Clinton.com Server Schadenfreude Overload

It's almost too much to take in:

Of course, but we already knew about Huma: State Dept. confirms Clinton aides had other unreported email accounts

Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s top aides, used personal email accounts to conduct government business in addition to a State Department email and an account on the controversial server Mrs. Clinton kept at her New York home, the State Department confirmed to a federal court Friday.

The State Department admitted to the judge that it doesn’t have control over those documents, and can’t be sure it has all of the records from their time in the administration.

Hillary’s IT Contractor Did Not Have Proper Security Clearance

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entrusted her email server to an IT firm that was not cleared to handle classified materials, according to the chief spokesman for the Defense Security Service.

The DSS is an arm of the Defense Department and is the only federal agency authorized to approve private sector company access to sensitive or confidential material.

The agency reviews and approves private contractors to assure they have secure facilities and approves security clearances for employees to clear them for access to sensitive or classified materials. . .

Based on what previous experience would we expect Hillary to abide by the rules?

Influential people worldwide wrote Clinton on her personal email address

Some 90 people, including lobbyists for foreign governments, lawmakers, top Obama aides and State Department employees, communicated directly with Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state using her personal email address, according to a McClatchy review of thousands of her recently released emails.

Many people said they were surprised when it was revealed in the spring that Clinton relied on a private email account on a private server in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home to conduct official business during her four years as Obama’s secretary of state. But the review of emails shows influential people in Washington and around the globe not only knew she used a personal account, but corresponded with her on that personal account. . .

And dozens and dozens of State Department employees used Clinton’s private email account to address a host of international issues, from a coup in Honduras and the draw down in Afghanistan to a conflict on the Azerbaijan border to security in Libya.

But I'm sure the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Israelis, and Anonymous never caught on to it.

Now watch at AP tries to white wash this: Top secret Clinton emails include drone talk

Neither of the two emails sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton now labeled by intelligence agencies as "top secret" contained information that would jump out to experts as particularly sensitive, according to several government officials.

One included a discussion of a U.S. drone strike, part of a covert program that is widely known and discussed. A second conversation could have improperly referred to highly classified material, but it also could have reflected information collected independently, U.S. officials who have reviewed the correspondence told The Associated Press.
. . .
While neither of the emails was marked classified at the time they were sent, they have since been slapped with a "TK" marking, for "Talent Keyhole," suggesting material obtained by spy satellites. And they also were marked "NOFORN," meaning information that can only be shared with Americans with security clearances.

The two emails got those markings after consultations with the CIA and other agencies where the material originated, officials said. Some officials said they believed the designations were a stretch — a knee-jerk move in a bureaucracy rife with over-classification.

The FBI is looking to find who scrubbed the top secret marks off the info before it was sent to Hillary: F.B.I. Tracking Path of Classified Email From State Dept. to Hillary Clinton

 F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others briefed on the investigation.

To track how the information flowed, agents will try to gain access to the email accounts of many State Department officials who worked there while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the officials said. State Department employees apparently circulated the emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011, and some were ultimately forwarded to Mrs. Clinton.

They were not marked as classified, the State Department has said, and it is unclear whether its employees knew the origin of the information.

How much do you want to bet that certain people at State were charged with scrubbing the secret marks off information before it was passed on to Hillary?

State Dept. refuses to accept intel community’s assessment about Hillary’s emails

The State Department is taking the line of Hillary Clinton’s that material in her personal email server was not classified at the time, and State is not accepting the intelligence inspector general’s determination that some information was top secret.

“None of them were classified at the time,” Mark C. Toner, State’s deputy spokesman, told reporters this week.

The assertion flies directly in the face of findings by both the State Department and Intelligence Community inspectors general who concluded that, while the material may not have been stamped as classified, Mrs. Clinton’s server held data that was classified then.

“We’re looking at, we’re trying to clarify their [intelligence community] findings and trying to resolve whether we think they need to be classified,” Mr. Toner said.

State is also refusing to accept the intelligence IG’s finding that some emails in a limited sample of Mrs. Clinton’s 30,000 delivered to State contained top secret material. The IG said it was specially compartmentalized to signify it pertained to communications intercepts and to military satellite imagery and, or, intercepts.

Hero Marine Nailed for Secret Email: What Did He Do That Hillary Didn’t?

. . .a decorated Marine officer who has deployed four times faces being discharged from the corps he loves because he used his personal email to send a single classified report as an urgent warning when lives were at stake.

The stateside message from Marine Reserves Major Jason Brezler to Forward Operating Base Delhi in Now Zad, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, went unheeded. Three young Marines were shot to death as they worked out in a gym by an Afghan teen brought on the base by the same corrupt and double-dealing pedophile police chief whom Brezler had declared to be an immediate threat.

Yet the only person to be investigated in connection with the killings is Brezler, the Marine who sought to prevent them.

How Hillary will probably shrug off the email server story

I hate to start off Friday on a depressing note, but I’m really becoming less and less sure even as the evidence mounts. Take a look at a piece from this Iowa Public Radio report on Clinton’s campaign activities there.

As former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton turns over her personal email server to the FBI amid allegations that she sent or received classified information through personal email accounts, it’s too early to tell whether the story will hurt her presidential aspirations. That’s according to Dianne Bystrom, Director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics and Kelly Winfrey, a Lecturer in Leadership and Communication Studies at the Catt Center.

“Most people have made up their mind about Hillary Clinton,” says Bystrom. “She’s been in the public spotlight for a number of years. People either really like her, or they dislike her.”

Bystrom says unless the investigation turns up new information or illegal activity, the story is fodder for those who don’t like her, but it’s unlikely to change voters’ minds.

The bottom line is that there are a significant number of Americans out there – mostly Democrats, but not all – who seem to be telling us, yes, you’ve made your point. Hillary is all those things you said she was. But what the heck. I’ll vote for her. And one of the major reasons for this is that this email server story simply isn’t resonating with people. I’m pretty sure I know why, too.
. . .
You hear this being related on a news show and you can feel the eyes of the nation collectively glazing over and rolling back in their heads. And if you need to spend the next thirty minutes explaining that certain classification tags may have been stripped from original documents and how that violates this provision of security procedures because… for God’s sake. Even I’m getting bored typing it out yet again. For those who don’t have to follow this mess for a living, well… that clicking sound you hear is a million television sets switching back over to Sports Center. We’re busy people and it’s already August 14th and we haven’t even finished setting up our NFL fantasy leagues yet.

The Government's nonchalant response to Hillary's Security Breaches:

The potential consequences associated with Petraeus’ breach pales in comparison to the likely damage caused by Hillary Clinton putting top secret information on a home brew server susceptible to Russian, Chinese, and other hostile hackers.

Powell also recalls the case of 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.

By contrast, the Justice Department moved at a snail’s pace when it came to Hillary Clinton. It was obvious all along that Clinton’s email server contained information relating to the national defense ( the standard under the Espionage Act) and always likely that some of this information was classified, if not “top secret.”

How could it be otherwise? We’re talking about the Secretary of State’s communications in her official capacity.

Yet the government (1) permitted Clinton to use a private server, (2) waited months after knowledge of her use of the server became widespread to seize the server, and (3) allowed sensitive emails and other information from the server to remain in the hands of Clinton’s attorneys even though they lack the requisite security clearances.

The Government's nonchalant response to Hillary's Security Breaches: Part II

Now, finally, the Justice Department has taken possession of the thumb drive containing work emails that Clinton’s personal attorney David Kendall improperly held. Yet its nonchalance persists.

Ask yourself what the government would be doing in response to this security breach if the lawyer and the law firm in question weren’t well-connected and Democrat-leaning. A friend (formerly an attorney with a big firm) suggests that the government would be demanding the following, and more:

– Names of all Williams & Connolly personnel who had any role in the review of Clinton’s emails with a listing (by date and/or other identifier) of emails, and names of all persons with whom the reviewing personnel discussed the contents of those emails.

– All computers that any time contained on their hard drives any Clinton documents or material related thereto.

– All paper documents related to the review of Clinton’s documents, including all handwritten notes.

– All precautions Williams & Connolly took to ensure the confidentiality of documents turned over by Clinton and related documents.

Pardon Hillary Now

What Clinton needs most of all is a way out, a means of escape. Before she can recover politically, the legal uncertainty must end. And the only way to end it is a presidential pardon. Clinton’s future isn’t only tied to President Obama’s job approval and economic performance. It’s also tied to his compassion. Obama alone can resuscitate Hillary’s campaign.

You scoff. How can a president pardon someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime? Well, it’s not like Obama has worried about the legality of his actions in the past. And besides, there’s a way for him to pardon Clinton. In a 2008 article, Slate magazine cited Ex parte Garland, a nineteenth century Supreme Court decision. “Generally speaking,” wrote Jacob Leibenluft, “once an act has been committed, the president can issue a pardon at any time—regardless of whether charges have even been filed.”

The most famous preemptive pardon in American history was of Richard Nixon. President Ford absolved his predecessor of all crimes he “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” between inauguration day 1969 and resignation day 1974. Obama could do better than Ford by absolving Clinton of all crimes she “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” between, say, January 20, 2009 and January 20, 2025. That would give her some wiggle room. And why not pardon Huma, too. She’s suffered enough.