FBI: Review of New Emails Doesn't Change Conclusion on Clinton (cnn.com)

FBI director James Comey told Congress Sunday that the new scrutiny of emails related to Hillary Clinton has turned up nothing that would cause the bureau to recommend charges against her. The conclusion comes nine days after rocking the presidential race with word that a new trove of emails had been discovered. "During that process, we have reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of State," Comey wrote. "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton." From a report on CNN:"We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited. Now Director Comey has confirmed it," tweeted Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon. Comey's last-minute announcement gives Clinton an opportunity for an I-told-you-so moment -- but it's unlikely to undo the political damage of his initial announcement. Trump and his allies have seized on that announcement, using it claim Clinton is likely to face criminal charges. "If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis," Trump claimed Saturday night in Reno, Nevada. "In that situation we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt." The political benefit for Trump has been that Republicans who'd been skeptical of their party's nominee have largely followed vice presidential nominee Mike Pence's calls to "come home" to the party -- finding Trump less objectionable than Clinton.

Comments

Re: Of course

[smooth wombat]

You mean like Trump's foundation illegally paid Trump's legal bills, his personal bills and was used as he and his daughter's personal piggy bank?

Perhaps Trump should explain why the New York State Attorney General ordered his foundation to cease operations in New York because of its illegal activities.

Not to mention the "donation" the foundation gave to the Florida State Attorney General's campaign, also illegal, which oddly made the state's investigation of Trump's fraudulent University mysteriously go away.

Re:No constitutional crisis at all.

[Tablizer]

Something I don't get: vetting content sent TO her should not be her job. There should be professional scrubbers doing that kind of work. I've worked in many orgs, and executives aren't expected to be doing that kind of "grunt" work. It goes to cubicle peons, like me.

Also, her home server is not necessarily more or less safer than the regular office email. In fact, the regular S.D. email server was hacked. (There is a separate message system for classified content, but it's not technically "email". It's a diff animal.) The home-vs-office dichotomy seems moot, at least as far as handling classified info*. Putting it on the wrong office box versus the wrong personal box seems the same sin to me.

* She didn't get "official" approval to use a home server, and also didn't follow the proper rules for archiving. But that's diff than the classified info issue.

Re: Of course

[russotto]

No. Clinton directed her maid to print unclassified emails that were retroactively classified years later.

Also she had her uncleared maid picking up secure faxes from the SCIF in her residence. Ain't no excuses for that one.

Re:Of course

[ScentCone]

Of course nothing changes. Comey's conclusions in July still stand: Clinton repeated many lies during her remarks to the public and before congress. She destroyed evidence under subpoena. She casually handled classified information on a home computer and passed it around to non-cleared staff. She failed to turn over thousands of work-related emails despite lying and saying that she and/or her lawyers had read every single one of them to err on the side of over-providing ... and on and on.

He's not changing the fact that he said anyone else doing what she did would face serious consequences, and that different treatment applied to her. He's not changing the fact that the FBI spent more time interviewing Brad Pitt about his argument with his son on an airplane than they spent interviewing Hillary Clinton ... and she got to have her immunity-deal-getting staff WITH her in that drive-by interview which was conducted not under oath and no recordings allowed. During which, she pretended to be so dumb, uninformed, and forgetful that she managed to avoid answering pretty much any question that would have demonstrated her obvious guilt. Guilt for doing things that would see any one of her State Department underlings out of a job and possible out of liberty from jail.

Yup, nothing has changed since July. Same corruption and the lasting pressure from the Clinton political machine through Obama down to Loretta Lynch's office. No change at all.

Re:Are you mental?

[damn_registrars]

There is a poll here on slashdot right now that shows that the readers are hardcore liberals.

First of all, the poll doesn't mean shit. You get a much better idea of the composition of slashdot readers by actually reading their comments - and looking at the articles that make the front page.

Second, hardcore liberals are nearly universally disappointed with Hillary. Hardcore liberals either supported Bernie and will hold their nose while voting for Hillary, or are supporting Jill Stein. There is nothing hardcore liberal about Hillary.

Re:Terrified of Crimina Corruption in the Whitehou

[s.petry]

I should have added a few facts to back my assertions. Whitewater led to 15 Felony convictions, so this is not merely speculation or allegation. Bill Clinton settled out of court with Paula Jones for 850,000.00, again not speculation or allegation. Chinagate ended with an award of 900,000 to Judicial Watch and people fleeing the country to avoid prosecution. Clinton later pardoned Marc Rich who is the person who fled prosecution. Again, not speculation or allegation.

Re:What about her maid?

[0100010001010011]

You mean like the sailor that took a picture in a classified area?

Petty Officer Saucier was charged last year with one count of unlawful retention of national defense information and one count of obstruction of justice after prosecutors said the sailor used his cellphone to take snapshots in classified engine room on the USS Alexandria, a nuclear submarine where he worked as a mechanic at the time, then attempted to destroy evidence when he learned an investigation had been launched.

Or David Petraeus.

In January 2015, officials reported the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors had recommended bringing felony charges against Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to his biographer, Paula Broadwell (with whom he was having an affair), while serving as the director of the CIA. Eventually, Petraeus pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.

Or John M. Deutch

Deutch had agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for mishandling government secrets on Friday, January 19, 2001, but President Clinton pardoned him in his last day in office, two days before the Justice Department could file the case against him.

[Not holding my breath for an Obama Pardon either]

Or Sandy Berger

was an American political consultant who served as the United States National Security Advisor for President Bill Clinton from March 14, 1997, until January 20, 2001. Before that he served as the Deputy National Security Advisor for the Clinton Administration from January 20, 1993, until March 14, 1997.

On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating Berger for unauthorized removal of classified documents in October 2003 from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard Clarke covering internal assessments of the Clinton Administration's handling of the unsuccessful 2000 millennium attack plots. An associate of Berger said Berger took one copy in September 2003 and four copies in October 2003, allegedly by stuffing the documents into his socks and pants. Berger subsequently lied to investigators when questioned about the removal of the documents.

In April 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives in Washington.

Or Bryan H. Nishimura.

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. He carried such classified materials on his unauthorized media when he traveled off-base in Afghanistan and, ultimately, carried those materials back to the United States at the end of his deployment. 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

Your responsibility as a clearance holder

[HBI]

If you receive a classified e-mail on an inappropriate system, this is called a spillage. In the event of a spillage, it is your responsibility to report this to your security manager. In this case, it would be someone at Hillary's State Department. That person would have confiscated all the devices the mail was received on, and identified the recipients. At that point, an evaluation would be made as to whether the recipients of the classified e-mail would be within USG control. If so, all of their devices would similarly be confiscated. If not, there might be a consultation with the authority in control of the classification guide(s) that made the e-mail classified. If it could be verified as not being under the guide and therefore arguably unclassified, it might end the tale there. But if the e-mail is in fact classified, all devices that have the e-mail on it will be wiped - either partially or wholly - of all evidence of the classified material. In addition, it might be necessary for the USG to take possession of the mass storage devices in question, as they would be assumed classified at the level of the material that passed over them. The technical guidance is that if, say, a "Secret" mail passed onto an unclassified system, the system's drive is now classified Secret and cannot pass out of the possession of the USG without destruction. At that point you'd get a new mass storage device with a new image on it, and your previous contents would be lost.

The documentation for these procedures is publicly available in Army Regulations AR 25-1 and 25.2, for the Army at least.

If you do not follow this procedure, you are guilty of a crime, which could reach up to espionage if intent can be determined.

Everyone who receives a clearance from the USG signs SF312. Hillary signed this too. She is in violation of its terms by her own admission and by the FBI's statements. She is guilty of more than one crime.

Re:What about her maid?

[quantaman]

I'm familiar with all of those cases, and they all contain one, if not two, critical elements that Clinton's lacks.

1) They all knew the information was classified when they mishandled it.

2) In most of the cases they shared either that information with someone they knew to be unauthorized, or looked like they were going to.

Because of logic

[aepervius]

YOu either discard both his statement or take both his statement to heart. Choosing and picking which one you want to hear, is partisan politic at its worst : it means you are paying attention to only what fit your worldview/echo chamber and discard what rocks your boat. Note that it works both way : those who wanted to ignore comey last week and take him seriously today (probably pro Hilary) are as guilty as those who wanted to take comey seriously last week and not seriously today (probably pro trump).

Anyway, if you are taking comey seriously all the way, or discarding him all the way , the same conclusion come : the email re-review is not relevant.