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Comey Denies Clinton Email 'Reddit' Cover-Up (politico.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The FBI concluded that a computer technician working on Clinton's email was not engaged in an illicit cover-up when he asked on the Reddit website for a tool that could delete a "VIP" email address throughout a large file, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday. Republican lawmakers have suggested that the July 2014 Reddit post from a user believed to be Platte River Networks specialist Paul Combetta showed an effort to hide Clinton's emails from investigators. However, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Comey said FBI agents concluded that all the computer aide was trying to do was replace Clinton's email address so it wouldn't be revealed to the public. "Our team concluded that what he was trying to do was when they produced emails not have the actual address but have some name or placeholder instead of the actual dot-com address in the 'From:' line," Comey said. Comey said he wasn't sure whether the FBI knew about the Reddit posting when prosecutors granted Combetta immunity to get statements from him about what transpired. However, he added that such a deletion wouldn't automatically be considered an effort to destroy evidence. "Not necessarily ... It would depend what his intention was and why he wanted to do it," the FBI director said.
At this point, she has been through so many investigations that if there was anything to come out, it would have. Also, intent matters when determining guilt.
Have you actually looked at the conspiracies that Trump has pushed?
Birtherism (itself) was started by Clinton
Rafael Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) assisted in assassinated Kennedy
Global Warming is a Chinese hoax
Asbestos is safe
California is not suffering under a drought
Thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered 9/11
Google is helping Clinton
Vaccines cause autism
Obama is a Muslim
Obama never attended Columbia University
Clintons murdered Foster
Scalia was murdered
ISIS provides phones to refugees seeking to enter the United States
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I've posted this before, but I guess that I'll have to keep reposting it every time someone claims there was no proof of intent.
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
Oh such Republican mock outrage.... where was it when George Bush was sending his emails using gwb43.com? His private email account used for official Whitehouse emails!?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
It depends completely on the particular law at issue. Some require mens, some don't. For example, prosecution of traffic laws does not require intent; read your state's code. However, much of criminal law does require intent, hence the difference between manslaughter and murder, for example.
However, the law in question is one of those that do NOT require intent...does not even require being aware that the classified material was classified.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A very thorough timeline about the whole thing:
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/the-hidden-smoking-gun-the-combetta-cover-up/
Get a cup of coffee, it's long but worth it. The timeline is non-partisan and sticks to the facts, basically it is alt-right/trump troll/conspiracy free.
Bottom line: It doesn't look good at all.
October 28, 2014: The State Department formally asks Clinton for all of her work-related emails.
December 5, 2014: She turns over 30,000 emails from her @clintonemail.com account to the State Department. Another 31,000 emails from the same account were deemed personal, and Clinton kept those. Her lawyers did the sorting, no State Department or National Archives personnel had a chance to appraise or examine the remaining 31,000.
December 2014: Shorty after turning the 30,000 emails, Clinton decides she no longer needs access to any of her emails older than 60 days. Her staff is told to change the retention policy on her server, which will lead to the deletion of all her the emails that weren't turned over to the State Department.
The FBI later recovered about 17,500 of Clinton’s “personal” emails. FBI Director James Comey has said that “thousands” were indeed work-related.
March 25, 2015 and March 31, 2015: There were two conference calls between Clinton staffers and PNR, the company managing her emails. Between those two calls, Combetta, the PNR employee managing Clinton server (and Reddit user 'Stonetear'), has an “Oh shit!” moment and remembers that he’d forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December 2014. He immediately deletes all of Clinton’s emails and uses BleachBit to permanently wipe them.
He later told the FBI that at the time he was aware of emails mentioning a Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton’s emails.
Sometimes in 2016: The Justice Department gives Combetta some form of legal immunity.
The FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making an immunity deal with him *could* be a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. That part isn't clear yet.
In any circumstances, the FBI giving Combetta immunity makes no sense at all. It's the equivalent of giving a hired hitman immunity without going after the person who hired him.
To use a car analogy, it's like speeding. Speeding is illegal, but people almost never get thrown in jail for it unless it was extremely excessive. Instead, they get a fine, or sometimes just a warning. For instance, yesterday, a teenager was thrown in jail in Maine for speeding. Why? Because he was clocked doing 146mph. (citation: http://jalopnik.com/dumbass-te... ) If a cop tried to throw someone in jail for doing, let's say, 4mph over the limit, it would be ludicrously unprecedented. In fact, most of the time you won't even be pulled over for driving 4 mph over the limit, and people regularly do so.
Similarly, what Clinton did (according to Comey) is not at all uncommon in the Federal Government/Intelligence Community, but it's usually punished by things like mandatory security training, letters of reprimand, revoking security clearance/firing (usually after repeat instances), but NOT jail time, UNLESS there were other factors involved, which according to Comey, there weren't.
So it's certainly fair to believe Clinton is an unsafe driver, and to decide that you don't want to vote to let her drive the bus - but to claim that Officer Comey should have thrown her in jail for speeding ignores the fact that he's being entirely consistent with how he's handled other cases of speeding involving people that weren't powerful politicians.
To use a car analogy, it's like speeding. Speeding is illegal, but people almost never get thrown in jail for it unless it was extremely excessive. Instead, they get a fine, or sometimes just a warning. For instance, yesterday, a teenager was thrown in jail in Maine for speeding. Why? Because he was clocked doing 146mph. (citation: http://jalopnik.com/dumbass-te... ) If a cop tried to throw someone in jail for doing, let's say, 4mph over the limit, it would be ludicrously unprecedented. In fact, most of the time you won't even be pulled over for driving 4 mph over the limit, and people regularly do so. Similarly, what Clinton did (according to Comey) is not at all uncommon in the Federal Government/Intelligence Community, but it's usually punished by things like mandatory security training, letters of reprimand, revoking security clearance/firing (usually after repeat instances), but NOT jail time, UNLESS there were other factors involved, which according to Comey, there weren't. So it's certainly fair to believe Clinton is an unsafe driver, and to decide that you don't want to vote to let her drive the bus - but to claim that Officer Comey should have thrown her in jail for speeding ignores the fact that he's being entirely consistent with how he's handled other cases of speeding involving people that weren't powerful politicians.
The day after Comey made the claim that no one ever gets prosecuted for such misdeeds NPR posted an article listing many people who were prosecuted for less. One of those people was given a presidential pardon for their oversight of failing to turn over government emails. That person claimed he didn't have any government documents and then two days later came in with a government laptop to return it. Who was the president who pardoned him? Bill Clinton. So no, what Comey meant to say is that he could not find a contemporary prosecutor at the department of Justice who was willing to prosecute because the AG had already decided that they would not prosecute.
But if we're going to use these emails as part of a measuring stick as to who is more trustworthy, when we tally up all lie and half truths of our major candidates
If your best case for your candidate is that "they lie less than the other guy", and there are a huge long line of lies both candidates have, you're making the best case I have that you shouldn't vote for either one.
The newest revelation is the darling Hispanic Woman who says (no actual proof, which is what you're claiming for Clinton now) Trump said some "mean things" to her, was allegedly involved in a murder, and had relationships with drug dealers. A perfect fit for the Clinton Crime Family if you ask me.
AND if everything about the Clinton's is "ancient history" (as said by others) then why are they digging up what some Drug Cartel's Leaders old girlfriend has to say from 20+ years ago?
The double standards people use in defending Clinton is amazing.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Two things-
1. NO ONE CARES WHAT SAID IN ONLINE FORUMS. REPEAT, NO ONE.
2.Comey need to charge her cause people that HATE her FEEL like she did something wrong.
Damn it is like 4chan around here.
Also, intent matters when determining guilt.
I suggest you try, "Officer, I didn't see the sign" the next time you're pulled over for running a stop sign.
The traffic code in most cases specifically excludes intent from consideration, but that's an anomalous area in the law. Throughout very nearly all of criminal law, intent is crucial to determining guilt. So while you're correct that "Officer, I didn't see the sign" won't do you any good, your argument is a red herring that demonstrates significant lack of knowledge of criminal law. (It's also worth noting that most traffic violations aren't technically crimes in most jurisdictions, they're civil infractions which is why you may be assessed a fine but cannot be arrested. There are exceptions for very serious violations, including extremely high rates of speed.)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
1- This isn't about some mx redirect thing (or a domain name), this is about storing the emails on a private server.
2- No, they don't necessarily. If you wanted to email a private email server, why would the government have that on record? At least one of the two parties would need to have their emails on a government controlled system. Which one seems like the better plan to you: you, me, and everyone else in the world, needs to somehow have accounts on a government server -OR- the secretary of state keeps emails on a state department server as per policy?
3- I don't know what you mean here. She used the clintonemail.com server for her work in the state department. There were tens of thousands of emails that were in question.
4- You are wrong. She announced her candidacy in April 2015. Here's a wired article from March 2015:
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/c...
(and archive: http://archive.is/2015.03.05-0... )
"The person who may had broke the law is the person who sent classified information to her email address."
That's not really how this works. But pretend it did. Here's Comey on it:
"For example, seven 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."
"However she is a politician not a IT expert."
She employed numerous IT experts, however, and certainly could be expected to know the implications.
"If it was an average guy who did this... Chances are they may had lost their job, but not had criminal activity put on him."
Clinton doesn't have any criminal charges being placed on her. She's never been indicted. Comey pretty much stated that anyone else would be in hot steaming shit.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press...
"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."
Quite honestly man, you can google this. You've been able to google this for awhile. To me, the most interesting part isn't the emails, it's the consistent stream of bad information out of Clinton herself. On March 10th, 2015 (before she announced for president), she said "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."
That was either an omission or a lie. But if you follow it forward, it just gets sillier- at almost every chance to discuss this, she dissembled, provided false information, or maybe even straight fucking lied. The fact that you or I would never work again if we made this kind of mistake, the bizarre deletions, the possible foreign intel implications- that's all whatever compared to the fact that this was just deny, deny, deny until the evidence caught up.
I'm sure that even most liberals would agree, but the solution liberals have is "more government" (and thus, more corruption), rather than reigning in the corruption we have now by limiting government actions.
So we'd expect the least corrupt countries to have the smallest governments right?
Fascism was "at least the trains run on time"
Nope
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.