Hillary Clinton emails : 2015
Wikipedia's article on this subject.
GOP website on this subject
Hillary Clinton Email Archive @ WikiLeaks
On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive
for 30,322 emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State.
The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014.
7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton.
The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department
as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
The final PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016.
2015-08-18
From the intelligence side,
it looks to me some good perspective is coming from
John R. Schindler at his "XX Committee".
For a convenient index of his posts, see
The XX Committee Hillary EmailGate Reader.
There was a secure, NSA Certified, DISA approved, smartphone Hillary could have used:
the Sectéra Edge .
This was advertised in a 2009-01-14 (!) news article.
Why didn't she use that?
by J. K. Trotter
gawker.com, 2015-03-03
Former officials of the U.S. State Department are furiously denying suggestions that retired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s extensive use of a private email address violated federal rules concerning the preservation of official government records. A FOIA request filed two years ago by Gawker, however, proves that Clinton—a likely contender for the Democratic presidential nominee—successfully used the off-the-books email account to conceal official correspondence from prying eyes. Ours.
Clinton’s email address was hdr22@clintonemail.com;
the handle seems to refer to her maiden initials (she was born as Hillary Diane Rodham).
The notorious hacker Guccifer first revealed the email address in March 2013,
after he gained access to the AOL account of former Clinton White House staffer Sidney Blumenthal,
and sent screenshots of Blumenthal’s inbox to several news outlets.
According to those screenshots,
Blumenthal was regularly sending Clinton what appeared to be freelance intelligence reports—
including information and advice about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya—
all of which clearly fell under the rubric of official State Department business.
At the time, Gawker noted that
Clinton’s apparent use of the non-official account likely violated federal regulations governing records retention,
and sent inquiries directly to Clinton and to the White House asking if
messages to the clintonemail.com address were being retained.
...
But Merrill’s on-the-record defense of Clinton suffers from a very obvious flaw.
The jurisdiction of the federal Freedom of Information Act does not apply only to correspondence between government employees (such as Clinton and another State Department employee);
it also applies to correspondence about official business between government employees and third parties
(such as Clinton and Blumenthal, who was not employed by the State Department).
Had Blumenthal been sending Clinton emails about personal business, such as an upcoming ski trip, there would be no issue here.
But he was sending Clinton emails about, among other things, Benghazi—
one of the largest fuck-ups in State Department history and the subject of numerous Congressional inquiries.
...
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
New York Times, 2015-03-07
In an interview with Bill Plante of CBS News, Mr. Obama said the policy of his administration was to “encourage transparency” and that he was pleased that Mrs. Clinton had instructed the State Department to turn over her emails for archiving.
“My emails, the Blackberry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,” Mr. Obama said, according to an excerpt from the interview released Saturday evening. “I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”
In the portion of the interview that was released,
Mr. Obama did not address
how he could have avoided noticing
that Mrs. Clinton was sending emails from a “clintonemail.com” address
throughout the years she served in his administration.
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email system was first reported by The New York Times last week.
Asked how Mrs. Clinton’s email practices met the standards of transparency that he has repeatedly called for, Mr. Obama said that “the fact that she is going to be putting them forward will allow us to make sure that people have the information they need.”
White House officials have said in recent days that some in the West Wing were aware that Mrs. Clinton was not using an official “state.gov” email address for official correspondence. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, has repeatedly said the guidance from administration lawyers is that employees should use their government-issued email addresses for their official business.
But the White House has refused to say whether they believe that Mrs. Clinton violated any administration policies or broke any laws by conducting all of her business with a private email address.
[Nobody told Obama about this?
Did Hillary ever send emails to the president?
(I would assume the answer to that question is: "Of course she did.")
You mean Obama never noticed that emails from her
were not from a state.gov account?
That sounds likes a real knock on Obama to me,
representing cluelessness.]
...
Savage Nation video (21:04; shows her walking to the podium)
of HRC's Tuesday, 2015-03-10 news conference at the United Nations
(e.g., the Post's lead story in its 2015-03-11 print edition),
and found that with one exception, below,
they fail to note two reasons why
her communications strategy was such a problem for America,
reasons which might be labeled as "privilege" and "targeting"
with regard to the HRC/Obama communications.
Privilege:
We are talking about, among other things,
communications between the secretary of state and the president.
There have been many examples in the past when congressional committees
have tried to obtain such communications between a president and his advisers,
only to be denied access when the president cites "executive privilege",
this even when the communications do not have a national security classification.
[Note added 2015-11-01:
On 2015-10-30, the WH made the "executive privilege" claim
to block the release of some of the BHO/HRC emails.]
In the current case Obama/HRC comms were available to anyone who bothered to hack into her server.
Were their communications so uninteresting that they do not care who had or has access to them?
One wonders why the reporters did not note this discrepancy.
Targeting
It is a fact that intelligence agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere
routinely target intra-governmental communications of other nations.
When NSA was revealed as collecting comms of our allies,
look how many people objected to that,
especially in the nations that had been targeted.
Are we supposed to believe that what NSA does,
other nations do not?
what an absurd and callow belief.
Of course they do.
And if even North Korea has a well-documented capability
for collecting information from U.S. computers,
how much more capable are other nations?
It is an enormous advantage to diplomats, among others,
to know what the negotiating positions and goals are of other nations.
HRC made those of the U.S. available
to anyone who was able to and cared to hack her computer.
The fact that neither she nor the president
had evidently bothered to classify their communications
does not make it any less a disaster for those comms to be available.
Both HRC and the media really need to internalize these issues,
and acknowledge their significance.
As of now, Wednesday, 2015-03-11, there is not too much evidence that they have.
Let's hope they do so soon.
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post, 2015-03-10
The private e-mail server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton all but certainly lacked the level of security employed by the government and could have been breached fairly easily by determined foreign intelligence services, national security and cyber experts said.
In the wake of last week’s revelation that Clinton used a private e-mail account as secretary of state, critics have questioned whether that decision left sensitive government communications vulnerable to hackers. At a news conference Tuesday, Clinton said the server was set up for her husband, former president Bill Clinton, at their house in Chappaqua, N.Y., which she said was guarded by the Secret Service.
“I think . . . the use of the server . . . certainly proved to be effective and secure,” she said.
But such assurances have not persuaded technical experts.
“The layers of security that would have to be employed to make a privately run exchange server as secure as something that is secured by the federal government would be pretty significant,” said Timothy Ryan, a former FBI supervisory special agent who now manages cyber investigations for Kroll. “It’s not that it can’t be done. I just find it improbable.”
In a question-and-answer sheet released Tuesday, Clinton’s office stated that “robust protections” were put in place and “upgrades and techniques employed over time as they became available, including consulting and employing third party experts.”
The office said “there is no evidence there was ever a breach” of the server.
Some experts said it’s impossible to know for certain whether that’s the case.
Clinton, according to at least one forensic account,
was using a standard commercial server running on Microsoft software
that, like any widely available software,
has been found to have vulnerabilities.
a former director of information assurance at the National Security Agency.
...
“On a [target] scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10,”
said Schaeffer, who is now in the cybersecurity industry.
“When you think of treaties, trade negotiations,
any thing that the secretary of state would be involved in,
she would be an incredibly lucrative target —
maybe even more so than the president.”
Because Clinton traded e-mails with other top officials, as well as with President Obama, foreign spy services could have also attempted to spoof her account and send recipients malicious software in an effort to compromise their accounts, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Clinton said Tuesday that she did not e-mail classified material with her personal account.
...
Still, even unclassified e-mails would be of interest to a spy service —
the NSA tapped the personal cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel —
because of the information it could glean about Clinton,
her activities and her associates’ activities.
Often disparate pieces of unclassified data, when assembled,
can yield useful insights, intelligence analysts say.
[This is sometimes called "collation",
and is a major task of intelligence analysts.]
Some experts say it takes great discipline for a public official to keep sensitive information out of e-mails entirely. “I believe it’s very likely that — even inadvertently — there’s classified information in those e-mails,” said J. William Leonard, former director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives.
He added that the government term for that is “spillage” — when someone introduces, often inadvertently, classified information into an unclassified system.
By H.A. Goodman
The Hill, 2015-03-12
In this day and age of domestic surveillance, it’s seems odd that any public official should be given the opportunity to house private email servers in their home. Although Hillary Clinton did not break any specific laws, and both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell also used private emails at times, there are unique circumstances with ‘Emailgate’ that warrant a unique resolution to the scandal.
...
The NSA can record or collect the data of any American if such information is deemed part of national security; the communication of a Secretary of State would no doubt fit into this definition. Emails stored in a private server located in a government employee’s home are indeed “highly unusual,” as stated recently by Robert Gibbs.
Since this type of behavior is unprecedented, it should fall under the supervision of America’s most renowned record-keeping department. If you or I would never get away with storing sensitive information on our own private servers, then neither should anyone in government. Furthermore, there are several key questions pertaining to Clinton’s use of private emails that voyage beyond the usual political attacks against the Clintons.
First, the former Secretary of State might have stored “sensitive” communication in an unguarded location.
...
by Matt Wolking
speaker.gov, 2015-05-17
You can’t just become Secretary of State and refuse a government phone and email address without anyone noticing. You also can’t regularly contact your boss from your personal email account for years without him noticing that you never use the work account you’re supposed to have. ...
But that’s what President Obama would like you to believe. Asked when he first learned about Hillary Clinton’s private email system, he said, “The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” His staff even rushed to tell reporters how shocked they all are, as if Secretary Clinton went rogue and this never would have been allowed if the occupant of the Oval Office had only known what was she was up to.
The fact is that Secretary Clinton wanted to skirt the law and avoid oversight, and President Obama went right along with it, national security and transparency and the law be damned.
...
by Eugene Kiely and D’Angelo Gore
Factcheck.org, 2015-07-08
[A mind-numbingly detailed examination of the claim that past Secretaries of State also used personal email for some official business.
They key (in my view) sentence:]
Although [George W. Bush's first Secretary of State Colin] Powell
did acknowledge that he used personal email for official business,
there’s no evidence that he — or any other previous secretary of state —
maintained emails on a personal server.
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MATT APUZZO
New York Times, 2015-07-24
(This is a grab from the web page sometime between 2 and 5 PM EDT on Friday, 2015-07-24)
WASHINGTON — Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.
The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.
It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them.
But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account.
The initial revelation has been an issue in the early stages of her presidential campaign.
The Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation, senior officials said. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a statement on Twitter on Friday morning. “Any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted,” it read.
At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.
She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.
The department is now reviewing some 55,000 pages of emails. A first batch of 3,000 pages was made public on June 30.
In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them.
In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email or reveal its substance.
The memos were provided to The New York Times by a senior government official.
The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its determinations.
In March, Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was careful in her handling of information on her private account. “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
In May, the F.B.I. asked the State Department to classify a section of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that related to suspects who may have been arrested in connection with the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The information was not classified at the time Mrs. Clinton received it.
The revelations about how Mrs. Clinton handled her email have been an embarrassment for the State Department, which has been repeatedly criticized over its handling of documents related to Mrs. Clinton and her advisers.
On Monday, a federal judge sharply questioned State Department lawyers at a hearing in Washington about why they had not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press, some of which were four years old.
“I want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s not been going on over there,” said Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court, according to a transcript obtained by Politico. The judge said that “for reasons known only to itself,” the State Department “has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.”
Two days later, lawmakers on the Republican-led House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks said they planned to summon Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff to Capitol Hill to answer questions about why the department has not produced documents that the panel subpoenaed. That hearing is set for next Wednesday.
“The State Department has used every excuse to avoid complying with fundamental requests for documents,” said the chairman of the House committee, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina.
Mr. Gowdy said that while the committee has used an array of measures to try to get the State Department to hand over documents, the results have been the same. “Our committee is not in possession of all documents needed to do the work assigned to us,” he said.
The State Department has sought to delay the hearing, citing continuing efforts to brief members of Congress on the details of the nuclear accord with Iran. It is not clear why the State Department has struggled with the classification issues and document production. Republicans have said the department is trying to use those processes to protect Mrs. Clinton.
State Department officials say they simply do not have the resources or infrastructure to properly comply with all the requests. Since March, requests for documents have significantly increased.
Some State Department officials said they believe that many senior officials did not initially take the House committee seriously, which slowed document production and created an appearance of stonewalling.
State Department officials also said that Mr. Kerry is concerned about the toll the criticism has had on the department and has urged his deputies to comply with the requests quickly.
by Joe Scarborough, 6 min 49 seconds
MSNBC Morning Joe, 2015-07-27
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MATT APUZZO JULY 24, 2015
New York Times, 2015-07-25
[As the report from the New York Times public editor below notes,
this story was rewritten several times between when it first appeared on the web
and when it was finally published in the print edition,
in the second column from the right
in the Washington Edition of the Saturday, July 25 Times
(at which I just was looking).
Anyhow, in the interest of enabling comparison between
an early version of the story and the apparent final version,
here is the content of the web edition as of Tuesday, 2015-07-28 at 5:30 PM EDT.
I (the author of the current blog) have added some emphasis,
to emphasize the points I think are most important.]
WASHINGTON — Government investigators said Friday that they had discovered classified information on the private email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while secretary of state, stating unequivocally that those secrets never should have been stored outside of secure government computer systems.
Mrs. Clinton has said for months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house so she would not have to carry both a personal phone and a work phone. Her campaign said Friday that any government secrets found on the server had been classified after the fact.
But the inspectors general of the State Department and the nation’s intelligence agencies said
in a statement signed by him and
I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community.
The findings by the two inspectors general raise new questions about Mrs. Clinton’s use of her personal email at the State Department, a practice that since March has been criticized by her Republican adversaries as well as advocates of open government, and has made some Democrats uneasy. Voters, however, do not appear swayed by the issue, according to polls.
In their joint statement, the inspectors general said the classified information had originated with the nation’s intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency. It is against the law for someone to receive a classified document or briefing and then summarize that information in an unclassified email.
The two investigators did not say whether Mrs. Clinton sent or received the emails. If she received them, it is not clear that she would have known that they contained government secrets, since they were not marked classified. The inspectors general did not address whether they believed Mrs. Clinton should have known such information was not appropriate for her personal email.
Regardless, the disclosure is an example of an unforeseen consequence of Mrs. Clinton’s unusual computer setup. Security experts have questioned whether her practice made government secrets more vulnerable to security risks and hacking.
Exactly how much classified information Mrs. Clinton had on the server is unclear. Investigators said they searched a small sample of 40 emails and found four that contained government secrets. But Mr. McCullough said in a separate statement that although the State Department had granted limited access to its own inspector general, the department rejected Mr. McCullough’s request for access to the 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton said were government-related and gave to the State Department.
Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, is “purported” to also have copies of the 30,000 emails on a thumb drive, according to Mr. McCullough.
Campaigning in New York on Friday, Mrs. Clinton pledged to cooperate with inquiries into her emails, but also said she would stay focused on the issues at the heart of her presidential campaign.
“We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and I will do my part,” Mrs. Clinton said. “But I’m also going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the big issues, that really matter to American families.”
The discovery of the four emails prompted Mr. McCullough to refer the matter to F.B.I. counterintelligence agents, who investigate crimes related to the mishandling of classified information. On Thursday night and again Friday morning, the Justice Department referred to the matter as a “criminal referral,” but later Friday dropped the word “criminal.” The inspectors general said late Friday that it was a “security referral” intended to alert authorities that “classified information may exist on at least one private server and thumb drive that are not in the government’s possession.”
Irrespective of the terminology, the referral raises the possibility of a Justice Department investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails as she campaigns for president. Polls show she is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination by a wide margin.
Mishandling classified information is a crime. Justice Department officials said no decision had been made about whether to open a criminal investigation.
The refusal by the State Department to give Mr. McCullough access to the emails has reignited calls by Republicans for Mrs. Clinton to hand over the server that she used to house the personal email account.
“If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record,” Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, said on Friday. “Her poor judgment has undermined our national security, and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”
The Justice Department is typically reluctant to open politically charged investigations unless there is clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
For example, authorities said last year that they would not open an investigation into dueling claims by the C.I.A. and the Senate Intelligence Committee in a dispute that also centered around access to classified information.
[I don't see what is political about mishandling classified information.]
By Karen DeYoung, Sari Horwitz and Anne Gearan
Washington Post, 2015-07-25
[Note that the word "classified" was place in quotes in the headline.
There already is the qualifier of "possible" there.
I think the inspector general for the intelligence community
is a fairly reliable authority on what is and what is not classified,
far more so than political hacks and their media sycophants.
Anyhow, here is another questionable example of spin from within the article:]
...
The statements — prompted by inaccurate media reports that the Justice Department was weighing a “criminal” investigation related to the Clinton e-mails — marked the latest turn in an increasingly acrimonious partisan battle over Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.
[Please, what is partisan about the mishandling of classified data?
Do Democrats and their media buddies
think that if you're politically correct,
than your mishandling of security issues
is merely of interest to GOP partisans?
Shame on you, if so.
Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if Democratic leaders
think lying is perfectly acceptable
to accomplish their political goals,
and pander to their favored (and supportive) communities.]
How It Happened and What Next?
By Margaret Sullivan (NYT Public Editor)
New York Times, 2015-07-27
by Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Op-Ed, 2015-07-28
...
When she [HRC] finally turned over thousands of e-mails to the State Department,
she should not have then taken the provocative step
of deleting thousands more from the server,
a move guaranteed to fan conspiracy theories not quiet them.
When the matter became public,
she should have tried to quell the predictable firestorm by turning over the server.
She should have stopped insisting, as she did on CNN this month,
that she was not only blameless but praiseworthy.
...
[The final paragraphs of her column:]
Moreover, if the Clinton e-mails did contain classified material,
this would be a problem
no matter whether she used a nonclassified government account or a private e-mail address.
Both are, sadly, hackable.
[Well, the OPM material on the DOI servers certainly were.
And no doubt many other USG servers are as well.
But I doubt that all nonclassified USG servers
are equally vulnerable to hacking.
One would hope that at least some have rather robust security protections.
Perhaps even some at State.]
The rules require classified material —
when the person knows or should know that it’s classified —
to be dealt with in classified facilities, or on adequately secured devices and networks.
Not that any of this matters much.
The classified-information-put-at-risk narrative is too delicious for Republicans to resist,
and helps keep the e-mail story alive.
This is a political problem for Clinton,
but it isn’t, on the strength of the evidence so far,
anywhere close to a legal one.
By way of comparison,
take a look at the plea deal reached by Gen. David Petraeus
for mishandling classified information.
(Incidentally, he and Clinton share a lawyer, David Kendall.)
The former CIA director acknowledged that
he gave biographer/mistress Paula Broadwell personal notebooks containing highly classified information
including the identities of covert officers, intelligence capabilities
and conversations with the president,
then stored them in an unlocked desk drawer at his home,
even as he assured security officials
that he had no classified material in his possession.
That was criminal conduct. Clinton’s isn’t. Not even close.
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-07-29
[The emphasis in red has been added by the author of the current blog.]
Ruth Marcus wrote in the Washington Post on 28 July 2015 that
there is no scandal in Mrs. Clinton’s use of a non-secure e-mail server
to conduct State Department business.
Now this asinine assertion probably should not come as a surprise for a newspaper
whose employee Dana Priest won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize (for Treason?)
by revealing and thereby compromising
an essential and extremely productive CIA covert-action program
and endangering the officers involved.
But as lawless as Ms. Priest’s and the Post’s actions were in regard to
divulging classified intelligence operations,
Mrs. Clinton’s are far worse,
as is Ruth Marcus’s partisan, lighthearted pooh-poohing
of what seems to be Mrs. Clinton’s clear and deliberate criminality.
While I have been out of the CIA since November, 2004,
and know nothing about the content of her mails –
save for those now published and identified as classified —
I do know that
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server to conduct State Department business,
and to receive and respond to e-mails
from the White House and other government agencies
would get any other executive branch employee
disciplined or fired, and almost certainly indicted –
unless the White House intervened to prevent
the enforcement of pertinent laws and regulations.
Why is this case?
Well, there are several reasons, none of which are too difficult to understand.
These four points, I think, constitute a prima facie justification
for an immediate criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton, as well as
a damage assessment conducted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies
that will inform the national government and the public
of what damage Mrs. Clinton deliberately inflicted on national security
by her arrogant refusal to use the government’s secure IT systems.
Any other U.S. government employee whose behavior mirrored that of Mrs. Clinton
would already be indicted, awaiting trial, and plea bargaining.
[“a damage assessment conducted by intelligence”.
This is the key point.
We must assume that EVERYTHING on her server has been obtained by
any entity with advanced hacking skills and the desire to tap her communications.
The question is, or should be:
“What was said and how could the knowledge of this harm the U.S.
if it were known by foreign actors?”
It is not the general public that needs to know this, but those concerned with counterintelligence.
I am disgusted that our “elite” media are not pointing this out to everyone,
putting pressure on Clinton to provide the server and all related equipment
to those who could do a forensic exam on it,
attempting to find out who might have accessed it and what they could do if they had.
Are the media indifferent to these concerns?
Evidently so.]
By Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger
Washington Post, 2015-08-04
The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials.
Also last week, the FBI contacted Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, with questions about the security of a thumb drive in his possession that contains copies of work e-mails Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state.
...
The inquiries are bringing to light new information about Clinton’s use of the system and the lengths to which she went to install a private channel of communication outside government control — a setup that has emerged as a major issue in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
For instance, the server installed in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home as she was preparing to take office as secretary of state was originally used by her first campaign for the presidency, in 2008, according to two people briefed on the setup. A staffer who was on the payroll of her political action committee set it up in her home, replacing a server that Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, had been using in the house.
The inquiries by the FBI follow concerns from government officials that potentially hundreds of e-mails that passed through Clinton’s private server contained classified or sensitive information. At this point, the probe is preliminary and is focused on ensuring the proper handling of classified material.
...
Critics say Clinton’s private server arrangement put her discussions with some aides outside the reach of government investigators, congressional committees and courts seeking public records from the State Department.
...
Responsibility for setting up and maintaining the server that handled personal e-mail communications for Bill and Hillary Clinton passed through a number of different hands, starting with Clinton staffers with limited training in computer security and eventually expanding to Platte River.
In 2008, responsibility for the system was held by Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to the former president who served as a personal assistant and helped research at least two of his books. Cooper had no security clearance and no particular expertise in safeguarding computers, according to three people briefed on the server setup. Cooper declined to comment.
“The system we used was set up for President Clinton’s office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches,” Hillary Clinton said in March.
Those briefed on the server setup say the device installed for Bill Clinton was deemed too small for the addition of a sitting Cabinet official. Instead, a server that had been purchased for use by Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign was installed at the Chappaqua home.
With the new server came an additional specialist: Bryan Pagliano, who had worked as her campaign’s IT director. According to federal campaign finance records, Pagliano was paid by Clinton’s Senate leadership PAC through April 2009. The next month, he went to work for the State Department as an IT specialist, a department official said. The people briefed on the server indicated that he continued to act as the lead specialist responsible for it.
The e-mail system was not always reliable, these people said, with Pagliano summoned at various times to fix problems. Notably, the system crashed for days after New York was hit by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
That led to new conversations about the need for better security, durability and a more professional setup, according to these people. In 2013, the Clintons hired Platte River to maintain the data.
...
By SCOTT SHANE and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-09
[This is a lengthy, ~3000 word, exposition of three key aspects to the controversy:
1. Her decision to mix personal and official correspondence on an email system she would control.
2. Her decisions on what was personal and so could be deleted.
3. The issue of classified information on the server.
]
By Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
McCatchy, 2015-08-11
...
The notice came as the State Department inspector general’s office acknowledged that it is reviewing the use of “personal communications hardware and software” by Clinton’s former top aides after requests from Congress.
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate,” said Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general.
Despite the acknowledgment, the State Department inspector general’s office has left numerous unanswered questions, including exactly who and what is being investigated. The office initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Intelligence Community inspector general’s office, which said it is not currently involved in any inquiry into aides and is being denied full access to aides’ emails by the State Department. Clinton, herself, is not a target.
...
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants Clinton and her aides to “come clean and cough up” information about their personal email use.
“Both the State Department and Intelligence Community inspectors general should be looking into the staff use of the Clinton private server for official State Department business. This means giving both inspectors general access and custody of all emails that haven’t already been deleted,” said Grassley of Iowa. “From what is publicly known, it appears that the investigation thus far has focused so much on the former secretary of state, that it’s gotten lost that high-level staff apparently also used this server too.”
...
Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the Intelligence Community Inspector General, said that office “never had access to any emails other than those provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton.”
...
“I think the headline is that there’s nothing but murkiness and non-answers from the State Department,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who is representing Gawker, a media organization suing for access to one aide’s emails. “I think the State Department is figuring this out as it goes along, which is exactly why no one should be using personal email to conduct government business.”
...
Administration officials and Clinton aides have declined to provide a full list of which aides used personal email for government business or who might have had an email account on Clinton’s personal server.
Clinton acknowledged that Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff and one of Clinton’s closest confidants, had an account on her personal server in a sworn affidavit filed Monday in a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking State Department records.
Clinton’s affidavit was her first disclosure that any of her former aides used personal accounts or accounts on her personal server to conduct business. Clinton said that her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, did not have an account on the server.
...
The Intelligence Community’s inspector general requested that the FBI scrutinize the security implications of Clinton’s use of the private email after determining that at least five emails containing classified information had been stored on her private server, including one email that State Department officials inadvertently released in response to a public records lawsuit. Two others are under review for final classification.
I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, said State Department officials had warned that there were “potentially hundreds of classified emails” on Clinton’s private server.
...
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-12
Hillary Rodham Clinton has directed her aides to give the Justice Department an email server that housed the personal account that she used exclusively while secretary of state, along with a thumb drive that contained copies of the emails, her presidential campaign said on Tuesday.
The Justice Department and the F.B.I. have sought the server and the thumb drive as they investigate how classified information was handled in connection with the account. Earlier on Tuesday, the inspector general for the intelligence community told members of Congress that Mrs. Clinton had “top secret” information — the highest classification of government intelligence — in two emails among the 40 from the private account that the State Department has allowed him to review.
The State Department has declined to give the inspector general, I. Charles McCullough III, access to the entire trove of roughly 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton handed over to the department last year. Mrs. Clinton deemed those emails work-related, and said she deleted an additional 30,000 messages that were personal.
Since the account was revealed in March, Mrs. Clinton has been widely criticized for creating an email system that she said was more convenient for her, but that also helped shield her correspondence from Congress and the news media. She said she had never had any classified information on the account, though Mr. McCullough’s findings raise questions about that claim.
“I am confident that I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received,” she said at an event in Iowa in July. “What I think you’re seeing here is a very typical kind of discussion, to some extent disagreement among various parts of the government, over what should or should not be publicly released.”
...
The campaign did not say whether the server and the thumb drive had been handed over yet to the authorities. And it did not say if the server was the one she had set up in her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., to house the private email account.
In addition to the home server, information was stored with a small technology company in Colorado called Platte River Networks.
Mr. Kendall has told government investigators that the server at Platte River Networks has been wiped clean. Nevertheless, F.B.I. agents went to the company this month to inquire about it.
...
[I have a suggestion to find out what really was on her server.
Why doesn't State ask our good friends in the intelligence services of Russia and China
to cough up her complete archive?
Surely they have the complete archive.]
by John R. Schindler
dailybeast.com, 2015-08-12
...
[I]t now appears increasingly likely that someone on her staff
violated federal laws regarding the handling of classified materials.
On August 11, after extensive investigation,
the intelligence community’s inspector general reported to Congress that
it had found several violations of security policy in Clinton’s personal emails.
Most seriously, the inspector general assessed that Clinton’s emails
included information that was highly classified—yet mislabeled as unclassified.
Worse, the information in question should have been classified up to the level of
“TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN,”
according to the inspector general’s report.
...
Dianne Feinstein defends Clinton’s email practices
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-08-13
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee defended Hillary Clinton’s email practices on Thursday, saying media reports about classified information on the former secretary of state’s server did not make clear that Clinton hadn’t written any of the “top secret” emails.
Two days after an inspector general said it found “top secret” information on Clinton’s unsecured email server, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California accused news reports of “missing key points.” For example: “none of the emails alleged to contain classified information were written by Secretary Clinton,” she said — nor were they marked as “top secret” at the time they were sent.
“The questions are whether she received emails with classified information in them, and if so, whether information in those emails should have been classified in the first place,” Feinstein said. “Those questions have yet to be answered. However, it is clear that Secretary Clinton did not write emails containing classified information.”
...
[This is really incredibly stupid, especially coming from the very-long-experienced Senator Feinstein,
with her many years of experience on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The most important issue is not who wrote those emails containing classified information,
but what were they doing on a server in Chappaqua, New York without adequate (it would appear) protection from being hacked?
HRC was conducting official business, which as Secretary of State she knew damn well would easily slip into classified levels,
in a very insecure location.
It is little different from carrying on classified discussions in a restaurant.
The issue is, or should be, that such discussions should only be held in a secure environment.
The "clintonemail.com" domain and its associated server were certainly not that.
Diane Feinstein shows herself to be a partisan hack for failing to make that significant distinction.
HRC should have carried out her official business in a government-provided setting,
with appropriate security measures.
She should have kept her official life and personal life separate.
To not do so sounds like the pattern in a banana republic,
or in the kleptocracies in Africa.
It would seem that Hillary's behavior and attitude
(in the private email server, in the Clinton Foundation's policies)
can be fairly summarized with
"L'état, c'est moi". ]
Natasha Bertrand and Michael B Kelley
businessinsider, 2015-08-14
The question of whether Hillary Clinton’s emails were marked top secret
isn’t legally relevant.
By former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, 2015-08-14
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server
to conduct public business while serving as secretary of state,
followed by the deletion of information on that server
and the transfer to her lawyer of a thumb drive containing heretofore unexplored data,
engages several issues of criminal law—
but the overriding issue is one of plain common sense.
Let’s consider the potentially applicable criminal laws in order of severity.
It is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year
to keep “documents or materials containing classified information . . .
at an unauthorized location.”
Note that it is the information that is protected;
the issue doesn’t turn on whether the document or materials bear a classified marking.
This is the statute under which David Petraeus—
former Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director—
was prosecuted for keeping classified information at home.
Mrs. Clinton’s holding of classified information on a personal server
was a violation of that law.
So is transferring that information on a thumb drive to David Kendall, her lawyer.
Moving up the scale,
the law relating to public records generally makes it a felony
for anyone having custody of a “record or other thing”
that is “deposited with . . . a public officer”
to “remove” or “destroy” it,
with a maximum penalty of three years.
Emails are records,
and the secretary of state is a public officer and by statute their custodian.
The Espionage Act defines as a felony, punishable by up to 10 years,
the grossly negligent loss or destruction
of “information relating to the national defense.”
Note that at least one of the emails from the small random sample taken
by the inspector general for the intelligence community
contained signals intelligence and was classified top secret.
To be sure, this particular email was turned over,
but on paper rather than in its original electronic form,
without the metadata that went with it.
If other emails of like sensitivity are among the 30,000 Mrs. Clinton erased,
that is yet more problematic.
The server is now in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
whose forensic skills in recovering data in situations like this are unexcelled.
The highest step in this ascending scale of criminal penalties—20 years maximum—
is reached by anyone
who destroys “any record, document or tangible object
with intent to impede, obstruct or influence the proper administration
of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States . . .
or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter.”
So, for example,
if Mrs. Clinton caused to be wiped out emails
that might have been anticipated to be of interest to a congressional committee,
such conduct would come within the sweep of the statute.
That, by the way, is the obstruction-of-justice statute,
as revised by the Sarbanes-Oxley law,
passed by Congress in 2002 while Mrs. Clinton served as a senator,
and for which she voted.
All of this is not to suggest that Mrs. Clinton is in real danger of going to jail any time soon.
All of these laws require at least knowing conduct,
and the obstruction statute requires specific intent to impede at least a contemplated proceeding.
It is not helpful to Mrs. Clinton’s cause
that the emails finally turned over to the State Department
were in paper rather than electronic form,
which makes it impossible to search them—and easier to alter them—
and would thus tend to impede rather than advance a congressional investigation.
Further, we won’t know whether permanent damage was done by the email erasure
unless someone manages to examine the thumb drive in the possession of Mr. Kendall.
The actual erasure of material appears to have been done by one or more of Mrs. Clinton’s aides,
and we can certainly expect some or all of them to dive, if not be thrown, under the bus.
[I, KHarbaugh, would like to interject a comment here.
I find it impossible to believe that her server could have been "wiped"
without her explicit concurrence, if not direction.]
Nonetheless, these statutes serve at least to measure the severity with which the law views the conduct here.
The common-sense issues in this matter are more problematic than the criminal ones.
Anyone who enters the Situation Room at the White House,
where Mrs. Clinton was photographed during the Osama bin Laden raid,
is required to place any personal electronic device in a receptacle outside the room,
lest it be activated involuntarily and confidential communications disclosed.
Mrs. Clinton herself, in a now famous email, cautioned State Department employees
not to conduct official business on personal email accounts.
The current secretary of state, John Kerry, testified that
he assumes that his emails have been the object of surveillance by hostile foreign powers.
It is inconceivable that the nation’s senior foreign-relations official
was unaware of the risk that communications about this country’s relationships with foreign governments
would be of particular interest to those governments, and to others.
It is no answer to say, as Mrs. Clinton did at one time,
that emails were not marked classified when sent or received.
Of course they were not; there is no little creature
sitting on the shoulders of public officials classifying words as they are uttered and sent.
But the laws are concerned with the sensitivity of information,
not the sensitivity of the markings on whatever may contain the information.
The culture in Washington, particularly among senior-executive officials,
is pervasively risk-averse, and has been for some time.
When I took office as U.S. attorney general in 2007,
members of my staff saw to it that I stopped carrying a BlackBerry,
lest I inadvertently send confidential information over an insecure network
or lest it be activated, without my knowledge, and my communications monitored.
When I attended my first briefing in a secure facility, and brought a pad to take notes,
my chief of staff leaned over and wrote in bold capital letters at the top of the first page,
“TS/SCI,” meaning Top Secret, Secure Compartmentalized [sic; should be "Sensitive Compartmented"] Information—
which is to say, information that may be looked at only in
what is known as a SCIF, a Secure, Compartmentalized Information Facility.
My office was considered a SCIF; my apartment was not.
The point he was making by doing that—
and this is just the point that seems to have eluded the former secretary of state—
is one of common sense:
Once you assume a public office,
your communications about anything having to do with your job
are not your personal business or property.
They are the public’s business and the public’s property,
and are to be treated as no different from communications of like sensitivity.
That something so obvious could have eluded Mrs. Clinton
raises questions about her suitability both for the office she held and for the office she seeks.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09)
and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).
[The on-line WSJ webpage that contained the above article
also contained the following comment by a reader:
Patrick Fitzsimonds [2015-08-21]
I am fascinated by the press' unwillingness to press Hillary on a fundamental question related to her explanation for using of a private email account and server. She claims she simply did it for "convenience". But in all of your own personal experience have you ever considered declining the account provided by your employer (along with the free blackberry or smartphone) for the "convenience" of purchasing your own physical server and handheld device, setting up both to work together, maintaining the servers and coordinating external vendors to provide security, upgrades and routine system maintenance? Maybe I'm crazy but this doesn't strike me as all that convenient. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton can explain to us why it isn't what it looks like - another sneaky Clinton who demands absolutely no oversight while supposedly doing the people's business.
By Carol D. Leonnig, Karen Tumulty and Rosalind S. Helderman [All women!]
Washington Post, 2014-08-15
[This is just a lengthy summary of the situation.
There seems little, if anything, new here.
But, so far as I can tell, it does not mention the important informtion that
her emails contained, not just Top Secret, but SCI information as well.
Wonder when the WP will get around to mentioning that.]
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times, 2015-08-15
WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others briefed on the investigation.
To track how the information flowed, agents will try to gain access to the email accounts of many State Department officials who worked there while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the officials said. State Department employees apparently circulated the emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011, and some were ultimately forwarded to Mrs. Clinton.
They were not marked as classified, the State Department has said, and it is unclear whether its employees knew the origin of the information.
The F.B.I. is also trying to determine whether foreign powers, especially China or Russia, gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s private server, although at this point, any security breaches are speculation.
Law enforcement officials have said that Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, is not a target of the investigation, and she has said there is no evidence that her account was hacked. There has also been no evidence that she broke the law, and many specialists believe the occasional appearance of classified information in her account was probably of marginal consequence.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said in a statement on Friday that she “took the handling of classified information very seriously.”
“She always received classified materials in secure settings, either by phone, videoconference, on paper or in person,” said the spokesman, Nick Merrill. “If, however, some material unknowingly ended up somewhere on the State Department’s unclassified email system, we want to continue to be as helpful as possible in getting to the bottom of that.”
He added: “Beyond that, we’ll let the State Department and other agencies speak to the specifics.”
This week, the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III, informed members of Congress that Mrs. Clinton had “top secret” information, the highest classification of government intelligence, in her account.
["Top Secret" is a general classification,
which can be applied to, say, military plans for future operations.
It is not exclusive to intelligence.
Above and beyond that, there are a number of special classifications,
often known as "Sensitive Compartmented Information",
reserved for intelligence.]
Some of that information, according to a memorandum the inspector general sent to the heads of the Senate and House intelligence and judiciary committees,
may have come from a program called Talent Keyhole,
which relies on satellite intercepts of conversations or imagery data.
The program involves some of the most secure information in the intelligence agencies’ computer systems.
[It is interesting the the NYT does not provide a link to
the publicly-released PDF of that letter.
I found the link in this 2015-08-12 Daily Beast story.]
Specifically, the inspector general told members of Congress that
two emails should have been classified as top secret,
with one of them designated “TOP SECRET//SI//TK/NOFORN.”
Officials familiar with the nomenclature said that “SI” stood for “special intelligence,”
usually indicating an intercepted communication,
and that “TK” was routinely used as an abbreviation for Talent Keyhole,
showing that the communication or an image was obtained from a satellite.
Attached to the memo —
which was publicly released by Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee —
were copies of two of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that Mr. McCullough said contained classified information.
Those emails were not released publicly.
The State Department has questioned whether the determination by Mr. McCullough is correct. Nevertheless, the findings are consistent with the view of some federal officials that the State Department is not rigorous enough in handling classified national security information.
In an unusual move, the F.B.I.’s inquiry is being led out of its headquarters in Washington, blocks from the White House. Nearly all investigations are assigned to one of the bureau’s 56 field offices. But given this inquiry’s importance, senior F.B.I. officials have opted to keep it closely held in Washington in the agency’s counterintelligence section, which investigates how national security secrets are handled.
The investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails has its roots in her decision to use only a private email account for her official business when she was secretary of state, an unorthodox decision that gave her some control over what was made public. She faced criticism when her use of the account became known this year, and after deleting what she said were more than 31,000 personal emails, she turned over more than 30,000 work-related emails for the State Department to make public.
Mrs. Clinton has said that her emails contained no classified information — having classified information outside a secure government account is illegal — and that she is fully cooperating with the investigation. But in reviewing a sampling of the emails for potential security breaches, Mr. McCullough said he found four out of 40 that contained classified information, though perhaps stripped of any indication that it was of classified origin.
According to current and former State Department officials who worked with Mrs. Clinton, most classified information was routed to classified government servers in her office, where it was printed out for her review. Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, often operated the same way.
...
By HAYLEY WALKER
ABC News, 2015-08-16
The continued accusations of illegal activity by Hillary Clinton, four days after the former secretary of state turned over her private email server to the FBI, amount to a "political witch hunt," Sen. Claire McCaskill said today.
“Secretary of State Clinton was not the first secretary of state to use personal e-mail, but she's the only one that has turned over tens upon thousands of her e-mails and asked them to become public. Now she's turned over her server. What this has turned into is just a good, old-fashioned political witch hunt," she said.
[Note how the female misstates the issue.
Of course other Secs have used personal e-mail.
But did any of them conduct ALL of their busines
using a private domain?
Not that it has been reported, and I would doubt it.
Look at the Dem hacks come out to avoid the real issue.]
The Democratic senator from Missouri Senator -- a vocal supporter of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign -- told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that despite the controversy she thinks Clinton will be in "great shape" come next November.
...
by John R. Schindler
The XX Committee, 2015-08-16
[An excellent tutorial on how and why the government places security classifications on text.
It omits one point:
Compartmented TSCW reports have a codeword as part of the classification,
e.g. "TOP SECRET BARFBAIT" (of course that is a codeword I just invented, bearing no relation to any official codewords),
to indicate the compartment to which distribution is restricted.
(The codeword itself is classified.)
Thus only people read-on to the (fictional) "Barfbait" compartment could read that report.
(One of the best-known, now declassified, codewords is "Ultra",
used in WWII for the most sensitive products of signals intelligence.)
In the old days, people would walk around with an array of metal tags on their neck-chain from which their badge hung,
each metal tag indicating a compartment which they were authorized to access.
It was sort of a status symbol, showing how much you were cleared for.
That fact makes it doubly surprising, to me, that the compartmentation system seems to have been degraded,
as indicated by the breadth of Snowden's haul.]
by Jeanine Pirro
Fox News, 2015-08-16
[Wow, that's a pretty strong indictment.
Watch the seven-minute video for Pirro's passionate condemnation of Hillary.
If Pirro were the U.S. Attorney General Hillary would be in big trouble.]
YouTube video, 2015-08-16: Judge Jeanine: Evidence points to Clinton's guilt
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Fox News, 2015-08-17
Ex-officials who were prosecuted and had their lives upended for allegedly mishandling sensitive records are accusing the Obama administration of a "double-standard" in its approach to the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
This administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act, a World War I-era law once used to go after major breaches, than any other in history. While the FBI is looking into Clinton's server amid revelations of state secrets potentially passing through it, some critics -- including those charged under that act -- doubt the Democratic presidential candidate will get the same treatment.
"It's a double standard," said John Kiriakou, a former CIA counter-terrorism operative who spent two years in federal prison and three additional months under house arrest this year for leaking the name of a covert CIA official involved in "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Clinton is not accused of leaking. But the common thread in these cases is the handling of classified material. And the slow-moving arc of the email scandal -- marked by a trickle of revelations along with a web of evolving explanations -- stands in stark contrast to past cases where leakers and whistleblowers were punished aggressively.
Kiriakou, one of those defendants, sees different treatment for the Democratic powerhouse who led the State Department.
Thomas Drake, a former NSA official who after 9/11 went to Congress to sound the alarms about what he called unconstitutional surveillance, also says there is a double standard when it comes to applying classification law.
"I got hammered good," Drake told FoxNews.com.
Though the government's Espionage Act case against him fell apart in 2011, Drake practically lost everything and faced a mountain of legal bills. He pleaded to a single misdemeanor for "exceeding authorized use of a government computer," a violation he compares to "spitting on the NSA sidewalk."
"I think [Clinton] is vulnerable, but whether she enjoys what I call 'elite immunity,' we don't know," he said. "For much lesser violations people have lost their jobs. But when you get to the higher ranks, it's like another set of rules."
Since Obama took office in 2009, seven people have been charged under the Espionage Act -- all for leaking classified or sensitive information.
Five --
Kiriakou,
Shamai Leibowitz,
Chelsea (previously Bradley) Manning,
Jeffrey Sterling,
and former State Department official Stephen Kim --
got jail time.
Kim pleaded guilty in 2014 to disclosing a classified report on North Korea to Fox News reporter James Rosen. His lawyer said the information at issue "was less sensitive or surprising than much of what we read in the newspaper every day." He did 13 months in prison. Sterling was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in May for revealing classified information about the CIA's effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear program to journalist James Risen. Edward Snowden, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents on government surveillance, has been charged in absentia but has asylum in Russia.
Whether Clinton will get "hammered" is another question. According to reports, the FBI took possession of Clinton's private server last week. The IG for the intelligence community told members of Congress that at least two emails that traversed the device while she was secretary of state contained information that warranted a "top secret" label.
Clinton and her staff have been adamant that no email marked classified at the time was ever circulated through her email address or server. "She viewed classified materials in hard copy in her office or via other secure means while traveling, not on email," campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said in an email to supporters.
In his case, Kiriakou was charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, two counts of espionage, and making false statements to the CIA Publications Review Board when writing his book, "The Reluctant Spy." All but the first charge were dropped. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence. But his wife, a top CIA officer, was pushed out of her job. With three children at home, the family went on welfare while Kiriakou was in prison, and fundraisers helped pay the mortgage on their Arlington, Va., home.
To this day, his lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, insists the name of the agent was already well known among the media and human rights community and was never published. Radack told FoxNews.com the Clinton case is "certainly indicative of the hypocritical double standard in Espionage Act prosecutions brought against low-level employee versus politically-connected people." She also lamented "over-classification" and called the Espionage Act an "ill-fitting tool" in these cases.
According to The Washington Post, the Clinton investigation is now being overseen by at least one prosecutor in the case of former Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus was charged with keeping classified information at home in the form of secret "black books." He was given a two-year probation and a $100,000 fine, and today, reportedly is consulting with the White House on ISIS and Iraq and is the chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
Drake, on the other hand, now works at an Apple Store.
"They aren't going to treat [Clinton] the same way I was treated for sure," he said.
[My (KHarbaugh's) opinion, FWIW, is that there is a clear difference between HRC and some of these other cases.
Based on what we know to date, HRC did not intend to make the information on her server available to the general public;
many, if not most, of the other cases involve the deliberate and intentional release of information.
What HRC did was negligence, not deliberate malfeasance.
Thus what she did was, possibly, mishandling classified information,
similar to what Gen. and CIA Director David Petraeus did.
If that is the case, should she be prosecuted for it?
In my opinion, no.
Rather, my view on it is, to quote from another situation:
""It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder."]
Note Clinton's non-response to reporter Ed Henry's question
(emphasis added):
2:35 Ed Henry: Did you try to wipe the ENTIRE server
so that there would be NO emails on the server,
no personal, no official; wipe the whole thing?
Hillary Clinton responds with a defense of wiping her personal emails:
"Well my personal emails are my personal business, right?"
and continues with a discussion of how
"We went through a painstaking process" of separating the personal from the official,
and sent all the material deemed official to the State Department,
and adds "Under the law, that decision is made by the official.
I as the official.
I made those decisions."
Maybe so.
But note how she DID NOT answer Ed Henry's original question,
which was specifically about the content of the entire server.
Hopefully somebody can get address the issue of
responsibility for that destruction of official records.
is no defense under the law
By Gregg Jarrett
Fox News, 2015-08-18
[1]
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer, yet she seems oblivious of the law.
Either that, or she well knows she has no viable legal defense,
leaving herself little alternative but to conjure one.
[2]
Over the weekend, Clinton repeated her claim that
she neither received nor sent any emails with information marked “classified.”
But how they were marked is irrelevant and immaterial under the law.
Read the statutes (18 USC 1924 and 18 USC 793).
The content of the documents is what counts, not markings.
[3]
Initially, two documents containing “top-secret” intelligence matters
were discovered among the emails on her private server.
Now, there are reports that
the number of emails with classified data has ballooned to 60.
Hundreds more may be discovered
as investigators comb through the roughly 30,000 work-related emails handled by Clinton’s server.
[4]
Storing classified information at an unauthorized location (and/or transmitting it therefrom) is a crime.
Pure and simple.
Knowledge of its classification status is of no legal consequence.
Thus, it is no defense for Clinton to claim she did not know matters were classified.
[5]
Which invites another salient question:
How could she not know?
As Secretary of State, she was privy to many of our nation’s most-guarded secrets.
Did they have to be specifically marked “Top Secret” or “Classified”
for her to recognize them for what they were?
For four years, she was America’s top diplomat
with direct access to the most sensitive information and data.
It should have been recognized by her instantaneously.
[6]
And yet, Clinton appears to be arguing her own incompetence.
That is, she should not be held legally liable because
she was too inept to recognize classified materials without their markings.
[7]
But incompetence is not a defense.
Especially if you are angling for a promotion to be President of the United States.
[Let us recall that Clinton herself is a lawyer, a Yale Law School graduate,
who in the 1992 presidential campaign was billed as a top lawyer.
Indeed, quoting Wikipedia,
"The National Law Journal twice listed her as
one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America."]
[8]
Regardless of her motives, it was reckless, foolish and naïve
to establish a private server to handle copious messages
that would inexorably involve matters of national security and secrecy.
It would be impossible not to break the law.
[9]
Which makes Clinton’s defense of her actions all the more implausible.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.
By Stephen Braun | AP
Washington Post / AP, 2015-08-19
I think that her server being "wiped" is a very, very serious matter,
amounting to obstruction of justice.
The information that was on it was absolutely necessary
for the USG to attempt to determine
whether the server had been hacked, and if so,
by whom and when?
These are super-important questions,
which whoever "wiped" the server hindered, if not prevented,
from being answered.
Previously I had not thought the issues revolving around
her use of a private domain for her official email communications
necessarily was a crime, although it surely was a blunder.
(Although issues involving transmission of classified information over that server
could rise to the level of criminal.)
But "wiping" the server was, in my opinion, certainly a criminal offense.
It is necessary to determine the who, what, and why behind that action.
Also, note that Clinton's claim that she "turned over everything" months ago
is a vile lie.
For counterintelligence purposes,
it was absolutely necessary to have the server itself,
in as intact a condition as possible,
so that its internal data structures could be forensically examined
for signs of hacking.
Turning over paper copies of the emails she, or her aides, deemed official
did absolutely nothing to further that necessary examination of whether it had been hacked.
Clinton reveals herself here inescapably as being truly clueless on
the national security issues that her use of her private server for official business raised.
This is proof positive of the following:
It is Hillary and her defenders who are the partisan hacks,
not those who asked for access to her server so they could forensically examine it.
More lying scumbag tricks from the Democrats,
accusing others of being partisans when they are the real partisans.
(We see the same dynamic play out on the issue of voter fraud,
where well-meaning and reasonable attempts to assure the integrity of the voting process
are dismissed as being partisan.)
By John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-08-19
NORTH LAS VEGAS -- Democratic president candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said repeatedly Tuesday that she did not know if her e-mail server, which was turned over to the FBI last week, had been wiped clean of data.
In a testy exchange with reporters following a town hall meeting in North Las Vegas, Clinton responded, "What, like with a cloth or something?" when asked if the server had been wiped. "I don’t know how it works at all," she added.
After Ed Henry of Fox News pressed Clinton on the issue repeatedly, an aide ended the question-and-answer session and Clinton turned to walk away. Another reporter shouted a question about whether the e-mail issue will ever go away. Clinton turned and shrugged.
“Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys," she said.
The exchange typified Clinton's struggle to fully answer questions about her use of a private e-mail account and server during her four years as secretary of state, and to move beyond those questions to focus on other campaign issues.
Clinton has come under fire for using a private e-mail during her time as secretary of state. The e-mails are being screened and released in batches. Here are some things we’ve learned from them.
The private e-mail server that Clinton used while secretary of state was turned over to the FBI last week from a data center in New Jersey, where it had been stored since 2013 by a small Denver IT firm the Clintons had hired that year to manage their technology needs.
Clinton directed that it be turned over after the FBI requested it as part of an inquiry into whether data that had been stored on the server was secure. Officials have said the probe is preliminary and Clinton is not a target.
[What you need to know about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails]
The Intelligence Community's Inspector General has said he located two e-mails containing top secret material in a sample of 40 of Clinton's e-mails he reviewed. The State Department has said Clinton herself did not write those e-mails but that there are potentially hundreds of other e-mails that also included classified material.
"In order to be as cooperative as possible, we have turned over the server," Clinton told reporters Tuesday. "They can do whatever they want to with the server to figure out what’s there and what’s not there. That’s for the people investigating it to try to figure out."
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Clinton again insisted Tuesday that she did not send any classified material but also acknowledged that she wishes she had not used the private system.
"In retrospect, what was meant to be convenient has turned out to be anything but convenient," she said.
Clinton has said she turned over 30,000 work-related e-mails from her private account to the State Department in December. She said she chose not to keep 31,000 other e-mails from the account that were sent and received during those years because they dealt only with personal matters.
“Look, my personal e-mails are my personal business. Right?" she told reporters, when asked if the e-mails were wiped from the server. "So we went through a painstaking process and through 55,000 pages we thought could be worth relating. Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions."
By Paul Waldman
Washington Post Plum Line blog, 2015-08-19
[I include this article here
only to provide a refutation of a false line of argument the author makes here,
a false argument that many of Clinton's defenders are making:]
...
Then there’s the possibility that
she discussed sensitive or classified material in emails.
She says she didn’t, but as yet we don’t know for certain.
You might or might not consider that disqualifying as well.
But the government classifies an absurd amount of material,
even things that are publicly available;
what would really matter is the details,
like whether somebody else
said something about a classified matter in an email to her
(which wouldn’t be her fault) ...
[True, she can't control what arrives in her inbox.
But what she should have been aware of is the fact that
everything she was receiving on her home-brew system
was vulnerable to being read by anyone with significant hacking skills,
and thus a potential breach of security.
She was making her inbox, with its wide range of subjects and classifications,
accessible to many, many parties.
That was her responsibility, her decision, her judgment.
Would her judgment as President reflect a wiser knowledge of risks?
There are many pitfalls out there, in the world that is.
Addressing women's issues and catering to the desires of homosexuals and blacks
may get her elected,
but don't indicate serious knowledge of the threats America faces.]
...
We’re still waiting for somebody to explain the crime Hillary Clinton committed.
And to repeat, maybe there is one; who knows.
[It is a fact that storing classified information
in a non-secure location is a violation of the Federal Code,
and thus a crime.
One would hope that reporters, commentators (such as Waldman), and editors
don't conveniently ignore or forget
that inconvenient (if you're a Clinton supporter) fact.]
...
MSNBC "Morning Joe", 2015-08-19
Gen. Michael Hayden responds to the Clinton email controversy saying
the former Secretary of State shouldn't have commingled the email accounts
and should have used a government server.
Hayden says he's "stunned" her staff allowed her to do this.
Duration: 8:48
Former Director of the NSA and CIA joins Newsmax Prime to discuss
how having former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails stored on a private server has compromised U.S. National Security.
by Eugene Robinson
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-08-18
This isn’t about whether Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, which is likely. It isn’t even about whether she becomes our next president, which she has a better chance of doing than anyone else. It’s about basic respect — for us and for the truth.
Why, when she took office as secretary of state, did she decide to route official e-mails through a server in her suburban New York mansion? There is just one plausible explanation: She wanted control.
Clinton was no stranger to the rules of the federal government. She had to know that if she used a State Department account, her 60,000-plus e-mails would become part of the official record. She certainly knew, without any doubt, that her political opponents would delight in rummaging through her communications. Let’s be honest: Hillary and Bill Clinton do have enemies, lots of them, who show no compunction about launching unfair and vicious attacks. She must have wanted to make sure they never got the chance.
But all of that is beside the point. If you accept the job of secretary of state, you inevitably surrender some of your privacy. Any public official’s work-related e-mails are the modern equivalent of the letters, memos and diaries that fill the National Archives. They tell our nation’s history and belong to all of us. Even if your name is Clinton, you have no right to unilaterally decide what is included and what is not.
So I wish Hillary Clinton would be respectful enough to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” I wish she wouldn’t insult our intelligence by claiming she only did what other secretaries of state had done. None of her predecessors, after all, went to the trouble and expense of a private e-mail server.
And I wish I could be sure that Clinton is now, finally, doing everything in her power to ensure that any extant e-mails are turned over to the State and Justice departments. Unfortunately, I can’t. She stonewalled for so long — there’s no other word for her stance — that recent pledges of openness and cooperation ring hollow.
If Clinton now has political problems because of the e-mails — or, potentially, even legal trouble — it’s her own doing.
At present, I have no reason to believe the controversy is enough to derail the Clinton locomotive’s grinding progress toward the nomination. She still leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by more than 30 points in an average of recent national polls. Her strength among women and minorities — vital segments of the Democratic Party coalition — looks overwhelming. Even if Vice President Joe Biden were to enter the race, Clinton’s “first mover” advantage means her campaign has most of the political talent and key endorsements locked up.
And as she proved in 2008, she is a better candidate when under duress. In recent campaign appearances she has been passionate, unscripted and dynamic. At the Iowa State Fair, she was as much of a rock star as Donald Trump.
If Clinton makes it to the general election, however, she has needlessly handed her Republican opponent a weapon. Her trustworthiness, as measured by polls, was always a relative weakness. Even if Democrats accept that the e-mail flap is a partisan witch hunt, the GOP nominee will try to persuade independents otherwise.
The legal questions could prove more troubling. It should come as no surprise to anyone with a brain that the work-related e-mails of the secretary of state would contain sensitive information. Clinton surrendered more than 30,000 messages to the State Department, and an initial review of just 40 e-mails revealed two that reportedly should have been deemed top secret. Unconfirmed reports — and common sense — suggest there are more.
Were the questionable e-mails sent to her by others, meaning the responsibility to flag them as classified was not hers? Was the information considered secret at the time? Was having these e-mails on her server — and on a thumb drive in her lawyer’s office — at least a technical violation of the law?
Clinton shouldn’t have to answer such questions. It’s her own fault that she does.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico.com, 2015-08-20
A federal judge has added fresh fuel to the incendiary controversy over Hillary Clinton’s email, asserting during a hearing Thursday that she violated government policy by storing official messages on a private server when she worked as secretary of state.
“We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy,”
said U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, apparently referring to Clinton,
during a hearing on one of the many Freedom of Information act lawsuits seeking access to her records as secretary of state.
Sullivan’s said Clinton’s actions had complicated the State Department’s ability to respond to requests for records on various topics. He also ordered the State Department to contact the FBI to determine whether the private server Clinton used, which Clinton turned over to that law enforcement agency earlier this month, contains official records possibly responsive to the FOIA suit.
After Justice Department lawyer Peter Wechsler argued that the open records law normally doesn’t allow for searches of government officials’ private accounts, the judge said he viewed it as an unusual situation because
“there was a violation of government policy.”
“We’re not talking about a search of anyone’s random email,” Sullivan added.
...
The judge expressed irritation Wednesday
when [Justice Department lawyer Peter] Wechsler said
he did not know whether the FBI, a Justice Department agency —
was actually in possession of Clinton’s server or thumb drives
on which her attorney stored copies of her emails.
“You’re a Justice Department attorney?….You can’t tell me?” the judge said.
Wechsler said the FBI was “reportedly” in possession of the server, but he said the State Department knew that only because Kendall told them so.
“I need to get an answer,” the judge said. “We’re tiptoeing on the head of a pin because there’s only one government.”
Wechsler expressed concern that reaching out to the FBI might interfere in its investigation, but the judge said simply asking for any responsive records wouldn’t do that. He ultimately ordered the State Department to contact the FBI to see if any records responsive to the FOIA lawsuit may exist on the server or thumb drives.
...
During Thursday’s hearing in the State Department case, Sullivan never said precisely how he believed Hillary Clinton violated government policy. But he repeatedly referred to the department’s obligation to preserve records under the Federal Records Act of 1950.
At one point, the judge said he wanted State to ask Clinton whether any third parties — such as technology companies — might have copies of official records from her tenure. However, the written order Sullivan issued after the hearing made no mention of that.
...
The key legal question in the case at this point is
the degree to which a FOIA lawsuit can be used
to seek records that aren’t in a federal agency’s core system
but on a personal email account or personal server.
Wechsler pointed to a 1980 Supreme Court case involving former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s papers, which he donated to the Library of Congress under a stipulation that they not be opened without his permission until five years after his death. The high court ruled that a FOIA lawsuit wasn’t the right mechanism to try to force those records back into the State Department’s hands.
“FOIA is not used to resolve complaints of an agency employee’s misuse of personal email,” Wechsler said.
However, Judicial Watch lawyer Michael Bekesha argued that
Clinton’s use of the personal account and server throughout her tenure,
her lack of any other account
and the State Department’s apparent authorization or acquiescence in that arrangement
effectively converted the account and the server into government records
that could be sought under FOIA no matter where they wound up.
“This isn’t a personal email account,” Bekesha insisted.
“The State Department may not have had physical possession of that server,
but they had custody and control of these devices, that server.”
Bekesha said it was possible records kept off site
or on a private server by a “rogue employee”
might not be accessible under FOIA, but
he noted reports that State Department information technology specialists
were involved in maintaining the server.
He compared the situation to one where an agency hires a contractor to store records.
Wechsler declared that comparison “preposterous.”
[You sons of bitches. Answer the fucking question!
It is totally pertinent.
There is no excuse for dodging it.]
Bekesha suggested that if there was some ambiguity about whether Clinton’s email arrangement was officially sanctioned or approved,
State’s top management official , Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, could resolve it.
“Let’s ask Patrick Kennedy…. Let’s get him to discuss under oath what the arrangement was,” the Judicial Watch lawyer said.
Sullivan didn’t rule out that possibility, but asked Wechsler to hold off on requesting that kind of inquiry until State opens “a dialogue” with the FBI. He ordered State to report back within a month on what records if any it is able to get from the FBI.
[Why wait?
Let's get an answer, under oath, as to the extent to which the State Department officials with responsibility for security
were aware of Hillary's unique use of a server outside of government control for all her official purposes,
with the possibility that inevitably introduced of classified information flowing onto insecure computers and networks.
How about a straight answer from State as to the extent they were aware of this.]
[Note posted the next day, Friday, August 21 2015:
The Washington Post had NO article on Judge Sullivan's comments on Friday,
either in its print edition (I just checked it), nor on its web site (I just searched it, on "Hillary Clinton emails").
I guess the requirement is to minimize anything that might stand in the way of the coronation of Hillary.]
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Politics, 2015-08-20
[On web, but not in print edition.]
A federal judge told lawyers for the State Department on Thursday that they should “establish a dialogue” with the FBI to learn whether federal records remain on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail server.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan peppered the lawyers with questions about what they are doing to ensure that the department has sought to retrieve public documents from Clinton and her top aides.
At one point Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, flatly stated that the questions would have been avoided if Hillary Clinton “had followed government policy” regarding e-mail.
Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president, has said her exclusive use of a private e-mail account and server during her four years as secretary of state was permitted by government regulations. She has turned over 30,000 e-mails to the State Department, indicating those documents include all those she sent or received that might include public business. But she has also indicated that she chose not to keep 31,000 more e-mails from those years, deeming them entirely personal in nature.
At issue for Sullivan is
whether the State Department has done enough to comply with public records laws
by searching only those e-mails Clinton has already turned over to the agency.
The judge's questions came in connection with a lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch, which has sought all records related to the employment status of a key Clinton aide, including those found among Clinton’s own correspondence.
Sullivan’s inquiries demonstrate how the e-mail issue has now moved beyond Clinton’s control, as several lawsuits over records and a number of investigations produce new revelations about how she managed her records. As the parallel inquiries progress, Clinton will likely continue to be dogged by questions about the e-mails and her server on the presidential campaign trail.
Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, has told congressional committees that none of Clinton’s e-mails from her time as secretary of state remain on the server. However, Clinton herself told reporters earlier this week that she did not know if the server had been "wiped." And a spokesman for Platte River Networks, the company that took possession of Clinton’s server in 2013 and turned it over the FBI last week, has said he has no information that the server was wiped.
A Department of Justice lawyer acting on behalf of the State Department repeatedly told Sullivan that
it was not necessary for State to look for documents on the server,
given that Clinton has submitted a declaration under oath
that she has already provided all her e-mails that involved public business.
["In Hillary we trust." Is that the DOJ motto?]
But Peter Wechsler ultimately conceded that
the department could reach out to the FBI
to determine what its analysis is finding on the server.
Sullivan suggested that he might be open to additional steps in the future,
including a possible third party forensic analysis of the server
and ordering Clinton to reveal whether back-ups or other copies of the data exist.
For now, he asked the State Department to provide an update on its progress in 30 days.
...
Reporting by Jonathan Allen, editing by Ross Colvin
Reuters, 2015-08-21
For months,
the U.S. State Department has stood behind its former boss Hillary Clinton
as she has repeatedly said she did not send or receive classified information
on her unsecured, private email account,
a practice the government forbids.
While the department is now stamping a few dozen of the publicly released emails as "Classified,"
it stresses this is not evidence of rule-breaking.
Those stamps are new, it says, and do not mean the information was classified
when Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, first sent or received it.
But the details included in those "Classified" stamps —
which include a string of dates, letters and numbers describing the nature of the classification —
appear to undermine this account,
a Reuters examination of the emails and the relevant regulations has found.
The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton's emails from her time as the nation's most senior diplomat
are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department's own regulations
automatically deems classified from the get-go —
regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not.
In the small fraction of emails made public so far,
Reuters has found at least 30 email threads from 2009,
representing scores of individual emails,
that include what the State Department's own "Classified" stamps now identify as so-called
'foreign government information.'
The U.S. government defines this as any information, written or spoken,
provided in confidence to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts.
This sort of information, which the department says
Clinton both sent and received in her emails,
is the only kind that must be "presumed" classified,
in part to protect national security and the integrity of diplomatic interactions,
according to U.S. regulations examined by Reuters.
"It's born classified," said J. William Leonard,
a former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO).
Leonard was director of ISOO,
part of the White House's National Archives and Records Administration,
from 2002 until 2008,
and worked for both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
"If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence,
by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it's in U.S. channels and U.S. possession,"
he said in a telephone interview, adding that
for the State Department to say otherwise was "blowing smoke."
...
The State Department disputed Reuters' analysis
but declined requests to explain how it was incorrect.
The findings of the Reuters review are separate from the recent analysis by the inspector general for U.S. intelligence agencies, who said last month that his office found four emails that contained classified government secrets at the time they were sent in a sample of 40 emails not yet made public.
The State Department has said it does not know whether the inspector general is correct. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into the security of the copies of the emails outside the government's control.
FOR THE SECRETARY'S EYES ONLY
Clinton and her senior staff routinely sent foreign government information among themselves on unsecured networks several times a month, if the State Department's markings are correct. Within the 30 email threads reviewed by Reuters, Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information. In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government.
[By the way, just what security clearances did Mr. Blumenthal have at the time?]
The information appears to include privately shared comments by a prime minister, several foreign ministers and a foreign spy chief, unredacted bits of the emails show. Typically, Clinton and her staff first learned the information in private meetings, telephone calls or, less often, in email exchanges with the foreign officials.
In an email from November 2009,
the principal private secretary to David Miliband, then the British foreign secretary,
indicates that he is passing on information about Afghanistan from his boss in confidence.
He writes to Huma Abedin, Clinton's most senior aide, that
Miliband "very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note."
Nearly five pages of entirely redacted information follow.
Abedin forwarded it on to Clinton's private email account.
["redacted information".
If the information is now judged too sensitive for publication,
isn't that prima facie evidence that it was classified all the time,
just not marked as such,
while it was sitting on Hillary's insecure server.
And that it was classified should surely have been recognized by
a competent U.S. Secretary of State and his (ahem) senior aides.
But hey, isn't it great how women are advancing in Washington?
Let's celebrate their "achievements".]
...
John Fitzpatrick, the current ISOO director,
said Reuters had correctly identified all the governing rules but said
it would be inappropriate for his office to take a stance on Clinton's emails,
in part because he did not know the context in which the information was given.
[Inappropriate?
The public obviously has an interest in knowing whether that information should have been handled as classified, whether it was so marked or not.
According to its website, the Information Security Oversight Office
"is responsible to the President for policy and oversight
of the Government-wide security classification system."
This is obviously an oversight issue.
Can they really get away with avoiding examining the situation
and rendering their professional judgment?
Note the ISOO "is responsible to the President".
So if they avoid taking a stand on this matter
it is with President Obama's acquiescence.]
A spokeswoman for one of the foreign governments whose information appears in Clinton's emails said,
on condition of anonymity to protect diplomatic relations,
that the information was shared confidentially in 2009 with Clinton and her senior staff.
If so, it appears this information should have been classified at the time
and not handled on a private unsecured email network,
according to government regulations.
The foreign government expects all private exchanges with U.S. officials to be treated that way,
the spokeswoman for the foreign government said.
Leonard, the former ISOO director, said
this sort of information was improperly shared by officials through insecure channels
more frequently than the public may realize,
although more typically within the unsecured .gov email network than on private email accounts.
With few exceptions, officials are forbidden from sending classified information even via the .gov email network
and must use a dedicated secure network instead.
The difference in Clinton's case, Leonard said,
is that so-called "spillages" of classified information within the .gov network
are easier to track and contain.
by Alana Goodman
Washington Free Beacon
By Ken Thomas and Julie Bykowicz | AP
Washington Post, 2015-08-21
...
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I think the advice to her of making a joke out of it — I think that was not good advice.”
Nelson said if Clinton had received information that should have been labeled classified or top secret, the person sending the email would bear the responsibility of making that clear on the email.
“If she is receiving something on a private email account and it has no designation, then how would she know that it is classified?” he asked.
[For a very good answer to that question, see the Reuters story
"Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggest".
One might think that a U.S. Senator,
who serves on the Senate Committee on Armed Services,
would be aware of such information.]
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-21
...
In a statement, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton defended her use of the account.
“Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account
was consistent with the practice of other secretaries of state,
and permissible under the department’s policy at the time,”
said the spokesman, Brian Fallon.
When Mrs. Clinton became secretary in February 2009,
the State Department’s general policy was
“that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized” government computer.
Nine months later, federal regulations were toughened to say that
government agencies that allow employees to use nongovernment email accounts
must “ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems
are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system.”
Since The New York Times reported in March that Mrs. Clinton exclusively used a personal email account,
she has said that she complied with the regulations
by sending emails to the work accounts of government officials so that
those messages would be caught in the government’s servers.
At a news conference in March at the United Nations, Mrs. Clinton said,
“I fully complied with every rule that I was governed by.”
Emails from Mrs. Clinton’s account that were handed over to Congress show that
she sent emails to at least four of her aides on their personal email accounts.
Unless those emails were later sent to government accounts,
they could not have been retained on government record-keeping systems.
...
by Ruth Marcus
Washington Post, 2015-08-21
Dear Secretary Clinton:
Your e-mail problem has mushroomed from a self-inflicted nuisance to a self-inflicted wound. The reason is simple: At every decision point, you and your staff have made the wrong choice about how to proceed, erring on the side of secrecy and self-righteousness.
...
This is sounding like “That ’90s Show.” You want to wave off the whole thing as the “same old partisan games we’ve seen so many times before.” That may be therapeutic. It’s not politically smart.
The original mistake — deciding to conduct official government business through a private e-mail account for the sake, you say, of convenience — can’t be undone. But you ought to stop — now! — with the unconvincing claim that you did nothing different from your predecessors as secretary of state.
The relevant universe of predecessors during the era of e-mail is precisely two. Condoleezza Rice rarely used e-mail but employed a government account when she did. Colin Powell did employ a private account for what he described as “the then-newfangled” technology.
The more reasonable question is: What did other Cabinet secretaries in this administration do? No others, to my knowledge, relied solely or even primarily on a private address.
So, please, stop being the dogged litigator bent on proving that what you did was technically permissible at the time. As the judge overseeing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking access to your records said Thursday, “We wouldn’t be here today if this employee” — he meant you — “had followed government policy.”
By the way, even if relying solely on private e-mail was not against explicit rules at the time, you still were supposed to make your correspondence available promptly for archiving and FOIA requests — not when you turned them over, in response to an inquiry from the State Department, two years after departing.
Two subsequent mistakes — first, deciding to delete the e-mails you deemed personal; second, declining, until the Justice Department asked, to make your personal server available for review — are similarly unfixable at this point. And, “That ’90s Show” again, how predictable was it that this would backfire?
Yes, you would have been permitted to erase the personal messages on a government account, but you didn’t use a government account. And wiping the server — you did work on Watergate for the House Judiciary Committee, didn’t you? Why not hot-potato the server over to State and let them figure out how to handle it — before the Justice Department got involved and you looked like you had something to hide?
...
So, my advice: Stop making light. Stop litigating. Stop the high-handed dismissing. Stop the prickliness with the media; we’re not going away. Stop the non-apology apologies (you didn’t do anything wrong, but you wouldn’t do it over again).
You don’t need to grovel or confess to grievous errors. Just dial down the combativeness — as hard as this is for you — and ramp up the reasonableness: You understand people have questions. If classified information was not adequately protected, you’d like to know that and figure out what lessons can be learned.
This problem isn’t going away. The trick, right now, is simply not making it worse.
By Paul Sperry
New York Post, 2015-08-23
Former State Department security officials don’t buy Hillary Clinton’s latest alibi that she couldn’t tell that government emails — which she improperly, if not illegally, kept for several years on an unsecured home server — contained top-secret information because they lacked official markings and weren’t classified until later.
Such messages contain sensitive “keywords” distinguishing them from unclassified information, even if the material didn’t bear a classified heading as she claims.
The secretary would have known better, the department officials say, because she was trained to understand the difference when she was “read in” on procedures to ID and handle classified information by diplomatic security officials in 2009.
Clinton also went through a so-called “read-off” when she left office in 2013. In that debriefing, security officials reminded her of her duty to return all classified documents, including ones in which the classification status is “uncertain,” which would have included the emails stored on her private server — which she only this month turned over to authorities. The read-off would have included her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
“Once she resigned as secretary, she needed to return classified documents and other government-owned documents, which in this case would have included the server,” veteran Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Raymond Fournier said.
US intelligence officials so far have determined that at least four — and as many as 305 — of the more than 30,000 emails Clinton and her aides have printed out and turned over to investigators were classified at the time they were written.
They include a 2011 message from Clinton’s top aides that contains military intelligence from United States Africa Command gleaned from satellite images of troop movements in Libya, along with the travel and protection plans for Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was later killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Another staff email sent to Clinton in 2012 contained investigative data about Benghazi terrorist suspects wanted by the FBI.
Both emails were classified TS/SI — Top Secret/Special Intelligence — and required the nation’s highest security clearance to read. SI is a control system within the supersecret designation known as Sensitive Compartmented Information.
SCI intelligence, which if leaked can cause “grave harm” to national security, is tightly controlled and usually kept in hard-copy form in bound books numbered and stored in highly secure “read rooms” known as SCIFs at department headquarters in Foggy Bottom. Before entering, cleared officials are required to place cellphones, BlackBerrys, iPads, laptops and other electronic devices on a shelf outside the monitored facilities. TS/SCI material is transported between SCIFs in locked bags carried by special couriers.
Clinton aides, however, put it into electronic form. Clinton still maintains she didn’t know that their TS/SCI emails were classified when she received them on a private computer server she set up outside the department in 2009.
“I did not receive any material marked or designated classified, which is the way you know whether something is [classified],” she said last week, revising an earlier claim that “there is no classified material.”
“That’s total BS,” said retired Army Col. Larry Mrozinski, who served almost four years as a senior military adviser and security manager in the State Department under both Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.
He says Clinton easily would have ID’d the material as classified based on “keywords and phrases” and the fact that the information came from foreign sources.
“TS/SCI is very serious and specific information that jumps out at you and screams ‘classified,’ ” Mrozinski said. “The sources [of the information] also drive and signal sensitivity.”
He added: “It’s hard to imagine that in her position she would fail to recognize the obvious.”
Mrozinski was the certified security manager for the peacekeeping, sanctions and counterterrorism office in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where he had TS/SCI clearance and spent roughly 15 to 30 minutes a day in SCIFs.
“This is a serious breach of national security,” Mrozinski said, and “a clear violation of the law.”
“You are strictly forbidden to discuss TS/SCI of any kind outside a SCIF,” he explained, and yet “she was viewing and handling it in direct violation of the law and possibly exposing it to our enemies,” such as ISIS and Beijing, which has hacked Pentagon sites.
“Anybody else would have already lost their security clearance and be subjected to an espionage investigation,” Mrozinski added. “But apparently a different standard exists for Mrs. Clinton.”
“She’s in big, big trouble,” Fournier agreed.
Paul Sperry, a visiting media fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of “Infiltration.”
that were covered in the Politico story excerpted above,
and the Washington Post STILL, so far as I can determine,
has not seen fit to publish in their print edition
a news story about those remarks.
They write about everything else under the sun,
but not those remarks critical of Hillary.
MSNBC Morning Joe, 08/24/15 06:14AM
The Morning Joe panel talks about the severity of the Clinton email saga, including its potential impact on national security. (6:40)
MSNBC Morning Joe interviews former AG Michael Mukasey, 2015-08-24
08/24/15 06:45AM
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey talks about the Clinton email controversy and says, "you don't put it all on a private server."
The part excerpted in the item below starts at 2:30.
This continues with an extended discussion of
the legal problems Clinton may have incurred
by having the server "wiped clean".
Joe Scarborough made the following point:
Doesn't the State Department's refusal to answer legitimate, reasonable questions about what she did or didn't do, and about its knowledge of what she did,
show that the State Department is simply in the tank for its former leader?
MSNBC Morning Joe interviews former AG Michael Mukasey, 2015-08-24
08/24/15 06:48AM
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey talks about
the potential legal ramifications of the Clinton emails.
Among other things, Mukasey said:
by Melinda Henneberger
Bloomberg, 2015-08-24
For more than five months, Hillary Clinton has been saying that she used a private server and e-mail address as secretary of state purely as a matter of convenience. And her critics, of course, keep expressing skepticism about whether that was her true motivation: Surely, she was instead hiding something—or at best, just keeping her Spidey skills up.
Now, with the Justice Department looking into whether classified information was handled correctly, it may be time for the Democratic presidential front-runner to stop presenting herself as someone whose personal convenience is so paramount that potential security concerns never even occurred to her. Or as someone who, as her communications director Jennifer Palmieri said on With All Due Respect last week, “really didn’t think it through.”
Clinton has worked long and hard to establish herself as strong on national security, which is harder for any Democrat and even more challenging for a woman in her party. She accomplished that feat after serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and logging four years as our top diplomat. With that memorable, and highly controversial, 2008 campaign ad about a 3 a.m. phone call to the White House, she went to extremes, many Democrats felt, in trying to convince voters that they could rest safe and secure in the knowledge that their children were snug in their beds and Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama was in the Oval and on the case.
the Clintons are all about the Clintons,
painting herself as someone who does whatever’s easier
is an odd political strategy.
She’s stuck to it, though, even as her polling numbers fall and Joe Biden considers getting into the race.
In a March news conference at the United Nations, Clinton first told reporters that in exclusively using a private server and personal account for official government business, “I opted for convenience to use my personal e-mail account—which was allowed by the State Department—because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal e-mails instead of two.”
Over and over that day, she said she’d been short-sighted: "Looking back, it would have been better if I'd simply used a second e-mail account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn't seem like an issue."
“I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way. So I did it for convenience and I now, looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning.”
Now, of course, the F.B.I. is investigating the security of her server and thumb drives containing work e-mails from her time at State. Yet she’s still thinking it would reassure us somehow to know she was really only doing what suited her at the time:
“What was supposed to be convenient,’’ she said in Las Vegas last week, “has turned out to be anything but convenient.”
Asked if leaders don’t take responsibility, she repeated the formulation: “I take responsibility … in retrospect this didn’t turn out to be convenient at all. And I regret that this had to become such a cause célèbre.”
There's no doubt about that.
But did her use of a private server make her communications any less secure?
Because it was private,
those e-mails that weren’t to a government address
wouldn’t have been available under the Freedom of Information Act,
as they’re supposed to be.
And whether or not she was trying to hide anything in particular, she may also be telling the truth about her underlying motivation, since privacy is always more convenient than a lack of privacy is.
by Patrick Howley
breitbart.com, 2015-08-24
The small Denver-based company that stored Hillary Clinton’s private email server has close business and personal ties to Hillary Clinton and to the chairman of her presidential campaign, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
The firm claims that it is an unsuspecting and apolitical small business that just happened to win a bid to store Clinton’s server in 2013.
But it turns out that the Clinton campaign’s tentacles are managing every aspect of the private email scandal — and the paper trail also leads inside the Obama White House.
Platte River Networks, which was responsible for storing Clinton’s server from 2013 until turning it over to federal investigators this month, employs a former top Clinton aide with a reputation as campaign chairman John Podesta’s “fixer,” according to an insider.
Platte River, based in Denver, has hired a Denver-based public relations firm called Dovetail Solutions to advise it in the midst of unprecedented media scrutiny.
Dovetail Solutions CEO Andy Boian has already done numerous media appearances and given statements on Platte River’s behalf, trying to tone down negative reports about Platte River’s business practices. Phone calls to Platte River requesting its communications department are currently forwarded to Boian’s line.
Boian is a political campaign operative and former Democratic National Committee representative whose firm mostly represents small Colorado clients including Denver Magazine and Downtown Denver Partnership’s Parade of Lights. But the firm, curiously, also has a Beltway heavy hitter on the payroll.
Washington cyber security lobbyist David Goodfriend serves as a “strategic counselor” to Dovetail Solutions. A former deputy staff secretary to President Bill Clinton, Goodfriend was among the group that founded left-wing Air America Radio with Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). He resides in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.
Why is this Beltway-based cyber lobbyist in Denver advising a small public relations firm?
Goodfriend took a class at Georgetown Law School with current Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who was then in between shifts in the Bill Clinton White House. Goodfriend is reportedly a member of a Hillary Clinton For President organization. His relationship with Podesta was documented.
Goodfriend not only lobbied senior Obama White House officials on behalf of clients including DISH Network, but he attended at least twelve media “messaging” meetings at the White House after Obama took office.
So how did Goodfriend get involved on this case? Goodfriend appeared on Newsmax TV to defend Hillary Clinton on the email issue:
[There is a video in the original article at this point.]
By Marc A. Thiessen
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-08-24
Hillary Clinton likes to point out that she is not the first senior national security official to conduct official business on a home computer system. She’s right about that, but the precedent should not give the Democratic presidential front-runner much comfort.
Former CIA director John Deutch was also found to have stored classified documents — including top-secret intelligence — on computers in his homes in Bethesda and Belmont, Mass., leading to an investigation by the CIA inspector general and a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Deutch was stripped of his security clearance and ended up reaching a plea agreement admitting to his crimes — but was saved by a last-minute pardon from none other than . . . President Bill Clinton.
...
Another parallel with Clinton: The inspector general found that Deutch had used the same unclassified computers to process both classified information and conduct personal business, which made the “classified information residing on Deutch’s computers . . . vulnerable to possible electronic access and exploitation.”
The inspector general blasted Deutch for his failure to follow an “elementary practice . . . to separately process classified and unclassified information,” adding that “[b]ecause Deutch’s computers configured for unclassified use had connections to the Internet, all classified information on those computers was at risk of compromise.”
The same could be said of Clinton. Indeed, we know that Chinese hackers successfully penetrated the private e-mail accounts of “many” senior Obama White House officials. If investigators find that Clinton’s private server containing top-secret intelligence was penetrated by foreign intelligence service, she is going to be in serious trouble.
But here is one important difference: While Deutch expressed regret for putting classified information at risk, Clinton is making public jokes about it — joking about wiping her server “with a cloth” and signing up for a Snapchat account because “those messages disappear all by themselves.”
I’m sure the folks at the FBI investigating her e-mail setup found that funny.
The inspector general’s report also includes a note for caution for anyone in the bureaucracy who is thinking of protecting Clinton from proper scrutiny. In the Deutch case, the inspector general took CIA officials to task for failing to properly investigate “Deutch’s continued suitability for access to classified information” and criticized the agency for its failure to submit “a crimes report to the Department of Justice.”
His classified report (which was later made public in unclassified form) spurred action.
CIA director George Tenet stripped Deutch of his security clearances.
And the Justice Department, which initially declined to launch a criminal investigation, finally did so.
The Post reported that on Jan. 19, 2001,
Deutch reached a plea bargain agreement admitting guilt,
“but too late to file it in court that day.”
President Clinton intervened,
pardoning Deutch a day later in his final hours in office.
Since the pardon obviated the plea agreement,
the document was never filed or made public.
[How about that. Surely the timing was just a coincidence.]
When Deutch was stripped of his security clearance, he admitted that “in hindsight it is clear that I should have insisted that I be provided the means of accomplishing [my] work in a manner fully consistent with all the security rules. No one, including the Director, is exempt from compliance with these rules.” He’s right. No one, including the secretary of state, is exempt from compliance with those rules either — as Hillary Clinton may soon find out.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico.com, 2015-08-25
Hillary Clinton stored at least 63 emails on a private server that have now been deemed classified by the State Department, a collection of messages that contains diplomatic information not normally discussed in public.
However, some of the emails on Clinton’s server that appear most sensitive did not get either classification. They include near-real-time reports on the violence that unfolded in Libya in 2011 and 2012.
Two of the messages sent on unclassified systems are updates from Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador killed in the Benghazi attacks in 2012. One mentions contingency plans to evacuate American diplomats by sea. Another gives details about safety precautions Stevens’ team is taking at its hotel and about tactics being used by Libyan militias.
POLITICO reviewed 63 emails posted on the State Department website that are formally marked as classified,
[Huh!!!]
as well as two others Fox News has cited as potentially classified.
POLITICO discovered another with similar sensitive content during its review.
Some in the intelligence community insist Clinton’s emails contain secrets that should have been classified at a very high level. Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III has asserted that a sampling of just 40 emails turned up four that were classified, of which two were “TOP SECRET” and derived from sensitive signals intelligence.
...
However, over time, the list of messages deemed classified by the State Department has grown as the agency reviewed batches of the messages for public release. Clinton turned over about 30,000 emails — totalling 55,000 pages— to State last December, and the agency first reported in May that it had found one classified document. By June, the number grew to 26. In July, the figure was revised to 63.
Reporters combing through the email releases have flagged others that deal with sensitive subjects but have no markings.
The tally is expected to rise further. The agency is still going through Clinton emails and releasing sets of them each month in compliance with a judge’s order. So far, only 11.7 percent of the 55,000 pages of emails have been released in response to pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
...
Making sense of the redacted documents often requires further research. State Department censors have redacted details deemed classified, but the gist of the messages can often be divined from other information in the emails.
There’s a request from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for points to make about Middle East peace in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are reports to Clinton on various countries’ position on a key vote on Iran’s nuclear program and on veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s efforts to enlist Clinton’s help in brokering deals to resolve tensions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Most of the messages deemed classified were forwarded to Clinton by three of her top State Department aides —
chief of staff Cheryl Mills and deputy chiefs of staff Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.
...
Clinton has also offered another defense: that the debate over what’s classified really has nothing to do with the question of whether it was proper for her to use a private email account and server. They note that the law and federal rules say classified information shouldn’t circulate on unclassified systems, whether they’re private or public.
“It has nothing to do with the fact that my account was personal,” Clinton said at a news conference last week. “If it were a government account, they would be saying the same thing.”
Critics reply that Clinton should have known some spillover of classified information into her email was all but certain given the sensitivity of her job, making her choice of the potentially less-secure private server all the more unwise.
...
By John R. Schindler
Los Angles Times Op-Ed, 2015-08-25
...
It's difficult to avoid the suspicion that Clinton, after the scandals that rocked her husband's presidency during the 1990s, simply did not want to leave behind a paper trail (or e-trail). And so, as secretary of State, she tried to skirt federal records law by employing her own IT systems and servers, and by exclusively using a personal email address.
...
Because top secret information travels on entirely separate systems throughout the federal government, it is virtually impossible that a Clinton staffer blithely or unknowingly pasted a top secret paragraph into an unclassified email.
On the contrary, it seems increasingly likely that Clinton's staff was engaged in a systematic effort to take details off classified IT systems and strip them of proper classification markings (every paragraph in an intelligence report is classified separately) before sending them out electronically. This was not only a violation of numerous federal regulations, but also a crime — a felony when it involves top secret information.
...
Most worrying is the fact that, for several months, Clinton's personal server was wholly unencrypted. Given the high value of any secretary of State — the world's top diplomat — to dozens of foreign intelligence agencies worldwide, it's a safe bet that Russian and Chinese spies were reading her correspondence.
Mika Brezinsi interview with State Department spokesman John Kirby
MSNBC Morning Joe, 2015-08-26
State Department spokesman John Kirby:
"Look, these kinds of things are under review and investigation right now
so I'm really not at liberty to go into too much detail about the past, that's all getting looked at...
all that's being reviewed by our inspector general and members of Congress ..."
CNN.com
By PATRICK HEALY, JONATHAN MARTIN and MAGGIE HABERMAN
New York Times, 2015-08-28
...
Criticisms about Mrs. Clinton also
threaten to complicate the political fortunes of other Democratic candidates
over the next 15 months,
should they find themselves having to defend her
instead of focusing on issues and going on the offensive against Republicans.
...
Mrs. Clinton has stressed that her use of only a private email account was legal,
and she is not a target of a federal investigation,
which is focused on assessing any security breaches.
...
None of the Democrats interviewed went so far as to suggest that
the email issue raised concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s ability to serve as president,
and many expressed a belief that it had been manufactured
by Republicans in Congress and other adversaries.
Some Clinton allies emphasized that the presidential race was still in an early stage —
the primaries do not start until February —
and that Mrs. Clinton had plenty of time to influence voters’ perceptions of her.
“Democrats need to take a deep breath,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut.
“The attacks on her email are just that, attacks,
and are coming because Republicans understand she is the toughest candidate to beat.”
[It's all politics, eh, Democrats?
Hillary did nothing wrong, nothing to cause one to deplore her judgment, eh?]
...
Mrs. Clinton’s aides, many of whom are new to her circle,
are by and large running a playbook that is dictated by the candidate,
according to several Democrats in close contact with the campaign
who insisted on anonymity to preserve their access to it.
But even so, they must be especially careful because of the inquiries underway.
...
They need to be much more forthright. I don’t think it has been handled well. Where is Terry McAuliffe?” said John Morgan, a trial lawyer and Clinton donor, referring to the aggressive, plain-spoken chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign who is now the governor of Virginia. “I want to see Terry McAuliffe come out, take off the gloves and explain this to America.”
He added: “This is not a time to parse words. This is a time to be very direct.”
...
James M. Demers, a top supporter and fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, said it was “too early to tell if the email issue is turning people off.”
“It’s very hard to explain the government systems of classifying information,
all the rules, and keep people focused on accurate answers,” Mr. Demers said.
[It doesn't seem that hard to me.
Something is classified if an intelligent adversary reading it
could figure out from it sources or methods were used to produce the information.
There seem to be examples of such in the early emails that were screened.
That's for information coming from the intelligence community.
For information coming from U.S. diplomats,
some is considered classified "foreign government information"
when it was provided to the U.S. diplomats with the understanding that it would be kept confidential.
According to Reuters, many of the emails contained such information.
It seems clear to me that at least some Democrats
are deliberately playing dumb on this issue,
trying to obfuscate the simple issues involved,
claiming that "it's complicated".]
...
by David Ignatius
Washington Post, 2015-08-28
...
Is there a crime here?
Almost certainly not.
[Can this be the Post's position on the matter?
Can this explain why their news pages failed to cover
Hillary's assertion that only right-wing partisans are pushing the issue.
Certainly the Post seems to be doing it darndest to support that assertion.
Maybe they're just too busy looking for the next "sex scandal" they can use to bash heterosexual men with,
or the next fabricated claims of racism that they can hype.
By the way, Politico's coverage of this story is far, far better than the Post's.
Visit news.google.com and search on "hillary clinton emails site:politico.com"
to sample their coverage.]
by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-08-28
“I’m confident that this process will prove that I never sent nor received
any e-mail that was marked classified.”
–Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, news conference, Ankeny, Iowa, Aug. 26, 2015
“Whether it was a personal account or a government account,
I did not send classified material
and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified,
which is the way you know whether something is.”
–Clinton, news conference, Las Vegas, Aug. 18, 2015
“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail.
There is no classified material.
I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements
and did not send classified material.”
— Clinton, news conference, New York, March 10
Many readers have written asking for an examination of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s statements
regarding the classification of e-mails sent and received
from the former secretary of state’s private e-mail account.
The issue has loomed in importance
after the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community wrote Congress in August
to say that
it had reviewed some of the e-mails that have been publicly disclosed and
“judged that they contained classified State Department information when originated.”
Note that in her statements that Clinton has been careful to emphasize that
she personally did not send “classified material” on her nongovernment account.
She has been less definitive about receiving classified material.
In her March news conference, she was silent on that issue.
In her August news conference, she carefully said
she “did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified.”
That certainly leaves open the possibility that
she received classified information—as the IG says–
and should have known so at the time.
The Facts
The IG has not disclosed the nature of the e-mails that it has identified.
State Department officials and the Clinton campaign have suggested
this is mostly an intermural dispute between agencies
over what should be classified or not.
State Department officials say they are seeking a second opinion
from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But a Reuters examination of the e-mails released by the State Department, published on Aug. 21,
found that at least 30 e-mail threads contained “foreign government information,”
judging from the classification stamps that were added to the e-mails when they were placed in the public domain.
“Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information,” the report said.
“In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government.”
A good example is an e-mail, labeled “Personal: Afghanistan,”
sent on Nov. 21, 2009, from Matthew Gould,
then chief of staff to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband,
to Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s top aides.
Miliband had just returned from a trip to Afghanistan
and had written a five-page analysis that he wanted Clinton to read
before they had a phone conversation about the trip.
Miliband “very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note,”
Gould wrote.
Abedin forwarded it to Clinton’s private e-mail, saying
“another note from Miliband that he doesn’t want to send through the system.”
But Miliband’s observations on Afghanistan cannot be viewed today by the general public—
and will remain secret until 2029.
Every page is redacted, labeled “CONFIDENTIAL–Reason: 1.4(B), 1.4(D).”
What does that mean? Those are references to executive order 13526,
signed by President Obama, referring to two classification categories:
“foreign government information” and
“foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.”
Ironically, Gould—who now heads Britain’s Office of Cyber Security–
wrote that he sent the e-mail “from my home account,”
which presumably was also not secure.
He sent the e-mail to Abedin’s unclassified State Department e-mail address.
Here’s the e-mail:
email from David Miliband aide re Afghanistan by GlennKesslerWP
[See the original article to see an embed of the Scribd document,
or click on the above link.]
“Even if you believe the premise of the Reuters story,
the Brits ‘declassified’ it themselves
when they sent it via the state.gov email system rather than a secure cable,”
said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon.
But J. William Leonard,
a former director of the U.S. government’s Information Security Oversight Office
who worked for Democratic and Republican administrations, said
the nature of how the information was transmitted does not make a difference.
Classified information could be transmitted by a foreign government official at a cocktail party,
he noted.
“Confidentiality is the coin of the realm,” he said.
“We cannot expect to have candid exchanges unless we protect confidentiality.”
He said that “what is key here is the expectation when the information was exchanged,”
which is why he said Miliband’s request that the commentary was only for Clinton’s eyes is so important.
“I cannot think of a clearer sign of an expectation
that this was to be treated in confidence,”
Leonard said.
Miliband and Gould did not respond to requests for comment.
Other experts said there is more wiggle room for interpretation.
“A basic structural feature of the classification system is that it is permissive, not mandatory,”
said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
He noted that section 1.1 of Obama’s executive order “says ‘may’ be classified
if it meets certain conditions, not that it must be.”
“The executive order does say that all foreign government information should be presumed to cause damage if disclosed without authorization,” Aftergood added. “And that is indeed one of the conditions for classification, but in itself it does not require classification.”
“There is a lot of subjectivity and discretion,” said Thomas S. Blanton,
director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
“It’s an absurdity that anything a foreign government tells you
is automatically confidential.”
[Of course.
But we are not talking about "anything" a foreign government tells the U.S.,
we are talking about something the British originator
“very much wants the Secretary (only) to see”
according to the transmittal message.]
Yet at the same time, the State Department has deemed the Miliband message so sensitive
that it now must remain secret for another 14 years.
“Does that mean it should have been classified all along? Maybe, but not necessarily,” Aftergood said.
[Really? Sure sounds so to me.]
“Does that mean that it should not have been held on a private server?
Possibly, although it might not have been measurably more secure on the official State Department system.”
Since 2005, the State Department Foreign Affairs manual has stated that “sensitive but unclassified” information should not be transmitted through personal e-mail accounts. “Classified information must be sent via classified E-mail channels only, with the proper classification identified on each document,” the manual says.
[Compare Ignatius' remarks on this.]
State Department officials point to the fact that Obama’s executive order (in section 1.7) says that information that has been treated as unclassified for months or years can be classified in response to a request for public disclosure, such as Freedom of Information Act request. Another section of the order (4.1) says that foreign government information could be handled “at least equivalent to that required by the government or international organization of governments that furnished the information.”
In other words, information that was once passed through unclassified channels among government officials could later be deemed classified if a member of the public, like a reporter, asked to see it.
“The State Department is an outward-facing institution,” said Alex Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are America’s face to the world, and that means we have to communicate to the world, whether by email, phone or social media. As diplomats, we naturally receive information from foreign governments — it is part of the job. That information may need to be protected from public release, as we have done under FOIA. We must focus on our responsibility to represent America’s interests and to engage in a dialogue with the world.”
The Pinocchio Test
Clinton’s very careful and legalistic phrasing raises suspicions.
She refers to “classified material,” which could be code for documents,
leaving open the possibility of “classified information” having been received.
[Sorry, Glenn.
The word "material" covers a broad breadth, certainly including "information".]
She also says she “did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified,”
which of course leaves open the possibility of receiving classified information that was not correctly marked.
The Miliband e-mail is now labeled by the State Department to contain classified information, unfit for public disclosure. That holds true for other information that Clinton and her aides routinely exchanged over an unsecure network.
The question thus turns on whether Clinton should have at the time recognized that this information could be deemed as classified and should have taken better steps to protect it.
At The Fact Checker, we judge statements through the perspective of an ordinary citizen.
The classification rules are complex but, legal technicalities aside,
the question is whether classified information was exchanged over her private e-mail system. Never mind the IG’s concerns. According to the State Department redactions of the released e-mails, the answer is yes. Clinton earns Two Pinocchios for excessively technical wordsmithing.
[I disagree.
Her statement was clearly and unambiguously false.
E.g., Kessler is covering for her when he asserts that
the phrase “classified material”
does not necessarily include “classified information”.
Put more simply, “classified information” is “classified material”.
I think any "ordinary citizen", as well as those more familiar with these matters,
would think that.
Also, we must recall the Miliband email is just one of 30 that Reuters has already identified as having this problem.]
Two Pinocchios
By Ken Dilanian | AP
Washington Post / AP, 2015-08-28
During the 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, State Department officials in Washington were emailing one another with updates in real time. Embedded in those messages were nuggets of classified information, including an apparent reference to a CIA facility that was a closely guarded secret.
When the emails were released last year under the Freedom of Information Act, that and other information found to be classified were censored from public view.
...
Records reviewed by The Associated Press make clear that the leakage of secrets onto unsecure email is a State Department problem dating to the George W. Bush administration, if not earlier. It may have accelerated under Clinton as email use became more frequent.
Clinton’s use of a home server makes her case unique, but it’s not clear whether the security breach would have been any less had she used government email. The State Department only systematically checks email for sensitive or classified material in response to a public records request.
Clinton insists she didn’t send or receive information marked classified, and there is no evidence she did. But information can be classified without being marked. Government investigators have found material they believe was classified when sent in several dozen of 30,000 emails that the former secretary of state has turned over.
...
Critics have said Clinton and her aides should have known not to discuss anything remotely secret over unsecured email.
The emails show they were cognizant of security, routinely communicating over secure phone and fax lines.
Many of the emails to Clinton containing classified information were forwarded to her by a close aide, Huma Abedin.
Most, however, originated with diplomats who have access to confidential material.
Some emails sent by Clinton have since been censored.
Such slippage of classified information into regular email is “very common, actually,”
said Leslie McAdoo, a lawyer who frequently represents government officials and contractors
in disputes over security clearances and classified information.
What makes Clinton’s case different is that
she exclusively sent and received emails through a home server
in lieu of the State Department’s unclassified email system.
Neither would have been secure from hackers or foreign intelligence agencies,
so it would be equally problematic
whether classified information was carried over the government system or a private server,
experts say.
In fact, the State Department’s unclassified email system has been penetrated by hackers believed linked to Russian intelligence.
Many of the emails to Clinton came from state.gov email accounts, noted Steven Aftergood, an expert on classification at the Federation of American Scientists. “So if there is routine security screening and monitoring of incoming and outgoing State Department emails, anything that is classified should have been flagged. That does not seem to have happened. I think it’s the State Department culture.”
That may be true, but it would not save a rank-and-file official with a security clearance who was caught sending classified information over email, said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who frequently represents intelligence officers. That person could lose his job, his clearance, or both.
“In real life, the ‘everybody does it defense’ doesn’t fly,” Moss said.
...
The AP has asked the State Department to turn over records reflecting any concerns by agency computer staff or security officials over Clinton’s use of a private email server, but has received no responsive documents.
Clinton also had access to a classified messaging system, but it’s not widely used at the State Department. Most department officials in Washington and at embassies have on their desktops a classified network that goes up to “secret” level. A small number of State officials, including the secretary, can use a third system that goes up to “top secret” level in special secure rooms.
But even the middle-tier “secret” network is cumbersome for many in the agency, said officials who would not be quoted when discussing internal security policies. Only a few top officials in Washington are able to read classified emails outside the department’s headquarters. Most ambassadors can’t open their accounts from home. Officials in the field may have no access at all.
...
The new designations come as the State Department prepares to post more than 7,000 additional pages of Clinton's emails online.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-08-31
The State Department has deemed roughly 150 more of Hillary Clinton's email messages to be classified, a move certain to fuel the roiling controversy over her use of a private email server instead of an official government account when she served as secretary of state.
The new classifications will more than triple the previous total of 63 classified messages on Clinton's account, but State Department spokesman Mark Toner stressed that the information was not marked classified at the time it was sent several years ago. He also said the decisions to classify the information did not represent a determination that it should have been marked or handled that way back then.
"That certainly does not speak to whether it was classified at the time it was sent, or forwarded, or received," Toner said during the daily State Department briefing on Monday. "We stand by our contention that the information we’ve upgraded was not marked classified at the time it was sent."
[Note we're getting two stories on this issue.
One is that information that IS classified, whether it is so marked or not,
should be handled as classified information.
The other seems to be the position of the State Department,
that information only must be treated as classified when they determine that it is that.
To me, the State Department's position sounds pretty shaky.]
Nearly all the information officially classified by the State Department in prior email releases involved diplomatic strategy or information provided by foreign governments. Toner batted away questions about whether State Department policy dictated that Clinton and other agency employees treat as classified information obtained in confidence from foreign officials or diplomats.
"Classification — we’ve said this many times — is not an exact science. It's not, often, a black-and-white process," Toner said. "There’s many strong opinions. … It's not up to me to litigate these kinds of questions from the State Department podium."
...
The monthly releases have generally been in chronological order. If that pattern holds up Monday, the new set should be largely from late 2009 and early 2010. However, some earlier records caught up in the classification review process are also expected to be in the new batch.
...
by Patrick Howley
Breitbart, 2015-08-31
Hillary Clinton’s private email server was housed at the same physical location and on the same network as an email server used and operated by the Clinton Foundation, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
Records reveal that Hillary Clinton’s private clintonemail.com server shared an IP address with her husband Bill Clinton’s email server, presidentclinton.com, and both servers were housed in New York City, not in the basement of the Clintons’ Chappaqua, New York home.
...
The former Secretary of State is under federal investigation for potentially violating the Espionage Act by allowing people without a security clearance to access classified information. The fact that Hillary was sharing an email network with a private foundation means that people without a security clearance almost certainly had physical access to her server while she was working at the State Department.
...
Hillary’s clintonemail.com server and the Foundation-run presidentclinton.com email server have exactly the same IP address, and the same SSL certificate (which an organization purchases for an email server to verify its trustworthiness).
mail.clintonemail.com and mail.presidentclinton.com both have an IP address of 64.94.172.146, according to an SSL Certificate Checker.
The two servers both have that same IP address, 64.94.172.146, according to DNS records. (Here are records for Hillary’s server, and here are records for Bill’s server).
Both servers have the same IP address, according to another independent Internet records database, robtex.net.
The fact that both of these email servers have the same IP address means that they were operating on the same network, and sharing physical space. A computer expert tells Breitbart News that the servers were probably operating on the same machine. It is also possible that they were operating on different machines on the same network, which still means that the machines would have to be close enough to exist in the same physical location.
President Clinton’s server was created in 2002, while Hillary’s was created in 2009, which means that Hillary’s server was simply added to Bill’s Foundation-run server network.
...
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-01
The Justice Department is preparing to ask a federal judge to consolidate an unwieldy flurry of pending lawsuits which demand copies of emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton or her top aides, sources told POLITICO Tuesday.
The planned move raises the possibility that dozens of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits could be placed in front of a single judge--at least for a a period of time--in order to avoid conflicting schedules for the release of records.
...
At least one judge handling cases involving Clinton emails has been prodding the government for nearly two months to coordinate the cases, which have been filed by news outlets like Gawker, Vice News and the Associated Press, as well as conservative groups like Judicial Watch and Citizens United.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense for six different judges to be ordering six different things," U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras said at a July hearing on a case filed by Judicial Watch. "These are very unusual circumstances, and it would not take a wild imagination to think that there will be some discovery in these FOIA cases, and if six different judges start ordering six different forms of discovery, that's going to be impossible to manage for everybody. So give that some thought."
...
Revelation among biggest concerns inside intel community
by John Solomon
Washington Times, 2015-09-01
One of the most serious potential breaches of national security identified so far
by the intelligence community inside Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private emails
involves the relaying of classified information concerning
the movement of North Korean nuclear assets,
which was obtained from spy satellites.
[Yes, such information would almost certainly be TSCW.
There are NO other ways of obtaining such information.
Do the shitheads in the MSM think such information is openly available?]
Multiple intelligence sources who spoke to The Washington Times,
solely on the condition of anonymity,
said concerns about the movement of the North Korean information through Mrs. Clinton’s unsecured server are twofold.
First, spy satellite information is frequently classified at the top-secret level
and handled within a special compartment called Talent-Keyhole.
This means it is one of the most sensitive forms of intelligence gathered by the U.S.
Second, the North Koreans have assembled a massive cyberhacking army
under an elite military spy program known as Bureau 121,
which is increasingly aggressive in targeting systems for hacking,
especially vulnerable private systems.
The North Koreans, for instance, have been blamed by the U.S. for the hack of Sony movie studios.
Allowing sensitive U.S. intelligence about North Korea
to seep into a more insecure private email server
has upset the intelligence community because
it threatens to expose its methods and assets for gathering intelligence on the secretive communist nation.
“While everyone talks about the U.S. being aware of
the high threat of hacking and foreign spying,
there was a certain nonchalance at Mrs. Clinton’s State Department
in protecting sensitive data that alarms the intel community,”
one source familiar with the email review told The Times.
“We’re supposed to be making it harder, not easier, for our enemies to intercept us.”
State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner told The Times on Tuesday evening
he couldn’t discuss the email because of ongoing probes by the FBI and the inspector general community.
“There are reviews and investigations under way on these matters generally
so it would not be appropriate to comment at this time,” he said.
The email in question was initially flagged by the inspector general of the intelligence community in July
as potentially containing information derived from
highly classified satellite and mapping system of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
That email was later confirmed to contain classified information
by Freedom of Information Act officials within the intelligence community.
The revelation, still under review by the FBI and intelligence analysts,
has created the most heartburn to date about a lax email system inside the State Department
that allowed official business and — in at least 188 emails reviewed so far —
classified secrets to flow to Mrs. Clinton
via an unsecured private email server hosted at her home in Chappaqua, New York.
The email does not appear to have been copied directly from the classified email system
and crossed what is known as the “air gap” to nonclassified computers, the sources said.
Rather, the intelligence community believes
a State Department employee received the information through classified channels
and then summarized it when that employee got to a nonclassified State Department computer.
[This is known as "gisting".]
The email chain went through Mrs. Clinton’s most senior aides
and eventually to Mrs. Clinton’s personal email, the sources said.
The compromised information did not include maps or images,
but rather
information that could have been derived only from spy satellite intelligence.
It was not marked as classified,
but whoever viewed the original source reports would have readily seen the markings
and it should have been recognized clearly by a trained employee who received the information subsequently
as sensitive, nonpublic information.
Intelligence community professionals are trained to carry forward these markings
and, if needed, request that the information be sanitized
before being transmitted via non-secure means.
[Yes, the IC devotes considerable resources to sanitizing information
so it can move out of codeword channels.
But this is done by trained professionals, sensitive to the issues involved.]
The discovery could affect the FBI investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email,
putting the originator of the email chain into legal jeopardy
and allowing agents to pressure the employee to cooperate
as they try to determine how classified information flowed so freely into Mrs. Clinton’s account
and what senior officials knew about the lax system that allowed such transmissions.
As the investigation has advanced, the intelligence community
has debunked many of Mrs. Clinton’s and the State Department’s original claims
about the private email system.
For instance, the department initially claimed that
it had no idea Mrs. Clinton was conducting government business
on an insecure private email account.
But the intelligence community uncovered evidence early on
that her private email account was used to coordinate sensitive overseas calls
through the department’s operations center,
which arranges communication on weekends and after hours on weekdays.
The coordination of secure communications on an insecure break with protocol
would give foreign intelligence agencies an opportunity to learn about a call early,
then target and intercept the call, U.S. officials told The Times.
[Such things are called, reasonably, "tip offs",
and are an important tool in collection management.]
[By the way, this brings up another issue.
Surely NSA was aware, back in the 2009-12 time period,
that Hillary was using her private, insecure, system for official purposes.
Surely someone who received emails from SecState
coming from "clintonemail.com"
would have registered some concern over this
and advised the nation's supreme signals security agency
of this high-level potential breach in communications discipline.
Remember, while NSA's leadership role in signals intelligence
has been getting most of the media's attention for decades now,
it has responsibility for USG signals security as well.
According to its mission statement, its
the risks his secretary of state's private server posed to the national security
falls squarely within that charter.
How about it, NSA?
Precisely what did you do about this issue,
in real time,
when your advice to the President
could have forestalled this debacle?
Precisely what was NSA aware of, and how did they deal with that?
Why did NSA not flag this for the issues that it would,
as 1999-2005 DIRNSA Michael Hayden has said,
inevitably raise,
and bring this up through the channels they have,
running through the DNI to the NSC,
for appropriate adjudication?
Where is the trail of what NSA did in this regard?]
The concern is in full display in emails that Mrs. Clinton originated
and that the department has already released under the Freedom of Information Act.
“As soon as I’m off call now. Tell ops to set it up now,”
Mrs. Clinton wrote from her personal email account on Oct. 3, 2009,
to top State Department aide Huma Abedin on Oct. 3, 2009,
seeking the department’s operations center to set up
a high-level Saturday morning call
with two assistant secretaries of state and a foreign ambassador.
The email thread even indicated where Mrs. Clinton wanted to receive the call,
at her home, giving a potential intercept target.
Similarly, the very next day,
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Abedin coordinated another call over insecure email
with her ambassador to Afghanistan, former Army Gen. Karl Eikenberry.
The two clearly understood the potential sensitive nature of the Sunday morning call
even as they discussed its coordination on an unprotected email system.
“OK. Does Eikenberry need to be secure?”
Mrs. Clinton asked, referring to the need for a secure phone line to receive the call.
State officials said Mrs. Clinton had a secure phone line installed at her home
to facilitate such calls, which is common for Cabinet-level officials.
Mr. Toner, the State Department spokesman, told the daily press briefing on Tuesday
he did not know who approved Mrs. Clinton having a private email server to conduct official business
but that it was obvious from the emails now released
that many people knew inside State, including some in high places.
[I am not sure that "approved" is the right word here.
"Permitted" seems more appropriate.
Somebody should have told her "No",
but her only boss was the President,
and one may well suspect that he really didn't want to get into an argument with her,
for a number of reasons.]
“People understood that she had a private server,” he told reporters.
“…You’ve seen from the emails.
You have an understanding of people who were communicating with her,
at what level they were communicating at.”
[Yes.
And this is a defense she can bring up:
"How can this be illegal,
when such people as the President and the Attorney General
were well aware of what I was doing,
and raised no objections?
If you want to prosecute me,
you must prosecute them as co-conspirators as well."
Of course, that would not be very helpful to her campaign for the presidency,
and might cause some unhappiness in the Democratic Party,
but from the legal standpoint it might be effective.]
May have unethically favored family business
By Stephen Dinan and S.A. Miller
Washington Times, 2015-09-01
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails reveal how prominently the Clinton Foundation factored into her thinking as America’s top diplomat, raising questions about where she drew the line between official business and aiding the family charity run by her husband and daughter.
In one instance, Mrs. Clinton appeared to try to steer a Haiti earthquake recovery project to the foundation, according to new emails released this week as the State Department belatedly complies with open records requests for her communications during her four years in office.
Another email shows Mrs. Clinton directing a State Department employee to handle solicitation of money from Norway for a program she was about to announce in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010, and which was being run by the United Nations Foundation, another nonprofit created by Ted Turner that has close ties to her family’s operation.
...
By Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-09-01
While she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote and sent at least six e-mails using her private server that contained what government officials now say is classified information, according to thousands of e-mails released by the State Department.
Although government officials deemed the e-mails classified after Clinton left office, they could complicate her efforts to move beyond the political fallout from the controversy. They suggest that her role in distributing sensitive material via her private e-mail system went beyond receiving notes written by others, and appears to contradict earlier public statements in which she denied sending or receiving e-mails containing classified information.
The classified e-mails, contained in thousands of pages of electronic correspondence that the State Department has released, stood out because of the heavy markings blocking out sentences and, in some cases, entire messages.
The State Department officials who redacted the material cited national security as the reason for blocking it from public view.
Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was one of about four dozen State Department officials whose e-mails were redacted because of national security concerns, according to a Washington Post review. Those officials included top aides such as Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills, some of whom would be likely to fill out senior roles in a Clinton administration. All told, 188 of the e-mails the State Department has released contain classified material.
The extent of the redactions in e-mails sent by Clinton and others, including ambassadors and career Foreign Service officers, points to a broader pattern that has alarmed intelligence officials in which sensitive information has been circulated on non-secure systems. Another worry is that Clinton aides further spread sensitive information by forwarding government e-mails to Clinton’s private account.
But it also highlights concerns raised by Clinton and her supporters that identifying classified material can be a confusing process, and well-meaning public officials reviewing the same material could come to different conclusions as to its classification level.
...
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that “classification is not always a black-and-white, binary judgment. Responsible people can draw different conclusions.”
But the presence of classified information in e-mails Clinton wrote appears to contradict her assurances that she sent no such material.
“I have said repeatedly that I did not send nor receive classified material, and I’m very confident that when this entire process plays out that will be understood by the everyone,” she said last week during a Democratic Party meeting in Minneapolis. She said that government officials may now be making different determinations after the fact, but “it does not change the fact that I did not send, nor receive, material marked classified.”
...
by Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-02
Newly released emails show top-level security officials at State expressing apparent concern about the requests.
...
Since a furor erupted in March over Clinton's decision to use a personal email account and server as her exclusive email during her four years as America's top diplomat, the State Department has steadfastly refused to say who at the agency--if anyone--approved her use of the private arrangement.
[MSNBC Morning Joe had an interview with State Department spokesman John Kirby on 2015-08-26
in which he said
"look, these kinds of things are under review and investigation right now [by whom?]
so I'm not really at liberty to go into too much detail about the past, that's all getting looked at...
that's all getting investigated by our inspector general and members of Congress ..."]
Counterintelligence specialists suspect that the former secretary of state wasn’t the only member of the Obama administration emailing secrets around.
by John R. Schindler
Daily Beast, 2015-09-02
Hillary Clinton’s email problems are already causing headaches for her presidential campaign. But within American counterintelligence circles, there’s a mounting sense that the former secretary of state may not be the only Obama administration official in trouble. This is a scandal that has the potential to spread to the White House, as well.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation can be expected to be tight-lipped, especially because this highly sensitive case is being handled by counterintelligence experts from Bureau headquarters a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, not by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. That will ensure this investigation gets the needed “big picture” view, since even senior FBI agents at any given field office may only have a partial look at complex counterintelligence cases.
And this most certainly is a counterintelligence matter. There’s a widely held belief among American counterspies that foreign intelligence agencies had to be reading the emails on Hillary’s private server, particularly since it was wholly unencrypted for months. “I’d fire my staff if they weren’t getting all this,” explained one veteran Department of Defense counterintelligence official, adding: “I’d hate to be the guy in Moscow or Beijing right now who had to explain why they didn’t have all of Hillary’s email.” Given the widespread hacking that has plagued the State Department, the Pentagon, and even the White House during Obama’s presidency, senior counterintelligence officials are assuming the worst about what the Russians and Chinese know.
EmailGate has barely touched the White House directly, although it’s clear that some senior administration officials beyond the State Department were aware of Hillary’s unorthodox email and server habits, given how widely some of the emails from Clinton and her staff were forwarded around the Beltway. Obama’s inner circle may not be off-limits to the FBI for long, however, particularly since the slipshod security practices of certain senior White House officials have been a topic of discussion in the Intelligence Community for years.
Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.
“The whole administration is filled with people who can’t shoot straight when it comes to classified,” an Intelligence Community official explained to me this week. Three U.S. officials suggested that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, might be at particular risk if a classified information probe goes wide. But it should be noted that Rice has made all sorts of enemies on the security establishment for her prickly demeanor, use of coarse language, and strategic missteps.
It’s clear that many people inside the State Department had to be aware, at least to some degree, of what Clinton and her inner staff were engaged in. How far that knowledge went is a key question that the FBI is examining. The name Patrick Kennedy pops up frequently. A controversial character, Kennedy is the State Department’s undersecretary for management (hence his Foggy Bottom nickname “M”). A longtime Clinton protégé, Kennedy is believed by many to be the key to this case, since his sign-off likely would have been needed for some of Clinton’s unorthodox arrangements.
Described by more than one insider as “the State Department’s J. Edgar Hoover,” Kennedy is a figure of mystery to many. “I’d put talking to him near the top of my list,” explained a retired senior FBI official, a career counterintelligence agent. “Would Kennedy go down for Hillary? Maybe,” he added, “But will some GS [General Schedule] or FSO [Foreign Service Officer],” meaning a career State Department employee, “go down for Hillary? I doubt it. The FBI will get someone to talk, we always do.”
...
Judge sees rocky road for feds' plan to coordinate Hillary Clinton email lawsuits
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-03
09/03/15, 12:44 PM EDT Updated 09/03/15, 01:36 PM EDT
...
Judicial Watch attorney Chris Fedeli asked Walton to take additional steps to address the more than 31,000 emails Clinton has said she ordered deleted after her lawyers determined the messages were purely personal in nature. He said it's possible those messages still exist in the possession of Clinton attorney David Kendall, on back-up servers maintained by a tech company Clinton hired, Platte River Networks, or perhaps even on State Department systems.
"No one has said these 31,000 emails don't exist anywhere in the world," Fedeli said. "We do think it's reasonable to believe those emails exist."
When [Justice Department attorney Elizabeth] Shapiro dismissed as "wild speculation" Fedeli's suggestions about more copies of the deleted email, Walton suggested that the messy situation was Clinton's fault because she relied on the personal server for official business.
"Unfortunately, if this private server had not been used, we would not be in this situation," the judge said.
Walton also appeared to reject Shapiro's suggestion that the court defer to Clinton's determination — some 22 months after she left office — about which records were official and which were personal.
"We're not sure exactly what type of evaluation was made of that 31,000" messages," the judge said.
Fedeli noted that the government cannot escape its FOIA obligations by transferring records to a contractor, and he argued Clinton's action was akin to that. But Walton said the records were not transferred out of the government, but never placed in official systems in the first place.
"This is sort of a unique situation," the judge said. "The State Department never had possession of these records."
Walton said he would rule by next week on Judicial Watch's proposal for an order requiring the State Department to reach out to Kendall and Platte River to confirm whether any back up copies of Clinton's purportedly personal emails exist.
...
By Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
McClatchy DC, 2015-09-03
Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal computer and server prompts inquiry
Inspector general informs former aides that answering questions is ‘entirely voluntary’
Years of State Department security practices under review
After a firestorm erupted over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal computer system for government business, the State Department’s internal watchdog launched an inquiry into the email practices of the nation’s most recent top diplomats.
But despite having subpoena power, the inspector general’s review has not been aggressive so far.
The inspector general’s office first asked the former secretaries of state to turn over personal emails in March, though it does not seem to have received any from anyone other than Clinton. In August, it sent brief surveys to current and former aides asking them five yes-or-no questions, according to a copy obtained by McClatchy. But three days later, after some former aides objected, the office dashed off a message assuring them their responses are “entirely voluntary.”
“The State Department inspector general’s office should be going after the information about the former secretaries with the same kind of determination as they are in Hillary Clinton’s case,” said Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer in Washington. “Candidly, it’s rather terrifying if they’re not.”
The request for records was sent to former secretaries Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, according to their offices. It was not sent to Secretary of State John Kerry, who is included in the review, according to a State Department official who is knowledgeable about the situation but not allowed to speak publicly as a matter of practice. Kerry, who requested the review, is the first to use a standard government address ending in “state.gov” for all his business.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson and Elaine Shocas, chiefs of staff to Powell and Albright, respectively, and Philip Zelikow, Rice’s former counselor, confirmed they received the questionnaires. Kerry’s aides also received and completed the survey, the State Department official said.
Some experts say the haphazard policies and procedures regarding email at the State Department could have posed national security risks. The inspector general inquiry, however, isn’t considered an “investigation” and will not examine whether classified emails were sent or received by Clinton, which is being investigated by the FBI. Instead, it is an audit designed to make the department more effective and efficient.
“They (the department) seemed to want to find out if they had been irresponsible over the years and if they could hide it,” Wilkerson said. “To me, it was typical government bureaucracy at work. It seemed like the questions were designed to be answered, but not to be answered in a way that would be indicative of State Department incompetence or responsibility.”
It’s unclear what the inspector general’s office asked Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and her aides. Clinton already turned over her email to the State Department and at least four aides have delivered records, including copies of work emails on personal accounts, to the agency, which is collecting them in response to a subpoena from Capitol Hill. Clinton then deleted all her emails, including those she considered personal.
Marcus Rogers, an expert in cyber forensics at Purdue University, said that if secretaries and their aides used personal email accounts that haven’t been wiped out, “it’s all recoverable.” Even if someone erased emails on computers and hard drives, Rogers said, the Internet provider might have backed up or archived those records.
“Electronic data on its own doesn’t disappear,” he said. “It stays around for a long time. So unless somebody’s physically gone to those servers where this information would have been kept, and not just deleted them but actually did what would be called a wipe of the data, that stuff’s still there.”
Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal email account, routed through a private server at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home when she served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has become the focus of multiple inquiries by the FBI, a pair of inspectors general and Congress.
Revelations that her emails included classified “top secret” information has prompted questions about her judgment and motive for actions that potentially led to national security risks. At the FBI’s request, she turned over her computer server after months of resistance.
While the inspector general has referred the matter to the FBI to assess whether national security was compromised by Clinton’s use of private email, the State Department watchdog is still examining Clinton’s email practices as part of its policy review.
The inspector general’s office declined to provide details on the inquiry being conducted by the Office of Evaluations and Special Projects, including the timetable and how many aides have been contacted. A dozen other top aides to the former secretaries declined to comment or did not return calls.
The inspector general’s office acknowledges it has the power to subpoena documents and records, though there’s no sign that it has done that. It can compel current employees to talk, but it can’t do the same for former employees.
State OIG has power under the Inspector General Act to subpoena documents and records – but not testimony – related to the programs and operations of the department. Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office
In February, Inspector General Steve Linick testified on Capitol Hill that inspectors general should be given the power to “compel witness testimony.”
“As a former prosecutor, I believe that adding this tool, subject to appropriate oversight and coordination, is essential,” he told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
In March, after Clinton’s use of a private email system became public, Kerry asked the inspector general to examine how it handles its records and responds to requests for information following revelations about his predecessor’s use of a personal email account for government business. “It is critical for the State Department to preserve a full and complete record of American foreign policy,” he wrote to Linick.
Some former aides have bristled at any inquiry into their conduct, frustrated to be asked to get involved in what they assume is the State Department’s attempt to provide cover for Clinton.
Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Kerry had no choice but to ask for the review, not necessarily to protect Clinton but to protect his department.
“I don’t blame people for saying, ‘Why are we being dragged into this?’” he said. But “this is more about the State Department. It doesn’t make anyone look good. It’s a headache for them. . . . This is not going to solve the problem for Hillary Clinton.”
Linick told Kerry he would examine the department’s policies and procedures concerning the use, if any, by the five secretaries and their immediate staffs of non-departmental hardware and software to conduct official business, according to an April letter. The review was to include whether communication was secure, government records were properly preserved and the department is properly responding to congressional and open records requests and subpoenas for records.
In its survey to former aides, the office asked if they had used personal hardware or software, such as servers, phones or iPads, to do State Department business, and if yes, how often and why.
It does seem appropriate to ask what other secretaries did. And they ought to be willing to answer those kinds of questions. Dale Eisman, a spokesman for Common Cause, a government watchdog group
Kerry and his staff welcome the review and are cooperating, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
“We are working closely with the inspector general’s office and cooperating with their requests,” he said. “In fact, senior department officials meet weekly with the IG. Secretary Kerry himself met with the IG recently to receive an update on the review and discuss ways to continue to cooperate.”
Toner said the department already has taken steps to improve records management practices, including automatically archiving the emails of Kerry, dozens of senior staff including the deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, several senior advisers, and the secretary’s staff ranging from his chief of staff to assistants who handle paper for him.
Clinton has said that she regrets using a personal system for business but that she acted the same way as her predecessors. “I did what other secretaries of state had done,” she said in an Aug. 17 interview on Iowa Public Radio. “I was permitted to and used a personal email.”
But, according to her predecessors, that’s not true.
Albright, who served as secretary of state under Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, during his second term, never used email while in office, either personal or government, said Alexis Keslinke, a spokeswoman for Albright at Albright Stonebridge Group LLC.
Rice, who served during President George W. Bush’s second term, did not use personal email for business, aides said. Those who wanted to contact her either emailed her aides or called her on the phone, they said.
Georgia Godfrey, Rice’s chief of staff at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said Rice informed the inspector general’s office that she did not have any personal emails that constitute federal records and does not have any electronic media or devices in her possession that contain federal government data.
But Powell, Bush’s first secretary of state, did use a personal laptop and email account for department business, though he did not keep copies of his emails.
“I don’t have any to turn over,” Powell said in March on ABC’s “This Week.” “I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files. A lot of the emails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and state.gov domain, but I don’t know if the servers in the State Department captured those or not.”
Powell’s personal laptop was cleared for use in his office by George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and the department was aware of the setup, Wilkerson said. Powell and Tenet discussed the arrangement with Steve Case, the former CEO of America Online, to ensure the laptop could not be used to listen to conversations in the secretary’s office. Tenet and Case did not return phone calls.
Powell was advised and warned about what he could do and couldn’t do, given that (private email) set up. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
Powell only conducted State Department business while emailing those with government addresses and never sent classified information on his personal computer, Wilkerson said. He said Powell assumed the department would keep his emails.
But in 2005 after he left office, Powell asked the department if it could retrieve some emails in case he wrote a book or wanted to reflect on his time as secretary. State Department officials at first said he could, but later they were vague about whether the department even had his papers on file in a comprehensive and retrievable way.
“They (the State Department) just neglected to grasp emails as increasingly a primary means of communication, therefore needing some kind of protocols and procedures,” Wilkerson said. “They left it until too late.”
Guardian (UK), 2015-09-04
Edward Snowden has branded as “completely ridiculous” the idea that Hillary Clinton’s personal email server was secure while she was secretary of state.
The National Security Agency whistleblower was speaking in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
In 2014, Clinton accused Snowden of inadvertently helping terrorists. Since then she has toned down such criticism and said the NSA needs to be more transparent.
On Thursday, Snowden was asked what he would say to Clinton now that she is being investigated for sending emails containing classified information while using a private server.
“This is a problem,” Snowden said, “because anyone who has the clearances that the secretary of state has, or the director of any top-level agency has, knows how classified information should be handled.”
He added: “If an ordinary worker at the State Department or the CIA … were sending details about the security of embassies, which is alleged to be in her email, meetings with private government officials, foreign government officials and the statements that were made to them in confidence over unclassified email systems, they would not only lose their jobs and lose their clearance, they would very likely face prosecution for it.”
Asked if Clinton “intentionally endangered US international security by being so careless with her email”, Snowden said it was not his place to say.
He did comment on Clinton’s choice of email server, Platte River Networks.
“When the unclassified systems of the United States government, which has a full-time information security staff, regularly gets hacked, the idea that someone keeping a private server in the renovated bathroom of a server farm in Colorado is more secure is completely ridiculous,” he said.
...
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-08
WASHINGTON — A special intelligence review of two emails
that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account —
including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program —
has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies
that the emails contained highly classified information
when Mrs. Clinton received them,
senior intelligence officials said.
Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the State Department
disputed the inspector general’s finding last month
and questioned whether the emails had been overclassified by an arbitrary process.
But
the special review —
by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency —
concluded that the emails were “Top Secret,”
the highest classification of government intelligence,
when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011.
On Monday,
the Clinton campaign disagreed with the conclusion of the intelligence review
and noted that agencies within the government often have different views
of what should be considered classified.
...
“Our hope remains that these releases continue
without being hampered by bureaucratic infighting among the intelligence community,
and that the releases continue to be as inclusive and transparent as possible,”
said Nick Merrill, a campaign spokesman.
[I don't see where there is infighting, bureaucratic or otherwise,
among the intelligence community.
They seem unanimous about the classification.
It is Hillary's old department,
now under the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry,
who is supporting her campaign's view.]
John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, echoed Mr. Merrill.
[What do you know? The State Department is echoing the Clinton campaign.
An echo, not a choice.]
“Classification is rarely a black and white question,
and it is common for the State Department to engage internally
and with our interagency partners to arrive at the appropriate decision,”
he said in a statement.
“Very often both the State Department and the intelligence community
acquire information on the same matter through separate channels.
Thus, there can be two or more separate reports
and not all of them based on classified means.
At this time,
any conclusion about the classification of the documents in question
would be premature.”
[Yeah, we're getting a lot of comments like that from the State Department.
But rarely do they seem to have specifics about
who they think should resolve these very legitimate questions, and when.
Merely saying "Wait" isn't very adequate, in my view. Wait for what?
And as to the "two separate sources giving the same information",
let's see what unclassified source
is providing the information that
the IC IG, the CIA, and the NGIA all deem Top Secret.
So we have the IC on one side,
and the State Dept. and the Clinton campaign on the other.
Interesting.]
...
by Eugene Kiely
Factcheck.org, 2015-09-08
Hillary Clinton directly addressed questions in recent interviews about her exclusive use of a personal email account and server to conduct government business as secretary of state. But her answers only reveal part of the story:
...
‘Allowed by State Department’
Let’s look at some of the statements that Clinton made in her interviews, beginning with whether her unusual email arrangement was “allowed by the State Department.”
...
[State Department spokeswoman Marie] Harf
is admittedly no NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] expert,
but Jason R. Baron is.
Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and a former director of litigation at the National Archives, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in May that “any employee’s decision to conduct all e-mail correspondence through a private e-mail network, using a non-.gov address, is inconsistent with long-established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations governing all federal agencies.”
Also, as we have written, Clinton should have turned over her emails before she left office, but she didn’t.
NARA regulations require federal agencies to maintain an NARA-approved schedule for the disposition of federal records. The State Department Records Disposition Schedule says “incoming and outgoing correspondence and memorandums on substantive U.S. foreign policy issues” should be permanently retained “at the end of the Secretary’s tenure or sooner if necessary.”
Clinton left office Feb. 1, 2013. She did not turn over her emails to the State Department until Dec. 5, 2014, and only after the department in October of that year requested the emails in part to respond to the congressional requests for documents related to the Benghazi attacks on Sept. 11, 2012.
The Clinton campaign has said that she complied with NARA regulations because “more than 90% of those emails should have already been captured in the State Department’s email system before she provided them with paper copies.”
But that assumes that the people receiving an email from Clinton properly preserved the record. Baron, the former director of litigation at NARA, told us for a previous story that Clinton “basically offloaded her burden to others” to preserve her emails. He told us Clinton was out of compliance with the regulations the day she left office.
...
by Charles Lipson
Real Clear Politics, 2015-09-09
There’s a bigger story hidden inside the New York Times report that “a special intelligence review of two emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account — including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — . . . contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said.” The review was undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which presumably originated the material. They concluded that the material had originally been given the U.S. government’s highest secrecy classification. Even if one of Clinton’s aides stripped the markings (a felony), Secretary Clinton surely knew satellite intelligence and North Korean nuclear deployments are the U.S. government’s most highly classified information.
The media correctly saw the news as political trouble for Hillary, but they missed two other crucial elements of the story. Somebody high up in the intelligence community leaked that story. And Hillary faces far more than political trouble. She’s being fitted for an orange jumpsuit.
The NYT story came from anonymous sources. For Camp Clinton, the most ominous words are “senior intelligence officials said.” They signal just how furious the intelligence community is at the gross mishandling of their crown jewels. Since the intelligence agencies must now sort through everything Hillary has given to the State Department, plus whatever the FBI can scrape from the server, you can expect the leaks to keep on coming. Worse yet for her, the spy agencies must conduct a full-scale damage assessment, based on the high likelihood her server was hacked by foreign governments (and perhaps some 17-year-old in his parents’ basement in Belgrade).
The intelligence services remember how seriously the Department of Justice dealt with former CIA directors John Deutsch and David Petraeus, who mishandled documents. They will demand equal treatment here. They will keep the heat on by leaking to the press. The Times story shows the faucet is already open.
Hillary’s legal problems stem from the “gross mishandling” of security information, which is a serious crime. It doesn’t matter whether the materials are stamped or not. It doesn’t matter whether you intended to violate the law or not. It is a violation simply to put them anywhere that lacks adequate safeguards. Like a private server. Nobody stamped Gen. Petraeus’ personal calendar, which he kept in an unlocked drawer at home. John Deutsch was just trying to catch up on work by taking his CIA laptop home. Those mistakes are trivial compared with what Clinton is already known to have stored on her private server in Chappaqua.
It’s just hand waving to keep saying the documents were not stamped. Satellite intelligence is always classified. So are private diplomatic discussions with foreign officials. They are born that way. Secretary Clinton is expected to know that, and she has said she was well aware of the classification rules. The straightforward conclusion is that she repeatedly violated laws for handling of national security materials.
...
Why would a public official go to the time, trouble and expense of setting up a private server and paying her own IT people to run it? Simple: to keep the contents under her control even if the email account was discovered. She managed to keep the email account secret throughout her tenure at the State Department and for two years after that, avoiding legitimate Freedom of Information Act requests. When she was finally caught, she took full advantage of the extra layer of insulation her server provided. She reviewed her own records, turned over what she wanted, deleted everything else, and hunkered down. If her account had been at Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, the federal judges overseeing the FOIA lawsuits would have ordered the Internet companies to turn over everything. The FBI could sort it out, and Hillary would have no way to delete the records. On the bright side, with a private server, she didn’t get a lot of pop-up ads for North Korean vacations.
...
interview with John Kirby, State Department spokesman
Fox & Friends, 2015-09-09
[In response to several questions,
on who approved Hillary's use of a private server for her official correspondences
and whether classified information was compromised,
Kirby's response was "Folks are looking into that, investigating that, right now".
That's certainly a folksy response,
but the response the gravity of the situation requires
is a clear statement on exactly WHO looking into these matters,
who is conducting the investigation.
Kirby really should be specific on who (at least what office)
is conducting the investigation.]
by Ian Hatchett
Breitbart News, 2015-09-09
State Department Spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby (Ret.) stated that
“transparency czar” Janice Jacobs’ donation to Hillary Clinton
is “not relevant”
on Wednesday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.
Kirby said, [relevant remarks being around 3:30 (the original has a video player)]
“She’s absolutely the right choice,
and Secretary Kerry has the utmost trust and confidence in her ability to do this job.
I think it’s important to remember that she’s been a career diplomat for several decades,
appointed under Republican and Democratic administrations.
In fact, her most recent one was under President Bush in the late 2000s.
So, I mean, this is a career diplomat, lots of experience.
The secretary knows that she has the leadership ability to change and to enact reforms.
And the other thing is, look, guys,
it’s not prohibited for federal employees to contribute to political causes or campaigns.
I don’t think we want to live in a democracy where you can’t do that.
And she admitted herself that made this contribution
after she had retired from federal service.”
Kirby added that the donation wasn’t mentioned at Jacobs’ announcement because
“it’s not relevant.
There’s no prohibition against doing that kind of thing.
She did it when she was retired.
And, more importantly, she’s the right person for this job,
because of the experience that she has, leading large organizations,
and enacting reforms and change, and that’s what we want her to do here.”
[Admiral, you're setting a very low bar for ethics.
If something isn't "prohibited", then it isn't relevant?
Anything that isn't prohibited is ethical?
In particular, Jacobs contribution to Clinton's campaign
clearly shows who she favors for the election.
The argument that people can't be forbidden from making campaign contributions
is certainly valid,
but doesn't mean that such contributions don't show who they favor.
It's called "conflict of interest".]
He also pointed to Jacobs’ “career, over so many decades,
under both Republican and — Republican and Democratic administrations”
to show she’s “balanced.”
When asked how much money she gave to George Bush, he answered,
“I don’t have that kind of information, and again, it’s not relevant.”
by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-09-10
“It was fully above board. Everybody in the government with whom I emailed knew that I was using a personal email.”
–Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, interview with the Associated Press, Sept. 7, 2015
...
Our colleagues at FactCheck.org have cited a lengthy statement to the Senate by Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): “The setting up of and maintaining a private email network as the sole means to conduct official business by email, coupled with a failure to timely return email records into government custody, amount to actions plainly inconsistent with the federal record-keeping laws.”
Baron added that “any employee’s decision to conduct all e-mail correspondence through a private e-mail network, using a non-.gov address, is inconsistent with long-established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations governing all federal agencies.”
As for the recording-keeping requirements, Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall has argued that Clinton’s practice of copying and forwarding e-mails to individuals on the State Department system — combined with her production in 2014 of some e-mails that were not captured — was how she complied with this provision. (The Foreign Affairs Manual, however, makes it clear that before a senior official, such as a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee, departs government service, he or she must prepare an inventory of personal papers that are proposed for removal.)
Baron, in his statement, said that the fact that an e-mail was sent to or received from a “.gov” address “does not automatically ensure” that e-mail would have been archived for preservation in an official recordkeeping system.
Clinton’s claim that her system was “fully above board” appears to be a twist on the claim that what she had done was permitted, while also suggesting a degree of openness about the arrangement.
This brings us to the question of whether “everyone” knew Clinton was using a private e-mail system. As phrased, Clinton sidesteps the question of whether people knew she was exclusively using a private system. (Even President Obama has said he was unaware that Clinton did State Department business only from a private system.)
Still, “everyone” is a sweeping phrase. One would presume that people receiving her e-mails would recognize it was from a private account. But at least one e-mail released by the State Department suggests a senior official was out of the loop.
In a Feb. 27, 2010, e-mail exchange between Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, it was revealed that a senior official named Judith (possibly Judith McHale, then the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy) had contacted the State Department IT help desk because an e-mail she had sent to Clinton had bounced back. Clinton was wondering why she received an e-mail from a State Department technician asking whether she had received a message.
“What happened is Judith sent you an email. It bounced back. She called the email help desk (I guess assuming u had state email) and told them that,” Huma wrote, using email abbreviations. “They had no idea it was YOU, just some random address so they emailed.”
Feb. 27, 2010 email exchange between Hillary Clinton and Huma Aberdin
The Pinocchio Test
Clinton’s careful language once again obscures some basic truths about her decision to only use a private e-mail system for government business: it was unusual and it skirted the edge of the rules.
Declaring that “everyone” she e-mailed understood she was using a private system appears undercut by the Abedin comment that “Judith” contacted the State Department help desk thinking Clinton was using a government e-mail account.
Clinton obviously received e-mails from hundreds of people who realized she was using a private e-mail address. But whether they understood it was her only means of electronic government communication is another question.
Two Pinocchios
By Paul Goldman
Fox News, 2015-09-10
...
Yet the clamor created by former Secretary of State Clinton’s email practices seems, oddly, to be missing the most important voice of all: The president of the United States. He has remained mute for months as to whether his former secretary of state did have the right she is claiming.
Did she, or didn’t she? This a straightforward question. A basic Yes or No will suffice.
The White House seems to be claiming the president’s silence is due to the existence of an ongoing investigation into whether the emails in question contained classified information.
Admittedly, the content of a particular email may raise issues pertaining to its handling, identification, protection or redistribution. These touch on legal issues that may be under investigation.
I get that.
But Clinton’s claim, like my question, addresses a different matter entirely. It is separate and apart from her wisdom in using a private system.
The fact that someone has a right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. This decision, however, is a matter of judgment. Questioning the wisdom of her choice, therefore, becomes germane only if the right itself exists.
Mrs. Clinton’s assertion also doesn’t address her actions regarding storage and handling of official correspondence in her possession after she left office. It is limited to her tenure working for President Obama.
Did the rules operative during the first term of the Obama administration give her the right she claims?
This isn’t a difficult question to answer. It doesn’t ask the president to address the qualitative content of any email currently under review or likely to be in the future. Clinton says she never sent or received an email marked as containing classified information.
This is a carefully nuanced position due in part to the laws and regulations addressing what is, and what isn’t, classified at any given point in time.
But these legitimate matters of inquiry are not germane to the simple question at hand.
American history is replete with controversies involving actions taken by top cabinet members. I am not aware of any time a president or former president failed to support a former cabinet member claiming to have been following administration policy – unless, of course, it was not true.
Mr. President, with all due respect from someone who voted for you two times, I believe you are being unfair to former Secretary Clinton, not to mention the American people.
If she did not have the right she claims, then you need to address this breach in your government’s policy publicly.
However, if she had the right – and the weight of the evidence suggests she did – then she deserves, like any worker, public support from her former boss. It is the necessary and honorable action.
You might favor Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. He’d make a great Democratic president. But as a long-standing supporter of worker's rights, Mr. Biden would surely agree with my position.
Yes or No, Mr. President. Your view of your administration’s policy is the only one that matters, since the former secretary of state worked for you.
Paul Goldman is a political strategist and a former chairman of Virginia's Democratic Party. He served as senior adviser to former Virginia Governors Doug Wilder and Mark Warner.
NPR, 2015-09-11
Five months have passed since we first fact checked Hillary Clinton's arguments defending her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The controversy has not gone away, and the Clinton campaign, hoping for a post-Labor Day reset, is ramping up its defense.
It posted four points on its web site, titled, "Hillary's emails in 4 sentences." It also links to the State Department's cache of the emails and links to a fact sheet for "(lots) more answers to other questions you may have."
Let's take the four sentences and examine those:
...
3. "Nothing she sent or received was marked classified."
So far, there is no evidence that she has sent or received any emails that were marked classified at the time.
More than 100 have been retroactively classified.
Clinton's campaign chalks this up to
feuding between agencies and
a classification system that they claim has run amok.
[I want to make a personal comment here.
In fact, at one time, many decades ago,
I was indoctrinated in precisely the classification system
which, it is claimed, includes at least one of the emails,
namely the "SI/TK" system.
Obviously, I can't say very much about it,
but I think I am at liberty to make one observation:
The indoctrination includes the strong instruction
that intelligence derived in certain ways (spelled out in the indoctrination)
is classified under that system.
There is no ambiguity.
If the intelligence was derived in those ways, it is SI/TK material.
If the State Department disagrees with that,
let's be open about that.
The indoctrination goes on to say that
just because you may read something in the newspaper,
that does not make it unclassified.
Leaks to the media do, unfortunately occur.
But they do not give indoctrinated personnel permission to start talking about them.
The editors of the New York Times and Washington Post
are not declassification authorities.
Now on the "run amok" or "over classification" argument:
There are national technical means of collection.
Does the State Department think those means do not need to be protected?
If so, we're going to have a much less successful intelligence program in the future.
Finally, I see one possible point of validity in Hillary's argument.
If some information indeed has two sources,
one SI/TK and one open source (say the South China Morning Post),
then I can understand State Dept. personnel discussing the open source information.
But if they want to make that claim vis-a-vis these emails,
they are going to have demonstrate very clearly that the emails in question
were derived from the open source material.
In particular, there is a Washington Times report
that one email contains information about the North Korean nuclear program.
Now, North Korea is famously secretive about things in general,
and surely all the more so about their nuclear program.
Does anyone really think that there is much open source information about that program?
I don't know what that specific email said,
the email is now classified,
but if it did contain such information
then to argue that its classification represents
"bureaucratic infighting" or overclassification
really does invite criminal charges being brought
to make clear that such cavalier disregard for reasonable security procedures
will result in criminal penalties.]
By MAGGIE HABERMAN and AMY CHOZICK
New York Times, 2015-09-12
By Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post, 2015-09-12
by Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-14
Classified emails passed through commercial email services like Google and AOL on their path to or from a private server maintained by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, but so far, the government appears to have done little to retrieve or secure the messages.
A POLITICO review of Clinton emails made public by the State Department shows that at least 55 messages now deemed to include classified information appear to have been sent to or from private accounts other than Clinton’s. That number is certain to grow substantially as State processes all Clinton emails and sorts through emails turned over to the department by several of her top aides.
...
Judicial Watch, 2015-09-14
Judicial Watch today released newly obtained Department of State documents showing a nearly five-month total gap in the emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to return to the State Department late last year. The documents also show that one key State Department official did not want a written record of issues about the Clinton emails. The documents also raise new questions about the accuracy of representations made to Judicial Watch, the courts, Congress, and the public by the Obama administration and Clinton.
...
by Julian Hattem
The Hill, 2015-09-14
by Patrick Howley
Breitbart.com, 2015-09-22
By Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-09-23
Throughout the controversy over her use of a private e-mail system
while she was secretary of state,
Hillary Rodham Clinton has described her decision last year
to turn over thousands of work-related e-mails
as a response to a routine-sounding records request.
“When we were asked to help the State Department make sure
they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me,
I’m the one who said,
‘Okay, great, I will go through them again,’ ”
Clinton said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And we provided all of them.”
But State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton’s characterization.
They said the request was not simply about general record-keeping
but was prompted entirely by
the discovery that
Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system.
["the discovery"?
They made the request to Clinton in 2014; she left State in February 2013.
Surely State realized that their Secretary was using a private email server
early in her Jan. 2009-Feb. 2013 term.
Indeed, Hillary herself has said that
"everyone" (i.e., all the people she corresponded via email with)
was aware of her email address, clearly not a state.gov one.
So whatever caused them to make the request in 2014 was some other event,
either some external request or story
or an internal analysis of the situation.
See below for what that was.]
They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014,
at least three months before
the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors
to provide their e-mails.
“In the process of responding to congressional document requests pertaining to Benghazi,
State Department officials recognized that
it had access to relatively few email records from former Secretary Clinton,”
State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement e-mailed to The Washington Post.
“State Department officials contacted her representatives during the summer of 2014
to learn more about her email use and the status of emails in that account.”
Kirby added that the agency then recognized
“that we similarly did not have extensive email records from prior Secretaries of State
and therefore included them when we requested their records in October 2014.”
The State Department also realized
it was not automatically preserving internal communications,
with some other senior officials’ e-mails missing.
...
In the spring and summer of 2014,
while it was in the process of trying to find
records sought by the newly formed House Select Committee on Benghazi,
the State Department’s congressional affairs office
found Clinton’s personal e-mail address listed on a few records in a batch of Benghazi documents
but no government e-mail account for her.
“We realized there was a problem,”
said a State Department official who until that moment
had not been aware of Clinton’s private e-mail setup.
The official, like some others interviewed for this story,
spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
[So that was what it took for anyone at State
to realize that there was a problem with Hillary's email usage.]
The department knew that the Republican-led committee would ask about
the private e-mail domain — clintonemail.com — listed on some of the documents.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry,
who was also learning about her exclusive use of the e-mail account for the first time,
was eager to “rip off the Band-Aid,”
[Pardon me for being obtuse,
but I really am not clear on what he considered the Band-Aid to be in this situation.]
as two key aides described it,
and to make sure the agency provided the Benghazi panel with any records it properly requested.
State Department staffers were trying to figure out
where her work e-mails were stored
and how they might try to assemble them, one official said.
Clinton turned over copies of about 30,000 work-related e-mails
to the department in December.
...
The issue has led to frustrations within the State Department in recent months,
as some officials have grown tired of having to answer for
a political controversy not of their making, according to three senior officials.
[Good to hear that they are not entirely part of Clinton's campaign.
Also, by the way, this should not be just a political controversy.
It would be nice if some Democrats could see the problems Hillary caused,
and not just accuse those concerned about those problems as being politically motivated.
Are only Republicans concerned about what Hillary did, and the problems it caused?]
Meanwhile, Kerry has told officials to prioritize fixing long-standing problems in the agency’s outdated archive system.
While some of Clinton’s predecessors used private e-mail addresses, none took the additional step of conducting all of their business over a personal account housed on a private server. Clinton used a server that was kept for a time in her New York home. After she left office in 2013, the server was managed by Platte River.
The FBI has been investigating the security of Clinton’s e-mail setup. Officials have said Clinton is not a target of the inquiry.
By ERIC LIPTON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-25
WASHINGTON — The email described a deteriorating situation in Libya, with snipers shooting people in the streets as rebels tried to unseat President Muammar el-Qaddafi and worried American diplomats in the midst of a “phased checkout” from Benghazi. It arrived in the private email account of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, one Sunday morning in April 2011, with unforeseen consequences.
That email, which included an update from the Africa Command of the Department of Defense detailing Libyan military movements, is part of the evidence that law enforcement officials say the F.B.I. is now examining as it tries to determine whether aides to Mrs. Clinton mishandled delicate national security information when they communicated with their boss.
The Libyan dispatch, written by an aide to Mrs. Clinton and then forwarded to her by Huma Abedin, one of her top advisers, should have been considered classified, according to intelligence officials. And, they say, other emails to Mrs. Clinton they have found,
including one addressing North Korea’s nuclear weapons system
[That is the one that, if disclosed,
seems to have the greatest potential for harm to the United States.]
and a third discussing United States drone strikes in Pakistan, should have been marked “Top Secret.”
There is no evidence that any of the emails — a small portion of some 60,000 that Mrs. Clinton sent or received as secretary of state — were hacked or caused any harm to American interests, and law enforcement officials have said she is not a target of their investigation. But one of the questions they are seeking to answer is whether her aides or other State Department officials broke federal rules or laws when they sent her information. And arriving at an answer will not be simple, given the complex and often conflicting views of just how diplomatically fragile the information conveyed in the emails actually was.
Of the emails now being scrutinized by the F.B.I., the most is known about the one sent to Mrs. Clinton in April 2011 about the worsening condition in Libya.
Its author was Timmy T. Davis, a State Department official who was then a personal aide to Mrs. Clinton. He was reporting to her information that had been received from J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, who was killed 17 months later in Benghazi.
“Stevens Update (important),” says the subject line, before continuing, that “Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi. The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout (paying hotel bills, moving some comms to the boat, etc).”
The email, a copy of which was recently posted online by the State Department, also included an update from the United States Africa Command that indicated that Mr. Qaddafi’s forces had been sent to a city south of Benghazi, “with five vehicles at the eastern gate and 50 at the western gate,” information that in retrospect, intelligence officials said, should have been considered classified.
Even if Mrs. Clinton’s aides simply summarized classified material provided to them by others — as opposed to forwarding her a classified document — they may have violated federal laws that govern how intelligence information is handled, experts in government classification laws said.
But Mr. Merrill pointed out that the movements by Mr. Qaddafi’s forces had been reported by newspapers before the email was ever sent. And, he said, the email that Mr. Davis sent to Ms. Abedin and other top aides to Mrs. Clinton said at the top “SBU,” an abbreviation for “sensitive but unclassified.”
Ms. Abedin then forwarded it to Mrs. Clinton. While Ms. Abedin would have no clear reason to presume this information was classified, Mr. Davis could be found at fault for distributing the information in an unclassified setting. Mr. Davis, who is still at the State Department, did not respond to a request for comment.
Another email the F.B.I. is looking at, according to officials who have been briefed on its content, addresses issues related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and intelligence officials have said it should have been classified as “Top Secret.”
The intelligence officials said that State Department officials could have obtained information in the email only from a satellite surveillance program called Talent Keyhole. But the State Department has challenged that classification, saying it could have obtained the same information from public or nonclassified sources, an assessment that some experts say could be valid.
[Dear State Department:
Rather than making the rather obvious and indisputable remark that
the same information could have been obtained
from public or nonclassified sources,
how about pointing out whether such public sources actually exist.
Further, how about asking the author of the email
precisely what his or her source was.
How long would it take to ask that rather obvious question,
and report the answer?]
“There is a lot of information publicly available that people inside the intelligence community or the government might not be aware of,” said Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official who specialized in North Korea issues and now serves as a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “So there are gray areas here. I don’t know if this particular email falls in that gray area.”
A third email under scrutiny included a copy of a New York Times article about the C.I.A.’s lethal drone program, which is classified. In the email, State Department officials complain about aspects of the article. Intelligence officials say that the comments about the article should also have made the correspondence “Top Secret.” As the F.B.I. moves forward with its investigation, it will be examining all of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to determine whether any others had sensitive information on them and if those materials were inappropriately passed to her.
That task could take a significant amount of time. The bureau has copies of the roughly 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton gave to the State Department last year that she said were government records. And it was revealed this week that the bureau had been able to recover some of the personal emails she deleted. Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to seize on the recovery of Mrs. Clinton’s personal emails to open a new front in their inquiries into her personal email account.
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Operations Committee, has called on the F.B.I. to turn over any of these recovered emails to the State Department or some other third party so they can be reviewed to determine if any should have been retained as government records.
“If the FBI has recovered all of her emails, they must be reviewed promptly by the appropriate authorities to determine what is official and what is not, and whether they contain classified material, so that any national security concerns can be mitigated,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement Wednesday.
...
by John Hayward
Breitbart.com, 2015-09-25
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-26
WASHINGTON — A string of emails that has been provided to the State Department raises new questions about whether Hillary Rodham Clinton has accurately described her use of a personal account when she was secretary of state.
Mrs. Clinton has said that she retained no emails from her first two months in office because she used an account that she no longer has access to. She has said that on March 19, 2009, she began using the personal account — hdr22@clintonemail.com — that she relied on for the rest of her time in office.
But on Friday, State Department officials said they had been given copies of an email chain between Mrs. Clinton and David H. Petraeus, the commander of United States Central Command at the time, that shows that Mrs. Clinton was using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account by Jan. 28, 2009.
The chain, with emails from Jan. 10, 2009, to Feb. 1, 2009, was provided to the State Department by its inspector general and by the Defense Department, according to State Department officials.
Mrs. Clinton has said publicly and in a court filing under oath that she gave the State Department last year all of the 30,000 work-related emails in her possession. It is not clear why she never provided the newly discovered email chain to the State Department or why she said she did not begin using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account until two months after she took office.
A spokesman for her presidential campaign declined to comment.
...
by Chris Cillizza
Washington Post "The Fix" blog, 2015-09-26
...
I have written lots and lots of blog posts about Hillary Clinton's e-mail issues since the story came to light in March. And I stand by every one.
Here's why:
1. Hillary Clinton began this race as the biggest non-incumbent front-runner for a party's presidential nomination in the post-World War II era. The job she held just prior to running for president was as secretary of state. The best way to understand how she handles everything from the mundane day-to-day activities of governance to the crises that present themselves from time to time is by studying not just her public actions at the State Department but the thinking behind those decisions. Her e-mails provide a written record of how she thinks, who she relies on and how she navigates sticky situations. Her e-mails are essential to who she is. And, therefore, very much worth looking into -- and writing about.
2. No secretary of state has ever used a private e-mail server exclusively. For all of Clinton's insistence that this was standard operating procedure for government officials, it wasn't. Yes, lots and lots of government officials have used both a government e-mail address and a private e-mail address. None before Clinton had used only a private server. That makes what she did anomalous -- and worth paying attention to.
3. The story about the e-mail server has changed. Repeatedly. When Clinton acknowledged the existence of the server back in March -- following a New York Times report revealing it -- she insisted that the private server need not be examined by a third party. She (finally) turned it over last month. She said that the handing over of the e-mails was a procedure that all former and current secretaries of state were undergoing at the same time. But, as reporting from The Post this week showed, the State Department specifically requested Clinton's e-mails after they realized she had used private e-mail exclusively. It wasn't until months later that requests for documents was made of other former secretaries of state. A story that keeps changing like that bears further analysis and investigation.
...
by Ali Watkins
Huffington Post, 2015-09-27
WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Sunday further addressed the controversy over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state, insisting she had nothing to do with setting up the server, choosing the server, transitioning to the server, turning over emails from the server or pretty much doing anything other than continuing to send emails.
"I wasn't that focused on my email account, to be clear here," Clinton told Chuck Todd on NBC’s "Meet The Press."
"[The server] was already there. It had been there for years. It is the system that my husband's personal office used when he got out of the White House. And so it was sitting there in the basement. It was not any trouble at all," Clinton said.
[She used the private server "Because it was there"?
That's a reason?
That's a fact, not a reason.
The government state.gov accounts were also available for her use,
where she would have been
clinton@state.gov or secretary@state.gov or some such, no doubt of her choosing,
rather than
hdr22@clintonemail.com.]
"I can't control the technical aspects of it. I'm not by any means a technical expert. I relied on people who were."
As for the notion that Clinton didn’t turn over all relevant emails stored on the server to the State Department, she said she didn’t have anything to do with that, either.
“All I can tell you is that when my attorneys conducted this exhaustive process, I did not participate, I didn't look at them,” she said. “I wanted them to be as clear in their process as possible. I didn't want to be looking over their shoulder. If they thought it was work-related, it would go to the State Department."
[Yet in her earlier statements about declaring
what was personal versus what was work-related,
she defended herself by asserting that
it was the official who got to make that call.
“Under the law, that decision is made by the official.
I was the official. I made those decisions.”
(HRC press conference, 2015-08-28)
Now she says, "No, I didn't make the call, it was my attorneys."]
And once everything had been turned over, she didn’t have anything to do with deciding how the remaining emails got erased, she said.
"My attorney said, 'Well, what do you want us to do with all these personal emails?' I said, 'Well, I don't need to keep them. I don't need them or want them.' So they then talked to the IT server, the technical people who were responsible for maintaining them and said, 'You know, we don't need them anymore,'" Clinton said. "That's the limit of my knowledge."
The candidate also continued to obfuscate about the reasons the State Department first asked her and several other former secretaries of state to go back through their email records.
Clinton and her camp have said the State Department made the request because they recognized their own record keeping system was inadequate. But State Department officials told The Washington Post this week that the request was prompted by the discovery that Clinton had, in fact, used a private server.
"They found gaps in their own record keeping," Clinton said Sunday.
"They found discrepancies in their record keeping -- not in my records, per se, in their overall record keeping," she said Sunday. "It got us to the same place. We looked through everything. We gave them everything work related."
As for the notion that Clinton used the private email server in order to avoid accountability or make it more difficult for Congress to get a hold of her communications -- that’s, of course, wrong too, she said.
“It’s totally ridiculous. That never crossed my mind,” Clinton said.
[How on earth can anyone believe "That never crossed [her] mind."?]
Clinton’s use of the private email server has continued to roil her campaign aspirations and raise eyebrows around Washington, particularly with news this week that some of the emails Clinton -- or Clinton’s aides, technical experts, or whoever else -- had deemed personal actually turned out to be work related.
[Headline for print version:
"Clinton Says She Can’t Explain Emails Sent Before Acknowledged 2009 Start"]
by Amy Chozick
New York Times, 2015-09-28
[The New York Times coverage of HRC's Meet the Press interview.]
Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that she could not fully explain the discovery of a string of work emails sent from her personal account more than two months earlier than when she has said she began using that address as secretary of state. But she said she hoped that voters would look past what she called the “drip, drip, drip” of the furor over her emails.
“There was a transition period. You know, I wasn’t that focused on my email,” Mrs. Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about emails sent from her personal account in her first two months after taking office in January 2009. She had previously said she did not begin using a clintonemail.com address for State Department business until that March.
The State Department said on Friday that Mrs. Clinton had exchanged emails in late January and February 2009 with Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the commander of the United States Central Command.
Pressed to explain the discrepancy, Mrs. Clinton said it was beyond her technical understanding.
She said the clintonemail.com server had existed in the basement of her family’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y., for years before she added her account. “It apparently took a little time to do that. And so there was about a month where I didn’t have everything already on the server, and we went back, tried to, you know, recover whatever we could recover,” she said. “And I think it’s also fair to say that, you know, there are some things about this that I just can’t control.”
“I am by no means a technical expert,” she added. “I relied on people who were.”
[Personally,
I do not think it worth making too big a deal over her personal statements on this.
If she forgot details of her email practices in her first months as Secretary,
that is understandable and forgivable, in my book.
What is troublesome, however,
is the fact that
there seems not to have been a record of those emails on her server,
as opposed to, evidently, the DoD server used by GEN Petraeus.
Why were those emails not turned over as part of her work-related dump?
She repeatedly notes that she was not the technical expert for her system.
No doubt.
But it makes it all the more significant that the person who was her technical guru,
Bryan Pagliano,
has pleaded the Fifth, and refused to talk to the FBI.
Hmmm. What does he fear?]
...
When [Meet the Press interviewer Chuck] Todd prefaced a question by saying he wanted to pose “an alternative explanation that has sort of been circulating,” Mrs. Clinton laughed. “Another conspiracy theory?” she interjected, repeating a line Mr. Todd had used at the outset of the interview.
The other possible explanation, he said, was that Mrs. Clinton had perhaps used a private server because she planned to run for president in 2016 and wanted to shield her correspondence from any potential congressional investigations or Freedom of Information Act requests.
“It’s totally ridiculous. That never crossed my mind,” she said.
...
Mrs. Clinton repeatedly said she had handed over all work-related emails and had not been involved in her lawyers’ decisions about which emails met that definition. “I didn’t want to be looking over their shoulder. If they thought it was work-related, it would go to the State Department,” she said.
“That’s the limit of my knowledge. And I know I was a little sarcastic about it in one exchange with the press,” she said, alluding to an exchange last month with a Fox News reporter about whether her server had been wiped clean. “Sorry, guys, but you know, I’m not a technical expert.”
...
by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-09-28
...
Clinton appears to be sticking to her timeline because it obscures the fact that she exclusively used a private e-mail for company business. If she had used a State Department e-mail, just as many other cabinet officials in the Obama administration used “.gov” addresses, it’s likely the State Department would not have had trouble responding to congressional requests. That’s why there are “gaps in the record keeping.”
As part of Clinton’s effort to clear up questions about her e-mail set-up, Clinton should begin using a more complete timeline regarding her staff member’s dealings with the State Department on this matter. The current timeline is incomplete.
Three Pinocchios
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-30
WASHINGTON — Three emails sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2011 when she was secretary of state contained information that should have been considered “secret,” the government’s second-highest classification, according to a State Department review of about 6,300 pages of her emails made public on Wednesday.
In one case, officials have deemed the email secret because aides to Mrs. Clinton attached a document containing the minutes of secret negotiations in 2008 between Israelis and Palestinians that had been posted online by the Al Jazeera television network.
In another instance, two emails sent to Mrs. Clinton contained summaries of confidential discussions among officials of six world powers about Iran’s nuclear program. The emails, sent by Jake Sullivan, one of Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers at the State Department, have now been marked secret by the department.
...
By DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
new York Times, 2015-10-02
WASHINGTON — It turns out that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email account, like seemingly everyone else’s in America, was hit by spam sent to try to lure her into clicking on a malicious link — one that could have compromised the security of her communications when she was secretary of state.
But did that put her more at risk than if she had relied solely on the State Department’s internal systems? Almost certainly not. After all, in 2014 the unclassified email systems at the State Department and the White House were shut down, often for days at a time, as government security experts tried to erase the damage done by the hackers, suspected to be Russians, probably linked to the government. It seems virtually certain, investigators say, that the offenders in that case siphoned vast numbers of emails out of both systems.
Still, the evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s personal account had been on the receiving end of a “spear phishing” attempt, revealed in a batch of her emails released by the State Department on Wednesday, raises the same question the F.B.I. is trying to answer as it combs through the forensic evidence from the server that was once in Mrs. Clinton’s basement.
And that is whether the attackers who successfully got into the unclassified systems at the State Department and the White House also got into Mrs. Clinton’s. She would have been a natural target for a state-sponsored cyberattack by adversaries who have made clear their determination to learn as much as they can about the inner workings of the United States government. And the possible vulnerability of her home-based system remains a central mystery in the investigations.
“It would stand to reason,” one person involved in the investigation said recently, “that anyone who had planted malware in the State Department system would have seen a very high-level official talking to other high-level officials, and followed the trail.” But, the person added, “we don’t know that happened.”
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to not be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said there was no evidence that the system had ever been breached. “All these emails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam,” he said.
There is also no evidence that the spammers who targeted her knew that it was the secretary of state at the other end of the attack. The fact that it was sent four times to her account over a period of hours suggests it was sent by an automated system.
Some experts disagree. Justin Harvey, the chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, said in an interview that “the chances are still quite high that it was humanly targeted.” In such an attack, the spam probably would have been sent first to her aides, in hopes of getting to her account.
But if Mrs. Clinton’s system was successfully pierced — perhaps in some other attack — Mrs. Clinton might well not have known it, either. Other email accounts, including one for her husband, Bill, the former president, resided on the same server in their basement of their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. No one has yet explained what kind of monitoring systems were on that server, if any.
...
by Eric Wemple
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-10-05
...
“If the tables were turned,” [Guthrie] asked,
“and it was Dick Cheney or Karl Rove who had a private e-mail account
and a private server on which they conducted all their government business,
would you be as understanding?”
...
Actually, Guthrie didn’t need to ask Clinton
how she would have responded to Republican e-mail shenanigans.
That’s a matter of public record.
Back in June 2007, the House oversight committee, then led by Democrat Henry Waxman,
issued a report titled, “Investigation of Possible Presidential Records Act Violations.”
In its inquiry into the Bush White House’s involvement with the firing of U.S. attorneys —
plus other investigations —
Waxman’s committee uncovered evidence that White House officials
used e-mail addresses controlled by the Republican National Committee.
A deeper look into the matter found that 88 White House officials were doing so.
Among them was Rove, who made extensive use of the RNC server;
it preserved 140,216 e-mails that were either sent or received by the White House political guru.
In 2007, Clinton complained in a speech about the hubbub:
“You know our Constitution is being shredded.
We know about the secret wiretaps,
about the secret military tribunals,
we know about the secret White House email accounts,”
she said.
...
by Stephen Dinan
Washington Times, 2015-10-06
The State Department has instructed former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton go back to her Internet companies and try to recover email messages from any personal email accounts that she used during her time in government, saying it appears she didn’t turn over all of her documents.
In a letter to Clinton lawyer David E. Kendall, the department said it has become aware of messages Mrs. Clinton sent to other government officials in her first few months in office, but which she did not turn over as part of the more than 30,000 emails she did relinquish last December.
Mrs. Clinton had previously said she used a personal email account — the same one she kept as a senator — to do government business during the first couple of months she was at the State Department. Her campaign said she no longer had access to those messages.
But after some of those messages were produced from the Defense Department, the State Department realized it had a problem.
“To the extent her emails might be found on any internet service and email providers, we encourage you to contact them.” Mr. Kennedy wrote.
Mrs. Clinton’s email practices have become a major problem for her presidential aspirations.
During her time as secretary she rejected use of an account on State Department servers, instead using her personal email for several months, then switching over to an account she kept on a server at her home in New York.
Some of her top aides, likewise, did their business on non-State.gov accounts. The arrangement meant that many key communications have been shielded from public disclosure for years, thwarting the intent of open-records laws.
By Greg Gordon and Anita Kumar
McClatchyDc, 2015-10-06
Summary:
Former secretary of state hired Datto Inc. to provide a private cloud backup of her emails
FBI asked the Connecticut company to turn over data. It agreed.
State Department also asking again whether she turned over all of her business emails
WASHINGTON
Hillary Clinton hired a Connecticut company to back up her emails on a “cloud” storage system, and her lawyers have agreed to turn whatever it contains over to the FBI, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday.
The disclosure came as a Republican Senate committee chairman, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, also asked the firm to turn over to the committee copies of any Clinton emails still in its possession.
...
Datto Inc., based in Norwalk, Conn., became the second data storage firm to become entangled in the inquiry into Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, which has sparked a furor that has dogged her campaign. In August, Clinton and the firm that had managed her server since June 2013, Colorado-based Platte River Networks, agreed to surrender it for examination by the FBI.
On Friday, Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, and Platte River agreed to allow Datto to turn over the data from the backup server to the FBI, said the person familiar with Datto’s storage, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Datto said in a statement that “with the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation.”
...
On May 31, 2013, four months after Clinton left office, the Clinton Executive Service Corp. [!!], which oversaw her email server contracts, hired Platte River to maintain her account. Its New Jersey-based server replaced the server in her New York home that had handled her emails throughout her tenure as secretary of state.
Several weeks ago, Platte River employees discovered that her private server was syncing with an offsite Datto server, he said.
When Datto acknowledged that was the case, a Platte River employee replied in an email: “This is a problem.”
[Why?]
Johnson said that “Datto apparently possessed a backup of the server’s contents since June 2013.”
Upon that discovery, Platte River “directed Datto to not delete the saved data and worked with Datto to find a way to move the saved information . . . back to Secretary Clinton’s private server.”
The letter also noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.
Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.
It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited
...
Platte River Networks said they were asked to limit backups of her server.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-06
by Emma Court
Wall Street Journal Blog, 2015-10-07
[An amusing contrasting of different generations technological awarenesses.]
Sid Blumenthal offered advice on Libya strategy
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-08
House GOP Benghazi investigators are charging that
Hillary Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal acted as her "de facto political adviser" on Libya
despite having a financial stake in the country that Clinton eventually became aware of.
...
In 2011, Blumenthal — a longtime Clinton friend who was barred by President Barack Obama from working for Clinton at State —
wrote Clinton a series of intelligence memos on everything from the movement of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces
to disputes within the Libyan rebel groups and their plans of attack.
He later admitted to GOP investigators that he did not write or even confirm the information he passed on to the nation’s top diplomat.
Rather, Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA operative and Blumenthal business partner, did.
Drumheller and Blumenthal were working with on a new Libya startup called Osprey, headed by retired Army General David Grange. They hoped the company would contract with the fledgling Libyan government to full fill its needs during the transition period, including floating hospitals and, apparently, police or military training.
The GOP cites emails in which Blumenthal encourages Clinton to boldly address Libya, back a no fly-zone, arm the rebels — or, have a private contractor do so.
...
Republicans contend that her claim that the memos were “unsolicited” is bogus,
arguing that half of her emails on Libya relate to Blumenthal in some way.
Of the 1,800 new pages of emails they received, for example,
500 pages were with or about Blumenthal.
“The fact that former Secretary Clinton relied so heavily on an individual for the Libyan intervention … is mind boggling,”
writes Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). “More disturbing is that at the same time Blumenthal was pushing Secretary Clinton to war in Libya, he was privately pushing a business interest of his own in Libya that stood to profit from contracts with the new Libyan government—a government that would exist only after a successful U.S. intervention in Libya that deposed Qaddafi.”
...
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-10-08
Federal district court judges in Washington
have unanimously rejected a bid by the Obama Administration
to try to coordinate aspects of nearly 40 Freedom of Information Act lawsuits
relating to the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides.
The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the State Department
and at the urging of at least two judges on the court,
moved last month to put scheduling and record preservation issues in the cases
in front of a single federal judge.
At the moment, the cases are pending before 17 different judges,
the government said in a recent filing.
In an order issued Thursday (and posted here),
Chief Judge Richard Roberts that the judges on the court met privately to discuss the issue on Tuesday
and decided against any formal process to align the cases.
...
By Josh Gerstein and Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-08
Hillary Clinton's private email server containing tens of thousands of messages from her tenure as secretary of state — including more than 400 now considered classified — was the subject of hacking attempts from China, South Korea and Germany after she stepped down in 2013, according to Congressional investigators.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has found evidence of attempted intrusions into Clinton's server in 2013 and 2014, according to a letter Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent Monday to a Florida-based security firm tasked with protecting the hardware.
The contractor, SECNAP Network Security, identified the attacks, but according to internal emails cited and briefly quoted in the Johnson letter, Clinton's sever may have lacked a threat-detection program for three months, Johnson says.
...
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-10-19
...
“Is Clinton implicated in demonstrating bad judgment?
It’s harder to say.
I think she presumed her communications with Blumenthal
were confidential in the first place
even if they were not on an encrypted, secure line.
She was the secretary of state not the classification police,”
[Steven] Aftergood added.
[I think Aftergood shows his partisanship here.
His statements seem blatantly inconsistent.
If the communications "were not on an encrypted, secure line",
and in particular were being stored on a private server
which was connected to the Internet,
I do not see how a reasonably prudent person in the 2009-12 time period
could avoid seeing that they were at risk of being compromised.]
...
Clinton's homemade server risked hacking,
ran software that could be exploited
By JACK GILLUM and STEPHEN BRAUN, Associated Press
US News / AP, 2015-10-13
This AP story is also at the Washington Post web site here,
and the New York Times here.
2015-10-14: There was nothing resembling this story in today's print edition of the New York Times, Washington print edition.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The private email server running in Hillary Rodham Clinton's home basement when she was secretary of state
was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers while using software that could have been exploited,
according to data and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Clinton's server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence,
appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely,
according to detailed records compiled in 2012.
Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn't intended for such use without additional protective measures,
and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet.
One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities,
known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites.
The new details provide the first clues about how Clinton's computer, running Microsoft's server software,
was set up and protected when she used it exclusively over four years as secretary of state for all work messages.
Clinton's privately paid technology adviser, Bryan Pagliano,
has declined to answer questions about his work from congressional investigators,
citing the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
...
Clinton has said that her server featured "numerous safeguards," but she has yet to explain how well her system was secured and whether, or how frequently, security updates were applied.
...
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said late Monday that
"this report, like others before it, lacks any evidence of an actual breach,
let alone one specifically targeting Hillary Clinton.
The Justice Department is conducting a review of the security of the server,
and we are cooperating in full."
[Let me get this straight:
It doesn't matter how insecure her server was,
the only thing that matters is whether it was actually hacked?
That's the Democratic way?
I guess so,
if Democrats say that anyone who criticizes such lax security practices
is only motivated by "partisan" issues.
What they are saying is that her lax security practices
are not an issue to them.
Well, who cares,
as long as she panders enough to the Democratic constituencies,
eh, Dems?]
...
The AP exclusively reviewed numerous records from an Internet "census" by an anonymous hacker-researcher,
who three years ago used unsecured devices to scan hundreds of millions of Internet Protocol addresses for accessible doors, called "ports."
Using a computer in Serbia, the hacker scanned Clinton's basement server in Chappaqua at least twice, in August and December 2012.
It was unclear whether the hacker was aware the server belonged to Clinton,
although it identified itself as providing email services for clintonemail.com.
The results are widely available online.
Remote-access software allows users to control another computer from afar.
The programs are usually operated through an encrypted connection —
called a virtual private network, or VPN.
But Clinton's system appeared to accept commands directly from the Internet without such protections.
"That's total amateur hour," said Marc Maiffret, who has founded two cybersecurity companies.
He said permitting remote-access connections directly over the Internet
would be the result of someone choosing convenience over security or failing to understand the risks.
"Real enterprise-class security, with teams dedicated to these things, would not do this," he said.
The government and security firms have published warnings about allowing this kind of remote access to Clinton's server.
The same software was targeted by an infectious Internet worm, known as Morta, which exploited weak passwords to break into servers.
The software also was known to be vulnerable to brute-force attacks that tried password combinations until hackers broke in,
and in some cases it could be tricked into revealing sensitive details about a server to help hackers formulate attacks.
"An attacker with a low skill-level would be able to exploit this vulnerability,"
said the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team in 2012,
the same year Clinton's server was scanned.
Also in 2012, the State Department had outlawed use of remote-access software for its technology officials to maintain unclassified servers without a waiver.
It had banned all instances of remotely connecting to classified servers or servers located overseas.
The findings suggest Clinton's server
"violates the most basic network-perimeter security tenets:
Don't expose insecure services to the Internet,"
said Justin Harvey, the chief security officer for Fidelis Cybersecurity.
[All just partisan gripes, eh, Dems?]
...
In Clinton's case, Internet addresses the AP traced to her home in Chappaqua
revealed open ports on three devices, including her email system.
Each numbered port is commonly, but not always uniquely, associated with specific features or functions.
The AP in March was first to discover Clinton's use of a private email server and trace it to her home.
Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at F-Secure, a top global computer security firm,
said it was unclear how Clinton's server was configured,
but an out-of-the-box installation of remote desktop would have been vulnerable.
Those risks — such as giving hackers a chance to run malicious software on her machine —
were "clearly serious" and could have allowed snoops to deploy so-called back doors.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology,
the federal government's guiding agency on computer technology,
warned in 2008 that exposed server ports were security risks.
It said remote-control programs should only be used in conjunction with encryption tunnels,
such as secure VPN connections.
Inside the seven-month war inside her campaign over the email scandal that just wouldn’t go away
by Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni
Politico Magazine, November-December 2015
...
But no matter how it turns out, when the story of the 2016 campaign is written, this months-long fight over Hillary Clinton’s private email server—an enervating and possibly pointless controversy—will constitute the opening chapter. Here is the story of how she handled it.
...
by Jazz Shaw
Hotair.com, 2015-10-15
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-10-16
A video on this story.
...
On Thursday, a group of national security whistleblowers held a news conference in Washington at the National Press Club to highlight what they characterized as a double standard in these types of cases.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was indicted in 2010 under the Espionage Act for sharing unclassified material with a Baltimore Sun reporter. Drake, who also went to Congress with his concerns about the NSA, said his goal was to expose government misconduct.
"This is the secretary of state, one of the most targeted individuals by other intelligence entities and agencies in the world using a private server to traffic highly sensitive information and no doubt including classified information and no doubt including info about sources and methods,"Drake said at Thursday’s event.
He added the whistleblowers’ treatment shows there is a law for the average citizen, and apparently a different set of rules for the powerful.
"But hey, I'm secretary of state,” Drake said in a sarcastic tone. ”Even Obama gave her cover."
The charges against Drake were eventually dropped. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, but in the process lost his ability to work in national security and depleted his life savings to mount a defense.
Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling also went to Congress with his complaints, but was sentenced in May to three-and-a-half years in prison for violating the Espionage Act by giving classified information to a New York Times reporter. Sterling, who is appealing the case, was also convicted on obstruction of justice charges because a single email was missing from his account, even though the government could not show he was responsible for that.
...
Real Clear Politics, 2015-10-17
Both a video and a transcript of significant parts of the Jake Tapper CNN interview with Hillary Clinton that was broadcast on Friday, 2015-10-16.
By MATT APUZZO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-17
WASHINGTON —
Federal agents were still cataloging the classified information from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal email server last week when President Obama went on television and played down the matter.
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said it was a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
[In the military, there is a concept called "command influence".
President Obmaa's statement seems, to me, very close to that concept.
I wonder how the experts on command influence would view it.]
Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had in fact put any of the nation’s secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Investigators have not reached any conclusions about whether the information on the server had been compromised or whether to recommend charges, according to the law enforcement officials. But to investigators, it sounded as if Mr. Obama had already decided the answers to their questions and cleared anyone involved of wrongdoing.
...
A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. But Ron Hosko, a former senior F.B.I. official who retired in 2014 and is now the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said it was inappropriate for the president to “suggest what side of the investigation he is on” when the F.B.I. is still investigating.
“Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry
leaves a foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth
and makes them fear that
no matter what they find,
the Justice Department will take the president’s signal and not bring a case,”
said Mr. Hosko, who maintains close contact with current agents.
Several current and former law enforcement officials, including those close to the investigation, expressed similar sentiments in separate interviews over several days. Most, however, did so only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
...
Whether Mr. Obama’s remarks have a lasting effect beyond upsetting some F.B.I. officials depends on the investigation’s outcome. Since the email inquiry began this past summer, investigators have been scrutinizing everyone who came in contact with her server and trying to determine whether anyone sent or received classified information, whether that information was compromised and whether any of this amounted to a crime.
Tensions among career F.B.I. agents, the political appointees who run the Justice Department and the White House are commonplace. In deciding whether to bring charges in a case, F.B.I. agents are often more bullish. Prosecutors, with an eye toward trying to win at trial, tend to be more cautious and have the final say. As such, no administration, Democratic or Republican, is immune from the suspicion that politics has influenced case decisions.
But Mr. Obama’s remarks in the Clinton email case were met with particular anger at the F.B.I. because they echoed comments he made in 2012, shortly after it was revealed that a former C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus, was under investigation, accused of providing classified information to a mistress who was writing a book about him.
“I have no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security,” the president said at a 2012 news conference, as the F.B.I. was trying to answer that very question about Mr. Petraeus.
At the time, the Obama administration was leading a historic crackdown on government officials who discussed national security matters with reporters, even when that information was never disclosed publicly. But Mr. Petraeus was a four-star general, a White House adviser and the most celebrated military leader of his generation. F.B.I. officials were concerned that he would receive preferential treatment.
The F.B.I. ultimately concluded that Mr. Petraeus should face felony charges and a possible prison sentence. Not only had he provided highly classified information to his biographer — including notes about war strategy and the identity of covert officials — but he also lied to agents about it. James B. Comey, the F.B.I director, made the case to the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., that Mr. Petraeus deserved to face strenuous charges.
But the Justice Department overruled the F.B.I., and earlier this year the department allowed Mr. Petraeus to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He was spared jail time and remained an informal White House adviser.
Although current and former senior officials at the Justice Department who were involved in the case said the decision was not influenced by the White House, F.B.I. agents came to view Mr. Obama’s remarks about Mr. Petraeus as a harbinger of the ultimate outcome.
Presidents typically decline to comment on cases under investigation or in the courts, citing the need to avoid prejudicing legal proceedings. Often that tradition is politically convenient, offering them an easy excuse when they would rather not answer questions about the behavior of allies and aides.
...
[Here is a comment from a reader of the above story:
darylreece
Atlanta, GA 11 minutes ago
The only way that Obama's statement is viable is if he is taking some narrow definition that
Mrs. Clinton didn't give away the keys to the nuclear weapons.
Other than that, I can't understand how you could conclude
keeping emails that contain classified information on a private, non-secure server
didn't violate the handling of classified information.
If the Dems nominate her, they are crazy.
If indicted, it will come at a bad time.
If the investigation gets squashed by DOJ, it will smell like a cover-up.
Both bad outcomes.
by Jonah Goldberg
National Review, 2015-10-21
...
The journalist turned Clinton White House courtier is in the news because he shows up in Clinton’s e-mails — a lot.
(Roughly a third of the last e-mail dump contains e-mail between them.)
When first asked about her correspondence with Blumenthal,
Clinton insisted he was merely “an old friend” who occasionally sent “unsolicited” e-mail.
That was a lie.
It turns out that then–Secretary of State Clinton
was in near-constant contact with Blumenthal,
urging the head of her “secret spy network” (ProPublica’s term)
to supply her with information and political advice, mostly about Libya.
[Compare The Forward's analysis of their discussions of Israel,
cited below.]
“Thanks for keeping this stuff coming!” was how she put it in one typical reply.
[Evidence that Hillary lies like a rug?
Maybe not to mentally ill types like Paul Begala.]
...
By ERIC LIPTON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-21
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s explanations about her use of a personal email account as secretary of state have evolved over time.
[Note the problematic use of the word "evolved".
Other than that,
this is a pretty good survey of the major issues involving her email policies,
showing some of her changing descriptions thereof.
Their analysis of the problems with her descriptions
is not as sharp as it might be.
A sample of why I say that
(First the Times statement, then my response):]
July 2015
The F.B.I. had determined that Mrs. Clinton had received “Secret” information in her account,
the second highest classification of government intelligence.
In response to that disclosure, her campaign said that
sensitive national security information was sometimes upgraded to classified at a later date
if the State Department or another agency believed its inadvertent release
“could potentially harm national security or diplomatic relations.”
The campaign insisted that none of the materials were classified at the time she received them.
[What is the "inadvertent release" about which they are worried?
Since State is upgrading the classification of some of the emails as they are being screened for controlled release to the public,
that seems to be the only release about which the Clinton campaign is concerned.
But other news stories
(e.g.,
" 'Like inviting spies over to dinner':
Cyber experts are stunned by Hillary Clinton's security choices")
indicate that there is an extremely high probability that
Hillary's lax computer security practices
have made "inadvertent release" of all her emails
to efficient intelligence agencies (e.g., those of Russia, China, and Israel)
almost a certainty.]
by Ron Kampeas
Forward, 2015-10-26
[Note this article published in the Jewish interest periodical The Forward
only discusses Blumenthal's advice on Israel,
not his also prolific advice on Libya.
I'm not criticizing this focus, just noting it.]
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-31
[Bottom line:
The U.S. public and Congress can't see the contents of those emails,
but every nation with a sophisticated hacking capability
without the slightest doubt has a complete set of them.
ROFL.]
WASHINGTON — The White House will try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, citing longstanding precedent invoked by presidents of both parties to keep presidential communications confidential, officials said Friday.
The State Department discovered the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as part of its effort to release the former secretary’s emails, several thousand more of which were scheduled to be made public on Friday. Mr. Obama’s correspondence was forwarded for review to the White House, which has decided against release.
That decision could intensify the political struggle between Mrs. Clinton, who is running for president, and congressional Republicans, who have pressed for disclosure of her emails as part of an investigation into the administration’s handling of the attacks on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
The contents of the emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have not been disclosed, but their presumed existence has not been a secret. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, acknowledged in March that the two “did have the occasion to email one another” when Mrs. Clinton was serving as the president’s top diplomat.
White House officials said Friday that their refusal to release the emails is not based on their content, but rather is intended to defend the principle that presidents must be free to receive advice from their advisers without fear that the conversations will be made public during their time in office. They noted the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will eventually become public many years after the Obama presidency ends, under the terms of federal records laws.
“There is a long history of presidential records being kept confidential while the president is in office,” a White House official said. “It is a principle that previous White Houses have vigorously defended as it goes to the core of the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel during his time in office and is central to the independent functioning of the Executive Branch.”
White House officials said they are not asserting executive privilege, a specific legal authority that Mr. Obama has used only once, in the case of congressional inquiries into the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation, in which weapons ended up in the possession of Mexican gun cartels.
Presidents often seek to avoid formally invoking executive privilege, which carries political overtones dating to Richard M. Nixon’s assertion of the legal authority to block congressional investigations of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
But by refusing to release the emails, Mr. Obama is following a well-worn precedent that he and his predecessors have established.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly resisted efforts by Congress to turn over the president’s private communications, which by law are exempt from Freedom of Information laws that are often used to pry information out of other parts of an administration.
Former presidents of both parties have done the same, often insisting that to do otherwise would open the president’s most sensitive deliberations to congressional and public inspection.
...
Some firebrands want to dig deeper on the Democratic front-runner's unusual server setup, but others would rather take a pass.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-04
'The initial determination was based on a flawed process,' a source says.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-11-06
...
Intelligence officials claimed one email in Clinton’s account was classified
because it contained information from a top-secret intelligence community “product” or report,
but a further review determined that
the report was not issued until several days after the email in question was written,
the source said.
...
One curious twist to the classification dispute is that it is not entirely clear who has authority to resolve it. State spokesmen have repeatedly said that the diplomatic agency has asked Clapper's office to review the issue, but the intelligence chief's office has never acknowledged the power to override an intelligence agency's determination on classification or to order State not to release information it considers unclassified.
There is an interagency committee to hear appeals on declassification issues, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel. The group, run out of an office at the National Archives, usually considers disputes about historical information. Kirby said Friday he was unsure whether that panel was involved in the current dispute or why State raised its concerns with Clapper's office instead.
...
"The inspector general’s determination always seemed arbitrary and questionable, and we are grateful that it appears the DNI may be confirming that," spokesman Brian Fallon said. "This would illustrate the subjective nature of the classification rules that are at the heart of this matter."
[The issue here was:
"What was the basis for the email?
Was it based on an open-source document,
or a (very highly classified) intelligence report?"
If the report was written later than the email,
that rules out the email being based on the report.
Nothing subjective about that.]
"DNI Clapper’s determination is further evidence that there was no wrongdoing by Secretary Clinton,"
said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
"The classification process is complex and subjective,
but this confirms Secretary Clinton did not send classified information through her email account.
It’s time to put this issue behind us and move on.”
[I'm going to call out Dianne Feinstein as being a liar, based on that statement.
Even if that ONE email is ultimately found to have been unclassified after all,
that in no way proves that ALL of the emails Hillary sent "did not contain classified information".
"One" is not "all".
Senator Feinstein sure knows that basic result of predicate logic,
and thus she knowingly told a false statement.
That's called a lie.]
...
by Chuck Ross
Daily Caller, 2015-11-06
[The article includes a link to a PDF of the Classified Information NDA.
Note well that paragraph 1 of that document includes the following:
According to Wikipedia, EO 12958 was replaced by EO 13292 in 2003.
Yet the SF 312 (Rev 1-00) that HRC signed on 2009-01-22 refers to EO 12958. ?????
In any case, the significance is that the NDA clearly states that
"marked or unmarked" is irrelevant;
what matters is
whether something meets the standards for classification.]
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton signed a nondisclosure agreement in which she acknowledged that classified information is classified regardless of whether it is “marked or unmarked” — a distinction which undermines one of the Democratic presidential candidate’s main defenses of her use of a home-brew email system.
Signers of the document,
the existence of which the Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday,
also agree that [see paragraph 7 of the NDA]
all information that they have access to
“is now and will remain
the property of, or under the control of the United States government
unless and until otherwise determined by an authorized official
or final ruling of a court of law.”
The “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement,” or SF-312,
also makes clear that “classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications.”
That poses two problems for Clinton, who signed the document on Jan. 22, 2009, a day after taking office.
Not only does nullify her claim that none of her emails contained information that was “marked” classified, it also calls into question her failure to turn over her work-related State Department emails to the agency in December, nearly two years after leaving office.
...
By signing the “Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,”
[discussed further in the next item in this blog]
Clinton agreed that she had been advised “that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”
That agreement pertains to the Clinton email scandal because of two emails she received on her personal email account that the intelligence community’s inspector general has determined contained “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” or TS/CSI.
...
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-11-07
[This story is about the SCI Non-Disclosure Agreement.
It also includes a link to a PDF of that document.]
by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-11-09
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C): “I have not heard anyone other than you ever cite that figure. Who told you that 90 to 95 percent of your e-mails were in the State Department system? Who told you that?”
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton: “We learned that from the State Department and their analysis of the e-mails that were already on the system. We were trying to help them close some gaps that they had.”
— exchange during a hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Oct. 22, 2015
A number of readers have asked questions about Clinton’s assertion that 90 to 95 percent of the e-mails were in the State Department system. On several occasions, especially in the evening session of the 11-hour hearing, Clinton suggested this figure came from the State Department.
(For instance:
“The State Department was beginning to turn over to this committee my e-mails
because they had between 90 and 95 percent of all my work-related e-mails in the State Department system.”)
But the next day, a State Department spokesman said that the number did not come from any State Department analysis but was a calculation made by the Clinton campaign.
Moreover, as part of the exchange with Clinton, Gowdy referenced an inspector general’s report that “less than one percent of State Department emails” were captured.
What’s going on here?
The Facts
First of all, the State Department is correct. The “90 to 95 percent” figure comes from the Clinton campaign. There has never been a calculation made by the State Department of the 55,000 pages of the e-mails provided by Clinton from her private e-mail account. So Clinton got that wrong.
“Of the more than 30,000 e-mails that Secretary Clinton provided to the State Department last year, more than 90 percent were sent to or from a state.gov e-mail address,” a Clinton campaign spokesman said. “That is observable by looking at the e-mails that were provided for release by the department. These messages would have been captured in the State Department’s record system. It has since been learned that the State Department’s archiving system did not maintain every e-mail, but that does not change that these messages were captured by State’s system and thus should have been available.”
Let’s unpack that statement. Essentially, Clinton’s lawyers looked through the e-mails and found that at least one person in the e-mail chain — either sending an e-mail to Clinton or receiving it — had a state.gov e-mail address. So in theory, if a search was requested of the e-mails of person who corresponded with Clinton, Clinton’s e-mails would have shown up.
This is how Clinton has explained this in past, minus the assertion that it was a State Department calculation. Here’s a comment from Sept. 20 on CBS’s “Face the Nation:”
“What I did was to send e-mails to people at their government accounts, which I had every reason to believe would be captured on the government systems. And when we were asked to help the State Department make sure they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me, I’m the one who said, okay, great, I will go through them again. And we provided all of them. And more than 90 percent were already in the system.”
The Clinton campaign, in a Q&A on the e-mail controversy, worded it even more carefully:
“Clinton’s practice was to email government officials on their ‘.gov’ accounts, so her work emails were immediately captured and preserved. In fact, more than 90% of those emails should have already been captured in the State Department’s email system before she provided them with paper copies.”
The problem is, of course, that a requested search of Clinton’s e-mails would have turned up nothing, because she did not maintain a state.gov account. That’s why the State Department had trouble finding her e-mails in response to congressional and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the first place.
...
Questions focus on whether State officials improperly sent classified material.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-10
by Stephen Dinan
Washington Times, 2015-11-10
[Most of this article is not of much interest to me anyhow,
but it does contain two paragraphs which document something I think is of interest:]
Mrs. Clinton turned over 32,000 emails, stretching to 55,000 pages, last December,
in response to prodding by the congressional probe into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
But because she turned over paper copies,
the State Department said it spent the first five months translating those documents back into electronic versions
so they could be entered into the department’s searchable computer system.
[This raises dome questions, to me anyhow:
Since the original emails were by definition stored in digital, electronic, form,
why on earth did she send paper printouts to the State Dept.
rather than selecting out the emails she wanted to transmit
and then sending them electronically?
It's really hard for me to imagine an email system
which doesn't allow such a capability.
Look at how much additional work she has made for the government
by sending paper copies.
She said she used her private server for her emails when she was acting in her official capacity
for HER convenience.
But what about the convenience and expense of others?
Does this sound like a good balancing of her convenience versus the problems she has caused the government?
NO WAY!]
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-11-12
The FBI has expanded its probe of Hillary Clinton's emails, with agents exploring whether multiple statements violate a federal false statements statute, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing case.
Fox News is told agents are looking at U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to "materially false" statements given either in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.
...
The section of the criminal code being explored is known as "statements or entries generally," and can be applied when an individual makes misleading or false statements causing federal agents to expend additional resources and time. In this case, legal experts as well as a former FBI agent said, Section 1001 could apply if Clinton, her aides or attorney were not forthcoming with FBI agents about her emails, classification and whether only non-government records were destroyed. It is not publicly known who may have been interviewed.
Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said the same section got Martha Stewart in trouble with the FBI. To be a violation, the statements do not need to be given under oath.
"This is a broad, brush statute that punishes individuals who are not direct and fulsome in their answers," former FBI intelligence officer Timothy Gill told Fox News. Gill is not connected to the email investigation, but spent 16 years as part of the bureau's national security branch, and worked the post 9/11 anthrax case where considerable time was spent resolving discrepancies in Bruce Ivins' statements and his unusual work activities at Fort Detrick, Md.
"It is a cover-all. The problem for a defendant is when their statements cause the bureau to expend more time, energy, resources to de-conflict their statements with the evidence," he said.
...
While several of the firms are cooperating with an FBI investigation,
they're stiff-arming the latest requests from the congressional GOP.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-13
By Jonathan F. Keiler
American Thinker, 2015-11-16
...
The supposed broadening of the investigation
might mean that the FBI is seriously gathering additional evidence,
or that it is a ploy to drag out the investigation indefinitely --
or at least beyond the presidential election.
Giving weight to the latter interpretation is the fact that
probable cause already exists that
Hillary violated at two federal statutes
(18 USC 793 [Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information] and
18 USC 1924 [Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material])
that govern the handling of classified material,
and that
her defenses don’t hold legal water.
General David Petraeus pleaded guilty to the latter charge [Section 1924],
and his actions were neither as extensive, nor as provable,
nor as great a risk to national security as Clinton’s.
The charge under Section 793[f] is more serious, but harder to prove,
as it requires proof of gross negligence,
but among the leaks is one that suggests the FBI is focusing on this charge --
presumably because they don’t need anything more to prove a violation of Section 1924.
Sufficient evidence for an indictment is in the public record right now on either charge,
and for the Section 1924 violation, I would even say proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
So unless the FBI is planning to pursue other charges,
expanding the investigation might well be a gambit to destroy its focus and drag it out.
But let’s assume that Comey is a man of principle who is pursuing the case honestly, and that the leaks are an attempt to give the agency some breathing space. Then the broadening of the investigation is probably not only to firm up the evidence regarding Clinton’s already clear and existing violations of the law, but possibly to add a more devastating charge -- obstruction of justice.
Comey knows that referring the case
with charges only alleging violations of document mishandling
will get nowhere in Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department.
Obama has publicly declared that he doesn’t believe that Hillary’s use of the email server impacted national security.
Comey has likely received similar information through more discreet channels,
and he knows that Obama has successfully used the Justice Department and his own agency to kill legitimate investigations of the ATF and IRS.
And with Joe Biden out of the Democrat nominating race (with Obama’s blessing)
the President is going to back and protect Clinton if he can do so without causing himself too much trouble.
Were Comey to refer charges of mishandling classified material to Justice, even if Lynch does nothing, it would hurt Hillary, but would probably not kill her campaign. Justice does have prosecutorial discretion. Lynch and her attorneys will be able to come up with sufficient excuses -- national security was not demonstrably impacted, Hillary was careless but not grossly negligent, she didn’t realize classified items were classified at the time, and so on -- that they will make the refusal to indict sound at least plausible. Yes, Hillary may have appeared to technically violate Section 1924, Justice will say, but that transgression did not rise to the level that a criminal indictment is warranted.
...
... So if Comey is principled and has any intention of referring charges to Justice, he needs more than the document mishandling charges. Thus, the expansion of the investigation, to Hillary’s aides, and to the computer specialists and companies that not only set up the server, but also aided in the deletion of emails, is predictable and necessary. There is already a lot of smoke in this regard, most notably that Clinton’s former top IT man, Bryan Pagliano, asserted his 5th Amendment rights before Congress earlier this year. Pagliano followed Clinton to the State Department, but maintained the server at her home as a private employee. His dual role may well make him the lynchpin of an obstruction charge.
Of course, in the IRS case Lois Lerner asserted the 5th and got away with it, without the FBI or Justice forcing her to testify in return for a grant of immunity. But politically, this case is a little different, since while the IRS case struck directly at the President, this one strikes directly only at a presidential contender.
...
By Julian Hattem
The Hill, 2015-11-20
...
This week, the [RNC]’s top lawyer asked the [State] department’s inspector general
whether Clinton “fulfilled her legal obligations” about protecting classified information while in office.
“The American people have a right to know whether
a top official who certified that she could be entrusted with the government’s most sensitive materials
violated her contract with the federal government and the criminal law of the United States,”
John Phillippe, the RNC’s chief counsel, wrote in a letter to the Office of the Inspector General.
...
In the RNC’s letter, which was sent on Monday but released on Friday, Phillippe asked State Department Inspector General Steve Linick whether Clinton has a legal obligation to “ascertain whether information in her possession is in fact classified material, regardless of any markings or lack thereof.”
...
The dispute comes as State releases roughly 8,000 more pages of Clinton's Foggy Bottom messages.
By Josh Gerstein and Nick Gass
Politico, 2015-11-30 8:29 PM
...
On Monday, the State Department released a WikiLeaks-related email from Clinton's personal account that official watchdogs for the intelligence community and the department flagged over the summer as appearing to contain classified information, according to a State Department spokeswoman.
The message was among four that Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick flagged in July as classified after reviewing a sample of 40 emails from Clinton's account, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau indicated at a daily briefing for reporters.
However, a spokeswoman for McCullough denied that the WikiLeaks email was among the four the watchdogs said contained sensitive intelligence community information. Instead, the message was one intelligence officials considered possibly classified under State's standards and urged State to take a close look at.
"ODNI and CIA classification experts judged the email as probably classified SECRET//NOFORN based on the State Department Classification Guide; However; they deferred to State Department for final adjudication," ICIG spokeswoman Andrea Williams said Monday. "So, we said from the start it’s State's call on classification."
A State spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
...
In a statement in July, McCullough and Linick had said four of 40 emails reviewed by the intelligence community contained intelligence information considered classified.
"These emails were not retroactively classified by the State Department; rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to IC classification officials, that information remains classified today," McCullough and Linick said in a July 24 press statement. "This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system."
However, Williams said Monday that the newly-released WikiLeaks email was not among the four emails discussed in the July statement.
In a follow-up memo to lawmakers the next month, McCullough said some emails from Clinton's account contained intelligence community information classified "Top Secret," with additional restrictions for signals intelligence and airborne or satellite surveillance. Two other emails reviewed by intelligence community classification experts who "judged that they contained classified State Department information when originated," McCullough wrote.
State Department spokespeople have said they disagree with the intelligence community's claims about the allegedly "Top Secret" emails and have suggested that State officials may have gleaned that information without consulting reports based on sensitive U.S. intelligence methods. State has asked the Office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. to resolve the dispute. Those two messages are not among the ones set to be released Monday, officials said.
The findings in July about the four emails led McCullough to refer the issue to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a potential breach of secrecy of "counterintelligence" concern. The FBI subsequently asked Clinton's attorney to hand over a thumb drive containing copies of her emails and for a technology company hosting Clinton's server to turn the server over to investigators. The equipment went to the FBI in August.
POLITICO reported earlier this month that FBI agents involved in the inquiry recently interviewed a former high-ranking policy official at State and sought documents from another tech firm involved in Clinton's email set-up.
Clinton initially said that her email account contained no classified information. In recent months, she has stressed that she did not send any classified information and that no information she sent or received was marked classified.
...
Only four of the messages released earlier this year have been marked at the middle tier of classification, "Secret." One, classified at the request of the FBI, pertained to arrests possibly linked to the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. Two others appear to relate to diplomatic talks in Turkey about Iran's nuclear program. The fourth was a summary of a 2008 Mideast peace negotiating session. State classified that memo even though it was published in full by Al Jazeera in 2011.
...
by Chuck Ross
Daily Caller, 2015-12-01
By Catherine Herridge
Fox News, 2015-12-02
Two top Republican senators have written directly to Secretary of State John Kerry and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about possible leaks from their departments on the review of Hillary Clinton’s emails that left the wrong impression that two “Top Secret” messages were not that sensitive.
...
While the Corker-Burr letter is not public, Fox News has confirmed that the senators included a Politico report from November 6 in which unnamed sources claimed the two Top Secret emails had been downgraded after a second review.
While hailed by Clinton’s supporters as evidence she did not break the law by sending classified information on her personal email account, the Politico story was later updated to reflect the fact that Clapper’s office said no final classification determination had been reached and the review was ongoing.
...
The FBI has taken possession of Bryan Pagliano's computer system.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-12-11
[Look at this!
Bryan Pagliano has refused to talk to the Senate Committee,
citing the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination,
and the State Department has no copy of his emails,
even though he was employed there
(at the same time he was taking private money from Hillary Clinton).
Wonder if the IT smarty Pagliano figured out a way to make his government emails go "Poof!".]
The State Department said that while it has located a backup for emails Pagliano sent after Clinton left State, officials cannot find the file for the backup covering work he did while she was still there.
“The Department has located a .pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the State Department. We have not yet located a .pst that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,” said Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano’s emails which the Department may have otherwise retained. We will, of course, share emails responsive to Senator Grassley’s requests if we locate them.”
State, like many federal agencies, did not have a systematic email archiving system for years. When the server issue first arose in the spring,
State acknowledged that it did not automatically archive the email traffic of senior employees —
relying on them to make their own backups, or “.pst,” if needed.
Under current rules, federal employees are responsible for ensuring their official emails are saved.
State has not asked Pagliano whether he has any official emails in his possession,
as it has with other top Clinton staffers who used personal email for work.
[Wonder why State is walking on tip-toes with regard to this situation.]
It is unclear if Pagliano’s Fifth Amendment rights would protect him from turning over such messages.
Grassley encouraged State to continue searching for Pagliano’s emails by looking at the back-up email files of other State employees he may have emailed about the Clinton server. He letter seeks “a full and detailed written explanation of why it failed to maintain an archive, copy, or backup of Mr. Pagliano’s email file,” among other requests related to the IT staffer's emails.
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News. 2015-12-15
An intelligence community review has re-affirmed that
two classified emails were indeed “top secret” when they hit Hillary Clinton’s unsecured personal server
despite a challenge to that designation by the State Department,
according to two sources familiar with the review.
The sources described the dispute over whether the two emails were classified at the highest level as a “settled matter.”
The agencies that owned and originated that intelligence –
the CIA and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or NGA –
reviewed the emails to determine how they should be properly stored,
as the State Department took issue with their highly classified nature.
The subject matter of the messages is widely reported to be
the movement of North Korean missiles and a drone strike.
A top secret designation requires the highest level of security, and can include the use of an approved safe.
The sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News that
while the emails were indeed “top secret” when they hit Clinton’s server,
one of them remains “top secret” to this day --
and must be handled at the highest security level.
The second email is still considered classified but at the lower “secret” level
because more information is publicly available about the event.
The findings have been transmitted to the State Department,
which continues to challenge the intelligence community’s conclusions about the classification of all the emails.
But the department has no authority to change the classification
since it did not originate the information.
On Nov. 6, Politico reported that
the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” classification,
a development that could have helped Clinton’s presidential campaign deflect allegations about mishandling classified material.
Fox News can confirm it is true the handling of one email has changed since it was drafted and sent,
but this change has no bearing on the “top secret” nature of the emails when first received on Clinton’s server.
And this is what matters to the FBI probe.
...
By L. Brent Bozell III
cnsnews.com, 2015-12-16
Our news media are so overwhelmingly obsequious to the Democrats that
Hillary Clinton can imply the relatives of the Americans killed in Benghazi are liars on national TV,
and no one in the press blinks an eye or finds it newsworthy.
ABC is about to host another one of those hide-and-seek Saturday night Democrat debates.
There is something very ironic here:
It was on this network where she made that outrageous statement.
Clinton lied to her former employee (and donor) George Stephanopoulos
on his ABC program "This Week" on Dec. 6.
In his toughest question of the day, George told his pal,
"Some GOP rivals and family members of the Benghazi victims are saying
you lied to them in the hearing.
They point to emails that you sent the night of Benghazi attack,
one to your daughter, Chelsea Clinton, saying...
'Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group.'"
He added that she had told the Egyptian prime minister on a phone call on Sept. 12, 2012,
"We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film."
Clinton denied ever telling the Benghazi relatives that it could be blamed on an anti-Muhammad video:
"No. ... I understand the continuing grief
at the loss that parents experienced with the loss of these four brave Americans.
And I did testify, as you know, for 11 hours.
And I answered all of these questions.
Now, I can't — I can't help it that people think there has to be something else there."
So are the relatives of these deceased heroes liars?
None of the networks picked up on this question and answer.
The Washington Post only picked up her hawkish talk about fighting ISIS,
not her attack on the Benghazi relatives.
The New York Times and USA Today completely skipped any mention of her ABC interview.
The New York Post did what all of them should have done.
They rounded up the relatives, who reiterated that
Clinton told them as the caskets arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14, 2012
that it could be blamed on a YouTube video.
Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, recalled hugging Clinton and that
"she said we are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of my son."
Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, said
Clinton is "absolutely lying. ... She said it was because of the video."
Smith's uncle backed her up.
Kate Quigley, the sister of Glen Doherty, agreed:
"When I think back now to that day and what she knew,
it shows me a lot about her character that she would choose in that moment
to basically perpetuate what she knew was untrue."
That matches what Clinton said at the ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base:
"We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies
over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."
Quigley was stronger in a Boston radio interview:
"This is a woman that will do and say anything to get what she wants.
I have very little respect for her.
I know what she said to me and she can say all day long that she didn't say it.
That's her cross to bear."
These relatives can occasionally be found sharing their pain and outrage
in interviews on Fox News and on CNN.
But ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS can't find them.
The same outlets that lionized "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan over and over again
as she trashed Bush as a "terrorist" in August of 2005 stay silent.
Today, any grieving relative who lacerates Clinton
is just buried in a cave like nuclear waste.
by CHQ staff
Conservative HQ, 2015-12-29
Our friends at Judicial Watch have been relentless in peeling back the layers of lies and deceit surrounding Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Despite the fact that the Clinton machine and its media mouthpieces would have you think that a presidential debate or primary contest is the only “trial” Hillary Clinton has to face. Incredible new documents Judicial Watch turned-up show that she ought to face another sort of trial for her email games and related national security breaches at the State Department.
While most of the attention about Clinton and her email has been focused on her unsecure private server, her admitted reliance on an unsecure Blackberry is the latest and in some ways more devastating Judicial Watch revelation about Clinton’s laissez-faire attitude toward operational security and the handling of classified material.
Judicial Watch released new documents, obtained as the result of a federal court order, containing more than 50 State Department internal emails from 2009 and 2011 warning of serious security concerns involving the use of “highly vulnerable” Blackberries by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff in the executive offices of the Foggy Bottom headquarters.
Keep in mind what this means for our nation’s security said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. An un-secured Blackberry or other Internet device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) are vulnerable to all sorts of hacking that could create opportunities for hostile foreign powers and non-state actors.
The new State records included a March 2, 2009, internal memorandum from Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell entitled “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row,” in which he strongly advised that the devices not be allowed.
According to the Boswell memo, sent to then-Secretary of State Clinton and her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.” Clinton has admitted she used a Blackberry during her early days in office despite Boswell’s memo with explicit written objections.
The Boswell memo also clearly contradicts President Obama's remark to CBS’ “60 Minutes” that "I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered."
...
Secretary Clinton apparently used her server to send a significant amount of classified information. State Department officials say there are “potentially hundreds of classified emails” among the 30,000 messages she has turned over. The intelligence community’s IG likewise sampled 40 e-mails and found that four of them contained classified information.
The Clinton campaign claims that “any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted.”
Not so, according to the State Department and intelligence-community IGs. Hillary’s e-mails “were not retroactively classified,” they say, but rather “contained classified information when they were generated” — information that “remains classified today” and “should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
Meaning also that transmitting classified information over unsecure Blackberries was an equally egregious violation of security protocols.
But hey, Obama says America’s national security wasn’t endangered so we should all just relax and vote for Hillary.
But, as Boswell’s memo says, “I cannot stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified Blackberry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving e-mails, and exploiting calendars.”
These new State Department emails turned up by Judicial Watch are devastating. The emails show Hillary Clinton knew about but ignored national security warnings concerning the use of Blackberries and other unsecure computing systems.
Beyond the fact that they should terrify voters, these new emails ought to be of interest to the FBI and federal prosecutors. These emails show a pattern of disregard for both the letter of the law and best practices for handling classified material and that her mishandling of classified information and violations of federal records laws was far from innocent and far from limited to her home server.
For the complete story on the latest trove of Clinton State Department documents revealed through the relentless efforts of our friends at Judicial Watch click this link.
By Sarah Westwood
Washington Examiner, 2015-12-31
A batch of Hillary Clinton's private emails that were published Thursday by the State Department included at least one classified message that appeared to have been marked as "confidential" when it was written, which could contradict Clinton's longstanding argument that nothing she sent or received bore classification markings.
The record was among 275 emails that were upgraded to fully or partially classified in the latest trove of emails.
The email chain in question included a message from Harold Koh, a State Department legal adviser, that was listed as "confidential" both in the subject line and in the body of the email. "Confidential" is the lowest level of classification, followed by "secret." Most of Clinton's now-classified emails have been upgraded to the "confidential" level.
Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman, said Koh's email contained attorney-client discussions and was thus considered "confidential" only in the legal sense at the time.
"The phrase 'privileged and confidential' is often used by attorneys to indicate a likely attorney-client work product, and in no way indicates a national security classification, which is an entirely separate matter regulated by Executive Order 13526," Gerlach told the Washington Examiner.
However, a large portion of the Koh email was officially classified as "confidential" by the State Department before being posted online late Thursday afternoon.
Agency officials have frequently argued none of the emails were classified at the time they were written, and that all designations were made in light of information that has emerged since Clinton left office.
But the now-classified message from Feb. 2012 contained the word "confidential" in the subject and began with a clear disclaimer: "PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL/ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE/DELIBERATIVE PROCESS/ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT."
The email discussed ongoing negotiations with the Egyptian government over a U.S. non-governmental organization that was then facing legal trouble in the country.
The word "confidential" can denote classified information in an email, but does not always do so.
State Department officials maintained Thursday that none of the emails published were marked classified at the time they were sent, and said all 275 emails that were partially or fully classified in the latest batch were designated as such after the fact.
Blog continued at Hillary Clinton emails : 2016.
GOP website on this subject
Hillary Clinton Email Archive @ WikiLeaks
On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive
for 30,322 emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State.
The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014.
7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton.
The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department
as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
The final PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016.
2015-08-18
From the intelligence side,
it looks to me some good perspective is coming from
John R. Schindler at his "XX Committee".
For a convenient index of his posts, see
The XX Committee Hillary EmailGate Reader.
There was a secure, NSA Certified, DISA approved, smartphone Hillary could have used:
the Sectéra Edge .
This was advertised in a 2009-01-14 (!) news article.
Why didn't she use that?
2015-03-03-gawker-Trotter-this-is-hillary-clinton-s-secret-email-hdr22-clintonem
This Is Hillary Clinton’s Secret Email: HDR22@ClintonEmail.comby J. K. Trotter
gawker.com, 2015-03-03
Former officials of the U.S. State Department are furiously denying suggestions that retired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s extensive use of a private email address violated federal rules concerning the preservation of official government records. A FOIA request filed two years ago by Gawker, however, proves that Clinton—a likely contender for the Democratic presidential nominee—successfully used the off-the-books email account to conceal official correspondence from prying eyes. Ours.
Clinton’s email address was hdr22@clintonemail.com;
the handle seems to refer to her maiden initials (she was born as Hillary Diane Rodham).
The notorious hacker Guccifer first revealed the email address in March 2013,
after he gained access to the AOL account of former Clinton White House staffer Sidney Blumenthal,
and sent screenshots of Blumenthal’s inbox to several news outlets.
According to those screenshots,
Blumenthal was regularly sending Clinton what appeared to be freelance intelligence reports—
including information and advice about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya—
all of which clearly fell under the rubric of official State Department business.
At the time, Gawker noted that
Clinton’s apparent use of the non-official account likely violated federal regulations governing records retention,
and sent inquiries directly to Clinton and to the White House asking if
messages to the clintonemail.com address were being retained.
...
But Merrill’s on-the-record defense of Clinton suffers from a very obvious flaw.
The jurisdiction of the federal Freedom of Information Act does not apply only to correspondence between government employees (such as Clinton and another State Department employee);
it also applies to correspondence about official business between government employees and third parties
(such as Clinton and Blumenthal, who was not employed by the State Department).
Had Blumenthal been sending Clinton emails about personal business, such as an upcoming ski trip, there would be no issue here.
But he was sending Clinton emails about, among other things, Benghazi—
one of the largest fuck-ups in State Department history and the subject of numerous Congressional inquiries.
...
2015-03-07-NYT-obama-says-he-didnt-know-hillary-clinton-was-using-private-email-address
Obama Says He Didn’t Know Hillary Clinton Was Using Private Email AddressBy MICHAEL D. SHEAR
New York Times, 2015-03-07
In an interview with Bill Plante of CBS News, Mr. Obama said the policy of his administration was to “encourage transparency” and that he was pleased that Mrs. Clinton had instructed the State Department to turn over her emails for archiving.
“My emails, the Blackberry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,” Mr. Obama said, according to an excerpt from the interview released Saturday evening. “I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”
In the portion of the interview that was released,
Mr. Obama did not address
how he could have avoided noticing
that Mrs. Clinton was sending emails from a “clintonemail.com” address
throughout the years she served in his administration.
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email system was first reported by The New York Times last week.
Asked how Mrs. Clinton’s email practices met the standards of transparency that he has repeatedly called for, Mr. Obama said that “the fact that she is going to be putting them forward will allow us to make sure that people have the information they need.”
White House officials have said in recent days that some in the West Wing were aware that Mrs. Clinton was not using an official “state.gov” email address for official correspondence. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, has repeatedly said the guidance from administration lawyers is that employees should use their government-issued email addresses for their official business.
But the White House has refused to say whether they believe that Mrs. Clinton violated any administration policies or broke any laws by conducting all of her business with a private email address.
[Nobody told Obama about this?
Did Hillary ever send emails to the president?
(I would assume the answer to that question is: "Of course she did.")
You mean Obama never noticed that emails from her
were not from a state.gov account?
That sounds likes a real knock on Obama to me,
representing cluelessness.]
...
2015-03-10-HRC-UN-news-conference-videos
NYT video of the news conference (21:41; blank after 20:56)Savage Nation video (21:04; shows her walking to the podium)
2015-03-11-KHarbaugh-privilege-and-targeting
I have reviewed the news coverage in the Washington Post and New York Timesof HRC's Tuesday, 2015-03-10 news conference at the United Nations
(e.g., the Post's lead story in its 2015-03-11 print edition),
and found that with one exception, below,
they fail to note two reasons why
her communications strategy was such a problem for America,
reasons which might be labeled as "privilege" and "targeting"
with regard to the HRC/Obama communications.
Privilege:
We are talking about, among other things,
communications between the secretary of state and the president.
There have been many examples in the past when congressional committees
have tried to obtain such communications between a president and his advisers,
only to be denied access when the president cites "executive privilege",
this even when the communications do not have a national security classification.
[Note added 2015-11-01:
On 2015-10-30, the WH made the "executive privilege" claim
to block the release of some of the BHO/HRC emails.]
In the current case Obama/HRC comms were available to anyone who bothered to hack into her server.
Were their communications so uninteresting that they do not care who had or has access to them?
One wonders why the reporters did not note this discrepancy.
Targeting
It is a fact that intelligence agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere
routinely target intra-governmental communications of other nations.
When NSA was revealed as collecting comms of our allies,
look how many people objected to that,
especially in the nations that had been targeted.
Are we supposed to believe that what NSA does,
other nations do not?
what an absurd and callow belief.
Of course they do.
And if even North Korea has a well-documented capability
for collecting information from U.S. computers,
how much more capable are other nations?
It is an enormous advantage to diplomats, among others,
to know what the negotiating positions and goals are of other nations.
HRC made those of the U.S. available
to anyone who was able to and cared to hack her computer.
The fact that neither she nor the president
had evidently bothered to classify their communications
does not make it any less a disaster for those comms to be available.
Both HRC and the media really need to internalize these issues,
and acknowledge their significance.
As of now, Wednesday, 2015-03-11, there is not too much evidence that they have.
Let's hope they do so soon.
2015-03-10-WP-security-of-hillary-clintons-private-e-mail-server-comes-under-scrutiny
Security of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server comes under scrutinyBy Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post, 2015-03-10
The private e-mail server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton all but certainly lacked the level of security employed by the government and could have been breached fairly easily by determined foreign intelligence services, national security and cyber experts said.
In the wake of last week’s revelation that Clinton used a private e-mail account as secretary of state, critics have questioned whether that decision left sensitive government communications vulnerable to hackers. At a news conference Tuesday, Clinton said the server was set up for her husband, former president Bill Clinton, at their house in Chappaqua, N.Y., which she said was guarded by the Secret Service.
“I think . . . the use of the server . . . certainly proved to be effective and secure,” she said.
But such assurances have not persuaded technical experts.
“The layers of security that would have to be employed to make a privately run exchange server as secure as something that is secured by the federal government would be pretty significant,” said Timothy Ryan, a former FBI supervisory special agent who now manages cyber investigations for Kroll. “It’s not that it can’t be done. I just find it improbable.”
In a question-and-answer sheet released Tuesday, Clinton’s office stated that “robust protections” were put in place and “upgrades and techniques employed over time as they became available, including consulting and employing third party experts.”
The office said “there is no evidence there was ever a breach” of the server.
Some experts said it’s impossible to know for certain whether that’s the case.
Clinton, according to at least one forensic account,
was using a standard commercial server running on Microsoft software
that, like any widely available software,
has been found to have vulnerabilities.
“If all that she had was standard technology . . .
it would be merely a speed bump
for a sophisticated adversary
to gain access to everything there,”
a former director of information assurance at the National Security Agency.
...
“On a [target] scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10,”
said Schaeffer, who is now in the cybersecurity industry.
“When you think of treaties, trade negotiations,
any thing that the secretary of state would be involved in,
she would be an incredibly lucrative target —
maybe even more so than the president.”
Because Clinton traded e-mails with other top officials, as well as with President Obama, foreign spy services could have also attempted to spoof her account and send recipients malicious software in an effort to compromise their accounts, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Clinton said Tuesday that she did not e-mail classified material with her personal account.
...
Still, even unclassified e-mails would be of interest to a spy service —
the NSA tapped the personal cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel —
because of the information it could glean about Clinton,
her activities and her associates’ activities.
Often disparate pieces of unclassified data, when assembled,
can yield useful insights, intelligence analysts say.
[This is sometimes called "collation",
and is a major task of intelligence analysts.]
Some experts say it takes great discipline for a public official to keep sensitive information out of e-mails entirely. “I believe it’s very likely that — even inadvertently — there’s classified information in those e-mails,” said J. William Leonard, former director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives.
He added that the government term for that is “spillage” — when someone introduces, often inadvertently, classified information into an unclassified system.
2015-03-12-TheHill-Goodman-why-nsa-should-disclose-all-hillary-clintons-emails
Why NSA should disclose all Hillary Clinton’s emailsBy H.A. Goodman
The Hill, 2015-03-12
In this day and age of domestic surveillance, it’s seems odd that any public official should be given the opportunity to house private email servers in their home. Although Hillary Clinton did not break any specific laws, and both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell also used private emails at times, there are unique circumstances with ‘Emailgate’ that warrant a unique resolution to the scandal.
...
The NSA can record or collect the data of any American if such information is deemed part of national security; the communication of a Secretary of State would no doubt fit into this definition. Emails stored in a private server located in a government employee’s home are indeed “highly unusual,” as stated recently by Robert Gibbs.
Since this type of behavior is unprecedented, it should fall under the supervision of America’s most renowned record-keeping department. If you or I would never get away with storing sensitive information on our own private servers, then neither should anyone in government. Furthermore, there are several key questions pertaining to Clinton’s use of private emails that voyage beyond the usual political attacks against the Clintons.
First, the former Secretary of State might have stored “sensitive” communication in an unguarded location.
...
2015-05-17-Speaker.gov-Matt-Wolking-did-secretary-clinton-sign-form-109
Did Secretary Clinton Sign Form OF-109?by Matt Wolking
speaker.gov, 2015-05-17
You can’t just become Secretary of State and refuse a government phone and email address without anyone noticing. You also can’t regularly contact your boss from your personal email account for years without him noticing that you never use the work account you’re supposed to have. ...
But that’s what President Obama would like you to believe. Asked when he first learned about Hillary Clinton’s private email system, he said, “The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” His staff even rushed to tell reporters how shocked they all are, as if Secretary Clinton went rogue and this never would have been allowed if the occupant of the Oval Office had only known what was she was up to.
The fact is that Secretary Clinton wanted to skirt the law and avoid oversight, and President Obama went right along with it, national security and transparency and the law be damned.
...
July 2015
2015-07-08-factcheck-clinton-spins-immigration-emails
Clinton Spins Immigration, Emailsby Eugene Kiely and D’Angelo Gore
Factcheck.org, 2015-07-08
[A mind-numbingly detailed examination of the claim that past Secretaries of State also used personal email for some official business.
They key (in my view) sentence:]
Although [George W. Bush's first Secretary of State Colin] Powell
did acknowledge that he used personal email for official business,
there’s no evidence that he — or any other previous secretary of state —
maintained emails on a personal server.
2015-07-24-NYT-criminal-inquiry-is-sought-in-hillary-clinton-email-account
Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email AccountBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MATT APUZZO
New York Times, 2015-07-24
(This is a grab from the web page sometime between 2 and 5 PM EDT on Friday, 2015-07-24)
WASHINGTON — Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.
The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.
It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them.
But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account.
The initial revelation has been an issue in the early stages of her presidential campaign.
The Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation, senior officials said. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a statement on Twitter on Friday morning. “Any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted,” it read.
At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.
She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.
The department is now reviewing some 55,000 pages of emails. A first batch of 3,000 pages was made public on June 30.
In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them.
In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email or reveal its substance.
The memos were provided to The New York Times by a senior government official.
The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its determinations.
In March, Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was careful in her handling of information on her private account. “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
In May, the F.B.I. asked the State Department to classify a section of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that related to suspects who may have been arrested in connection with the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The information was not classified at the time Mrs. Clinton received it.
The revelations about how Mrs. Clinton handled her email have been an embarrassment for the State Department, which has been repeatedly criticized over its handling of documents related to Mrs. Clinton and her advisers.
On Monday, a federal judge sharply questioned State Department lawyers at a hearing in Washington about why they had not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press, some of which were four years old.
“I want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s not been going on over there,” said Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court, according to a transcript obtained by Politico. The judge said that “for reasons known only to itself,” the State Department “has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.”
Two days later, lawmakers on the Republican-led House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks said they planned to summon Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff to Capitol Hill to answer questions about why the department has not produced documents that the panel subpoenaed. That hearing is set for next Wednesday.
“The State Department has used every excuse to avoid complying with fundamental requests for documents,” said the chairman of the House committee, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina.
Mr. Gowdy said that while the committee has used an array of measures to try to get the State Department to hand over documents, the results have been the same. “Our committee is not in possession of all documents needed to do the work assigned to us,” he said.
The State Department has sought to delay the hearing, citing continuing efforts to brief members of Congress on the details of the nuclear accord with Iran. It is not clear why the State Department has struggled with the classification issues and document production. Republicans have said the department is trying to use those processes to protect Mrs. Clinton.
State Department officials say they simply do not have the resources or infrastructure to properly comply with all the requests. Since March, requests for documents have significantly increased.
Some State Department officials said they believe that many senior officials did not initially take the House committee seriously, which slowed document production and created an appearance of stonewalling.
State Department officials also said that Mr. Kerry is concerned about the toll the criticism has had on the department and has urged his deputies to comply with the requests quickly.
2015-07-27-Morning-Joe-fact-checks-Clintons-claims-focus-on-March-10-UN-news-conference
MSNBC Fact Checks Hillary Clinton’s False Statements About Classified Emailsby Joe Scarborough, 6 min 49 seconds
MSNBC Morning Joe, 2015-07-27
2015-07-25-NYT-hillary-clinton-email-classified-information-inspector-general-intelligence-community
Hillary Clinton Emails Said to Contain Classified DataBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MATT APUZZO JULY 24, 2015
New York Times, 2015-07-25
[As the report from the New York Times public editor below notes,
this story was rewritten several times between when it first appeared on the web
and when it was finally published in the print edition,
in the second column from the right
in the Washington Edition of the Saturday, July 25 Times
(at which I just was looking).
Anyhow, in the interest of enabling comparison between
an early version of the story and the apparent final version,
here is the content of the web edition as of Tuesday, 2015-07-28 at 5:30 PM EDT.
I (the author of the current blog) have added some emphasis,
to emphasize the points I think are most important.]
WASHINGTON — Government investigators said Friday that they had discovered classified information on the private email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while secretary of state, stating unequivocally that those secrets never should have been stored outside of secure government computer systems.
Mrs. Clinton has said for months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house so she would not have to carry both a personal phone and a work phone. Her campaign said Friday that any government secrets found on the server had been classified after the fact.
But the inspectors general of the State Department and the nation’s intelligence agencies said
the information they found
was classified when it was sent
and remains so now.
“This classified information
never should have been transmitted
via an unclassified personal system,”
in a statement signed by him and
I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community.
The findings by the two inspectors general raise new questions about Mrs. Clinton’s use of her personal email at the State Department, a practice that since March has been criticized by her Republican adversaries as well as advocates of open government, and has made some Democrats uneasy. Voters, however, do not appear swayed by the issue, according to polls.
In their joint statement, the inspectors general said the classified information had originated with the nation’s intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency. It is against the law for someone to receive a classified document or briefing and then summarize that information in an unclassified email.
The two investigators did not say whether Mrs. Clinton sent or received the emails. If she received them, it is not clear that she would have known that they contained government secrets, since they were not marked classified. The inspectors general did not address whether they believed Mrs. Clinton should have known such information was not appropriate for her personal email.
Regardless, the disclosure is an example of an unforeseen consequence of Mrs. Clinton’s unusual computer setup. Security experts have questioned whether her practice made government secrets more vulnerable to security risks and hacking.
Exactly how much classified information Mrs. Clinton had on the server is unclear. Investigators said they searched a small sample of 40 emails and found four that contained government secrets. But Mr. McCullough said in a separate statement that although the State Department had granted limited access to its own inspector general, the department rejected Mr. McCullough’s request for access to the 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton said were government-related and gave to the State Department.
Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, is “purported” to also have copies of the 30,000 emails on a thumb drive, according to Mr. McCullough.
Campaigning in New York on Friday, Mrs. Clinton pledged to cooperate with inquiries into her emails, but also said she would stay focused on the issues at the heart of her presidential campaign.
“We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and I will do my part,” Mrs. Clinton said. “But I’m also going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the big issues, that really matter to American families.”
The discovery of the four emails prompted Mr. McCullough to refer the matter to F.B.I. counterintelligence agents, who investigate crimes related to the mishandling of classified information. On Thursday night and again Friday morning, the Justice Department referred to the matter as a “criminal referral,” but later Friday dropped the word “criminal.” The inspectors general said late Friday that it was a “security referral” intended to alert authorities that “classified information may exist on at least one private server and thumb drive that are not in the government’s possession.”
Irrespective of the terminology, the referral raises the possibility of a Justice Department investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails as she campaigns for president. Polls show she is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination by a wide margin.
Mishandling classified information is a crime. Justice Department officials said no decision had been made about whether to open a criminal investigation.
The refusal by the State Department to give Mr. McCullough access to the emails has reignited calls by Republicans for Mrs. Clinton to hand over the server that she used to house the personal email account.
“If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record,” Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, said on Friday. “Her poor judgment has undermined our national security, and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”
The Justice Department is typically reluctant to open politically charged investigations unless there is clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
For example, authorities said last year that they would not open an investigation into dueling claims by the C.I.A. and the Senate Intelligence Committee in a dispute that also centered around access to classified information.
[I don't see what is political about mishandling classified information.]
2015-07-25-WP-criminal-probe-sought-into-clinton-private-e-mails-for-suspected-sensitive-content
Probe sought into possible ‘classified’ details in Clinton private e-mailsBy Karen DeYoung, Sari Horwitz and Anne Gearan
Washington Post, 2015-07-25
[Note that the word "classified" was place in quotes in the headline.
There already is the qualifier of "possible" there.
I think the inspector general for the intelligence community
is a fairly reliable authority on what is and what is not classified,
far more so than political hacks and their media sycophants.
Anyhow, here is another questionable example of spin from within the article:]
...
The statements — prompted by inaccurate media reports that the Justice Department was weighing a “criminal” investigation related to the Clinton e-mails — marked the latest turn in an increasingly acrimonious partisan battle over Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.
[Please, what is partisan about the mishandling of classified data?
Do Democrats and their media buddies
think that if you're politically correct,
than your mishandling of security issues
is merely of interest to GOP partisans?
Shame on you, if so.
Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if Democratic leaders
think lying is perfectly acceptable
to accomplish their political goals,
and pander to their favored (and supportive) communities.]
2015-07-27-NYT-Public-Editor-a-clinton-story-fraught-with-inaccuracies-how-it-happened-and-what-next
A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies:How It Happened and What Next?
By Margaret Sullivan (NYT Public Editor)
New York Times, 2015-07-27
2015-07-28-WP-Ruth-Marcus-making-hay-of-a-non-scandal
Clinton’s new e-mail storm is no criminal scandalby Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Op-Ed, 2015-07-28
...
When she [HRC] finally turned over thousands of e-mails to the State Department,
she should not have then taken the provocative step
of deleting thousands more from the server,
a move guaranteed to fan conspiracy theories not quiet them.
When the matter became public,
she should have tried to quell the predictable firestorm by turning over the server.
She should have stopped insisting, as she did on CNN this month,
that she was not only blameless but praiseworthy.
...
[The final paragraphs of her column:]
Moreover, if the Clinton e-mails did contain classified material,
this would be a problem
no matter whether she used a nonclassified government account or a private e-mail address.
Both are, sadly, hackable.
[Well, the OPM material on the DOI servers certainly were.
And no doubt many other USG servers are as well.
But I doubt that all nonclassified USG servers
are equally vulnerable to hacking.
One would hope that at least some have rather robust security protections.
Perhaps even some at State.]
The rules require classified material —
when the person knows or should know that it’s classified —
to be dealt with in classified facilities, or on adequately secured devices and networks.
Not that any of this matters much.
The classified-information-put-at-risk narrative is too delicious for Republicans to resist,
and helps keep the e-mail story alive.
This is a political problem for Clinton,
but it isn’t, on the strength of the evidence so far,
anywhere close to a legal one.
By way of comparison,
take a look at the plea deal reached by Gen. David Petraeus
for mishandling classified information.
(Incidentally, he and Clinton share a lawyer, David Kendall.)
The former CIA director acknowledged that
he gave biographer/mistress Paula Broadwell personal notebooks containing highly classified information
including the identities of covert officers, intelligence capabilities
and conversations with the president,
then stored them in an unlocked desk drawer at his home,
even as he assured security officials
that he had no classified material in his possession.
That was criminal conduct. Clinton’s isn’t. Not even close.
2015-07-29-Scheuer-obviously-mrs-clinton-must-be-indicted
Obviously, Mrs. Clinton must be indictedby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-07-29
[The emphasis in red has been added by the author of the current blog.]
Ruth Marcus wrote in the Washington Post on 28 July 2015 that
there is no scandal in Mrs. Clinton’s use of a non-secure e-mail server
to conduct State Department business.
Now this asinine assertion probably should not come as a surprise for a newspaper
whose employee Dana Priest won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize (for Treason?)
by revealing and thereby compromising
an essential and extremely productive CIA covert-action program
and endangering the officers involved.
But as lawless as Ms. Priest’s and the Post’s actions were in regard to
divulging classified intelligence operations,
Mrs. Clinton’s are far worse,
as is Ruth Marcus’s partisan, lighthearted pooh-poohing
of what seems to be Mrs. Clinton’s clear and deliberate criminality.
While I have been out of the CIA since November, 2004,
and know nothing about the content of her mails –
save for those now published and identified as classified —
I do know that
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server to conduct State Department business,
and to receive and respond to e-mails
from the White House and other government agencies
would get any other executive branch employee
disciplined or fired, and almost certainly indicted –
unless the White House intervened to prevent
the enforcement of pertinent laws and regulations.
Why is this case?
Well, there are several reasons, none of which are too difficult to understand.
- Mrs. Clinton convicted herself of breaking the law
with words from her own mouth.
She said that e-mails she turned over to the State Department
had to be redacted before they were released.
By definition, non-classified e-mails do not need to be redacted
because there is nothing classified to remove.
Mrs. Clinton’s e-mails may well be politically or personally compromising,
but neither is a legal reason for redacting them.
Mrs. Clinton chose to put her State Department work
on her private e-mail server
and if there is no classified material in the e-mails
the public that paid her must be allowed see them in their entirety.
[I (KHarbaugh) don't know if I would agree with that last point.] - The national government mandates by law that
its employees in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic communities
use government-secured IT equipment to transact government business.
This is not an option; to deliberately do otherwise is a criminal act
for which an employee can be severely disciplined, fired, and/or indicted.
[Need to state the U.S. Code governing this.]
Mrs. Clinton publicly admitted she chose to ignore the law
and use a non-secure e-mail server
for the sake of her own personal convenience.
Again, she is convicted out of her own mouth,
as are those who have publicly admitted
they knew of and used her non-government, non-secure e-mail channel
and did nothing to stop her activity or to alert security officers
to her violations of the law.
[That would include an individual whose initials are BHO.]
It is worth recalling that a former CIA director
engaged in comparable illegal activity with IT devices
and had to be pardoned by Mrs. Clinton’s husband to avoid punishment.
[That would be John Deutch.] - Mrs. Clinton’s tenure-long use of a private e-mail server coincided with
extraordinarily costly hacks of secure U.S. government IT systems
by individuals, criminal organizations, and foreign governments.
Notwithstanding her full awareness of these attacks —
and the detailed detailed briefings she likely was given
on the damage done by them —
she chose to continue to deliberately risk
the near-certain exposure of her work as Secretary of State
to the nation’s enemies.
In publicly commenting,
Mrs. Clinton has shown precisely no remorse or even a smidgen of concern
for knowingly putting her county and countrymen at risk
by using an e-mail server far easier to hack
than those of the U.S. government
which have been hacked by America’s enemies. - Mrs. Clinton’s personal and classified e-mails
are of top-priority interest to foreign governments and their intelligence services,
as are those of the president, vice president, and cabinet members,
as well as the department heads, senior-level bureaucrats, and flag officers
involved in U.S. defense, intelligence, and diplomatic affairs.
Foreign intelligence services surely want to know
what policies the U.S. government is planning to adopt and implement
and what military activities it is going to take.
But almost as important to those services is
any unflattering personal information that can be acquired
and then be used to leverage —
or, more accurately, blackmail —
senior elected and appointed U.S. officials into agreeing to deals
that are much less than optimal
for U.S. economic and national-security interests.
Given the Clinton family’s well-documented reputation
for making unsavory and even felonious behavior its trademark,
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server would — to an outside observer —
appear to be not only illegal in terms of
the conditions of her U.S. government employment,
but a case of adolescent and perhaps politically suicidal recklessness
in terms of
the myriad things the Clintons presumably intend to keep
out of the public domain.
These four points, I think, constitute a prima facie justification
for an immediate criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton, as well as
a damage assessment conducted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies
that will inform the national government and the public
of what damage Mrs. Clinton deliberately inflicted on national security
by her arrogant refusal to use the government’s secure IT systems.
Any other U.S. government employee whose behavior mirrored that of Mrs. Clinton
would already be indicted, awaiting trial, and plea bargaining.
[“a damage assessment conducted by intelligence”.
This is the key point.
We must assume that EVERYTHING on her server has been obtained by
any entity with advanced hacking skills and the desire to tap her communications.
The question is, or should be:
“What was said and how could the knowledge of this harm the U.S.
if it were known by foreign actors?”
It is not the general public that needs to know this, but those concerned with counterintelligence.
I am disgusted that our “elite” media are not pointing this out to everyone,
putting pressure on Clinton to provide the server and all related equipment
to those who could do a forensic exam on it,
attempting to find out who might have accessed it and what they could do if they had.
Are the media indifferent to these concerns?
Evidently so.]
2015-08-04-WP-fbi-looks-into-security-of-clintons-private-e-mail-setup
FBI looking into the security of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail setupBy Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger
Washington Post, 2015-08-04
The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials.
Also last week, the FBI contacted Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, with questions about the security of a thumb drive in his possession that contains copies of work e-mails Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state.
...
The inquiries are bringing to light new information about Clinton’s use of the system and the lengths to which she went to install a private channel of communication outside government control — a setup that has emerged as a major issue in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
For instance, the server installed in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home as she was preparing to take office as secretary of state was originally used by her first campaign for the presidency, in 2008, according to two people briefed on the setup. A staffer who was on the payroll of her political action committee set it up in her home, replacing a server that Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, had been using in the house.
The inquiries by the FBI follow concerns from government officials that potentially hundreds of e-mails that passed through Clinton’s private server contained classified or sensitive information. At this point, the probe is preliminary and is focused on ensuring the proper handling of classified material.
...
Critics say Clinton’s private server arrangement put her discussions with some aides outside the reach of government investigators, congressional committees and courts seeking public records from the State Department.
...
Responsibility for setting up and maintaining the server that handled personal e-mail communications for Bill and Hillary Clinton passed through a number of different hands, starting with Clinton staffers with limited training in computer security and eventually expanding to Platte River.
In 2008, responsibility for the system was held by Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to the former president who served as a personal assistant and helped research at least two of his books. Cooper had no security clearance and no particular expertise in safeguarding computers, according to three people briefed on the server setup. Cooper declined to comment.
“The system we used was set up for President Clinton’s office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches,” Hillary Clinton said in March.
Those briefed on the server setup say the device installed for Bill Clinton was deemed too small for the addition of a sitting Cabinet official. Instead, a server that had been purchased for use by Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign was installed at the Chappaqua home.
With the new server came an additional specialist: Bryan Pagliano, who had worked as her campaign’s IT director. According to federal campaign finance records, Pagliano was paid by Clinton’s Senate leadership PAC through April 2009. The next month, he went to work for the State Department as an IT specialist, a department official said. The people briefed on the server indicated that he continued to act as the lead specialist responsible for it.
The e-mail system was not always reliable, these people said, with Pagliano summoned at various times to fix problems. Notably, the system crashed for days after New York was hit by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
That led to new conversations about the need for better security, durability and a more professional setup, according to these people. In 2013, the Clintons hired Platte River to maintain the data.
...
2015-08-09-NYT-hillary-clinton-emails-take-long-path-to-controversy
Hillary Clinton Emails Take Long Path to ControversyBy SCOTT SHANE and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-09
[This is a lengthy, ~3000 word, exposition of three key aspects to the controversy:
1. Her decision to mix personal and official correspondence on an email system she would control.
2. Her decisions on what was personal and so could be deleted.
3. The issue of classified information on the server.
]
2015-08-11-McClatchy-Investigators-denied-information
‘Top Secret’ emails found as Clinton probe expands to key aidesBy Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
McCatchy, 2015-08-11
...
The notice came as the State Department inspector general’s office acknowledged that it is reviewing the use of “personal communications hardware and software” by Clinton’s former top aides after requests from Congress.
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate,” said Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general.
Despite the acknowledgment, the State Department inspector general’s office has left numerous unanswered questions, including exactly who and what is being investigated. The office initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Intelligence Community inspector general’s office, which said it is not currently involved in any inquiry into aides and is being denied full access to aides’ emails by the State Department. Clinton, herself, is not a target.
...
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants Clinton and her aides to “come clean and cough up” information about their personal email use.
“Both the State Department and Intelligence Community inspectors general should be looking into the staff use of the Clinton private server for official State Department business. This means giving both inspectors general access and custody of all emails that haven’t already been deleted,” said Grassley of Iowa. “From what is publicly known, it appears that the investigation thus far has focused so much on the former secretary of state, that it’s gotten lost that high-level staff apparently also used this server too.”
...
Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the Intelligence Community Inspector General, said that office “never had access to any emails other than those provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton.”
...
“I think the headline is that there’s nothing but murkiness and non-answers from the State Department,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who is representing Gawker, a media organization suing for access to one aide’s emails. “I think the State Department is figuring this out as it goes along, which is exactly why no one should be using personal email to conduct government business.”
...
Administration officials and Clinton aides have declined to provide a full list of which aides used personal email for government business or who might have had an email account on Clinton’s personal server.
Clinton acknowledged that Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff and one of Clinton’s closest confidants, had an account on her personal server in a sworn affidavit filed Monday in a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking State Department records.
Clinton’s affidavit was her first disclosure that any of her former aides used personal accounts or accounts on her personal server to conduct business. Clinton said that her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, did not have an account on the server.
...
The Intelligence Community’s inspector general requested that the FBI scrutinize the security implications of Clinton’s use of the private email after determining that at least five emails containing classified information had been stored on her private server, including one email that State Department officials inadvertently released in response to a public records lawsuit. Two others are under review for final classification.
I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, said State Department officials had warned that there were “potentially hundreds of classified emails” on Clinton’s private server.
...
2015-08-11-TS/SI/TK/NOFORN-letter
Letter from IC IG to Senator Grassley referencing TS/SI/TK/NOFORN information2015-08-12-NYT-hillary-clinton-directs-aides-to-give-email-server-and-thumb-drive-to-the-justice-department
Hillary Clinton Directs Aides to Give Email Server and Thumb Drive to the Justice DepartmentBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-12
Hillary Rodham Clinton has directed her aides to give the Justice Department an email server that housed the personal account that she used exclusively while secretary of state, along with a thumb drive that contained copies of the emails, her presidential campaign said on Tuesday.
The Justice Department and the F.B.I. have sought the server and the thumb drive as they investigate how classified information was handled in connection with the account. Earlier on Tuesday, the inspector general for the intelligence community told members of Congress that Mrs. Clinton had “top secret” information — the highest classification of government intelligence — in two emails among the 40 from the private account that the State Department has allowed him to review.
The State Department has declined to give the inspector general, I. Charles McCullough III, access to the entire trove of roughly 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton handed over to the department last year. Mrs. Clinton deemed those emails work-related, and said she deleted an additional 30,000 messages that were personal.
Since the account was revealed in March, Mrs. Clinton has been widely criticized for creating an email system that she said was more convenient for her, but that also helped shield her correspondence from Congress and the news media. She said she had never had any classified information on the account, though Mr. McCullough’s findings raise questions about that claim.
“I am confident that I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received,” she said at an event in Iowa in July. “What I think you’re seeing here is a very typical kind of discussion, to some extent disagreement among various parts of the government, over what should or should not be publicly released.”
...
The campaign did not say whether the server and the thumb drive had been handed over yet to the authorities. And it did not say if the server was the one she had set up in her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., to house the private email account.
In addition to the home server, information was stored with a small technology company in Colorado called Platte River Networks.
Mr. Kendall has told government investigators that the server at Platte River Networks has been wiped clean. Nevertheless, F.B.I. agents went to the company this month to inquire about it.
...
[I have a suggestion to find out what really was on her server.
Why doesn't State ask our good friends in the intelligence services of Russia and China
to cough up her complete archive?
Surely they have the complete archive.]
2015-08-12-dailybeast-the-spy-satellite-secrets-in-hillary-s-emails
The Spy Satellite Secrets in Hillary’s Emailsby John R. Schindler
dailybeast.com, 2015-08-12
...
[I]t now appears increasingly likely that someone on her staff
violated federal laws regarding the handling of classified materials.
On August 11, after extensive investigation,
the intelligence community’s inspector general reported to Congress that
it had found several violations of security policy in Clinton’s personal emails.
Most seriously, the inspector general assessed that Clinton’s emails
included information that was highly classified—yet mislabeled as unclassified.
Worse, the information in question should have been classified up to the level of
“TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN,”
according to the inspector general’s report.
...
2015-08-13-Politico-dianne-feinstein-defends-clintons-email-practices
Dianne Feinstein defends Clinton’s email practices
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-08-13
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee defended Hillary Clinton’s email practices on Thursday, saying media reports about classified information on the former secretary of state’s server did not make clear that Clinton hadn’t written any of the “top secret” emails.
Two days after an inspector general said it found “top secret” information on Clinton’s unsecured email server, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California accused news reports of “missing key points.” For example: “none of the emails alleged to contain classified information were written by Secretary Clinton,” she said — nor were they marked as “top secret” at the time they were sent.
“The questions are whether she received emails with classified information in them, and if so, whether information in those emails should have been classified in the first place,” Feinstein said. “Those questions have yet to be answered. However, it is clear that Secretary Clinton did not write emails containing classified information.”
...
[This is really incredibly stupid, especially coming from the very-long-experienced Senator Feinstein,
with her many years of experience on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The most important issue is not who wrote those emails containing classified information,
but what were they doing on a server in Chappaqua, New York without adequate (it would appear) protection from being hacked?
HRC was conducting official business, which as Secretary of State she knew damn well would easily slip into classified levels,
in a very insecure location.
It is little different from carrying on classified discussions in a restaurant.
The issue is, or should be, that such discussions should only be held in a secure environment.
The "clintonemail.com" domain and its associated server were certainly not that.
Diane Feinstein shows herself to be a partisan hack for failing to make that significant distinction.
HRC should have carried out her official business in a government-provided setting,
with appropriate security measures.
She should have kept her official life and personal life separate.
To not do so sounds like the pattern in a banana republic,
or in the kleptocracies in Africa.
It would seem that Hillary's behavior and attitude
(in the private email server, in the Clinton Foundation's policies)
can be fairly summarized with
"L'état, c'est moi". ]
2015-08-14-businessinsider-hillary-clinton-email-scandal-and-gop
Cybersecurity expert: Here's how the GOP could 'have a field day' with Hillary Clinton's email scandalNatasha Bertrand and Michael B Kelley
businessinsider, 2015-08-14
2015-08-14-WSJ-Mukasey-clinton-defies-the-law-and-common-sense
Clinton Defies the Law and Common SenseThe question of whether Hillary Clinton’s emails were marked top secret
isn’t legally relevant.
By former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, 2015-08-14
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server
to conduct public business while serving as secretary of state,
followed by the deletion of information on that server
and the transfer to her lawyer of a thumb drive containing heretofore unexplored data,
engages several issues of criminal law—
but the overriding issue is one of plain common sense.
Let’s consider the potentially applicable criminal laws in order of severity.
It is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year
to keep “documents or materials containing classified information . . .
at an unauthorized location.”
Note that it is the information that is protected;
the issue doesn’t turn on whether the document or materials bear a classified marking.
This is the statute under which David Petraeus—
former Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director—
was prosecuted for keeping classified information at home.
Mrs. Clinton’s holding of classified information on a personal server
was a violation of that law.
So is transferring that information on a thumb drive to David Kendall, her lawyer.
Moving up the scale,
the law relating to public records generally makes it a felony
for anyone having custody of a “record or other thing”
that is “deposited with . . . a public officer”
to “remove” or “destroy” it,
with a maximum penalty of three years.
Emails are records,
and the secretary of state is a public officer and by statute their custodian.
The Espionage Act defines as a felony, punishable by up to 10 years,
the grossly negligent loss or destruction
of “information relating to the national defense.”
Note that at least one of the emails from the small random sample taken
by the inspector general for the intelligence community
contained signals intelligence and was classified top secret.
To be sure, this particular email was turned over,
but on paper rather than in its original electronic form,
without the metadata that went with it.
If other emails of like sensitivity are among the 30,000 Mrs. Clinton erased,
that is yet more problematic.
The server is now in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
whose forensic skills in recovering data in situations like this are unexcelled.
The highest step in this ascending scale of criminal penalties—20 years maximum—
is reached by anyone
who destroys “any record, document or tangible object
with intent to impede, obstruct or influence the proper administration
of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States . . .
or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter.”
So, for example,
if Mrs. Clinton caused to be wiped out emails
that might have been anticipated to be of interest to a congressional committee,
such conduct would come within the sweep of the statute.
That, by the way, is the obstruction-of-justice statute,
as revised by the Sarbanes-Oxley law,
passed by Congress in 2002 while Mrs. Clinton served as a senator,
and for which she voted.
All of this is not to suggest that Mrs. Clinton is in real danger of going to jail any time soon.
All of these laws require at least knowing conduct,
and the obstruction statute requires specific intent to impede at least a contemplated proceeding.
It is not helpful to Mrs. Clinton’s cause
that the emails finally turned over to the State Department
were in paper rather than electronic form,
which makes it impossible to search them—and easier to alter them—
and would thus tend to impede rather than advance a congressional investigation.
Further, we won’t know whether permanent damage was done by the email erasure
unless someone manages to examine the thumb drive in the possession of Mr. Kendall.
The actual erasure of material appears to have been done by one or more of Mrs. Clinton’s aides,
and we can certainly expect some or all of them to dive, if not be thrown, under the bus.
[I, KHarbaugh, would like to interject a comment here.
I find it impossible to believe that her server could have been "wiped"
without her explicit concurrence, if not direction.]
Nonetheless, these statutes serve at least to measure the severity with which the law views the conduct here.
The common-sense issues in this matter are more problematic than the criminal ones.
Anyone who enters the Situation Room at the White House,
where Mrs. Clinton was photographed during the Osama bin Laden raid,
is required to place any personal electronic device in a receptacle outside the room,
lest it be activated involuntarily and confidential communications disclosed.
Mrs. Clinton herself, in a now famous email, cautioned State Department employees
not to conduct official business on personal email accounts.
The current secretary of state, John Kerry, testified that
he assumes that his emails have been the object of surveillance by hostile foreign powers.
It is inconceivable that the nation’s senior foreign-relations official
was unaware of the risk that communications about this country’s relationships with foreign governments
would be of particular interest to those governments, and to others.
It is no answer to say, as Mrs. Clinton did at one time,
that emails were not marked classified when sent or received.
Of course they were not; there is no little creature
sitting on the shoulders of public officials classifying words as they are uttered and sent.
But the laws are concerned with the sensitivity of information,
not the sensitivity of the markings on whatever may contain the information.
The culture in Washington, particularly among senior-executive officials,
is pervasively risk-averse, and has been for some time.
When I took office as U.S. attorney general in 2007,
members of my staff saw to it that I stopped carrying a BlackBerry,
lest I inadvertently send confidential information over an insecure network
or lest it be activated, without my knowledge, and my communications monitored.
When I attended my first briefing in a secure facility, and brought a pad to take notes,
my chief of staff leaned over and wrote in bold capital letters at the top of the first page,
“TS/SCI,” meaning Top Secret, Secure Compartmentalized [sic; should be "Sensitive Compartmented"] Information—
which is to say, information that may be looked at only in
what is known as a SCIF, a Secure, Compartmentalized Information Facility.
My office was considered a SCIF; my apartment was not.
The point he was making by doing that—
and this is just the point that seems to have eluded the former secretary of state—
is one of common sense:
Once you assume a public office,
your communications about anything having to do with your job
are not your personal business or property.
They are the public’s business and the public’s property,
and are to be treated as no different from communications of like sensitivity.
That something so obvious could have eluded Mrs. Clinton
raises questions about her suitability both for the office she held and for the office she seeks.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09)
and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).
[The on-line WSJ webpage that contained the above article
also contained the following comment by a reader:
Patrick Fitzsimonds [2015-08-21]
I am fascinated by the press' unwillingness to press Hillary on a fundamental question related to her explanation for using of a private email account and server. She claims she simply did it for "convenience". But in all of your own personal experience have you ever considered declining the account provided by your employer (along with the free blackberry or smartphone) for the "convenience" of purchasing your own physical server and handheld device, setting up both to work together, maintaining the servers and coordinating external vendors to provide security, upgrades and routine system maintenance? Maybe I'm crazy but this doesn't strike me as all that convenient. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton can explain to us why it isn't what it looks like - another sneaky Clinton who demands absolutely no oversight while supposedly doing the people's business.
2015-08-15-WP-how-clintons-team-went-from-nonchalant-to-nervous-over-e-mail-controversy
Clinton’s team went from nonchalant to nervous over e-mail controversyBy Carol D. Leonnig, Karen Tumulty and Rosalind S. Helderman [All women!]
Washington Post, 2014-08-15
[This is just a lengthy summary of the situation.
There seems little, if anything, new here.
But, so far as I can tell, it does not mention the important informtion that
her emails contained, not just Top Secret, but SCI information as well.
Wonder when the WP will get around to mentioning that.]
2015-08-15-NYT-fbi-tracking-path-of-email-to-hillary-clinton-at-state-department
F.B.I. Tracking Path of Classified Email From State Dept. to Hillary ClintonBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times, 2015-08-15
WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others briefed on the investigation.
To track how the information flowed, agents will try to gain access to the email accounts of many State Department officials who worked there while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the officials said. State Department employees apparently circulated the emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011, and some were ultimately forwarded to Mrs. Clinton.
They were not marked as classified, the State Department has said, and it is unclear whether its employees knew the origin of the information.
The F.B.I. is also trying to determine whether foreign powers, especially China or Russia, gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s private server, although at this point, any security breaches are speculation.
Law enforcement officials have said that Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, is not a target of the investigation, and she has said there is no evidence that her account was hacked. There has also been no evidence that she broke the law, and many specialists believe the occasional appearance of classified information in her account was probably of marginal consequence.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said in a statement on Friday that she “took the handling of classified information very seriously.”
“She always received classified materials in secure settings, either by phone, videoconference, on paper or in person,” said the spokesman, Nick Merrill. “If, however, some material unknowingly ended up somewhere on the State Department’s unclassified email system, we want to continue to be as helpful as possible in getting to the bottom of that.”
He added: “Beyond that, we’ll let the State Department and other agencies speak to the specifics.”
This week, the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III, informed members of Congress that Mrs. Clinton had “top secret” information, the highest classification of government intelligence, in her account.
["Top Secret" is a general classification,
which can be applied to, say, military plans for future operations.
It is not exclusive to intelligence.
Above and beyond that, there are a number of special classifications,
often known as "Sensitive Compartmented Information",
reserved for intelligence.]
Some of that information, according to a memorandum the inspector general sent to the heads of the Senate and House intelligence and judiciary committees,
may have come from a program called Talent Keyhole,
which relies on satellite intercepts of conversations or imagery data.
The program involves some of the most secure information in the intelligence agencies’ computer systems.
[It is interesting the the NYT does not provide a link to
the publicly-released PDF of that letter.
I found the link in this 2015-08-12 Daily Beast story.]
Specifically, the inspector general told members of Congress that
two emails should have been classified as top secret,
with one of them designated “TOP SECRET//SI//TK/NOFORN.”
Officials familiar with the nomenclature said that “SI” stood for “special intelligence,”
usually indicating an intercepted communication,
and that “TK” was routinely used as an abbreviation for Talent Keyhole,
showing that the communication or an image was obtained from a satellite.
Attached to the memo —
which was publicly released by Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee —
were copies of two of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that Mr. McCullough said contained classified information.
Those emails were not released publicly.
The State Department has questioned whether the determination by Mr. McCullough is correct. Nevertheless, the findings are consistent with the view of some federal officials that the State Department is not rigorous enough in handling classified national security information.
In an unusual move, the F.B.I.’s inquiry is being led out of its headquarters in Washington, blocks from the White House. Nearly all investigations are assigned to one of the bureau’s 56 field offices. But given this inquiry’s importance, senior F.B.I. officials have opted to keep it closely held in Washington in the agency’s counterintelligence section, which investigates how national security secrets are handled.
The investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails has its roots in her decision to use only a private email account for her official business when she was secretary of state, an unorthodox decision that gave her some control over what was made public. She faced criticism when her use of the account became known this year, and after deleting what she said were more than 31,000 personal emails, she turned over more than 30,000 work-related emails for the State Department to make public.
Mrs. Clinton has said that her emails contained no classified information — having classified information outside a secure government account is illegal — and that she is fully cooperating with the investigation. But in reviewing a sampling of the emails for potential security breaches, Mr. McCullough said he found four out of 40 that contained classified information, though perhaps stripped of any indication that it was of classified origin.
According to current and former State Department officials who worked with Mrs. Clinton, most classified information was routed to classified government servers in her office, where it was printed out for her review. Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, often operated the same way.
...
2015-08-16-ABC-sen-claire-mccaskill-calls-claims-illegal-behavior-hillary
Sen. Claire McCaskill Calls Claims of Illegal Behavior by Hillary Clinton a ‘Political Witch Hunt’By HAYLEY WALKER
ABC News, 2015-08-16
The continued accusations of illegal activity by Hillary Clinton, four days after the former secretary of state turned over her private email server to the FBI, amount to a "political witch hunt," Sen. Claire McCaskill said today.
“Secretary of State Clinton was not the first secretary of state to use personal e-mail, but she's the only one that has turned over tens upon thousands of her e-mails and asked them to become public. Now she's turned over her server. What this has turned into is just a good, old-fashioned political witch hunt," she said.
[Note how the female misstates the issue.
Of course other Secs have used personal e-mail.
But did any of them conduct ALL of their busines
using a private domain?
Not that it has been reported, and I would doubt it.
Look at the Dem hacks come out to avoid the real issue.]
The Democratic senator from Missouri Senator -- a vocal supporter of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign -- told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that despite the controversy she thinks Clinton will be in "great shape" come next November.
...
2015-08-16-XX-hillarys-emailgate-understanding-security-classification
Hillary’s Emailgate: Understanding Security Classificationby John R. Schindler
The XX Committee, 2015-08-16
[An excellent tutorial on how and why the government places security classifications on text.
It omits one point:
Compartmented TSCW reports have a codeword as part of the classification,
e.g. "TOP SECRET BARFBAIT" (of course that is a codeword I just invented, bearing no relation to any official codewords),
to indicate the compartment to which distribution is restricted.
(The codeword itself is classified.)
Thus only people read-on to the (fictional) "Barfbait" compartment could read that report.
(One of the best-known, now declassified, codewords is "Ultra",
used in WWII for the most sensitive products of signals intelligence.)
In the old days, people would walk around with an array of metal tags on their neck-chain from which their badge hung,
each metal tag indicating a compartment which they were authorized to access.
It was sort of a status symbol, showing how much you were cleared for.
That fact makes it doubly surprising, to me, that the compartmentation system seems to have been degraded,
as indicated by the breadth of Snowden's haul.]
2015-08-16-Jeanine-Pirro-judge-jeanine-evidence-points-to-clintons-guilt
Judge Jeanine: Evidence points to Clinton's guiltby Jeanine Pirro
Fox News, 2015-08-16
[Wow, that's a pretty strong indictment.
Watch the seven-minute video for Pirro's passionate condemnation of Hillary.
If Pirro were the U.S. Attorney General Hillary would be in big trouble.]
YouTube video, 2015-08-16: Judge Jeanine: Evidence points to Clinton's guilt
2015-08-17-Vlahos-officials-double-standard-in-clinton-email-scandal
Ex-officials prosecuted for mishandling gov’t info see ‘double standard’ in Clinton caseBy Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Fox News, 2015-08-17
Ex-officials who were prosecuted and had their lives upended for allegedly mishandling sensitive records are accusing the Obama administration of a "double-standard" in its approach to the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
This administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act, a World War I-era law once used to go after major breaches, than any other in history. While the FBI is looking into Clinton's server amid revelations of state secrets potentially passing through it, some critics -- including those charged under that act -- doubt the Democratic presidential candidate will get the same treatment.
"It's a double standard," said John Kiriakou, a former CIA counter-terrorism operative who spent two years in federal prison and three additional months under house arrest this year for leaking the name of a covert CIA official involved in "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Clinton is not accused of leaking. But the common thread in these cases is the handling of classified material. And the slow-moving arc of the email scandal -- marked by a trickle of revelations along with a web of evolving explanations -- stands in stark contrast to past cases where leakers and whistleblowers were punished aggressively.
Kiriakou, one of those defendants, sees different treatment for the Democratic powerhouse who led the State Department.
"The FBI is going to investigate [Hillary Clinton],
but it is not up to them,"
[Kiriakou] told FoxNews.com.
"If they [the FBI] want to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime,
they can certainly find a crime with which to charge her,"
he added.
"But there is no way the Obama administration is going to prosecute her.
No way."
Thomas Drake, a former NSA official who after 9/11 went to Congress to sound the alarms about what he called unconstitutional surveillance, also says there is a double standard when it comes to applying classification law.
"I got hammered good," Drake told FoxNews.com.
Though the government's Espionage Act case against him fell apart in 2011, Drake practically lost everything and faced a mountain of legal bills. He pleaded to a single misdemeanor for "exceeding authorized use of a government computer," a violation he compares to "spitting on the NSA sidewalk."
"I think [Clinton] is vulnerable, but whether she enjoys what I call 'elite immunity,' we don't know," he said. "For much lesser violations people have lost their jobs. But when you get to the higher ranks, it's like another set of rules."
Since Obama took office in 2009, seven people have been charged under the Espionage Act -- all for leaking classified or sensitive information.
Five --
Kiriakou,
Shamai Leibowitz,
Chelsea (previously Bradley) Manning,
Jeffrey Sterling,
and former State Department official Stephen Kim --
got jail time.
Kim pleaded guilty in 2014 to disclosing a classified report on North Korea to Fox News reporter James Rosen. His lawyer said the information at issue "was less sensitive or surprising than much of what we read in the newspaper every day." He did 13 months in prison. Sterling was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in May for revealing classified information about the CIA's effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear program to journalist James Risen. Edward Snowden, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents on government surveillance, has been charged in absentia but has asylum in Russia.
Whether Clinton will get "hammered" is another question. According to reports, the FBI took possession of Clinton's private server last week. The IG for the intelligence community told members of Congress that at least two emails that traversed the device while she was secretary of state contained information that warranted a "top secret" label.
Clinton and her staff have been adamant that no email marked classified at the time was ever circulated through her email address or server. "She viewed classified materials in hard copy in her office or via other secure means while traveling, not on email," campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said in an email to supporters.
In his case, Kiriakou was charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, two counts of espionage, and making false statements to the CIA Publications Review Board when writing his book, "The Reluctant Spy." All but the first charge were dropped. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence. But his wife, a top CIA officer, was pushed out of her job. With three children at home, the family went on welfare while Kiriakou was in prison, and fundraisers helped pay the mortgage on their Arlington, Va., home.
To this day, his lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, insists the name of the agent was already well known among the media and human rights community and was never published. Radack told FoxNews.com the Clinton case is "certainly indicative of the hypocritical double standard in Espionage Act prosecutions brought against low-level employee versus politically-connected people." She also lamented "over-classification" and called the Espionage Act an "ill-fitting tool" in these cases.
According to The Washington Post, the Clinton investigation is now being overseen by at least one prosecutor in the case of former Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus was charged with keeping classified information at home in the form of secret "black books." He was given a two-year probation and a $100,000 fine, and today, reportedly is consulting with the White House on ISIS and Iraq and is the chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
Drake, on the other hand, now works at an Apple Store.
"They aren't going to treat [Clinton] the same way I was treated for sure," he said.
[My (KHarbaugh's) opinion, FWIW, is that there is a clear difference between HRC and some of these other cases.
Based on what we know to date, HRC did not intend to make the information on her server available to the general public;
many, if not most, of the other cases involve the deliberate and intentional release of information.
What HRC did was negligence, not deliberate malfeasance.
Thus what she did was, possibly, mishandling classified information,
similar to what Gen. and CIA Director David Petraeus did.
If that is the case, should she be prosecuted for it?
In my opinion, no.
Rather, my view on it is, to quote from another situation:
""It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder."]
2015-08-18-HRC-Las-Vegas
Hillary Clinton Las Vegas exchange with Fox News Ed HenryNote Clinton's non-response to reporter Ed Henry's question
(emphasis added):
2:35 Ed Henry: Did you try to wipe the ENTIRE server
so that there would be NO emails on the server,
no personal, no official; wipe the whole thing?
Hillary Clinton responds with a defense of wiping her personal emails:
"Well my personal emails are my personal business, right?"
and continues with a discussion of how
"We went through a painstaking process" of separating the personal from the official,
and sent all the material deemed official to the State Department,
and adds "Under the law, that decision is made by the official.
I as the official.
I made those decisions."
Maybe so.
But note how she DID NOT answer Ed Henry's original question,
which was specifically about the content of the entire server.
Hopefully somebody can get address the issue of
responsibility for that destruction of official records.
2015-08-18-FoxNews-hillary-clinton-s-email-defense-is-no-defense-under-law
Hillary Clinton's email defense...is no defense under the law
By Gregg Jarrett
Fox News, 2015-08-18
[1]
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer, yet she seems oblivious of the law.
Either that, or she well knows she has no viable legal defense,
leaving herself little alternative but to conjure one.
[2]
Over the weekend, Clinton repeated her claim that
she neither received nor sent any emails with information marked “classified.”
But how they were marked is irrelevant and immaterial under the law.
Read the statutes (18 USC 1924 and 18 USC 793).
The content of the documents is what counts, not markings.
[3]
Initially, two documents containing “top-secret” intelligence matters
were discovered among the emails on her private server.
Now, there are reports that
the number of emails with classified data has ballooned to 60.
Hundreds more may be discovered
as investigators comb through the roughly 30,000 work-related emails handled by Clinton’s server.
[4]
Storing classified information at an unauthorized location (and/or transmitting it therefrom) is a crime.
Pure and simple.
Knowledge of its classification status is of no legal consequence.
Thus, it is no defense for Clinton to claim she did not know matters were classified.
[5]
Which invites another salient question:
How could she not know?
As Secretary of State, she was privy to many of our nation’s most-guarded secrets.
Did they have to be specifically marked “Top Secret” or “Classified”
for her to recognize them for what they were?
For four years, she was America’s top diplomat
with direct access to the most sensitive information and data.
It should have been recognized by her instantaneously.
[6]
And yet, Clinton appears to be arguing her own incompetence.
That is, she should not be held legally liable because
she was too inept to recognize classified materials without their markings.
[7]
But incompetence is not a defense.
Especially if you are angling for a promotion to be President of the United States.
[Let us recall that Clinton herself is a lawyer, a Yale Law School graduate,
who in the 1992 presidential campaign was billed as a top lawyer.
Indeed, quoting Wikipedia,
"The National Law Journal twice listed her as
one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America."]
[8]
Regardless of her motives, it was reckless, foolish and naïve
to establish a private server to handle copious messages
that would inexorably involve matters of national security and secrecy.
It would be impossible not to break the law.
[9]
Which makes Clinton’s defense of her actions all the more implausible.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.
2015-08-19-WP-AP-clinton-lawyer-says-her-email-server-was-wiped-clean
Clinton lawyer says her email server was wiped cleanBy Stephen Braun | AP
Washington Post / AP, 2015-08-19
2015-08-19-KHarbaugh-questions-on-deletion-of-Clinton-emails
Here are some questions and comments from me, KHarbaugh:- Who ordered that her server be "wiped"?
If she had control over it, would anyone serving under her,
either as part of her organization or as a contractor to her,
have "wiped" the server without her explicit direction?
It really seems very, very unlikely
that her server could be "wiped"
without her consent, if not explicit command.
And if she didn't have control over it,
why not? - Just who owns the emails she sent as part of her official duties?
The general rule in private industry, I believe,
is that any intellectual property you develop while in employment
is the property of the organization that is paying you.
In this case, her official emails were intellectual property she produced
while being paid by the USG,
to serve the interests of the USG.
I am not a lawyer, nor any sort of expert in these matters,
but it seems to me as a matter of general principle
that ALL her official emails were and are the property of the USG.
Thus deleting them, as "wiping" her server would do,
amounts to DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.
Which certainly is a criminal offense.
I think that her server being "wiped" is a very, very serious matter,
amounting to obstruction of justice.
The information that was on it was absolutely necessary
for the USG to attempt to determine
whether the server had been hacked, and if so,
by whom and when?
These are super-important questions,
which whoever "wiped" the server hindered, if not prevented,
from being answered.
Previously I had not thought the issues revolving around
her use of a private domain for her official email communications
necessarily was a crime, although it surely was a blunder.
(Although issues involving transmission of classified information over that server
could rise to the level of criminal.)
But "wiping" the server was, in my opinion, certainly a criminal offense.
It is necessary to determine the who, what, and why behind that action.
Also, note that Clinton's claim that she "turned over everything" months ago
is a vile lie.
For counterintelligence purposes,
it was absolutely necessary to have the server itself,
in as intact a condition as possible,
so that its internal data structures could be forensically examined
for signs of hacking.
Turning over paper copies of the emails she, or her aides, deemed official
did absolutely nothing to further that necessary examination of whether it had been hacked.
Clinton reveals herself here inescapably as being truly clueless on
the national security issues that her use of her private server for official business raised.
This is proof positive of the following:
It is Hillary and her defenders who are the partisan hacks,
not those who asked for access to her server so they could forensically examine it.
More lying scumbag tricks from the Democrats,
accusing others of being partisans when they are the real partisans.
(We see the same dynamic play out on the issue of voter fraud,
where well-meaning and reasonable attempts to assure the integrity of the voting process
are dismissed as being partisan.)
2015-08-19-WP-hillary-clinton-wont-say-if-her-server-was-wiped
Hillary Clinton won’t say if her server was wipedBy John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-08-19
NORTH LAS VEGAS -- Democratic president candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said repeatedly Tuesday that she did not know if her e-mail server, which was turned over to the FBI last week, had been wiped clean of data.
In a testy exchange with reporters following a town hall meeting in North Las Vegas, Clinton responded, "What, like with a cloth or something?" when asked if the server had been wiped. "I don’t know how it works at all," she added.
After Ed Henry of Fox News pressed Clinton on the issue repeatedly, an aide ended the question-and-answer session and Clinton turned to walk away. Another reporter shouted a question about whether the e-mail issue will ever go away. Clinton turned and shrugged.
“Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys," she said.
The exchange typified Clinton's struggle to fully answer questions about her use of a private e-mail account and server during her four years as secretary of state, and to move beyond those questions to focus on other campaign issues.
Clinton has come under fire for using a private e-mail during her time as secretary of state. The e-mails are being screened and released in batches. Here are some things we’ve learned from them.
The private e-mail server that Clinton used while secretary of state was turned over to the FBI last week from a data center in New Jersey, where it had been stored since 2013 by a small Denver IT firm the Clintons had hired that year to manage their technology needs.
Clinton directed that it be turned over after the FBI requested it as part of an inquiry into whether data that had been stored on the server was secure. Officials have said the probe is preliminary and Clinton is not a target.
[What you need to know about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails]
The Intelligence Community's Inspector General has said he located two e-mails containing top secret material in a sample of 40 of Clinton's e-mails he reviewed. The State Department has said Clinton herself did not write those e-mails but that there are potentially hundreds of other e-mails that also included classified material.
"In order to be as cooperative as possible, we have turned over the server," Clinton told reporters Tuesday. "They can do whatever they want to with the server to figure out what’s there and what’s not there. That’s for the people investigating it to try to figure out."
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Clinton again insisted Tuesday that she did not send any classified material but also acknowledged that she wishes she had not used the private system.
"In retrospect, what was meant to be convenient has turned out to be anything but convenient," she said.
Clinton has said she turned over 30,000 work-related e-mails from her private account to the State Department in December. She said she chose not to keep 31,000 other e-mails from the account that were sent and received during those years because they dealt only with personal matters.
“Look, my personal e-mails are my personal business. Right?" she told reporters, when asked if the e-mails were wiped from the server. "So we went through a painstaking process and through 55,000 pages we thought could be worth relating. Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions."
2015-08-19-WP-the-circular-logic-behind-media-coverage-of-the-clinton-email-story
The circular logic behind media coverage of the Clinton email storyBy Paul Waldman
Washington Post Plum Line blog, 2015-08-19
[I include this article here
only to provide a refutation of a false line of argument the author makes here,
a false argument that many of Clinton's defenders are making:]
...
Then there’s the possibility that
she discussed sensitive or classified material in emails.
She says she didn’t, but as yet we don’t know for certain.
You might or might not consider that disqualifying as well.
But the government classifies an absurd amount of material,
even things that are publicly available;
what would really matter is the details,
like whether somebody else
said something about a classified matter in an email to her
(which wouldn’t be her fault) ...
[True, she can't control what arrives in her inbox.
But what she should have been aware of is the fact that
everything she was receiving on her home-brew system
was vulnerable to being read by anyone with significant hacking skills,
and thus a potential breach of security.
She was making her inbox, with its wide range of subjects and classifications,
accessible to many, many parties.
That was her responsibility, her decision, her judgment.
Would her judgment as President reflect a wiser knowledge of risks?
There are many pitfalls out there, in the world that is.
Addressing women's issues and catering to the desires of homosexuals and blacks
may get her elected,
but don't indicate serious knowledge of the threats America faces.]
...
We’re still waiting for somebody to explain the crime Hillary Clinton committed.
And to repeat, maybe there is one; who knows.
[It is a fact that storing classified information
in a non-secure location is a violation of the Federal Code,
and thus a crime.
One would hope that reporters, commentators (such as Waldman), and editors
don't conveniently ignore or forget
that inconvenient (if you're a Clinton supporter) fact.]
...
2015-08-19-MSNBC-Michael-Hayden-fmr-nsa-director-stunned-over-email-controversy
Fmr. NSA Director Michael Hayden on Clinton email controversyMSNBC "Morning Joe", 2015-08-19
Gen. Michael Hayden responds to the Clinton email controversy saying
the former Secretary of State shouldn't have commingled the email accounts
and should have used a government server.
Hayden says he's "stunned" her staff allowed her to do this.
Duration: 8:48
2015-08-19-Newsmax-Michael-Hayden-interview
Newsmax Prime | Gen. Michael Hayden on Hillary Clinton’s having compromised U.S. National SecurityFormer Director of the NSA and CIA joins Newsmax Prime to discuss
how having former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails stored on a private server has compromised U.S. National Security.
2015-08-18-WP-Robinson-apologizing-for-the-e-mail-mess
Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemyby Eugene Robinson
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-08-18
This isn’t about whether Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, which is likely. It isn’t even about whether she becomes our next president, which she has a better chance of doing than anyone else. It’s about basic respect — for us and for the truth.
Why, when she took office as secretary of state, did she decide to route official e-mails through a server in her suburban New York mansion? There is just one plausible explanation: She wanted control.
Clinton was no stranger to the rules of the federal government. She had to know that if she used a State Department account, her 60,000-plus e-mails would become part of the official record. She certainly knew, without any doubt, that her political opponents would delight in rummaging through her communications. Let’s be honest: Hillary and Bill Clinton do have enemies, lots of them, who show no compunction about launching unfair and vicious attacks. She must have wanted to make sure they never got the chance.
But all of that is beside the point. If you accept the job of secretary of state, you inevitably surrender some of your privacy. Any public official’s work-related e-mails are the modern equivalent of the letters, memos and diaries that fill the National Archives. They tell our nation’s history and belong to all of us. Even if your name is Clinton, you have no right to unilaterally decide what is included and what is not.
So I wish Hillary Clinton would be respectful enough to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” I wish she wouldn’t insult our intelligence by claiming she only did what other secretaries of state had done. None of her predecessors, after all, went to the trouble and expense of a private e-mail server.
I wish she would explain why, after turning over to the State Department the e-mails she deemed work-related, she had the server professionally wiped clean. The explanation that she didn’t want people prying into private matters such as “planning for [daughter] Chelsea’s wedding . . . as well as yoga routines, family vacations, the other things you typically find in inboxes” is unconvincing. Does she have some secret yoga move she doesn’t want the world to know about?
And I wish I could be sure that Clinton is now, finally, doing everything in her power to ensure that any extant e-mails are turned over to the State and Justice departments. Unfortunately, I can’t. She stonewalled for so long — there’s no other word for her stance — that recent pledges of openness and cooperation ring hollow.
If Clinton now has political problems because of the e-mails — or, potentially, even legal trouble — it’s her own doing.
At present, I have no reason to believe the controversy is enough to derail the Clinton locomotive’s grinding progress toward the nomination. She still leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by more than 30 points in an average of recent national polls. Her strength among women and minorities — vital segments of the Democratic Party coalition — looks overwhelming. Even if Vice President Joe Biden were to enter the race, Clinton’s “first mover” advantage means her campaign has most of the political talent and key endorsements locked up.
And as she proved in 2008, she is a better candidate when under duress. In recent campaign appearances she has been passionate, unscripted and dynamic. At the Iowa State Fair, she was as much of a rock star as Donald Trump.
If Clinton makes it to the general election, however, she has needlessly handed her Republican opponent a weapon. Her trustworthiness, as measured by polls, was always a relative weakness. Even if Democrats accept that the e-mail flap is a partisan witch hunt, the GOP nominee will try to persuade independents otherwise.
The legal questions could prove more troubling. It should come as no surprise to anyone with a brain that the work-related e-mails of the secretary of state would contain sensitive information. Clinton surrendered more than 30,000 messages to the State Department, and an initial review of just 40 e-mails revealed two that reportedly should have been deemed top secret. Unconfirmed reports — and common sense — suggest there are more.
Were the questionable e-mails sent to her by others, meaning the responsibility to flag them as classified was not hers? Was the information considered secret at the time? Was having these e-mails on her server — and on a thumb drive in her lawyer’s office — at least a technical violation of the law?
Clinton shouldn’t have to answer such questions. It’s her own fault that she does.
2015-08-20-politico-judge-says-hillary-clintons-private-emails-violated-policy
Judge says Hillary Clinton's private emails violated policyBy Josh Gerstein
Politico.com, 2015-08-20
A federal judge has added fresh fuel to the incendiary controversy over Hillary Clinton’s email, asserting during a hearing Thursday that she violated government policy by storing official messages on a private server when she worked as secretary of state.
“We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy,”
said U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, apparently referring to Clinton,
during a hearing on one of the many Freedom of Information act lawsuits seeking access to her records as secretary of state.
Sullivan’s said Clinton’s actions had complicated the State Department’s ability to respond to requests for records on various topics. He also ordered the State Department to contact the FBI to determine whether the private server Clinton used, which Clinton turned over to that law enforcement agency earlier this month, contains official records possibly responsive to the FOIA suit.
After Justice Department lawyer Peter Wechsler argued that the open records law normally doesn’t allow for searches of government officials’ private accounts, the judge said he viewed it as an unusual situation because
“there was a violation of government policy.”
“We’re not talking about a search of anyone’s random email,” Sullivan added.
...
The judge expressed irritation Wednesday
when [Justice Department lawyer Peter] Wechsler said
he did not know whether the FBI, a Justice Department agency —
was actually in possession of Clinton’s server or thumb drives
on which her attorney stored copies of her emails.
“You’re a Justice Department attorney?….You can’t tell me?” the judge said.
Wechsler said the FBI was “reportedly” in possession of the server, but he said the State Department knew that only because Kendall told them so.
“I need to get an answer,” the judge said. “We’re tiptoeing on the head of a pin because there’s only one government.”
Wechsler expressed concern that reaching out to the FBI might interfere in its investigation, but the judge said simply asking for any responsive records wouldn’t do that. He ultimately ordered the State Department to contact the FBI to see if any records responsive to the FOIA lawsuit may exist on the server or thumb drives.
...
During Thursday’s hearing in the State Department case, Sullivan never said precisely how he believed Hillary Clinton violated government policy. But he repeatedly referred to the department’s obligation to preserve records under the Federal Records Act of 1950.
At one point, the judge said he wanted State to ask Clinton whether any third parties — such as technology companies — might have copies of official records from her tenure. However, the written order Sullivan issued after the hearing made no mention of that.
...
The key legal question in the case at this point is
the degree to which a FOIA lawsuit can be used
to seek records that aren’t in a federal agency’s core system
but on a personal email account or personal server.
Wechsler pointed to a 1980 Supreme Court case involving former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s papers, which he donated to the Library of Congress under a stipulation that they not be opened without his permission until five years after his death. The high court ruled that a FOIA lawsuit wasn’t the right mechanism to try to force those records back into the State Department’s hands.
“FOIA is not used to resolve complaints of an agency employee’s misuse of personal email,” Wechsler said.
However, Judicial Watch lawyer Michael Bekesha argued that
Clinton’s use of the personal account and server throughout her tenure,
her lack of any other account
and the State Department’s apparent authorization or acquiescence in that arrangement
effectively converted the account and the server into government records
that could be sought under FOIA no matter where they wound up.
“This isn’t a personal email account,” Bekesha insisted.
“The State Department may not have had physical possession of that server,
but they had custody and control of these devices, that server.”
Bekesha said it was possible records kept off site
or on a private server by a “rogue employee”
might not be accessible under FOIA, but
he noted reports that State Department information technology specialists
were involved in maintaining the server.
He compared the situation to one where an agency hires a contractor to store records.
Wechsler declared that comparison “preposterous.”
The State Department has repeatedly rebuffed press questions about
whether anyone in the agency’s computer support or security offices
were aware of or approved Clinton’s use of the personal server.
[You sons of bitches. Answer the fucking question!
It is totally pertinent.
There is no excuse for dodging it.]
Bekesha suggested that if there was some ambiguity about whether Clinton’s email arrangement was officially sanctioned or approved,
State’s top management official , Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, could resolve it.
“Let’s ask Patrick Kennedy…. Let’s get him to discuss under oath what the arrangement was,” the Judicial Watch lawyer said.
Sullivan didn’t rule out that possibility, but asked Wechsler to hold off on requesting that kind of inquiry until State opens “a dialogue” with the FBI. He ordered State to report back within a month on what records if any it is able to get from the FBI.
[Why wait?
Let's get an answer, under oath, as to the extent to which the State Department officials with responsibility for security
were aware of Hillary's unique use of a server outside of government control for all her official purposes,
with the possibility that inevitably introduced of classified information flowing onto insecure computers and networks.
How about a straight answer from State as to the extent they were aware of this.]
[Note posted the next day, Friday, August 21 2015:
The Washington Post had NO article on Judge Sullivan's comments on Friday,
either in its print edition (I just checked it), nor on its web site (I just searched it, on "Hillary Clinton emails").
I guess the requirement is to minimize anything that might stand in the way of the coronation of Hillary.]
2015-08-20-WP-judge-presses-state-department-to-learn-more-about-clintons-e-mail-server
Judge presses State Department to learn more about Clinton’s e-mail serverBy Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Politics, 2015-08-20
[On web, but not in print edition.]
A federal judge told lawyers for the State Department on Thursday that they should “establish a dialogue” with the FBI to learn whether federal records remain on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail server.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan peppered the lawyers with questions about what they are doing to ensure that the department has sought to retrieve public documents from Clinton and her top aides.
At one point Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, flatly stated that the questions would have been avoided if Hillary Clinton “had followed government policy” regarding e-mail.
Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president, has said her exclusive use of a private e-mail account and server during her four years as secretary of state was permitted by government regulations. She has turned over 30,000 e-mails to the State Department, indicating those documents include all those she sent or received that might include public business. But she has also indicated that she chose not to keep 31,000 more e-mails from those years, deeming them entirely personal in nature.
At issue for Sullivan is
whether the State Department has done enough to comply with public records laws
by searching only those e-mails Clinton has already turned over to the agency.
The judge's questions came in connection with a lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch, which has sought all records related to the employment status of a key Clinton aide, including those found among Clinton’s own correspondence.
Sullivan’s inquiries demonstrate how the e-mail issue has now moved beyond Clinton’s control, as several lawsuits over records and a number of investigations produce new revelations about how she managed her records. As the parallel inquiries progress, Clinton will likely continue to be dogged by questions about the e-mails and her server on the presidential campaign trail.
Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, has told congressional committees that none of Clinton’s e-mails from her time as secretary of state remain on the server. However, Clinton herself told reporters earlier this week that she did not know if the server had been "wiped." And a spokesman for Platte River Networks, the company that took possession of Clinton’s server in 2013 and turned it over the FBI last week, has said he has no information that the server was wiped.
A Department of Justice lawyer acting on behalf of the State Department repeatedly told Sullivan that
it was not necessary for State to look for documents on the server,
given that Clinton has submitted a declaration under oath
that she has already provided all her e-mails that involved public business.
["In Hillary we trust." Is that the DOJ motto?]
But Peter Wechsler ultimately conceded that
the department could reach out to the FBI
to determine what its analysis is finding on the server.
Sullivan suggested that he might be open to additional steps in the future,
including a possible third party forensic analysis of the server
and ordering Clinton to reveal whether back-ups or other copies of the data exist.
For now, he asked the State Department to provide an update on its progress in 30 days.
...
2015-08-21-Reuters-clinton-emails
Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggestReporting by Jonathan Allen, editing by Ross Colvin
Reuters, 2015-08-21
For months,
the U.S. State Department has stood behind its former boss Hillary Clinton
as she has repeatedly said she did not send or receive classified information
on her unsecured, private email account,
a practice the government forbids.
While the department is now stamping a few dozen of the publicly released emails as "Classified,"
it stresses this is not evidence of rule-breaking.
Those stamps are new, it says, and do not mean the information was classified
when Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, first sent or received it.
But the details included in those "Classified" stamps —
which include a string of dates, letters and numbers describing the nature of the classification —
appear to undermine this account,
a Reuters examination of the emails and the relevant regulations has found.
The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton's emails from her time as the nation's most senior diplomat
are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department's own regulations
automatically deems classified from the get-go —
regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not.
In the small fraction of emails made public so far,
Reuters has found at least 30 email threads from 2009,
representing scores of individual emails,
that include what the State Department's own "Classified" stamps now identify as so-called
'foreign government information.'
The U.S. government defines this as any information, written or spoken,
provided in confidence to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts.
This sort of information, which the department says
Clinton both sent and received in her emails,
is the only kind that must be "presumed" classified,
in part to protect national security and the integrity of diplomatic interactions,
according to U.S. regulations examined by Reuters.
"It's born classified," said J. William Leonard,
a former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO).
Leonard was director of ISOO,
part of the White House's National Archives and Records Administration,
from 2002 until 2008,
and worked for both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
"If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence,
by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it's in U.S. channels and U.S. possession,"
he said in a telephone interview, adding that
for the State Department to say otherwise was "blowing smoke."
...
The State Department disputed Reuters' analysis
but declined requests to explain how it was incorrect.
The findings of the Reuters review are separate from the recent analysis by the inspector general for U.S. intelligence agencies, who said last month that his office found four emails that contained classified government secrets at the time they were sent in a sample of 40 emails not yet made public.
The State Department has said it does not know whether the inspector general is correct. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into the security of the copies of the emails outside the government's control.
FOR THE SECRETARY'S EYES ONLY
Clinton and her senior staff routinely sent foreign government information among themselves on unsecured networks several times a month, if the State Department's markings are correct. Within the 30 email threads reviewed by Reuters, Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information. In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government.
[By the way, just what security clearances did Mr. Blumenthal have at the time?]
The information appears to include privately shared comments by a prime minister, several foreign ministers and a foreign spy chief, unredacted bits of the emails show. Typically, Clinton and her staff first learned the information in private meetings, telephone calls or, less often, in email exchanges with the foreign officials.
In an email from November 2009,
the principal private secretary to David Miliband, then the British foreign secretary,
indicates that he is passing on information about Afghanistan from his boss in confidence.
He writes to Huma Abedin, Clinton's most senior aide, that
Miliband "very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note."
Nearly five pages of entirely redacted information follow.
Abedin forwarded it on to Clinton's private email account.
["redacted information".
If the information is now judged too sensitive for publication,
isn't that prima facie evidence that it was classified all the time,
just not marked as such,
while it was sitting on Hillary's insecure server.
And that it was classified should surely have been recognized by
a competent U.S. Secretary of State and his (ahem) senior aides.
But hey, isn't it great how women are advancing in Washington?
Let's celebrate their "achievements".]
...
John Fitzpatrick, the current ISOO director,
said Reuters had correctly identified all the governing rules but said
it would be inappropriate for his office to take a stance on Clinton's emails,
in part because he did not know the context in which the information was given.
[Inappropriate?
The public obviously has an interest in knowing whether that information should have been handled as classified, whether it was so marked or not.
According to its website, the Information Security Oversight Office
"is responsible to the President for policy and oversight
of the Government-wide security classification system."
This is obviously an oversight issue.
Can they really get away with avoiding examining the situation
and rendering their professional judgment?
Note the ISOO "is responsible to the President".
So if they avoid taking a stand on this matter
it is with President Obama's acquiescence.]
A spokeswoman for one of the foreign governments whose information appears in Clinton's emails said,
on condition of anonymity to protect diplomatic relations,
that the information was shared confidentially in 2009 with Clinton and her senior staff.
If so, it appears this information should have been classified at the time
and not handled on a private unsecured email network,
according to government regulations.
The foreign government expects all private exchanges with U.S. officials to be treated that way,
the spokeswoman for the foreign government said.
Leonard, the former ISOO director, said
this sort of information was improperly shared by officials through insecure channels
more frequently than the public may realize,
although more typically within the unsecured .gov email network than on private email accounts.
With few exceptions, officials are forbidden from sending classified information even via the .gov email network
and must use a dedicated secure network instead.
The difference in Clinton's case, Leonard said,
is that so-called "spillages" of classified information within the .gov network
are easier to track and contain.
2015-08-21-Freebeacon-clintons-email-server-firm-scrubs-data-disposal-references-from-website
Clinton’s Email Server Firm Scrubs ‘Data-Disposal’ References from Websiteby Alana Goodman
Washington Free Beacon
2015-08-21-WP-AP-clinton-facing-fresh-worries-in-congress-over-emails
Democrats urge Clinton to offer better explanation of emailsBy Ken Thomas and Julie Bykowicz | AP
Washington Post, 2015-08-21
...
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I think the advice to her of making a joke out of it — I think that was not good advice.”
Nelson said if Clinton had received information that should have been labeled classified or top secret, the person sending the email would bear the responsibility of making that clear on the email.
“If she is receiving something on a private email account and it has no designation, then how would she know that it is classified?” he asked.
[For a very good answer to that question, see the Reuters story
"Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggest".
One might think that a U.S. Senator,
who serves on the Senate Committee on Armed Services,
would be aware of such information.]
2015-08-21-NYT-judge-says-hillary-clinton-didnt-follow-government-email-policies
Judge Says Hillary Clinton Didn’t Follow Government Email PoliciesBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-08-21
...
In a statement, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton defended her use of the account.
“Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account
was consistent with the practice of other secretaries of state,
and permissible under the department’s policy at the time,”
said the spokesman, Brian Fallon.
When Mrs. Clinton became secretary in February 2009,
the State Department’s general policy was
“that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized” government computer.
Nine months later, federal regulations were toughened to say that
government agencies that allow employees to use nongovernment email accounts
must “ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems
are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system.”
Since The New York Times reported in March that Mrs. Clinton exclusively used a personal email account,
she has said that she complied with the regulations
by sending emails to the work accounts of government officials so that
those messages would be caught in the government’s servers.
At a news conference in March at the United Nations, Mrs. Clinton said,
“I fully complied with every rule that I was governed by.”
Emails from Mrs. Clinton’s account that were handed over to Congress show that
she sent emails to at least four of her aides on their personal email accounts.
Unless those emails were later sent to government accounts,
they could not have been retained on government record-keeping systems.
...
2015-08-21-WP-Marcus-stop-digging-the-hole-secretary-clinton
Stop digging the hole, Secretary Clintonby Ruth Marcus
Washington Post, 2015-08-21
Dear Secretary Clinton:
Your e-mail problem has mushroomed from a self-inflicted nuisance to a self-inflicted wound. The reason is simple: At every decision point, you and your staff have made the wrong choice about how to proceed, erring on the side of secrecy and self-righteousness.
...
This is sounding like “That ’90s Show.” You want to wave off the whole thing as the “same old partisan games we’ve seen so many times before.” That may be therapeutic. It’s not politically smart.
The original mistake — deciding to conduct official government business through a private e-mail account for the sake, you say, of convenience — can’t be undone. But you ought to stop — now! — with the unconvincing claim that you did nothing different from your predecessors as secretary of state.
The relevant universe of predecessors during the era of e-mail is precisely two. Condoleezza Rice rarely used e-mail but employed a government account when she did. Colin Powell did employ a private account for what he described as “the then-newfangled” technology.
The more reasonable question is: What did other Cabinet secretaries in this administration do? No others, to my knowledge, relied solely or even primarily on a private address.
So, please, stop being the dogged litigator bent on proving that what you did was technically permissible at the time. As the judge overseeing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking access to your records said Thursday, “We wouldn’t be here today if this employee” — he meant you — “had followed government policy.”
By the way, even if relying solely on private e-mail was not against explicit rules at the time, you still were supposed to make your correspondence available promptly for archiving and FOIA requests — not when you turned them over, in response to an inquiry from the State Department, two years after departing.
Two subsequent mistakes — first, deciding to delete the e-mails you deemed personal; second, declining, until the Justice Department asked, to make your personal server available for review — are similarly unfixable at this point. And, “That ’90s Show” again, how predictable was it that this would backfire?
Yes, you would have been permitted to erase the personal messages on a government account, but you didn’t use a government account. And wiping the server — you did work on Watergate for the House Judiciary Committee, didn’t you? Why not hot-potato the server over to State and let them figure out how to handle it — before the Justice Department got involved and you looked like you had something to hide?
...
So, my advice: Stop making light. Stop litigating. Stop the high-handed dismissing. Stop the prickliness with the media; we’re not going away. Stop the non-apology apologies (you didn’t do anything wrong, but you wouldn’t do it over again).
You don’t need to grovel or confess to grievous errors. Just dial down the combativeness — as hard as this is for you — and ramp up the reasonableness: You understand people have questions. If classified information was not adequately protected, you’d like to know that and figure out what lessons can be learned.
This problem isn’t going away. The trick, right now, is simply not making it worse.
2015-08-23-NYPost-hillarys-e-mail-defense-is-total-bs-former-state-dept-officials
Hillary’s email defense is ‘total BS’: former State Dept. officialsBy Paul Sperry
New York Post, 2015-08-23
Former State Department security officials don’t buy Hillary Clinton’s latest alibi that she couldn’t tell that government emails — which she improperly, if not illegally, kept for several years on an unsecured home server — contained top-secret information because they lacked official markings and weren’t classified until later.
Such messages contain sensitive “keywords” distinguishing them from unclassified information, even if the material didn’t bear a classified heading as she claims.
The secretary would have known better, the department officials say, because she was trained to understand the difference when she was “read in” on procedures to ID and handle classified information by diplomatic security officials in 2009.
Clinton also went through a so-called “read-off” when she left office in 2013. In that debriefing, security officials reminded her of her duty to return all classified documents, including ones in which the classification status is “uncertain,” which would have included the emails stored on her private server — which she only this month turned over to authorities. The read-off would have included her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
“Once she resigned as secretary, she needed to return classified documents and other government-owned documents, which in this case would have included the server,” veteran Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Raymond Fournier said.
US intelligence officials so far have determined that at least four — and as many as 305 — of the more than 30,000 emails Clinton and her aides have printed out and turned over to investigators were classified at the time they were written.
They include a 2011 message from Clinton’s top aides that contains military intelligence from United States Africa Command gleaned from satellite images of troop movements in Libya, along with the travel and protection plans for Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was later killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Another staff email sent to Clinton in 2012 contained investigative data about Benghazi terrorist suspects wanted by the FBI.
Both emails were classified TS/SI — Top Secret/Special Intelligence — and required the nation’s highest security clearance to read. SI is a control system within the supersecret designation known as Sensitive Compartmented Information.
SCI intelligence, which if leaked can cause “grave harm” to national security, is tightly controlled and usually kept in hard-copy form in bound books numbered and stored in highly secure “read rooms” known as SCIFs at department headquarters in Foggy Bottom. Before entering, cleared officials are required to place cellphones, BlackBerrys, iPads, laptops and other electronic devices on a shelf outside the monitored facilities. TS/SCI material is transported between SCIFs in locked bags carried by special couriers.
Clinton aides, however, put it into electronic form. Clinton still maintains she didn’t know that their TS/SCI emails were classified when she received them on a private computer server she set up outside the department in 2009.
“I did not receive any material marked or designated classified, which is the way you know whether something is [classified],” she said last week, revising an earlier claim that “there is no classified material.”
“That’s total BS,” said retired Army Col. Larry Mrozinski, who served almost four years as a senior military adviser and security manager in the State Department under both Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.
He says Clinton easily would have ID’d the material as classified based on “keywords and phrases” and the fact that the information came from foreign sources.
“TS/SCI is very serious and specific information that jumps out at you and screams ‘classified,’ ” Mrozinski said. “The sources [of the information] also drive and signal sensitivity.”
He added: “It’s hard to imagine that in her position she would fail to recognize the obvious.”
Mrozinski was the certified security manager for the peacekeeping, sanctions and counterterrorism office in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where he had TS/SCI clearance and spent roughly 15 to 30 minutes a day in SCIFs.
“This is a serious breach of national security,” Mrozinski said, and “a clear violation of the law.”
“You are strictly forbidden to discuss TS/SCI of any kind outside a SCIF,” he explained, and yet “she was viewing and handling it in direct violation of the law and possibly exposing it to our enemies,” such as ISIS and Beijing, which has hacked Pentagon sites.
“Anybody else would have already lost their security clearance and be subjected to an espionage investigation,” Mrozinski added. “But apparently a different standard exists for Mrs. Clinton.”
“She’s in big, big trouble,” Fournier agreed.
Paul Sperry, a visiting media fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of “Infiltration.”
2015-08-23-KHarbaugh-WaPo-STILL-is-ignoring-Judge-Sullivans-remarks
Good God, here it is Sunday, 08-23, four days after Judge Sullivan's remarks on Thursday, 08-19,that were covered in the Politico story excerpted above,
and the Washington Post STILL, so far as I can determine,
has not seen fit to publish in their print edition
a news story about those remarks.
They write about everything else under the sun,
but not those remarks critical of Hillary.
2015-08-24-MJ-panel-discussion-clinton-email-controversy-wont-go-away
Clinton email controversy won't go awayMSNBC Morning Joe, 08/24/15 06:14AM
The Morning Joe panel talks about the severity of the Clinton email saga, including its potential impact on national security. (6:40)
2015-08-24-MJ-Michael-Mukasey-clintons-breach-of-common-sense
Clinton's 'breach of common sense'MSNBC Morning Joe interviews former AG Michael Mukasey, 2015-08-24
08/24/15 06:45AM
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey talks about the Clinton email controversy and says, "you don't put it all on a private server."
The part excerpted in the item below starts at 2:30.
This continues with an extended discussion of
the legal problems Clinton may have incurred
by having the server "wiped clean".
Joe Scarborough made the following point:
The State Department won't even answer a simple question on whether she signed a certain document before leaving office.
Doesn't the State Department's refusal to answer legitimate, reasonable questions about what she did or didn't do, and about its knowledge of what she did,
show that the State Department is simply in the tank for its former leader?
2015-08-24-MJ-Michael-Mukasey-did-clinton-commit-a-felony
Did Clinton commit a felony?MSNBC Morning Joe interviews former AG Michael Mukasey, 2015-08-24
08/24/15 06:48AM
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey talks about
the potential legal ramifications of the Clinton emails.
Among other things, Mukasey said:
...
there are other statutes
that deal with what happens to you
if you are a custodian of public records
and you, among other things,
alter them or obliterate them,
and that, number one, that's a felony,
but that statute makes you unqualified, disqualifies you, from holding
any further office under the United States.
...
MSNBC question:
You're saying there's statutes on the books now that would prohibit that?
Mukasey answer:
Yeah, Title 18, 2071 [(b)].
2015-08-24-Henneberger-hillary-clinton-e-mail-alibi-is-strikingly-inconvenient
Hillary Clinton E-Mail Story Is Strikingly Inconvenientby Melinda Henneberger
Bloomberg, 2015-08-24
For more than five months, Hillary Clinton has been saying that she used a private server and e-mail address as secretary of state purely as a matter of convenience. And her critics, of course, keep expressing skepticism about whether that was her true motivation: Surely, she was instead hiding something—or at best, just keeping her Spidey skills up.
Now, with the Justice Department looking into whether classified information was handled correctly, it may be time for the Democratic presidential front-runner to stop presenting herself as someone whose personal convenience is so paramount that potential security concerns never even occurred to her. Or as someone who, as her communications director Jennifer Palmieri said on With All Due Respect last week, “really didn’t think it through.”
Clinton has worked long and hard to establish herself as strong on national security, which is harder for any Democrat and even more challenging for a woman in her party. She accomplished that feat after serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and logging four years as our top diplomat. With that memorable, and highly controversial, 2008 campaign ad about a 3 a.m. phone call to the White House, she went to extremes, many Democrats felt, in trying to convince voters that they could rest safe and secure in the knowledge that their children were snug in their beds and Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama was in the Oval and on the case.
But if she and her team keep telling us
that she doesn’t even want to shoulder
the burden of carrying around two phones,
eventually someone’s going to believe her and
wonder whether the most convenient response
to that 3 a.m. phone call
wouldn’t be to roll over and go back to sleep.
the Clintons are all about the Clintons,
painting herself as someone who does whatever’s easier
is an odd political strategy.
She’s stuck to it, though, even as her polling numbers fall and Joe Biden considers getting into the race.
In a March news conference at the United Nations, Clinton first told reporters that in exclusively using a private server and personal account for official government business, “I opted for convenience to use my personal e-mail account—which was allowed by the State Department—because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal e-mails instead of two.”
Over and over that day, she said she’d been short-sighted: "Looking back, it would have been better if I'd simply used a second e-mail account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn't seem like an issue."
“I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way. So I did it for convenience and I now, looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning.”
Now, of course, the F.B.I. is investigating the security of her server and thumb drives containing work e-mails from her time at State. Yet she’s still thinking it would reassure us somehow to know she was really only doing what suited her at the time:
“What was supposed to be convenient,’’ she said in Las Vegas last week, “has turned out to be anything but convenient.”
Asked if leaders don’t take responsibility, she repeated the formulation: “I take responsibility … in retrospect this didn’t turn out to be convenient at all. And I regret that this had to become such a cause célèbre.”
There's no doubt about that.
But did her use of a private server make her communications any less secure?
Because it was private,
those e-mails that weren’t to a government address
wouldn’t have been available under the Freedom of Information Act,
as they’re supposed to be.
And whether or not she was trying to hide anything in particular, she may also be telling the truth about her underlying motivation, since privacy is always more convenient than a lack of privacy is.
2015-08-24-Breitbart-exclusive-hillary-email-storage-firm-employs-top-clinton-operative
EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Email Storage Firm Employs Top Clinton Operativeby Patrick Howley
breitbart.com, 2015-08-24
The small Denver-based company that stored Hillary Clinton’s private email server has close business and personal ties to Hillary Clinton and to the chairman of her presidential campaign, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
The firm claims that it is an unsuspecting and apolitical small business that just happened to win a bid to store Clinton’s server in 2013.
But it turns out that the Clinton campaign’s tentacles are managing every aspect of the private email scandal — and the paper trail also leads inside the Obama White House.
Platte River Networks, which was responsible for storing Clinton’s server from 2013 until turning it over to federal investigators this month, employs a former top Clinton aide with a reputation as campaign chairman John Podesta’s “fixer,” according to an insider.
Platte River, based in Denver, has hired a Denver-based public relations firm called Dovetail Solutions to advise it in the midst of unprecedented media scrutiny.
Dovetail Solutions CEO Andy Boian has already done numerous media appearances and given statements on Platte River’s behalf, trying to tone down negative reports about Platte River’s business practices. Phone calls to Platte River requesting its communications department are currently forwarded to Boian’s line.
Boian is a political campaign operative and former Democratic National Committee representative whose firm mostly represents small Colorado clients including Denver Magazine and Downtown Denver Partnership’s Parade of Lights. But the firm, curiously, also has a Beltway heavy hitter on the payroll.
Washington cyber security lobbyist David Goodfriend serves as a “strategic counselor” to Dovetail Solutions. A former deputy staff secretary to President Bill Clinton, Goodfriend was among the group that founded left-wing Air America Radio with Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). He resides in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.
Why is this Beltway-based cyber lobbyist in Denver advising a small public relations firm?
Goodfriend took a class at Georgetown Law School with current Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who was then in between shifts in the Bill Clinton White House. Goodfriend is reportedly a member of a Hillary Clinton For President organization. His relationship with Podesta was documented.
Goodfriend not only lobbied senior Obama White House officials on behalf of clients including DISH Network, but he attended at least twelve media “messaging” meetings at the White House after Obama took office.
So how did Goodfriend get involved on this case? Goodfriend appeared on Newsmax TV to defend Hillary Clinton on the email issue:
[There is a video in the original article at this point.]
2015-08-24-WP-Thiessen-an-ominous-precedent-for-hillary-clinton
An ominous precedent for Hillary ClintonBy Marc A. Thiessen
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-08-24
Hillary Clinton likes to point out that she is not the first senior national security official to conduct official business on a home computer system. She’s right about that, but the precedent should not give the Democratic presidential front-runner much comfort.
Former CIA director John Deutch was also found to have stored classified documents — including top-secret intelligence — on computers in his homes in Bethesda and Belmont, Mass., leading to an investigation by the CIA inspector general and a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Deutch was stripped of his security clearance and ended up reaching a plea agreement admitting to his crimes — but was saved by a last-minute pardon from none other than . . . President Bill Clinton.
...
Another parallel with Clinton: The inspector general found that Deutch had used the same unclassified computers to process both classified information and conduct personal business, which made the “classified information residing on Deutch’s computers . . . vulnerable to possible electronic access and exploitation.”
The inspector general blasted Deutch for his failure to follow an “elementary practice . . . to separately process classified and unclassified information,” adding that “[b]ecause Deutch’s computers configured for unclassified use had connections to the Internet, all classified information on those computers was at risk of compromise.”
The same could be said of Clinton. Indeed, we know that Chinese hackers successfully penetrated the private e-mail accounts of “many” senior Obama White House officials. If investigators find that Clinton’s private server containing top-secret intelligence was penetrated by foreign intelligence service, she is going to be in serious trouble.
But here is one important difference: While Deutch expressed regret for putting classified information at risk, Clinton is making public jokes about it — joking about wiping her server “with a cloth” and signing up for a Snapchat account because “those messages disappear all by themselves.”
I’m sure the folks at the FBI investigating her e-mail setup found that funny.
The inspector general’s report also includes a note for caution for anyone in the bureaucracy who is thinking of protecting Clinton from proper scrutiny. In the Deutch case, the inspector general took CIA officials to task for failing to properly investigate “Deutch’s continued suitability for access to classified information” and criticized the agency for its failure to submit “a crimes report to the Department of Justice.”
His classified report (which was later made public in unclassified form) spurred action.
CIA director George Tenet stripped Deutch of his security clearances.
And the Justice Department, which initially declined to launch a criminal investigation, finally did so.
The Post reported that on Jan. 19, 2001,
Deutch reached a plea bargain agreement admitting guilt,
“but too late to file it in court that day.”
President Clinton intervened,
pardoning Deutch a day later in his final hours in office.
Since the pardon obviated the plea agreement,
the document was never filed or made public.
[How about that. Surely the timing was just a coincidence.]
When Deutch was stripped of his security clearance, he admitted that “in hindsight it is clear that I should have insisted that I be provided the means of accomplishing [my] work in a manner fully consistent with all the security rules. No one, including the Director, is exempt from compliance with these rules.” He’s right. No one, including the secretary of state, is exempt from compliance with those rules either — as Hillary Clinton may soon find out.
2015-08-25-Politico-a-guide-to-hillary-clintons-most-sensitive-emails
A guide to Hillary's most sensitive emailsBy Josh Gerstein
Politico.com, 2015-08-25
Hillary Clinton stored at least 63 emails on a private server that have now been deemed classified by the State Department, a collection of messages that contains diplomatic information not normally discussed in public.
However, some of the emails on Clinton’s server that appear most sensitive did not get either classification. They include near-real-time reports on the violence that unfolded in Libya in 2011 and 2012.
Two of the messages sent on unclassified systems are updates from Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador killed in the Benghazi attacks in 2012. One mentions contingency plans to evacuate American diplomats by sea. Another gives details about safety precautions Stevens’ team is taking at its hotel and about tactics being used by Libyan militias.
POLITICO reviewed 63 emails posted on the State Department website that are formally marked as classified,
[Huh!!!]
as well as two others Fox News has cited as potentially classified.
POLITICO discovered another with similar sensitive content during its review.
Some in the intelligence community insist Clinton’s emails contain secrets that should have been classified at a very high level. Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III has asserted that a sampling of just 40 emails turned up four that were classified, of which two were “TOP SECRET” and derived from sensitive signals intelligence.
...
However, over time, the list of messages deemed classified by the State Department has grown as the agency reviewed batches of the messages for public release. Clinton turned over about 30,000 emails — totalling 55,000 pages— to State last December, and the agency first reported in May that it had found one classified document. By June, the number grew to 26. In July, the figure was revised to 63.
Reporters combing through the email releases have flagged others that deal with sensitive subjects but have no markings.
The tally is expected to rise further. The agency is still going through Clinton emails and releasing sets of them each month in compliance with a judge’s order. So far, only 11.7 percent of the 55,000 pages of emails have been released in response to pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
...
Making sense of the redacted documents often requires further research. State Department censors have redacted details deemed classified, but the gist of the messages can often be divined from other information in the emails.
There’s a request from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for points to make about Middle East peace in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are reports to Clinton on various countries’ position on a key vote on Iran’s nuclear program and on veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s efforts to enlist Clinton’s help in brokering deals to resolve tensions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Most of the messages deemed classified were forwarded to Clinton by three of her top State Department aides —
chief of staff Cheryl Mills and deputy chiefs of staff Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.
...
Clinton has also offered another defense: that the debate over what’s classified really has nothing to do with the question of whether it was proper for her to use a private email account and server. They note that the law and federal rules say classified information shouldn’t circulate on unclassified systems, whether they’re private or public.
“It has nothing to do with the fact that my account was personal,” Clinton said at a news conference last week. “If it were a government account, they would be saying the same thing.”
Critics reply that Clinton should have known some spillover of classified information into her email was all but certain given the sensitivity of her job, making her choice of the potentially less-secure private server all the more unwise.
...
2015-08-25-LAT-Schindler-emailgate
Why Clinton's email problem won't go awayBy John R. Schindler
Los Angles Times Op-Ed, 2015-08-25
...
It's difficult to avoid the suspicion that Clinton, after the scandals that rocked her husband's presidency during the 1990s, simply did not want to leave behind a paper trail (or e-trail). And so, as secretary of State, she tried to skirt federal records law by employing her own IT systems and servers, and by exclusively using a personal email address.
...
Because top secret information travels on entirely separate systems throughout the federal government, it is virtually impossible that a Clinton staffer blithely or unknowingly pasted a top secret paragraph into an unclassified email.
On the contrary, it seems increasingly likely that Clinton's staff was engaged in a systematic effort to take details off classified IT systems and strip them of proper classification markings (every paragraph in an intelligence report is classified separately) before sending them out electronically. This was not only a violation of numerous federal regulations, but also a crime — a felony when it involves top secret information.
...
Most worrying is the fact that, for several months, Clinton's personal server was wholly unencrypted. Given the high value of any secretary of State — the world's top diplomat — to dozens of foreign intelligence agencies worldwide, it's a safe bet that Russian and Chinese spies were reading her correspondence.
2015-08-26-MSNBC-Morning-Joe-Interview-with-State-Department-spokesman-John-Kirby
Kirby on Clinton emails, Iran dealMika Brezinsi interview with State Department spokesman John Kirby
MSNBC Morning Joe, 2015-08-26
State Department spokesman John Kirby:
"Look, these kinds of things are under review and investigation right now
so I'm really not at liberty to go into too much detail about the past, that's all getting looked at...
all that's being reviewed by our inspector general and members of Congress ..."
2015-08-27-CNN-hillary-clinton-state-department-citizens-united
Group: Emails show Clinton, aides mixed State Department, foundation businessCNN.com
2015-08-28-NYT-hillary-clintons-handling-of-email-issue-frustrates-democratic-leaders
Hillary Clinton’s Handling of Email Issue Frustrates Democratic LeadersBy PATRICK HEALY, JONATHAN MARTIN and MAGGIE HABERMAN
New York Times, 2015-08-28
...
Criticisms about Mrs. Clinton also
threaten to complicate the political fortunes of other Democratic candidates
over the next 15 months,
should they find themselves having to defend her
instead of focusing on issues and going on the offensive against Republicans.
...
Mrs. Clinton has stressed that her use of only a private email account was legal,
and she is not a target of a federal investigation,
which is focused on assessing any security breaches.
...
None of the Democrats interviewed went so far as to suggest that
the email issue raised concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s ability to serve as president,
and many expressed a belief that it had been manufactured
by Republicans in Congress and other adversaries.
Some Clinton allies emphasized that the presidential race was still in an early stage —
the primaries do not start until February —
and that Mrs. Clinton had plenty of time to influence voters’ perceptions of her.
“Democrats need to take a deep breath,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut.
“The attacks on her email are just that, attacks,
and are coming because Republicans understand she is the toughest candidate to beat.”
[It's all politics, eh, Democrats?
Hillary did nothing wrong, nothing to cause one to deplore her judgment, eh?]
...
Mrs. Clinton’s aides, many of whom are new to her circle,
are by and large running a playbook that is dictated by the candidate,
according to several Democrats in close contact with the campaign
who insisted on anonymity to preserve their access to it.
But even so, they must be especially careful because of the inquiries underway.
...
They need to be much more forthright. I don’t think it has been handled well. Where is Terry McAuliffe?” said John Morgan, a trial lawyer and Clinton donor, referring to the aggressive, plain-spoken chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign who is now the governor of Virginia. “I want to see Terry McAuliffe come out, take off the gloves and explain this to America.”
He added: “This is not a time to parse words. This is a time to be very direct.”
...
James M. Demers, a top supporter and fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, said it was “too early to tell if the email issue is turning people off.”
“It’s very hard to explain the government systems of classifying information,
all the rules, and keep people focused on accurate answers,” Mr. Demers said.
[It doesn't seem that hard to me.
Something is classified if an intelligent adversary reading it
could figure out from it sources or methods were used to produce the information.
There seem to be examples of such in the early emails that were screened.
That's for information coming from the intelligence community.
For information coming from U.S. diplomats,
some is considered classified "foreign government information"
when it was provided to the U.S. diplomats with the understanding that it would be kept confidential.
According to Reuters, many of the emails contained such information.
It seems clear to me that at least some Democrats
are deliberately playing dumb on this issue,
trying to obfuscate the simple issues involved,
claiming that "it's complicated".]
...
2015-08-28-WP-Ignatius-the-hillary-clinton-e-mail-scandal-that-isnt
The Hillary Clinton e-mail ‘scandal’ that isn’tby David Ignatius
Washington Post, 2015-08-28
...
Is there a crime here?
Almost certainly not.
[Can this be the Post's position on the matter?
Can this explain why their news pages failed to cover
- the August 20 remarks by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan
- the August 21 survey of her emails conducted by Reuters
- the August 25 survey conducted by Politico
- or provide their own independent examination of the emails?
Hillary's assertion that only right-wing partisans are pushing the issue.
Certainly the Post seems to be doing it darndest to support that assertion.
Maybe they're just too busy looking for the next "sex scandal" they can use to bash heterosexual men with,
or the next fabricated claims of racism that they can hype.
By the way, Politico's coverage of this story is far, far better than the Post's.
Visit news.google.com and search on "hillary clinton emails site:politico.com"
to sample their coverage.]
2015-08-28-WP-Kessler-clintons-claims-about-receiving-or-sending-classified-material-on-her-private-email-system
Clinton’s claims about receiving or sending ‘classified material’ on her private e-mail systemby Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-08-28
“I’m confident that this process will prove that I never sent nor received
any e-mail that was marked classified.”
–Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, news conference, Ankeny, Iowa, Aug. 26, 2015
“Whether it was a personal account or a government account,
I did not send classified material
and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified,
which is the way you know whether something is.”
–Clinton, news conference, Las Vegas, Aug. 18, 2015
“I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail.
There is no classified material.
I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements
and did not send classified material.”
— Clinton, news conference, New York, March 10
Many readers have written asking for an examination of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s statements
regarding the classification of e-mails sent and received
from the former secretary of state’s private e-mail account.
The issue has loomed in importance
after the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community wrote Congress in August
to say that
it had reviewed some of the e-mails that have been publicly disclosed and
“judged that they contained classified State Department information when originated.”
Note that in her statements that Clinton has been careful to emphasize that
she personally did not send “classified material” on her nongovernment account.
She has been less definitive about receiving classified material.
In her March news conference, she was silent on that issue.
In her August news conference, she carefully said
she “did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified.”
That certainly leaves open the possibility that
she received classified information—as the IG says–
and should have known so at the time.
The Facts
The IG has not disclosed the nature of the e-mails that it has identified.
State Department officials and the Clinton campaign have suggested
this is mostly an intermural dispute between agencies
over what should be classified or not.
State Department officials say they are seeking a second opinion
from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But a Reuters examination of the e-mails released by the State Department, published on Aug. 21,
found that at least 30 e-mail threads contained “foreign government information,”
judging from the classification stamps that were added to the e-mails when they were placed in the public domain.
“Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information,” the report said.
“In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government.”
A good example is an e-mail, labeled “Personal: Afghanistan,”
sent on Nov. 21, 2009, from Matthew Gould,
then chief of staff to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband,
to Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s top aides.
Miliband had just returned from a trip to Afghanistan
and had written a five-page analysis that he wanted Clinton to read
before they had a phone conversation about the trip.
Miliband “very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note,”
Gould wrote.
Abedin forwarded it to Clinton’s private e-mail, saying
“another note from Miliband that he doesn’t want to send through the system.”
But Miliband’s observations on Afghanistan cannot be viewed today by the general public—
and will remain secret until 2029.
Every page is redacted, labeled “CONFIDENTIAL–Reason: 1.4(B), 1.4(D).”
What does that mean? Those are references to executive order 13526,
signed by President Obama, referring to two classification categories:
“foreign government information” and
“foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.”
Ironically, Gould—who now heads Britain’s Office of Cyber Security–
wrote that he sent the e-mail “from my home account,”
which presumably was also not secure.
He sent the e-mail to Abedin’s unclassified State Department e-mail address.
Here’s the e-mail:
email from David Miliband aide re Afghanistan by GlennKesslerWP
[See the original article to see an embed of the Scribd document,
or click on the above link.]
“Even if you believe the premise of the Reuters story,
the Brits ‘declassified’ it themselves
when they sent it via the state.gov email system rather than a secure cable,”
said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon.
But J. William Leonard,
a former director of the U.S. government’s Information Security Oversight Office
who worked for Democratic and Republican administrations, said
the nature of how the information was transmitted does not make a difference.
Classified information could be transmitted by a foreign government official at a cocktail party,
he noted.
“Confidentiality is the coin of the realm,” he said.
“We cannot expect to have candid exchanges unless we protect confidentiality.”
He said that “what is key here is the expectation when the information was exchanged,”
which is why he said Miliband’s request that the commentary was only for Clinton’s eyes is so important.
“I cannot think of a clearer sign of an expectation
that this was to be treated in confidence,”
Leonard said.
Miliband and Gould did not respond to requests for comment.
Other experts said there is more wiggle room for interpretation.
“A basic structural feature of the classification system is that it is permissive, not mandatory,”
said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
He noted that section 1.1 of Obama’s executive order “says ‘may’ be classified
if it meets certain conditions, not that it must be.”
“The executive order does say that all foreign government information should be presumed to cause damage if disclosed without authorization,” Aftergood added. “And that is indeed one of the conditions for classification, but in itself it does not require classification.”
“There is a lot of subjectivity and discretion,” said Thomas S. Blanton,
director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
“It’s an absurdity that anything a foreign government tells you
is automatically confidential.”
[Of course.
But we are not talking about "anything" a foreign government tells the U.S.,
we are talking about something the British originator
“very much wants the Secretary (only) to see”
according to the transmittal message.]
Yet at the same time, the State Department has deemed the Miliband message so sensitive
that it now must remain secret for another 14 years.
“Does that mean it should have been classified all along? Maybe, but not necessarily,” Aftergood said.
[Really? Sure sounds so to me.]
“Does that mean that it should not have been held on a private server?
Possibly, although it might not have been measurably more secure on the official State Department system.”
Since 2005, the State Department Foreign Affairs manual has stated that “sensitive but unclassified” information should not be transmitted through personal e-mail accounts. “Classified information must be sent via classified E-mail channels only, with the proper classification identified on each document,” the manual says.
[Compare Ignatius' remarks on this.]
State Department officials point to the fact that Obama’s executive order (in section 1.7) says that information that has been treated as unclassified for months or years can be classified in response to a request for public disclosure, such as Freedom of Information Act request. Another section of the order (4.1) says that foreign government information could be handled “at least equivalent to that required by the government or international organization of governments that furnished the information.”
In other words, information that was once passed through unclassified channels among government officials could later be deemed classified if a member of the public, like a reporter, asked to see it.
“The State Department is an outward-facing institution,” said Alex Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are America’s face to the world, and that means we have to communicate to the world, whether by email, phone or social media. As diplomats, we naturally receive information from foreign governments — it is part of the job. That information may need to be protected from public release, as we have done under FOIA. We must focus on our responsibility to represent America’s interests and to engage in a dialogue with the world.”
The Pinocchio Test
Clinton’s very careful and legalistic phrasing raises suspicions.
She refers to “classified material,” which could be code for documents,
leaving open the possibility of “classified information” having been received.
[Sorry, Glenn.
The word "material" covers a broad breadth, certainly including "information".]
She also says she “did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified,”
which of course leaves open the possibility of receiving classified information that was not correctly marked.
The Miliband e-mail is now labeled by the State Department to contain classified information, unfit for public disclosure. That holds true for other information that Clinton and her aides routinely exchanged over an unsecure network.
The question thus turns on whether Clinton should have at the time recognized that this information could be deemed as classified and should have taken better steps to protect it.
At The Fact Checker, we judge statements through the perspective of an ordinary citizen.
The classification rules are complex but, legal technicalities aside,
the question is whether classified information was exchanged over her private e-mail system. Never mind the IG’s concerns. According to the State Department redactions of the released e-mails, the answer is yes. Clinton earns Two Pinocchios for excessively technical wordsmithing.
[I disagree.
Her statement was clearly and unambiguously false.
E.g., Kessler is covering for her when he asserts that
the phrase “classified material”
does not necessarily include “classified information”.
Put more simply, “classified information” is “classified material”.
I think any "ordinary citizen", as well as those more familiar with these matters,
would think that.
Also, we must recall the Miliband email is just one of 30 that Reuters has already identified as having this problem.]
Two Pinocchios
2015-08-28-WP-AP-secrets-have-long-slipped-into-state-department-email
Secrets have long slipped into State Department emailBy Ken Dilanian | AP
Washington Post / AP, 2015-08-28
During the 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, State Department officials in Washington were emailing one another with updates in real time. Embedded in those messages were nuggets of classified information, including an apparent reference to a CIA facility that was a closely guarded secret.
When the emails were released last year under the Freedom of Information Act, that and other information found to be classified were censored from public view.
...
Records reviewed by The Associated Press make clear that the leakage of secrets onto unsecure email is a State Department problem dating to the George W. Bush administration, if not earlier. It may have accelerated under Clinton as email use became more frequent.
Clinton’s use of a home server makes her case unique, but it’s not clear whether the security breach would have been any less had she used government email. The State Department only systematically checks email for sensitive or classified material in response to a public records request.
Clinton insists she didn’t send or receive information marked classified, and there is no evidence she did. But information can be classified without being marked. Government investigators have found material they believe was classified when sent in several dozen of 30,000 emails that the former secretary of state has turned over.
...
Critics have said Clinton and her aides should have known not to discuss anything remotely secret over unsecured email.
The emails show they were cognizant of security, routinely communicating over secure phone and fax lines.
Many of the emails to Clinton containing classified information were forwarded to her by a close aide, Huma Abedin.
Most, however, originated with diplomats who have access to confidential material.
Some emails sent by Clinton have since been censored.
Such slippage of classified information into regular email is “very common, actually,”
said Leslie McAdoo, a lawyer who frequently represents government officials and contractors
in disputes over security clearances and classified information.
What makes Clinton’s case different is that
she exclusively sent and received emails through a home server
in lieu of the State Department’s unclassified email system.
Neither would have been secure from hackers or foreign intelligence agencies,
so it would be equally problematic
whether classified information was carried over the government system or a private server,
experts say.
In fact, the State Department’s unclassified email system has been penetrated by hackers believed linked to Russian intelligence.
Many of the emails to Clinton came from state.gov email accounts, noted Steven Aftergood, an expert on classification at the Federation of American Scientists. “So if there is routine security screening and monitoring of incoming and outgoing State Department emails, anything that is classified should have been flagged. That does not seem to have happened. I think it’s the State Department culture.”
That may be true, but it would not save a rank-and-file official with a security clearance who was caught sending classified information over email, said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who frequently represents intelligence officers. That person could lose his job, his clearance, or both.
“In real life, the ‘everybody does it defense’ doesn’t fly,” Moss said.
...
The AP has asked the State Department to turn over records reflecting any concerns by agency computer staff or security officials over Clinton’s use of a private email server, but has received no responsive documents.
Clinton also had access to a classified messaging system, but it’s not widely used at the State Department. Most department officials in Washington and at embassies have on their desktops a classified network that goes up to “secret” level. A small number of State officials, including the secretary, can use a third system that goes up to “top secret” level in special secure rooms.
But even the middle-tier “secret” network is cumbersome for many in the agency, said officials who would not be quoted when discussing internal security policies. Only a few top officials in Washington are able to read classified emails outside the department’s headquarters. Most ambassadors can’t open their accounts from home. Officials in the field may have no access at all.
...
2015-08-31-Politico-Gerstein-clintonemail-batch4
State marks 150 more of Clinton's emails as classifiedThe new designations come as the State Department prepares to post more than 7,000 additional pages of Clinton's emails online.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-08-31
The State Department has deemed roughly 150 more of Hillary Clinton's email messages to be classified, a move certain to fuel the roiling controversy over her use of a private email server instead of an official government account when she served as secretary of state.
The new classifications will more than triple the previous total of 63 classified messages on Clinton's account, but State Department spokesman Mark Toner stressed that the information was not marked classified at the time it was sent several years ago. He also said the decisions to classify the information did not represent a determination that it should have been marked or handled that way back then.
"That certainly does not speak to whether it was classified at the time it was sent, or forwarded, or received," Toner said during the daily State Department briefing on Monday. "We stand by our contention that the information we’ve upgraded was not marked classified at the time it was sent."
[Note we're getting two stories on this issue.
One is that information that IS classified, whether it is so marked or not,
should be handled as classified information.
The other seems to be the position of the State Department,
that information only must be treated as classified when they determine that it is that.
To me, the State Department's position sounds pretty shaky.]
Nearly all the information officially classified by the State Department in prior email releases involved diplomatic strategy or information provided by foreign governments. Toner batted away questions about whether State Department policy dictated that Clinton and other agency employees treat as classified information obtained in confidence from foreign officials or diplomats.
"Classification — we’ve said this many times — is not an exact science. It's not, often, a black-and-white process," Toner said. "There’s many strong opinions. … It's not up to me to litigate these kinds of questions from the State Department podium."
...
The monthly releases have generally been in chronological order. If that pattern holds up Monday, the new set should be largely from late 2009 and early 2010. However, some earlier records caught up in the classification review process are also expected to be in the new batch.
...
2015-08-31-Breitbart-exclusive-hillary-shared-an-email-network-with-the-clinton-foundation
EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Shared An Email Network With The Clinton Foundationby Patrick Howley
Breitbart, 2015-08-31
Hillary Clinton’s private email server was housed at the same physical location and on the same network as an email server used and operated by the Clinton Foundation, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
Records reveal that Hillary Clinton’s private clintonemail.com server shared an IP address with her husband Bill Clinton’s email server, presidentclinton.com, and both servers were housed in New York City, not in the basement of the Clintons’ Chappaqua, New York home.
...
The former Secretary of State is under federal investigation for potentially violating the Espionage Act by allowing people without a security clearance to access classified information. The fact that Hillary was sharing an email network with a private foundation means that people without a security clearance almost certainly had physical access to her server while she was working at the State Department.
...
Hillary’s clintonemail.com server and the Foundation-run presidentclinton.com email server have exactly the same IP address, and the same SSL certificate (which an organization purchases for an email server to verify its trustworthiness).
mail.clintonemail.com and mail.presidentclinton.com both have an IP address of 64.94.172.146, according to an SSL Certificate Checker.
The two servers both have that same IP address, 64.94.172.146, according to DNS records. (Here are records for Hillary’s server, and here are records for Bill’s server).
Both servers have the same IP address, according to another independent Internet records database, robtex.net.
The fact that both of these email servers have the same IP address means that they were operating on the same network, and sharing physical space. A computer expert tells Breitbart News that the servers were probably operating on the same machine. It is also possible that they were operating on different machines on the same network, which still means that the machines would have to be close enough to exist in the same physical location.
President Clinton’s server was created in 2002, while Hillary’s was created in 2009, which means that Hillary’s server was simply added to Bill’s Foundation-run server network.
...
2015-09-01-Politico-Gerstein-feds-move-to-consolidate-lawsuits-over-hillary-clinton-emails
Feds move to consolidate lawsuits over Hillary Clinton emailsBy Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-01
The Justice Department is preparing to ask a federal judge to consolidate an unwieldy flurry of pending lawsuits which demand copies of emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton or her top aides, sources told POLITICO Tuesday.
The planned move raises the possibility that dozens of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits could be placed in front of a single judge--at least for a a period of time--in order to avoid conflicting schedules for the release of records.
...
At least one judge handling cases involving Clinton emails has been prodding the government for nearly two months to coordinate the cases, which have been filed by news outlets like Gawker, Vice News and the Associated Press, as well as conservative groups like Judicial Watch and Citizens United.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense for six different judges to be ordering six different things," U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras said at a July hearing on a case filed by Judicial Watch. "These are very unusual circumstances, and it would not take a wild imagination to think that there will be some discovery in these FOIA cases, and if six different judges start ordering six different forms of discovery, that's going to be impossible to manage for everybody. So give that some thought."
...
2015-09-01-WashTimes-Solomon-hillary-clinton-emails-contained-spy-satellite-data
Clinton emails contained spy satellite data on North Korean nukesRevelation among biggest concerns inside intel community
by John Solomon
Washington Times, 2015-09-01
One of the most serious potential breaches of national security identified so far
by the intelligence community inside Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private emails
involves the relaying of classified information concerning
the movement of North Korean nuclear assets,
which was obtained from spy satellites.
[Yes, such information would almost certainly be TSCW.
There are NO other ways of obtaining such information.
Do the shitheads in the MSM think such information is openly available?]
Multiple intelligence sources who spoke to The Washington Times,
solely on the condition of anonymity,
said concerns about the movement of the North Korean information through Mrs. Clinton’s unsecured server are twofold.
First, spy satellite information is frequently classified at the top-secret level
and handled within a special compartment called Talent-Keyhole.
This means it is one of the most sensitive forms of intelligence gathered by the U.S.
Second, the North Koreans have assembled a massive cyberhacking army
under an elite military spy program known as Bureau 121,
which is increasingly aggressive in targeting systems for hacking,
especially vulnerable private systems.
The North Koreans, for instance, have been blamed by the U.S. for the hack of Sony movie studios.
Allowing sensitive U.S. intelligence about North Korea
to seep into a more insecure private email server
has upset the intelligence community because
it threatens to expose its methods and assets for gathering intelligence on the secretive communist nation.
“While everyone talks about the U.S. being aware of
the high threat of hacking and foreign spying,
there was a certain nonchalance at Mrs. Clinton’s State Department
in protecting sensitive data that alarms the intel community,”
one source familiar with the email review told The Times.
“We’re supposed to be making it harder, not easier, for our enemies to intercept us.”
State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner told The Times on Tuesday evening
he couldn’t discuss the email because of ongoing probes by the FBI and the inspector general community.
“There are reviews and investigations under way on these matters generally
so it would not be appropriate to comment at this time,” he said.
The email in question was initially flagged by the inspector general of the intelligence community in July
as potentially containing information derived from
highly classified satellite and mapping system of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
That email was later confirmed to contain classified information
by Freedom of Information Act officials within the intelligence community.
The revelation, still under review by the FBI and intelligence analysts,
has created the most heartburn to date about a lax email system inside the State Department
that allowed official business and — in at least 188 emails reviewed so far —
classified secrets to flow to Mrs. Clinton
via an unsecured private email server hosted at her home in Chappaqua, New York.
The email does not appear to have been copied directly from the classified email system
and crossed what is known as the “air gap” to nonclassified computers, the sources said.
Rather, the intelligence community believes
a State Department employee received the information through classified channels
and then summarized it when that employee got to a nonclassified State Department computer.
[This is known as "gisting".]
The email chain went through Mrs. Clinton’s most senior aides
and eventually to Mrs. Clinton’s personal email, the sources said.
The compromised information did not include maps or images,
but rather
information that could have been derived only from spy satellite intelligence.
It was not marked as classified,
but whoever viewed the original source reports would have readily seen the markings
and it should have been recognized clearly by a trained employee who received the information subsequently
as sensitive, nonpublic information.
Intelligence community professionals are trained to carry forward these markings
and, if needed, request that the information be sanitized
before being transmitted via non-secure means.
[Yes, the IC devotes considerable resources to sanitizing information
so it can move out of codeword channels.
But this is done by trained professionals, sensitive to the issues involved.]
The discovery could affect the FBI investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email,
putting the originator of the email chain into legal jeopardy
and allowing agents to pressure the employee to cooperate
as they try to determine how classified information flowed so freely into Mrs. Clinton’s account
and what senior officials knew about the lax system that allowed such transmissions.
As the investigation has advanced, the intelligence community
has debunked many of Mrs. Clinton’s and the State Department’s original claims
about the private email system.
For instance, the department initially claimed that
it had no idea Mrs. Clinton was conducting government business
on an insecure private email account.
But the intelligence community uncovered evidence early on
that her private email account was used to coordinate sensitive overseas calls
through the department’s operations center,
which arranges communication on weekends and after hours on weekdays.
The coordination of secure communications on an insecure break with protocol
would give foreign intelligence agencies an opportunity to learn about a call early,
then target and intercept the call, U.S. officials told The Times.
[Such things are called, reasonably, "tip offs",
and are an important tool in collection management.]
[By the way, this brings up another issue.
Surely NSA was aware, back in the 2009-12 time period,
that Hillary was using her private, insecure, system for official purposes.
Surely someone who received emails from SecState
coming from "clintonemail.com"
would have registered some concern over this
and advised the nation's supreme signals security agency
of this high-level potential breach in communications discipline.
Remember, while NSA's leadership role in signals intelligence
has been getting most of the media's attention for decades now,
it has responsibility for USG signals security as well.
According to its mission statement, its
Information Assurance mission confronts the formidable challenge ofSure sounds to me like informing the president of
preventing foreign adversaries from gaining access to
sensitive or classified national security information.
the risks his secretary of state's private server posed to the national security
falls squarely within that charter.
How about it, NSA?
Precisely what did you do about this issue,
in real time,
when your advice to the President
could have forestalled this debacle?
Precisely what was NSA aware of, and how did they deal with that?
Why did NSA not flag this for the issues that it would,
as 1999-2005 DIRNSA Michael Hayden has said,
inevitably raise,
and bring this up through the channels they have,
running through the DNI to the NSC,
for appropriate adjudication?
Where is the trail of what NSA did in this regard?]
The concern is in full display in emails that Mrs. Clinton originated
and that the department has already released under the Freedom of Information Act.
“As soon as I’m off call now. Tell ops to set it up now,”
Mrs. Clinton wrote from her personal email account on Oct. 3, 2009,
to top State Department aide Huma Abedin on Oct. 3, 2009,
seeking the department’s operations center to set up
a high-level Saturday morning call
with two assistant secretaries of state and a foreign ambassador.
The email thread even indicated where Mrs. Clinton wanted to receive the call,
at her home, giving a potential intercept target.
Similarly, the very next day,
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Abedin coordinated another call over insecure email
with her ambassador to Afghanistan, former Army Gen. Karl Eikenberry.
The two clearly understood the potential sensitive nature of the Sunday morning call
even as they discussed its coordination on an unprotected email system.
“OK. Does Eikenberry need to be secure?”
Mrs. Clinton asked, referring to the need for a secure phone line to receive the call.
State officials said Mrs. Clinton had a secure phone line installed at her home
to facilitate such calls, which is common for Cabinet-level officials.
Mr. Toner, the State Department spokesman, told the daily press briefing on Tuesday
he did not know who approved Mrs. Clinton having a private email server to conduct official business
but that it was obvious from the emails now released
that many people knew inside State, including some in high places.
[I am not sure that "approved" is the right word here.
"Permitted" seems more appropriate.
Somebody should have told her "No",
but her only boss was the President,
and one may well suspect that he really didn't want to get into an argument with her,
for a number of reasons.]
“People understood that she had a private server,” he told reporters.
“…You’ve seen from the emails.
You have an understanding of people who were communicating with her,
at what level they were communicating at.”
[Yes.
And this is a defense she can bring up:
"How can this be illegal,
when such people as the President and the Attorney General
were well aware of what I was doing,
and raised no objections?
If you want to prosecute me,
you must prosecute them as co-conspirators as well."
Of course, that would not be very helpful to her campaign for the presidency,
and might cause some unhappiness in the Democratic Party,
but from the legal standpoint it might be effective.]
2015-09-01-WashTimes-hillary-clinton-emails-show-foundation-shaped-policy
Emails show Clinton Foundation shaped policyMay have unethically favored family business
By Stephen Dinan and S.A. Miller
Washington Times, 2015-09-01
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails reveal how prominently the Clinton Foundation factored into her thinking as America’s top diplomat, raising questions about where she drew the line between official business and aiding the family charity run by her husband and daughter.
In one instance, Mrs. Clinton appeared to try to steer a Haiti earthquake recovery project to the foundation, according to new emails released this week as the State Department belatedly complies with open records requests for her communications during her four years in office.
Another email shows Mrs. Clinton directing a State Department employee to handle solicitation of money from Norway for a program she was about to announce in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010, and which was being run by the United Nations Foundation, another nonprofit created by Ted Turner that has close ties to her family’s operation.
...
2015-09-01-WP-clinton-wrote-classified-e-mails-sent-using-private-server
Clinton, using private server, wrote and sent e-mails now deemed classifiedBy Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-09-01
While she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote and sent at least six e-mails using her private server that contained what government officials now say is classified information, according to thousands of e-mails released by the State Department.
Although government officials deemed the e-mails classified after Clinton left office, they could complicate her efforts to move beyond the political fallout from the controversy. They suggest that her role in distributing sensitive material via her private e-mail system went beyond receiving notes written by others, and appears to contradict earlier public statements in which she denied sending or receiving e-mails containing classified information.
The classified e-mails, contained in thousands of pages of electronic correspondence that the State Department has released, stood out because of the heavy markings blocking out sentences and, in some cases, entire messages.
The State Department officials who redacted the material cited national security as the reason for blocking it from public view.
Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was one of about four dozen State Department officials whose e-mails were redacted because of national security concerns, according to a Washington Post review. Those officials included top aides such as Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills, some of whom would be likely to fill out senior roles in a Clinton administration. All told, 188 of the e-mails the State Department has released contain classified material.
The extent of the redactions in e-mails sent by Clinton and others, including ambassadors and career Foreign Service officers, points to a broader pattern that has alarmed intelligence officials in which sensitive information has been circulated on non-secure systems. Another worry is that Clinton aides further spread sensitive information by forwarding government e-mails to Clinton’s private account.
But it also highlights concerns raised by Clinton and her supporters that identifying classified material can be a confusing process, and well-meaning public officials reviewing the same material could come to different conclusions as to its classification level.
...
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that “classification is not always a black-and-white, binary judgment. Responsible people can draw different conclusions.”
But the presence of classified information in e-mails Clinton wrote appears to contradict her assurances that she sent no such material.
“I have said repeatedly that I did not send nor receive classified material, and I’m very confident that when this entire process plays out that will be understood by the everyone,” she said last week during a Democratic Party meeting in Minneapolis. She said that government officials may now be making different determinations after the fact, but “it does not change the fact that I did not send, nor receive, material marked classified.”
...
2015-09-02-Politico-Gerstein-hillary-clinton-email-handheld-devices-classified-material-request
Clinton aides pushed to view top-secret material on handhelds, emails showby Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-02
Newly released emails show top-level security officials at State expressing apparent concern about the requests.
...
Since a furor erupted in March over Clinton's decision to use a personal email account and server as her exclusive email during her four years as America's top diplomat, the State Department has steadfastly refused to say who at the agency--if anyone--approved her use of the private arrangement.
[MSNBC Morning Joe had an interview with State Department spokesman John Kirby on 2015-08-26
in which he said
"look, these kinds of things are under review and investigation right now [by whom?]
so I'm not really at liberty to go into too much detail about the past, that's all getting looked at...
that's all getting investigated by our inspector general and members of Congress ..."]
2015-09-02-Schindler-will-hillary-clinton-s-emails-burn-the-white-house
Will Hillary Clinton’s Emails Burn the White House?Counterintelligence specialists suspect that the former secretary of state wasn’t the only member of the Obama administration emailing secrets around.
by John R. Schindler
Daily Beast, 2015-09-02
Hillary Clinton’s email problems are already causing headaches for her presidential campaign. But within American counterintelligence circles, there’s a mounting sense that the former secretary of state may not be the only Obama administration official in trouble. This is a scandal that has the potential to spread to the White House, as well.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation can be expected to be tight-lipped, especially because this highly sensitive case is being handled by counterintelligence experts from Bureau headquarters a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, not by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. That will ensure this investigation gets the needed “big picture” view, since even senior FBI agents at any given field office may only have a partial look at complex counterintelligence cases.
And this most certainly is a counterintelligence matter. There’s a widely held belief among American counterspies that foreign intelligence agencies had to be reading the emails on Hillary’s private server, particularly since it was wholly unencrypted for months. “I’d fire my staff if they weren’t getting all this,” explained one veteran Department of Defense counterintelligence official, adding: “I’d hate to be the guy in Moscow or Beijing right now who had to explain why they didn’t have all of Hillary’s email.” Given the widespread hacking that has plagued the State Department, the Pentagon, and even the White House during Obama’s presidency, senior counterintelligence officials are assuming the worst about what the Russians and Chinese know.
EmailGate has barely touched the White House directly, although it’s clear that some senior administration officials beyond the State Department were aware of Hillary’s unorthodox email and server habits, given how widely some of the emails from Clinton and her staff were forwarded around the Beltway. Obama’s inner circle may not be off-limits to the FBI for long, however, particularly since the slipshod security practices of certain senior White House officials have been a topic of discussion in the Intelligence Community for years.
Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.
“The whole administration is filled with people who can’t shoot straight when it comes to classified,” an Intelligence Community official explained to me this week. Three U.S. officials suggested that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, might be at particular risk if a classified information probe goes wide. But it should be noted that Rice has made all sorts of enemies on the security establishment for her prickly demeanor, use of coarse language, and strategic missteps.
It’s clear that many people inside the State Department had to be aware, at least to some degree, of what Clinton and her inner staff were engaged in. How far that knowledge went is a key question that the FBI is examining. The name Patrick Kennedy pops up frequently. A controversial character, Kennedy is the State Department’s undersecretary for management (hence his Foggy Bottom nickname “M”). A longtime Clinton protégé, Kennedy is believed by many to be the key to this case, since his sign-off likely would have been needed for some of Clinton’s unorthodox arrangements.
Described by more than one insider as “the State Department’s J. Edgar Hoover,” Kennedy is a figure of mystery to many. “I’d put talking to him near the top of my list,” explained a retired senior FBI official, a career counterintelligence agent. “Would Kennedy go down for Hillary? Maybe,” he added, “But will some GS [General Schedule] or FSO [Foreign Service Officer],” meaning a career State Department employee, “go down for Hillary? I doubt it. The FBI will get someone to talk, we always do.”
...
2015-09-03-Politico-judge-feds-plan-to-coordinate-hillary-clinton-email-suits-likely-wont-fly
Judge sees rocky road for feds' plan to coordinate Hillary Clinton email lawsuits
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-03
09/03/15, 12:44 PM EDT Updated 09/03/15, 01:36 PM EDT
...
Judicial Watch attorney Chris Fedeli asked Walton to take additional steps to address the more than 31,000 emails Clinton has said she ordered deleted after her lawyers determined the messages were purely personal in nature. He said it's possible those messages still exist in the possession of Clinton attorney David Kendall, on back-up servers maintained by a tech company Clinton hired, Platte River Networks, or perhaps even on State Department systems.
"No one has said these 31,000 emails don't exist anywhere in the world," Fedeli said. "We do think it's reasonable to believe those emails exist."
When [Justice Department attorney Elizabeth] Shapiro dismissed as "wild speculation" Fedeli's suggestions about more copies of the deleted email, Walton suggested that the messy situation was Clinton's fault because she relied on the personal server for official business.
"Unfortunately, if this private server had not been used, we would not be in this situation," the judge said.
Walton also appeared to reject Shapiro's suggestion that the court defer to Clinton's determination — some 22 months after she left office — about which records were official and which were personal.
"We're not sure exactly what type of evaluation was made of that 31,000" messages," the judge said.
Fedeli noted that the government cannot escape its FOIA obligations by transferring records to a contractor, and he argued Clinton's action was akin to that. But Walton said the records were not transferred out of the government, but never placed in official systems in the first place.
"This is sort of a unique situation," the judge said. "The State Department never had possession of these records."
Walton said he would rule by next week on Judicial Watch's proposal for an order requiring the State Department to reach out to Kendall and Platte River to confirm whether any back up copies of Clinton's purportedly personal emails exist.
...
2015-09-03-McClatchy-Tepid-State-Department-investigation
State Dept. conducts tepid review of ex-secretaries’ email practicesBy Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
McClatchy DC, 2015-09-03
Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal computer and server prompts inquiry
Inspector general informs former aides that answering questions is ‘entirely voluntary’
Years of State Department security practices under review
After a firestorm erupted over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal computer system for government business, the State Department’s internal watchdog launched an inquiry into the email practices of the nation’s most recent top diplomats.
But despite having subpoena power, the inspector general’s review has not been aggressive so far.
The inspector general’s office first asked the former secretaries of state to turn over personal emails in March, though it does not seem to have received any from anyone other than Clinton. In August, it sent brief surveys to current and former aides asking them five yes-or-no questions, according to a copy obtained by McClatchy. But three days later, after some former aides objected, the office dashed off a message assuring them their responses are “entirely voluntary.”
“The State Department inspector general’s office should be going after the information about the former secretaries with the same kind of determination as they are in Hillary Clinton’s case,” said Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer in Washington. “Candidly, it’s rather terrifying if they’re not.”
The request for records was sent to former secretaries Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, according to their offices. It was not sent to Secretary of State John Kerry, who is included in the review, according to a State Department official who is knowledgeable about the situation but not allowed to speak publicly as a matter of practice. Kerry, who requested the review, is the first to use a standard government address ending in “state.gov” for all his business.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson and Elaine Shocas, chiefs of staff to Powell and Albright, respectively, and Philip Zelikow, Rice’s former counselor, confirmed they received the questionnaires. Kerry’s aides also received and completed the survey, the State Department official said.
Some experts say the haphazard policies and procedures regarding email at the State Department could have posed national security risks. The inspector general inquiry, however, isn’t considered an “investigation” and will not examine whether classified emails were sent or received by Clinton, which is being investigated by the FBI. Instead, it is an audit designed to make the department more effective and efficient.
“They (the department) seemed to want to find out if they had been irresponsible over the years and if they could hide it,” Wilkerson said. “To me, it was typical government bureaucracy at work. It seemed like the questions were designed to be answered, but not to be answered in a way that would be indicative of State Department incompetence or responsibility.”
It’s unclear what the inspector general’s office asked Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and her aides. Clinton already turned over her email to the State Department and at least four aides have delivered records, including copies of work emails on personal accounts, to the agency, which is collecting them in response to a subpoena from Capitol Hill. Clinton then deleted all her emails, including those she considered personal.
Marcus Rogers, an expert in cyber forensics at Purdue University, said that if secretaries and their aides used personal email accounts that haven’t been wiped out, “it’s all recoverable.” Even if someone erased emails on computers and hard drives, Rogers said, the Internet provider might have backed up or archived those records.
“Electronic data on its own doesn’t disappear,” he said. “It stays around for a long time. So unless somebody’s physically gone to those servers where this information would have been kept, and not just deleted them but actually did what would be called a wipe of the data, that stuff’s still there.”
Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal email account, routed through a private server at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home when she served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has become the focus of multiple inquiries by the FBI, a pair of inspectors general and Congress.
Revelations that her emails included classified “top secret” information has prompted questions about her judgment and motive for actions that potentially led to national security risks. At the FBI’s request, she turned over her computer server after months of resistance.
While the inspector general has referred the matter to the FBI to assess whether national security was compromised by Clinton’s use of private email, the State Department watchdog is still examining Clinton’s email practices as part of its policy review.
The inspector general’s office declined to provide details on the inquiry being conducted by the Office of Evaluations and Special Projects, including the timetable and how many aides have been contacted. A dozen other top aides to the former secretaries declined to comment or did not return calls.
The inspector general’s office acknowledges it has the power to subpoena documents and records, though there’s no sign that it has done that. It can compel current employees to talk, but it can’t do the same for former employees.
State OIG has power under the Inspector General Act to subpoena documents and records – but not testimony – related to the programs and operations of the department. Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office
In February, Inspector General Steve Linick testified on Capitol Hill that inspectors general should be given the power to “compel witness testimony.”
“As a former prosecutor, I believe that adding this tool, subject to appropriate oversight and coordination, is essential,” he told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
In March, after Clinton’s use of a private email system became public, Kerry asked the inspector general to examine how it handles its records and responds to requests for information following revelations about his predecessor’s use of a personal email account for government business. “It is critical for the State Department to preserve a full and complete record of American foreign policy,” he wrote to Linick.
Some former aides have bristled at any inquiry into their conduct, frustrated to be asked to get involved in what they assume is the State Department’s attempt to provide cover for Clinton.
Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Kerry had no choice but to ask for the review, not necessarily to protect Clinton but to protect his department.
“I don’t blame people for saying, ‘Why are we being dragged into this?’” he said. But “this is more about the State Department. It doesn’t make anyone look good. It’s a headache for them. . . . This is not going to solve the problem for Hillary Clinton.”
Linick told Kerry he would examine the department’s policies and procedures concerning the use, if any, by the five secretaries and their immediate staffs of non-departmental hardware and software to conduct official business, according to an April letter. The review was to include whether communication was secure, government records were properly preserved and the department is properly responding to congressional and open records requests and subpoenas for records.
In its survey to former aides, the office asked if they had used personal hardware or software, such as servers, phones or iPads, to do State Department business, and if yes, how often and why.
It does seem appropriate to ask what other secretaries did. And they ought to be willing to answer those kinds of questions. Dale Eisman, a spokesman for Common Cause, a government watchdog group
Kerry and his staff welcome the review and are cooperating, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
“We are working closely with the inspector general’s office and cooperating with their requests,” he said. “In fact, senior department officials meet weekly with the IG. Secretary Kerry himself met with the IG recently to receive an update on the review and discuss ways to continue to cooperate.”
Toner said the department already has taken steps to improve records management practices, including automatically archiving the emails of Kerry, dozens of senior staff including the deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, several senior advisers, and the secretary’s staff ranging from his chief of staff to assistants who handle paper for him.
Clinton has said that she regrets using a personal system for business but that she acted the same way as her predecessors. “I did what other secretaries of state had done,” she said in an Aug. 17 interview on Iowa Public Radio. “I was permitted to and used a personal email.”
But, according to her predecessors, that’s not true.
Albright, who served as secretary of state under Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, during his second term, never used email while in office, either personal or government, said Alexis Keslinke, a spokeswoman for Albright at Albright Stonebridge Group LLC.
Rice, who served during President George W. Bush’s second term, did not use personal email for business, aides said. Those who wanted to contact her either emailed her aides or called her on the phone, they said.
Georgia Godfrey, Rice’s chief of staff at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said Rice informed the inspector general’s office that she did not have any personal emails that constitute federal records and does not have any electronic media or devices in her possession that contain federal government data.
But Powell, Bush’s first secretary of state, did use a personal laptop and email account for department business, though he did not keep copies of his emails.
“I don’t have any to turn over,” Powell said in March on ABC’s “This Week.” “I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files. A lot of the emails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and state.gov domain, but I don’t know if the servers in the State Department captured those or not.”
Powell’s personal laptop was cleared for use in his office by George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and the department was aware of the setup, Wilkerson said. Powell and Tenet discussed the arrangement with Steve Case, the former CEO of America Online, to ensure the laptop could not be used to listen to conversations in the secretary’s office. Tenet and Case did not return phone calls.
Powell was advised and warned about what he could do and couldn’t do, given that (private email) set up. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
Powell only conducted State Department business while emailing those with government addresses and never sent classified information on his personal computer, Wilkerson said. He said Powell assumed the department would keep his emails.
But in 2005 after he left office, Powell asked the department if it could retrieve some emails in case he wrote a book or wanted to reflect on his time as secretary. State Department officials at first said he could, but later they were vague about whether the department even had his papers on file in a comprehensive and retrievable way.
“They (the State Department) just neglected to grasp emails as increasingly a primary means of communication, therefore needing some kind of protocols and procedures,” Wilkerson said. “They left it until too late.”
2015-09-04-Guardian-Edward-Snowden-interview
Edward Snowden says Hillary Clinton 'ridiculous' to think emails were secureGuardian (UK), 2015-09-04
Edward Snowden has branded as “completely ridiculous” the idea that Hillary Clinton’s personal email server was secure while she was secretary of state.
The National Security Agency whistleblower was speaking in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
In 2014, Clinton accused Snowden of inadvertently helping terrorists. Since then she has toned down such criticism and said the NSA needs to be more transparent.
On Thursday, Snowden was asked what he would say to Clinton now that she is being investigated for sending emails containing classified information while using a private server.
“This is a problem,” Snowden said, “because anyone who has the clearances that the secretary of state has, or the director of any top-level agency has, knows how classified information should be handled.”
He added: “If an ordinary worker at the State Department or the CIA … were sending details about the security of embassies, which is alleged to be in her email, meetings with private government officials, foreign government officials and the statements that were made to them in confidence over unclassified email systems, they would not only lose their jobs and lose their clearance, they would very likely face prosecution for it.”
Asked if Clinton “intentionally endangered US international security by being so careless with her email”, Snowden said it was not his place to say.
He did comment on Clinton’s choice of email server, Platte River Networks.
“When the unclassified systems of the United States government, which has a full-time information security staff, regularly gets hacked, the idea that someone keeping a private server in the renovated bathroom of a server farm in Colorado is more secure is completely ridiculous,” he said.
...
2015-09-08-NYT-second-review-says-classified-information-was-in-hillary-clintons-email
Second Review Says Classified Information Was in Hillary Clinton’s EmailBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-08
WASHINGTON — A special intelligence review of two emails
that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account —
including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program —
has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies
that the emails contained highly classified information
when Mrs. Clinton received them,
senior intelligence officials said.
Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the State Department
disputed the inspector general’s finding last month
and questioned whether the emails had been overclassified by an arbitrary process.
But
the special review —
by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency —
concluded that the emails were “Top Secret,”
the highest classification of government intelligence,
when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011.
On Monday,
the Clinton campaign disagreed with the conclusion of the intelligence review
and noted that agencies within the government often have different views
of what should be considered classified.
...
“Our hope remains that these releases continue
without being hampered by bureaucratic infighting among the intelligence community,
and that the releases continue to be as inclusive and transparent as possible,”
said Nick Merrill, a campaign spokesman.
[I don't see where there is infighting, bureaucratic or otherwise,
among the intelligence community.
They seem unanimous about the classification.
It is Hillary's old department,
now under the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry,
who is supporting her campaign's view.]
John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, echoed Mr. Merrill.
[What do you know? The State Department is echoing the Clinton campaign.
An echo, not a choice.]
“Classification is rarely a black and white question,
and it is common for the State Department to engage internally
and with our interagency partners to arrive at the appropriate decision,”
he said in a statement.
“Very often both the State Department and the intelligence community
acquire information on the same matter through separate channels.
Thus, there can be two or more separate reports
and not all of them based on classified means.
At this time,
any conclusion about the classification of the documents in question
would be premature.”
[Yeah, we're getting a lot of comments like that from the State Department.
But rarely do they seem to have specifics about
who they think should resolve these very legitimate questions, and when.
Merely saying "Wait" isn't very adequate, in my view. Wait for what?
And as to the "two separate sources giving the same information",
let's see what unclassified source
is providing the information that
the IC IG, the CIA, and the NGIA all deem Top Secret.
So we have the IC on one side,
and the State Dept. and the Clinton campaign on the other.
Interesting.]
...
2015-09-08-Factcheck-more-spin-on-clinton-emails
More Spin on Clinton Emailsby Eugene Kiely
Factcheck.org, 2015-09-08
Hillary Clinton directly addressed questions in recent interviews about her exclusive use of a personal email account and server to conduct government business as secretary of state. But her answers only reveal part of the story:
- Clinton said her personal email account was “allowed by the State Department.”
It was permitted if work emails were preserved.
Federal rules required Clinton to preserve work emails before she left office,
but she did not turn over her emails until 21 months after she left office. - Clinton said “turning over my server” to the government shows
“I have been as transparent as I could” about her emails.
But she did so in August after the FBI opened an investigation.
In March, she rejected calls to turn over the server to a neutral party,
saying “the server will remain private.” - Clinton said
“everybody in government with whom I emailed
knew that I was using a personal email.”
But that ignores those — including President Obama —
who did not know that she used it exclusively for government business.
...
‘Allowed by State Department’
Let’s look at some of the statements that Clinton made in her interviews, beginning with whether her unusual email arrangement was “allowed by the State Department.”
...
[State Department spokeswoman Marie] Harf
is admittedly no NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] expert,
but Jason R. Baron is.
Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and a former director of litigation at the National Archives, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in May that “any employee’s decision to conduct all e-mail correspondence through a private e-mail network, using a non-.gov address, is inconsistent with long-established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations governing all federal agencies.”
Also, as we have written, Clinton should have turned over her emails before she left office, but she didn’t.
NARA regulations require federal agencies to maintain an NARA-approved schedule for the disposition of federal records. The State Department Records Disposition Schedule says “incoming and outgoing correspondence and memorandums on substantive U.S. foreign policy issues” should be permanently retained “at the end of the Secretary’s tenure or sooner if necessary.”
Clinton left office Feb. 1, 2013. She did not turn over her emails to the State Department until Dec. 5, 2014, and only after the department in October of that year requested the emails in part to respond to the congressional requests for documents related to the Benghazi attacks on Sept. 11, 2012.
The Clinton campaign has said that she complied with NARA regulations because “more than 90% of those emails should have already been captured in the State Department’s email system before she provided them with paper copies.”
But that assumes that the people receiving an email from Clinton properly preserved the record. Baron, the former director of litigation at NARA, told us for a previous story that Clinton “basically offloaded her burden to others” to preserve her emails. He told us Clinton was out of compliance with the regulations the day she left office.
...
2015-09-09-RealClearPolitics-the-hillary-clinton-email-saga-senior-intelligence-officials-said
The Hillary Clinton Email Saga: “Senior Intelligence Officials Said”by Charles Lipson
Real Clear Politics, 2015-09-09
There’s a bigger story hidden inside the New York Times report that “a special intelligence review of two emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account — including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — . . . contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said.” The review was undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which presumably originated the material. They concluded that the material had originally been given the U.S. government’s highest secrecy classification. Even if one of Clinton’s aides stripped the markings (a felony), Secretary Clinton surely knew satellite intelligence and North Korean nuclear deployments are the U.S. government’s most highly classified information.
The media correctly saw the news as political trouble for Hillary, but they missed two other crucial elements of the story. Somebody high up in the intelligence community leaked that story. And Hillary faces far more than political trouble. She’s being fitted for an orange jumpsuit.
The NYT story came from anonymous sources. For Camp Clinton, the most ominous words are “senior intelligence officials said.” They signal just how furious the intelligence community is at the gross mishandling of their crown jewels. Since the intelligence agencies must now sort through everything Hillary has given to the State Department, plus whatever the FBI can scrape from the server, you can expect the leaks to keep on coming. Worse yet for her, the spy agencies must conduct a full-scale damage assessment, based on the high likelihood her server was hacked by foreign governments (and perhaps some 17-year-old in his parents’ basement in Belgrade).
The intelligence services remember how seriously the Department of Justice dealt with former CIA directors John Deutsch and David Petraeus, who mishandled documents. They will demand equal treatment here. They will keep the heat on by leaking to the press. The Times story shows the faucet is already open.
Hillary’s legal problems stem from the “gross mishandling” of security information, which is a serious crime. It doesn’t matter whether the materials are stamped or not. It doesn’t matter whether you intended to violate the law or not. It is a violation simply to put them anywhere that lacks adequate safeguards. Like a private server. Nobody stamped Gen. Petraeus’ personal calendar, which he kept in an unlocked drawer at home. John Deutsch was just trying to catch up on work by taking his CIA laptop home. Those mistakes are trivial compared with what Clinton is already known to have stored on her private server in Chappaqua.
It’s just hand waving to keep saying the documents were not stamped. Satellite intelligence is always classified. So are private diplomatic discussions with foreign officials. They are born that way. Secretary Clinton is expected to know that, and she has said she was well aware of the classification rules. The straightforward conclusion is that she repeatedly violated laws for handling of national security materials.
...
Why would a public official go to the time, trouble and expense of setting up a private server and paying her own IT people to run it? Simple: to keep the contents under her control even if the email account was discovered. She managed to keep the email account secret throughout her tenure at the State Department and for two years after that, avoiding legitimate Freedom of Information Act requests. When she was finally caught, she took full advantage of the extra layer of insulation her server provided. She reviewed her own records, turned over what she wanted, deleted everything else, and hunkered down. If her account had been at Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, the federal judges overseeing the FOIA lawsuits would have ordered the Internet companies to turn over everything. The FBI could sort it out, and Hillary would have no way to delete the records. On the bright side, with a private server, she didn’t get a lot of pop-up ads for North Korean vacations.
The State Department is still doing its best to protect her,
stonewalling and slow-walking requests for materials.
To supervise the document releases,
they hired Catherine Duval, who moved over from the IRS.
Anybody who cannot find Lois Lerner’s emails
has the right kind of experience for John Kerry.
On Tuesday, Kerry announced he was beefing up his department’s FOIA office
by naming Ambassador Janice Jacobs as "transparency coordinator."
Now, it looks like Jacobs just donated $2,700 to Hillary's campaign.
Was the State Department too dumb to even ask her about possible conflicts of interest?
...
2015-09-09-Fox-and-Friends-John-Kirby-interview-on-Hillary-Clinton-emails
State Department spokesman John Kirby on Hillary Clinton's E-Mails, Iran Dealinterview with John Kirby, State Department spokesman
Fox & Friends, 2015-09-09
[In response to several questions,
on who approved Hillary's use of a private server for her official correspondences
and whether classified information was compromised,
Kirby's response was "Folks are looking into that, investigating that, right now".
That's certainly a folksy response,
but the response the gravity of the situation requires
is a clear statement on exactly WHO looking into these matters,
who is conducting the investigation.
Kirby really should be specific on who (at least what office)
is conducting the investigation.]
2015-09-09-Breitbart-kirby-transparency-czars-donations-to-hillary-not-relevant
Kirby: Transparency Czar’s Donations To Hillary ‘Not Relevantby Ian Hatchett
Breitbart News, 2015-09-09
State Department Spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby (Ret.) stated that
“transparency czar” Janice Jacobs’ donation to Hillary Clinton
is “not relevant”
on Wednesday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.
Kirby said, [relevant remarks being around 3:30 (the original has a video player)]
“She’s absolutely the right choice,
and Secretary Kerry has the utmost trust and confidence in her ability to do this job.
I think it’s important to remember that she’s been a career diplomat for several decades,
appointed under Republican and Democratic administrations.
In fact, her most recent one was under President Bush in the late 2000s.
So, I mean, this is a career diplomat, lots of experience.
The secretary knows that she has the leadership ability to change and to enact reforms.
And the other thing is, look, guys,
it’s not prohibited for federal employees to contribute to political causes or campaigns.
I don’t think we want to live in a democracy where you can’t do that.
And she admitted herself that made this contribution
after she had retired from federal service.”
Kirby added that the donation wasn’t mentioned at Jacobs’ announcement because
“it’s not relevant.
There’s no prohibition against doing that kind of thing.
She did it when she was retired.
And, more importantly, she’s the right person for this job,
because of the experience that she has, leading large organizations,
and enacting reforms and change, and that’s what we want her to do here.”
[Admiral, you're setting a very low bar for ethics.
If something isn't "prohibited", then it isn't relevant?
Anything that isn't prohibited is ethical?
In particular, Jacobs contribution to Clinton's campaign
clearly shows who she favors for the election.
The argument that people can't be forbidden from making campaign contributions
is certainly valid,
but doesn't mean that such contributions don't show who they favor.
It's called "conflict of interest".]
He also pointed to Jacobs’ “career, over so many decades,
under both Republican and — Republican and Democratic administrations”
to show she’s “balanced.”
When asked how much money she gave to George Bush, he answered,
“I don’t have that kind of information, and again, it’s not relevant.”
2015-09-10-WP-Kessler-hillary-clintons-claim-that-everyone-knew-i-was-using-a-personal-email
Hillary Clinton’s claim that ‘everyone’ knew ‘I was using a personal email’by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-09-10
“It was fully above board. Everybody in the government with whom I emailed knew that I was using a personal email.”
–Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, interview with the Associated Press, Sept. 7, 2015
...
Our colleagues at FactCheck.org have cited a lengthy statement to the Senate by Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): “The setting up of and maintaining a private email network as the sole means to conduct official business by email, coupled with a failure to timely return email records into government custody, amount to actions plainly inconsistent with the federal record-keeping laws.”
Baron added that “any employee’s decision to conduct all e-mail correspondence through a private e-mail network, using a non-.gov address, is inconsistent with long-established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations governing all federal agencies.”
As for the recording-keeping requirements, Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall has argued that Clinton’s practice of copying and forwarding e-mails to individuals on the State Department system — combined with her production in 2014 of some e-mails that were not captured — was how she complied with this provision. (The Foreign Affairs Manual, however, makes it clear that before a senior official, such as a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee, departs government service, he or she must prepare an inventory of personal papers that are proposed for removal.)
Baron, in his statement, said that the fact that an e-mail was sent to or received from a “.gov” address “does not automatically ensure” that e-mail would have been archived for preservation in an official recordkeeping system.
Clinton’s claim that her system was “fully above board” appears to be a twist on the claim that what she had done was permitted, while also suggesting a degree of openness about the arrangement.
This brings us to the question of whether “everyone” knew Clinton was using a private e-mail system. As phrased, Clinton sidesteps the question of whether people knew she was exclusively using a private system. (Even President Obama has said he was unaware that Clinton did State Department business only from a private system.)
Still, “everyone” is a sweeping phrase. One would presume that people receiving her e-mails would recognize it was from a private account. But at least one e-mail released by the State Department suggests a senior official was out of the loop.
In a Feb. 27, 2010, e-mail exchange between Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, it was revealed that a senior official named Judith (possibly Judith McHale, then the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy) had contacted the State Department IT help desk because an e-mail she had sent to Clinton had bounced back. Clinton was wondering why she received an e-mail from a State Department technician asking whether she had received a message.
“What happened is Judith sent you an email. It bounced back. She called the email help desk (I guess assuming u had state email) and told them that,” Huma wrote, using email abbreviations. “They had no idea it was YOU, just some random address so they emailed.”
Feb. 27, 2010 email exchange between Hillary Clinton and Huma Aberdin
The Pinocchio Test
Clinton’s careful language once again obscures some basic truths about her decision to only use a private e-mail system for government business: it was unusual and it skirted the edge of the rules.
Declaring that “everyone” she e-mailed understood she was using a private system appears undercut by the Abedin comment that “Judith” contacted the State Department help desk thinking Clinton was using a government e-mail account.
Clinton obviously received e-mails from hundreds of people who realized she was using a private e-mail address. But whether they understood it was her only means of electronic government communication is another question.
Two Pinocchios
2015-09-10-Fox-president-obama-was-hillary-clintons-boss-so-why-isnt-defending-her
President Obama was Hillary Clinton's boss, so why isn't he defending her?By Paul Goldman
Fox News, 2015-09-10
...
Yet the clamor created by former Secretary of State Clinton’s email practices seems, oddly, to be missing the most important voice of all: The president of the United States. He has remained mute for months as to whether his former secretary of state did have the right she is claiming.
Did she, or didn’t she? This a straightforward question. A basic Yes or No will suffice.
The White House seems to be claiming the president’s silence is due to the existence of an ongoing investigation into whether the emails in question contained classified information.
Admittedly, the content of a particular email may raise issues pertaining to its handling, identification, protection or redistribution. These touch on legal issues that may be under investigation.
I get that.
But Clinton’s claim, like my question, addresses a different matter entirely. It is separate and apart from her wisdom in using a private system.
The fact that someone has a right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. This decision, however, is a matter of judgment. Questioning the wisdom of her choice, therefore, becomes germane only if the right itself exists.
Mrs. Clinton’s assertion also doesn’t address her actions regarding storage and handling of official correspondence in her possession after she left office. It is limited to her tenure working for President Obama.
Did the rules operative during the first term of the Obama administration give her the right she claims?
This isn’t a difficult question to answer. It doesn’t ask the president to address the qualitative content of any email currently under review or likely to be in the future. Clinton says she never sent or received an email marked as containing classified information.
This is a carefully nuanced position due in part to the laws and regulations addressing what is, and what isn’t, classified at any given point in time.
But these legitimate matters of inquiry are not germane to the simple question at hand.
American history is replete with controversies involving actions taken by top cabinet members. I am not aware of any time a president or former president failed to support a former cabinet member claiming to have been following administration policy – unless, of course, it was not true.
Mr. President, with all due respect from someone who voted for you two times, I believe you are being unfair to former Secretary Clinton, not to mention the American people.
If she did not have the right she claims, then you need to address this breach in your government’s policy publicly.
However, if she had the right – and the weight of the evidence suggests she did – then she deserves, like any worker, public support from her former boss. It is the necessary and honorable action.
You might favor Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. He’d make a great Democratic president. But as a long-standing supporter of worker's rights, Mr. Biden would surely agree with my position.
Yes or No, Mr. President. Your view of your administration’s policy is the only one that matters, since the former secretary of state worked for you.
Paul Goldman is a political strategist and a former chairman of Virginia's Democratic Party. He served as senior adviser to former Virginia Governors Doug Wilder and Mark Warner.
2015-09-11-NPR-fact-check-hillary-clintons-email-defense-is-a-mixed-bag
Fact Check: Hillary Clinton's Email Defense Is A Mixed BagNPR, 2015-09-11
Five months have passed since we first fact checked Hillary Clinton's arguments defending her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The controversy has not gone away, and the Clinton campaign, hoping for a post-Labor Day reset, is ramping up its defense.
It posted four points on its web site, titled, "Hillary's emails in 4 sentences." It also links to the State Department's cache of the emails and links to a fact sheet for "(lots) more answers to other questions you may have."
Let's take the four sentences and examine those:
...
3. "Nothing she sent or received was marked classified."
So far, there is no evidence that she has sent or received any emails that were marked classified at the time.
More than 100 have been retroactively classified.
Clinton's campaign chalks this up to
feuding between agencies and
a classification system that they claim has run amok.
[I want to make a personal comment here.
In fact, at one time, many decades ago,
I was indoctrinated in precisely the classification system
which, it is claimed, includes at least one of the emails,
namely the "SI/TK" system.
Obviously, I can't say very much about it,
but I think I am at liberty to make one observation:
The indoctrination includes the strong instruction
that intelligence derived in certain ways (spelled out in the indoctrination)
is classified under that system.
There is no ambiguity.
If the intelligence was derived in those ways, it is SI/TK material.
If the State Department disagrees with that,
let's be open about that.
The indoctrination goes on to say that
just because you may read something in the newspaper,
that does not make it unclassified.
Leaks to the media do, unfortunately occur.
But they do not give indoctrinated personnel permission to start talking about them.
The editors of the New York Times and Washington Post
are not declassification authorities.
Now on the "run amok" or "over classification" argument:
There are national technical means of collection.
Does the State Department think those means do not need to be protected?
If so, we're going to have a much less successful intelligence program in the future.
Finally, I see one possible point of validity in Hillary's argument.
If some information indeed has two sources,
one SI/TK and one open source (say the South China Morning Post),
then I can understand State Dept. personnel discussing the open source information.
But if they want to make that claim vis-a-vis these emails,
they are going to have demonstrate very clearly that the emails in question
were derived from the open source material.
In particular, there is a Washington Times report
that one email contains information about the North Korean nuclear program.
Now, North Korea is famously secretive about things in general,
and surely all the more so about their nuclear program.
Does anyone really think that there is much open source information about that program?
I don't know what that specific email said,
the email is now classified,
but if it did contain such information
then to argue that its classification represents
"bureaucratic infighting" or overclassification
really does invite criminal charges being brought
to make clear that such cavalier disregard for reasonable security procedures
will result in criminal penalties.]
2015-09-12-NYT-hillary-clinton-long-road-to-sorry
Hillary Clinton’s Long Road to ‘Sorry’ Over Email UseBy MAGGIE HABERMAN and AMY CHOZICK
New York Times, 2015-09-12
2015-09-12-WP-tech-company-no-indication-that-clintons-e-mail-server-was-wiped
Tech company: No indication that Clinton’s e-mail server was ‘wiped’By Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post, 2015-09-12
2015-09-14-Politico-Gerstein-hillary-clinton-gmail-google-classified-content
Now-classified Clinton emails sitting on Google serversby Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-09-14
Classified emails passed through commercial email services like Google and AOL on their path to or from a private server maintained by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, but so far, the government appears to have done little to retrieve or secure the messages.
A POLITICO review of Clinton emails made public by the State Department shows that at least 55 messages now deemed to include classified information appear to have been sent to or from private accounts other than Clinton’s. That number is certain to grow substantially as State processes all Clinton emails and sorts through emails turned over to the department by several of her top aides.
...
2015-09-14-JW-judicial-watch-new-state-department-documents-reveal-hillary-clinton-email-gap
New State Department Documents Reveal Hillary Clinton Email GapJudicial Watch, 2015-09-14
Judicial Watch today released newly obtained Department of State documents showing a nearly five-month total gap in the emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to return to the State Department late last year. The documents also show that one key State Department official did not want a written record of issues about the Clinton emails. The documents also raise new questions about the accuracy of representations made to Judicial Watch, the courts, Congress, and the public by the Obama administration and Clinton.
...
2015-09-14-Hill-state-dept-records-show-four-month-gap-in-clinton-emails
Initial State Dept. review found months-long gap in Clinton emailsby Julian Hattem
The Hill, 2015-09-14
2015-09-22-Breitbart-exclusive-hillary-clinton-email-company-hacked-foreign-attackers
EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton Email Company Was Hacked By Foreign Attackersby Patrick Howley
Breitbart.com, 2015-09-22
2015-09-23-WP-state-departments-account-of-e-mail-request-differs-from-clintons
State Department’s account of e-mail request differs from Clinton’sBy Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post, 2015-09-23
Throughout the controversy over her use of a private e-mail system
while she was secretary of state,
Hillary Rodham Clinton has described her decision last year
to turn over thousands of work-related e-mails
as a response to a routine-sounding records request.
“When we were asked to help the State Department make sure
they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me,
I’m the one who said,
‘Okay, great, I will go through them again,’ ”
Clinton said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And we provided all of them.”
But State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton’s characterization.
They said the request was not simply about general record-keeping
but was prompted entirely by
the discovery that
Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system.
["the discovery"?
They made the request to Clinton in 2014; she left State in February 2013.
Surely State realized that their Secretary was using a private email server
early in her Jan. 2009-Feb. 2013 term.
Indeed, Hillary herself has said that
"everyone" (i.e., all the people she corresponded via email with)
was aware of her email address, clearly not a state.gov one.
So whatever caused them to make the request in 2014 was some other event,
either some external request or story
or an internal analysis of the situation.
See below for what that was.]
They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014,
at least three months before
the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors
to provide their e-mails.
“In the process of responding to congressional document requests pertaining to Benghazi,
State Department officials recognized that
it had access to relatively few email records from former Secretary Clinton,”
State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement e-mailed to The Washington Post.
“State Department officials contacted her representatives during the summer of 2014
to learn more about her email use and the status of emails in that account.”
Kirby added that the agency then recognized
“that we similarly did not have extensive email records from prior Secretaries of State
and therefore included them when we requested their records in October 2014.”
The State Department also realized
it was not automatically preserving internal communications,
with some other senior officials’ e-mails missing.
...
In the spring and summer of 2014,
while it was in the process of trying to find
records sought by the newly formed House Select Committee on Benghazi,
the State Department’s congressional affairs office
found Clinton’s personal e-mail address listed on a few records in a batch of Benghazi documents
but no government e-mail account for her.
“We realized there was a problem,”
said a State Department official who until that moment
had not been aware of Clinton’s private e-mail setup.
The official, like some others interviewed for this story,
spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
[So that was what it took for anyone at State
to realize that there was a problem with Hillary's email usage.]
The department knew that the Republican-led committee would ask about
the private e-mail domain — clintonemail.com — listed on some of the documents.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry,
who was also learning about her exclusive use of the e-mail account for the first time,
was eager to “rip off the Band-Aid,”
[Pardon me for being obtuse,
but I really am not clear on what he considered the Band-Aid to be in this situation.]
as two key aides described it,
and to make sure the agency provided the Benghazi panel with any records it properly requested.
State Department staffers were trying to figure out
where her work e-mails were stored
and how they might try to assemble them, one official said.
Clinton turned over copies of about 30,000 work-related e-mails
to the department in December.
...
The issue has led to frustrations within the State Department in recent months,
as some officials have grown tired of having to answer for
a political controversy not of their making, according to three senior officials.
[Good to hear that they are not entirely part of Clinton's campaign.
Also, by the way, this should not be just a political controversy.
It would be nice if some Democrats could see the problems Hillary caused,
and not just accuse those concerned about those problems as being politically motivated.
Are only Republicans concerned about what Hillary did, and the problems it caused?]
Meanwhile, Kerry has told officials to prioritize fixing long-standing problems in the agency’s outdated archive system.
While some of Clinton’s predecessors used private e-mail addresses, none took the additional step of conducting all of their business over a personal account housed on a private server. Clinton used a server that was kept for a time in her New York home. After she left office in 2013, the server was managed by Platte River.
The FBI has been investigating the security of Clinton’s e-mail setup. Officials have said Clinton is not a target of the inquiry.
2015-09-25-NYT-hillary-clinton-email-inquiry-weighs-if-aides-erred-at-send
Hillary Clinton Email Inquiry Weighs if Aides Erred at ‘Send’By ERIC LIPTON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-25
WASHINGTON — The email described a deteriorating situation in Libya, with snipers shooting people in the streets as rebels tried to unseat President Muammar el-Qaddafi and worried American diplomats in the midst of a “phased checkout” from Benghazi. It arrived in the private email account of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, one Sunday morning in April 2011, with unforeseen consequences.
That email, which included an update from the Africa Command of the Department of Defense detailing Libyan military movements, is part of the evidence that law enforcement officials say the F.B.I. is now examining as it tries to determine whether aides to Mrs. Clinton mishandled delicate national security information when they communicated with their boss.
The Libyan dispatch, written by an aide to Mrs. Clinton and then forwarded to her by Huma Abedin, one of her top advisers, should have been considered classified, according to intelligence officials. And, they say, other emails to Mrs. Clinton they have found,
including one addressing North Korea’s nuclear weapons system
[That is the one that, if disclosed,
seems to have the greatest potential for harm to the United States.]
and a third discussing United States drone strikes in Pakistan, should have been marked “Top Secret.”
There is no evidence that any of the emails — a small portion of some 60,000 that Mrs. Clinton sent or received as secretary of state — were hacked or caused any harm to American interests, and law enforcement officials have said she is not a target of their investigation. But one of the questions they are seeking to answer is whether her aides or other State Department officials broke federal rules or laws when they sent her information. And arriving at an answer will not be simple, given the complex and often conflicting views of just how diplomatically fragile the information conveyed in the emails actually was.
Of the emails now being scrutinized by the F.B.I., the most is known about the one sent to Mrs. Clinton in April 2011 about the worsening condition in Libya.
Its author was Timmy T. Davis, a State Department official who was then a personal aide to Mrs. Clinton. He was reporting to her information that had been received from J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, who was killed 17 months later in Benghazi.
“Stevens Update (important),” says the subject line, before continuing, that “Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi. The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout (paying hotel bills, moving some comms to the boat, etc).”
The email, a copy of which was recently posted online by the State Department, also included an update from the United States Africa Command that indicated that Mr. Qaddafi’s forces had been sent to a city south of Benghazi, “with five vehicles at the eastern gate and 50 at the western gate,” information that in retrospect, intelligence officials said, should have been considered classified.
Even if Mrs. Clinton’s aides simply summarized classified material provided to them by others — as opposed to forwarding her a classified document — they may have violated federal laws that govern how intelligence information is handled, experts in government classification laws said.
But Mr. Merrill pointed out that the movements by Mr. Qaddafi’s forces had been reported by newspapers before the email was ever sent. And, he said, the email that Mr. Davis sent to Ms. Abedin and other top aides to Mrs. Clinton said at the top “SBU,” an abbreviation for “sensitive but unclassified.”
Ms. Abedin then forwarded it to Mrs. Clinton. While Ms. Abedin would have no clear reason to presume this information was classified, Mr. Davis could be found at fault for distributing the information in an unclassified setting. Mr. Davis, who is still at the State Department, did not respond to a request for comment.
Another email the F.B.I. is looking at, according to officials who have been briefed on its content, addresses issues related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and intelligence officials have said it should have been classified as “Top Secret.”
The intelligence officials said that State Department officials could have obtained information in the email only from a satellite surveillance program called Talent Keyhole. But the State Department has challenged that classification, saying it could have obtained the same information from public or nonclassified sources, an assessment that some experts say could be valid.
[Dear State Department:
Rather than making the rather obvious and indisputable remark that
the same information could have been obtained
from public or nonclassified sources,
how about pointing out whether such public sources actually exist.
Further, how about asking the author of the email
precisely what his or her source was.
How long would it take to ask that rather obvious question,
and report the answer?]
“There is a lot of information publicly available that people inside the intelligence community or the government might not be aware of,” said Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official who specialized in North Korea issues and now serves as a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “So there are gray areas here. I don’t know if this particular email falls in that gray area.”
A third email under scrutiny included a copy of a New York Times article about the C.I.A.’s lethal drone program, which is classified. In the email, State Department officials complain about aspects of the article. Intelligence officials say that the comments about the article should also have made the correspondence “Top Secret.” As the F.B.I. moves forward with its investigation, it will be examining all of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to determine whether any others had sensitive information on them and if those materials were inappropriately passed to her.
That task could take a significant amount of time. The bureau has copies of the roughly 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton gave to the State Department last year that she said were government records. And it was revealed this week that the bureau had been able to recover some of the personal emails she deleted. Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to seize on the recovery of Mrs. Clinton’s personal emails to open a new front in their inquiries into her personal email account.
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Operations Committee, has called on the F.B.I. to turn over any of these recovered emails to the State Department or some other third party so they can be reviewed to determine if any should have been retained as government records.
“If the FBI has recovered all of her emails, they must be reviewed promptly by the appropriate authorities to determine what is official and what is not, and whether they contain classified material, so that any national security concerns can be mitigated,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement Wednesday.
...
2015-09-25-Breitbart-emails-hillary-clinton-petraeus-discovered-contradicting-sworn-statement
Emails Between Hillary Clinton and Petraeus Discovered, Contradicting Her Sworn Statementby John Hayward
Breitbart.com, 2015-09-25
2015-09-26-NYT-string-of-emails-raises-questions-about-when-hillary-clinton-began-using-personal-account
String of Emails Raises Questions About When Hillary Clinton Began Using Personal AccountBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-26
WASHINGTON — A string of emails that has been provided to the State Department raises new questions about whether Hillary Rodham Clinton has accurately described her use of a personal account when she was secretary of state.
Mrs. Clinton has said that she retained no emails from her first two months in office because she used an account that she no longer has access to. She has said that on March 19, 2009, she began using the personal account — hdr22@clintonemail.com — that she relied on for the rest of her time in office.
But on Friday, State Department officials said they had been given copies of an email chain between Mrs. Clinton and David H. Petraeus, the commander of United States Central Command at the time, that shows that Mrs. Clinton was using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account by Jan. 28, 2009.
The chain, with emails from Jan. 10, 2009, to Feb. 1, 2009, was provided to the State Department by its inspector general and by the Defense Department, according to State Department officials.
Mrs. Clinton has said publicly and in a court filing under oath that she gave the State Department last year all of the 30,000 work-related emails in her possession. It is not clear why she never provided the newly discovered email chain to the State Department or why she said she did not begin using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account until two months after she took office.
A spokesman for her presidential campaign declined to comment.
...
2015-09-26-WP-Cillizza-why-ive-written-50-posts-on-hillary-clintons-e-mails
Why I’ve written 50 posts on Hillary Clinton’s e-mailsby Chris Cillizza
Washington Post "The Fix" blog, 2015-09-26
...
I have written lots and lots of blog posts about Hillary Clinton's e-mail issues since the story came to light in March. And I stand by every one.
Here's why:
1. Hillary Clinton began this race as the biggest non-incumbent front-runner for a party's presidential nomination in the post-World War II era. The job she held just prior to running for president was as secretary of state. The best way to understand how she handles everything from the mundane day-to-day activities of governance to the crises that present themselves from time to time is by studying not just her public actions at the State Department but the thinking behind those decisions. Her e-mails provide a written record of how she thinks, who she relies on and how she navigates sticky situations. Her e-mails are essential to who she is. And, therefore, very much worth looking into -- and writing about.
2. No secretary of state has ever used a private e-mail server exclusively. For all of Clinton's insistence that this was standard operating procedure for government officials, it wasn't. Yes, lots and lots of government officials have used both a government e-mail address and a private e-mail address. None before Clinton had used only a private server. That makes what she did anomalous -- and worth paying attention to.
3. The story about the e-mail server has changed. Repeatedly. When Clinton acknowledged the existence of the server back in March -- following a New York Times report revealing it -- she insisted that the private server need not be examined by a third party. She (finally) turned it over last month. She said that the handing over of the e-mails was a procedure that all former and current secretaries of state were undergoing at the same time. But, as reporting from The Post this week showed, the State Department specifically requested Clinton's e-mails after they realized she had used private e-mail exclusively. It wasn't until months later that requests for documents was made of other former secretaries of state. A story that keeps changing like that bears further analysis and investigation.
...
2015-09-27-HuffingtonPost-HRC-Meet-the-Press-interview
Hillary Clinton Says She Had Nothing To Do With Private Email Serverby Ali Watkins
Huffington Post, 2015-09-27
WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Sunday further addressed the controversy over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state, insisting she had nothing to do with setting up the server, choosing the server, transitioning to the server, turning over emails from the server or pretty much doing anything other than continuing to send emails.
"I wasn't that focused on my email account, to be clear here," Clinton told Chuck Todd on NBC’s "Meet The Press."
"[The server] was already there. It had been there for years. It is the system that my husband's personal office used when he got out of the White House. And so it was sitting there in the basement. It was not any trouble at all," Clinton said.
[She used the private server "Because it was there"?
That's a reason?
That's a fact, not a reason.
The government state.gov accounts were also available for her use,
where she would have been
clinton@state.gov or secretary@state.gov or some such, no doubt of her choosing,
rather than
hdr22@clintonemail.com.]
"I can't control the technical aspects of it. I'm not by any means a technical expert. I relied on people who were."
As for the notion that Clinton didn’t turn over all relevant emails stored on the server to the State Department, she said she didn’t have anything to do with that, either.
“All I can tell you is that when my attorneys conducted this exhaustive process, I did not participate, I didn't look at them,” she said. “I wanted them to be as clear in their process as possible. I didn't want to be looking over their shoulder. If they thought it was work-related, it would go to the State Department."
[Yet in her earlier statements about declaring
what was personal versus what was work-related,
she defended herself by asserting that
it was the official who got to make that call.
“Under the law, that decision is made by the official.
I was the official. I made those decisions.”
(HRC press conference, 2015-08-28)
Now she says, "No, I didn't make the call, it was my attorneys."]
And once everything had been turned over, she didn’t have anything to do with deciding how the remaining emails got erased, she said.
"My attorney said, 'Well, what do you want us to do with all these personal emails?' I said, 'Well, I don't need to keep them. I don't need them or want them.' So they then talked to the IT server, the technical people who were responsible for maintaining them and said, 'You know, we don't need them anymore,'" Clinton said. "That's the limit of my knowledge."
The candidate also continued to obfuscate about the reasons the State Department first asked her and several other former secretaries of state to go back through their email records.
Clinton and her camp have said the State Department made the request because they recognized their own record keeping system was inadequate. But State Department officials told The Washington Post this week that the request was prompted by the discovery that Clinton had, in fact, used a private server.
"They found gaps in their own record keeping," Clinton said Sunday.
"They found discrepancies in their record keeping -- not in my records, per se, in their overall record keeping," she said Sunday. "It got us to the same place. We looked through everything. We gave them everything work related."
As for the notion that Clinton used the private email server in order to avoid accountability or make it more difficult for Congress to get a hold of her communications -- that’s, of course, wrong too, she said.
“It’s totally ridiculous. That never crossed my mind,” Clinton said.
[How on earth can anyone believe "That never crossed [her] mind."?]
Clinton’s use of the private email server has continued to roil her campaign aspirations and raise eyebrows around Washington, particularly with news this week that some of the emails Clinton -- or Clinton’s aides, technical experts, or whoever else -- had deemed personal actually turned out to be work related.
2015-09-28-NYT-hillary-clinton-says-she-cannot-explain-why-previously-undisclosed-emails-turned-up
Hillary Clinton Says She Cannot Explain Why Previously Undisclosed Emails Turned Up[Headline for print version:
"Clinton Says She Can’t Explain Emails Sent Before Acknowledged 2009 Start"]
by Amy Chozick
New York Times, 2015-09-28
[The New York Times coverage of HRC's Meet the Press interview.]
Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that she could not fully explain the discovery of a string of work emails sent from her personal account more than two months earlier than when she has said she began using that address as secretary of state. But she said she hoped that voters would look past what she called the “drip, drip, drip” of the furor over her emails.
“There was a transition period. You know, I wasn’t that focused on my email,” Mrs. Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about emails sent from her personal account in her first two months after taking office in January 2009. She had previously said she did not begin using a clintonemail.com address for State Department business until that March.
The State Department said on Friday that Mrs. Clinton had exchanged emails in late January and February 2009 with Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the commander of the United States Central Command.
Pressed to explain the discrepancy, Mrs. Clinton said it was beyond her technical understanding.
She said the clintonemail.com server had existed in the basement of her family’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y., for years before she added her account. “It apparently took a little time to do that. And so there was about a month where I didn’t have everything already on the server, and we went back, tried to, you know, recover whatever we could recover,” she said. “And I think it’s also fair to say that, you know, there are some things about this that I just can’t control.”
“I am by no means a technical expert,” she added. “I relied on people who were.”
[Personally,
I do not think it worth making too big a deal over her personal statements on this.
If she forgot details of her email practices in her first months as Secretary,
that is understandable and forgivable, in my book.
What is troublesome, however,
is the fact that
there seems not to have been a record of those emails on her server,
as opposed to, evidently, the DoD server used by GEN Petraeus.
Why were those emails not turned over as part of her work-related dump?
She repeatedly notes that she was not the technical expert for her system.
No doubt.
But it makes it all the more significant that the person who was her technical guru,
Bryan Pagliano,
has pleaded the Fifth, and refused to talk to the FBI.
Hmmm. What does he fear?]
...
When [Meet the Press interviewer Chuck] Todd prefaced a question by saying he wanted to pose “an alternative explanation that has sort of been circulating,” Mrs. Clinton laughed. “Another conspiracy theory?” she interjected, repeating a line Mr. Todd had used at the outset of the interview.
The other possible explanation, he said, was that Mrs. Clinton had perhaps used a private server because she planned to run for president in 2016 and wanted to shield her correspondence from any potential congressional investigations or Freedom of Information Act requests.
“It’s totally ridiculous. That never crossed my mind,” she said.
...
Mrs. Clinton repeatedly said she had handed over all work-related emails and had not been involved in her lawyers’ decisions about which emails met that definition. “I didn’t want to be looking over their shoulder. If they thought it was work-related, it would go to the State Department,” she said.
“That’s the limit of my knowledge. And I know I was a little sarcastic about it in one exchange with the press,” she said, alluding to an exchange last month with a Fox News reporter about whether her server had been wiped clean. “Sorry, guys, but you know, I’m not a technical expert.”
...
2015-09-28-WP-Kessler-hillary-clintons-incomplete-timeline-on-her-personal-email-account
Hillary Clinton’s incomplete timeline on her personal e-mail accountby Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-09-28
...
Clinton appears to be sticking to her timeline because it obscures the fact that she exclusively used a private e-mail for company business. If she had used a State Department e-mail, just as many other cabinet officials in the Obama administration used “.gov” addresses, it’s likely the State Department would not have had trouble responding to congressional requests. That’s why there are “gaps in the record keeping.”
As part of Clinton’s effort to clear up questions about her e-mail set-up, Clinton should begin using a more complete timeline regarding her staff member’s dealings with the State Department on this matter. The current timeline is incomplete.
Three Pinocchios
2015-09-30-NYT-hillary-clinton-emails-state-department
3 Hillary Clinton Emails Deemed ‘Secret’ in State Dept. Review of 6,300 PagesBy MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-09-30
WASHINGTON — Three emails sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2011 when she was secretary of state contained information that should have been considered “secret,” the government’s second-highest classification, according to a State Department review of about 6,300 pages of her emails made public on Wednesday.
In one case, officials have deemed the email secret because aides to Mrs. Clinton attached a document containing the minutes of secret negotiations in 2008 between Israelis and Palestinians that had been posted online by the Al Jazeera television network.
In another instance, two emails sent to Mrs. Clinton contained summaries of confidential discussions among officials of six world powers about Iran’s nuclear program. The emails, sent by Jake Sullivan, one of Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers at the State Department, have now been marked secret by the department.
...
2015-10-02-NYT-malware-on-hillary-clinton-server-prompts-look-at-suspected-russian-hacking
Spam Sent to Hillary Clinton Server Prompts Look at Suspected Russian HackingBy DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
new York Times, 2015-10-02
WASHINGTON — It turns out that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email account, like seemingly everyone else’s in America, was hit by spam sent to try to lure her into clicking on a malicious link — one that could have compromised the security of her communications when she was secretary of state.
But did that put her more at risk than if she had relied solely on the State Department’s internal systems? Almost certainly not. After all, in 2014 the unclassified email systems at the State Department and the White House were shut down, often for days at a time, as government security experts tried to erase the damage done by the hackers, suspected to be Russians, probably linked to the government. It seems virtually certain, investigators say, that the offenders in that case siphoned vast numbers of emails out of both systems.
Still, the evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s personal account had been on the receiving end of a “spear phishing” attempt, revealed in a batch of her emails released by the State Department on Wednesday, raises the same question the F.B.I. is trying to answer as it combs through the forensic evidence from the server that was once in Mrs. Clinton’s basement.
And that is whether the attackers who successfully got into the unclassified systems at the State Department and the White House also got into Mrs. Clinton’s. She would have been a natural target for a state-sponsored cyberattack by adversaries who have made clear their determination to learn as much as they can about the inner workings of the United States government. And the possible vulnerability of her home-based system remains a central mystery in the investigations.
“It would stand to reason,” one person involved in the investigation said recently, “that anyone who had planted malware in the State Department system would have seen a very high-level official talking to other high-level officials, and followed the trail.” But, the person added, “we don’t know that happened.”
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to not be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said there was no evidence that the system had ever been breached. “All these emails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam,” he said.
There is also no evidence that the spammers who targeted her knew that it was the secretary of state at the other end of the attack. The fact that it was sent four times to her account over a period of hours suggests it was sent by an automated system.
Some experts disagree. Justin Harvey, the chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, said in an interview that “the chances are still quite high that it was humanly targeted.” In such an attack, the spam probably would have been sent first to her aides, in hopes of getting to her account.
But if Mrs. Clinton’s system was successfully pierced — perhaps in some other attack — Mrs. Clinton might well not have known it, either. Other email accounts, including one for her husband, Bill, the former president, resided on the same server in their basement of their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. No one has yet explained what kind of monitoring systems were on that server, if any.
...
2015-10-05-WP-Wemple-today-shows-savannah-guthries-strange-e-mail-question-for-hillary-clinton
‘Today’ show’s Savannah Guthrie’s strange e-mail question for Hillary Clintonby Eric Wemple
Washington Post Opinion, 2015-10-05
...
“If the tables were turned,” [Guthrie] asked,
“and it was Dick Cheney or Karl Rove who had a private e-mail account
and a private server on which they conducted all their government business,
would you be as understanding?”
...
Actually, Guthrie didn’t need to ask Clinton
how she would have responded to Republican e-mail shenanigans.
That’s a matter of public record.
Back in June 2007, the House oversight committee, then led by Democrat Henry Waxman,
issued a report titled, “Investigation of Possible Presidential Records Act Violations.”
In its inquiry into the Bush White House’s involvement with the firing of U.S. attorneys —
plus other investigations —
Waxman’s committee uncovered evidence that White House officials
used e-mail addresses controlled by the Republican National Committee.
A deeper look into the matter found that 88 White House officials were doing so.
Among them was Rove, who made extensive use of the RNC server;
it preserved 140,216 e-mails that were either sent or received by the White House political guru.
In 2007, Clinton complained in a speech about the hubbub:
“You know our Constitution is being shredded.
We know about the secret wiretaps,
about the secret military tribunals,
we know about the secret White House email accounts,”
she said.
...
2015-10-06-WT-state-dept-tells-hillary-clinton-search-more-email
State Dept. tells Hillary Clinton to search for more emailsby Stephen Dinan
Washington Times, 2015-10-06
The State Department has instructed former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton go back to her Internet companies and try to recover email messages from any personal email accounts that she used during her time in government, saying it appears she didn’t turn over all of her documents.
In a letter to Clinton lawyer David E. Kendall, the department said it has become aware of messages Mrs. Clinton sent to other government officials in her first few months in office, but which she did not turn over as part of the more than 30,000 emails she did relinquish last December.
Mrs. Clinton had previously said she used a personal email account — the same one she kept as a senator — to do government business during the first couple of months she was at the State Department. Her campaign said she no longer had access to those messages.
But after some of those messages were produced from the Defense Department, the State Department realized it had a problem.
“As a result, I ask that you confirm that,
with regard to her tenure as secretary of state,
former Secretary Clinton has provided the department
with all federal records in her possession,
regardless of their format or the domain
on which they were stored or created,
that may not otherwise be preserved
in the department’s recordkeeping system,”
“To the extent her emails might be found on any internet service and email providers, we encourage you to contact them.” Mr. Kennedy wrote.
Mrs. Clinton’s email practices have become a major problem for her presidential aspirations.
During her time as secretary she rejected use of an account on State Department servers, instead using her personal email for several months, then switching over to an account she kept on a server at her home in New York.
Some of her top aides, likewise, did their business on non-State.gov accounts. The arrangement meant that many key communications have been shielded from public disclosure for years, thwarting the intent of open-records laws.
2015-10-06-mcclatchydc-Datto-cloud-backup
Second IT firm agrees to give Clinton’s server data to FBIBy Greg Gordon and Anita Kumar
McClatchyDc, 2015-10-06
Summary:
Former secretary of state hired Datto Inc. to provide a private cloud backup of her emails
FBI asked the Connecticut company to turn over data. It agreed.
State Department also asking again whether she turned over all of her business emails
WASHINGTON
Hillary Clinton hired a Connecticut company to back up her emails on a “cloud” storage system, and her lawyers have agreed to turn whatever it contains over to the FBI, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday.
The disclosure came as a Republican Senate committee chairman, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, also asked the firm to turn over to the committee copies of any Clinton emails still in its possession.
...
Datto Inc., based in Norwalk, Conn., became the second data storage firm to become entangled in the inquiry into Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, which has sparked a furor that has dogged her campaign. In August, Clinton and the firm that had managed her server since June 2013, Colorado-based Platte River Networks, agreed to surrender it for examination by the FBI.
On Friday, Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, and Platte River agreed to allow Datto to turn over the data from the backup server to the FBI, said the person familiar with Datto’s storage, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Datto said in a statement that “with the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation.”
...
On May 31, 2013, four months after Clinton left office, the Clinton Executive Service Corp. [!!], which oversaw her email server contracts, hired Platte River to maintain her account. Its New Jersey-based server replaced the server in her New York home that had handled her emails throughout her tenure as secretary of state.
Several weeks ago, Platte River employees discovered that her private server was syncing with an offsite Datto server, he said.
When Datto acknowledged that was the case, a Platte River employee replied in an email: “This is a problem.”
[Why?]
Johnson said that “Datto apparently possessed a backup of the server’s contents since June 2013.”
Upon that discovery, Platte River “directed Datto to not delete the saved data and worked with Datto to find a way to move the saved information . . . back to Secretary Clinton’s private server.”
The letter also noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.
Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.
It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited
...
2015-10-06-Politico-hillary-clinton-emails-server
Employee at Clinton's email hosting company feared a cover-upPlatte River Networks said they were asked to limit backups of her server.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-06
2015-10-07-WSJ-millennial-gen-x-or-boomer-how-the-hillary-clinton-emails-read-to-different-generations
Millennial, Gen X or Boomer: How the Hillary Clinton Emails Read to Different Generationsby Emma Court
Wall Street Journal Blog, 2015-10-07
[An amusing contrasting of different generations technological awarenesses.]
2015-10-08-Politico-hillary-clinton-trey-gowdy-emails
Gowdy fights back with new Clinton emailsSid Blumenthal offered advice on Libya strategy
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-08
House GOP Benghazi investigators are charging that
Hillary Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal acted as her "de facto political adviser" on Libya
despite having a financial stake in the country that Clinton eventually became aware of.
...
In 2011, Blumenthal — a longtime Clinton friend who was barred by President Barack Obama from working for Clinton at State —
wrote Clinton a series of intelligence memos on everything from the movement of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces
to disputes within the Libyan rebel groups and their plans of attack.
He later admitted to GOP investigators that he did not write or even confirm the information he passed on to the nation’s top diplomat.
Rather, Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA operative and Blumenthal business partner, did.
Drumheller and Blumenthal were working with on a new Libya startup called Osprey, headed by retired Army General David Grange. They hoped the company would contract with the fledgling Libyan government to full fill its needs during the transition period, including floating hospitals and, apparently, police or military training.
The GOP cites emails in which Blumenthal encourages Clinton to boldly address Libya, back a no fly-zone, arm the rebels — or, have a private contractor do so.
...
Republicans contend that her claim that the memos were “unsolicited” is bogus,
arguing that half of her emails on Libya relate to Blumenthal in some way.
Of the 1,800 new pages of emails they received, for example,
500 pages were with or about Blumenthal.
“The fact that former Secretary Clinton relied so heavily on an individual for the Libyan intervention … is mind boggling,”
writes Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). “More disturbing is that at the same time Blumenthal was pushing Secretary Clinton to war in Libya, he was privately pushing a business interest of his own in Libya that stood to profit from contracts with the new Libyan government—a government that would exist only after a successful U.S. intervention in Libya that deposed Qaddafi.”
...
2015-10-08-Politico-judges-refuse-to-align-clinton-email-foia-lawsuits
Judges refuse to align Clinton email FOIA lawsuitsBy Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-10-08
Federal district court judges in Washington
have unanimously rejected a bid by the Obama Administration
to try to coordinate aspects of nearly 40 Freedom of Information Act lawsuits
relating to the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides.
The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the State Department
and at the urging of at least two judges on the court,
moved last month to put scheduling and record preservation issues in the cases
in front of a single federal judge.
At the moment, the cases are pending before 17 different judges,
the government said in a recent filing.
In an order issued Thursday (and posted here),
Chief Judge Richard Roberts that the judges on the court met privately to discuss the issue on Tuesday
and decided against any formal process to align the cases.
...
2015-10-08-Politico-hillary-clinton-email-server-hacked-china-south-korea-germany
Clinton server faced hacking from China, South Korea and GermanyBy Josh Gerstein and Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-10-08
Hillary Clinton's private email server containing tens of thousands of messages from her tenure as secretary of state — including more than 400 now considered classified — was the subject of hacking attempts from China, South Korea and Germany after she stepped down in 2013, according to Congressional investigators.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has found evidence of attempted intrusions into Clinton's server in 2013 and 2014, according to a letter Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent Monday to a Florida-based security firm tasked with protecting the hardware.
The contractor, SECNAP Network Security, identified the attacks, but according to internal emails cited and briefly quoted in the Johnson letter, Clinton's sever may have lacked a threat-detection program for three months, Johnson says.
...
2015-10-12-Politico-hillary-clinton-emails-cia
Clinton's email woes won't go awayBy Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-10-19
...
“Is Clinton implicated in demonstrating bad judgment?
It’s harder to say.
I think she presumed her communications with Blumenthal
were confidential in the first place
even if they were not on an encrypted, secure line.
She was the secretary of state not the classification police,”
[Steven] Aftergood added.
[I think Aftergood shows his partisanship here.
His statements seem blatantly inconsistent.
If the communications "were not on an encrypted, secure line",
and in particular were being stored on a private server
which was connected to the Internet,
I do not see how a reasonably prudent person in the 2009-12 time period
could avoid seeing that they were at risk of being compromised.]
...
2015-10-13-AP-clinton-server-ran-software-that-risked-hacking
AP Exclusive:Clinton's homemade server risked hacking,
ran software that could be exploited
By JACK GILLUM and STEPHEN BRAUN, Associated Press
US News / AP, 2015-10-13
This AP story is also at the Washington Post web site here,
and the New York Times here.
2015-10-14: There was nothing resembling this story in today's print edition of the New York Times, Washington print edition.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The private email server running in Hillary Rodham Clinton's home basement when she was secretary of state
was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers while using software that could have been exploited,
according to data and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Clinton's server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence,
appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely,
according to detailed records compiled in 2012.
Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn't intended for such use without additional protective measures,
and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet.
One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities,
known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites.
The new details provide the first clues about how Clinton's computer, running Microsoft's server software,
was set up and protected when she used it exclusively over four years as secretary of state for all work messages.
Clinton's privately paid technology adviser, Bryan Pagliano,
has declined to answer questions about his work from congressional investigators,
citing the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
...
Clinton has said that her server featured "numerous safeguards," but she has yet to explain how well her system was secured and whether, or how frequently, security updates were applied.
...
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said late Monday that
"this report, like others before it, lacks any evidence of an actual breach,
let alone one specifically targeting Hillary Clinton.
The Justice Department is conducting a review of the security of the server,
and we are cooperating in full."
[Let me get this straight:
It doesn't matter how insecure her server was,
the only thing that matters is whether it was actually hacked?
That's the Democratic way?
I guess so,
if Democrats say that anyone who criticizes such lax security practices
is only motivated by "partisan" issues.
What they are saying is that her lax security practices
are not an issue to them.
Well, who cares,
as long as she panders enough to the Democratic constituencies,
eh, Dems?]
...
The AP exclusively reviewed numerous records from an Internet "census" by an anonymous hacker-researcher,
who three years ago used unsecured devices to scan hundreds of millions of Internet Protocol addresses for accessible doors, called "ports."
Using a computer in Serbia, the hacker scanned Clinton's basement server in Chappaqua at least twice, in August and December 2012.
It was unclear whether the hacker was aware the server belonged to Clinton,
although it identified itself as providing email services for clintonemail.com.
The results are widely available online.
Remote-access software allows users to control another computer from afar.
The programs are usually operated through an encrypted connection —
called a virtual private network, or VPN.
But Clinton's system appeared to accept commands directly from the Internet without such protections.
"That's total amateur hour," said Marc Maiffret, who has founded two cybersecurity companies.
He said permitting remote-access connections directly over the Internet
would be the result of someone choosing convenience over security or failing to understand the risks.
"Real enterprise-class security, with teams dedicated to these things, would not do this," he said.
The government and security firms have published warnings about allowing this kind of remote access to Clinton's server.
The same software was targeted by an infectious Internet worm, known as Morta, which exploited weak passwords to break into servers.
The software also was known to be vulnerable to brute-force attacks that tried password combinations until hackers broke in,
and in some cases it could be tricked into revealing sensitive details about a server to help hackers formulate attacks.
"An attacker with a low skill-level would be able to exploit this vulnerability,"
said the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team in 2012,
the same year Clinton's server was scanned.
Also in 2012, the State Department had outlawed use of remote-access software for its technology officials to maintain unclassified servers without a waiver.
It had banned all instances of remotely connecting to classified servers or servers located overseas.
The findings suggest Clinton's server
"violates the most basic network-perimeter security tenets:
Don't expose insecure services to the Internet,"
said Justin Harvey, the chief security officer for Fidelis Cybersecurity.
[All just partisan gripes, eh, Dems?]
...
In Clinton's case, Internet addresses the AP traced to her home in Chappaqua
revealed open ports on three devices, including her email system.
Each numbered port is commonly, but not always uniquely, associated with specific features or functions.
The AP in March was first to discover Clinton's use of a private email server and trace it to her home.
Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at F-Secure, a top global computer security firm,
said it was unclear how Clinton's server was configured,
but an out-of-the-box installation of remote desktop would have been vulnerable.
Those risks — such as giving hackers a chance to run malicious software on her machine —
were "clearly serious" and could have allowed snoops to deploy so-called back doors.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology,
the federal government's guiding agency on computer technology,
warned in 2008 that exposed server ports were security risks.
It said remote-control programs should only be used in conjunction with encryption tunnels,
such as secure VPN connections.
2015-Nov-Dec-Politico-hillary-clinton-2016-emails
A ‘Cancer’ on the Clinton CandidacyInside the seven-month war inside her campaign over the email scandal that just wouldn’t go away
by Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni
Politico Magazine, November-December 2015
...
But no matter how it turns out, when the story of the 2016 campaign is written, this months-long fight over Hillary Clinton’s private email server—an enervating and possibly pointless controversy—will constitute the opening chapter. Here is the story of how she handled it.
...
2015-10-15-Hotair-is-obama-working-the-refs-on-the-fbis-investigation-into-hillarys-server
Is Obama working the refs on the FBI’s investigation into Hillary’s server?by Jazz Shaw
Hotair.com, 2015-10-15
2015-10-16-Foxnews-source-fbi-probe-clinton-email-focused-on-gross-negligence-provision
Source: FBI probe of Clinton email focused on ‘gross negligence’ provisionBy Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-10-16
A video on this story.
...
On Thursday, a group of national security whistleblowers held a news conference in Washington at the National Press Club to highlight what they characterized as a double standard in these types of cases.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was indicted in 2010 under the Espionage Act for sharing unclassified material with a Baltimore Sun reporter. Drake, who also went to Congress with his concerns about the NSA, said his goal was to expose government misconduct.
"This is the secretary of state, one of the most targeted individuals by other intelligence entities and agencies in the world using a private server to traffic highly sensitive information and no doubt including classified information and no doubt including info about sources and methods,"Drake said at Thursday’s event.
He added the whistleblowers’ treatment shows there is a law for the average citizen, and apparently a different set of rules for the powerful.
"But hey, I'm secretary of state,” Drake said in a sarcastic tone. ”Even Obama gave her cover."
The charges against Drake were eventually dropped. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, but in the process lost his ability to work in national security and depleted his life savings to mount a defense.
Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling also went to Congress with his complaints, but was sentenced in May to three-and-a-half years in prison for violating the Espionage Act by giving classified information to a New York Times reporter. Sterling, who is appealing the case, was also convicted on obstruction of justice charges because a single email was missing from his account, even though the government could not show he was responsible for that.
...
2015-10-17-RCP-hillary_clinton_on_email_scandal_this_is_a_complicated_issue_for_even_sophisticated_folks_to_understand
Hillary Clinton on Email Scandal: "This Is A Complicated Issue For Even Sophisticated Folks To Understand"Real Clear Politics, 2015-10-17
Both a video and a transcript of significant parts of the Jake Tapper CNN interview with Hillary Clinton that was broadcast on Friday, 2015-10-16.
2015-10-17-NYT-obamas-comments-on-clinton-emails-collide-with-fbi-inquiry
Obama’s Comments on Clinton Emails Collide With F.B.I. InquiryBy MATT APUZZO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-17
WASHINGTON —
Federal agents were still cataloging the classified information from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal email server last week when President Obama went on television and played down the matter.
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said it was a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
[In the military, there is a concept called "command influence".
President Obmaa's statement seems, to me, very close to that concept.
I wonder how the experts on command influence would view it.]
Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had in fact put any of the nation’s secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Investigators have not reached any conclusions about whether the information on the server had been compromised or whether to recommend charges, according to the law enforcement officials. But to investigators, it sounded as if Mr. Obama had already decided the answers to their questions and cleared anyone involved of wrongdoing.
...
A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. But Ron Hosko, a former senior F.B.I. official who retired in 2014 and is now the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said it was inappropriate for the president to “suggest what side of the investigation he is on” when the F.B.I. is still investigating.
“Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry
leaves a foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth
and makes them fear that
no matter what they find,
the Justice Department will take the president’s signal and not bring a case,”
said Mr. Hosko, who maintains close contact with current agents.
Several current and former law enforcement officials, including those close to the investigation, expressed similar sentiments in separate interviews over several days. Most, however, did so only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
...
Whether Mr. Obama’s remarks have a lasting effect beyond upsetting some F.B.I. officials depends on the investigation’s outcome. Since the email inquiry began this past summer, investigators have been scrutinizing everyone who came in contact with her server and trying to determine whether anyone sent or received classified information, whether that information was compromised and whether any of this amounted to a crime.
Tensions among career F.B.I. agents, the political appointees who run the Justice Department and the White House are commonplace. In deciding whether to bring charges in a case, F.B.I. agents are often more bullish. Prosecutors, with an eye toward trying to win at trial, tend to be more cautious and have the final say. As such, no administration, Democratic or Republican, is immune from the suspicion that politics has influenced case decisions.
But Mr. Obama’s remarks in the Clinton email case were met with particular anger at the F.B.I. because they echoed comments he made in 2012, shortly after it was revealed that a former C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus, was under investigation, accused of providing classified information to a mistress who was writing a book about him.
“I have no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security,” the president said at a 2012 news conference, as the F.B.I. was trying to answer that very question about Mr. Petraeus.
At the time, the Obama administration was leading a historic crackdown on government officials who discussed national security matters with reporters, even when that information was never disclosed publicly. But Mr. Petraeus was a four-star general, a White House adviser and the most celebrated military leader of his generation. F.B.I. officials were concerned that he would receive preferential treatment.
The F.B.I. ultimately concluded that Mr. Petraeus should face felony charges and a possible prison sentence. Not only had he provided highly classified information to his biographer — including notes about war strategy and the identity of covert officials — but he also lied to agents about it. James B. Comey, the F.B.I director, made the case to the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., that Mr. Petraeus deserved to face strenuous charges.
But the Justice Department overruled the F.B.I., and earlier this year the department allowed Mr. Petraeus to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He was spared jail time and remained an informal White House adviser.
Although current and former senior officials at the Justice Department who were involved in the case said the decision was not influenced by the White House, F.B.I. agents came to view Mr. Obama’s remarks about Mr. Petraeus as a harbinger of the ultimate outcome.
Presidents typically decline to comment on cases under investigation or in the courts, citing the need to avoid prejudicing legal proceedings. Often that tradition is politically convenient, offering them an easy excuse when they would rather not answer questions about the behavior of allies and aides.
...
[Here is a comment from a reader of the above story:
darylreece
Atlanta, GA 11 minutes ago
The only way that Obama's statement is viable is if he is taking some narrow definition that
Mrs. Clinton didn't give away the keys to the nuclear weapons.
Other than that, I can't understand how you could conclude
keeping emails that contain classified information on a private, non-secure server
didn't violate the handling of classified information.
If the Dems nominate her, they are crazy.
If indicted, it will come at a bad time.
If the investigation gets squashed by DOJ, it will smell like a cover-up.
Both bad outcomes.
2015-10-21-Goldberg-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-enabler-in-chief
Hillary Clinton’s Enabler-in-Chiefby Jonah Goldberg
National Review, 2015-10-21
...
The journalist turned Clinton White House courtier is in the news because he shows up in Clinton’s e-mails — a lot.
(Roughly a third of the last e-mail dump contains e-mail between them.)
When first asked about her correspondence with Blumenthal,
Clinton insisted he was merely “an old friend” who occasionally sent “unsolicited” e-mail.
That was a lie.
It turns out that then–Secretary of State Clinton
was in near-constant contact with Blumenthal,
urging the head of her “secret spy network” (ProPublica’s term)
to supply her with information and political advice, mostly about Libya.
[Compare The Forward's analysis of their discussions of Israel,
cited below.]
“Thanks for keeping this stuff coming!” was how she put it in one typical reply.
[Evidence that Hillary lies like a rug?
Maybe not to mentally ill types like Paul Begala.]
...
2015-10-21-NYT-how-hillary-clinton-emails-statements-have-changed
How the Story of Hillary Clinton’s Emails Has ChangedBy ERIC LIPTON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-21
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s explanations about her use of a personal email account as secretary of state have evolved over time.
[Note the problematic use of the word "evolved".
Other than that,
this is a pretty good survey of the major issues involving her email policies,
showing some of her changing descriptions thereof.
Their analysis of the problems with her descriptions
is not as sharp as it might be.
A sample of why I say that
(First the Times statement, then my response):]
July 2015
The F.B.I. had determined that Mrs. Clinton had received “Secret” information in her account,
the second highest classification of government intelligence.
In response to that disclosure, her campaign said that
sensitive national security information was sometimes upgraded to classified at a later date
if the State Department or another agency believed its inadvertent release
“could potentially harm national security or diplomatic relations.”
The campaign insisted that none of the materials were classified at the time she received them.
[What is the "inadvertent release" about which they are worried?
Since State is upgrading the classification of some of the emails as they are being screened for controlled release to the public,
that seems to be the only release about which the Clinton campaign is concerned.
But other news stories
(e.g.,
" 'Like inviting spies over to dinner':
Cyber experts are stunned by Hillary Clinton's security choices")
indicate that there is an extremely high probability that
Hillary's lax computer security practices
have made "inadvertent release" of all her emails
to efficient intelligence agencies (e.g., those of Russia, China, and Israel)
almost a certainty.]
2015-10-26-Forward-5-times-gop-bogeyman-sidney-blumenthal-advised-hillary-clinton-on-israel
5 Times GOP Bogeyman Sydney Blumenthal Advised Hillary Clinton on Israelby Ron Kampeas
Forward, 2015-10-26
[Note this article published in the Jewish interest periodical The Forward
only discusses Blumenthal's advice on Israel,
not his also prolific advice on Libya.
I'm not criticizing this focus, just noting it.]
2015-10-31-NYT-white-house-seeks-to-keep-some-clinton-emails-secret
White House Seeks to Keep Some Clinton Emails SecretBy MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times, 2015-10-31
[Bottom line:
The U.S. public and Congress can't see the contents of those emails,
but every nation with a sophisticated hacking capability
without the slightest doubt has a complete set of them.
ROFL.]
WASHINGTON — The White House will try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, citing longstanding precedent invoked by presidents of both parties to keep presidential communications confidential, officials said Friday.
The State Department discovered the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as part of its effort to release the former secretary’s emails, several thousand more of which were scheduled to be made public on Friday. Mr. Obama’s correspondence was forwarded for review to the White House, which has decided against release.
That decision could intensify the political struggle between Mrs. Clinton, who is running for president, and congressional Republicans, who have pressed for disclosure of her emails as part of an investigation into the administration’s handling of the attacks on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
The contents of the emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have not been disclosed, but their presumed existence has not been a secret. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, acknowledged in March that the two “did have the occasion to email one another” when Mrs. Clinton was serving as the president’s top diplomat.
White House officials said Friday that their refusal to release the emails is not based on their content, but rather is intended to defend the principle that presidents must be free to receive advice from their advisers without fear that the conversations will be made public during their time in office. They noted the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will eventually become public many years after the Obama presidency ends, under the terms of federal records laws.
“There is a long history of presidential records being kept confidential while the president is in office,” a White House official said. “It is a principle that previous White Houses have vigorously defended as it goes to the core of the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel during his time in office and is central to the independent functioning of the Executive Branch.”
White House officials said they are not asserting executive privilege, a specific legal authority that Mr. Obama has used only once, in the case of congressional inquiries into the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation, in which weapons ended up in the possession of Mexican gun cartels.
Presidents often seek to avoid formally invoking executive privilege, which carries political overtones dating to Richard M. Nixon’s assertion of the legal authority to block congressional investigations of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
But by refusing to release the emails, Mr. Obama is following a well-worn precedent that he and his predecessors have established.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly resisted efforts by Congress to turn over the president’s private communications, which by law are exempt from Freedom of Information laws that are often used to pry information out of other parts of an administration.
Former presidents of both parties have done the same, often insisting that to do otherwise would open the president’s most sensitive deliberations to congressional and public inspection.
...
2015-11-04-Politico-hillary-clinton-emails-republicans-server-congress
House GOP split over Clinton email probeSome firebrands want to dig deeper on the Democratic front-runner's unusual server setup, but others would rather take a pass.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-04
2015-11-06-Politico-Gerstein-hillary-clinton-email-no-highly-classified
Source: Key Clinton emails did not contain highly classified secrets'The initial determination was based on a flawed process,' a source says.
By Josh Gerstein
Politico, 2015-11-06
...
Intelligence officials claimed one email in Clinton’s account was classified
because it contained information from a top-secret intelligence community “product” or report,
but a further review determined that
the report was not issued until several days after the email in question was written,
the source said.
...
One curious twist to the classification dispute is that it is not entirely clear who has authority to resolve it. State spokesmen have repeatedly said that the diplomatic agency has asked Clapper's office to review the issue, but the intelligence chief's office has never acknowledged the power to override an intelligence agency's determination on classification or to order State not to release information it considers unclassified.
There is an interagency committee to hear appeals on declassification issues, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel. The group, run out of an office at the National Archives, usually considers disputes about historical information. Kirby said Friday he was unsure whether that panel was involved in the current dispute or why State raised its concerns with Clapper's office instead.
...
"The inspector general’s determination always seemed arbitrary and questionable, and we are grateful that it appears the DNI may be confirming that," spokesman Brian Fallon said. "This would illustrate the subjective nature of the classification rules that are at the heart of this matter."
[The issue here was:
"What was the basis for the email?
Was it based on an open-source document,
or a (very highly classified) intelligence report?"
If the report was written later than the email,
that rules out the email being based on the report.
Nothing subjective about that.]
"DNI Clapper’s determination is further evidence that there was no wrongdoing by Secretary Clinton,"
said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
"The classification process is complex and subjective,
but this confirms Secretary Clinton did not send classified information through her email account.
It’s time to put this issue behind us and move on.”
[I'm going to call out Dianne Feinstein as being a liar, based on that statement.
Even if that ONE email is ultimately found to have been unclassified after all,
that in no way proves that ALL of the emails Hillary sent "did not contain classified information".
"One" is not "all".
Senator Feinstein sure knows that basic result of predicate logic,
and thus she knowingly told a false statement.
That's called a lie.]
...
2015-11-06-DailyCaller-document-completely-undermines-hillarys-classified-email-defense
Document Completely Undermines Hillary’s Classified Email Defenseby Chuck Ross
Daily Caller, 2015-11-06
[The article includes a link to a PDF of the Classified Information NDA.
Note well that paragraph 1 of that document includes the following:
As used in this Agreement,
classified information is marked or unmarked classified information,
including oral communications,
that is classified under the standards of Executive Order 12958,
or any other Executive order or statute that prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of information in the interest of national security;
and unclassified information that meets the standards for classification
and is in the process of a classification determination ...
According to Wikipedia, EO 12958 was replaced by EO 13292 in 2003.
Yet the SF 312 (Rev 1-00) that HRC signed on 2009-01-22 refers to EO 12958. ?????
In any case, the significance is that the NDA clearly states that
"marked or unmarked" is irrelevant;
what matters is
whether something meets the standards for classification.]
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton signed a nondisclosure agreement in which she acknowledged that classified information is classified regardless of whether it is “marked or unmarked” — a distinction which undermines one of the Democratic presidential candidate’s main defenses of her use of a home-brew email system.
Signers of the document,
the existence of which the Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday,
also agree that [see paragraph 7 of the NDA]
all information that they have access to
“is now and will remain
the property of, or under the control of the United States government
unless and until otherwise determined by an authorized official
or final ruling of a court of law.”
The “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement,” or SF-312,
also makes clear that “classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications.”
That poses two problems for Clinton, who signed the document on Jan. 22, 2009, a day after taking office.
Not only does nullify her claim that none of her emails contained information that was “marked” classified, it also calls into question her failure to turn over her work-related State Department emails to the agency in December, nearly two years after leaving office.
...
By signing the “Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,”
[discussed further in the next item in this blog]
Clinton agreed that she had been advised “that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”
That agreement pertains to the Clinton email scandal because of two emails she received on her personal email account that the intelligence community’s inspector general has determined contained “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” or TS/CSI.
...
2015-11-07-Fox-hillary-clinton-signed-non-disclosure-agreement-to-protect-classified-info
Hillary Clinton signed non-disclosure agreement to protect classified info while secretary of stateBy Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-11-07
[This story is about the SCI Non-Disclosure Agreement.
It also includes a link to a PDF of that document.]
2015-11-09-WP-Kessler-fact-checker-hillary-clintons-claim-that-90-percent-of-her-emails-were-in-the-system
Hillary Clinton’s claim that 90 percent of her emails were ‘in the system’by Glenn Kessler
Washington Post "Fact Checker", 2015-11-09
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C): “I have not heard anyone other than you ever cite that figure. Who told you that 90 to 95 percent of your e-mails were in the State Department system? Who told you that?”
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton: “We learned that from the State Department and their analysis of the e-mails that were already on the system. We were trying to help them close some gaps that they had.”
— exchange during a hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Oct. 22, 2015
A number of readers have asked questions about Clinton’s assertion that 90 to 95 percent of the e-mails were in the State Department system. On several occasions, especially in the evening session of the 11-hour hearing, Clinton suggested this figure came from the State Department.
(For instance:
“The State Department was beginning to turn over to this committee my e-mails
because they had between 90 and 95 percent of all my work-related e-mails in the State Department system.”)
But the next day, a State Department spokesman said that the number did not come from any State Department analysis but was a calculation made by the Clinton campaign.
Moreover, as part of the exchange with Clinton, Gowdy referenced an inspector general’s report that “less than one percent of State Department emails” were captured.
What’s going on here?
The Facts
First of all, the State Department is correct. The “90 to 95 percent” figure comes from the Clinton campaign. There has never been a calculation made by the State Department of the 55,000 pages of the e-mails provided by Clinton from her private e-mail account. So Clinton got that wrong.
“Of the more than 30,000 e-mails that Secretary Clinton provided to the State Department last year, more than 90 percent were sent to or from a state.gov e-mail address,” a Clinton campaign spokesman said. “That is observable by looking at the e-mails that were provided for release by the department. These messages would have been captured in the State Department’s record system. It has since been learned that the State Department’s archiving system did not maintain every e-mail, but that does not change that these messages were captured by State’s system and thus should have been available.”
Let’s unpack that statement. Essentially, Clinton’s lawyers looked through the e-mails and found that at least one person in the e-mail chain — either sending an e-mail to Clinton or receiving it — had a state.gov e-mail address. So in theory, if a search was requested of the e-mails of person who corresponded with Clinton, Clinton’s e-mails would have shown up.
This is how Clinton has explained this in past, minus the assertion that it was a State Department calculation. Here’s a comment from Sept. 20 on CBS’s “Face the Nation:”
“What I did was to send e-mails to people at their government accounts, which I had every reason to believe would be captured on the government systems. And when we were asked to help the State Department make sure they had everything from other secretaries of state, not just me, I’m the one who said, okay, great, I will go through them again. And we provided all of them. And more than 90 percent were already in the system.”
The Clinton campaign, in a Q&A on the e-mail controversy, worded it even more carefully:
“Clinton’s practice was to email government officials on their ‘.gov’ accounts, so her work emails were immediately captured and preserved. In fact, more than 90% of those emails should have already been captured in the State Department’s email system before she provided them with paper copies.”
The problem is, of course, that a requested search of Clinton’s e-mails would have turned up nothing, because she did not maintain a state.gov account. That’s why the State Department had trouble finding her e-mails in response to congressional and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the first place.
...
2015-11-10-Politico-Bade-hillary-clinton-email-fbi-probe
FBI steps up interviews in Clinton email probeQuestions focus on whether State officials improperly sent classified material.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-10
2015-11-10-WT-Dinan-judge-state-lackadaisical-processing-clinton-files
Judge: State Dept. ‘lackadaisical’ in processing Hillary Clinton filesby Stephen Dinan
Washington Times, 2015-11-10
[Most of this article is not of much interest to me anyhow,
but it does contain two paragraphs which document something I think is of interest:]
Mrs. Clinton turned over 32,000 emails, stretching to 55,000 pages, last December,
in response to prodding by the congressional probe into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
But because she turned over paper copies,
the State Department said it spent the first five months translating those documents back into electronic versions
so they could be entered into the department’s searchable computer system.
[This raises dome questions, to me anyhow:
Since the original emails were by definition stored in digital, electronic, form,
why on earth did she send paper printouts to the State Dept.
rather than selecting out the emails she wanted to transmit
and then sending them electronically?
It's really hard for me to imagine an email system
which doesn't allow such a capability.
Look at how much additional work she has made for the government
by sending paper copies.
She said she used her private server for her emails when she was acting in her official capacity
for HER convenience.
But what about the convenience and expense of others?
Does this sound like a good balancing of her convenience versus the problems she has caused the government?
NO WAY!]
2015-11-12-Fox-fbi-expands-probe-clinton-emails-launches-independent-classification-review
FBI expands probe of Clinton emails, launches independent classification reviewBy Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News, 2015-11-12
The FBI has expanded its probe of Hillary Clinton's emails, with agents exploring whether multiple statements violate a federal false statements statute, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing case.
Fox News is told agents are looking at U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to "materially false" statements given either in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.
...
The section of the criminal code being explored is known as "statements or entries generally," and can be applied when an individual makes misleading or false statements causing federal agents to expend additional resources and time. In this case, legal experts as well as a former FBI agent said, Section 1001 could apply if Clinton, her aides or attorney were not forthcoming with FBI agents about her emails, classification and whether only non-government records were destroyed. It is not publicly known who may have been interviewed.
Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said the same section got Martha Stewart in trouble with the FBI. To be a violation, the statements do not need to be given under oath.
"This is a broad, brush statute that punishes individuals who are not direct and fulsome in their answers," former FBI intelligence officer Timothy Gill told Fox News. Gill is not connected to the email investigation, but spent 16 years as part of the bureau's national security branch, and worked the post 9/11 anthrax case where considerable time was spent resolving discrepancies in Bruce Ivins' statements and his unusual work activities at Fort Detrick, Md.
"It is a cover-all. The problem for a defendant is when their statements cause the bureau to expend more time, energy, resources to de-conflict their statements with the evidence," he said.
...
2015-11-13-Politico-Bade-Platte-Rive-stonewalls-Senate-Committee
Clinton email companies rebuff Senate investigatorsWhile several of the firms are cooperating with an FBI investigation,
they're stiff-arming the latest requests from the congressional GOP.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-11-13
2015-11-16-Keiler-comey_can_nail_hillary__but_will_he
Comey Can Nail Hillary - But Will He?By Jonathan F. Keiler
American Thinker, 2015-11-16
...
The supposed broadening of the investigation
might mean that the FBI is seriously gathering additional evidence,
or that it is a ploy to drag out the investigation indefinitely --
or at least beyond the presidential election.
Giving weight to the latter interpretation is the fact that
probable cause already exists that
Hillary violated at two federal statutes
(18 USC 793 [Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information] and
18 USC 1924 [Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material])
that govern the handling of classified material,
and that
her defenses don’t hold legal water.
General David Petraeus pleaded guilty to the latter charge [Section 1924],
and his actions were neither as extensive, nor as provable,
nor as great a risk to national security as Clinton’s.
The charge under Section 793[f] is more serious, but harder to prove,
as it requires proof of gross negligence,
but among the leaks is one that suggests the FBI is focusing on this charge --
presumably because they don’t need anything more to prove a violation of Section 1924.
Sufficient evidence for an indictment is in the public record right now on either charge,
and for the Section 1924 violation, I would even say proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
So unless the FBI is planning to pursue other charges,
expanding the investigation might well be a gambit to destroy its focus and drag it out.
But let’s assume that Comey is a man of principle who is pursuing the case honestly, and that the leaks are an attempt to give the agency some breathing space. Then the broadening of the investigation is probably not only to firm up the evidence regarding Clinton’s already clear and existing violations of the law, but possibly to add a more devastating charge -- obstruction of justice.
Comey knows that referring the case
with charges only alleging violations of document mishandling
will get nowhere in Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department.
Obama has publicly declared that he doesn’t believe that Hillary’s use of the email server impacted national security.
Comey has likely received similar information through more discreet channels,
and he knows that Obama has successfully used the Justice Department and his own agency to kill legitimate investigations of the ATF and IRS.
And with Joe Biden out of the Democrat nominating race (with Obama’s blessing)
the President is going to back and protect Clinton if he can do so without causing himself too much trouble.
Were Comey to refer charges of mishandling classified material to Justice, even if Lynch does nothing, it would hurt Hillary, but would probably not kill her campaign. Justice does have prosecutorial discretion. Lynch and her attorneys will be able to come up with sufficient excuses -- national security was not demonstrably impacted, Hillary was careless but not grossly negligent, she didn’t realize classified items were classified at the time, and so on -- that they will make the refusal to indict sound at least plausible. Yes, Hillary may have appeared to technically violate Section 1924, Justice will say, but that transgression did not rise to the level that a criminal indictment is warranted.
...
... So if Comey is principled and has any intention of referring charges to Justice, he needs more than the document mishandling charges. Thus, the expansion of the investigation, to Hillary’s aides, and to the computer specialists and companies that not only set up the server, but also aided in the deletion of emails, is predictable and necessary. There is already a lot of smoke in this regard, most notably that Clinton’s former top IT man, Bryan Pagliano, asserted his 5th Amendment rights before Congress earlier this year. Pagliano followed Clinton to the State Department, but maintained the server at her home as a private employee. His dual role may well make him the lynchpin of an obstruction charge.
Of course, in the IRS case Lois Lerner asserted the 5th and got away with it, without the FBI or Justice forcing her to testify in return for a grant of immunity. But politically, this case is a little different, since while the IRS case struck directly at the President, this one strikes directly only at a presidential contender.
...
2015-11-20-The-Hill-RNC-rnc-presses-feds-over-clinton-email-setup
RNC presses feds over Clinton email setupBy Julian Hattem
The Hill, 2015-11-20
...
This week, the [RNC]’s top lawyer asked the [State] department’s inspector general
whether Clinton “fulfilled her legal obligations” about protecting classified information while in office.
“The American people have a right to know whether
a top official who certified that she could be entrusted with the government’s most sensitive materials
violated her contract with the federal government and the criminal law of the United States,”
John Phillippe, the RNC’s chief counsel, wrote in a letter to the Office of the Inspector General.
...
In the RNC’s letter, which was sent on Monday but released on Friday, Phillippe asked State Department Inspector General Steve Linick whether Clinton has a legal obligation to “ascertain whether information in her possession is in fact classified material, regardless of any markings or lack thereof.”
...
2015-11-30-Politico-Gerstein-State-Dept-clears-email-IC-flagged
State Dept., intel watchdog tangle over Clinton emailsThe dispute comes as State releases roughly 8,000 more pages of Clinton's Foggy Bottom messages.
By Josh Gerstein and Nick Gass
Politico, 2015-11-30 8:29 PM
...
On Monday, the State Department released a WikiLeaks-related email from Clinton's personal account that official watchdogs for the intelligence community and the department flagged over the summer as appearing to contain classified information, according to a State Department spokeswoman.
The message was among four that Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick flagged in July as classified after reviewing a sample of 40 emails from Clinton's account, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau indicated at a daily briefing for reporters.
However, a spokeswoman for McCullough denied that the WikiLeaks email was among the four the watchdogs said contained sensitive intelligence community information. Instead, the message was one intelligence officials considered possibly classified under State's standards and urged State to take a close look at.
"ODNI and CIA classification experts judged the email as probably classified SECRET//NOFORN based on the State Department Classification Guide; However; they deferred to State Department for final adjudication," ICIG spokeswoman Andrea Williams said Monday. "So, we said from the start it’s State's call on classification."
A State spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
...
In a statement in July, McCullough and Linick had said four of 40 emails reviewed by the intelligence community contained intelligence information considered classified.
"These emails were not retroactively classified by the State Department; rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to IC classification officials, that information remains classified today," McCullough and Linick said in a July 24 press statement. "This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system."
However, Williams said Monday that the newly-released WikiLeaks email was not among the four emails discussed in the July statement.
In a follow-up memo to lawmakers the next month, McCullough said some emails from Clinton's account contained intelligence community information classified "Top Secret," with additional restrictions for signals intelligence and airborne or satellite surveillance. Two other emails reviewed by intelligence community classification experts who "judged that they contained classified State Department information when originated," McCullough wrote.
State Department spokespeople have said they disagree with the intelligence community's claims about the allegedly "Top Secret" emails and have suggested that State officials may have gleaned that information without consulting reports based on sensitive U.S. intelligence methods. State has asked the Office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. to resolve the dispute. Those two messages are not among the ones set to be released Monday, officials said.
The findings in July about the four emails led McCullough to refer the issue to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a potential breach of secrecy of "counterintelligence" concern. The FBI subsequently asked Clinton's attorney to hand over a thumb drive containing copies of her emails and for a technology company hosting Clinton's server to turn the server over to investigators. The equipment went to the FBI in August.
POLITICO reported earlier this month that FBI agents involved in the inquiry recently interviewed a former high-ranking policy official at State and sought documents from another tech firm involved in Clinton's email set-up.
Clinton initially said that her email account contained no classified information. In recent months, she has stressed that she did not send any classified information and that no information she sent or received was marked classified.
...
Only four of the messages released earlier this year have been marked at the middle tier of classification, "Secret." One, classified at the request of the FBI, pertained to arrests possibly linked to the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. Two others appear to relate to diplomatic talks in Turkey about Iran's nuclear program. The fourth was a summary of a 2008 Mideast peace negotiating session. State classified that memo even though it was published in full by Al Jazeera in 2011.
...
2015-12-01-DailyCaller-pr-guru-working-for-clinton-server-it-firm-donated-to-hillarys-campaign
PR Guru Working For Clinton Server IT Firm Donated To Hillary’s Campaignby Chuck Ross
Daily Caller, 2015-12-01
2015-12-02-Fox-senators-probe-possible-leaks-in-clinton-email-review
Senators probe possible leaks in Clinton email reviewBy Catherine Herridge
Fox News, 2015-12-02
Two top Republican senators have written directly to Secretary of State John Kerry and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about possible leaks from their departments on the review of Hillary Clinton’s emails that left the wrong impression that two “Top Secret” messages were not that sensitive.
...
While the Corker-Burr letter is not public, Fox News has confirmed that the senators included a Politico report from November 6 in which unnamed sources claimed the two Top Secret emails had been downgraded after a second review.
While hailed by Clinton’s supporters as evidence she did not break the law by sending classified information on her personal email account, the Politico story was later updated to reflect the fact that Clapper’s office said no final classification determination had been reached and the review was ongoing.
...
2015-12-11-Politico-Bade-bryan-pagliano-emails-state-department
State Department can't find emails of top Clinton IT stafferThe FBI has taken possession of Bryan Pagliano's computer system.
By Rachael Bade
Politico, 2015-12-11
[Look at this!
Bryan Pagliano has refused to talk to the Senate Committee,
citing the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination,
and the State Department has no copy of his emails,
even though he was employed there
(at the same time he was taking private money from Hillary Clinton).
Wonder if the IT smarty Pagliano figured out a way to make his government emails go "Poof!".]
The State Department said that while it has located a backup for emails Pagliano sent after Clinton left State, officials cannot find the file for the backup covering work he did while she was still there.
“The Department has located a .pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the State Department. We have not yet located a .pst that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,” said Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano’s emails which the Department may have otherwise retained. We will, of course, share emails responsive to Senator Grassley’s requests if we locate them.”
State, like many federal agencies, did not have a systematic email archiving system for years. When the server issue first arose in the spring,
State acknowledged that it did not automatically archive the email traffic of senior employees —
relying on them to make their own backups, or “.pst,” if needed.
Under current rules, federal employees are responsible for ensuring their official emails are saved.
State has not asked Pagliano whether he has any official emails in his possession,
as it has with other top Clinton staffers who used personal email for work.
[Wonder why State is walking on tip-toes with regard to this situation.]
It is unclear if Pagliano’s Fifth Amendment rights would protect him from turning over such messages.
Grassley encouraged State to continue searching for Pagliano’s emails by looking at the back-up email files of other State employees he may have emailed about the Clinton server. He letter seeks “a full and detailed written explanation of why it failed to maintain an archive, copy, or backup of Mr. Pagliano’s email file,” among other requests related to the IT staffer's emails.
2015-12-15-FoxNews-Herridge-Browne-sources-review-affirms-clinton-server-emails-were-top-secret-despite-department-challenge
Sources: Review affirms Clinton server emails were 'top secret,' despite department challengeBy Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News. 2015-12-15
An intelligence community review has re-affirmed that
two classified emails were indeed “top secret” when they hit Hillary Clinton’s unsecured personal server
despite a challenge to that designation by the State Department,
according to two sources familiar with the review.
The sources described the dispute over whether the two emails were classified at the highest level as a “settled matter.”
The agencies that owned and originated that intelligence –
the CIA and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or NGA –
reviewed the emails to determine how they should be properly stored,
as the State Department took issue with their highly classified nature.
The subject matter of the messages is widely reported to be
the movement of North Korean missiles and a drone strike.
A top secret designation requires the highest level of security, and can include the use of an approved safe.
The sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News that
while the emails were indeed “top secret” when they hit Clinton’s server,
one of them remains “top secret” to this day --
and must be handled at the highest security level.
The second email is still considered classified but at the lower “secret” level
because more information is publicly available about the event.
The findings have been transmitted to the State Department,
which continues to challenge the intelligence community’s conclusions about the classification of all the emails.
But the department has no authority to change the classification
since it did not originate the information.
On Nov. 6, Politico reported that
the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” classification,
a development that could have helped Clinton’s presidential campaign deflect allegations about mishandling classified material.
Fox News can confirm it is true the handling of one email has changed since it was drafted and sent,
but this change has no bearing on the “top secret” nature of the emails when first received on Clinton’s server.
And this is what matters to the FBI probe.
...
2015-12-16-CNS-hillary-says-relatives-benghazi-heroes-are-liars
Hillary Says Relatives of Benghazi Heroes Are LiarsBy L. Brent Bozell III
cnsnews.com, 2015-12-16
Our news media are so overwhelmingly obsequious to the Democrats that
Hillary Clinton can imply the relatives of the Americans killed in Benghazi are liars on national TV,
and no one in the press blinks an eye or finds it newsworthy.
ABC is about to host another one of those hide-and-seek Saturday night Democrat debates.
There is something very ironic here:
It was on this network where she made that outrageous statement.
Clinton lied to her former employee (and donor) George Stephanopoulos
on his ABC program "This Week" on Dec. 6.
In his toughest question of the day, George told his pal,
"Some GOP rivals and family members of the Benghazi victims are saying
you lied to them in the hearing.
They point to emails that you sent the night of Benghazi attack,
one to your daughter, Chelsea Clinton, saying...
'Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group.'"
He added that she had told the Egyptian prime minister on a phone call on Sept. 12, 2012,
"We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film."
Clinton denied ever telling the Benghazi relatives that it could be blamed on an anti-Muhammad video:
"No. ... I understand the continuing grief
at the loss that parents experienced with the loss of these four brave Americans.
And I did testify, as you know, for 11 hours.
And I answered all of these questions.
Now, I can't — I can't help it that people think there has to be something else there."
So are the relatives of these deceased heroes liars?
None of the networks picked up on this question and answer.
The Washington Post only picked up her hawkish talk about fighting ISIS,
not her attack on the Benghazi relatives.
The New York Times and USA Today completely skipped any mention of her ABC interview.
The New York Post did what all of them should have done.
They rounded up the relatives, who reiterated that
Clinton told them as the caskets arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14, 2012
that it could be blamed on a YouTube video.
Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, recalled hugging Clinton and that
"she said we are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of my son."
Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, said
Clinton is "absolutely lying. ... She said it was because of the video."
Smith's uncle backed her up.
Kate Quigley, the sister of Glen Doherty, agreed:
"When I think back now to that day and what she knew,
it shows me a lot about her character that she would choose in that moment
to basically perpetuate what she knew was untrue."
That matches what Clinton said at the ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base:
"We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies
over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."
Quigley was stronger in a Boston radio interview:
"This is a woman that will do and say anything to get what she wants.
I have very little respect for her.
I know what she said to me and she can say all day long that she didn't say it.
That's her cross to bear."
These relatives can occasionally be found sharing their pain and outrage
in interviews on Fox News and on CNN.
But ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS can't find them.
The same outlets that lionized "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan over and over again
as she trashed Bush as a "terrorist" in August of 2005 stay silent.
Today, any grieving relative who lacerates Clinton
is just buried in a cave like nuclear waste.
2015-12-29-ConservativeHQ-of-course-hillary-clinton-and-obama-are-lying
Of Course Hillary Clinton And Obama Are Lyingby CHQ staff
Conservative HQ, 2015-12-29
Our friends at Judicial Watch have been relentless in peeling back the layers of lies and deceit surrounding Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Despite the fact that the Clinton machine and its media mouthpieces would have you think that a presidential debate or primary contest is the only “trial” Hillary Clinton has to face. Incredible new documents Judicial Watch turned-up show that she ought to face another sort of trial for her email games and related national security breaches at the State Department.
While most of the attention about Clinton and her email has been focused on her unsecure private server, her admitted reliance on an unsecure Blackberry is the latest and in some ways more devastating Judicial Watch revelation about Clinton’s laissez-faire attitude toward operational security and the handling of classified material.
Judicial Watch released new documents, obtained as the result of a federal court order, containing more than 50 State Department internal emails from 2009 and 2011 warning of serious security concerns involving the use of “highly vulnerable” Blackberries by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff in the executive offices of the Foggy Bottom headquarters.
Keep in mind what this means for our nation’s security said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. An un-secured Blackberry or other Internet device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) are vulnerable to all sorts of hacking that could create opportunities for hostile foreign powers and non-state actors.
The new State records included a March 2, 2009, internal memorandum from Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell entitled “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row,” in which he strongly advised that the devices not be allowed.
According to the Boswell memo, sent to then-Secretary of State Clinton and her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.” Clinton has admitted she used a Blackberry during her early days in office despite Boswell’s memo with explicit written objections.
The Boswell memo also clearly contradicts President Obama's remark to CBS’ “60 Minutes” that "I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered."
...
Secretary Clinton apparently used her server to send a significant amount of classified information. State Department officials say there are “potentially hundreds of classified emails” among the 30,000 messages she has turned over. The intelligence community’s IG likewise sampled 40 e-mails and found that four of them contained classified information.
The Clinton campaign claims that “any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted.”
Not so, according to the State Department and intelligence-community IGs. Hillary’s e-mails “were not retroactively classified,” they say, but rather “contained classified information when they were generated” — information that “remains classified today” and “should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
Meaning also that transmitting classified information over unsecure Blackberries was an equally egregious violation of security protocols.
But hey, Obama says America’s national security wasn’t endangered so we should all just relax and vote for Hillary.
But, as Boswell’s memo says, “I cannot stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified Blackberry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving e-mails, and exploiting calendars.”
These new State Department emails turned up by Judicial Watch are devastating. The emails show Hillary Clinton knew about but ignored national security warnings concerning the use of Blackberries and other unsecure computing systems.
Beyond the fact that they should terrify voters, these new emails ought to be of interest to the FBI and federal prosecutors. These emails show a pattern of disregard for both the letter of the law and best practices for handling classified material and that her mishandling of classified information and violations of federal records laws was far from innocent and far from limited to her home server.
For the complete story on the latest trove of Clinton State Department documents revealed through the relentless efforts of our friends at Judicial Watch click this link.
2015-12-31-WashExaminer-new-classified-email-contradicts-clintons-claim
New classified email may contradict Clinton's claimBy Sarah Westwood
Washington Examiner, 2015-12-31
A batch of Hillary Clinton's private emails that were published Thursday by the State Department included at least one classified message that appeared to have been marked as "confidential" when it was written, which could contradict Clinton's longstanding argument that nothing she sent or received bore classification markings.
The record was among 275 emails that were upgraded to fully or partially classified in the latest trove of emails.
The email chain in question included a message from Harold Koh, a State Department legal adviser, that was listed as "confidential" both in the subject line and in the body of the email. "Confidential" is the lowest level of classification, followed by "secret." Most of Clinton's now-classified emails have been upgraded to the "confidential" level.
Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman, said Koh's email contained attorney-client discussions and was thus considered "confidential" only in the legal sense at the time.
"The phrase 'privileged and confidential' is often used by attorneys to indicate a likely attorney-client work product, and in no way indicates a national security classification, which is an entirely separate matter regulated by Executive Order 13526," Gerlach told the Washington Examiner.
However, a large portion of the Koh email was officially classified as "confidential" by the State Department before being posted online late Thursday afternoon.
Agency officials have frequently argued none of the emails were classified at the time they were written, and that all designations were made in light of information that has emerged since Clinton left office.
But the now-classified message from Feb. 2012 contained the word "confidential" in the subject and began with a clear disclaimer: "PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL/ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE/DELIBERATIVE PROCESS/ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT."
The email discussed ongoing negotiations with the Egyptian government over a U.S. non-governmental organization that was then facing legal trouble in the country.
The word "confidential" can denote classified information in an email, but does not always do so.
State Department officials maintained Thursday that none of the emails published were marked classified at the time they were sent, and said all 275 emails that were partially or fully classified in the latest batch were designated as such after the fact.
Blog continued at Hillary Clinton emails : 2016.
Labels: Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton emails
posted by KHarbaugh at 08:19
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