Serving Up Clinton.com Schadenfreude

Cover-Up: Major Newspapers Keep Hillary's E-Mails Off the Front Page 

Four of the country's largest newspapers on Wednesday kept the latest developments in Hillary Clinton's growing E-mail scandal off the front page (one kept it out of the paper completely). The revelation that the Democratic candidate had top secret information on her server was relegated to the bottom of page A13 in the New York Times.

The Washington Post managed to place the news that Clinton will finally turn over her server on A2. The Los Angeles Times hid the story on A9. All of these newspapers, however, did better than USA Today, which completely skipped Clinton's scandal in the print edition.

Count on the Brits to handle what the American press won't:

Hillary launches desperate pushback on servergate as campaign pleads its case with supporters and Washington whispers that Joe Biden is ready for investigation to crush her

As panic infiltrated Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign on Wednesday, following the revelation that 'top secret' classified material was found among the former secretary of state's home-brew private emails, her communications director blasted an email to Clinton's supporters pleading her case.

'Hillary didn't send any classified materials over email,' Jennifer Palmieri wrote Wednesday in the mass-email.

'Hillary only used her personal account for unclassified email. No information in her emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them. She viewed classified materials in hard copy in her office or via other secure means while traveling, not on email.'

Eight words – 'at the time she sent or received them' – could either give Clinton a legal safe harbor or open her up to new questions about why she was handling sensitive materials on an unsecured email server in the first place.

Palmieri did not respond to a request for comment about whether Clinton regrets her earlier blanket denials that she ever sent or received classified information through the private email address she used exclusively during the four years when she was America's top diplomat.

Meanwhile, Washington sources say Vice President Joe Biden is waiting in the wings for the Obama administration to run her over so he can step in and run for president.

Hillary Clinton’s empty excuses on emailing classified info

Understandably, those who have never dealt with classified material — the general public — can be misled by “political spin.”

It’s important to put the questions about Clinton’s personal storage of government emails into the same context in which they are viewed by national-security professionals.

Clinton’s spokesperson vehemently and repeatedly claimed that press reports about her emails were “false.”

However, the most troubling allegation — that the emails on Clinton’s personal server were found to contain classified information — was not specifically refuted.

Probably because it’s not “false.”
. . .
According to Office of Inspector General spokesperson Andrea Williams, those emails were “classified when they were sent and are classified now.”

Clinton’s spokesperson argued that Clinton couldn’t have been aware that the material was classified because it wasn’t specifically marked.

But that statement ignores how the process works. The reason government officials with security clearances are required to keep their correspondence on the appropriate government server is so the material can be vetted and classified prior to hitting “send” to an uncleared recipient.

The CIA goes to such great lengths to protect classified information that it even requires opposing counsel in legal cases to submit their briefs and exhibits for clearance before they can be filed.

Clinton’s argument is a sham. The reason the documents weren’t marked is because she never submitted them for clearance.

Moreover, Clinton should have been sufficiently aware of what was “classifiable.”

She was the Secretary of State, after all, and a former co-President First Lady. She should at least have a general familiarity with the concepts behinds and practices concerning classified materials. For her to have handled these so cavalierly just because she wanted to keep her affairs out of the reach of investigators shows her to be constitutionally unsuitable for the presidency.

Hillary Server "Blank"

The e-mail server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton when she served as secretary of state was turned over to the FBI late Wednesday afternoon from a private data center in New Jersey, according to an attorney familiar with the transfer.

“It was picked up about 4 p.m.,” said Barbara J. Wells, a Denver lawyer who represents Platte River Networks Inc., a small computer services firm that has managed the Clintons’ private e-mail system since mid-2013.
. . .
Before it was taken to the data center in New Jersey, the server had been in the basement of the Clintons’ private home in Chappaqua, N.Y., during the time she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the Clintons’ e-mail network.

After she left government service in early 2013, the Clintons decided to upgrade the system, hiring Platte River as the new manager of a privately managed e-mail network. The old server was removed from the Clinton home by Platte River and stored in a third party data center, which are set up to provide security from threats of hacking and natural disaster, Wells said.

Platte River Networks has retained control of the old server since it took over management of the Clintons’ e-mail system. She said that the old server “was blank,” and no longer contained useful data.

But as we all know, there is a difference between a file on a hard drive being "erased", which usually means it has been marked as not available, and truly being obliterated, which is much more difficult. The FBI may be able to recover plenty of the missing 30,000 emails.

There are signs that even the usual Clinton lovers in the public are getting tired of rushing to her defense and making lame excuses. Poll: Most want criminal probe of Clinton emails

More than half of registered voters say a criminal investigation should be launched into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email system while serving as secretary of State, according to a new poll.

The Monmouth University survey, released Wednesday, was conducted before Tuesday evening’s revelation that Clinton had turned over to the government her personal email server and USB thumb drives containing copies of the emails, following news that at least two emails had been classified as “top secret.”

According to the poll, 52 percent of voters say that Clinton's emails “should be subject to a criminal investigation for potential release of classified material.”