Clinton E-Mail Use Violated Rules, State Department Audit Finds

[Ebsy]

I'd like to invite those that are stating that this is such a big to point out a single new piece of information about Clinton's email use that was not already known prior to the release of this report? Everything Beet is ranting about was already known.

[Seriously?]

Of course she broke the rules. She thinks rules don't apply to her.

Do you think she'll act differently as president? Rules, laws, the constitution, she is above them all.

[Seriously?]

She broke a "rule" not a "law".  Nothing is gonna happen.

The Federal Records Act, which the State Department says she violated, is a federal law. That's ridiculous spin right there.

And I can't believe her supporters are gonna use the argument "well, OTHER secretaries have done the same thing!" and therefore she's in the right and should get only a slap on the wrist. Gimme a break.

No other SOS went to the lengths of setting up a homebrew server in her own basement. None would be either that dumb to open themselves up to that kind of security risk. Or that brazen. But the crooked Clintons think they can get away with anything.

[SillyAmerican]

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http://www.politicususa.com/2016/05/25/state-department-deals-death-blow-republican-partys-clinton-email-scandal.html

Also from that link:

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Did other Secretaries of State create their own e-mail servers to get around record retention and disclosure laws?  I don't think so.

If you are talking "motivation", then can you prove that her intention was to "get around record retention and disclosure laws"? I don't think you can, because her intention was convenience.

Yes, and despite what you might believe, doing things like setting up a private server because the Secretary of State's convenience is considered of primary importance, circumventing record retention and disclosure laws in order to accommodate the Secretary of State's convenience, putting the Secretary's convenience above possible national security concerns, these are things which give many people pause. I realize that Hillary supporters want to paint this as completely inconsequential, but I'll wait until we hear from the FBI folks whether or not that position is reasonable.

[IceSpear]

People who like Hillary and want her to win, don't care.

People who can't stand Hillary and want her to go down, care.

Pretty much. We'll see what happens.

Yep. All the damage that can be done based on this has already been done. The media and all the Republicans have spammed it for over a year now. At this point it's like trying to draw water from a stone.

[IceSpear]

Well, this report is a f'ing disaster.

I know you guys know I love to fret but I usually fret about future outcomes. I often defend Clinton on substantive matters.

First of all, this isn't a case of "everybody else does it." No one else does it. Secretary Powell used a personal e-mail address exclusively yes, but that was installed for him by the Department staff, so it has the imprimatur of bureaucratic approval. Also, the relevant rule in the Department Manual was not promulgated until 2005. The rule clearly distinguishes Clinton's situation from the "300+ other high-level government officials" who use personal e-mail for government business. It states that normal day-to-day operations are to be conducted on an approved electronic platform. Clinton's platform was not approved.

Yes, it is true that Department IT staff, including senior bureaucratic staff, were involved in discussions of her e-mail system and sent e-mails to her private e-mail. And some IT staff, including senior bureaucratic staff, were aware that she used a private e-mail server.

However, this appears to be a matter of bureaucratic staff not having the will to stand up to the Secretary and say, "No, this is against the rules." Complicating this is the fact that there was no precedent of any Secretary using a government e-mail address. So who is going to say, well there's this obscure rule in the Department Manual that prohibits a private e-mail server, to the Secretary? Apparently no one. Granted, many Manual rules (such as those requiring e-mails be printed and filed) were widely flaunted, but the report highlights that the Ambassador to Kenya was disciplined in part over this particular rule.

But worst of all is the part where there's an e-mail from the Executive Secretariat mentioning FOIA requests as a factor in whether to set up a government e-mail addresses for Clinton. This suggests he believed that she was using a private e-mail in part to skirt FOIA requests. There's a reason why the probability of an indictment is up 6 percentage points on PredictIt today.

Needless to say I am furious at the Secretary. This election is about us, not her, and I supported her because I thought she was the best candidate for us. Now I am not so sure. John Edwards proves that sometimes people who others invest a lot in, have a reckless disregard for the hopes of their own supporters.

So congrats, Clinton haters, you win. When/if Clinton is indicted then I would support her delegates to draft Warren, but the Sanders folks would make a strong pitch to take over the party. In any case I am probably out of discussing politics on forums for the cycle. I have a personal life, and this just exacerbates my neurotic tendencies.

Who needs PredictIt when you have Beet? I am now 100% confident she will not be indicted.

[136or142]

I believe the Justice Department lawyers use a two part test on whether to indict a person: 
1.A reasonable chance of conviction
2.Whether it is in the public interest

This is at least what is done in Canada

I believe this inspector general report should be sufficient to meet the first test

I don't know though if the second test is on whether the conviction would be in the public interest, or whether the charge has to be in the public interest.

If it's the former, I have no idea what other evidence there is to determine whether a Hillary Clinton conviction would be in the public interest, but I do believe charging her is in the public interest.

1.It shows that the government and the prosecutors take security seriously and also that the government does not take kindly to public officials 'going rogue.'

2.To the degree that Hillary Clinton's defense team would argue that the rules were murky, a criminal charge would make it clear to all government departments that rules need to be clear and easy enough to follow.

3.It would make Hillary Clinton and/or her team testify under oath why they chose to set up this private server.  I believe the allegations that she did so to combine her position as Secretary of State with the operations of the Clinton Foundation in order to rake in money and do sweetheart deals are conspiracy nonsense and that she likely did so because she is a secretive person by nature who wanted to avoid scrutiny as much as possible, and nothing more, but I think it would be good to get this on the public record.

4.It would serve notice to government officials who seek to avoid transparency that they might also be criminally charged.

So, I don't believe that Hillary Clinton should run for President until we can figure out what the hell is going on.  This is my revised list, in order of preference, of who I believe she should release her delegates to support at the convention, if she can do such a thing:

1.Elizabeth Warren
2.Joe Biden
3.John Kerry
4.Kirsten Gillibrand
5.Jerry Brown
6.Amy Klobuchar

[Mr. Reactionary]

I'll bet if a white male did this there would be nothing to it.

Uh yeah sure. Just like nobody cared when noted white male Condeleeza Rice and other noted white male Colin Powell similarly broke protocol with their email preservation. Clearly this has nothing to do with politics or how certain people behave in office or really anything else other than what Prof. Smith's intersectionalism 101 class taught.

[ProgressiveCanadian]

Hillary is blowing this whole election and her hacks are too delusional to see this

[SillyAmerican]

Per the article posted under the title What the new inspector general report on Hillary Clinton's emails actually says:

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Comments regarding either or both of the criticisms mentioned in the article?

[SillyAmerican]

Yes, and despite what you might believe, doing things like setting up a private server because the Secretary of State's convenience is considered of primary importance, circumventing record retention and disclosure laws in order to accommodate the Secretary of State's convenience, putting the Secretary's convenience above possible national security concerns, these are things which give many people pause. I realize that Hillary supporters want to paint this as completely inconsequential, but I'll wait until we hear from the FBI folks whether or not that position is reasonable.

Please wait all you like. I'll bet if a white male did this there would be nothing to it.

But it's Hillary Clinton, a "Clinton" and a " female". She is a reckless, stupid, self-serving, corrupt, old, prune who wears pantsuits, is married to a rapist womanizer, is a liar and....what else?

Boring. We've already heard it all.

But she is likely to be the next President, and hopefully people will appreciate her work when she gets in office. People seem to like the unpredictability of the white male Trump, but not so with the white female candidate. Every tiny little flaw gets examined until blue in the face. Trump gets a pass over and over and over for his outrageous behavior. That's also boring.

Poor Hillary. She's obviously persecuted simply because she's a woman, and simply because her name is "Clinton". There's obviously no other reason for her problems.

Oh, but wait: Steve Linick leveled two broad sets of criticisms at Hillary Clinton, the first related to records management policies and the second related to potential security risks. Do these criticisms show up because she's a female? Do these show up because her name is "Clinton"? Or do these show up because Hillary Clinton feels herself to be above the rules, above pesky policies, and above inconvenient security concerns?

Sorry to continue to bore you with all of these inconsequential concerns. And yeah, I'll continue to wait on Comey and the FBI, but I don't think I'll have to wait for very much longer.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Hillary is blowing this whole election and her hacks are too delusional to see this

How is she blowing the election? There is a complexity about her on many levels, and there are many accomplishments she has made over the course of many years. Are you compartmentalizing her into a tiny box because of the email situation?

She was already was planning a run while SOS so she should have known not to pull this stunt, I don't think you realize she has fallen into a tie with DONALD TRUMP, as with her "accomplishments" being female and being married to someone important are not achievements

The crown jewel of her CV is her tenure as Secretary of State. And that can be spun either negatively or positively.

Positive: look at everything she got done, all the crises she kept from blowing up.

Negative: look at all the ticking bombs she left, that started to explode the moment she was clear.

[Beet]

I can't tell if "HC Soul Sister" is a troll.

In any case, as far as the public interest goes, I think I can make a case that it's in the public interest for candidates running in major elections not to be indicted. Let's be real here, an indictment amounts to a judgement from unelected law enforcement officials that a certain person should not be allowed to run. That is a major problem when an election is already well underway and voters are therefore deprived of meaningful choices. If that happened in every election, what would be the point of elections then? So strictly arguing from the perspective of the public interest, it's devastating to the public interest. That goes no matter who the person is or what party they belong to.

[psychprofessor]

Imagine if Hillary used her private AOL email like Colin Powell to conduct official business?

Or if she destroyed all of her hard drives like the Romney staffers before they left Massachusetts?

Or if she used her personal email like Sarah Palin as governor?

[Beet]

Also, a little troubling in this report is how much of it is a Hillary roast. The authors have to be aware of the presidential campaign going on. One of the lead investigators is a former Grassley staffer. One major area of concern is that from the facts hereby presented, Clinton (a) e-mailed with dozens, if not hundreds of State Department staffers on her private e-mail address, (b) low level IT staffers were aware she had a private e-mail server and that an external consultant was working on it, and (c) the head of the department that oversees the CIO and DS's departments was aware of it, and (d) "many" members of administrative bureaucratic departments sent e-mail to her server,

YET

Both the CIO an DS deny have approved the server, or being aware of the "scope" of her use of the server. So low-level IT staff, the boss of CIO and DS, were aware of her e-mail server, but the CIO and DS were not aware of it for four years (despite knowing she had a clintonemail.com domain)? Isn't this something the OIG should have been concerned about? After all, it doesn't shy away from calling out staff members in other areas of the report. There's no evidence OIG ever pressed the CIO and DS if they ever attempted to find out more about Clinton's e-mail situation, and if not, why not.

This is the equivalent of a traffic cop saying, "I was never consulted about her speeding, and if she had asked I would have said she shouldn't speed," yet sitting there every day as she drives by at 70 mph. Now news reports are making it seem like her private e-mail situation was some kind of secret. Hence I am concerned this report is not fair and balanced, and emphasizes the negative with respect to SoS. But in doing so, it fails to hold the CIO and DS to account. Of course, these two individuals also have their own reputations to protect so they will minimize their knowledge of the situation and claim in retrospect to be as conservative as possible. But political appointees are not always aware of the technical issues or the details of compliance, so these two do have an obligation, if they become aware of any serious breach of security, to raise it.

There is no evidence OIG ever attempted to pursue these questions. This raises the worry that OIG was not impartial.

EDIT: As to the possibility CIO and DS were intimidated from above, their boss, Patrick Kennedy agreed to be interviewed, which would suggest he's not under criminal investigation. The crazy thing is, after reading this whole report I'm still not clear as to what happened.

[SillyAmerican]

Also, a little troubling in this report is how much of it is a Hillary roast. The authors have to be aware of the presidential campaign going on. One of the lead investigators is a former Grassley staffer. One major area of concern is that from the facts hereby presented, Clinton (a) e-mailed with dozens, if not hundreds of State Department staffers on her private e-mail address, (b) low level IT staffers were aware she had a private e-mail server and that an external consultant was working on it, and (c) the head of the department that oversees the CIO and DS's departments was aware of it, and (d) "many" members of administrative bureaucratic departments sent e-mail to her server,

YET

Both the CIO an DS deny have approved the server, or being aware of the "scope" of her use of the server. So low-level IT staff, the boss of CIO and DS, were aware of her e-mail server, but the CIO and DS were not aware of it for four years (despite knowing she had a clintonemail.com domain)? Isn't this something the OIG should have been concerned about? After all, it doesn't shy away from calling out staff members in other areas of the report. There's no evidence OIG ever pressed the CIO and DS if they ever attempted to find out more about Clinton's e-mail situation, and if not, why not.

This is the equivalent of a traffic cop saying, "I was never consulted about her speeding, and if she had asked I would have said she shouldn't speed," yet sitting there every day as she drives by at 70 mph. Now news reports are making it seem like her private e-mail situation was some kind of secret. Hence I am concerned this report is not fair and balanced, and emphasizes the negative with respect to SoS. But in doing so, it fails to hold the CIO and DS to account. Of course, these two individuals also have their own reputations to protect so they will minimize their knowledge of the situation and claim in retrospect to be as conservative as possible. But political appointees are not always aware of the technical issues or the details of compliance, so these two do have an obligation, if they become aware of any serious breach of security, to raise it.

There is no evidence OIG ever attempted to pursue these questions. This raises the worry that OIG was not impartial.

EDIT: As to the possibility CIO and DS were intimidated from above, their boss, Patrick Kennedy agreed to be interviewed, which would suggest he's not under criminal investigation. The crazy thing is, after reading this whole report I'm still not clear as to what happened.

Yes, except to follow your scenario, prior to speeding, the lady signs a two page document saying that she will take care to obey the laws and drive with care. Let me know if you'd like me to post, once again, the document which Hillary Clinton signed in her first days as Secretary of State.

Sorry, but people should not sign such documents if they're not going to be willing to explain their activities after they go about ignoring what the docs say you won't do.

[SillyAmerican]

Interesting to note that per Mike Barnicle of MSNBC:

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So isn't it a little tough for Hillary Clinton to say that what she did was allowed? I mean, she failed to follow her own order! I mean, come on, either she had a clear understanding why using home email for State Department business was a bad idea (even while she professes ignorance of any such understanding), or she believed that the rules apply to everybody except her. Which is it? Does it matter? Either way, she shows herself to be someone we cannot trust to act properly while in high office.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Imagine if Hillary used her private AOL email like Colin Powell to conduct official business?

Or if she destroyed all of her hard drives like the Romney staffers before they left Massachusetts?

Or if she used her personal email like Sarah Palin as governor?

I don't want to see Trump win, and I'd much rather seen most any D over any R, but Clinton defenders need to face reality and stop trying to come up with BS excuses. They just make things look desperate.

Unlike Powell and Rice, Clinton never even activated her state.gov email. Unlike them she conducted all her official email via a private server.

What Romney or Palin did is irrelevant (among other things, they weren't handling classified information), and trying to point fingers in an attempt to deflect isn't going to convince anyone but those who are already true believers.