Author Topic: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history  (Read 584268 times)

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18288
    • View Profile
re. Hillary's Classified Denial, Trey Gowdy: That is Patently False
« Reply #650 on: August 13, 2015, 09:20:26 AM »
REP. TREY GOWDY: Every explanation Secretary Clinton has provided about a week later was proven to be demonstrably false. this is just the latest one of those assertions that there was no classified info. i saw the clip this morning. she was very definitive – she neither sent or received classified information. Well, that is patently false. hat I’m primarily concerned with is whether or not I’m going to have access to records that i need to do the job that the House asked me to do...

If she were interested in cooperation she wouldn't have done any of the things she's done to date. This was not about cooperation, and Bill, frankly, it's not about convenience, it's about control. she wanted to control access to the public record, and she almost got away with it but she didn't.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #651 on: August 13, 2015, 09:26:11 AM »
There Is ‘No Doubt’ Hillary Violated Federal Law on Classified Information

Maybe Hillary Clinton doesn’t skate after all. To hear former NSA officer John R. Schindler tell it, the facts of her wrongdoing aren’t really in dispute anymore:

What, then, does all this means for Hillary? There is no doubt that she, or someone on her State Department staff, violated federal law by putting TOP SECRET//SI information on an unclassified system. That it was Hillary’s private, offsite server makes the case even worse from a security viewpoint. Claims that they “didn’t know” such information was highly classified do not hold water and are irrelevant. It strains belief that anybody with clearances didn’t recognize that NSA information, which is loaded with classification markings, was signals intelligence, or SIGINT. It’s possible that the classified information found in Clinton’s email trove wasn’t marked as such. But if that classification notice was omitted, it wasn’t the U.S. intelligence community that took such markings away. Moreover, anybody holding security clearances has already assumed the responsibility for handling it properly.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had no authority to disseminate IC information on her own, neither could she make it less highly classified (a process termed “downgrading” in the spy trade) without asking IC permission first.

We’re now getting an open admission that government business was done from private accounts:

The 2016 Democratic front-runner on Monday told a federal judge that Abedin — long considered her boss’s keeper and even dubbed her “shadow” — had her own email account on Clinton’s now infamous home-brewed server, “which was used at times for government business,” Clinton acknowledged. That’s an unusual arrangement, even for top brass at the State Department.

Abedin had been granted “special government employee” status, allowing her to work both for Clinton and the private sector — and it’s unclear if she continued using the server that appears to have held classified information following her departure from her full-time State gig.

Abedin’s “special government employee” status, enabling her to function both as Clinton’s right-hand woman at State and as a consultant to private firm Teneo Holdings seems like one the biggest, loudest, flashing-neon-sign conflicts of interest in the history of government. Why did she get that special status? Other than the fact that she and Hillary really wanted her to have it.

Our Brendan Bordelon has more on Abedin’s troubles -- for example, I had completely missed this:

On July 31, Grassley exposed the State Department inspector general’s finding that Abedin owed $9,858 to the government for unauthorized vacations and leaves of absence. Abedin’s lawyers dispute the claim, saying she was working even while on vacation in Italy and during her maternity leave. The probe, which Grassley says may be criminal in nature, is ongoing.

Here’s Slate’s Jamelle Bouie:

Among Democrats? She’ll be fine. But if some start to rethink her electability, I won’t blame them. The press distrusts Clinton and holds her to a different standard than other politicians, while Republicans just despise her. Given that, she should have used her official email account, as a way to prepare for the worst and avoid undue scrutiny. Put differently, the choice to use a private email account was an obvious blunder with consequences that have marred her campaign, even if they don’t ever end it.

Finally, our Charlie Cooke asks, why are so many people greeting a prosecution of Hillary Clinton for this as utterly unthinkable? Doesn’t that attitude an effective endorsement of the idea that she’s above the law?


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18288
    • View Profile
Sec State Hillary Clinton visited Iraq "exactly once'.
« Reply #652 on: August 13, 2015, 10:09:17 AM »
From Jeb Bush's foreign policy speech at the Reagan Liibrary:

“In all her record-setting travels, she stopped by Iraq exactly once,”
http://www.redstate.com/2015/08/12/jeb-bush-attacks-hillary-iraq/

Iraq went from won, "Obama's greatest accomplishment" to lost, ISIS' greatest accomplishment, under the watch of our most traveled Secretary of State ever, Hillary Clinton.  Or was it under her watch?  During all this time and all of these travels, Hillary visited Iraq "exactly once".

How is this possible?

The truth is that Hillary was NEVER in the foreign policy decision making circle of the Obama administration.  Pres. Obama appointed envoys to crucial areas who reported directly to the White House, not to Hillary Clinton.  This puts Hillary in a box.  Hillary can say the foreign failures of the Obama administration are not her failures, or she can say she has vast amounts of foreign policy decision making experience, but she cannot claim both.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2015, 10:12:04 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Huma Abedin starting to feel the heat
« Reply #653 on: August 13, 2015, 10:44:54 AM »
The Libya War was her doing, along with Susan Rice and Samantha Powers.
==================
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-email-probe-turns-to-huma-121314.html
Hillary Clinton email probe turns to Huma

Clinton's top aide is likely to face more questions, not least from congressional investigators, about her access to Clinton’s system.

By Rachael Bade

8/13/15 5:05 AM EDT
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 10: Huma Abedin, the Muslim wife of disgraced U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and who works as a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, listens to President Barack Obama during an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room of the White House August 10, 2012 in Washington, DC. The invited guests include elected officials, religious and grassroots leaders in the Muslim American community, leaders of diverse faiths and members of the diplomatic corps





Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s most trusted confidante, is increasingly becoming a central figure in the email scandal that’s haunting her boss on the campaign trail, as Republicans and federal judges seek information about Clinton’s communications while she was running the State Department.

The 2016 Democratic front-runner on Monday told a federal judge that Abedin — long considered her boss’s keeper and even dubbed her “shadow” — had her own email account on Clinton’s now infamous home-brewed server, “which was used at times for government business,” Clinton acknowledged. That’s an unusual arrangement, even for top brass at the State Department.

Abedin has hired a team of lawyers, one of whom is a former Clinton aide, who are responding to information requests from the courts and State. They’ve denied any wrongdoing on the part of their client and said Abedin is cooperating with requests for official emails in her possession, aiming to turn over all her correspondence by the end of August.

But her lawyers — Karen Dunn and Miguel Rodriguez — didn’t respond to questions about emails on Clinton’s separate server. Dunn is a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, and she served as a senior advisor to Clinton when she was in the Senate.
EXETER, NH - AUGUST 10: Hillary Clinton held a town meeting event at Exeter High School in Exeter, N.H. on Aug. 10, 2015. (Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Also on POLITICO
Poll: Clinton leads in Iowa, but majority not firmly decided

ELIZA COLLINS

After an inspector general found that Clinton had at least two “top secret” emails stored on her unsecured computer network, Abedin is likely to face more questions from congressional investigators, and perhaps others, about her access to Clinton’s system.

Abedin had been granted “special government employee” status, allowing her to work both for Clinton and the private sector — and it’s unclear if she continued using the server that appears to have held classified information following her departure from her full-time State gig.

On Wednesday, Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill waved off questions about how the two issues — the email server and Abedin’s unusual work arrangement — may or may not have overlapped, accusing the right of playing politics with this line of inquiry.

“It’s election season, and congressional Republicans are running the same series of plays, just on a different field,” Merrill said in an email, later adding that Abedin maintained her security clearance while she worked as a State contractor.

But Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ project on government secrecy, said Abedin’s potential access to secret materials could be a problem.

“What happens if [a former government employee] still retains access through a prior server, to information that was justified by a previous position? That’s not supposed to happen — and that’s one of the anomalies that are created by the private server,” Aftergood said.

Classified materials with national security implications are supposed to be stored in a place where no one can gain access to them unless they have special clearance.

The FBI is currently probing Clinton’s email arrangement, whereby the former secretary of state used her own technology based out of her New York home instead of an official government address that is required by transparency rules. A State inspector general, who is also looking at the matter, said top Clinton aides would likely also be questioned, though he wouldn’t say who exactly.

Also on POLITICO
Clinton lawyer details server surrender as aides vow not to delete emails

JOSH GERSTEIN

At the same time, powerful congressional Republicans are probing Abedin’s “special government employee status,” while suggesting that she may have had a “conflict of interest.” The Senate Judiciary Committee claims to have a well-informed but unnamed tipster who says Abedin is or has been investigated for criminal misconduct by the State Department inspector general regarding this very issue.

The government watchdog wouldn’t comment on the accusations. And Abedin’s legal team — which is separate from Clinton’s — says it knows of no investigative reports that suggest such misconduct.

“We are aware only of an IG report focused on her maternity leave and vacation and we responded with a letter disputing the report’s conclusions, which we gave to members of the media who requested it,” her lawyers said in a statement. “Obviously, if the report covered other things, our letter would have as well. The IG will have to respond as to his investigations.”

The latest revelations come just as Abedin, the vice chairwoman of Hillary for America, is projected to be taking on more responsibilities for the campaign, heading up fundraisers and speaking to donors on Clinton’s behalf.

Beyond allegations of conflict of interest, Senate Republicans in recent weeks leaked findings by the State Department inspector general that Abedin was overpaid nearly $10,000 for “unused” time off that she actually took but did not record while working at State — a finding her lawyers are currently challenging.

Abedin, who’s been with Clinton for about two decades, started working for Clinton as a 19-year-old intern in the former first lady’s office.

At State and during the 2008 campaign she was considered Clinton’s “body woman,” never far from Clinton’s side and often seen watching her boss intently, ready to scramble to her aid at any minute. Top politicians, and even Bill Clinton, would phone her to reach Hillary, and emails released in recent months showed she enjoyed access to Clinton at her private home, too, dropping items off on her counter and instructing her how to dress and keeping her schedule.

In 2013, news broke that Abedin had been given a special government employee status, allowing her to be simultaneously on the payroll for the philanthropic Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a consulting firm founded by former Clinton White House adviser Doug Band. She previously had not disclosed the dual employment.

Abedin has said she stepped back from government work and became a contractor so she could be with her family and her newborn son. But since then, critics have questioned her about whether she had a conflict of interest while working at State and alongside close friends of the Clinton family.

For two years now, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a bullish Iowa Republican who’s very active in a number of mundane executive branch oversight issues, has been asking for more details about her employment situation but has received little in the way of answers.
MANCHESTER, NH - AUGUST 10: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hosts a grassroots organizing event at McIntyre Ski Area August 10, 2015 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Clinton is on a two day swing through the first in the nation primary state, where she unveiled a college affordability plan. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Also on POLITICO
Clinton campaign mounts counter-attack over email scandal

GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI

He’s recently escalated his demands for more information after a source told the panel that the State Department inspector general had probed Abedin not only for overpayment issues but also over a potential conflict of interest. The source was able to specify that Abedin and Band were on more than 7,000 emails together while she worked at State and detailed an apparent October 2013 letter to the FBI that clarified that the watchdog’s probe was looking at potential criminal misconduct.

Huma Abedin goes over notes with Clinton during her visit to the newly opened University Teaching Hospital Pediatric Centre of Excellence, in Lusaka, Zambia, June 11, 2011. | AP Photo

Grassley has asked the FBI, State inspector general and State Department for more information about this probe — including whether it even exists.

He has also asked Abedin’s lawyers about the matter but has not heard back.

“Much of the information sought by Senator Grassley’s letter will need to be produced by the State Department and we have been in touch with State,” Dunn said in an email.

Clinton on Monday declared under penalty of perjury that she handed over all her work emails to the State Department for record-keeping purposes; Abedin declined a judge’s request to do the same.

Dunn said Abedin, who was among 10 State Department officials asked by their former agency to hand over any work-related messages on personal emails, expects to turn over all her official correspondence to the State Department by Aug. 28. On Wednesday, Dunn declined to say whether Abedin will then do the same as Clinton and swear under penalty of perjury that she has handed over all official records.

It is unclear whether all her official emails on Clinton’s server were saved.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-email-probe-turns-to-huma-121314.html#ixzz3iiaTYTVu
« Last Edit: August 13, 2015, 06:17:36 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
NR on Huma Abedin
« Reply #654 on: August 13, 2015, 06:18:00 PM »
Will Huma Abedin Survive the Clinton Scandal Vortex? fullscreen (Kevin Hagen/Dreamstime) Share article on Facebookshare Tweet articletweet Plus one article on Google Plus+1 Print Article Email article Adjust font size AA by Brendan Bordelon August 13, 2015 4:00 AM @brendanbordelon It was probably inevitable that the woman always at Hillary Clinton’s side would one day be sucked into the vortex of suspicion and scandal surrounding the Democratic presidential frontrunner. For top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, that day seems to have arrived. Though rumors of impropriety have swirled around Abedin for over two years, in the past two weeks they’ve snowballed into concrete allegations. Last week, the State Department inspector general claimed that the trusted Clinton confidant owes the government nearly $10,000 for violating rules regarding vacation and sick leave. And in court on Monday, Hillary Clinton admitted Abedin had an e-mail account on the now-infamous private server run out of Clinton’s house while she was secretary of state, and that the account “was used at times for government business.” State Department investigators say they’ve now expanded a probe into Clinton’s use of private e-mail to include “top aides,” meaning Abedin is almost certainly under federal investigation for the possible exchange of unsecured, classified data. Despite a glacial government response time, multiple investigations into Abedin’s simultaneous employment at the State Department and a consulting firm tied to the Clintons are also approaching their peak. Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has already accused Abedin of leveraging her dual public and private roles to “deliver favors” for key Clinton Foundation donors. Is Abedin the new Doug Band, the longtime Bill Clinton aide who eventually became a liability for the former first family’s political ambitions? And will Abedin’s escalating scandals compel the Clintons to cut her loose, just as they jettisoned Band? Band began his career as a lowly “body man” for then-President Clinton in the mid 90s, but soon morphed into a key aide in Clinton’s post-White House life. He was the gatekeeper to the former president and one of the chief architects of the Clinton Foundation’s Global Initiative. Many described him as the son Clinton never had. EDITORIAL: As the FBI Seizes Clinton’s Servers, Her E-Mail Scandal Enters a More Serious Phase A 2013 article in The New Republic detailed how Band’s decision to found private consulting firm Teneo Holdings in 2010 caused a rift in the Clintons’ inner circle. The former aide aggressively touted his relationship with the Clintons to prospective clients, and the Clintons worried about their ostensible connection to scandals such as the one surrounding Teneo patron and disgraced MF Global CEO Jon Corzine. Band’s relentless push to capitalize on his Clinton connections brought his loyalty into question, and the relationship soured before he left his position at the Clinton Foundation in May of this year. Like Band, Abedin worked her way up in the Clinton political machine. From her start as Hillary Clinton’s White House intern, she rose to become the former first lady’s right-hand woman at both the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. She is said to carefully control access to Clinton, and the two are extremely close — at Abedin’s wedding, Clinton described her as “a second daughter.” Abedin’s behavior may soon become a drag on her boss’s presidential prospects. But much like Band’s ultimately did, Abedin’s behavior may soon become a drag on her boss’s presidential prospects. On July 31, Grassley exposed the State Department inspector general’s finding that Abedin owed $9,858 to the government for unauthorized vacations and leaves of absence. Abedin’s lawyers dispute the claim, saying she was working even while on vacation in Italy and during her maternity leave. The probe, which Grassley says may be criminal in nature, is ongoing. This isn’t Grassley’s first look into Abedin’s time at the State Department. For over two years, he has sought answers on her simultaneous employment as a consultant at Teneo — Doug Band’s firm — and as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at Foggy Bottom. Between June 2012 and February 2013, Abedin was granted “special government employee” status, enabling her to function both as Clinton’s right-hand woman at State and as a consultant to Teneo. Concerned that Abedin may have leveraged her high-level government position to benefit Teneo’s clients, in August 2013 Grassley requested that the State Department turn over all official communications between Abedin and Band. Get Free Exclusive NR Content That request remains unfulfilled, despite the Judiciary Committee chairman’s numerous inquiries over the past two years. Last week, the senator said the department wouldn’t even return his staff’s phone calls. Allan Blutstein, a former government FOIA attorney, says that the State Department’s delay “seems unusual,” since documents requested by the chairperson of a congressional committee are generally released expeditiously, absent claims of executive privilege. “Most agencies, to maintain effective relations, will process those requests as quickly as practicable,” he says. “Two years is a long time not to respond to a committee chair’s request.” Nevertheless, Grassley appears to have gained some knowledge of Abedin’s Teneo-related communications without State’s help. A letter released by his office on July 30 claims there are over 7,300 e-mails between Abedin and Band on her official government account. In one, Band allegedly urges Abedin to ask Hillary Clinton to intercede with President Obama on behalf of one of his clients, Judith Rodin, who was seeking a White House job. As president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Rodin had steered hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation — something Band reportedly noted in the e-mail. RELATED: Is Hillary Above the Law? Last week, Grassley accused the State Department of “a pattern of conduct that clearly demonstrates a lack of cooperation and bad faith.” On August 5, he placed a Senate hold on the department’s nomination of an important assistant secretary. The next day, he announced his intention to place holds on 20 more State nominees. “The department must recognize that it has an obligation to respond to congressional inquiries in a timely and reasonable manner,” he said in a press release. (The State Department did not respond to NR’s request for comment.) Clinton’s enemies are confident that they can prove the link between Abedin’s alleged misdeeds and Clinton herself. Other officials have also expressed frustration over the State Department’s delay in producing Abedin’s communications. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, presiding over an Associated Press lawsuit, slammed the department for its slow response on July 20 and ordered expedited processing of the e-mails. “It appears they didn’t get anything done for two years,” Leon said. With pressure building on multiple fronts, the documents detailing Abedin’s relationship with Teneo are likely to be released soon. If those documents prove damaging, the Clintons may have to decide whether she is too much of a liability to keep around. Still, it would be surprising if the Clintons cut ties with Abedin the way they did with Band. The State Department’s approval of her request for the special status needed to work at Teneo suggests she joined the consulting firm with Hillary Clinton’s blessing. The scandal now engulfing Abedin over her use of a private e-mail account is the same one that’s already swallowed her boss. And unlike Band’s, Abedin’s loyalty to the Clintons has never been questioned. More Hillary Clinton Handicapping the 2016 Field, Round Three Why Hillary’s Wiping Her E-mail Server Clean Matters More than It Might Seem Hillary Clinton and the Pain of Being a Peon “Huma Abedin has spent nearly two decades in public service, and is widely known to be one of the hardest-working people in government,” says Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. “She is smart, loyal, compassionate, and she is an invaluable part of the team. Period.” Some political analysts doubt that an Abedin scandal, or a series of scandals, would damage the Clinton campaign. “The average person has no idea who Huma Abedin is, and I expect that to be the case throughout the campaign,” says Nathan Gonzales, co-founder of the Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report. “If someone is taking issue with any of her actions, they probably weren’t going to vote for Clinton anyway.” But Clinton’s enemies are confident that they can prove the link between Abedin’s alleged misdeeds and Clinton herself. “The motivations of why Huma is doing these things for the Clinton Foundation and for Teneo are important,” says David Bossie, a perennial Clinton foe whose organization Citizens United is pursuing its own lawsuit for Abedin’s records. “All roads lead back to Bill and Hillary Clinton.” — Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter at National Review.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422475/hillary-clinton-scandals-huma-abedin

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
Enjoying the headlines and seeing Dems squirm
« Reply #655 on: August 14, 2015, 08:20:57 AM »
Sad the server was not seized immediately as it should have been.   I would think any reasonable law enforcement people would have known to do this.   Do not understand why not done.

If Drudge report is correct that the server was wiped clean by professionals than her lawyers who allowed this, the IT people who did this and her staff and she should be up for obstruction of justice.

We would need a Republican in the House to pursue this and not let her get away with it.

Jeb will pardon her as would Kasich and the other wimps IMHO.


objectivist1

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 1048
    • View Profile
Hillary is a Criminal - Time for a Special Prosecutor...
« Reply #656 on: August 14, 2015, 08:38:00 AM »
The Countless Crimes of Hillary Clinton: Special Prosecutor Needed

Now Hillary finally hands over her server—after it's been professionally wiped clean By Sidney Powell | 08/13/15

After years of holding herself above the law, telling lie after lie, and months of flat-out obstruction, HIllary Clinton has finally produced to the FBI her server and three thumb drives. Apparently, the server has been professionally wiped clean of any useable information, and the thumb drives contain only what she selectively culled.

Myriad criminal offenses apply to this conduct. Anyone with knowledge of government workings has known from inception that Hillary’s communications necessarily would contain classified and national security related information. Thanks to the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, it is now beyond dispute that she had ultra-Top Secret information and more that should never have left the State Department.

Equal to Ms. Clinton’s outrageous misconduct is that of the entire federal law enforcement community. It has long chosen to be deliberately blind to these flagrant infractions of laws designed to protect national security—laws for which other people, even reporters, have endured atrocious investigations, prosecutions, and some served years in prison for comparatively minor infractions. During the same years that Hillary was communicating about national security and world affairs off the grid, the Department of Justice has had no qualms threatening news reporters and prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.

It’s high time for a special prosecutor to be named to conduct a full investigation into Ms. Clinton’s likely commission of multiple felonies, including a conspiracy with Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and possibly others, to violate multiple laws. While the FBI and Department of Justice have willfully ignored Hillary Clinton’s outrageous conduct, they didn’t hesitate a minute to investigate and prosecute former CIA Director and national hero, General Petraeus. He was just tarred, feathered and ridden out of the CIA on a rail for sharing some information (his own notebook) with his biographer who was both in the military and had a top secret clearance.

Yet, Petraeus did not have a secret server set up to house his classified and top secret information or digital satellite imagery; he destroyed nothing; and, there was no “leak.”

But that’s not all. During the same years that Hillary was communicating about national security and world affairs off the grid, the Department of Justice has had no qualms threatening news reporters and prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act. To hell with the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent, even the New York Times reported that this administration prosecuted more reporters and whistleblowers for “espionage” than all prior administrations put together.

Remember Fox news reporter James Rosen? The Holder Justice Department not only seized his emails immediately and without his knowledge, they suggested he was a criminal “co-conspirator” in a leak case—under the Espionage Act—which carries a ten-year term of imprisonment. And they quickly indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senator Menendez on extremely stretched or tortured views of vague criminal statutes and factual allegations of conduct that may well not be criminal.

Senator Menendez can’t vacation with his best friend but Hillary Clinton and her “Foundation” can accept millions of dollars from foreign governments seeking to curry her favor. Yet there’s been no criminal investigation of Ms. Clinton and her cabal? They couldn’t seize her server months ago while it contained all the emails? They couldn’t put a stop to it from the beginning?

Oh right, I forgot. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Ms. Clinton had declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure—so there was no internal oversight. And oh yes, her name is Clinton, and she has long deemed herself above the law. The rules only apply to everyone else.

But wait, there’s still more. The current Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Leslie Caldwell, and her Chief of the Corporate Fraud Section, Andrew Weissmann, destroyed Arthur Andersen and its 85,000 jobs on unfounded charges of obstruction of justice for destroying documents the Supreme Court said it had no legal obligation to keep.

The laws governing Ms. Clinton’s obligations are clear. Nonetheless, they haven’t even convened a grand jury to look into Ms. Clinton’s longstanding assertion that she wiped her server clean—of documents she was legally required to keep? On top of that, there can be little doubt that Eric Holder and other high-ranking FBI and DOJ officials themselves wrote Ms. Clinton at Clintonemail.com—not to mention countless communications with the President and “All His Muses”—Counter-terrrorism advisor Lisa Monaco, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and then White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler (not to mention Valerie Jarrett)—about Benghazi and all other top secret and classified issues. The DOJ hasn’t subpoenaed the emails from any of the recipients—or the internet service providers? Or looked for them on the backup government servers of the accounts of all the recipients?

And the State Department still today is making statements defending her? Not only did Ms. Clinton deliberately demonstrate disdain for the Federal Records Act and nullify the protections of the Freedom of Information Act, she violated the Espionage Act by having information relating to the national defense on her server at all. And her deliberate disregard for national security made the job of all hackers that much easier.

As Andy McCarthy explained it in the National Review: In fact, the espionage act—which regulates the handling of intelligence by government officials — does not refer to classified information; it refers to information relating to the national defense. Moreover, it does not prohibit solely the transmission of such information; it criminalizes the communication, delivery, or transmission of that information; causing communication, delivery, or transmission of that information; permitting the removal of that information from its proper place of custody through gross negligence; permitting that information to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed through gross negligence; or, failing to make a prompt report to superiors in the government when an official knows that the information has been removed from its proper place of custody, communicated to someone not authorized to have it, lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed.

See also Title 18 United States Code Section 2071 (prohibiting destruction of records). The Inspector General for the Intelligence Community has advised Congress that even in the few emails he has reviewed, there was top secret information—in the form of digital satellite imagery and signals intelligence. Regardless of how it was marked, and no doubt Ms. Clinton will blame others, even a neophyte would have known that such information was of the highest secrecy.

Not surprisingly, the first seeds of Ms. Clinton’s deflecting the blame to underlings were sown by her protectors in the State Department itself last night. Aside from that, her knowledge and intent do not matter under some of these statutes and are indefensible under others. General Petraeus certainly had no criminal intent, and neither did any of the reporters. Ms. Clinton, however, established her entire system to avoid the law and in violation of the Espionage Act—as she and her co-conspirators removed all records from the State Department from its inception. Compounding her crimes, she knowingly and willfully destroyed whatever she wanted to destroy—despite or more likely because of—the incriminating information it contained and in the face of the Benghazi investigation.

There’s still more. The countless false statements are crimes under 18 United States Code Section 1001—both by Ms. Clinton to Congress (“no classified information”) and in writing by Cheryl Mills to the State Department and just filed with Judge Sullivan—in which she states: “On matters pertaining to the conduct of government business, it was her practice to use the officials’ government email accounts.”

We already know that Ms. Clinton used her personal server exclusively. Title 18 United States Code Section 1001 makes it a crime for anyone to “knowingly and willfully” falsify, conceal, or cover up “a material fact,” or make “any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or misrepresentation,” etc. Countless people are convicted felons under this statute—some for offenses that would never occur to anyone even to be a crime. And these are just a few of the possible statutes that it would appear to any federal prosecutor that she and her corrupt cabal violated.

As Lt. Col. Ralph Peters had the guts to say last night on FoxNews, “Hillary Clinton is a criminal.” Military heroes who have risked their lives for this country have gone to prison for less. The Department of Justice’s selective prosecutions have been well-documented. Its favoritism and targeting practices must end.

As discussed on NewsMaxTV’s Hardline last night, it’s time for a national outcry for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and indict Ms. Clinton’s flagrant violations of some of our most important laws. Anyone else would have been arrested by now.

Until there is a massive change in this country, justice is a game.

"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18288
    • View Profile
Re: Enjoying the headlines and seeing Dems squirm
« Reply #657 on: August 14, 2015, 09:09:57 AM »
"Sad the server was not seized immediately as it should have been.   I would think any reasonable law enforcement people would have known to do this.   Do not understand why not done.

If Drudge report is correct that the server was wiped clean by professionals than her lawyers who allowed this, the IT people who did this and her staff and she should be up for obstruction of justice."
----------------------------

It will be interesting to find out someday what role Obama-Clinton politics played in the delay and decision to seize the server.  There was a time to let them turn over voluntarily.  That time is long past.  The more they scrubbed it, the more guilty they are.  And those emails will come back around some other way.  Likewise, it is fun to watch them squirm; they deserve this.  LA Times editorial today calls it a self-inflicted wound.  That is obvious but it was not obvious that the left and even their own supporters would pick up on the seriousness of it.

Rush L has it right.  Hillary can't drop out because she already promised vast amounts of political favors, corruption, appointments, funding, etc. based on committing to run for President and win.   She cannot pay back that money without power.  Everything to do with the Clinton Crime Family foundation is based on her power to return favors on a very large scale.

When this ship goes down, the whole operation goes down.  And when it goes down, the rats on it will have nothing left to sell except their own stories about Clinton family crimes and mis-deeds.

Meanwhile, we are all once again distracted by the latest shiny object.  The problem with America isn't that Barack Obama is a hypocritical narcissist or that Bill and Hillary are dishonest and corrupt.  The problem is the massive advance of statism over our founding principles of individual freedom and responsibility.

We need to take down and cleanse out lying and corrupt politicians from time to time in either party, but our focus needs to stay on defeating the expansion of government and promoting the elevation of the people.  i.e. 'the right to rise' as one candidate calls it.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2015, 09:35:09 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #658 on: August 14, 2015, 09:46:55 AM »
"Meanwhile, we are all once again distracted by the latest shiny object.  The problem with America isn't that Barack Obama is a hypocritical narcissist or that Bill and Hillary are dishonest and corrupt.  The problem is the massive advance of statism over our founding principles of individual freedom and responsibility.

We need to take down and cleanse out lying and corrupt politicians from time to time in either party, but our focus needs to stay on defeating the expansion of government and promoting the elevation of the people.  i.e. 'the right to rise' as one candidate calls it."

Well said.  But taking down Obama and the Clintons, the fronts for the massive socialist movement is a first step.

Taking down their myths is part of the second step.

I don't know who can step up and be the "front" for this new birth of freedom at this time.



 

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Judge orders access to Hillary's personal emails
« Reply #659 on: August 14, 2015, 02:30:34 PM »


After Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cleaned the server she used during her tenure as Secretary of State and handed it over to the FBI, a federal judge made an order that the Justice Department and the FBI gain access to the 32,000 emails Clinton did not turn over because she classified them as “personal.”

Before releasing the server, along with three thumb drives containing a redacted list of emails, Clinton released 55,000 pages comprised of 30,000 emails that she deemed “work-related” to the State Department last year, and then claimed that she deleted over 30,000 emails that she had deemed “personal.”

[RELATED: Hillary Clinton Deletes All Emails, Wipes Server Clean]

Out of the 30,000 emails the State Department has access to, it has released 40 to I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community. On Tuesday, he classified two of those emails as “top secret,” containing the highest classification of government intelligence information.

After it was revealed that at least two messages had been upgraded to classified, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the Justice Department work with the FBI to gain access to the trove of “personal” emails Clinton claimed she deleted.

[RELATED: Breaking The Law? Hillary Clinton Used Private Email As Secretary of State]

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said that the Committee is now aware that they “didn’t get all the relevant documents from that server and the American people are entitled to them.”

The Washington Times noted that while one judge is “trying to decide how the government is going about determining what classified information is included” in Clinton’s emails, another judge is “exploring the email practices” of Clinton’s top aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.

Although Clinton insisted that her server did not contain any classified information, McCullough’s “top secret” findings add to the list of false claims she has made about her email use as Secretary of State.

[RELATED: Fact Check: Holes In Hillary’s Email Story]

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News, noted that while Clinton’s server contained “top secret,” or the highest level of information that could potentially cause “grave harm” to national security, General David Petraeus had access to classified information, which is at the lowest level, and he was “indicted, prosecuted and convicted” for having the materials “in a desk drawer in his house.”

Prior to the revelation that Clinton’s email account contained “top secret” information, two inspectors general requested that the State Department conduct a criminal investigation into Clinton’s email practices after a memo was released, which stated that Clinton’s private email account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.”


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #661 on: August 15, 2015, 04:13:25 PM »
Bill and Brock playing golf.  Next up.  Case against the obvious felons will become a dead end.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
« Last Edit: August 15, 2015, 06:56:25 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Former US AG Mukasey on the laws that Hillary broke
« Reply #663 on: August 15, 2015, 06:57:53 PM »

Clinton Defies the Law and Common Sense
The question of whether Hillary Clinton’s emails were marked top secret isn’t legally relevant. Any cabinet member should know that.
By
Michael B. Mukasey
Aug. 14, 2015 6:49 p.m. ET


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. 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 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).
Popular on WSJ

 

This latest scam of the Clintons makes their 90s WH quid pro quo look like–if you’ll pardon the oxymoron–penny ante treason.

While the missus was SoS, the couple pocketed billions. The multifarious vectors of transaction &the massive, disproportionate Clinton gains are prima facie evidence of the crime. Why else would so many pay so much for so little?

The clintons' appetite for money&power is insatiable. Like laboratory rats, put enough of the goodies in front of these 2&they will gorge themselves to death.

The Clintons have a long history of selling out America to the enemy, often in plain sight. For 8yrs, they methodically, seditiously& w/ impunity auctioned off our security, sovereignty&economy to the highest foreign bidder…&they are selling us out in plain sight today…which explains why Mrs Clinton chose to scrub the server & risk being charged w/ obstruction. The alternative is a capital offense.



Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
WSJ: All the Secretary's Women
« Reply #664 on: August 16, 2015, 04:35:41 AM »
    Opinion
    Review & Outlook

All the Secretary’s Women
The Clinton email cover up keeps unraveling, thanks to the courts.
Aug. 13, 2015 7:37 p.m. ET


Hillary Clinton has made a career of stiff-arming Congress, inspectors general and the press. So it looks like it’s up to the courts and law enforcement to get to the bottom of her email scandal.

That’s the real meaning of this week’s news in the email case, as the Clinton stonewall becomes harder to sustain. Mrs. Clinton is turning over to the FBI the private server she used to conduct government business while Secretary of State, as well as three thumb drives containing her government-related email. The Clinton campaign won’t say she did this voluntarily, or in response to an FBI demand. And the FBI won’t say why it sought the server. But the handover follows news that top-secret information traveled across her private system, despite her previous denials.

Meanwhile, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan has now verified that Mrs. Clinton will not certify that she has handed over to the State Department all of her work-related records. Two of her closest aides are also dodging Judge Sullivan’s request to hand over their work-related documents to State, and we now know that one of Mrs. Clinton’s aides was using the unsecured Clinton system for government work.

Judge Sullivan is overseeing a Freedom of Information Act case brought in 2013 by Judicial Watch. The watchdog group sought documents relating to the employment of Huma Abedin, who was allowed to work outside the government even as she served as a top Clinton State Department aide. State told Judicial Watch in 2014 it had turned over everything relevant, and the group then dropped its lawsuit.


But the news of previously undisclosed Clinton emails convinced Judge Sullivan in June to take the rare step of reopening the Abedin case. To ascertain whether State was finally searching through every record, he ordered State on July 31 to request that Mrs. Clinton and two of her aides—Ms. Abedin and Cheryl Mills—confirm under penalty of perjury that they had produced all government records in their possession, and that they describe their use of Mrs. Clinton’s server for government business. That response deadline was last Friday.

Mrs. Clinton’s reaction to the deadline was a classic. “While I do not know what information may be ‘responsive’ for purposes of this law suit, I have directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody, that were or potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done,” she wrote in a declaration submitted to the court. Translation: If everything wasn’t turned over, it’s not her fault.

But her declaration to the court did disclose that Mrs. Abedin had an “account” on Mrs. Clinton’s server “which was used at times for government business.” The admission that her aides were also using her server demolishes Mrs. Clinton’s previous claim that she used this server for personal “convenience.” She was really running a parallel mini-State email operation.

Both aides were also supposed to submit declarations that they had turned over all government records to the State Department. Instead, they blew off Judge Sullivan and directed their attorneys to explain that they are still searching their private records and in time will get around to supplying them. This is remarkable given that State first requested they turn over any work-related records in March.

Mrs. Clinton and her lawyers have been careful to never use the word “delete” regarding her emails. Mrs. Clinton said that she “chose not to keep” her yoga diary and the rest. Her lawyer, David Kendall, has said emails no longer exist on the server. But do those emails still exist in another location—on a hard drive or thumb drive—or in someone else’s possession? The FBI has the forensic ability to retrieve the emails if they still exist, assuming that the agency isn’t merely going through the pro-forma motions.

Keep in mind that none of this would have happened without Judge Sullivan enforcing the freedom-of-information law. Credit as well goes to federal Judge Rudolph Contreras for ordering the State Department to start producing the Clinton records, and to federal Judge Richard Leon for rapping State over its delays producing the emails. Congressman Trey Gowdy’s House committee on Benghazi has also been indispensable in pressing the server issue.
***

The Clinton campaign released two memos to its supporters this week, telling them to calm down, the email storm is merely the Republican attack machine at work, and Mrs. Clinton is still beating GOP candidates head to head in the polls. If they can tough it out until Election Day, they think they’ll win.

But the federal judiciary isn’t partisan, and the real lesson from the email fiasco is that this is how the Clintons act when they’re in power. They play by their own rules, and when they’re caught they stonewall and obfuscate and blame it all on partisanship. Maybe her sinking poll numbers mean that voters are finally catching on.


G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: Undeleted?!?
« Reply #666 on: August 16, 2015, 09:48:55 PM »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #667 on: August 16, 2015, 10:17:45 PM »
Exactly!

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
« Last Edit: August 17, 2015, 06:54:00 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #669 on: August 17, 2015, 06:56:27 AM »
For those not familiar with the name Robert Baer, under Bill Clinton he headed for the CIA the team hunting Osama Bin Laden and is the author of a couple of books well worth the reading.

He has been a regular expert guest on FOX, often taking lines of analysis quite sideways to conventional Republican wisdom.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #671 on: August 20, 2015, 07:41:37 AM »
A ‘Formal Criminal Investigation’ of Hillary’s E-mails Is ‘Under Consideration’

Either the FBI is going to take Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server and the classified information in e-mails extremely seriously . . . or a whole bunch of former FBI agents are going to be disappointed with their former employer.

For now, federal authorities characterize the Justice Department inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s private email server as a security situation: a simple matter of finding out whether classified information leaked out during her tenure as secretary of state, and where it went.

Except, former government officials said, that’s not going to be so simple.

“I think that the FBI will be moving with all deliberate speed to determine whether there were serious breaches of national security here,” said Ron Hosko, who used to lead the FBI’s criminal investigative division.

He said agents will direct their questions not just at Clinton, but also her close associates at the State Department and beyond.

“I would want to know how did this occur to begin with, who knew, who approved,” Hosko said.

Authorities are asking whether Clinton or her aides mishandled secrets about the Benghazi attacks and other subjects by corresponding about them in emails.
For her part, Clinton said she did not use that email account to send or receive anything marked classified.

“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,” she said Tuesday in a question-and-answer session with reporters.

Why is Clinton emphasizing the idea that none of those messages were marked? Because what she knew — her intent — matters a lot under the law. If the Justice Department and FBI inquiry turns into a formal criminal investigation.

Are we really to believe that when she’s reading about -- you name it, drone strikes, satellite images, evacuation plans for staffers in Benghazi -- that Hillary Clinton never thought that any of that information was classified?

The inspector general’s report said that the classification labels had been removed . . .

“We note that none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings, but some included [intelligence community]-derived classified information and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network,” wrote McCullough, the inspector general for the intelligence community, who described his review as incomplete.

A spokeswoman for McCullough, Andrea Williams, said Friday that there are at least four emails of concern, which have yet to be released by the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act. “They were not marked at all but contained classified information,” she wrote in an email to TIME Friday.

. . . which suggests some staffers were taking off the classified label and then sending it to Hillary.

Here’s the bombshell:

Two lawyers familiar with the inquiry told NPR that a formal criminal investigation is under consideration and could happen soon -- although they caution that Clinton herself may not be the target.

In other words, look out, staffers.

Here’s Michael Hayden -- former director of the NSA, and former director of the CIA -- declaring that the e-mail system would be “a very juicy target” and “not very difficult if you have the resources and talented people to go after it. The NSA does this all the time against, I would suggest, better defended targets.”

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #672 on: August 20, 2015, 08:04:15 AM »
Mika and Joe on MSLSD this AM when reviewing her famous "wipe the drive with a cloth" interview claimed she has no good options on what to say.

I disagree.  She should say,

"I am withdrawing from running for elected office and my public life is over while I confront my legal issues as private citizen.  I don't think it is fair to the people of the United States to have to experience the burden of this legal issue going forward.  It is not fair to my party the country women who look up to me."

"It was an honor to serve in a the public sector for so many years."

That is what she should say and is her only option. 

Unless of course Obama agrees to the fix.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
WSJ: Summary of Hillary's email issues
« Reply #673 on: August 20, 2015, 10:44:34 AM »
 Classified or Not? Explaining the Clinton Email Controversy

    Article
    Comments (20)

    2016
    Election 2016
    emails
    hillary clinton

33
12

    By
    Byron Tau
    CONNECT

    Hillary Clinton earlier this week
    John Locher/Associated Press

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s campaign acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that her email archive contains material that is now classified—but downplayed its admission by saying the material had been retroactively classified out of an abundance of caution by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, she said she has done nothing illegal.

“She was at worst a passive recipient of unwitting information that subsequently became deemed as classified,” said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, on Wednesday.

Here is a rundown of the key issues in the fight over whether classified information was improperly sent or received by her private email address, which has become the focus of the controversy surrounding her email setup.

First, remind me how the email controversy got started.

When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to early 2013, she used a private setup for her email. In late 2014, Mrs. Clinton turned over her work-related emails at the request of the State Department. In March 2015, Mrs. Clinton gave her first comments on why she used a private system, saying the setup was for convenience. (See a timeline of events leading up to these remarks.) She also said she wanted all her work emails to be made public. These emails are being reviewed and released in batches by the State Department this year. Aside from public interest in the contents of the emails, there were also concerns about the level of security protecting her emails, since they resided outside government control.

So, what then kicked off the classification review?

The State Department told a federal court in May that it would be reviewing Mrs. Clinton’s emails for any sensitive information in consultation with other government agencies before releasing them. Such precautions are a routine part of the Freedom of Information Act process. However, a few months later two inspectors general — independent, internal government watchdogs — raised concerns about the thoroughness of that process as part of an independent audit. Specifically, the two IGs warned that classified information had already been released publicly by the State Department and recommended that other intelligence agencies be more involved in the screening. The intelligence community inspector general found four emails in Mrs. Clinton’s email trove that appeared to be classified when they were sent. Since then, reviewers from five intelligence agencies have identified 305 emails out of about 6,000 that have been designed for further scrutiny to ensure they contain no classified material.

Explain the classification system. That’s like “Confidential” or “Secret”?

Yes. The classification system is laid out by executive order and aims to protect national security information. Generally, classified information is designated either “Confidential,” “Secret” or “Top Secret.” All three require various levels of security clearances and secure computer systems or access procedures designed protect the information. As head of the State Department, Mrs. Clinton had some power to determine what information her department considered classified. But she was also obligated to protect the classified information shared with her by other agencies.

How does that relate to the FBI probe?

Once the two inspectors general discovered that classified information was on a server not in the government’s possession, they made a referral to the FBI about the situation. The IGs “did not make a criminal referral,” they said in a July statement. “It was a security referral made for counter intelligence purposes. The [Intelligence Community Inspector General] is statutorily required to refer potential compromises of national security information” to appropriate officials. Department of Justice officials have said Mrs. Clinton herself is not a target of the investigation.

What are some of the emails under scrutiny?

As mentioned earlier in this Q&A, the inspector general for the intelligence community said earlier this year he found four emails containing material that was classified at the time they were written. The State Department and the Clinton campaign now disagree with that assessment.  Two of the four emails were identified by Fox News on Wednesday as two emails flagged by the inspector general as part of its referral to the FBI. Both were already released publicly as part of an investigation into the death of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya. The two emails in question were written by lower-ranking State Department officials and forwarded to Mrs. Clinton by top aides Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin, who both now work for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. (Here is the 2011 email forwarded by Ms. Abedin to Mrs. Clinton, and here is the 2012 email from Mr.Sullivan to Mrs. Clinton.)

How can I see more of her her emails?

You can see the full archive in the WSJ.com email archive tool. They are first posted at the State Department’s FOIA site.

What happened to the email server after Mrs. Clinton  left office?

The server was at one point run out of Mrs. Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y., according to reports. However, Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer said in a letter this month that a private IT firm called Platte River Networks was hired to manage it sometime in 2013 — the same year Mrs. Clinton left her State Department post. That firm has now turned over her server to the FBI. The details about what was on the server when Platte River Networks took control of it are not clear.

What are these thumb drives belonging to David Kendall?

The Intelligence Community inspector general announced last month that it had uncovered that Mrs. Clinton’s personal attorney David Kendall was in possession of a thumb drive containing an archive of her work email. Mr. Kendall acknowledged in a letter that he possessed two other copies of that thumb drive. State Department officials noted that Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys had a security clearance and said they had provided adequate security precautions to allow Mr. Kendall’s firm to store those thumb drives, despite the fact that they were now deemed to have contained classified information. Mr. Kendall turned all of his thumb drives over to the FBI.

Was the server ever wiped?

Mrs. Clinton said in March that she “chose not to keep my private personal emails — emails about planning Chelsea’s wedding or my mother’s funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends as well as yoga routines, family vacations, the other things you typically find in inboxes.” Mr. Kendall, her lawyer, further affirmed that no emails were left on the server in a March letter to Congress. After a review to identify potential work-related emails, Mrs. Clinton asked that her server be set to only keep 60 days worth of email. Mr. Kendall said in the same letter that no emails from Mrs. Clinton’s time in office remained on the server as of March.

So did she, or did she not, send or receive classified info on her private email?

The State Department and the inspectors general are at odds over this fact. The State Department has said repeatedly that that while some information has been retroactively classified, Mrs. Clinton’s emails did not contain anything classified at the time as far as they were aware. Other intelligence agencies disagree, saying that her email contains information that was classified at the time and should have been submitted over a secure email system. Because the fight is essentially a bureaucratic turf war over complicated issues of classification, it’s difficult to say at this point without a more complete report.

On Wednesday, campaign spokesman Fallon said: “When it comes to classified information, the standards are not at all black and white.”

What has Mrs. Clinton’s said about it?

In March, Mrs. Clinton said definitively: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

After the inspectors general report, Mrs. Clinton started to emphasize that the information was not identified as classified — something that the inspectors general also attest to. “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,” Mrs. Clinton said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, her campaign finally acknowledged the presence of now-classified material but said that such material was only retroactively classified as part of the routine turf war between agencies.

“That’s why we are so confident that this review will remain a security-related review. We think that furthermore this matter is mostly just shining a spotlight on a culture of classification that exists within certain corners of the government, especially the intelligence community,” he said.

______________________________________________________

Politics Alerts: Get email alerts on breaking news and big scoops. (NEW!)

Capital Journal Daybreak Newsletter: Sign up to get the latest on politics, policy and defense delivered to your inbox every morning.

For the latest Washington news,

For outside analysis,

Recommended post

x
Rand Paul, Amid Setbacks, Looks to the Ron Paul Playbook

    2016
    Election 2016
    gop
    rand paul
    Ron Paul

    previousSilicon Valley Group Hits Back at Trump’s Immigration Plan
    nextCapital Journal Daybreak: Clinton’s Emails, Trump, Bush Duel at Competing Events, More

Washington Wire HOME PAGE
33
12

    previousSilicon Valley Group Hits Back at Trump’s Immigration Plan
    nextCapital Journal Daybreak: Clinton’s Emails, Trump, Bush Duel at Competing Events, More


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
WaPo on Huma Abedin?
« Reply #674 on: August 31, 2015, 09:04:16 AM »
Apparently the WaPo had a major article on Huma Abedin a few days ago.  Would someone please find it and post it here?

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
« Last Edit: August 31, 2015, 01:28:35 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #676 on: August 31, 2015, 01:28:49 PM »
Thank you  :-)

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18288
    • View Profile
Re: WaPo on Huma Abedin
« Reply #677 on: August 31, 2015, 03:19:46 PM »
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-huma-abedin-operated-at-the-center-of-the-clinton-universe/2015/08/27/cd099eee-4b32-11e5-902f-39e9219e574b_story.html

Hillary goes nowhere without Huma.  We were told they are secretly lesbian lovers.  Huma's family has ties to CAIR and to radical Islam.  Some thought Huma calls the shots.  BUt reading the emails it turns out Huma's relationship revolves around clerical support.  "Huma, please print."

Hillary's sycophantic Inner Circle
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423015/hillary-clinton-emails-inner-circle-yes-men

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Indictment to follow no doubt
« Reply #679 on: September 01, 2015, 10:19:43 AM »
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423366/hillary-clinton-emails-born-classified-info


by Joel Gehrke September 1, 2015 11:05 AM @Joelmentum Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have instructed a United States envoy to send information obtained from foreign government officials, which is “born classified” under government rules, to her personal e-mail account.

The messages, which undermine Clinton’s claims that she did not knowingly receive classified information on the private, unsecured e-mail account she used to conduct all of her government business, were released by the State Department on Tuesday. “Here’s my personal e-mail,” Clinton writes in the subject of a July 25, 2010 message to former Senator George Mitchell, the special envoy for Middle East Peace. “Pls use this for reply.”

In the ensuing messages, Mitchell describes conversations that he had with “Moratinos” and “Frattini,” apparent references to then-Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos and then-Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini. Sections of both messages are redacted and marked classified. The classification markings signify that the messages contain “foreign government information” and information about “foreign relations and confidential human sources,” according to a State Department classification guide issued in January of 2005.

State Department officials insist that all classified information released in the latest batch of e-mails was classified retroactively, but the nature of these messages challenges that claim. “It’s born classified,” J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) told Reuters last month. “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.”

Independent government watchdogs investigating Clinton’s use of the e-mail server have disputed previous State Department claims that various e-mails were classified only retroactively. “These e-mails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to [intelligence community] classification officials, the information remains classified today,” State Department inspector general Steve Linick and Intelligence Community inspector general I. Charles McCullough said in a joint statement on July 24.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423366/hillary-clinton-emails-born-classified-info

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
The cover up is a sight to behold
« Reply #680 on: September 01, 2015, 10:20:22 AM »
Corruption on clear display for the world to see with most in the media as accomplices.  Rush is probably right.   The Clintons will slither like snakes out of this too.  Why because the media lets them.

Fix is in.  Notice we see mucho references to Jewish cuisine on yahoo news recently.   Brock likes poppy seed bagels with cream cheese but not so much lox.

Now Hillary is excited about gefilte fish.   Must of us are not that stupid but their choir will eat this up.  I can just here the liberal Jewish retirees in Florida adoring this crap:


https://www.yahoo.com/politics/that-time-hillary-clinton-emailed-about-gefilte-128113780461.html

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Wait! There's more!
« Reply #681 on: September 01, 2015, 10:28:43 AM »



Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #684 on: September 01, 2015, 08:56:35 PM »
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/1/hillary-clinton-emails-contained-spy-satellite-dat/

 By John Solomon - The Washington Times - Updated: 9:55 p.m. on Tuesday, September 1, 2015

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.

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.

SEE ALSO: Emails show Clinton Foundation shaped policy

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.”

SEE ALSO: Obama administration overwhelmed by courts forcing transparency on Clinton emails

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. 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.

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.

Story Continues →
===========================

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.

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.

“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.”


ppulatie

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 1131
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #685 on: September 02, 2015, 08:24:29 AM »
Yeah, Hillary will likely skate on the email issue, and even the Foundation.

As I have found out discussing the email issue and classified information with people, those who have never dealt with Classified Info cannot understand the severity of the issue. It is too "complex" to understand, so they ignore it.

The Foundation issues, if properly presented, could serve to undermine some support, but for most of her supporters, it will mean nothing. Especially if it means the difference between a "normal" Republican candidate and her being President.

The only way to get rid of Hillary is to drive a stake in her, sprinkle her with holy water, shoot her with a silver bullet, bathe her in garlic, and then drage her into the sunlight. Even then, her ashes should be gathered, shot into space, and directly into the Sun.
PPulatie

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #686 on: September 02, 2015, 09:56:36 AM »
I am more hopeful than that.  FWIW my sense of things is that the legal process, e.g. serious FBI teams, are on this.  They DO have the IQ to understand what is going on here.  FWIW I think it more likely than not that this is going to bring her down.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
The noose tightens a bit more , , , 2.0
« Reply #687 on: September 03, 2015, 09:10:04 AM »
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-03/fbi-scours-clinton-server-for-evidence-of-spying

Also:

Hillary’s Classified Falsehoods
Is anything she has said about her private emails true?
WSJ

Hillary Clinton has tried to confuse the public about the definition of “classified,” but some in the press corps are cutting though the fog. We’re learning, in particular, that Mrs. Clinton’s self-serving decision to use a private email server for official communications may have resulted in far greater mishandling of classified information.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Mrs. Clinton wrote and sent on her private server at least six emails that contained classified information. This destroys Mrs. Clinton’s statement that she never sent any classified information. It also blows up her campaign’s diversionary argument that nothing she sent or received was “marked” as classified.

Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State, with greater knowledge than anyone in her operation about national security secrets, and with a duty to protect such information. Whether the classified material she was sending or receiving was marked as such makes no difference to an official’s obligation. Mrs. Clinton knew this.

Meanwhile, Fox News reports that State Department lawyers have been hiding the extent to which Mrs. Clinton handled classified material on her server. According to the Fox account, career State employees initially marked four Clinton emails as classified. State Department lawyers then stepped in to recategorize the emails as “deliberative.” This meant they couldn’t be viewed by investigators from Congress.

Fox reports that State Department sources told intelligence officials that they believe this was done to hide the extent to which Mrs. Clinton was sending and receiving classified material. The Fox dispatch also says that one of the State Department lawyers involved in the email review was Catherine Duval, who once worked in the same law firm as Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall. The State Department told Fox there was no conflict and that its lawyers “perform to the highest professional and ethical standards.”

This week’s batch of Clinton emails—released by State on a timetable imposed by a federal judge fed up with delays—also includes hundreds of exchanges with legendary political hit man Sidney Blumenthal. Mrs. Clinton has previously said she didn’t solicit emails from Mr. Blumenthal, who was being paid by the Clinton Foundation. But in one email Mrs. Clinton tells the specialist in political smears to “keep ’em coming” and that “Bill”—presumably her husband—had dubbed them “brilliant!” Is anything Mrs. Clinton has said about her emails true?

Keep in mind that the Obama Administration barred Mr. Blumenthal from serving as a Clinton aide at State. But it’s clear from the emails that he served as an unofficial Clinton adviser throughout her tenure as America’s top diplomat. If she makes it back to the White House, nothing can stop her from bringing him into a position of real power.

Mrs. Clinton and her defenders say the email story is a sideshow, but the reason it’s important is because it is revealing so much about how she would govern.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2015, 09:17:51 AM by Crafty_Dog »


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
Hillary on cyber security in her book
« Reply #689 on: September 07, 2015, 02:22:34 PM »
second post:



    22
    1

    Opinion
    Letters

Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ on Security
In her book “Hard Choices” Mrs. Clinton emphasizes, in detail, the rigorous security measures she was subject to as secretary of state.
September 5, 2015

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s “Clinton Defies the Law and Common Sense” (op-ed, Aug. 15) details the applicable law, but none of the Aug. 22 letters in response nor commentators who report on Mrs. Clinton’s use of her personal computer/server for State Department business have, to my knowledge, focused on the admissions she makes in her book “Hard Choices.” Mrs. Clinton emphasizes, in detail, the rigorous security measures she was subject to as secretary of state: the sensitive compartmented information facility where no outside electronic devices were allowed, the constant vigilance of the department to conduct business “under strict security precautions,” measures to prevent hackers from breaking into cellphone networks and email accounts. She acknowledges that the State Department was “frequently the target of cyberattacks.” Mrs. Clinton relates that when in a hotel room she would read “protected material” under a secured “opaque tent.” She specifically acknowledges security breaches of home computers by hackers. She writes that “people of good faith understand the need for sensitive diplomatic communications to protect . . . the national interest.” When discussing her State Department Boeing 757 aircraft, she brags that she was able to prepare and send classified cables in flight. She forcefully condemns the illegal disclosure of classified material by third parties, e.g., WikiLeaks.

“Hard Choices” is a road map to bring Mrs. Clinton to justice by her own hand, but will the Obama Justice Department prosecute? That is the question.

John J. Ruprecht


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
WSJ: As Sec State Hillary weakened US negotiations w Iran
« Reply #691 on: September 09, 2015, 12:41:17 PM »

By
Jay Solomon and
Laura Meckler
Updated Sept. 8, 2015 10:33 p.m. ET
299 COMMENTS

WASHINGTON—Hillary Clinton, in her last months as secretary of state, helped open the door to a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: an acceptance that Tehran would maintain at least some capacity to produce nuclear fuel, according to current and former U.S. officials.

In July 2012, Mrs. Clinton’s closest foreign-policy aide, Jake Sullivan, met in secret with Iranian diplomats in Oman, but made no progress in ending the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. In a string of high-level meetings here over the next six months, the secretary of state and White House concluded that they might have to let Iran continue to enrich uranium at small levels, if the diplomacy had any hope of succeeding.

“She recognized the difficulty of reaching a solution with zero enrichment,” said Mr. Sullivan, who now serves as Mrs. Clinton’s top campaign adviser on both domestic issues and foreign policy.


Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in early 2013. Later that year, in the midst of international talks, the Obama administration agreed publicly that Iran could continue to enrich uranium, completing the shift in policy that had been set in motion before Mrs. Clinton left her post.

Mrs. Clinton’s role in this critical early debate hasn’t been previously reported and shows that the Democratic presidential front-runner and her top aide, Mr. Sullivan, were key players in the Iran deal. Given united Republican opposition to the deal, the issue is likely to be central in the 2016 election.

Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday will deliver a major address on the Iran agreement and will voice support for President Barack Obama’s signature foreign-policy initiative, which has gained sufficient support from Democratic senators in recent days to take effect.


She will also seek to assuage skeptics of the deal, which include the majority of Congress and many American Jews, by stressing that as president she would vigorously guard against Tehran cheating on the agreement and would increasingly challenge Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.

This will include maintaining financial pressure on Tehran, potentially through additional sanctions on Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to her aides. She also referred to possible military action, telling NBC News last Friday that “no options were off the table” for confronting Tehran, if it is found to cheat on the nuclear deal.

“I think the American people are going to want a president who supports diplomacy…but who will also get up every day and enforce the agreement,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Republicans believe Mrs. Clinton’s deep role in the Iran diplomacy will make her vulnerable in the coming campaign. They note that successive U.S. administrations, including Mr. Obama’s initially, opposed Iran enriching uranium, on the grounds that the nuclear fuel can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

“The cave on enrichment wasn’t just any concession,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday.

Mrs. Clinton has taken a hawkish stance toward Iran throughout her career. In the 2008 presidential campaign, she called Mr. Obama “naive” for believing he could directly negotiate with Iran’s theocratic regime.

But after she became Mr. Obama’s secretary of state in 2009, Mrs. Clinton and top aides worked to hold direct talks with Iran in Kabul on the future of Afghanistan, according to Clinton aides. In 2010, after a Tehran request, the State Department sanctioned a Pakistan-based militant group, Jundullah, for terrorist attacks against Iran. A year later, Mrs. Clinton promoted an increase of visas issued to Iranian students, another step sought by Tehran.


In 2012, Mrs. Clinton dispatched Mr. Sullivan, her deputy chief of staff, to Muscat to lead the first one-on-one talks with Iran on the nuclear issue. Iranian diplomats expressed disappointment that July with the initial progress, according to attendees. Mr. Sullivan, just 35 years old at the time, seemed too young to the Iranians to spearhead a serious effort to end the decadelong standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. also wasn’t yet prepared to concede that Iran would be allowed to maintain thousands of centrifuge machines it had installed to enrich uranium.

After this first round stalled, the Obama administration reviewed its position, according to current and former U.S. officials involved in the process.

The issue of allowing uranium enrichment in Iran had bedeviled the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. Both were of the view that Iran shouldn’t be allowed to deploy any centrifuge machines.

The United Nations Security Council demanded in six resolutions starting in 2006 that Tehran suspend its enrichment program, citing violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But in high-level gatherings held after the first Muscat meeting, Obama administration officials concluded the diplomacy likely wouldn’t succeed without enrichment on the table. Mrs. Clinton hated the idea of allowing Iran that capacity, said her aides, but became open to a change in policy if Tehran agreed to serious restrictions on its nuclear program. But she hadn’t committed to the shift or to enrichment on a large scale, they said.

“By the time she left, her position was: ‘I’m not an absolute firm hard ‘no’ on enrichment.…Let’s see how it unfolds and reserve judgment on whether we’d accept enrichment until a later date,’ ” said a Clinton campaign foreign-affairs adviser.

After Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, Mr. Sullivan became Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser at the White House. From there, he continued negotiating with the Iranians for another two years. He is credited, along with former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, with developing much of the framework for the nuclear agreement eventually reached in Vienna this July.

Under the final deal, Iran’s centrifuge program would be reduced to 5,000 machines from nearly 20,000. But Iran is allowed to expand this capacity to an industrial scale after a decade.

After leaving the State Department, Mrs. Clinton said in an interview with Atlantic Media that she preferred Iran have no enrichment capacity.

Mrs. Clinton has thrown her support behind the Iran deal since it was forged on July 14, though with caveats. On the day it was announced, Mrs. Clinton was on Capitol Hill meeting with congressional Democrats. In those sessions, she spoke favorably of the agreement, but didn’t offer a full-throated endorsement, according to lawmakers who met with her.

It wasn’t until late into the evening on July 14 that she issued a public statement of support. Even then, she highlighted her concerns, including the need for strict enforcement, and suggested she would try to defuse tensions between the Obama White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mrs. Clinton and her campaign team—including Mr. Sullivan and campaign chairman John Podesta—have regularly reached out to opponents of the Iran deal in recent weeks, including American Jewish leaders.

Mrs. Clinton has said she would stress the need to challenge Iran, in part by strengthening military support for Israel and the U.S.’s Persian Gulf allies. She is also focused on keeping financial pressure on Tehran.

In conversations with Jewish allies who oppose the deal, the campaign’s high command has emphasized these concerns and how she would address them as president.

“She is absolutely insistent that all of us, starting with her, understand and acknowledge the concerns, recognize them as legitimate, underscore that we get it,” the senior aide said.

The outreach to the Jewish community appears to be working. A number of Jewish leaders said they remained deeply concerned about the agreement, but said Mrs. Clinton wasn’t facing the same type of criticism as Mr. Obama. They credited her low profile since the deal was announced; a sense that she doesn’t fully approve of the deal, even though she is backing it; a belief that she would take a tough line against Iran if elected president; and her long relationship with Jewish leaders.

“Her history and her personal relationships give her credibility and the benefit of the doubt that the president just doesn’t get,” said Jarrod Bernstein, who managed relations with the Jewish community for Mr. Obama’s White House and who, with his wife, recently hosted a Clinton fundraiser at his home.

Still, even her supporters say she will be politically targeted. “In the general election, this is going to be the Obama-Clinton Iran deal,” said Greg Rosenbaum, who heads the National Jewish Democratic Council. “They’re going to need to be prepared at every stop to defend the Iran deal.”

Wednesday’s speech will go into detail about how she thinks concerns with Iran and with the nuclear deal can be mitigated, and how the deal can be enforced and “embedded in a broader regional strategy,” an aide said.

“It is a rigorous and robust and clear-eyed strategy that does not proceed from the premise that this is going to change Iran’s orientation,” the aide said. “We need to confront [Iran] outside the nuclear context on all these other issues.”

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
Popular on WSJ

 

Set your profile to public to comment
There are 299 comments.
 

All comments will display your real name. Read our commenting rules.
NewestOldestReader Recommended
Brian Stephens
Brian Stephens 9 minutes ago

IF TRUE, this would at least put something on Hillary's resume though I doubt this will help her as 60% of the nation is against this deal. She even failed to bring our prisoners home, for crying out loud.


This is just a smokescreen for the even bigger story: HER APOLOGY.
Flag ButtonShare
HOWARD BURKONS
HOWARD BURKONS 26 minutes ago

From today's NYT: "Iranians must not forget that the United States is the “Great Satan,” Ayatollah Khamenei warned, criticizing those calling for better relations. “Some want to show this Satan as an angel, but the Iranian nation has pushed this Satan out. We should not allow it to sneak back in through the window.”

Great work on the "reset" Lady Macbeth has nothing on Hillofbeans.
Flag ButtonShare
Otto Lichius
Otto Lichius 28 minutes ago

The Iran deal is portrayed as if it were about Israel and Jewish people.  It is a deal about America and its geopolitical shift. 
Flag ButtonShare


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18288
    • View Profile
Hillbillary Clintons/criminal: Wishing the next President was Gerald Ford
« Reply #693 on: September 09, 2015, 02:45:19 PM »
"Somebody high up in the intelligence community leaked that story. "  Meaning she has pissed off the intelligence brass.

"the spy agencies must conduct a full-scale damage assessment"    Meaning this goes on and on.

"whoever removed the classification markings on incoming satellite data faces years in jail. The FBI will be in a strong position to encourage them to speak “fully and frankly,” as they say in the State Department."

"If her legal troubles keep piling up, she’s going to wish the next president was Gerald Ford."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/09/senior_intelligence_officials_said_128022.html

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: Hillbillary Clintons/criminal: Wishing the next President was Gerald Ford
« Reply #694 on: September 09, 2015, 03:12:34 PM »
"Somebody high up in the intelligence community leaked that story. "  Meaning she has pissed off the intelligence brass.

"the spy agencies must conduct a full-scale damage assessment"    Meaning this goes on and on.

"whoever removed the classification markings on incoming satellite data faces years in jail. The FBI will be in a strong position to encourage them to speak “fully and frankly,” as they say in the State Department."

"If her legal troubles keep piling up, she’s going to wish the next president was Gerald Ford."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/09/senior_intelligence_officials_said_128022.html

If Hillaryends up doing the perp walk, I am buying some champagne!

ppulatie

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 1131
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #695 on: September 09, 2015, 04:57:14 PM »

Here is something for all Hillary lovers (Crafty Dog, you dog!)

Huma was criminally investigated for embezzlement and it was referred to a federal prosecutor for charges.  Maybe they will use this to get her to spill the beans on Hillary, but maybe not. Fort Marcy Park awaits.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/9/huma-abedin-formally-investigated-embezzlement/?page=all#pagebreak
PPulatie

ppulatie

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 1131
    • View Profile
Re: The Hillbillary Clintons long, sordid, and often criminal history
« Reply #696 on: September 09, 2015, 05:02:36 PM »
Missed the part where the Federal Prosecutor declined to prosecute.
PPulatie

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 69460
    • View Profile
WSJ: Rove: So, who signed off on all this?
« Reply #697 on: September 10, 2015, 08:20:25 AM »
Hillary’s Email Defense Demands Proof
She says a private server was ‘allowed’—but by whom? Produce the lawyers who signed off.
Karl Rove
Sept. 9, 2015 7:38 p.m. ET
WSJ

On Tuesday Hillary Clinton finally admitted to ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir that using a private server for her emails as secretary of state “was a mistake.” The rest of us have known that since the story broke in March.

This belated concession won’t end the controversy. A half-year of misleading and inaccurate statements has demolished her credibility.

Mrs. Clinton continues to insist that her use of a private server was permitted. “What I did was allowed,” she told the Associated Press the day before her ABC interview. “It was allowed by the State Department.”

Mrs. Clinton used similar words last Friday, when NBC’s Andrea Mitchell pressed her on warnings about personal email accounts in the State Department’s operating manual and the U.S. code. “It was allowed,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I chose to do it, as others who had been in high official positions had, as well.”

Even the liberal-leaning Ms. Mitchell wasn’t buying this. “I don’t think there’s any precedent for anyone just relying on a personal email system at your level of government,” she replied. Ms. Mitchell went on to ask: “Did anyone in your inner circle say, ‘This isn’t such a good idea. Let’s not do this’?” Mrs. Clinton’s response: “I was not thinking a lot when I got in. There was so much work to be done.”

Translation: She was so buried with her new job, she didn’t think about the consequences of abandoning the department’s email system and setting up an unsecured private server in her basement for herself and her top staff.

Yet at least one question remains. Did anyone ask the State Department Office of the Legal Adviser for permission for her jury-rigged email arrangement? Or did she simply decide its legality on her own?

On Saturday the Washington Post revealed that a State Department tech staffer, Bryan Pagliano, was hired to set up and maintain her private server. Since her husband and daughter also used the server, Mr. Pagliano was paid directly by the family, the Clinton Foundation or another related entity. Government employees must report this outside income, which cannot exceed 15% of their annual salaries. Yet Mr. Pagliano did not list these payments on his annual financial disclosures for the years 2009 to 2013, which would violate the law.

Did Mrs. Clinton or her people consult either the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser or the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to receive permission for this highly unusual arrangement?

Then there is Huma Abedin, who in June 2012 was granted “special government employee” status. The Office of Government Ethics says Congress created this designation in 1962 to allow “experts, consultants and other advisers” to be temporarily brought into government without having to “forego their private professional lives as a condition of temporary service.” A special government employee may serve “for not more than 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.”

So while Ms. Abedin was a State Department employee making $135,000 a year, she was also employed by Teneo, an international consultancy founded by President Bill Clinton’s former adviser Doug Band. The firm’s website proclaims that “we sit at the center of information and networks, offering unparalleled execution to capture opportunities and solve complex problems.”

In addition, Ms. Abedin was a contractor to the Clinton Foundation and at some point was also paid by Mrs. Clinton personally, drawing as many as four paychecks.

When Ms. Mitchell asked about this arrangement, Mrs. Clinton distanced herself. “I was not directly involved in that,” she said, which is hard to believe since she was both Ms. Abedin’s boss and paying her personally. Then Mrs. Clinton offered her stock defense of Ms. Abedin, saying, “Everything that she did was approved, under the rules, as they existed, by the State Department.”

The same question arises: Did Mrs. Clinton or her office ask the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser for approval? Was Ms. Abedin’s unusual arrangement blessed by the department’s ethics officials, as the U.S. Office of Government Ethics recommends?

For months, Mrs. Clinton has made statements about her email server that have turned out to be misleading or false. The claim that everything was allowed looks to be the latest. The burden rests on Team Clinton: Produce the lawyers who approved these shenanigans.

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is the author of “The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the 1896 Election Still Matters,” out in November from Simon & Schuster.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 18539
    • View Profile
These may just be great days again
« Reply #698 on: September 10, 2015, 09:29:02 AM »
"Produce the lawyers who approved these shenanigans"

Liars for hire should go the way of F Lee Bailey.

It is such a pleasure to watch her and her mafia organiztion unravel.   

I can't wait to read Drudge each AM now.  The highlight of my day.   It would smack so much of Karma if she was to go out in disgrace just like she and her lib friends did to Nixon.

Like an old ex- Iraqi military veteren told me when I asked him what he thought about the invasion and capture of Saddam said to me:

"There is a God"

(Now if only my wife could get even a smithering of justice)

ppulatie

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 1131
    • View Profile
Re: DOJ - Hillary did nothing wrong
« Reply #699 on: September 10, 2015, 10:16:49 AM »
More evidence that the DOJ will not go after Hillary, unless this is a feint on the part of the Obama's and the DOJ while stabbing her in the back.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/10/justice-department-rules-hillary-clinton-followed-/
PPulatie