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Justice Dept. Grants Immunity To Staffer Who Set Up Clinton Email Server (washingtonpost.com)
schwit1 writes with this news from the Washington Post: The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton's private email server, a sign the FBI investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing is progressing. A senior U.S. law enforcement 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 will likely 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. The inquiry comes against a sensitive political backdrop in which Clinton is the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
The guy who pushed the buttons was clearly just following orders, which was "set up a mail server", a relatively common task. Moreover, her statement of "it was above board when I did it" was correct, in that it was contingent upon those e-mails being turned over upon her exit from the position, so the initial setup wouldn't have had reasons to raise suspicions of wrongdoing at that time.
I see no reason not to grant immunity in this context.
As long as it's a fair investigation, go for it. As crimes go, though, setting up a private server (not explicitly forbidden by the rules) and receiving (not sending) some emails that are retroactively classified, seems to be a fairly minor crime.
Also, given that the email server was unclassified, and Clinton can demonstrate that she understood that and informed her subordinates not to use it to send her classified material, what more could she have done?
If the FBI charges Clinton with any sort of crime, it will just serve to further undermine the legitimacy of all law enforcement agencies in the US.
You have that exactly backwards. Letting her walk when it's so obvious that she's committed many more counts of the same crime that Patreus was convicted for would demonstrate that some people can avoid consequences for blatant felonies.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Of course, if you're a DNC shill, you think she has done nothing wrong, in spite of the ongoing revelations of secret, classified, and beyond classified documents found on an unsecured server. I am sure that if this were an (R) running for President, you'd be calling for his hanging, and not saying "nothing to see here, move along"
Which is why I hate party politics, because people like you only see the Party, and not the crimes.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
the Phrase "Marked Classified" is a red herring, and completely irrelevant. Not only that, there is evidence that the markings were REMOVED by her staff (and orders to do so shown), which is ALSO a felony. FURTHER the law doesn't indicate it has to be marked at all. But keep spewing the DNC talking points, as it shows you care more about (D) party than actual security of our people serving overseas (exposed)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform[edit]
The House Oversight committee in an interim staff report, released on June 18, 2007:[20]
At least eighty-eight Republican National Committee email accounts were granted to senior Bush administration officials, not "just a handful" as previously reported by the White House spokesperson Dana Perino in March 2007. Her estimate was later revised to "about fifty." Officials with accounts included: Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.
The RNC has 140,216 emails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these emails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official ".gov" email accounts. Other users of RNC email accounts include former Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 emails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 emails). These email accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.
Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC email accounts, the RNC has preserved no emails for 51 officials.
There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC email accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records.
The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC email accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC. Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC email accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing emails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.
And items that were classified had their classification removed before being emailed per Hillary's instruction.
She had her staff / interns scan/fax shit, remove the designation, and then email it. When it hit her email it wasn't marked classified. It's the equivalent of painting over a handicapped parking spot then parking on it.
Hold on, Tex, she said in an interview that's simply short-hand for cleaning it up for non-classified release, such as removing the classified parts and rephrasing. She said the office worker she sent it to knew what she really (fully) meant because he had done it many times before.
http://hotair.com/archives/201...
If all my internal emails were interpreted by the public/press verbatim, I'd probably be on trial also.
Think about your own internal work emails being read and interpreted by bloggers, pundits, and trolls.
I don't know if her claim is true yet, but until that's determined from the investigation, it should be "innocent until proven guilty".
Further, note that if she had used the "regular" office server instead of her home server, the classified/problematic emails would probably still end up on a server NOT designed for classified materials. The risk/breach would still exist. (There was a separate transmission system for classified stuff, but it wasn't email as we know it.)
The regular office server was no more special or vetted than her home server. Pundits keep implying it is.
I'm not defending her actions, only saying many are jumping to conclusions prematurely. Using a home server is probably not illegal (although the laws are subject to interpretation*), just poor judgement, which she admitted to. Members of the other party made similar errors of judgement.
* Wealthy people are more likely to afford top lawyers who can successfully argue their side of such vague laws, and in that sense, her "privilege" may indeed just get her out of it. But that's life in an unequal society. OJ would probably lose if he were poor.
Table-ized A.I.
Patreus handed some classified materials to his biographer who also happened to have classified clearance, just not the right ones for some of the materials she apparently was given.
Some of the emails released, though heavily redacted (up to 100%), from Hillary's emails cache were code-word classified meaning they were generally only to be seen by a very short list of people and only in a secure viewing room. Some of it was so highly classified that the IGs doing the initial investigation weren't even permitted to read them and had to go to the source organizations to have them reviewed.
The fact that these were on her unsecured server, shared with several underlings without codeword clearance as well as then handed to her lawyer (who also did not have all the required clearances) who stored them in his office without the proper level of security for the types of documents that existed on the storage drive shows a complete disregard for the proper and legally required handling of classified materials.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Hillary also deleted her emails originally, then destroyed the servers, then handed over printed copies of the emails she deemed worthy of review. It was only after initial investigations had begun that it was found that she had given a copy to her lawyer and that drive was taken into custody.
She's cooperated much in the same way an inmate on death row 'cooperates' during his execution; never by choice, only because she was forced into having no alternatives.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
And items that were classified had their classification removed before being emailed per Hillary's instruction.
Not entirely true, but your point is irrelevant anyway, because...
I used to work in the fun little world of TS and above clearances (specifically in a technical role with what eventually became the F-117A Nighthawk). Our instructions were very clear and simple: if it's marked classified, it never leaves Tonopah Test Range.
And yes, we had email back then - and so did the academic world. If I had so much as thought of doing what she did, *even if I generated/controlled the data in question*, I'd still be sitting in Fort Leavenworth, a quarter-century-plus later. And, no partisan hacks would be on the blogs or the Sunday TV shows trying to defend the act, either.
Therein lies my point - if it would land us peons in prison, then why should the law exempt her for doing the same thing?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Storing classified material on an unsecure server (which, to be clear, her server was the definition of unsecure) is in fact a serious crime.
Even if it were true that the markings had been removed before emailing, THAT in itself warrants a major investigation. And we know there is at least one email where someone was instructed to do just that.
There seems to be almost zero chance that this information wasn't compromised to foreign governments. As if Russia and China didn't know about this and have it breached...
Not me. I only had a Secret clearance. And that was while I was in the Army. And that was back in the 80's. So we had Soviets and a divided Germany.
And our instructions were to NEVER talk about ANYTHING work related to ANYONE who did not have a need to know AND a clearance.
It might not seem like important information to YOU but that is because YOU do not know what OTHER information the enemy has.
Or, to quote Hillary Clinton:
If we had done things similar, we WOULD be rotting in Leavenworth.
FUCK! We even had to answer the TELEPHONE with the statement "this line is not secure".
And items that were classified had their classification removed before being emailed per Hillary's instruction. She had her staff / interns scan/fax shit, remove the designation, and then email it. When it hit her email it wasn't marked classified. It's the equivalent of painting over a handicapped parking spot then parking on it.
You have evidence for this claim? Perhaps a link?
An image of the email in question, from Hillary. The text says: "If they can't, turn into non paper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure." Technically, that's a federal crime punished by 10 years in prison.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot