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Criminal Inquiry Sought Over Hillary Clinton's Personal Email Server
cold fjord writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Inspectors General from the State Department and intelligence agencies have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server while she was U.S. Secretary of State. At issue is the possible mishandling of sensitive government information. Dozens of the emails provided by Hillary Clinton have been retroactively classified as part of the review of her emails as they are screened for public release. So far 3,000 of 55,000 emails have been released. The inspectors general found hundreds of potentially classified emails. "The Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation, senior officials said. ... The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its determinations."
Felons are barred from running for the office of President, correct?
You can be a lawyer who has been disbarred, though.
We can expect a zealous investigation of these allegations against Hillary by the Obama Justice Department. Not.
Obviously if you investigate far enough into this, you will eventually find the email between Hillary, Obama, and ISIS that orders the attack on Benghazi. It's in there, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This one is going to generate a thoughtful, nuanced discussion.
is she was ordered to give up her email to investigators. She gave them some of the mail and deleted the rest.
Whether we'd actually done anything wrong or not, if one of us little people had pulled such a stunt we'd be rotting in jail awaiting trial for destroying evidence, not running for president.
Ask yourself: "What would happen if I were employed in the federal government and mishandled government data in this same manner?"
I have a feeling the answer would be much harsher than what Hillary will get.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I personally process and load emails for law firms to review.
I can tell you the following:
Hillary's actions were legal at the time and followed all the rules.
They were also unethical.
The rules have now been changed, so that what she did would now be against the rules.
Her emails almost certainly contain nothing incriminating. She is a smart women that has a lot of experience dealing with scandals and knows exactly what not to do.
They probably contain something personally embarrassing - at least a little bit. Anyone that's ever looked over people's emails know you see stuff - dirty jokes, inappropriate websites, angry emails with profanity, etc. Remember it's not just what she wrote but what other people's wrote to her.
It's obvious why she did what she did. But it's also obvious that if she were of stronger moral character, she would not have done it. She would have taken the slight chance that someone would find something embarrassing and accepted it as part of being a political figure. Because the coverup is always worse than the crime - even when no crime was committed. By giving her enemies this opportunity - where she ACTUALLY did something unethical - she has taken more damage than anything they were likely to have done by uncovering whatever they could find.
Uh-huh. And - you don't understand the difference? See - Hillary is covering up her own crimes. Snowden was exposing other people's crimes. Do you see even the slightest difference between the two circumstances?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Given that the entire corpus of State Department cables classified up to Secret was leaked by Private Manning and that the State Department's unclassified email system was so badly hacked they struggled to get it cleared (if they have) and that other sensitive government systems, like the OPM database of security clearance records, have been completely compromised, there is reason to think Clinton's use of her own server may have provided better protection for sensitive information than official government channels. It could hardly have been worse.
Snowden definitely deserves jail time. But much of the information he leaked should never have been held secretively from citizens. In other cases it should have never been collected in the first place. He pushed the data on purpose.
Hillary, on the other hand, was simply irresponsible. To my knowledge none of the potential leaks have helped citizens uncover corruption.
Snowden = vigilante
Clinton = negligent
It's not too hard to see the difference and why Snowden appeals to the same folks who dislike Hillary.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I'm pretty sure that destroying data that has been subpoenaed by Congress is not a misdemeanor.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Snowden definitely deserves jail time.
Well, he's guilty of crimes that are usually punished by jail time. In this case I think what he deserves is a pardon and a presidential medal of freedom.
What about Al Haig? I thought he was in charge
He thought he was in charge, too. And he said so.
But he wasn't.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Actually, Richard Armitage outed Plame.
Wrongs have been done before no doubt but the scale of this one was much larger than anything previously done that I've heard about. Rather than justifying the present with the past how about we tighten the rules, not loosen then. I'm 100% sure if any of us had done this we would be in jail forever. When a political elite does it it's fine. This shouldn't be a D vs R type debate where my guy is bad but not as bad as your guy (or gal in this case). How about we make this about anyone breaking rules, D or R, gets punished.
I doubt Hillary will get anything, as this is 100% politically motivated. I know of a much more serious case that resulted in nothing more than a hand slap, if you can even call the resulting action "punishment" at all. What might happen is something that should have happened 20 years ago - all official government communications will be handled via government owned devices and services, after which using private devices for government communications will be a violation.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Irony. If you say so. People who want to see other people punished for their sins see little irony in it though. You will note, please, that I said "sins", not "crimes". Although, there are plenty who would be willing to use both terms. Most of Hillary's sins are also crimes. Most of her crimes are also sins. Immoral, unethical, cheating, conniving, manipulative - and those are her best virtues!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Anything she gets will likely be harsher than Karl Rove managed to get for outing Valerie Plame.
All of this has been done before. Complete BS if she gets harsher treatment than the previous administration. I agree that we need to clamp down on the problem, but some retro activity would be nice as well.
So basically what you're saying is that you'd like to see the Obama Administration sink the same level as the Bush Administration when administering justice? Wouldn't it be better if Obama's Justice Department did the right thing and set the bar high for future administrations? Or is this just a case of "Their team got the kid gloves treatment, so mine should get it as well?"
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I work for a defense company subject to ITAR regulations.
If I did what she did, I'd be fired...escorted out by security.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Late Thursday night, the Times published a story claiming that the Justice Department had been asked "to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account," only to quietly change the story to say that the Justice Department had been asked "to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used." As in, the story changed from being about a potential criminal investigation into Clinton's conduct to being about a potential criminal investigation into the mishandling of sensitive information by ... someone not named. "
So, haven't you guys learned yet to ignore mass media reporting when it involves a Clinton? It's almost like someone with billions of dollars has been trying to smear the leading Democratic candidate for a few years now.
The Internet has no garbage collection
Such a parade of ignorance.
Go figure the AC was the one to get it right.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07...
One problem is that for any information that was classified at the time (I"m not sure how this whole retroactive classification things works) it was and is a federal offense to even have that information on a private email server.
Your personal level of access does not give you permission to store classified information wherever you want to.
I still haven't seen anything confirming that she in fact did have classified information on her server (at least not classified at the time) but as has been mentioned above, there has already been proven verified instances of emails to and from other people about State related work that was not handed over by Clinton but found through subpenas of the other persons email.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Similar to sibling, I have previously worked for a defense contractor, subject to similar regulations... and among my duties, I was the primary sysadmin on the email MTAs (both the company and the DoD/DLA-owned ones).
If I would have merely seen someone in the company do what the Clintons did, and had not reported it? I would have immediately lost my IT-1 clearance, gotten fired on the spot, my employer would have probably been kicked off the contract, then we'd both be blacklisted from any further DoD consideration.
If I had done it myself? Getting fired would have been the least of my worries.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Hilarious. The lack of knowledge present here is remarkable.
Nor is blatantly ignoring records retention laws.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
This post would mean a lot more if the OP had gotten his their facts correct. Karl Rove didn't get kid gloves treatment. He didn't break the law or out anybody.
Try that at a company when you first get hired and see how well that defense works out for you. A normal (ie not above the law) person might have asked about the oversight rather than saying "oh well, I guess I'll have to make an email server for myself". The "I wasn't given one" is an amazingly poor defense. It takes a lot of chutzpah to use that with a straight face.
Since we know that none of the Clintons have the skills to run their own email server, we need to get the administrator of the email server in to testify. He needs to publicly admit before the world that he was so incredibly incompetent that there are no backups of the server.
Congresscritter: Just to clarify, you're the person who managed the Clinton's email server?
Admin: Yes.
Congresscritter: Could you please supply the committee with backups of the email server?
Admin: There aren't any.
Congresscritter: Again, just to clarify... You're actually an IT professional?
Admin: Yes
Congresscritter: And you're going to go on record, to say that this email server was not backed up?
Admin: Yes.
Congresscritter: You realize Mrs. Clinton was a senior administration official whose duties involve, among other things, negotiations with foreign governments?
Admin: uh....yes
Congresscritter: And what would you have done if, during negotiations, the hard disk on this computer had crashed, completely wiping out her email?
Admin: uh....
Congresscritter: So you're going to state, for the record before the world that as an IT professional, you're completely and utterly incompetent?
Admin: I'm not incompetent
Congresscritter: Then provide us with the backups.
This is an ex-parrot!
Scooter Libby got 30 months in federal prison, a fine of $250,000, and two years of supervised release, including 400 hours of community service.
Fair? Will Hillary face the statutory minimums for her transgressions?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'm trying to determine relevance. You've demonstrated that an agency of the government has the authority to unilaterally decide eligibility for employment, and you've further demonstrated that this decision may not be appealed in certain cases.
You have not, however, demonstrated that one individual can unilaterally establish policy, procedure, or much of anything else.
Every officer of the US military is bound by custom, tradition, and law. Each and every officer is limited in what he may or may not do. That INCLUDES the Commander in Chief.
Even a lowly private/seaman/airman/fireman can disobey the Commander in Chief if that CinC issues an unlawful order. CinC is not synonymous with "God".
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Since no one was allowed to audit the email server, we will never know if it was in fact hacked as Hillary is hardly an IT expert.
http://politics.slashdot.org/s...
Also, the server apparently was horribly misconfigured.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
That we have a choice of either Hillary Clinton OR a rag-tag group of nincompoop Republicans for president?
What a joke.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
She was Secretary of State for 4 years, and before that a Senator for 8 years, and in all that time NOBODY noticed that emails came from (and went to) a non-government address? And nobody said anything about it? Even assuming that most of the elected officials have less of a clue than the average citizen ("It's a series of tubes!"), they know about handling classified material, because they get lectured about it every year. And nobody seemed to think there was a problem all that time.
They were all just repeating rumors that were flying all over the Beltway.
...ou'd like to see the Obama Administration sink the same level as the Bush Administration when administering justice?
He passed that level a long time ago. The bankers he has in his cabinet should be in jail. I am surprised the revolving door hasn't spun off its hinges.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Will of the voters, you say? Elections in the US do not provide us with that information. People don't want to throw away their vote, so most vote against the worst instead of for the best.
I suggest watching some of this series: http://www.cgpgrey.com/politic...
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Anything she gets will likely be harsher than Karl Rove managed to get for outing Valerie Plame.
All of this has been done before. Complete BS if she gets harsher treatment than the previous administration. I agree that we need to clamp down on the problem, but some retro activity would be nice as well.
User 1 makes a statement that points out an injustice committed by a candidate of Political Party "A".
User 2 jumps in to claim that Political Party "B" had a worse injustice.
This situation plays out the same in comment threads across the internet. Switch the roles either way you want. A or B = Democrat, the other = Republican.
User 2 attempts to marginalize the injustice by claiming that party A did the same thing and received equal or less punishment than what is being suggested this time.
But who wins once the injustice supported by User 1 is carefully stuffed away in the margin? The same pattern will likely be made by User 1 when the roles are reversed. As this pattern continues, the punishment for injustice committed against citizens will only ever be reduced per situation. At best it will be matched.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
I get the feeling that any normal citizen would receive a 4am no-knock raid with guns drawn and dogs shot.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Why would you even ask that? What does Trump have to do with recognizing that Clinton is pure evil? How does Trump figure into any discussion of Clinton? I could even ask, "WTF is Trump?" But, I'll be serious. Trump is a puffed up, egotistical, pompous ass - but he's more qualified to be president than Shrillary ever could be. I'd love to punch Trump in the nose. But, I'd love even more to never hear Shrillary's name again. Would I support Trump over Hillary? Yes - but I'd support damned near anyone over Hillary.
Is your mom considering running for president? You could tell me a lot of bad things about your mom, and I'd STILL vote for her before I voted for Hillary.
Go on, tell Mom to run. Compared to the turkeys in the field right now, I can see that your mom raised at least one semi-literate child. Yes, she's more qualified than most of them!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
He didn't break the law or out anybody.
LOL.
May 2007: Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena's AG Gonzales to produce all Rove email about the dismissal of US Attorneys for all Rove email accounts. Also for all email related to Valarie Plame and the CIA leak. Rove' political aide was placed into a US attorney position by Rove's direction and through Rove's orders to fire 8 US attorney's that didn't aggressively prosecute some cases that were political in nature or because they started investigations into Republican officials.
Aug 2007: Karl Rove resigns... 'I think it's time to leave"
Sep 2007: AG Gonzales resigns...
May 2008: Rove subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee to testify about various things.
July 2008: Rove refuses, cites executive privilege.
Feb 2009: Rove was supposed to testify about the attorney controversy but fails to show.
July 2009: Rove finally testifies. Committee concludes Rove played a significant role in firing the attorney's, but did not press criminal charges in a move widely seen as the Obama DOJ being lenient with Bush-era officials and not wanting to establish a precedent of pursuing previous administration officials.
Um:
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
No he didn''t..lol..
Libby was charged and convicted for crap surrounding the investigation not outing plame. That wa Richard Armatage and it was known from the start of the investigation.
FFS, it's all over the internet and any reference site you wish to pick. Wikipedia, for all it's worth, even cites references. I cannot understand how in this day and age anyone would get this so wrong when it's so easy to do a cursory investigation into the matter.
Actually it's the New York Times fucking up.
The word "criminal" doesn't appear anywhere in the actual paperwork, and the DoJ says it has nothing to do with Hillary's actions. To quote politico quoting the Times:
The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."
That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."
It seems like the Inspectors General are interested in why some of Hillary's emails were marked unclassified, and turned over to the public, by the State Department. While this is an investigation of a fuck-up, it is a) technically not criminal, and b) is not an investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Which means the most interesting thing about this story to me is why they screwed it up so badly. Nothing in their story turned out to be true, and they shoulda known it. Was it anti-Clinton propaganda that failed to work? Is it an pro-Clinton attempt to discredit future investigations into her email server? A pro-Clinton attempt to convince Bernie fans she's actually not the candidate of Wall Street? Was it an attempt at click-bait? Or did somebody just totally fuck up that reading comprehension thing and think he had a great exclusive when what he really had was fantasy?
I suspect the latter. But speculating about all other iterations is so much more fun.
And then they were found...
Oh, and the 'private' email server was so that Republicans could conduct party (political) business OFF the federal servers. Hillary had a private server to keep all her OFFICIAL emails off government servers - by design - remember the 'gosh, I only did it so I would only have to carry one device' claim?
Ken
The law requiring official records to be retained for future reference and use was, like all statutes, passed by Congress and signed by the President. HRC also fired an ambassador for keeping email on a non-government server, so she knew what the rules were. She just didn't think she should have to follow them -- and the Obama DOJ apparently agrees that she is too good for our laws to apply to her.