Hillary Clinton has insisted throughout the ongoing email scandal on two points repeated as a virtual mantra: there was no classified material sent on her unsecured personal email system and she was in total compliance with the law. I have questioned both points and noted that she is really saying that no “marked” classified material was sent (a less than compelling argument) and she is speaking of federal criminal laws as opposed to the clear official policy not to use such personal servers. It appears clear that some of this material was indeed classified and, as I discussed this week on NPR, the policy against doing what she did was clear and strong at the time of her tenure at State. Now, United States District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has weighed in with comments this week that Clinton clearly did violate State Department policy and that violation caused much of the difficulty in retrieving her communications while in office.
What is now clear is that Clinton used her personal server exclusively (something that is extremely rare) and that she conducted official business of State over the unsecured system (including the transmission of material now deemed classified).
I have previously discussed why that explanation is less than compelling, particularly for anyone who has handled sensitive or classified material. As I discussed earlier, virtually anything coming out of the office of the Secretary of State would be considered classified as a matter of course. As Secretary, Clinton received the highest level of intelligence and there is always a concern that second generation discussions will be influenced or reveal such information. That is why State Department people are asked to conduct official business on the secure system. Most high-level communications are treated as classified and only individually marked as classified when there is a request for disclosure. You do not generate material as the Secretary of State and assume that it is unclassified. You are supposed to assume and treat it as presumptively classified. Otherwise, there would be massive exposure of classified material and willful blindness as to the implications of the actions of persons disregarding precautions.
The policy referenced by the Court was evident in a communication that out under Clinton’s name to all State Department employees that warned them to “[a]void conducting official Department business from your personal email accounts.” There is also a 2005 department manual covering the transmitting of information that is “sensitive but unclassified.” The manual said that department-related email should go through servers authorized by the department.
In the latest hearing on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Judge Sullivan noted “We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy.” The Court noted that the failure to comply with clear policies had complicated the State Department’s ability to respond to requests for records. He further ordered the server (which was only recently turned over by Clinton after months of refusal) to be examined for any response emails. That server was reportedly wiped clean before it was turned over by Clinton staff members though it may be possible for some of the material to be retrieved.
The Justice Department and State Department have been opposing all efforts to secure the information. Justice Department lawyer Peter Wechsler argued that the open records law normally doesn’t allow for searches of government officials’ private accounts, but Judge Sullivan said that this was a different situation because “there was a violation of government policy” and “We’re not talking about a search of anyone’s random email.”
In the FOIA lawsuit, Judicial Watch is seeking records about the employment arrangements of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who served Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department but later moved to a part-time position while also doing private consulting work.
A tense moment arose when Wechsler said he did not know whether the FBI was actually in possession of Clinton’s server or thumb drives. “You’re a Justice Department attorney?….You can’t tell me? . . . I need to get an answer . . . We’re tiptoeing on the head of a pin because there’s only one government.”
I must add that I find it shocking that Jonathan Turley, as a lawyer, does not feel some responsibility to remind his readers that a person is presumed to be innocent of wrongdoing until found guilty in a court of law, where rules of evidence and the right of cross-examination apply.
Anna – how much is Hillary paying you. I will change sides if she pays me enough.
from http://tinyurl.com/q5q4mgb
April 8, 2015
The State Department computer system has been bedeviled by signs that despite efforts to lock them out, the Russian hackers have been able to reenter the system. One official says the Russian hackers have “owned” the State Department system for months and it is not clear the hackers have been fully eradicated from the system.
As in many hacks, investigators believe the White House intrusion began with a phishing email that was launched using a State Department email account that the hackers had taken over, according to the U.S. officials.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
I don’t know and Jonathan Turley does not know if Hillary Clinton’s email server was hacked.
But we DO KNOW the U.S. State Department and White House computers have been hacked, repeatedly .
So, maybe Hillary’s emails were safer where they were stored on her personal server.
Someday, we’ll know but it is NOT known now if her emails or server were hacked.
Apparently, the hackers had access to every email at the State Department, and we do not know if the hackers are still reading emails there.
Anna – part of the problem is that we have always known some of what was on Hillary’s computer. Snowden dropped some emails of one of her aides which gave Judicial Watch a look into what was going on. That is why they refused to be ‘snowed’ by the excuses of State and kept pushing, finally filing suit. The judge is tired of the excuses of everyone, including Hillary. Judicial Watch wants to depose people, I think that would include Hillary, at this point. I think the judge is agreeable, but is waiting for a report from State, DoJ and the FBI before he orders it.
By the same logic that is now being applied to Hillary Clinton’s emails, the House Benghazi Committee should also have its email systems looked at to see if they have sent or received emails that are NOW considered classified.
We know that at least one document sent by Hillary to Trey Gowdy and the House Benghazi Committee — although NOT marked classified at the time of transmission — is now considered by the intelligence community to be classified.
That is the same situation that Hillary is in, and she has had to turn over not only emails but her server as well.
I think no one is denying that — at the time she sent or received certain emails — the emails were NOT marked as being classified but are NOW considered by the intelligence community to contain classified information.
So, apparently the Trey Gowdy-led House Benghazi Committee stored — in an insecure location — one or more emails that are NOW considered to be classified.
I demand that the FBI seize all the emails generated and/or received by the House Benghazi Committee for the past two years and subject them to analysis by the FBI and Intelligence community to see how many emails stored in an insecure location are NOW considered to be “secret” or “top secret” — even though they were not at the time the House Benghazi Committee sent or rec’d them.
Anna – the House and Senate have a SCIF and can place any questionable material there. They also work on several levels. The have closed door meetings where classified material is discussed in depth and open door meetings where it may or may not be discussed.
Now, here is the problem with Hillary and keeping secrets. Some things, like foreign intelligence, are automatically secret and are supposed to go to a very small group. Hillary sent one of these to Sidney Blumenthal (not a government employee). So, Hillary is a traitor.
Paul Schulte:
Former AG Ashcroft was far worse than Hillary. The manner in which he exploited the “Material Witness Statute” was exactly the same way the Cold War era East German Stasi (communists) blacklisted their citizens only on a smaller scale where he brutalized fewer citizens.
Ashcroft’s corruption was so bad he was severly reprimanded by a federal judge. I’m guessing that the inocent Americans that died prematurely from Ashcroft’s Stasi were never recorded properly by the complicit federal, state and local officials involved. Hillary is no comparison to this guy.
Ross – give me a cite for the Ashcroft rant.
Along with what BarkinDog has written here, if Hillary is a government “employee” and the President of the United States is a government “employee” (as some here insist), then not only this judge but all the Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are “employees” and so are all the Members of the House and all the Senators.
So, I would like to see, among others, Trey Gowdy’s emails for the past two years.
After all, Trey Gowdy is a government “employee” who “works for us” and we are “entitled” to see all his emails.
I hope Karen and Paul will start a movement to demand that all the emails of ALL the government “employees” immediately be made available for public scrutiny and analysis.
Anna/Hillary – you are right that they are government employees. You can file an FOIA for their emails anytime you want.
We are entitled to see all emails sent from this Judge’s private server. Why? Because he works for the government.
BarkinDog – you are entitled to his emails from his government account, if you make the FOIA request and they decide to act on it in you lifetime. You are not allowed access to his personal account unless you think he is discussing a case on that computer and you could only go after that.
Just to add to bog that Hillary and her confidants are in.
http://nypost.com/2015/08/21/dozens-of-clinton-emails-were-classified-from-the-start/
Keep drinking the koolaid jr
i’m seriously SICK TO DEATH of hillary’s emails. it looks to me like the people who seriously care about her emails as opposed to the sorry state in which we find our nation and our planet, would have to be hillary-haters, woman-haters, clinton-haters, democrat-haters (all represented here in spades, as usual). if we must continuously hash and rehash hillary’s emails, after all of the prior administration’s malfeasance that has gotten us into the soup we’re in, then perhaps some of us deserve to be in the soup we’re in. the rest of us do not. can’t we get on with the business of continuing disaster recovery from cheney-shrub-rum llc, et al, or must we forever remain mired in email b.s. as our nation is still mired in war-of-choice b.s.? get me out of here.
jr conklin – you sure threw the kitchen sink in there. You know that Hillary hates women. Has done more to damage them than anyone. Personally I love women, just not Hillary. I like Democrats as long as they are not progressives or liberal. I think that Bill Clinton is a poor excuse for a human being.
We are rehashing Hillary’s emails because she has made us.
Libya and Syria were her “accomplishments.” Telling Obama that ISIS is just the Jayvee was an “accomplishment.”
The statement, “we wouldn’t be here today if the employee had followed government policy” means:
If Hillary had followed the law and regulations, she would have used the State email system. Her emails would then have had the toggle classification designation, which she would have to mark before she hit “send.” Then it would be clear if people got classified information who shouldn’t have. Then she would have followed the policy of providing State with her 2 piles of “mine” and “yours” which they would review and agree with. She would have complied with a subpoena regarding the Benghazi emails. If she had not complied, the State server would have been easily inspected for the relevant information.
All of this is because she broke the law and government regulations in hiding her correspondence of classified information in a private server, and then wiping it clean.
Anna:
Paul is correct. The SOS does not designate the definition of classified. The SOS, an employee of the US government, is the President’s chief foreign affairs advisor, and carries out the President’s foreign policy via the State Department. She’s not a law unto herself.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/115194.htm
What you’re saying would be akin to declaring that the President could never be lawless because he just makes the rules himself.
Nick – I recall a while ago Hillary was asked what she accomplished at State. She really couldn’t come up with anything. I know I can’t come up with anything.
Karen – the State Dept spokesperson was asked what Hillary had accomplished there, but could not think of anything.
Nick:
“The reporter stated some WH staff are disgusted and this source said, “If I did what she did I would be in jail.””
THAT, in a nutshell, is the problem. On the one hand, we all bemoan how politicians are lawless and for sale to the highest special interest bidder, whether it’s Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Unions, or Monsanto. But when a favored political princess breaks the rules and the laws, her admirers scramble to ensure the law does not apply to her.
It is patently unfair that people go to jail or get fired every day for relatively minor infractions compared to what she did, but nothing happens to Hillary except the media breathlessly await to report what kind of burrito she orders.
What is wrong with us that we demand the same double standard that we condemn?
And here is State’s 3 fam, which governs personnel. Of note are the recommendations on when personnel are taken hostage.
If anyone wants to know the consequences of the various rules and laws she’s broken, here’s the manual.
http://www.state.gov/m/a/dir/regs/fam/03fam/
Here are 7 pages of how State requires the handling of SBU (Sensitive But Unclassified)
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/88404.pdf
And here are 49 pages on classified communications:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/88403.pdf
“When departing a post upon transfer, resignation, or retirement, each employee, irrespective of rank, must certify as part of the post clearance procedure that:
(1) They are not taking classified material from the post through any other than authorized means;
(2) Such material is not in their household or personal effects; and
(3) Such material will not be mailed or otherwise transmitted in violation of 12 FAM 536.10.
b. Within USAID, provide certification on Form SF-312, Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, for employees and contractors with access to classified information.”
“Employees must not leave classified material in unoccupied rooms or inadequately protected in an occupied office, or in an office occupied by individuals without security clearances and the need to know, such as an uncleared char force.” (Such as if her house was ever occupied by anyone, such as a cleaning crew, without government security clearance.)
“A person must only be given access to classified information when a favorable determination has been made as to the person’s trustworthiness. The determination of trustworthiness, referred to as a security clearance, is based on such investigations as may be required in accordance with the applicable standards and criteria.” (If she becomes President, she’s in trouble here. How will she be deemed trustworthy enough to receive classified information ever again?)
Karen – State has admitted that Hillary did not sign one of those leaving statements when she left the post.
Isaac:
“It’s going to come down to potential harm.”
Actually, that is not true. Petraeus was fined $100,000 and got 2 years’ probation just for showing his mistriss a couple of handwritten notes with classified information on it, which was not marked “classified.” No harm was done, because the information did not make it into her book, and she didn’t sell it to the Russians.
He pled guilty to a federal charge of leaking classified information, but since “no harm was done” he got probation instead of jail time.
But he didn’t avoid a penalty or criminal charges just because war ships didn’t sail towards the US.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/24/us-usa-petraeus-idUSKBN0NE15520150424
Petraeus’ case actually seems quite mild compared with Hillary’s. She deleted 30,000 emails, refusing to allow State to review them, per regulations, to ensure they agreed with her decision on which was classified and which was not. If she had used her personal email for personal business, and her State email for State business, then they would not have needed access to her personal email. But she chose to commingle, hence she lost her privacy. Upon her exit interview, she was supposed to provide State with 2 piles, one personal and one to be archived with State, and State was supposed to review both pile and agree or disagree. Then she wiped the server clean after she was aware of the controversy of her not providing her communications for review. She lied about having never gotten a subpoena, which she did not provide her emails for. And she broke the law by sending classified email inappropriately, which might lead to her being charged under espionage laws.
Please review the Petraeus case if you are under the misconception that this was just some silly workplace rule where the worst that can happen was she get fired, which would be moot since she quit.
We should not plead for the law not to apply to this specific person, the way it applies to everyone else, just because she is a Clinton and suffered Bill’s cheating humiliations for many years. The law applies equally to all, even politicians.
Karen – Hillary was only humiliated by Bill when he got caught. They have a business marriage.
Karen, I saw a report on CNN today where an unnamed WH source was quoted saying exactly what you just said. The reporter stated some WH staff are disgusted and this source said, “If I did what she did I would be in jail.”
The Inspector General has turned this over to the US Attorney’s office and the FBI. The FBI investigate CRIMES. What is heartening is the US Attorneys assigned to this are the A team, not political hacks but career prosecutors.
Let me also add that State’s email system has a classification level required before the email can be sent. Hillary’s circumvention of the system means this system was not applied to her communications. Hence her excuse that the emails were not marked as classified is circular reasoning, because they were not marked classified because she used her private email, which did not have that marking system.
In addition, if her private email server, against regulation, was hacked, then she single handedly delivered classified information into enemy hands.
People get fired and can face criminal charges for this kind of behavior. Anyone in government work can explain the very serious consequences, which, inexplicably, have not been applied to the Teflon Queen.
Karen – it appears that someone(s) stripped the classifications from the emails to Hillary so they would go on her system.
Let me remind everyone that the policy governing private emails was updated in 2009, under Hillary Clinton’s SOS.
This may have legal complications because she defied a subpoena, and essentially stole classified information by preventing State access to her email and server, deleting 30,000 emails, and then wiping the server clean.