Clinton's email excuses are falling apart

[Flagg]

MSNBC

Powell, Rice received sensitive info through private emails
02/04/16 02:15 PM—UPDATED 02/04/16 02:22 PM

By Steve Benen

When the political world’s interest in Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails was near its peak, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza defended the media’s fascination with the story. “Democrats, ask yourself this,” Cillizza wrote in August. “If this was a former [Republican Secretary of State] and his/her private e-mail server, would it be a ‘non-story’?”

As a rule, I continue to believe that’s a smart way for political observers to look at every story. If the situations were reversed, how would you react to a controversy? If the accusations targeted someone you detest, as opposed to someone you like, would see the story as legitimate?

The problem in this case, however, is that Cillizza’s question wasn’t really a hypothetical. We learned nearly a year ago from a Politico article that former Secretary of State Colin Powell “also used a personal email account” during his State Department tenure. Several months later, MSNBC found that Powell conducted official business from his personal email account managed through his personal laptop.

“But wait,” Clinton’s critics in the media and Republican circles protest, “what about emails that were later deemed to include sensitive information?” NBC News reports today that both of the Bush/Cheney-era Secretaries of State fall into the same category.
State Department officials have determined that classified information was sent to the personal email accounts of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the senior staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NBC News has learned. […]

In a letter to Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy dated Feb. 3, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick said that the State Department has determined that 12 emails examined from State’s archives contained national security information now classified “Secret” or “Confidential.” The letter was read to NBC News.

According to the report, of those 12 emails, two were sent to Powell’s personal account, while the other 10 were sent to personal accounts senior aides of Condoleezza Rice’s senior aides.

None of this is to suggest Powell or Rice’s office is guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, Powell told NBC News the messages in question include information that’s “fairly minor.”

There’s no reason whatsoever to believe otherwise.

The political salience of news like this, however, is that Clinton’s critics would like voters to believe she’s at the center of some damaging “scandal” because of her approach to email management. These new details suggest Clinton’s practices were fairly common, and unless Republicans and the media are prepared to start condemning Powell and Rice with equal vigor – an unlikely scenario – it’s starting to look like this entire line of attack lacks merit.

Or as the NBC News report put it, the new findings “show that past secretaries of state and senior officials used personal accounts to conduct government business and occasionally allowed secrets to spill into the insecure traffic.”

As for Chris Cillizza’s question – if were talking about a former Republican Secretary of State, would it be a “non-story” – it would appear the answer is, “Yep.”

Postscript: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement this morning, “Based on this new revelation, it is clear that the Republican investigations [into Clinton’s emails] are nothing more than a transparent political attempt to use taxpayer funds to target the Democratic candidate for president.”

So Republicans are wasting millions in taxpayer dollars to persecute a Clinton for purely political reasons? The 90's are calling. They want their Repukelican Modus Operandi back.

[Mr Bean]

So you defense of Clinton is that an administration famous for breaking the law and getting away with it because President Obama refused to prosecute anything and the 2006 Democratic Congress refused to act and said... okay well the guys famous for breaking the law did it, so it's okay for Secretary Clinton did the same thing.

[jwl]

This obviously isn't actually going to happen but I think it would kind of be funny if hillary and cruz win the nomination but they are both subsequently deemed ineligible because of emails and being Canadian respectively.

[Ralin]

So you defense of Clinton is that an administration famous for breaking the law and getting away with it because President Obama refused to prosecute anything and the 2006 Democratic Congress refused to act and said... okay well the guys famous for breaking the law did it, so it's okay for Secretary Clinton did the same thing.

No, the defense is that it's common for people at that level to break the on paper rules about email security and face no punishment because it's pretty fucking minor and people like the Secretary of State aren't held to the same procedures as low level peons. And also the fact that Hillary is being singled out for something apparently commonly done by people of similar rank without consequence shows how the whole matter is politicized bullshit aimed at her because she's Hillary Clinton and a Democratic presidential candidate.

[Patroklos]

You noticed of course the IG was able to do that because the emails for Powell and Rice were part of the public record, right? Or in other words, it only resembles PART of Clinton's fiasco and to a far smaller degree (12 over eight years) for that part as well.

Its still a problem, but it is not the same problem or as large of one. Its also eight years ago. If you want to look at a contemporary example of how we treat classified leaks that are far less serious Petreaus is far more relevant. Hillary is no Manning or Snowden, but she falls somewhere between them and the General.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure how publicly publishing the emails that contain sensitive or classified information makes things less bad than the act of sending said emails in the first place without publishing them.

Also, we have literally no information on which sensitive or classified information was in Powell versus Clinton's emails, since we have no idea what was in Clinton's. Hard to judge the degree or severity. For that matter, I'm not sure we can say that the twelve emails in question were all Powell sent.

[Gaidin]

So you defense of Clinton is that an administration famous for breaking the law and getting away with it because President Obama refused to prosecute anything and the 2006 Democratic Congress refused to act and said... okay well the guys famous for breaking the law did it, so it's okay for Secretary Clinton did the same thing.

For me, I'd have less problem if Congress would just let the FBI do their damn jobs. If people like Jason Chaffetz would shut up and let them do their job maybe investigations would happen. I know the Science committee has demurred, whatever their desire happens to be.

[Patroklos]

I'm not sure how publicly publishing the emails that contain sensitive or classified information makes things less bad than the act of sending said emails in the first place without publishing them.

Also, we have literally no information on which sensitive or classified information was in Powell versus Clinton's emails, since we have no idea what was in Clinton's. Hard to judge the degree or severity. For that matter, I'm not sure we can say that the twelve emails in question were all Powell sent.

The point is that the IG had the emails in question, we only have Clinton's because someone blew the whistle on her.

[Gaidin]

The point is that the IG had the emails in question, we only have Clinton's because someone blew the whistle on her.

Well. By the definition of Bean's laws you have to answer the definitions of Beans's law's. Who's the actual source of the emails. Remember, having the actual server wasn't actually illegal at the time. FBI has seen fit to not release this.

[Flagg]

So you defense of Clinton is that an administration famous for breaking the law and getting away with it because President Obama refused to prosecute anything and the 2006 Democratic Congress refused to act and said... okay well the guys famous for breaking the law did it, so it's okay for Secretary Clinton did the same thing.

No, the defense is that it's common for people at that level to break the on paper rules about email security and face no punishment because it's pretty fucking minor and people like the Secretary of State aren't held to the same procedures as low level peons. And also the fact that Hillary is being singled out for something apparently commonly done by people of similar rank without consequence shows how the whole matter is politicized bullshit aimed at her because she's Hillary Clinton and a Democratic presidential candidate.

And Bingo was his name-o.

[Tanasinn]

The HillShills gotta be getting desperate if they're hauling out the B-B-B-BUT G-GEORGE B-BUSH excuse.

Persons upthread have already elaborated why the events aren't exactly comparable, and of course 'but Timmy did it first' isn't exactly something that magically absolves you of responsibility.

[Flagg]

The HillShills gotta be getting desperate if they're hauling out the B-B-B-BUT G-GEORGE B-BUSH excuse.

Persons upthread have already elaborated why the events aren't exactly comparable, and of course 'but Timmy did it first' isn't exactly something that magically absolves you of responsibility.

I despise Hillary Clinton, but it doesn't change the fact that this is just another Republican Clinton Witch-Hunt based on shit no one gave two shits about when Republicans did the same fucking thing. When the dipshits going after Hillary haul Condy and Colin into a hearing I might give half a shit. Until then, this is just more Republican fart-noise that no one but the knuckle-draggers who would never vote for any Democrat anyway cares about.

[Ralin]

The HillShills gotta be getting desperate if they're hauling out the B-B-B-BUT G-GEORGE B-BUSH excuse.

Persons upthread have already elaborated why the events aren't exactly comparable, and of course 'but Timmy did it first' isn't exactly something that magically absolves you of responsibility.

I despise Hillary Clinton, but it doesn't change the fact that this is just another Republican Clinton Witch-Hunt based on shit no one gave two shits about when Republicans did the same fucking thing. When the dipshits going after Hillary haul Condy and Colin into a hearing I might give half a shit. Until then, this is just more Republican fart-noise that no one but the knuckle-draggers who would never vote for any Democrat anyway cares about.

If it was just a few cases like that it would be one thing, but everything I'm hearing says it's pretty common for high-ranking military people to violate these same regulations without anyone blinking. The fact that high ranking Republicans also did it just drives the point home.

[Dominus Atheos]

For context, here are 3 things that the us government likes to declare CLASSIFIED SECRET:

https://exposefacts.org/government-trie ... ry-phones/

On cross, however, the defense explained a bit about what these documents were. Edward MacMahon made it clear the date on the documents was February 1987 — a point which Lutz apparently missed. MacMahon then revealed that the documents explained how to use rotary phones when a CIA officer is out of the office. I believe the prosecution objected — so jurors can’t use MacMahon’s description in their consideration of how badly these documents implicate Sterling — but perhaps the improper description will help cue the jurors’ own understanding about what the documents they had glimpsed were really about, making it clear to them they’re being asked to convict a man because he possessed documents about using a rotary phone that the CIA retroactively decided were SECRET.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/29/10873106/h ... top-secret

As an example of how silly this can get, State Department employees are banned from reading WikiLeaks cables or articles that quote them, as the cables include classified information. So the people responsible for guiding American foreign policy are barred from reading foreign policy coverage that you and I may access freely. Virtually no one in the State Department likes this policy, by the way, but it is a product of the government's larger, and largely broken, system of assigning and dealing with classifications.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/0 ... egion=Body

Anyway, given the area I covered, I received a lot of classified reports from the CIA, the State Department, etc.. They had all sorts of warnings in capital letters on their covers: SECRET NOFORN NOCONTRACT PROPIN ORCON, I think, was the standard litany. And there was a security person who came through our offices at night, scooped up any classified documents we left out, put them in a safe, and issued citations. Between the number of classified documents I received and my continuing true identity as an absent-minded professor, I got a lot of citations — second only to Marty.

But the reason I kept forgetting to lock the things up was that none of them — literally not one, during a whole year — contained anything actually sensitive. There was nothing in any of them you couldn’t have read in newspapers, or figured out for yourself given public information.

I was privy to a few bits of sensitive information, I guess — for example, I knew that Brazil was out of money a few days before it was public — but none of it was in classified documents. (And the larger secret I learned from my year — that the quality of discussion in cabinet-level meetings is lower than you can imagine — isn’t the kind of thing people put in classified documents.)

That is the most likely reason Clinton wants these emails released, they don't contain any information more sensitive then how to dial a rotary phone...

[jwl]

Why doesn't one of Hillary's friends in the Senate just read the emails out using the US equivalent of Parlimentary privilege?

[Mr Bean]

Why doesn't one of Hillary's friends in the Senate just read the emails out using the US equivalent of Parlimentary privilege?

Because there is no US equivalent of Parliamentary privilege. At least not for classified material.

[Gaidin]

Why doesn't one of Hillary's friends in the Senate just read the emails out using the US equivalent of Parlimentary privilege?

Because there is no US equivalent of Parliamentary privilege. At least not for classified material.

Did they change that since the Pentagon Papers were put into the Congressional Record?

[Mr Bean]

Why doesn't one of Hillary's friends in the Senate just read the emails out using the US equivalent of Parlimentary privilege?

Because there is no US equivalent of Parliamentary privilege. At least not for classified material.

Did they change that since the Pentagon Papers were put into the Congressional Record?

They were released to the public first and Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. Further Senator Gravel who put it into the Congressional record Nixon intended to bring him up on similar charges, but Gravel prempted him to get the Supreme Court to uphold Article 1 Section 6 of the Constitution as Parliamentary privilege. Here's the thing the Supreme Court refused (They did not rule they refused his petition to allow him to talk about the Pentagon papers) at which point Nixon was free to start charging everyone with violating the Espionage act but he decided to sweep it under the rug at that point because well... it was to much in the news.

[Gaidin]

The supreme court never touched the senator. They refused to protect his aide. Investigation was still ironically politely dropped. I'm assuming Clinton is at least smart enough to thread this loophole.

[Lonestar]

I despise Hillary Clinton, but it doesn't change the fact that this is just another Republican Clinton Witch-Hunt based on shit no one gave two shits about when Republicans did the same fucking thing.

Guess again dickwad.

Like I said, it burns my ass when people like you do the "oh ho it's a witch hunt! No biggie!" when I would lose my job and face fines/jail time.

I mean, I know that you don't care because you're too busy doing your circlejerk thing, but it's something that actually matters to people who work in that sort of environment.

[Flagg]

I despise Hillary Clinton, but it doesn't change the fact that this is just another Republican Clinton Witch-Hunt based on shit no one gave two shits about when Republicans did the same fucking thing.

Guess again dickwad.

Like I said, it burns my ass when people like you do the "oh ho it's a witch hunt! No biggie!" when I would lose my job and face fines/jail time.

I mean, I know that you don't care because you're too busy doing your circlejerk thing, but it's something that actually matters to people who work in that sort of environment.

Too bad you can't get jail time or fines for blatant strawmen.

Then why have they not hauled Conaleeza Rice and Colin Powell in the hearings when they did the same fucking thing, you imbecile? Oh right, because it's another Clinton witch-hunt.

And the fact that you would face fines or jail time while cabinet members don't is a valid issue. Maybe you should write your congress members and demand that they hold all officials to the standards you are, no matter thier last name or party affiliation.

[TimothyC]

Then why have they not hauled Conaleeza Rice and Colin Powell in the hearings when they did the same fucking thing, you imbecile? Oh right, because it's another Clinton witch-hunt.

Because right now it looks like the emails that Powell received were classified after the fact - almost as if they were classified to give Clinton political cover.

But, as I've noted before "One rule for me, another for thee."

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to his successor, Condoleezza Rice, both received classified information a handful of times via personal email accounts, the top Democrat on a congressional oversight panel said on Thursday.

The findings come after nearly a year of controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's decision to set up a private email server for her work as secretary of state. Democratic lawmakers and staff on Clinton's presidential campaign seized on the report as vindicating some of their defenses of the controversial arrangement.

Representative Elijah Cummings said the disclosures about Powell's and Rice's aides' emails were made by the State Department's inspector general, who is reviewing the email practices of the last five secretaries of state.

That office told the State Department on Wednesday that it found 12 emails containing classified information sent to Rice's aides or Powell, according to Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee.

In a statement, Powell said the two emails he received were not judged to contain confidential information at the time they were sent to him by American ambassadors.

"I wish they would release them," Powell told NBC News, "so that a normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, 'What's the issue?'"

A representative for Rice, who, as with Powell, served under Republican President George W. Bush, said the 10 emails sent to her aides did not contain intelligence information.

More than 1,500 of Clinton's emails, which are being made public on a federal judge's order, have been found to include classified information so far, according to the State Department.

Clinton both sent and received information the State Department now deems to be classified, including the privately shared thoughts of foreign leaders, as well as highly classified U.S. intelligence agency secrets.

It became public last March that Clinton set up a private email server in her New York home for her work as President Barack Obama's secretary of state between 2009 and 2013. Accusations that she exposed government secrets to hackers and tried to side-step record keeping laws have since dogged her campaign, and the arrangement is being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Clinton's campaign staff suggested the findings announced on Thursday helped vindicate her claim that she did nothing wrong or unusual and repeated their accusation that the State Department is overclassifying her emails, an idea the department has dismissed.

"Hillary Clinton agrees with her predecessor that his emails, like hers, are being inappropriately subjected to over-classification," John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, said in a statement, calling for their unredacted release.

J. William Leonard, who oversaw the government's classification regime as the Information Security Oversight Office director until 2008, said so-called "spillage" of classified information into unsecured email systems was common.

"That's why from the get-go it was exceedingly poor judgment to set up a private email account because of this very real fact," Leonard said in an interview, referring to Clinton's arrangement.

The government forbids sending classified information via email, but the .gov email system, which Clinton circumvented, is monitored and protected on the assumption that classified information spills into it.

Powell has said the State Department was technologically backward when he joined in 2001 and that he had to fight to get an Internet-connected computer installed in his office, from which he continued to use his personal email account.

Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of staff at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said Rice did not use email while at the State Department, and that the 10 emails to her staff were reports on "diplomatic conversations."

Government regulations require that information shared in confidence by foreign government officials should be treated as classified.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay and Tom Brown)

22 emails over eight years, potentially classified after the fact vs 1500 emails over four years.

Yep. Same thing.

[Flagg]

Then why have they not hauled Conaleeza Rice and Colin Powell in the hearings when they did the same fucking thing, you imbecile? Oh right, because it's another Clinton witch-hunt.

Because right now it looks like the emails that Powell received were classified after the fact - almost as if they were classified to give Clinton political cover.

But, as I've noted before "One rule for me, another for thee."

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to his successor, Condoleezza Rice, both received classified information a handful of times via personal email accounts, the top Democrat on a congressional oversight panel said on Thursday.

The findings come after nearly a year of controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's decision to set up a private email server for her work as secretary of state. Democratic lawmakers and staff on Clinton's presidential campaign seized on the report as vindicating some of their defenses of the controversial arrangement.

Representative Elijah Cummings said the disclosures about Powell's and Rice's aides' emails were made by the State Department's inspector general, who is reviewing the email practices of the last five secretaries of state.

That office told the State Department on Wednesday that it found 12 emails containing classified information sent to Rice's aides or Powell, according to Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee.

In a statement, Powell said the two emails he received were not judged to contain confidential information at the time they were sent to him by American ambassadors.

"I wish they would release them," Powell told NBC News, "so that a normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, 'What's the issue?'"

A representative for Rice, who, as with Powell, served under Republican President George W. Bush, said the 10 emails sent to her aides did not contain intelligence information.

More than 1,500 of Clinton's emails, which are being made public on a federal judge's order, have been found to include classified information so far, according to the State Department.

Clinton both sent and received information the State Department now deems to be classified, including the privately shared thoughts of foreign leaders, as well as highly classified U.S. intelligence agency secrets.

It became public last March that Clinton set up a private email server in her New York home for her work as President Barack Obama's secretary of state between 2009 and 2013. Accusations that she exposed government secrets to hackers and tried to side-step record keeping laws have since dogged her campaign, and the arrangement is being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Clinton's campaign staff suggested the findings announced on Thursday helped vindicate her claim that she did nothing wrong or unusual and repeated their accusation that the State Department is overclassifying her emails, an idea the department has dismissed.

"Hillary Clinton agrees with her predecessor that his emails, like hers, are being inappropriately subjected to over-classification," John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, said in a statement, calling for their unredacted release.

J. William Leonard, who oversaw the government's classification regime as the Information Security Oversight Office director until 2008, said so-called "spillage" of classified information into unsecured email systems was common.

"That's why from the get-go it was exceedingly poor judgment to set up a private email account because of this very real fact," Leonard said in an interview, referring to Clinton's arrangement.

The government forbids sending classified information via email, but the .gov email system, which Clinton circumvented, is monitored and protected on the assumption that classified information spills into it.

Powell has said the State Department was technologically backward when he joined in 2001 and that he had to fight to get an Internet-connected computer installed in his office, from which he continued to use his personal email account.

Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of staff at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said Rice did not use email while at the State Department, and that the 10 emails to her staff were reports on "diplomatic conversations."

Government regulations require that information shared in confidence by foreign government officials should be treated as classified.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay and Tom Brown)

22 emails over eight years, potentially classified after the fact vs 1500 emails over four years.

Yep. Same thing.

So killing 22 people vs 1500 is ok?

[Gaidin]

Because right now it looks like the emails that Powell received were classified after the fact - almost as if they were classified to give Clinton political cover.

But, as I've noted before "One rule for me, another for thee."

Uhhh, no. By SCOTUS ruling classification can only be used on information that would cause a grave and irreperable danger. Sure, it can be classified, , but should the Press get their hands on it, the Courts aren't stopping something "political cover" from being published. Only a jury can decide if information meets criteria for national defense, but hell once you do that in most courts...

Not "One rule for me, another for thee." If it's as you describe, it's "One rule for me, abuse of rule by thee."

[Mr Bean]

The FBI confirm the investigation
Also note the wording, Hillary has maintained this is a security review on her server. The FBI says they are currently investigating matters related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

That's not the language of a security review... that's the language you use when you've already found something and your getting your ducks in a row before charges are going to be filed.