter of which points former DOJ public affairs director Matthew Miller
was bitching about).
FBI Director Comey Preempts Justice Department By Advising No Charges for Hillary Clinton
FBI Director James Comey took the unprecedented step of publicly preempting a Justice Department
prosecution when he declared at a
press conference Tuesday that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against Hillary
Clinton for her use of a private email server.
The FBI's job is to investigate crimes; it is Justice Department prosecutors who are supposed
to decide whether or not to move forward. But in a case that had enormous political implications,
Comey decided the FBI would act on its own.
"Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing
to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case," he said. Prosecutors could
technically still file criminal charges, but it would require them to publicly disagree with
their own investigators.
Matthew Miller, a former spokesman for the Justice Department under Eric Holder, also agrees,
and is quoted by both Wheeler and Emmons. Emmons account (my emphasis):
Matthew Miller, who was a spokesman for the Department of Justice under Attorney General
Eric Holder, called Comey's press conference an " absolutely unprecedented, appalling, and
a flagrant violation of Justice Department regulations. " He told The Intercept
: "The thing that's so damaging about this is that the Department of Justice is supposed
to reach conclusions and put them in court filings . There's a certain amount of due process
there."
Legal experts could not recall another time that the FBI had made its recommendation so
publicly.
"It's not unusual for the FBI to take a strong positions on whether charges should be brought
in a case," said University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck. " The unusual part is
publicizing it ."
Which leaves us with a mystery. Why did Comey do this?
It Looks Like Comey Said "No Prosecution" So Loretta Lynch Wouldn't Have To
Wheeler thinks Comey is covering for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, his boss, whose reputation
for impartiality was damaged by her recent tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton. Wheeler writes, "By
overstepping the proper role of the FBI here, Comey surely gave Lynch cover - now she can back
his decision without looking like Bill Clinton convinced her to do so on the tarmac."
Emmons largely agrees:
Given the extraordinary circumstances, Vladeck called it "both unusual and completely unsurprising
that Comey went out of his way to make this statement."
He added: "It's certainly preemptive on Comey's part."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch was widely
criticized for meeting with former President Bill Clinton last week while his wife was
still under investigation
You read that right: "unusual and completely un surprising." For Emmons and Vladeck
it appears to be a case of insiders going out of their way, far out of their way in fact, to cover
for insiders. Given how unprecedented Comey's speech was, I think we have to accept this hypothesis
until others weigh in with more likely alternatives. This seems perfectly plausible to me. I can
think of another motives for Comey's actions, but they don't exclude this one.
Should Clinton Be Prosecuted Despite Loretta Lynch's Refusal to Do So?
So far, we've been able to answer the first question, should Comey have made the call not to
prosecute? The answer is clearly no. But that only gets us started. As to the prosecution itself
- should she be prosecuted and why? - we're in more complicated territory, which I hope to make
clear.
(Note, by the way, that in my heading just above, I'm transferring responsibility for the refusal
to prosecute from Comey back to the Justice Department, where it belongs . I suggest in
thinking about this that you do the same. Comey notwithstanding, it's Lynch who has the authority,
and Lynch who is refusing to prosecute.)
About prosecution, there are many laws that Clinton appears to have broken. In fact, there
may develop a minor cottage industry that lists them. Comey himself identified some transgressions
during his post-announcement speech (my emphasis below):
[S]even e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special
Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary
Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the
same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary
Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding
about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
Note that this confirms, by the way, the fact that Special Access Program (SAP) information
- one of the highest, most sensitive levels of secret the government possesses - was indeed housed
on the server. Brian Pagliano, in doing any number of maintenance chores at the Clinton IT home-headquarters,
could have read it, as could anyone helping him. Risking SAP information will be a tripwire for
many in the intelligence community, who are likely to regard its mishandling as unforgivable.
This is one of those areas where we'll know more over time as specialists weigh in. (The political
response of the intel community, if any, could also be interesting, in a "drama of retaliation"
way. This may not occur, but it's one of the possibilities.)
Next Comey adds:
In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was
properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed
on e-mail (that is, excluding the later "up-classified" e-mails). None of these e-mails
should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning
because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported
by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government-or
even with a commercial service like Gmail.
In other words, despite Ms. Clinton's allegations that nothing she sent or received was "marked
classified at the time" - her statements were incorrect. (Note that the extent of this violation
is in doubt, however; i.e., the exact number of these "properly classified" emails and their contents
was not revealed. Below, as you'll read, Comey admits that the number of these emails is "very
small." Wikileaks
disagrees
.)
Finally:
Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information.
Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating
the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked "classified"
in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified
are still obligated to protect it .
The last is important. Some material is "born classified," a phrase you've likely encountered
if you've been following this story. If an admiral in World War II, for example, doodles a possible
plan of attack against an enemy fleet, that doodle contains classified information, whether marked
as such or not. And more, the duty to guard this information goes beyond not divulging it. It
must be carefully protected in a non-negligent way.
Hillary Clinton and the Espionage Act
So should Clinton have been prosecuted? The duty to protect important government information
is codified, among other places, in the Espionage Act, Title 18 of the criminal code, Sections
792 and following. I earlier wrote about Clinton's vulnerability to this act, specifically Title
18, Section 793, here: "
Three Data Points Regarding Clinton's Email Server and the Law ". There I made two points:
first, that the information covered by the act doesn't require a formal "classified" designation
to be relevant; and second, that "intent" (meaning intent to disclose) is not necessary to trigger
the law's penalties. "Gross negligence" in handling the information is sufficient to trigger prosecution.
Part of this section
reads :
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document
, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint,
plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national
defense , (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper
place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen,
abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally
removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust,
or lost, or stolen , abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such
loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer-
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both .
To get the gist of this language as it applies to Clinton, just read the part bolded above.
Cut down, it says:
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document relating
to the national defense or having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its
proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
If your consideration is whether Clinton violated the letter of the law, that's pretty straight-forward.
Storing the information listed by Comey in his non-indictment indictment of Clinton on her unsecured
server (and sent, for a time, by unencrypted transmission) puts Clinton at clear risk of prosecution
for violating the Espionage Act. And again, the bar isn't "intent" to risk or violate national
security information. The bar is "gross negligence" in its handling, a phrase that's almost a
dictionary synonym for what Comey meant when he accused Clinton and her colleagues of being "extremely
careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly
classified information."
Thus she's very likely vulnerable under the letter of the law. Yet unlike others she will not
be tried (a word that means "tested"), much less punished, for violating it. Her lack of prosecution,
when others have been vigorously pursued in court for similar acts or less, explains much of what
exercises her critics. To understand their frustration and anger, let's look at those who have
been prosecuted under the Act for negligence or worse. Then let's look at the critical element
that separates their situations from Clinton's. (It's not just her elevated status.)
The Espionage Act Under Obama
It turns out that the Espionage Act has become a popular tool of punishment under the Obama
administration, which has broadened its application from use against actual espionage to use against
unfriendly
leakers
and whistle-blowers :
Under the Obama
administration , seven
Espionage Act prosecutions have been related not to traditional
espionage but to either
withholding information or communicating with members of the media. Out of a total eleven prosecutions
under the Espionage Act against government officials accused of providing classified information
to the media, seven have occurred since Obama took office.
[89] "Leaks related to national security can put people at risk," the President said
at a news conference in 2013. "They can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the
battlefield at risk. I don't think the American people would expect me, as commander in chief,
not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them
killed."
[90]
Secrecy is a virtual religion in Washington. Those who violate its dogma have been punished
in the harshest and most excessive manner – at least when they possess little political power
or influence. As has been
widely noted , the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers under the 1917 Espionage
Act than all prior administrations combined . Secrecy in DC is so revered that even
the most banal documents are reflexively marked classified, making their disclosure or mishandling
a felony. As former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden
said
in 2010 , "Everything's secret. I mean, I got an email saying 'Merry Christmas.' It carried
a top secret NSA classification marking."
Even when no leakage or other damage was contemplated or occurred, the Espionage Act was applied
against violators. Here's
what happened to Naval Reserve Engineer Brian Nishimura (link via Greenwald above):
A Naval reservist was sentenced for mishandling classified military materials.
A federal attorney announced Wednesday that Bryan Nishimura of Folsom, California, pleaded
guilty to the unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials.
Nishimura, deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008 as a regional engineer, admitted to
downloading classified briefings and digital records onto his personal electronic devices.
He carried the materials off base and brought them back to the U.S. when his deployment ended.
An FBI search of Nishimura's home turned up classified materials, but did not reveal evidence
he intended to distribute them.
How was his case handled? He was obviously prosecuted, as the lead paragraph tells us. Then:
He was sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine , and was ordered to
surrender his security clearance . He is barred from seeking a future security clearance
.
This is a Navy engineer who took home downloaded briefings and records. We're not told under
what act he was prosecuted, but we don't need to be told, just that doing what he did was a crime.
The Espionage Act is perfectly suited to that crime, if the prosecutors wished to use it.
According to court documents, Nishimura was a Naval reservist deployed in Afghanistan in
2007 and 2008. In his role as a Regional Engineer for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Nishimura
had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed
on authorized government computers . Nishimura, however, caused the materials to be
downloaded and stored on his personal, unclassified electronic devices and storage media.
In the United States, Nishimura continued to maintain the information on unclassified
systems in unauthorized locations, and copied the materials onto at least one additional
unauthorized and unclassified system
Sounds like what Clinton did to a T. Should she be prosecuted? Loretta Lynch, speaking through
James Comey, doesn't think so. To understand why not, let's look at three more notorious and more
vigorously prosecuted cases: Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake and Chelsea Manning. Those cases not
only reveal why Clinton, in the eyes of many, should be prosecuted; they reveal why she wasn't.
Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake and Chelsea Manning
This gets to the heart of the problem related to when and why to prosecute. There's first a
question of what should happen and what does happen. Then there's a question of
intent, as in, what intent if any is the target of the law , and what intent is the target
of prosecutors who apply the law. These are not the same.
Greenwald doesn't think Clinton should be prosecuted, since in isolation her crime,
as he sees it, doesn't merit it. What Clinton did was attempt to shield all of her communications
to the extent she could, an act that in his mind doesn't deserve jail time, despite the letter
of the law. I would add that we're talking about applying the Espionage Act after all,
and Clinton in no way committed or intended to commit espionage.
But that kind of sensible thinking isn't what does happen. What does happen is that
under Obama, certain people are prosecuted and sentenced very harshly. Greenwald again (bolded
emphasis mine):
But this case does not exist in isolation. It exists in a political climate where secrecy
is regarded as the highest end, where people have their lives destroyed for the most trivial
– or, worse, the most well-intentioned – violations of secrecy laws, even in the absence of
any evidence of harm or malignant intent . And these are injustices that Hillary Clinton
and most of her stalwart Democratic followers have never once opposed – but rather enthusiastically
cheered. In 2011, Army Private Chelsea Manning was charged with multiple felonies and faced
decades in prison for leaking documents that she firmly believed the public had the right to
see; unlike the documents Clinton recklessly mishandled, none of those was Top Secret
. Nonetheless,
this is what then-Secretary Clinton said in justifying her prosecution
Clinton's justification for Manning's prosecution is this (emphasis Greenwald's):
"I think that in an age where so much information is flying through cyberspace, we all have
to be aware of the fact that some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security
of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take
necessary steps to do so. "
Seems damning in retrospect, especially the emphasized portion. For Clinton, "necessary steps"
to protect "sensitive" information that's "flying through cyberspace" means
the
following :
In 2010, Chelsea
(formerly Bradley) Manning , the
United States Army
Private First
Class accused of the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history, was charged under Article
134 of the
Uniform
Code of Military Justice , which incorporates parts of the Espionage Act
18 U.S.C. §
793(e) . At the time, critics worried that the broad language of the Act could make news
organizations, and anyone who reported, printed or disseminated information from WikiLeaks,
subject to prosecution, although former prosecutors pushed back, citing Supreme Court precedent
expanding First Amendment protections.
[103] On July 30, 2013, following a judge-only trial by court-martial lasting eight
weeks, Army judge Colonel Denise Lind convicted Manning on six counts of violating the Espionage
Act, among other infractions.
[98]
That harsh punishment doesn't count the
torture
she endured while in pre-trial detention. The fate that befell Chelsea Manning was (and is) draconian.
Again, in retrospect Clinton's words at the time are damning.
Let's look at two more cases, starting with
Jeffrey
Sterling . As you read, see if you can see the thread that ties these three cases together:
Jeffrey
Alexander Sterling , a former
CIA
agent was indicted under the [Espionage] Act in January 2011 for alleged unauthorized disclosure
of national defense information to
James Risen , a New York Times reporter, in 2003 regarding his book State of War
. The indictment described his motive as revenge for the CIA's refusal to allow him
to publish his memoirs and its refusal to settle his racial discrimination lawsuit against
the Agency. Others have described him as telling Risen about a backfired CIA plot against Iran
in the 1990s.
[91]
But the evidence of wrong-doing was almost non-existent,
flimsily circumstantial , and the conviction relied heavily on the jury's reaction to the
government's presentation of motive.
The government's case consisted mostly of records of emails and phone calls between
Sterling and Risen that began in 2001 and continued into 2005. The emails were very short,
just a line or so, and did not reference any CIA programs. The phone calls were mostly short
too, some just a few seconds, and the government did not introduce recordings or transcripts
of any of them .
Sterling was represented by two lawyers, Edward MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack. In his opening
statement, MacMahon pointed to the lack of hard evidence against his client.
"Mr. Trump is a fine lawyer," MacMahon
said . " If he had an email with details of these programs or a phone call, you would
have heard it , and you're not going to hear it in this case . Mr. Trump told you that
[Sterling] spoke to Risen. Did you hear where, when, or anything about what happened? No.
That's because there isn't any such evidence of it whatsoever . You don't see a
written communication to Mr. Risen from Mr. Sterling about the program at all, no evidence
they even met in person ."
Nevertheless, despite this lack of real evidence:
[T]he jury convicted Sterling, based on what the judge, Leonie Brinkema, described at
the sentencing as "very powerful circumstantial evidence." She added, "In a perfect world,
you'd only have direct evidence, but many times that's not the case in a criminal case."
A few minutes before three in the afternoon, Judge Brinkema said that Sterling would go
to prison for three and a half years. This was far below the sentencing guidelines - and was
seen as a
rebuke of the prosecution's portrayal of Sterling as a traitor who had to be locked
away for a long time. But that wasn't much comfort for Sterling or his wife, because he would
nonetheless be locked away. After the hearing ended, Sterling walked to the front row of seats
to console his sobbing wife. You could hear her wails in the courtroom.
His lawyers requested that he be allowed to serve his sentence in his home state of Missouri,
so that his wife and other family members could easily visit him. Earlier this week, Sterling
reported to the prison that was selected for him. It is in Colorado.
We still don't know for sure that Sterling was the person who leaked information to reporter
James Risen. Nothing showing that they worked together was presented in court. Nothing. Yet the
prosecutor did a good job of painting Sterling as "a traitor" motivated by "anger, bitterness,
selfishness," adding, "The defendant struck back at the CIA because he thought he had been treated
unfairly. He had sued the agency for discrimination and demanded that they pay him $200,000 to
settle his claim. When the agency refused, he struck back with the only weapon he had: secrets,
the agency's secrets."
On that basis and almost no evidence, the jury convicted.
Finally, in the case of Thomas Drake, mentioned above by both Wheeler and Greenwald,
this happened:
What sets Drake, Sterling and Manning apart from Clinton in the way their violations of the
Espionage Act are treated? It's not just her elite status.
Why Is Clinton's Case Different?
Clinton may well have been let off because the Justice Department thought prosecution was just
the wrong thing to do. Given all the arcane rules of classification, and the fact that Clinton,
put plainly, is not a spy, Comey and Lynch may well have decided that prosecution was pointless.
Espionage, after all, was never her intent, and getting Hillary Clinton convicted on espionage
charges may have looked to them like a very heavy lift. Yet espionage was never the intent of
Sterling, Drake or Manning, yet they had the proverbial book thrown at them, and more. (Read the
rest of the
article on Sterling to see how his prosecution nearly destroyed his life, literally.)
The government's behavior in these four cases isn't clarified when comparing motives, at least
not initially. It could be argued that the motives of Sterling, Drake and Manning were entirely
beneficial, since whistle-blowers intend to perform a societal good, whereas Clinton's motives
were more self-centered, less morally defensible, and possibly illegal - at the very least, she
was attempting to move all of her communication beyond the reach of FOIA records requests. (We'll
have to wait to see if she may have had other motives, such as shielding the Clinton Foundation
from embarrassing scrutiny, or worse. I keep seeing mention of a separate investigation into that.)
Which brings us to the the matter of intent - not the intent contemplated by the law (intent
to steal or to otherwise mishandle government secrets), but the intent contemplated by the prosecutors
in applying the law. Look again at the Sterling conviction and what the prosecution relied on
to get it. The man was painted by his prosecutors as, in effect, evil - a man whose goal was to
harm the government, a betrayer, a traitor, motivated by anger, bitterness, selfishness, a man
taking revenge. Though most stark in Sterling's prosecution (and in Manning's torture), you see
this thread in all three whistle-blower cases.
What separates these cases from Clinton's is the desire of the government to punish "evil deeds,"
attempts to harm the country as the prosecutors defined harm , then secondarily to use
the Espionage Act as a tool of that punishment, wielded in such a heavy way as to frighten others.
Note that this initial filter - looking for who has done the kind of harm deserving of punishment,
as opposed to looking for who violated the law - precedes the prosecution itself. What doesn't
precede the prosecution - certainly not in Clinton's case - is an even-handed application of the
law.
Yes, this is selective prosecution, but it's much more than elites protecting elites, though
it's that as well. It's also and primarily using the prosecutorial weight of the established state
to mercilessly crush the perceived enemies of that state, while protecting its friends from that
weight should they also stray under the law's dark umbrella.
In other words, the key to determining who will be prosecuted is indeed intent, but not intent
to violate the law. What's being prosecuted is intent to violate the state as the state
perceives it.
So we return where we started, to Marcy Wheeler, who calls the real crime of Sterling and Drake
"disloyalty" and not a violation of the Espionage Act itself.
Wheeler (my emphasis):
I can only imagine Comey came to his improper public prosecutorial opinion via one of two
mental tricks. Either he - again, not the prosecutor - decided the only crime at issue was
mishandling classified information (elsewhere in his statement he describes having no evidence
that thousands of work emails were withheld from DOJ with ill intent , which dismisses
another possible crime), and from there he decided either that it'd be a lot harder to prosecute
Hillary Clinton (or David Petraeus) than it would be someone DOJ spent years maligning like
Sterling or Drake. Or maybe he decided that there are no indications that Hillary is disloyal
to the US.
Understand, though: with Sterling and Drake, DOJ decided they were disloyal to the US,
and then used their alleged mishandling of classified information as proof that they were
disloyal to the US (Drake ultimately
plead to Exceeding Authorized
Use of a Computer).
Ultimately, it involves arbitrary decisions about who is disloyal to the US , and
from that a determination that the crime of mishandling classified information occurred.
This entirely ignores the political dimension, which I'll take up at another time. But it perfectly
characterizes, as I see it, the legal one.
Too Big to Jail, Too Innocent to Flail, or Both
Should Clinton have been prosecuted at all? It depends on whether you wish to apply the law
(many do), to apply what others consider common sense, or to rebalance the scale of unequal prosecution.
And if the latter, rebalance in which direction? Should Clinton go to jail, or should Manning,
among others, go free? I would personally be fine if Clinton never saw a courtroom and prisoners
like Manning were freed. For the overall good of the nation, I would take that trade. Others,
I'm sure, would choose differently.
Returning to why Clinton wasn't prosecuted - was it just that Clinton is too important, too
protected, to prosecute? "Too big to jail" in other words? Too high to be brought down by something
as low as the law? After all, starting with Nixon, the circle of those who can never be punished
for their crimes has grown constantly more inclusive. (I almost wrote "for their non-violent crimes,"
but then I remembered the torturing George W. Bush.) That's certainly a possible explanation,
even a likely one, given our recent failure to prosecute even a
straight-up thief like former Goldman Sachs chief, ex-governor and Democratic Party fundraiser
Jon Corzine.
But we live in a punishing, prosecutorial state as well, one that treats its enemies as harshly
as it treats its friends gently, especially its inner circle friends. It's this second aspect,
not just who is too big to jail, but who is too high-minded and innocent to torture and
flail - too "loyal" to be treated, in other words, like Sterling and Manning - that must be
considered before we can understand the unequal application of these laws. Clinton, for all her
faults in James Comey's eyes, was no Chelsea Manning.
As Wheeler says in her closing, this is "another way of saying our classification system is
largely a way to arbitrarily label people you dislike disloyal." On reflection, it's hard to disagree.
In other words, the key to determining who will be prosecuted is indeed intent, but not
intent to violate the law. What's being prosecuted is intent to violate the state as the state
[itself] perceives it.
That's the money line right there. Just as back in the 50's, all of this is based on simplistic
moralistic arguments concerning intent to harm the state. HRC virtually embodies the modern state,
and thus, her intent cannot and will not ever be questioned. Game over.
I agree absolutely. And I would add that the "state" now a days is far more of an ideological
monolith than 60 or even 40 years ago. Any "serious" person in the upper echelons of the US governing
class believes in the all security state, and whatever is necessary to maintain it.
If Daniel Ellsberg had done today what he did in the '70's, he would be in solitary confinement
in a maximum security prison, and there would be NONE in the high reaches of the US governing
class opposed to this outcome.
We live in a more EFFECTIVELY one party state than the Soviets or Red Chinese ever mustered
Unfortunately, there was quite a lag. The phrase is attributed to Louis XIV, who died in 1715.
Nearly 3/4 of a century elapsed before the events of 1789.
Two submerged legal protections show why the government is trying so hard to fend off human
rights law. The authorities here are freedom of information in accordance with Article 19, and
human rights defenders, who have protections under state and federal common law as customary international
law. The US is legally committed to bring domestic law into compliance with human rights law,
which is the supreme law of the land.
The government tries to stuff this hero/traitor dichotomy up our butts but Manning, Sterling,
and Drake are human rights defenders. Manning defended our right to information freedom. Sterling
defended our human right to peace by denouncing illegal war propaganda. Drake defended our human
right to privacy from illegal NSA surveillance.
Chelsea Manning's trial was a classic case for Francis Boyle's civil resistance framework.
The issue was not only information freedom but denunciation of war crimes. Under federal law and
the Army Field Manual, disobedience was Manning's legal duty. But we heard this drumbeat of he
wouldn't dare, he wouldn't dare The implication was, he'd be punished more harshly for explicitly
complying with the federal law of war crimes.
The government goes through increasingly ridiculous bad-faith contortions to escape this body
of law. International forums are making a laughingstock of this government, shredding its pretensions
to legitimacy. The last step is for human rights defenders to go over the head of this government
to the world and argue the necessity of exposing this criminal state.
Human rights defenders like Sakharov, Sharansky, and Slepak helped reform the USSR out
of existence. Manning, Sterling, Drake, and the ones who come after them will do the same for
all of us Americans trapped in the USA.
I like the way you think. Those who defend human rights by pointing fingers at the state
for its transgressions are considered traitors, while those who embody the state, yet violate
its laws are exonerated. Isn't that pretty close to placing the state above the law – a police
state?
Yeah depending on to whom she was trading our government secrets for, it doesn't really
matter that it was (for example) through intermediaries like Blumenthal in exchange for donations
to the Clinton Foundation and not out of loyalty to a foreign country. There is still the potential
that she did things that constituted espionage.
Hillary's email debacle and subsequent lack of prosecution is an important milestone on
the road to widespread recognition that America has become a third world banana republic. This
has undermined belief in the system, credibility of government, and ultimately the global empire.
It's like the elites took out a payday loan; they get to play their little games and protect
their corrupt friends for now–and in the future their creditors, the American people, will extract
their pound of flesh (via the guillotine). Somewhere in that process the empire will collapse.
Now if only we can avoid a nuclear Armageddon (ie by supporting Trump from here on out) I'd say
that is a win-win for everyone in the world despite how bad it looks in the short term.
In the filing Tuesday [in a Judicial Watch FOIA case], longtime Clinton attorney David Kendall
even offered the politically awkward contention that a general effort by Clinton to thwart
FOIA would not be enough to give the Judicial Watch legal authority to proceed with its case.
Kendall argued that a 1980 Supreme Court case that discussed the possibility of recovering
records sought under FOIA but no longer in agency control "requires a close temporal connection
between an official's removal of records and a specific FOIA request."
"That standard cannot be satisfied here. Judicial Watch's FOIA request was submitted nearly
four months after Secretary Clinton left the State Department, and there is no evidence that
Secretary Clinton or anyone else at the Department knew that Judicial Watch would submit the
request, let alone intended to circumvent it," Kendall wrote, along with attorneys Katherine
Turner and Amy Zaharia.
Four months after Clinton left the State Dept, she was still keeping her emails at home,
in violation of a requirement to turn them over for official archiving. Had it not been for Guccifer,
she would never have turned them over.
It would be not be surprising at this point for Hillary to Arkancide "Bill," and then plead
for the court's mercy because she is a widow.
Speaking as a former AUSA with years of experience making prosecution decisions in complex
fraud cases, some of those decisions in agreement with recommendations made by the investigating
agency (FBI and others), some in the teeth of opposition from the investigating agency, the only
unusual aspect of the handling of the email affair I observed was DOJ's decision to make public,
through Comey's speech, the reasoning behind the declination. Reasoning underlying prosecution
decisions is, as a rule, never made public. Making the reasoning public was likely a nod to the
highly politicized nature of the investigation and the need for absolute transparency.
As for the assertion that the decision was made by the wrong person or department, FBI/Comey
not Lynch the prosecutor, Lynch made it clear beyond dispute that she would defer to the fact
finder's recommendation when it was made. That decision was itself a prosecution decision made
by Lynch, was within her authority and again, given the highly politicized nature of the investigation,
was an obviously sensible decision, given her position as a cabinet member in a Democratic administration.
The remark that this was "an obviously sensible decision, given her position as a cabinet
member in a Democratic administration," is also the kind of crap that I've gotten in the past
from AUSA's, who are one of the most intellectually (and ethically) captive groups I've ever
dealt with. Everything that they do is for "show" value within the DOJ. If I bring up the public's
interest in justice, they look at me like I'm some kind of nut. The commenter is correct that
Lynch's actions make perfect sense within the rules of DOJ Kabuki theater. They very much like
decisions to be made by somebody else.
The commenter is looking at Comey's unusual public statement through the lens of DOJ
group-think makes it seem driven by "the need for absolute transparency." This is how they
pass the buck in that organization. Comey's statement makes perfect sense inside the DOJ -
his assertion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would file charges only makes sense to a careerist
to whom pleasing their superiors is the only "sensible" and "reasonable" behavior, and to whom
actual justice is a mere abstraction.
Ironically, it is the precarious nature of legal employment as recently discussed on NC
that has caused this sort of organizational behavior to be the norm in the profession any more,
and it's prevalence is why I'm getting out.
This brings to mind the mantra "there's justice and then there's the law". Though when I've
heard that said it was not as a defense of how little the latter mirrors the former but a criticism.
Apparently at the DOJ, as with Antonin Scalia*, the law is not about right and wrong, innocence
or guilt. Its about CYA and protecting the prerogatives of the state.
Read Bill Moushey's 10-part "Win at All Costs" series on the federal conviction mill, and you
would not even want an "AUSA" living in your neighborhood, for fear of being swept up in their
mindless criminal dragnet.
Federal prosecutors are like the poseur who knocks out an opponent with no arms, then claims
to be Heavyweight Champion of the World.
They don't know what a fair adversary proceeding is anymore, since federal sentencing guidelines
(1984) and other changes tilted the whole table in their favor.
When 95% of federal criminal cases are plea-bargained under extreme duress for the defendant,
prosecutors don't need any skill whatsoever to put fresh pelts on the wall.
What Tallichet is saying is indeed true. He is not making it up. The burden is upon the government
to prove intent or "mens rea" evil mind. No reasonable prosecutor would take up another Ken Starr
crusade for years to come to prove something which can not be proven. If you are young and maybe
want a crusade (Starr did) then maybe you take it up to make a name for yourself.
I have enough court time to know when a battle can be won and not won. Spent enough money doing
it.
As a prosecutor of 32 years successful legal practice, let me just say: "You're wrong." The only mens rea required to prove a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1924 is General Criminal
Intent, not Specific Intent. There is no legal requirement that a person accused of Unauthorized
Removal and Retention of Classified Documents intend to break the law or damage the interests
of the United States. The only requirement is that the accused person knowingly remove
the materials and intentionally retain them at an unauthorized location.
This sort of violation is the easiest thing in the world to prove to a judge or jury, and I've
personally taken scores of unanimous jury verdicts involving General Intent crimes. Petraeus was
easily convicted of this violation, and many men and women have been cashiered and/or imprisoned
for it, especially by the Obama Justice Department. No Ken Starr crusade required - the evidence
is beyond dispute.
However, the difference is that I've been at my work for 32 years, and I've never had the slightest
intention of walking through the revolving door of representing the very people who it was my
duty to prosecute.
Your ability to generalize with such breadth and detail about a very large, diverse group of
individuals is impressive. My experience as a state prosecutor, Federal prosecutor, defense attorney
and thoughtful human being has taught me that such generalizations cannot be relied upon. I have
interacted with many police and investigators from a multitude of agencies ranging from small
town Texas pds to FBI and have found that some of them were tall, others short, some blue eyed,
others brown eyed some smart others not so smart, some honest, others not. I have found the same
diversity in other groups I have come to know through experience judges, prosecutors, defense
attorneys, women, men, blonds, brunettes the list is really endless. Are you able to similarly
generalize with such breadth and detail about groups within our society other than AUSAs?
i dont know shit about 'the law', and NO LONGER CARE because it is a totaaly corrupted institution
which serves the interests of the 1%
my personal morals are a superset of 'the law', only mine are evenhanded, not corrupt
oh, you sound like quite the douche, hoping we have an opportunity to meet at a necktie party
when the hard rain comes lawyers will be escorted to the front of the line
My brother is in the service with a security clearance and they are all furious. They said
what she did is illegal and if anyone else did it they would be prosecuted .
The Clintons are grifters and it would not surprise me if most of those deleted emails involved
starting wars in other countries, TPP and scamming for the foundation. The claim she was too stupid
to know what she was doing was wrong is ludicrous. If she wins the presidency we need a congress
full of tea partiers so she cannot enact anything.
I'd definitely be interested in reading more about how the email scandal is sowing distrust
and discord in the national security state. Please share more about how people on the inside are
feeling; it's always reassuring to get confirmation that not all of these people are vile and
mendacious crooks.
The retired LTG who was vetted by Trump for veep also said if it was him, he would be doing
jail time for what Hill did. I'm sure that's why Trump would love to have this guy as an attack
dog on the campaign trail.
I have a cousin who is a commander in the Navy with Southern Command who nearly never talks
publicly about "politics" or much that is in the media. He speaks with his near family and very
close friends, but widely or on any sort of social media, no way. He is irate about Clinton not
being prosecuted. He sees this as an issue of justice and national security and is very public
about his views. I asked him why he was willing to be so public with his views in this instance
and he explained it is based on the seriousness of the crimes and the undermining of all he believes
he is serving for.
I used to be a USAFA nuclear launch officer. One of my fellow officers (unthinkingly) brought
a crew bag into the classified vault where we were processing a rev change (a periodic change
to procedures, methods and/or targets). One of the sheets from the old rev slipped into his crew
bag. He took the crew bag into the (occupied) squadron office where it sat for several hours.
The destruction inventory came up short. The sheet was found in the officer's crew bag.
Consequences were brutal. He was immediately relieved of duty. I never saw him again. The entire
squadron was given a mandatory security refresher and told that the consequences for being *involved*
in such negligence would, at the least, result in a dishonorable discharge and quite likely would
involve an extended stay in Leavenworth, KS. Involvement could include just being in the line
of sight of unauthorized containers such as a crew bag.
It's glaring that HRC sold the office and that is why a private server and hiding emails was
essential.
Puleeze can we stop being insulted that she didn't know, wasn't technically sophistocated !
She went to GREAT Lenghts at considerable inconvenience to set up and operate seperate system ..
Think of the opportunities to shape policy and approve/disapprove State Department transactions
around Clinton Foundation contributors!!
Allowing this obvious glaring conflict of interest to exist in the first place was incredible
and an example of how corrupt and far down things have fallen.
Where are the Clinton Foundation emails ??? Intent is a no brainer
I think this is a basic feature of a totalitarian or fascist state. Make a lot of laws and
then enforce only the ones that serve your ends. Whether it's the Espionage Act or a traffic violation,
it's then up to the state to decide who they want to punish. Now every time I hear the phrase
"rule of law", I think of this. I don't know if we were ever "a nation of laws, not a nation of
men", but we can safely say now that we are officially not.
Comey made the decision most everyone with skin in the game that's not a Sander's supporter
wanted him to make. And in that regard there is one ultimate explanation that Trumps all others
as it were. Though this can be parsed in two ways, to his credit Comey manages to cover both with
his public statement.
To wit, Either Comey, loyal Republican that he is, wants to see Trump elected
president and figures that the best thing he can do in that respect is to issue a scathing non-indictment
of Clinton, thereby wounding but not killing her candidacy – in full knowledge that polling has
consistently shown Trump would likely fare much less well against Sanders, or perhaps another
democrat who might replace Clinton; or, loyal republican that he is, Comey believes Trump would
be even more of a disaster for the Republican party than he already is if he were actually elected
president – thus Comey elicits sympathy for Clinton, casting himself as part of the vast right
wing conspiracy against her by airing his belief in her culpability, yet he spares her political
viability and himself the possibility of political retribution from her side down the line.
Win-win
for Comey. Brilliant! At one stroke he's made the case to both Clinton and Trump that he would
be the perfect nominee to fill Scalia's slot on SCOTUS.
Nice analysis. My first thought when I read Comey's statement was that he had delivered a huge
passive aggressive fu to some person or persons who had told him what result they wanted. This
was perfect if the goal was to make sure the issue didn't go away politically for Clinton. Much
more effective than delivering a pro indictment message that would be ignored quietly.
Come on! Team D will not nominate Bernie under any circumstances.
If HRC were to die today, Team D would shove Biden into the nomination or trot out Kerry or
even Al Gore if they must, but Bernie is a threat that must be dealt with.
I would argue that the very fact that Comey issued a public opinion on prosecution (completely
outside the FBI remit) should be clear evidence of bias and invalidate their investigation and
his statements on the basis they were prejudiced. A clever counsel could, in fact, use this as
a defence if HRC is indeed tried. Comey, like Lynch, should have been recused. There is bias written
all over this entire debacle.
The true smoking gun will be the Clinton Foundation, variously described by others as a
fraud, a giant slush fund,or a private criminal hedge fund. Just the optics of the pay-for-play
circumstances of arms deals, corporate takeovers, mineral concessions, etc. should be more than
sufficient to empanel a Grand Jury. Less than $1billion of the $4billion raised for Haiti's earthquake
relief effort was ever spent. Where's the rest? Remember the commercials? Poppy Bush and Bill
sitting side by side pleading for money.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Oh Captain! My Captain!
One more sabre to the torso of democracy. How many more can we ThePeople endure and survive?
>looking for who has done the kind of harm deserving of punishment, as opposed to looking for
who violated the law - precedes the prosecution itself.
This is a global takeaway from this article. I always hated the second "civil" prosecution
of OJ Simpson almost as much as I hated OJ himself – the ability to keep bringing somebody "bad"
to trial until something sticks is exactly what double-jeopardy is supposed to prevent.
Having covered the second OJ trial, I can say only this in its defense: the two trials asked
juries to rule on two different questions. The first trial asked the jury whether the state had
proved its case against Simpson beyond a reasonable doubt. The second asked the jury who was responsible
for the killings of Brown and Goldman. Both juries, imho, answered correctly.
This article doesn't explain why a punishment such as the one given to Petraeus was not considered
by Comey or the DOJ. Petraeus was an elite insider who was not a spy and did not threaten the
state, yet he still received a minor punishment so as not to delegitimatize the legal system and
in order to give at least a minimal impression of fairness. Since Comey said it was possible -
and most experts say very possible - that foreign governments read Hillary's emails, she may have
caused significant damage to the US national interest over four years. Therefore even a loyal
elite could expect to be at least fined for such gross negligence. Why wouldn't a fine and a reprimand
and/or temporary loss of security clearance be normal even for a loyal DC insider? This suggests
that the power of the Clinton Machine and its real-world ability to deliver retribution was the
deciding factor in the lack of any suggestion of indictment. Comey surely wants to keep his job.
The article also fails to deal with the fact that Comey mistakenly claimed that only one person
had ever been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act. This is clearly not the case, and you list
some of those prosecuted. There have also been several other convictions, including US vs. McGuinness
in 1992 (see Andrew C. McCarthy, "Military Prosecutions Show That A Gross Negligence Prosecution
Would Not Unfairly Single Out Mrs. Clinton" National Review (7/7/2016), CIA director John Deutch
in 1997 (pardoned by Bill Clinton), James Hitselberger (who carried classified documents off his
naval base in 1997 and simply kept them), and Jason Brezler, a Marine Major who sent classified
information about a dangerous Afghan mayor in order to warn a colleague in 2014 (he is now appealing
his conviction based on Comey's criteria). Also please see Jared Beck, "Why Hillary Clinton's
Emails Matter: A Legal Analysis" (6/6/2016): Beck lists 4 convictions under 793(f) alone. Also
see Beck's "Comey's Volley, Or The Indictment That Wasn't" (7/11/2016). You also need to deal
with the question of why Comey ignored the obvious fact that Hillary willfully and knowingly broke
State Department rules in setting up the private server and therefore knew she was endangering
security. The fact that Comey gave a false number of prosecutions under s. 793 and avoided mention
of willful, knowing acts by Hillary suggests his decision to oppose indictment was a political
decision, not a legal decision.
The article also fails to deal with the theory that Comey, taking into account various evidence,
such as his talks with DOJ attorneys and the fact that Lynch agreed to meet Bill Clinton, decided
that that there was no possibility that the Democrat-staffed DOJ would indict Hillary. Therefore
Comey decided to make the best of a difficult situation by giving a two-part speech that first
laid out reasons why Hillary could be indicted and then explained that it was not "reasonable"
to indict her. "Reasonable" is of course a legal term, but it also covers a variety of meanings,
including political motives. Do you reject this theory, or were you just unaware of it?
Seriously? Go back and see what Petraeus did and admitted to and what Clinton did and did not
admit to and then analyze what you said. You have not proven intent in Clinton's case. You have
a specious argument going on here.
Stop this. You are just plain wrong. You are not an attorney and you are out of your depth.
Go read the link I provided in my into and the rebuttal to your comment above.
I don't know why everyone seems to be ignoring that she destroyed evidence, 30,000 e-mails,
when she knew the investigation was zeroing in on her. Her claim that they were ALL about personal
matters is totally suspect considering how much the Foundation received during that period and
the global events that transpired.
Say the 30,000 emails were private. Taking a very liberal assumption that she only spent 10
minutes ((read and respone – just 10 minutes – I really am bending over backwards)) on each, that
means "private" email time took 5,000 hours. In 4 years, a government employee officially is suppose
to put in 8, 348 hours. So more than half the time was spent on private emails???
Now, for those who say that maybe some of these emails were done after hours .I say why weren't
they ALL done after hours? – On her own home private computer???
WHAT was so damn urgent about those yoga pants???? (or does Goldman Sachs demand instant gratification???)
I mean, the Secretary of State has time from her O SO BUSY schedule for all this private emailing .?????
HMMMM what president said he was SO, SO, SO busy he never would have time for a hummer in the
oval office?????
Alex Jones (yes, I admit to being a fan, albeit less than totally devoted -and I can't stand
his heavy metal bumper music) has contracted to have airplanes towing "Hillary For Prison" banners
over both the repug and dem conventions. I'm interested in seeing: (1) if these planes are even
allowed in the air space by the relevant authorities, and (2) if they do fly, will there be any
press coverage whatsoever. Jones already had his first contractor cancel, but his second aerial
contractor apparently intends to go through with it.
Optimader, TFR applies to prez and veep--the airplane guy has stated they won't be able to
fly on the last day of the dem convention, when Obama and/or Biden will be there. The other days
should be OK, in his opinion.
OK, just today the FAA announce TFR for 10 nautical miles around both convention sites. Just
the feds shutting down freedom of speech for your protection.
In the grand scheme probably ok by me. Someone could drop a Cessna Caravan filled with ****
and make a real mess of it. Some employees might get killed .
Yes, well I hope that was all theraputic for GP, dont really need any more than the bold print.
-HRC admits what she was doing;(parsing modivation is not relevant)
-She knowingly has (is?) engaged in a series of illegal activities; (Everyone at the SofS dept
down to secretaries were explicitly classroom trained how to appropriately handle anything that
is gov info (including *.gov) and signed off on it. Those records exist
-Her employees knowingly engaged with her in illegal activities (conspiracy, all premeditated);
-HRC has serially lied about her activities, under oath or not, a pattern of knowingly trying
to hide criminal behaviour;
-Everyone involved who took an oath of office violated said oath;
-The last one arguably applies to Comey as well. Comey concedes that his investigation confirmed
the nuts and bolts of what HRC and her conspirators did yet he has attempted to intervene in the
legal process in an unprecedented and illegal manner; (it doesnt matter what he thinks, descretion
on prosecution is above his pay grade)
-If Comey's interview with HRC was infact not peformed under oath, you can probably take that
deerpath into the woods on Comey as well; (is that normal procedure with a perp, no less when
it is well established criminal activity has and probably still IS occurring – as a minimum she
is still trying to coverup felonies allegations).
This I confirmed in less than one beer floating in a pool.
Another big difference is whether or not the higher ups have a social relation with the accused.
If they have never even met the accused, they have no personal feelings about ruining the life
of the accused and the lives of the relatives of the accused. If they have socialized with the
accused and are in the same social class as the accused, they can believe the accused is such
a nice person that the accused does not deserve severe punishment.
One of the amazing sub-texts to all of this is the secrecy that covers what should be public
information. After all, Hillary did use a very public server to do her "business" as SoS. It should
be understood that such information as she had on it (in spite of her obvious goal of keeping
it secret from the Department, a really ludicrous attempt, given the spying ability of today's
governments and hackers) was public information to be seen by the citizens of this country, since
she was, and will be as President, a public EMPLOYEE
This is a case of straight-forward, audacious corruption of the US judicial system.
Comey claims that a "reasonable" prosecutor would not indict Clinton; and in the next breath
insists that a "reasonable" prosecutor would savagely indict anyone else who committed the same
acts as Clinton. And furthermore that the "intent" defense would never stand.
What more needs to be said?
The Clintons operate with full immunity. Always have, always will.
Let's say Comey and Lynch get together and agree that Clinton should be indicted. That's
fine, but what, they ask, are the chances be of having a fair trial in a reasonable timeframe
(i.e. before a Clinton inauguration made one meaningless)? What are the chances of it not turning
into a highly politicized media circus? The answer of course is zero.
The (perhaps not so) obvious solution to this would be to turn it over to the House, where
the matter would be handled via impeachment. Instead of being halted by inauguration, and indictment
would be triggered by one, and of course, impeachment by its very definition is meant to be a
political (and media) event.
Sure, it would be messy, but how would a criminal indictment be any less so. Hell, Clinton
could even pardon herself with a criminal indictment, so impeachment isn't merely an option, it
is the only option that would even have a chance of functioning as it was supposed to.
So that's what (I believe) Comey and Lynch agreed upon. Send it to the House, and let the political
process handle it.
Lynch did not agree to turn it over to the House. We will find out what she receives if Clinton
makes it to the White House. I expect her to either remain as AG or go into lobbying with a hefty
pay raise.
I also do not think that Clinton will win the White House. Republicans control important battle
ground states and they will either help Trump steal the election if necessary or prevent Clinton
from stealing the election if she is behind. Clinton only beat Sanders by rigging the electronic
voting machines. I do not expect her to get away with that in states controlled by Republican
governors.
Jill Stein and Gary Johnson take more support from Clinton than Trump. Many Millennials
or 35 and under will either go with Stein or Johnson. It may be enough to keep her out of the
White House.
Trump can win because he is a brilliant marketer (or at least maintaining and enhancing his
own brand) and it appears that he is more under control. Clinton's negatives will only increase
as the House investigates Clinton for perjury followed by the debates where Trump will tear apart
Clinton's record whenever they attempt to attack Trump on Trump U, Molestation, or outsourcing.
The latter is a cakewalk. The Clinton's crafted the rules that Trump used. He was playing the
game and they wrote the rules. How on Earth do they think that Trump will allow that line of attack
to stick to him.
I really go side tracked. Clinton passed on information to her husband and son in law. Her
son in law received information about Greece as his hedge fund was entering the Greek market.
She passed along information for private gain which is corruption but since this information was
classified it was also espionage just not between states.
KING HENRY V
We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail'd against our person: we consider
it was excess of wine that set him on;
And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP
That's mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING HENRY V
O, let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE
So may your highness, and yet punish too.
GREY
Sir,
You show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.
And then there was Hillary:
"I think that in an age where so much information is flying through cyberspace, we all have to
be aware of the fact that some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security
of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary
steps to do so." But Comey is no Henry and there is no Exeter to remove Hillary from the room
I will point out that regardless of the motives we impute to Comey his presentation on
July 5 did real damage to HRC. She has lost ground in the polls taken since then and the GOP has
resurrected this issue as a cudgel. Not sure if that makes people around here feel better or not.
Yeah. So a shoutout to the state prosecutor quoted by Yves, I'm with you bro (or sis). My own
brief experience representing the state in the middle of the "Age of Reagan" provided similar
experiences with how things work, although I didn't see a lot of differences at the state and
local level. Looking back, especially on the whole drug war thing, none of us had any excuse for
going along. Props to Yves' correspondent for at least trying. Too many of us didn't. On their
future plans: take it from this ex-lawyer who walked away under his own power while still in good
standing, leaving the law was the best thing I ever did for myself and my family. Godspeed to
you.
I am angry that powerful people don't get indicted for crimes while regular folk do. But I
am equally furious that HRC is the one getting busted based on a fishing expedition born out of
the politicized Benghazi affair. If Benghazi had been about looking into whether or not the CIA
was routing weapons to rebels in Syria, then I might be sympathetic. But no, this was about the
fact that the administration didn't use the right language in describing the attacks and may have
alluded to the incident being caused by a video and was not quick enough to pin the blame on Al
Qaida, even though their saying these things out loud would not have changed anything. In other
words, a tragic event happened that was like countless tragic events that happens under any administration's
watch and the GOP started a fishing trip.
We all know that if we want to bring down any president we just need to start a scandal and
then spawn fishing trips. With the countless interactions a president and their staff has it is
almost certain that they will be caught doing something wrong. Perhaps they will go to a campaign
event while on an official government trip. Should they have skipped the event even though it
would have been very convenient? How many people, from work, have used office phones to call up
the mechanic and arrange for a time to take the car in? We all do it and we are all vulnerable.
And we all know that if we chose to create a massive fishing expedition aimed at Trump we could
find loads of dirt much more serious than what is confronting HRC.
So in light of the context, do we really want to bring HRC down when we know this was the aim
of the GOP all along and we all know that they are sitting on equally reprehensive acts that are
going unpunished? And do we really think this will change things? As if, by punishing HRC we will
somehow make it the norm to bust powerful people for their crimes. To me, that is the crux. If
I believed for half a second that this would somehow set a new standard and that the Justice Department
and the FBI and SEC and so on would actually start prosecuting powerful people for the crimes
we know they are committing then I would say yes, she should be indicted. Lock her up. Lock them
all up! Or, compare her crime to what others really are doing. Lying to get us into wars. CEOs
who break the law to earn billions and get off with a small fine in comparison. How many politicians
knowingly allow our banks to launder money for drug cartels and do nothing while actively throwing
the book at low-level users and dealers? It's rampant. And yet we are hung up on the fact that
HRC sent classified emails on an unsecure server. Emails that probably shouldn't have been classified.
Content of classified emails that should be scrutinized more than their classification status.
How about the fact that we don't question the actions being discussed in those emails because
they would be supported by GOP politicians anyway and they do not want those acts to be the focus
of any investigation? Instead, we pretend that the mode of her communication is some kind of grave
issue and we are willing to prevent her from being president over the guy who willfully scams
people and admits to paying off politicians. We have all been played by the GOP's scandal machine.
Why does everyone presume Clinton would not assist or otherwise allow information to land in
the hands of foreigners?
Seems like the unstated presumption of the article is that she wouldn't sell out the US to a foreigner
under any circumstances ..is that a good bet? Depends on what you mean by *is*?
Answering my own hypothetical, I think the presumption is that the SoS gets to pick who is
a friend, and who is an enemy, of the US. So there is discretion inherent in the job.
But how does oversight of that critical government function work, when Clinton has expended
a remarkable amount of effort over a long period of time to directly undermine FOIA request &
government records requirements? This is what I find appalling - that she had the time and motivation
to scrub out the normal government records necessary to determine whether she is conducting official
government business on behalf of the US, or not. Especially in the "if you are doing nothing wrong,
what do you have to hide?" war on terror era she gets a free pass issued when normal non-governmental
officials living private lives are having every email they've ever sent vacuumed up for evaluation
relative to the national good.
A thought: I am never convinced that any situation of political importance is all on the individual.
I am not convinced of any unitary theories of command and control. In short, it ain't Hilly or
Billy but the outfit they clearly work for: the inheritors of the Rhodes dream of Anglo-Saxon
ownership of the entire world, which is to say, the CFR. If not for the power of the CFR (which
really means the combined power of the oligarchs represented by the CFR) neither of these two
CFR aparatchiks would possess any immunity whatsoever. In the words of Captain Bryant in Bladerunner
they would just be "little people". So it seems almost to me that fretting about which stooge
gets off this time is missing the point because there is always another stooge lined up for the
job in case this one gets picked off. Always.
Another question rarely addressed in these musings on the Clinton case is the accusation that
her motivation for using her own server was to be able to keep any emails she wanted out of FOIA
requests–which due to her deletion of many emails before their delivery to the government seems
to have been accomplished successfully, at least so far. Whether she committed "espionage" or
not, it's widely acknowledged that she was doing dealmaking with the Clinton Foundation while
serving as Secretary of State. Granted, there may not be hard evidence to prove this link but
the circumstantial evidence in terms of donations to the CF and arms deals involving those countries
is extremely damning.
Great story and love the comments. I can see why Bernie Sanders should be endorsing Clinton
in a tactical sense. I will hazard an explanation.
Comey (in his mind) fatally wounded Hillary Clinton without exposing himself as a coverup merchant.
He is wrong of course but he definitely resides in a fool's bubble. Comey handed enough specifics
of evidence to enable a wholesale demolition any credibility HRC had left. The dogs of war are
out baying for her blood as a result.
Bernie Sanders has moved so close as to tactically shut out any third person chance to get
the nomination should the dogs of war take her down. My guess is that Comeys antics will drive
the detestation of HRC harder and deeper to point where she will have little margin with Trump.
Consider that Bernie Sanders is clearly seen to be a solid Democrat supporter (and reformer),
he did not traipse off after the hapless Greens as he has millions more support than they can
muster, he did not maul HRC viciously (its not in his character) through the campaign, he brings
vast numbers of new voters to the game to fulfill the adage that Democrats win when voter turnout
is high.
He is most likely the only Democrat who could pull off a last minute switch as nominee with
any prospect of trouncing Trump. It is a long shot of course but starting a revolution and seeing
it through is a long game necessitating tactics that include persistence against heavy odds, shock,
surprise and tactical positioning in both political space and ethical behavior. I know many are
seriously p!ssed with him but what else is there than catch the momentum and resources that can
position a win now or in three years.
Would an indictment of Clinton over her handling of sensitive information via email forced
the identification and indictment of those who exchanged that information with her?
I was in the Foreign Service for about 30 years. Early in my career, I left classified material
on my desk twice and got caught. It didn't happen again. Fear did its job.
That may not work with senior people who think they are too important. They need to be protected
with effective help or replaced. It really is that simple.
* This is the
topper, on the whole email
server issue
-
Interesting (and inconvenient) fact:
Hillary (while Sec. of State) forced the
resignation, in June of 2012, of
US Ambassador
to Kenya J. Scott Gration
, (get this) after
the Inspector General found that he
was using an
unauthorized (personal) email account to conduct
official government business
… sound familiar?!?
I guess the '
Queen
' is exempt.
Source: Washington Post (hardly a conservative
newspaper) June 29, 2012
viablanca
@GP Russell well yeah,
even her dumbest, I mean most loyal followers know she is a
living double standard
mryummie
65% of americans (across the board) dont trust hillary........lmao
"... The New York Times/CBS survey released on Thursday found that 67 percent of voters believe Clinton is not honest or trustworthy – up from 62 percent last month. The new figure represents the highest percentage in this election cycle. ..."
"... Only 28 percent of voters said they view the Democratic candidate as honest and the number of people saying she is prepared for the job of president dropped from last month. However, half of those polled still believe she's qualified. ..."
The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's email scandal has damaged the Democratic candidate's
approval ratings, according to a new poll. The survey found that a majority of voters believe she
cannot be trusted.
The New York Times/CBS
survey released on Thursday found that 67 percent of voters believe Clinton is not honest or
trustworthy – up from 62 percent last month. The new figure represents the highest percentage in
this election cycle.
Only 28 percent of voters said they view the Democratic candidate
as honest and the number of people saying she is prepared for the job of president dropped from last
month. However, half of those polled still believe she's qualified.
Most voters said they believe Clinton did something wrong when she set up a personal server and
email address for work when she served as secretary of state. Forty-six percent believe the move
was illegal, up from 41 percent last month.
Unsurprisingly, most of those critical of Clinton's email practices are associated with the GOP.
Some 78 percent of Republicans believe what she did was illegal, while half of independents expressed
the same sentiment.
"... Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday - two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy - and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year. ..."
Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the
F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday - two vital pillars of her presidential
candidacy - and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year.
... ... ...
To her charge that he is "reckless," Mr. Trump may now respond by citing Mr. Comey's rebuke: that Mrs. Clinton and her team "were
extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
To her promises to defend the United States, Mr. Trump may now retort with Mr. Comey's warning that "it is possible that hostile
actors gained access" to Mrs. Clinton's email account and the top secret information it contained.
And to her reproofs about his temperament and responsibility, Mr. Trump may now point to Mr. Comey's finding that "there is evidence
of potential violations of the statutes" on handling classified information - though Mr. Comey said that other factors, like Mrs.
Clinton's intent, argued against criminal charges.
Worst of all was the totality of Mr. Comey's judgment about Mrs. Clinton's judgment.
She is running as a supremely competent candidate and portraying Mr. Trump, in essence, as irresponsible and dangerous. Yet the
director of the F.B.I. basically just called her out for having committed one of the most irresponsible moves in the modern history
of the State Department.
... ... ...
Her clearest selling point - that she, unlike Mr. Trump, can manage challenging relationships with allies and adversaries - has
now been undercut because she personally mismanaged the safeguarding of national security information.
"... "I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails instead of two." – 12 March 2015, New York ..."
"... Comey said that Clinton not only used multiple servers but also "used numerous mobile devices to view and send email" using her personal account, undercutting her justification. ..."
"I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails
instead of two." – 12 March 2015, New York
Comey said that Clinton not only used multiple servers but also "used numerous mobile devices to
view and send email" using her personal account, undercutting her justification.
"... There goes Trump's narrative that Hillary is a bad negotiator. She got everything from Sanders and paid with non binding promises. I think I have some of those lying around, maybe Sanders would like to give me his house in exchange for them. ..."
"... It matters little that Sanders "thinks" he has pushed the Dems to the left with policy. Without a mechanism to ensure that party policy hammered out at a convention or in a closed-door session becomes legislation to be voted upon...it's totally worthless. ..."
"... Who cares? If he endorses Hillary - and forget about her so-called platform concessions - he'll be endorsing a thug, one who breaks any rule that gets in her way. And then Bernie will be a partner in her chicanery...But he will able to hang on to his war chest - and a nice "take" it is for a few months work. ..."
"... Crooked Hillary. And now, Sellout Sanders. I'm done being a Democrat in America. ..."
"... "This party is done," wrote actor and Sanders surrogate Susan Sarandon after Clinton supporters blocked the proposed amendment. "[It has] warped into the party of the rich. No longer represents working people." ..."
"... Well I guess this was bound to happen. Sanders is just another politician ready to tow the line for the Democratic corporate establishment. Sad. ..."
"... Chris Hedges was right, Bernie is a traitor. He misled a lot of people into believing he was going to stand up for something different, now he is promoting the status quo, I'm pissed. ..."
"... I see Hillary as part of the problem not the solution. Sanders disappoints me. I didn't see him as part of the problem, but guess what he is now. ..."
"... Bernie was a joke from the moment he said " nobody cares about your damn emails." ..."
"... I did not think Sanders was so gullible to believe that Clinton will take action on anything in the democratic platform. From a mass movement demanding change to accepting a few non-binding policies at a democratic convention. I think Bernie lost his opportunity to make a difference when he refused to stand as an independent. Now people are stuck with Trump or Clinton which is not exactly a great choice. ..."
"... The Party Platform is meaningless and Sanders should know that. $hillary will do what ever she wants after the convention if she is nominated. The allegiance $hillary has is to Wall Street and a NEO-CON foreign policy. ..."
"... As much as I want to vote for HRC, the stench of neocon corporatism is too much, the thin layer of accumulated grime from years of ethical expediency too toxic, the opaque lack of transparency too dangerous, and the shifting sands of her amorphous policy too treacherous. ..."
"... As Jill Stein has said, "What We Fear from Donald Trump, We Have Already Seen from Hillary Clinton." ..."
"... I understand only about half of sanders supporters are willing to switch to clinton http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/bernie-or-bust-clinton/488276 / ..."
"... I'm afraid Bernie's endorsement of Clinton will not stop Trump. There is no room for a neo-liberal status quo candidate like Clinton in this race. The American economy is going to hell in a hand cart. 50 million Americans use food banks millions more are facing bankruptcy, joblessness and homelessness. They need a radical socialist candidate. Voting for more of the same for them is utterly pointless. Trump will beat Clinton. America needed Bernie if Trump was to be beaten. ..."
"... Pulling the party to the left is meaningless if the nominee is a neocon. It's just window dressing.(And Bernie, of course, definitely knows that.) ..."
Bernie was able to influence the Democratic Party platform, and his endorsement is part of the
trade. I get it. I think its smart to close the deal on some gains.
Hillary Clinton said she was opposed to passage of the TPP trade agreement but 2 days ago her
supporters made it part of her campaign platform. Hillary Clinton told Sanders some lies which
it appears, unfortunately, that he believed. She is and will be forever a lying, corrupt, Wall
Street-toadying warmonger.
It is so funny to see so many people that once swore Bernie was the messiah now calling him a
sellout. Hilarious. So much for a revolution. Usually during a revolution people dont give up
so quickly.
Absolutely right. Every revolution has its roadblocks. However, Bernie supporters should realize
that if Trump is elected the SC will move back to the right for 20+ years. This will kill their
revolution for a long time to come. Bernie is doing the smart thing here and it is becoming really
easy to see why Bernie lost. His supporters are not capable of seeing what the smart thing is.
"people who got involved in the political process"
I first read that last phrase as "political princess" and had to go back to read what Bernie
said. But either reading seems suitable.
I have a hard time picturing Bernie actually believes platforms mean anything. Maybe he's giving
Hillary enough rope, as the saying goes? I'm sure he's conferred with his advisors. Hillary's
leftward move is entirely illusory and temporary; once she quickly falls back into the neolib
agenda, he'll have cause to bail, and there still might be time to take up Jill Stein on her ticket
offer.
Bernie is supposed to meet with Hillary tomorrow in Portsmouth, NH. I would like to be there,
in front of the venue, cutting my Bernie campaign sign into little bitty bits....
Bernie's efforts will be for NOTHING once he endorses Hillary. Nothing.
Wall Street's Warmongering Madame is the perfect foil for Donald Trump's huckster-populism: a
pseudo-progressive stooge whose contempt for the average person and their intelligence is palpable.
She's an arch-environmentalist who has worked tirelessly to spread fracking globally.
She supports fortifying Social Security but won't commit to raising the cap on taxes to do
so.
She's a humanitarian who has supported every imperial slaughter the US has waged in the past
25 years.
She cares deeply about the plight of the Palestinians but supported the starvation blockade
and blitzkrieg of Gaza and couldn't bother to mention them but in passing in a recent speech before
AIPAC.
She's a stalwart civil libertarian, but voted for Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and believes Edward
Snowden should be sent to federal prison for decades.
She stands with the working class but has supported virtually every international pact granting
increased mobility and power to the corporate sector at its expense in the past 25 years.
She cares with all her heart about African-Americans but supports the objectively-racist death
penalty and the private prison industry.
She will go to bat for the poor but supported gutting welfare in the '90s, making them easier
prey to exploiters, many of whom supported her husband and her financially.
She worries about the conditions of the poor globally, but while Sec. of State actively campaigned
against raising the minimum wage in Haiti to 60 cents an hour, thinking 31 cents an hour sounded
better for the investor class whose interests are paramount to her.
She's not a bought-and-paid-for hack, oh no, no, no, but she won't ever release the Wall Street
speeches for which she was paid so handsomely.
She's a true-blue progressive, just ask her most zealous supporters, who aren't.
There goes Trump's narrative that Hillary is a bad negotiator. She got everything from Sanders
and paid with non binding promises. I think I have some of those lying around, maybe Sanders would
like to give me his house in exchange for them.
"Sanders promised from the start to support whoever the DP nominated. He is keeping his promise,
and it would be extremely dangerous for him to do otherwise."
No it wouldn't. He could simply say that he's reconsidered and apologize for the confusion.
it is a sure way to destroy your reputation associating with these people. To suggest that a candidate
that needs "keeping the pressure" on them well it is good for a laugh.
It matters little that Sanders "thinks" he has pushed the Dems to the left with policy. Without
a mechanism to ensure that party policy hammered out at a convention or in a closed-door session
becomes legislation to be voted upon...it's totally worthless. We have the same situation
here in Canada with the NDP. It's why Mulcair came in 3rd. Who needs 2 liberal parties?
60% of people disagree with FBI's recommendation not to charge Clinton according to Washington
post and ABC poll. No mention of that in corporate guardian
Who cares? If he endorses Hillary - and forget about her so-called platform concessions -
he'll be endorsing a thug, one who breaks any rule that gets in her way. And then Bernie will
be a partner in her chicanery...But he will able to hang on to his war chest - and a nice "take"
it is for a few months work.
You must be joking! While aiming at Bernie, Hillary even accused his Vermont for arming criminals
in New York.
It must be that you remember that, it was not a long time ago.
According to Washington Post, the republican party has strong anti TPP language in their party
platform, the very same thing the democratic party voted down.
Oh, the irony. People who are against TPP find it in the republican party yet Bernie is about
to endorse Clinton
The spittle-flecked Clinton surrogate Barney Frank just the other day declared contemptuously
that party platforms are "irrelevant."
You know, party platforms--like the Democratic Party platform that's being larded with Sanders-friendly
"policy goals" that Wall Street's Warmongering Madame will feel no obligation to fulfill if she's
elected president.
With his coming endorsement, Sanders makes himself not simply useless to the fight against
the capitalist status quo; no, he has become a direct impediment to it.
Whenever people on the left side of the political spectrum, whatever their reasoning, vote
for servants of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the national security apparatus, the political
center of gravity moves another notch decisively to the right.
We're constantly told that if we don't vote for the latest pseudo-progressive stooge the Dems
put forward that we're effectively voting for the Republicans.
In other words, if we don't vote for stooges who in many respects are indistinguishable
from Republicans, that systematically cede the political initiative to Republicans,
that it is we who might as well be Republicans!
Meanwhile, these same "progressives" are nowhere to be seen when a fight kicks off in the streets
against imperial war or austerity or police brutality or lay-offs. No, of course not: they're
too busy doing nothing waiting for the next opportunity to vote for another crop of corporate
liberals who'll save us from the Republicans.
It's fair to ask what all this voting for corporate liberals has gotten us over the past 25
years. Here's a list of signature policies supported and/or enacted by the last two Democratic
Party presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama:
--Deregulation of investment banks and telecommunications
--The Omnibus Crime Bill (mass incarceration)
--The destruction of welfare (which caused extreme poverty to double in the 15 years after its
passage)
--The sanctions regime against Iraq (which killed 500,000 Iraqi children)
--NAFTA
--CAFTA
--TPP
--Fracking
--The objectively-racist death penalty
--The Defense of Marriage Act
--Historic levels of repression against whistle-blowers
--Preservation of Bush-era tax cuts on the rich
--Patriots Acts 1 and 2
--Massive expansion of NSA spying
--Years of foot-dragging on climate change
--Support for Israeli atrocities
--Support for the right-wing coup in Honduras
--Support for fraudulent election in Haiti
--Support for the Saudi dictatorship
--Support for a 31 cents/hour minimum wage in Haiti and against attempts to raise it
--Oil drilling on the Atlantic seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic
--A $1 trillion 20-year "modernization" of the US's nuclear weapons arsenal
--Historically high numbers of deportations
--Drone missile strikes that have killed large numbers of civilians and inflamed anti-US hatred
--Health care reform that has fortified the power of the insurance cartel not weakened or obliterated
it
--Industry-approved bankruptcy "reform"
--The bail-out of Wall Street
This is comprehensive list of what the Democrats are, and what Hillary Clinton is. I thought you
were going to leave out drones, and Clinton's support for the military coup in Honduras over a
democratically-elected president (partly due to President Zalaya's attempts to raise the Honduran
minimum wage!), which resulted in five years (so far) of Honduras being the 'murder capital of
the world', and its children the highest numbers of attempts to immigrate to the United States.
This one fact alone -- her support for this coup, Zalaya kidnapped in his pajamas and taken to
a U.S. military base, her and Bill's friend a high-priced consultant to the coup -- is one reason
I know Clinton is not a democrat, not a believer in democracy.
I just posted my congratulations on getting the Democratic platform to a much better point
than it would have been if Bernie Sanders had not hung in and appointed great people to the platform
committee while holding them hostage while doing it. (While shaming the Clintonians for leaving
out crucial anti-TPP, pro-minimum wage of $15, and no fracking stances on the platform.)
BUT I forgot until reading this post and being reminded, that each time I picture going to
the polls and voting for Clinton I feel nauseated. I think I will vote for Jill Stein (who graciously
and strategically offered to move out of her place on the Green ticket in favor of Sanders. I
believe Bernie Sanders would have an equal chance to Clinton if he took her up on the offer. My
sense of history and my self-respect makes me want to risk Trump.
I'm going repost one paragraph of my initial comment that I think is its most important paragraph
and which I believe is the best way in a few words to explain to "progressives" why they shouldn't
vote for her.
Whenever people on the left side of the political spectrum, whatever their reasoning,
vote for servants of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the national security apparatus, the political
center of gravity moves another notch decisively to the right.
"We have made enormous strides," said Sanders in a statement issued after a meeting in Orlando
that swung the party in his direction on the minimum wage, climate change and marijuana
though failed to make headway on fracking and trade.
So Bernie's political revolution will end up with the legalization of ganja?
OK, I get it! Bernie is in fact a "Rastafarian Socialist", and not a Democratic Socialist as it
was thought until now.:-)))
People liked Sanders because on many matters he was unsparing in his condemnation of Wall Street's
Warmongering Madame and the system she services.
It's hard to reconcile that with his namby-pamby "we can just get along" bullshit statement
and pitch for the victims of the policies she supports to support Clinton Corp.
Bernie Sanders set to endorse Clinton after Democratic platform negotiations
Yeah, as you can see here
, everything is already prepared for their joint performance at tomorrow's rally in New Hampshire.
Interestingly, the UK rock band Status Quo had scheduled a concert in the same place for tomorrow,
but at the last minute they canceled their performance with the message, "There is no need for
us to come, Hillary and Bernie together are better 'Status Quo' than we are."
"When they served together in the US Senate, Sanders and Clinton voted the same way 93% of the
time."
Oh, not that "they're 93% alike" bullshit again.
That misleading factoid was put forward by Nate Silver (whose pro-Clinton bias is transparent)
and picked up on and spread by Clinton supporters ad nauseaum.
It's based only on the two years in which Sanders and Clinton were in the Senate together and
therefore doesn't, for example, take into account their opposing stances on the destruction
of welfare, NAFTA, the Iraq War, the Libyan bombing campaign, TPP (which she now weakly claims
to support), fracking, the Patriot Act, or TARP.
The 93% likeness is, in any case, an unscientific way of gleaning political similarity as many
votes are basically formalities and not all are of equal significance.
That said, it's interesting to note that Clinton Corp. and her gullible liberal supporters
like smalltownboy expend so much energy dishonestly claiming that she and Sanders are so much
alike. Why is that? Could it be that tens of millions don't much like what Clinton actually stands
for?
Once challenged from the left by Sanders, Clinton claimed to oppose TPP, but there's
reason to believe her opposition is weak and if elected president she'll accept some superficial
fix and proclaim her support for it. Pro-Clinton members of the platform committee have tipped
her hand by voting down a plank opposing the TPP (a trade agreement that grants massive new powers
to the capitalist class, the opposition to which smalltownboy dishonestly depicts as being about
"nuances of free trade agreements).
Smalltownboy is a smart guy who isn't interested in engaging in an honest debate.
So with Sanders falling into line we have a choice between tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber. Nothing
progressive about that and it goes to show just how sleazy and corrupted the political system
has become.
". . .'though failed to make headway on fracking and trade."
***Vote for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. THEIR platform eviscerates both: fracking AND
trade deals that only enrich the duopoly elites.
". . .particularly over trade, where the Sanders camp failed to insert outright opposition
to Barack Obama's controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
"This party is done," wrote actor and Sanders surrogate Susan Sarandon after Clinton supporters
blocked the proposed amendment. "[It has] warped into the party of the rich. No longer represents
working people."
I can't vote for Hillary if she is pro-TPP.
This is what can happen under this trade pact. Foreign companies can sue the U.S. government outside
of the U.S. courts.
This actually happened to Australia because of a law passed to reduce smoking.
In 20ll, the Aussies passed a plain packaging law banning tobacco packaging branding.
Two tobacco companies sued Australia. Then when the tobacco company lost, Phillip Morris, under
a 1993 trade agreement, sued in international court.
Then Ukraine sued Australia, which does not sell tobacco to Australia. Tobacco companies covering
legal costs.
A legal challenge against Uruguay followed, which didn't have the money to pay court costs.
Also against Togo, one of the poorest countries on earth.
Canada is suing the U.S. taxpayers for billions because the U.S. did not go through with the keystone
pipeline.
Chris Hedges was right, Bernie is a traitor. He misled a lot of people into believing he was
going to stand up for something different, now he is promoting the status quo, I'm pissed.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton successfully voted down amendments supporting a single payer healthcare
system, a nationwide ban on fracking, as well as an amendment objecting to Israel's occupation
of the West Bank and characterizing the settlements as illegal.
Sanders focused on the substantive issues to a literal fault, and it's going to cost him one way
or another.
Though I feel disapointed if he endorses Hillary, I really believe Sanders believes he's acting
on behalf of the issues that affect regular people. Whether the platform planks actually benefit
the people in reality is another story.
Even if Sanders endorses Hillary, it doesn't mean you're bound to do the same. You are a free
agent, Sanders unfortunately is not when he signed onto the Democratic platform.
I know through disapointment it will be hard to feel respect towards Sanders. We should strive
to see his potential endorsement as a means to an end for this election cycle, working within
the constraints of being the loser. But we should also strive to see that this election cycle
isn't the end to Bernie Sanders all together nor his message.
I would have liked to see Bernie go all the way to the convention. A lot of people signed up
and crowd funded to join him in Philly. It may be that the pressure just got to be too overwhelming
and he was crossing into territory that would actually destroy him going forward. Sometimes you
lose the battle to win the war.
He already materially lost the battle. However, It is a contested convention by definition going
in. Hillary niether lost or won anything until November.
It is way too early for Sanders to concede until the convention. This would not represent the
best interests of those he has fought for his whole career.
The guy has no spine. The platform means nothing. In the end he caved and became a good little
soldier. And with him goes my one chance to vote for a Democrat. I guess I will go with Trump.
Trump says some stupid things and the Media flays him for it. Could he be as bad as he appears?
Seems unlikely.
On the other hand, Hillary is a true politician. I listened to an interview she gave to Wolf
Blitzer. She answered like a politician, she didn't say a single thing that could be used against
her. That is problem with professional politicians they never really tell you what they really
think. Who knows what she really plans to try to do if she gets there. Can we say that Obama has
brought the hope and change that he claimed? The world seems more dangerous than ever. Hillary
had a part in that. I can't say the same about Trump. He didn't get a vote in the Senate when
they voted to authorized action in Iraq. Hillary did. Trump didn't run the State Department for
four years as the world became a more dangerous place. Hillary did. Trump didn't leaked classified
government secrets recklessly. Hillary did.
I see Hillary as part of the problem not the solution. Sanders disappoints me. I didn't
see him as part of the problem, but guess what he is now.
So, what is to be said about Hillary Clinton's personality? In an essay by Audrey Immelman,
published in 2001 by the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics of St. Johns University
in Minnesota, a discussion of Clinton's dominant traits is taken up. Here are some of the conclusions:
Hillary Clinton is an aggressive and controlling personality; when she makes up her mind about
something, she loses interest in other people's points of view; she is often impatient; she
lacks empathy and can act harshly to those seen as standing in her way; she has boundary problems
due to her excessive level of self-confidence – that is, when she "knows" she is right, she
doesn't like the idea that there are limits that she has to abide by.
Bernie Sanders has cleared the way for an endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, and
declared a successful end to his campaign to pull their party to the left during weekend negotiations
over the Democratic policy platform.
"We have made enormous strides," said Sanders in a statement issued after a meeting in Orlando
that swung the party in his direction on the minimum wage, climate change and marijuana though
failed to make headway on fracking and trade.
This "platform" they all stand up on during election years is just a stage to perform on for
the crowd. Once the elections are over, the curtain comes down and they will be meeting their
buddies from the business world to make the real legislation.
Anybody who believes this show is real is a fool.
Deeply disappointed in Sanders for using Revolution as a sales tactic and then supporting
this public fraud. If he believes they will maintain their convictions for his ideals after an
election, then he was a fool who didn't deserve the office.
I'm a Republican reluctantly supporting Donald Trump. Had the Democrats nominated Senator Sanders
I would have switch my allegiance. However, my disdain for Secretary Clinton means I'll vote for
someone I don't like because I view the alternative as worse. How very sad.
Dogs, Bernie did not say shit about the Disguised Global Capitalist Empire that is eating our
environment, our children, our grand children, and our entire fragile little planet alive so that
it can loot trillions via negative externality cost dumping.
It was said in the 19th century that "it took half the world to support the British Empire"
--- but now it would take a dozen worlds to support this God damned Disguised Global Capitalist
Empire only nominally HQed in, and merely 'posing' as, our former country.
"The U.S. state is a key point of condensation for pressures from dominant groups around the
world to resolve problems of global capitalism and to
secure the legitimacy of the system overall. In this regard, "U.S." imperialism refers to the
use by transnational elites of the U.S. state apparatus to continue to attempt to expand, defend,
and stabilize the global capitalist system. We are witness less to a "U.S." imperialism per se
than to a global capitalist imperialism. We face an EMPIRE OF GLOBAL CAPITAL, headquartered, for
evident historical reasons, in Washington."
Robinson, William. 2014 "Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity". Cambridge University
Press.
Good point. I wondered why he timidly refrained from attacking her, too. Cost him the nomination
- and the Presidency - in my view. Thing is, he's a genuinely decent man who unfortunately forgot
he was in the fight of his life. Worse, he acted like there were Marquis of Queensberry Rules
for politics. Worse, in forgetting the old saw about 'nice guys finish last' he let down what
he lived his entire life for. And now, in endorsing her he brings the futility of his life full
circle. Is what it is. Heavy sigh.
Okay all you Sanders supporters, especially the ones who INSISTED that he was somehow different
from other Democratic Party candidates. Will you persist in this nonsense now that you see your
man endorse more Clintonism?
You remember Clintonism, right? What you've been decrying for so long? Your man is going to
give it his blessing. That's how U.S. politics works. You get pulled in by yet another patsy,
and then you get TRASHED if you refuse to support the inevitable "centrist" (read: vetted by capital)
nominee.
Still liking it? No? Then why participate in the first place when you already know the outcome?
And besides, Sanders is a capitalist. Sure, he'd be a better capitalist leader than the others,
since he'd try to mitigate some of the worst aspects of same. But come on, you know better than
to believe he would make structural changes.
Withdraw your consent to this horror. Get real. Stop imagining that people who have been in
government for decades, voting for militarism and other vile policies, will change anything. Sanders
is another apologist for capital. Period.
One might think that after being hoodwinked by the Peace Prize-winning charlatan
Drone Ranger , twice, that an iota of skepticism might have penetrated the leftist fog wafting
about between their ears, but alas, one would be wrong.
And so there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, until the next silver-tongued mountebank
appears, promising them all more free shit courtesy of their fellow citizens.
Wall Street's Warmongering Madame is the perfect foil for Donald Trump's huckster-populism:
a pseudo-progressive stooge whose contempt for the average person and their intelligence is palpable.
She's an arch-environmentalist who has worked tirelessly to spread fracking globally.
She supports fortifying Social Security but won't commit to raising the cap on taxes to do
so.
She's a humanitarian who has supported every imperial slaughter the US has waged in the past
25 years.
She cares deeply about the plight of the Palestinians but supported the starvation blockade
and blitzkrieg of Gaza and couldn't bother to mention them but in passing in a recent speech before
AIPAC.
She's a stalwart civil libertarian, but voted for Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and believes Edward
Snowden should be sent to federal prison for decades.
She stands with the working class but has supported virtually every international pact granting
increased mobility and power to the corporate sector at its expense in the past 25 years.
She cares with all her heart about African-Americans but supports the objectively-racist death
penalty and the private prison industry.
She will go to bat for the poor but supported gutting welfare in the '90s, making them easier
prey to exploiters, many of whom supported her husband and her financially.
She worries about the conditions of the poor globally, but while Sec. of State actively campaigned
against raising the minimum wage in Haiti to 60 cents an hour, thinking 31 cents an hour sounded
better for the investor class whose interests are paramount to her.
She's not a bought-and-paid-for hack, oh no, no, no, but she won't ever release the Wall Street
speeches for which she was paid so handsomely.
She's a true-blue progressive, just ask her most zealous supporters, who aren't.
But don't you realise that all these supposed defects make her an ideal President? It's the idealists
who are the real threat to global stability and the survival of mankind.
For myself, Clinton will never get my vote, nor Trump for that matter. And no, the argument that
this is in effect a vote for Trump does not hold water. I am responsible ONLY for my vote, and
can not be held responsible if there are enough idiots in the US elsewhere to be found to vote
for either Clinton or Trump.
Some Sanders supporters appear to believe that Hillary Clinton is such a poor candidate that allowing
Trump to be elected would be a palatable alternative.
Voring for any candidate involves a degree of compromise. It is effectively a deal between the
subjective and the objective.
I have recently read a fair amount of biographical detail of Secretary Clinton, and also of Mr
Trump. I see in Mrs Clinton a woman who has been driven by a notion of public service since an
early age. She isn't beyond reproach and isn't a messiah. And yes, she accepted well-paid speaking
engagements as well. I guess she likes having financial security.
In Mr Trump I see someone who inherited great wealth, who has textbook narcissistic personality
disorder, who in unprincipled, who swindled the vulnerable out of their savings with a fraudulent
"University" scheme, who takes terrible risks with the money of others, making skilful use of
bankruptcy laws and junk bonds, who is a braggart, who flirts with white supremacists, who can
take no consistent position. Trump has a thing for dictators and tyrants. He mocks the disabled.
A draft-dodger himself, he seeks to ridicule a man who was captured (with three broken limbs)
as insufficiently heroic for him.
Are you really prepared to assist this man to the Presidency, just to spite Hillary Clinton?
"I see in Mrs Clinton a woman who has been driven by a notion of public service since an early
age."
You're referring back to when she supported the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, who
ran on a platform explicitly opposed to the Civil Rights Movement? That's an interesting definition
of public service.
"She isn't beyond reproach and isn't a messiah."
Wow, what a concession to reality.
"And yes, she accepted well-paid speaking engagements as well. I guess she likes having financial
security."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
You Clinton supporters are sooooo terrible at defending her!
Yes, as expected, Bernie Sanders, the great "liberal" hope is not "liberal" at all. The entrenched
power of Neoliberalism subsumes all in its view. There are no "liberals" or progressives in US
politics. Elizabeth Warren is no different, when the chips are down and it is time to stand up
for anything that might be mildly progressive they surrender - each and every one kneels before
their masters and support warmongering and sycophantism to Wall Street.
People should understand from the Obama - every day war and every day more hungry children
- presidency that hope is a vanishing commodity and those who offer it in the US are in fact worse
than the ones who don't bother.
Frankly don't see what Sanders gets out of this . Putting aside the fear-mongering by the Clinton
loyalists, Sanders points on :
- TPP
- unions and decline of middle class
- education
- money in politics
- minimum wage 15 usd
- fair and transparent elections
- end of trickle down pseudo economics by the baby boomers
-climate change-fracking
All these have been left unaddressed or with so much wiggle room for Clinton , that you know
that she will pivot to the right just after the convention and stay there for the rest of her
administration.
And he doesn't even know who the VP will be.
Clinton and her crowd will throw his/our ideas away like a used condom as soon as convenient.
Just like they are doing with Liz Warren .
Pity but we always new that Bernie was too principled to win this event.
At the moment, he is an a catch-22 situation.
If he endorses Clinton, be to honor the promise he made before getting access to the Dem primaries..because
to honor your promises is the honourable thing to do...he disappoints those who say the issues
at stake are too important to be sacrificed on that particular altar.
If he does not endorse Hillary, but goes for the proffered Green ticket, the Hillary camp will
be shouting "see, you can't trust him!..or "he is so self-serving" ( I know that is ironic since
Hillary is the epitome of the "Queen of self-serve"). We his followers are not bound by such restrictions
though. We did not promise anything and are free to follow our consciences.
First, Guardian readers should know that quarrels about the Democratic Party's platform are typically
instigated by the candidate who loses the nomination, if his or her ego requires such a palliative
to compensate for the loss. Sanders' ego is a good example. Platforms mean next to nothing in
any meaningful political sense. They bind no one, least of all the president or members of Congress.
Clinton gave Sanders a bit of space to argue that he had "won" something. She allowed him to insert
aspirational goals ($15 an hr minimum wage), but not opposition to trade deals, which might cause
some difficulty once she approves trade deals.
Next, the statement that Clinton "narrowly escaped prosecution" is a blatant falsehood. The
FBI's investigation found no grounds to charge that she violated any applicable federal law. I
suppose if one thinks a person is guilty until proven innocent (which is the usual attitude of
the media, apparently including the Guardian, toward Clinton), then the FBI Director's opinion
that she had violated no law might be considered a narrow escape. His statement that she had received/sent
several classified emails, which was one of the major justifications for saying that she and hundreds
of State Dept. officials were "extremely careless" in handling classified info, was itself false,
which the FBI Director was forced to acknowledge less than 24 hrs after his reckless charge! Amazing.
He also claimed that Clinton's use of a Blackberry "might have been hacked" -- there is no proof
that it was. He said she should have used the Dept's secure server/communications system. That
would be a salient criticism, except for the fact that throughout Clinton's four years as Secretary
of State, the Dept's "secure" communications system was hacked by the Russians, the Chinese and
for all we know, you Brits too. Puts Clinton's use of her Blackberry in a somewhat different light,
wouldn't you agree? No?
Finally, you may not know that the FBI Director's making a public statement in the way he did
was entirely unprecedented in our history. He effectively made the prosecutorial decision himself,
when the legal responsibility is and always has been with his superiors. He also went on to make
clearly false statements about Clinton, which he had to retract. Worse he, a Republican, made
these seemingly damning statements about one of the two candidates for president in an election
year. Talk about extreme carelessness! In other times he would be fired.
Can't the Guardian entrust writing such a report to someone who actually understands American
politics?
I have paid very close attention. It seems you are not. He refers to classified emails NOT
owned by Clinton, she has no right to change classification on data she receives or forwards.
The fact is that some of these emails were obviously copy pasted from a SAP system into her email
system.
What you are confused about is actual marking in some of the emails.
When you take for example a CIA or NSA email off their system and run it via a private email
account, Microsoft Outlook is not the type of system to allow the assignment of classification
headers. there were some emails that retained in the text section header, this is just a side
show issue, it does not change that she received and sent high classified emails. The OIG later
pointed out his staff had to get special clearances just to read the emails she had on her system.
"From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail
chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time
they were sent or received . Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret
at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained
Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about
2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those
had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent."
What I don't understand is the absence of an automatic knee jerk rejection of Clinton. The US
fought the Revolutionary War (1775) by rejecting royalty and primogeniture. Run forwards two hundred
and forty years and what do they vote? Kennedy I, almost Kennedy II, Bush I, Bush II, Clinton
I, now Clinton II? The US is not there yet, but it certainly looks like they're reverting to type.
It's almost as if they hunger for Bill, but can't have him so will settle for Hillary instead.
In any case Elizabeth Warren was by far the most able, the most intelligent, and less divisive
Democratic candidate.
It would be a very difficult choice to pick a 'most depressing headline' award at the moment but
this one for me would be a clear winner.
I find it truly astonishing that the career criminal and soul for hire Clinton has got this
far without the past, or the present, catching up with her. Nothing could give further indication
of how hopelessly brainwashed we are that out of a population of 300 million people they are left
with a 'choice' of these two grotesque, vacuous and narcissistic wall street prostitutes.
These political parties are different tentacles of the same monster and if you haven't worked
that out by now or If you are under the impression that Hillary would be a positive vote for females
then I would recommend you pulling your head out of the sand and do some thinking for yourself
instead of being force fed your 'news' through the mainstream.
Please feel free to peruse the following website for an exhaustive library of information documenting
the many crimes of the criminally insane and corrupt Clintons.
"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders". -
George Carlin
I did not think Sanders was so gullible to believe that Clinton will take action on anything
in the democratic platform. From a mass movement demanding change to accepting a few non-binding
policies at a democratic convention. I think Bernie lost his opportunity to make a difference
when he refused to stand as an independent. Now people are stuck with Trump or Clinton which is
not exactly a great choice.
You really have no idea about the character or deeds of Hillary Clinton and her husband and
what lays in story but heres a sample
Imprisoning of black people en mass
Private prison system - largest increase in the nations history
Wall mart
Against 15$ minimum wage until this year
Destroyed Libya
Massive scandals with Clinton foundation
Ardent supporters of settlements
Biggest arms sales in US history while Clinton was Secretary of state.
Biggest health reform flop
Mysterious deaths when people close to Clintons were investigated.
Belligerent policy towards Russia - That is the biggest danger of all.
Syria - arming of rebels
Bernie, endorsing Clinton is unworthy of him. Go green and have a fat lady singing on stage when
you do please. It will show the Democratic Party, the party that has become Republican Lite, that
life as they know it is OVER.
Thank Obama for hiring Paulson from Wall Street and Tim Geitner, from the Fed, which together
assured that Wall Street CEOs could keep their millions, and their jobs, after forcing taxpayers
to bail their ass out. SHAME on the White Collar Criminals and the WALL STREET WHITEHOUSE they
Own. They have destroyed the planet with their greed.
The revolution continues. March on Main Street formerly for Bernie Sunday July 24, 2016. Feel
The Burn vote for Trump he is the poison pill that will hit them where they live and decimate
the Republican Party.
The Party Platform is meaningless and Sanders should know that. $hillary will do what ever
she wants after the convention if she is nominated. The allegiance $hillary has is to Wall Street
and a NEO-CON foreign policy.
Sanders can endorse $hillary if he wants, but I voted for Sanders because of his platform.
I did not vote for Sanders so he could endorse Clinton. I will be voting for a Third Party Candidate,
if it is Clinton vs Trump. Oh and do not give me the Ralph Nader Guilt Trip. The Gorebot lost
to Bush the Younger on his own. The Gorebot could not carry his own state.
It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want
and get it.
- Eugene Victor Debs.
Debs polled over a million votes while doing some hard time in a federal prison for sedition:
he dared oppose american entry in World War One. That man stood up for what he believed in, and
was willing to pay any price. Bernie -- who reportedly has a portrait of Debs hanging over his
desk -- should hang his head in shame for his cowardice in selling out so cheaply
Debs also said > The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic
party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the
capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
Bernie must know that a "plank" in the platform is nothing more than a sop. It is not binding.
Even the sops he got are chicken feed. The $15.00 minimum wage should have been a non negotiable
default, not some trumpeted victory. The minimum wage in 1962 was worth $22.00 in today's dollars.
The vague "committment" on saving the environment would be laughable were its consequences
not so tragic.
Trade Agreements (aka secret global corporate rule)? Zip
Single Payer Health Care? Zip
Free Higher Education? Zip
Expanded Social Security? Zip
Restraining Israel? Zip
De-militarization of police? Zip
Resumption of nuclear & arms control negotiations with Russia? Zip
Return to detente with Russia? Zip
The list of platform failures is about as long as the list of Hillary's corporate donors.
There were those (certainly not in the embedded press) who said from the start that Bernie
was a stalking horse for Hillary -- an exercise in bait and switch.
If he was, he deserves an Oscar.
Hey! But we got weed!! Oh wow. Bong Hits. Yaaaaaay!!!!
As much as I want to vote for HRC, the stench of neocon corporatism is too much, the thin
layer of accumulated grime from years of ethical expediency too toxic, the opaque lack of transparency
too dangerous, and the shifting sands of her amorphous policy too treacherous.
A vote for HRC is: a vote for Palestinian kids growing up without a future; a vote for American
kids subject to the Common Core; a vote for water polluted by fracking precipitates; a vote for
drone strikes; a vote for kids locked up for a joint, a vote for lives ruined by corporate prisons,
and a vote for bankers first, the people second.
Can't do it. Jill Stein. Let the chips fall where they do.
Is the lawsuit against Clinton still happening? Not for the deletion of 30,000 personal emails
between herself and her husband, but for the campaign fraud and election fraud in Arizona? Or
are we still pretending that America is a democracy and not the most corrupt and aggressive asylum
in the history of mankind?
This detailed legal dissection of last week's Comey hearing indicates there's plenty still to
mine there, if Mr. Chump isn't merely shilling
5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public
Has Ever Had
What America Saw on July 7th in No Way Resembles Our Justice System
the fact remains that the non-indictment of Hillary Clinton is as much a stain on the
fair and equal administration of justice as is the disparate treatment of poor black males
at all stages of the criminal justice system. I witnessed the latter injustice close up, nearly
every day, during my seven years working as a public defender; now America has seen the same
thing, albeit on a very different stage, involving a defendant of a very different class and
hue.
Sanders just became irrelevant for the rest of his life. Not accepting Stein's offer was a chance
to change American politics and make three parties viable instaed of just two.
Big mistake.
Endorsing Clinton by claiming Trump must be defeated ONLY holds up IF Sanders supporters are
needed to defeat him. That certainly isn't the case. Hillary will easily defeat Trump with or
without them.
0-50 in November.
Bernie missed his chance. His whole campaign was a wasted effort. His supporters must feel
like fools.
The main problem is that she puts things now in the agenda to pretend she's bridging the gap between
her and progressives, but once she starts ''negotiating'' with Republicans, she'll drop practically
everything she added because of Bernie and claim she had to do it to achieve a compromise.
So actually Progressives once again will get nothing, especially on economics....might get some
scraps off the table on social issues, but that's it. They'll all do the usual song and dance
about these ''huge achievements'' and sing along...
Same story....no real change....might get a war though cause she's gagging for one
this charade will probably continue only until she has Bernie's endorsement fully and irrevocably
in the bag - and not a second longer. While she paid lip service momentarily to opposing TPP,
her operatives have ensured that in no way will the party platform oppose it.
see robert reich's facebook posting from earlier today:
So Bernie wins for the potheads. Is that supposed to be a triumph for the progressives... He is
about to endorse the queen of Wall Street and give her a free pass on TPP, the two pillars of
his candidacy. This talk about pulling Clinton to the left is crap.
As Jill Stein has said, "What We Fear from Donald Trump, We Have Already Seen from Hillary
Clinton."
So rant away about how voting Green will allow Trump in...it's the failed Democratic Party
and Hillary Clinton that are really to blame for the rise of the reprehensible Donald Trump.
If they were worth anything, they would have the support of everyone.
If EVERYONE voted their conscience, the Greens would win by a landslide.
So you are the one who is deluded thinking that rewarding the unethical status quo with
your vote will be good for the planet...the wars and environmental destruction will go on and
on thanks to you and others like you .
Right? Right.
CahootsConspiracy
14h ago
9 10
Not sure what the goal of his endorsement would be at this point. Many if not most of his supporters
already know whether or not they'll vote for Clinton in November, and it seems unlikely that him
urging his supporters to vote for her will pick up many new converts.
I'm afraid Bernie's endorsement of Clinton will not stop Trump. There is no room for a
neo-liberal status quo candidate like Clinton in this race. The American economy is going to hell
in a hand cart. 50 million Americans use food banks millions more are facing bankruptcy, joblessness
and homelessness. They need a radical socialist candidate. Voting for more of the same for them
is utterly pointless. Trump will beat Clinton. America needed Bernie if Trump was to be beaten.
Americans want the short lived rush of another Obama moment with the first woman President.But
look at Obamas America,anything changed? Black protest riots across the Country as we speak.
They used to say when 'Billy' was running and Hillary was by his side, that we were getting 'two
for the price of one, This time around, the bargain is two outdated, technologically incompetent,
out-of-touch, power-hungry, money-grubbing globalists who have consistently lied to the American
people. They have sold out the American people in their self-serving, addictive grasp for more
power and more money.
the Sanders camp failed to insert outright opposition to Barack Obama's controversial Trans
Pacific Partnership deal. [...] Clinton supporters blocked the proposed amendment
Hardly a surprise that Clinton is a slave of corporate interests. That's been the crowd she
has surrounded herself with for decades.
A "sophisticated" person would understand the importance of handling very sensitive information.
Clinton signed documents from the FBI, which acknowledged the importance of appropriately handling
classified information, how then as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could possibly have thought
having an unsecured private server was appropriate?
"I don't think that our investigation established she was actually particularly sophisticated
with respect to classified information and the levels and treatment."
If Sanders endorses Clinton then he has wasted his efforts entirely -- Killary is a war mongering
Wall St stooge, who cannot be trustd one bit -- His progressive agenda should have joined hands with
The Greens and stood for a new socialist agenda -- A v sad day --
I wonder if conspiracy theorists also stated clinton perjured herself many times over the last year?
Tut tut
By the way...
"A second Stanford study comparing voting machines to pre-election polls shows extreme discrepancies
in many states where electronic voting machines were utilized."
Even if Sanders endorses her, I -- a lifelong Democrat -- will not vote for her. She claims she opposes
TPP and yesterday her delegates made passage of TPP part of her campaign platform. She's a lying,
hypocritical, corrupt, Wall Street-toadying warmonger. No thank you. Sayonara Democratic Party. Prospect
of Bill Clinton back in White House makes her candidacy doubly nauseous.
The Republican request, five days after the
department closed a yearlong investigation into Mrs. Clinton's handling of classified information in the emails, threatens to shadow
her through the campaign and perhaps even into the White House if she is elected.
In a letter Monday evening, House Republicans
asked the Justice Department to determine whether Mrs. Clinton had "committed perjury and made false statements" during her appearance
in October before a special House panel on the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The letter was signed by Representatives Jason
Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, who leads the Oversight Committee, and Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, who leads the Judiciary
Committee.
The Justice Department declined to comment
on the request. In a Twitter post, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, called the Republican request "another futile,
partisan attempt to keep this issue alive now that the Justice Dept has declared it resolved."
Mrs. Clinton has said
she regrets the decision to use a private email server for official communications as secretary of state, but she has defended the
truthfulness of her public remarks.
Legal analysts said that while it appeared
unlikely the F.B.I. would ultimately find enough evidence to prosecute Mrs. Clinton on charges of lying to Congress, there might
be enough to warrant opening an investigation. That alone could prove damaging to her campaign.
"... The real wild card that's yet to be played is the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Jim Comey at the FBI seems to have given up a little too easily on Mrs. Clinton - perhaps because he knows something more damning is coming? ..."
According to the Associated Press, the internal investigation will not result in
criminal charges. Many of Ms Clinton's top aides could have their security clearances revoked,
which would all but dissolve their chances of being a part of the national security team should
the former Secretary of State win the presidency.
... The probe by the department will focus on 22 emails found on Ms Clinton's emails that were
considered to be "top secret".
... Mr Kirby would not identify the top aides under investigation, but the AP said the ones
most likely to face scrutiny are Jake Sullivan, Cheryl Mills, and Huma Abedin.
Marine
I quit being a dem after 45 yrs., when Bill Clinton stabbed workers in the back. I know I
was not the only one to do so & change . politicians don't represent voters anymore, money has
corrupt the whole system of government we have now. The TRADE BILLS signed benefited Wall
Street & the 1%. It is them that that regulate the two party system when they should be
regulating Wall Street & a brand new set of Campaign laws.
It is the 1% who tell us who to vote for, they choose the candidates offering large sums of
money to both party's campaign funds. If only more voters could see the real evil in our
system of government instead of just feeling it. The country is in decline like never before &
worse then the 1928 crash.
Earthnotmoving2me
The insanity has reached epic proportions and it's all caused by our own government... The
American people are being held hostage by psychopaths ... A large portion of the population
can't seem to make the connection our government has turned into one of the most violent
corrupt destructive evil forces working against humanity on earth...
wanderingone56
Awkward for Mrs. Clinton, I know, but State won't really do much more than provide a few
awkward moments. (After all, would you really want to be the Statie who p!$$ed off your future
boss?)
The real wild card that's yet to be played is the investigation into the Clinton
Foundation. Jim Comey at the FBI seems to have given up a little too easily on Mrs. Clinton -
perhaps because he knows something more damning is coming?
Sal20111
Sounds a bit off. Hilary can become President, despite the carelessness that was basically
hers, but her aides can't get sensitive cabinet positions - are the cabinet positions more
sensitive than President? Reeks like a trade-off: no criminal charges but some punishment in
terms of restricting your aides. Is Hilary already compromised before becoming President?
Enso
We already know George W Bush set up a private email server WHILE he was president and
there were 88 accounts on the server. Karl Rove had one and did a range of things with it.
Just after Valerie Plame was outted by an anonymous source as a CIA field agent, just after
her husband said something the administratin didn't like - that was when Karl Rove destroyed
22 MILLION emails.
mokopoloko
why wouldn t they be looking to pursue criminal charges if she is found guilty of
wrongdoing.this woman is a liar and a criminal as was her slimeball of a husband.they are not
fit to run as smalltown mayors nevermind the supposed leader of the free world.
anti-morons
But as we all know, America is no "free world" - it is a dump of corruption, bible-belt
hate-mongering and fear-mongering, and the world's greatest threat to security and peace.
America is nothing other than a terrorist, rogue State.
SpinResistant
Michel Gove pulled exactly the same dodge with private emails as Hillary when he was
Secrtary of State for Education, and he went on to become one of the most trusted politicians
in the Conservative Party.
anti-morons
Trusted by whom precisely ?
Neither UK nor USA can be trusted - both are warmongering nations and responsible for the
destabilisation of the whole of the Middle Eastern region, which has ultimately led to
non-stop war, the murder of millions, and a continuing influx of millions of displaced persons
into Europe.
Time to say NO to England's and America's murder machine !
It's not something the least but new or unique.
Muffin
Oh Hillary the wagons are circling. Who and why? I think we can guess.....
sinbad
Clinton has been chosen by the Wall St Gods to be the Queen of the World.
Nothing can change that, she has been chosen.
Tom North London
Correct. The world will be changed as necessary to make it compatible with Her.
ComberBryan
No charges for Hillary, so time to scapegoat some of the little people.
"... The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. ..."
"... We can say, accurately, that the judgment of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. ..."
"... whether criminal statutes on the books had been violated ..."
"... criminal statutes had been violated ..."
"... So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing" mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton violated, that wasn't it. ..."
"... specific intent ..."
"... Black's Law Dictionary ..."
"... First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space. ..."
"... Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? ..."
"... And indeed, the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was, by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience." ..."
"... completely different and more stringent protocols and requirements for data storage ..."
1. According to Comey, Clinton committed multiple federal felonies and misdemeanors.
Many people will miss this in the wash of punditry from non-attorneys in the mainstream media that
has followed Comey's public remarks and Congressional testimony.
The issue for Comey wasn't that
Clinton hadn't committed any federal crimes, but that in his personal opinion the federal felony
statute Clinton violated (18 U.S.C. 793f) has been too rarely applied for him to feel comfortable
applying it to Clinton. This is quite different from saying that no crime was committed; rather,
Comey's position is that crimes were committed, but he has decided not to prosecute those crimes
because (a) the statute he focused most on has only been used once in the last century (keeping in
mind how relatively rare cases like these are in the first instance, and therefore how rarely we
would naturally expect a statute like this to apply in any case), and (b) he personally believes
that the statute in question might be unconstitutional because, as he put it, it might punish people
for crimes they didn't specifically intend to commit (specifically, it requires only a finding of
"gross negligence," which Comey conceded he could prove). Comey appears to have taken the extraordinary
step of researching the legislative history of this particular criminal statute in order to render
this latter assessment.
The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible
unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. Their job is to
apply the laws as written, unless and until they are superseded by new legislation or struck down
by the judicial branch. In Comey's case, this deep dive into the history books is even more
puzzling as, prior to Attorney General Loretta Lynch unethically having a private meeting with Bill
Clinton on an airport tarmac, Comey wasn't even slated to be the final arbiter of whether Clinton
was prosecuted or not. He would have been expected, in a case like this, to note to the Department
of Justice's career prosecutors that the FBI had found evidence of multiple federal crimes, and then
leave it to their prosecutorial discretion as to whether or not to pursue a prosecution. But more
broadly, we must note that when Comey gave his public justification for not bringing charges ― a
public justification in itself highly unusual, and suggestive of the possibility that Comey knew
his inaction was extraordinary, and therefore felt the need to defend himself in equally extraordinary
fashion ― he did not state the truth: that Clinton had committed multiple federal crimes per statutes
presently on the books, and that the lack of a recommendation for prosecution was based not on the
lack of a crime but the lack of prosecutorial will (or, as he might otherwise have put it, the exercise
of prosecutorial discretion).
The danger here is that Americans will now believe many untrue things about the executive branch
of their government. For instance, watching Comey's testimony one might believe that if the executive
branch exercises its prosecutorial discretion and declines to prosecute crimes it determines have
been committed, it means no crimes were committed. In fact, what it means (in a case like this) is
that crimes were committed but will not be prosecuted. We can say, accurately, that the judgment
of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was
indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. She simply shouldn't,
in the view of the FBI, be prosecuted for her crimes. Prosecutorial discretion of this sort is relatively
common, and indeed should be much more common when it comes to criminal cases involving
poor Americans; instead, we find it most commonly in law enforcement's treatment of Americans with
substantial personal, financial, sociocultural, and legal resources.
Americans might also wrongly believe, watching Comey's testimony, that it is the job of executive-branch
employees to determine which criminal statutes written by the legislative branch will be acknowledged.
While one could argue that this task does fall to the head of the prosecuting authority in a given
instance ― here, Attorney General Loretta Lynch; had an independent prosecutor been secured in this
case, as should have happened, that person, instead ― one could not argue that James Comey's
role in this scenario was to decide which on-the-books criminal statutes matter and which don't.
Indeed, Comey himself said, during his announcement of the FBI's recommendation, that his role was
to refer the case to the DOJ for a "prosecutive decision" ― in other words, the decision on whether
to prosecute wasn't his. His job was only to determine whether criminal statutes on the books
had been violated.
By this test, Comey didn't just not do the job he set out to do, he wildly and irresponsibly
exceeded it, to the point where its original contours were unrecognizable. To be blunt: by obscuring,
in his public remarks and advice to the DOJ, the fact that criminal statutes had been violated
― in favor of observing, more broadly, that there should be no prosecution ― he made it not just
easy but a fait accompli for the media and workaday Americans to think that not only would no prosecution
commence, but that indeed there had been no statutory violations.
Which there were.
Americans might also wrongly take at face value Comey's contention that the felony statute Clinton
violated was unconstitutional ― on the grounds that it criminalizes behavior that does not
include a specific intent to do wrong. This is, as every attorney knows, laughable. Every single
day in America, prosecutors prosecute Americans ― usually but not exclusively poor people ― for crimes
whose governing statutes lack the requirement of "specific intent." Ever heard of negligent homicide?
That's a statute that doesn't require what lawyers call (depending on the jurisdiction) an "intentional"
or "purposeful" mental state. Rather, it requires "negligence." Many other statutes require only
a showing of "recklessness," which likewise is dramatically distinct from "purposeful" or "intentional"
conduct. And an even larger number of statutes have a "knowing" mental state, which Comey well knows
― but the average American does not ― is a general- rather than specific-intent mental state (mens
rea, in legal terms).
And the term "knowingly" is absolutely key to the misdemeanors Comey appears to concede
Clinton committed, but has declined to charge her for.
To discuss what "knowingly" means in the law, I'll start with an example. When I practiced criminal
law in New Hampshire, it was a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to "knowingly cause unprivileged
physical contact with another person." The three key elements to this particular crime, which is
known as Simple Assault, are "knowingly," "unprivileged," and "physical contact." If a prosecutor
can prove each of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant could, at the discretion
of a judge, find themselves locked in a cage for a year. "Physical contact" means just about exactly
what you'd expect, as does "unprivileged" ― contact for which you have no claim of privilege, such
as self-defense, defense of another, permission of the alleged victim, and so on. But what the heck
does "knowingly" mean? Well, as any law student can tell you, it means that you were aware of the
physical act you were engaged in, even if you didn't intend the consequences that act caused. For
instance, say you're in the pit at a particularly raucous speed-metal concert, leaping about, as
one does, in close proximity with many other people. Now let's say that after one of your leaps you
land on a young woman's foot and break it. If charged with Simple Assault, your defense won't be
as to your mental state, because you were "knowingly" leaping about, even if you intended no harm
in doing so. Instead, your defense will probably be that the contact (which you also wouldn't contest)
was "privileged," because the young lady had implicitly taken on, as had you, the risks of being
in a pit in the middle of a speed-metal concert. See the difference between knowingly engaging in
a physical act that has hurtful consequences, and "intending" or having as your "purpose" those consequences?
Just so, I've seen juveniles prosecuted for Simple Assault for throwing food during an in-school
cafeteria food fight; in that instance, no one was hurt, nor did anyone intend to hurt anybody, but
"unprivileged physical contact" was "knowingly" made all the same (in this case, via the instrument
of, say, a chicken nugget).
So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable
with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing"
mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire
criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton
violated, that wasn't it.
What about the misdemeanor statute?
Well, there's now terrifying evidence available for public consumption to the effect that Director
Comey doesn't understand the use of the word "knowingly" in the law ― indeed, understands it less
than even a law student in his or her first semester would. Just over an hour (at 1:06) into the
six-hour
C-SPAN video of Comey's Congressional testimony, Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) makes a
brief but absolutely unimpeachable case that, using the term "knowingly" as I have here and as it
is used in every courtroom in America, Secretary Clinton committed multiple federal misdemeanors
inasmuch as she, per the relevant statute (Title 18 U.S.C. 1924), "became possessed of documents
or materials containing classified information of the United States....and knowingly removed such
documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials
at an unauthorized location." Comey, misunderstanding the word "knowingly" in a way any law school
student would scream at their TV over, states that the FBI would still, under that statutory language,
need to prove specific intent to convict Clinton of a Title 18 U.S.C. 1924 violation. Lummis
points out that Comey is dead wrong ― and she's right, he is wrong. Per the above, all Clinton
had to be aware of is that (a) she was in possession of classified documents, and (b) she had removed
them to an unauthorized location. Comey admits these two facts are true, and yet he won't prosecute
because he's added a clause that's not in the statute. I can't emphasize this enough: Comey makes
clear with his answers throughout his testimony that Clinton committed this federal misdemeanor,
but equally makes clear that he didn't charge her with it because he didn't understand the statute.
(At 1:53 in the video linked to above, Representative Ken Buck of Colorado goes back to the topic
of Title 18 U.S.C. 1924, locking down that Comey is indeed deliberately adding language to that federal
criminal statute that quite literally is not there.)
Yes, it's true. Watch the video for yourself,
look up the word "knowingly" in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll see that I'm right.
This is scary stuff for an attorney like me, or really for any of us, to see on television ― a government
attorney with less knowledge of criminal law than a first-year law student.
2. Comey has dramatically misrepresented what prosecutorial discretion looks like.
The result of this is that Americans will fundamentally misunderstand our adversarial system of justice.
Things like our Fourth and Fifth Amendment are part and parcel of our "adversarial" system of
justice. We could have elected, as a nation, to have an "inquisitorial" system of justice ― as some
countries in Europe, with far fewer protections for criminal defendants, do ― but we made the decision
that the best truth-seeking mechanism is one in which two reflexively zealous advocates, a prosecutor
and a defense attorney, push their cases to the utmost of their ability (within certain well-established
ethical strictures).
James Comey, in his testimony before Congress, left the impression that his job as a prosecutor
was to weigh his ability to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt not as a prosecutor, but as a
member of a prospective jury. That's not how things work in America; it certainly, and quite spectacularly,
isn't how it works for poor black men. In fact, what American prosecutors are charged to do is imagine
a situation in which (a) they present their case to a jury as zealously as humanly possible within
the well-established ethical code of the American courtroom, (b) all facts and inferences are taken
by that jury in the prosecution's favor, and then (c) whether, given all those conditions, there
is a reasonable likelihood that all twelve jurors would vote for a conviction.
That is not the standard James Comey used to determine whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
What Comey did was something else altogether.
First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged
to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out
in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard
for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some
sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but
many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space.
The second thing Comey did was ask, "Am I guaranteed to win this case at trial?" Would that
this slowed the roll of prosecutors when dealing with poor black men! Instead, as I discuss later
on, prosecutors ― via the blunt instrument of the grand jury ― usually use the mere fact of misdemeanor
or felony charges against a defendant as a mechanism for ending a case short of trial. Even prosecutors
who ultimately drop a case will charge (misdemeanor) or indict (felony) it first, if only to give
themselves time ― because defendants do have speedy trial rights, and statutes of limitation do sometimes
intercede ― to plan their next move.
Third, Comey imagined his case at trial through the following lens: "How would we do at trial
if the jury took every fact and presumption ― as we already have ― in Clinton's favor?" Indeed, I'm
having more than a hard time ― actually an impossible time ― finding a single unknown or unclear
fact that Comey took in a light unfavorable to Clinton (including, incredibly, the facts that became
unknowable because of Clinton's own actions and evasions). Instead, Hillary was given the benefit
of the doubt at every turn, so much so that it was obvious that the only evidence of "intent" Comey
would accept was a full confession from Clinton. That's something prosecutors rarely get, and certainly
(therefore) never make a prerequisite for prosecution. But Comey clearly did here.
I have never seen this standard used in the prosecution of a poor person. Not once.
3. Comey left the indelible impression, with American news-watchers, that prosecutors
only prosecute specific-intent crimes, and will only find a sufficient mens
rea (mental state) if and when a defendant has confessed. Imagine, for a moment, if
police officers only shot unarmed black men who were in the process of confessing either verbally
("I'm about to pull a gun on you!") or physically (e.g., by assaulting the officer). Impossible to
imagine, right? That's because that's not how this works; indeed, that's not how any of this works.
Prosecutors, like police officers, are, in seeking signs of intent, trained to read ― and conceding
here that some of them do it poorly ― contextual clues that precede, are contemporaneous with, and/or
follow the commission of a crime.
But this apparently doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton.
It would be easier to identify the contextual clues that don't suggest Clinton had consciousness
of guilt than those that do ― as there are exponentially more of the latter than the former.
But let's do our best, and consider just a few of the clear signs that Clinton and her team, judging
them solely by their words and actions, knew that what they were doing was unlawful.
For instance, Clinton repeatedly said she used one server and only one device ― not that she
thought that that was the correct information, but that she knew it was. Yet the
FBI found, per Comey's July 5th statement, that Clinton used "several different servers" and "numerous
mobile devices." So either Clinton didn't know the truth but pretended in all her public statements
that she did; or she was given bad information which she then repeated uncritically, in which case
a prosecutor would demand to know from whom she received that information (as surely that
person would know they'd spread misinformation); or she knew the truth and was lying. A prosecutor
would want clear, on-the-record answers on these issues; instead, Comey let other FBI agents have
an unrecorded, untranscripted interview with Clinton that he himself didn't bother to attend. It's
not even clear that that interview was much considered by the FBI; Comey declared his decision just
a few dozen hours after the interview was over, and word leaked that there would be no indictment
just two hours after the interview. Which, again, incredibly ― and not in keeping with any
law enforcement policy regarding subject interviews I'm aware of ― was unrecorded, untranscripted,
unsworn, and unattended by the lead prosecutor.
This in the context of a year-long investigation for which Clinton was the primary subject.
Since when is an hours-long interview with an investigation's subject so immaterial to the charging
decision? And since when is such an interview treated as such a casual event? Since never. At least
for poor people.
And since when are false exculpatory statements not strong evidence of intent?
Since never - at least for poor people.
Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out
of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned
in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient
personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would
say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? Just so, Comey would naturally
want to test Clinton's narrative by seeing whether or not all FOIA requests were fully responded
to by Clinton and her staff in the four years she was the head of the State Department. Surely, Clinton
and her staff had been fully briefed on their legal obligations under FOIA ― that's provable ― so
if Clinton's "convenience" had caused a conflict with the Secretary's FOIA obligations that would
have been immediately obvious to both Clinton and her staff, and would have been remedied immediately
if the purpose of the server was not to avoid FOIA requests but mere convenience. At a minimum, Comey
would find evidence (either hard or testimonial) that such conversations occurred. And indeed,
the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically
made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was,
by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to
her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience."
Even if Comey believed that "avoiding access to the personal," rather than "convenience," was
the reason for Clinton's server set-up, that explanation would have imploded under the weight
of evidence Clinton, her team, and her attorneys exercised no due caution whatsoever in determining
what was "personal" and what was not personal when they were wiping those servers clean. If Clinton's
concern was privacy, there's no evidence that much attention was paid to accurately and narrowly
protecting that interest ― rather, the weight of the evidence suggests that the aim, at all times,
was to keep the maximum amount of information away from FOIA discovery, not just "personal" information
but (as Comey found) a wealth of work-related information.
But let's pull back for a moment and be a little less legalistic. Clinton claimed the reason for
her set-up was ― exclusively ― "convenience"; nevertheless, Comey said it took "thousands of hours
of painstaking effort" to "piece back together" exactly what Clinton was up to. Wouldn't that fact
alone give the lie to the claim that this system was more "convenient" than the protocols State already
had in place? "Millions of email fragments ended up in the server's 'slack space'," Comey said of
Clinton's "convenient" email-storage arrangement. See the contradiction? How would "millions of email
fragments ending up in a server's 'slack space'" in any way have served Clinton's presumptive desire
for both (a) convenience, (b) FOIA complicance, (c) a securing of her privacy, and (d) compliance
with State Department email-storage regulations? Would any reasonable person have found this set-up
convenient? And if not ― and Comey explicitly found not ― why in the world didn't that help
to establish the real intent of Clinton's private basement servers? Indeed, had Clinton
intended on complying with FOIA, presumably her own staff would have had to do the very same painstaking
work it took the FBI a year to do. But FOIA requests come in too fast and furious, at State, for
Clinton's staff to do the work it took the FBI a year to do in a matter of days; wouldn't this in
itself establish that Clinton and her staff had no ability, and therefore well knew they had no intention,
of acceding to any of the Department's hundreds or even thousands of annual FOIA requests in full?
And wouldn't ignoring all those requests be not just illegal but "inconvenient" in the extreme? And
speak to the question of intent?
It took Clinton two years to hand over work emails she was supposed to hand over the day she left
office; and during that time, she and her lawyers, some of whom appear to have looked at classified
material without clearance, deleted thousands of "personal" emails ― many of which turned out the
be exactly the sort of work emails she was supposed to turn over the day she left State. In this
situation, an actor acting in good faith would have (a) erred on the side of caution in deleting
emails, (b) responded with far, far more alacrity to the valid demands of State to see all work-related
emails, and (c) having erroneously deleted certain emails, would have rushed to correct the mistake
themselves rather than seeing if they could get away with deleting ― mind you ― not just work emails
but work emails with (in several instances) classified information in them. How in the world was
none of this taken toward the question of intent? Certainly, it was taken toward the finding of "gross
negligence" Comey made, but how in the world was none of it seen as relevant to Clinton's
specific intent also? Why does it seem the only evidence of specific intent Comey would've looked
at was a smoking gun? Does he realize how few criminal cases would ever be brought against anyone
in America if a "smoking gun" standard was in effect? Does anyone realize how many poor black men
wouldn't be in prison if that standard was in effect for them as well as Secretary Clinton?
4. Comey made it seem that the amount and quality of prosecutorial consideration he gave
Clinton was normal. The mere fact that Comey gave public statements justifying his prosecutorial
discretion misleads the public into thinking that, say, poor black men receive this level of care
when prosecutors are choosing whether to indict them.
While at least he had the good grace to call the fact of his making a public statement "unusual"
― chalking it up to the "intense public interest" that meant Clinton (and the public) "deserved"
an explanation for his behavior ― that grace ultimately obscured, rather than underscored, that what
Comey did in publicly justifying his behavior is unheard of in cases involving poor people. In the
real America, prosecutors are basically unaccountable to anyone but their bosses in terms of their
prosecutorial discretion, as cases in which abuse of prosecutorial discretion is successfully alleged
are vanishingly rare. Many are the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers of poor black men who
would love to have had their sons' (or brothers', or fathers') over-charged criminal cases explained
to them with the sort of care and detail Hillary Clinton naturally receives when she's being investigated.
Clinton and the public "deserve" prosecutorial transparency when the defendant is a Clinton; just
about no one else deserves this level of not just transparency but also ― given the year-long length
of the FBI investigation ― prosecutorial and investigative caution.
What's amazing is how little use Comey actually made of all the extra time and effort. For instance,
on July 5th he said that every email the FBI uncovered was sent to the "owning" organization to see
if they wanted to "up-classify" it ― in other words, declare that it should have been classified
at the time it was sent and/or received, even if not marked that way at the time. One might think
Comey would want this information, the better to determine Clinton's intent with respect to those
emails (i.e., given Clinton's training, knowledge, and experience, how frequently did she "miss"
the classified nature of an email, relative to the assessment of owning agencies that a given email
was effectively and/or should have been considered classified ― even if not marked so ― at the time
Clinton handled it?) Keep in mind, here, that certain types of information, as Clinton without a
doubt knew, are "born classified" whether marked as such or not. And yet, just two days after July
5th, Comey testified before Congress that he "didn't pay much attention" to "up-classified" emails.
Why? Because, said Comey, they couldn't tell him anything about Clinton's intent. Bluntly,
this is an astonishing and indeed embarrassing statement for any prosecutor to make.
Whereas every day knowledge and motives are imparted to poor black men that are, as the poet Claudia
Rankine has observed, purely the product of a police officer's "imagination," the actual and indisputable
knowledge and motives and ― yes ― responsibilities held by Clinton were "downgraded" by Comey to
that of merely an average American. That is, despite the fact that Clinton was one of the most powerful
people on Earth, charged with managing an agency that collects among the highest number of classified
pieces of information of any agency anywhere; despite the fact that Clinton's agency had the strictest
policies for data storage for this very reason; despite the fact that State is, as Clinton well knew,
daily subjected to FOIA requests; despite all this, Comey actually said the following: "Like many
email users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails..."
What?
How in the world does the "many email users" standard come into play here? Clinton's server, unlike
anyone else's server, was set up in a way that permitted no archiving, an arrangement that one now
imagines led (in part) to the person who set up that server taking the Fifth more than a hundred
times in interviews with the FBI; even assuming Clinton didn't know, and didn't request, for her
server to be set up in this astonishing way ― a way, again, that her own employees believe could
incriminate them ― how in the world could she have been sanguine about deleting emails "like many
email users" when the agency she headed had completely different and more stringent protocols
and requirements for data storage than just about any government agency on Earth? Just so, once
it was clear that Clinton had deleted (per Comey) "thousands of emails that were work-related" instead
of turning them over to State, in what universe can no intent be implied from the fact that her attorneys
purged 30,000 emails simply by looking at their headers? At what point does Clinton, as
former Secretary of State, begin to have ill intent imputed to her by not directing her attorneys
to actually read emails before permanently destroying them and making them unavailable to the FBI
as evidence? If you were in her situation, and instead of saying to your team either (a) "don't delete
any more emails," or (b) "if you delete any emails, make sure you've read them in full first," would
you expect anyone to impute "no specific intent" to your behavior?
The result: despite saying she never sent or received emails on her private basement server that
were classified "at the time," the FBI found that 52 email chains on Clinton's server ― including
110 emails ― contained information that was classified at the time (eight chains contained
"top secret" information; 36, "secret" information; and another eight "confidential" information).
Moreover, Clinton's team wrongly purged ― at a minimum ― "thousands" of work-related emails. (And
I'm putting aside entirely here the 2,000 emails on Clinton's server that were later "up-classified.")
At what point does this harm become foreseeable, and not seeing it ― when you're one of the best-educated,
smartest, most experienced public servants in U.S. history, as your political team keeps reminding
us ― become evidence of "intent"? Comey's answer? Never.
Indeed, Comey instead makes the positively fantastical observation that "none [of the emails Clinton
didn't turn over but was supposed to] were intentionally deleted." The problem is, by Comey's own
admission all of those emails were intentionally deleted, under circumstances in which the
problems with that deletion would not just have been evident to "any reasonable person" but specifically
were clear ― the context proves it ― to Clinton herself. During her four years as Secretary of State
Clinton routinely expressed concern to staff about her own and others' email-storage practices, establishing
beyond any doubt that not only was Clinton's literal key-pressing deliberate ― the "knowing" standard
― but also its repeated, systemic effect was fully appreciated by her in advance. Likewise, that
her attorneys were acting entirely on their own prerogative, without her knowledge, is a claim no
jury would credit.
Clinton's attorneys worked Clinton's case in consultation with Clinton ― that's how things work.
In other words, Clinton's lawyers are not rogue actors here. So when Comey says, "They [Clinton and
her team] deleted all emails they did not produce for State, and the lawyers then cleaned their devices
in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery," we have to ask, what possible reason would
an attorney have for wiping a server entirely within their control to ensure that no future court
order could access the permanently deleted information? In what universe is such behavior not
actual consciousness of guilt with respect to the destruction of evidence? Because we must be clear:
Comey isn't saying Clinton and her lawyers accidentally put these emails outside even a hypothetical
future judicial review; they did so intentionally.
There's that word again.
The result of these actions? The same as every other action Clinton took that Comey somehow
attributes no intent to: a clear legal benefit to Clinton and a frustration, indeed an obstruction,
of the FBI's investigation. As Comey said on July 5th, the FBI can't know how many emails are "gone"
(i.e., permanently) because of Clinton and her team's intentional acts after-the-fact. So Comey is
quite literally telling us that the FBI couldn't conclude their investigation with absolute confidence
that they had all the relevant facts, and that the reason for this was the intentional destruction
of evidence by the subject of the investigation at a time when there was no earthly reason to destroy
evidence except to keep it from the FBI.
In case you're wondering, no, you don't need a legal degree to see the problem there.
As an attorney, I can't imagine destroying evidence at a time I knew it was the subject of a federal
investigation. And if I ever were to do something like that, I would certainly assume that all such
actions would later be deemed "intentional" by law enforcement, as my intent would be inferred from
my training, knowledge, and experience as an attorney, as well as my specific awareness of a pending
federal investigation in which the items I was destroying might later become key evidence. That Clinton
and her team repeatedly (and falsely) claimed the FBI investigation was a mere "security review"
― yet another assertion whose falseness was resoundingly noted by Comey in his public statements
― was clearly a transparent attempt to negate intent in destroying those emails. (The theory being,
"Well, yes, I destroyed possible evidence just by looking at email headers, but this was all just
a 'security review,' right? Not a federal investigation? Even though I knew the three grounds
for referral of the case to the FBI, and knew that only one of them involved anything like a 'security
review'?")
And certainly, none of this explains Comey's (again) gymnastic avoidance of stating the obvious:
that crimes were committed.
Listen to his language on July 5th: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Clinton or her
colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information" (emphasis
in original) ― actually, let's stop there. You'd expect the second half of that sentence to be something
like, "...they nevertheless did violate those laws, despite not intending to." It's the natural continuation
of the thought. Instead, Comey, who had prepared his remarks in advance, finished the thought this
way: "....there is evidence that they were extremely careless with very sensitive, highly
classified information" (emphasis in original).
Note that Comey now uses the phrase "extremely careless" instead of "gross negligence," despite
using the latter phrase ― a legal phrase ― at the beginning of his July 5th remarks. That matters
because at the beginning of those remarks he conceded "gross negligence" would lead to a statutory
violation. So why the sudden shift in language, when from a legal standpoint "extreme carelessness"
and "gross negligence" are synonymous ― both indicating the presence of a duty of care, the failure
to meet that duty, and moreover a repeated failure on this score? Comey also avoids finishing
his sentence with the obvious thought: that they may not have intended to violate criminal
statutes, but they did nonetheless. Remember that, just like our hypothetical raver may not have
intended to commit a Simple Assault by stepping on that poor young woman's foot, he nevertheless
could be found to have done so; just so, had Comey accepted the statute as written, Clinton's "gross
negligence" would have forced him to end the above sentence with the finding of a statutory violation,
even if there had been no "specific intent" to do so.
This is how the law works. For poor black men, just not for rich white women.
5. Comey, along with the rest of Congress, left the impression, much like the Supreme
Court did in 2000, that legal analyses are fundamentally political analyses. Not only is
this untrue, it also is unspeakably damaging to both our legal system and Americans' understanding
of that system's operations.
I'm a staunch Democrat, but I'm also an attorney. Watching fellow Democrats twist themselves into
pretzels to analyze Clinton's actions through a farcically slapdash legal framework, rather than
merely acknowledging that Clinton is a human being and, like any human being, can both (a) commit
crimes, and (b) be replaced on a political ticket if need be, makes me sick as both a Democrat and
a lawyer. Just so, watching Republicans who had no issue with George W. Bush declaring unilateral
war in contravention of international law, and who had no issue with the obviously illegal behavior
of Scooter Libby in another recent high-profile intel-related criminal case, acting like the rule
of law is anything they care about makes me sick. Our government is dirty as all get-out, but the
one thing it's apparently clean of is anyone with both (a) legal training, and (b) a sense of the
ethics that govern legal practice. Over and over during Comey's Congressional testimony I heard politicians
noting their legal experience, and then going on to either shame their association with that august
profession or honor it but (in doing so) call into question their inability or unwillingness to do
so in other instances.
When Comey says, "any reasonable person should have known" not to act as Clinton did, many don't
realize he's quoting a legal standard ― the "reasonable person standard." A failure to meet that
standard can be used to establish either negligence or recklessness in a court of law. But here,
Clinton wasn't in the position of a "reasonable person" ― the average fellow or lady ― and Comey
wasn't looking merely at a "reasonableness" standard, but rather a "purposeful" standard that requires
Comey to ask all sorts of questions about Clinton's specific, fully contextualized situation and
background that he doesn't appear to have asked. One might argue that, in keeping with Clinton's
campaign theme, no one in American political history was more richly prepared ― by knowledge, training,
experience, and innate gifts ― to know how to act properly in the situations Clinton found herself.
That in those situations she failed to act even as a man or woman taken off the street and put in
a similar situation would have acted is not indicative of innocence or a lack of specific intent,
but the opposite. If a reasonable person wouldn't have done what Clinton did, the most exquisitely
prepared person for the situations in which Clinton found herself must in fact have been providing
prosecutors with prima facie evidence of intent by failing to meet even the lowest threshold
for proper conduct. Comey knows this; any prosecutor knows this. Maybe a jury would disagree with
Comey on this point, but his job is to assume that, if he zealously advocates for this extremely
powerful circumstantial case, a reasonable jury, taking the facts in the light most favorable to
the government, would see things his way.
Look, I can't possibly summarize for anyone reading this the silly nonsense I have seen prosecutors
indict people for; a common saying in the law is that the average grand jury "would indict a ham
sandwich," and to be clear that happens not because the run-of-the-mill citizens who sit on grand
juries are bloodthirsty, but because the habitual practice of American prosecutors is to indict first
and ask questions later ― and because indictments are absurdly easy to acquire. In other words, I've
seen thousands of poor people get over-charged for either nonsense or nothing at all, only to have
their prosecutors attempt to leverage their flimsy cases into a plea deal to a lesser charge. By
comparison, it is evident to every defense attorney of my acquaintance that I've spoken to that James
Comey bent over backwards to not indict Hillary Clinton ― much like the hundreds of state
and federal prosecutors who have bent over backwards not to indict police officers over the past
few decades. Every attorney who's practiced in criminal courts for years can smell when the fix is
in ― can hear and see when the court's usual actors are acting highly unusually ― and that's what's
happened here. The tragedy is that it will convince Americans that our legal system is fundamentally
about what a prosecutor feels they can and should be able to get away with, an answer informed largely,
it will seem to many, by various attorneys' personal temperaments and political prejudices.
No one in America who's dedicated their life to the law can feel any satisfaction with how Hillary
Clinton's case was investigated or ultimately disposed of, no more than we can feel sanguine about
prosecutors whose approach to poor black defendants is draconian and to embattled police officers
positively beatific. What we need in Congress, and in prosecutor's offices, are men and women of
principle who act in accordance with their ethical charge no matter the circumstances. While James
Comey is not a political hack, and was not, I don't believe, in any sense acting conspiratorially
in not bringing charges against Hillary Clinton, I believe that, much like SCOTUS did not
decide in the 2000 voting rights case Bush v. Gore, Comey felt that this was a bad time
for an executive-branch officer to interfere with the workings of domestic politics. Perhaps Comey
had the best of intentions in not doing his duty; perhaps he thought letting voters, not prosecutors,
decide the 2016 election was his civic duty. Many Democrats could wish the Supreme Court had felt
the same way in 2000 with respect to the role of judges. But the fact remains that the non-indictment
of Hillary Clinton is as much a stain on the fair and equal administration of justice as is the disparate
treatment of poor black males at all stages of the criminal justice system. I witnessed the latter
injustice close up, nearly every day, during my seven years working as a public defender; now America
has seen the same thing, albeit on a very different stage, involving a defendant of a very different
class and hue.
To have prosecuted Clinton, said Comey, he would need to have seen "clearly intentional and willful
mishandling of classified information, or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way as
to support an inference of intentional misconduct, or....efforts to obstruct justice..." When Comey
concludes, "we do not see those things here," America should ― and indeed must ― wonder what facts
he could possibly be looking at, and, moreover, what understanding of his role in American life he
could possibly be acting upon. The answers to these two questions would take us at least two steps
forward in discussing how average Americans are treated by our increasingly dysfunctional system
of justice.
Seth Abramson is the Series Editor for Best American Experimental Writing (Wesleyan University)
and the author, most recently, of
DATA (BlazeVOX, 2016).
Neoliberal MSM response to latest FBI director Comey testimony is a textbook example of brainwashing (or groupthink). It shows to
me again that you need to go to the source watch at least the fragments of the testimony on YouTube. It deadly serious situation for
Hillary. No person with even cursory knowledge of security can avoid thinking that she should be in jail. Republicans know it and will
not let her off the hook. Probably special prosecutor will be appointed. See for example
https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/House-Letter-to-FBI-Director-1.pdf
Now Comey is under strong fire and need to save his own skin. You can tell anything about Republican members of House of Representative,
but it is now quite clear to me that several of them are brilliant former lawyers/prosecutor/judges.
From now on they will block all attempt to swipe this matter under the carpet and unless Hillary withdraw they might try to implicate
Obama in the cover-up (and they have facts: he recklessly corresponded with her on this account).
They already requested all FBI files on Clinton. Soon they will have all the dirty laundering from Hillary server and FBI probably
recovered most of it.
From this point it is up-hill battle for Obama, and might well think about finding appropriate sacrificial lamp NOW. My impression
is that she lost her chance to became the President. With FBI files in hand, In four month they can do so much damage that she would
be better to take her toys and leave the playground.
And this topic hopefully already influence super-delegates. I think her best option now is give Sanders a chance. Because the real
threat now is not that she will go to jail. She belongs to the elite and is above the law. Now the real threat is that all her close
associates might.
On Tuesday, the FBI assumed the role of prosecutor and not simply investigator and took the unprecedented act of proclaiming that
no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Based on the perception that a decision has been made by the FBI that has seemingly
ignored facts that the FBI itself found in its own investigation, we have additional questions that are aimed at ensuring that the
cloud which now hovers over our justice system is at least minimally pierced:
1) As a former prosecutor, please explain your understanding of the legal difference between actions performed with "gross negligence"
and those done "extremely carelessly." How did you determine that "extreme carelessness" did not equate to "gross negligence?"
2) You said that no reasonable prosecutor would decide to prosecute the Clinton case on the evidence found by FBI agents during
the Bureau's investigation over the past year. We have multiple former prosecutors in Congress, and it is not far-fetched for many
of us to envision a successful prosecution of someone for doing far less than that which was committed by Secretary Clinton. Is your
statement not an indictment and prejudgment against any Assistant United States Attorney who is now tasked with reviewing the evidence
you presented Tuesday? In your judgment, does it not follow that you would think that a prosecutor who moved forward with the instant
prosecution of Secretary Clinton would be "unreasonable?"
3) Are you aware of any internal opinions by FBI agents or management who were intimately aware of the Clinton investigation which
differed from your eventual decision to not recommend the case for prosecution?
4) You mentioned that Top Secret Special Access Programs (SAPs) were included in emails sent and received by Secretary Clinton. SAP
material is some of the most highly classified and controlled material of the U.S. Government. If an agency of the U.S. Government
were to encounter similar information from a foreign adversary, it would be extremely valuable data for us to exploit. Did the FBI
assess how SAP information, due to its controlled nature, ever made it onto unclassified systems that were not air-gapped or physically
blocked from outside Internet access? Is it not "gross negligence" to permit such SAP data to leave the confines of the most protective
and secure governmental enclaves? Or even "intentional" conduct that allowed that to happen?
5) You mentioned that this investigation
stemmed from a referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community to determine whether classified information had
been transmitted on an unclassified personal system. Following your investigation, it is clear that Secretary Clinton transmitted
classified information on an unclassified system. Secretary Clinton on multiple occasions has said that she did not send or receive
classified information or information marked as classified.3 In light of your decision to also not refer a false statements charge
under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for prosecution, we can only presume that Secretary Clinton admitted during her interview with your agents
that she, in fact, sent and received emails containing classified information. Please confirm.
6) Are you aware of whether any deleted emails which the FBI was able to forensically recover from Secretary Clinton's servers
pertained to the Clinton Foundation?
7) You stated Tuesday, "Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary
Clinton's personal e-mail account." Is the FBI's Counterintelligence Division still involved in determining the level of damage related
to possible exploitation of Secretary Clinton's or her associates' email accounts and other communications?
8) If the FBI performed a background check on an applicant for employment with the FBI or elsewhere in the U.S. Government, and
that applicant engaged in conduct committed by Secretary Clinton, would a security clearance ever be granted to that person?
Mr. Comey said the emails included eight chains of emails and replies, some written by her, that contained information classified
as "top secret: special access programs." That classification is the highest level, reserved for the nation's most highly guarded
intelligence operations or sources.
Another 36 chains were "secret," which is defined as including information that "could be expected to cause serious damage to
the national security"; eight others had information classified at the lowest level, "confidential."
"... The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. ..."
"... We can say, accurately, that the judgment of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. ..."
"... whether criminal statutes on the books had been violated ..."
"... criminal statutes had been violated ..."
"... So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing" mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton violated, that wasn't it. ..."
"... specific intent ..."
"... Black's Law Dictionary ..."
"... First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space. ..."
"... Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? ..."
"... And indeed, the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was, by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience." ..."
"... completely different and more stringent protocols and requirements for data storage ..."
"... simply by looking at their headers ..."
"... every other action ..."
"... Seth Abramson is the Series Editor for Best American Experimental Writing (Wesleyan University) and the author, most recently, of DATA (BlazeVOX, 2016). ..."
1. According to Comey, Clinton committed multiple federal felonies and misdemeanors.
Many people will miss this in the wash of punditry from non-attorneys in the mainstream media that
has followed Comey's public remarks and Congressional testimony.
The issue for Comey wasn't that
Clinton hadn't committed any federal crimes, but that in his personal opinion the federal felony
statute Clinton violated (18 U.S.C. 793f) has been too rarely applied for him to feel comfortable
applying it to Clinton. This is quite different from saying that no crime was committed; rather,
Comey's position is that crimes were committed, but he has decided not to prosecute those crimes
because (a) the statute he focused most on has only been used once in the last century (keeping in
mind how relatively rare cases like these are in the first instance, and therefore how rarely we
would naturally expect a statute like this to apply in any case), and (b) he personally believes
that the statute in question might be unconstitutional because, as he put it, it might punish people
for crimes they didn't specifically intend to commit (specifically, it requires only a finding of
"gross negligence," which Comey conceded he could prove). Comey appears to have taken the extraordinary
step of researching the legislative history of this particular criminal statute in order to render
this latter assessment.
The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible
unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. Their job is to
apply the laws as written, unless and until they are superseded by new legislation or struck down
by the judicial branch. In Comey's case, this deep dive into the history books is even more
puzzling as, prior to Attorney General Loretta Lynch unethically having a private meeting with Bill
Clinton on an airport tarmac, Comey wasn't even slated to be the final arbiter of whether Clinton
was prosecuted or not. He would have been expected, in a case like this, to note to the Department
of Justice's career prosecutors that the FBI had found evidence of multiple federal crimes, and then
leave it to their prosecutorial discretion as to whether or not to pursue a prosecution. But more
broadly, we must note that when Comey gave his public justification for not bringing charges ― a
public justification in itself highly unusual, and suggestive of the possibility that Comey knew
his inaction was extraordinary, and therefore felt the need to defend himself in equally extraordinary
fashion ― he did not state the truth: that Clinton had committed multiple federal crimes per statutes
presently on the books, and that the lack of a recommendation for prosecution was based not on the
lack of a crime but the lack of prosecutorial will (or, as he might otherwise have put it, the exercise
of prosecutorial discretion).
The danger here is that Americans will now believe many untrue things about the executive branch
of their government. For instance, watching Comey's testimony one might believe that if the executive
branch exercises its prosecutorial discretion and declines to prosecute crimes it determines have
been committed, it means no crimes were committed. In fact, what it means (in a case like this) is
that crimes were committed but will not be prosecuted. We can say, accurately, that the judgment
of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was
indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. She simply shouldn't,
in the view of the FBI, be prosecuted for her crimes. Prosecutorial discretion of this sort is relatively
common, and indeed should be much more common when it comes to criminal cases involving
poor Americans; instead, we find it most commonly in law enforcement's treatment of Americans with
substantial personal, financial, sociocultural, and legal resources.
Americans might also wrongly believe, watching Comey's testimony, that it is the job of executive-branch
employees to determine which criminal statutes written by the legislative branch will be acknowledged.
While one could argue that this task does fall to the head of the prosecuting authority in a given
instance ― here, Attorney General Loretta Lynch; had an independent prosecutor been secured in this
case, as should have happened, that person, instead ― one could not argue that James Comey's
role in this scenario was to decide which on-the-books criminal statutes matter and which don't.
Indeed, Comey himself said, during his announcement of the FBI's recommendation, that his role was
to refer the case to the DOJ for a "prosecutive decision" ― in other words, the decision on whether
to prosecute wasn't his. His job was only to determine whether criminal statutes on the books
had been violated.
By this test, Comey didn't just not do the job he set out to do, he wildly and irresponsibly
exceeded it, to the point where its original contours were unrecognizable. To be blunt: by obscuring,
in his public remarks and advice to the DOJ, the fact that criminal statutes had been violated
― in favor of observing, more broadly, that there should be no prosecution ― he made it not just
easy but a fait accompli for the media and workaday Americans to think that not only would no prosecution
commence, but that indeed there had been no statutory violations.
Which there were.
Americans might also wrongly take at face value Comey's contention that the felony statute Clinton
violated was unconstitutional ― on the grounds that it criminalizes behavior that does not
include a specific intent to do wrong. This is, as every attorney knows, laughable. Every single
day in America, prosecutors prosecute Americans ― usually but not exclusively poor people ― for crimes
whose governing statutes lack the requirement of "specific intent." Ever heard of negligent homicide?
That's a statute that doesn't require what lawyers call (depending on the jurisdiction) an "intentional"
or "purposeful" mental state. Rather, it requires "negligence." Many other statutes require only
a showing of "recklessness," which likewise is dramatically distinct from "purposeful" or "intentional"
conduct. And an even larger number of statutes have a "knowing" mental state, which Comey well knows
― but the average American does not ― is a general- rather than specific-intent mental state (mens
rea, in legal terms).
And the term "knowingly" is absolutely key to the misdemeanors Comey appears to concede
Clinton committed, but has declined to charge her for.
To discuss what "knowingly" means in the law, I'll start with an example. When I practiced criminal
law in New Hampshire, it was a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to "knowingly cause unprivileged
physical contact with another person." The three key elements to this particular crime, which is
known as Simple Assault, are "knowingly," "unprivileged," and "physical contact." If a prosecutor
can prove each of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant could, at the discretion
of a judge, find themselves locked in a cage for a year. "Physical contact" means just about exactly
what you'd expect, as does "unprivileged" ― contact for which you have no claim of privilege, such
as self-defense, defense of another, permission of the alleged victim, and so on. But what the heck
does "knowingly" mean? Well, as any law student can tell you, it means that you were aware of the
physical act you were engaged in, even if you didn't intend the consequences that act caused. For
instance, say you're in the pit at a particularly raucous speed-metal concert, leaping about, as
one does, in close proximity with many other people. Now let's say that after one of your leaps you
land on a young woman's foot and break it. If charged with Simple Assault, your defense won't be
as to your mental state, because you were "knowingly" leaping about, even if you intended no harm
in doing so. Instead, your defense will probably be that the contact (which you also wouldn't contest)
was "privileged," because the young lady had implicitly taken on, as had you, the risks of being
in a pit in the middle of a speed-metal concert. See the difference between knowingly engaging in
a physical act that has hurtful consequences, and "intending" or having as your "purpose" those consequences?
Just so, I've seen juveniles prosecuted for Simple Assault for throwing food during an in-school
cafeteria food fight; in that instance, no one was hurt, nor did anyone intend to hurt anybody, but
"unprivileged physical contact" was "knowingly" made all the same (in this case, via the instrument
of, say, a chicken nugget).
So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable
with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing"
mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire
criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton
violated, that wasn't it.
What about the misdemeanor statute?
Well, there's now terrifying evidence available for public consumption to the effect that Director
Comey doesn't understand the use of the word "knowingly" in the law ― indeed, understands it less
than even a law student in his or her first semester would. Just over an hour (at 1:06) into the
six-hour
C-SPAN video of Comey's Congressional testimony, Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) makes a
brief but absolutely unimpeachable case that, using the term "knowingly" as I have here and as it
is used in every courtroom in America, Secretary Clinton committed multiple federal misdemeanors
inasmuch as she, per the relevant statute (Title 18 U.S.C. 1924), "became possessed of documents
or materials containing classified information of the United States....and knowingly removed such
documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials
at an unauthorized location." Comey, misunderstanding the word "knowingly" in a way any law school
student would scream at their TV over, states that the FBI would still, under that statutory language,
need to prove specific intent to convict Clinton of a Title 18 U.S.C. 1924 violation. Lummis
points out that Comey is dead wrong ― and she's right, he is wrong. Per the above, all Clinton
had to be aware of is that (a) she was in possession of classified documents, and (b) she had removed
them to an unauthorized location. Comey admits these two facts are true, and yet he won't prosecute
because he's added a clause that's not in the statute. I can't emphasize this enough: Comey makes
clear with his answers throughout his testimony that Clinton committed this federal misdemeanor,
but equally makes clear that he didn't charge her with it because he didn't understand the statute.
(At 1:53 in the video linked to above, Representative Ken Buck of Colorado goes back to the topic
of Title 18 U.S.C. 1924, locking down that Comey is indeed deliberately adding language to that federal
criminal statute that quite literally is not there.)
Yes, it's true. Watch the video for yourself,
look up the word "knowingly" in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll see that I'm right.
This is scary stuff for an attorney like me, or really for any of us, to see on television ― a government
attorney with less knowledge of criminal law than a first-year law student.
2. Comey has dramatically misrepresented what prosecutorial discretion looks like.
The result of this is that Americans will fundamentally misunderstand our adversarial system of justice.
Things like our Fourth and Fifth Amendment are part and parcel of our "adversarial" system of
justice. We could have elected, as a nation, to have an "inquisitorial" system of justice ― as some
countries in Europe, with far fewer protections for criminal defendants, do ― but we made the decision
that the best truth-seeking mechanism is one in which two reflexively zealous advocates, a prosecutor
and a defense attorney, push their cases to the utmost of their ability (within certain well-established
ethical strictures).
James Comey, in his testimony before Congress, left the impression that his job as a prosecutor
was to weigh his ability to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt not as a prosecutor, but as a
member of a prospective jury. That's not how things work in America; it certainly, and quite spectacularly,
isn't how it works for poor black men. In fact, what American prosecutors are charged to do is imagine
a situation in which (a) they present their case to a jury as zealously as humanly possible within
the well-established ethical code of the American courtroom, (b) all facts and inferences are taken
by that jury in the prosecution's favor, and then (c) whether, given all those conditions, there
is a reasonable likelihood that all twelve jurors would vote for a conviction.
That is not the standard James Comey used to determine whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
What Comey did was something else altogether.
First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged
to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out
in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard
for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some
sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but
many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space.
The second thing Comey did was ask, "Am I guaranteed to win this case at trial?" Would that
this slowed the roll of prosecutors when dealing with poor black men! Instead, as I discuss later
on, prosecutors ― via the blunt instrument of the grand jury ― usually use the mere fact of misdemeanor
or felony charges against a defendant as a mechanism for ending a case short of trial. Even prosecutors
who ultimately drop a case will charge (misdemeanor) or indict (felony) it first, if only to give
themselves time ― because defendants do have speedy trial rights, and statutes of limitation do sometimes
intercede ― to plan their next move.
Third, Comey imagined his case at trial through the following lens: "How would we do at trial
if the jury took every fact and presumption ― as we already have ― in Clinton's favor?" Indeed, I'm
having more than a hard time ― actually an impossible time ― finding a single unknown or unclear
fact that Comey took in a light unfavorable to Clinton (including, incredibly, the facts that became
unknowable because of Clinton's own actions and evasions). Instead, Hillary was given the benefit
of the doubt at every turn, so much so that it was obvious that the only evidence of "intent" Comey
would accept was a full confession from Clinton. That's something prosecutors rarely get, and certainly
(therefore) never make a prerequisite for prosecution. But Comey clearly did here.
I have never seen this standard used in the prosecution of a poor person. Not once.
3. Comey left the indelible impression, with American news-watchers, that prosecutors
only prosecute specific-intent crimes, and will only find a sufficient mens
rea (mental state) if and when a defendant has confessed. Imagine, for a moment, if
police officers only shot unarmed black men who were in the process of confessing either verbally
("I'm about to pull a gun on you!") or physically (e.g., by assaulting the officer). Impossible to
imagine, right? That's because that's not how this works; indeed, that's not how any of this works.
Prosecutors, like police officers, are, in seeking signs of intent, trained to read ― and conceding
here that some of them do it poorly ― contextual clues that precede, are contemporaneous with, and/or
follow the commission of a crime.
But this apparently doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton.
It would be easier to identify the contextual clues that don't suggest Clinton had consciousness
of guilt than those that do ― as there are exponentially more of the latter than the former.
But let's do our best, and consider just a few of the clear signs that Clinton and her team, judging
them solely by their words and actions, knew that what they were doing was unlawful.
For instance, Clinton repeatedly said she used one server and only one device ― not that she
thought that that was the correct information, but that she knew it was. Yet the
FBI found, per Comey's July 5th statement, that Clinton used "several different servers" and "numerous
mobile devices." So either Clinton didn't know the truth but pretended in all her public statements
that she did; or she was given bad information which she then repeated uncritically, in which case
a prosecutor would demand to know from whom she received that information (as surely that
person would know they'd spread misinformation); or she knew the truth and was lying. A prosecutor
would want clear, on-the-record answers on these issues; instead, Comey let other FBI agents have
an unrecorded, untranscripted interview with Clinton that he himself didn't bother to attend. It's
not even clear that that interview was much considered by the FBI; Comey declared his decision just
a few dozen hours after the interview was over, and word leaked that there would be no indictment
just two hours after the interview. Which, again, incredibly ― and not in keeping with any
law enforcement policy regarding subject interviews I'm aware of ― was unrecorded, untranscripted,
unsworn, and unattended by the lead prosecutor.
This in the context of a year-long investigation for which Clinton was the primary subject.
Since when is an hours-long interview with an investigation's subject so immaterial to the charging
decision? And since when is such an interview treated as such a casual event? Since never. At least
for poor people.
And since when are false exculpatory statements not strong evidence of intent?
Since never - at least for poor people.
Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out
of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned
in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient
personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would
say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? Just so, Comey would naturally
want to test Clinton's narrative by seeing whether or not all FOIA requests were fully responded
to by Clinton and her staff in the four years she was the head of the State Department. Surely, Clinton
and her staff had been fully briefed on their legal obligations under FOIA ― that's provable ― so
if Clinton's "convenience" had caused a conflict with the Secretary's FOIA obligations that would
have been immediately obvious to both Clinton and her staff, and would have been remedied immediately
if the purpose of the server was not to avoid FOIA requests but mere convenience. At a minimum, Comey
would find evidence (either hard or testimonial) that such conversations occurred. And indeed,
the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically
made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was,
by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to
her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience."
Even if Comey believed that "avoiding access to the personal," rather than "convenience," was
the reason for Clinton's server set-up, that explanation would have imploded under the weight
of evidence Clinton, her team, and her attorneys exercised no due caution whatsoever in determining
what was "personal" and what was not personal when they were wiping those servers clean. If Clinton's
concern was privacy, there's no evidence that much attention was paid to accurately and narrowly
protecting that interest ― rather, the weight of the evidence suggests that the aim, at all times,
was to keep the maximum amount of information away from FOIA discovery, not just "personal" information
but (as Comey found) a wealth of work-related information.
But let's pull back for a moment and be a little less legalistic. Clinton claimed the reason for
her set-up was ― exclusively ― "convenience"; nevertheless, Comey said it took "thousands of hours
of painstaking effort" to "piece back together" exactly what Clinton was up to. Wouldn't that fact
alone give the lie to the claim that this system was more "convenient" than the protocols State already
had in place? "Millions of email fragments ended up in the server's 'slack space'," Comey said of
Clinton's "convenient" email-storage arrangement. See the contradiction? How would "millions of email
fragments ending up in a server's 'slack space'" in any way have served Clinton's presumptive desire
for both (a) convenience, (b) FOIA complicance, (c) a securing of her privacy, and (d) compliance
with State Department email-storage regulations? Would any reasonable person have found this set-up
convenient? And if not ― and Comey explicitly found not ― why in the world didn't that help
to establish the real intent of Clinton's private basement servers? Indeed, had Clinton
intended on complying with FOIA, presumably her own staff would have had to do the very same painstaking
work it took the FBI a year to do. But FOIA requests come in too fast and furious, at State, for
Clinton's staff to do the work it took the FBI a year to do in a matter of days; wouldn't this in
itself establish that Clinton and her staff had no ability, and therefore well knew they had no intention,
of acceding to any of the Department's hundreds or even thousands of annual FOIA requests in full?
And wouldn't ignoring all those requests be not just illegal but "inconvenient" in the extreme? And
speak to the question of intent?
It took Clinton two years to hand over work emails she was supposed to hand over the day she left
office; and during that time, she and her lawyers, some of whom appear to have looked at classified
material without clearance, deleted thousands of "personal" emails ― many of which turned out the
be exactly the sort of work emails she was supposed to turn over the day she left State. In this
situation, an actor acting in good faith would have (a) erred on the side of caution in deleting
emails, (b) responded with far, far more alacrity to the valid demands of State to see all work-related
emails, and (c) having erroneously deleted certain emails, would have rushed to correct the mistake
themselves rather than seeing if they could get away with deleting ― mind you ― not just work emails
but work emails with (in several instances) classified information in them. How in the world was
none of this taken toward the question of intent? Certainly, it was taken toward the finding of "gross
negligence" Comey made, but how in the world was none of it seen as relevant to Clinton's
specific intent also? Why does it seem the only evidence of specific intent Comey would've looked
at was a smoking gun? Does he realize how few criminal cases would ever be brought against anyone
in America if a "smoking gun" standard was in effect? Does anyone realize how many poor black men
wouldn't be in prison if that standard was in effect for them as well as Secretary Clinton?
4. Comey made it seem that the amount and quality of prosecutorial consideration he gave
Clinton was normal. The mere fact that Comey gave public statements justifying his prosecutorial
discretion misleads the public into thinking that, say, poor black men receive this level of care
when prosecutors are choosing whether to indict them.
While at least he had the good grace to call the fact of his making a public statement "unusual"
― chalking it up to the "intense public interest" that meant Clinton (and the public) "deserved"
an explanation for his behavior ― that grace ultimately obscured, rather than underscored, that what
Comey did in publicly justifying his behavior is unheard of in cases involving poor people. In the
real America, prosecutors are basically unaccountable to anyone but their bosses in terms of their
prosecutorial discretion, as cases in which abuse of prosecutorial discretion is successfully alleged
are vanishingly rare. Many are the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers of poor black men who
would love to have had their sons' (or brothers', or fathers') over-charged criminal cases explained
to them with the sort of care and detail Hillary Clinton naturally receives when she's being investigated.
Clinton and the public "deserve" prosecutorial transparency when the defendant is a Clinton; just
about no one else deserves this level of not just transparency but also ― given the year-long length
of the FBI investigation ― prosecutorial and investigative caution.
What's amazing is how little use Comey actually made of all the extra time and effort. For instance,
on July 5th he said that every email the FBI uncovered was sent to the "owning" organization to see
if they wanted to "up-classify" it ― in other words, declare that it should have been classified
at the time it was sent and/or received, even if not marked that way at the time. One might think
Comey would want this information, the better to determine Clinton's intent with respect to those
emails (i.e., given Clinton's training, knowledge, and experience, how frequently did she "miss"
the classified nature of an email, relative to the assessment of owning agencies that a given email
was effectively and/or should have been considered classified ― even if not marked so ― at the time
Clinton handled it?) Keep in mind, here, that certain types of information, as Clinton without a
doubt knew, are "born classified" whether marked as such or not. And yet, just two days after July
5th, Comey testified before Congress that he "didn't pay much attention" to "up-classified" emails.
Why? Because, said Comey, they couldn't tell him anything about Clinton's intent. Bluntly,
this is an astonishing and indeed embarrassing statement for any prosecutor to make.
Whereas every day knowledge and motives are imparted to poor black men that are, as the poet Claudia
Rankine has observed, purely the product of a police officer's "imagination," the actual and indisputable
knowledge and motives and ― yes ― responsibilities held by Clinton were "downgraded" by Comey to
that of merely an average American. That is, despite the fact that Clinton was one of the most powerful
people on Earth, charged with managing an agency that collects among the highest number of classified
pieces of information of any agency anywhere; despite the fact that Clinton's agency had the strictest
policies for data storage for this very reason; despite the fact that State is, as Clinton well knew,
daily subjected to FOIA requests; despite all this, Comey actually said the following: "Like many
email users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails..."
What?
How in the world does the "many email users" standard come into play here? Clinton's server, unlike
anyone else's server, was set up in a way that permitted no archiving, an arrangement that one now
imagines led (in part) to the person who set up that server taking the Fifth more than a hundred
times in interviews with the FBI; even assuming Clinton didn't know, and didn't request, for her
server to be set up in this astonishing way ― a way, again, that her own employees believe could
incriminate them ― how in the world could she have been sanguine about deleting emails "like many
email users" when the agency she headed had completely different and more stringent protocols
and requirements for data storage than just about any government agency on Earth? Just so, once
it was clear that Clinton had deleted (per Comey) "thousands of emails that were work-related" instead
of turning them over to State, in what universe can no intent be implied from the fact that her attorneys
purged 30,000 emails simply by looking at their headers? At what point does Clinton, as
former Secretary of State, begin to have ill intent imputed to her by not directing her attorneys
to actually read emails before permanently destroying them and making them unavailable to the FBI
as evidence? If you were in her situation, and instead of saying to your team either (a) "don't delete
any more emails," or (b) "if you delete any emails, make sure you've read them in full first," would
you expect anyone to impute "no specific intent" to your behavior?
The result: despite saying she never sent or received emails on her private basement server that
were classified "at the time," the FBI found that 52 email chains on Clinton's server ― including
110 emails ― contained information that was classified at the time (eight chains contained
"top secret" information; 36, "secret" information; and another eight "confidential" information).
Moreover, Clinton's team wrongly purged ― at a minimum ― "thousands" of work-related emails. (And
I'm putting aside entirely here the 2,000 emails on Clinton's server that were later "up-classified.")
At what point does this harm become foreseeable, and not seeing it ― when you're one of the best-educated,
smartest, most experienced public servants in U.S. history, as your political team keeps reminding
us ― become evidence of "intent"? Comey's answer? Never.
Indeed, Comey instead makes the positively fantastical observation that "none [of the emails Clinton
didn't turn over but was supposed to] were intentionally deleted." The problem is, by Comey's own
admission all of those emails were intentionally deleted, under circumstances in which the
problems with that deletion would not just have been evident to "any reasonable person" but specifically
were clear ― the context proves it ― to Clinton herself. During her four years as Secretary of State
Clinton routinely expressed concern to staff about her own and others' email-storage practices, establishing
beyond any doubt that not only was Clinton's literal key-pressing deliberate ― the "knowing" standard
― but also its repeated, systemic effect was fully appreciated by her in advance. Likewise, that
her attorneys were acting entirely on their own prerogative, without her knowledge, is a claim no
jury would credit.
Clinton's attorneys worked Clinton's case in consultation with Clinton ― that's how things work.
In other words, Clinton's lawyers are not rogue actors here. So when Comey says, "They [Clinton and
her team] deleted all emails they did not produce for State, and the lawyers then cleaned their devices
in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery," we have to ask, what possible reason would
an attorney have for wiping a server entirely within their control to ensure that no future court
order could access the permanently deleted information? In what universe is such behavior not
actual consciousness of guilt with respect to the destruction of evidence? Because we must be clear:
Comey isn't saying Clinton and her lawyers accidentally put these emails outside even a hypothetical
future judicial review; they did so intentionally.
There's that word again.
The result of these actions? The same as every other action Clinton took that Comey somehow
attributes no intent to: a clear legal benefit to Clinton and a frustration, indeed an obstruction,
of the FBI's investigation. As Comey said on July 5th, the FBI can't know how many emails are "gone"
(i.e., permanently) because of Clinton and her team's intentional acts after-the-fact. So Comey is
quite literally telling us that the FBI couldn't conclude their investigation with absolute confidence
that they had all the relevant facts, and that the reason for this was the intentional destruction
of evidence by the subject of the investigation at a time when there was no earthly reason to destroy
evidence except to keep it from the FBI.
In case you're wondering, no, you don't need a legal degree to see the problem there.
As an attorney, I can't imagine destroying evidence at a time I knew it was the subject of a federal
investigation. And if I ever were to do something like that, I would certainly assume that all such
actions would later be deemed "intentional" by law enforcement, as my intent would be inferred from
my training, knowledge, and experience as an attorney, as well as my specific awareness of a pending
federal investigation in which the items I was destroying might later become key evidence. That Clinton
and her team repeatedly (and falsely) claimed the FBI investigation was a mere "security review"
― yet another assertion whose falseness was resoundingly noted by Comey in his public statements
― was clearly a transparent attempt to negate intent in destroying those emails. (The theory being,
"Well, yes, I destroyed possible evidence just by looking at email headers, but this was all just
a 'security review,' right? Not a federal investigation? Even though I knew the three grounds
for referral of the case to the FBI, and knew that only one of them involved anything like a 'security
review'?")
And certainly, none of this explains Comey's (again) gymnastic avoidance of stating the obvious:
that crimes were committed.
Listen to his language on July 5th: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Clinton or her
colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information" (emphasis
in original) ― actually, let's stop there. You'd expect the second half of that sentence to be something
like, "...they nevertheless did violate those laws, despite not intending to." It's the natural continuation
of the thought. Instead, Comey, who had prepared his remarks in advance, finished the thought this
way: "....there is evidence that they were extremely careless with very sensitive, highly
classified information" (emphasis in original).
Note that Comey now uses the phrase "extremely careless" instead of "gross negligence," despite
using the latter phrase ― a legal phrase ― at the beginning of his July 5th remarks. That matters
because at the beginning of those remarks he conceded "gross negligence" would lead to a statutory
violation. So why the sudden shift in language, when from a legal standpoint "extreme carelessness"
and "gross negligence" are synonymous ― both indicating the presence of a duty of care, the failure
to meet that duty, and moreover a repeated failure on this score? Comey also avoids finishing
his sentence with the obvious thought: that they may not have intended to violate criminal
statutes, but they did nonetheless. Remember that, just like our hypothetical raver may not have
intended to commit a Simple Assault by stepping on that poor young woman's foot, he nevertheless
could be found to have done so; just so, had Comey accepted the statute as written, Clinton's "gross
negligence" would have forced him to end the above sentence with the finding of a statutory violation,
even if there had been no "specific intent" to do so.
This is how the law works. For poor black men, just not for rich white women.
5. Comey, along with the rest of Congress, left the impression, much like the Supreme
Court did in 2000, that legal analyses are fundamentally political analyses. Not only is
this untrue, it also is unspeakably damaging to both our legal system and Americans' understanding
of that system's operations.
I'm a staunch Democrat, but I'm also an attorney. Watching fellow Democrats twist themselves into
pretzels to analyze Clinton's actions through a farcically slapdash legal framework, rather than
merely acknowledging that Clinton is a human being and, like any human being, can both (a) commit
crimes, and (b) be replaced on a political ticket if need be, makes me sick as both a Democrat and
a lawyer. Just so, watching Republicans who had no issue with George W. Bush declaring unilateral
war in contravention of international law, and who had no issue with the obviously illegal behavior
of Scooter Libby in another recent high-profile intel-related criminal case, acting like the rule
of law is anything they care about makes me sick. Our government is dirty as all get-out, but the
one thing it's apparently clean of is anyone with both (a) legal training, and (b) a sense of the
ethics that govern legal practice. Over and over during Comey's Congressional testimony I heard politicians
noting their legal experience, and then going on to either shame their association with that august
profession or honor it but (in doing so) call into question their inability or unwillingness to do
so in other instances.
When Comey says, "any reasonable person should have known" not to act as Clinton did, many don't
realize he's quoting a legal standard ― the "reasonable person standard." A failure to meet that
standard can be used to establish either negligence or recklessness in a court of law. But here,
Clinton wasn't in the position of a "reasonable person" ― the average fellow or lady ― and Comey
wasn't looking merely at a "reasonableness" standard, but rather a "purposeful" standard that requires
Comey to ask all sorts of questions about Clinton's specific, fully contextualized situation and
background that he doesn't appear to have asked. One might argue that, in keeping with Clinton's
campaign theme, no one in American political history was more richly prepared ― by knowledge, training,
experience, and innate gifts ― to know how to act properly in the situations Clinton found herself.
That in those situations she failed to act even as a man or woman taken off the street and put in
a similar situation would have acted is not indicative of innocence or a lack of specific intent,
but the opposite. If a reasonable person wouldn't have done what Clinton did, the most exquisitely
prepared person for the situations in which Clinton found herself must in fact have been providing
prosecutors with prima facie evidence of intent by failing to meet even the lowest threshold
for proper conduct. Comey knows this; any prosecutor knows this. Maybe a jury would disagree with
Comey on this point, but his job is to assume that, if he zealously advocates for this extremely
powerful circumstantial case, a reasonable jury, taking the facts in the light most favorable to
the government, would see things his way.
Look, I can't possibly summarize for anyone reading this the silly nonsense I have seen prosecutors
indict people for; a common saying in the law is that the average grand jury "would indict a ham
sandwich," and to be clear that happens not because the run-of-the-mill citizens who sit on grand
juries are bloodthirsty, but because the habitual practice of American prosecutors is to indict first
and ask questions later ― and because indictments are absurdly easy to acquire. In other words, I've
seen thousands of poor people get over-charged for either nonsense or nothing at all, only to have
their prosecutors attempt to leverage their flimsy cases into a plea deal to a lesser charge. By
comparison, it is evident to every defense attorney of my acquaintance that I've spoken to that James
Comey bent over backwards to not indict Hillary Clinton ― much like the hundreds of state
and federal prosecutors who have bent over backwards not to indict police officers over the past
few decades. Every attorney who's practiced in criminal courts for years can smell when the fix is
in ― can hear and see when the court's usual actors are acting highly unusually ― and that's what's
happened here. The tragedy is that it will convince Americans that our legal system is fundamentally
about what a prosecutor feels they can and should be able to get away with, an answer informed largely,
it will seem to many, by various attorneys' personal temperaments and political prejudices.
No one in America who's dedicated their life to the law can feel any satisfaction with how Hillary
Clinton's case was investigated or ultimately disposed of, no more than we can feel sanguine about
prosecutors whose approach to poor black defendants is draconian and to embattled police officers
positively beatific. What we need in Congress, and in prosecutor's offices, are men and women of
principle who act in accordance with their ethical charge no matter the circumstances. While James
Comey is not a political hack, and was not, I don't believe, in any sense acting conspiratorially
in not bringing charges against Hillary Clinton, I believe that, much like SCOTUS did not
decide in the 2000 voting rights case Bush v. Gore, Comey felt that this was a bad time
for an executive-branch officer to interfere with the workings of domestic politics. Perhaps Comey
had the best of intentions in not doing his duty; perhaps he thought letting voters, not prosecutors,
decide the 2016 election was his civic duty. Many Democrats could wish the Supreme Court had felt
the same way in 2000 with respect to the role of judges. But the fact remains that the non-indictment
of Hillary Clinton is as much a stain on the fair and equal administration of justice as is the disparate
treatment of poor black males at all stages of the criminal justice system. I witnessed the latter
injustice close up, nearly every day, during my seven years working as a public defender; now America
has seen the same thing, albeit on a very different stage, involving a defendant of a very different
class and hue.
To have prosecuted Clinton, said Comey, he would need to have seen "clearly intentional and willful
mishandling of classified information, or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way as
to support an inference of intentional misconduct, or....efforts to obstruct justice..." When Comey
concludes, "we do not see those things here," America should ― and indeed must ― wonder what facts
he could possibly be looking at, and, moreover, what understanding of his role in American life he
could possibly be acting upon. The answers to these two questions would take us at least two steps
forward in discussing how average Americans are treated by our increasingly dysfunctional system
of justice.
Seth Abramson is the Series Editor for Best American Experimental Writing (Wesleyan University)
and the author, most recently, of
DATA (BlazeVOX, 2016).
"... "The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony. In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes." ..."
"... The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony. In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes. ..."
Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
Chairman Jason Chaffetz (UT-03) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (VA-06)
sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia requesting an investigation
into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed perjury and made false
statements when testifying under oath before Congress.
The letter states:
"The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of
a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony.
In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to
prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to
Congress, or any other relevant statutes."
Background:
During a July 5,
2016 hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Director James Comey stated the truthfulness of Secretary Clinton's testimony before Congress was
not within the scope of the FBI's investigation. According to Director Comey the Department of
Justice requires a criminal referral from Congress to initiate an investigation into Secretary
Clinton's congressional testimony.
Additionally, Chairman Chaffetz
sent a letter to Director Comey requesting the FBI's full investigative file from its review
of former Secretary Clinton's use of an authorized private email server.
Chairman Goodlatte
sent a letter to Director Comey pressing for more information about the FBI's investigation
and also led a
letter signed by over 200 members of Congress demanding answers from FBI Director Comey
regarding the many questions surrounding his announcement that he does not recommend federal
prosecution against former Secretary Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information
through private email servers.
The Honorable Channing D. Phillips
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
555 Fourth Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Mr. Phillips:
We write to request an investigation to determine whether former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton committed perjury and made false statements during her testimony under oath before
congressional committees.
While testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 7,
2016, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey stated the truthfulness of
Secretary Clinton's testimony before Congress was not within the scope of the FBI's
investigation. Nor had the FBI even considered any of Secretary Clinton's testimony.
Director Comey further testified the Department of Justice requires a criminal referral from
Congress to initiate an investigation of Secretary Clinton's congressional testimony. We are
writing for that purpose.
The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use
of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn
testimony. In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine
whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false
statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
... as Trump prepared to address a rival rally 170 miles away in Raleigh, it was clear that
the Democrats were going to have to do more than this if they really expected the email scandal
to go away for good.
"As FBI Director James Comey let Clinton off the hook for her 'extremely careless' actions, the
fix was final," blasted Trump in a statement. "The Obama administration's anointed successor has
had an indictment removed from her path, and will now be able to glide to the rigged Democrat
nomination. As we move toward November, the question now becomes, 'what is Hillary hiding?'"
When the dust from the FBI investigation settles, the former secretary of state is likely to have
to give a fuller account of her actions, now that the world knows just how agents assessed them.
Of the dozens of intelligence memos that Sidney Blumenthal sent to Hillary Clinton while she
served as secretary of state, 23 contained information classified as
"Confidential" or "Secret," a Daily Caller analysis shows.
Sending nearly two
dozen sensitive emails makes Blumenthal, a former journalist and aide in the Bill
Clinton White House, one of Clinton's most prolific sharers of classified
information. The Democratic presidential candidate herself sent 104 emails
containing classified information, The Washington Post
found
.
Some of Clinton's State Department aides, such as chief of staff Cheryl Mills and deputy chief of
staff Huma Abedin, sent dozens of emails which contain now-classified information. Jake Sullivan,
Clinton's top foreign policy adviser, sent 215 now-classified messages.
But the Blumenthal memos are especially intriguing because the longtime Clinton ally did not work
for the government. Instead, during the period that he sent Clinton memos, he was working for the
Clinton Foundation as well as for several non-profit organizations with close ties to the Clintons.
He also worked during some of that period as an editor for The Daily Beast.
Here is a complete list of Blumenthal's classified memos and emails:
2009
June 23 email
- Blumenthal forwarded Clinton a nearly entirely redacted email with subject
line "N. Ireland/Shaun," an apparent reference to Shaun Woodward, who then served as Northern
Ireland's secretary of state.
July 15 memo
- Blumenthal refers to information from William Drozdiak, who at the time was
the president of the American Council on Germany. The non-redacted portion of the email refers to
the "disastrous nature" of an Obama diplomatic trip.
Sept. 23 email
- Entitled "URGENT FOR NORTHERN IRELAND MEETINGS TOMORROW," the Blumenthal
memo refers to a Clinton Global Initiative event held days before to discuss ways to increase
foreign investment in Northern Ireland.
Oct. 8 memo
- Blumenthal provided an update on developments in Northern Ireland.
Oct. 11 memo
- Blumenthal advised Clinton ahead of a speech she was set to give at Stormont
Castle in Belfast in support of devolution, or the shifting of power from the U.K. parliament to
the Northern Ireland national assembly.
Oct. 20 memo
- Blumenthal shared an email from Northern Ireland's Sec. of State Shaun
Woodward. Clinton was set to meet with UK Shadow Foreign Minister
US to send
Ukraine small drones and armoured Humvees
William Hague. "This makes your meeting with Hague
unexpectedly pressing," Blumenthal wrote of Woodward's email.
Nov. 28 memo
- Blumenthal sent yet another update about negotiations in Northern Ireland.
April 8 memo
- Blumenthal forwarded Clinton an email from a source discussing internal
politics in Kyrgyzstan, which was then in the midst of a revolution.
April 23 "Secret" memo
- Blumenthal updated Clinton on the situation in Kyrgyzstan. The
portion of the memo redacted for "secret" classified information discussed a criminal
investigation.
2011
March 5 memo
- Blumenthal forwarded Clinton an email from his longtime associate Cody
Shearer, who has worked on behalf of the Clintons over the years. The memo, sent in the early
days of the Libyan revolt, discussed the formation of the National Transitional Council, which
replaced Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship.
March 18 memo
- Blumenthal discussed Gaddafi's response to the UN's decision to authorize the
use of force in Libya.
June 20 memo
- Blumenthal's memo, with the subject line "Bahrain, Iranian intelligence," is
completely redacted.
Oct. 12 memo
- A memo entitled "Saudi Arabia/Iran/Turkey" relied on Blumenthal's "Sources
with access to the highest levels of the Government of Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as
regional and Western Intelligence services."
2012
May 30 memo
- Blumenthal sent Clinton two memos containing information on German policy on
the Eurozone crisis, which had reached full steam at that point. The information in the memos was
passed to Blumenthal by sources who had conversations with German Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schauble.
In the memo, Blumenthal cautioned Clinton that the information came from "an extremely
sensitive source" and "should be handled with care." He also insisted that the information must
not be shared "with anyone associated with the German government.
June 27 memo
- A memo entitled "Internal pressures and potential schisms in German government
over Euro-zone" is entirely redacted.
July 14 memo
- Blumenthal's memo entitled "Egypt internal politics" came from "sources with
access to the highest levels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, The Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces, and Western Intelligence and security services."
Blumenthal characterized the sources as "extremely sensitive" and cautioned that the
information should be "handled with care."
Aug. 3 memo
- Blumenthal passed along a memo discussing European Central Bank president Mario
Draghi and negotitions with Germany to resolve the Eurozone debt crisis. The memo is entirely
redacted as classified and is b ased on "sources with access to the highest levels of the
Governments and institutions."
Sept. 4 memo
- Blumenthal passed along another now-entirely redacted memo based on
"high-level sources." The subject matter of the memo is not clear.
You can look at the source documents yourself. This is not opinion, conjecture, or rumor. Hillary Clinton transmitted the names
of American intelligence officials via her unclassified email.
From a series of Clinton emails, numerous names were redacted in the State Department releases with the classification code "B3
CIA PERS/ORG," a highly specialized classification that means the information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence
Act of 1949 by exposing the names of CIA officials.
How FOIA Works
The Freedom of information Act (FOIA) requires the government to release all, or all parts of a document, that do not fall under
a specific set of allowed exemptions. If information cannot be excluded, it must be released. If some part of a document can be redacted
to allow the rest of the document to be released, then that is what must be done. Each redaction must be justified by citing a specific
reason for exclusion.
But don't believe me. Instead, look at page two of this
State Department document
which lists the exemptions.
Note specifically the different types of "(b)(3)" redactions, including "CIA PERS/ORG." As common sense would dictate, the government
will not release the names of CIA employees via the FOIA process. It would - literally - be against the law. What law? Depending
on the nature of the individual's job at CIA, National Security Act of 1947, the CIA Act of 1949, various laws that govern undercover/clandestine
CIA officers and, potentially, the Espionage Act of 1917.
Names of CIA, NSA Officials Mentioned, Now Redacted
Yet Hillary's emails contain at least three separate, specific instances where she mentioned in an unclassified email transmitted
across the open Internet and wirelessly to her Blackberry the names of CIA personnel. Here they are. Look for the term "(b)(3) CIA
PERS/ORG" Click on the links and see for yourself:
There are also numerous instances of exposure of the names and/or email addresses of NSA employees ("B3 NSA"); see page 23 inside
this longer PDF document.
Why It Matters
These redactions point directly to violations of specific laws. It is not a "mistake" or minor rule breaking.
These redactions strongly suggest that the Espionage Act's standard of mishandling national defense information through "gross
negligence" may have been met by Clinton.
There is no ambiguity in this information, no possible claims to faux-retroactive classification, not knowing, information
not being labeled, etc. Clinton and her staff know that one cannot mention CIA names in open communications. It is one of the
most basic tenets taught and exercised inside the government. One protects one's colleagues.
Exposing these names can directly endanger the lives of the officials. It can endanger the lives of the foreigners they interacted
with after a foreign government learns one of their citizens was talking with the CIA It can blow covers and ruin sensitive clandestine
operations. It can reveal to anyone listening in on this unclassified communication sources and methods. Here is a
specific example
of how Clinton likely compromised security.
These redactions show complete contempt on Clinton's part for the security process.
BONUS: There is clear precedent for others going to jail for exposing CIA names. Read the
story of John Kiriakou .
A Personal Aside: I just remain incredulous about these revelations seeming to mean nothing to the world. They're
treated in the media as almost gossip.
Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book,
We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose
the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People . His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad:
A Story of the #99 Percent . Reprinted from the his blog with permission.
tom •
a month ago
So if Hillary is elected and she takes the USA into WW3 by continuing to harass Russia and supporting terrorists, and
the USA is finally attacked like the USA attacks other nations, are not the people who supported Clinton, and the Clintons themselves,
fair game for some sort of retribution? When are these obvious war crimes going to be met with some sort of justice? There is a story
well-known by now of how a group f German soldiers tried to assassinate Hitler and failed. Well, the FBI and DOJ have every opportunity
to stop another Hitler before she acquires more leverage to reign down death and destruction on America's "enemies". Will they do
their job or will we in 10 tens be wondering what could have been?
While and at the same time doing much business with Russia, and China, and all of the newly conquered (but not very conquered)
puppet dictatorships like Iraq and Libya. The first real indication we'll get is if the Halliburton operatives get pulled out.
I haven't seen a mass exodus of pipeline workers coming back to the states. My lowly position as an ex-Halliburton worker (they
literally broke me and then abandoned me. I can't walk two blocks without extreme pain for an uncompensated on-the-job injury
23 years ago) gives me a unique vantage no CIA spook can ever get. Unless you were to talk some Harvard Princesses to get up on
a damned ladder or roughneck on an oil rig or pipeline. On our level we get a larger view of what's going on. Like for instance,
Sudan was invaded by Halliburton years before the Libyan coup. How does that matter? The nation is landlocked and the only direction
they can point a pipe to the Med is through Libya. Shell and Exxon want to export the extorted oil so they had to take down Libya.
Roll the dice. Also by publishing the names of the agents who were previously outed, we'd be doing the exact same thing. Prove
that those agents were endangered and wham bam thank you ma'am they'll be even more endangered. The alternative would be a secret
trial. Which happens.
It seems that HRC may become POTUS, thanks to the actions of DNC, DWS and the MSM and the inaction of the FBI and DOJ - much to
the relief of the MIC, CIA and NSA and the satisfaction of the TBTF banks and the RDA*.
The rest of us are FUCD.
* I made this one up; it stands for "Revolving Door Apparatchiks".
The media has been bought and paid for. There is no longer news reporting, only propaganda recitation. Statistically, most people
are followers. Let's hope there are a few principled public servants at the FBI to help save our country.
An external IT audit is necessary in this case, if it hasn't already been ordered. Who gave the approval to set this thing up?
Where is the documentation requesting access to the State's servers? Who signed off on that? Who verified that approval? Who processed
the request and what verification did the approvals undergo?
An IT auditor would rip State several new orifices with which to excrete solid waste matter.
"... House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) formally requested Thursday that Clinton's security clearance be revoked because of the careless handling of classified material that the FBI investigation revealed. ..."
"... Clinton's personal system did not have full-time security staff ensuring that its protection was up to date. ..."
"... Comey said as many as ten people who did not have clearance had access to the system. ..."
"... Unconfirmed media reports had indicated that the FBI investigation spread to look at the activities of the Clinton Foundation as well ..."
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) formally requested Thursday that Clinton's security clearance be revoked because of the careless
handling of classified material that the FBI investigation revealed.
... ... ...
While Comey maintained that nobody else would face criminal prosecution for doing the same things Clinton did, he emphasized in
his testimony that there would be consequences if a current government employee did it. This could include termination, administrative
sanctions, or losing clearance.
He refused to definitively assess a hypothetical situation where someone like Clinton was seeking security clearance for an FBI
job, though.
... ... ...
Gmail: One aspect of Clinton's actions that Comey said was particularly troubling was that he could not completely exclude
the possibility that her email account was hacked. Unlike the State Department or even email providers like Gmail, Clinton's
personal system did not have full-time security staff ensuring that its protection was up to date.
... ... ...
Clearance: Clinton and her top aides had security clearance to view the classified material that was improperly being transmitted
on the server, but Comey said as many as ten people who did not have clearance had access to the system.
... ... ...
Clinton Foundation:Unconfirmed media reports had indicated that the FBI investigation spread to look at the activities
of the Clinton Foundation as well
Trey Gowdy GRILLS James Comey On Hillary Clinton Emails. Hillary Clinton Email Investigation FBI Director James Comey testified
at a hearing on the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of private email servers while serving as secretary of state,
as well as the decision to not recommend criminal charges against her. Rep. Gowdy Q&A - Oversight of the State Department.
At a congressional hearing Thursday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) grilled FBI director James Comey about several of Hillary Clinton's
statements to the public, which the FBI investigation revealed to be untrue. For instance, Clinton had previously claimed that she
had never received or sent classified information to or from her private email server; Comey conceded to Rep. Gowdy that that was
not true.
Another claim of Clinton's, which the investigation revealed to be untrue, was that she had retained all work-related emails.
Comey noted that they had uncovered "thousands" of work-related emails not returned to the State Department. "In the interest of
time and because I have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon," Gowdy concluded after running through a catalogue of Clinton's claims,
"I'm not going to go through any more of the false statements."
But Gowdy determined that "false exculpatory statements" can be used to determine intention and consciousness of guilt.
Wesley Eskildsen
Is this guy a Starfish from Bikini Bottom!? If Hillary gave her Lawyer, or anyone without the proper Security Clearance AND
the "Need to know", access to her Server containing classified information then she is in violation of Federal Law. If she were
on active Duty she would be court-martialed. that is Chaffetz point exactly!
John Doe
As a democrat, I am disgusted that every member of my party, when givin the opportunity to ask some questions, not one of these
cowards asked a real question and instead focussed on basically explaining about what a wonderful human being Hillary Clinton
is, and what terrible people the republicans are....
Wayne Paul
This chick Maloney just throwing softballs I have no clue why she is even talking.
aadrgtagtwe aaqerytwerhywerytqery
Comey is a liar, look at his reaction when asked about what questions did FBI ask hillary during the 3 and a half hour interview.
He said he couldn't remember at the moment. How is that possible? The only question to ask hillary during the fbi interview was:
"Did you send and receive classified top secret emails through your servers?"
Both answers Hillary could have given, would have been enough to indict her. If she said "Yes", then she would have been indicted
for sending top secret info. If she said "No" , she would have lied, because the report that Comey presented said that "top secret
emails were sent and received, and they were top secret at the time they were sent and received. Fbi didn't ask that question
at all. That tells you that the whole interview was a sham, Hillary was never interviewed.
The propaganda-media reported "hillary was grilled by fbi during 3 and a half hour interview". What unbelievable bullshit!
WE WANT JUSTICE!!!!!!!!! For all those people who are now in jail for the rest of their lives for doing much less than the criminal-hillary!!!!!!!
"... At a contentious hearing of the House oversight committee, Mr. Comey acknowledged under questioning that a number of key assertions that Mrs. Clinton made for months in defending her email system were contradicted by the FBI's investigation. ..."
"... Mr. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to return "thousands" of work-related emails to the State Department, despite her public insistence to the contrary, and that her lawyers may have destroyed classified material that the F.B.I. was unable to recover. He also described her handling of classified material as secretary of state as "negligent" - a legal term he avoided using when he announced on Tuesday that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against her. ..."
... He also provided new details that could prove damaging to her just weeks before she is to be named the Democrats' presidential
nominee.
At a contentious hearing of the House oversight committee, Mr. Comey acknowledged under questioning that a number of key assertions
that Mrs. Clinton made for months in defending her email system were contradicted by the FBI's investigation.
Mr. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to return "thousands" of work-related emails to the State Department, despite her
public insistence to the contrary, and that her lawyers may have destroyed classified material that the F.B.I. was unable to recover.
He also described her handling of classified material as secretary of state as "negligent" - a legal term he avoided using when he
announced on Tuesday that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against her.
"... I also made this comment during the morning links, but I think it bears repeating. Robinson considers this to be a great day for Clinton? By what standard? The FBI director went on national television and described her as "extremely careless," and then essentially called her a liar. Is a politician considered to be ethical if he or she is not indicted? ..."
"... Called her a liar? Un-indicted liar or perjurer because the investigators are reasonable. ..."
"... What an inversion – this must be the first time it was good for Hillary that her husband had a scandalous private meeting with a younger woman. ..."
"... In Hillary's nomination victory speech a month ago she argued she has the moral high ground and Trump's response was to focus on the problems in the economy. If the recession starts to hit hard enough late this year, Trump will win, and he will tell Hillary and Bill, "Its the economy stupid!" ..."
"... It is a SAD day when a President of the US cheers for an "extremely careless" leaker after being the most aggressive prosecutor of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act ever. Can I haz my money back? ..."
"... When "mere mortals" undertake the kind of reckless action with regard to classified material that Clinton did, wouldn't a likely and appropriate sanction be to pull that person's security clearance? ..."
"... Can a president operate without having a security clearance? ..."
"... "Mere mortals" get indicted. Here is the complaint filed in U.S.A v. Bryan Nishimura, July 24, 2015 ..."
"... BRYAN H. NISHIMURA, defendant herein, from on or about January 2007 through April 2012, while deployed outside of the United States on active military duty with the United States Navy Reserve in Afghanistan and thereafter at his residence located in the County of Sacramento, State and Eastern District of California, being an officer and employee of the United States, specifically: a United States Navy Reserve Commander, and, by virtue of his office and employment as such, becoming possessed of documents and materials containing classified information of the United States, specifically: CLASSIFIED United States Army records, did knowingly remove such documents and materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents and materials at his residence in the County of Sacramento, an unauthorized location, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1924(a), a Class A misdemeanor. ..."
"... In a decision Tuesday in a case not involving Clinton directly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that messages contained in a personal email account can sometimes be considered government records subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. ..."
"... Apparently Hillary's problems with the FOIA cases will worsen. ..."
"Comey and Lynch asked to testify before Congress on Clinton probe" [MarketWatch].
From my armchair at 30,000 feet: If the Republicans really want to make Lynch squirm, they just have to ask Lynch one question, which
Comey - strong passive-aggressive move, there, Jim! - handed to them on a silver platter at his presser, yesterday. I've helpfully
written it down (quoted phrases
from Comey's press release, parsed here):
Q: Attorney General Lynch, what "security or administrative sanctions" do you feel are appropriate for Secretary Clinton's
"extremely careless" handling of her email communications at the State Department?
No speeches instead of questions, no primping on camera for the folks back home, nothing about the endless lying, no Benghazi
red meat, no sphincter-driven ranting about "security", tie gormless Trey Gowdy up in a canvas bag and stuff him under a desk. Just
ask that one question. And when Lynch dodges, as she will, ask it again. I don't ever recall having written a sentence that
includes "the American people want," but what the American people want is to see some member of the elite, some time, any time, held
accountable for wrong-doing. If it's Clinton's "turn" for that, then so be it. She should look at the big picture and consider the
larger benefit of continued legitimacy for the Republic and take one for the team. So let's see if the Republicans overplay their
hand. They always have. UPDATE This
is a good, that
is, sane letter from Bob Goodlatte (pdf), chair of the House Judiciary Committee (via MsExPat). But don't get down in the goddamned
weeds!! K.I.S.S.!!!
"Comey's solo appearance Tuesday stood out for historical reasons, because it's highly unusual for the FBI to make public findings
when investigators have decided no charges should be brought" [CNN].
This purports to be the inside story of how Comey "stood alone" to make the announcement. But there are some holes in the narrative:
Matthew Miller, the former top Justice spokesman under Attorney General Eric Holder, called Comey's announcement "outrageous."
"The FBI's job is to investigate cases and when it's appropriate to work with the Justice Department to bring charges," he said
on CNN. House Republican
sides with Comey over Trump on Clinton emails. Instead, Miller said: "Jim Comey is the final arbiter in determining the appropriateness
of Hillary Clinton's conduct. That's not his job."
When you've lost Eric Holder's spokesperson And then there's this. After Clinton's "long-awaited" Fourth-of-July weekend three
hours of testimony:
Officials said it was already clear that there wasn't enough evidence to bring criminal charges. The interview cemented that
decision among FBI and Justice officials who were present.
By Monday night, Comey and other FBI officials decided the public announcement should come at the earliest opportunity.
The fact that Tuesday would also mark the first public campaign appearance by Obama alongside Hillary Clinton didn't enter
in the calculation, officials said.
But as Yves points out, there was no time to write an official report of Clinton's "interview" over the weekend. So for this narrative
to work, you've got to form a mental picture of high FBI officials scanning the transcript of Clinton's "interview," throwing up
their hands, and saying "We got nuthin'. You take it from here, Jim." That doesn't scan. I mean, the FBI is called a
bureau for good reason. So to me, the obvious process violation means that political pressure was brought
to bear on Comey, most likely by Obama, despite the denials (those being subject to the Rice-Davies Rule). But Comey did the bare
minimum to comply, in essence carefully building a three-scoop Sundae of Accountability, and then handing it, with the cherry ("security
or administrative sanctions"), to Lynch, so Lynch could have the pleasant task of making the decision about whether to put the cherry
on top. Or not. Of course, if our elites were as dedicated to public service as they were in Nixon's day, there would have been a
second Saturday Night Massacre (link for those who
came in late), but these are different times. (Extending the sundae metaphor even further, it will be interesting to see if the
ice cream shop staff knows what else is back in the freezer, the nuts and syrups that Comey decided not to add; Comey certainly made
the ethical case for leaks.)
"Hillary Clinton's email problems might be even worse than we thought " [Chris Cilizza,
WaPo]. Cillizza, for whom I confess a sneaking affection, as for Nooners, isn't the most combative writer in WaPo's stable
voteforno6, July 6, 2016 at 2:12 pm
Re: "Hillary Clinton's great day"
I also made this comment during the morning links, but I think it bears repeating. Robinson considers this to be a great day
for Clinton? By what standard? The FBI director went on national television and described her as "extremely careless," and then essentially
called her a liar. Is a politician considered to be ethical if he or she is not indicted?
MyLessThanPrimeBeef, July 6, 2016 at 3:29 pm
Called her a liar? Un-indicted liar or perjurer because the investigators are reasonable.
Elizabeth Burton, July 6, 2016 at 6:17 pm
The cultish nature of Clinton followers struck me months ago; it's quite plain to anyone who's done any amount of study of cults.
The giddy insistence now that the Comey statement is total vindication is a case in point, and any attempt to point out how damning
it actually was only brings an "innocent until proven guilty" reply.
One can only surmise that a large number of people have been so inured to corruption they no longer consider it a negative unless
the perpetrator goes to jail; and even then there would likely be more insistence that person was railroaded.
Tertium Squid, July 6, 2016 at 2:15 pm
What an inversion – this must be the first time it was good for Hillary that her husband had a scandalous private meeting
with a younger woman.
Tim, July 6, 2016 at 2:40 pm
On election day hindsight will show the real inversion with the Clintons is:
In 1990s Bob Dole ran on a platform of having the moral high ground, while Bill Clinton said "it's the economy stupid", and Bill
won.
In Hillary's nomination victory speech a month ago she argued she has the moral high ground and Trump's response was to focus
on the problems in the economy. If the recession starts to hit hard enough late this year, Trump will win, and he will tell Hillary
and Bill, "Its the economy stupid!"
Isolato, July 6, 2016 at 2:18 pm
It is a SAD day when a President of the US cheers for an "extremely careless" leaker after being the most aggressive prosecutor
of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act ever. Can I haz my money back?
Kokuanani, July 6, 2016 at 3:19 pm
When "mere mortals" undertake the kind of reckless action with regard to classified material that Clinton did, wouldn't a
likely and appropriate sanction be to pull that person's security clearance?
Can we hope for that to happen to Clinton? [Why not?]
Can a president operate without having a security clearance?
3.14e-9, July 6, 2016 at 6:05 pm
When "mere mortals" undertake the kind of reckless action with regard to classified material that Clinton did, wouldn't
a likely and appropriate sanction be to pull that person's security clearance?
"Mere mortals" get indicted. Here is the complaint filed in U.S.A v. Bryan Nishimura, July 24, 2015:
The United States Attorney charges: THAT BRYAN H. NISHIMURA, defendant herein, from on or about January 2007 through April
2012, while deployed outside of the United States on active military duty with the United States Navy Reserve in Afghanistan and
thereafter at his residence located in the County of Sacramento, State and Eastern District of California, being an officer and
employee of the United States, specifically: a United States Navy Reserve Commander, and, by virtue of his office and employment
as such, becoming possessed of documents and materials containing classified information of the United States, specifically: CLASSIFIED
United States Army records, did knowingly remove such documents and materials without authority and with the intent to retain
such documents and materials at his residence in the County of Sacramento, an unauthorized location, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1924(a), a Class A misdemeanor.
voteforno6, July 6, 2016 at 6:13 pm
Since the classification program falls under the President by law, it is impossible for a President to not have a security clearance.
Pookah Harvey, July 6, 2016 at 2:54 pm
Clinton supporters seem to feel the fat lady has sung but it might be they are only hearing someone who is slightly chunky. From
Politico:
On the same day that the FBI announced that the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server is
likely to conclude without any charges, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that could complicate and prolong a slew of ongoing
civil lawsuits over access to the messages Clinton and her top aides traded on personal accounts.
In a decision Tuesday in a case not involving Clinton directly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that
messages contained in a personal email account can sometimes be considered government records subject to Freedom of Information
Act requests.
Apparently Hillary's problems with the FOIA cases will worsen.
Rep. Ken Buck questions FBI Director James Comey about his insertion of the term "willfully"
into 18 U.S. Code § 1924. Comey says he "imputes" the term in line with the Department of
Justice's history/tradition of enforcing the statute.
The above clip is taken from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing
regarding Hillary Clinton's criminal email conduct.
"... ...Mr. Comey also referenced a more obscure provision of the Espionage Act that has little to do with intent or state of mind, but rather makes it a crime to disclose classified information through "gross negligence." ..."
"... But the crime of "gross negligence" in the Espionage Act doesn't appear to require proof of any intentional mishandling of documents, according to Stephen I. Vladeck , a national security scholar at the University of Texas. ..."
"... Specifically, the law makes it a felony to permit classified information relating to national defense to be "removed from its proper place of custody" through gross negligence. ..."
"... Why are you focusing on the gross negligence aspect? ..."
"... Where is the removal from the proper place of custody? I've seen nothing in any legal analysis in this paper that talks about it. Is the presence of classified material on a private server of one who is authorized to have it equivalent to such a removal? ..."
"... She was specifically not authorized to have a private server. ..."
"... "From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was TOP SECRET at the time they were sent; 36 of those chains contained SECRET information at the time; and eight contained CONFIDENTIAL information at the time. That's the lowest level of classification." ..."
"... "We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account." ..."
"... Making an argument for the difference between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness" is the sort of semantic hair-splitting that Hillary Clinton ought to have been compelled to do in court - in the same way that her husband prevaricated over "what the meaning of the word 'is' is," shortly before he lost his law license. ..."
...Mr. Comey also referenced a more obscure provision of
the Espionage Act that has little to
do with intent or state of mind, but rather makes it a crime to disclose classified information through
"gross negligence."
That provision of the Espionage Act, the primary law governing the handling of classified information,
could require at least proof that the offender knew the classified information disclosed could harm
the United States or benefit a foreign power if it got into the wrong hands.
But the crime of "gross negligence" in the Espionage Act doesn't appear to require proof of any
intentional mishandling of documents, according to
Stephen I. Vladeck, a national security scholar at the University of Texas.
Specifically, the law makes it a felony to permit classified information relating to national
defense to be "removed from its proper place of custody" through gross negligence.
What would constitute a degree of recklessness that rises to gross negligence? Mr. Vladeck offered
an example of accidentally leaving a briefcase stuffed with classified national security secrets
on a busy sidewalk in Washington, D.C.
... ... ...
Charles Silva
Why are you focusing on the gross negligence aspect?
Where is the removal from the proper place of custody? I've seen nothing in any legal analysis
in this paper that talks about it. Is the presence of classified material on a private server
of one who is authorized to have it equivalent to such a removal?
Lee Hartwig
@Charles Silva She was specifically not authorized to have a private server.
Clifford Crouch
@Michael Piston
"From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52
email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the
time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was TOP SECRET
at the time they were sent; 36 of those chains contained SECRET information at the time; and eight
contained CONFIDENTIAL information at the time. That's the lowest level of classification."
-FBI Director James Comey, July 5, 2016
"We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal
email account."
-James Comey, July 5, 2016
Making an argument for the difference between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness"
is the sort of semantic hair-splitting that Hillary Clinton ought to have been compelled to do
in court - in the same way that her husband prevaricated over "what the meaning of the word 'is'
is," shortly before he lost his law license.
Wright noted that while the State Department's information technology budget trails many other departments, Clinton's arrangement
was likely still more vulnerable because it was administered by many people without a cybersecurity background.
"When you take a bad situation and put something else bad on top of it you've made it far worse," he told POLITICO.
And the countries interested in going after Clinton's emails all possess advanced cyber capabilities, experts said. The federal
government has determined that Chinese hackers have been snooping on personal email accounts of top U.S. officials for years and
just last year Secretary of State John Kerry said it is "likely" that Russian and Chinese hackers are reading his emails.
As for Israel, hackers would have targeted Clinton's emails to glean her positions on Middle East issues, according to Wright.
"They're friendly … but even friendlies can get aggressive on spying on each other," he said.
Clinton also accessed her private email "extensively" while traveling, Comey said, "including sending and receiving work-related
emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries."
This practice considerably heightened the risk of compromise, particularly if Clinton used unencrypted pathways to access her
email while abroad, said Jason Straight, chief privacy officer of UnitedLex, which advises corporations on cybersecurity practices.
Comey also said FBI investigators determined that hackers had infiltrated the private commercial email accounts of people that
regularly emailed Clinton's personal account, opening up another potential entry point for digital snoops.
The FBI chief didn't name these outside contacts, leading some, including Wright, to wonder if there would be further investigation
into the emails of top aides, like Cheryl Mills or Huma Abedin.
But while there are considerable factors pointing to a likely intrusion, there may never be a smoking gun, according to specialists.
"The bottom line is that we will likely never know for certain whether her server was compromised or not," said Straight.
Elizabeth Warren tweeted about holding public officials accountable. Nobody is above the law, not even public officials, she tweeted.
She is the leading candidate to be Hilary Clinton's VP, a public official who is above the law.
FBI Director James Comey announced there would be no charges for Hillary relating to her reckless use of a private email server
while Secretary of State.
During the same exchange, Chaffetz inquired as to whether the FBI investigated Clinton's statements
to the Benghazi committee, including her declaration that there was "nothing marked classified on
my emails, either sent or received."
"Not to my knowledge. I don't think there's been a referral from Congress," Comey responded, noting
that such a probe would usually require a referral from Congress.
Chaffetz responded with a chuckle, "You'll have one. You'll have one in the next few hours."
From comments: "Just last year:
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military ... /30862027/ Granted that was two a year probation plus
forever not being allowed a security clearance but there is no substantial difference between between
their violations. In fact her violations were several magnitudes worse. "
Notable quotes:
"... Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) responded, "Isn't she an original classification source?"-meaning that Clinton was responsible for assigning a level of classification to information as Secretary of State. "Yes, she was," Comey replied. "Good grief," exclaimed Mulvaney. ..."
"... Under further questioning from Chaffetz, Comey said that the FBI did not look at civil issues, such as violations of the Freedom of Information Act and federal records law, nor did they look at whether Clinton had committed perjury before Congress in sworn testimony wherein she said that she had neither sent nor received classified information via her e-mail. ..."
"... Comey also said that Clinton's mail server was "less secure" than Gmail. "Individual accounts might be less secure, but Google does regular security checks and updates," he explained. Clinton's mail server, set up by people working for former President Bill Clinton's foundation, sat in a basement of the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York. ..."
"... He's calling her incompetent, stupid, careless, reckless even...but just saying he doesn't believe they can charge her based on the evidence they reviewed. He even said that prior to this investigation he would have thought that any reasonable person would have known this, but now he is not so sure. ..."
"... "Break classification rules for the public's benefit, and you could be exiled. Do it for personal benefit, and you could be President." -- Edward Snowden ..."
"... Between a rock and hard place... On one hand he needs to show us peasants that the law applies to everyone, and on the other, he does not want to take on arguably the most powerful woman in the world and possibly the next president. For someone who wanted software backdoors so much - it couldn't happen to a more deserving person. ..."
"... This seems like a situation where an independent attorney should have been brought on. Why the fuck would the FBI have a role in determining whether or not to prosecute? Isn't that the DOJ's role? A role best delegated to an independent attorney in cases like this? ..."
"... Proving criminal intent was never necessary considering the standard here should be gross negligence, and even though actual harm was done when her server according to experts was almost certainly hacked, her not being indicted is about what anybody who has been paying attention to the bishops of the democratic party circling her and anointing her while chanting "All really do like her. None have any issues with trusting her... ..."
"... In his testimony, in response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware that she was sending highly classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don't think our investigation established she was that sophisticated about classification." Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-South Carolina) responded, "Isn't she an original classification source?", meaning that Clinton was responsible for assigning a level of classification to information as Secretary of Stat. ..."
"... People with security clearances are not generally prosecuted for unintentionally mishandling classified documents. If it is a significant level of negligence, they lose their security clearance and therefore their job and the ability to hold a similar job. ..."
"... Clinton's intentional use of her own email server takes negligence to new heights. While I don't think she had any justifiable reason to set up her own mail server and we have good reason to suspect that it was done to avoid oversight, it doesn't seem to have been done with the intention of mishandling classified docs. With Clinton we once again have evidence that she is trying to hide her actions, but no clear evidence of criminal intent. Ideally she would lose her ability to handle classified material and be banned from any position requiring access to classified information. However, negligence in handling the nation's secrets isn't spelled out in the Constitution as disqualifying someone for the office of President. You might think that no one would vote for someone who's been proved untrustworthy and negligent on this scale, but that simply isn't the case. ..."
"... Other people who negligently handle classified information also do face serious consequences. They lose their security clearance. That means they lose their job and can't get another one like it. In some cases that is pretty much career ending. ..."
"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," Chaffetz said in a statement announcing
the hearing. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated
the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American
people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation. I thank Director
Comey for accepting the invitation to publicly answer these important questions."
Update, 11:30 am: Eight e-mail threads of the more than 30,000 messages stored on
Clinton's server included conversations containing what was determined by State Department and Intelligence
Community review to be of the highest level of classification (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented
Information). But that information wasn't marked as such-and much of it was sent to Clinton by her
staff from the State Department's unclassified e-mail system. Both Clinton and State Department staff
sent messages stored on Clinton's server and on the State Department's unclassified e-mail system
that included classified, secret, and Top Secret/SCI information, including names of intelligence
community personnel.
In response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware that she was sending highly
classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don't think our investigation established
she was that sophisticated about classification." (Later in his testimony, Comey elaborated that
the lack of sophistication was more technical than understanding the importance of protecting classified
data.)
Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) responded, "Isn't she an original classification source?"-meaning
that Clinton was responsible for assigning a level of classification to information as Secretary
of State. "Yes, she was," Comey replied. "Good grief," exclaimed Mulvaney.
"Based on your answers, and what we know, it seems to me that she is stunningly incompetent
in handling e-mail and classified information," said Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), acknowledging Comey's
honesty. "For a Secretary of State, that level of carelessness is shocking."
Chaffetz concluded the hearing with a battery of questions over the people who had access to Clinton's
e-mails, including the administrators and lawyers. "She's not the head of Fish and Wildlife," Chaffetz
shouted.
Comey responded that it wasn't unreasonable for Clinton to assume that administrators would not
be reading her e-mail. And in other testimony, Comey said that because of the lack of security markings
on the vast majority of the content, it was reasonable to assume Clinton believed the contents to
be unclassified.
Under further questioning from Chaffetz, Comey said that the FBI did not look at civil issues,
such as violations of the Freedom of Information Act and federal records law, nor did they look at
whether Clinton had committed perjury before Congress in sworn testimony wherein she said that she
had neither sent nor received classified information via her e-mail.
Update, 1:00 pm: While a statute passed by Congress in 1917 allowed for prosecution
based on "gross negligence," Comey said that there were questions about the constitutionality of
that statute, and a later statute for misdemeanor offenses based on negligence. He said the decision
not to recommend prosecution "fits within a framework of fairness and what the Justice Department
has prosecuted over the last 50 years. I don't see cases that were prosecuted on facts like these,"
continued Comey. "There was one time it was charged in an espionage case, and the defendant pled
guilty on another charge so it was never adjudicated."
The general tone of Comey's testimony was that while Clinton was careless with classified information,
virtually none of the information that was sensitive was marked as such. Three e-mail threads included
"content markers" at the beginning of paragraphs within the body of messages indicating that the
paragraphs included classified information (using a letter "C" in parentheses). In response to a
question from Rep. Thomas Massie, Comey said, "Someone down in the chain put a portion marking in
the paragraph."
However, as noted by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, the State Department had said that the content
classification markings were in error-that they were preliminary marks from a "call sheet" for Clinton,
and should not have been left in the document when it was forwarded to Clinton.
Comey also said that Clinton's mail server was "less secure" than Gmail. "Individual accounts
might be less secure, but Google does regular security checks and updates," he explained. Clinton's
mail server, set up by people working for former President Bill Clinton's foundation, sat in a basement
of the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York.
As for Clinton's comments when asked if she had "wiped" her server: "Do you mean with a cloth?"
Comey quipped. "I would assume it was a facetious comment about a cloth, but I wouldn't know that."
In his testimony, in response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware
that she was sending highly classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don't think
our investigation established she was that sophisticated about classification."
Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-South Carolina) responded, "Isn't she an original classification
source?", meaning that Clinton was responsible for assigning a level of classification to information
as Secretary of Stat.
"Yes, she was," Comey replied.
This says volumes about Comey's bias and political aspirations. Shame! Shame!
I didn't read it like that. I think Comey is honestly trying to say that Hillary is just not
sophisticated about it, even after decades of being read in to the program.
He's calling her incompetent, stupid, careless, reckless even...but just saying he doesn't
believe they can charge her based on the evidence they reviewed. He even said that prior to this
investigation he would have thought that any reasonable person would have known this, but now
he is not so sure.
TechTuner777Wise ,
"Break classification rules for the public's benefit, and you could be exiled. Do it for
personal benefit, and you could be President." -- Edward Snowden
iPirateEverything
Between a rock and hard place... On one hand he needs to show us peasants that the law
applies to everyone, and on the other, he does not want to take on arguably the most powerful
woman in the world and possibly the next president. For someone who wanted software backdoors
so much - it couldn't happen to a more deserving person.
arkielArs
This seems like a situation where an independent attorney should have been brought on.
Why the fuck would the FBI have a role in determining whether or not to prosecute? Isn't that
the DOJ's role? A role best delegated to an independent attorney in cases like this?
Is an FBI recommendation a prerequisite to prosecution now? The fact that they found "extremely
careless" sounds like factual information upon which charges could be brought (but then again,
I don't know the letter of this law).
The last two cases could easily have been hand waived in the same was as being "extremely careless".
MeaildaArs
Marid wrote:
The decision not to prosecute was expected by anyone neutral to the politics. Proving
criminal intent is a very high bar to meet. And without actual harm done the case became even
more difficult who understands the politics.
Sub this for the strike: Proving criminal intent was never necessary considering the standard
here should be gross negligence, and even though actual harm was done when her server according
to experts was almost certainly hacked, her not being indicted is about what anybody who has been
paying attention to the bishops of the democratic party circling her and anointing her while chanting
"All really do like her. None have any issues with trusting her...
Read them yourselves. Look at the actual PDFs and see all the redacted info. Read the emails
and see how there is conversation that directly discusses information that was sent via secure
channels.
crustytheclown
In his testimony, in response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware
that she was sending highly classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don't think
our investigation established she was that sophisticated about classification." Congressman
Mick Mulvaney (R-South Carolina) responded, "Isn't she an original classification source?", meaning
that Clinton was responsible for assigning a level of classification to information as Secretary
of Stat.
"Yes, she was," Comey replied.
This says volumes about Comey's bias and political aspirations. Shame! Shame!
I did a quick bit of research. The only instance of 18 U.S.C. 793(f) being used to prosecute
anyone was U.S. v. Dedeyan, 584 F.2d 36 (4th Cir., 1978) (which was referenced by Dir. Comey in
his press conference and at the House hearing).
In that case, a civilian mathematician took some classified documents home to proofread. His
cousin, who was a Soviet agent, was staying with him and took pictures of the classified work
he brought home with him. The cousin later told him he copied the classified materials and gave
him $1000 to keep quiet, which he did.
In that case, the DOJ brought charges under 18 U.S.C. 793(f) because he didn't report that
the classified material was copied after he learned about it, and for taking the bribe to remain
silent.
There has never been an instance of the DOJ bringing a 18 U.S.C. 793(f) case against anyone
for mere gross negligence alone.
I have lost all faith in the democracy the US politicians spout. Sounds good but its rotten
to the core with secret bullshit behind closed doors actually calling the shots. There is not
much point on expecting anything meaningful to come from this circus, its just pretending to look
busy and the outcome was already decided long before it even started.
Last edited by
AlexisR200X on Thu Jul 07, 2016 10:34 am
On one hand he needs to show us peasants that the law applies to everyone,
and on the other, he does not want to take on arguably the most powerful woman in the world and
possibly the next president.
For someone who wanted software backdoors so much - it couldn't happen to a more deserving
person.
People with security clearances are not generally prosecuted for unintentionally mishandling
classified documents. If it is a significant level of negligence, they lose their security clearance
and therefore their job and the ability to hold a similar job.
Clinton's intentional use of her own email server takes negligence to new heights. While
I don't think she had any justifiable reason to set up her own mail server and we have good reason
to suspect that it was done to avoid oversight, it doesn't seem to have been done with the intention
of mishandling classified docs. With Clinton we once again have evidence that she is trying to
hide her actions, but no clear evidence of criminal intent. Ideally she would lose her ability
to handle classified material and be banned from any position requiring access to classified information.
However, negligence in handling the nation's secrets isn't spelled out in the Constitution as
disqualifying someone for the office of President. You might think that no one would vote for
someone who's been proved untrustworthy and negligent on this scale, but that simply isn't the
case.
Prosecuting Hillary would be justified. However, an argument can also be made that without
evidence of clear criminal intent, that the voters should not be denied the opportunity to elect
their candidate of choice. Even if it's a really bad choice in my opinion.
The decision not to prosecute can be justified and if the people want to elect someone as President
who as Secretary of State put covering her ass and obscuring her actions over the security of
the United States, then we will have one more example of how democracy is an imperfect system.
I don't think there is a better system overall, but I of course have my own ideas on how our system
could be tweaked to make it a bit better.
Marid wrote: The decision not to prosecute was expected by anyone neutral to the politics.
Proving criminal intent is a very high bar to meet. And without actual harm done the case became
even more difficult.
Yep. Criminal intent is core to a good persecution.. Simple possession of classified information
can be trouble, but these people in state all have clearances. Just from personal job experience,
a staggering number of government employees have top secret clearances. It's not like stuff on
a private email server was more or less safe than going through official routing. In fact, it's
probably a bigger target.
If this is about how big a liar Hilary Clinton is, I would push people to look over some of
the very first presidential campaigns the USA has had to see all sorts of whoppers flying at candidates.
This is business as usual. Complete with the totally uninformed public spouting expert technological
opinions about things they know nothing about.
You all know this is a witch hunt. FBI Comey is doing the right thing in trying to be transparent
so as to let voters decide. Still going to vote Hillary and not Trump.
But this has nothing to do with voting for Hillary or Trump. I don't plan on voting for
either one, but that doesn't change what Hillary did, and the fact that her actions received
zero consequences, when anyone else would have received life in prison.
The FBI director has been very clear that no one else has EVER received prison for something
like this. In fact, this is a direct quote from him from this hearing: "You know what would
be a double standard? If Clinton actually were prosecuted for gross negligence"
Well there is a significant difference in both the level of negligence and the level of authority
of the person involved. Other people who negligently handle classified information also do
face serious consequences. They lose their security clearance. That means they lose their job
and can't get another one like it. In some cases that is pretty much career ending.
As long as Clinton can get elected to public office that requires access to classified data,
she can't be denied access simply based on mishandling such data in the past. The voters can elect
the representatives they want and have every right to make stupid choices. So basically Clinton
violated the law and is avoiding all consequences because she seeks to be an elected official,
not a government employee.
If Clinton manages to escape any consequences it will be because of voters. If she was criminally
prosecuted, maybe more voters would realize who they would be voting for, however there seems
to be lots of evidence that Hillary supporters just don't care that she is untrustworthy and puts
her own ambitions ahead of the country. It's not likely they haven't been presented with enough
evidence of that before now.
I think a big take-away here from watching this unfold is that the FBI director is correct in
his assertion that Clinton did not lie to the FBI. BUT because she was in charge she bears the
responsibility of information handled improperly.
From the questioning it was brought up that no actual documents classified or greater classification
were actually transmitted to/from her email server, BUT transcribed conversations (conversations
that happened in person between two or more individuals) that contained classified information
was. These message threads all originated from a person lower on the chain and then forwarded
around (not just to Clinton's server) through non-classified systems. Sometimes (like in many
forwarded emails) only portions of the original messages were maintained (this is common with
any forwarded and or quoted email in long chains) and a paragraph for instance would have a [C.]
marking at the beginning of the thread, but as it got forwarded around that message was quoted
and modified and the marking was removed by another individual (accidentally or on purpose, this
is unknown).
Comey stated that they are not actively investigated the origination of the email chains as
that was not part of their original investigation (this is somewhat interesting, but makes sense
as it was not in their original investigative scope)
Quote: When another officer who received the email raised the alarm about sending the
document over a nonsecure network, Brezler reported himself to his superiors and cooperated with
a Naval Criminal Investigative Service probe into the classified material spillage. The probe
turned up another folder with some 106 documents marked secret. Brezler said he inadvertently
brought them back with him following his 2010 deployment to Now Zad, Afghanistan, where limited
resources sometimes meant Marines worked on their personal computers and thumb drives.
Quote: But a Marine prosecutor said this week that the case was about more than that
one communication with Marines in Afghanistan. Brezler knowingly kept classified documents to
inform a book he was writing about his Now Zad experiences, said Maj. Chip Hodge, showing that
Brezler had copied and pasted a paragraph from the Sarwar Jan document into his manuscript, "Rebirth
of Apocalypse Now Zad."
Hillary coped her emails and gave all of the to her private lawyer, who has no security clearance, on the USB stick.
That's alone qualifies for gross negligence.
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton also used the department's secure email system for transmitting classified information, but the FBI found that some of the regular communications with her staff on the personal server involved facts and details that she should have known were classified. In a few cases, the emails bore markings to indicate they contained classified information. ..."
"... Stewart Baker, a top national security lawyer in the Bush administration, called Comey's statement "pretty damning for Secretary Clinton, even if the facts don't make for an impressive criminal case. He suggests that she should have been, or arguably could still be, subjected to 'security or administrative sanctions.' What he doesn't say, but what we can infer, is that she ran those incredible risks with national security information because she was more worried about the GOP reading her mail than of Russian or Chinese spies reading it. That's appalling," he said. ..."
"... HIllary lied about her servers, she lied about sending classified information, she lied about the re-classification of confidential, secret and SAP documents. Some two hours after Comey's announcement, she and Obama took off on Air Force One for a rally together. ..."
"... But a new security regimen is dawning for those who hold security clearances. According to the FBI, they are now free to transfer data between secure and non-secure networks without punishment, as long as the INTENT is not to harm the United States. ..."
"... A retired FBI agent on Fox said this : The Comey conference was to take the heat off of Lynch - because if the FBI had just been quiet with their results, and it would have been Lynch who came out and said...No charges - AFTER the Phoenix scandal, people would really be skeptical. end - ..."
"... Of course this took AG-LL off the hook. NOW - for all of this to fall in place? Had to be some meetings beforehand - AG - FBI and Whitehouse general council - 3 US government lawyers colluding this event - to make SURE they have jobs the next 4 years and the GRATITUDE of Potus Hillary. ..."
"... Corrupt? I would not go that far...let's just say DIRTY. ..."
"... "Gross negligence" is the standard under 18 U.S.C., section 793-f. FBI Director Comey said Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of highly classified information. What's the difference, other than semantics, between "gross negligence" and "extremely careless?" ..."
"... Hillary's emails may be great confirmation of Hillary's war role in the Mid-east and even Ukraine. However, more to the point they confirm for all Democrats that Hillary's agenda is the Neo-con one of Geo. W. Bush's handlers from PNAC, Chicago School of Economics, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. (The Neo-con/Neo-liberal company includes Larry Summers, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) She is not a run of the mill hawk like John McCain, she is a New World Order marionette just as Geo W was. She needs to be dumped as she is beholden to anti-democratic values of elitism. ..."
"... Bill Kristol is attacking Donald Trump because his candidate is Hillary. ..."
"... This was historical. Law enforcement does not make decisions on prosecution. That is left to prosecutors. Law enforcement are fact finders who should have presented the case to a career professional prosecutor to make a decision. ..."
"... The question is, why was well established policy and protocol violated and the case not presented to a prosecutor for a decision? Ask any local D.A. If they reject a case, they write a "reject" documenting their rationale. In a very public or complicated case, that reject is written in great detail regarding each and every potential charge. ..."
"... The Obama Administration has prosecuted more people under the same WW I espionage act than all other administrations COMBINED. Comey has prosecuted a person under this act for a 21-word email .not 30,000 destroyed emails. ..."
"... Everybody knows this was fixed. The examples of similar incidents, putting people in jail, are coming out of the shadows. It is time to vote the career politicians out of office and take our country back. ..."
"... NSA has copies of every email sent to/from US, & likely most others, for last 10+ years. So they have all 30,000+ of the emails she deleted. ..."
"... When in the Navy I saw a LT. career destroyed for leaving a top secret safe open over night. We did not know who maybe got in. The assumption by NCIS was that someone did enter and Top Secret information was taken. He was prosecuted for maybe forgetting and Clinton no prosecution for being dumb? ..."
"It's just not a crime under current law to do nothing more than share sensitive information over unsecured networks," said Stephen
Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas. "Maybe it should be, but that's something for Congress to decide going forward."
John M. Deutch, another former CIA director, narrowly avoided a misdemeanor charge for having taken hundreds of top secret files
home on his laptop computer. He was pardoned by Clinton before charges were filed.
... ... ...
Hillary Clinton also used the department's secure email system for transmitting classified information, but the FBI found
that some of the regular communications with her staff on the personal server involved facts and details that she should have known
were classified. In a few cases, the emails bore markings to indicate they contained classified information.
However, investigators did not find evidence she knowingly or intentionally disclosed government secrets or that she exposed secrets
through gross negligence. Clinton's apparent interest was in maintaining her privacy.
... ... ...
Stewart Baker, a top national security lawyer in the Bush administration, called Comey's statement "pretty damning for Secretary
Clinton, even if the facts don't make for an impressive criminal case. He suggests that she should have been, or arguably could still
be, subjected to 'security or administrative sanctions.' What he doesn't say, but what we can infer, is that she ran those incredible
risks with national security information because she was more worried about the GOP reading her mail than of Russian or Chinese spies
reading it. That's appalling," he said.
knox.bob.xpg
No amount of facts, no amount of evidence, and no amount of lies will change the minds of supporters of Hillary Clinton. Her
coronation was pre-determined. Ideology is more important to her supporters than the quality of the candidate. While brash, Trump
nailed it yesterday. The fix was in and the optics played out.
HIllary lied about her servers, she lied about sending classified information, she lied about the re-classification of
confidential, secret and SAP documents. Some two hours after Comey's announcement, she and Obama took off on Air Force One for
a rally together.
Obama would have never done this if Comey's decision was to seek criminal charges. Presidential travel is not spur
of the moment, it is carefully planned weeks in advance. So what happened here ? I believe Comey knew that DOJ would not seek
criminal charges against her despite the overwhelming evidence of gross negligence.
Comey "fried" her yesterday and now she will be tried in the court of public opinion. There are simply some people who believe
that global warming, income inequality, and transgender bathrooms are more important than ISIS, our economy, terror, or national
debt.
unclesmrgol
Hillary has been freed from any punishment, for some animals are more important than others.
But a new security regimen is dawning for those who hold security clearances. According to the FBI, they are now free to
transfer data between secure and non-secure networks without punishment, as long as the INTENT is not to harm the United States.
That is the new standard, and a mighty fine one it is -- right?
SandyDago
A retired FBI agent on Fox said this : The Comey conference was to take the heat off of Lynch - because if the FBI had
just been quiet with their results, and it would have been Lynch who came out and said...No charges - AFTER the Phoenix scandal,
people would really be skeptical. end -
That seems very obvious at this point...The FBI does not do - what James Comey did yesterday. No comment is how they roll -
Yet we get a play by play yesterday.
Of course this took AG-LL off the hook. NOW - for all of this to fall in place? Had to be some meetings beforehand - AG
- FBI and Whitehouse general council - 3 US government lawyers colluding this event - to make SURE they have jobs the next 4 years
and the GRATITUDE of Potus Hillary.
Corrupt? I would not go that far...let's just say DIRTY.
Chris Crusade
"Gross negligence" is the standard under 18 U.S.C., section 793-f. FBI Director Comey said Hillary Clinton was "extremely
careless" in her handling of highly classified information. What's the difference, other than semantics, between "gross negligence"
and "extremely careless?"
lon.ball
Hillary's emails may be great confirmation of Hillary's war role in the Mid-east and even Ukraine.
However, more to the point they confirm for all Democrats that Hillary's agenda is the Neo-con one of Geo. W. Bush's handlers
from PNAC, Chicago School of Economics, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. (The Neo-con/Neo-liberal company
includes Larry Summers, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) She is not a run of the mill hawk like John McCain, she is a New
World Order marionette just as Geo W was. She needs to be dumped as she is beholden to anti-democratic values of elitism.
Bill Kristol is attacking Donald Trump because his candidate is Hillary. (See this article
in this issue.) So, it is not about Democrat vs. Republican. The new political dichotomy is Centralization (corporatism, totalitarian,
collectivism) vs. Personal Constitutional freedom. I am a lifelong Democrat and Sanders man who is "never Hillary" for good reason.
I cannot sit by idly and watch as our national Democracy continues to devolve into world fascism with the Neo-cons. Hillary is
a traitor to the Nation and to the late great Democratic Party.
It is time for the old right and old progressive left to unite for preservation of the US Constitution
and personal freedom. Never Hillary; never New World Order!"
less
tommy501
This was historical. Law enforcement does not make decisions on prosecution. That is left to prosecutors. Law enforcement
are fact finders who should have presented the case to a career professional prosecutor to make a decision.
The question is, why was well established policy and protocol violated and the case not presented to a prosecutor for a
decision? Ask any local D.A. If they reject a case, they write a "reject" documenting their rationale. In a very public or complicated
case, that reject is written in great detail regarding each and every potential charge.
Something's fishy.
andytek2
@tommy501 he didn't make a prosecutorial decision he only said that no reasonable prosecutor would file charges.
DennisWV
The Obama Administration has prosecuted more people under the same WW I espionage act than all other administrations COMBINED.
Comey has prosecuted a person under this act for a 21-word email .not 30,000 destroyed emails.
Everybody knows this was fixed. The examples of similar incidents, putting people in jail, are coming out of the shadows.
It is time to vote the career politicians out of office and take our country back.
Outside the Herd
NSA has copies of every email sent to/from US, & likely most others, for last 10+ years. So they have all 30,000+ of the
emails she deleted.
FBI & O knew months ago what was in all of them, & delayed looking away until primaries were clinched. Which was also crooked,
ask Bernie's peep's.
Andre-Leonard
"A second law makes it a crime to "remove" secret documents kept by the government or to allow them to be stolen through
"gross negligence."
Funny how they went after Edward Snowden for the very same thing. Yet no one in their 'right' mind expected a Justice Department
led by Obama to allow for Billary to be indicted. It's all about favorites here and justice is 'not' really blind.
kenwrite9
When she was in foreign countries she should have known that those countries spy on American officials. I now that, why she
did not is strange. When in the Navy I saw a LT. career destroyed for leaving a top secret safe open over night. We did not
know who maybe got in. The assumption by NCIS was that someone did enter and Top Secret information was taken. He was prosecuted
for maybe forgetting and Clinton no prosecution for being dumb?
"... Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18) ..."
"... The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence. ..."
"... It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. ..."
"... Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged. ..."
"... Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information. ..."
"... To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case. ..."
Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18):
With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from
its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent
violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly suggested
that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence
services.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not
require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence
is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry
out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant.
People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
... ... ...
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has
not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse
the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged.
Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration
of the crimes that actually have been charged. It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public
that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require
proof of intent to harm the United States.
Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of
classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.
I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me. Finally, I was especially unpersuaded
by Director Comey's claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI.
To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through
gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the
statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions
are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.
Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal
penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence
in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted
it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her
trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly
suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded
with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent
element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point
of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials
have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that
obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to
harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
WikiLeaks
Published Over 1,200 of Hillary Clinton's Iraq War Emails | 05 July 2016 | On Monday,
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks tweeted a link to 1,258 emails that it claims were sent and received
by the former Secretary of State pertaining to the war in Iraq. The emails were part of a trove of
30,322 emails made available by the U.S. State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information
Act request, according to WikiLeaks.
While the emails were available since February of this year, the tweet was timed to Wednesday's release
of the so-called
Chilcot report,
which will outline the U.K.'s involvement in the Iraq war.
"... Given her "extremely careless" handling of classified material, how can she be given the required
security clearance that the President of the United States must bear? ..."
Was Clinton properly trained by WH IT advisers and the FBI?
I worked as a contractor employee for DoD for 43 years until retirement end of 2007.
I recall that my company had specific requirements from DoD Security with respect to the technical
considerations required to be implemented to protect classified information (physical building
'shielding', computer devices and use thereof having to be closed systems within the secure domain
used for the classified program, etc).
Both the FBI and DoD personnel performed the clearance investigations required for all employees.
So the FBI was very much aware of the risks associated with communications devices.
But since task performance did require some communication beyond the firewall, the primary
line of defense was simply to prohibit verbal and written communication of classified aspects
of the project. And any classified information 'captured' on hard copy or electronically had to
be managed on a 'need to know', ...even if the audience had a clearance compatible with or exceeding
the declared classified level of the information annotated with security labeling appropriate
to hard copy and electronic 'copy'.
In other words if information which you had access was classified, the DD-254 Security document
peculiar to the project clarified made it very clear which information was classified and to what
security level (Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, etc).
The FBI was responsible for making sure personnel (including management and company executives)
were cognizant with respect to all aspects of classified information and material handling, ..and
.even thought despite appropriate levels of clearance, ...some project personnel might not have
access because they did not have a need to know with respect to their tasks on the program.
My point is that the FBI along with DoD security had a responsibility to prevent inappropriate
handling of classified information, ...and after making it clear what was expected, ...to then
address abuses which were contrary to FBI and DoD requirements which had been clearly communicated
as part of the clearance process.
So how is it that the FBI did not tell State what the rules were? If State makes up the rules
for security on the fly, ...then why is the FBI asked to enforce rules which they did not establish
with respect to the operation?
Are we saying the FBI is not enforcing a lack of rules which they failed to implement with
State employees?
I am just saying that this whole "email' issure seems incredibly disjointed with respect to
common sense security protocol required by DoD, ....so I would expect the FBI should be establishing
security procotol for State in a manner just like, ...or at least similar too, ...the requirements
for process required for Defense Department contractors?
I cannot believe that security protocol considerations of 50 years ago would not be engaged
today? The FBI knew how to protect information, so why did they not do it, ...and now be passing
judgement on the character of a political candidate even though the FBI cannot show any wrongdoing????
Looks like a political hack job instead of an FBI investigation.
Larry
And no mention of the biggest crime she committed: the cover up and deletion of evidence when
she deleted select emails that she knew could be used as criminal evidence against her. She did
that KNOWINGLY AND WILLFULLY WITH CRIMINAL INTENT. She's a damn lawyer she fully knew the consequences
of her actions.
Why have we sunk to such lows as a free society to allow something like this to happen without
public protest? Why is Hillary Clinton even being considered as a possible candidate for president?
Have we lost all our personal pride as a free and just society?
Larry
"Intent" is the word as to why she got off. The report clearly shows that she lied to the public,
and must of given a very different story to the FBI, State Department, and Justice Department,
or she would have been prosecuted for lying to investigators. This means she and her campaign
knew they were purposely lying to us. It is also clear she did not follow the freedom of information
act. I never thought they would be able to show intent, but the way she handled classified material
should have already been investigated by the DIS (Defense Investigative Service), and most likely
would take away her security clearance. How can you be president without a clearance?
Kitt
The Bilderberg-CFR-controlled press are relentless. There is an adage that comes to mind that
befits what they're trying to do. "Don't pee on my leg and then tell me it's raining."
;..
Not since the complicity of the FBI and the Justice Department in the Kennedy Assassination and
the 9/11 False Flag Ruse have they been so complicit in being dutiful servants to the Bilderberg
Round Table Usury-Oil-War Enslaver Hierarchy.
With a billion people around the world scratching their heads, wondering how such a miscarriage
of justice could happen - we all wonder how Comey, Lynch and Obama can live with themselves. Shrillary
and Bill (the Anti-Christ couple) have no problems living with their evil selves. But, Comey,
Lynch and Obama - even though you're all members of the Council on Foreign Relations (one the
evil subgroups of the Bilderberg Round Table), we had some hope that you would be honest brokers
and help Americans come to the conclusion that no one is above the law. We have certainly learned
on July 5, 2016, that's nowhere close to being true.
Non-Politicus
The most corrupt person ever to run for president and she is about to be our commander in chief.
For the record, during my military career I placed on report several service members for security
violations [they lost their security clearances and were FIRED] which were insignificant when
compared to what this candidate did. American voters do have a very serious decision to make before
the general election: elect the crooked one, elect the trash talking one, or elect the boring
one.
Michael
Hillary used a personal email server for 100% of her government work for one reason and one
reason only: Secrecy. Se knew exactly what she was doing. She didn't need any government watchdog
groups drawing conclusions between her position as Sec. of State & the Clinton Foundation & Bill's
speaking gigs.
Bill
Interesting, I work for a government agency where people have been charged, convicted and sent
to prison for far less.
Bart
"no reasonable prosecutor" would file criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for using a
private email system as secretary of state.
Say what? FOR USING A PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER? Is that all she did? Who writes this idiocy?
opiegreensboro
One issue not being discussed is that she fired an ambassador for doing the same thing she
did, on a much smaller scale. If it was important enough to fire that person, why isn't she being
held accountable? Oh, because the current Attorney General was co-opted in a clear conflict of
interest meeting which is also not being reported. Must be great to be a Clinton. Laws matter
people.
Tom
Ok, maybe if I squint just right and make a generous interpretation of laws regarding intent
versus gross negligence, I could see some argument for this recommendation by the FBI...but let's
not pretend avoiding prison time is compelling evidence that she should be promoted to leader
of the free world.
John
The FBI director should have referred this matter to a grand jury. This was he job. His job
was NOT to unilaterally decide whether ''a reasonable prosecutor'' would file criminal charges.
This is just another example of the total corruptness of Washington, D.C. Hillary Clinton is only
qualified to clean latrines since she and ''Bubba Bill'' crawled out of one! They are both POS.
Blair
Intent. Well a good percentage of prisoners in jails across the country can be let out now
and the legal system completely revamped as the FBI has established new Harvard Law policies.
All hit and runs, manslaughter, and anyone that can lie should be freed. Clinton and their arrogance
put my military brothers and our country in peril. Screw her send her packing.
Try A Hammer
Given her "extremely careless" handling of classified material, how can she be given the
required security clearance that the President of the United States must bear? Will she be
careless with nuclear launch codes as well, effectively fumbling the "Nuclear football" in her
"extremely careless" hands? This alone disqualifies her for the presidency.
alex
The guy spent 15 minutes outlining, point after point, Clinton's level of incompetence and
dishonesty. The, when it was time for action, he rolled over and played dead like every other
government hack.
Coward.
"... it could hardly have gone any worse for Hillary. Many people proclaimed that she was the safe
pair of hands but she's now been stamped with "extremely careless" with regards to national security.
..."
"... If the FBI (at the time) did not know that Hillary Clinton was using a personal email address
and a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State, then I have lost all confidence in our
nation's security apparatus. ..."
"... I think it was good for the FBI to let Hillary Clinton off even though she violated the law
(no intent is no excuse). It actually takes the curtain down and the voters realize the special DC people
have different rules than the common people! ..."
"... Nope. Dems did this. None of this stuff today is new info, Dems nominated and voted for her
despite this investigation. Plus it was Clinton's fault, no one forced her to have a private email server
or an unsecured phone. I don't often agree with Trump, but this is one thing he's right about, and it's
all on the Dems this time. ..."
"... Didn't the FBI director say most people would face consequences for this kind of thing? Then
let's Hillary off the hook.... Rather careless of him. ..."
"... Seems about right. The Wall St bankers, credit ratings agencies, and government regulators
didn't intentionally destroy the world economy. They were simply "extremely careless", too. ..."
"... Hillary's arrogance, not "Republican operatives," put her in this hole. The question is why
she ignored her own agency's regulations, and for so long. ..."
"... No one really believes that Hilary thinks any of the rules apply to her, so this is all about
nothing. She was able to dispose of about half of her e-mails before there destruction could be the
subject of obstruction of justice charges, so she skates there too. ..."
"... Christopher Hitchen's wrote a great deal on the Clinton's when they were last in the White
House. He was scathing about them and their corrupt dealings. Christopher Hitchens' Case Against Ever
Voting For Hillary Clinton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyDQxfDeWRc ..."
"... I've never seen the DNC struggle so hard to support a disaster. Shady smoke around donations
to the Clinton Foundation and arms deals certainly haven't made her any more trustworthy to many Americans.
She not a disaster waiting to happen...she's a disaster happening. ..."
"... If the FBI were to charge Clinton for using her private e-mail for government work they the
FBI would have to charge Bush and several hundred of his employee's. Not only did they use a private
e-mail server but it was run by the National Republican Committee. They not only used it but they illegally
deleted at least 5 million government E-mails that by law had to be saved. Bush and Cheney and the Republican
Nation Committee did this to cover up multiple crimes related to hundreds of Billions of American Taxpayer
dollars as well as activities into 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. ..."
"... She DELIBERATELY set up the home server to try and keep her emails out of the reach of Freedom
of Information Act requests. ... Calculated felony. ..."
"... That is absolutely ****ing outrageous, as is the fact Hillary has apparently promised Lynch
she'll be re-appointed AG in the event she is elected come November. ..."
"... The reason why Clinton is viewed as liar is not because she is a woman, or because of partisan
smears or because of the fact that she has had a long political career. The reason she is viewed as
a liar is because she is one. ..."
"......but Clinton's enemies will say yes. And that means the political witch hunts will begin
anew......".
This is no witch hunt. Aside from the fact that she wasn't indicted, it could hardly have
gone any worse for Hillary. Many people proclaimed that she was the safe pair of hands but she's
now been stamped with "extremely careless" with regards to national security. She's also,
yet again, been confirmed as a shameless liar. Her proclamation - in that tired, "bored teenager"
voice that she affects when she's boxed in to a corner - at that event: "I never sent any classified
information.....I never received any classified information" has been proven as a lie. The standard
that she was held to was that intent meant that she was a spy. The standard of intent that you
or I would have been held to would have been a heck of a lot lower.
Also, the law says that 'gross negligence' is enough to either fine someone or put them in
jail for not more than ten years or both: how is Hillary's 'extreme carelessness' is any way different
from 'gross negligence'? Everything that people suspected of Hillary Clinton has been borne out,
if not more (yesterday was the first I'd heard of *multiple* servers: how is that not intent to
circumvent the Freedom of Information Act?) but - yay! - the bar for presidential candidates is
now so staggeringly low that champagne corks are being popped because she avoided jail.
*Clap..........clap.............clap...........clap...........clap.........clap.......*
Raskente
If the FBI (at the time) did not know that Hillary Clinton was using a personal email address
and a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State, then I have lost all confidence
in our nation's security apparatus.
Iron Mike
I think it was good for the FBI to let Hillary Clinton off even though she violated the
law (no intent is no excuse). It actually takes the curtain down and the voters realize the special
DC people have different rules than the common people!
There is no telling what Bill told Loretta but it worked. I know they didn't discuss grand
kids for 30 minutes.
HungerArtist
In that way, Republican operatives have already accomplished their mission
Nope. Dems did this. None of this stuff today is new info, Dems nominated and voted for
her despite this investigation. Plus it was Clinton's fault, no one forced her to have a private
email server or an unsecured phone. I don't often agree with Trump, but this is one thing he's
right about, and it's all on the Dems this time.
erik_ny
Didn't the FBI director say most people would face consequences for this kind of thing?
Then let's Hillary off the hook.... Rather careless of him.
ga gamba
Seems about right. The Wall St bankers, credit ratings agencies, and government regulators
didn't intentionally destroy the world economy. They were simply "extremely careless", too.
One can be graduated from one of the world's finest law schools and still plausibly state that
she didn't intend to break the law. Seems law school trains people how to treat the law cavalierly.
Sure, she was informed she was flouting the rules, and she disregarded this each time, but this
is meaningless because the FBI is unable to read her mind. Ignore the actions because they suggest
nothing of a person's intent.
That's the privilege of power. You're never accountable.
Tom Cuddy
Once again with feeling. We know Sec Clinton won her delegates. She has achieved the numerical
feat of having enough delegates to be our nominee. And I see the tree coming closer and the brakes
are not working. This is why Sander's is not enthusiastically joining the Clinton effort as yet.
The party can stop from making a terrible mistake. I like Sec Clinton and believe she would make
a good Prime Minister. She is also exactly the kind of politician Trump eats for breakfast. We
are not unrealistic, we are not anti woman and we are not "Bros'. We just see Sanders as giving
Trump a serious campaign and Hillary just being , not quite.... The question; do Americans fear
Clinton or Trump more. The great unpopulated states ( y'know, the Red one's) are terrified of
Clinton. DEmocrats ( and a few Republicans) are terrified of trump. This truly shows Plato's point
about Democracy
Shotcricket -> Tom Cuddy
Sanders is what the US need but are told they don't, not unlike the UK in its portrayal of
Parties & their leaders etc.
Robert Rudolph
Hillary's arrogance, not "Republican operatives," put her in this hole. The question is
why she ignored her own agency's regulations, and for so long.
Did Hillary want to evade normal channels because she was using her official position to lever
money out of people? Follow the money, people....
Dee Smith
I wish to humbly apologize in advance to the other nations that inhabit this earth on what
the US is about to unleash on our collective space. Mrs. Clinton has demonstrated she is a money
and power grasping disingenuous liar, complicit in the murder of US citizens, and not bearing
the sense that the good Lord gave a woodchuck in handling information that ought to be more protected
than storing it on an unsecured server in a basement. Conversely, we have Mr. Trump, whom, while
opening up a very necessary dialog for myself and my American brethren, demonstrates all the sensitivity
of rampaging water buffalo at a wallow.
Dear God, help us.
SteveofCaley -> Dee Smith
Don't fret. They already suspected, I think. Another day, another drone.
devanand54
The FBI did a lot more than rebuke her for being "extremely careless." It was a scathing report,
the conclusion of which was not consistent with what was actually in the report. It also proved
Clinton to - once again - be lying.
Dale Roberts
No one really believes that Hilary thinks any of the rules apply to her, so this is all
about nothing. She was able to dispose of about half of her e-mails before there destruction could
be the subject of obstruction of justice charges, so she skates there too. I recall a couple
of military officers who were brought up on charges for failing to lock their safe containing
classified material in a secure building. The nightly security sweep found the safe closed but
combination lock had not been engaged. Eventually no one was prosecuted but the matter was handled
administratively so neither was likely to ever see another promotion. Being a politician may save
Hilary from this fate too.
DebraBrown
Oh, enough of the balony that we don't trust Hillary because of her gender. We don't trust
her because she LIES, again and again, demonstrably and proveably, beyond any shadow of doubt.
Both the IG Report and Comey confirm her lies about the email server.
Comey's decision is purely practical, given America's two-tiered justice system. The wealthy
class are virtually un-indictable, they can get away with any crime because they hire armies of
lawyers. It is sickening.
After being a loyal party member for 35 years, I am leaving the Democratic Party because Hillary
Clinton is a bridge too far. God save America... from the Clintons.
eminijunkie
Odd. No mention of the fact that like Bill, who got nailed for lying under oath, albeit he
only lost his lawyer's license and gained some fame for having said 'it all depends on the meaning
of the word is,' Hillary is now shown beyond a shadow of a doubt to have committed perjury. As
far as I know though, that's only something Congress can deal with at this point.
We should hear soon if they are going to do anything about it.
Balmaclellan
The case ultimately comes down to a matter of intent, something famously difficult to
prove. Did Clinton intentionally send out or receive any sensitive information?
The Guardian seriously expects people to pay for this 'jourrnalism'? Seriously?
Clinton was the Secretary of State. How could she fail to "intentionally send out or receive sensitive
information"? What the case actually comes down to is whether she intentionally placed the sensitive
information she was sending out and receiving on a private server in order to conceal it from
scrutiny and specifically to evade the provisions of Freedom of Information.
And no, I won't be subscribing.
Balmaclellan
Some of it may be attributable to poor optics... attributable to gender... partisan-fueled
attacks...
Alternatively, it could simply be that she's a pathological liar. You know, the sort of person
who tells stupid, pointless lies for the purpose of self-aggrandisement, and then bone-headedly
continues to insist that they're true even when they've been incontrovertibly proven to be lies.
"Yah, the plane zig-zagged as it landed under sniper fire... I ran across the tarmac dodging
bullets..."
BigPhil1959 -> Balmaclellan
Her husband was accused of rape and had sexual relations with an intern. She trashed the reputations
of these women to protect her husband. I doubt neither May nor Leadsom have ever played the woman's
card as Hilary Clinton has. The Clinton's are awful people and should be banned from public office.
badfinger
Flox Newts asks the tough questions:
1. What is the Statute of Limitations?
2. What about the Clinton Foundation?
Watch for a bogus "investigation" of the Foundation soon.
Brought to you by the GOP at taxpayers expense.
Filipe Barroso -> badfinger
A bogus investigation on a Foundation that would make the Mafia embarrassed? No way, they are
too compromised for that and the Clinton's would be able to bought their way off anyway.
BigPhil1959 -> badfinger
Christopher Hitchen's wrote a great deal on the Clinton's when they were last in the White
House. He was scathing about them and their corrupt dealings.
Christopher Hitchens' Case Against Ever Voting For Hillary Clinton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyDQxfDeWRc
Sadly no longer with us, but a proper journalist.
Alpheus Williams
"Careless" with classified material...certainly careless with the facts...careless with promoting
the bombing of M.E. countries. Her record on Iraq, Syria and Libya don't instil confidence....Europe
is overwhelmed with refugees from war and chaos from our making and Clinton's judgement certainly
hasn't helped. She has not only managed to spot the Nation but there own political party.
I've never seen the DNC struggle so hard to support a disaster. Shady smoke around donations to
the Clinton Foundation and arms deals certainly haven't made her any more trustworthy to many
Americans. She not a disaster waiting to happen...she's a disaster happening.
WMDMIA
If the FBI were to charge Clinton for using her private e-mail for government work they
the FBI would have to charge Bush and several hundred of his employee's. Not only did they use
a private e-mail server but it was run by the National Republican Committee. They not only used
it but they illegally deleted at least 5 million government E-mails that by law had to be saved.
Bush and Cheney and the Republican Nation Committee did this to cover up multiple crimes related
to hundreds of Billions of American Taxpayer dollars as well as activities into 9/11 and the invasion
of Iraq.
Beside these government protected account are hacked far more often than private servers, so
the information she passed on was safer where she had it.
simonsaysletsgroove -> jsayles
From what I read elsewhere, it wasn't an 'accidentally leaving files on a bus' scenario...
She DELIBERATELY set up the home server to try and keep her emails out of the reach of Freedom
of Information Act requests. ... Calculated felony.
kaltnadel
If Hillary had any integrity, she would step down in the face of being deemed "extremely careless"
by the director of the FBI. Clearly she is unsuitable for a position of responsibility.
Being better than Trump is not good enough.
"Witch hunt" is a totally inappropriate phrase. HC has been close to felons over and over again
for decades. She lies as she breathes; she speaks in vapidities; she laughs without a glimmer
of what good humor is. She is not only bad, she is dangerous. If she has avoided out and out criminality
herself, she has her Yale law degree to thank for that, not her moral compass. And she has not
a grain of political ambition that isn't personal to herself.
Someone should help her to realize that she ought to step down, and it clearly isn't going
to be Obama.
Metreemewall
Never mind her husband, her carelessness, her snipe's fire dodging skills, her gender.
She's a warmonger - "We came , we saw, he died"a - was her giggling reaction to the news of
Gaddaff being sodomised and murdered. And she is an AIPAC tool. And she's partly responsible for
the immoral profitable prisons' scheme. And she does not believe in universal healthcare. And
she's putting her "Glass-Steagall" poster child of a husband in charge of the economy.
And the list goes on, and on, and on...
elliot2511
"Bill Clinton bumbled his way into the eye of a political storm last week when a private meeting
he arranged with Lynch"
That is absolutely ****ing outrageous, as is the fact Hillary has apparently promised Lynch
she'll be re-appointed AG in the event she is elected come November.
If this sort of thing had occurred in, say, Bolivia or Kazakhstan, everyone would know what
was going on and be able able to see this behaviour for what it is. The contemptible idiocy and
demagoguery of Trump doesn't change that.
keeptakingthetablets
The reason why Clinton is viewed as liar is not because she is a woman, or because of partisan
smears or because of the fact that she has had a long political career. The reason she is viewed
as a liar is because she is one.
Just to take this particular issue as an example, she lied when she said she would fully cooperate
"anytime, anywhere' with the respective inquiries and she lied when she said she had permission
to use a private email server.
Slammy01
I don't see the matter of intent as a particularly relevant factor here. She has an obligation
to protect classified information as part of being granted access. James Comey said she and her
aids were "extremely careless" with how they handled information which any reasonable person in
that situation would recognize was classified. Any other person would already have been indited....
calderonparalapaz
compared the case to that of retired general David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, who
was sentenced to twoyears' probation after he shared classified information with his biographer,
with whom he was having an affair. . "The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for
far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment."
"... "Only a very small number of the emails here containing classified information bore markings that indicated the presence of classified information," Comey explained. "But even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know, or should know, that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it." ..."
"... Comey explained that in the course of its investigation, the FBI was able to recover "several thousand" work-related emails that were not among the 30,000 that Clinton and her staff produced to the State department in 2014, three of which contained information that was classified at the time they were sent. Comey said it is "highly likely" that additional work-related emails were deleted by Clinton's lawyers but not subsequently recovered by the FBI. ..."
"... "In my opinion there is a 100% chance that all emails sent and received by her, including all the electronic correspondence stored on her server in her Chappaqua residence, were targeted and collected by the Russian equivalent of NSA," a former CIA case officer told the Associated Press last summer. ..."
"... The FBI found that Clinton's use of a private domain was widely known and that hackers had accessed the private email accounts of people with whom Clinton regularly communicated using her private email account. ..."
"... "She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside of the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries," Comey said. "Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account." ..."
Comey's statement contradicted Clinton's claim in no uncertain terms: "From the group of
30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been
determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or
received. Eight of those chains contained information that was 'top secret' at the time they were
sent. Thirty-six of those chains contained 'secret' information at the time, and eight contained
'confidential' information at the time."
Note that Clinton's statement refers to information "marked" classified, while Comey's does
not. As
Politifact pointed out recently, Clinton's phrasing was revealing because, under scrutiny, it
left open the possibility that Clinton's emails might have included information that was
classified but inappropriately left unmarked. This appears to have been the case with the
majority of the 110 classified emails Comey referenced.
"Only a very small number of the emails here containing classified
information bore markings that indicated the presence of classified information," Comey
explained. "But even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know,
or should know, that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it."
Comey did not elaborate on the "very small number" of Clinton's emails that bore classified
markings (as opposed to emails that contained classified information not marked as such), but his
statement indicates that at least some of the emails on Clinton's private server contained
information marked classified at the time they were sent or received. If this is the case, it
renders Clinton's claim false even by a legalistic standard.
2. The FBI isn't really sure how much Clinton didn't hand over from her
private server
Before Clinton handed over 30,000 work-related emails from her private server to the State
Department in 2014, her lawyers deleted roughly 30,000 other emails containing
information they deemed personal in nature. After this process was complete, Comey explained,
Clinton's lawyers "then cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic
recovery."
"I have provided all of my work-related emails,"
Clinton told ABC News in May. The FBI's investigation revealed that, knowingly or not, a
significant number of Clinton's work-related emails were not actually handed over by her staff.
Comey explained that in the course of its investigation, the FBI was able to recover
"several thousand" work-related emails that were not among the 30,000 that Clinton and her staff
produced to the State department in 2014, three of which contained information that was
classified at the time they were sent. Comey said it is "highly likely" that additional
work-related emails were deleted by Clinton's lawyers but not subsequently recovered by the FBI.
Though Comey said that the FBI has "no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails
were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them in some way," his remarks revealed that
the FBI's investigation lacked "complete visibility" because it relied so heavily on the sorting
process employed by Clinton's lawyers. That is to say, the FBI acknowledges the existence of what
Donald Rumsfeld might refer to as "known
unknowns" in its investigation.
3. The FBI doesn't know if Clinton's personal server was hacked
Critics have long claimed that the Clinton's use of a private email server unprotected
by government security standards put classified information at risk of being accessed by foreign
states or actors.
"In my opinion there is a 100% chance that all emails sent and received by her, including
all the electronic correspondence stored on her server in her Chappaqua residence, were targeted
and collected by the Russian equivalent of NSA," a former CIA case officer told the
Associated Press last summer.
Comey said that while the FBI "did not find direct evidence" that hostile actors had
successfully hacked Clinton's email, the bureau would be unlikely to find such evidence even if a
breach had occurred.
The FBI found that Clinton's use of a private domain was widely known and that hackers had
accessed the private email accounts of people with whom Clinton regularly communicated using her
private email account.
"She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside of the United States,
including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory
of sophisticated adversaries," Comey said. "Given that combination of factors, we assess it is
possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account."
"... "For Jim Comey to come out and make that kind of public statement about someone whom the government is not going to charge is completely inappropriate and arguably violates DOJ and FBI rules." ..."
"... "I think that type of statement is why the FBI director is not supposed to hold press conferences like the one he held today. If you're not going to bring charges you shouldn't insert yourself in the middle of a political campaign the way he did," ..."
"... "If there is to be a judgment that her behavior was careless or inappropriate, that's a judgment for the State Department and Inspector General to make. The FBI's job is to determine whether laws were violated and charges can be brought in court. His determination was that there were no laws violated and he wouldn't recommend charges." ..."
"... "Beyond that, it's really inappropriate for him to be talking about this case any further." ..."
"... "And I can't remember a time in history when the FBI director or when an Attorney General has reviewed a case, decided that the evidence does not support bringing charges, and still make really reckless statements about an underlying individual's behavior. It's really just not appropriate unless he's ready to back them up in court which obviously as he said today he doesn't believe is appropriate." ..."
Mrs. Greenspan began by asking Matt Miller,
ex-spokesman for the Department of Justice how he
could "justify the fact that she was this careless
with her emails?"
Oh, the vapors. You could almost
see them on the screen.
Miller shot back, "For Jim Comey to come out
and make that kind of public statement about someone
whom the government is not going to charge is
completely inappropriate and arguably violates DOJ
and FBI rules."
Mrs. Greenspan was having none of it, so she
dragged out
Paul Ryan's statement where he did everything
but call Clinton Satan.
Miller had a comeback for that, too, and it was
not kind to Director Comey.
"I think that type of statement is why the
FBI director is not supposed to hold press
conferences like the one he held today. If you're
not going to bring charges you shouldn't insert
yourself in the middle of a political campaign the
way he did," Miller asserted.
He went on to repeat, "If there is to be a
judgment that her behavior was careless or
inappropriate, that's a judgment for the State
Department and Inspector General to make. The FBI's
job is to determine whether laws were violated and
charges can be brought in court. His determination
was that there were no laws violated and he wouldn't
recommend charges."
"Beyond that, it's really inappropriate for
him to be talking about this case any further."
... ... ...
He continued, "And I can't remember a time in history when the FBI director or
when an Attorney General has reviewed a case, decided that the evidence does not support bringing
charges, and still make really reckless statements about an underlying individual's behavior.
It's really just not appropriate unless he's ready to back them up in court which obviously as he
said today he doesn't believe is appropriate."
"... We have all been riveted by news Tuesday that FBI Director James Comey concluded that although then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had mishandled more than 100 classified documents, had destroyed evidence, and had acted in an "extremely careless" way at the helm of the US Department of State, he could not recommend that any charges be filed against her. ..."
"... But let's not just pick on Hillary. What about then-SACEUR (NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe), USAF General Philip Breedlove, whose hacked e-mails reveal that he considered civilian control of the military an inconvenient joke? Breedlove, while in uniform, actively conspired with other former military officers and with think tanks and PR firms to undermine President Obama's cautious policy toward the 2014 conflict in Ukraine. He presented false information to suggest that Russia had invaded Ukraine and he misrepresented the Ukraine situation to Congress -- at the same time he was working behind the scenes to fully arm Ukrainian extremists who wanted war with Russia. NATO claims its role is to keep us safe -- but we learn from Breedlove's secret, Strangelovian maneuvers, that those in charge will do anything to make us believe they are still relevant, including provoke a nuclear war. Move over, Hillary. Breedlove deserves a turn on the dock. ..."
"... Congress refusing to act on eight solid years of President Obama's illegal wars is every bit as destructive to the rule of law as Hillary Clinton's email homebrew. ..."
"... That is why we are taking our case to Washington this September, to make a pitch for a new foreign policy that resists to the face the deep state's secret manipulations, the Clintons' maneuverings, and Congress's dereliction of duty. ..."
We have all been riveted by news Tuesday that FBI Director James Comey concluded that
although then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had mishandled more than 100 classified
documents, had destroyed evidence, and had acted in an "extremely careless" way at the helm of
the US Department of State, he could not recommend that any charges be filed against her.
Former State Department official and good friend of the Ron Paul Institute, Peter Van Buren,
reminded us of the grotesque double standards that on the one hand govern whistleblowers like
Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden, and on the other hand excuse the behavior of the privileged elite
like Hillary Clinton. Van Buren tweeted this quote from Comey's statement today: "This is not to
suggest that in similar circumstances a person who engaged in this activity would face no
consequences." Pretty clearly, then, there are one set of rules for the Hillary Clintons of the
world and a very different set of rules for the Snowdens or the John Kiriakous of the world. And
most of the rest of us are in the second category. Van Buren used sarcasm to point out that in
the old days when he (and I) signed a non-disclosure agreement with the US government it was
expected that violation of that agreement would be evenly applied regardless of one's placement
on the food-chain.
Alas this is not the case.
But let's not just pick on Hillary. What about then-SACEUR (NATO's Supreme Allied Commander,
Europe), USAF General Philip Breedlove, whose hacked e-mails reveal that he considered civilian
control of the military an inconvenient joke? Breedlove, while in uniform, actively conspired
with other former military officers and with think tanks and PR firms to undermine President
Obama's cautious policy toward the 2014 conflict in Ukraine. He presented false information to
suggest that Russia had invaded Ukraine and he misrepresented the Ukraine situation to Congress
-- at the same time he was working behind the scenes to fully arm Ukrainian extremists who wanted
war with Russia. NATO claims its role is to keep us safe -- but we learn from Breedlove's secret,
Strangelovian maneuvers, that those in charge will do anything to make us believe they are still
relevant, including provoke a nuclear war. Move over, Hillary. Breedlove deserves a turn on the
dock.
And if we want to further discuss how the rule of law has been flushed to oblivion in the US of
2016, we need look no further than Congress, which actively facilitates lawlessness through its
continued inaction and fecklessness in areas of its Constitutional responsibility. Congress
refusing to act on eight solid years of President Obama's illegal wars is every bit as
destructive to the rule of law as Hillary Clinton's email homebrew.
Yes, there is plenty of lawlessness to go around, and in both parties. That is why we are
taking our case to Washington this September, to make a pitch for a new foreign policy that
resists to the face the deep state's secret manipulations, the Clintons' maneuverings, and
Congress's dereliction of duty. The old system is breaking apart and we will make the case
for peace, prosperity, and non-intervention.
"... Comey laid out a 100% air-tight case for a life-sentence felony conviction, and then said "no reasonable prosecutor would bring an indictment". ..."
"... She is as good as convicted. You could say it was a pardon. ..."
"... Anybody besides me wonder how a "Loyal Bushie" became Obama's FBI Director? ..."
"... So we watch this guy spend 20 minutes telling us how many Federal Criminal Laws / NATIONAL SECURITY she and her staff has broken. Then you tell us that it's impossible to prove intent. That is absurd, pathetic, cowardly and obscene. (Maybe reread the OATH you took to the Constitution and God). ..."
"... I would think the choice of vice president for a Hillary administration is EXTREMELY important. The Corporatists now supporting Hillary will demand a Corporatist VP. Many of the Sanders supporters will not vote for her if she chooses a Corporatist VP. ..."
"... There is one way that Trump is the lessor of two evils: she already has the blood of millions dripping from her hands before the election. What we don't know is if Trump will follow in the footsteps of the previous three fools in the WH and after his election rack up his own million deaths. Killing millions is now another trophy of being president. ..."
"... It's not "lesser of two evils." It's "different of two evils." ..."
"... The remarkable events also serve as a clear reminder that while the Clintons enriched themselves over the years, they were helping to bankrupt the public trust in its government and institutions. And they won't stop until they're stopped. ..."
"... Giuliani: "This is an extremely hard conclusion to justify. People have been charged under these statues for far less than this but... when one is Hillary Clinton, the laws don't exactly apply like they do for ordinary people. . ..."
"... Trump has been handed a lot of firepower. Oh for the debates. Perhaps Hillary's cough may deflect. ..."
"... My personal opinion is that women in Power are expeditive persons whose only concern is" Can I get away with it?" Hillary loves to find ways to break the law. Re her stint as counselor to certain congressional entities in her first job. ..."
"... "Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned", and even Obama should remember it, without counting countless others who stepped on her toes or so she deemed. ..."
"... Surely for all his bravado, Trump is a lesser evil. But I doubt he can win counter to the whims of the Establishment. ..."
"... The Empire's choice not charged? Well, I'm really shocked......NOT! ..."
"... Wikileaks appears to have a substantial amount of information on Clinton, having already released a large archive of Clinton's emails earlier in the year. Breitbart has previously reported on Julian Assange's claims that Google is complicit in the managing of Clintons online media campaign. ..."
"... Released only a week after Bill Clinton's meeting with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch and a day after Huma Abedins admission that Hillary Clinton had burned daily schedules, the contents of Hillary's released emails, containing multiple interactions between Clinton and multiple white house officials, could be extremely damaging to Clinton's current presidential campaign. ..."
"... For those who bellow about her candidacy just being an extension of Obama's (sorry, Obomber) presidency, just bear in mind if he were running again he'd be a shoe-in. ..."
"... Think Jill before Hill hashtag will get some momentum? ..."
"... I completely understand them. Because the most horrible and obscene things Clinton did were not illegal (As far as US law is concerned.) So if destroying Libya and laughing like a hyena at Qadhafi's murder doesn't make you hate here, poor handling of national security documents won't do it either. ..."
"... The global plutocrats that own private finance should be tried for war crimes and their political psychopaths removed from control but since they own rule of law I expect they have legalized all their theft as they go.....history is written by the winners. ..."
Pasting what a fellow posted on the CD comment board on the article related to this event,
""Precedent" (DEJA VU) then BUSH acting AG / Deputy AG Jim Comey's March 16, 2004 Draft Resignation
Letter: (Anybody besides me wonder how a "Loyal Bushie" became Obama's FBI Director?)
"I was asked what I would do if I concluded that a course of action was fundamentally wrong
and I could not convince my superiors of that fact....Over the last two weeks I have encountered
just such an apocalyptic situation, where I and the Department of Justice have been asked to be
part of something that is fundamentally wrong. As we have struggled over these last few days to
do the right thing, I have never been prouder of the Department of Justice or of the Attorney
General. Sadly, although I believe this has been one of the institution's finest hours, we have
been unable to right that wrong...I would give much not to be in this position. But, as I told
you during our private meeting last week, here I stand; I can do no other. Therefore, with a heavy
heart and undiminished love of my country and my Department, I resign as Deputy Attorney General
of the United States, effective immediately.
Sincerely yours, James B. Comey."
The next day he / they (FBI) had a meeting with W. Bush and they all had their minds changed.
/
So, a tainted Hillary is elected president. After she is sworn in, and there is a Repub majority
in the House, impeachment time!
I would think the choice of vice president for a Hillary administration is EXTREMELY important.
The Corporatists now supporting Hillary will demand a Corporatist VP. Many of the Sanders supporters
will not vote for her if she chooses a Corporatist VP.
Is a dilemma. For the voters, not for the Corporatist Dems.
There is one way that Trump is the lessor of two evils: she already has the blood of millions
dripping from her hands before the election. What we don't know is if Trump will follow in the
footsteps of the previous three fools in the WH and after his election rack up his own million
deaths. Killing millions is now another trophy of being president.
The "lesser evil" problem is the "either-or" fallacy. Either one of them is worse or the other
is. They both are. It's not "lesser of two evils." It's "different of two evils." Some
say the world will end in fire, some in ice. Trump is the roaring fire, Clinton is the suffocating
ice. Both end us up the same place, just different ways at different speeds. Freddy Krueger or
Hannibal Lecter.
Dismemberment by chain saw or scalpel. A gaping chest wound or gangrene. Going off that high
mountain cliff at 500 mph or 400 mph. Either choice is just projecting one's personal fears, not
dealing with reality, which is that our grandchildren will look at their conditions when adults
and at this election of either Trump or Clinton with hatred and contempt for our stupidity at
allowing things to evolve to this point and for relying on "lesser of two evils" arguments to
perpetuate them.
[.] The explosive result shows the Clintons haven't lost their touch for leaving destruction
and chaos in their wake. The remarkable events also serve as a clear reminder that while the
Clintons enriched themselves over the years, they were helping to bankrupt the public trust in
its government and institutions. And they won't stop until they're stopped.
And
Rudy Giuliani: "Today Hillary Clinton Was Put Way Above The Law"
Giuliani: "This is an extremely hard conclusion to justify. People have been charged under
these statues for far less than this but... when one is Hillary Clinton, the laws don't exactly
apply like they do for ordinary people. .
~ ~ ~
Trump has been handed a lot of firepower. Oh for the debates. Perhaps Hillary's cough may
deflect.
Sad day indeed and vexing hours to come, on all fronts, once HRC is elected and sworn in as POTUS.
My personal opinion is that women in Power are expeditive persons whose only concern is"
Can I get away with it?"
Hillary loves to find ways to break the law. Re her stint as counselor to certain congressional
entities in her first job.
She will spin her ways through the miseries of mankind wrought by her very ministrations. And
as sower of wars galore
she will probably receive a Nobel Peace Prize for good measure.
"Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned", and even Obama should remember it, without counting
countless others who stepped on her toes or so she deemed.
Surely for all his bravado, Trump is a lesser evil. But I doubt he can win counter to the
whims of the Establishment.
Re: "Additionally a judge ruled today that Clinton's "private" emails will be open to FOIA requests.
Some dirt will be found in them."
Look at the history of FOIA requests for Clinton emails.
The cases may be won, but the timeline for actually releasing the information in all cases so
far is AFTER the November election--in one case 75 years from now according to the Unanimous Dissent
podcast on Sputnik.
The Link to Director Comey's statement got mixed up apparently. There is a
press release online, and I think it's worth reading in full. I loved the subtlety…
What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and
what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.
[…]
So, first, what we have done:
[…]
That's what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:
[…]
So that's what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of
Justice:
[…]
I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there
was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation
was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind
was brought to bear.
I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation-including
people in government-but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were
all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right
way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional
way.
I couldn't be prouder to be part of this organization.
Wikileaks appears to have a substantial amount of information on Clinton, having already released
a large archive of Clinton's emails earlier in the year. Breitbart has previously reported on
Julian Assange's claims that Google is complicit in the managing of Clintons online media campaign.
Released only a week after Bill Clinton's meeting with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch
and a day after Huma Abedins admission that Hillary Clinton had burned daily schedules, the contents
of Hillary's released emails, containing multiple interactions between Clinton and multiple white
house officials, could be extremely damaging to Clinton's current presidential campaign.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously stated that he has multiple leaks in store
for Clinton and, as a free speech fundamentalist, believes that a Clinton presidency could be
damaging.
The American people aren't surprised that HRC isn't going to be prosecuted, neither are they highly
outraged. It just wasn't that big a deal for them in the first place. They are aware of her shortcomings
and Bill's aura has taken a significant hit over the last while.
For those who bellow about her candidacy just being an extension of Obama's (sorry, Obomber)
presidency, just bear in mind if he were running again he'd be a shoe-in.
Trump has pissed off some major voting blocks in the US, Hispanics and women to name but two.
The Blacks are usually Democratic voters and there's no reason to think that's about to change.
His message mostly resonates with angry young whites and they simply don't have the numbers. That
being said, there's a chance that Trump could conceivably find enough dirt on hHillary to make
a difference, but he's already called her everything but a white woman.
The Yanks still see themselves as inclusive and a nation of immigrants even if the reality
is somewhat different. There's something about Trump's denigration of Mexicans and his walked-back
ban of all Muslims that doesn't fit with their view of themselves.
The Yanks couldn't give a fiddler's fuck about Brexit and its implications. They don't share
this thread's widely held view that now is the time for revolution. Some do, of course, but they're
mostly regarded as a fringe.
It's true that Hillary is more of a warmonger than the Donald but that's not too important
in this election. Then again Trump's worldview could change in a heartbeat if he were elected
and saw an opportunity to cash in on some of that MIC money.
I completely understand them. Because the most horrible and obscene things Clinton did
were not illegal (As far as US law is concerned.) So if destroying Libya and laughing like a hyena
at Qadhafi's murder doesn't make you hate here, poor handling of national security documents won't
do it either.
I am now thinking that we are entering a high cognitive dissonance phase of empire decline with
rule of law being the center piece and Clinton II's teflon application of it being one example.
I encourage folks to read the Warren piece and ask yourselves how someone who believes what
she exposes can be associated in any way with Clinton II politics.....but the rumor is that she
may be VP pick.....another Dem sheepdog?
The global plutocrats that own private finance should be tried for war crimes and their
political psychopaths removed from control but since they own rule of law I expect they have legalized
all their theft as they go.....history is written by the winners.
"... Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case. ..."
"... I did not believe that official Washington would indict Hillary Clinton, not in a presidential election year, and not when she's the only thing standing between Donald Trump and the White House. ..."
"... The thought of four more years of those people, the Clintons, in the White House, with all their sleaziness, their drama, their sense of entitlement - it's sick-making. What a country. What a year. ..."
Clinton won't be indicted for breaking any laws, but Comey's statement is
nonetheless an indictment of her poor judgment, negligence, and recklessness. This
should be very damaging for Clinton, and maybe it still could be, but it can hardly
come as a surprise to anyone that remembers how the Clintons have operated over the
years. The sloppiness, sense of entitlement, and disregard for consequences are all
only too familiar. We can expect several more years of this sort of behavior from a
future Clinton administration.
Andrew McCarthy is stunned. He says the FBI director has refused to indict her on a
premise that is not required for an indictment to be issued. And:
I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey's claim that no reasonable
prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI. To my mind,
a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling
of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to
prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the
statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused
harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I
believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the
case.
It is somehow comforting to find that one's pitch-black cynicism is vindicated. I
did not believe that official Washington would indict Hillary Clinton, not in a
presidential election year, and not when she's the only thing standing between Donald
Trump and the White House.
The thought of four more years of those people, the Clintons, in the White House,
with all their sleaziness, their drama, their sense of entitlement - it's sick-making.
What a country. What a year.
Looks like the Democratic establishment decided that they wants Clinton in November no matter what.
But the price of this decition si that she will now compete as officially named "reckless and stupid"
candidate.
An interesting side affect might be that there will be attempts to impeach her from day one.
Notable quotes:
"... How is having your own private server for Secretary of State business not any of these things? What is the purpose of having your own email server if not for intentional misconduct? I imagine it costs a fair amount to set up and then run, did she just set it up for the lulz? ..."
"... "Had someone who was obscure and unimportant and powerless done what Hillary Clinton did – recklessly and secretly install a shoddy home server and worked on Top Secret information on it, then outright lied to the public about it when they were caught – they would have been criminally charged long ago, with little fuss or objection." ..."
"... After the FBI qualifying Hillary as extremely careless - precisely while acting as SoS - it sounds silly to hear Obama saying she was a great Secretary of State. ..."
"... Well, Comey just secured his job in a Clinton administration. ..."
"... Hitlery is just another establishment bankster cartel stooge/puppet. Expect more wars and genocides if this woman is elected. ..."
"... The NYTimes, 2 days ago: ..."
"... But, can we now at least admit that she lied, repeatedly and comprehensively, about her email server. This is now proven. ..."
"... She said there was no classified info on her email. This was a lie. ..."
"... She said everything was allowed per State Dept rules. This was a lie. ..."
"... She said the server was never hacked and remained secure. This was a lie. ..."
"... She said that she turned over all her emails. This was a lie. ..."
"... "110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information AT THE TIME they were sent or received. EIGHT of those chains contained information that was TOP SECRET AT THE TIME they were sent; 36 chains contained SECRET information AT THE TIME;" ..."
"... I think they got that backwards, An Indictment would destroy Clinton's election hopes, and opened the door for Bernie Sanders to become president. ..."
"... Obama himself issued an executive order in 2009, "Executive Order 13526- Classified National Security Information," that deals at length with the handling of various levels of classified/top secret data by top officials and others they designate. An executive order has the force of law, and Obama specified various sanctions and penalties that violations can occur. ..."
"... The order even includes sanctions for "reckless" handling of classified data, and Comey used the term "reckless." Why those sanctions were not applied here is baffling. ..."
"... This woman is a dangerous sociopathic liar. I say that as a feminist and registered Democrat for 35 years who voted for her husband in the 1990's. Yes, I'm afraid of what Trump might do as president. But I am MORE afraid of what Hillary will do. I will never vote for Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... "Extremely Careless" - that's a great defense for a potential president of the USA. That's what we all welcome - an extremely careless president. ..."
"... Now, to be really, really clear: 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' ~~ George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945). ..."
"... First, the FBI decides whether to indict, not whether to prosecute. It is not part of its proper remit to decide not to indict on the supposition that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute. That is end-running the legal system of a nation ruled by law. ..."
"... Second, whether or not Hillary Clinton could mount a defense of carelessness is not a concern of the FBI, though they act as if they know the mind of Hillary Clinton. I realize they interviewed her yesterday or something. I would hazard she knew every question beforehand and they knew every answer beforehand. But, anyways. ..."
"... They all lie even Comey. He was there and with straight face saying what Clinton did didn't rise to the level of prosecution. Nonsense, for even smaller infractions the FBI refers prosecution to the DOJ. DOJ in these cases depending on mostly resources, decides if to prosecute or not, or seek a plea bargain. ..."
"... Everything he said pronounced her guilt, you'd think he was about to announce charges, then no charges. He even described her actions as gross negligence using other words, which is enough to indict. But no... ..."
"... She was careless with the fate of Libya and she was careless with national security. Yet, according to President Obama, it is hard to think of any person better qualified for the presidency than she. ..."
"... the State Dept contradicts her assertion that she was authorised to use an unguarded private server. No she was not. She neither had the approval, nor had she even requested it. Pure lies! ..."
"... Sorry but carelessness is when you are distracted like going to take a coffee and forget to lock the screen. She deliberately setup an email server at home ans she knew that is illegal and a huge breach of security. ..."
"... Is the FBI also suggesting that she is suffering from Affluenza, you know when rich people think they are above the law. ..."
In violation of the Espionage Act. The relevant part of the law, 18 USC 793, says that anyone
who handles important national security documents with "gross negligence," so that they are "delivered
to anyone," or "lost," or "stolen," is guilty of a felony.
The guilty party "shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or
both."
18 USC §793. This statute explicitly states that whoever, "entrusted with or having lawful possession
or control of any document…through gross negligence permits the same to removed from its proper
place of custody…or having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper
place of custody….shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
Comey called her "extremely careless." But even by that standard, Hillary was grossly negligent
with classified material. Comey says Hillary had no intent to transmit information to foreign
powers. But that's not what the statute requires.
18 USC §1924. This statute states that any employee of the United States who "knowingly removes
[classified] documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents
or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not
more than one year, or both." Hillary set up a private server explicitly to do this.
18 USC §798. This statute states that anyone who "uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety
or interest of the United States…any classified information…shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Hillary transmitted classified information in a
manner that harmed the United States; Comey says she may have been hacked.
18 USC §2071. This statute says that anyone who has custody of classified material and "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." Clearly, Hillary meant to
remove classified materials from government control.
Wall Street's Warmongering Madame is the perfect foil for Donald Trump's huckster-populism:
a pseudo-progressive stooge whose contempt for the average person and their intelligence is palpable.
She's an arch-environmentalist who has worked tirelessly to spread fracking globally.
She supports fortifying Social Security but won't commit to raising the cap on taxes to
do so.
She's a humanitarian who has supported every imperial slaughter the US has waged in the
past 25 years.
She cares deeply about the plight of the Palestinians but supported the starvation blockade
and blitzkrieg of Gaza and couldn't bother to mention them but in passing in a recent speech
before AIPAC.
She's a stalwart civil libertarian, but voted for Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and believes Edward
Snowden should be sent to federal prison for decades.
She stands with the working class but has supported virtually every international pact
granting increased mobility and power to the corporate sector at its expense in the past 25
years.
She cares with all her heart about African-Americans but supports the objectively-racist
death penalty and the private prison industry.
She will go to bat for the poor but supported gutting welfare in the '90s, making them
easier prey to exploiters, many of whom supported her husband and her financially.
She worries about the conditions of the poor globally, but while Sec. of State actively
campaigned against raising the minimum wage in Haiti to 60 cents an hour, thinking 31 cents
an hour sounded better for the investor class whose interests are paramount to her.
She's not a bought-and-paid-for hack, oh no, no, no, but she won't ever release the Wall
Street speeches for which she was paid so handsomely.
She's a true-blue progressive, just ask her most zealous supporters, who aren't.
"Even if information is not marked classified in an e-mail, participants who know, or should know,
that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it," Mr. Comey said, suggesting
that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive,
highly classified information."
Mr. Comey said the emails included eight chains of emails and replies, some written by her,
that contained information classified as "top secret: special access programs." That classification
is the highest level, reserved for the nation's most highly guarded intelligence operations or
sources.
SEE A PATTERN HERE ?
"no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case" (FBI/CNN). that's a lie. anyone in a working
situation who lie so many times, and in so many different ways would be terminated. for Clinton
to become the next US President is an absolute moral disaster - which will haunt not only America,
but generations of young people watching this moral deception unfold.
Bernie did not lose. He was run over by the corrupt establishment of the Dem. Party. He didn/t
take their money, & condemned them for their undemocratic manipulations.
BlooperMario
She is a symbol of American hegemony and globalisation.
The East is rebelling and so is Europe.
Shamerica has been exposed as liars and cheats.
Poverty in Asia was promoted in order for USA to rule.
Regime change in Europe and Middle East created to support Lockheed-Martin , Boeing, and military
financial machinery.
Time for Europe to disconnect from Washington; link with Asia where the future will come very
soon.
Stop Uncle Sam's Navy and Air Force provoking China and Russia.
Hilary needs to go to Laos and Vietnam to clear minefields and unexploded bombs that US is responsible
for.
Chirographer
Comey offers his opinion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would press charges, but the dividing
line is between a finding that Clinton did wrong and was "extremely careless" is that she was
not "grossly negligent."
That's a judgment call to be made by the 'reasonable prosecutors" in the DOJ. It's not for
the FBI to prejudge that for them.
In a case like this the decision would normally be made by the AG. But, she had already announced
she would not be able to do her job in the circumstances- her chit chat with Bill tainted her
impartiality - and the decision whether or not to prosecute would be made by senior level career
prosecutors. Apparently the FBI wasn't interested in what the people charged with the responsibility
to make the decision would think.
Finally, for some unexplained reason, the FBI Director felt he had to make his statement today
without the DOJ's knowledge. Doesn't the FBI operate under the DOJ?
What a mess.
ExKStand
I think this shows you how scared the establishment in the U.S. is of Trump taking up power.
Save them from organising a black operation against him. No way should Hiliary be exonerated in
this way. In a democracy this should be for a court to decide, not the FBI. Hard to see how a
fair court could find her not guilty of at least incompetence.
kiwijams
Are their Clinton supporters who can read through this entire saga and still think she has
a high degree of integrity and honesty? By all means vote for her because she isn't Trump, but
surely you can't think this woman is all that trustworthy?
GrandmasterFlasher
Hillary is too big to fail, and too big to jail. There are too many vested interests invested
in the megalomaniac for charges to be laid.
funnynought
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly lied that none of her emails were classified at the time of
sending/receiving. This stinks.
Bill Clinton didn't have a "chance meeting" with Loretta Lynch, but walked across the tarmac
and boarded her plane to talk. Hillary Clinton has misleadingly characterized numerous times how
the two met, even with Lynch's own account out in the press. This stinks.
Lynch had the option of refusing to talk with Bill Clinton for the sake of avoiding conflict
of interest. She didn't. This stinks.
Just days after her husband met Lynch, Hillary Clinton was called into the FBI for a meeting,
on the quietest news weekend of the year till Thanksgiving. This stinks.
Somehow, after a mere 3 days of deliberating--over a holiday weekend--the FBI came to a recommendation.
This stinks.
The recommendation was no charges. This stinks.
The recommendation lays heavy emphasis on her intention, not on her negligence with classified
information. This stinks.
If elected president, Hillary Clinton is "considering" retaining Lynch as Attorney General.
Quid pro quo. This stinks.
President Hillary Clinton: "I didn't really mean to leak the nuclear codes to ISIS in Libya.
My bad. I didn't have bad intentions, though." This stinks.
"The buck stops here." -Democratic President Harry Truman. This doesn't stink.
Shardz
Meanwhile, feel free to leak any government documents you might have and see how lenient the
FBI will be with your case. I guarantee you will be in federal prison before dusk. Hillary was
not authorized to set up an external mail server no matter what the status was with those documents.
More Liberal ridiculousness.
Britaining
So Hillary carelessly voted for Iraqi war, carelessly pushed the Libya/Syria civil wars, carelessly
paved the way for Benghazi attack and refugee crisis in EU.......but liberal idiots won't care.
Anyway, she made a special contribution to Brexit, just like theGuardian's smarty pants.
Michronics42
This decision is deeply disappointing but not surprising as the late Carl Sagan observed:
" One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend
to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth.
The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that
we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
The FBI's partial exoneration of Hillary comes with this proviso: "Although we did not find
clear evidence that the Secretary or colleagues intended to violate laws, [of course has been
clearly documented that Clinton knew exactly what she was doing
1)by lying that she received government permission to set up her private servers and
2)knowing full well that she would evade FOIA requests by destroying thousands of these emails]there
is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of highly classified information,
said Comey."
For those Clinton, Inc supporters who continue to support this "congenital liar," and longtime
"charlatan," this just the latest 'careless' episode in the deeply troubling career of a sociopath
who craves power way more than she cares about the nation she may one day govern.
I'll always Feel the Bern and I'll always support those who will continue the fight for reform.
jimmy coleman
Praise the mosquitoes in a Louisiana swamp, Ms. Hillary is innocent. She didn't know what she
was doing!! On several levels I can believe that. We can now all sleep better just knowing the
Clinton's once again dodged a close one, like the time Ms. Hillary and Chelsea dodged gunfire
in Bosnia. We are told to believe that no reasonable prosecutor, from Maine to Texas, from Alaska
to Florida, from the moon to Pluto would dare try the fair lady.
Ms. Hillary may not know what she twas doing after she signed the pledge not to do such a thing,
she may have misspoken like she did when traveling in Bosnia or talking about the Benghazi video
to the victim's families. She may have used bad judgment, ad infinitum, slept through the burning
of the midnight oil as Rome burned and been a lousy administrator of the nation's secrets but
add, according to the latest legalese, Ms. Hillary ain't guilty of deliberately knowing what she
was doing!! She can do more harm in ignorance than a smart person can do on purpose!
For those of you working in the computer security field, your job has just become easier, for
now nothing, absolutely nothing one can do with classified or even Top Secret information can
be considered criminal. If the prospective Democratic nominee, perhaps our next Great Leader of
the 'free' world, can do what the FBI Director himself said she did, then none of the underlings
should have a fear to face or a hefty price to pay for emulating the shenanigans of Ms. Hillary.
Ain't this country great. If you got money and power - where you can send your disbarred, impeached
hubby to visit secretly for half an hour with the chief law enforcement official, all the while
the FBI G-men shoo away pesky reporters with cameras rolling - and then two days later those same
G-men interview the prez-in-waiting, - with just a one day interval in-between the FBI Director
can say to the country, with a straight face, that 'no reasonable prosecutor in the whole wide
country would convict Ms. Hillary.... And if that don't beat all, while the FBI is talking to
the nation, Ms. Hillary and the other guy,...... oh yes, Mr. Obama, who promised us to run the
most transparent and honest government in the nation's history, strap themselves in Air Force
One to go campaigning together. And if that wasn't enough poop through a goose, a big chunk of
the unwashed masses swallowed what was said and done, hook, line and stinker!!
I wouldn't rule Bernie out quite yet! The superdelegates don't like liars!
TheRealCopy
"Several thousand work related emails were not among those returned to the government and appeared
to have been deleted"!
How does the FBI know what was in the e-mails apparently missing if they were deleted?
It appears to be a political decision not to charge her for security breached and they won't
charge her because she's who she is and in the middle of a campaign as POTUS nominee for the Democratic
Party!
To put the matter into perspective, Remember what happened to General Petreaus! A top notch
war commander completely destroyed over breaching information security on a much smaller scale!
ericsony
Talk about friends in high places....Watch the Clinton chronicles on you tube.. what these
people get away with is amazing...If it was made into a film you would think it was a bit too
far fetched!!
CaliforniaLilly -> ericsony
Time to watch a classic movie: The Manchurian Candidate. Love the original one with Angela
Lansbury. But, good time to see it. Trust me.
"Extremely careless" just the kind of person you need with the finger on the button.
ID8020624
The 15 minute press interview w/ the FBI, however, was vey revealing, but not duplicated here.
She was shown to be the careless arrogant system-girl that she is. W-leaks just published 1000
of her emails for all to see,...go see for yourselves.
Bot candidates have highest unfavorable ratings ever recorded in US history. This is not right:
over 60% of voters neither support nor Trump!
The Oligarchic rule is stripped naked for all to see. US people are not that dumb not to see
a couple crooks running to rule over them,...
Vote Green! Vote Stein!
Unfortunately Bernie is busy trimming party platform that has never been followed by any Dem
president.
Robb1324
All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful
mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way
as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United
States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.
How is having your own private server for Secretary of State business not any of these
things? What is the purpose of having your own email server if not for intentional misconduct?
I imagine it costs a fair amount to set up and then run, did she just set it up for the lulz?
Is there a benefit to having your own email server to conduct department business on other
than skirting FOIA requests and internal oversight?
"Had someone who was obscure and unimportant and powerless done what Hillary Clinton did
– recklessly and secretly install a shoddy home server and worked on Top Secret information on
it, then outright lied to the public about it when they were caught – they would have been criminally
charged long ago, with little fuss or objection."
time2plyBsides -> Nelson Ricardo
I worked in IT for the U.S. gov't. Everybody has to take the trainings for IT and data protocol.
The lowliest cleaning staff who merely dust a laptop. The highest ranked general. They are VERY
serious about it.
There are specific rules for which communications go over which networks. If Hilary wants to
log on to her gov't computer, the system must register that she took the training or she will
be locked out. Let me be clear: THERE IS NO WAY THE SEC. OF STATE DID NOT KNOW ALL DoS BUSINESS
ALWAYS MUST STAY ON SECURE GOV. NETWORK. She would have had that drilled into her head by then.
She is a lawyer. She knows all Sec. of State emails are archived to protect the People from
malfeasance. She intentionally side-stepped protocol. There is no other reasonable explanation
IMO.
eminijunkie
""I am confident I never sent nor received any information that was classified AT THE TIME
it was sent and received,..."
Same sentence parsed properly: " I know i sent and received classified information, so I can't
say I didn't, but I need to make it sound like I didn't know what I was doing in an nice, innocent
way, so I'll say I was 'confident that I didn't because I think that's the safest thing I can
say to seem to deny the possibility of doing what i know I did."
Goias Goias -> CriticAtLarge
After the FBI qualifying Hillary as extremely careless - precisely while acting as SoS
- it sounds silly to hear Obama saying she was a great Secretary of State.
Bo1964
A decade ago CIA claimed Iraq of WMD, now FBI recommends 'no charges' against Hillary. All
collusions to please the bosses!
Brockenhexe
Well, Comey just secured his job in a Clinton administration.
Brendan Groves
Hillary has been careless with her emails, careless with her votes for the Iraq war, and very
careless with her husband. all of this carelessness does not bode well for a future President.
shaftedpig
Hitlery is just another establishment bankster cartel stooge/puppet. Expect more wars and
genocides if this woman is elected.
johhnybgood
Proof if any is needed, that the US Administration, together with its Judiciary and its law
enforcement agencies, are criminally negligent. The elites are above the law, just like the banks.
This may well be the tipping point that sends Trump and Sanders supporters over the edge.
rochestervandriver -> MtnClimber
"The head of the FBI is a Republican, btw."
This is what he is (below) so no wonder people think the fix is in. Obama appointed him , republican
or not. He's a "Business as usual" man. I guess he hopes that Trump doesn't get elected as I'm
sure this story will not end here.
Anyway, this will cost Hilary on the campaign trail . Trump will rip chunks out of her with
this.
In December 2003, as Deputy Attorney General, Comey appointed the U.S. Attorney in Chicago,
close friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, as Special Counsel to head the CIA leak
grand jury investigation after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself. In August 2005,
Comey left the DOJ and he became General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin.
In 2010, he became General Counsel at Bridgewater Associates. In early 2013, he left Bridgewater
to become Senior Research Scholar and Hertog Fellow on National Security Law at Columbia Law School.
He also joined the London-based board of directors of HSBC Holdings. In 2013, Comey was appointed
as the director of the FBI by President Barack Obama.
Whether it's putting the Bush/Cheney crime family in prison for an illegal war and thousands
of innocent deaths, or HRC in prison for Bengazi and releasing sensitive documents, y'all are
starting to see what's wrong in this nation. It's a nation of crooked professional politicians,
family dynasties run by the 1% and the banksters... Welcome to the land of the free. Free for
the wolves to eat our souls.
Clinton is not above the law. If the GOP really thinks they have a legitimate case then Speaker
Ryan and the other members can impeach her if she wins. The reality is it is game over since it
is only GOP partisans who are interested in pursuing this. I think it would be a repeat of the
last time with the Senate laughing at the House for their stupidity. Everyone knows that neither
Clinton nor Trump are honest. The Democrats don't see it as a real issue. Bernie Sanders said
he does not care about "her damn emails".
Both the GOP and the Democrats are more intent on partisanship than in talking about ideas
on how to improve the government and society. Sanders was different and I think a lot of his supporters
felt that it wasn't just about him. Both Trump and Clinton do not have strong morals and it is
a bit sad.
Leviathan212
I'm glad Hillary is not being indicted, and I'm happy that we still have a viable candidate
against Donald Trump.
But, can we now at least admit that she lied, repeatedly and comprehensively, about her
email server. This is now proven.
- She said there was no classified info on her email. This was a lie.
- She said everything was allowed per State Dept rules. This was a lie.
- She said the server was never hacked and remained secure. This was a lie.
- She said that she turned over all her emails. This was a lie.
People are so blinded by their worship of a candidate that they are willing to ignore blatant
wrong-doing. This is how moral and ethical corruption happens. Try admitting the truth to yourself
- it's okay to say, "Yes, I support Hillary Clinton, but I can also see how she lied in these
instances".
RealWavelengths
if an average worker at, say, a bank would have been caught using a private email account to
conduct bank business, and some of those emails contained unsecured, confidential bank customer
info that could have been at risk for interception by identity theft crime rings, that worker
would have been in violation of several laws. And if subsequently it turns out that employee deleted
some of those emails and claimed they did not contain customer data but were personal, it is doubtful,
given other evidence, the employee would have gotten away with just scolding words from the FBI.
At least a fine would be levied, and perhaps a prohibition from working with confidential financial
data again. Here, Clinton just got scolded, and that's it. Clearly, this is a problem with high
ranking elected and appointed officials, and yet many of us somehow keep letting these people
get into office. We should indeed let our voices be heard online in various ways that enough is
more than enough. Time to get rid of the revolving door of past corrupt officials getting back
into office with the same corrupt ethics. Both parties are trash. There's a better way…
Georwell
"...is Ian Bremmer who said that "it's very clear that in trying to make it go away actually
lied, repeatedly, about whether or not these materials were classified at the time. And it's the
cover up frequently that gets people in trouble, it's not the actual misdeed. This was very badly
mishandled by Hillary all the way through."
But then she got some much needed help from the FBI to complete the cover up.
In retrospect, perhaps former Attorney General Eric Holder said it best when he justified with
the US DOJ simply refuses to bring up criminal cases against those it deems "too big to prosecute":
if you do bring a criminal charge it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps
world economy
And just like that, Hillary is "systemically important", if mostly for her countless Wall Street
donors. "
Welcome foreign countries. You will soon be able to know everything you need to know about
thrUS if Hillary becomes President. Will need a larger bedroom or basement for her server which
of course the White House has. The head of the FBI says although statutes may have been broken,
it is no big deal. We don't need them anyway. Good to know, so if anyone wants to break statutes
in the future, they just need to ask the FBI for the Hillary deal. Poor people of Washington D.C.
Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse then the poisoned water in Flint, or the Green
Algae in Southern Florida, the toxic smell of whitewashing covers D.C. Stay indoors, take precautions,
donate to the Clinton Foundation, because this could last for years.
Leviathan212
So, Bill Clinton meets with Loretta Lynch and four days later the FBI recommends no charges?
I'm not saying that there was any corruption - mainly because I have a high enough opinion
of Loretta Lynch's integrity (and not of Bill Clinton's). But the optics are not good. It further
fuels the idea that the Clintons play fast and loose with the rules and are morally and ethically
compromised.
virginiacynic -> boscovee
No one should ever, ever talk to the FBI without a lawyer (preferably two lawyers) and a Tape
Recorder.
The FBI will not record it and instead write up a summary of what was said and ask the person
to sign the summary. If the person subsequently says something contrary to the FBI summary then
that person can be charged with lying to the FBI.
It was not overkill when the FBI had eight people. It was good sense and good lawyering by Clinton's
Counsel once it had been decided to talk with them. If she were not running for President then
any sane lawyer would have said to take the fifth, just as the guy who set up the server system
did.
greg2644
For all of you guys who are up in arms about this decision, let's pretend for a second that
serious classified information did get out from her server. Even if that were true, involuntary
treason is not a crime. Intent matters in a court of law. All of the things Hillary is being accused
of are only crimes if she intended for information to get out. There's no proof that she did,
so they can't charge her with anything. This decision shouldn't surprise anyone. Politicians are
untouchable unless they're caught with blood on their hands... and even then...
Vladimir Makarenko -> greg2644
It's called "criminal negligence". The stress is on the word "criminal". If she couldn't have
understood after had been told many times the rules of separation of private from government emails
how she can be trusted with Red Button?
As minimum JD must withdraw her clearance. She can apply for a job at her "foundation".
Georwell
so Hitlary declare she never sent any classifieds documents
""I am confident I never sent nor received any information that was classified AT THE TIME it
was sent and received,..." (Hitlary )
BUT next we get this from FBI :
"110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified
information AT THE TIME they were sent or received. EIGHT of those chains contained information
that was TOP SECRET AT THE TIME they were sent; 36 chains contained SECRET information AT THE
TIME;"
Its this incompetence or just THE MOST corrupt system ever ?
ghostintheshell29
"An indictment could have wrecked Clinton's election hopes and perhaps opened the door for
Donald Trump to become president."
I think they got that backwards, An Indictment would destroy Clinton's election hopes,
and opened the door for Bernie Sanders to become president.
Its a lot easier for Trump to beat Hillary then Bernie. People actually like him.. Huge advantage
over both other opponents.
RealWavelengths -> Joe Smith
Actually, laws were broken. Comey just chose not to prosecute because, in his and his staff's
opinion, no reasonable prosecutor would pursue the matter, which is in the discretion of the prosecutor
to do. But Obama himself issued an executive order in 2009, "Executive Order 13526- Classified
National Security Information," that deals at length with the handling of various levels of classified/top
secret data by top officials and others they designate. An executive order has the force of law,
and Obama specified various sanctions and penalties that violations can occur.
As Secretary of State, Hillary was considered an "Original classification authority," which
is a top ranking official that not only handles such data, but classifies and declassifies it.
The order even includes sanctions for "reckless" handling of classified data, and Comey used
the term "reckless." Why those sanctions were not applied here is baffling.
America's two-tiered justice system strikes again. One rule of law for the masses, a very different
set of rules for the elite.
However one may feel regarding whether or not Hillary committed crimes, one thing is absolutely
clear -- she lied.
Comey listed a number of points which prove beyond doubt that she lied. For instance, she said
she never sent or rec'd anything marked classified at the time. Per Comey, there were seven (known)
email strings that were clearly marked classified at the time.
The Inspector General's report also made it clear beyond doubt that Hillary lied about her
use of the email server, point by point by point refuting everything she said about its use. And
yet, after the IG report came out, Hillary went on air to say how happy she was that the IG report
validated everything she'd been saying (though the opposite is true).
This woman is a dangerous sociopathic liar. I say that as a feminist and registered Democrat
for 35 years who voted for her husband in the 1990's. Yes, I'm afraid of what Trump might do as
president. But I am MORE afraid of what Hillary will do. I will never vote for Hillary Clinton.
gvs951
"Extremely Careless" - that's a great defense for a potential president of the USA. That's
what we all welcome - an extremely careless president.
Sarah7
FBI Director James Comey stated the following, which makes it clear that the investigation
of Hillary Clinton and her top aides is a very 'special case' that would not pass the standard
statutory criteria:
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged
in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject
to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now. (Emphasis
added)
Now, to be really, really clear: 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal
than others.' ~~ George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945).
theguardianread
Forgot to say that mishandling US Official communications is a crime-- there is NO WAY TO KNOW
IF AN INCOMING COMMUNICATION IS CLASSIFIED OR NOT, ESP AT THAT LEVEL, EVERYTHING IS CLASSIFIED
BY THE "LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS" RULE. No matter how unimportant it may seem to you, it is part
of the bigger picture of responsibility...
Goias Goias
I am listening to Hillary giving a speech and she hasn't mentioned a word about the FBI declarations.
Can she really think her bulshit is above answering for being called extremely careless by the
FBI?
KlaatuVerataNiktu -> Goias Goias
Being high-ranking in the establishment means never having to say you're sorry.
Goias Goias Goias Goias
Even Obama is looking ridiculous building up Hillary after the FBI wiped the floor with her
credibility.
MARK Corrales
So by this rational it is okay to break the law and violate national security protocols as
long as its unintentional. WOW! The political elite do not have to worry about any kind of accountability
for there actions.
Jessica Roth -> Stu Wragg
It's not so much her wealth, but how she got it. When you're in the pay of the Saudis/MIC/Wall
Street, the US government looks out for you.
Seriously, she swears under oath that she's turned over all her emails, it eventuates that
there are thousands more emails, but the FBI goes "no big, don't worry"? I didn't know that the
federal perjury statutes had been wiped off of the books. Perhaps Hillary sent me an email, but
I missed it?
Snowden gets exiled, Manning gets tortured…Clinton gets a coronation. Yes, very fair.
I urge everyone to vote for Jill Stein. Nothing can be done about this election (Trump, despite
his manifest flaws, is the more honest candidate and the peace candidate, but he has very little
chance of winning), but by getting Stein/the Greens to 5%, there is an opportunity for the left
to be properly heard next time, rather than the same corrupt dance between the two halves of the
Money Party. It's the only way to deny Clinton the second term she's already planning.
Yuri Esev -> zepov
Quote: ...love people who think that because Comey is a Republican, that this means that he
tried everything he could to reach an indictment. He's TELLING YOU that he's choosing not to.
Some people refuse to acknowledge this simple reality:
If there is one thing that democrats and republicans *always* agree on, it's helping big business
to buy our politicians wholesale so that they can continue to redirect money away from the most
electorate, and towards big business and the existing political establishment. In this case, it
means putting the first lady of Goldman Sachs in the White House Unquote
Carpasia
First, the FBI decides whether to indict, not whether to prosecute. It is not part of its
proper remit to decide not to indict on the supposition that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.
That is end-running the legal system of a nation ruled by law.
Second, whether or not Hillary Clinton could mount a defense of carelessness is not a concern
of the FBI, though they act as if they know the mind of Hillary Clinton. I realize they interviewed
her yesterday or something. I would hazard she knew every question beforehand and they knew every
answer beforehand. But, anyways.
I believe Hillary Clinton fully intended to break the law, that law being the Freedom of Information
Act under which her emails were capable of being publicized upon request after vetting for, among
other things, how classified they were. Only a fool would think otherwise given the information
she had and the use of a private server in the face of that information.
I do not think she intended to break laws concerning effectively risking the loss and publication
of classified security materials by using an unsecured private server for her email.
Thus, what she did resulted in the risk of loss of classified materials that would never have
been lost if she had stayed within the government system, which laws she broke, one intentionally
and one carelessly, so journalists could not read her other unclassified emails, for they would
never have seen the classified ones.
At best, she was ignorant of the law on classified materials while intending to break the law
on access to information.
This bodes well if she is elected a President of the United States, for it will put paid to
the vaunted myth the Americans ceaselessly tell the rest of the world, that it is a nation in
which no one is above the law. This is the truth. Hillary and Barack having a laugh at The Donald.
Its great to see this investigation come to an end so quickly after such a long process.
June 27th Bill speaks with Lynch
July 2nd FBI interviews Hillary
July 5th FBI clears Hillary
ClearItUp
They all lie even Comey. He was there and with straight face saying what Clinton did didn't
rise to the level of prosecution. Nonsense, for even smaller infractions the FBI refers prosecution
to the DOJ. DOJ in these cases depending on mostly resources, decides if to prosecute or not,
or seek a plea bargain.
For what she did, at a minimum she would have been charged with something to cause her to agree
to a plea bargain, the terms of which would have been at a minimum not being able to receive classified
information, i.e. losing her security clearance. If she were not running for president, I have
no doubt she would have plea bargained to that level and admitted she broke the law.
But in the infinite wisdom of the FBI, they decided not to pursue her because just charging
her with anything would have ended her campaign for presidency. The punishment would have been
greater than the crime, again in their mind. So they didn't charge her. They would have even charged
Hillary Clinton if she wasn't running for president. This was a political decision no matter how
you look at it.
dongerdo
Critically, the FBI said that other similar cases in which a prosecution had been sought
involved evidence of "willful or intentional" breaches of the rules, "vast quantities" of data
or "indications of disloyalty or efforts to obstruct justice". "We do not see that here," he
said.
Interesting. Considering all those things are actually applicable, it was intentional, it involved
a lot of mails concerning Libya, she made an effort to keep it secret and tried to delete rather
large quantities and therefore has been obstructing justice I am curious if they would still 'Do
not see that here' if the opponent would not be called Trump....
Adoniran
"Nonetheless the detail of the FBI's investigation is likely to hit Clinton politically. Comey
revealed that of the 30,000 emails returned to the state department, 110 emails in 52 chains were
determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent."
Just add it to the list of lies that she told about this.
From the FBI:
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended
to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they
were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
So I guess we have different standards of intent for her than we do for the rest of us. That
intent to commit an action that is felonious would be enough for anyone else. For Clinton though,
it seems she needed to intend to break the law knowingly, otherwise she's immune. But wait, even
if we use that lofty, specialized standard, more from the FBI:
"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's
position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding
about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."
..........So why, again, are we not indicting?
ClearItUp
If a government agent takes a folder of classified (not even talking about highly classified)
information and leaves them on a counter in a public restroom, then after say a few hours remembers
and goes and retrieves it, he will be charged with neglect or mishandling classified information.
Depending on what the information and intent was, they could be charged anywhere from a misdemeanor
to a felony with possible years in jail. If this act occurs multiple time by the same individual
not being charged with something is unusual, even in cases of unintentional confidential information.
The usual outcome for such unintentional negligence, if they are minor is plea bargain in which
the subject gives up his/her security clearance for a period of time or permanently.
Hillary Clinton by Comey's own admission violated the law, but they decided no to pursue prosecution.
Because, the penalty would have been too strong in her case, i.e. dropping out of nomination.
This is the real story. It was a political judgement, no two ways about it.
venkatt
The Farce of a Presidential nomination cycle is now complete. The billionaire Donor class has
officially INSTALLED its "Chosen One" on the American Masses...
Lester Smithson
The Clinton propensity for ethical shortcuts, special treatment, statute dodging (they are
both Yale-educated lawyers), and supreme entitlement are eclipsed by the last GOP president ($7T
war, and wrecking the economy) and the prospect of Trump, whose potential for destruction in near
infinite.
Clinton dodged this one. She'll destroy Trump and the next ethically challenged foot in the
dung is just around the corner. It's the Clinton way.
Jill Stein 2016
skatterbrayn
Everything he said pronounced her guilt, you'd think he was about to announce charges,
then no charges. He even described her actions as gross negligence using other words, which is
enough to indict. But no...
Another win for the oligarchy and queen of the weapons industry. I fear for families in the
Middle East if she is POTUS. Get ready to go play in the desert again troops.
A sad day for justice in America. The Guardian must be thrilled though. Congratulations. I'm
sure Lucia will write a a great nyah nyah piece about this. Pat yourselves on the back, your queen
of global intervention skated on something others have been destroyed for.
callingallcars
People are attracted to Trump because he is not a member of the political establishment, viewed
by many as incorrigibly corrupt and discredited. Ironically, the decision not to prosecute Clinton
will enhance the prospect of Trump's being elected, because it reinforces widespread views in
the public that political elites like Clinton can act with impunity and are immune from the laws
that apply to the rest of us. If Trump is elected, Clinton only has her own bad judgment to blame.
Using a private server for email and effectively stealing the public record is conduct that one
only does if one actually feels immune to the rules that the rest of us must follow. Her arrogance
may well lead to her own downfall and the foisting of Trump on the rest of us. (That is not to
suggest that Clinton would serve the American public well.)
There's an old Roman saying -- 'Res ipsa loquitur' -- 'The thing speaks for itself'. Basic
to our tort law; you don't need to prove intent.
For 28 minutes, Comey precisely described the 'thing'. Then, in his last two minutes, he ran
away from the law, and then out of the room as fast as he could go.
Is there a different law for the Clintons than for the rest of us? Yes. From Whitewater until
today, obviously. In the corridors of power, from the leaders of both parties, the fix is in.
As a Democrat, does this mean that I should vote for Trump, and put up with four years of babbling
idiocy, rather than going with Hillary and furthering the assault on our democracy and on our
law?
Maybe.
steveky
So She was not knowingly Criminal.
She only had an unsecured server and put national security at rick so she could have her own Blackberry.....
Or she had the server to circumvent freedom of information act laws, which Comey did not even
address.
This is not over folks....
Stupid or Criminal... If she is to be president I almost hope Criminal....
Curt Chaffee
"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that
no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," said Comey."
The poodle speaks.
Copper65 -> Curt Chaffee
..no reasonable prosecutor who wanted to keep his job (or maybe his life).
dddxxx -> Wolfclan
Winston Churchill once said when criticized, "Any fool can see what is wrong---Can you see
what is right?"
BillFromBoston
I'm sure that many of you Europeans speak Spanish and,therefore,know what "plato o plomo" means.However,I'll
wager that few of you know much about the Mexican drug cartels that literally control Mexico today.And
they control Mexico through "plato o plomo".This utterance is very,*very* effective when directed
at the police,judges,prosecutors and elected officials.
Although it's possible that Mr Comey and/or his subordinates were promised "silver" that seems
unlikely.Much more likely is that they were promised jobs...promotions...lucrative consulting
gigs.Remember,Europe...there are many,many,*many* people who make very,*very* comfortable livings
while connected to folks "inside the Beltway" (meaning Washington).
It's also possible,but highly unlikely,that anyone involved was threatened with "lead".Much
more likely is that threats to careers...threats to reveal the existence of a mistress...and other
less extreme,but *very* persuasive,threats were communicated.
"Plato o plomo"..."I'll make him an offer he can't refuse"...take your pick.
nerospizza -> ID1773222
It means silver or lead- as in you can take a bribe or a bullet..
Arbuzov
I possessed a Top Secret Special Intelligence Compartmented Access security clearance for 34
years before my retirement, and I handled uncountable classified documents in my time. And I can
assure you that 90 percent of them (at a minimum) were either overclassified, or never should
have been classified in the first place.
Joelbanks
She was careless with the fate of Libya and she was careless with national security. Yet,
according to President Obama, it is hard to think of any person better qualified for the presidency
than she.
What is grievously wrong with this picture?
ilipe Barroso -> alan101
Then, explain this rubbish: https://www.fbi.gov/sacramento/press-releases/2015/folsom-naval-reservist-is-sentenced-after-pleading-guilty-to-unauthorized-removal-and-retention-of-classified-materials
There was no intent but a lot of recklessness. How different is from this case? I'll help you:
he was a nobody.
makaio -> alan101
Lying - Her ongoing lie about the server's purpose, and her past b.s. about it being approved
and fully above board.
Reckless - See this article, and take into account her support for toppling Muammar Gaddafi,
among others.
Obstinate - Twelve years to admit toppling Saddam Hussein -- with millions suffering as a result
to this very day -- was a bad call. She's still lying about her server a year after its discovery
and, to the detriment of her supporters who always have to avoid this topic, she obviously doesn't
care.
Secretive - Her server was implemented to evade public and official records requests, with
a degree of success.
Warring - Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Honduras leader ousters or attempts, all without follow-on
plans, all increasing suffering and terrorism, all indirectly or directly supported by Hillary.
Her traits are right before us, and they're only "Rubbish!" for those who cower, deny, and
stick their heads in sand.
And they don't bode well for our future.
guicho
So she lied when she said no classified information was sent on the private server, the FBI
just admitted that there was information of the highest security classification on the server.
Whether intentional or not, failing to keep top secret information safe from intrusion and access
to persons without the proper security clearances is a crime. Yet the FBI won't recommend charges.
I can't believe this is going to be swept under the rug and "news" media will continue to champion
Hillary for president. If any of us breached security protocol at work we would be fired, prosecuted
and prevented from finding work in the future. Just another example of how the law discriminates
based on who you are and how much money and influence you have.
bill9651
Emailgate looks like it is just the tip of the iceberg!
Clinton has been outed as a serial lair to the nation:
.
the State Dept contradicts her assertion that she was authorised to use an unguarded private
server. No she was not. She neither had the approval, nor had she even requested it. Pure lies!
Now the FBI contradicts her statements that none of the material she sent was marked as top
secret or as classified.
The FBI found: 110 emails in 52 chains were determined to contain classified information at the
time they were sent.
Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time, 36 chains contained
secret information at the time, and eight contained confidential information.
So is the FBI part of the right wing conspiracy? And if so, why no indictments. She broke rules
in order to keep the public from knowing anything about her using her post to boost the corrupt
Clinton Foundation. By doing so, she played fast and loose with govt secrets, even top secrets.
And then she repeatedly lied to the nation about it.
Not my findings, not that of Republicans, but of Democrat appointed FBI directors and State
Dept investigators.
Her corruption is becoming public knowlege at last.
Battlehenkie
Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is
that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case"
Because doing so would make for a weak case that a prosecutor is unlikely to win, or because
it would be career suicide for the prosecutor due to upsetting vested interests?
wjpietrzak
Now we'll never know if the contents of the compromised Secret files led to any harm to the
US, its citizens, Servents and allies. No prosecution, no need to reveal the facts.
Sorry but carelessness is when you are distracted like going to take a coffee and forget
to lock the screen. She deliberately setup an email server at home ans she knew that is illegal
and a huge breach of security.
Doug Wenzel
When my dad was a lt. jg on Kwajalein 50+ years ago, he was an entry level Communications Officer.
The whole island was one big Nay base. One day, he got distracted, and forgot to deliver a minor,
routine encrypted message. It was found in his pants at the base laundry.
Needless to say, that was the end of his career in communications. he was reassigned as a radar
operator in the belly of a single-engined SkyRaider like this one, which meant sure drowning if
the plane had to ditch.
When Hillary Clinton opted to have her own server she assumed strict liability for everything
involved with it. Plus she signed an acknowledgement when assuming work at the State Department.
Clearing her is an disgrace, and an insult to those in the intelligence community and with foreign
allies whose lives were put at risk, as well as to all those who have had their careers drawn
and quartered for breaches far less significant than these.
Jack Dornan
Careless = little or no regard to the consequences.
Top Secret = disclosure consequences would be damaging to the nation or place US lives in danger
No prosecution = no unauthorized disclosure occurred
Conclusion = Lucky Lady
stratplaya
No classified info: lie
Allowed by State: lie
Turned over all work emails: lie
Wanted a single device: lie
Never breached: lie
Laws are for the peasants, not our rulers.
Reason336 -> stratplaya
ahhh when has it EVER been different than that in human history???
You expected different now?
Kommentator
On the premise she did nothing wrong (snigger....) she is reckless, careless, a proven lair,
Wall St. bought & paid for, a known warmonger, a recipient of funds from dubious nation states
and apparently a war hero from dodging snipers bullets........and yet......and yet you still she
is the best option, you could not make this up.
Urgelt
This is very disturbing to me.
The FBI doesn't mention the legality, or lack of legality, of Clinton's avoidance of compliance
with federal records statutes and the FOIA. She purged official correspondence from her e-mail
server - a fact turned up by discovery of that correspondence on the senders' servers. Did they
even ask her if her intent was to avoid compliance with federal records statutes and the FOIA?
We can see no evidence that the FBI even brought it up.
So the Obama Administration hands to Clinton a mild spanking on classified document handling,
but ignores the elephant in the room: why she refused to use an official government server for
her official correspondence. If her intent was to avoid compliance with federal statutes, then
she broke the law.
Adrian Newton
Is the FBI also suggesting that she is suffering from Affluenza, you know when rich people
think they are above the law.
God bless exceptional America. Lady Justice will not be back anytime soon.
callingallcars
"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that
no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," said Comey.
Evidence of potential violations of criminal statutes is typically called "probable cause"
that would get every American in the country other than its elite and untouchable political classes
indicted and brought to trial. Or at least all of the black ones, i.e., the superpredators that
must be brought to heel.
"... The Republican senator and former presidential candidate took to Twitter to express his outrage over what he called "a loss for the rule of law" that "further degrades Americans' faith in the justice system." ..."
"... "While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. ..."
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday blasted the FBI's recommendation not to prosecute Hillary
Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of State.
The Republican senator and former presidential candidate took to Twitter to express his
outrage over what he called "a loss for the rule of law" that "further degrades Americans' faith
in the justice system."
Paul also criticized the controversial private meeting between the former president Bill
Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch that took place just days before the FBI's
announcement regarding possible charges for Clinton.
WASHINGTON-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement regarding the
recommendation from FBI Director James Comey that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not
be prosecuted for her "extremely careless" mishandling of classified information:
"While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies
explanation. No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it
appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for
recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible
precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the
American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions.
While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American
people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment."
Fred Lang,
Just underscores that there are 2 justice systems in America today: One for us peons and
another for the rich, powerful and politically connected.
From comments: "Judging by the vast majority of comments, NO ONE has been fooled by the decision.
The massive awakening is in full swing. The people are just waking up and won't be stopped now.
Throughout history once the people opened their eyes to the fraud, the powers that should NOT be was
removed, destroyed or both."
Now, to be really, really clear: 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than
others.' ~~ George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945).
Notable quotes:
"... I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. ..."
"... Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities. ..."
"... Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal email server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors. ..."
"... Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the state department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain ..."
"... when one of Secretary Clinton's original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the email software was removed. ..."
"... 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was 'top secret' at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained 'secret' information at the time; and eight contained 'confidential' information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional emails were "up-classified" to make them 'confidential'; the information in those had not been classified at the time the emails were sent. ..."
"... The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. ..."
"... I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many email users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails or emails were purged from the system when devices were changed. ..."
"... The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her emails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related emails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total emails remaining on Secretary Clinton's personal system in 2014. ..."
"... there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. ..."
"... we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the US Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on email (that is, excluding the later "up-classified" emails). ..."
"... None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at departments and agencies of the US government – or even with a commercial service like Gmail. ..."
"... Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked "classified" in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it. ..."
"... With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton's personal email domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. ..."
"... Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person's actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past. ..."
"... To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now. ..."
"... As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case. ..."
Good morning. I'm here to give you an update on the FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton's use
of a personal email system during her time as secretary of state.
After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the
FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a
prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we
found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.
This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more
detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those
details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement
in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what
I am about to say.
I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have
a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their
efforts.
So, first, what we have done:
The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection
with Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state. The
referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.
Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored
or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle
classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making
it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine
whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal email server by any
foreign power, or other hostile actors.
I have so far used the singular term, "email server", in describing the referral that began our
investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several
different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the state department,
and used numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain. As new servers and
equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various
ways. Piecing all of that back together – to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways
in which personal email was used for government work – has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring
thousands of hours of effort.
For example, when one of Secretary Clinton's original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013,
the email software was removed. Doing that didn't remove the email content, but it was like removing
the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on the floor. The effect was
that millions of email fragments end up unsorted in the server's unused-or "slack"-space. We searched
through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of the puzzle could be put back together.
FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 emails provided by Secretary
Clinton to the state department in December 2014. Where an email was assessed as possibly containing
classified information, the FBI referred the email to any US government agency that was a likely
"owner" of information in the email, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the
email contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was
reason to classify the email now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent
(that is the process sometimes referred to as "up-classifying").
From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the state department, 110 emails in 52 email chains
have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were
sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was 'top secret' at the time they
were sent; 36 chains contained 'secret' information at the time; and eight contained 'confidential'
information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional
emails were "up-classified" to make them 'confidential'; the information in those had not been classified
at the time the emails were sent.
The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000
that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional emails in a variety
of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported
or were connected to the private email domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government
email accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton,
including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a secretary of state might naturally
correspond.
This helped us recover work-related emails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still
others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of email fragments dumped into the
slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.
With respect to the thousands of emails we found that were not among those produced to State,
agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received,
one at the Secret level and two at the 'confidential' level. There were no additional 'top secret'
emails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been "up-classified".
I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were
intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many email users,
Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails or emails were purged from the system when devices
were changed. Because she was not using a government account – or even a commercial account like
Gmail – there was no archiving at all of her emails, so it is not surprising that we discovered emails
that were not on Secretary Clinton's system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 emails to the state
department.
It could also be that some of the additional work-related emails we recovered were among those
deleted as "personal" by Secretary Clinton's lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her emails for
production in 2014.
The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content
of all of her emails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information
and used search terms to try to find all work-related emails among the reportedly more than 60,000
total emails remaining on Secretary Clinton's personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their
search terms missed some work-related emails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes
of other officials or in the slack space of a server.
It is also likely that there are other work-related emails that they did not produce to State
and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all emails they did
not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete
forensic recovery.
We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that
sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not
able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has
been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection
with that sorting effort.
And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved
in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton's personal server, to staff
members with whom she corresponded on email, to those involved in the email production to State,
and finally, Secretary Clinton herself.
Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise
by hostile actors in connection with the personal email operation.
That's what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate
laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely
careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
For example, seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special
Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both
sending emails about those matters and receiving emails from others about the same matters. There
is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or
in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters,
should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to
this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret
by the US Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on email (that is, excluding the later
"up-classified" emails).
None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is
especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not
even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at departments and agencies of the US
government – or even with a commercial service like Gmail.
Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only
a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the
presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked "classified" in an email,
participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to
protect it.
While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture
of the state department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified email systems in particular,
was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.
With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence
that Secretary Clinton's personal email domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully
hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that
we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access
to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact
from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email domain
was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email
extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails
in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is
possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account.
So that's what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of Justice:
In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based
on evidence the FBI has helped collect. Although we don't normally make public our recommendations
to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with
prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence. In this case, given the
importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order.
Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified
information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily
weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength
of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of
a person's actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we
cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted
involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information;
or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct;
or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see
those things here.
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this
activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security
or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we
are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout
this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently,
honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.
I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation – including
people in government – but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all
uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only
facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn't
be prouder to be part of this organization.
"... Newly revealed emails, released via a court order in relation to a public records lawsuit filed by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, cast yet more doubts on Hillary Clinton's claim that she used a private email server while serving as secretary of state merely " for convenience ." ..."
"... You can't have it both ways, Madame Secretary. Either you didn't know the rules or you thought you were above the rules. ..."
"... Yesterday the Washington Post 's Chris Cillizza wrote that Clinton's exchange with Abedin "reads to me as though Clinton is both far more aware of the email setup and far more engaged in how it should look than she generally lets on publicly," which he describes as "deeply problematic" for a candidate so widely distrusted ( ..."
Newly revealed emails, released via a court order in relation to a
public records lawsuit filed by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, cast yet
more doubts on Hillary Clinton's claim that she used a private email server while serving as secretary
of state merely "for
convenience."
Among the 165 pages of emails released Monday, the Associated Press notes one particularly telling exchange from March 2009 between Clinton
(who had been in office barely two months) and aide Huma Abedin:
"I have just realized I have no idea how my papers are treated at State," Clinton wrote to
Abedin and a second aide. "Who manages both my personal and official files? ... I think we need
to get on this asap to be sure we know and design the system we want."
You can't have it both ways, Madame Secretary. Either you didn't know the rules or you thought
you were above the rules.
The AP adds, "In a blistering audit released last month, the State Department's inspector
general concluded Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup violated
federal records-keeping standards and could have left sensitive material vulnerable to hackers."
Reason's Peter Suderman
wrote after the report's release, "It makes clear that [Clinton] refused to play by the rules
while acting as Secretary of State-ignoring them as a point of personal privilege, and creating both
security vulnerabilities and transparency and accountability problems in the process."
Yesterday the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote that Clinton's exchange with Abedin "reads to me as
though Clinton is both far more aware of the email setup and far more engaged in how it should
look than she generally lets on publicly," which he describes as "deeply problematic" for a candidate
so widely distrusted (but not by former
New York Times editor Jill Abramson,
who inexplicably declared Clinton "fundamentally honest" in a recent
Guardian column).
"... Remember that piece by Democratic operative Dan Metcalfe about how Hillary Clinton was clearly in deep trouble with this criminal investigation and that the Dems had to come up with a Plan B for when she was indicted and would have to be replaced? ..."
"... It may be a fantasy, but it fits the Loretta/Billy/FBI facts known so far: Before the convention, Hill suddenly takes "ill" (she has a spot on her soul, er, lungs), and just can't continue campaigning. Joe Biden steps in, and is crowned as the next Prez at the convention. If Obomba has to pardon her, she will become his Marc Rich. Better to get rid of her before that need to happen. It would be the best thing he's done in eight years. ..."
"... In 2008, when Barach Obama was elected President, I cried with joy and relief. This beautiful, eloquent, principled, fearless, peace loving, family-man would stop the relentless fascist conquest of Earth (All Government owned by a small number of Super Business') . ..."
"... Eight years later and the Powerful Super Business', in their fearsome glory, are arrayed against the tiny, weak, relatively poor, comical figure of Donald Trump. History pushes forward the most unlikely heroes, in times of great need. ..."
"... I am beginning to think that Bill Clinton doesn't really want his wife to be president; maybe part of it is that her presidency would – at a minimum – put the sweet Foundation deals in jeopardy, and at a maximum, completely take the lid off that swamp of incestuous mutual enrichment, leading to who knows what? ..."
"... ""The GOP's War on Voting Is Working" [The Nation]. What a steaming load. If the Democrat Party were serious about voter registration, it would be running voter registration drives as a normal, year-round, 24/7 part of normal party function, certainly since Florida 2000. They aren't, so they don't. They would also be setting up programs to get voters IDs in states were Republicans insist on that. This talking point is classic "mean Republican" whinging, issued by a flaccid party apparatus, flat on its back, making no effort to rise.'" ..."
"... Today Hillary Clinton gets 'interviewed' by the FBI. Yesterday her best friend had a chitchat with the AG Loretta Lynch. What a coincidence. I wonder to which circle of Hell Dante would have assigned the Clintons. ..."
This takes me back to something I've been wondering about for a while. Remember that piece
by Democratic operative Dan Metcalfe about how Hillary Clinton was clearly in deep trouble with
this criminal investigation and that the Dems had to come up with a Plan B for when she was indicted
and would have to be replaced? At the time, observers pointed to the piece as a signal to establishment Dems that they had to seriously start thinking about an establishment backup to Hillary.
But I've been thinking now that maybe it was more than that. Maybe the signal was to the FBI
and the Justice Department. The gist of Metcalfe's plan was that because the nominee couldn't
be Sanders (?!), Democratic Party "leaders" would have to choose a nominee. Was this a way of
telling law enforcement and prosecutors, please, just let us get through the convention, after
which the Sanders rabble will be safely out of the way and the "responsible" people who pull the
strings in the party can decide who the nominee will be? Meaning an indictment very soon after
the convention.
The timing of when an indictment might be filed – or even Clinton being called in for an interview
where she would be forced to take the Fifth which would trigger the same effects – certainly won't
be accidental, strictly by the book, or done in a political vacuum. There's far, far, far too
much riding on it.
It may be a fantasy, but it fits the Loretta/Billy/FBI facts known so far: Before the convention, Hill suddenly takes "ill" (she has a spot on her soul, er, lungs), and
just can't continue campaigning. Joe Biden steps in, and is crowned as the next Prez at the convention. If Obomba has to pardon her, she will become his Marc Rich. Better to get rid of her before
that need to happen. It would be the best thing he's done in eight years.
In 2008, when Barach Obama was elected President, I cried with joy and relief. This beautiful,
eloquent, principled, fearless, peace loving, family-man would stop the relentless fascist conquest
of Earth (All Government owned by a small number of Super Business') .
Eight years later and the Powerful Super Business', in their fearsome glory, are arrayed against
the tiny, weak, relatively poor, comical figure of Donald Trump. History pushes forward the most unlikely heroes, in times of great need.
You all know the story/joke of the man who cried out to God to save him from the rising flood
waters.
"Upon arriving in heaven, the man marched straight over to God. "Heavenly Father," he said,
"I had faith in you, I prayed to you to save me, and yet you did nothing. Why?" God gave him a
puzzled look, and replied "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you expect?""
Maybe, Donald Trump is the man in the rowboat sent to rescue us from the rising waters?
I am beginning to think that Bill Clinton doesn't really want his wife to be president; maybe
part of it is that her presidency would – at a minimum – put the sweet Foundation deals in jeopardy,
and at a maximum, completely take the lid off that swamp of incestuous mutual enrichment, leading
to who knows what?
What I am pretty sure of, though, is that something is really rotten here; it's a smorgasbord
of corruption and likely criminal acts and Hillary ascending to the presidency is very, very threatening.
And Loretta Lynch either isn't as smart as we thought she was, or she's willing to take this
hit because she knows crimes have been committed and the foot-dragging and slow-walking are leaving
her with only rumor and innuendo – and a media and Trump willing to take that bait – to cast enough
doubt on Hillary's fitness for office that she has no choice but to step down.
""The GOP's War on Voting Is Working" [The Nation]. What a steaming load. If the Democrat Party
were serious about voter registration, it would be running voter registration drives as a normal,
year-round, 24/7 part of normal party function, certainly since Florida 2000. They aren't, so
they don't. They would also be setting up programs to get voters IDs in states were Republicans
insist on that. This talking point is classic "mean Republican" whinging, issued by a flaccid
party apparatus, flat on its back, making no effort to rise.'"
And they wouldn't have pushed ACORN over a cliff. I particularly remember Barbara Boxer giving
a shove.
And do not forget one of my favorite legislative options, the continued use of unrelated amendments
in important bills. You want to make sure people can get what they need to vote, require by federal
law that states that require ID to vote not only pay for said ID but must provide services to
help voters acquire the documentation they need for that ID AND pay for that as well. Up to but
not limited to, hiring genealogists to search records to find evidence in local and church records
when no birth certificate was created.
Today Hillary Clinton gets 'interviewed' by the FBI. Yesterday her best friend had a chitchat
with the AG Loretta Lynch. What a coincidence. I wonder to which circle of Hell Dante would have
assigned the Clintons.
"... Unless both Lynch and Clinton thought it would be a shh, secret, ..."
"... Obama pays homage to the most qualified candidate evah, whom he and Michele love like one of their own, only to find he's powerless, just powerless, because of a subordinate's foolish PR blunder, to help Hillary with that pesky investigation his AG can't go heavy on. ..."
"... What would be a good name for the American version of Kremlinologists? Beltwayologists? Wallstreetologists? Plutocratologists? ..."
But surely that "shadow" would have been obvious in advance to lawyer Lynch and (disbarred)
lawyer Clinton. So WTF?
Getting so you can't tell who's grifting whom. Unless both Lynch and Clinton thought it would
be a shh, secret, it's blazingly obvious their private-jet meetup is public relations
poison. Must've been pur-ty important, then. Makes ya wonder how treacherous Lynch and the shadowy
figures pulling her strings could be.
Obama pays homage to the most qualified candidate evah,
whom he and Michele love like one of their own, only to find he's powerless, just powerless, because
of a subordinate's foolish PR blunder, to help Hillary with that pesky investigation his AG can't
go heavy on.
Hillary Clinton was questioned on Saturday as part of the FBI's inquiry into her use of a
private e-mail server while U.S. secretary of state, a practice that's dogged her presidential
run, fueled Republican charges that she's unfit for office, and caused Clinton herself to say she
wishes she could take it back.
The roughly three-and-a-half hour meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington was confirmed by
Clinton's campaign. It threatens more turbulence for the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee days after Attorney General Loretta Lynch was criticized for meeting former President
Bill Clinton privately on an aircraft in Phoenix.
In her first comments on the interview, Clinton said on MSNBC on Saturday that she "was happy I
got the opportunity to assist the department and bring this to a conclusion." The Democrat told
NBC's Chuck Todd, though, that she had "no knowledge of any timeline" for the investigation to
conclude. "I'm not going to comment on the process," she said. "I'm not going to go into any more
detail then I already have in public many times."
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, said in an earlier e-mailed statement that Clinton's
appearance had been "voluntary."
Once it finishes its investigation, the FBI will make a recommendation to Lynch about whether to
pursue a prosecution of Clinton or her aides, guidance the attorney general said Friday that she
expects to accept. And while the holiday-weekend interview doesn't imply that the former first
lady and senator from New York faces indictment, the idea of Clinton having met with law
enforcement officers will have political consequences.
Hillary Clinton could be interviewed by the FBI in the coming days as part of an investigation
into the former secretary of state and her staff's use of private email to conduct official U.S.
State Department business, according to a source familiar with the U.S. Department of Justice's
investigation.
The Justice Department's goal is to complete the investigation and make recommendations on
whether charges should be filed before the two major party conventions take place toward the
latter half of July, the source said.
"... The question never obviously arose in the Guardian whether Obama should be endorsing a candidate under investigation -- forgetting for the moment that he previously declared her innocent. ..."
The US attorney general,
Loretta Lynch
, intends to accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and federal
agents make in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, a justice
department official said on Friday.
"The attorney general expects to receive and accept the determinations and findings of the
department's career prosecutors and investigators, as well as the FBI director," the official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
ongoing investigation
.
Lynch was expected to discuss the matter further at a summit on Friday in Aspen, Colorado.
This revelation comes amid a controversy surrounding an impromptu private discussion that
Lynch had aboard her plane on the tarmac at a Phoenix airport on Monday with Clinton's husband,
former president Bill Clinton. That get-together has been criticized as inappropriate by
Republicans and some Democrats at a time when the justice department has been investigating
whether classified information was mishandled through Clinton's exclusive use of a private email
server while she was secretary of state.
Lynch was expected to discuss the matter further at a summit on Friday in Aspen, Colorado.
This revelation comes amid a controversy surrounding an impromptu private discussion that
Lynch had aboard her plane on the tarmac at a Phoenix airport on Monday with Clinton's husband,
former president Bill Clinton. That get-together has been criticized as inappropriate by
Republicans and some Democrats at a time when the justice department has been investigating
whether classified information was mishandled through Clinton's exclusive use of a private email
server while she was secretary of state.
Lynch told reporters that she and Bill Clinton did not discuss the email investigation during
the encounter.
Did Chickenshit Cheney recuse himself from oil policies after he had secret meetings
with oil companies during the administration of his puppet the Texas Moron? No!
Do conspiracy mongers have any proof or evidence that Ms. Lynch discussed email
matters with president Clinton? Of course not! just plain b.s.
The question never obviously arose in the Guardian whether Obama should be endorsing a
candidate under investigation -- forgetting for the moment that he previously declared her
innocent.
Now we know why both Hillary and her patron President Obama have been so complacent about
the outcome of the FBI investigation. Loretta Lynch, who made clear her political edge
during her confirmation hearing, would decide to indict or ignore or minimise. And the
decision would be in line with Obama's nod.
In Loretta Lynch's own words, her private conversation with Bill Clinton, the Foundation
man, had 2 dimensions. She has described the primary dimension; she has been silent about
the secondary one.
What was secondary to Lynch might have been primary to Clinton.
I just read the NY Times article of the same title and they have airbrushed her "primarily
social" comment by Lynch concerning her meeting (why the qualification?)", leaving intact
her claim they talked about grandkids and travel (thereby giving the impression that she
said that was all they talked about). Interestingly, the FBI, at the airport went around
strongarming journalists not to take any pictures of the meeting.
Do you have a link for this "strong arming" that allegedly took place? Was it Clinton's
security detail? Yesterday, I read that Clinton knew Lynch's schedule and maneuvered his
schedule so that he was on the tarmac at the same time as Lynch so he could force a
meeting. Arizona is friendly territory for the Clintons.
The one point every one is "Glossing Over" is that if the Clinton Server and E-mail
account was the "Official" Secretary of States E-mail... That makes all E-mail on
that Account subject to the "Freedom of Information Act" Hillary has No Right to Pick
and Choose"...
The Court Needs to decide what is irrelevant not Hillary....
except her private email which was supposedly deleted and lost will be difficult to make
public.. Hopefully Assange, Guccifer 2.0 or others will do so. Ask yourself why Clinton
would have deleted those emails and not made a backup..just makes no sense.
"I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation
conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI-not just in this case but in
any case," President Obama said in an
interview with Fox News this past April. Despite his repeated claims of not
influencing the Department of Justice and FBI investigation into
Hillary Clinton's private email server scandal, Obama has helped shield her
throughout the fiasco.
The White House has protected Clinton's emails with the most potential to
incriminate or impugn Clinton's self-portrayed public image. In October 2015,
the Obama Administration
blocked the release of emails between Clinton (while she served as
secretary of state) and the president, citing the need to keep
such communications confidential. Recently, the Obama Administration also blocked
the State Department's release of emails from Clinton regarding the
controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership after it had promised to fulfill a
Freedom of Information Act Request to IBTimes earlier this year. The request
will now allegedly not be completed until after the general election in late
November.
"The delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a court
motion to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to
more quickly comply with open records requests for Clinton-era State Department
documents,"
reported David Sirota of IBTimes.
Hillary Clinton's involvement with the Trans-Pacific Partnership is riddled
with hypocrisy. As secretary of state, Clinton
helped move TPP negotiations along. However, she avoided taking a position
on TPP for the first few months of her 2016 presidential campaign-until Bernie
Sanders' staunch opposition to
the deal forced Clinton to risk losing highly coveted
endorsements from labor unions who strongly oppose it. Politifact
rated Clinton's switch as a full flip-flop.
Despite holding back an endorsement during the Democratic primaries, Obama
hasn't made much effort to
hide where his favoritism lies. The Clinton campaign recently
claimedObama
will be releasing an endorsement for
Hillary
Clinton very soon. This came shortly after Obama reaffirmed
his endorsement of DNC chair
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who faces growing calls for resignation from
Sanders supporters and a strong Democratic primary opponent in
Tim Canova.
In January 2016, Obama condescendingly referred to
Sanders and his unexpected challenge to Clinton's coronation as a "bright,
shiny object," in an
interview with Politico.
"If Bernie Sanders' campaign has proven anything, it is that there are
millions of citizens who are engaged, invested and closely scrutinizing the
policy positions of all of the candidates in the electoral field,"
countered Harry Jaffe for The Guardian. "If Sanders can bring new
voters to the polls with his message of authenticity and empowerment-as he
seems to be doing-that's a testament to the power of his words rather than
their shiny quality."
If
Bernie Sanders was under investigation by the FBI and Department of
Justice, it is doubtful Obama would be jumping to his defense as he has
repeatedly done for
Hillary
Clinton. "She would never intentionally put America in any kind of
jeopardy," he
told Fox News in April 2016, while simultaneously guaranteeing he wouldn't
interfere with the investigation. But by making a judgment at all on Clinton's
private server use, he is intervening-especially by affirming Clinton
had no
intent, which is vital to determine criminal liability in this case.
Obama, like many of his Democratic colleagues who overwhelmingly support
Clinton, were downplaying the
private
email server investigation as frivolous, until the recent
report from the State Department Inspector General illuminated the blatant
lies
Clinton has been telling the public for over a year. She never received
authorization for using a private
email server and broke federal record laws by not preserving and turning
over her records to the State Department when she left office. Shortly after
the report was released, Obama dodged
a question at a press conference in Japan, refusing to provide an answer at
all, instead telling reporters such questions should be directed to the
Clinton and Sanders campaigns-which is what he should have been doing all
along.
Just as
Hillary Clinton has depended on Obama whenever she was cornered in a debate
and needed help diverting an issue, she is now depending on him to get through
the FBI and Department of Justice
investigation long enough to get to become president-at which point there
will be no chance of serving the indictment her actions certainly warrant.
"What we already know about her
security infractions should disqualify her for any government position that
deals in information critical to mission success, domestic or foreign," wrote
Philip Jennings in an
op-ed for USA Today. "But beyond that, her responses to being
found out-dismissing
its importance, claiming
ignorance,
blaming others-indict her beyond anything the investigation can reveal.
Those elements reveal her character. And the saddest thing is so many Americans
seem not to care."
Dropped charges against a uniformed
Black Panter carrying a billy club at a
voting place. The case was all but done.
ObamaCo came in and dropped all charges.
Like
·
Reply
·
145
·
Jun 7, 2016 12:21pm
Walter Riley
·
Grand Island, New York
The President
is inexorably tied to the Clinton
private server, and now working behind
the scenes to force Bernie from the race
before the Democratic convention. The
strategy? Should word leak that Hillary
is recommended for indictment, the
establishment will be able to install
its own establishment choice (not
Bernie). Really sleazy!
Hillary is evil enough to have set the
President up by sending and receiving
from him information that is potentially
damaging to the country's security. This
is a tactic used by common criminals to
lure unsuspecting persons into a trap of
having committed a crime and suddenly
begins to suffer the 'in-to-deep', and
the 'let's overlook it for now'
syndrome, and the consequences will
somehow simply be forgotten and go away.
Bottom line, the President of the United
States is being blackmailed by the
Secretary of state and her husband Bill
Clinton.
If the POTUS had classified e-mail
exchanges with the SOS, he (the POTUS)
has been naively sucked in, and Hillary
is constantly free to imply everyone
knew (inferring the POTUS as well) and,
hence she gets a free ride. The FBI
should give special attention to this
likely possibility. Bill and Hillary has
been at this game forever, and there is
no reason to calculate otherwise.
HOW ELSE CAN SHE SAY WITH SUCH
CONVICTION, "IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN'!
Our POTUS has his ass in a bind. The FBI
cannot help but conclude that, many in
the White House (and perhaps the
President himself) knew this e-mail
address was not secure!
Where the President had been too
compliant, he now finds himself too
complicit.
It's no wonder how the broadest spectrum
of Social Media is 5 to 1 in support of
Bernie, and the ballot box ends up a
vote or two in favor of Hillary? BERNIE
OR BUST!
Richard Davidson
·
The University of Michigan
Impeachment requires
only a majority of the House, but
removal requires a two thirds vote of
the Senate. It failed to happen the last
two times a president was impeached, and
it certainly would fail again against
Hillary.
BTW, impeachment is not a criminal or
civil matter, but a political one.
Theresa M Brown
·
Works at
Freelance new build/home renovation
designer
Walter Riley - at
some point, if Bernie doesn't, Trump
will force the hand of the crooks up in
Washington - when that happens -
Americans will probably have their one
chance to uninfest this country of the
new world order
Joe Clark ·
Works at
Retired
I think many millions of Americans do
care about Hillary's past indiscretions but feel helpless
to stop her progress given the influence of the political
elite who throw millions of dollars her way knowing they
all will eventually be rewarded for their support. Hillary
Clinton is as corrupt as any politician I have ever seen
in my lifetime; even more dangerous than Richard Nixon.
America will pay dearly if see is somehow elected
president.
Anita Katleen Ruggles-Zigmont
·
Haddon Heights High School
Obama can claim all he wants that
there has been no political influence used by him or the
DOJ. It's like all the other lies he tells and of course
while keeping a straight face. Like I have said many times
now, if some poor GI had mishanlded classified material or
put it on a private server, he would have been tried,
convicted and still sitting in some Federal Prison, before
you could say Obama! Wake up people, she put the safety of
the USA on the line, with her blantant disregard for
established rules on handling classified materials! How
can she be trusted in the White House?
Charles DeJoseph
·
Sr. Airframe Mech at Sikorsky Aircraft.
at
Where do you work
This President and his administration
are the worst obstuctionists in our history. The only
reason he wasn't impeached was because of the fear
Congress had of the riots in the streets that would have
ensued, from the minorities and possible bloodshed from
the victims of the riots who would finally arm them selves
cause they've had enough of their buisnesses being burned
down and their families threatened.
Frank Ciurca ·
University of Maryland, College Park
She has broken so many Federal Laws
it's ridiculous. Then Obama's henchmen went after General
Petraeus for arguably much less. Now this corrupt
Administration, the worse since Nixon, is protecting
Clinton. Patraeus as an honorable person admitted to his
wrong doing. Clinton has no problem lying, after all she's
related to another liar.
Steve Taylor
Obama is complicit in the Clinton
corruption and lies. He should be impeached, imprisoned
and deported if he is ever released. If he is found guilty
of treason he should be publicly executed by firing squad.
Perry Rondou ·
UW Whitewater
Is this the as advertised 'Most
transparent Administration'? Hah, the bunch of lib
hypocrites. The republicans have a much better candidate
than the convict and the socialist. The left is intent on
giving illegals everything in exchange for their votes,
and turning us into Greece or Venezuela. Hell, obama and
the hollywood left love Ortega.
Richard McDonald
·
Jacksonville, Florida
The "most transparent
administration", yeah, right! We can see right through
Obama, what his agenda is and was from Day one when he was
"ready to rule" as Ms. Jarrett so specifically put it. He
has not been a "President of the people", he's been many
things while in office, but, clearly, not a President.
His entire administration was built on lies and deceit,
with divisiveness thrown in for good measure. Everything
he has touched, from Solyndra to shovel ready, to the
automobile companies to our healthcare has turned to a
pile of dog feces and he's been behind it all, and more.
He chose the most inept people to run critical cabinet
departments.
Hillary was, perhaps, the worst of all. She claims abject
failures as "accomplishments" and is too stupid to
understand the difference. From her meddling in Lybia to
the Egyptian "spring" debacle. She cannot account for $ 6
Billion in cash that went missing on her watch that was in
Iraq and Afghan safes that were under the watchful eye of
the CIA and others. As long as she got her cut, doesn't
care.
Barack Hussein Obama, the one man wrecking crew of a
nation.
Alice Gaunt ·
Phoenix Union High School, Phoenix, AZ
Wake up people!!!!!! She lied directly
to the families of the Benghazi victims along with all the
other lies she's told!!!!! She blamed the women that Bill
sexually abused and yet she says shes all for women's
rights?!?!?!?! This woman is as corrupt if not moreso as
the Obama administration and the only reaon he's covering
for her as he knows he can control her if she's
elected!!!!!! He'll be calling in all these "favors" hes
giving her now sooner or later. We really don't want nor
need another ace liar in the WH!!!!!! God help us if this
corrupt bit*ch gets electd!!!!!!
Lee Abbamondi ·
Goldenwest, Huntington Beach, California
She has condemned herself...She
obstucted this investigation. We know she destroyed
documents conerning Top Secret e-mails sent over her
server. She sent her computer to a company in Texas to
have it cleaned. Check U.S. Code Title 18 Section 2017. If
she destroyed any government documents she cannot hold any
government office--EVER. She gets 3-yuears in prison and I
want to see her and billy-boy in those orange jumpsuits
for the fraud of the Clinton Foundation. Based on her
record as Secretary of State---what did she accomplish
other than have Russia buy our uranium for a $50M donation
to the Foundation through Canada along with the
Arab Countries give hundred of millions----she was working
for herself and not the country. And as far as her doing
things for women----name one. Words. Words. Words. Every
time she opens her mouth, you can smell what she has been
eating. Wait to see how much more the muslim in the White
House will do to save her arse. And she has had her face
lifted so many times she has hair on her chest. One more
time and she'll have a mustache or that could be something
she has been diving.
Thomas Schanher
·
Works at
Retired
When are all you people going to
realize that this is all part of Barry's plan. He'll save
Billary & Butthead from embarassment & prison, fix the
November elections for that witch like he did for himself,
all in exchange for her nominating Barry to the Supreme
Court. Ever wonder why Barry says he's not leaving
Washington DC? It's all part of his ongoing masterplan to
ruin America, something he's done a good job of doing for
the past 7 1/2 years. Without a Trump election in
November, we're all in trouble!!
Charles Smith ·
The
Ohio State University
Benghazi got burried in the shredder.
Fast & Furious did not get investigated. Hillary's Emails
what was left of them have not been gone through by Lynch.
The Black Panthers refusing to let White voters in
Philliadelpha vote in 2008. That was filmed voice and all
Holder refused to prosecute. The federal Government
brought a huge injustice to a MR Finican in Oregon. They
killed MR Finican in Col Blooded Murder and for a topper
shot him in the head after they knew he was dead. The
umjust department of unjust bussed Blacks from Orlando to
get the Police chief fired. Then tried to influence a jury
to convict an innocent Zimmerman for killing Martin.
Matthew Graff ·
Various
So Trump may be a buffoon, but what
does that say about Hillary and Obama - liars to the core.
Sorry, can't vote democrat, they're basicaly unamerican in
every way shape and form.
Joe Butler ·
Las Vegas, Nevada
It would be hard to explain why Obama
did nothing to inform Clinton not to use a private server
when she corresponded with him via email. Both are
culpable. Covering her butt is Obama just covering
himself.
Shirley Allan ·
Administrative Assistant at
Dr. Perry Mueller
She talkes of honesty, doing the right
thing for the people etc., etc. - she needs to be held
responsible NOW before this election stuff goes further -
whether others have done anything similar doesn't matter -
it is NOW AND NOW - you can't simply do wrong and then
expect the average person to respect and vote for her - I
don't trust any of the candidates running, but what
choices do we have really? Our earth will end soon just
watch the weather changes - people are in panic mode -
people lie to get our attention. I feel each candidate
should live in our WORLD and walk in our SHOES for few
months just to get an idea of what we the average person
goes through and the conflicts and hardships we all go
through and then maybe we can get on track - The President
needs to do the correct thing !!
Woody Nelson
Obama has become appalling. I hate to
make this observation but blacks just don't recognize
criminal activity. Obama has supported the thugs Trayvon
Marting and Michael Brown while throwing our police
departments under the bus. Eric Holder with Obama's nod
illegally sold guns to gang members, etc. Now he doesn't
recognize the criminality of Hillary Clinton. I worked for
DoD for over 20 years and retired and while I was employed
we had annual mandatory training about handling classified
materials and the legal repercussions of violating any of
these U.S. codes and laws governing classified material.
We also had very strict guidelines governing telework. At
no time were we allowed to do government business on
personal or home accounts. All business was conducted
through a government firewall. Hillary without a doubt
violated some of the codes and laws and should be held
accountable in the same manner I would have been held
accountable had I violated any of these.
Lee Allen
·
Riverside, California
If you would have
seen the Documentary that came out,
wayback when AKA BARRY SOTORO decided to
run for PREZ. It was entitled, Obama's
America 2016.Denesh Desousa producted
it. Everything that was said in th film,
has come true. An,he is getting ready to
release one on the Clintons, soon.
Roger Rocky Scobey
Obama has lied about everything. He
promised to have the most transparent administration ever
but he lied. He promised to close Guantanamo, but lied. He
lied that the IRS was not targeting conservatives groups.
He lied about selling guns to the Mexican drug cartels, he
lied about Obamacare not being a tax. He lied about the
Iran Nuclear deal. He lied about blaming a youtube video
for the killing of our Ambasador in Benghazi. Etc., etc..
His lies are too many to list.
Jason Hadley ·
Louisiana Tech University
The President should be charged with
"obstruction of justice". Any common place citizan would
be. this country has become so caulis that they dont even
see or care that our goverment has become so corrupt and
dagerously strong that eventually we will lose all our
freedoms and we will cease to be The United States of
America.
Terry Foster
The headline needs to be corrected .
Obama's Latest Attempt to "OBSTRUCT" JUSTICE "and Save
Clinton From Indictment !!! That illegitimate ,low life
,lawless fool crackhead obama has been the mos corrupt ,incompetent,most
destructive,most divisive and up till now ,the most
unqualified fraud ever installed in our White House !!!
Joseph Kaminski
No one in governmnet has the courage,
or desire to charge obama with his crimes, or clinton with
hers. NONE, because they are all as corrupt as him and
her. they are all criminals. Instead they attempt to tell
Americans lies that even a child would not believe. The
entire world is looking on in shock and disbelief , and
when it wears off they will themselves decide to expand
their own corrupt crimess and be like the USA, since
Julie Hardaway
·
Aiken, South Carolina
The writer is mistaken in this
statemtn: "But by making a judgment at all on Clinton's
private server use, he is intervening-especially by
affirming Clinton had no intent, which is vital to
determine criminal liability in this case." In fact, the
Espionage law does NOT require intent for guilt. Gross
negligence is quite sufficient. Not that it matters, since
we now see that the Clinton-Obama Democrats--not the
Sanders Dems--don't give a damn about "equal justice under
(snicker) law." THe law, as Hillary's alter-ego Leona
Helmsley so colorfully put it, "is for little people."
That means you and me.
Gail Newman
America always gets the
president we deserve. Why do we deserve Clinton? It's not
our fault. Public schooling was intentionally designed to
shut off critical thinking and independent thought. It's
all documented. It was NEVER meant to educate, though
Johann Ficht's documents say that SOME education is
inevitable, but that's not the purpose of schooling. It
said that history should never teach facts, but should
teach patriotic themes. That's how so many American don't
have a clue that the Supreme Court conducted a coup d'etat
in 1819 and it threw out the Constitution and our
Constitutional Republic - replacing it with a common law
government (the 1st 2 reasons given in the Dec. of
Independence for breakinig with England). Until we get the
real truth about our own history into public knowledge, we
are doomed. OUr economic paradigm is directly responsible
for every social/political/ecological problem we have, but
that isn't taught in schools either. The end of human life
on earth is much closer to us than most dare imagine. And
that indoctrination / programmiing given us in public
schools is why we have a Clinton and a Trump today.
America must join in a Learn-In .
Thomas Bryan · Medellín, Colombia
Obama will always have a go-between so he never is directly held reponsible for his actions,
remember all the statements....I didn't know anything until I saw it on the news. He's 100% lying
traitor to the American People. Who else has the authority to hender evidence in a Federal
Investigation, Duh
Clifford Fargason
Failure to safeguard classified information is illegal regardless of intent. For example, Gen
Petraus, Eric Snowden, and PFC Manning were all convicted for mishandling classified information.
In Gen Petraus's case he shared information with an individual who had the appropriate clearance
level but not "need to know."
Cheryl Gumulauski
·
Coupeville, Washington
Wow, Nixon tried this with is tapes
and lost. Time to file a suit for them and have the courts
order Obama hand them over. They are not his, but belong
to the government unless classified and a special judge
has to sign off on that. Political embarrassment is not
justification for classification, as the case for the
Pentegon papaers proved.
Randy Vandegrift
In mishandling classified materials,
hillary is either stupid, incompetent or hiding something,
and I would postulate that she is guilty of all 3. She is
stupid because we now know that some hacker, and Putin,
have her emails; incompetent because she did not protect
classified materials placing people and operations at
risk, going so far as to direct someone to remove the
classification markings and fax some classified materials
over an unsecured fax line; and hiding something because,
as we now know, she did not want them subject to FOIA
(maybe selling her influence as Sec'y of State for
donations to a Clinton Foundation; colluding on the
elections; or post your own thoughts). As a former federal
contractor, I know that had I or any of my colleagues done
what she did, we would have been fired immediately and
facing serious federal charges including signficant prison
time.
Mark Foster ·
Escambia High School
If you believe that then I want to
sell you some land in FL, come see it at low tide:)
Let your vote be counted, let's make America rich and
great again, because now that Obama is almost out of
office and running up the national debt from 10 Trillion
to 20 Trillion maybe a real business man can accomplish
something great for America?
Fran Ferreira
I would love to see the "dirt" the
Clinton's have on Obama. We all know Obama hates the
Clintons and for him to continue covering her butt it must
be good. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when those two get
together.
Alan Jones ·
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
First of all, if Obama has to stand
there and say "I guarantee that there is no political
influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice
Department" chances are political influence has already
been exercised. That's just like Slick Willy saying "I
never had sex with that woman".
Like ·
Reply ·
Jun 7, 2016 1:55pm
Ed Ernst ·
DePaul University
I truly believe that this entire
administration is re-writing the old hand book "lying for
Dummies"!! Every department is so full of crap, from the
Administration, to the IRS, to the EPA, to the Justice
Dept., and the Veterans Administration that they no longer
would know the truth if it bit them in the arse!!! This is
why that lyin', scumbag, schemin', PHONY of a human being
hil-airous cling-on can't be elected president.
Like ·
Reply ·
Jun 8, 2016 4:23am
Eric Park
How can we collectively get the
message to James Comey, Director of the FBI....Sir, if you
have or have not discovered sufficient evidence to
justifyt indictment of ex-Sec of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton, we the American voters believe you have an
obligation to us to reach your conclusion and publicly
recommend or not recommend indictment by the Dept of
Justice. Please, sir, let us go into this critical
Presidential election fully informed. Should the evidence
support indictment (be it violation of FOIA and record
keeping, ala private servers, or selling govt access via
the Clinton Foundatio ... See
More
Like ·
Reply ·
1
·
Jun 7, 2016 1:19pm
Jenny Racine York Lloyd
Obama and both Clintons should
probably all be in jail but the truth will never be
believed or acted upon. Power-mongers and greed-filled.
They will answer to a much high power some day.
Thomas Topmiller
·
Works at
Retired
The democrats don't seem to care about
Hillary's moral character, only Trump's. Hillary will have
Obama intervening for her and Obama will tell the justice
dept. not to prosecute her. I can only hope that the fbi
will blow the whistle when Obama interfers. There was s no
doubt that Obama will interfere, it's just a matter of
when. Everybody knows the clintons and obama's are in bed
together.
Joseph Stretanski
·
Stamford, Connecticut
Hope and Change
Eight years ago we were sold a bill of goods called "Hope
and Change".
Eight years ago we were a nation of laws.
In fact, Obama took an oath of office to abide by the laws
of this land and the constitution.
Today, we are re-writing laws after they are passed (Obamacare).
Today, the President is implementing laws he likes and
ignoring those he doesn't.
Today , the President is making laws and ignoring the will
of the people who made the House and the Senate Republican
to prevent the President from continuing his assault on
the laws and the constitution of this nation.
Today, judges are ruling against the President for his
immigration executive orders.
Today, the Presidents economic policies and the use of
excessive regulations and the Govt. agencies, such as the
EPA, has resulted in anemic growth and the lowest labor
participation rate in 30 years.
However, if you exist in Obamaland, none of this is true.
Granted the "Change" part is true. However, today 62% of
the public thinks it is in the wrong direction. A fact
that the President, and also, his close associates ignore.
I would say it is time to reverse the current direction.
Andrew Martinson
Barack "the pathological and
sociopathic liar" Obama; the same liar who has been proven
to have known he was lying when he told us over and over
and over again ad nauseam "if you like your doctor, you
can keep your doctor" ... and "if you like your insurance
plan, you can keep your insurance plan" ... and "the
average American family will save $2500 on their health
insurance" ... and not to be forgotten;
"there's not even a smidgeon of corruptness in the I R S".
More and more and more lies by the Barack "the
pathological and sociopathic liar" Obama. THAT will be his
legacy.
"... But former US attorney Joseph DiGenova is blunt: "I don't think there's any question Mrs Clinton and her staff broke the law. She maintained a server in her private home in Chappaqua, New York, and conducted government business. This clearly was beyond gross negligence. ..."
"... "When she set up the server, the intent was to avoid accountability. There is no other intent required. The notion this is not a violation of the law is ludicrous. If she and her staff get a pass, there will be hell to pay in the intelligence community." ..."
"... Innocent until proven guilty, she would not be legally barred from running for president. Handy draws parallels with Sheldon Silver , the former speaker of the New York assembly who last month was jailed for 12 years for corruption. ..."
"... The political, media and public pressure on Clinton might be overwhelming, however, making her candidacy untenable and prompting a sensational, unprecedented and humiliating withdrawal. ..."
"... Cox adds: "If charges came down before the convention, it would raise questions over whether the Democratic party really wanted to proceed with a nominee facing criminal charges but, again, I think it is very unlikely that is going to happen." ..."
As an FBI investigation continues, expert opinion is divided. Some offer a view reminiscent of
Bill Clinton's famous remark that he experimented with marijuana but "didn't inhale".
... ... ...
State department and intelligence officials have identified 2,093 email chains from Clinton's
server as containing classified information. Twenty-two were deemed so highly classified that
they were withheld from release to the public. Clinton contends that none of the messages was
marked classified at the time.
But former US attorney Joseph DiGenova is blunt: "I don't think there's any question Mrs
Clinton and her staff broke the law. She maintained a server in her private home in Chappaqua,
New York, and conducted government business. This clearly was beyond gross negligence.
"When she set up the server, the intent was to avoid accountability. There is no other
intent required. The notion this is not a violation of the law is ludicrous. If she and her staff
get a pass, there will be hell to pay in the intelligence community."
... ... ...
If Clinton is indicted, what would happen?
Innocent until proven guilty, she would not be legally barred from running for president.
Handy draws parallels with
Sheldon Silver, the former speaker of the New York assembly who last month was jailed for 12
years for corruption.
"I would hope that she would step down but even given Shelly Silvers' indictment, it took
tremendous pressure to get him to step down as speaker. Even if there were an indictment, I don't
know if she would step aside. I would hope someone indicted would say, 'For the good of the
party, for the good of the nation.' But her supporters would probably say, 'She deserves her day
in court'."
While she would not be arrested, experts say, she would normally be expected to appear in
court. The optics would be disastrous for a would be commander-in-chief but she could apply to
have the charges dismissed or plead to a minor dismeanour in the hope that it would not
necessarily disqualify her.
The political, media and public pressure on Clinton might be overwhelming, however, making
her candidacy untenable and prompting a sensational, unprecedented and humiliating withdrawal.
Stewart says: "I don't know how you couldn't pull out, especially for something like this
involving national security."
Cox adds: "If charges came down before the convention, it would raise questions over
whether the Democratic party really wanted to proceed with a nominee facing criminal charges but,
again, I think it is very unlikely that is going to happen."
But what if she is forced to pull out?
The Democratic party's charter and bylaws state that responsibility for finding a replacement
nominee would fall to the Democratic National Committee, but the rules do not specify exactly how
this would be done.
Sanders would presumably claim that he should inherit the mantle of nominee after pushing
Clinton close in the primaries and earning the right to face Donald Trump. Indeed, it has been
speculated that the
Vermont senator has clung on so long in case the FBI investigation proves a cataclysmic event
for the former first lady and a gamechanger for him.
This just one case of Clinton's family corruption and probably not the most outrageous one. It is
now more clear why she deleted so many emails. Clinton faces many questions about whether she helped
her family foundation collect millions of dollars from questionable people, countries and organizations
when she was secretary of state.
Notable quotes:
"... A major Democratic donor personally lobbied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office for a seat on a sensitive government intelligence board, telling one of her closest aides that if appointed he would make Clinton "look good." ..."
"... The emails shed new light on how Fernando got a spot on the International Security Advisory Board . He resigned in 2011, days after his appointment and after his selection was questioned. ..."
"... In recent weeks, emails obtained by Citizens United show the appointment perplexed the State Department's professional staff, according to ABC News , and that dozens of State Department officials worked overtime to quickly obtain Fernando's security clearance, according to Fox News . ..."
"... Reines appeared to mock the appointment by responding to Samuelson: "Not the most compelling response I've ever seen since it's such a dense topic the board resolves around. Couldn't he have landed a spot on the President's Physical Fitness Council?" ..."
Rajiv Fernando lobbied top Clinton aide for a seat on sensitive intelligence board. He had
little experience in the field and resigned after appointment was scrutinized. The Chicago businessman
donated to Clinton, Obama and the Clinton Foundation.
A major Democratic donor personally lobbied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office
for a seat on a sensitive government intelligence board, telling one of her closest aides that if
appointed he would make Clinton "look good."
Rajiv Fernando acknowledged that he may not have
the experience to sit on a board that would allow him the highest levels of top-secret access, but
he assured deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin in newly released 2009 emails that he was talking to
two professors who were "getting me up to speed on the academics behind the field."
Fernando, who contributed to Clinton, her
family's foundation and Barack Obama,
described himself as one of "Hillary's people" and mentioned that he recently had sent an ailing
Clinton flowers to wish her a speedy recovery.
The emails shed new light on how Fernando got a spot on the
International Security Advisory Board.
He resigned in 2011, days after his appointment and after his selection was questioned.
... ... ...
In recent weeks, emails obtained by Citizens United show the appointment perplexed the State
Department's professional staff, according to
ABC News, and that dozens of State Department officials worked overtime to quickly obtain Fernando's
security clearance, according to
Fox News.
Reines
appeared to mock the appointment by responding to Samuelson: "Not the most compelling response
I've ever seen since it's such a dense topic the board resolves around. Couldn't he have landed a
spot on the President's Physical Fitness Council?"
Fernando founded Chopper Trading, a high-frequency trading firm that was acquired by the Chicago
firm DRW Trading Group in 2015. In an economic speech last year, Clinton criticized high-frequency
traders. Providence, Rhode Island, sued Chopper Trading and other financial companies, charging they'd
defrauded the city, which managed funds for its employees.
"... Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. ..."
"... The weapons shipped from Libya to Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea - 125mm and 200ea - 1[55 mm]. ..."
WARNING: (U) THIS IS AN INFORMATION REPORT. NOT FINALLY EVALUATED
INTELLIGENCE. REPORT CLASSIFIED SECRET//NOFORN .
TEXT: 1. ( S//NF ) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Weapons from the former Libya
military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to
the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons
shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm
and 155mm howitzers missiles.
2.( S//NF }During Ihe immediate altermath of, and following the
uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in
October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the
former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were
shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and
the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to
the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The
ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to
hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo. (NFI)
3. ( S//NF ) The weapons shipped from Libya to Syria during late-August
2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers
missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500
Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and
approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea - 125mm and 200ea - 1[55
mm].
(b)(1) Sec. 1. 4(c).(b)(3): 10§USC 424,(b)(3):50§USC 3024(i)
REDACTED
CLASSIFIED
Finally, there is official confirmation of what has been rumored for years: President
Obama, his White House, and Hillary Clinton and her State Department knew that
weapons were being shipped from Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. Those "rebels"
were largely al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood extremist factions, according to
corroborating documents.
Below is a gem of an intelligence cable we unearthed from the Defense Intelligence
Agency dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, courtesy of
Judicial Watch's stacks of ongoing FOIA litigation. Absent wholesale redaction, this
could prove to be a smoking gun finally exhibiting what the United States was doing
in Benghazi prior to the Jihadists attacks on the U.S. consulate and then-secret CIA
annex just miles away.
"... Surely, The State Department had an enterprise-grade email solution in place in 2013. We can only hope that Clinton protected her personal accounts with something more sophisticated than "Chelsea1980". ..."
"... 52% of IT executives said they don't have processes in place to manage outside sources, such as Dropbox in Vision Solutions' 2015 State of Resilience Report . Meanwhile, 70% of employees that use Dropbox do so solely for work, according to a 2013 Forrester report, and shadow IT appeared as a concern for the first time in the 2015 SIM IT Trends Study . ..."
"... Former FBI Director Robert Mueller said in 2012, "There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be." ..."
"... What kind of security risks does shadow IT create for your organisation? What happens when an employee uses the same password for both personal and enterprise accounts and hackers target that person's personal account? ..."
"... Their low-security Google Drive password just created a big headache for your organisation. ..."
"... Sourced from Bob Dvorak, founder and president, ..."
Consumer-grade and insecure applications can make headlines – and not in a good way
...This revelation should have public and private sector IT pros questioning their policies and practice
around shadow IT – those programs outside of the formal control of the information technology department.
The Times wrote: "Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National
Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach."
Surely, The State Department had an enterprise-grade email solution in place in 2013. We can
only hope that Clinton protected her personal accounts with something more sophisticated than "Chelsea1980".
IT has an important job, and keeping tabs on the personal email accounts of executives or high-ranking
officials should be the least of their worries. However, with 783 reported data breaches in 2014,
according to
The Identity Theft Resources Center, shadow IT is a strategic IT issue that is too important
to ignore.
The topic raises an important issue around policy and practice of shadow IT, individual or departmental
use of consumer-grade applications, such as personal email accounts, and cloud storage, departmental
(or individual) SaaS accounts, even employee social media activity. All fall within this category
in an age where the lines between work life and personal life are increasingly blurred.
While there may be individual, departmental or even organisational benefits to some elements of
shadow IT, there are both operational and security risks associated with it and professionals' use
of consumer grade tools for email, cloud storage and other services. CIOs and IT leaders need to
be vigilant in developing, instituting and enforcing corporate IT governance policies and procedures.
52% of IT executives said they don't have processes in place to manage outside sources, such
as Dropbox in Vision Solutions'
2015 State of Resilience Report. Meanwhile, 70% of employees that use Dropbox do so
solely for work, according to a 2013
Forresterreport, and shadow IT appeared as a concern for the first time in the
2015 SIM IT Trends Study.
...Gartner reported in its 2015
CIO Agenda that shadow IT consumes as much as 20% of a company's IT resources and, for
the first time, respondents to the SIM IT Trends Study included shadow IT among their list of management
concerns.
So what happens when Dropbox experiences
downtime, as it did in January of last year? How do businesses react? What happens to
the customer data, financial data or important documents they stored there?
When nearly two-thirds of organisations using the cloud reported not having HA or DR solutions
for their enterprise applications, according to Vision Solutions, you can imagine how low the number
must be for companies actively able to recover from, or are even monitoring, employee activity in
the cloud.
The small matter of security
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller said in 2012, "There are only two types of companies: those
that have been hacked and those that will be."
What kind of security risks does shadow IT create for your organisation? What happens when an
employee uses the same password for both personal and enterprise accounts and hackers target that
person's personal account?
Their low-security Google Drive password just created a big headache for your organisation.
You may not face a public records request that brings the specter of shadow IT in your organisation
to light, but publicly traded corporations have internal control requirements to consider and private
companies are notoriously protective of their intellectual property and confidential information.
All it takes is one instance and your company can be front-page news – and not in a good way.
Sourced from Bob Dvorak, founder and president, KillerIT
"... Now let's strip away all the politics, sniping and legality over Clinton's email practices. What you have is shadow IT for official business and a State Department without the IT clout to stop it. You could argue with all the NSA snooping that Clinton's own email infrastructure was warranted. ..."
"... Security issues often are tossed aside for convenience. For Clinton it was a homemade email server. For the rest of us it's a personal cloud storage account. ..."
"... In the end, the Clinton email flap will play out for months. There will be hearings and non-stop election coverage about it. Just keep in mind what you're witnessing is shadow IT at a grand scale ..."
Hillary Rodham Clinton is in
one big email mess, but if you zoom out and look at her as any other employee you have a leading
example of shadow IT at play.
Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly ran her own email server out of her house and now is in the middle
of political firestorm. For our purposes, Clinton has provided us with the most high-profile case
of shadow IT practices. And the first lesson of shadow IT is that the techies aren't going to push
around the top execs. For the folks in business tech, the concept of shadow IT isn't exactly new.
You're the CIO. Your other C-level peers have had their own cloud services provisioned for years.
Developers have Amazon's cloud on a corporate Amex. It started with an innocuous printer under a
desk. Then went to a server. Then smartphones to cloud services. People bring their own devices,
apps and business practices with them to work.
Hell, the poor CIO is just finding out about some of these things.
Enter Clinton.
According to the Associated Press, Clinton ran her own email as a Cabinet-level official. Enter
records laws and all sorts of concerns. On the bright side, Clinton at least wasn't using a public
email server. She at least earns some techie props for that.
Now let's strip away all the politics, sniping and legality over Clinton's email practices.
What you have is shadow IT for official business and a State Department
without the IT clout to stop it. You could argue with all the NSA snooping that Clinton's own
email infrastructure was warranted.
Boil this down to Clinton as an employee and you have the following.
Clinton was a top exec and those folks often get to push IT around. How do you think the iPad
and iPhone became an enterprise juggernaut? You guessed it. The CEO wanted one.
The email infrastructure Clinton ran was techie, but how many of you are conducting work on
personal accounts? Thought so. You may not have federal records laws, but you're ignoring IT policies
almost daily.
Security issues often are tossed aside for convenience. For Clinton it was a homemade
email server. For the rest of us it's a personal cloud storage account.
In the end, the Clinton email flap will play out for months. There will be hearings and non-stop
election coverage about it. Just keep in mind what you're witnessing is shadow IT at a grand scale
The FBI's case against a BlackBerry-obsessed Hillary Clinton could be strengthened following a
bombshell report
she ignored State Department and spy community warnings her outdated phone
and private email server posed national security risks
, former federal prosecutors and
officials told the Herald.
According to the Washington Post, the worst scenario may have come true when hacker
"Guccifer" reportedly released several emails pertaining to Benghazi, which appear to be
between Sidney Blumenthal and Hillary Clinton at the "clintonemail.com" domain. The domain was
registered January 2009 through Network Solutions.
Looking a bit deeper at the MX records for the domain they map to a service run by McAfee:
MX Logic was acquired by McAfee in June of 2009 and is now part of McAfee's SaaS offerings.
So, it looks like someone knew what they were doing at some level to modify the MX records to use
McAfee's service.
However, the risk of this email account being compromised is significant and one wonders who
else aside from Guccifer may have had access to sensitive communications.
Before we pick on Hillary Clinton too much, we should evaluate how common this practice is. If
the goal is to circumvent a regulatory requirement and is putting communications at risk, these
shadow IT practices should be evaluated government-wide.
tonyE
This is a security breakdown at a very high level.
From personal experience I can tell you that any emails that are classified MUST be routed via
very specific networks.
For the SecState to use a private network is a breakdown of security at the HIGHEST LEVEL.
She is guilty of a very serious crime, there is simply no way for her to excuse herself.
Also, how about all the people who were communicating with her? Surely they knew they were
breaking the law... ( and I'm not talking about the records, I'm talking about a
security breach at the highest level of our nation).
"... Hoping to quell the controversy over e-mails missing from her private account, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday released twenty thousand spam e-mails she received from Old Navy. ..."
"... "In an effort to be transparent, I have gone above and beyond what is required of me by law and released every last e-mail I received from this retailer," she told reporters. "Now I think we can all consider this case closed." ..."
Hoping to quell the controversy over e-mails missing from her private account, the former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday released twenty thousand spam e-mails she received from Old
Navy.
"In an effort to be transparent, I have gone above and beyond what is required of me by law and
released every last e-mail I received from this retailer," she told reporters. "Now I think we can
all consider this case closed."
The e-mails reveal an extensive one-way correspondence between Clinton and Old Navy, as the retailer
sometimes contacted her up to a dozen times in a single day to inform her of sales and other offers.
"This is one of the main reasons I set up a private e-mail account," she said. "I did not want
spam from Old Navy clogging up the State Department servers."
But if the former Secretary of State thought that she could end the controversy swirling around
her e-mail account by releasing the Old Navy spam, she may have miscalculated.
Representative Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Benghazi select committee, questioned
why Clinton would let twenty thousand spam e-mails from Old Navy accumulate rather than simply unsubscribe.
"It doesn't pass the smell test," he said.
Responding to that allegation, Clinton said, "I want the American people to know that, on multiple
occasions, I tried to unsubscribe from Old Navy, and my requests were ignored. The most frustrating
part of this whole affair is that I've never even bought anything from Old Navy."
"... "What? Like with a cloth or something?" she asked, then laughed. "I don't know how it works
digitally at all." ..."
"... She made the quip during an exchange with Fox News' Ed Henry . ..."
"... The Intelligence Community's inspector general had notified senior members of Congress that
two emails randomly sampled from Clinton's server contained sensitive information that was later given
a "Top Secret" classification, while two others contained classified information at the time they were
sent. ..."
"... The emails with information subsequently classified as "Top Secret" were forwarded to Clinton,
according to the State Department. ..."
Hillary
Clinton joked to reporters Tuesday in Las Vegas about whether she "wiped" her email server clean
before giving it to the
FBI.
"What? Like with a cloth or something?" she asked, then laughed. "I
don't know how it works digitally at all."
Clinton maintained that she has turned over the server to investigators
and gave them "every single thing" that was work-related. Federal investigators are looking into
the security of the server and whether there was classified information in the emails from the private
account she used while serving as secretary of state.
She made the quip during an exchange with Fox News'
Ed Henry.
This isn't the first time Clinton has joked about her emails: the former
Secretary of State also quipped about why she liked Snapchat at the Wing Ding Dinner in Iowa.
"You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account," she said.
"I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves."
Clinton turned over more than 30,000 personal messages from her email server
to the State
Department, which is being released in batches. And earlier this month, Clinton turned over her
private email server to the
Department
of Justice.
The Intelligence Community's inspector general had notified senior
members of Congress that two emails randomly sampled from Clinton's server contained sensitive information
that was later given a "Top Secret" classification, while two others contained classified information
at the time they were sent.
The emails with information subsequently classified as "Top Secret"
were forwarded to Clinton, according to the State Department.
Just this week, Intelligence community officials involved in the review
of Clinton's emails flagged 305 messages for further inspection, new court documents released Monday
said.
Clinton has maintained that she never used her private email to handle
classified information. Her spokesman, Nick Merrill, said it was "not surprising" that several hundred
messages were flagged for further inspection "given the sheer volume of intelligence community lawyers
now involved in the review of these emails."
"We expect there will continue to be competing assessments among the various
agencies about what should and shouldn't be redacted," Merrill said in a statement to ABC News.
A more responsible accounting of another scandal that has dogged Hillary Clinton came this week
from the State Department's inspector general, who was tasked with looking into the propriety of
Clinton's use of a personal e-mail account while she was Secretary of State.
The I.G.'s
eighty-three page report, "Office of the Secretary: Evaluation of Email Records Management and
Cybersecurity Requirements," is one of the more comprehensive examinations the government has ever
issued on proper document-retention habits in the federal bureaucracy. Skip to page forty-two if
you want the scintillating conclusion:
Longstanding, systemic weaknesses related to electronic records and communications have existed
within the Office of the Secretary that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State.
OIG recognizes that technology and Department policy have evolved considerably since Secretary
Albright's tenure began in 1997. Nevertheless, the Department generally and the Office of the
Secretary in particular have been slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements
and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those
risks pertain to its most senior leadership. OIG expects that its recommendations will move the
Department steps closer to meaningfully addressing these risks.
...The fact that Clinton did not fully cooperate with the I.G. investigation (she declined to
be interviewed, for example) does not inspire confidence that her Administration would be a model
of transparency
...The fact that Clinton did not fully cooperate with the I.G. investigation (she declined to
be interviewed, for example) does not inspire confidence that her Administration would be a model
of transparency
"... And lest we forget, well before Clinton came to the State Department, members of the George W. Bush administration used a private e-mail server (at gwb43.com) run and paid for by the Republican National Committee-at least 88 accounts were set up for Bush administration officials in order to bypass the official White House e-mail system and avoid the regulations around presidential record retention, the Federal Records Act, and the Hatch Act (which bans the use of government e-mail accounts for political purposes, among other things). In the process of using that system, more than 5 million e-mail messages were "lost," which led to the resignation of a number of White House officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. None of the e-mails for 51 of the 88 accounts was preserved by the RNC. ..."
"... Clinton was well aware of the Bush administration e-mail fiasco before she was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of State. She even told the State Department's assistant secretary for diplomatic security that she "gets it" after being briefed on why there were problems with her using a BlackBerry. ..."
"... Sure, the State Department's IT support is not exactly customer-centric. But its IT department has supported BlackBerry devices for unclassified e-mail in the past, and if Clinton could have dealt with sticking to using a computer while inside the State Department secure compartmented information facility (SCIF) and using a BlackBerry for unclassified e-mail, the State Department could have probably accommodated her. It was purely about Clinton's discomfort about using a PC for e-mail and her desire to use e-mail just like she did while running for office. ..."
"... So, as the State Department Office of the Inspector General reported, she paid a State Department staffer (who had worked for her directly in the past) off the books to create a shadow e-mail service of her own, and she used a personal BlackBerry not configured to State Department security standards to carry out official business. Having had a BlackBerry and the full control offered by private e-mail service during her presidential campaign in 2008, Clinton knew what she wanted, and she was going to have it whether it was approved or not. And she provided the same shadow e-mail service to her core staff as well-taking all of their communications off the grid and out of federal oversight. ..."
"... Besides, Clinton's excuse basically boils down to this: other people broke the rules, so she should have been allowed to as well. It's the entitled executive syndrome writ large. ..."
A certain class of executives wants a specific phone supported or special IT support for their
chosen staff, and they want it now, rules and regulations be damned. "Yes" is the only answer
they ever hear, and they will keep asking until they hear it-either from the IT department or
from someone who will do it for them on the side. When I worked in IT, particularly when I moved
up to a role as a "director of IT strategy" at a previous employer, these requests for special
treatment happened so frequently we started calling it the "entitled executive syndrome." No
matter how many times I explained the laws of physics and the limits of our budget and
capabilities, I was told to find a way to make it happen… or come up with a creative workaround.
Sure, there's often a reason for dissatisfaction with the organizational norm. But skirting
the norm can create all sorts of regulatory and legal headaches-Sarbanes-Oxley-related ones are
the most common in the corporate IT world. Looking at the government sector, shadow IT has
constantly gotten people in trouble for a host of other reasons: federal records laws, Federal
Information Security Management Act (FISMA) violations, and privacy violations. For example, in
2010, doctors at a Department of Veterans Affairs
got caught using Google and Yahoo cloud calendar services to schedule surgeries, breaching
the security of health care data. They used it because it was more convenient than the VA's
internal shared calendar system.
And lest we forget, well before Clinton came to the State Department, members of the
George W. Bush administration
used a
private e-mail server (at gwb43.com) run and paid for by the Republican National Committee-at
least 88 accounts were set up for Bush administration officials in order to bypass the official
White House e-mail system and avoid the regulations around presidential record retention, the
Federal Records Act, and the Hatch Act (which bans the use of government e-mail accounts for
political purposes, among other things). In the process of using that system, more than 5 million
e-mail messages were "lost," which led to the resignation of a number of White House officials,
including Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. None of the e-mails for 51 of the 88 accounts was
preserved by the RNC.
Clinton was well aware of the Bush administration e-mail fiasco before she was nominated
and confirmed as Secretary of State. She even told the State Department's assistant secretary for
diplomatic security that she "gets it" after being briefed on why there were problems with her
using a BlackBerry.
As previous e-mails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests have shown, Clinton
pushed hard to get the State Department's information security officers to
approve her use of a mobile device for e-mail and do it from inside the State Department's
secure executive suite-largely on the grounds that she was uncomfortable using a PC. The
National Security Agency suggested she use an approved secure device capable of doing
Secret-level classified e-mail as well as official unclassified e-mail. But the State Department
was unprepared for the cost of supporting such a device, and its IT department didn't have the
resources (nor, likely, the skills) in-house to support it.
Sure, the State Department's IT support is not exactly customer-centric. But its IT
department has supported BlackBerry devices for unclassified e-mail in the past, and if Clinton
could have dealt with sticking to using a computer while inside the State Department secure
compartmented information facility (SCIF) and using a BlackBerry for unclassified e-mail, the
State Department could have probably accommodated her. It was purely about Clinton's discomfort
about using a PC for e-mail and her desire to use e-mail just like she did while running for
office.
So, as the State Department Office of the Inspector General reported, she paid a State
Department staffer (who had worked for her directly in the past) off the books to create a shadow
e-mail service of her own, and she used a personal BlackBerry not configured to State Department
security standards to carry out official business. Having had a BlackBerry and the full control
offered by private e-mail service during her presidential campaign in 2008, Clinton knew what she
wanted, and she was going to have it whether it was approved or not. And she provided the same
shadow e-mail service to her core staff as well-taking all of their communications off the grid
and out of federal oversight.
Clinton's excuse for her decision, which she now calls a mistake, was:
Previous secretaries of state (specifically Colin Powell) used personal e-mail accounts.
Condoleezza Rice got to use a BlackBerry, so she (and her staff) should be allowed to,
too.
But no other secretary of state before her used e-mail as heavily, and the regulations
regarding preserving e-mail records have changed over the past two decades. Condoleezza Rice did
not use a personal e-mail account, according to the OIG report; she used a BlackBerry, but it was
State Department issued. Madeline Albright never even sent e-mails. And while Colin Powell did
use a personal e-mail account, the State Department was just getting Internet-connected e-mail at
the time (on a system called OpenNet).
Besides, Clinton's excuse basically boils down to this: other people broke the rules, so
she should have been allowed to as well. It's the entitled executive syndrome writ large.
"... "The reality is that every organization has a BYOD program - whether they think they do or not," Stevens said. "Now's the time to shore up the systems and enable mobility without sacrificing security." ..."
"I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at
an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government
business," former NARA Director of Litigation Jason Baron told the Times.
While pundits and politicians are debating the ethics and legality of this, it also raises questions
about the security of Clinton's communications.
"This news is yet another example of the lines blurring between work and personal lives and should
serve as a wake-up call to federal IT departments," said Bob Stevens, vice president of federal systems
at Lookout. "This trend towards mobility has clear benefits but it also adds a nuanced layer to not
just email security, but all security."
Stevens noted that mobile devices, by their nature, move about and touch multiple networks as
they do so. Since some networks are less secure than others, it becomes even more important to use
secure programs and services to communicate.
"The reality is that every organization has a BYOD program - whether they think they do or not,"
Stevens said. "Now's the time to shore up the systems and enable mobility without sacrificing security."
Subsequent reports revealed that Clinton maintained her own server, but whether that server was
more or less secure than commercial or federal email offerings is still unknown.
"... In fact, according to the survey respondents, the average company already uses 20+ SaaS applications - think about it: Asana, Dropbox, Skype, Basecamp, Apple iCloud, Gmail, LastPass, not to mention your Facebooks and Twitters. But of those 20 or so SaaS platforms, more than 7 are non-approved. So, "…upwards of 35 percent of all SaaS apps in your company are purchased and used without oversight." ..."
"... Instead of losing sleep over perceived risk, companies must develop clear and concise policies governing cloud computing and SaaS usage. And don't stone me for saying it, but IT departments shouldn't exclusively own this exercise. Today, most executive level employees are well versed in SaaS, and they are probably well aware of what systems and platforms their teams are using day to day. ..."
They say any press is good press, and
the ruling is still out as to whether or not Hillary Clinton knowingly broke any laws when she
used a private, home based email account for official State business as Secretary of State. She
admitted on Tuesday that she had made a mistake and should've created two email accounts: a government
one and a personal one. Still, one thing is clear: When the story broke last week, the entire world
was talking about the latest threat to corporate security: shadow IT.
For those of you heavily
immersed in the tech side of running a business, this won't be news to you. But for many business
executives and CEOs the idea of classified information being run through outside servers or software
can be chilling.
Basically, Shadow IT, also known as Stealth IT, describes solutions and SaaS, specified and deployed
by departments other than the organizations own IT department.
As far back as 2012, IT research and advisory company Gartner
was predicting that 35 percent of enterprise
IT expenditures for most organizations would be managed outside the IT department's budget by 2015.
Surely today, based on the innovations in technology which have occurred in 2012, that number's even
higher.
And if you think the blame lies with those hipster millennials and their "always on" lifestyle,
you would be wrong.
The Enemy Is Us
According to a 2014 study by Stratecast and Frost & Sullivan and based on input from organizations
in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the biggest users of Shadow IT services
are IT executives and employees.
Now extrapolate that fact across your organization, to other executives, managers, and employees,
and you can see just how quickly those numbers begin to add up.
In fact, according to the survey respondents, the average company already uses 20+ SaaS applications
- think about it: Asana, Dropbox, Skype, Basecamp, Apple iCloud, Gmail, LastPass, not to mention
your Facebooks and Twitters. But of those 20 or so SaaS platforms, more than 7 are non-approved.
So, "…upwards of 35 percent of all SaaS apps in your company are purchased and used without oversight."
So, if you can't blame the millennials, who or what can you blame?
You can blame technology.
Get Off'a My Cloud
More to the point, you can blame the rise of cloud computing. As with most things in life, that
which can benefit us the most, can also harm us.
With more and more companies adopting BYOD policies (often also referred to as BYOC, or cloud),
it's no surprise that Shadow IT isn't really in the shadows anymore. Which probably isn't news to
any of you.
In fact, as the study discovered, Shadow IT is now being perceived as an important step in innovation,
opening new channels of development for businesses, and reducing overall costs.
Here's why:
Ease of access – Users can access SaaS apps via the Internet, using and from any Internet-accessible
device. In most cases, little or no client-side software is required, which means that the SaaS
solution leaves no "footprint" on company-owned devices.
Ease of maintenance – SaaS apps are maintained by the provider. Users have no responsibility
for patches or updates.
Free or low cost – Many software providers offer a limited functionality or limited capacity
version of their applications at no cost. And if subscriber based, most can often be terminated
at any time, with no strings attached.
Quick deployment – SaaS is available on demand, with a click of the "accept" button on the
Terms and Conditions page. Users do not have to wait weeks or months for server provisioning and
application deployment (assuming the request is approved).
Of course, these are in addition to the direct benefits to a corporate IT department: No monies
paid out in development costs, maintenance, testing, upgrades capacity planning, or performance management.
Plus, backup and recovery of data and infrastructure is generally also the responsibility of the
platform's vendor.
Manage Your Risk
So, where does that leave us? With remote working, job sharing, file sharing, and BYOD policies
becoming commonplace, along with the rise of mobile and the ever evolving technological advances
happening around us daily, it's a little too late to shut that barn door.
And, contrary to how nefarious the term Shadow IT "feels," it appears most employees who "go rogue"
and use unapproved SaaS during work hours are doing so with the best of intentions: They simply want
to do their jobs, as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible. What's not to like about that?
They're not doing it just because, either. These are generally speaking a smart group of people
who want to get things done. They cite reasons like quickly gaining access to the right tools, overall
comfort level with certain apps and platforms, and, perhaps most importantly, the desire to avoid
a steep learning curve and the waste of time conquering such a learning curve entails if forced to
adopt something new.
I think the responsibility today in handling cloud computing and unregulated corporate SaaS usage
lies squarely with each organization. As we need to look inward to see who's really performing this
Shadow IT (our own executive, managers, and IT people), we also need to look inward when it comes
to corporate policies and guidelines. Because most companies today don't have any.
Instead of losing sleep over perceived risk, companies must develop clear and concise policies
governing cloud computing and SaaS usage. And don't stone me for saying it, but IT departments shouldn't
exclusively own this exercise. Today, most executive level employees are well versed in SaaS, and
they are probably well aware of what systems and platforms their teams are using day to day.
The ideal approach to Shadow IT is to collaborate. We've got to break down silos between IT and
the rest of the organization, and involve all areas of your organization to work together to create
best practices and help put the right policies in place to minimize corporate risk. Think outside
the box. Remain flexible. Be prepared to drop old-school "firewall" thinking. And remember, the end-goal
really is to improve business outputs and add to the bottom line of the organization.
Was Clinton breaking the law with her Shadow IT efforts? I don't know. The State Department's
email system is known to be vulnerable to hackers. But what I do know is she was leaps and bounds
ahead of Romney and Palin, who conducted official business on free email services from Microsoft
Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
Sometimes, perspective really is everything.
What do you think? Are you aware of any Shadow IT occurring in your organization? What do you
think would be the most important things to include in policies and guidelines supporting SaaS usage?
I would love to know your thoughts in the comment section.
This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis
about the evolving world of tech. For more on these topics, visit Dell's thought leadership site
PowerMore. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and
don't necessarily represent Dell's positions or strategies.
"... Again, the point here is not that Clinton should have ditched the secure, government system in order to use her phone of choice. In her circumstances, the security concerns should have outweighed her personal comfort. But for many, the desire to stick with tech that they know and love is often counter to logic, efficiency, security and policy. And most of us work in environments where bucking the system isn't quite as dire as it could be for the nation's top diplomat. ..."
"... " Shadow IT " is technology that users install without company approval because they prefer it to what's offered. What I know is that I can't secure my network if it's packed with technology that my users hate. ..."
...Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation
looking for evidence that Clinton broke laws in her handling of the email, received some fascinating
information in response to a recent FOIA request.
Upon joining the State Department in early 2009, Clinton immediately requested a
Blackberry smartphone. Having used one extensively during her 2008 Presidential campaign, she,
like almost every attorney in that decade, had fallen in love with her Blackberry, hence the request.
After all, Condoleezza Rice,
her predecessor as Secretary of State, had used one. President Obama had
a special secure one that the NSA had developed for him. But they said no. Even after being called
to a high level meeting with Clinton's top aide and five State Department officials, they still said
no.The NSA offered Clinton
an alternative. But it was based on Windows CE, a dramatically different, less intuitive smartphone
operating system. A month later, Clinton started using her own server. Judicial Watch claims that
this info proves that Clinton knew that her email was not secure, but I think that she has already
admitted that. But it also reveals something much more telling.
As a three plus decade technology Director/CIO (working primarily with Attorneys), I can tell
you that people get attached to specific types of technology. I know a few Attorneys who still swear
to this day that
Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS was the best word processing software ever released. And there are millions
who will tell you that their Blackberry was their virtual right arm in the 2000's.
How devoted are people to their favorite applications and devices? I worked for a VP who was only
comfortable using Word, so when she did her quarterly reports to the board, she had her assistant
export huge amounts of information from our case management system. Then she modified all of it in
Word. Once delivered, she had her assistant manually update the case management system in order to
incorporate her changes. Efficient? Not at all. But she loved herself some Word. I've seen staff
using seven year old laptops because they know them and don't want to have to learn and set up a
new one. And it wasn't until the bitter end of 2014 that both my boss and my wife finally gave in
and traded up their Blackberries for iPhones.
Again, the point here is not that Clinton should have ditched the secure, government system in
order to use her phone of choice. In her circumstances, the security concerns should have outweighed
her personal comfort. But for many, the desire to stick with tech that they know and love is often
counter to logic, efficiency, security and policy. And most of us work in environments where bucking
the system isn't quite as dire as it could be for the nation's top diplomat.
"Shadow IT" is technology
that users install without company approval because they prefer it to what's offered. What I know
is that I can't secure my network if it's packed with technology that my users hate. Smart people
will bypass that security in order to use the tools that work for them. An approach to security that
neglects usability and user preference is likely to fail. In most cases, there are compromises that
can be made between IT and users that allow secure products to be willingly adopted. In other cases,
with proper training, hand-holding, and executive sponsorship, you can win users over. But
when we are talking about Blackberries in the last decade, or the iPhone in this one, we have to
acknowledge that the popularity of the product is a serious factor in adoption that technologists
can't ignore. And if you don't believe me, just ask Hillary Clinton.
"... Hillary Clinton has quickly become the public face of so-called "shadow IT" practices, which already affects almost every organization ..."
"... In other words, shadow IT is the unapproved, unmanaged solution that frustrated employees (and government officials) turn to when official systems don't meet their needs. In Chua's view, it's simply a good idea to take this bull by the horns, identify the pain points people are trying to avoid, and meet those needs through official channels instead. ..."
"... "Heavy-handed approaches are not going to eliminate shadow IT, it'll just go farther underground," ..."
"... In other words, a light touch might do wonders to tame the shadow IT beast even where strict policy edicts fail. And this lesson needs to be absorbed by a very large audience. ..."
... there's also a big upside to Clinton's home-brew email solution getting national attention.
Hillary Clinton has quickly become the public face of so-called "shadow IT" practices, which
already affects almost every organization -- from small and medium businesses to enterprise-class
giants, and onward to the government behemoth. It's high time investors and business managers take
a closer look at this trend, so let's thank her for opening the debate.
... ... ...
"I think we're at a point in time where companies can no longer ignore shadow IT," Chua said.
"They need to put official policies in place, start talking to employees about what they need, make
sure that these needs are aligned with the business.
"If they don't, then people can start creating their own solutions and create this whole shadow
IT problem."
In other words, shadow IT is the unapproved, unmanaged solution that frustrated employees
(and government officials) turn to when official systems don't meet their needs. In Chua's view,
it's simply a good idea to take this bull by the horns, identify the pain points people are trying
to avoid, and meet those needs through official channels instead.
"This is definitely an opportunity to sit up and take action," Chua explained. "The IT industry
is moving away from cookie-cutter solutions with help desk tickets and red tape around everything.
This debate gives IT departments a chance to say, 'Hey, different business units have different needs.
I'm going to create a baseline framework, but I'll be agile and respond to the various needs of different
units.'"
Chua's comments underscore a growing sentiment among IT industry professionals. Talking to the
CIOmagazine this week, Deputy Chief Technology Officer Steve Riley of data networking
specialist Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD)
expanded on the problem. "Heavy-handed approaches are not going to eliminate shadow IT, it'll
just go farther underground," Riley said. "There's no positive outcome for being a disciplinarian
about something like this. You might end up with services that are even more dangerous, where people
now actively seek to circumvent policies."
How the solutions fit the problem
In other words, a light touch might do wonders to tame the shadow IT beast even where strict
policy edicts fail. And this lesson needs to be absorbed by a very large audience.
According to Softchoice's data collection, over 80% of organizations -- businesses, corporations,
churches, you name it -- already see some members stepping outside the formal IT structure to enjoy
the convenience of cloud-based public services.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
(NASDAQ:GOOGL)
is a popular provider with tools including Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar. Microsoft
(NASDAQ:MSFT) might
lose some software license sales to other cloud providers, but its Windows Azure and SkyDrive services
are also leaders in their own right.
Sure, some of these service choices already have the official support of the IT department. But
one-third of all users in a large Softchoice audit program recently reported employing tools such
as SkyDrive or Google Calendar at work -- without so much as notifying the IT department.
The shadow IT market seems to open up a very large business opportunity for software-as-a-service
providers such as Google and Microsoft. Managing these tools in a properly approved and budgeted
fashion will help in closing boatloads of security and transparency concerns. And that way, they
could soak up the demand for unofficial email servers and unapproved data warehouses running in some
random employee's garage, beyond the reach of corporate firewalls.
Final words
A flexible approach to systems management can help businesses and government agencies make the
most of their resources. There will always be rogue systems and maverick users, but acknowledging
this reality can help contain the problem -- and maybe turn it into a strength instead.
Sweeping shadow IT under the rug, on the other hand, only opens up the door to more security leaks
and the next Clinton-style transparency scandal.
"... One other State Department official evidently violated this policy: Her Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. Ms. Abedin's emails are of particular interest insofar as Huma has extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That's the Islamist organization whose self-declared mission is "destroying Western civilization from within." ..."
Hillary Clinton's Emailgate scandal is becoming more problematic by the day. Turns out she
exclusively used a private email account while personally prohibiting other State Department
employees from doing the same.
One other State Department official evidently violated this policy: Her Deputy Chief of
Staff, Huma Abedin. Ms. Abedin's emails are of particular interest insofar as Huma has extensive
ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That's the Islamist organization whose self-declared mission is
"destroying Western civilization from within."
The indispensable investigative group, Judicial Watch, has filed suit in federal court for
access to these emails. It remains to be seen if they are provided and, if so, what they reveal
about these ladies' contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood – and their damage-control concerning
revelations about Huma's connection to it.
"... The secretary of state's information technology office "believes that Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin were each issued BlackBerry devices," State Executive Secretary Joseph Macmanus wrote in a declaration submitted to a federal court in Washington (and posted here). The office, referred to as S/ES-IRM in agency parlance, "has not located any such device at the department" and "standard procedure upon return of such devices is to perform a factory reset (which removes any user settings or configurations) and then to reissue the device to another employee, to destroy it, or to excess it," he added. ..."
"... The official also said former Secretary of State Clinton appeared never to have had a BlackBerry from her agency or any other official gadget. "S/ES-IRM does not believe that any personal computing device was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department," Macmanus wrote. ..."
"... Earlier this month, Sullivan ordered the State Department to ask Clinton, Mills and Abedin to preserve all official records they had responsive to Judicial Watch's request and to execute a declaration under penalty of perjury about their use of private email or devices to store such records. ..."
BlackBerry devices the State Department issued to former Hillary Clinton aides Cheryl Mills
and Huma Abedin have likely been destroyed or sold off as surplus, a State official said in a
court filing Wednesday.
The secretary of state's information technology office "believes that Ms. Mills and Ms.
Abedin were each issued BlackBerry devices," State Executive Secretary Joseph Macmanus wrote in a
declaration submitted to a federal court in Washington (and posted here). The office, referred to
as S/ES-IRM in agency parlance, "has not located any such device at the department" and "standard
procedure upon return of such devices is to perform a factory reset (which removes any user
settings or configurations) and then to reissue the device to another employee, to destroy it, or
to excess it," he added.
"Because the devices issued to Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin would have been outdated models, in
accordance with standard operating procedures those devices would have been destroyed or excessed.
As stated above, the state.gov email accounts themselves are generally housed on the Department's
servers," Macmanus said.
The official also said former Secretary of State Clinton appeared never to have had a
BlackBerry from her agency or any other official gadget. "S/ES-IRM does not believe that any
personal computing device was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department," Macmanus wrote.
The filing came in a lawsuit where the conservative group Judicial Watch is seeking records
relating to Abedin's employment arrangements, including a period after she left a full-time post
as deputy chief of staff and took a part-time position while also working for a New York-based
firm run by a former aide to President Bill Clinton.
In recent weeks, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has expressed increasing concern that the
State Department was not making an adequate effort to recover all records about the matter,
including emails Clinton or the other aides may have had on private accounts or took with them
when they left the department.
Earlier this month, Sullivan ordered the State Department to ask Clinton, Mills and Abedin to
preserve all official records they had responsive to Judicial Watch's request and to execute a
declaration under penalty of perjury about their use of private email or devices to store such
records. Clinton submitted such a declaration. Abedin and Mills did not submit personal
declarations, but lawyers for the aides said they had returned or were in the process of
returning any official records to State and would preserve any such records in their possession.
Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against the State Department seeking any and all communications – including emails – from
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Chief of Staff Huma Abedin with Nagla Mahmoud,
wife of ousted Egyptian president Mohammad
Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013 (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00321)). This latest lawsuit will
require the State Department to answer questions about and conduct thorough searches of Hillary
Clinton's newly discovered hidden email accounts. Judicial Watch also has nearly a dozen other
active FOIA lawsuits that may require the State Department to search these email accounts. Huma
Abedin is also alleged to have a secret account as well.
Judicial Watch submitted its original FOIA request on August 27, 2014. The State Department
was required by law to respond by September 26, 2014 at the latest to Judicial Watch's request
for:
Any and all records of communication between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nagla
Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January
31, 2013; and
Any and all records of communication between former State Department Deputy Chief of Staff
Huma Abedin and Nagla Mahmoud from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013.
To date, the State Department has not responded.
Ms. Mahmoud threatened Mrs. Clinton after Morsi was ousted. According to JihadWatch.org:
In the words of El-Mogaz News,
Morsi's wife "is threatening to expose the special relationship between her husband and
Hillary Clinton, after the latter attacked the ousted [president], calling him a simpleton who
was unfit for the presidency. Sources close to Nagla confirmed that she has threatened to
publish the letters exchanged between Morsi and Hillary."
The report continues by saying that Nagla accuses Hillary of denouncing her former close
ally, the Brotherhood's Morsi, in an effort to foster better relations with his successor,
Egypt's current president, Sisi-even though, as Nagla laments, "he [Morsi] was faithful to the
American administration."
"Now we know why the State Department didn't want to respond to our specific request for
Hillary Clinton's and Huma Abedin's communications," stated Tom Fitton. "The State Department
violated FOIA law rather than admit that it couldn't and wouldn't search the secret accounts that
the agency has known about for years. This lawsuit shows how the latest Obama administration
cover-up isn't just about domestic politics but has significant foreign policy implications."
"... Piling on more embarrassment for Hillary Clinton amid a row about her emails, U.S. officials revealed Thursday that during her time as secretary of state she had declined a government-issued cellphone. ..."
Piling on more embarrassment for Hillary Clinton amid a row about her emails, U.S.
officials revealed Thursday that during her time as secretary of state she had declined a
government-issued cellphone.
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Clinton was "not issued a State Department BlackBerry, and that
wasn't a requirement - no one is required to be issued a State Department BlackBerry."
Since he became president, Barack Obama has carried a special "secure" BlackBerry, altered by
the NSA to make it as difficult as possible for hackers to turn it into a remote spying device.
Now it's been revealed in emails obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch
that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked in 2009 for one of those uncrackable BlackBerries,
too, and the NSA denied her request for unknown reasons. Conservative pundits have used the news
to argue that Clinton knew her BlackBerry was insecure and yet still used it for sensitive
emails.
"... Clinton liked to use her BlackBerry rather than a desktop or laptop to stay on top of her emails at all times, but this was a problem at the secure office space at the State Department's headquarters, where wireless devices were banned, according to the documents. To overcome this, she requested the same modified 8830 World Edition used by the president, which would allow her to check her email constantly, something she had become accustomed to during the 2008 presidential campaign. ..."
"... The NSA refused, saying that it had phased out the waivers that allowed her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, to use a BlackBerry as they had been "expanded to an unmanageable number of users from a security perspective." ..."
President Barack Obama wasn't the only administration official enamored of the BlackBerry
phone.
When she was serving as the US secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Hillary Clinton repeatedly
tried to get her hands on "BlackBerry-like communications," but was denied by the National
Security Agency out of concerns for security and cost, according to a report Wednesday by
conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
Emails obtained by the organization under a Freedom of Information Act request show that Clinton
demanded access to the same type of secure BlackBerry device used by President Obama, and the
NSA's subsequent rebuffs often led to heated exchanges between the two camps.
"Each time we asked the question 'What was the solution for POTUS?' we were politely told to shut
up and color," or to mind their own business, according to one email sent in 2009 by Donald Reid,
the State Department's coordinator for security infrastructure.
Once the de rigueur instrument of business communications, BlackBerry dominated the cell phone
industry before losing its crown to Apple's iPhone and to Google's Android software. Corporate
and government types loved using BlackBerrys because they offered a level of data encryption that
prevented everyone, including BlackBerry itself, from snooping into the phone's contents. Clinton
has come under fire over the past few months for using her personal email on the BlackBerry she
used while she was secretary of state.
Clinton liked to use her BlackBerry rather than a desktop or laptop to stay on top of her
emails at all times, but this was a problem at the secure office space at the State Department's
headquarters, where wireless devices were banned, according to the documents. To overcome this,
she requested the same modified 8830 World Edition used by the president, which would allow her
to check her email constantly, something she had become accustomed to during the 2008
presidential campaign.
The NSA refused, saying that it had phased out the waivers that allowed her predecessor,
Condoleezza Rice, to use a BlackBerry as they had been "expanded to an unmanageable number of
users from a security perspective."
Clinton, now the front-runner in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, carried on using her
personal BlackBerry for state business after her request for a customized secure device was
rejected by the NSA. She has since apologized and claimed that she never used the BlackBerry to
send classified information.
ADVERTISING
The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Chuck Grassley,
Republican of Iowa, raised questions about Abedin's work as a State Department employee,
concerning the fact that she held four jobs[20]
from June 2012 to February 2013.[14][21][22][23]
These included serving as a part-time aide to Clinton at the State Department, while also working
as a consultant to private clients for the consulting firm
Teneo Holdings,[21][22]
a consulting firm run by
Douglas Band, a longtime aide to former president Bill Clinton.[24]
At the time, she was also being paid a salary for work at the
Clinton
Foundation, and working as Hillary Clinton's personal assistant.[20]
The State Department and Abedin both responded, with the State Department indicating that it uses
special government employees routinely "to provide services and expertise that executive agencies
require", and Abedin stating that she did not provide any government information or inside
information gained from her State Department job to her private employers.
... ... ...
Employment records and emails
In October 2015, a federal court in Washington heard arguments on a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by
Judicial Watch
for records related to Abedin. Judicial Watch asked to make Ms. Abedin's emails and employment
records public, asking for details of the arrangement under which Abedin was designated a
"special government employee," allowing her to do outside consulting work while also on the
federal payroll.[26][27]
On October 6, the State Department said it would be able to hand over 69 pages of emails in
response to the FOIA request.[28]
In 2015, emails by Abedin became part of the FBI investigation and the controversy concerning
Hillary Clinton's private email account while Secretary of State,[29][30]
resulting in various allegations by Republicans of violations of State Department regulations.[31]
Some officials within the intelligence community have stated that potentially-classified
information was contained in e-mails from Abedin relating to the 2012 Benghazi attack and its
aftermath which had been sent through Clinton's private, non-government server.[29][32][33]
So far, 1818 emails contain classified information on the private server, with 22 being
classified as Top Secret. "They were not marked classified at the time they were sent, but they
did contain classified information when they were originally sent and received." Her aides also
sent and received classified information.[34]
House Benghazi Committee
testimony
On October 16, 2015, Abedin testified in closed session before the
House Select Committee on Benghazi, in a session that was expected to focus on the
2012
Benghazi attack during which Ambassador
J.
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.[35]
The committee had previously heard closed-door testimony from two other Clinton aides,
Cheryl Mills and
Jake Sullivan, in
September 2015,[35]
and former Secretary Clinton appeared before the panel in a public hearing on October 22.[36]
The Republican-led committee's top Democrat Representative,
Elijah Cummings
of Maryland, questioned the panel's decision to hear testimony from Abedin, arguing that her
knowledge of details at the time of the attacks was minimal.[35]
Republican Representative
Mike Pompeo of Kansas, defended the decision to interview Abedin, saying: "Ms. Abedin was a
senior official at the State Department at all of the relevant times. Every witness has a
different set of knowledge."[37]
Although there were political tensions surrounding Abedin's appearance, the proceedings were
friendly, and after her almost eight hours of testimony, Abedin said: "I came here today to be as
helpful as I could be to the committee."[37]
Allegations by some Republican members of Congress
In a letter dated June 13, 2012, to the
State Department Inspector General, five Republican members of Congress-Michele
Bachmann of Minnesota,
Trent Franks of
Arizona, Louie
Gohmert of Texas,
Thomas J. Rooney of Florida, and
Lynn
Westmoreland of Georgia-claimed that Abedin "has three family members – her late father, her
mother and her brother – connected to
Muslim
Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations."[38][39][40]
The five members of Congress alleged that Abedin had "immediate family connections to foreign
extremist organizations" which they said were "potentially disqualifying conditions for obtaining
a security
clearance" and questioned why Abedin had not been "disqualified for a security clearance."[39]
The claims in the letter were generally rejected, and were labeled by some as
conspiracy
theories.[38][41]The
Washington Post editorial board called the allegations "paranoid," a "baseless attack,"
and a "smear."[38]
The letter was also criticized by, among others, House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi and
Representative Keith
Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, the first Muslim member of Congress, who called the
allegation "reprehensible."[42]
Senator John McCain,
Republican of Arizona, also rejected the allegations, saying "The letter and the report offer not
one instance of an action, a decision or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State
Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities
within our government....These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit."[42]
Bachmann's former campaign manager
Ed Rollins said the
allegations were "extreme and dishonest" and called for Bachmann to apologize to Abedin.[43]
The
Anti-Defamation League condemned the letter, calling upon the Representatives involved to
"stop trafficking in anti-Muslim conspiracy theories."[44]
"... Judicial Watch , a conservative public interest law firm that uses open-records laws to pry information loose, had filed a request to get a look at Ms. Abedin 's emails during her four years at the State Department . News outlets have reported that Ms. Abedin also used the private email server Mrs. Clinton set up to handle government business, but the status of her messages is unclear. ..."
"... The State Department said it wouldn't comment now that Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit - though it had struggled to explain its procedures even before the lawsuit was filed, and the status is of Ms. Abedin 's emails remains unclear. ..."
"... The law at the time Mrs. Clinton was in office urged federal employees doing government business to use their official accounts, but said those who used personal accounts were required to forward all government-related messages to their official accounts for storage. Mrs. Clinton rejected using an official account and did not forward her messages, but after Mr. Gowdy's inquiries the State Department asked her to belatedly turn her emails over. ..."
"... Ms. Abedin , who is married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, has come under scrutiny for her time at the State Department . Mrs. Clinton designated her a special government employee, allowing her to collect a federal salary even as she also worked for an outside consulting company. ..."
"... The department's inspector general is looking into whether that arrangement was legal, since the designation is supposed to be used to lure workers with special skills into government service. Ms. Abedin was already a government employee when she was given the designation, and the State Department has yet to explain what skills she brought to earn the special status. ..."
May 5, 2015 | The Washington Times
The emails of Huma Abedin,
the top personal aide to former Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton,
are now facing a disclosure lawsuit after the
State Department failed
to turn them over in response to an open-records request.
Judicial Watch, a
conservative public interest law firm that uses open-records laws to pry information loose, had
filed a request to get a look at Ms.
Abedin's emails during her four years at the
State Department. News
outlets have reported that Ms.
Abedin also used the private email server
Mrs. Clinton set up
to handle government business, but the status of her messages is unclear.
It's one of a number of open-records requests
Judicial Watch filed after
the email scandal broke, and Tom Fitton, president of the organization, said they've been
stonewalled on all of them, so now they're turning to the courts.
"We're churning through these," he said. "The scandal at the
State Department is more
than about Hillary Clinton. There are others involved."
The State Department
said it wouldn't comment now that
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit - though it had struggled to explain its procedures even
before the lawsuit was filed, and the status is of
Ms. Abedin's emails remains
unclear.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who exposed the private emails as part of his
investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, has urged
Mrs. Clinton to turn
the server over to a neutral third party while questions get sorted out, but
Mrs. Clinton has
refused, saying she believes she has now complied with the law by finally going through and
turning emails over.
The law at the time
Mrs. Clinton was in
office urged federal employees doing government business to use their official accounts, but said
those who used personal accounts were required to forward all government-related messages to
their official accounts for storage.
Mrs. Clinton rejected
using an official account and did not forward her messages, but after Mr. Gowdy's inquiries the
State Department asked
her to belatedly turn her emails over.
The State Department
has turned about 300 emails over to the Benghazi probe, but has refused to release the other tens
of thousands of messages, saying it wants to process and clear them all at the same time, which
will take months.
But the department has admitted in court that it was remiss in not searching the emails
earlier, and has agreed to reopen some previous open-records requests from
Judicial Watch that had
sought Clinton
emails.
Ms. Abedin, who is
married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, has come under scrutiny for her time at the
State Department.
Mrs. Clinton
designated her a special government employee, allowing her to collect a federal salary even as
she also worked for an outside consulting company.
The department's inspector general is looking into whether that arrangement was legal,
since the designation is supposed to be used to lure workers with special skills into government
service. Ms. Abedin was already
a government employee when she was given the designation, and the
State Department has yet
to explain what skills she brought to earn the special status.
"... The 2016 Democratic front-runner on Monday told a federal judge that Abedin - long considered her boss's keeper and even dubbed her "shadow" - had her own email account on Clinton's now infamous home-brewed server, "which was used at times for government business," Clinton acknowledged. That's an unusual arrangement, even for top brass at the State Department. ..."
"... Abedin had been granted "special government employee" (SGE) status, allowing her to work both for Clinton and the private sector - and it's unclear if she continued using the server that appears to have held classified information following her departure from her full-time State gig. ..."
"... But Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, said any former employee's potential access to secret materials could be problematic after they leave the government. ..."
"... "What happens if [a former government employee] still retains access through a prior server, to information that was justified by a previous position? That's not supposed to happen - and that's one of the anomalies that are created by the private server," Aftergood said. ..."
Clinton's top aide is likely to face more questions, not least from congressional
investigators, about her access to Clinton's system.
Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's most trusted confidante, is increasingly becoming a central figure
in the email scandal that's haunting her boss on the campaign trail, as Republicans and federal judges
seek information about Clinton's communications while she was running the State Department.
The 2016 Democratic front-runner on Monday told a federal judge that Abedin - long considered
her boss's keeper and even dubbed her "shadow" - had her own email account on Clinton's now infamous
home-brewed server, "which was used at times for government business," Clinton acknowledged. That's
an unusual arrangement, even for top brass at the State Department.
... ... ...
After an inspector general found that Clinton had at least two "top secret" emails stored
on her unsecured computer network, Abedin is likely to face more questions from congressional investigators,
and perhaps others, about her access to Clinton's system.
Abedin had been granted "special government employee" (SGE) status, allowing her to work both
for Clinton and the private sector - and it's unclear if she continued using the server that appears
to have held classified information following her departure from her full-time State gig.
... ... ...
"It's election season, and congressional Republicans are running the same series of plays,
just on a different field," Merrill said in an email, later adding that Abedin maintained her security
clearance while she worked as a State contractor.
Merrill said SGEs often have clearance and there's nothing unusual about her having such access.
He also said that many government workers take on such contractor status, adding that Abedin had
a green-light from State's legal and human resources departments to do so.
But Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' project on government
secrecy, said any former employee's potential access to secret materials could be problematic after
they leave the government.
"What happens if [a former government employee] still retains access through a prior server,
to information that was justified by a previous position? That's not supposed to happen - and that's
one of the anomalies that are created by the private server," Aftergood said.
Classified materials with national security implications are supposed to be stored in a place where
no one can gain access to them unless they have special clearance.
"... "Qualified security people are very rare," she says. And that's one of the problems with this setup for Clinton. ..."
"... As a result, Moussouris assumes whoever set up Clinton's private email server was a staffer, unless they were very well paid. And if that's the case, the best way to email like Hillary Clinton is to spend a lot of money. ..."
But most people aren't trying to protect sensitive State Department data. Instead, one reason
people run their own email services is so they can use their own domain name in their email address.
If this was a reason for Clinton, it was a foolhardy one, argues Moussouris. If being a high-value
target for hackers is a reason for using an (allegedly) more secure private email service, choosing
an domain name like clintonemail.com, as Clinton did, only gave her a higher profile.
"Such an obvious name would make it an interesting target for a hacker," says Moussouris. "People
with that high of a profile, whether it's a politician, celebrity, or high-level executive, they
should already be operating with that in mind."
Besides, consumer-based services not only allow users to use their own domain name while hosting
their emails in the cloud, they also provide end-to-end encryption, ensuring that their messages
stay safe while traveling through the web.
But if you still want to email like Hillary Clinton, Moussouris recommends relying on an expert
- if you can find one. "Qualified security people are very rare," she says. And that's one of
the problems with this setup for Clinton.
"I couldn't imagine a top-notch security person going to work for anyone in Washington, let alone
an individual in, essentially, a non-technical function," Moussouris says. "We have a scarcity of
talent in the security industry, and we see this when we try to hire good people all the time."
As a result, Moussouris assumes whoever set up Clinton's private email server was a staffer, unless
they were very well paid. And if that's the case, the best way to email like Hillary Clinton is to
spend a lot of money.
"... Just a month before the email issue arose, in November 2010, Abedin and Clinton discussed that department employees were not receiving emails sent by then-secretary, the newly-released emails indicate. ..."
"... "We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam," Abedin wrote to Clinton on November 13, 2010. ..."
"... Another email shows that John Bentel, then the technical support director, warned Clinton that if she opted to use the official email box, "any email would go through the Department's infrastructure and subject to FOIA searches." ..."
"... After Abedin reported the technical problem, the State Department technical staff suggested that "turning off the anti-spam filter" would resolve the problem. ..."
"... As shutting down the security software didn't appear to be helpful, one email recommended turning off two of the three anti-phishing filters that protect personal data from identity thieves and cybercriminals "in order to eliminate the categorizer." ..."
Hillary Clinton's private server was temporarily unprotected by security features in December
2010, when the then-secretary of state had technical problems with her email. In 2011, Clinton's
server was hacked multiple times, newly-disclosed papers show.
On Wednesday, the legal advocacy group Judicial Watch published a batch of back-and-forth emails
between high-level State Department technical support and Clinton staffers as they tried to fix a
serious problem with the secretary's private home email server.
"There are many messages and responses not received," one of the officials, Cindy Almodovar,
wrote to S/ES-IRM staff, delivering Huma's complaint.
Just a month before the email issue arose, in November 2010, Abedin and Clinton discussed
that department employees were not receiving emails sent by then-secretary, the newly-released
emails indicate.
"We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the
department so you are not going to spam," Abedin wrote to Clinton on November 13, 2010.
In response, the secretary wrote: "Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk
of the personal being accessible."
Another email shows that John Bentel, then the technical support director, warned Clinton
that if she opted to use the official email box, "any email would go through the Department's
infrastructure and subject to FOIA searches."
After Abedin reported the technical problem, the State Department technical staff suggested
that "turning off the anti-spam filter" would resolve the problem.
However, after the Trend Micro Inc. security software installed on Clinton's server was turned
off, a senior State Department official, Thomas W. Lawrence, wrote: "We view this as a Band-Aid
and fear it's not 100 percent fully effective. We are eager for TrendMicro to fully resolve,
quickly."
A screenshot of TrendMicro's 'ScanMail for Exchange' in one of the emails showed the anti-spam
disabled.
As shutting down the security software didn't appear to be helpful, one email recommended
turning off two of the three anti-phishing filters that protect personal data from identity
thieves and cybercriminals "in order to eliminate the categorizer."
However, in his response, Lawrence did not support the idea, saying that both "content-filtering
and anti-virus checking… has blocked malicious content in the recent past."
Another set of emails from January 2011, just mere weeks after attempts to fix Clinton's email
server, reveal that someone tried to compromise it.
"Someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt [sic] want to let them have
the chance to," the non-departmental advisor to President Bill Clinton, who provided technical
support, told the State Department's deputy chief of staff for operations on January 9, 2011.
"We were attacked again so I shut [the server] down for a few min," he wrote later that day.
The next day, Abedin instructed Clinton's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff for planning
not to email the secretary "anything sensitive" and stated that she could "explain more in
person."
Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has repeatedly denied that her
private email server was ever breached.
In late May, the State Department's Office of the Inspector General released a scathing report
largely concerning Clinton's email use, saying that unsecured communications at such a high level
created "significant security risks."
This most recent release of Clinton-linked records by Judicial Watch referred to that report. The
group requested the emails and was granted the right to obtain the records under a June 14, 2016
court order by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
Clinton's use of a private email server has been a major headache for her presidential campaign.
For those concerned that there may be a conflict of interest for US Attorney General Loretta Lynch
as it relates to the Clinton investigation, you can rest at ease. On Sunday, Lynch
promised that
there is
no conflict of interest
, period.
In an interview with
Fox News Sunday, Lynch told Chris Wallace that there is nothing to worry about, even if her boss
is openly campaigning for Clinton to become the next president of the United States.
Wallace: "You're a political appointee of the president. Does that create a conflict of
interest for you? Does it make it harder for you to handle the criminal investigation into Clinton
when your boss is saying he thinks she should be president."
Lynch: "Well you know I don't get involved in who the president endorses. I don't have
comments on any of the candidates. The investigation into the State Department email matter is
going to be handled like any other matter.
We've got career agents and lawyers looking
at that, they will follow the facts, and follow the evidence wherever it leads and come to a conclusion.
"
Wallace: "So does this create a conflict of interest for you?"
Lynch: "
No, this is not a conflict for me, for the department or for anyone.
"
When Wallace brought up the fact that on the same day Obama came out and endorsed Clinton, Lynch
met with Obama at the White House, Lynch quickly downplayed the meeting by saying they've never discussed
the case.
Wallace: "The same day that Clinton was endorsed by the president, you met with the president
at the White House. Did you in any way, shape or form discuss the Clinton case with the president?"
Lynch: "
We've never discussed the Clinton case. I've never spoken about it with
the president, or really with anyone at the White House.
"
Well now that we have all of that settled, we can all rest assured that if the FBI recommends
the DOJ bring charges against Clinton, the DOJ will follow through with that. Also, when Lynch
refers to the fact that there are those at the DOJ working the case and allowing the facts to
lead them,
Lynch doesn't mean those that
donated nearly $100,000
to Clinton's campaign, we assume
. Because that too is surely
not a conflict of interest.
They could find a pile of dead bodies in Hillary
Clinton's Freezer and the DOJ would stone wall it.
847328_3527
DeathMerchant
Jun 20, 2016 12:16 PM
These are career politicians who lie and steal and phuck over Americans as easily as
they breath.
Ballin D
847328_3527
Jun 20, 2016 12:20 PM
I don't understand how our politicians are so consistently stupid and weak. Honestly,
corrupt and smart would be a welcome change at this point. This overt corruption
while they kill the host (the American people) is extraordinarily frustrating.
Countrybunkererd
Ignatius
Jun 20, 2016 12:52 PM
Conflict of interest? NOOOO!!!! she laughs. We have the exact same interests, no conflicts
here.
ebworthen
Jun 20, 2016 11:47 AM
Obama said that Clinton is "the most qualified person ever to run for President".
Look at virtually everyone in every
workplace. There--on the job--you tell the marketing lies, drop whatever spin you're told
upon any established customer, throw up whatever obstacles and screens your company directs
you to put in place as "policy", and on and on and on. Don't do it and YOU'RE FIRED.
That's called
work
in American. Land of the (technically) free incorrigible
liars.
If you can't see it everywhere you go, it's because you've joined them.
At 60 years of age, I have the benefit of hindsight. I've been watching Hillary since 1971 (ironically,
near the release of "Dark Side of The Moon"!) and I am shocked at the number ***things*** she appears
to have gotten away with! It's a real testimony to the lack of character of the democratic party
that they would lower their standards so far as to be justify the presence of Hillary Clinton as
a presidential candidate!
If not for SOCIAL MEDIA this horrible woman would have continued to escape justice! However, with
what the FBI already have, this video is prophetic laying out the future for Hillary's journey to
prison.
"... This Trump speech is a "victory speech," a genre where a candidate accepts the mandate of the voters, so it's simpler than a speech on policy. As before, I won't annotate or mark up the entire text. Instead, I'll look at four major themes: ..."
"... Let's contrast these two appeals in more detail. Trump (a) appeals ..."
"... Clinton comes to my door, she does so with all the charm of a process server presenting a demand note to garnish my vote. ..."
"... les amis du peuple ..."
"... Thank you. I've fought for my family. I've fought for my business. I've fought for my employees. And now, I'm going to fight for you, the American people like nobody has ever fought before. And I'm not a politician fighting, I'm me. You're going to see some real good things happen. ..."
"... Astonishingly, Trump steals Clinton's clothes while she's at the swimming hole: "I want to be your champion" is an abandonted iteration of Clinton populism. ..."
"... What Tcherneva's chart shows is that under Obama - and unlike all previous "recoveries" - the 1% creamed off all the income gains, and the rest of us (on average) were left worse off. Income inequaltiy under Obama is worse than Bush! That's not good news for Clinton, the candidate of stability. Worse news for Clinton: Anybody who's seen the The Big Short ..."
"... Obama promised change and it didn't work out too well. And every year they fail to deliver. Why would politicians want to change a system that's totally rigged in order to keep them in power? That's what they're doing, folks. Why would politicians want to change a system that's made them and their friends very, very wealthy? [common sense] I beat a rigged system by winning with overwhelming support, the only way you could've done it – landslides all over the country with every demographic on track to win; 37 primary caucus victories in a field that began with 17 very talented people. ..."
"... Putting aside parsing of words on "primary caucus victories," Trump is right. Trump took the Republican Establishment and beat it like a gong. To volatility voters, that's very appealing . Note also the appeal of "totally rigged" to Sanders voters. ..."
"... After years of disappointment, there is one thing we all have learned – we can't fix the rigged system by relying on very, and I mean this so, so strongly, on the very people who rigged it, and they rigged it, and do not ever think anything differently. We can't solve our problems by counting on the politicians who created our problems. ..."
"... Secretary Clinton even did all of the work on a totally illegal private server. Something about how she's getting away with this folks nobody understands. ..."
"... Putting aside parsing of words on "totally illegal," right on both counts. "Nobody understands," for starters, because Clinton destroyed half the mail on the server before turning the rest over ..."
"... Designed to keep her corrupt dealings out of the public record, putting the security of the entire country at risk and a President in a corrupt system is totally protecting her – not right. I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you're going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. I wonder if the press will want to attend, who knows. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into her private hedge fund – the Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese – all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return. It's a sad day in America when foreign governments with deep pockets have more influence in our own country than our great citizens. ..."
"... Fear and Loathing ..."
"... Just a point on those rust belt areas left behind (PA, Western NY, Ohio, etc.) Not only is it an embarrassment, it has greatly assisted the transition from a community-based sense of democracy and citizen engagement to a disengaged, depressed populace ripe for control by big government/transnational corporate forces. One of the first things done by totalitarian regimes in order to unify large areas (Russia, China) was to deport the highly educated or send them to "work camps." The objective was to ensure that those most likely to make trouble for the regime would end up isolated and unable to connect with a larger community. ..."
"... The same objective has been accomplished by the gutting out of the middle class in large regions of "flyover" country. Albeit somewhat more artfully and without the threat of being shot. Forcing the middle class to move away from their home communities and disperse across the land in search of "jobs" has led to an easier road for neo-liberal policies to take hold, and allowed the 1% to ram through legislation such as the TPP that would have had no chance back in the days of Mondale and Tip O'Neill. ..."
"... These citizens in places like Buffalo, Cleveland and PA have been betrayed by their own government, and if Trump manages to get enough of their votes to take back some small measure of power from the corrupt gangs that ignore their plight, it will be a just result. Of course whether he'll actually do anything about the situation is debatable. ..."
"... Fear and loathing. Hope and change. What's the difference, really? God help us all come January. ..."
"... Fear the hope! Loathe the change! No wait, that's Hillary… ..."
"... If Trump is the vacuum cleaner salesman at the door, Clinton is the Jehovah's Witness. ..."
"... Just love the line about "…real change, not Obama change!" ..."
"... He's hinting at some FDR populism (jobs especially). I wouldn't be at all surprised if a President Trump embraced public works programs of all sizes. ..."
"... If there was an American labor party, that is more than likely what my political label would be. For the first time in my voting life, Sanders is the first candidate I actually wanted to vote for. ..."
"... Trump, if he was younger and had built a media empire instead of a half a$$ed real estate fortune, would likely suggest a similar dilemna as Berlusconi's corruptive work in Italy. ..."
"... "Take care of our African Americans." Trump is drawing a striking contrast to Obama here to Obama who, objectively speaking, has screwed black people harder than even W. Bush did. Trump is doing well to mention well to mention this because many black people operate under the delusion that Obama has been good for them and that Hillary will be good for them. In truth, under the neoliberal regime Clinton will usher in the lives of minorities everywhere will become even more miserable than they already are. At the very least Trump is not a neoliberal. ..."
"... There is something appealing about people who are being themselves. Sanders and Trump share that trait. B. Clinton also has it; H. Clinton doesn't. ..."
"... Or, perhaps, the carefully constructed inner self you keep around for people to find? People like you…' She paused and went on:'… people like us always keep at least one inner self for inquisitive visitors, don't we?' ..."
"... Sorry, Trump is an outsider to both the political classes and the elite power structure. He sits on no important not-for-profit boards, has not become a trustee or given a building or wing to a hospital or university, or an endowed chair. He does not collect art. Nor has he been a big political fundraiser. He borrows from only non-TBTF banks and hence does not have important relations with them. For them, Donald is just a rich guy from Queens who hasn't even tried to class himself up (unlike Jamie Dimon). You can be rich in America and not be part of the power structure. ..."
"... I know this is hardly an original observation, but Trump's Queens background may go far in explaining his bluster and narcissism - his father had money, but it wasn't Old Money and he didn't grow up mingling with prep school friends whose fathers worked on Wall Street or other Establishment places. It's really a Great Gatsby story more than anything else. ..."
"... If he is legitimately against TPP and in favor of better relations with Russia and China that would be enough for my support. One problem is the Republican power base would force him to change his positions. ..."
"... One can be rich, very rich, and yet outside the web of current interlocking reciprocities that make up the power structure. Think of it as the powerful bureaucracy of connections vs. a single individual, rich or not. ..."
"... Good analysis. Trump is easier to listen to than Clinton and he makes more sense. What he would actually do as president is anyone's guess. At least he's showing he can hire competent speech writers. His delivery was effective. He doesn't shirk from borrowing concepts from both Sanders and Clinton, which is good strategy. ..."
"... for one thing he hasn't started any wars. he isn't surrounded by neocon foreign policy advisors, yet, tho i wouldn't be surprised. he claims to be against the trade deal, he didn't vote for the iraq war, so he doesn't need to pretend there was ever a reason to go in. he won't strenghten the clintons' grip on the democratic party. just off the top of my head. ..."
Readers, I apologize for a posting miscue. I set the publication date for this post to June
13 , 2016. And so it appeared, and promptly fell off the front page. –lambert.
In this post, we continue taking a close look at primary sources, in this case a second speech
by presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Yesterday, we looked at the speech that Trump gave on national security , prompted by the mass
shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Today, we'll look at the speech Trump gave on the occasion
of his primary victory at the Trump National Golf Club (!) in Briarcliff Manor, a small town in New
York state and a pleasant fifteen minute drive away from Chappaqua; Clinton "clinched" her nomination
shortly thereafter. The video follows, and
the transcript is here .
If you just skipped over the video, I urge to reconsider, grab some coffee and/or start checking
your mail, and listen to it now; it's only a little over fifteen minutes long. (Note: I listened;
I did not watch. I'd be interested to know what readers who are more visual see, perhaps with the
sound down?) As a speech, it's excellent, and it inspired me to give Trump, as a speaker, the same
level of attention that I've previously given to
Obama ,
Clinton ,
Rubio , and even
Julia Gillard , then Prime Minister of Australia. Since Trump's speech on national security was
timely, I had to post on it first; and since that speech bumped a speech he had planned to give on
"Hillary Clinton and how bad a President" she would be, analysis of that speech to come will
be forthcoming.
This Trump speech is a "victory speech," a genre where a candidate accepts the mandate of
the voters, so it's simpler than a speech on policy. As before, I won't annotate or mark up the entire
text. Instead, I'll look at four major themes:
Appeal to Sanders Supporters Populist Appeal Corrupt Elites
1. Appeal to Sanders Supporters
The contrast between Trump's appeal to Sanders supporters, and Clinton's, is most immediately
seen in the form of a table. Trump's text comes from the video above; Clinton comes from her own
victory speech at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (
video
and transcript here ).
Figure 1: Appeal to Sanders Supporters: Trump vs. Clinton
At a high level, both appeals have the same structure: A direct address to Sanders supporters,
followed by a discussion of policy discussion. I won't discuss the rhetoric of the two in detail[1],
but their stylistic differences are plain. Where Trump is concise, Clinton is verbose. Where Trump
is concrete ("money… and jobs"), Clinton is abstract ("an economy with more opportunity"). Where
Trump is about the voters ("To those who voted…"), Clinton is about Clinton ("And as your president,
I…").[2]
Trump
Clinton
[TRUMP:] To those who voted for someone else in either party, I will work
hard to earn your support and I will work very hard to earn that support. To all of those Bernie
Sanders voters who have been left out in the cold by a rigged system of super delegates, we
welcome you with open arms. And by the way, the terrible trade deals that Bernie was so vehemently
against and he's right on that will be taken care of far better than anyone ever thought possible
and that's what I do. We are going to have fantastic trade deals. We're going to start making
money and bringing in jobs.
Now I know some people say….
And as your president, I will always have your back. I want to congratulate
Senator Sanders for the extraordinary campaign he has run. He has spent his long career in
public service fighting for progressive causes and principles, and he's excited millions of
voters, especially young people. And let there be no mistake: Senator Sanders, his campaign,
and the vigorous debate that we've had about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, increase
upward mobility have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America.
This has been a hard-fought, deeply-felt campaign. But whether you supported me, or Senator
Sanders, or one of the Republicans, we all need to keep working toward a better, fairer, stronger
America.
Now, I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe
in – and to come up short. I know that feeling well. But as we look ahead to the battle that
awaits, let's remember all that unites us.
We all want an economy with more opportunity and less inequality, where Wall Street can
never wreck Main Street again. We all want a government that listens to the people, not the
power brokers, which means getting unaccountable money out of politics. And we all want a society
that is tolerant, inclusive, and fair.
We all believe….
Let's contrast these two appeals in more detail. Trump (a) appeals to Sanders supporters
in simple language ("we welcome you with open arms"), (b) recognizes a strongly felt and still painful
sense of injury ("left out in the cold by a rigged system of super delegates"), and (c)
pivots to policy ("the terrible trade deals that Bernie was so vehemently against and he's
right on that"). Trump's talking points also have the great merit of being true:
The superdelegate system is "rigged," by design , and
the trade deals are terrible .[3]
Clinton's appeal follows the same sequence of appeal, injury, and policy, but in a way that is
at once more abstract and more clumsy. For (a) appeal , Clinton begins with a lengthy shout-out
to "Senator Sanders" (not "Bernie"), much as if she were at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, in which she
manages to condescend ("excited") to those she most needs ("young people"), and then meanders through
mentions of "the Democratic Party" and "America" before coming to (b) the injury , which,
again, is all about her ("Now, I know…"), is couched in terms both abstract and infantilizing ("…it
never feels good…), is framed as inside baseball ("…. cause or a candidate…."), and twists the knife
in the wound at the end ("and to come up short.")[4]. Finally, Clinton pivots (c) to policy
, where as we have seen, she is bloodless and abstract, and Trump is simple and concrete. Worse,
there are very few Sanders voters who would view her professed desire to get "accountable money out
of politics" as anything but ludicrously and imperviously hypocritical, given the contrast between
the Clinton and Sanders fundraising operation.
Trump reminds me of a vacuum cleaner salesman: When he comes to my door, I know just who and what
he is, his patter may be entertaining, and I can make him go away. When Clinton comes to my door,
she does so with all the charm of a process server presenting a demand note to garnish my vote.
At this point, I should reiterate the caveat that I'm not endorsing any candidate; what I am saying
is that if Clinton is to gain Sanders voters, she'll do so using techniques other than those she
used here. If it's possible for her to do so without reintroducing herself again, she should ask
herself why Trump can say something as simple as "we welcome you with open arms" and she cannot.
2. Populist Appeal
Now to Trump, les amis du peuple :
[TRUMP:] Now I know some people say I'm too much of a fighter.
I confess: I laughed out loud at Trump's humblebrag, because it's exactly like an answer to
the classic job interview question: "What is your greatest weakness?" ("I care too much"; "I'm
obsessively punctual," "I work too hard," etc.) However, Trump is canny, on multiple levels: First,
he's recalling his successful TV show, The Apprentice ; second, he shows that he understands
that he is asking us for a job, that we are his boss; and third, for those of us
who are looking for a job, or worried about the job we have, Trump puts himself in our place. Let
it never be said that simple language cannot send complex messages!
[TRUMP:] My preference is always peace, however and I've shown that. I've shown that for a
long time. I built an extraordinary business on relationships and deals that benefit all parties
involved, always. My goal is always again to bring people together. But if I'm forced to fight
for something I really care about, I will never, ever back down and our country will never, ever
back down.
Always. Be. Closing.
Thank you. I've fought for my family. I've fought for my business. I've fought for my employees.
And now, I'm going to fight for you, the American people like nobody has ever fought before. And
I'm not a politician fighting, I'm me. You're going to see some real good things happen.
"I'm me," along with "some people say I'm too much of a fighter," pre-empts pearl-clutching about
Trump's Twitter eruptions, outrageous statements, and so on; the storm comes, but passes quickly,
and all is sunny again. (Paul LePage used a similar strategy in Maine, successfully.
"He may be an assh*le, but he's our assh*le." )
Just remember this: I'm going to be your champion. I'm going to be America's champion because
you see this election isn't about Republican or Democrat; it's about who runs this country – the
special interests or the people and I mean the American people.
Every election year politicians promise change. Obama promised change and it didn't work out
too well.
A neat transition to our next theme.
3. Corrupt Elites
Here is the "headwind" - to use an elite metaphor - that Clinton is fighting. Pavlina Tcherneva's
famous chart, presented by a political figure some may recognize:
[TRUMP:] Every election year politicians promise change. Obama promised change and it didn't
work out too well. And every year they fail to deliver. Why would politicians want to change a
system that's totally rigged in order to keep them in power? That's what they're doing, folks.
Why would politicians want to change a system that's made them and their friends very, very wealthy?
[common sense] I beat a rigged system by winning with overwhelming support, the only way you could've
done it – landslides all over the country with every demographic on track to win; 37 primary caucus
victories in a field that began with 17 very talented people.
Putting aside parsing of words on "primary caucus victories," Trump is right. Trump took the
Republican Establishment and beat it like a gong.
To volatility voters, that's very appealing . Note also the appeal of "totally rigged" to Sanders
voters.
After years of disappointment, there is one thing we all have learned – we can't fix the
rigged system by relying on very, and I mean this so, so strongly, on the very people who rigged
it, and they rigged it, and do not ever think anything differently. We can't solve our problems
by counting on the politicians who created our problems.
This seems like common sense, but watch Trump's sleight of hand: First, we have "the
very people who rigged it," who turn out to be "the politicians." But "the politicians" don't run
the country. Crudely, they and the political class (and more diffusely,
Thomas Frank's 10% ) manage the country, on behalf of its absentee owners, the 1%. Oligarchs
"create," not politicians. Second, you should be extremely wary of any candidate who runs against
"the politicians" while deploying a narrative of national restoration. We know how that movie ends:
Badly . (When I look at Trump's next speech, I'll cover the question of fascism and Trump in
some detail; for now, let me note that there are rather a lot of "-isms," being deployed in this
campaign, and a large proportion of them call into the category of "any stick to beat a dog.")
The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves.
They've made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government
contracts, and I mean hundreds of millions of dollars.
Secretary Clinton even did all of the work on a totally illegal private server. Something
about how she's getting away with this folks nobody understands.
Putting aside parsing of words on "totally illegal," right on both counts. "Nobody understands,"
for starters, because Clinton destroyed half the mail on the server before turning the rest over.
I mean, come on.
Designed to keep her corrupt dealings out of the public record, putting the security of
the entire country at risk and a President in a corrupt system is totally protecting her – not
right. I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and we're going to be
discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you're going to
find it very informative and very, very interesting. I wonder if the press will want to attend,
who knows.
Hoo boy. (This is the speech bumped for the national security speech.)
Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into her private hedge fund – the Russians,
the Saudis, the Chinese – all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return.
It's a sad day in America when foreign governments with deep pockets have more influence in our
own country than our great citizens.
Trump's upcoming speech should be quite something.
I didn't need to do this. It's not easy, believe me. I didn't need to do it. But I felt I had
to give back to our wonderful country which has been so good to me and to my family. I've traveled
to many of our states and seen the suffering in people's eyes. I've visited communities in New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana and Ohio whose manufacturing jobs, they literally,
these jobs have virtually disappeared, an embarrassment to our country and it's horrible.
Absolutely right. Notice, however, the sleight of hand again: Trump doesn't mention private equity,
which played such a large part in "disappearing" those jobs.
I've embraced the victims of illegal immigration, moms and dads who have had to bury their
own children because of people that shouldn't have been in the country – remember it, folks, remember
it.
And absolutely wrong. I'm not a fan of nativism.
Conclusion
Again as a troll prophylactic, let me say that this post is not an endorsement of any candidate.
It's easy to see how Clinton can and should assault Trump's nativism. It's not so easy to see how
Clinton can defend herself against Trump's charges of corruption, especially when Trump connects,
as he can and should, real suffering to the actions of corrupt and criminal elites. It's also not
clear whether Clinton can, or even seeks, to connect to voters outside her relatively narrow base.[6]
Finally, Trump is not dumb. Trump is not a buffoon. Trump is focusing on the vulnerabilities of his
adversary with laser-like precision and lethality. Trump can discipline himself to use a Teleprompter,
select an excellent speechwriter, and deliver a scorcher of a speech; it will be interesting to see
how he does in the debates when he's had time to polish his zingers. Whether Clinton can neutralize
the truths (many) in Trump's critique and capitalize on calling out the bullshit (much, much, much)
is unknown. Whether our famously free press can do to Trump what they did to Sanders is unknown.
Whether Republican elites will do a McGovern on Trump is unknown, and whether Johnson will do for
Hillary in 2016 what Perot did for Bill in 1992 is unknown. There is our rickety and fraud-prone
electoral system to consider. And then there are "Events, dear boy. Events." But anybody who thinks
that Clinton will get a free ride to the Oval Office is delusional.
NOTES
[1] You will note the
anaphora in Clinton's speech: "We all want…. We all want… We all want…." Trump uses even simpler
figures of repetition, like
diacope ("repetition
of a word with one or more between, usually to express deep feeling"): " I will work hard to
earn your support and I will work very hard to earn that support ." Other
figures of repetition include
epizeuxis ("We had
some big, big days") and the more general
conduplicatio combined
with parallelism
(" no matter who it is, no matter who they are." Trump's rhetorical figures,
like his vocabulary and syntax , are simpler than Clinton's. (One wonders whether the repetition
is useful to achieve continuity in a speech punctuated by regular applause or laughter.) That doesn't
mean that they're ineffective; to me,
the repetitive words strike like hammer blows .
[2] Of course voters know that Trump isn't really "about" them. Voters, and especially NC readers,
aren't children. They know that Trump is a billionaire, not an especially nice man, and a business
past not without shade. But at least he cares enough to fake it!
[3] Nobody should take Clinton's crawfishing on trade seriously; Obama's for TPP. If Clinton is
really against TPP, then she needs to start fighting Obama about it, to make sure it doesn't pass
in the lame duck.
[4] At least when Trump says "loser," he uses only one word!
Just a point on those rust belt areas left behind (PA, Western NY, Ohio, etc.) Not only
is it an embarrassment, it has greatly assisted the transition from a community-based sense of
democracy and citizen engagement to a disengaged, depressed populace ripe for control by big government/transnational
corporate forces.
One of the first things done by totalitarian regimes in order to unify large areas (Russia,
China) was to deport the highly educated or send them to "work camps." The objective was to ensure
that those most likely to make trouble for the regime would end up isolated and unable to connect
with a larger community.
The same objective has been accomplished by the gutting out of the middle class in large
regions of "flyover" country. Albeit somewhat more artfully and without the threat of being shot.
Forcing the middle class to move away from their home communities and disperse across the land
in search of "jobs" has led to an easier road for neo-liberal policies to take hold, and allowed
the 1% to ram through legislation such as the TPP that would have had no chance back in the days
of Mondale and Tip O'Neill.
These citizens in places like Buffalo, Cleveland and PA have been betrayed by their own
government, and if Trump manages to get enough of their votes to take back some small measure
of power from the corrupt gangs that ignore their plight, it will be a just result. Of course
whether he'll actually do anything about the situation is debatable.
Kudos! Well said. A pleasure to find a progressive who does not reflexively reguritate that
Trump is 'idea free' and Clinton is full of 'specific policies'.
I must disagree about the 'nativism' part (we're really talking about citizens, not 'natives').
Would you open all the doors and windows on your own home and let anyone at all – and I mean ANYONE
AT ALL – freely enter your house and help themselves to everything you have without your permission?
Of course not. And nor should the American people be expected to take such a suicidal course.
The rich want to open the borders to the overpopulated third world in order to drive wages down
to third-world levels. The average American – 'native born' or recent immigrant alike – does not.
I see no problem with enforcing the laws against illegal immigration, nor with reducing the rate
of legal immigration. Slandering this moderate position as 'nativist' is – dare I say it? – almost
Clintonian…
I know someone who opened their house to anyone for a 6 month period as a personal spiritual
exercise in being non-judgmental and keeping an open heart. Drug dealers, possible murderers–no
one was turned away. They all said they grew from the experience, that it was profound and they
had no regrets. The local police found it confusing, though. The explanation given to the police
was that they were friends.
I'm struggling with the word. I wanted something American, not European (although the unlucky
soul who clicked through on the "Badly" link will find a European image).
Hence, "nativist." I thinking that, with respect to the abolition of human rental, we might
call liberals "doughfaces."
Trump is like able. He's that big loud guy you know, makes mistakes, owns them, and is who
he is. He's no bullshit. Yes, Trump files for bankruptcy. That's what contractors and developers
do. That's the game and Trump plays it.
In this particular speech, Trump owns who he is. He makes no bones about it. He doesn't deflect,
or obstruct or blame someone else. He's out there warts and all. There's some overly vague language
(regulation – no specifics there so tis unclear what he is referring to) He's hinting at some
FDR populism (jobs especially). I wouldn't be at all surprised if a President Trump embraced public
works programs of all sizes.
Background detail – it looked like his wife and daughter kept watching the teleprompter and
the audience very closely. My take away impression is that as soon as he finishes speaking they
give him or someone in his campaign detailed notes. Where he hit, where he missed, where the audience
responded, etc.
I have been castigated because, it is said, no one around here actually likes Trump, they just
hate Clinton. I am, I have been told, been holding up a straw man when I say that people at NC
have often excused and at times praised and de facto endorsed Trump. Well, this is not the first
example of someone who likes and endorses Trump (Working Class Nero certainly did also). Or are
you going to tell me this is not a pro-Trump statement?
Just kidding. Certainly Trump can work an audience better than Clinton and it may win him some
votes (even from the ranks of the NC readership, it must be admitted). At any rate the Clinton/Trump
debates, while likely not to equal the gravitas of Lincoln/Douglas, may actually be fun to watch.
I am being open and honest about my opinion which, I was under the impression, is what Lambert
asked for. Would you prefer I lie?
If there was an American labor party, that is more than likely what my political label
would be. For the first time in my voting life, Sanders is the first candidate I actually wanted
to vote for.
I try very hard not to lie to myself about political realities which is why I just can't bring
myself to vote for Clinton. I just can't. My personal reality is this: which candidate is more
likely to help me work and feed my family without destroying the planet around us?
Sanders is my first choice. The question at this point is if he's not on the November ballot,
how do I vote? In 2012, I opted third party.
So here are the options if Sanders is not on the ballot.
A. Leave it blank
B. Third party candidate
C. Republican
Trump has not at this point ruled himself out as an option.
A third party vote is like one vote against two Clintons. A Trump vote is then like two votes
against two Clintons. Math is weird sometimes. But one would be tempted to think of it as your
big chance to commit election fraud.
It's my second time, and I never thought there could be a second time. I thought I was gonna
play golf. But the golf course is right down the road from the world's largest tactical missile
plant!
The difference between 2012 and 2016 is that in 2012 there just wasn't enough disgust with
the Democrats and the Republicans for a third party vote to matter much. In 2016, disgust is widespread,
and nearly every voter either hates Clinton or hates Trump, and some voters hate both. So a third
party candidate (maybe two of them) has a real chance to get 5% of the vote, which would qualify
the candidate (or his or her party) for federal grant money.
" I just can't bring myself to vote for Clinton."
-I don't think anyone is asking.
"Sanders is my first choice. The question at this point is if he's not on the November ballot,
how do I vote? In 2012, I opted third party."
-This is the point I don't get from voters whose first choice is Sanders. NC boards have been
weighted with Sander's supporters hopeful he will pursue a third party candidacy and wondering
what he expected to accomplish within the Democratic wing of the Business Party. Yet with the
opportunity to choose a third party candidate (Jill Stein is running Green or Emidio "Mimi" Soltysik
Socialist) over both the Democratic and Republican wing of the Business Party somehow they want
to vote for Republican Donald Trump.
As mentioned elsewhere, the third party option is particularly valid this year when third party
sentiment has waxed considerably over recent previous elections.
Excellent analysis. It's easy to forget what Lambert points out several times, about the slight-of-hand
aspect to Trumps orations. It's also quite fun to watch him straight up fuck with Hillary.
I mean, really he's toying with her, and let's face it: we love it. I just wish I had the time
or presence of mind to make the kind of breakdown Lambert presents.
Right now I see many of us pushing to the back of our minds the awareness of the dark side
of all this, darkly hinted at in the final point of Trump's speech. As far as I'm concerned, Trump
is just as much a crook as Clinton, he's just a different kind of crook, and to imagine that he
actually has the well being of regular citizens in mind is a dangerous illusion. He's made it
pretty clear that he is going to foster and perpetuate racial divisions, as well as a brutal and
violent response to to any dissent. For all the smooth talking Trump does, let's not forget that
you and I are likely next on the chopping block, after 'mexicans' and 'muslims' and 'immigrants'.
I can't convince myself to willingly embrace that, sorry.
A non-rhetorical question: what racial divisions is Trump trying to foster? I have never seen
or heard a single statement from him that he has anything against any race. It looks to me like
a baseless meme the media created to disparage Trump.
"what racial divisions is Trump trying to foster?"
Who could think such a thing? In this particular 'victory' speech he's promised to, "take care
of our African American people. " There is no race except the human race in acceptable political
discourse at the presidential level, once you get past that hurdle you're into ethnicity and there
you find Trump the xenophobe. Islam and Mexicans spring unhappily to mind. How 'bout that judge
that must be prejudice against Trump cause he's Mexican?
Trump, if he was younger and had built a media empire instead of a half a$$ed real estate
fortune, would likely suggest a similar dilemna as Berlusconi's corruptive work in Italy.
I suppose it could be argued that Islam is not a race. It's a religion of course, but of course
horrible discrimination can occur on the basis of religion as well. And it' wasn't really about
Mexicans just illegal Mexicans (and is Mexican really truly a race?). And so on. And minorities
hear loud and clear what Trump is (as do those of his backers who are r-ist), while some white
people split semantic hairs on whether Trump is or is not r-ist. It's all so difficult to figure
out … and like Bill Clinton said IS is problematic and …
Whatever. Dogwhistles that sound like trainwhistles as one article said. People get what is
being communicated. I don't know how much Trump means any real harm (unlike some of his supporters
who definitely do), but regardless people get what is being communicated.
Actually come to think of it Berlusconi started out in real estate and construction with ties
to the mob in vaguely similar fashion to Trump but he was younger and moved into media in a more
seminal way than the Apprentice.
"Take care of our African Americans." Trump is drawing a striking contrast to Obama here
to Obama who, objectively speaking, has screwed black people harder than even W. Bush did. Trump
is doing well to mention well to mention this because many black people operate under the delusion
that Obama has been good for them and that Hillary will be good for them. In truth, under the
neoliberal regime Clinton will usher in the lives of minorities everywhere will become even more
miserable than they already are. At the very least Trump is not a neoliberal.
"Mexico" is a country, not a race. My best and closest friend is a Mexican – and after Bernie
lost out he's now supporting Trump. One of the main reasons for that is because he does not like
seeing illegal Mexicans streaming into his country, America, and stealing work. It has nothing
to do with race; it's economics.
And yes confusing the Muslim religion for a race is somewhat offensive to me. People can change
or abandon religions whenever they feel like it. If, under a Trump presidency, a Muslim really
wants to enter the US all he has to do is abandon his faith. If this was about race that wouldn't
be possible.
I didn't have time to listen to it until now. Trump gave a very good speech. But one speech
isn't enough to persuade me to vote for him. I remember George W. Bush's speech on September 20,
2001, in response the the horror of 9/11. With the exception of one sentence, I think Bush's speech
was excellent. The bad sentence is this: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Manichean bovine manure! I was quite favorably impressed by the rest of Bush's speech, and we
know how badly things turned out over the next few years.
So I won't let a single good speech by Trump persuade me. I will base my vote on the gestalt
of the candidates, and Trump has a lot of baggage, as does Clinton. I don't think either of them
deserves to be President. A lot will have to change over the next few months for me to consider
voting for Trump; for example, he needs to disavow his praise for Scalia.
There is this idea out there that there is an 'inner Hillary' that is completely different
from her outward persona – someone that is funny, warm, engaging, charming, etc…
What if there isn't? What if she _is_ being herself?
Apparently, the Hillary in small groups is "funny, warm, engaging…." As far as inner
Hillary, from Terry Pratchett, Making Money :
Mrs Lavish sniffed. … 'Ah, and she sees your inner self? Or, perhaps, the carefully
constructed inner self you keep around for people to find? People like you…' She paused and
went on:'… people like us always keep at least one inner self for inquisitive visitors, don't
we?'
Moist didn't rise to this. Talking to Mrs Lavish was like standing in front of a magic mirror
that stripped you to your marrow.
and whether Johnson will do for Hillary in 2016 what Perot did for Bill in 1992 is unknown
It is interesting to note at RCP that the Johnson match-up pulls more of those polled away
from HRC than from DT. It is only a frame in a long movie, however my intuition would be that
Johnson would pull support from DT.
Sorry, Trump is an outsider to both the political classes and the elite power structure.
He sits on no important not-for-profit boards, has not become a trustee or given a building or
wing to a hospital or university, or an endowed chair. He does not collect art. Nor has he been
a big political fundraiser. He borrows from only non-TBTF banks and hence does not have important
relations with them. For them, Donald is just a rich guy from Queens who hasn't even tried to
class himself up (unlike Jamie Dimon). You can be rich in America and not be part of the power
structure.
I know this is hardly an original observation, but Trump's Queens background may go far
in explaining his bluster and narcissism - his father had money, but it wasn't Old Money and he
didn't grow up mingling with prep school friends whose fathers worked on Wall Street or other
Establishment places. It's really a Great Gatsby story more than anything else.
If he is legitimately against TPP and in favor of better relations with Russia and China
that would be enough for my support. One problem is the Republican power base would force him
to change his positions.
Lambert, great analysis as always, and especially the notes on the rhetorical devices.
One of the reasons I can't vote for him is that he praised the arch-ideologue Antonin Scalia,
and he has promised to pack the Supreme Court with what could be described as Scalia clones. He's
pandering to the extremists.
Then again, he has also threatened to nominate Gary Busey to the Supreme Court, but that's
just a gambit to force rich Republicans to donate. He's not serious about Mr. Justice Busey.
Plus, anyone who wants to be taken seriously, yet injects the arrogant pejorative, "fool,"
towards those who may have a different view, well, who's the fool here?
"You can be rich in America and not be part of the power structure."
Hope NC readers take this statement on board. I know it's not intuitive but it is true.
One can be rich, very rich, and yet outside the web of current interlocking reciprocities that
make up the power structure. Think of it as the powerful bureaucracy of connections vs. a single
individual, rich or not.
I've taken it on board. However if I wanted to have a word with my senator or congressman I
doubt he or she would jump to attention as quickly as if the Donald requested an audience.
The same goes for a loan from a bank, whether TBTF or otherwise, as well the law firms hired,
the waves made. Trump may not be part of the establishment power structure but he still has juice
that connects to the grid in some fashion.
I agree. My point is that assuming that because someone is rich means they're connect to the
power structure and will therefore f' you is as erroneous as assuming that someone who is not
rich and therefore not connected to the power structure will not f' you.
Both are false. See, for instance, Clintons when they were starting out.
When the "misrulership class" (hat tip, Yves) splits, it splits all the way to the top.
We don't have good both/and language to describe sets with oddball members, that I know of.
Maybe there's a sociologist or a mathematician who can enlighten me….
Very true, Yves. And, apropos of the articles noted yesterday on rational and polite political
disagreement, he is not very polite to his political opponents either in the Republican or Democrat
Parties.
As a candidate, calling out the media and your opponents out in public, especially the televised
"debates", as wimps, liars, crooks, stupid, etc., including his very unflattering nicknames for
all of them, is not how the game is played within the elite political and economic power structures
nowadays.
And it shows… if the Republican Power Structure felt he was an "insider", why are they throwing
all kinds of fits in public regarding his Primary Win?
Of course, that is part of his appeal, like him or not.
Good analysis. Trump is easier to listen to than Clinton and he makes more sense. What
he would actually do as president is anyone's guess. At least he's showing he can hire competent
speech writers. His delivery was effective. He doesn't shirk from borrowing concepts from both
Sanders and Clinton, which is good strategy.
Maybe the Russians will give Trump the low-down on the Clinton e-mails as grist for his next
speech.
I think it's an important point that even if Trump is not totally authentic, at least he cares
enough to pander on economic issues. At the least it expands what can be discussed in political
contexts.
Are you really serious! Really you found all these faults with Clinton, all of which I agree.
WHICH one of these is not true of Trump? Is he not the 1% that this site and especially this Lambert
character loves to despise. And this BS is being eaten up by NC readers? Really? This is what
this (pretty interesting) site has been reduced to? What BS.
for one thing he hasn't started any wars. he isn't surrounded by neocon foreign policy
advisors, yet, tho i wouldn't be surprised. he claims to be against the trade deal, he didn't
vote for the iraq war, so he doesn't need to pretend there was ever a reason to go in. he won't
strenghten the clintons' grip on the democratic party. just off the top of my head.
Blakeman says the FBI has deliberately waited to interview Hillary Clinton until after the primaries
because the bureau did not want to interfere with the nominating process. He thinks the FBI is "likely"
to recommend to the Department of Justice whether or not she should be indicted for violating what
she says are agency rules and what others call the law between now and the Democratic National Convention
in Philadelphia, which begins July 25.
If she is indicted before the convention, Blakeman says, it will give the party an opportunity
to make changes in the rules that could result in an alternate nominee.
"... Hillary's emails contain at least three separate, specific instances where she mentioned in an unclassified email transmitted across the open Internet and wirelessly to her Blackberry the names of CIA personnel. ..."
"... These redactions point directly to violations of specific laws. It is not a "mistake" or minor rule breaking. ..."
"... These redactions strongly suggest that the Espionage Act's standard of mishandling national defense information through "gross negligence" may have been met by Clinton. ..."
"... There is no ambiguity in this information, no possible claims to faux-retroactive classification, not knowing, information not being labeled, etc. Clinton and her staff know that one cannot mention CIA names in open communications. ..."
"... Exposing these names can directly endanger the lives of the officials. It can endanger the lives of the foreigners they interacted with after a foreign government learns one of their citizens was talking with the CIA It can blow covers and ruin sensitive clandestine operations. It can reveal to anyone listening in on this unclassified communication sources and methods. Here is a specific example of how Clinton likely compromised security. ..."
"... These redactions show complete contempt on Clinton's part for the security process. ..."
"... A Personal Aside: I just remain incredulous about these revelations seeming to mean nothing to the world. They're treated in the media as almost gossip. ..."
"... It seems that HRC may become POTUS, thanks to the actions of DNC, DWS and the MSM and the inaction of the FBI and DOJ - much to the relief of the MIC, CIA and NSA and the satisfaction of the TBTF banks and the RDA (* I made this one up; it stands for "Revolving Door Apparatchiks".) ..."
"... An external IT audit is necessary in this case, if it hasn't already been ordered. Who gave the approval to set this thing up? Where is the documentation requesting access to the State's servers? Who signed off on that? Who verified that approval? Who processed the request and what verification did the approvals undergo? ..."
"... An IT auditor would rip State several new orifices with which to excrete solid waste matter. ..."
You can look at the source documents yourself. This is not opinion, conjecture, or rumor. Hillary
Clinton transmitted the names of American intelligence officials via her unclassified email.
From a series of Clinton emails, numerous names were redacted in the State Department releases
with the classification code "B3 CIA PERS/ORG," a highly specialized classification that means the
information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence Act of 1949 by exposing the names
of CIA officials.
How FOIA Works
The Freedom of information Act (FOIA) requires the government to release all, or all parts of
a document, that do not fall under a specific set of allowed exemptions. If information cannot be
excluded, it must be released. If some part of a document can be redacted to allow the rest of the
document to be released, then that is what must be done. Each redaction must be justified by citing
a specific reason for exclusion.
But don't believe me. Instead, look at page two of this
State Department document which lists the exemptions.
Note specifically the different types of "(b)(3)" redactions, including "CIA PERS/ORG." As common
sense would dictate, the government will not release the names of CIA employees via the FOIA process.
It would - literally - be against the law. What law? Depending on the nature of the individual's
job at CIA, National Security Act of 1947, the CIA Act of 1949, various laws that govern undercover/clandestine
CIA officers and, potentially, the Espionage Act of 1917.
Names of CIA, NSA Officials Mentioned, Now Redacted
Yet Hillary's emails contain at least three separate, specific instances where she mentioned
in an unclassified email transmitted across the open Internet and wirelessly to her Blackberry the
names of CIA personnel. Here they are. Look for the term "(b)(3) CIA PERS/ORG" Click on the
links and see for yourself:
There are also numerous instances of exposure of the names and/or email addresses of NSA employees
("B3 NSA"); see page 23 inside this longer
PDF document.
Why It Matters
These redactions point directly to violations of specific laws. It is not a "mistake"
or minor rule breaking.
These redactions strongly suggest that the Espionage Act's standard of mishandling national
defense information through "gross negligence" may have been met by Clinton.
There is no ambiguity in this information, no possible claims to faux-retroactive classification,
not knowing, information not being labeled, etc. Clinton and her staff know that one cannot mention
CIA names in open communications. It is one of the most basic tenets taught and exercised
inside the government. One protects one's colleagues.
Exposing these names can directly endanger the lives of the officials. It can endanger
the lives of the foreigners they interacted with after a foreign government learns one of their
citizens was talking with the CIA It can blow covers and ruin sensitive clandestine operations.
It can reveal to anyone listening in on this unclassified communication sources and methods. Here
is a
specific example of how Clinton likely compromised security.
These redactions show complete contempt on Clinton's part for the security process.
BONUS: There is clear precedent for others going to jail for exposing CIA names.
Read the story of John Kiriakou
.
A Personal Aside: I just remain incredulous about these revelations seeming
to mean nothing to the world. They're treated in the media as almost gossip.
It seems that HRC may become POTUS, thanks to the actions of DNC, DWS and the MSM and the
inaction of the FBI and DOJ - much to the relief of the MIC, CIA and NSA and the satisfaction
of the TBTF banks and the RDA (* I made this one up; it stands for "Revolving Door Apparatchiks".)
The rest of us are FUCD.
Tired_of_poor_healthcare
The media has been bought and paid for. There is no longer news reporting, only propaganda
recitation. Statistically, most people are followers. Let's hope there are a few principled public
servants at the FBI to help save our country.
liveload
An external IT audit is necessary in this case, if it hasn't already been ordered. Who
gave the approval to set this thing up? Where is the documentation requesting access to the State's
servers? Who signed off on that? Who verified that approval? Who processed the request and what
verification did the approvals undergo?
An IT auditor would rip State several new orifices with which to excrete solid waste matter.
"... But the panic is also a clear indication, and perhaps as important, another message, not just to Clinton but to Team Dem, that the Administration can't, or won't but is making it seem like can't, do what it takes to save Hillary's bacon. ..."
"... The fact that there is an independent effort, completely outside the Administration's control, pursuing the server mess, also makes it riskier for the DoJ to do nothing if Judicial Watch exposes damning documents. ..."
"... The Democrats don't have any dirt on Trump the Republicans didn't have. Trump is a referendum on the establishment. The establishment can't attack him, and any attacks too similar to the very publicized establishment attacks will be dismissed. ..."
"... Maybe not Mittens and Bill Kristol at this point, the GOP elites will show loyalty because anything less will risk their own position. The base will remove GOP elites over certain sins. The Teabaggers cleaned the GOP caucus of TARP voters. ..."
"... "Trump is a referendum on the establishment." ..."
"... That's the best one-sentence explanation for his success that I've seen. ..."
"... That is certainly the narrative Trump wants. What I find the height of black, despairing comedy is that anyone believes it. In addition to being completely untrustworthy and self-centered, Trump has little to gain by overthrowing the status quo, and has given many signs that he will continue business as usual, only with a slightly different crew of low-rent elites in charge at the top. ..."
"... No matter what he says, Trump is not leading some sort of revolution to abolish the Empire and replace it with something else, much less something better. He just wants a shortcut to being Emperor. ..."
"... I'm under the impression that if not for the Benghazi investigation, the home server would not have been discovered. However, maybe someone else can confirm that I'm correct. Which, if you think about it, does not actually make sense. The NSA should have known all along. Why on earth she supposed that she could get around the NSA is simply… words fail me. ..."
"... My tin foil hat has always told me Clintonistas may not have worked overly hard for Kerry in 2004, even offering bad advice. Every Winner and Loser column from after the election listed on clear winner, the front runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. Clinton Inc was operating out of crummy digs in Harlem because they couldn't raise money, but the money poured in after the Kerry loss. ..."
"... My only fear re: how Clinton could win in November would be if she and Bill had the juice to help throw 2000 and 2004 to keep the path clear for her. Unless she can steal in the General, she isn't going to be President. That would also explain Obama's focus on caucuses in 2008 - he went after her soft, less stealable underbelly. (I realize there are also less CT explanations for this.) ..."
"... "Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal matter. " ..."
"... Given the last 15 years of brutal, if selective, prosecutions for mishandling materials less sensitive than some of the material on Clinton's servers, I don't think many people will buy that. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is not the private server per se, but the use of it to circumvent any exposure to FOIA requests. The pay-for-play activities of the Secretary with regard to the Foundation can certainly be inferred, and if proven are grounds for an indictment leading to prosecution for treason, and the incarceration (if not the death penalty) for the entire Clinton family. The tons of circumstantial evidence regarding the timing of payments and the goodies granted, would be sufficient for a Grand Jury indictment; the "smell' test is overwhelming. ..."
"... People seem to forget that Clinton served on the Committee on Armed Services from 2003 to 2009 and on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities … you know, the Subcommittee that has jurisdiction over Department of Defense policies and programs to counter emerging threats, information warfare and special operations programs. ..."
"... I too would want to keep my PRIVATE and PERSONAL emails and other communications private … if she'd been above board and simply had a private email for non-official communications and kept the official State Dept stuff on the official account, there would be nothing here. ..."
"... Sanders will lose his clout and things go back to normal. ..."
"... private server ..."
"... a personal email account was allowed ..."
"... It seems that Mills claimed that HRC's use of the private email was not kept secret and lots of Admin officials knew about it. (Note that people had to make a special request to be able to use her email.) But Obama claimed he only learned of it "like the rest of you, in the news reports". So Obama and Hillary never emailed each other while she was SoS? ..."
"... They never were chummy esp. after all the heat of the campaign: "You're likeable enough, Hillary". ..."
"... It was reported last January that there were eighteen emails between Clinton and Obama that State was not going to release for security reasons. So yes, they did email each other. It would be interesting to know what security instructions Obama received regarding using his email. Did anyone ever caution him to check the sender's email address as a caution against phishing? Her email address was clintonemail dot com. Even a technical neophyte has to know that means either she or some other entity was hosting the site; and, if a separate entity, did that entity have security clearance for handling those emails? Obama knew darn well that she was using an unsecure system. He is equally guilty of enabling her risk-taking. ..."
"... Now that Elizabeth Warren is being a good girl and playing footsie with Schumer, I can see them thinking putting her in as VP would work well enough. I don't think so (in my neck of the progressive woods, there seems to be a general understanding that she sold out), but more importantly, I can't imagine Hillary stepping away only to see Liz moved in. ..."
"... Their smartest real play would be to let Bernie have the nom and bide their time, hoping they can work in the background with Republicans to taint and undermine him. But I suspect that they're exactly smart enough to know that probably wouldn't work. ..."
"... my rich friends (lifetime republicans included) will vote for hillary, my poor friends won't. ..."
"... Clinton voters are the small amount type. She has only "won," even in the states she did did "win," by massively suppressing the vote. She hasn't even held onto her own voters from 2008, even in conservative states. Her "big wins" in the South were with much smaller numbers of votes cast. There are people who genuinely want to vote for her. They were not enough to win the Democratic primary without massive suppression AND theft. ..."
"... The problem for Hillary is there is no indication the email scandal narrative will ever improve to the point of improving her untrustworthy numbers. The best she can hope for is the FBI stating it will not recommend an indictment which will merely confirm the public's correct perception that the power elite are treated better than the rank and file. Hillary cannot unring the Inspector General's conclusion she circumvented FOIA and federal record keeping laws. She cannot undue the fact she maintained thousands of classified records, along with 22 top secret documents on the private server. She cannot change the fact she hid her use of the private server from the public and only disclosed it when caught by the Senate Committee investigating Benghazi. Everyone who pays attention to the facts is disgusted by her misconduct in this matter. ..."
"... I think her problem is that, in routing official traffic through a private mail server, she's tried to avoid records of her work (as a public official!) ever becoming available to the public. It looks, at the very least, like she's trying to hide something and it's a demonstration of breathtaking contempt for the very people whose votes she's now asking for. ..."
"... If he shagged under the legal age limit girls, traveled on a jet which was used in slave trade of underage girls, etc; then it isn't just his business, it's a criminal matter. If Mrs. Clinton enabled, and/or aided and abetted, then she could be facing criminal charges. ..."
"... The interesting thing is Jeffery Epstein has hidden cameras on both his plane and all over the US Virgin Island private pedophile reserve he ran for politicians and high level government officials. The overseas press is reporting he blackmailed his way out of Federal Charges. Was Bill part of that blackmail? ..."
"... Bill is a sexual predator. His affair with Jennifer Flower was consensual. But starting from when he was Governor, there is a long list of credible allegations of him engaging in sexual harassment (extremely aggressive come-ons with women he had just met, often women who were state employees or Dem consultatnts), including a rape allegation by Juanita Brodderick. We've even had a reader in comments say that when Bill Clinton visited a friend, he asked their college aged daughter when he was alone with her if she wanted to ride in his car and give him a blow job. DC contacts confirm the city is rife with stories like that. ..."
"... If there were an equal ..."
"... As strange a thing as this is to say, I find myself wishing that more journalists had experience in IT security. I do have such experience, and from what I can see most people really don't appreciate just how totally, ludicrously irresponsible it is for that server to exist. Talk of it having been "secured" by some lone IT contractor is ridiculous on its face. I wouldn't run a homebrew email server, and I am basically not worth hacking – very much unlike the US Secretary of State. ..."
"... Seriously, think about it. The Secretary of State had a private email server which seems to have been widely known about within the State Department and other people in government who had dealings with Hillary Clinton. There's really no question as to if that thing was hacked – you can absolutely bet your ass ..."
"... That's what's really galling to me – even by Hillary's own stated standards, what she did with her email is orders of magnitude worse than what Snowden did. But it's Hillary Clinton, so it gets handwaved by the Democrats' long practice at assuming a Clinton scandal is overblown nonsense. ..."
"... That's why people like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, Joe Wilson, and so forth are persecuted by the government while people like Clinton (and Petraeus, Novack, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Biden, etc.) are protected. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of events. Just as one example, here's the 'ole Gray Lady serving as dutiful stenographer for Nancy Pelosi herself, the Democratic Speaker from San Francisco, supposedly one of the most liberal parts of the entire country, explaining that the law doesn't apply to people in power. ..."
"... I've worked in IT and software development for years and agree that her provision of that server doesn't meet the most basic requirements for security. Also, I work for a rather large company with a sizable federal contract and, if you haven't contracted with the government, you can only imagine the levels of security they impose upon their vendors. Two-factor authentication, encryption at rest, kernel hardening and on and on. Not only do you HAVE to do these things if you want to do business with the government, they bring in teams of their IT people to audit you. And it is not perfunctory in any way. They take InfoSec very, very seriously. ..."
"... Yesterday in the WSJ was this op-ed which made many of the same points that were made here, as well as discusses the fallout if Clinton loses the California primary. I also think that the Dems are not only just worried about the nomination now. The IG's report clears a path for hearings by the Republicans against Clinton after the election. ..."
"... I agree. Sanders has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by "making nice" with the Dem establishment. Why make nice with them? They are the problem, not the solution. That's a mainstay of Sanders' campaign. ..."
"... The Clinton fanaticism isn't about Sanders. They believe they need Clinton. An active DoJ might be a threat. A few have backwards ideas about politics. Some simply did the believe Sanders when he said Hillary was weak, but with a Gabbard in play, many Democrats can kiss their ambitions good bye if Sanders wins. ..."
"... I've said it elsewhere: Sanders is unacceptable to the DNC because a Sanders win would render the DNC networks, influence and fundraising abilities irrelevant overnight. The DNC would no longer be gatekeepers. You can win without them. Thus, Team D does not fear a Sanders defeat, and they can live with President Trump. In fact, that would represent an unprecedented fundraising opportunity. But from the Team D perspective, a Sanders victory must be prevented at all costs. ..."
"... How the hell could Sanders "make friends" with members of the Democratic Party elite? He is blowing up their revolving-door-greasing funding model. Running as effectively as he has with almost no lobbyist money? No major corporate donors to speak of? What can he offer them, except unpleasant changes that negatively impact their careers? ..."
"... "The implications of all of this are that Hillary Clinton did not want her emails subjected to the Freedom of Information Act or subpoenas from Congress. And that's why she set up a home-brew server" ..."
"... But this is definitely putting a lot of spin on the ball, because the other half of the story is the reason WHY she wanted to avoid FOIA and Congressional scrutiny. The answer is: so that between her and Bill she could sell her office to the highest bidders, which the FBI is quite prepared to prove, or if denied that chance, to "leak like crazy" ..."
"... Caution: this course of action carries a high risk of nominating Bernie ..."
"... And that bring up another point for all you "feminist" Clintonistas. Wasn't the whole point of the "first woman in the White House" thing to show that women can do it alone? That they don't need men carrying them around all the time to be successful? Well what's up with your candidate? I have never (in my 65 years) ever seen anyone (woman or man) need more help from other people (mostly men) to gain the success they seek. At every single turn in this campaign we have Ms. Clinton needing someone else, someone MORE, falling on their sword for her. Because left on her own, against a freaking socialist, for Christ's sakes, all she has been able to do is F@ck up. A FIFTY POINT LEAD, gone. Wasted. Nothing to show. And this is what you want as feminism's representative in the White House? Shame on you. ..."
"... Most of the DLC establishment could find it easy enough to "live" with a Trump Presidency. Just like Lil Marco Rubio, they'll easily bend their knees to kiss Trump's heiney and make deals with him. What's it to them, after all? ..."
"... In that scenario Hillary wins the nomination and loses the election, Obama pardons her to head off (in his telling) partisan persecution and looks noble (to the credulous) standing up for her, clearing the way to elbow in on the Clinton network for the-haven't you heard?-Obama Foundation. And the grift goes on. ..."
"... stopped ..."
"... Because the email thing, and the speeches thing, and the neo-liberalism thing, whatever. Bernstein's "leaking" makes clear that as far back as February Obama's guys in the trenches said – hey, we just saw the Bear funds blow up, and this thing is going to end badly one way or the other. We don't know exactly how bad, but bad. Which is bad for us… ..."
"... Yves – Time hss proved you wise. Japanafication is exactly what has been unfolding. And according to Forbes and the Fed, 48% of the population having less than a grand in savings means the US is near third world. One can buy Pop Tarts in third world countries also. ..."
"... The real danger is geopolitics. And this bitch that thinks she is queen has no issues literally seeing 1/3 of the global population dying to escape her crimes. Think of what a rapist does to a rape victim many times. Strangle that woman so she doesnt indict you. Yeah, it is that bad. But there are some form of tech that will end any world war quickly. Stuff of science fiction. America's competitors should think twice, or such may dissapear. Literally. ..."
"... However – and this must have been Clinton's worst nightmare x 10 - unbeknownest to CESC and Platte River, the backup server accidentally synced with another off-site server belonging to Datto for two years before anyone realized it. ..."
"... wasn't ..."
"... to the cloud was taking place ..."
"... So one Democratically connected organization signed onto this separate justice system for the politically connected. Possibly the concern Obama has for his unfunded $1Billion Presidential Library will force him to burnish his legacy by NOT rescuing HRC with some dubious legal maneuver. It is somewhat ironic that Nixon was brought down by a private electronic system (his tape recording system) while Clinton may be brought down by her own private electronic email system. ..."
"... Regardless my experience with talking to Hillary supporters is that no amount of scandal of outright criminal lawbreaking affects their views about Hillary. They revert to "she's been scrutinized and tested for decades by her enemies and she's survived." They are people on the margins who will be affected. How many are the Dem establishment? It's going to take a whopper to get them to tank Hillary IMO. ..."
"... There is a detail that is being universally missed both in the MSM and alternative press: it is a virtual certainty that the NSA has a copy of every email sent or received by that server. ..."
"... Don't forget the mayhem when the FSB (who else) posted Nuland's little chat with Pyatt over an insecure line. Let no one forget that HRC is strongly connected to the neocon project to undermine Russia's return to strength. ..."
"... Just ask yourself: What would Vladimir Putin do? ..."
"... $1 Billion Library ..."
"... I too think bernie will pull it out, the other choices are terrible. I'm looking for aspirational latinos to flock to bernie in california and it'll be a rout that can't be ignored. I hope that's what happens. ..."
"... Clintonsomething – "The Campaign Years" ..."
"... I'm not sure the media's current focus on Hillary's email server is warranted. There are definitely indications that she violated email policies, but there don't seem to be specifics about what these actions were trying to hide. I think her very questionable family ties to corporate money are a more meaningful topic in determining her suitability for the U.S. presidency ..."
"... The Clinton Machine (in other words the political operation of the Bill and Hillary, and potentially Chelsea) has always operated on the basis the money and connections will fix everything. It has, after all, gotten them this far. However, as a core operational mode, it also accumulates cynicism and tends to value loyalty over performance, leading to degradation over time. ..."
"... Seems to me that except in a relatively few corners and local settings, and now very frankly via our mostly collective embrace of the Neo geist, "America" has always and only been about "screwing the other guy." ..."
"... I don't believe "foaming one more runway" (read: having your DOJ, FBI appear helpless) wouldn't bother this administration. A Loyalist are those unengaged (or too engaged) whom choose willingly to believe the disastrous economic and political experiment, that attempted to organize human behavior around the dictates of the global marketplace, has been a splendid success…or worse, blindly, my tribal leader is in accordance with all that is good. ..."
"... Haiti. Look at film of the Clintons in Haiti to see how they work. & Haiti is one place where also the elites own the deeds. Haiti Is America, only sooner. ..."
"... For what it's worth, Jonathan Turley suggests Hillary still has friends in high places in his discussion of former Clinton IT advisor, Bryan Pagliano, who is taking the fifth amendment in deposition on email scandal, ..."
"... Those e-mails don't alarm me anywhere near as much as the $200,000 plus speaking fees from Wall St. NO speech by anyone is worth anywhere near such an amount. These were clearly bribes, there's simply no other way of looking at it. I have no interest in seeing the transcripts of those speeches because the money counts far more than the content, and speaks for itself. No way would I vote for someone so clearly in the pocket of the oligarchy. ..."
But the panic is also a clear indication, and perhaps as important, another message, not just
to Clinton but to Team Dem, that the Administration can't, or won't but is making it seem like can't,
do what it takes to save Hillary's bacon.
And I suspect it really is "can't". The FBI has enough autonomy that if they find real dirt on
the Clintons, they will leak like crazy if the DoJ does not pursue the case in a serious way. That
would make the Administration complicit, and Obama does not want his final months in office tainted
by his Administration touching the Clinton tar baby any more than it has to. In addition, the Judicial
Watch cases are proceeding, and the judge, having had the Clinton side deal with him repeatedly in
bad faith, is not going to cut it any slack. The fact that there is an independent effort, completely
outside the Administration's control, pursuing the server mess, also makes it riskier for the DoJ
to do nothing if Judicial Watch exposes damning documents.
By Gaius Publius
, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor
to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter
@Gaius_Publius ,
Tumblr and
Facebook . Originally published
at
at Down With Tyranny . GP article here.
The last time I featured former Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein on these pages, it was to showcase
his
delivery of messages he received from the White House , to the effect that the "White House"
thought Clinton was blowing it with her Wall Street speeches stance, and because of that, the "White
House" was freaking out (to put it colloquially) - at least as Bernstein tells it.
Here's part of what Bernstein - a Clinton supporter - said last February (my transcript and emphasis;
video at the link):
Bernstein: There is a huge story going on. I've spent part of this weekend talking
to people in the White House. They are horrified at how Hillary Clinton is blowing up her own
campaign .
And they're worried that the Democrats could blow - they are horrified that the whole business
of the transcripts, accepting the money - that she could blow the Democrats' chance for White
House. They want her to win. Obama wants her to win.
But Sanders has shown how vulnerable she is. These ethical lapses have tied the White House
up in knots. They don't know what to do. They're beside themselves. And now, you've got a situation
with these transcripts a little like Richard Nixon and his tapes that he stonewalled on and didn't
release.
... ... ...
In that context , listen to the current "White House" message about the Clinton campaign
via Bernstein and video at the top (my
italics):
Bernstein: The implications of all of this [the email server issue] are that Hillary
Clinton did not want her emails subjected to the Freedom of Information Act or subpoenas from
Congress. And that's why she set up a home-brew server.
I think we all know that. People around her will tell you that in private if you really get
them behind a closed door.
I was in Washington this week, I spoke to a number of top Democratic officials and they're
terrified, including people at the White House, that her campaign is in free fall because of this
distrust factor. Indeed, Trump has a similar problem, but she's the one whose numbers are going
south.
And the great hope in the White House, as well as the Democratic leadership and people who
support her, is that she can just get to this convention, get the nomination - which they're
no longer 100% sure of - and get President Obama out there to help her, he's got a lot of
credibility, it's an election that's partly about his legacy .
But she needs all the help she can get because right now her campaign is in huge trouble…
... ... ...
Two takeaways - one is that top Democrats know how precarious Clinton's position is . They're
not fooled any more than you are. That's worth noticing. And second, the White House and Bernstein
are not blaming Sanders . Whoever crafted this message for us is blaming the Clinton campaign
only, and by extension, Clinton herself.
Hmm. Does make one wonder.
If "they" are so worried about Hillary flubbing her "inevitable" nomination as presidential candidate,
and "they" are apparently not so worried about Hillary loosing to Trump in the run for president
later, one does wonder about the possibility of "they" having some good quality dirt on Trump
(or a backdoor to the voting machines).
Really Good Quality Dirt!
It is a *big* issue to mishandle classified information – normal people will be prosecuted
and may go to jail even by coincidence; like a selfie in front of equipment they didn't know was
classified and which was not labelled as such. Then on top of that comes the sleaze-factor with
avoiding the FOIA requirements, destruction of evidence (which means that certainly Hillary was
up to *something* crooked, because why else bother with all the work? it's very *easy* to hand
over a verified duplicate of a hard disk compared to everything Hillary tried to not do this!)
and of course the blatant incompetence + arrogance shown by Hillary by running a private business,
a crooked one at that, from work?!
A street level dope dealer can manage to compartmentalize their real business from the one
they report to the IRS. But not Hillary.
The Democrats don't have any dirt on Trump the Republicans didn't have. Trump is a referendum
on the establishment. The establishment can't attack him, and any attacks too similar to the very
publicized establishment attacks will be dismissed.
The simple problem is Republican voters selected him over the GOP establishment. All the Republicans
will line up because Trump is now their rightful leader. Maybe not Mittens and Bill Kristol
at this point, the GOP elites will show loyalty because anything less will risk their own position.
The base will remove GOP elites over certain sins. The Teabaggers cleaned the GOP caucus of TARP
voters.
The secret weapon is to be a generic tax and spend Democrat, uninterested in colonialism.
Yes, the intelligence establishment has dirt the two leading candidates (Trump and Clinton).
This can be used in what ever way is expedient, but most of all to maintain the status quo. Like
the mafia, you have committed a crime so you have to promote our crimes or you will be exposed/deposed.
Which is why the race to the bottom of the hogs wallow is being actively promoted. Likely, no
dirt on Sanders, which is why the MSM and even some parts of social media are enlisted to create
the appearance of dirt because blackmail/graymail of Sanders will be difficult or impossible.
That is certainly the narrative Trump wants. What I find the height of black, despairing
comedy is that anyone believes it. In addition to being completely untrustworthy and self-centered,
Trump has little to gain by overthrowing the status quo, and has given many signs that he will
continue business as usual, only with a slightly different crew of low-rent elites in charge at
the top.
No matter what he says, Trump is not leading some sort of revolution to
abolish the Empire and replace it with something else, much less something better. He just wants
a shortcut to being Emperor.
That he may end up being so bad at the job the entire edifice burns down is not, IMHO, any
sort of positive. I don't like where we are or where we are headed, but neither do I want my family
trying to survive in some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I'll repeat the tin-foil hat level thought that keeps crossing my mind with Trump: his job
is to discredit any sort of opposition to the establishment from the right for a generation
or more.
I think you're underestimating Trump. As you note, he does want to maintain current establishment,
and he could be successful at this for awhile (e.g. ramping up spending and not worrying about
deficits).
The establishment (Clinton types not aggressively calling out Republicans and proposing credible
alternatives) has brought us to this point.
Then on top of that comes the sleaze-factor with avoiding the FOIA requirements …
That's it, right there. She purposefully conducted the business of the State in such a manner
to avoid scrutiny by the citizenry. That is a breach of the public trust that cannot be countenanced,
cannot go unpunished. She's gotta go, and if "everybody's doing it," then they all gotta go too.
I'm under the impression that if not for the Benghazi investigation, the home server would
not have been discovered. However, maybe someone else can confirm that I'm correct. Which, if
you think about it, does not actually make sense. The NSA should have known all along. Why on
earth she supposed that she could get around the NSA is simply… words fail me.
Morning Joe is saying that Trump is polling as 'more trustworthy' than Clinton.
If the White House isn't in a panic at this point, they're somnambulant.
I thought it was strictly due to Benghazi-related FOIA requests from Congress that brought
her server to light, but
this article indicates it was discovered as a matter of routine housekeeping when John Kerry
became SoS, and they finally filled the position of Inspector General at State.
Something Clinton didn't get around to doing . . .
My tin foil hat has always told me Clintonistas may not have worked overly hard for Kerry
in 2004, even offering bad advice. Every Winner and Loser column from after the election listed
on clear winner, the front runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. Clinton
Inc was operating out of crummy digs in Harlem because they couldn't raise money, but the money
poured in after the Kerry loss.
If this election was about whether the country wanted a fourth term of the Kerry Edwards Cantwell?
(She makes the most sense for a Vice President to Edwards 2012 running mate) teams, where would
Clinton Inc be?
My only fear re: how Clinton could win in November would be if she and Bill had the juice
to help throw 2000 and 2004 to keep the path clear for her. Unless she can steal in the General,
she isn't going to be President. That would also explain Obama's focus on caucuses in 2008 - he
went after her soft, less stealable underbelly. (I realize there are also less CT explanations
for this.)
But watching the primary play out suggests to me that there are limits to election theft capability.
I don't think there's anyway she wanted to drag this out this long. The theft in Kentucky was
pretty obvious and clumsy, too. That plus the Republican Party doing its thing rallying around
its nominee gives me hope that at least we won't get President Clinton.
It feels a bit like clinging to a ice floe in the North Atlantic, though.
But there's another point here too which is out in the open and yet no one is talking about
it much except to note that her emails were not part of the National Archives. She had a private
server for that very Orwellian reason-she planned to control the historical record by having a
whole parcel of it hidden and not available until she decided to release it, if ever. I see the
reference to Orwell as particularly apt . Remember in 1984 our besotted hero, (depressed
with the horror of what he was doing), spent the livelong day erasing or changing the archival
records related to key events that Big Brother needed changing. His needs, like Hilary's, kept
changing from day to day so the censorship was endless.
Clinton has always been in charge of a Ministry of Truth-yesterday she stood for practice 'A'
but now today opposes practice 'A'. The private server is just another facet of MiniTrue.
The domain name was clintonemail.com, so the email addresses would be
[email protected]etc. etc. Anyone receiving
these emails *could* see that if they looked, but if the sender is in your address book it may
just come in as that person's name or nickname as you have it in own your machine.
While it may be that most recipients wouldn't bother to drill down to the actual originating
address, there are offices and agencies that would definitely be tuned to this sort of thing.
For instance, State's in-house IT security people seem to have twigged, not that it helped.
What I wonder is, aren't there 16 some-odd agencies who scan and analyze email traffic? In
this case, the metadata alone would have told much (as it so often does).
suddenly, i'm feeling optimistic again. obama might be many things, but he is a very good politician,
and he protects his legacy like an enraged bear protects cubs. throwing clinton under the bus
to do that? no problem, if doing so results in less damage to his image, and i trust him to be
able to judge that well.
I don't think he gives even one f**k about his image or legacy. He cares about being wealthy
and having high status. He's only cutting Clinton loose if his owners that previously told him
he had to help her now tell him to toss her over.
I still have my doubts that any indictments are forthcoming. Maintaining a homebrew server
could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal matter. The punishments for
that are administrative (loss of job, loss of security clearance), which don't really touch her.
Having classified information in those emails, unless it's really egregious, probably won't result
in any criminal charges, either. I wouldn't be surprised if that is rather common among senior
government officials. If they go after Clinton for that, a lot of other people could be put under
greater scrutiny. My guess is that there is institutional pressure in the government to not charge
one of their own for that.
If any charges are filed, it will probably be for something else that they've stumbled upon,
possibly related to the Clinton Foundation. That's why I find it interesting that the news about
Terry McAuliffe broke when it did. If they are pursuing something, there will be pressure to resolve
it before the election. At the same time, they won't want to rush it, because they're only going
to get one shot at this – you don't want to take a swing at the Clintons, and miss.
"Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal
matter. "
Given the last 15 years of brutal, if selective, prosecutions for mishandling materials less
sensitive than some of the material on Clinton's servers, I don't think many people will buy that.
They may not buy it, but that feeds directly into my other point – senior government officials
are rarely held accountable for those types of actions, unless they're really egregious. People
much lower on the food chain are held to a higher standard. Because of that, I think that there
will be resistance to prosecution from other senior officials, simply because they don't want
to be put in jeopardy as well.
The elephant in the room is not the private server per se, but the use of it to circumvent
any exposure to FOIA requests. The pay-for-play activities of the Secretary with regard to the
Foundation can certainly be inferred, and if proven are grounds for an indictment leading to prosecution
for treason, and the incarceration (if not the death penalty) for the entire Clinton family. The
tons of circumstantial evidence regarding the timing of payments and the goodies granted, would
be sufficient for a Grand Jury indictment; the "smell' test is overwhelming.
All well and true, but when do citizens say enough is enough. Creating and maintaining a two
tiered justice system is not the foundation on which democracy is built. How egregious does lawbreaking
have to become before support is withdrawn from these people?
IMVHO, that is exactly what we are seeing play out.
And trying to equate what Hillary did with Colin Powell's early use of email is simply beyond
the pale: I've seen no credible evidence that Powell ever set out to evade the NSA or the FBI.
For Hillary to conflate the two is flagrantly dishonest, and it pisses me off.
We may be at a 'tipping point' of the public finally fed up with a two tier system. Add in
income inequality, and things tip even more.
That's for the FBI to show – hard evidence of intention evasion…a memo or a witness, while
Clinton, on the other side, will argue computer/internet illiteracy.
Clinton has already been planting seeds of computer illiteracy, through her subordinates, who
claim Clinton "didn't even know how to access email on a desktop!" My lands, what's a pretty little
thing to do? Why, a lady such as Hillary must rely on the kindness of strangers, or gentleman
such as Bryan "Nowhere Man" Magliano, her IT Manager, to convey her electronic missives to others
in a timely manner.
People seem to forget that Clinton served on the Committee on Armed Services from 2003 to 2009
and on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities … you know, the Subcommittee that
has jurisdiction over Department of Defense policies and programs to counter emerging threats,
information warfare and special operations programs.
If it were possible, I'd go back through the Sub committees minutes or transcripts to see how
involved ole' Hillary got when the subject was attempts by foreign governments or agents to hack
into U.S. government employees' emails.
It's possible that some of the information was only accessible by computer. She couldn't have
had any aides helping her 'cause they probably were not cleared to read such
info.
But if you've ever watched one of these hearings, you know that perhaps 20 percent of the
committee members have even a layperson's knowledge of monetary policy. The rest waste their
5-minute question time delivering set-piece partisan rants.
Probably more display of illiteracy. Or, no unlike some college teachers – no practice experience, thought they sound impressive
in theory.
LS: Little rides on the fact that Mrs Clinton may be guilty of
stupidity, ignorance, or evil intent. The primary fact is that
Mrs Clinton is, was, and probably has been guilty of duplicitous
conduct for the majority of her life. She's no beginner or social
climber, but a real mountaineer.
well…support IS being withdrawn , from them, in real time !!! That's why people, increasingly,
will vote scorched earth …. for Trump, if Sanders gets cheated out of the nom. They've had it
with the two-tired JUST US system, and the corrupt pols and corporate slugs who've benefited by
it !!
Agree. It's hard to know how many, but a significant number of people certainly are sensing
the depth of this morass, even if the particulars remain vague, and are reacting as best they
can given the choices. Since reasonable choices have been crushed to an amazing degree, as Matthews
– under orders no doubt – made clear, and this is part of what people sense is wrong, scorched
earth is what remains.
Hell, if Bonnie Prince Snowden were to land on the US equivalent of Eriskay…I would like as
not put on fatigues and go to join him, along with whatever other ragtag band of 'jacobites' rallied
to the cause.
Yes, it would likely end as miserably as 'The Forty Five' did, but I am long past believing
that ANYONE in a position of power in the Federal Government – any branch – really 'gets it' that
We, The People, are sick and damned tired of the crap they are up to, and the lengths they are
willing to go to pander and enrich their fellow power mongers.
The 'Just Us' system, indeed.
Maybe a little whiff of grapeshot might wake them up.
I know its either that, or someday the guillotines will be set up by a starving rabble with
far less of a sense of humor about these things then I.
What is interesting to me is the quality of what happens next as an exemplar: either Obama
doubles down on the Patraus treatment for the elite and everyone who's ever had a security clearance
is formally notified that the rules only apply to little people, or D O Justice acts on this in
the same spirit they have acted on Assange, Manning, Snowden, Stirling etc.
For those implicated at the heart of the security establishment, either decision will have
crystal clear implications. If it is the latter, the National Security State lumbers on in its
more or less current form which isn't exactly great and embroils our "presumptive" nominee
in a criminal investigation. If the former, things could get very interesting as those feeling
betrayed will be uniquely positioned to do something about it, particularly in the prospect of
spooks foreign or domestic having dirt with which to blackmail a sitting President.
Another great example of a status quo that, however you support it, sucks.
"Maintaining a homebrew server could be written off as a policy violation, rather than a criminal
matter. The punishments for that are administrative (loss of job, loss of security clearance),
which don't really touch her."
Could she be denied top security clearance were she to be elected president? Or, is it given
no matter what to whomever is elected?
Also, it seems from the article that there are many people now privy to just how badly she
managed her email situation (others things as well? And are there actual hard copies? More tapes?)
and that could make her independence as president, well, simply no there there. Sounds like the
PTBs and/or their minions have her by the short hairs. And if she had any tendencies whatsoever
to not serve the Corporatists fully, that is no longer an issue: She would be totally controlled.
So, Hillary would now more than ever be the Corporatists very best bet to consolidate their
control, in the US and globally. Trump, second but could possibly be "uncooperative." Bernie?
Never allowed to be voted on as the Dem nominee.
Oooh … Dear! Good Point: Hillary being so terribly bad that she's absolutely perfect for everyone
who needs to buy influence.
The excitement is seeing the market value of "The House of Clinton's Services" dropping from
hard currency to small favors and protection and now this once-in-a-century opportunity to get
in at the bottom may go away!
Have you read this? from march and linked on 5/29 in the cooler. they've stumbled on a few
things…
https://informedvote2016.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/do-i-really-need-to-worry-about-hillarys-emails-yes-she-will-be-indicted-full-form/
and as pointed out here the administration can't bury judicial watch in the same way they let
the banksters off by telling DOJ to let 'em go. And fajensen points out above, classification
violations get little people in big trouble, and letting clinton off, which they can't seem to
do, will upset a lot of gov employees…but maybe it's just more eleventy dimensional chess
Lurking in the background is the likelihood that the Russians scooped up everything on Hillary's
server, and the certainty that the NSA knows what they know.
This will not sit well with a lot of people.
Hillary will soon be down to her paid hangers-on and diehard loyalists. Even the bankers will
have to start recalculating.
It seems clear that being hacked by the Russians rated pretty low on the Clinton totem pole
of priorities. What concerned her more was the optics of whatever emails she was sending and how
the American public would react to seeing them. All her actions point to that. The Secretary of
State would rather have Russians read her emails than comply with the FOIA and other laws and
risk American citizens see the business she conducted on our behalf and at our expense.
I mean, for all I know senior gov't officials just blanket assume other countries have full
access to everything done on a computer, what do they care what the Russians know, the Russians
are corrupt too. But when it comes to a bad headline? Panic button time.
I don't blame just Hillary. I blame the Clintons in their entirety. Bill was just as squirmy
with the truth (what's YOUR definition of the word "is"? Then there's his whole, "I did not have
asexual relations with that woman"). Their slimy slipperyness is genetic. They can't help but
lie, obfuscate, prevaricate. Bill is Hillary, Hillary is Bill.
As to wanting to avoid FOIA and subpoenas on her emails, I am sympathetic in broad strokes.
I too would want to keep my PRIVATE and PERSONAL emails and other communications private. I believe
strongly in the right to privacy and that is why I vehemently oppose NSA spying and corporate
spying via metadata. Our private lives BELONG TO US ALONE. The difference between Hillary and
I is in the nature of private communications. Unlike the Clintons, I am not a money grubbing greedy
bastard who will lie, cheat, steal my way to wealthy. I have NO sympathy for anyone seeking to
keep that crap secret and private. That said, if she'd been above board and simply had a private
email for non-official communications and kept the official State Dept stuff on the official account,
there would be nothing here. I served 20 years in the military. We kept official and confidential
communication strictly on the official network and via the official email accounts. Personal use
of the official email was discouraged and limited. You NEVER used your personal civilian email
for official communications. Never never never. I can't give her a pass on that because we in
the military wouldn't get a pass. We'd get an investigation and likely lose our security clearance
(career ending that is).
I too would want to keep my PRIVATE and PERSONAL emails and other communications private
…
if she'd been above board and simply had a private email for non-official communications and kept
the official State Dept stuff on the official account, there would be nothing here.
Exactly. How hard can it be?
The work mail belongs to the workplace, we can basically expect that the PHB or the PFY in
tech support will read through it and it will be stored forever. Same with web-traffic. "Work"
may read, store and analyze it – so we visit naughty pages at home, strictly on our own time.
That is some of the reasons why we peons always use a private domain for private mail and the
work email for work email. Another one is to limit the ownership of work and ideas to those that
"work" actually does pay for.
I'm sympathetic to most of your argument, including your characterization of the Clinton's
obsession with personal gain. The Clinton Foundation is a money-making machine fueled by graft,
pure and simple.
But it's ironic that you criticize Bill for lying about personal affairs in one paragraph,
which only happened because Ken Starr actively sought to violate his personal privacy, and state
later that "our private lives belong to us alone." The only reason I have a shred of sympathy
for Bill is because Starr and his ilk trampled on his right to privacy. That judgment is shared
by most Americans, as reflected in public polls.
And as for "we in the military wouldn't get a pass" consider the by-the-book punishment of
David Petraeus – which never happened. The military doesn't have any special claim to legal fidelity
or consequences. As always, the enforcement of laws in this country varies according to the power
of the accused. That's why Hillary isn't and never will be in prison.
While generally sympathetic to LootersParadise's argument, I would point out that when Bill
Clinton was Commander-in-Chief, young military drill sergeants were being court martialed and
sentenced to lengthy prison terms for consensual sex with female trainees. The legal premise was
that the disparity in their rank and authority made any sexual relations "tantamount to rape".
Clinton's behavior with a young intern was worse than bad judgement, it was predatory, and no
military commander or drill sergeant would have been excused from such conduct with the argument
it was merely a "personal affair".
You keep your private business private by using separate equipment. 2 smartphones. 2 laptops.
Tons of people in DC do this, starting with Congressional staffers and assistants to people in
Federal agencies. This isn't rocket science. She just wasn't willing to bother.
Isn't it also possible, though, that since her State business really was private business,
in that she and Bill were working together to sell influence at State to enrich the "Foundation,"
this wasn't merely entitled laziness? Maybe they made the decision that the best way to limit
the paper trail was to just send all State Department correspondence through the server and thus
directly to Bill, making it harder to track and prove when they were explicitly collaborating.
I can totally see them thinking this was quite clever.
Entitled also works, of course. I do think a big reason for the Blackberry is that she refused
to allow the guy who "ought to be carrying her bags" to have a goody she didn't have.
The case can be made that the known hacking was of someone she had a correspondence with (troubling
as that was) not of her server. While I don't believe her server was secure, and I'm pretty damn
sure the IG and the FBI don't think it either, the public can still be spun on this. That is not
the problem.
No, what has become crystal clear is that she didn't have permission to set up her email this
way, that the NSA and State did not sign off on it, that she was told that and because she didn't
want any public oversight of her actions she blew off federal regulations regarding FOIA and the
collection of records for the State Department both in setting up the server itself AND in not
supplying any documents not in government possession upon leaving office (not two years later).
Because she did handle classified material on that email server, she did put herself in jeopardy
legally – regardless of her intent and whether the material was hacked or not. And people who
do have to follow Security guidelines or face dismissal, fines or worse are pissed as hell about
it and are not going to let it go. So it can't just be played off as a right wing conspiracy –
no matter how much they try. These guys aren't Judicial Watch, and their credentials are better
than Podesta's.
On the public level, except for the Clinton sycophants and tribal Dems who desperately want
to believe this really is a nothing burger, what this means is that Clinton had no intention of
allowing public oversight into her actions if she can avoid it by any means whatsoever, regulations
and the law be damned. And that she does not consider herself a public employee even if she is
one and being a public employee is where her power lies. Now those of us who distrust her and
her husband and child just outright assume that this is because her real business is selling access
to government and its monies or services to those with the funds to afford the Clintons. But most
people are reacting to the sheer arrogance of the "law doesn't apply to me" attitude and the lies
about it so far. But the longer this stays around the more it will become 'what DID she have to
hide'.
So this tells me something different. It isn't really about how big a threat Clinton is to
the 'Obama legacy' and how terrified they are she is blowing this. Or rather has blown this since
it stems from actions from seven years ago, although later choices have compounded it. No, this
is about how much bigger a threat Sanders is to that legacy and how close her blowing this gets
HIM to the nomination. Otherwise why is this about her getting the nomination. Her getting the
nomination and then Obama getting out on the road and saving her butt only works if the threats
from the investigation disappear BEFORE she gets the nomination officially. It really blows up
while he is campaigning for her and his legacy is also blown.
Of course, this presupposes that he WILL get out there and campaign for her beyond a few cursory
appearances. If the President is suddenly too busy to campaign, I will admit to being wrong and
it is all about Clinton's threat to him, even if I think a better strategic choice would be to
find a way to torpedo her outright if that is the concern.
this may be one of the initial signs of the torpedo. "captain, it looks like something is moving
toward us underwater". he wasn't required to broadcast his concerns like this. you make some excellent
points. meanwhile, i'm successfully controlling my impulse to attempt to do a cartwheel. so far.
Pat - excellent analysis, thank you.
And Yves, great post. As you point out, the use of Bernstein as White House messenger - if true
- makes that a pretty explosive little interview.
I note the lawyer twisting himself into knots trying to say that Hillary didn't "lie" about
the server.
– And that she does not consider herself a public employee even if she is one and being a public
employee is where her power lies.
That may be the right twist that puts the optics in focus. Arrogance and petulance are tolerated
in politics ('he's got a Blackberry, I want one!') But the Clintons are cunning enough to not
risk the appearance without reason. They need to be smarter than their customers, and just one
bad email from a dunderhead could prove a quid pro quo link from the Clinton Foundation to the
State Department.
Obama knows better than anyone her tendency to collapse. His campaign was 'Change,' and that
she does not do.
"Getting her to the nomination" allows the D establishment, after she is forced to step down,
to replace her with Biden/Warren or some other "anyone but Sanders" ticket with less trouble (party
disunity, bad optics, turnout suppression) than if she implodes before the convention and the
HRC delegates + superdelegates outright steal the nomination from Sanders.
IMO, it's utterly impossible in this climate for anyone other than Sanders (or whoever Sanders
signs off on, like Warren) to become nominee if HRC implodes.
I agree. The optics would be off the charts terrible for the party. They are in a rock and
a hard place. I think their best non-Sanders bet (if they continue their double downs and selfish
folly) is to stay with Clinton. If she implodes, so be it, have her impeached (if she wins) and
be done with it. Pass as much of the responsibility off on her and what she did wrong. "The party
did not know! We are victims!"
actually, the back-door candidate could be Warren. She endorsed neither, has clearly anti-WS
policies, but is not as "radical" as Sanders. She would likely be acceptable to a number of Sanders
people (incomparably much more so than HC), she's woman (so still a first woman president message)
etc.
She's better debater than Sanders I believe (and incomparably better than HC), and could (assuming
there are no bombs in her backyard) deal with Trump pretty well.
So, if the plan in Dem circles is to get past primaries and then shoot HC and fend off Sanders,
I'd say Warren is about their only reasonable choice.
Warren is a threat to the courtesan class as much as Sanders. Saturday design and Warren threaten
every Democrat who has ever said "the dopes would vote for for If they just understood how smart
we were and had better messaging," just by existing.
Warren is a very specific threat to WS. She's a less of a generic threat than Sanders is –
say look at her education proposals. If it looks to Dems like a choice between HC enabling Trump,
Sanders changing the party entirely, or Warren as a compromise, they only reasonably safe bet
is Warren. HC getting nomination and then losing to Trump kills the Dem party (as we know it)
as well as Sanders would if he won. The difference is that one (Sanders) is a certainty, while
the other (HC losing to Trump) is still just a probability. But one raising every day so far.
Coming up with somoene like Warren, even HC can look statesmanlike in pulling it off (say blaming
it on bad health, but giving a chance to another woman), in exchange for a deal that Warren focuses
on WS. Chances of Warren winning against Trump are very high, possibly higher that Sanders.
But the question of the day is – are they smart enough to know this? All the chatter I hear
from the beltway is that they don't. That once the nomination is "decided", Sanders will lose
his clout and things go back to normal.
Whole thing hinges on Sanders' concern for his reputation among the elite, and how much he
buys the "Trump-means-the-end-of-civilization" garbage. His only leverage is his base, and frankly
if he tries to make nice with the Dem establishment after she is nominated, he loses a lot of
his cred with that base.
He's going to get very little from them – at most, Warren as VP, which isn't much. No way she
gets to be Treasury Secretary, for instance. And why would they give Sanders anything? At bottom,
the DNC types believe the left will have nowhere to go come November. Thus Sanders has one job:
GIVE HIS BASE SOMEWHERE TO GO. Doesn't matter if he only wins 8%, either as a Green or (far less
likely) an independent. He's got the invitation from Jill Stein sitting out there. Earn matching
funds, raise tens of millions a year, and run candidates across the country in two years. In four
years, mount strong outsider candidates for major offices including president.
But I don't think Sanders has it in him. Too "constructive," as Chuck Schumer called him.
Sanders will lose his clout and things go back to normal.
He won't lose his list, and he now has more followers than any politician in America. He can
run his project sitting in the Senate, using that list and his follower base to influence policy.
The Internet will save Bernie just like it was envisioned by DARPA in the dawn of the Nixonan
Age, built to survive thermo-nuclear annihilation like the ClinTrumpocalypse.
I don't think she'll win (the presidency) even if she DOESN'T implode. She has no message.
She's banking on identity politics. That won't work in a change election.
It's just a question of degree. If she does get indicted, the Dems lose BIG under every possible
scenario except Sanders. If she doesn't, she still probably loses, but at least it won't be a
wipeout downballot.
Downballot the Democrats have already been wiped out, for 22 years running.
Republicans hold 31 governorships to the Democrats' 18. Republicans hold 56% of all statehouse
seats (Democrats 43%), and they control the lower house of 33 state legislatures (compared to
16 for the Democrats). It's difficult to even view the Democrats as a party, but if they are,
they certainly have no depth of talent.
Add a highly disliked business-as-usual politician to the top of the ticket in a "change" election?
Democrats won't have a prayer in the fall.
As one who believes Clinton ought to withdraw before inflicting or sustaining any more damage
in the certain knowledge that her candidacy has been hopelessly compromised, I would argue that
Sanders is the one candidate now able to pull other contests along with is own. Sanders could
swing it from a Republican Congress literally impaled by a lethal lack of talent to a Dem Congress
with new faces and new marching orders for long-entrenched types. He really could go all the way
in my opinion.
The voice of reason, which is why the choice you suggest will be the very last one ever taken
– we won't see it. This isn't merry 'ol England, ok UK, where they still goof by letting votes
get counted sometimes (Jeremy Corbyn).
The Democratic Party's working priority list apparently putting control over the Party above
winning elections, I imagine they are very interested in doing the "impossible", if the benefits
to the collaborative nexus of interest (i.e. the Party) of blocking Sanders - neoliberal "purity
pledges" with other countries, State selling more Americans' labor abroad like cheap cord wood,
inducing despair among the left (a favorite of the Israeli wing of the Party, who sees leftists
like unto Hamas) - to the Party outweigh the loss of one election or even the ballot line. With
a post-Citizens United machine and its "non-coordinated" universe of nomenklatura, ready to pick
right back up where it left off with a New (Improved) Democrat Party (Same Great Taste!) or somesuch,
constituted specifically to exclude popular participation, it's relatively cheap.
And obviously the reason for the all out push by the media and the Clinton campaign to have
Sanders throw in the towel before the convention which, of course, reached fever pitch the same
week the IG's report came out.
This string of comments looks on target. I think this is the unstated reason why the primaries
are STILL important.
If Bernie were to get swept on 6/7, he might fold. Every time he looks like he's losing steam,
he gets a string of rallies with 10s of thousands of people and realizes that he CANNOT stop.
There's too many people counting on him to save us from a Clinton/Trump nightmare.
If Bernie sweeps her on 6/7, the writing is on the wall at that point and she'll look like
she's toast. FBI will get the green light and Dem elite will have to bite their tongues and deal
with him.
My guess is that he wins 4/6 primaries on 6/7 and NM and NJ are losses, but somewhat closer
than anticipated. Clinton will continue to act like it's over and the FBI will continue to dither
and the convention floor ends up being a fight (prob won by Clinton).
A key question is, "When do the rank and file FBI agents lose patience and start leaking bad
details to the media?"
Or do FBI agents start resigning in protest at the dithering of their superiors.
Obama/Clinton may have the top brass at FBI and DOJ on board, but if the rank and file decide
to mutiny, then they can't save this sinking ship that is the SS Clinton!
You have to have tremendous admiration for Sanders to stick it out with what is obviously a
physically and mentally grueling ordeal at the age of 74. I'm 65.
Of course both Trump and Hillary aren't much behind him in age, but Sanders is doing it imho
out of principle and ideals, as well as respect for the public that has backed him. He must think
back to himself as a young man in the 60s, and realize that this is a chance he could only have
dreamt of 50 yrs. ago, and just can't turn his back on that.
"Getting her to the nomination" allows the D establishment, after she is forced to step
down, to replace her with Biden/Warren or some other "anyone but Sanders" ticket with less
trouble (party disunity, bad optics, turnout suppression) than if she implodes before the convention
and the HRC delegates + superdelegates outright steal the nomination from Sanders.
If they do this, the Dems will lose in November. And badly. They won't get more than a handful
of Sanders voters after this kind of a backstab, and the party will be (rightfully) perceived
as a bunch of clueless clowns who thought a potential criminal would make a suitable nominee.
Independents will strongly swing to Trump.
The question is, do the Democrats care? I can easily see the Dem establishment taking one for
the bipartisan consensus beltway team in order to keep Sanders out of the White House. They never
did much to support Gore and Kerry in the wake of their questionable defeats - and both of them
were much more harmless to the establishment than Sanders.
What would the e-mail address of a private server look like? Would it be apparent to anybody
who encountered it to be something – say – non standard? But keep your mouth shut.
Well, her official email address as SecState would have ended in @state.gov. The address she
actually used was @clintonemail.com. It was obvious to everyone what she was doing. If you work
in the State Dept, do you question your boss over something like that? Maybe not, you might assume
it was cleared somehow. It looks like IT and Security people were appalled.
The IG report found no evidence she had permission from anyone to use her own email server
nor any record of her even asking for permission. Which contradicts statements she made elsewhere.
Has Clinton ever actually said that the State Department allowed her to have a private
server at home and that everyone knew about it? What I've heard her say, and what I took
away from the little bit of the Mills deposition that I've read so far, is that the State Department
knew she had her own email account ; that use of a personal email account was allowed
, and that others before her also did it, most notably Colin Powell.
Anyone can buy a domain using their last name plus "email.com," or whatever variation thereof
is available. However, most people (presumably) use a hosting service. It seems obvious to me
that there's a huge difference between having a personal email account and storing said email
on a server in your basement, but Clinton appears to have succeeded in conflating the two in the
public's mind. Her supporters certainly seem satisfied, particularly since she has apologized
and openly admitted to a lapse in judgment. I'm not a techie, so maybe I'm meowing up the wrong
telephone pole. Tech people here, what's your take?
If I'm right about the distinction and what they've actually said, Clinton and Mills could
well be telling the truth that many people at DOS knew she was using private email, and that it
was allowed, even for official government business. It's unlikely that her clintonemail.com address
raised many eyebrows, even among those who noticed – and many might not have, because once her
address was in their contact list, the extension probably wasn't displayed. The big exception
was at the very beginning, when her clintonemail address was getting stuck in DOS spam filters
and had to be put on a safe sender list, or something to that effect.
Of those who noticed she wasn't using a .gov address, how many would have thought about the
server she was using, and how many of those would have imagined that her office hadn't gone through
proper security procedures? It's quite plausible that the only people knowledgeable enough to
be concerned were the IT security people, and when a couple of them eventually did raise questions,
they were told to keep quiet about it.
At some point, some of the substance of what was hidden will be revealed – it is terribly hard
to believe that it will be that she donated a kidney to a Syrian refugee….(Oh look, she looks
sickly because she is SOOOOO Noble!!!)
The problem is that the "Clinton sycophants and tribal Dems" are a large part of the Democrat
base and an even larger part of the Democrat establishment.
I don't see how they get talked off the ledge (absent Clinton "discovering" new medical problems
(or even Bill, maybe)).
Not mentioned in this item, but relevant to Obama's legacy, is that he left the State Dept
IG post unfilled by a permanent appointment throughout HRC's tenure as Secy State. The acting
IG was a career State Dept official, and did not rock HRC's boat. Obama is implicated in HRC's
misdeeds in the sense that he left the barn door open for her. There's a sense in which the HRC
email scandal may become part of Obama's legacy, whatever he does now. As Yves sometimes puts
it, this has been an unnecessary "own goal".
No. The IG's of major agencies are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Here is an interesting article which hints that using acting-IG's makes them less independent
and is being done intentionally by the Obama Administration. They have the longest vacancies of
any recent President.
thanks for that, here's a tidbit, I notice the ex-im bank and international development are
(not likely there's any double dealing going on there, no, nothing to see here as long as you
don't look) unmanned, among others
"Currently, said Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department IG who chairs the Council of the
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, IG slots are vacant at seven major agencies: Interior,
the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Veterans
Affairs Department, the General Services Administration, the Export-Import Bank and the CIA All
but the CIA's have been empty a year or more, he said, and the Obama administration has submitted
nominations for only three."
and also this
"{"When IG positions remain unfilled, their offices are run by acting IGs who, no matter how qualified
or well-intentioned, are not granted the same protections afforded to Senate-confirmed IGs," said
Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis. "They are not truly independent, as they can be removed by the agency
at any time; they are only temporary and do not drive office policy; and they are at greater risk
of compromising their work to appease the agency or the president."}"
I browsed through the Cheryl Mills deposition yesterday (which was mainly the lawyers arguing
about the scope of the discussion it seemed) and some of the coverage today. It seems that Mills
claimed that HRC's use of the private email was not kept secret and lots of Admin officials knew
about it. (Note that people had to make a special request to be able to use her email.) But Obama
claimed he only learned of it "like the rest of you, in the news reports". So Obama and Hillary
never emailed each other while she was SoS?
I don't find it surprising that they did not communicate directly. Plausible deniability. What
we have is a career civil servant intent on influence peddling and a figurehead interested only
in legacy burnishing. They are a perfect fit … as long as they stay out of each others way.
To your last comment: I suspect not. They never were chummy esp. after all the heat of the
campaign: "You're likeable enough, Hillary". Obama has plenty of staff to wrangle correspondence
for that, and his aides being middle-persons (and likely being of a generation that put a lot
more trust in technology at the time) likely didn't think that hard about it…
It was reported last January that there were eighteen emails between Clinton and Obama that
State was not going to release for security reasons. So yes, they did email each other. It would
be interesting to know what security instructions Obama received regarding using his email. Did
anyone ever caution him to check the sender's email address as a caution against phishing? Her
email address was clintonemail dot com. Even a technical neophyte has to know that means either
she or some other entity was hosting the site; and, if a separate entity, did that entity have
security clearance for handling those emails? Obama knew darn well that she was using an unsecure
system. He is equally guilty of enabling her risk-taking.
Maybe the FBI can investigate just how many people have mishandled classified information.
10,000 government workers?
100,000?
If one can be in trouble for taking a selfie before a classified equipment, that one wasn't
aware so (as fajensen wrote above), can one be in trouble for opening a letter, a disk or a laptop
(mistakenly delivered or left behind) containing classified information?
Within the perimeter of a secure environment, you bet you can!
Any paper, CD, computer, phone, …. left alone in the open is already a violation. At the place
I consulted at, there are prominent red+white background with the 3-digit number to call for security
in *all* cases. Everything has to be locked away, even if one is going for coffee or toilet, one
must leave all electronics at the gate. "No mistakes are possible, only conspiracies" the thinking
goes.
If one picks any abandoned device / media up, well, it's kind of the same situation as when
you find a gun on a park bench: Pick it up "for safety", but now your finger-prints are all over
it. And now the police shows up because someone reported the gun …
The very minimum price is a really tedious debriefing by security and punitive training from
HR in the handling of classified material. Maybe some Gender Diversity or Cultural Awareness on
top because you cursed at the debriefing.
Maximum … about 30 years.
Outside the classified zone, it's easier.
If you find an unsecured laptop or briefcase that – per long-standing British security tradition
– was left on the London Tube, you are probably not in trouble, you can even hand it over to The
Daily Mail or whatever for a "reward" since the HMG doesn't pay any. Don't sell it on eBay though.
China and Russia may buy and then … it's espionage.
"because her real business is selling access to government and its monies or services to those
with the funds to afford the Clintons. But most people are reacting to the sheer arrogance of
the "law doesn't apply to me" attitude and the lies about it so far. But the longer this stays
around the more it will become 'what DID she have to hide'."
Good point. Proceedeing to conduct the public's business in private is the smoke. Many suspect
the donations to the Clinton foundation by various entities with business beefier the state dept,
could be the fire…
They (DOJ) don't have to charge/indict her with anything to Hindenburg her campaign. RICO the
Foundation and it's over.
I'll bet that's why the FBI is taking so long- the email investigation has spread to the Foundation.
The media isn't going there and the FBI had already leaked that they are looking into it.
The "real business" of the Corporatist Dems is –ta dah!– creating more wealth for the Big Whatevers
and making sure they donate enough of their wealth to get the right Corporatist Dems elected.
And, of course, making sure that those who serve the Big Corporations and Big Whatevers well are
granted true wealth once out of office.
And with more wealth comes even more power
it is stunning how very wealthy (as far as we know) the Clintons have become in such a short
time. But it somewhat stunning how very wealthy Corporatist Dems in general become….
The public doesn't do nuance; it requires in-your-face visuals: "little girl + the daisy, Willie
Horton, blue dress."
I wonder what the reaction would be to a montage, with the caption, "I would never
let campaign contributions influence my decisions."
First, Hillary collecting $675,000+ for a couple of Goldman speeches…….."They offered it"………cackle.
Then, Bill, with a photo of the "Lolita Express" flying overhead (poetic license:)
Repeatedly requesting permission from State to travel to Africa to meet with Joseph Kabila,
the murderous Dictator of the poorest country on earth, the Republic of Congo. The butcher had
offered Clinton $650,000 to give a short talk, and have his picture taken with the Ex-President.
The request was so outrageous it was, of course, summarily turned down. Not to be deterred so
easily, the Big Dog persisted, telling an aide to try again, this time making sure the decision
maker at State knew it was B.C. personally making the request. Turned down again, Willie shifted
gears, "what if the fee was paid to the Foundation (or, GCI, not sure,) and not directly to me?"
We should be thankful intermediaries had the good sense to , diplomatically, tell Bill to,
basically, get-the-F- outta here with this request. But, naturally, it's the optic of this Ex-President
even requesting such an inappropriate meeting that, so perfectly, illustrates how far down the
sleaze ladder the Clintons have descended.
Oh, you can toss in that, "we came, we saw, he died"……….. extended cackle video for good measure.
Considering that Obama sees Clinton as part of his legacy, I think there will be some limit
to how far he (his people) will go to protect her. A thoroughly tainted Hillary doesn't serve
his interest. I read the Bernstein statements as first step away from HRC, and not a tiny one
either. "… no longer 100% sure of …" implies "we don't guarantee it".
And the Obama and Clinton teams never warmed to each other, even during her tenure at SoS.
(Team) Obama is certainly upset about the prospect of a Clinton failure, but they're not shedding
any tears.
What I don't really get is the motivation for allowing stories like this to leak out, if its
not to undermine Clinton?
The way I see it, if Obama was truly, deeply invested in Clinton winning (and I'd be surprised
at that, given that we know he doesn't really like her), he would be working hard behind the scenes
to shore her up. Get her over the finishing line of the convention, and then deal with things
after that as they arise. This sort of leak can only weaken her significantly and maybe even encourage
a few superdelegates to start thinking Sanders is a safer option.
The only motivation I can think is to lay the groundwork for a coup against her (and, by definition,
Sanders). I'm no expert on internal Dem rules and what is possible legally, but it always seemed
to me that the logical and route for Obama to preserve his legacy and ensure a Dem win is to make
private calls to senior Dems and say 'trust me, I've seen the legal documents, Clinton is finished,
I know she can't get out of this', and then parlay a face saving climbdown (glass of whiskey,
gun, private room, medical cert) for Clinton in order to put forward a 'safe' ticket at the convention
(Kerry/Biden?). Is it possible for her to transfer her elected delegates to AN Other?
well, that would likely tear the party apart. i think they would rather trump win than sanders,
but imposing biden/kerry or some such is a risky strategy in the present environment. i think
the natural impulse of these people is to be risk averse, and in their bubble they might not be
able to gauge the risk.
I don't think it would tear the party apart, it would just upset the Dem consultants and vendors.
Sanders reliance on small donations completely upsets their economic model, which is based on
a revenue stream from big donors. Big donors aren't interested in supporting populist goals, ergo
populist goals are not money-makers.
On the other hand, a Sanders general candidacy would expose all the Hillary supporters currently
making the "party loyalty" and "not another Nader" arguments to be completely specious if they
didn't pitch in. Some might have the stomach for that, but most are herd followers to begin with.
And the threat of Trump is completely real, regardless (unless the Reps manage to pull a fast
one at their convention… which would completely sever that last leg Clinton is standing on).
Exactly this. Like vampires, the DNC must find a way to cannibalize the energy of Sanders'
supporters in order to re-invogorate a moribund Party, while not losing influence over it.
But the two fundraising models cannot live comfortably in one party for long, certainly not
if the corp/elite funding continues to determine the Party's direction.
Sanders is risking a historic misstep in staying within the Party too long. He's right to stay
so long as Clinton is capable of imploding, but the moment he's pressured to go full sheepdog
in support of Clinton, he has to step away and use the funding structure to build a truly left/populist
party.
I doubt he will. He wants her to win instead of Trump, and the DNC types will outmaneuver him
because of this. I fear all of the concessions he wins in exchange for his cherished email list
will be for nothing once the real game begins.
Is it really a risk of tearing the party apart? If managed right, it could be sold as a 'unifying'
move to heal the wounds of the nomination process, etc., etc. Especially if a genuine left winger
was added as vice prez. The leadership is risk averse, but they can also be ruthless, and they
may see the risk of a catastrophic Clinton meltdown as a greater risk.
DNC is desperately hoping for a knockout blow on 6/7. Wins in states like CA for Sanders would
only rile up his supporters even more.
If they dare to push a Biden/Kerry ticket, it's going to been seen as a "coup". Tensions are
already visibly raised after the NV debacle. DNC tried playing hardball and smearing him and his
supporters and he didn't fold. It seems like the Dem elite might be backing off on these tactics.
A Biden/Kerry ticket would really escalate things and probably make Sanders bolt to the Green
Party for the general election. Under those circumstances, he'd bring a TON of voters with him.
He'd even bring Clinton sympathizers that don't like the DNC's bait-and-switch tactics.
They need Sanders to fade away and fall in line. Every state he wins, every rally with 10s
of thousands showing up make it harder and harder to make that happen.
Given that the mood of the electorate both left and rightwing is "anti-establishment", I don't
see why on earth the Dems would choose Biden/Kerry… how much more establishment could one get?
At least offer Warren (and get the "first female president" too boot) and throw Sanders a bone
- he's too old for VP but could have a cabinet post. Or Senate Majority Leader? (That is probably
too critical a post for the Schumer/Feinstein axis though.)
There is no genuine left winger to put on as VP. Or rather, they would NEVER put a real left
winger in, given Clinton's possible impeachment or death.
Now that Elizabeth Warren is being a good girl and playing footsie with Schumer, I can see
them thinking putting her in as VP would work well enough. I don't think so (in my neck of the
progressive woods, there seems to be a general understanding that she sold out), but more importantly,
I can't imagine Hillary stepping away only to see Liz moved in.
Their smartest real play would be to let Bernie have the nom and bide their time, hoping they
can work in the background with Republicans to taint and undermine him. But I suspect that they're
exactly smart enough to know that probably wouldn't work.
Exactly right! In their bubble, in their world where they manufacture their own reality, can
they gauge risk? I highly doubt it. The establishment needs an establishment candidate. That's
why Sanders will never get the nomination. Given the freak out on the republican side just over
speculating stealing the nomination from Trump, I think it comical anyone could believe the democrats
could airlift Biden in and get away with it. Such an act would simply be establishment desperation
– the only Plan B they could come up with.
Given the vote rigging Sanders supporters believe has been going on, I doubt any will vote
for Clinton. How many would vote Trump and how many would sit out is open for speculation. However
give the nomination to Biden and i think you're guaranteeing a landslide of Sanders supporters
pinching their noses and voting Trump. They'd be just angry enough.
Clinton or Biden? it doesn't matter as Trump wins in a rout. Sanders would be a close call
but he'll never get the nomination. The establishment must have skin in the game until they finally
get what they deserve in November.
I'll also add that i'm not holding my breath that Trump is the instant panacea to save America.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see him cutting deals like crazy with the establishment behind
the scenes or after elected. He won't need the unwashed masses after November. Doesn't mean he
does that and even if he cuts some deals he'll still do more good than any establishment candidate.
More and more American voters see him as the only non-establishment option. It's never really
been about Trump. It's about American voters lashing out at the elites. Trump was simply clever
enough to present himself as the great non-professional politician for people to turn to.
People keep saying this about Sanders voters but I know five (three in my family) who will
without fail vote for Clinton over Trump because they hate Trump, see him as a bigot and a fool,
and expect Clinton to be Obama's third term, which they can live with.
I don't agree with them, but this endlessly repeated meme that Sanders voters will NEVER vote
for Clinton is, I think, wishful thinking.
Guilty as charged! Wishful thinking indeed. Guess I can't condemn those for thinking an Obama
like 3rd term would be a better result. I suppose any kind of thinking falls flat when confronted
with the people who live in a highly materialistic and superficial society. Trump optics are very
unPresidential and that counts for a great deal in a society(not just the US) that has been conditioned
to rever the president of the USA.
Won't even touch on the Left and the Culture War because I've made that point previously.
my rich friends (lifetime republicans included) will vote for hillary, my poor friends won't.
The PTB have created more poor people tha they have wealthy so the numbers won't work for hillary
unless a lot of republicans vote for her, which is not a stretch because she is a republican.
But since we talk about nader costing gore (really it was dinos for bush) by taking 500 odd votes
the sanders deserters (including me, i will not vote for hillary under any circumstances, and
not because I think trump is good in any way, hillary is worse IMO) will exact their revenge even
as their more comfortable peers who have and continue to benefit from the rigged game go for hillary.
We really have no idea how this will pan out. So yes, some sanders supporters will be badgered
into clinton, but I think that's a small percentage, people inclined to support hillary already
support her, most of sanders voters are the castaways. Sorry, can't go along with the endless
drone strikes of the 5th term of GWB. Hillary is not the peace candidate.
Clinton voters – those not in the establishment, that is – seem to be the silent type.
You don't see them here or hear them on radio often (just yesterday, on the local public radio,
almost all the callers were for Sanders – it made me wonder if Hillary would lose 0 to 100 in
the upcoming California primary).
Clinton voters are the small amount type. She has only "won," even in the states she did did "win," by massively suppressing the vote.
She hasn't even held onto her own voters from 2008, even in conservative states. Her "big wins"
in the South were with much smaller numbers of votes cast. There are people who genuinely want to vote for her. They were not enough to win the Democratic
primary without massive suppression AND theft.
Some will, some won't. How many is to be decided. If Sanders gives his list to the Democrats, I will certainly vote for Trump. I would rather
have Götterdämmerung immediately, then have it play out.
The problem for Hillary is there is no indication the email scandal narrative will ever
improve to the point of improving her untrustworthy numbers. The best she can hope for is the
FBI stating it will not recommend an indictment which will merely confirm the public's correct
perception that the power elite are treated better than the rank and file. Hillary cannot unring
the Inspector General's conclusion she circumvented FOIA and federal record keeping laws. She
cannot undue the fact she maintained thousands of classified records, along with 22 top secret
documents on the private server. She cannot change the fact she hid her use of the private server
from the public and only disclosed it when caught by the Senate Committee investigating Benghazi.
Everyone who pays attention to the facts is disgusted by her misconduct in this matter.
Loyal Hillary supporters are the only ones willing to buy into the unbelievable rationales
floated the past year. For the rest of us, everything we learn merely confirms what we previously
thought. That Hillary cannot be trusted, wants to avoid public scrutiny and believes she is above
the law. Everything we learn about the email scandal is much worse than initially portrayed by
Hillary.
As the article states–this is all on Hillary who for over 1,200 days intentionally used a private
email basement server despite being told not to do so. She had numerous opportunities to right
her wrongs, but insisted on doing what she wanted to do because that is always how the Clintons
operate. There is no way Hillary, Bill and her team of misfits should be allowed within a hundred
miles of the oval office. Sadly, Donald will win if Hillary remains the Democrats candidate of
choice.
I believe we can plainly chart the "decay path" (lovely phrase BTW), of Hillary Clinton's failed
attempts to secure the highest office of the land just by looking at pictures of Monica Lewinsky
from 1998 until today.
The true decay path would have been the trajectory Bill Clinton's baggage would have taken,
from the White House to the South Lawn, had Hillary Clinton thrown the bum out in 1998.
I have always been confused by which woman Bill Clinton was lying straight faced about when
the then President of the United States declared before the whole world: "I did not have sex with
that woman."
At the time of the scandal, Hillary Clinton was First Lady of the United States of America,
the most powerful women in the free world. Imagine what her standing-up for women everywhere would
have had, let alone upon the current states of "family values" (so-called)? Imagine the affect
her standing up for herself would have had upon the women of the world?
Instead she used her power to play the "little woman," when she could have assured herself
two (2) terms as President of the United States, even guaranteed herself the title of being the
first Empress of the United States of America if she had wanted.
As it stands, Bill Clinton's legacy is not how he ruined one woman, but two (2).
Who Mr Clinton shags is his business and his wife's*. Hillary came out smelling like roses.
She got sympathy as devoted wife whose hubby screwed around and, in my view, damn near universal
understanding for her decision to honour her marriage by staying with her hubby.
I think her problem is that, in routing official traffic through a private mail server,
she's tried to avoid records of her work (as a public official!) ever becoming available to the
public. It looks, at the very least, like she's trying to hide something and it's a demonstration
of breathtaking contempt for the very people whose votes she's now asking for.
That the Democrat brains trust knew all this and still decided to try and coronate her
leads me to suspect that they've become completely divorced from reality. Any halfway credible
candidate would trample over whoever the R's pick.
* How classy, not to mention politically astute, would it have been if the R's could have kept
their frothing to themselves and made a single public statement along those lines and got on with
the business of serving their constituents.
If he shagged under the legal age limit girls, traveled on a jet which was used in slave
trade of underage girls, etc; then it isn't just his business, it's a criminal matter. If Mrs.
Clinton enabled, and/or aided and abetted, then she could be facing criminal charges.
Bill is a sexual predator. His affair with Jennifer Flower was consensual. But starting
from when he was Governor, there is a long list of credible allegations of him engaging in sexual
harassment (extremely aggressive come-ons with women he had just met, often women who were state
employees or Dem consultatnts), including a rape allegation by Juanita Brodderick. We've even
had a reader in comments say that when Bill Clinton visited a friend, he asked their college aged
daughter when he was alone with her if she wanted to ride in his car and give him a blow job.
DC contacts confirm the city is rife with stories like that.
> Hillary Clinton was First Lady of the United States of America, the most powerful women in
the free world
Most powerful woman in the world? Somebody's wife? Lord I hope not. Surely there was a female
head of state or a Supreme Court Justice or something with better claim.
Clinton's… poster children for Flexians… Disheveled Marsupial… at least the loon pond and wing
nutters are open about their insanity… something about the inelasticity of beliefs…
If there were an equal rule of law in this country, we would not even be discussing
this issue as Clinton would have already been indicted by now. The recent Wikileaks release shows
exactly how complicit Clinton is, was, and will always be, a truly evil human being.
As strange a thing as this is to say, I find myself wishing that more journalists had experience
in IT security. I do have such experience, and from what I can see most people really don't appreciate
just how totally, ludicrously irresponsible it is for that server to exist. Talk of it having
been "secured" by some lone IT contractor is ridiculous on its face. I wouldn't run a homebrew
email server, and I am basically not worth hacking – very much unlike the US Secretary of State.
Seriously, think about it. The Secretary of State had a private email server which seems
to have been widely known about within the State Department and other people in government who
had dealings with Hillary Clinton. There's really no question as to if that thing was hacked –
you can absolutely bet your ass that multiple foreign intelligence services have been
in and out of that thing.
That's what's really galling to me – even by Hillary's own stated standards, what she did
with her email is orders of magnitude worse than what Snowden did. But it's Hillary Clinton, so
it gets handwaved by the Democrats' long practice at assuming a Clinton scandal is overblown nonsense.
To be fair, a large number of Clinton scandals have been overblown nonsense…I think Democrats
have gotten so used to fighting off those attacks, that they just assume the same when something
real pops up.
As for the irresponsibility of maintaining that homebrew server, I've tried to explain on other
forums how it was actually worse than getting it through a commercial provider, or even what Powell
did. The responses were usually along the lines of "it wasn't hacked." Sigh.
Agreed. But that's the thing. These events aren't about the substantive IT issues. They're
just part of concentration of wealth and power; the authoritarians in both major parties are control
freaks who work together in bipartisan cooperation. Laws are for the little people. The ruling
class is above the law. The role of the media is to enforce this system, not challenge it.
That's why people like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling,
John Kiriakou, Joe Wilson, and so forth are persecuted by the government while people like Clinton
(and Petraeus, Novack, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Biden, etc.) are protected. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with the merits of events.
Just as one example, here's the 'ole Gray Lady serving as
dutiful stenographer
for Nancy Pelosi herself, the Democratic Speaker from San Francisco, supposedly one of the
most liberal parts of the entire country, explaining that the law doesn't apply to people in power.
Agreed. I've worked in IT and software development for years and agree that her provision
of that server doesn't meet the most basic requirements for security. Also, I work for a rather
large company with a sizable federal contract and, if you haven't contracted with the government,
you can only imagine the levels of security they impose upon their vendors. Two-factor authentication,
encryption at rest, kernel hardening and on and on. Not only do you HAVE to do these things if
you want to do business with the government, they bring in teams of their IT people to audit you.
And it is not perfunctory in any way. They take InfoSec very, very seriously.
Rule no 1 of security: a system is only as secure as its weakest link. Imagine how anyone who
abides by the strict security requirements necessary to work in or for government feels when learning
about Clinton's cavalier disregard for the law? Her arrogant refusal to play by the same rules
as the people she is supposed to lead? In fact, her behavior put the entire system and people's
lives at risk.
She fails the most basic test of genuine leadership. Yet another important example of why she
is unfit to be president.
Good article. The IG's report was the crack in the dam and I believe soon the whole sordid
mess that Clinton has created for herself will come flooding through. I think Bernstein's messaging
was to the Democratic party as a whole that its time to pursue other avenues. And there are other
rumblings as well. Yesterday in the
WSJ was this op-ed which made many of the same points that were made here, as well as discusses
the fallout if Clinton loses the California primary. I also think that the Dems are not only just
worried about the nomination now. The IG's report clears a path for hearings by the Republicans
against Clinton after the election.
What pisses me off to no end is the fact that the party and media are unwilling to pivot to
Sanders. He could win the general, perhaps more easily that HRC. But Sanders is also to blame
on this for being so completely inflexible that he can't make the right friends.
That is a positive for him generally though. These people don't want "friends" they want others
who are willing to play ball. Sanders says GTFO, enough is enough.
The truth was never going to sit well with these selfish fools and their sycophants.
I agree. Sanders has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by "making nice" with the Dem establishment.
Why make nice with them? They are the problem, not the solution. That's a mainstay of Sanders'
campaign.
Sanders is the ranking member on the budget committee and has been the chair of the veterans
affairs committee. Those are plum jobs which demonstrates the Democratic Party is not a political
party by any normal standard because you don't give the best jobs to people outside the party
unless you need to.
The Clinton fanaticism isn't about Sanders. They believe they need Clinton. An active DoJ
might be a threat. A few have backwards ideas about politics. Some simply did the believe Sanders
when he said Hillary was weak, but with a Gabbard in play, many Democrats can kiss their ambitions
good bye if Sanders wins.
I've said it elsewhere: Sanders is unacceptable to the DNC because a Sanders win would render
the DNC networks, influence and fundraising abilities irrelevant overnight. The DNC would no longer
be gatekeepers. You can win without them. Thus, Team D does not fear a Sanders defeat, and they can live with President Trump. In fact,
that would represent an unprecedented fundraising opportunity. But from the Team D perspective, a Sanders victory must be prevented at all costs.
How the hell could Sanders "make friends" with members of the Democratic Party elite? He is
blowing up their revolving-door-greasing funding model. Running as effectively as he has with
almost no lobbyist money? No major corporate donors to speak of? What can he offer them, except
unpleasant changes that negatively impact their careers?
Depends on whom one includes in the elite, and what one means by negatively. Are the super
delegates who aspire to be on the ticket in November running for their own amusement? If so, I
suppose they don't care whether they ride on Sanders coat tails or sail off the cliff on whomever
the elite deem the nominee should be. Would you rather be the Senate minority leader, or the Senate
majority leader. House minority leader, or speaker of the house? I have no idea where the power
lies here, but I admit that am curious about Pelosi's non stance, and Reid's pivot, with almost
unseemly hast, from saying Sanders needed to get in line, to that he would be more powerful when
he returned to the senate, to saying: "hands off." And sandwiched in between saying no way in
hell would he tolerate a senate vp coming from a state with a Republican governor. Assuming he
has any actual say in the matter, that would torpedo the preferred sop to the Sandernistas: Warren.
Reid is of course gone either way, but Schumer is next in line is he not? What do I know, but
it's entertaining to speculate.
When Carl Bernstein opens with, "The implications of all of this are that Hillary Clinton
did not want her emails subjected to the Freedom of Information Act or subpoenas from Congress.
And that's why she set up a home-brew server" he is only telling half the truth, and is framing
the conversation around her supposedly innocent desire for a little privacy. Pretty good lying,
Carl.
But this is definitely putting a lot of spin on the ball, because the other half of the
story is the reason WHY she wanted to avoid FOIA and Congressional scrutiny. The answer is: so
that between her and Bill she could sell her office to the highest bidders, which the FBI is quite
prepared to prove, or if denied that chance, to "leak like crazy" to the media. Good
Lord, the FBI is even considering treating the Clinton Foundation as a Racketeering Influenced
Criminal Organization. There's no chance this is going to just go away.
Given this likelihood of the full story going public in any case, given the completely independent
Judicial Watch investigation, and given that the Russian media actually printed Clinton emails
in their newspapers back in 2013 - and claim to have 20,000 of her emails in hand that they can
release at any time - there's no practical path for the White House or DNC to stonewall or to
clamp a lid on this affair, and roll Hillary across the finish line to the nomination on a hospital
gurney if that's what it takes.
The same problem exists with pardoning her prior to prosecution - it won't silence FBI leaks,
or the Russians, or Judicial Watch, or whomever else wishes to leak the full truth to the morning
papers. The public will be fed a steady discovery of exactly what Obama's unconditional pardon
actually covered. It will be a magical expanding pardon - starting out as a balloon but growing
within months to the size of the Hindenburg before burning to the ground along with Obama's legacy.
As to what the White House knows that they aren't leaking - that would be the devastating damage
Hillary's loss of state secrets has done, none of which can ever be shared with the public. If
covert CIA operations have been ruined, if agents have been exposed, arrested or killed, if someone's
name has gone up on that wall of heroes in the CIA lobby because of Hillary Clinton, the CIA will
not forgive, ever. Nor will they tolerate letting her gain the Oval Office, where she can hire,
fire and otherwise direct them. The NSA is known to be well aware of her public corruption of
the SoS office, and of the wholesale money-laundering of the Clinton Foundation, which Charles
Ortel is now meticulously publishing in the form of PDF files covering every separate arena of
corruption ongoing over there. They don't want her as their boss, either. Steps can be taken to
prevent that from happening, with no risk of exposure.
Hillary's got no way out of her legal troubles other than suddenly checking into a hospital
and being declared terminal. Everyone will hold off, at that point. Until she fails to pass away
by the weekend, at which point her legal nightmare resumes its course. So no, she's got no way
out of what's coming, and no actual path to the White House.
All of which leaves the Democratic Party with only two options:
a) get her nominated at the Convention even if it's by just one vote, but hand pick her VP
for her so that person can be the real candidate when she drops out well before November. Problem:
Hillary has spent several years scorching the earth for other Dem candidates. Nobody has any organization
or resume to suddenly step into her shoes and expect anyone to vote for them in November. If Kerry
is their only choice, please don't bother.
b) induce Hillary to drop out before the Convention, and let the Convention be brokered. Don't
elect Bernie Sanders on the first round, and after that you're home free - keep voting, round
after round, until delegates finally accept your Hillary replacement which isn't Bernie Sanders.
Oh, it will be a raucous, riotous event, but it's all above board, and by the rules. Caution:
this course of action carries a high risk of nominating Bernie Sanders.
Just speculation, but by keeping quiet the NSA/CIA/FBI could be "investing" in blackmail futures.
The ghost of J. Edgar may still be lurking somewhere in D.C.
The Clinton Foundation, which controls billions in an opaque labrynth structure and funded
by war profiteers, crass political operatives and those with corrupt cynical motives, functions
like the treasury for a supra national shadow regime.
When this story finally unravels, and it will, it will make WaterGate, IranGate look like a
kiddy party.
I am inclined to agree. Even the mere mention of RICO might mean the FBI is stalking bigger
game – the Clinton Foundation? The Democratic Party itself?
The Libya correspondence between Blumenthal, a Clinton Foundation employee who also representes
a security firm evidently poised to be contracted there and HC is an example.
Given all these wheeling and dealing interscections between SOS Hillary and the Clinton Foundation's
unwholesome donors
and the extraordinary lenghts to privatize correspondence (and not fully turn over Blumenthal's
hacked emails to her) there is no other way to reasonably explain the stunning depths.
Especially given HC's interventions have resulted in lawless no man's lands…… hugely profitable
for donor defense contractors or those poised to acquire resources, weaponry (Lybia).
Cheney et al. got away with the no-bid ultra-corrupt Haliburton contracts in Iraq, so there
is a precedent for this kind of naked thieving going unpunished.
The many examples of gross corrupt war profiteering facilitated by high office holders going
unpunished or rewarded must be emboldening.
But in my view, setting up a foundation with opaque accounting and trotting around the world
soliciting huge donations while SOS with a private server outside government channels and FOIA
is a new level of organized criminal archetecture.
Rewarded or unpunished war profiteering facilitated by high office holders must be emboldening.
But in my view, setting up a foundation with opaque accounting then soliciting huge donations
from donors specializing in political upheaval and military conflict while globe trotting as SOS
using a private server outside of government channels to circumvent FOIA is a new level of criminal
and is essentially a Clinton Foundation serving as treasury at the helm, with presumed HC POTUS
subversively enforcing a shadow supra national archetecture.
To Code Name D – One can watch a program on Netflix about Hayden and the CIA realizing it has
gone too far. What may you ask? Well well has the country done since JFK? Selling out to
the bankers affects intelligence too. It just takes awhile for our species to wake up.
And despite the self admitted overeach directed by corrupt politicians I do not find wasting
(literally as in the slang term of the word) funny. This is an issue I have with bombadier Kissinger.
Energy policies and struggles matter. But Clinton always would say "well that policy is ten years
away" regarding energy policy. So when the Russians play a hot card (but overplayed its hand)
because the West in its corruption didnt move faster, lets blame Russia.
These are the kinds of things that kill and cause increased casualties in intelligence. Think
nobody woud notice?
As always, increase competitors in energy, alternative and others. Then Russia can fuck off
as it tries to raise prices. But that requires the rule of law and not selling the country down
the river. Just getting down to some brass tacks here. I get real pissed beause not only can this
get my countrymen killed, along with me but the other reason is some of us have had to do the
job that government is paid do to. I wont expand.
Ah, I am starting to see the "RICO mention" starting to go mainstream on you-tube. I am starting
to think this was a preemptive leak to try and discredit the real charges should they come out
later. We have yet to see any evidence that would support this and it doesn't fit with the current
noise.
One has to wonder just how many red flags have to be waved in their faces for it to dawn on
them that, hey, maybe Hillary Clinton isn't – and never was – the right person to pass the baton
to.
Seems to me that if there was some kind of bargain struck in 2008 (you concede and enthusiastically
endorse me, and I'll reward you with a plum job from which you can launch a presidential campaign,
and I'll throw in the full support of the DNC and the superdelegates), there were multiple points
along the way where it was clear Clinton was putting all of that in jeopardy. She made some terrible
decisions, and instead of pulling back, she doubled down.
Are we to believe that no one from "the White House" ever took her aside or suggested that
while she may be living a life of entitlement, there was that little thing known as an election
that was going to depend on public perception of her actions and decisions, and she might want
to consider that, promises notwithstanding, she was playing a fool's game if she bought into her
own invincibility and inevitability?
But maybe "the White House" bought into it, too. How else to explain why, in spite of every
kind of assistance it's possible to get, some of it of questionable legality, the anointed candidate
has done nothing but drop in the polls. A little-known, 74-year old Democratic Socialist from
a teeny-tiny state enters the race polling within the margin of error, and a year and hundreds
of millions of small-dollar donations later, is in a position to deny Clinton a pledged-delegate
nomination.
How large does the writing on the wall have to be over there at "the White House?" How myopic
are these people, anyway? Did their eyes all of a sudden just pop open and they can only just
now see what has been obvious for some time?
I'd like to feel bad for them, but the phrase that comes to mind instead is "hoist on their
own petard."
This whole thing is such a massive exercise in selfish indulgence the only emotion these people
deserve is our anger, which we should put to use by denying them the offices and power they seek.
What I don't get here is, if the White House knows she's such a terrible candidate, why do
they want to put her in a real cat fight with Trump? Are they so sure (as Bernstein suggests)
that Obama will be able to carry her across the finish line in November?
And that bring up another point for all you "feminist" Clintonistas. Wasn't the whole point
of the "first woman in the White House" thing to show that women can do it alone? That they don't
need men carrying them around all the time to be successful? Well what's up with your candidate?
I have never (in my 65 years) ever seen anyone (woman or man) need more help from other people
(mostly men) to gain the success they seek. At every single turn in this campaign we have Ms.
Clinton needing someone else, someone MORE, falling on their sword for her. Because left on her
own, against a freaking socialist, for Christ's sakes, all she has been able to do is F@ck up.
A FIFTY POINT LEAD, gone. Wasted. Nothing to show. And this is what you want as feminism's representative
in the White House? Shame on you.
As others have pointed out, all that is required of Hillary at this point is to secure the
nomination. Nothing else really matters. Once Sanders is removed from the picture, her job is
done. A President Trump would be a minor setback from a partisan perspective and a Democratic
Party in opposition to a bogeyman like Trump would experience an amped up version of the unifying
effect it enjoyed in opposition to GWB. It really could serve to paper over the seismic ideological
rifts widening within the current party. Four years in opposition would be a very small price
to pay for averting what would be the existential threat to the party's core that a President
Sanders would represent.
I would think the prospect of a President Trump wouldn't bother the party's insiders much if
at all. The prospect of a President Sanders on the other hand would or could be a crushing and
final defeat for nearly everything the current Democratic Party stands for: a giant and hugely
lucrative influence peddling racket making everyone near its center into extremely wealthy individuals
with patronage jobs waiting for them and their families within the concerns of the people who
are bribing them. President Trump by comparison would be a godsend.
Most of the DLC establishment could find it easy enough to "live" with a Trump Presidency.
Just like Lil Marco Rubio, they'll easily bend their knees to kiss Trump's heiney and make deals
with him. What's it to them, after all?
Sanders? That's a horse of a different feather. Sanders isn't interested in them bending their
knees and kissing his heiney. And THAT's a huge problem for the 1%.
I agree with your assessment. Trump would play the game differently, but he could be counted
on to place the game.
Sanders shows that he knows and respects some of the rules of the game, but more of the rulebook
would be up for grabs and the outcomes perhaps less predictable for TPTB.
There are also wildcards–impeachments, assassinations, health issues, pardons, etc.
In that scenario Hillary wins the nomination and loses the election, Obama pardons her
to head off (in his telling) partisan persecution and looks noble (to the credulous) standing
up for her, clearing the way to elbow in on the Clinton network for the-haven't you heard?-Obama
Foundation. And the grift goes on.
Could be. We'll never know, because we're not at those tables. But could be.
1. Somewhat tangentially. I don't know how the 2007-2008 crisis looked to people on the "outside",
but to many of the guys in the trenches the world "blew up" on or about July 18, 2007, when the
two Bear-affiliated subprime funds hit a wall and the credit bubble literally stopped
the next day. Within a month, the SIVs got obliterated and it was downhill from
there.
Yes, it took a while to get to Lehman/AIG. There was the Bear thing, the commodities super-spike
in the summer of 2008, a few other notable items. But again, by the time Lehman came around the
view in the trenches was that the world had already been blowing up for over a year, and now "main
street" finally took notice. Really the one surprise was that the Fed let Lehman go (presumably
as a live experiment, or perhaps simply out of stupidity), and then the CDS markets went haywire
for awhile (hence AIG).
Not 20%-30% probability of "something bad happening". Rather, 100% probability of "something
bad" having already happened and now we're just watching the explosion in slo-mo.
2. Incidentally, this is pretty much what we're seeing with the Clinton campaign. You've already
seen the campaign "blow up", in a way, because Sanders didn't go away in February, or March, or
April, etc. Part of that was Sanders, part of that was general discontent – but part of that is
also Hillary not being able to put away an opponent that is so way out of the Democratic party
mainstream. Because the email thing, and the speeches thing, and the neo-liberalism thing,
whatever. Bernstein's "leaking" makes clear that as far back as February Obama's guys in the trenches
said – hey, we just saw the Bear funds blow up, and this thing is going to end badly one way or
the other. We don't know exactly how bad, but bad. Which is bad for us…
3. I actually think that this signalling is not about a specific thing. It's a more of a general
– you're not doing what you're supposed to do, and your messing up makes us look bad type of thing.
Today it's the emails, tomorrow it's whatever else – there are so many issues with the campaign
(and the candidate) that you could have Bernstein deliver a new speech weekly if not daily. The
overall message seems to be, "you're blowing up, do something, right now", and I would bet they've
been hitting that theme for months in private (the current leak to Bernstein being a sort of a
– you don't want to listen to us in private, here's something in public, now pay attention).
4. Honestly, I would be shocked – shocked! – if the FBI or the DoJ did anything to Hillary
Clinton on this email front. For one, let's dispense with any talk of "autonomy". Whom does the
FBI director report to? Have there been any instances in the past when the White House "influenced"
the direction of the FBI investigation? And what has this administration specifically demonstrated
time and again vis-a-vis leakers (from the standpoint of intimidation)? Or compartmentalizing
information to prevent such? I'm not saying they'll necessarily get away with it, but certainly
they can think that to themselves, at least through November.
The basic idea is that Obama and his people have put their chips on Clinton. For whatever reason
– political, personal, does not matter. They probably did so with a heavy heart (or some such),
but they did it. Now they're freaking out, justifiably, because they literally cannot, cannot
afford to have the Clinton campaign blow up right at this point (after November, sure, why not).
You think these people won't shut the FBI down if they feel they have to? Of course they
will. It will look dirty, of course, but it's – in their minds – probably better than the alternatives,
unless they want to go out with a real bang blowing up both Clinton and the DNC and ending up
as semi-pariahs among a good portion of the DNC donor base for the rest of their lives…which I
doubt.
Eh. The train wreck continues to unfold in slow motion, except that I think this time she actually
has a more than slim chance of making it to November and making it in November (after
which point, let the scandals lottery commence, to the endless delight of Fox News and the like).
Tend to agree. Clinton will likely win in November. Trump's potential voter base is less in
number than Clinton's. She has a built-in demographic that, unless she botches the debates totally,
should ensure Trump's defeat. BTW I despise the Clinton's and everything they stand for.
The 2008 Financial Crisis narrative I tend to follow is that Bear and Lehman had the most enemies
and so were the most convenient scapegoats/sacrifices to hand to an angry public. The reality
of these big crises is that the banking system fails absent absent government intervention and
so the saving of the others was a CHOICE.
Likewise, at some point the professional Democrats and the affiliated parts of the organism,
including its funders, might at some point view cutting the umbilical cord to the Clintons as
necessary for their own survival. I'd keep an eye out for that!
FWIW, on the outside, it seemed like things were very bad, so bad that it felt like
the political system was going out of its way to try to cover things up and tell people not to
worry their pretty little heads and other almost comically defensive approaches. And not just
in finance specifically, but all over our system, secrecy and ignoring reality seemed to permeate
our public leadership. A willful blindness at a systemic level – because after all, most highly
paid professionals depend upon the system; nobody wants to rock that officialdom boat much.
I have also been interested by some of the revisionist history that starts the GFC in 2008
with Lehman, rather than Bear Stearns in 2007, and more generally with the notion that the 2007-2009
crisis was a unique, isolated event rather than part of a multi-decade long process, that slow
motion train wreck, as if the kind of inequality that leads to systemic crashes magically appeared
out of nowhere in 2006.
To Washunate – I really appreciate the wise commentary, all of the time. The primary issue
is who controls the currency. A private bank like the Fed who is the ultimate lobbyist or the
the public, basically treasury. Our founders new both can and will fall prey to corruption but
out of the two choices public currency (a form of energy of all our labor) is best.
Central banking model is a form of conquest. As an empire it succeeded globally. Now such have
to own the empire and its fallacies. Including buying politicians. The rule of law must be restored
and the currency restored to public domain (despite its flaws).
Thanks for the kind words. One of the things I really like about what Yves has done at NC is
create a space for those inside and outside as panda put it to share directly with each other,
without the filter of technocrats and pundits in the middle who portray an air of expertise, of
rigorous intellectual curiosity about and understanding of the system, yet seem to possess neither
detailed knowledge about things 'in the trenches' nor about the perception of those things by
the general public on 'the outside' of the bubbles of affluence and power in our society.
The general public has known for some time to be leary of everything from bankster pronouncements
to econ PhD jibberish to warmongering buffoons. But the Serious People of our system act like
every problem is a big surprise. Because of course they are protecting the looting – or at least
enabling it through various kinds of navel gazing triviality – rather than doing anything meaningful
about it.
I heartily agree that rule of law isn't some quaint notion, purity test, or luxury. It is the
foundational element of a society that aspires for what are broadly held values (outside DC) like
freedom, justice, mercy, and equality.
1. Economy: "Not 20%-30% probability of "something bad happening". Rather, 100% probability
of "something bad" having already happened and now we're just watching the explosion in slo-mo.
"
Absolutely everyone I know who has established credibility with me in a wide range of spheres
agrees with the 100% figure. Timing: late 2016, early 2017 at the latest. With more far-reaching
impact than "usual" in a Great Depression or GFC.
Did you see by "something bad" I meant a Japan-level unraveling? I wasn't talking about recession
or a bear market. I was talking about a financial crisis, but a slower-moving one than we had.
And if you look at my posts from the time, I was very clear in chronicling the four acute phases
of the crisis: July-Aug 2007, December 2007, Bear and Lehman, as Very Big Deals. I was particularly
critical of the "Mission Accomplished" mode the officialdom went into in Feb-March 2008 and April-July
2008.
Yves – Time hss proved you wise. Japanafication is exactly what has been unfolding. And
according to Forbes and the Fed, 48% of the population having less than a grand in savings means
the US is near third world. One can buy Pop Tarts in third world countries also.
But there are wealth holders still spending (albeit less than two years ago) based on the stock
market or real estate rentals. Both are subject to harsh correction and that will have some knock-on
effects in labor. Not as bad as some may think but some.
The real danger is geopolitics. And this bitch that thinks she is queen has no issues literally
seeing 1/3 of the global population dying to escape her crimes. Think of what a rapist does to
a rape victim many times. Strangle that woman so she doesnt indict you. Yeah, it is that bad.
But there are some form of tech that will end any world war quickly. Stuff of science fiction.
America's competitors should think twice, or such may dissapear. Literally.
But as Americans we do know the corruption stinks to high heaven and we are doing something
about it. So pray, war does not escalate. Mankind is literally at the end of our evolution and
defeating classic death. We need (some is happening and is great) more.of that focus and marketing
of it and less global police, empire crap.
Regarding the Clinton Hairball (or, Dead Woman Walking)
Just read the Cheryl Mills
transcripts and two things jumped out at me. First, on pages 104-106, the Judicial Watch lawyers
asked her about Platte River Networks and Datto, Inc. This
McClatchy article gives a long version, but the short version of what the big deal is this:
Clinton Executive Service Corp. (CESC) had Hillary Clinton's private email server physically
moved to Platte River Networks after she left office in 2013. Platte River is an IT services company.
They are headquartered in Colorado but also have a location in New Jersey, which is where Clinton's
server ended up. Platte River bought a backup device from another IT services company called Datto,
Inc, specifically to back up Clinton's server. CESC requested that Platte River do the backup
on site, and Platte River thought that's how they set up the Datto device. However – and this
must have been Clinton's worst nightmare x 10 - unbeknownest to CESC and Platte River, the backup
server accidentally synced with another off-site server belonging to Datto for two years before
anyone realized it. And here's the kicker: this off-site Datto server had all of Clinton's
30,000 or so work-related and 30,000 or so personal emails.
And the FBI found out about it and seized that Datto server and hit the jackpot of all time!
Now, in the Mills transcript, Judicial Watch dropped the questions to Mills about Platte River
and Datto pretty quick, which suggests to me that they already have some other juicy witnesses
to question and they merely tried a few quicky questions to Mills to see if they got lucky. But
to me this is the nuclear bomb that has already gone off – the shock wave just hasn't reached
us yet. I would imagine that Hillary's personal emails may be a treasure-trove relating to Clinton
Foundation Activities and all the related shenanigans
Ortel is investigating, as mentioned several
times on Naked Capitalism.
On page 138, another item of interest in the transcript appears. Mills is asked about a July
26, 2011 email chain where Clinton jokes with a staffer named Nora Toiv that it was weird Clinton
no longer had Toiv's Gmail account and Clinton wondered, "so how did that happen. Must be the
Chinese!" Here's the
email on Wikileaks.
Keep in mind, this is just a month or so after several warnings from the DS cybersecurity about
private email accounts, including this June 28, 2011 cable, in Clinton's name, warning of specific
threats to Gmail accounts of U.S. Government employees. From page 34 of the
OIG Report :
On June 28, 2011, the Department, in a cable entitled "Securing Personal E-mail Accounts"
that was approved by the Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and sent over Secretary
Clinton's name to all diplomatic and consular posts, encouraged Department users "to check
the security settings and change passwords of their home e-mail accounts because of recent
targeting of personal email accounts by online adversaries."141 The cable further elaborated
that "recently, Google asserted that online adversaries are targeting the personal
Gmail accounts of U.S. government employees. (my emphasis) Although the company believes
it has taken appropriate steps to remediate identified activity, users should exercise caution
and follow best practices in order to protect personal e-mail and prevent the compromise of
government and personal information." It then recommended best practices for Department users
and their family members to follow, including "avoid conducting official Department business
from your personal e-mail accounts."142
Granted, Clinton could have been just having a laugh in the email exchange with Toiv, but it
doesn't help her case. Especially since we know of at least 15 cyberattacks on Clinton's email
server just from publically available information, including attacks from IP address in China,
Republic of Korea and Germany (and possibly Russia, if you believe the Guccifer story).
Sorry for being so long-winded.
TLDR: Clinton is a dead woman walking. And Abedin, Sullivan and others have yet to testify!
– the backup server accidentally synced with another off-site server belonging to Datto for
two years before anyone realized it. And here's the kicker: this off-site Datto server had all
of Clinton's 30,000 or so work-related and 30,000 or so personal emails. And the FBI found out
about it and seized that Datto server and hit the jackpot of all time!
I know. And as an aside, another fact that has been glossed over repeatedly is that Hillary's
personal email server apparently wasn't new when she had it installed in her basement. Oh no,
the server had already been in use as President Bill Clinton's personal server before that. God
only knows what kind of incriminating stuff is on there belonging to him. No wonder he suddenly
looks like he's aged about 30 years!
Probably because it is the Yellow Brick Road winding its way through years of Clinton relationships
with the richest, most powerful and influential people in the world. And we will probably never,
ever catch more than a fleeting glimpse of whatever is behind the curtain.
Just reading that thousands of subpoenaed e-mails went missing from Bill Clinton's server in
year 2000 – personal emails from Monica Lewinsky – that kind of thing. Supposedly.
Searching 'Pagliano' in the trove of emails at Wikileaks only brings up one response for October
26, 2012. It's a Happy Birthday wish. Shouldn't there be more emails either to or from Pagliano
and at an earlier date than 2012, at minimum one test email to make sure the server was working
when it was first set up?
Still surprised that if her server was hacked, those emails have not be given to Wikileaks.
That same story says he has an immunity deal and was cooperating with the FBI. I guess it's
possible he only got limited immunity and is concerned about something else but…
I've heard reports that an attempt was made in late 2012. Not the incident in Israel, but on
a secret trip to Iran to meet with Ahmedinejad. What I heard (not on the internet–other channels)
is that one of her SEALS on the small plane with her had a vision of what she would do as president,
and took it into his own hands to stop it. He shot her (the cause for her much-reported-on hospital
stay–with her recovery in question in early days) and he was killed by the rest of the SEAL team.
His death was then said to have occurred in Afghanistan. There's supporting tangential info about
this event that's findable.
Whether or not this story is accurate, I believe there's more to her hospital stay than the
official story. I do not think it was a routine medical event.
Tom
June 1, 2016 at 9:40 am
Thank you very, very much for that elucidating synopsis – its hard to read EVERYTHING so getting
just a slice of the prime cut keeps me up to date on an onslaught of info!
I sure hope you do more of these!!!
Thank you very much. After writing that, I have even more respect for how much work Yves, Lambert
and others put into this site each and every day. Same for the contributions of the many informed
commenters. Naked Capitalism is truly an exceptional resource.
Agee. Nice work Tom and to all who are restoring the Republic. Make sure you go have a drink
and some fun now and then too. A phase of this has passed for me but now another one is looming
in a different way than educating.
I had seen references to the Datto server and the online backups but there hasn't been much
discussion of them or the FBI's getting ahold of them. If they did, it truly is a nightmare for
HRC.
There is a new poll saying 48% of the public think her server was "illegal" and another 24%
or so thought it was "unethical". She and her staff are stonewalling and doubling down on their
excuses. I guess she is just hoping to make it through the convention but it all depends on the
FBI report at this stage.
If the Datto server debacle checks out - and it sure looks like it does - I have read in several
places that it pretty much is a no-brainer violation of 18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting
or losing defense information, specifically Section (f):
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing,
code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model,
instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through
gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered
to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2)
having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody
or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed,
and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior
officer-
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
If you have classified info on your server and all that data is being sent to another server
for two years, without your knowledge, that's pretty much the definition of "gross negligence,"
I would imagine.
And keep in mind, before we even get to the Datto debacle, I'm already giving Clinton two giant
free hall passes:
1. That it didn't constitute gross negligence to have the server in her basement in the first
place, and
2. That it wasn't gross negligence to move the server to Platte River Networks. (From what I gather,
even if this was an approved server, the U.S. government would have questions like: Who physically
picked up the server, put it on a truck or in a car, who transported the server, who had access
to it before, during and after the move?" Also, questions like, "Who owns Platte River Networks?
What is their security set-up? Who vetted the employees at Platte River? Who had access to the
server while it was there?")
So wait. You're telling me that the half of the email Clinton retained as "personal" wasn't
all about Clinton's yoga sessions and Chelsea's wedding?
On " Platte River bought a backup device from another IT services company called Datto, Inc,
specifically to back up Clinton's server," I don't think that's quite right. First, the issue
is not a device, but backup to the cloud from a device. Second, the Platte River didn't know the
backup to the cloud was taking place . From the McClatchy story:
Unbeknownst to Clinton, IT firm had emails stored on cloud; now in FBI's hands
Datto and Platte River seemed at odds, however, over how Clinton's emails wound up on Datto's
cloud storage, which may have resulted from a misunderstanding.
Platte River spokesman Andy Boian said the firm bought a device from Datto that constantly
snaps images of a server's contents and connected it to the Clinton server at a New Jersey
data storage facility. Platte River never asked Datto to beam the images to an off-site cloud
storage node and never was billed for that service, he said. Company officials were bewildered
when they learned of the cloud storage, he said.
"We said, 'You have a cloud? You were told not to have a cloud.' We never received an invoice
for any cloud for the Clintons.'"
The source familiar with Datto's account, however, said Platte River was billed for "private
cloud" storage, which requires a cloud storage node. Because Platte River lacks one, the source
said, the data bounced to Datto's off-site cloud storage. The source said that senior Platte
River officials may not have realized it, but company technicians "were managing the off-site
storage throughout."
Datto did not know it was backing up Clintons' email server until mid August, the source
said.
As to whether the FBI might recover Clinton's personal emails from Datto's storage, the
source said: "People don't Datto's service for getting rid of data."
What a mess, but no more messy than IT generally.
I like the overall picture, though, that the bomb has already exploded, but the shock waves
have yet to reach the public. Regarding FBI director Comey, this from William Gibson: "I would
say that our Mr. Swain has recently come into possession of a very high-grade source of intelligence
and is busy converting it into power."
Yes, you've clarified some points that I mangled in trying to sum up the story. Thank you.
There are many more tangents to just this Platte River/Datto story that are worth following up,
but it takes so much time to try to piece together even a seemingly small story like this. I can't
even imagine the complexity and confusion facing the FBI investigators as they try to make sense
of all the fallout from Bill and Hillary Clinton's public/private activities through the years.
One can hope that Obama handles Clinton the same way Nixon handled his vice-president, Spiro
Agnew. Spiro Agnew was the corrupt politician of the hoi polloi, as he was known as "The only
politician you could bribe with a bag of groceries.".
The Clinton Foundation and the Clintons sure put the Agnew efforts to shame as they raised
the price of buying politicians and access by many orders of magnitude.
Nixon, busy with his own scandals may have been distracted, but his justice department let
Agnew plead "nolo contendere" (no contest) to the charges of corruption.
One can wonder if Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon installed this dual USA justice system that
we have seen in effect since his time.
So one Democratically connected organization signed onto this separate justice system for
the politically connected. Possibly the concern Obama has for his unfunded $1Billion Presidential
Library will force him to burnish his legacy by NOT rescuing HRC with some dubious legal maneuver.
It is somewhat ironic that Nixon was brought down by a private electronic system (his tape recording
system) while Clinton may be brought down by her own private electronic email system.
The also share a common advisor, Henry Kissinger, and both have/had phlebitis.
She probably won't borrow Nixon's "I am not a crook." line..
I get the tone of alarm and concern of scandal coming from Team Obama shown in this article
– I'm just not seeing it in Hillary supporters. Maybe Obama's ego is a bit too fragile. Regardless
my experience with talking to Hillary supporters is that no amount of scandal of outright criminal
lawbreaking affects their views about Hillary. They revert to "she's been scrutinized and tested
for decades by her enemies and she's survived." They are people on the margins who will be affected.
How many are the Dem establishment? It's going to take a whopper to get them to tank Hillary IMO.
That's what I see from Clinton supporters on the Twitter. Some of them good people I've known
for years. "Nothingburger" was the favorite phrase, at least for awhile.
Reminds me of the defenders of Elizabeth Holmes at the WSJ, who kept insisting that all the
attacks were from journalists who were jealous of the success of a brilliant young woman and only
knew how to tear down not build.
Their ranks became thinner over time as their view was increasingly less plausible.
Timbers – You know, a close friend since grade school loves the Clintons. He even buyed the
Bill Clinton collector doll. He stole close to $60,000 from his employer Midas, has mistresses
and has done a of very unsavory things. And I am not a saint but these people know but do not
care. Probably 1 of 3 people are sociopaths.
There is a detail that is being universally missed both in the MSM and alternative press:
it is a virtual certainty that the NSA has a copy of every email sent or received
by that server. Does anyone who has read what has been published about Snowden's revelations
doubt that? Therefore the Whitehouse knows precisely what the dirt is. Furthermore, what do you
suppose the chances are that the FSB didn't hack her jury-rigged server? This potential leak path
is also well known to the white house. Don't forget the mayhem when the FSB (who else) posted
Nuland's little chat with Pyatt over an insecure line. Let no one forget that HRC is strongly
connected to the neocon project to undermine Russia's return to strength.
Putin would do a deal. A "small favor" done in return for something else. Any mobster can understand
that.
Trouble is that Hillary represents the US so very well. Any offer would be perceived as a sign
of weakness, therefore, righteous bullying and threats from the US will be the only possible response.
Obama will likely have plenty of drama before he slinks out of the White House to his $1
Billion Library . Future historians will sift through the detritus of his hollow reign and
might eventually find out how he got pwned. Maybe Bernstein could have a journalistic draft underway
about that to put in his two cents?
if you read it keep in mind the reason it was written–specifically to avert a major disaster
involving a nuclear reactor explosion in the US in 2012, to enable a major electronic financial
heist. He had to reveal enough of what he knew to stop the button from being pushed. This was
successful. Only the preliminary "earthquake" at Santa Ana nuclear reactor occurred, as the charges
had already been set, but after the book came out (initially distributed on Amazon for free, so
it could be tracked to who downloaded it) then the full plan could not be carried out.
Read the book before judging it. It will be obvious why names cannot be given. And consider
my comment above about why the book was written. It was not written to be a best seller,
it was written to prevent a major catastrophe. The author has given a number of extended interviews
dealing with the events described and confirming his first-hand participation. (He was offered,
twice, to join the 12 shareholders in the purchase of the 2008 presidency, without a financial
contribution because of his unique big data algorithms. He declined and experienced some very
disagreeable effects–but he's not someone who can be bought or intimidated.)
TheCatSaid – Interesting book recommendation. Mitigation of casualties is an important goal.
It is not set in stone mass casualties will occur because of sociopathic behavior. Some can play
a role to minimize the damage. Yves does this directly regarding lawlessness. Others play some
different roles.
Now at the end of human evolution, there is nothing more important and realistic to end classic
death. But far too few have gotten the memo yet. But that is changing. For what good is it to
gain the whole world when you get old, shit your pants, lose your memory when now that is no longer
necessary? But absolutley, the wolves must be pushed back and the Republic restored to accelerate
such a lofy but now doable goal.
That was my counter-suggestible thought: The White House panicked once, and the Clinton campaign
shrugged it off, successfully.
I don't think the two cases are comparable, though. The Wall Street transcripts are a Sanders
campaign thing, and to every right-thinking member of the political class that spells "not serious."
But this terror is from the heart of the establishment; "serious people."
At some point the White House and the Democratic party "leadership" are going to realize that
if they have to work this hard to get Clinton the nomination, they are going to have worse troubles
winning the election with her at the head of the ticket. They are going to have to choose the
lesser of two evils – 1. Let the Republicans take this election, or 2 – Let the Sanders wing of
the Democratic Party take this election.
From the point of view of the Democratic Party establishment, Trump and the Republicans are
clearly the lesser evil. Despite his apparent appeal as an outsider, Trump is very much an insider.
As a billionaire, he is one of the very small number of people who own the United States. He'll
ruffle the feathers of some of his fellow plutocrats, but the "right people" will remain in charge,
and he will continue most of the billionaire friendly policies of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administrations.
if nothing else they must have realized that Sanders and his millions of supporters have effectively
blocked off their – parachute drop Biden – escape route from the Clinton disaster. I think this
is the key to why "they're freaking out". They never really had any planB 'cos those Dems and
their trained MSM toadies who "create their own reality" never for a moment thought they'd ever
need one.
There was Biden speculation early on for a reason, but I think people in New Hampshire (I've
never been to Iowa) take the primary seriously and force the candidates to answer tough questions.
Hillary and Obama had a celebrity following and were protected, but any other Democrat would have
to have a point. Private prison, charter school, and war supporters would be weeded put early.
Biden might be the VP, but he has been at this for years and achieved nothing except to not be
as egregious as Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. No one will go out to see Biden unless he had a point.
The modern Democratic elite can face their voters directly. They need a celebrity wall to protect
them. Many of these thugs hid behind Obama a day expected Hillary to do the same, but who else
is a celebrity and can hide behind Katie Perry or Oprah? They might be protected by the sycophants
in their own district, but the sycophants outside the district have their own objects of devotion.
They simply can't go to Iowa and New Hampshire and be taken seriously.
Several weeks ago my daughter had a dream.
She witnessed Bernie Sanders accepting the democratic primary nomination
because Hillary Clinton was disqualified by a technicality.
Three years ago during a lengthy Vipassana meditation retreat I experienced
myself sitting on a divan in a long lanai. People were milling around a
banquet table set with fruits salads flowers. There were birds flying in and out
up above us and I became aware that I could understand them and that they were excited and had
decided to have a race. Quickly the race began and was over. The winner was a little brown bird…like
a sparrow. The other birds were incredulous. How could this happen? A green parrot kept flying
up to the little brown bird asking how did you do that? But the little brown bird kept laughing
and flying away so fast the parrot could not stay with him.
The next day, continuing the practice in my room with the curtains drawn, I heard
tapping at the window. I acknowledged the sound and continued practicing but
the tap tap pause continued. Finally I had to see. I got up pushed aside the curtain and there
was a little brown bird.
When I saw the little bird land on the podium while Bernie Sanders spoke I thought of the little
brown bird I'd experienced. And when Bernie in the moments said wistfully something to the effect…it
could have been a dove
representing peace. I thought oh no, that little bird is a metaphor for the people
who want and claim their humanity and the natural world resonates with that.
I too think bernie will pull it out, the other choices are terrible. I'm looking for aspirational
latinos to flock to bernie in california and it'll be a rout that can't be ignored. I hope that's
what happens.
Once Clinton regrettfully announces her decision to suspend her campaign for presidency (due
to mounting health concerns and after consulting with her doctors and family) and returns to private
life, she can always count on giving a speech now and again to "replenish the old coffers," right?
Cut to the kitchen in Clinton's residence:
"What do you mean Blankfein isn't returning my calls? Someone find my BlackBerry so I can call
him myself!!"
From Yves:
"…..
As of late 2007, I was assessing the odds of a really bad outcome (which I did not see as a massive
financial blowup, but a Japan-style bumping downhill over a period of years) as 20-30%, which
I regarded as uncomfortably high. I told Lambert I thought the Clinton train wreck odds were in
that range. He thought it was more like 30% than 20%.
This post indicates the odds are even higher than that. I see two implications in the Bernstein
official messaging beyond those that Gaius describes. One is that the Obama Administration has
been blindsided by how bad the underlying fact set is, and they recognize that even worse is likely
to be exposed. Someone as image-conscious as Obama would be particularly put off by that.
But the panic is also a clear indication, and perhaps as important, another message, not just
to Clinton but to Team Dem, that the Administration can't, or won't but is making it seem like
can't, do what it takes to save Hillary's bacon.
And I suspect it really is "can't". The FBI has enough autonomy that if they find real dirt
on the Clintons, they will leak like crazy if the DoJ does not pursue the case in a serious way.
That would make the Administration complicit, and Obama does not want his final months in office
tainted by his Administration touching the Clinton tar baby any more than it has to…."
============================================
I am really thinking this is the most serious issue about whether this country operates within
the confines of equality before the law since Watergate. I think the financial crisis revealed
a level of corruption that is eye opening, but that was mere pecuniary corruption.
If Hillary goes unprosecuted, we decide to let the facade collapse and no longer put the effort
into pretending that there is any relationship whatsoever between the law, justice, and the running
of the state.
In this imagined history, the Clinton's see their return to the WH thwarted by an upstart junior
senator. As things start to crash around them, in 2008, a light bulb goes off. The junior senator
is still pretty nervous about the Clinton's and Clinton has leverage to make a deal with him.
She can through establishment support behind Obama. Obama takes the deal. Then, with a Clinton
at State and a future presidency on the horizon they will be able to enrich themselves and their
foundation for millions upon millions.
The future value of a Clinton presidency will sell itself. Money will pour in from everyone
in the world who needs a regulatory break or weapons a deal. So, they cut the deal to go in on
an Obama presidency.
What they get is eight years of uninterrupted money making, because a Clinton will be president
again, and you might as well get in on the ground floor. In this imagined scenario, the Clinton's
must get the presidency, because they have essentially promised weapons buyers and regulation
skirters that they will get their return on investment coming in 2017.
Yes, most likely, at least in part. A lot of influence peddling went on, and that's for sure.
It's something that eludes most Clinton supporters that I know personally. They see Hillary as
this shining beacon of something something and something else. They have excuses for everything,
and somehow don't see influence peddling, selling arms and the like as all that bad. IOW: IOKIYAD.
I don't agree with that, myself, but many do.
Note its not just the CIA who would be (or is already) furious that some of their agents may
have been compromised/arrested/executed. The FBI also has agents working abroad undercover. What
if the FBI found info in the backed up emails showed one of their own had been blown ? The vengeance
would be frightening and there's nothing Comey or anyone else could do that would stop it.
I'm not sure the media's current focus on Hillary's email server is warranted. There are
definitely indications that she violated email policies, but there don't seem to be specifics
about what these actions were trying to hide. I think her very questionable family ties to corporate
money are a more meaningful topic in determining her suitability for the U.S. presidency
:
There's been some recent focus on 2013-2015 speeches given by Bill Clinton, and donations to
the Clinton family foundation over this time period. What about speeches and payments during the
earlier time period when Hillary was Secretary of Sate (January 2009 – January 2013)?
Jeez Louise. The focus on her email server is, in major part, driven by the issue of the deleted
emails and HRC trying to keep her communications secret and unobtainable through FOIA. One obvious
reason is to hide the connection between Bill's speeches and Clinton Foundation activities with
Hillary's decisions as SoS. Email and corporate money is all one big hairball.
Gee, the internet told me just this morning that Obama is champing a the bit to hit the 2016
campaign trail for Hillary (or maybe just against Trump?)
After reading this post and comments, I'm further disabused of the Clintons, and think more
and more that Saunders is hanging in there just waiting for the dam to break.
The Clinton Machine (in other words the political operation of the Bill and Hillary, and
potentially Chelsea) has always operated on the basis the money and connections will fix everything.
It has, after all, gotten them this far. However, as a core operational mode, it also accumulates
cynicism and tends to value loyalty over performance, leading to degradation over time.
The Clinton primary 1992 campaign broke new ground (at the time) by putting the (two-way) sharing
of fundraising lists on the table when soliciting endorsements from office holders. This was already
commonplace among Republicans, who were already being consolidated by ideologically or business
focussed fundraising organizations (long before PACs became an common acronym, but already organized
under 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(6)) and often shared these donors. But the Democrats, at the time, were
more driven by fundraising lists, which were often closely guarded assets.
But by offering to share (as in, swap) donor lists with endorsers, the Clintons, without actually
breaking any laws (although improper development and use of these lists could violate FEC regulation),
were putting financial power squarely on the table, and up front (the list share offer was frequently
mentioned on the initial approach to the potential endorser, I have first and second hand knowledge
of this).
And the swap would involve the endorser sharing their list, as well as receiving one,
which would be more than a public endorsement; it would be an endorsement to donors. Reaction
in 1992 was mixed. But with Bill political success and popularity as a president (among moneyed
Dems), the Clinton Machine became a major player in Dem politics, cultivating a "deep" door list.
And what do donors pay for? Consultants, and media and data products. The Machine accumulated
a network of loyal consultants and vendors across the country; loyal, because they were certain
of getting paid (not always a sure thing in politics), and because of the large and diverse (and
at least nominally vetted) network of Machine operatives and vendors. This network also shares
strategic methodologies and technologies; essential commodities, but ones whose shelf life (effective
expiration of value) can be hard to gauge (especially by lazy/uncommitted people who feel little
pressure to actually win anything, as long as they can put on a good show and maintain their stature
by… feeding the Machine). And of course, associated (and implicitly grateful/beholden) elected
office holders (at State and local levels, not just Federal) are collected along the way.
The reliance on this Machine is one of the reasons the Clinton campaigns have displayed such
frequent tone-deafness. Not only is there a sizeable echo chamber of like-minded advisers only
to glad to support the current (but often calcified) rationals, but the approach to voter opinion
is "they'll forget if we divert them" (and also "poor people don't vote, so their opinions are
strategically irrelevant"). The Clintons were relying on a combination of news-cycle turnover
and the chorus of their social and MSM channels (repeat-until-true, repeat-until-true, etc). Both
of these tools are at least somewhat outdated in the social media age, where articles/posts/images/memes
can circulate and resurface independently of MSM news cycles, and where multiple groups can pool
opinion and effort as soon as they notice coincidence/convergence.
One can say what one will about Team Obama, but they have always been aware that they rode
to power on a populist idea (Black President) and the social media arena that amplified its force.
All political groups tend towards tone deafness, but Obama's people have newer ears. They may
not feel very beholden to anyone operating in the social media, but they disinclined to completely
ignore the potential impacts of opinions in circulation.
BTW, the donor-list swap message has changed over the years. Now the intro message for endorsement
solicitations is more like: "We'll mention you to our donors". Which is a double-edged sword;
that mention may also be "such-and-such did not endorse, just so you know". Again, leading with
this message exerts (by implication, not by direct statement) a powerful financial consideration
on the potential (And often acquiescing) endorser. Beyond that common element, solicitations are
likely to say whatever might appeal to the particular target.
Dk – Very interesting point about the data. I am in that space in a nutshell. By referral,
did some work with both Jeb Bush and Dean. I was hired for market intelligence for fundraising.
I remember the Time mag about Dean the Money Machine. Social media was a big deal for donors.
Webbies dont make the best door to door activists however.
Anyways, I like Jeb Bush. Dean is an asshole of a human being. So as I was managing Bush constituent
list for a time I called his office to suggest them doing market intelligence for donors.
The attorney for Jeb called me back. He told me that if I sent over a plan to not expect to get
paid for it. I thought to myself it was no wonder the Clintons could easily win – They paid people.
Jeb did look at an idea for a political social media platform I suggested to connect voters
to politicians, a debate platform. He said to call Pete Peterson for funding. Pete wouldn't give
me a meeting, his secretary said I wasnt in the club.
So for Jeb he has learned the hard way it is the company you keep. But his other issue was
hiring his own Mexican friends his wife and continued amnesty. His campign staff like any tribe,
only wanted fo hire Mexicans. Of course, it is the immigration issue where Trump ate his lunch.
In the end he wasn't ready to be POTUS. But innovation wise and on monopoly issues he was a Teddy
Roosevelt.
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts tonight Yves. You know, I appoached you as a different
user at one time and asked to consider joining in the political social media platform I was building.
But even if it was a right idea, I came across too strong. I apologize. Wish I hadnt done that
your message would been amplified a lot more by now. You are a personal hero of mine. Keep at
it, please, the we are clearing a hump in ways but much work left to do.
Cackling at the demise of intelligence assets is not a joking matter. Neither is it a joke,
right or deposing dictators and joking about it. Fortunately, the rule of law is being restored.
But there is a lot of domestic and geopolitical clean up. With Russia, they are about energy sales.
Yes, they got uppity with monopoly but it has gone to far.
You never want to make Putin a Geronimo with the bomb. The Chinese were made promises never
to be kept. They know a good customer when they see one so they will get over it.
The only job of government is a security racket. An unfortunate, necessary evil. When the Clintons
are well lets call it what it IS – treason. Enough is enough.
Trump is a Democrat. He is for single payer. Not so sure why some are so freaked about his
nationalist campaign rhetoric. Either him or Bernie will make a good president but Bernie has
the experience and Trump does not. It matters.
Trump's main ideas for a replacement [of Obamacare] are to allow health insurance to be
sold across state lines and permit people to make tax-free contributions to Health Savings
Accounts (HSAs). HSAs are paired with a high deductible health insurance plan and are intended
to make people more conscious of how they spend
Mary – Competition is part of Trumps plan for private insurers. A lot of countries have single
payer government but also private insurers. It tends to work althogh I wish it all could remain
private, free market what have you. Health is like money, it is so important you have to have
the awful taint of government one way or the other.
But when pressed Trump has responded he will not let anyone die in the streets. Not arguing
to vote for the man just suggesting reading beween the lines. He is a Democrat in drag, what I
would call a moderate in policy except immigration. He is duplicating the Eisenhower playbook,
on immigration, bond holder haircuts and telling certain bankers to play ball or ELSE. This does
work. But as I mentioned Bernie has more a lot of real experience. So dealmaking as Trump claims
indeed has a lot of human psychology involved but experience is a major plus.
It woudnt surprise me if so much of this is all political theatre. Trump is the friends of
Clinton after all. Could even be with Berniw But that said, rather even if such speculation true
better than false flags to right the country. Besides, it has been fun theatre… Besides, the momentum
on policy is turning in the right direction.
Countries that provide universal healthcare using private insurance (the Bismarck model) do
so with highly regulated, not-for-profit insurance providing legally defined coverage. Competition
and profit-taking are at the margins for elements not included in the defined coverage, such as
cosmetic surgery or a private hospital room. Trump's published healthcare plan is the same gibberish
Republicans have always offered.
There are too many comments to read through right now but is almost 250 comments a record?
Has anyone mentioned this might be a trial balloon for Biden to step in?
It's interesting to ponder the various possibilities. What I don't get is why Obama's IT security
people didn't notice that Clinton digitally engaged and communicated with the *White House* in
a way that could have compromised both parties, and beyond.
fwiw, I think we are all at least *somewhat* impacted by confirmation bais re: the competency
of persons we are mostly in agreement with, even in areas outside their domain. When it comes
to senior executives and IT security (unless they are IT experts), we see these mistakes over
and over again in political and business domains. One can look to any number of well-known political,
scientific, or cultural figures who made stupid gaffs within their sphere of influence in this
way. We always seem surprised by this, but it's really not a surprise.
Most well-known political persons (I have known a few) are so busy and so immersed in what
they are trying to accomplish that their over-trust in operational personnel – and/or belief that
they can maneuver out of or overcome almost any problem – creates scenarios like Clinton's.
Bernie is my guy; I would love to see him take on Trump, but the powers that be appear to want
something else. I can't stand Trump, but when looking for other perspectives I will put on my
long-buried blue collar roots persona; then, I hear a guy (Trump) who "talks the talk" in a way
that is almost mesmerizing. I hate to admit that, but it's true – and when I connect with old
buds from way back, they reinforce this impression.
When you get enough people (in this case, Americans) scared and worried, they are no different
than any other group of human beings; they want to be "saved"; they want to "blame"; they want
to throw out the "chief"; they want to "follow a new leader"; they are not concerned (in this
case) with whether Trump can "walk the walk"; they are susceptible to someone who is very adept
at "talking the talk" (a demagogue) in a way that allays their fear and desperation – leading
them to grab onto the nearest piece of flotsam (screw the other guy!) that will keep them from
drowning. I'm beginning to worry.
Seems to me that except in a relatively few corners and local settings, and now very frankly
via our mostly collective embrace of the Neo geist, "America" has always and only been about "screwing
the other guy." And Tocqueville noted how happy we are to be boiled frogs, or to find ourselves
in deep water and only too happy to stand on the other guy's shoulders, by guile or force, to
try to gain a little buoyancy to keep our own noses above water, even knowing somewhere in our
guts that we ought to cooperate to find the valve and turn off the water, or to go after the pirates
that threw us off the ship…
I don't believe "foaming one more runway" (read: having your DOJ, FBI appear helpless)
wouldn't bother this administration. A Loyalist are those unengaged (or too engaged) whom choose
willingly to believe the disastrous economic and political experiment, that attempted to organize
human behavior around the dictates of the global marketplace, has been a splendid success…or worse,
blindly, my tribal leader is in accordance with all that is good.
Haiti. Look at film of the Clintons in Haiti to see how they work. & Haiti is one place
where also the elites own the deeds. Haiti Is America, only sooner.
Wilmington Coup. C.S.A. methods used again, and again.
Giving the people of the US, the reinsurers of the reinsurer the USPO Service banking they paid
for and pay for is the concrete thing that can be done to "Change the Conversation" as Mad Men's
guy Hamm? no, his character would say.
Opening there.
The silence of Pagliano and the
reported lapse of memory of other top aides is likely good news for the Clinton team in
pre-November damage control. If top aides will claim faulty memories or invoke their right
to remain silent, the only disclosures before the election would have to come from the FBI
or Congress. Yet, the FBI would turn over any proposed indictments to the Justice Department
and, if the Justice Department scuttles any indictment, there would not normally be a public
report.
I kept the link in the above paragraph active as it is interesting reading.
For those curious as to why Pagliano would take the fifth (rather than go straight for a quart
:-)) when he already has immunity, one of the comments to Turley's post explains (from Tin
at 1:42 am):
They are completely different matters. The FBI gave him immunity from possible criminal
prosecution. The deposition mentioned n this post involves a civil lawsuit, "Judicial Watch
v. U.S. Department of State." It is a civil suit brought under the Freedom of Information Act
to get more documents out of the State Dept.. Pagliano is not a party to the suit, but they
want to depose him as a non-party deponent and his lawyers sought a protective order. He plans
to take the 5th and his lawyers don't want it videotaped.
Those e-mails don't alarm me anywhere near as much as the $200,000 plus speaking fees from
Wall St. NO speech by anyone is worth anywhere near such an amount. These were clearly bribes,
there's simply no other way of looking at it. I have no interest in seeing the transcripts of
those speeches because the money counts far more than the content, and speaks for itself. No way
would I vote for someone so clearly in the pocket of the oligarchy.
"... the DoS requires workers to print out each email sent or received, and file it in a box, which is preserved. In general, these printouts, when done at all, are "filed" in printout order, making them difficult to search (which may be the intent, given the historic hostility to FOIA requests). ..."
"... Also, wasn't mail.presidentclinton.com used for the emails of the Clinton Foundation aides? Doesn't this mean the FBI likely now has very precise timing of both Hillary's SoS travel communications and Bill Clinton's speaking fee arrangement and Clinton Foundation donation emails, due to the emails likely having timestamps from a common clock? ..."
"... Assuming the ISP has decent security.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGmDBo-00mY ..."
"... That is a GREAT Youtube video. I've only gotten through the first 10 and a half minutes of it so far, and I had to stop watching it for a bit, because I was laughing my ass off so hard that tears were rolling down my cheeks. ..."
"... So let me get this straight, she COULD have been sending stuff involved with Black ops over an unencrypted link, and POTENTIALLY those files could have been printed off ANYWHERE in the world, and people are STILL defending her actions! Did it happen – IRRELEVANT! The very notion that she made it POSSIBLE means she breached national security! ..."
"... if I was an attacker, with or without the backing of a foreign government, I'd have been poking at THE PRINTER in the first instance, because (a) its security is likely to be weaker and also (b) its entirely less likely that there would be any logs produced or kept of my poking around. ..."
"... Now you're saying that not only was a printer available on this subdomain, and there was no firewall and no encrypted transport, but it was actually one of a particular series of HP LaserJet printers that allowed for a firmware upgrade upon receiving a new print job? ..."
"... 24.187.234.188 sounds very much like it was from the optimum online network block, and a quick whois shows that currently it does belong to them. ..."
"... he is not an engineer. Just a Manager that worked for a year 'managing' remote connectivity for foreign Embassies…. he did not go to school for CS or engineering and he has no training either. He was given immunity by the Justice Dept and was then fired by the State Dept so obviously he did something wrong. If you read Brian's post on FB - all of this is explained in the comments below his post with citations/links. ..."
"... The AP and Wired news stories about this whole issue (of the security of the server) catalog an entire boat load of security screw ups. They don't exactly inspire confidence in the competence of the people who set this stuff up. ..."
"... Interesting footnote: On tonight's NBC Evening Nudes, they mentioned that the FBI had seized Clinton's server, and also a USB thumb drive in August of last year. No mention of any PRINTERS being seized. (Typical incompetent FBI, still operating in the Louis Freeh era. The man didn't even know how to use a computer, and didn't want to.) ..."
"... like most hackers, hes a pathological liar. Its in their nature. He came out real quick to brag and prove how he hacked a clinton aid. But didn't want to tell anybody until he went to jail and she runing for president that that he hacked clintons emails? I call total BS. ..."
"... Did the sysadmin(s) who set up the mail and printer systems have security clearance(s) to read all the Mrs. Clinton's mail and print jobs? ..."
"... Because she certainly gave the sysadmin(s) the ability to read her mail and print jobs. archive the data, and transport the data anywhere. If that was not all done by State Department IT employee(s). how is this not a punishable offense? ..."
"... My understanding is that the same person who set up Bill Clinton's website and email after he left office set up Secretary Clinton's; hence, the shared IP addresses for similarly worded domains. Also, wasn't the same server used for both? ..."
"... I say follow the money. Look at the links between Clinton Foundation and classified information. ..."
"... She setup a private email server knowingly to exempt her from compliance. Now, the after the fact doesn't really matter. And she knows that… A .gov address would have full rights to all corispondance as the information belongs the the government and can be requested by ant civilian… ..."
It has, I think, been shown by Venafi that there was for some time in 2012 and 2013 a VPN running
on the clintonemail.com domain. However, that certificate expired. Running a directly Internet
connected printer seems more a security threat than simply a chance of sniffing printer queues
as modern printers sometimes have their own vulnerabilities.
Venafi's posts (first story has information about VPN):
I don't see why she requires a publicly routable IP address for a mail server, print server
and VPN server. It can easily be NATed behind a router on a single public IP.
On a show last week, Rachel Maddow did a segment on the Department of State's official archive
policy.
According to Maddow, the DoS requires workers to print out each email sent or received,
and file it in a box, which is preserved. In general, these printouts, when done at all, are "filed"
in printout order, making them difficult to search (which may be the intent, given the historic
hostility to FOIA requests).
This reminded me that the DoS was dismayed at not finding Brian Pagliano's .pst file, indicating
they did not expect to find his emails on any server-side backup. Presumably, no server-side DoS
email backup capability exists.
Also, wasn't mail.presidentclinton.com used for the emails of the Clinton Foundation aides?
Doesn't this mean the FBI likely now has very precise timing of both Hillary's SoS travel communications
and Bill Clinton's speaking fee arrangement and Clinton Foundation donation emails, due to the
emails likely having timestamps from a common clock?
Well, there are many printers have more than one port and protocols in use which means many different
ways of establishing a connection to that printer and not just layer 2.
Loved all the arguments, but, show me in the laws where it was illegal, for Hillery, to have
a second E-mail address? And that it was illegal to use it on government time. Or to have a printer
hooked to that account? But, I will tell you what was illegal. The employees using that address
to send classified information too. You shouldn't worry about Hillery, but the useful idiots.
There are some registrars that setup DNS by way of a template and assign A record subdomains
by default to make it easier….such as MX, www, etc. Not excusing it as you need to be way more
careful when you are the state department…but this is hardly the worst thing Clinton has done.
I'm not surprised since people don't realize how much of a security risk a printer can be -
and how to protect themselves and their network. Great white paper about printer and network security
written by a third party here: bit.ly/1sq1kyG
I also just read a story about printers and security on Computerworld.
The printer queue to a pimple faced hacker wouldn't be of interest but for a state intelligence
agency it would be a jackpot. Some of the greatest intelligence is gathered from the trash still
today. Don't think that the printer queue would not be interesting to a knowledgeable party.
So… You want me to believe that Hillary's personal email server sat behind MILLIONS of dollars
of security infrastructure to keep it protected? And that it employed D.O.D. grade 2 factor authentication,
disk encryption, and had a team of the worlds best security professionals monitoring all traffic
to/from the server and the network itself?
Secure, nonsecure, whatever. If she had used State's email server, then 1) copies would have
been on their server when she left office, 2) the Benghazi Commitee would have been able to wrap
up its investigation 2 years ago, 3) if State's computers were hacked, that wouldn't be her responsibility,
and 4) due to her choices, she's on the hot seat insisting she didn't do anything wrong. She made
her bed and now has to sleep in it.
The C-SPAN interview with former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joseph diGenova
I linked to above was a real eye opener for me to how HUGE this scandal actually is.
Once one is aware of the details, one can easily see through all of the many intentional red
herrings and half truths thrown out on this by Clinton and her campaign. What is absolutely, positively
amazing to me is how they have been able to get away with it since it really doesn't take much
investigative effort at all to expose their spin job for what it is.
Some of the lame excuses now coming from the State Department are a hint that officials there
are also vulnerable to the very major repercussions that SHOULD come from this.
Every one of the 127 to 150 (depending upon who you listen to) FBI agents investigating this
and every person in the intel community knows darn well that if any one of them had done even
the tiniest fraction of what has been done by Clinton and her crew, their security clearance would
have been immediately revoked, they would have been indicted and, most likely, imprisoned.
That is why, as revealed in the C-SPAN interview with Joseph diGenova who has a current Top
Secret clearance himself and has his ear to the conversation within the retired DOJ and intel
community in DC, there would likely be a revolt within the FBI and intel community if there are
no indictments on this. Why?
Well, first, there is that "Think of what would have happened to ME if I'd done even a tiny
fraction of this." Second, the failure to indict and prosecute would set a dangerous precedent
that would make the successful prosecution of anyone guilty of the mishandling of classified materials
and avoidance of public record FOIA inquiries difficult if not impossible.
@notme and other defending Hillary Fanbois: There is tons of evidence it was not way more secure
than a DOD platform and she didn't use a qualified individual to set up the email server.
It was an out of the box config with little or no effort to obfuscate the domain / service.
I highly doubt the server or IIS had been harden and I'd have to profile it was out of ignorance.
No doubt all default vulnerabilities where unaddressed and patches weren't in effect if a reboot
was necessary
How do we know this??? Just a little recon. As you know whatever you post may never go away…
Same goes for domains. Enter one of my favorite Internet recon tools The Way Back Machine. If
you don't know it, search for it and do a little research.
When the default IIS page comes up for the mail domain and the auth login page shows up for
at the default OWA address, we can comfortably conclude this was a lame chatty effort. At least
ssl was being used (by default no doubt): https://mail.clintonemail.com/owa/auth/logon.aspx
Had someone intended to provide a layer of security by hiding her email, it never EVER would've
been via that silly domain. An obfuscated domain would've been irrelevant and distasteful i.e.
openmalwarehere.com
That is a GREAT Youtube video. I've only gotten through the first 10 and a half minutes
of it so far, and I had to stop watching it for a bit, because I was laughing my ass off so hard
that tears were rolling down my cheeks.
Looking forward to the additional amazing absurdities revealed in the NEXT 40 minutes of this
video.
Could also DNS poison. They are not connecting to the printer via IP probably if they are setting
up A records for it. Also don't underestimate how many routers on the web are hacked, and I am
talking up stream core routers.
But why are we even talking about eavesdropping a connection? You can usually trivially compromise
a printer (likely default admin creds) and just capture each print job that is sent to the printer
using the printer itself. Copy each job onto the filesystem memory on the device and FTP it out.
Most all HP and other network capable printers support it or just upload your own firmware.
So let me get this straight, she COULD have been sending stuff involved with Black ops
over an unencrypted link, and POTENTIALLY those files could have been printed off ANYWHERE in
the world, and people are STILL defending her actions! Did it happen – IRRELEVANT! The very notion
that she made it POSSIBLE means she breached national security!
Would anyone else who did this be allowed in public yet alone to run for POTUS!?
The intercepting of data is also somewhat unlikely. Without knowing how they got internet access
you can't say infallibly if it was sniffable. Over a fiber circuit she likely had a CIDR block
and there wouldn't have been anyone else to sniff it. Over DOCSIS they would need to break BPI+,
and be on the local RF segment. Both create extraordinarily unlikely scenarios for sniffing.
Also you sent me on a confusing wild IP goose chase… You have both 24.187.234.188 and 24.197.234.188
listed in the story.
"In one demonstration, Cui printed a tax return on an infected printer, which in turn sent
the tax form to a second computer playing the part of a hacker's machine. The latter computer
then scanned the document for critical information such as Social Security numbers, and when it
found one, automatically published it on a Twitter feed…"
So, um, leaving aside the narrow possibility of printer traffic sniffing, I believe that it
might be accurate to say that most printers these days have memory… lots of it… and thus, it would
seem to be not entirely beyond the realm of the possible to imagine a scenario in which a less-than-perfectly-secured
printer which happened to also have a PUBLIC internet address, might perhaps be induced to give
up its secrets to some remote attacker, e.g. the last five or ten documents that were printed.
The media and the Republicats are all gaga about the security of THE SERVER, but if I was
an attacker, with or without the backing of a foreign government, I'd have been poking at THE
PRINTER in the first instance, because (a) its security is likely to be weaker and also (b) its
entirely less likely that there would be any logs produced or kept of my poking around.
Now you're saying that not only was a printer available on this subdomain, and there was
no firewall and no encrypted transport, but it was actually one of a particular series of HP LaserJet
printers that allowed for a firmware upgrade upon receiving a new print job?
After a few ifs, I agree this could look bad. But, Ron, you're piling on the if after if after
if and stating factually that this was bad. Again, what we have is a subdomain with printer as
the name. There's a ton of things in between that what you're trying to have poor Brian conclude.
Directly connecting a computer to the internet without any firewall or hardening, bad idea.
Directly connecting a printer to the internet without any firewall or hardening, yes, this too
is a bad idea. Too bad we're playing hopscotch because of a subdomain name. Not like this:
http://210.125.31.xxx/hp/device/this.LCDispatcher?nav=hp.EventLog
This brings up another interesting thing I just learned about the clintonemail.com domain.
The FSI passive DNS data bases knows of about 10,000 subdomains of that domain. I was flaberghasted
by this at first, but then I realised the real reason for this. (No, that domain DOES NOT actually
have anywhere near that many REAL subdomains):
The simple answer is that NetworkSolutions points your parked domains at their advertising.
(That's not actually remarkable at all. That's just what pretty much every company that does domain
parking does.)
The more interesting thing is that in the cases of your live/active/non-parked domains for
which NetSol provides DNS, they wildcard these domains, so that any time anybody punches in a
misspelled subdomain name, they end up at NetSol's advertising partner, DoubleClick.
This is arguably an underhanded thing for NetSol to be doing, but hey! It's (apparently) in
the contract, so it _is_ explicit to the customer, and NetSol isn't in business for its health.
It's a commecial enterprise, so they can't be blamed for trying to make a buck, here and there.
But all this info about the DNS really brings up some other issues. Let's say, just for the
sake of argument, that Hillary's server was, in actual fact, as tight as a snare drum with respect
to security. There's still the question of her login credentials for her NetSol account. If those
had gone walkaround… well… you can imagine the scenarios.
The Wayback links I provided are NOT for subdomains or parked domains. They are for the clintonemail.com
domain, for the time period in question that a breach may have occurred. The URL strings captured
show (at least) questionable adware running on this box, and I'm really surprised no one is looking
at that. The &poru= string is tied to some very dubious adware, for example.
So no evidence except wild speculation based on a sub domain name? I used to have a few sub
domains such as router.mydomain voip.mydomain admin.mydomain netgear.mydomain setup as a honeypots.
My plan was to script any ips buzzing them had all their future traffic dropped for several days.
But alas I never got around to completing it.
Gosh! I had no idea, up until this moment, that Hillary was so sophisticated that she was even
running her own honeypots!
Returning to this planet for the moment, I'd just like to emphasize that, as I told Brian,
there are really two core points here:
1) Assigning a *public* IPv4 address to a printer opened up at least the theoretical possibilities
that either (a) printer traffic could be sniffed or (b) that the printer itself could be compromised.
We can debate all day the actual pragmatic level of risk associated with each of these two possibilities,
but I think that it is non-zero in both cases, and in any case, perhaps this all misses the point.
2) Perhaps even MORE importantly, the assignment of a static public IP address to the printer
speaks to the general level of network security competence (or lack thereof) of whoever was setting
up and maintaining this equipment for the Clintons. And what it says is not good at all. I don't
think that many either would or could disagree with that. And this is the more troubling aspect
of the whole story. If the Clinton's sysadmin messed up even this simple and obvious thing, then
what ELSE did he or she mess up, security-wise?
"Putting anything on the internet opens up the theoretical possibility that's its traffic could
be sniffed. So, unless that's the threshold, in which case she's as secure as anything else on
the internet, what's the point of the outrage?"
Actually, yea, you've made a good point. But let's dissect it a bit.
In theory, at least, server-to-server e-mail transmission can be protected from prying eyes
via TLS encryption. I personally don't know how well deployed that (TLS) is at the present moment,
but let's just say for the sake of argument that it's 50/50, i.e. half the time Hillary's inbound
and outbound messages, e.g. to various world potentates, were protected in transit from sniffing
and/or MITM attacks, and the other times they weren't.
More to the point, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that she at least understood the
possibilities of her e-mails being spied upon… which, in the post-Snowden era, at least, she certainly
should have understood… and as a result, she was at least smart enough not to send out e-mails
like "Yea, let's drop those bombs now Bibi!" as some clever wag here said.
Contrast this with her probable level of caution when it came to simply *printing* some draft
document… which could be equally or perhaps even more revealing and/or inflamatory… to the printer
sitting right there next to her desk in her home office.
(As someone suggested, it is at least theoretically possible that data transport to the printer
might be encrypted, but in practice, probably not.)
So Hillary is sitting there, and she prints a draft of a document she's working on called "State
Department Post-Invasion Plan for Crimea". She doesn't worry about the security implications of
"sending" that document out over the Internet, because, as far as she knows, it is actually just
going from the screen on the physical desk right in front of her just over to the printer which
is sitting right at her elbow. As far as her (possibly technically naive) perceptions go, the
document is just being printed, and isn't ever even leaving the room she is sitting in. So her
_perception_ is that printing the document is utterly safe and secure.
But this is the whole point here. Maybe that document could be sniffed. Even if that's not
a realistic possibility, the printer itself could be directly compromised, and made to give up
its secrets.
The apparent high probability that (a) she had a home printer and that (b) this printer had
a public Ipv4 address… which was ridiculously easy to find, by the way… and that (c) she probably
was NOT just using that printer as a paperweight or a doorstop and (d) the undeniable possibility
that said printer could perhaps have been "hacked"… perhaps even via something as simple as remote
login using admin/admin… all adds up to what, in my book at least, seems to be a "Holy s**t!"
type of scenario.
The fact that the FBI apparently didn't bother to impound her printer when it impounded the
rest of her gear is perhaps even more troubling.
For all we know, as we speak, that printer may be sitting exposed in some landfill somewhere
in the hills of Westchester County, just waiting for some dumpster diver with an eye for valuable
e-waste to come along, fish it out, plug it in, login with admin/admin, and then print out copies
of the last 20 documents.
I think that it is safe to say that such a scenario probably would not be fully conformant
with State Department rules & regulations with respect to the security of electronic documents.
Subdomain names mean little to nothing. Someone could guess what an IP address served based
upon the subdomain name, or the domain name itself, but that is silly.
What exactly is an "internet based printer"? I'm not sure if there's a technical person trying
to sound not technical and using random jargon or if it's a non-technical person trying to sound
technical. Let's try and define some terms maybe?
24.187.234.188 sounds very much like it was from the optimum online network block, and
a quick whois shows that currently it does belong to them. That sounds about right because
they provide services around the area Hillary Clinton called home. Optonline does provide static
IP addresses. But I have to wonder, are these terminated in the house? Do we know if the email
server everyone is so hip to talk about was actually located at Clinton's house or was it in a
DC (rack, not washington)? If it was in her house what was the connection? Did this IP reside
on a cable modem? Was it a DSL line? Fiber? That area wasn't know for it's way updated and trendy
transport. Did the carrier provide the equipment? Did Clinton hire a complete idiot to put the
email server directly connected to the internet or was there a firewall in front of it?
How likely is it that there was a firewall of sorts in front of the mail server and any printers
that were likely there? Pretty damn likely. She didn't buy services from Stooges r Us. And even
if she did, they would probably set up a firewall. That's all saying that the vendor supplied
equipment didn't perform some firewalling technology. Anyone in the IT field would see this as
not very likely outside of pre mid 90s.
For the printer subdomain name, we think that the printer actually had IPP or something? LPD?
Are you suggesting, but not saying, that Clinton set up a printing device directly on the internet
so that while she was traveling around wherever she was when not at home and printing to that
printer? That doesn't even make sense. Or are you suggesting, but not saying, she decided this
fancy new printer she saw at Office Depot would look nice with a subdomain sitting next to her
email server? And, now she could actually print stuff while she was outside in the yard or upstairs
in the bedroom? Oh, it was connected to the internet? Really? "I didn't know it was on the internet
even though I somehow called and registered a subdomain so I could get an external IP address
for it. And I just plugged this big old CAT5(e)/6 cable into my printer directly from the wall???"
Factually we can say the following: 4 subdomains pointed to 2 IPs. 2 subdomains use the English
word "mail" and 2 subdomains use the English word "printer".
Do we know that some mail transfer agent was listening on the mail domain? I assume someone
knows this, but I've not seen any documentation on this, haven't looked, barely care. Do we have
any open ports on this other IP? Did anyone do some research? Why don't you contact Robert Graham
and ask him if masscan hit those IPs and what ports were open. Maybe he doesn't like reporters,
but you can ask nicely. Tell him some guy on the internet told you about masscan and that Rob
probably had some port information about those IPs.
"Do we know if the email server everyone is so hip to talk about was actually located at Clinton's
house or was it in a DC (rack, not washington)? If it was in her house what was the connection?
Did this IP reside on a cable modem? Was it a DSL line? Fiber? That area wasn't know for it's
way updated and trendy transport. Did the carrier provide the equipment? Did Clinton hire a complete
idiot to put the email server directly connected to the internet or was there a firewall in front
of it?"
These are all GREAT questions, many of which the FBI, in its usual half-assed manner, is probably
not even thinking about, let alone actually asking. Do you have any of the answers to any of the
questions that you yourself have raised? I mean DEFINITIVE answers, rather than just your personal
speculations?
"How likely is it that there was a firewall of sorts in front of the mail server and any printers
that were likely there? Pretty damn likely."
And you are basing that opinion/supposition on what, exactly?
She used a SUPER USER from State to set it up for her… he is not an engineer. Just a Manager
that worked for a year 'managing' remote connectivity for foreign Embassies…. he did not go to
school for CS or engineering and he has no training either. He was given immunity by the Justice
Dept and was then fired by the State Dept so obviously he did something wrong. If you read Brian's
post on FB - all of this is explained in the comments below his post with citations/links.
The CIDR block 24.187.234.184/29 was allocated to Clinton's home. If the network was configured
following standard practices, traffic between systems inside that CIDR block would not have left
Clinton's LAN, and most definitely would not have been "sent out over the Internet". Guilmette's
comments about vulnerabilities and wasting toner assume incompetence and a total absence of firewalls.
What evidence we have is that the people who setup Clinton's home LAN knew enough to configure
a router, a firewall, a VPN, and some basic CIDR netmasks.
NAT is not a security fix-all, not using NAT is not a sign of vulnerability or incompetence.
"If the network was configured following standard practices, traffic between systems inside
that CIDR block would not have left Clinton's LAN…"
And if perchance it WASN'T configured following standard practices, what then?
Does the FBI know what how the network was actually configured? Does anybody?
"Guilmette's comments about vulnerabilities and wasting toner assume incompetence and a total
absence of firewalls."
Absolutely. Is there any publically known reason to grant the sysadmin(s) who set this stuff
up any more generous assumptions vis a vis their competence? The AP and Wired news stories
about this whole issue (of the security of the server) catalog an entire boat load of security
screw ups. They don't exactly inspire confidence in the competence of the people who set this
stuff up.
"What evidence we have is that the people who setup Clinton's home LAN knew enough to configure
a router, a firewall, a VPN, and some basic CIDR netmasks."
I can teach an 8th grader of average intelligence how to do all that stuff in 1/2 hour. Teaching
him/her how to do it SECURELY takes a bit longer.
The good news is that people with no more intelligence that a bag of hammers can nowadays wander
down to the local BestBuy, purchase a network printer and a router, take them both home, plug
them in, and they just seem to work. The bad news is that people with no more intelligence than
a bag of hammers can nowadays wander down to their local BestBuy, purchase a network printer and
a router, take them both home, plug them in, and they just SEEM to work.
The mere existance of this network isn't proof that it was secure in any sense. It isn't even
evidence of that.
Agreed. The information in this article is largely speculation based on one piece of information
meta data (a DNS record).
Whether a printer existed is speculation; Whether said printer was connected to the internet
is speculation (having an IP does not equal internet connectivity); If said printer existed, and
if said printer was internet connected, any vulnerabilities in the printer itself or in the communications
path are also speculation.
It gets better. Do a dig mx clintonemail.com. You'll see that the machine's incoming email
was filtered by mxlogic.net, a spam filtering service that works by received all your emails,
filtering out the spam, and forwarding you the rest.
This is because the hosting provider, Platte River Network, sold a package along with the hosting.
The package included spam filtering and full-disk off-site backup (since then seized by the FBI).
So every email received by Clinton was going through many unsecured places, including a spam
filtering queue, a backup appliance and an off-site backup server. Which has already been documented.
"It gets better. Do a dig mx clintonemail.com. You'll see that the machine's incoming email
was filtered by mxlogic.net, a spam filtering service that works by received all your emails,
filtering out the spam, and forwarding you the rest."
That arrangement appears to have only been in effect since circa June, 2013. We should think
also about the time BOTH before and after that.
;; bailiwick: clintonemail.com.
;; count: 5454
;; first seen: 2013-06-24 21:27:43 -0000
;; last seen: 2016-05-26 12:57:43 -0000
clintonemail.com. IN MX 10 clintonemail.com.inbound10.mxlogic.net.
clintonemail.com. IN MX 10 clintonemail.com.inbound10.mxlogicmx.net.
"This is because the hosting provider, Platte River Network, sold a package along with the
hosting. The package included spam filtering and full-disk off-site backup (since then seized
by the FBI)."
Was that all in the report? I guess I'll have to go and read that whole thing now.
Interesting footnote: On tonight's NBC Evening Nudes, they mentioned that the FBI had seized
Clinton's server, and also a USB thumb drive in August of last year. No mention of any PRINTERS
being seized. (Typical incompetent FBI, still operating in the Louis Freeh era. The man didn't
even know how to use a computer, and didn't want to.)
"So every email received by Clinton was going through many unsecured places, including a spam
filtering queue, a backup appliance and an off-site backup server. Which has already been documented."
Um, yep. You're right. Arguably, the security of Clinton's e-mails were even WORSE after the
switch in June, 2013, than it had been before that.
And let's not forget that the Stored Communications Act makes it perfectly legal for any service
provider who happens to have YOUR e-mails on THEIR hard drives to peek at those e-mails, pretty
much as they see fit, as long as doing so is ostensibly or arguably for "technical" reasons having
to do with the management of the service they are providing.
(Google goes further and has software that looks at everything, for marketing/advertising purposes.
All 100% legal, based on their end luser contracts, I'm sure.)
So this is basically like when some NSA people got caught peeking at the NSA's records on their
love interests. When they get caught, they just shrug, promise never to do it again, and nobody
goes to jail.
How many sysadmins at MXLogic had access to Clinton's emails? If the one lone guy who pulled
the graveyard shift poked around into those e-mails, at say 3AM, would anybody even know that
had happened? (Even the NSA didn't know what Snowden had looked at until he was already long gone,
and even then, they weren't entirely sure.)
Ah, Brian, it appears that both the Chinese and the Russians had complete access to Hillary's
rogue mail server going back to 2013. I'm not sure there's any point in talking about the printer.
A Romanian cab driver, known as Guccifer and now sitting in a U.S. jail, claimed to have found
her mail server and gotten complete access to it in 2013, up to two years before Farsight discovered
it in March 2015.
But there is a subsequent story that claimed that Guccifer tried to hack into Russian systems
which the Russians discovered. They, in turn, planted malware on Guccifer's computer that allowed
them to see everything that he was able to hack into. It's likely that the Russians have every
piece of email that went through Hillary's server. If there are any missing, we should ask them
about it.
like most hackers, hes a pathological liar. Its in their nature. He came out real quick
to brag and prove how he hacked a clinton aid. But didn't want to tell anybody until he went to
jail and she runing for president that that he hacked clintons emails? I call total BS.
Nobody with any brains believes the recent headline-grabbing pronouncements from this criminal
Guccifer. He's pretty obviously just failing around and hoping that he can come up with some topical
story that will get him in the newspapers and maybe… if they are really dumb… entice his prosecutors
into cutting him some sort of a deal if he "talks" about his alleged break-in to the Clinton server.
But so far, he hasn't produced a single shred of credible evidence to back up his wild claims,
and as someone pointed out, it is really rather absurd, even or especially for someone in his
position, to VOLUNTARILY cop to yet another federal felony.
The smart money says that if anyone ever did compromise any part of Clinton's network, that
party will be smart enough to NEVER talk about that, except to his paymasters, or to whoever is
willing and able to purchase the exflitrated data, with utmost confidentiality and discretion,
obviously.
I assume that when China, Russia, Israel, Germany, Britian, India, Pakistan, etc… reconnoitered
Secretary Clinton's web presence and discovered her use of a private email server and printer,
they would have devoted the required time and resources to compromise them, one way or the other.
That's what state-sponsored intelligence services do. If I were either Clinton, I would assume
my email was compromised and assume my nation-state adversaries have everything … just the same
as if I used the State Department's email system.
Ironically, she would have been better off using the State Dept. email system: she would have
known from the start that eventually every message would be in the hands of our adversaries.
1. DOCSIS – LOL. While her cable company's DOCSIS 3.1 does have encrypted features to prevent
someone on the copper from doing the equivalent of ARP poisoning to pretend to be her gateway,
I have not yet – anywhere in New England or the Mid Atlantic – found those encryption features
enabled. They are left off intentionally by every provider I have tested probably for bandwidth
profit reasons. Her packets were sniffable. Period.
2. FOX level hypocrisy detected.
Let's not forget that Rove and Cheney ran the US government for years during a time of war
using an Exchange 2003 RNC server. When called on it, suddenly (Oopsy, TeeHee!) all the millions
of those email messages – and their backups – got 'accidentally' deleted rather than letting the
world + dog see what those two chimps were trusting Microsoft security to keep safe. Any talk
of Orange suits needs to put those two at the front of the line.
As far as I'm concerned with Hillary, I'd like to see her precedent more widely adopted – hardened
personal mail stores to restore privacy. Screw the folks who think snooping everyone's email is
their personal right under some secret law.
"More importantly, any emails or other documents that the Clintons decided to print would be
sent out over the Internet - however briefly - before going back to the printer. And that data
may have been sniffable by other customers of the same ISP, Guilmette said."
How/why would this be the case?
I can see if we make the assumption of all machines using internal IPs so packets headed to
24.187.234.188 would route out then bounce back in … but if it was local net, or if it was defined
in hosts or the router (also assumptions) then it would never have to bounce out except for a
a lookup.
or am I missing something here ..?
Did the sysadmin(s) who set up the mail and printer systems have security clearance(s)
to read all the Mrs. Clinton's mail and print jobs?
Because she certainly gave the sysadmin(s) the ability to read her mail and print jobs.
archive the data, and transport the data anywhere. If that was not all done by State Department
IT employee(s). how is this not a punishable offense?
It boggles my mind to think that anyone could defend Mrs. Clinton for this blatant breach of
national security.
My understanding is that the same person who set up Bill Clinton's website and email after
he left office set up Secretary Clinton's; hence, the shared IP addresses for similarly worded
domains. Also, wasn't the same server used for both?
I think this person was granted immunity.
Worrying about whether an indictment is in the future is like wondering what verdicts a jury
is going to return. That is something that I learned from a veteran attorney.
So I am in the printer industry, and this story is interesting for a couple of reasons.
1) Most IP based printers (read connected via ethernet card rather than USB "local" connection)
allow for users and administrators to log in to the printer via the IP address and adjust settings,
install new firmware, and so forth. For a state hacker, this could be gold – and the default "service"
logins and passwords can typically be found in service manuals readily available on the web.
2) On that issue, one of the things that a lot of multi function devices ("all in one") allow
for is "multi plexing". "Multi plexing" is performing multiple functions with a single job submission.
For example, there are machines that can receive an incoming fax, print that fax out, forward
the fax using SMB to an archive (typically, but not always on the same subnet), forward that fax
via email to a recipient, forward that fax to another fax machine using telephony, forward that
fax to a fax server using LAN faxing, and so on. You can see how tempting a multifunction machine
would be to a a state intelligence service.
3) All the components in a machine are commercially available, from limited manufacturers –
there are only so many manufacturers for memory, motherboards, etc. For a state intelligence service
with a lot of money – setting up a clone in a lab to use as a template to re-engineer would be
relatively cheap.
4) Many PostScript enabled printers allow for firmware upgrades as a PostScript print submission
– so the printer could be reprogrammed with new firmware (essentially re engineered) remotely
by anyone with access to the IP. Essentially, the multi plexing could be reprogrammed to sent
print submissions out to a server controlled by a foreign intelligence service. Now, this isn't
something that a pimply faced hacker could do. Too expensive, and too time consuming. But if you
had an organization that could figure out how to reprogram centrifuges…
5) Many printers by default "assign themselves" ports with known weaknesses (I'm looking at
you, Port 8xxx), and open those ports up to allow communication over a network – for example,
the "flag" that pops up on your computer to let you know the printer is out of paper. Depending
on how a printer is set up for internet printing, this may or may not apply. Experienced IP administrators
will go back, and change the port settings – if they think of it. But in many cases it is not
something that they are thinking about.
I say follow the money. Look at the links between Clinton Foundation and classified information.
She setup a private email server knowingly to exempt her from compliance. Now, the after
the fact doesn't really matter. And she knows that… A .gov address would have full rights to all
corispondance as the information belongs the the government and can be requested by ant civilian…
"... There are really two prongs to this investigation: the sensitive handling or mishandling of classified information in the form of emails. But there is also another aspect of this and that is the significant monies that came to the coffers of the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton held a high cabinet-level political position. And it is a violation of the law for political officials to accept money. This is somewhat of a grey area. But there are indications that part of the investigation is not only looking at the handling or mishandling of classified information… but, on the second hand, is an individual in an official capacity accepting money or favors on behalf of their position with the US government. ..."
"... When I was an FBI agent and I worked overseas, I was not able to accept anything that had a value over 25 dollars… So, there is a big question about not only the handling of information, but also the accepting of gifts. There has been anecdotal information that upwards of $57 million went into the coffers of the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State. So, that is something that the investigation will look at. ..."
"... Could that be an obstruction of justice? Interesting to see. Were emails destroyed? That is a violation of the law in terms of destruction of evidence ..."
"... I think there is a gross negligence of the handling of classified information that protects our national security. ..."
"... They take their orders from the owners of government just like all federal employees. Military included! Oaths mean NOTHING to US government employees. You swear to uphold the constitution and when or if you do you end up like snowden or manning. You collect your pay and your benefits and do as your told otherwise your dealt with like they deal with any citizen that disobeys, they destroy your life one way or another. ..."
"... The handling of Hillary's email is the least of her crimes. She was essentially running a regime change for profit using the US military during her tenure as secretary of state. ..."
"... I had not heard the regime-change-for-profit angle. Fascinating. Hideous. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton taking advantage of her power in such a blatant way setting up a home server for a top US office is beyond poor judgement. That says she believes she is above the law. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both narcissistic without forethought. They both do what they want and either get out of the way or suffer the cc consequences. They both believe they can do anything. The sad part is the other political powers are either an ally or afraid of them. The media, politicians, corporate executives are either afraid of them or part of corruption. ..."
"... We'll see if the FBI has any balls or just talk. ..."
"... ...and yet, Donald Trump did not set-up a private server system just to get around the rules of being Secretary of State. Why find a roundabout way to have Trump share blame with Clinton for her dishonest behavior and poor choices? He wasn't the one who made them: She did. ..."
"... Their shady deals were made behind closed doors with the only witnesses being those who would, themselves, be implicated if word got out. I'm currently reading "Clinton Cash" and it just blows my mind. Those two are the absolute epitome of corruption. ..."
"... i dont know about this if she has jeopadised national security then she is no different to bradley manning the fbi plays no favourites although bradley manning did everyone a favour by what he did but hillary did it to put herself into the white house ..."
Clinton faces questioning over her handling of classified information in emails, as well as funds
received by the Clinton Foundation while she was in high office, James Conway former FBI agent and
Managing Director of Global Intel Strategies told RT.
CBS News reported that Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton will be interviewed by the
FBI in the near future regarding messages sent and received on her private email server.
RT: What kind of steps may we expect to see taken by the FBI with regards to Hillary Clinton
and her email controversy? Will she receive some sort of special privilege due to her high-ranking
position?
James Conway: I do know the protocols and standards the FBI follows when it comes to serious
violations of the law. First of all, the FBI is an apolitical organization that has nothing to do
with politics. Agents of the FBI and support employees of the FBI take an oath to uphold the law.
And that's regardless of who may have committed violations of the law.
It is immaterial whether it is the First Lady, or it is the lady down the street, or it is the
mayor of a city - it doesn't matter. The FBI has a long history of enforcing the law. And sometimes
people who are subjects to those investigations happen to be high-level political officials. So,
it has happened a number of times. Just two years ago David Petraeus was charged, former general
and former Director of the CIA was charged with violations of the law as it pertains to the protection
or the passage of sensitive, classified information which is somewhat the subject of this ongoing
investigation or the allegations that have been brought forward against the former First Lady and
current candidate for the president of the US.
RT: Does the investigation pose a threat to Clinton's presidential aspirations?
JC: Political commentators have said this. The FBI has said nothing. The FBI's investigation
is extremely complex. They are looking at years of activity; they are looking at thousands and thousands
of transactions in cyberspace. There are really two prongs to this investigation: the sensitive
handling or mishandling of classified information in the form of emails. But there is also another
aspect of this and that is the significant monies that came to the coffers of the Clinton Foundation
while Mrs. Clinton held a high cabinet-level political position. And it is a violation of the law
for political officials to accept money. This is somewhat of a grey area. But there are indications
that part of the investigation is not only looking at the handling or mishandling of classified information…
but, on the second hand, is an individual in an official capacity accepting money or favors on behalf
of their position with the US government.
When I was an FBI agent and I worked overseas, I was not able to accept anything that had a value
over 25 dollars… So, there is a big question about not only the handling of information, but also
the accepting of gifts. There has been anecdotal information that upwards of $57 million went into
the coffers of the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State. So, that is something
that the investigation will look at.
RT: How serious are the charges that Hillary Clinton faces?
JC: Personally, I know that the handling of classified information is extremely sensitive. And
it is viewed by the courts and by national security folks […] as extremely valuable and important.
And those who violate those laws and rules are subject to severe penalties. And sometimes, in the
case of David Petraeus, he passed some sensitive information, not official documents, but in the
forms of notes to Paula Broadwell who was writing a book about him […]. In this particular case that
everybody is talking about in America, because it is within the context of the ongoing presidential
campaign here, Hillary Clinton didn't use a State Department closed email system […] Mrs. Clinton
had her own public server and that is how she was communicating with her associates and others within
the government. To me, that's a clear problem. She has been asked to provide all of that traffic
and there have been instances during the course of the investigation that maybe she didn't hand over
all those documents, all of that email traffic. Could that be an obstruction of justice? Interesting
to see. Were emails destroyed? That is a violation of the law in terms of destruction of evidence.
So, there are a lot of problems here. I think there is a gross negligence of the handling of
classified information that protects our national security.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
@PeteSanger, ·8 May
"Agents of the FBI and support employees of the FBI take an oath to uphold the law."
If that were the case then they would have reopened the investigation of the so called terrorist
attacks on 9/11.
They take their orders from the owners of government just like all federal employees. Military
included! Oaths mean NOTHING to US government employees. You swear to uphold the constitution
and when or if you do you end up like snowden or manning. You collect your pay and your benefits
and do as your told otherwise your dealt with like they deal with any citizen that disobeys, they
destroy your life one way or another.
@Emmett647, 8 May
The handling of Hillary's email is the least of her crimes. She was essentially running
a regime change for profit using the US military during her tenure as secretary of state.
@LouCoatney -> @Emmett647, ·8 May
I had not heard the regime-change-for-profit angle. Fascinating. Hideous.
@CarolOrcutt, 8 May
Hillary Clinton taking advantage of her power in such a blatant way setting up a home server
for a top US office is beyond poor judgement. That says she believes she is above the law.
There is a pattern of her apologizing after she makes thoughtless decisions and many when
she was Secretary of State and first lady. Her holding these positions does not make her a better
candidate. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both narcissistic without forethought. They
both do what they want and either get out of the way or suffer the cc consequences. They both
believe they can do anything. The sad part is the other political powers are either an ally or
afraid of them. The media, politicians, corporate executives are either afraid of them or part
of corruption.
We'll see if the FBI has any balls or just talk.
@MidnightAndLulu -> @CarolOrcutt, 9 May
...and yet, Donald Trump did not set-up a private server system just to get around the
rules of being Secretary of State. Why find a roundabout way to have Trump share blame with Clinton
for her dishonest behavior and poor choices? He wasn't the one who made them: She did.
@Andy007, ·8 May
On RT German I read an article (inspired by Seymour Hersh), that Hillary Clinton supported
an secret CIA operation in Libya in 2012, to let steal sarin gas stocks from Gaddafi Regime, to
bring it to Syria, and gave it to islamist rebels, who use it to kill thousands of Syrian people.
In the world's press Asssad was the mass murderer, the offender. I'm not sure if there are some
evidence. But is it clever to support Hillary Clinton, when there are so sensible allegations
against her? Perhaps it is gossip perhaps not. For the Democrats it could be painful, if Hillary
get president and someday in future she must resign, when she get an indictment and must go into
prison. For the Democrats is now the time to clear if it's true or not. Sure I like Bernie Sanders
more than Hillary Clinton, he is a good man. But this is not the point. If Mrs. Clinton was part
of a criminal mission the Democrats must clear it, or bear up the consequences in future.
@ChristinaJones, 9 May
Unfortunately I doubt anything will come of this. They (both Bill and Hillary) have been able
to successfully skirt the law for a very long time now. They have amassed power and wealth by
exploiting their positions and connections and have committed their offenses and done their dirty
deeds right under everyone's noses. It disgusts me. I'm sure there are those in law enforcement
who would love to take them down, are fully aware of their crimes, but, alas, our legal system
requires definitive proof of any wrongdoings regardless of how obvious they are. There would have
to be a recording of a conversation or an email (perhaps among 30,000 deleted?) That proves, without
a doubt, that promises were made and delivered on in exchange for "contributions". The Clintons
aren't stupid, especially Hillary.
Their shady deals were made behind closed doors with the only witnesses being those who
would, themselves, be implicated if word got out. I'm currently reading "Clinton Cash" and it
just blows my mind. Those two are the absolute epitome of corruption. Maybe, just maybe,
this whole email situation is the break many have been looking for. If there is any justice at
all in America the Clintons will be exposed for all they truly are and brought up on charges,
convicted. I have my doubts though. I think what's most sickening is how they (Hillary) has exploited
Americans gullibility by playing the victim in this tiresome "that evil GOP is always out to get
me!" narrative. Wake up, people! The proof is there, all you have to do is look. I'm not anywhere
close to a Republican and I see it. That's because I bothered to look.
@WayneJohnson -> @ChristinaJones, 9 May
i dont know about this if she has jeopadised national security then she is no different
to bradley manning the fbi plays no favourites although bradley manning did everyone a favour
by what he did but hillary did it to put herself into the white house
@Venom88, 8 May
The wicked witch of the west. Check how's she walks it's so odd...
"... Bernie Sanders keeps refusing' to hit Hillary Clinton over her email. Or so it seems. But maybe the Vermont senator's relentless assault on Mrs. Clinton's corporate ties is about her email after all. Maybe Mr. Sanders is betting that Hillary has a bigger problem than classified information... ..."
The focus is on state secrets in her email - but what personal favors lay within?
Bernie Sanders keeps refusing' to hit Hillary Clinton over her email. Or so it seems. But
maybe the Vermont senator's relentless assault on Mrs. Clinton's corporate ties is about
her email after all. Maybe Mr. Sanders is betting that Hillary has a bigger problem than
classified information...
"... America 40 years post-Reagan is not the America you were raised in. As a young man who grew up in a small manufacturing city - I saw firsthand what the neoliberal trade policies have done to our country when every major industry left to China, Latin America - and devastated the community I was raised in. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and people like her preach equality of the sexes, they talk about minority rights, they talk about progressive incremental change- but when it comes down to it - they have stood aside while our manufacturing industry has been gutted and millions of jobs have been shipped overseas. The people with comfortable incomes in the major cities have no idea how devastating this has been. ..."
"... We are going to see a revolution of sorts in this country, either this election or the next - and the real question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we going to be living in a better future, one that breaks the stranglehold of the monopolized concentration of money on our political and economic system and incorporates the social democratic principles of every other industrial nation ..."
Wrong my friend. The Cold War has been over for 25 years - people are no longer scared of
the Communist boogieman. I'm going to tell you something that none of these pundits are
saying.
America 40 years post-Reagan is not the America you were raised in. As a young man who
grew up in a small manufacturing city - I saw firsthand what the neoliberal trade policies
have done to our country when every major industry left to China, Latin America - and
devastated the community I was raised in.
Hillary Clinton and people like her preach equality of the sexes, they talk about
minority rights, they talk about progressive incremental change- but when it comes down to it
- they have stood aside while our manufacturing industry has been gutted and millions of jobs
have been shipped overseas. The people with comfortable incomes in the major cities have no
idea how devastating this has been.
Regular people know what has always been known - that the rich control the economy, they
bankroll the politicans, and increasingly they are starting to realize they control the media
too. With no one speaking for them - the people are turning to racism, to anger, to fear, to
anti-intellectualism - anything that unites them, and fights the hypocrisy of the politicians
that claim to speak for them but have left them behind.
The difference in this election is Bernie Sanders. This man had the balls to stand up and
say ''Wall Street says I am dangerous...well guess what. I AM DANGEROUS TO WALL STREET." This
man is strong. He's a fighter. He's in the tradition of the greatest American presidents - he
is fiery preacher who inspires hope in the masses and speaks the undalterated truth.
The people have their champion. You saw it in Michigan. This 'revolution' is for real.
Trump is capitalizing on the disenchantment and the dissillusionment of the American
populace. Hillary Clinton - with her funding from Wall Street, funding from the private
prisons that promote incarceration and other big moneyed interests - has NO CHANCE OF REACHING
THESE PEOPLE. If you think she has a better chance then Sanders of reaching the voters - you
are dreaming. This is another thing the pundits are not going to tell you.
We are going to see a revolution of sorts in this country, either this election or the
next - and the real question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we going to be living in a
better future, one that breaks the stranglehold of the monopolized concentration of money on
our political and economic system and incorporates the social democratic principles of every
other industrial nation
- or one where we live in a sort of Trumpland - a proto-fascist
nightmare. The choice is yours friend. This is for real. I hope we all make the right one.
"... Bryan Pagliano, the person who set up Clinton's private server and email apparatus, was just given immunity by the Justice Department. According to The Washington Post ..."
"... These 31,830 deleted emails, by the way, were deleted without government oversight. ..."
"... Only one person set up the server that circumvented U.S. government networks and this person is Bryan Pagliano. Not long ago, Pagliano pleaded the Fifth , so this new development speaks volumes. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... I'm a Bernie supporter. And honestly, offering immunity to Pagliano is almost certainly just so they can close loose ends and begin to close their investigation. Most likely, Clinton or her aides will get called in for one last round and then the FBI will end their investigation. This says nothing to a possibility of her guilt in anything. ..."
"... Thats not an assumption-its a fact. SHE scrubbed the server when she knew the FBI had asked her for it-SHE erased over 31,000 emails, SHE has dozens of emails SHE sent and received that were SEP classification-the very highest level. THis is about corruption at the highest levels and now SHE will have to pay the piper. ..."
"... The real issue i have had for a couple of years are the middle eastern gov. Donors to the clinton foundation while she was sec. Of state... Yeah i am waiting for that to come to light. That the huge REAL as opposed to emails ..."
"... Granting "use immunity" to this witness probably means that they have little to no evidence a crime was committed, and that they need his testimony to advance the investigation. If they had evidence, they would prosecute (or threaten to prosecute), convict him, and then use him to testify about his higher-ups in exchange for leniency. Use immunity means they don't have the goods even on this small fish. ..."
"... It is not a tempest in a teapot. Only a federal judge can grant immunity, and this means they are seating a grand jury, prosecutors, whole nine yards. ..."
"... With Donald Trump revving up his attacks against Clinton, as he is proving to be the Republican nominee, you know that he's not going to let this go. Bernie Sanders may be running a campaign that doesn't get caught up on issues outside of policy, but this is exactly the kind of thing that Donald Trump will obsess about. It's like when he went after Obama's birth certificate. If he makes this a primary issue of his campaign, Hillary will be deemed guilty before anybody has a chance to say otherwise. ..."
"... Clinton wanted to avoid the Wikileaks-revealed searches into her hopefully private exchanges. ..."
Bernie Sanders's path to the presidency was never going to be easy. After surging in the polls and
consistently proving America's political establishment wrong, Sanders won Colorado and other states
on Super Tuesday. He still has a path to win the Democratic nomination via the primaries, but Bernie
Sanders just won the presidency for another reason: Hillary Clinton's quest for
"convenience."
Bryan Pagliano, the person who set up Clinton's private server and email apparatus, was just
given immunity by the Justice Department. According to
The Washington Post, "The Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for 'computer services' prior to
his joining the State Department, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in April 2009."
First, this can't be a right-wing conspiracy because it's President Obama's Justice Department
granting immunity to one of Hillary Clinton's closest associates. Second, immunity from what? The
Justice Department won't grant immunity to anyone unless there's potential criminal activity involved
with an FBI investigation. Third, and most importantly for Bernie Sanders, there's only one Democrat
in 2016 not linked to the FBI, Justice Department, or
31,830 deleted emails.
These 31,830 deleted emails, by the way, were deleted without government oversight.
Only one person set up the server that circumvented U.S. government networks and this person
is Bryan Pagliano. Not long ago, Pagliano
pleaded the Fifth, so this new development speaks volumes. His immunity, at this point in
Clinton's campaign, spells trouble and could lead to an announcement in
early May from the FBI about whether or not Clinton or her associates committed a crime. As stated
in
The New York Times, "Then the Justice Department will decide whether to file criminal charges
and, if so, against whom."
... ... ...
In addition to
born classified emails (emails that were classified from the start of their existence, undermining
the claim that certain emails weren't classified when Clinton stored them on her server), as well
as
Top Secret intelligence on an unguarded server stored in her basement, Hillary Clinton has never
explained the political utility of owning a private server.
Why did Hillary need to own a private server?
Aside from her excuse pertaining to convenience, why did Clinton need to circumvent U.S. government
networks?
... ... ...
There are most likely a number of reasons Clinton needed the server and Pagliano's immunity helps
the FBI immeasurable in deciphering whether or not criminal intent or behavior is a part of their
recommendation to the Justice Department. Pagliano's immunity is explained in a
Washington Post piece titled Justice Dept. grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton
email server:
The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked
on Hillary Clinton's private email server, as part of a criminal investigation
into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement
official.
The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton's
2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.
As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents are likely
to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server,
how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information
in emails, current and former officials said.
... Spokesmen at the FBI and Justice Department would not discuss the investigation. Pagliano's
attorney, Mark J. MacDougall, also declined to comment.
"There was wrongdoing," said a former senior law enforcement official. "But was it
criminal wrongdoing?"
... ... ...
As for the issue of criminality, Detroit's
Click on Detroit Local 4 News explains the severity of this saga in a piece titled DOJ grants
immunity to ex-Clinton staffer who set up email server:
Bryan Pagliano, a former Clinton staffer who helped set up her private email server, has accepted
an immunity offer from the FBI and the Justice Department to provide an interview to investigators,
a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday.
With the completion of the email review, FBI investigators are expected to shift their
focus on whether the highly sensitive government information, including top secret and other classified
matters, found on Clinton's private email server constitutes a crime.
.... Huma Abedin is also part of this email investigation, as
stated in a CNN article titled Clinton emails: What have we learned?:
The State Department is furthermore being sued for the emails of top aides, and for the tens
of thousands of emails Clinton deemed personal and didn't turn over for review.
At a hearing last week in one such lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said
he's considering asking the State Department to subpoena Clinton, and aide Huma Abedin, in an
effort to learn more about those emails...
Clinton and her aides insist none of the emails she sent or received were marked as classified
at the time they were sent, but more than 2,101 have been retroactively classified during the
State Department-led pre-release review process.
Whether or not the intelligence was classified at the time is irrelevant; there's already proof
of
born classified intelligence on Clinton's server. Former Obama official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
believes Hillary Clinton should
"drop out" of the race because of the FBI investigation.
... ... ....
Tim Black
Thank You HA Goodman! As a former Managerof Executive IT Services for an Obama Cabinet member
I can say with total certainty this dangerous handling of government correspondence Hillary Clinton
not only broke security protocols, she ripped them in half, stepped on them and did the 'Dab'.
Based on the information provided no one's framing, stalking, shalacking or setting up the Clintons.
This is the Clintons sabotaging The Clintons. I don't want to hear the cop outs "They're attacking
me!". No Madame Secretary. You're attacking yourself. No Republicans necessary!
Tab Pierce · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
AMEN TIM!!! I to worked for the government for 5 years as an email administrator. There is
no way that she was not briefed and well versed in the protocols surrounding emails. If it had
been me the FBI would have kicked down my door day one and I would be in jail. She should be held
accountable to an even higher standard than you and I. She was the Secrtary of State for gods
sake. Igorance is no excusse and on top of that is a lie.
Malcolm Smith · Translator at Self-Employed
O lord, they used an MS Exchange server that was naked on the internet to boot. Microsoft's
pervasive OS presence in Government is all by itself a national security risk.
Scott Laytart · Los Angeles, California
I'm a Bernie supporter. And honestly, offering immunity to Pagliano is almost certainly just
so they can close loose ends and begin to close their investigation. Most likely, Clinton or her
aides will get called in for one last round and then the FBI will end their investigation. This
says nothing to a possibility of her guilt in anything.
This is not positive or negative for Clinton, other than the investigation part of this may
be over (probably) before June. If charges are filed, that's most likely when it would happen.
Or they may not... no one knows but the FBI/DoJ.
No one should take anything H.A. Goodman writes seriously.
Hillary has been asking for him to testify all along. What does immunity represent? Does it mean
that either Pagliano (or Clinton) are accused of offenses? Quite the opposite. If the DOJ thought
they had a case against Pagliano, they would not grant him immunity. In any event, for all the
shrill attention that it will get, immunity for Bryan Pagliano will help move the Hillary Clinton
email inquiry toward an end – and be one less thing for her to worry about.
Thats not an assumption-its
a fact. SHE scrubbed the server when she knew the FBI had asked her for it-SHE erased over 31,000
emails, SHE has dozens of emails SHE sent and received that were SEP classification-the very highest
level. THis is about corruption at the highest levels and now SHE will have to pay the piper.
The real issue i have had for a couple of years are the middle eastern gov. Donors to the clinton
foundation while she was sec. Of state... Yeah i am waiting for that to come to light. That the
huge REAL as opposed to emails
Granting "use immunity" to this witness probably means that they have little to no evidence a
crime was committed, and that they need his testimony to advance the investigation. If they had
evidence, they would prosecute (or threaten to prosecute), convict him, and then use him to testify
about his higher-ups in exchange for leniency. Use immunity means they don't have the goods even
on this small fish.
This is an important aspect of the campaign at this point. With Donald Trump revving up his
attacks against Clinton, as he is proving to be the Republican nominee, you know that he's not
going to let this go. Bernie Sanders may be running a campaign that doesn't get caught up on issues
outside of policy, but this is exactly the kind of thing that Donald Trump will obsess about.
It's like when he went after Obama's birth certificate. If he makes this a primary issue of his
campaign, Hillary will be deemed guilty before anybody has a chance to say otherwise.
Clinton wanted to avoid the Wikileaks-revealed searches into her hopefully private exchanges.
My God, if Merkel was being hacked, surely everyone else of note was also, both foreign and domestic.
My question is, to whom were these questionably high intensity emails sent? Don't the recipients
have a say in this? Everyone knows they're being watched.
There are no exceptions I would think, least of all those searches useful for later political
assassination. But those on the other end of these questionable emails must have some interest
here, as they are involved.
Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled this week that Clinton and her top aides should be questioned
under oath about her email arrangement, signaling the start of an entirely new legal headache for
the now White House contender and her campaign team.
The lawsuit, brought by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, will pick up again in
a few weeks in mid-March when the group files its preliminary plan for the questioning. State has
until Apr. 5 to respond, and then Judicial Watch gets 10 days to file a reply.
The legal maneuvering means that Clinton aides could be deposed during the dog days of summer
and potentially well into the general election. Another months-long round of questions about her
emails could drag her entire campaign down as it did last year and give Sanders another shot at the
nomination or hobble her in a contest against the GOP nominee.
"... Oh, but it is serious. The material is/was classified. It just wasn't marked as such. Which means someone removed the classified material from a separate secure network and sent it to Hilary. We know from her other emails that, on more than one occasion, she requested that that be done. ..."
"... fellow diplomats and other specialists said on Thursday that if any emails were blatantly of a sensitive nature, she could have been expected to flag it. "She might have had some responsibility to blow the whistle," said former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, "The recipient may have an induced kind of responsibility," Pickering added, "if they see something that appears to be a serious breach of security." ..."
"... Finally whether they were marked or not the fact that an electronic copy resided on a server in an insecure location was basically like her making a copy and bringing it home and plunking it in a file cabinet... ..."
"... In Section 7 of her NDA, Clinton agreed to return any classified information she gained access to, and further agreed that failure to do so could be punished under Sections 793 and 1924 of the US Criminal Code. ..."
"... The agreement considers information classified whether it is "marked or unmarked." ..."
"... According to a State Department regulation in effect during Clinton's tenure (12 FAM 531), "classified material should not be stored at a facility outside the chancery, consulate, etc., merely for convenience." ..."
"... Additionally, a regulation established in 2012 (12 FAM 533.2) requires that "each employee, irrespective of rank must certify" that classified information "is not in their household or personal effects." ..."
"... As of December 2, 2009, the Foreign Affairs Manual has explicitly stated that "classified processing and/or classified conversation on a PDA is prohibited." ..."
"... Look, Hillary is sloppy about her affairs of state. She voted with Cheney for the Iraq disaster and jumped in supporting it. It is the greatest foreign affair disaster since Viet Nam and probably the greatest, period! She was a big proponent of getting rid of Khadaffi in Libya and now we have radical Islamic anarchy ravaging the failed state. She was all for the Arab Spring until the Muslim Brotherhood was voted into power in Egypt....which was replaced by yet another military dictatorship we support. And she had to have her own private e-mail server and it got used for questionable handling of state secrets. This is just Hillary being Hillary........ ..."
"... Its no secret that this hysterically ambitious Clinton woman is a warmonger and a hooker for Wall Street . No need to read her e-mails, just check her record. ..."
"... What was exemplary about an unnecessary war, a dumbass victory speech three or so months into it, the President's absence of support for his CIA agent outed by his staff, the President's German Chancellor shoulder massage, the use of RNC servers and subsequently "lost" gazillion emails, doing nothing in response to Twin Towers news, ditto for Katrina news, the withheld information from the Tillman family, and sanctioned torture? ..."
"... Another point that has perhaps not been covered sufficiently is the constant use of the phrase "unsecured email server" - which is intentionally vague and misleading and was almost certainly a phrase coined by someone who knows nothing about email servers or IT security and has been parroted mindlessly by people who know even less and journalists who should know better. ..."
"... Yet the term "unsecured" has many different meanings and implications - in the context of an email server it could mean that mail accounts are accessible without authentication, but in terms of network security it could mean that the server somehow existed outside a firewall or Virtual Private Network or some other form of physical or logical security. ..."
"... It is also extremely improbable that an email server would be the only device sharing that network segment - of necessity there would at least be a file server and some means of communicating with the outside world, most likely a router or a switch, which would by default have a built-in hardware firewall (way more secure than a software firewall). ..."
"... Anything generated related to a SAP is, by it's mere existence, classified at the most extreme level, and everyone who works on a SAP knows this intimately and you sign your life away to acknowledge this. ..."
"... yeah appointed by Obama...John Kerry. His state department. John is credited on both sides of the aisle of actually coming in and making the necessary changes to clean up the administrative mess either created or not addressed by his predecessor. ..."
"... Its not hard to understand, she was supposed to only use her official email account maintained on secure Federal government servers when conducting official business during her tenure as Secretary of State. This was for three reasons, the first being security the second being transparency and the third for accountability. ..."
"... You need to share that one with Petraeus, whos career was ruined and had to pay 100k in fines, for letting some info slip to his mistress.. ..."
"... If every corrupt liar was sent to prison there'd be no one left in Washington, or Westminster and we'd have to have elections with ordinary people standing, instead of the usual suspects from the political class. Which, on reflection, sounds quite good -- ..."
"... It's a reckless arrogance combined with the belief that no-one can touch her. If she does become the nominee Hillary will be an easy target for Trump. It'll be like "shooting fish in a barrel". ..."
"... It is obvious that the Secretary of State and the President should be communicating on a secure network controlled by the federal government. It is obvious that virtually none of these communications were done in a secure manner. Consider whether someone who contends this is irrelevant has enough sense to come in out of the rain. ..."
The Obama administration
confirmed for the first time on Friday that Hillary Clinton's unsecured home server contained some
of the US government's most closely guarded secrets, censoring 22 emails with material demanding
one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes just three days before the Iowa
presidential nominating caucuses in which Clinton is a candidate.
jrhaddock -> MtnClimber 29 Jan 2016 23:04
Oh, but it is serious. The material is/was classified. It just wasn't marked as such. Which
means someone removed the classified material from a separate secure network and sent it to Hilary.
We know from her other emails that, on more than one occasion, she requested that that be done.
And she's not just some low level clerk who doesn't understand what classified material is
or how it is handled. She had been the wife of the president so is certainly well aware of the
security surrounding classified material. And then she was Sec of State and obviously knew what
kind of information was classified. So to claim that the material wasn't marked, and therefore
she didn't know it was classified, is simply not credulous.
Berkeley2013 29 Jan 2016 22:46
And Clinton had a considerable number of unvetted people maintain and administer her communication
system. The potential for wrong doing in general and blackmail from many angles is great.
There's also the cost of this whole investigation. Why should US taxpayers have to pick up
the bill?
And the waste of good personnel time---a total waste...
Skip Breitmeyer -> simpledino 29 Jan 2016 22:29
In one sense you're absolutely right- read carefully this article (and the announcement leading
to it) raises at least as many questions as it answers, period. On the other hand, those ambiguities
are certain not to be resolved 'over-the-weekend' (nor before the first votes are cast in Iowa)
and thus the timing of the thing could not be more misfortunate for Ms. Clinton, nor more perfect
for maximum effect than if the timing had been deliberately planned. In fact I'm surprised there
aren't a raft of comments on this point. "Confirmed by the Obama administration..."? Who in the
administration? What wing of the administration? Some jack-off in the justice dept. who got 50,000
g's for the scoop? The fact is, I'm actually with Bernie over Hilary any day, but I admit to a
certain respect for her remarkable expertise and debate performances that have really shown the
GOP boys to be a bunch of second-benchers... And there's something a little dirty and dodgy that's
gone on here...
Adamnoggi dusablon 29 Jan 2016 22:23
SAP does not relate to To the level of classification. A special access program could be at
the confidential level or higher dependent upon content. Special access means just that, access
is granted on a case by case basis, regardless of classification level .
Gigi Trala La 29 Jan 2016 22:17
She is treated with remarkable indulgence. Anywhere with a sense of accountability she will
be facing prosecution, and yet here she is running for even higher office. In the middle of demonstrating
her unfitness.
eldudeabides 29 Jan 2016 22:15
Independent experts say it is highly unlikely that Clinton will be charged with wrongdoing,
based on the limited details that have surfaced up to now and the lack of indications that
she intended to break any laws.
since when has ignorance been a defence?
nataliesutler UzzDontSay 29 Jan 2016 22:05
Yes Petraeus did get this kind of scrutiny even though what he did was much less serious that
what Clinton did. this isn't about a rule change. And pretending it is isn't going to fool anyone.
Sam3456 kattw 29 Jan 2016 21:18
Thats a misunderstanding on your part First lets look at Hillary's statement in March:
"I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified
material. So I'm certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified
material."
She later adjusted her language to note that she never sent anything "marked" classified. So
already some Clinton-esque word parsing
And then what people said who used to do her job:
fellow diplomats and other specialists said on Thursday that if any emails were blatantly
of a sensitive nature, she could have been expected to flag it.
"She might have had some responsibility to blow the whistle," said former Ambassador Thomas Pickering,
"The recipient may have an induced kind of responsibility," Pickering added, "if they see something
that appears to be a serious breach of security."
It is a view shared by J. William Leonard, who between 2002 and 2008 was director of the Information
Security Oversight Office, which oversees the government classification system. He pointed out
that all government officials given a security clearance are required to sign a nondisclosure
agreement, which states they are responsible if secrets leak – whether the information was "marked
or not."
Finally whether they were marked or not the fact that an electronic copy resided on a server
in an insecure location was basically like her making a copy and bringing it home and plunking
it in a file cabinet...
beanierose -> dusablon 29 Jan 2016 21:08
Yeah - I just don't understand what Hillary is actually accused of doing / or not doing in
Benghazi. Was it that they didn't provide support to Stevens - (I think that was debunked) - was
it that they claimed on the Sunday talk shows that the video was responsible for the attack (who
cares). Now - I can think of an outrage - President Bush attacking Iraq on the specious claim
that they had WMD - that was a lie/incorrec/incompetence and it cost ~7000 US and 200K to 700K
Iraqi lives. Now - there's a scandal.
Stephen_Sean -> elexpatrioto 29 Jan 2016 21:07
The Secretary of State is
an "original classifier" of information. The individual holding that office is responsible
to recognize whether information is classified and to what level regardless if it is marked or
not. She should have known. She has no true shelter of ignorance here.
Stephen_Sean 29 Jan 2016 21:00
The Guardian is whistling through the graveyard. The FBI is very close to a decision to recommend
an indictment to the DOJ. At that point is up to POTUS whether he thinks Hillary is worth tainting
his entire Presidency to protect by blocking a DOJ indictment. His responsibility as an outgoing
President is to do what is best for his party and to provide his best attempt to get a Democrat
elected. I smell Biden warming up in the bullpen as an emergency.
The last thing the DNC wants is a delay if their is going to be an indictment. For an indictment
to come after she is nominated would be an unrecoverable blow for the Democrats. If their is to
be an indictment its best for it to come now while they can still get Biden in and maintain their
chances.
Sam3456 29 Jan 2016 20:57
In Section 7 of her NDA, Clinton agreed to return any classified information she gained
access to, and further agreed that failure to do so could be punished under Sections 793 and 1924
of the US Criminal Code.
According To § 793 Of Title 18 Of The US Code, anyone who willfully retains, transmits or causes
to be transmitted, national security information, can face up to ten years in prison.
According To § 1924 Of Title 18 Of The US Code, anyone who removes classified information "
with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location," can face up
to a year in prison.
The agreement considers information classified whether it is "marked or unmarked."
According to a State Department regulation in effect during Clinton's tenure (12 FAM 531), "classified
material should not be stored at a facility outside the chancery, consulate, etc., merely for
convenience."
Additionally, a regulation established in 2012 (12 FAM 533.2) requires that "each employee,
irrespective of rank must certify" that classified information "is not in their household or personal
effects."
As of December 2, 2009, the Foreign Affairs Manual has explicitly stated that "classified
processing and/or classified conversation on a PDA is prohibited."
kus art 29 Jan 2016 20:54
I'm assuming that the censored emails reveal activities that the US government is into are
Way more corrupt, insidious and venal as the the emails already exposed, which says a lot already...
Profhambone -> Bruce Hill 29 Jan 2016 20:53
Look, Hillary is sloppy about her affairs of state. She voted with Cheney for the Iraq
disaster and jumped in supporting it. It is the greatest foreign affair disaster since Viet Nam
and probably the greatest, period! She was a big proponent of getting rid of Khadaffi in Libya
and now we have radical Islamic anarchy ravaging the failed state. She was all for the Arab Spring
until the Muslim Brotherhood was voted into power in Egypt....which was replaced by yet another
military dictatorship we support. And she had to have her own private e-mail server and it got
used for questionable handling of state secrets. This is just Hillary being Hillary........
PsygonnUSA 29 Jan 2016 20:44
Its no secret that this hysterically ambitious Clinton woman is a warmonger and a hooker
for Wall Street . No need to read her e-mails, just check her record.
USfan 29 Jan 2016 20:41
Sorry to be ranting but what does it say about a country - in theory, a democracy - that is
implicated in so much questionable business around the world that we have to classify mountains
of communication as off-limits to the people, who are theoretically sovereign in this country?
We've all gotten quite used to this. In reality, it should freak us out much more than it does.
I'm not naive about what national security requires, but my sense is the government habitually
and routinely classifies all sorts of things the people of this country have every right to know.
Assuming this is still a democracy, which is perhaps a big assumption.
Neil Berkitt – a former banker (Lloyds, St George Bank) who then helped vulture capitalist
Richard Branson with Virgin Media.
David Pemsel – Former head of marketing at ITV.
Nick Backhouse – On the board of the bank of Queensland, formerly with Barings Bank.
Ronan Dunne – On the Telefónica Europe plc board, Chairman of Tesco Mobile. He has also
worked at Banque Nationale de Paris plc.
Judy Gibbons – Judy is currently a non-executive director of retail property kings Hammerson,
previously with O2, Microsoft, Accel Partners (venture capital), Apple and Hewlett Packard.
Jennifer Duvalier – Previously in management consultancy and banking.
Brent Hoberman – Old Etonian with fingers in various venture capital pies including car
rental firm EasyCar.
Nigel Morris – chairman of network digital marketing giants Aegis Media.
John Paton – CEO of Digital First Media – a very large media conglomerate which was sued
successfully in the U.S. for rigging advertising rates.
Katherine Viner – Startlingly not a banker, in marketing or venture capital. She is I gather
(gulp) a journalist.
Darren Singer – formerly with BSkyB, the BBC and Price Waterhouse Coopers
FirthyB 29 Jan 2016 20:36
Hillary is in that class, along with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bush, Cheney etc.. who believe
the rule of law only pertains to the little guys.
MooseMcNaulty -> dusablon 29 Jan 2016 20:28
The spying was illegal on a Constitutional basis. The Fourth Amendment protects our privacy
and prevents unlawful search and seizure. The government getting free access to the contents of
our emails seems the same as opening our mail, which is illegal without a court order.
The drone program is illegal based on the Geneva accords. We are carrying out targeted killings
within sovereign nations, usually without their knowledge or consent, based on secret evidence
that they pose a vaguely defined 'imminent threat'. It isn't in line with any international law,
though we set that precedent long ago.
makaio USfan 29 Jan 2016 20:08
What was exemplary about an unnecessary war, a dumbass victory speech three or so months
into it, the President's absence of support for his CIA agent outed by his staff, the President's
German Chancellor shoulder massage, the use of RNC servers and subsequently "lost" gazillion emails,
doing nothing in response to Twin Towers news, ditto for Katrina news, the withheld information
from the Tillman family, and sanctioned torture?
Those were just starter questions. I'm sure I missed things.
Another point that has perhaps not been covered sufficiently is the constant use of the
phrase "unsecured email server" - which is intentionally vague and misleading and was almost certainly
a phrase coined by someone who knows nothing about email servers or IT security and has been parroted
mindlessly by people who know even less and journalists who should know better.
As an IT professional the repeated use of a phrase like that is a red flag - it's like when
people who don't know what they're talking about latch on to a phrase which sounds technical because
it contains jargon or technical concepts and they use it to make it sound like they know what
they're talking about but it doesn't actually mean anything unless the context is clear and unambiguous.
The phrase is obviously being repeated to convey the impression of supreme negligence - that
sensitive state secrets were left defenceless and (gasp!) potentially accessible by anyone.
Yet the term "unsecured" has many different meanings and implications - in the context
of an email server it could mean that mail accounts are accessible without authentication, but
in terms of network security it could mean that the server somehow existed outside a firewall
or Virtual Private Network or some other form of physical or logical security.
Does this term "unsecured" mean the data on the server was not password-protected, does it
mean it was unencrypted, does it mean that it was totally unprotected (which is extremely unlikely
even if it was installed by an ignorant Luddite given that any modern broadband modem is also
a hardware firewall), and as for the "server" was it a physical box or a virtual server?
It is also extremely improbable that an email server would be the only device sharing that
network segment - of necessity there would at least be a file server and some means of communicating
with the outside world, most likely a router or a switch, which would by default have a built-in
hardware firewall (way more secure than a software firewall).
And regarding the "unsecured" part, how was the network accessed?
There are a huge number of possibilities as to the actual meaning and on its own there is not
enough information to deduce which - if any - is correct.
I suspect that someone who knows little to nothing about technology has invented this concept
based on ignorance a desire to imply malfeasance because on its own it really is a nonsense term.
seanet1310 -> Wallabyfan 29 Jan 2016 19:37
Nope. Like it or not Manning deliberately took classified information, smuggled it out and
gave it to foreign nationals.
Clinton it would appear mishandled classified material, at best she failed to realise the sensitive
nature and at worst actively took material from controlled and classified networks onto an unsecured
private network.
dusablon 29 Jan 2016 19:28
Classified material in the US is classified at three levels: confidential, secret, and top
secret. Those labels are not applied in a cavalier fashion. The release of TS information is considered
a grave threat to the security of the United States.
Above these classification levels is what is as known as Special Access Program information,
the release of which has extremely grave ramifications for the US. Access to SAP material is extremely
limited and only granted after an extensive personal background investigation and only on a 'need
to know' basis. You don't simply get a SAP program clearance because your employer thinks it would
be nice to have, etc. In fact, you can have a Top Secret clearance and never get a special access
program clearance to go with it.
For those of you playing at home, the Top Secret SAP material Hillary had on her server - the
most critical material the US can have - was not simply 'upgraded' to classified in a routine
bureaucratic exercise because it was previously unclassified.
Anything generated related to a SAP is, by it's mere existence, classified at the most
extreme level, and everyone who works on a SAP knows this intimately and you sign your life away
to acknowledge this.
What the Feds did in Hillary's case in making the material on her home-based server Top Secret
SAP was to bring those materials into what is known as 'accountability .'
That is, the material was always SAP material but it was just discovered outside a SAP lock-down
area or secure system and now it must become 'accountable' at the high classification level to
ensure it's protected from further disclosure.
Hillary and her minions have no excuse whatsoever for this intentional mishandling of this
critical material and are in severe legal jeopardy no matter what disinformation her campaign
puts out. Someone will or should go to prison. Period.
(Sorry for the length of the post)
Sam3456 -> Mark Forrester 29 Jan 2016 19:22
yeah appointed by Obama...John Kerry. His state department. John is credited on both sides
of the aisle of actually coming in and making the necessary changes to clean up the administrative
mess either created or not addressed by his predecessor.
Within weeks of taking the position JK implemented the OIG task forces recommendations to streamline
the process and make State run more in line with other government organizations. I think John
saw the "Sorry it snowed can't have you this info for a month" for what it was and acted out of
decency and fairness to the American people. I still think he looks like a hound and is a political
opportunist but you can't blame him for shenanigans here
chiefwiley -> DoktahZ 29 Jan 2016 19:18
The messages were "de-papered" by the staff, stripping them from their forms and headings and
then scanning and including the content in accumulations to be sent and stored in an unclassified
system. Taking the markings off of a classified document does not render it unclassified. Adding
the markings back onto the documents does not "declare" them classified. Their classified nature
was constant.
If you only have an unsecured system, it should never be used for official traffic, let alone
classified or special access traffic.
dusablon -> MtnClimber 29 Jan 2016 19:05
Give it up.
She used a private server deliberately to avoid FOIA requests, she deleted thousands of emails
after they were requested, and the emails that remained contained Top Secret Special Access Program
information, and it does not matter one iota whether or not that material was marked or whether
or not it has been recently classified appropriately.
chiefwiley -> Exceptionalism 29 Jan 2016 19:04
18USC Section793(f)
$250,000 and ten years.
dusablon -> MtnClimber 29 Jan 2016 19:00
False.
Anything related to a special access program is classified whether marked as such or not.
dalisnewcar 29 Jan 2016 18:58
You would figure that after all the lies of O'bomber that democrats might wake up some. Apparently,
they are too stupid to realize they have been duped even after the entire Middle Class has been
decimated and the wealth of the 1% has grown 3 fold under the man who has now bombed 7 countries.
And you folks think Clinton, who personally destroyed Libya, is going to be honest with you and
not do the same things he's done? Wake up folks. Your banging your head against the same old wall.
fanUS -> MtnClimber 29 Jan 2016 18:46
She is evil, because she helped Islamic State to rise.
Paul Christenson -> Barry_Seal 29 Jan 2016 18:45
20 - Barbara Wise - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang.
Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her
office at the Department of Commerce.
21 - Charles Meissner - Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security
clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22 - Dr. Stanley Heard - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee
died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving
on Clinton 's advisory council personally treated Clinton 's mother, stepfather and Brother.
23 - Barry Seal - Drug running TWA pilot out of Mean Arkansas , death was no accident.
24 - John ny Lawhorn, Jr. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of
a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.
25 - Stanley Huggins - Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a purported suicide and
his report was never released.
26 - Hershel Friday - Attorney and Clinton fundraiser died March 1, 1994, when his plane exploded.
27 - Kevin Ives & Don Henry - Known as "The boys on the track" case. Reports say the two boys
may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. The initial report of death said
their deaths were due to falling asleep on railroad tracks and being run over. Later autopsy reports
stated that the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case
died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28 - Keith Coney - Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck, 7/88.
29 - Keith McMaskle - Died, stabbed 113 times, Nov 1988
30 - Gregory Collins - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31 - Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989. (Coroner
ruled death due to suicide)
32 - James Milan - Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to natural
causes"?
33 - Jordan Kettleson - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June
1990.
34 - Richard Winters - A suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery
July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON PERSONAL BODYGUARDS ALL DIED OF MYSTERIOUS CAUSES OR SUICIDE
36 - Major William S. Barkley, Jr.
37 - Captain Scott J . Reynolds
38 - Sgt. Brian Hanley
39 - Sgt. Tim Sabel
40 - Major General William Robertson
41 - Col. William Densberger
42 - Col. Robert Kelly
43 - Spec. Gary Rhodes
44 - Steve Willis
45 - Robert Williams
46 - Conway LeBleu
47 - Todd McKeehan
And this list does not include the four dead Americans in Benghazi that Hillary abandoned!
Paul Christenson Barry_Seal 29 Jan 2016 18:42
THE MANY CLINTON BODY BAGS . . .
Someone recently reminded me of this list. I had forgotten how long it is. Therefore, this
is a quick refresher course, lest we forget what has happened to many "friends" and associates
of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
1- James McDougal - Convicted Whitewater partner of the Clintons who died of an apparent heart
attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
2 - Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee
Shop in Georgetown (Washington, D. C.). The murder happened just after she was to go public with
her story of sexual harassment by Clinton in the White House.
3 - Vince Foster - Former White House Councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little
Rock 's Rose Law Firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide. (He was about to
testify against Hillary related to the records she refused to turn over to congress.) Was reported
to have been having an affair with Hillary.
4 - Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact
in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the
top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated,
and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on
the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic controller committed suicide.
5 - C. Victor Raiser, II - Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization
died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 - Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room
in Little Rock on September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor".
7 - Ed Willey - Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot
wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day His wife Kathleen Willey claimed
Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several
Clinton fund raising events.
8 - Jerry Parks - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock .. Gunned down
in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock . Park's son said his father was building
a dossier on Clinton . He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files
were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 - James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a "Black Book" of
people which contained names of influential people who visited Prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10 - James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported
to have ties to the Clintons ' Whitewater deals.
11 - Kathy Ferguson - Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson , was found dead in May 1994,
in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several
packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with
Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones Lawsuit, and Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness
for Paula Jones.
12 - Bill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fiancée of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide
ruling of his fiancée, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide
at the grave site of his fiancée.
13 - Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton 's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window
of a tall building January, 1994. His client, Dan Lassater, was a convicted drug distributor.
14 - Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal,
Mena , Arkansas Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot Wounds.
15 - Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney
General. Died Of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a Suicide. Was pregnant at the
time of her death.
16 - Paula Grober - Clinton 's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December
9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.
17 - Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter who was Investigating the Mean Airport and Arkansas
Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18 - Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mean Airport with Casolaro and the
1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment.
Had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death. (May have died of poison)
19 - Jon Parnell Walker - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his
death from his Arlington , Virginia apartment balcony August 15,1993. He was investigating the
Morgan Guaranty scandal.
Thijs Buelens -> honey1969 29 Jan 2016 18:41
Did the actors from Orange is the New Black already endorsed Hillary? Just wondering.
Sam3456 -> Sam3456 29 Jan 2016 18:35
Remember as soon as Snowden walked out the door with his USB drive full of secrets his was
in violation. Wether he knew the severity and classification or not.
Think of Hillary's email server as her home USB drive.
RedPillCeryx 29 Jan 2016 18:33
Government civil and military employees working with material at the Top Secret level are required
to undergo incredibly protracted and intrusive vetting procedures (including polygraph testing)
in order to obtain and keep current their security clearances to access such matter. Was Hillary
Clinton required to obtain a Top Secret clearance in the same way, or was she just waved through
because of Who She Is?
Sam3456 29 Jan 2016 18:32
Just to be clear, Colin Powell used a private email ACCOUNT which was hosted in the cloud and
used it only for personal use. He was audited (never deleted anything) and it was found to contain
no government records.
Hillary used a server, which means in electronic form the documents existed outside the State
Department unsecured. Its as if she took a Top Secret file home with her. That is a VERY BIG mistake
and as the Sec of State she signed a document saying she understood the rules and agreed to play
by them. She did not and removing state secrets from their secure location is a very serious matter.
Wether you put the actual file in your briefcase or have them sitting in electronic version on
your server.
Second, she signed a document saying she would return any and ALL documents and copies of documents
pertaining to the State Department with 30 (or 60 I can't remember) of leaving. The documents
on her server, again electronic copies of the top secret files, where not returned for 2 years.
Thats a huge violation.
Finally, there is a clause in classification that deals with the information that is top secret
by nature. Meaning regardless of wether its MARKED classified or not the very nature of the material
would be apparent to a senior official that it was classified and appropriate action would have
to be taken. She she either knew and ignored or did not know...and both of those scenarios don't
give me a lot of confidence.
Finally the information that was classified at the highest levels means exposure of that material
would put human operatives lives at risk. Something she accused Snowden of doing when she called
him a traitor. By putting that information outside the State Department firewall she basically
put peoples lives at risk so she could have the convenience of using one mobile device.
Wallabyfan -> MtnClimber 29 Jan 2016 18:10
Sorry you can delude yourself all you like but Powell and Cheney used private emails while
at work on secure servers for personal communications not highly classified communications and
did so before the 2009 ban on this practice came into place . Clinton has used a private unsecured
server at her home while Sec of State and even worse provided access to people in her team who
had no security clearance. She has also deleted more than 30,000 emails from the server in full
knowledge of the FBI probe. You do realise that she is going to end up in jail don't you?
MtnClimber -> boscovee 29 Jan 2016 18:07
Are you as interested in all of the emails that Cheney destroyed? He was asked to provide them
and never allowed ANY to be seen.
Typical GOP
Dozens die at embassies under Bush. Zero investigations. Zero hearings.
4 die at an embassy under Clinton. Dozens of hearings.
OurNigel -> Robert Greene 29 Jan 2016 17:53
Its not hard to understand, she was supposed to only use her official email account maintained
on secure Federal government servers when conducting official business during her tenure as Secretary
of State. This was for three reasons, the first being security the second being transparency and
the third for accountability.
Serious breach of protocol I'm afraid.
Talgen -> Exceptionalism 29 Jan 2016 17:50
Department responses for classification infractions could include counseling, warnings
or other action, officials said. They wouldn't say if Clinton or senior aides who've since
left government could face penalties. The officials weren't authorized to speak on the matter
and demanded anonymity."
You need to share that one with Petraeus, whos career was ruined and had to pay 100k in
fines, for letting some info slip to his mistress..
Wallabyfan 29 Jan 2016 17:50
No one here seems to be able to accept how serious this is. You cant downplay it. This is the
most serious scandal we have seen in American politics for decades.
Any other US official handling even 1 classified piece of material on his or her own unsecured
home server would have been arrested and jailed by now for about 50 years perhaps longer. The
fact that we are talking about 20 + (at least) indicates at the very least Clinton's hubris, incompetence
and very poor judgement as well as being a very serious breach of US law. Her campaign is doomed.
This is only the beginning of the scandal and I predict we will be rocked when we learn the
truth. Clinton will be indicted and probably jailed along with Huma Abedin who the FBI are also
investigating.
This is supposed to be the lady who (in her own words) has a huge experience of government
yet she willingly broke not just State Department protocols and procedures, by using a privately
maintained none secure server for her email service she also broke Federal laws and regulations
governing recordkeeping requirements.
At the very least this was a massive breach of security and a total disregard for established
rules whilst she was in office. Its not as if she was just some local government officer in a
backwater town she was Secretary of State for the United States government.
If the NSA is to be believed you should presume her emails could have been read by any foreign
state.
This is actually a huge story.
TassieNigel 29 Jan 2016 17:41
This god awful Clinton family had to be stopped somehow I suppose. Now if I'd done it, I'd
be behind bars long ago, so when will Hillary be charged is my question ?
Hillary made much of slinging off about the "traitor" Julian Assange, so let's see how Mrs
Clinton looks like behind bars. A woman simply incapable of telling the truth --
Celebrations for Bernie Sanders of course.
HiramsMaxim 29 Jan 2016 17:41
They also wouldn't disclose whether any of the documents reflected information that was
classified at the time of transmission,
Has nothing to do with anything. Maybe the author should read the actual NDA signed by Mrs.
Clinton.
If every corrupt liar was sent to prison there'd be no one left in Washington, or Westminster
and we'd have to have elections with ordinary people standing, instead of the usual suspects from
the political class. Which, on reflection, sounds quite good !
In_for_the_kill 29 Jan 2016 17:15
Come on Guardian, this should be your lead story, the executive branch of the United States
just confirmed that a candidate for the Presidency pretty much broke the law, knowingly. If that
ain't headline material, then I don't know what is.
dusablon -> SenseCir 29 Jan 2016 17:09
Irrelevant?
Knowingly committing a felony by a candidate for POTUS is anything but irrelevant.
And forget her oh-so-clever excuses about not sending or receiving anything marked top secret
or any other level of classification including SAP. If you work programs like those you know that
anything generated related to that program is automatically classified, whether or not it's marked
as such. And such material is only shared on a need to know basis.
She's putting out a smokescreen to fool the majority of voters who have never or will never
have special access. She is a criminal and needs to be arrested. Period.
Commentator6 29 Jan 2016 17:00
It's a reckless arrogance combined with the belief that no-one can touch her. If she does
become the nominee Hillary will be an easy target for Trump. It'll be like "shooting fish in a
barrel".
DismayedPerplexed -> OnlyOneView 29 Jan 2016 16:40
Are you forgetting W and his administration's 5 million deleted emails?
Consider that email is an indispensable tool in doing one's job. Consider that in order to
effectively do her job, candidate Clinton -- as the Secretary of State -- had to be sending and
receiving Top Secret documents. Consider that all of her email was routed through a personal server.
Consider whether she released all of the relevant emails. Well, she claimed she did but the evidence
contradicts such a claim. Consider that this latest news release has -- like so many others --
been released late on a Friday.
It is obvious that the Secretary of State and the President should be communicating on
a secure network controlled by the federal government. It is obvious that virtually none of these
communications were done in a secure manner. Consider whether someone who contends this is irrelevant
has enough sense to come in out of the rain.
Sold to Wall Street and greedy as hell. One speech honorarium is approximately 6 average American
annual salaries (The national average wage for 2014 is 46,481.52.)
During the lest Democratic debate on January 17, Hillary Clinton made several populist comments that
aimed to show she is "one of the people" and that, like all other candidates, she would aggressively
pursue not only bank fraud, but would go after bankers themselves. As we
tweeted at the time , these were some of her more prominent soundbites:
"no bank should be too big to fail and no individual too powerful to jail"
"I am going to defend president Obama for taking on Wall Street and getting results"
"I go after the big banks, I am the one the hedge funds are up against"
"we are at least having a vigorous debate about reining in Wall Street"
And then there is the reality: as none other than the
NYT reported two days ago , Goldman Sachs alone paid Hillary $675,000 for three speeches in three
different states, a fact Hillary's main challenger, Bernie Sanders, has highlighted repeatedly.
As the topic of her speeches, covered her
extensively over the past year , has gained prominence, on Friday, Clinton was asked by New Hampshire
Public Radio how the "average person should view the hefty speaking fees?"
"I spoke to a wide array of groups who wanted to hear what I thought about the world coming off
of my time as secretary of state," Clinton said, defending her decision to make money from speaking
fees. "I happen to think we need more conversation about what's going on in the world."
Very well paid conversations as the following list of her 92 private speeches raking in $21.7
million in just the past three years reveals:
Of course, calling these "speeches" a bribe and payment for future goodwill, would not look very
good for a candidate who is so desperate to appear as "one of the people" so Hillary decides to pander
to the stupidity of Americans: "I think groups that want to talk and ask questions and hear about
that are actually trying to educate themselves because we're living in a really complicated world."
But at the end of the day, the question is whether Hillary - the person many believe is the most
likely next US president - promised banks, and especially Goldman Sachs, something very different
from what he is telling the American people now.
In an attempt to get some clarity, the Intercept's Lee Fang, approached Hillary after she spoke
at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, and asked her if she would release the transcripts
of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. /em
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
FAIR USE NOTICEThis site contains
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available
to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social
issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which
such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free)
site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should
be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors
of this site
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or
referenced source) and are
not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society.We do not warrant the correctness
of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be
tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without
Javascript.
145
·
Jun 7, 2016 12:21pm
If the lamestream media were not fully in the bag for the harpy, questions would be being asked about the mysterious death of the man whom Assange says was the leaker to wikileaks of the Democratic National Committee emails. Others have noted that several other people have died mysteriously during the last few weeks including a UN figure who died from a suspicous home weightlifting accident and an anti-Clinton researcher who unexpectedly committed "suicide."
The Libya thing is still on record as a war crime and the fact is indisputable that Clinton was the spearhead who convinced Obama, who has indicated it was against his better judgment, to carry through on the overthrow. Meanwhile, we have on record Clinton's barbaric gloat, "we came, we saw, he died" with a horror movie type cackle. Also on record is the fact that the jihadi element Clinton sponsored in the overthrow effort committed a crime against humanity, a mass liquidation of Sub-saharan Africans Khaddafi had settled in the city of Sirte in the wake of their seizure of that city. It has been documented again in an article in this week's blackagendareport by their regular reporter, Danny Haiphong.
Of course Trump is accused based on an ambiguous off-the-cuff comment he made about 2nd amendment rights that he suggested violence against the harpy. The media's cashing in on this issues makes relevant the harpy's own statement in July, 2008 when she had been beaten by Obama but before the convention which would confirm that defeat, that she was staying in the race in case a "Robert Kennedy" incident occurs. This is a much more unambiguous statement which could be construed as hoping for something favorable. Her status as a major party candidate is a disgrace, particularly now that the wikileaks disclosures have revealed the fraud engaged in to secure it. Sanders, meanwhile, appears craven in light of these new disclosures. If she triumphs, the last shreds of legitimacy will be gone from the yankee imperium.