Contrary To Bernie Sanders, Americans Do Care About The Clinton Email Story
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders may think otherwise, but many Americans do care about Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
During Tuesday night’s Democratic Debate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders received a lot of attention and praise from Democrats when he came to the defense of Hillary Clinton regarding the stories surrounding her use of a private email server while Secretary of State:
Bernie Sanders’ exasperation with the subject of Hillary Clinton’s private email server made for the most replayed moment of Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, according to TiVo.
“Enough of the emails!” Vermont Sen. Sanders said after moderator Anderson Cooper pressed Clinton about her use of private email when she was secretary of state. “Let’s talk about the real issues facing America!”
The digital-video recorder maker TIVO, released a list of its top 10 debate moments on Wednesday, a day after the five Democratic presidential hopefuls met for their first debate of the 2016 White House campaign. TiVo used anonymous data from about 30,000 households.
Here’s the video:
The Sanders campaign even emphasized the moment, which seemingly benefits his chief opponent more than it does him, on its Twitter feed:
Best line of the night: “The American people are sick of hearing about your damn emails, @HillaryClinton." #DebateWithBernie
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 14, 2015
As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump notes, though, the assertion that nobody cares about the issues surrounding Clinton’s email server doesn’t stand up when you look at the polling:
To assess that, we turn to other polling. The Post, in partnership with ABC News, has repeatedly asked whether the e-mail server issue is a legitimate one for the campaign. In May, a plurality of respondents said it was. By September, a plurality said it wasn’t. But in both months, opinion was pretty evenly split.
At least overall. When you look at how members of each political party respond, the picture is very different.
Democrats think this is not a legitimate issue. Republicans think it is. And independents are split.
That’s one poll. CBS and the New York Times asked a different version of the question last month: Are you satisfied with the responses Clinton has given on the issue? Those who said they were not satisfied, one would logically assume, are interested in hearing more about the e-mails.
The question was asked in March and September, and the number who who said they were not satisfied with what they’d heard grew substantially.
Bump’s point is best illustrated by referring to the charts accompanying his post, so here’s one that shows the partisan breakdown on a question asking if the email issue is a “legitimate campaign issue”:
It’s no surprise, of course, that large numbers of Democrats don’t believe the email story is a legitimate campaign issue and that large numbers of Republicans believe that it is. This is to be expected from partisans on both sides of the aisle. The interesting numbers lie in the middle, where we see that a plurality of Independent voters believe that it is an legitimate issue. This is consistent with other polling that we’ve seen over the summer that show that American voters are concerned about the story and that they aren’t necessarily satisfied with Clinton’s response to the questions that have arisen about the issue since the story first broke back in March and April when she dismissed the use of a private server as simply a matter of not wanting to have to carry more than one mobile device at a time.
A second chart shows the response to a question from a September New York Times/CBS News poll asking voters if they were satisfied with Clinton’s response to questions regarding the issue:
As we can see here, while the public was largely satisfied with Clinton’s initial response to the controversy, over time that has changed to the point where the majority of those polled are not satisfied with her explanations in the wake of the additional information that has come out over the past six months. Looking deeper into the crosstabs for this poll, we see the same expected partisan breakdown between Democrats and Republicans on the question of whether respondents are satisfied with Clinton’s responses. Among independents, though, we see that 49% of self-identified Independents said that they were not satisfied with Clinton’s responses regarding the use of a private email server and that roughly 1/3 of Independents said that the controversy had negatively impacted their opinion of Hillary Clinton. While that’s not a majority, and it’s not likely to have much of an impact in the race for the Democratic nomination, it’s certainly a substantial number of Americans.
As Bump goes on to note, Sanders was certainly correct in saying that Democratic voters and those likely to vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses don’t care very much about the Clinton email story. For that reason, even though it likely helped Clinton to some degree that neither he nor any of the other candidates decided to use it as a cudgel during the debate, making this kind of comment is unlikely to really hurt Sanders very much in the context of the race of the nomination. Looking more broadly, though, it seems clear that Sanders was incorrect:
The idea that Americans on the whole think the e-mail issue doesn’t bear additional examination, though, is incorrect. Clinton is tired of the topic, as Sanders certainly is. But those who consider Clinton the likely Democratic nominee and hope to ensure that she doesn’t win the presidency, the issue is very much alive and will be a big part of the conversation for the next 12 months.
The Clinton email story is unlikely to be the most important issue of the 2016 Presidential race, and Clinton may well win notwithstanding it, but the suggestion that Sanders and others have made that voters don’t care about the issue simply doesn’t stand up to examination. That’s why it’s an issue that is likely to be around for the rest of this campaign right up until the General Election.
I care about it to the extent that it’s unresolved. If something comes out after she’s already locked up the nomination, the Democrats are pretty well screwed. Also, even if it turns out there’s no evidence of wrongdoing, and nothing comes of the email issue, the clumsy way she handled it for months still points to someone who should be much more “ready for prime time” given the number of years she’s been preparing to run for President. If not for Kevin McCarthy’s gaff, her email almost certainly would have been a much bigger narrative in the debate.
As I won’t vote for her unless the Republicans nominate one of the true loonies I honestly can say it doesn’t matter to me at all.
I view Hillary’s mistake as a faux pas of the same order of importance as serving Chablis with roast beef. She shouldn’t have done it, but who cares? Obviously Doug does. Is it too much to ask why?
No, people don’t actually care. The Beltway media does. All these polls reflect is that the public responds when the media bombards it with daily news about a topic.
By contrast, in 2007 when responding to congressional records demands regarding the investigation into the politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the Bush regime announced that it had lost as many as five million emails covering a two-year span. This received almost no media coverage, was not mentioned on the Sunday talk shows, was not written about in op-eds, did not become a staple of jokes on late-night talk shows. As a result, the public didn’t care about it at the time and it’s become almost entirely forgotten.
Case one: Bush loses or destroys two years of emails, in contravetion of law, the media says, nothing, and the public doesn’t care.
Case two: Clinton stores emails on a different server, not in contravention of law. Doesn’t lose them, doesn’t destroy them, nothing illegal. Media talks of nothing but, and the public cares.
So does the public care, or does the public only reflect what it’s being spoonfed?
Media Matters lays it out on when millions of lost or destroyed Bush White House emails DIDN’T become a scandal:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/10/flashback-when-millions-of-lost-bush-white-hous/202820
What a silly way to look at the issue. The poll didn’t ask ‘Are you tired of hearing about this issue?’ – to which I think the majority would agree with Bernie.
‘Are you satisfied with the answers?’ does not in fact mean that anyone outside the rightwing wants to spend another year and more $$ trying to dredge dirt and/or more answers. Nor does it mean the issue is more than a blip on the radar of actual issues that people care about (Bernie was dead right on that one too).
If anything my bigger concern on the whole thing as an issue has more to do with the question of how a bunch of congresscritters justified spending $45million of our tax money on what several now admit is a partisan politics driven witch hunt.
I think Bernie’s point was right…let’s talk about actual issues.
My guess is that not many people even understand what the email kerfuffle is about. All they know is that the Republican Entertainment Complex keeps talking about it as if it’s a harbinger of Armageddon. (keep carrying the water, Doug)
At the very least we should talk about how fwcked up this country would be with one of these Republican loons in control for 4 years.
Even the presumably sane ones are proposing trickle down economic theories and xenophobic immigration policies and imperialistic foreign policy…so another Bush 43 Administration…and god forbid they should be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice.
Each of those items poses a bigger threat than Clinton’s emails.
@C. Clavin:
More proof that Republican economic theory is bunk…
http://theadvocate.com/news/11576704-123/out-of-tricks-how-louisiana
…but let’s focus on Clinton’s emails…ooooh a squirrel…..
There’s no mystery here. Like she said in the debate, she sees Republicans as her enemies. To avoid Congressional Republicans from being able to subpoena her records, she set up her private server. She put a higher priority on keeping her e-mails away from Republicans than foreign agents. Because she sees Republicans as the biggest threat. Not China, not Russia, not radical Muslims, Republicans.
The only mysteries surrounding this are how many laws she broke in handling classified information, how many lies she’ll tell in trying to cover it up, and whether the Obama justice department will treat Hillary’s treatment of classified information as seriously as they did the cases of David Petraeus, among others, and at what point do her drone followers admit she broke an shit-ton of laws for her political expediency.
A few observations:
(1) As Kevin McCarthy inadvertently admitted, telling us what we already know, this is a politically motivated investigation designed to damage Hillary Clinton. And, it probably has damaged Clinton, but more likely it has had the effect of making Republicans viscerally hate her even more than they previously did, and this is good for GOP voter turnout.
(2) As Trey Gowdy’s recent letter to Elijah Cummings indicated, thus far his committee has found no evidence of criminal behavior on Clinton’s part, and we can be pretty sure that this investigation will run for the better part of another year. It’s the reverse of ‘damage control’ it’s more like a ‘controlled burn.’
(3) To me, this is yet another chapter in permanent Republican investigation of the Clintons that began in earnest back in 1993. It just goes on-and-on-and-on.
McCarthy accidentally said the obvious. And then Podliska essentially confirmed it. And now Richard Hanna(R NY) referring to McCarthy, said “Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth” and then “This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton”.
This has all killed any momentum the email story had. I expect the committee will continue to leak whatever bits and scraps it finds that it thinks will hurt Clinton’s chances, but it’s going to take something rather extraordinary to get the ball rolling again.
@Jenos Idanian: Considering that the Republicans have admitted that the whole Benghazi investigation panel was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt to try to drive Hillary’s reputation into the mud, why do you say that she’s not justified in looking upon them as her enemies?
You might be paranoid. But they might really be out to get you.
@Jenos Idanian:
Thank you for the re-cap of the Fox News talking points.
What else did you and your mommy watch this morning?
Dora the Explorer? Builder Bob? Oooooh…Danger Mouse….
@grumpy realist:
I think we are all still waiting for Jenos to admit his Benghazi obsession was total BS and made a fool of him.
Muwhahahahahahahahaha….I crack myself up.
The only reason most republicans think this is an issue is because they keep being told it’s one. Have them explain WHY it’s an issue and you’ll see quite quickly it’s all angry and little substance.
“It’s illegal!” – No it wasn’t
“It’s not standard procedure / normal SOP” – Again, no is wasn’t and still isn’t for many parts of the government (looking at you, gmail-using Congressmen….)
“It’s unsafe / bad security!” – Consider how hacked the government is, very debatable
“It’s wrong / sleazy / arrogant!” – Personal opinion, not facts
“It could have super secret info out there for the taking!” – Again, please see our how safe our digital data is elsewhere. A legitimate concern but poorly expressed and only valid in the context of total digital security
“It’s a scandal!” – Based on the above, what makes it one other then someone told you it was? Scandal has a definition and actually means something, not just “Person I Dislike Did Something I Don’t Like”
If no one said a word about this for the next few years and asked this poll again on the 10 yr anniversary of Servergate, the responses would be along the lines of “Yeah! Hillary sucks! Wasn’t that when she did the thing with the thing and it was bad? Emails and sumsuch? Hey guys, remember emails!!!” (Tech marches on, you know…)
@Jenos Idanian:
Soon as you find some proof, maroon.
The Repubs show no sign of giving up on the emails, and that might be a good thing. I am reminded of the Bill Clinton’s runs for president (Whitewater, Monica) and Hillary Clinton’s run for the Senate (“But she’s a Clinton!”). The partisans never changed their opinion, but most lower bandwidth voters essentially got to the point where the endless chants just became “Blah, blah, blah” and they tuned it out. Perhaps they even had a little sympathy for the Clintons because of the crazies frothing at the mouth. But rather than concede those issues were used up, they incorrectly relied on feedback from their own base, who thought they were dynamite. Rather than back off, they honestly believe if they could just get through to everyone by ramping up the hyperbole yet another notch, then everyone would agree with them and run the Clintons out of town. They could never move on and so they marginalized themselves. Absent any major revelations (and they would have to be pretty major at this point) the emails are a little stick that does no damage and if the Repubs don’t put it down so they can pick up something stronger, so much the better for Hillary.
The only major revelations so far is that a) the press is completely clueless and has never understood that the State Department doesn’t use any email accounts for secret communications, and b) Hillary is a typical executive in her sixties that has had assistants for the past 30 years: she’s uncomfortable with technology and just wishes it was more simple and she didn’t have to deal with it. I can think of 20-30 people like that off the top of my head, some of whom are leading fortune 500 companies.
@Jenos:
It’s clearly mutual so what’s the problem? Or are you saying Republicans have the warm fuzzies for the woman and don’t view her as out to ruin and destroy
themAmerica?@al-Ameda:
Yep. I care but see it as a rather small issue in the scheme of things. Mostly, I blur all these Clinton-focused investigations out because they never seem to end and seldom amount to more than a small hill of beans. If that. Somebody should remind the GOP of the little boy who cried, “Wolf!”
@KM:
I know this is whistling into the wind, but if Hillary sent super secret information in an email, it would be equally wrong if it was in a private email or a State Department accounts. Email is not considered secure and all such transmissions must be on a secure media. She used secure systems frequently and appropriately. So far there is no evidence whatsoever that Hillary even received email that was classified when it was sent, let alone sent any.
no we don’t care. it’s more made up nonsense like they did to her husband you dummy.
Yeah, if you ask a normal person. Ask a Constitutional Conservative Patriot (or any variation thereof) and you’ll get an immediate response along the lines of “Remember when Hillary illegally deleted thousands of official classified documents from a private email server she was illegaly using” Because Benghazi and Hillary’s emails are going to be talking points for the next twenty years.
Don’t beleive me? Consider this: Remember when the US was offered Osama bin-Laden on a silver platter back in 1996, but Bill Clinton balked? Normal people don’t. But wingnuts do. Of course they don’t remember the actual facts of what really happened, all they know is Bill Clinton let Osama Bin Laden go free – a “fact” repeated by Limbaugh and Hannity to this very day.
So yeah, twenty years from now the teabaggers will remember how Obama and Hillary let innocent Americans be murdered in Benghazi, how Hillary illegally deleted illegally stored classified documents.
@C. Clavin:
Says the person who talks in Democratic Party talking points, such as the claim that no laws were violated, which we’re not clear on yet (depends on what classified information was sent). And at the very least, State Department protocols were violated.
Here’s Vice with a bit more on why we should care about her e-mails.
Richard Nixon: watergate, interfering as a civilian with the peace process leading to 20,000 additional US troop deaths, widespread slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents in cambodia.
Ronald Reagan: Selling arms to terrorists, and using the proceeds to fund mass murdering rape gangs.
GWB: lied about Saddam, 4,000 americans dead, 100,000s iraqis killed and maimed.
Hillary Clinton: used improper server for casual emails.
@Hal_10000:
So a person running for President is concerned about her public image and Blumenthal told her not to talk about the Republican torture regime? OMG!!!!
You Republicans have been investigating her and her husband for a couple decades and haven’t proved a thing beyond an extramarital affair.
Get back to me when you have something. Until then your just another boy crying wolf.
@grumpy realist: One Republican misspoke.
You know, like Hillary said she never had classified information in her e-mail. Or that she turned over all her work-related e-mails. Or that she had had the server wiped.
Oh, and she had her personal henchman, Sid Blumenthal, who was banned from working at the State Department, employed at the Clinton Foundation. He also worked as a (possibly unregistered) lobbyist for businesses that were interested in post-Khadafi Libya, and fed her information to advance their interests, which she passed on to State Department employees with the directive to treat it seriously.
And her top aide and right-hand woman, Huma Abedin, double-dipped by working for both the State Department and longtime Clinton allies at the Teneo Foundation. While she was working at the State Department, she demonstrated an inhuman work ethic, never once taking a single day off for vacation or medical reasons. Not even through her pregnancy — she carried and delivered Anthony Weiner’s baby without missing a day of work!
And she also had Tyler Drumheller, her personal spymaster, in place at CBS to help shape their coverage of her. Nicely done.
@Hal_10000: ays the person who talks in Democratic Party talking points
Nah, Cliffy’s more from the Daily Kos/Democratic Underground wing.
@KM:
It’s not even “Person I Dislike Did Something I Don’t Like”, it’s “Person I Dislike Did Something,” because the act of storing emails on Server A on Server B is, I guarantee you, something 99% of these people would have had no problem with had it been something a Bush Cabinet Secretary had done.
@steve s:
Nixon: resigned facing impeachment
Reagan: multiple investigations resulting in convictions
GWB: multiple investigations
It’s not like they got ignored.
Considering that she hasn’t been President yet, I’d hold off on the plaudits for Clinton. That goes double when you consider that, as SecDef, she urged an illegal war in Libya that killed four Americans and plunged the country into chaos and is currently advocating a Syria policy that could end with us in shooting war with Russia.
These polls don’t prove anything because the questions are leading. The media commissions push polls to ask only the questions that feed their preferred narrative.
A better metric would be using the polls that ask voters what issues they care about, those that let them volunteer their thoughts rather than slying push them “Don’t you care about Hillary’s emails?” If you ask a thousand random Americans to name the top five most important issues, you’d be hard pressed to find any who’d mention Hillary’s emails.
Here’s some poll questions we never see:
-. What do you care about more, education policy or Hillary’s emails?
– What do you care about more, stopping climate change or Hillary’s emails?
– What do you care about more, balancing national defense with civil liberties, or Hillary’s emails?
– What do you care about more, a fairer tax code or Hillary’s emails?
– What do you care about more, making sure abortion stays safe and legal, or Hillary’s emails?
And the reason we don’t hear about those questions is because the answers would conflict with the media’s lame justifications for carrying water for the crass, tasteless Emailghazi scandalmongering of the Rethuglican Party.
@C. Clavin:
Once more, with feeling: 35 felony convictions including his lieutenant governor and business partner. Bill law license suspended; Hillary’s not renewed because it would have been. And multiple reports that indicate wrong-doing but were the Independent Prosecutor didn’t think convictions were likely because their buddies wouldn’t testify.
But please keep telling us how it’s all a Republican illusion.
Doug, there is something called the sunk cost fallacy. Read up about it . Start here
Now you (and the entire right wing media machine, and even some “good government liberal” types) have spent a lot of time, energy, and money insisting that where Hillary Clinton stored her State Department emails was a Very Serious Issue that needed to be obsessively explored, covered, and commented on. WHY it was a Very Serious Issue was never explained, especially since Secretary Clinton went through her the entire tenure, without anyone-not the Republican Party, not the Obama Administration, and not the New York Times ever mentioning the issue. It suddenly became a Very Serious Issue the day HRC began her presidential run, and lately Kevin McCarthy has offered a complete explanation as to why that it became so. That particular horse was already sick prior to Kevin McCarthy’s remarks, which essentially killed it dead. Time to stop beating the horse.
Now, of course, you don’t want to give up riding this horse. You want to pretend that you weren’t complicit in what was a political witch hunt from day one, and to pretend that we really should care about something which was perfectly legal ( even though it didn’t meet some people’s standards of what was good practice).You want to pretend that your incessant posting on this issue was more than being snookered into doing the right wing media’s dirty work.
I think the best thing you can do that this point is to admit you made a mistake, were drawn in into a dark path by your buddies on Pajamas Media, and move on. There’s nothing wrong with admitting a mistake. What’s wrong is not admitting it and pretending you were right all along. I hope that you are a better man than that.
This is the best article on this.
http://www.vice.com/read/heres-why-you-actually-should-care-about-hillarys-damn-emails-1014
@Hal_10000:
Yeah that article really doesn’t help your case….
Not what’s being touted. Well, then what the hell was it about? Let’s read further….
“The emails are insightful because she really didn’t know what to do. She looked to all these outside advisors.”
Soooo…. the claim is incompetency? Indecisiveness? A Kitchen Cabinet?
In other words, the FOIA needs to be updated. I notice the words “illegal” or “crime” were not used, despite the frank and salty tone. One would think instead of using weasel words like “bypass”, he just tell it like it is. “Bypass” =/= “violate”, “bypass” means loophole or grey area. So Calvin’s point of no law being broken is still true.
@Hal_10000:
Then let’s have hearings on THAT, and not this email BS. Of course, since your preferred party was happy with all of that, and wants to go even further down that path, such hearings will never happen.
The committee seems to be doing valuable work. How many primary campaigns see the person in second place come out strongly supporting the leader at this point? Gowdy and his band of clowns are going to achieve a level of unity in the Democratic Party that might otherwise be impossible. Great work guys.
This seems to be a recurring House Republican theme. Even when they actually have a goal their strategy seems to be to focused in the opposite direction. The public has been trained to expect wrongdoing from the Clintons. But even if it is there (doubtful) the ineptness of the investigators will lead the committee the wrong way. At this point any reasonable person must believe:
1. There is no wrongdoing to find
2. This committee is too stupid to find any wrongdoing, even though they are really trying
3. This committee is too unserious to find any wrongdoing
4. All of the above.
@stonetools: You’ve got a little projection going on there. The Hillary defenders have their “sunk costs” in defending her, no matter how many lies she’s caught in, how many laws she breaks, how many of her cronies get exposed as corrupt…
How much more before you open your eyes?
@stonetools: What the hell does a burglary at an office in a hotel complex have to do with a presidential re-election campaign?
By the way, if you missed it, Benghazi is in Libya. Libya, where Sidney Blumenthal was getting paid to lobby Hillary (through his other job at the Clinton Foundation) to help advance certain business interests his employers had in getting rid of Khadafi.
Blumenthal takes money to feed Hillary bad intelligence on Libya. Hillary pushes towards the goal those interests want — Khadafi’s removal. Libya falls into chaos, and Americans end up dead.
Blumenthal used his clintonemail.com address to do that lobbying, and Hillary forwarded that bad intel on to her subordinates at State, with instructions to take it seriously.
But I understand you have a whole lot of sunken costs in preserving your pristine image of Hillary, so even when I connect all the dots like this, you don’t grasp it. It’s because you won’t let yourself grasp it.
@Jenos Idanian: Remember the time he cut-and-pasted a Mazda ad? If it pops up on TPM or HuffPo, he’ll link to it.
@Pinky: Missed that one. Remind me to sell my stock in Mazda.
@Roger Drinker: The guy at your link took an awful long time to say that on Hillary’s emails, “I got nuthin’.”
@Hal_10000:
OK, I’ve read everything in the Vice article, and I find I don’t really care about any of it. Hillary consulted outside advisors? Sometimes Hillary was unsure about what to do about complex issues with no easy answers? We don’t have a definitive answer as why Hillary did something that was perfectly legal? The State Department sometimes takes a long time to respond toFOIA requests, and doesn’t do it instantly upon demand?
The guy sounds to me like all the email truthers who are trying to justify their obsession about what was ultimately just a partisan witch hunt.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how they frog-march Hillary into Federal custody. Will they handcuff her in the front and let her put a sweater over her hands or will they handcuff her in the back and have four agents walk her through the parking lot?
Yeah, I don’t see that happening, either. They got nothin’.
What people care about is the relationship between money and power, and how it appears a group of Americans are above failure and propriety. And the bottom line is you can’t support the endless flow of money as free speech and then wonder about Hillary Clinton’s ethics. I mean, we have proof that Exxon knew climate change was real and a huge threat in the 70s. Nevertheless, they were behind a vast and easily-identifiable propaganda campaign which completely derailed any chance that we might have had of dealing with carbon emissions. You can’t turn a blind eye to how bought and paid for an entire political party was, and then ask ‘real’ questions about Hillary Clinton’s ethics or some chump job one of her advisers was overpaid for. It just reads as hating Hillary Clinton for the sins of everybody.
god if only the Obama administration would have gone ahead with those investigations into the intelligences failures that lead to the Iraq war. But no, he had to get all “let’s not be divisive” and water under the bridge. we would literally still be investigating that s&*t.
“Is Clinton’s email a legitimate campaign issue” is a terribly-worded question, from a poll validity point of view. The word ‘legitimate’ means very different things to different people, but the question is phrased as a yes/no despite no ability on the part of pollsters to translate that into a degree of concern on the part of respondents.
It is perfectly consistent to believe that the emails are a legitimate campaign issue, but that they are not one of the 20 most important campaign issues. I believe that the email server thing is a legitimate campaign issue. I also think unauthorized parking in a handicap spot is a legitimate crime, and that the evolution of mediaeval monastic rules is a legitimate academic specialty…
Honestly, having seen pictures of Trey Gowdy, my advice to Republicans is to kill him before he can ask Clinton questions. Republicans seem to have embraced their full-on creepiness because it’s all they have, but placing this deficient goon in front of Hillary is going to do her wonders.
Honestly, having seen pictures of Trey Gowdy, my advice to Republicans is to kill him before he can ask Clinton questions. Republicans seem to have embraced their full-on creepiness because it’s all they have, but placing this deficient goon in front of Hillary is going to do her wonders.
@Hal_10000: Is that the same Vice article @Roger Drinker: came up with? See above @gVOR08:
@Jenos Idanian:
I open my eyes to EVIDENCE of WRONG DOING. Since no one has produced such evidence despite years of investigation(vague, unsourced rumors about unspecified “business interests” aren’t EVIDENCE), I’ll conclude like all rational people that such wrong doing didn’t happen, just like I conclude that there isn’t a teapot circling Jupiter, that the earth isn’t 6000 years old, and that there isn’t a boogeyman living under my bed. When you turn up EVIDENCE of wrongdoing, then we can revisit the issue
@Jenos Idanian:
LOL. Its like Dr Kent Hovind insisting how he has outsmarted the “evolutionists.”
@stonetools: So, basically, just because Hillary has been caught in lie after lie, and also been busted for destroying evidence (maybe not completely, but she gave it the ol’ college try), you’re still in the tank for her?
If you’re still stuck up the river Denile in a few hours, I’ll take a little time to make the dots even clearer.
For those interested in the Hovind reference, see here. The nub:
There is as much evidence of the Hovind Theory as there is of Jenos’ theories. Both continue to advance their theories, claiming that the unbelievers are the willfully blind ones who refuse to accept their “evidence.”
@Jenos Idanian:
Why don’t you take your “evidence” and your “dot connecting” to the FBI, the Inspector General, Congress, or the WaPo, and spare us, OK? I’m sure they would be happy to take your submissions and will thank you for “clearing things up.”
Let’s flip it around and say that this was a Republican who did this: I bet Democrats would care, and would be trotting it out to the MSM on an hourly basis.
@Jenos Idanian:
If you have time left over, perhaps you can explain the legal concepts of prior restraint and an ex post facto law to me….?
@William Teach:
No need to flip it around, as I noted above there actually was a Republican email scandal when the Bush White House destroye…er, lost, over five millon emails over two years. What was the reaction?
The White House email story broke on a Wednesday. Yet on that Sunday’s Meet The Press, Face The Nation, and Fox News Sunday, the topic of millions of missing White House emails did not come up. At all. (The story did get covered on ABC’s This Week.)….
Instead, the millions of missing Bush White House emails were treated as a 24-hour or 48-hour story. It was a subject that was dutifully noted, and then the media pack quickly moved on.
How did the Washington Post and New York Times commentators deal with the Bush email scandal in the week following the confirmation of the missing messages? In his April 17, 2007 column, Post columnist Eugene Robinson hit the White House hard. But he was the only Post columnist to do so. On the editorial page, the Post cautioned that the story of millions of missing White House emails might not really be a “scandal.” Instead, it was possible, the Post suggested, that Rove and others simply received “sloppy guidance” regarding email protocol….
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/10/flashback-when-millions-of-lost-bush-white-hous/202820
Keep in mind that name recognition for Sec. Clinton is almost 100%. My guess would be that one’s opinion of the email story depends on the views you’ve already formed of Sec. Clinton. If the story confirms those views, you think it’s a legitimate campaign issue. If it contradicts those views, you don’t.
Concerning the Clintons, Republicans/conservatives really should familiarize themselves with Aesop’s Fables, particularly that story about the shepherd boy, and Doug should learn how people naturally become more interested in stories that are pushed by the media and pundits, whether said stories are really significant or not…
@William Teach: Republicans DID do it.
Funny how you guys can’t seem to remember the ermail scandal from the Bush years, isn’t it?
@Jenos Idanian:
I’ve got an idea. Since there was so much lawbreaking, please cite one law she broke. Just one solitary law. Also, please cite some criminal code to support your claim.
@Rafer Janders: Especially since in this case we seem to definitely have an ex facto case:
Classifying something as “secret” later doesn’t work retroactively.
@Hal_10000:
“But please keep telling us how it’s all a Republican illusion.”
You understand the Clintons to be horrible people. You want them to be horrible people. Every fact you come across is interpreted in that light. If you can draw a connection, no matter how slight, you’ll add it to the heap of things you’ll keep referring to and if you can’t fit it in, you’ll completely forget about it.
Basically, it’s motivated reasoning and it’s the sort of thing people will seldom notice themselves doing. Always easier to see the beam in someone else’s eye.
@Dave Schuler:
Er, no. There is such a thing as objective reality. Not only has the matter been exhaustively investigated, with no evidence found of wrongdoing, we have a Republican leader ( and other Republicans) specifically stating that the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt. So no, not a legitimate campaign issue.
Let me use an example based on a LBJ statement. If I accuse Jeb Bush of being a pigf#$ker based on no evidence, does that make it a legitimate campaign issue? You would agree that not only is it not a legit issue, you would probably say it shouldn’t be even discussed. What’s the difference here?
@stonetools: The email investigation?
The bottom line, is that unethical but legal is still legal. So, no matter how hard the GOP wishes her actions were actually illegal, it doesn’t make it so. And in this case, there’s little to no evidence that her actions were even unethical.
I wonder which is more unethical, Clinton using her own email server or the GOP using Benghazi! as a pretext to hold hearings and manufacture a scandal about the email server.
It’s interesting – I’ve challenged quite a few Republicans to name just one law that Hillary broke and provide some credible support for their claim.
Crickets…
@anjin-san:
That’s easy. Her last name is Clinton. Done. What more evidence could anyone need?
@David M:
Book ’em Danno…
@anjin-san:
Interesting that you got two down votes. Why didn’t those down voters just cite the law? Or the regulation, guidance, official policy statement, whatever? This has really become farce….
@David M: @anjin-san: This is really true. She must be guilty of something if the committee just keeps looking!
On another note, when will Gowdy et al be charged for taking a huge pile of money and lighting it on fire?
Jenos & Pinky – what law did Hillary break? Put up or shut up…
@William Teach: Yeah I don’t hear a lot of Democrats talking about how Jeb Bush went to work for Lehman Brothers. You know, the firm that sold the State of Florida hundreds of millions of dollars worth of toxic assets that could end up costing the state about a billion dollars. That’s Donald Trump talking about the issue, of course.
Show me something equally as bad, ethics wise, as it relates to Hillary Clinton using an E-mail server that was under Secret Service protection.
@Jenos Idanian:
Check your facts liar boy…wrong again as per usual
@Hal_10000:
The Clinton’s were convicted 35 times???
Amazing….
The Clinton Derangement Syndrome is strong in this one….
@Hal_10000:
All those convictions and you can’t provide a single link to support your claim?
@anjin-san:
You will probably be down voted shortly for daring to insist that a conservative poster post a link to evidence supporting his claim. It’s just so UNFAIR to ask them to support a claim…
Most likely Hal lifted it from some wing nut anti Clinton site, which created the factoid out of thin air. I know that some Clinton associates pled guilty to various charges. Certainly the Clintons weren’t convicted of anything, or we would have certainly seen a link.
At the McDougals trial, Judge Hale gave a detailed account of a $300,000 fraudulent loan that was made. No mention of a Clinton there, but later on, when he himself was on trial and looking to cut a deal, he said that Bill Clinton told him to make the deal and to keep his name out it. And then much later, Jim McDougal facing an 85 year sentence, cut a deal with Starr and started to say that he was present when Hale and Clinton supposedly talked. An Arkansas State Trouper also testified that he was there.
It turned out that the State Trouper was getting payments from the American Spectator. Not that that it was ever proved that he was saying what he was saying because of those payments. Same sort of thing happened with Hale. A guy who was definitely getting a lot of money from the American Spectator was hanging around with Hale. Eventually, the guy’s former girlfriend and her son said that the guy regularly passed some of the money along to Hale.
So there are indeed links, but I don’t think anyone reasonable would say they’re very solid.
What’s been entertaining has been the evolution of Hillary’s story. I’m doing this from memory, so I probably missed a few steps.
1) Hillary used her private server because she only used one device for her e-mail.
1A) There are photos of her using a Blackberry, an IPad, and an IPhone.
2) Hillary only used one e-mail address for all her correspondence.
2A) Hillary used at least two different clintonemail.com addresses.
3) Hillary turned over all her work-related e-mails, and destroyed all the personal ones.
3A) Hillary turned over her e-mails in paper form, taking up 50,000 pages (that’s 10 cases of paper)
3B) Other records show work-related e-mails from Hillary that were not turned over.
4) No classified materials went through Hillary’s server.
4A) Classified materials went through her server
5) No materials MARKED classified went through her server.
5A) Materials marked classified went through her server.
6) Hillary kept her personal life separate from her work.
6A) One of her top aides, who came with her from the Clinton Foundation, relayed classified information to the Clinton FOundation.
6B) Sidney Blumenthal, employed by the Clinton Foundation, was paid by business interests to lobby Hillary on matters related to Libya. Hillary then passed along his “information” to her subordinates at State, with instructions to take it seriously.
At each stage, the Hillbots all said “here’s the true story, it’s a big nothingburger, so shut up about it.” And if you bring up all the previous versions that have been proven to be bald-faced, self-serving lies, you’re accused of parroting Fox News talking points.
I guess it really isn’t news that a Clinton would tell self-serving lies to cover up misdeeds, and that Clinton Fanbois would eagerly swallow them whole like a chubby intern in a beret.
@WJS: Show me something equally as bad, ethics wise, as it relates to Hillary Clinton using an E-mail server that was under Secret Service protection.
You’re behind the curve. The server wasn’t in Chappaqua, it was at Platte River’s offices — a former apartment. More specifically, a converted bathroom.
And who cares about its physical security? It had virtually no online security. Hackers could attack it from halfway around the world — and now it looks like that’s exactly what happened.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
You’ve listed a lot of stuff there, unfortunately none of it is actually illegal. Not only that, but most of it really makes me wonder if you actually understand the issue well enough to discuss it. It doesn’t seem like you do.
Is there anyone here who doesn’t believe that if not for a stained blue dress the Clinton toadies here would be making the exact same arguments about Clinton and his War on a Women. Well, War on the Back of Their Throat. “Prove it” is our legal standard, but not our standard for an IQ above 80.
No need to answer, but as a public service, have some mouthwash, toadies……. The Clinton’s count on and traffic in your support.
Me? I’m listening to Mozart on a quite competent system, and it’s to die for.
Anjin-San. You owe it to yourself to go listen to the Audio Research G150. The full palette of sound…..
@David M: Several of her “no longer operative” statements were made under penalty of perjury.
The classified material was on a private, unsecured server.
Her aide, Cheryl Mills, was passing classified information to the Clinton Foundation.
That’s three illegal things right there.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
That’s the proof you aren’t informed enough to discuss the issue.
@Guarneri:
I hear he cheated on Constanza, and gambled, and drank. By the logic of this thread, that pretty conclusively demonstrates that he was a bad composer…
@DrDaveT:
😉
Yes, but did his server get hacked? And are you implying Hillary is more than a century past her useful date?
@David M:
Remember the Clinton rule-it’s only illegal if a Clinton does it.
Meanwhile, Jenos is doing the equivalent of the “Gish gallop.” He can’t cite anything illegal Clinton did , so he cites a bunch of stuff and then says, “See? There must be something illegal in there!”
Of course, if you look at each thing individually, you see it’s all BS. Hey, guess what, Jenos, I have three email addresses. My wife has three too. Six email addresses between two people! I guess that makes us a national security threat.
I have used today a computer, an iPad and iPhone. Wow!That makes me practically Richard Ames.
I have printed out numerous emails. That must make me a felon, I guess .
Meanwhile, Jenos, I notice you haven’t identified the law, regulation, guidance, or written policy that Hillary violated. I’m sure you’re about to do so, seeing that she told these “self serving lies” to cover up her “misdeeds”. You should be able to link pretty easily to the provision setting out these “misdeeds” she committed. I’ll wait.
@William Teach:
and in that circumstance what would you and other republicans be doing?
@Guarneri:
Well that doesn’t apply to you then.
If seems if the Clinton’s are as bad as the Republicans think…then the Republicans must be piss-poor investigators. Nixon was gone in the time the 6 dozen Benghazi investigations have been going on. Ditto Iran-Contra. And Scooter obscuring justice.
Fwck…Bush and Cheney admitted to war crimes and you clowns are fretting over emails.
So let’s review…Republicans actually do stupid illegal bad shit…but can’t manage to pin any of their fabricated nonsense on anyone else.
Bout sums this topic up.
Next.
@C. Clavin:
How clever.
And now, for something completely different….. Keef lives !!
://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XmPX6An4b70
@Guarneri:
SF Audiophile Society is going to be touring the Magico factory soon, but I did not sign up in time. Long wait list for that event…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Hey Jenos, you gave George Zimmermann a hummer that lasted 18 months. There’s a crime right there. Damn criminal. I’m sure I can cook up a few more crimes. If I say it on a blog, it must be true right? Ex post facto!
What, you gonna say I can’t cite any actual criminal code to support my claim? Is that really the excuse you wanna go with?
@anjin-san:
Do I have to do
this every time?
@anjin-san:
I have a soft spot for Magico. This is style diffs. Magico is simply the best of the analytical. If unlimited resources…..
System 1: Audio Research G 150 and friend preamp. Esoteric best (no clock, yet) for input. Guarneri Evo and REL Gibralter subs (2). All Kubala Sosna Emotion cables and speakers….still.
Too bad you don’t live near Chicago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XmPX6An4b70
There we go
@Hal_10000:
No, I am well aware that you tend to make claims without cites & then expect others to do the work of supporting your arguments.
And after I use the Googles I will know that the Clinton’s know people who have committed felonies. Well, so do I. Not really impressed.
Bottom LIne:
Yes, her actions were ethically questionable. They were in no way illegal.
That having been said, this issue mostly seems to resonate with people who were never going to vote for her to begin with, so – who cares?
It’s not remotely problematic enough for me to consider any of the other Democratic candidates (because I actually want to win and I understand why McGovern lost), and it’s certainly not even remotely enough to cause me to consider any of the Republican alternatives being offered up in this cycle. It, like so many of these Republican fishing expeditions, is a non-starter. It convinces the already convinced, and nobody else.
In that vein, let the House Republicans have more rope. Feed them as much of it as they want. They’ll hang themselves (again) with it.
@Hal_10000:
Thanks for linking to your source. I note that you did an excellent job of paraphrasing the second third of the lead sentence in the section of the Whitewater Wikipedia article that outlined the number of convictions:
Now for the first third of that sentence:
That’s kind of an important phrase, since the entire point of the Whitewater investigation (and this post) concerned the culpability of the Clintons. In effect , after a long and exhaustive investigation, a bunch of people involved in the Whitewater deal were convicted of something or other, but not the Clintons. Why it’s almost if there was no evidence that the Clintons did anything wrong!
Oh yeah, there was evidence that William Jefferson Clinton did something wrong in a matter related to the investigation -he lied about a blow job. But William Jefferson Clinton is not Hillary Rodham Clinton, so the proper conclusion should be that Whitewater investigation in effect cleared Hillary Rodham Clinton of any wrongdoing, unless you believe in guilt by association. Now I didn’t figure you as a Joe McCarthy fan, but I guess I learned something today.
@Hal_10000: “Considering that she hasn’t been President yet, I’d hold off on the plaudits for Clinton. That goes double when you consider that, as SecDef, she urged an illegal war in Libya that killed four Americans and plunged the country into chaos and is currently advocating a Syria policy that could end with us in shooting war with Russia.”
Your Freudian projection is showing. It’s pretty obvious that Benghazi!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a way for the GOP to draw attention away from the Iraq debacle.
@Jenos Idanian: Except of course, a Congressional committee had all the power in the world to subpoena her records and has done so, leaking out stuff they hope embarrasses her. Further, it was never a secret or hidden. Every unclassified E-mail that she sent out as Secretary of State had the address of “hr*@cl*********.com,” which tells you right there this is not coming from a “state.gov.”
it does reveal that a succession of Secretary of States (Albright, Powell, Rice, and then Clinton) and their respective Undersecretaries for Administration, did not put much time or thought into how IT and records management worked at the State Department as the IT revolution unfolded from 1995 to 2012.
@anjin-san: So, annie, why do you own your guns? Whats your compelling reason for possessing these compensations for phallic insecurity?
I was just bemoaning how I could never post a comment showing all the stuff I detailed above without triggering the Moderation Monster and getting my comment withheld. But then I stumbled across this piece by Guy Benson at Hot Air that does a pretty good job documenting Hillary’s string of lies on this whole sorry mess.
But back to the main point: in that Democratic “debate,” Hillary declared that she was proudest of having “Republicans” as enemies. That perfectly confirmed what I’ve said all along: Hillary was far more worried about Republicans getting access to her documents than actual foreign enemies, so protecting herself from them was her top priority. So she set up a system that would (she hoped) keep it all under her control and away from Congressional oversight, but would be far more vulnerable to foreign elements (intelligence agencies and rogue hackers).
But I will emphasize one point: there was classified material in those e-mails, including the name of one of our agents in Libya (I think it was the Arabic equivalent of “Valerie Plame.” Her dodge that some of it wasn’t “marked classified” or “not classified at the time” are irrelevant — it was part of her job to recognize classified materials without having to be told, and to know that a lot of the stuff she generated was, by its very nature and from the moment of creation, classified. For her to claim that it had to be marked “classified” for her to realize it was classified is an admission that she had no fwcking clue how to do her job.
And I don’t see Hillary’s using the ignorance defense as a real reputation-enhancer.
@Jenos Idanian: This not meant for you you, Jenos, but just anyone else who is futilely following these comments. (I’ve gotta be more disciplined about removing myself from email subscriptions once it devolves into an insult fest) Two things wrong with what Jenos said above.
1) She didn’t create the emails in question, she received them
2) If the emails actually contained classified information then the sender would be in trouble even if it had gone to state.gov email address. Classified info is not supposed to go through email because it is inherently non-secure.
I’m not going to bother looking into the “Hillary outed Valerie Plame” allegation above, other than to note that my strong recollection was that the two (four?) emails that Clinton received that contained information that was later classified had their facts from the press, not from inside sources. At least one of the emails was quoting a news article. The absurdity of classifying an email about a publicly available news story speaks to our ridiculous classification policies and not to Clinton’s lack of foresight.
@MarkedMan: The distinction between “sent” and “received” would matter IF Hillary was using a State Department e-mail server. But she owned the server in question, and used it for her official correspondence. Since she is required to receive classified information, it was her choice to have the classified information sent to an insecure, private server.
When you let “Hillary the recipient” off the hook, you put “Hillary the server owner” quite firmly on the hook. When she chose to control the e-mail server herself, instead of using the State Department ones (with corresponding legal protection and security resources), she took on the responsibility for making damned sure it was secure AND complied with laws regarding classified material. And she didn’t.
@MarkedMan: Oh, and that identity of our Libyan agent? That was sent to her by long-time Clinton lackey Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal, as I’ve noted a few times, was 1) on the payroll of the Clinton Foundation; 2) user of a clintonemail.com address, and 3) lobbying Hillary on behalf of businesses interested in having Khadafi overthrown. He mentioned that agent’s name as part of those lobbying efforts.
So even if we let Hillary off for Blumenthal’s divulging that agent’s identity, he was still her employee and sent it to her on that server. So she’s still on the hook.
And this was NOT included in the “official business” e-mails Hillary turned over in complying with the subpoena, saying that she had given over everything under penalty of perjury. We only know about this e-mail because Blumenthal’s e-mail was hacked.
Sorry I didn’t include that in the first comment; I was typing quickly and I didn’t fully make the Blumenthal connection until after I hit “post.”
@Jenos Idanian:
Please detail the “legal protection and security resources” you are referring to . Be specific.
@anjin-san: Please discuss your reasons for owning guns. Be specific.
@anjin-san: Besides, are you so stupid that you are unaware that there are laws and regulations setting security standards for government-controlled servers, AND that the legal penalties for hacking government-controlled servers are far more severe than for private ones? AND that the federal government has legions of IT specialists who have security clearances? Are you that stupid?
No, you’re not stupid. You’re just willfully, voluntarily, eagerly ignorant when it’s politically expedient.
@Jenos Idanian:
And you don’t seem to have any idea what the laws and regulations are – you are just certain that Hillary is a criminal. Don’t the Daily Caller and Breibart say so pretty much 24/7?
You are prattling about server security, something you clearly know nothing about.
I have a bit a experience with server administration. It’s a world that is full of specifics and details. It’s very literal.
It’s simple – all you have to do is give us “Hillary Clinton broke ______________ < insert law (with supporting code cites) here. Here is some credible evidence ______________ (not an opinion, not something some guy said on some blog. Credible evidence).
Failing that, you are just running your mouth.
@anjin-san: When you’re administering those servers, are you packing?
And that comment wasn’t for you, it was for everyone else. I can’t educate you — for one, you refuse to listen. For another, you already know this stuff; you just demand that I spell out every single detail in stultifying precision to bog down and derail the conversation.
You’ve repeatedly declared that you have no interest in engaging in discussions with me. This is how you choose to not do so — by trying to frustrate me and make me waste my time and energy. Not playing that game any more.
And why do you own your guns, anyway? In your own words, “be specific.”
@MarkedMan:
What you said.
As to the “Valerie Plame” allegation:
So, less here that meets the eye, according to a classified information expert. Let’s review. The source of the information-The FBI’s natural target-is dead. Blumenthal, who wasn’t even part of the government classification system, gave the information to Hillary. And the FBI isn’t investigating Clinton for a criminal violation. Finally, the same kind of investigation would have been done whether the message had been sent to a .gov account, because the law makes no distinction whether the possibly classified information was sent to a .gov address or to a privately held server.
What’s interesting here too is that, oddly enough, Gowdy doesn’t seem to have released these emails, so maybe they are not as damning in real life.
I’ll just leave this here:
@Jenos Idanian:
No, you can’t. You don’t have any knowledge to pass on. You have a patina of information you’ve gleaned from the internet. The moment you speak, it becomes clear that you don’t even understand that.
The specifics relating to State Department email servers? Nope. I just have a basic understanding of server administration and some, but not a lot, of hands on experience. I can function successfully in an IT environment and I can ramp up on topics like this and actually know WFT I am talking about.
And harping about me and guns? Not clever, not amusing. Not even annoying. Like so many of your little games, it’s just kind of sad. Work on your self-awareness.
@anjin-san: So why won’t you answer the question? It’s been on the table for some time. This is the first time you’ve even acknowledged the question.
You won’t answer it.
You won’t refuse to answer it.
You only just now even acknowledged it. And by calling it “harping,” you’re acknowledging that you’ve seen the question numerous times.
With most people, if they ignore my question, I’ll take the hint. It’s the courteous thing. But with you and your history, 1) you haven’t earned the courtesy, and 2) you’ve made a huge point about just what you say and don’t say, so I won’t make any assumptions.
You wanna answer the question? You wanna refuse to answer the question?
Or you gonna go back to ignoring it?
@anjin-san:
Clearly, a bridge too far…
@Jenos Idanian:
Unless you link to a credible news source for the allegations about the classified material, we have to assume you just made it up. Everyone but you is able to understand why the distinction between sent and received matters, so it does seem like you still need to read up on the issue.
@anjin-san: So… no answer. Big surprise.
I will continue to ask you why you own guns.
@Jenos Idanian:
You are here to troll, so announcing that you’re going to continue doing exactly that isn’t really news.
@David M: It was classified information, sent by her employee (through the Clinton Foundation), to her private e-mail address on her private server. It was covered under Congressional subpoena, which demanded all her work-related correspondence. She did not turn it over; we only know about its existence because a hacker got into Blumenthal’s e-mail and published it. She said that she had turned over all her work-related e-mails under penalty of perjury, and did not do so.
I’ll leave it to the legal eagles to cite the chapter and verse, but to this layman I see several aspects worthy of investigation.
But then I don’t have my head so far up the Clintons’ rumps that I blindly believed each version of her story as it continually evolved, and have pretended that the earlier lies never happened…
Jenos Idanian cares deeply about this issue for whatever that’s worth. (That’s about a plugged penny, I reckon.)
@Jenos Idanian:
Google.com.
@Jenos Idanian:
The irony of that statement made my morning. Thankfully I didn’t have coffee in hand.
@Jenos Idanian:
All of this was answered in my post a few posts above. You may choose to ignore it if you like, the readers will appreciate the post even if you don’t. I guess your admitted lack of legal knowledge is your excuse for why you haven’t bothered to respond to the several requests for the law Clinton supposedly violated. Just to clarify, Clinton violated no law by using a private server.
@Hal_10000: Have you actually read the damn link?
Her emails are important, according to the interview, because
1. She is image conscious.
2. She gets advice from her confidants.
Is this a joke?
Who’s claiming Clinton’s email server was hacked?
@Jenos Idanian:
You said a lot of stupid stuff on this thread, but this takes the cake. State department email servers are connected to the internet. Therefore, they are not, repeat not, supposed to contain any classified information, and Hillary having set up a private email server matters not one iota in regards to what people were allowed to send her by e-mail.
Here is a question: you do know that the vast majority of communications in the state department occur via telegrams sent through encrypted system, not by e-mail, right?
Notice that this doesn’t exculpate her, at all, in case an actual classified information (classified at the time, not retroactively) was sent to her and she didn’t identify it and alerted security. It just indicates you are not at all interested in the issue at hand- just in flinging poop at the wall.
@Matt: I don’t think anyone is, but it is known that the server’s TCP ports for RDP and VNC were open to the Internet, which is basically saying “HELLO HERE I AM COME INSIDE AND HAVE A LOOK AROUND” in 50-foot tall blinking letters.
Well, at least President Obama is sticking to his “I don’t comment on matters under investigation” policy, and not saying anything about the case which might color how his subordinates handle the matter…
Oh, that’s right, here he’s made an exception for this case.
And here’s a report that details the actual laws involved.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
When that probe actually amounts to something other than leaks the GOP press shop, then it will be newsworthy.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Clinton was an OCA. See if you can get any of your internet lawyers to explain to you what that means, and what implications it carries for lack of criminality under 18 USC 793.
Sidenote: why do you keep embarrassing yourself like this? You’re clearly out of your depth, so why keep charging at the windmill?
@ Doug,
It is clear that, contrary to what Bernie Sanders says, Jenos really does care about the Clinton email story.
Really.
@HarvardLaw92: Don’t need an internet lawyer to answer that. The power to classify is NOT the same as the power to de-classify, and the relevant section of that citation appears to be Section F.
I’ll admit I cheated. I skimmed the law, and the phrase “gross negligence” jumped out at me as a perfect description of Hillary’s tenure. Then, when I read it further, it fit even more.
The most amazing thing about this is that it managed to avoid any involvement of Sandy Berger’s pants.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
BUZZZ – nope. Try again, Agnes. You may dial a friend if you need to.
The news reports today indicate the Gowdy released fabricated evidence / transcripts to make Clinton look bad. Why anyone would still listen to the GOP on this issue is beyond me.
@David M:
Heh, looks like Jenos is going to need a new right wing talking point.
Gowdy is now reduced to running around trying to muzzle Republicans who are telling the truth about about his “investigation”…
Please enlighten me how unmarked TS/SCI/TK became resident on Clinton’s server. The only way I can see is if someone stripped the markings before sending it to Clinton, or Clinton herself stripped the markings, in the mistaken view that she had the right as an OCA. TK info is permanently classified. Even if Clinton simply read those two messages and left them on the server, she has violated the rules for handling SCI/TK info, because she would know by the contents it was TK yet left unmarked as such. That they were subsequently reclassified demonstrates that they could be recognized as SCI/TK. The only out I can see for Clinton is if the messages themselves were not actually SCI/TK, which may or may not be true.
@mannning:
You might need to link to a news story with a little more detail to get an answer.
But the news of the day is that Gowdy has now publicly released the name of the contact he accused Clinton of not being careful enough with. The GOP incompetence continues.
@mannning:
TK is a control system, not a level of classification. Please enlighten us (i.e. supply proof) that SCI level material compartmentalized under TK was indeed found on her email server.
@HarvardLaw92<
I held SCI/TK for over 30 years, I know what its classification is, and for your information TK is a code word for the program, just in case you didn't know. SCI intel is held at a very high level, requiring SCIFs to handle it, and safes to hold it. None of which Clinton exercised, apparently. The source for the reclassification was through the IG/CIA and representatives from the TK program, I was given to understand. This program has a dual problem of classification since the real data not only represents intel content, but also reveals sources and methods of collection by its very nature. It seems highly possible that others were involved in stripping the markings originally applied by the CIA, since the messages were sent from the
State Dept. to Clinton, and she, Clinton, did not have the authority as an OCA to remove the markings.
@HarvardLaw92:
As you well know, there is no way I would supply that proof on this website. You need to query the IG/CIA for that. Just for kicks, I held TS/SCI/TK for over 30 years and it always required a SCIF and a safe to hold it. Mrs. Clinton had neither for her server.
(This situation allowed me to reminisce about lunching with Gary Powers in the CIA cafeteria after his return.)
@mannning:
That’s kind of the point with email, the HRC server or alternately a user with the so***********@st***.gov email.
The rules didn’t differentiate between the two systems, as they are both insecure. AFAIK, the onus is on the one sending that information initially, it’s only a problem for Clinton if she knowingly forwarded it on.
It is quite apparent that Clinton had read the SCI/TK messages, and should have taken proper action, but didn’t, so the messages sat on her server unmarked. She knew the TK rules, so she violated them willfully.
@mannning:
Keep in mind at least one of those emails started as a forwarded news report about a drone strike, something that was apparently both public knowledge and yet classified elsewhere. So you’re pretty far off base on what the issue is.
@mannning:
So, in other words, you’re making assertions about facts supposedly in evidence which you either can’t or won’t substantiate.
Noted …
Of course I can’t go into the matter in detail, because of security, but the facts as I know them are enough to garner Clinton an indictment. The FBI will either ask that she be indicted or find a way to clear her. They have perhaps the whole story, or most of it anyway, so I am content to let them do the dirty work, and I need not compromise sources. I know what my fate would have been had I pulled the same stunt she did. And as for your rant, tough!
What amazes me is the number of seeming intelligent people that are hard at work to excuse her acts, when in the end there will be no excuse, simply cover up, if that. Our President most likely stands to cover the whole matter up, when lesser people would feel the full wrath of the law.
@mannning:
8th rule of disinformation:
What amazes me is that you seemingly just expect this crowd to believe this spiel sight unseen. As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen until proven otherwise.
@HarvardLaw92:
LOL! Such is the nature of the world of high security and the outer world of public information. Crossover exchanges between these two worlds are not permitted except by relevant authorities. Obviously I am not a relevant authority. You are acting as an apologist for Clinton, but without the necessary knowledge to be effective, or even to know the truth! So you will have to wait for whatever the FBI releases. Legal posturing here will not help your cause one whit, because the issue is in the hands of the FBI.
@David M:
The problem with this line of attack is that regardless of the content of the messages about the drone strike, the relevant message on Clinton’s server was SCI/TK, which means it cannot be revealed by definition of TK rules because of disclosure of sources and methods. Barring political intervention, which I expect to happen, I see Clinton as capable of being indicted for mishandling of TS information if not more.
One other line that must be considered is was the server or servers hacked, and if so did that harm the US in some important way. Such an analysis could take a long time to conclude, and might well be hard to prove. This may be a key part of the ongoing FBI investigation. We, the public, may never know the full truth of this, because it could cross even more compartmented areas and levels of classification. This raises the probability of political intervention.
@mannning:
No, I’m just subtly saying “you’re full of shit” 😀
I will simply say that you are relying on your lawyer-ship far too much, as Harvarders are wont to do, which makes you one of those characters that are caught up with your own sense of importance, and the desire to make every post a court argument whether it is appropriate or not. In this case, as I have written more than once, there is a strict limit to what can be said in this medium, which you obviously do not want to accept because it would give you nothing to argue about. So, wait for the FBI to divulge their findings; I cannot legally delve further, and actually wish I could just to put you in grief mode, Clinton should be indicted…
@mannning:
Nah, I just like cross-examining fools, which I’m pretty good at. Let me be a little less succinct:
1) You ostensibly held at one time long ago, but no longer hold now, a security clearance.
2) You alluded to lunching with Powers which, if it’s indeed true, makes you, what, 75? 80?
So, what in that set of assertions should give me a reason to believe that you’re in the know about a current FBI investigation, and just can’t tell us your super secret squirrel knowledge?
I’m willing to bet the narrative goes a bit more like “I hate Clinton, and this set of events hasn’t worked out like I wanted for it to, so I’m going to try to annoy the people on OTB I think like Clinton in some passive aggressive attempt at salving my butthurt”.
You’ll forgive me if I’m underwhelmed …
@HarvardLaw92:
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that all Manning has is the Gowdy leak that appears to have been improperly redacted to make it appear that information with that classification was sent to Clinton and remained on her server. Shockingly enough it seems Gowdy redacted the name of an operative that was cleared for release by the CIA to make it appear that information freely available in the news was endangering intelligence sources.
This article from Newsweek about Benghazi! appears to be a good closing to this thread.
@HarvardLaw92:
I have no idea what my lunch has to do with anything but the pleasant recall of the time I first acquired SCI/TK clearance and had something of a celebrity to lunch with at the same time. The only reason to point that out is that having lived with that clearance for more than 30 years, I know very well indeed what it entails in terms of SCIFs and safes, and that has not changed.
Your pride in your lawyer-ship is not particularly impressive; it simply proves that you can read, though not to any good end, apparently.
Perhaps you simply don’t get it that to nail Clinton down properly and indict her would take access to highly classified information to which I am not currently entitled, but which both the CIA and the FBI do have access to. However, on the basis of the IGs openly published statements that SCI/TK info was found unmarked on Clintons server (and subsequently reclassified properly) is enough for me to condemn her.
This fact has been reported in some detail elsewhere. I am very surprised that you have not seen this earlier, so why don’t you go looking? You might learn something about this issue you really do not want to hear. Let me know if, after you have made a careful search (you do know how to search the net?), you can’t find the reportage and I will oblige you.
@mannning:
Well let me help you then:
It’s frankly ludicrous for you to suggest that a retiree in his late 70s to early 80s (which is how old you’d be – at a minimum – if you were lunching at the CIA with Powers) with an expired security clearance knows anything about this scenario that he didn’t read about in the newspaper.
I get the attempt to appeal to authority – it excuses you from having to substantiate anything you say, and that’s the refuge of every concern troll. The problem is that, as a retired former spook geezer, you don’t have that authority any longer (assuming you ever did to begin with.)
The emperor has no clothes.
Ah! You can read! Nah! You didn’t get it again, it was the web, not the newspaper where the information about the IG findings were published. So you haven’t even attempted to look it up, either! Dear me, you try to negate my statements, but you don’t use the web to find out if I was correct. I will give you a little help. Google: Clinton, TS/SCI/TK/NOFORN IG. That was one list of sources.
Why is it you twist what I told you all along: I no longer have direct access in the community? I suggest you turn to smearing when you cannot defend against the facts, yet you so dearly want to burnish you image in this backwater blog. This makes you a fool-first class, since you didn’t inform yourself of the facts I stated, and you resort to your usual smear tactics, hoping I will fade away. No, Clinton is guilty as charged, and it will be the FBI that gets to the truth in loving and formal detail. What happens then will be a political cover-up, no doubt.
@mannning:
Thank you for admitting that everything you know about this scenario came from the Internet and you have no special insight or access into the proceedings, despite your “well, I could tells ya but then I’d hafta kills ya” performance.
That’s all I was after, and as usual, I obtained it. Thanks !
And I got what I was after, the idiotic posturing of a sort of lawyer who was not willing to admit the truth! Every word I said was the truth. Now you know that. In fact, you should have known that all along, but you evidently didn’t! Your bad! And your silly attempt to recover some moxie from this is rather pathetic.
@mannning:
Shame you can’t substantiate that – oh well …
You should know better than to try to get a rise out of me. I’m like the earth, old man. I don’t get upset – I upset others. Anyhoo, this one is dead. File it away.
(Manning comes back with some “I have to have the last word” impotent retort in 5 … 4 … 3 … 😀 )