In the normal course of events, it’s a very bad sign when a witness is granted immunity by prosecutors. Unless a witness is likely to assist in a successful prosecution, there’s not much reason to shield them from accountability for anything they may have done wrong. So, naturally, it’s catnip to the press that the Department of Justice has made an immunity deal with Bryan Magliano, a former State Department staffer who helped Hillary Clinton set up a private server in her New York home.
This case could be a bit different than normal, though. It’s not at all clear that the prosecutors in this case are motivated to bring charges against anyone. In fact, the default presumption should probably be the opposite. They do, however, have an obvious motivation for closing the investigation sooner rather than later.
The inquiry comes against a political backdrop in which Clinton is the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency…
…Former prosecutors said investigators were probably feeling the pressure of time because of the election. Take action before the election, they said, and you risk being perceived as trying to influence the result. Take action after and face criticism for not letting voters know there was an issue with their preferred candidate.
“The timing is terrible whether you do it before or after,” [Former federal prosecutor Glen] Kopp said.
This could be simply a matter of getting cooperation from a key witness in a timely matter so that they can clear Clinton of criminal wrongdoing as soon as possible.
And the immunity deal could be the price they have to pay to make this happen quickly.
On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong. Bryan Magliano’s lawyer is obviously looking out for his client’s interests and there must be at least some theoretical liability here. Most likely, the liability pertains to Magliano’s awareness of the law concerning the handling of classified information.
I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general of the intelligence community, has indicated that some of the material intelligence officials have reviewed contained information that was classified at the time it was sent…
So far, the Clinton Camp has insisted that the only classified information that has been found was classified retroactively. In other words, nothing has been found that was classified at the time it was sent. But I’m sure they’ll find at least a handful of exceptions to this considering the size of the trove of emails they’re inspecting. And that means that there was technical wrongdoing.
In a case like that, one issue is proportionality and another is consciousness of guilt. Either way, though, a cautious lawyer would want their client to be shielded from prosecution before they explained themselves to investigators.
My bet is that they’ll eventually announce some relatively small amount of classified material was mishandled, but they’ll decline to charge anyone with a crime and explain that there was no deliberate or conscious effort to do anything illegal.
That won’t satisfy critics, but it’s probably the correct move.
What we need are clear rules for how to handle classified material and mail in a digital age. We need this to protect our legitimate secrets and we need it so the people who serve in these top positions can have clarity about what’s acceptable and what is not.
You quete:
Gee, Booman…
That’s the same quandary facing the PermaGov in general vs. D. Trump!!!
I don’t recall them ever being in a straight-out lose/lose situation.
This is going to be fun!!!
AG
Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement as defined by Executive Order 12958:
* safeguard classified information whether “marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications,”
I find this confusing. How can you protect classified information if you don’t know it’s classified? Or if it isn’t classified yet? Do we expect our leaders to know the importance of every single bit of information or what’s going to happen in the future? How does this work?
It is confusing… but what I think it means is:
If you get a communication either verbal or written, and that communication is not labeled one way or the other, treat it as if it were classified. Period.
Items like drone strikes, assets in other countries, double spies, sensitive negotiations, etc. were definitely some of the things that she received by email. Maybe the information wasn’t classified then, but she must have known that she was being paid to protect such sensitive information and she knew damn well what should eventually be classified. Evidently she just shrugged the responsibility off because she had other fish to fry: her personal convenience. One way or the other she really screwed this up. Arrogance.
Andrew Napolitano writes the following today at antiwar.com:
‘We are not addressing just a handful of emails. To date, the State Department has revealed the presence of more than 2,000 emails on her private server that contained state secrets – and four that were select access privilege, or SAP. The SAP emails require special codes in order to access them. The codes change continually, and very few people in the government have the codes. SAP is a sub-category of “top secret,” and it constitutes the highest level of protected secrecy, for the utmost protection of the government’s gravest secrets. It is unheard of for SAP-level data to reside in a non-secure, vulnerable venue – yet that is where Clinton caused four SAPs to reside.
Clinton’s allies in the State Department have perpetrated the myth that the 2,000 emails were recently upgraded to reflect their secret contents. That is untrue. The emails possess secret status by virtue of their contents, not because of any markings on them. Clinton had a legal obligation to recognize state secrets when she saw them, no matter their markings or non-markings. On her first day on the job, she swore under oath that she recognized and understood that legal obligation and she promised to comply with it.
I know that he’s not exactly the most nonpartisan observer but what he says here can’t easily be ignored. There is much more, see the article.
arrogance, maybe, but also seems to me another issue was Bill’s access to what was on her server at home. i.e. by design.
Perhaps more convenient for Bill, but doubt anything a SOS can see is legally off limits to a former POTUS. And as there’s no ability to track what Bill could have seen that could have been of value to him in making deals for himself and his foundation, that doesn’t add anything to what is already known about Hillary’s SOS approvals and the foundation deals.
The bar for corruption/abuse of power is now so high that nothing less than a documented, verifiable, and clear cut quid pro quo qualifies.
I’m not so sure that the information seen by a SoS is not off limits to a former POTUS. His security clearance expired nearly ten years before she became SoS.
No President is given a security clearance and therefore, what doesn’t exist can’t expire.
Former Presidents can, and some do, attend high level briefings that include classified information. No formal rules exist as to what a former President may and may not see. This situation with the Clintons is unique and it was addressed far too casually by President Obama when he appointed her as SOS. It’s why the fact that she installed and used her own server at her home for government business is what I view as completely unacceptable, and President Obama covering for her when it was discovered is no less acceptable.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. The arrangement at the Clinton house/foundation was definitely very, very cosy. It’s getting stuffy in here…
Any thought about Clinton should have led to recognizing that an iron curtain between State and the Clinton foundation was impossible. (And I’m sure that at least one of Obama’s adviser’s saw that and point it out.) However, accepting the word of the Clintons that they would play nice indicates a level of naivete that any POTUS should be far above or Obama’s team felt like they were under a barrel and that was the best they could get.
Of course. And it’s just as impossible between the White House and the Clinton Foundation. This has to rank among one of the biggest cons in the US government ever. Especially since it centers on only three people, a family, and their circle of clients, making the Bush crime family look amateurish.
Worries me even more to have both of them back in the White House.
As much as I was distressed by the selection of GWB, in January 2001 I was glad to see the Clintons move out of the WH and if anyone had told me that we’d have to fight like hell to keep them out in 2008 only to have them sauntering on the path to reoccupying it in 2016, I’d have thought that was nuts. I seriously underestimated their single minded determination to get four terms as FDR did. They both expect to get do-overs after they screw up — and it’s a mystery to me why anyone would allow that.
That they took their carpet bags to NY and got her into the Senate from NY made it clear to us she was going to make another run for the WH. And spouse and I figure they chose NY because that’s where the money is.
I am infuriated that Obama (another part of the “big deal”?) allowed them to take over the Democratic Party apparatus. This kept the Democrats from grooming younger, quality candidates to run for President at the end of Obama’s terms. No surprise that only a non-party member felt like challenging them.
As I honestly thought the “four years for Bill and then four for Hill” in ’92 was a joke, I failed to read the decamping to NY correctly. Was outraged at the carpetbagging — but rationalized it by recognizing that it wasn’t unique for NY to accept a big name, new Senator from out of state. Probably the only place where that would have gone down so easily and as luck would have it for them, the seat would be open and the NY GOP couldn’t come up with a competitive candidate.
It wasn’t until sometime in the second half of 2003 that I began to put together all the little oddities from 2000 through 2003 to perceive the game plan for 2008. One that Kerry almost screwed up by almost winning.
I did get in real time that they wanted to go for it again after 2008, but a thought of a deal with Obama after he secured the nomination didn’t occur to me until all the noise about Biden possibly entering the race. Noise that effectively drowned out Sanders campaign for nearly three months. Now I’m just pissed to retrospectively see how the thoroughly table was set for her and how much cover she and Bill’s foundation have been given. It does occur to me now that in extracting several pounds of flesh out of Obama (adding in his not so good negotiating skills at that time) that he probably didn’t even get an agreement from her to take any thought of challenging him in 2012 off the table.
And that’s what links to the home-brew server. They could have access to Obama admin moves to track potential flubs that would open a window to a ’12 run and Obama’s team had zero ability to keep her in check. As with a potential ’04 run, there’s a short time period in which such a decision can be made. Not before the midterms because that’s supplies important information and no later than the following September. The ’02 midterms made it a no go for Clinton, but the ’10 midterms were promising. As Kaine isn’t part of the Clinton inner circle, he had to go as DNC chair (midterm results provided a good excuse — note McAuliffe wasn’t replaced after the ’02 losses and was kept around to preside over even more losses in ’04). April 5, 2011 DWS was announced by Biden as Obama’s choice for DNC chair and she was confirmed at a DNC meeting on May 4th.
Now imagine for a moment that Operation Eagle Claw had taken place in 1979 instead of April 1980. Carter himself blames that debacle on his general election loss. Had it occurred before Kennedy formally challenged him for the nomination in November 1979, what are the odds that Carter would have won the nomination? But on May 2, 2011 OBL was killed and thus, ended any viable challenge to his ’12 nomination. Hillary’s ’12 year end medical issue likely came close to derailing the plan, but …
Well there you go — that IS the issue of issues here. Why was it so important for her to use her own server?
Not a rhetorical question, but rather, a very interesting one, to which I do not know the answer.
I do not trust Napolitano one bit, and would be very, very cautious of accepting explanations of law or technical matters that he provides.
I am not convinced either way as to the seriousness of these investigations or these charges.
I do know the optics are very bad, and I also know that hard-core partisans with a history of lying (Napolitano) have an agenda that permeates their every word.
Is he a liar? Can you point me to an example? I know he’s a right wing hack. But what he writes isn’t that farfetched or is it? Can’t it be automatically assumed that the SoS would protect all information unconditionally? I’d think so. Just the nature of the job would demand no less. At the least I conclude she should have known better: she did!
As SoS didn’t she have UN diplomats spied on for their bank and credit card numbers? Or was that an erroneous report I heard on BBC international service?
Here’s what he wrote about Lincoln in his book:
“In order to increase his federalist vision of centralized power, ‘Honest’ Abe misled the nation into an unnecessary war. He claimed that the war was about emancipating slaves, but he could have simply paid slave owners to free their slaves . . . . The bloodiest war in American history could have been avoided.”
The number of lies, half-lies, omissions, and sheer ignorance packed into those short phrases indicate that the man is either a magnificent fool, a brilliant propagandist, a revisionist of the highest order…
or all of the above.
Be very careful reading what he has to say.
This is a VERY fact driven conclusion. Without seeing the email in question and understanding the context it really is virtually impossible to know one way or another.
Yes, I was a prosecutor.
I will say, though, that you don’t give immunity for the hell of it.
I will say, though, that you don’t give immunity for the hell of it.
Trust that everyone here knows and appreciates that. It’s why on its face, this immunity deal suggests much of a problematical nature is to come out of it.
OTOH, in this case the staffer said from day one that he either takes the fifth or gets immunity to tell whatever he knows. If DOJ has no evidence of serious wrongdoing on the part of the staffer, it’s a tantalizing offer. Sometimes prosecutors do roll the dice and grant immunity.
It assumes that people with clearance and access to classified material have the requisite skill set to recognize such material without big stamps all over it identifying it as such.
Precisely. She was only the fucking SoS of the UsoA! What kind of mischief will she get into as POTUS.
What kind of mischief will she get into as POTUS.
Boggles the imagination to consider. But there will be plenty of it.
I can’t see why someone who helped a person set up a private server would bear any responsibility for what that person subsequently did with it, UNLESS part of the set up was to automatically forward all mail from her official secure State Department server to the private one. Even if that excluded classified mail, there was always the possibility that such documents would at some later time be classified. Which is apparently what happened.
If he set it up, that means he probably maintained it. Have a problem? Call him. So he had access to the passwords and averything on it. So he could probably read every email she sent, if he so desired.
.
I really haven’t been following Hillary’s emailgate until now. My attitude was, clearly she did something stupid, and typically Clintoneque here, but I don’t know how serious it is and we’ll wait to find out. So “enough with the damn e-mails,” as the senator from VT put it. But I’ll be the first to admit, in consequence I didn’t understand the issues very well.
H.A. Goodman wrote an interesting piece about this today. As you may know, there isn’t a more pro-Sanders columnist on the internet, and I’m a Sanders guy myself. But what I like about his piece is not so much the consequences he draws from this for Bernie, as his clear explanation of issues involved.
Also, the comments are extremely interesting, because a lot of them are from government IT people who know a lot about such things.
I take the liberty of pasting a few that were on top when I read it, since they may not be by the time you do (I’ve corrected spelling and typos):
Tim Black
Thank You HA Goodman! As a former Manager of Executive IT Services for an Obama Cabinet member I can say with total certainty this dangerous handling of government correspondence Hillary Clinton not only broke security protocols, she ripped them in half, stepped on them and did the ‘Dab’. Based on the information provided no one’s framing, stalking, shellacking or setting up the Clintons. This is the Clintons sabotaging The Clintons. I don’t want to hear the cop outs “They’re attacking me!”. No Madame Secretary. You’re attacking yourself. No Republicans necessary!
Tab Pierce · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
AMEN TIM!!! I too worked for the government for 5 years as an email administrator. There is no way that she was not briefed and well versed in the protocols surrounding emails. If it had been me the FBI would have kicked down my door day one and I would be in jail. She should be held accountable to an even higher standard than you and I. She was the Secretary of State for gods sake. Igorance is no excuse and on top of that is a lie.
Malcolm Smith · Translator at Self-Employed
O lord, they used an MS Exchange server that was naked on the internet to boot. Microsoft’s pervasive OS presence in Government is all by itself a national security risk.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/obamas-justice-department-gave-bernie-sanders-presidency_b
_9372012.html
Have to agree that this is probably a nothingburger. From the perspective of the DOJ it was likely giving up nothing for nothing. Whatever they did or could have had on Magliano was or would have been too minor or petty for them to deal with. From Magliano’s perspective, he gets to keep an unblemished record for giving up the little bits of sweet nothings that he possesses.
The rapidity with which the DOJ approved the immunity (the order to testify was less than two weeks ago) also argues in favor of the “no big deal” interpretation.
Only rarely, very rarely, does yanking on a thin single thread with no expectation that it’s other than a stray thread result in the beginning of an unraveling of a larger whole. Sirica had no idea when he came down hard in sentencing the Watergate burglars.
Marie, you should read HA Goodman’s column on this today. He raises issues that are not on this thread. It’s not his pro-Sanders, anti-Hillary slant that I’m talking about, but substantive issues that suggest it has to be a big deal or there wouldn’t have been any reason to grant the immunity. (And with interesting comments from government IT people).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/obamas-justice-department-gave-bernie-sanders-presidency_b
_9372012.html
Just saw your comment above and was off to read it as soon as I checked out the new comments in this thread.
The comments by IT guys are okay, but found Goodman’s article unhelpful at best. Okay, i really disliked the article. Making several giant leaps from a use immunity granted to a Clinton IT staffer to Bernie wins the nomination and election is foolish. I say this as a person that would like Sanders to win and that views Clinton’s personal email server as further evidence of her secretive, if not sneaky and underhanded, MO that is not what we need in a POTUS.
I’m really indifferent as to classified material being placed in her personal custody (and that could be shared with anyone) because not so much falls into a prudent need for secrecy and what does shouldn’t remain secret for long. (Clearly my preference for open and transparent government.) I’m not even too exercised about whether or not her email set-up was technically illegal. Not because she should be allowed to skate on breaking the law, but because even if indicted and convicted (yuuge stretches on both), she’ll get off with a slap on the wrist.
Goodman does pose the only really important question, why did she do this? Who was she hiding her communications from? What was actually erased from the server?
It’s possible that her staffer will be like Butterfield and Dean in the Senate investigation of Watergate. But the staffer isn’t going to testify in public and on live TV; so, odds are we’ll never know what he says to prosecutors. Also, Nixon didn’t resign until well over a year after those explosive Watergate public testimonies and criminal investigations of Nixon hadn’t been opened. Thus, it’s a stretch for me to see how even in the event that criminal activity is discovered that the investigation could be wrapped up before the nomination is decided which is Goodman’s hypothesis. (I’m discounting that the staffer downloaded everything that had once been on her server, has custody of that file, and there’s something explosive in there.)
1. “Making several giant leaps from a use immunity granted to a Clinton IT staffer to Bernie wins the nomination and election is foolish.”
Agreed. I tried to make a caveat about that when I linked to the article, i.e. that that was not what I found interesting about it.
2. “I’m really indifferent … ” Well, you’ll be able to fix all that when you’re directing national security policy. (LOL). But seriously, the issue is not so much what was on there as what COULD have been on there, and the very serious risks she was incurring, whether or not anything bad actually ensued. Engaging in reckless behavior is bad in itself, even if you were lucky and there were no serious consequences — this time.
Also, it’s not about one’s own (e.g., your) personal moral evaluation, it’s about public perception; about how security issues are defined by the law, Hillary’s apparent lack of concern about that, what that says about her and her qualifications to be president.
3.I agree, that is the most interesting question of all.
4. I also agree with your last paragraph. But as I said, her irresponsible attitude and the question why it was so important for her to have a private server are damaging enough. And not getting the answers (for as you say, we probably won’t), and the perception that the Obama administration is engaging in a coverup, only add to the damage. All of this is just so typical of what people dislike about her.
Agree.
I wasn’t precise enough about the issues that don’t bother me. I was speaking as a citizen and not an officer of the law. For example, in the whole Lewinsky mess, many on the left were bothered by Bill’s behavior with a young woman, only not apoplectic like the rightwing, but his behavior wasn’t illegal. OTOH, I wasn’t bothered by his depo perjury which was illegal. I was more bothered by the fact that the question was permitted because it was irrelevant to the Jones’ lawsuit and we are supposed to have some privacy rights. (Yet it is interesting that this was the best an attorney with notice that the question would come up could do. Lie is a habit for both Clintons and probably works for them most of the time.)
For me the decision to use a home-brew server instead of a USG equipment with all its security protocols is the biggie. But apparently that’s not illegal. So, we all have to go into the weeds of the content of her communications to assess legality. A massive undertaking that has had large costs to the government. How dare she put the public and our government in this position.
As with Bill’s perjury, I’m sure the rightwing is apoplectic about the security of classified material forwarded to her. However, it falls into that “too complicated/too technical to care about” arena for most of the public and therefore, we choose to live with whatever the DOJ determines about this matter. Fully aware that the DOJ is far less than perfect.
In my mind the public has enough information at this point to determine whether or not it’s a consideration in their assessment of Hillary. For over half of DEMs the answer appears to be no. For me it fits within the myriad of reasons why I find her unacceptable for the Presidency. Including that I’m positive she lied when she said it was for her convenience.
If the DOJ declares that she did nothing wrong, the rightwing won’t believe it. DEMs will take it as gospel. And for many it will be another matter that goes into the zone of we don’t know and probably never will. Should anything at anytime pop out in the future that indicates that the DOJ got it wrong, the public will sort into their well-worn trenches: a mistake (DEMs), a cover-up (GOP), and don’t know/lean cover-up. As long as “anytime” is at least nine years into the future, it will be a one day and little noticed news story. If Clinton is in the WH when it happens, she’ll have to choose between resignation or impeachment.
it’s not monolithic how ppl react and this goes to my oft-repeated comment that I’ve spoken with or overheard no one supporting Hillary; I’ve heard potential dem voters [how they’re registered idk but they voted for Obama] who are upset by this
What people usually mean when they say “nobody” is that the numbers are far less than a majority or plurality. And in politics, far less than a majority or plurality is comparable to nobody.
Often I can project a majority reaction to an event that rises to national coverage. I also have a good sense of when I can’t make such a projection. For example, the poll watchers at 538 projected that Obama not likely to get public support for a Scalia replacement nomination. Yet, I knew instantly that the GOP refusal to consider an Obama nominee was a loser for the GOP. How did I know that? Simple. On any issue that can be boiled down to fair and unfair (and only one side (sometimes not even one) of the debate needs to advance the question as one of fair vs. unfair), fair wins.
Similarly, a majority doesn’t like cheaters. At this point in the election cycle, absent any ability to factor out partisanship and with the leading candidates known well enough for over 75% of the public to have an opinion, we can see that only one candidate has has a positive fav/unfav ratio. Collectively, it doesn’t take much effort to recognize that Clinton, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are liars and cheaters and that Sanders isn’t either. Of course, it never stood in the way of Tricky Dicky.
Worth reading by Manuel Garcia, Jr, (once a physicist, is now a lazy househusband who writes out his analyses of physical or societal problems or interactions) – Hillary’s Emails: Convenient Privileges vs Classified Trust. He knows a thing or two about classified systems and walks us through two prior instances that had become fuzzy over time for me.
Agree with the following and he said it better and with fewer words than I did:
Nevertheless, he takes the rules to protect classified information seriously. He concludes with:
I don’t know a damn thing about top secret hoohah. I have had experience, however, with the capriciousness of classification when it comes to reports for military labs that I have used (or wanted to use) for purposes of my scientific research (which has nothing to do with weapons, the military, national security, whatever). I have access to a Defense Dept. online library at the lowest possible level: stuff that anyone could get hold of. Occasionally I’ll see a summary of a report that has some confidential rating and which looks pertinent and useful. I then write a special request explaining how I believe the contents relate to my research. Sometimes I’m successful, sometimes not. I’m referring now to reports from military labs that are dated in the 1960s and 1970s! There’s no rhyme or reason.
ok, someone over at the orange place, Oblomov, writes in a comment that HRC never had a State.gov email account [in order to control her documents]. anyone know anything about this side of it?
[in order to control her documents] should be question, ???
Only that it has been reported as a fact and never been disputed.
What makes it curious or suggests questions for you?
well Oblomov took it to mean she always was controlling her documents, i.e. that she always planned to use the private server. I didn’t know that, i thought she was using both, partly to make it easier to discuss with Bill and feed things to to Foundation. but that she never had state.gov email, that’s much worse than I thought, and I thought it was bad
Can’t recall in our prior discussions of this issue if you more dismissive of it than I was or if we both were equally alarmed by it. Can you recall?
Anyway, I know that I integrated her lack of a State.gov e-mail into my thoughts and the “more convenient for her” excuse didn’t fly with me. Why did she do it (and let’s not omit that she did so nearly two years after Rove’s email issue was exposed and led to his resignation)? As there was nothing preventing her from using a private address and server to communicate with those outside the USG, that can’t be it. That leaves the basic reasons:
WRT the duplicity of the Clintons in their effort to get the longed for third and fourth WH terms, I’m exceedingly cynical. They aren’t irrational, but left open the possibility of a Hillary WH run in every election since 2000. It’s a reason why Gore had to be immediately turned into a persona non-grata after he won the popular vote in 2000. If GWB screwed up in his first term (which he did), Gore and not Hillary would have been better positioned to run against him in 2004. …
I was always alarmed by the email server, it was a major red flag to me;, the self-servingness of the Clinton Foundation and her stance on various FA issues are the major reasons I oppose her candidacy, the email thing is tied in to both of these. But also too, someone invited me to hear Jeff Sharlet speak about his experience with The Family right around the time his book was published. I was pretty shocked, but it struck me as plausible.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060560053/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3483656633&hvqmt=b&hvbmt=bb&
hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_6uokbj3b3s_b
I guess the link doesn’t tell this, but Scarlet said Hillary was involved; their main idea is that they, a select few, are above the law, their role model, or one of them discussed in the talk, is King David who committed all kinds of personal transgressions [getting a lieutenant killed so he could take his wife, for example] but was a great king
Don’t know if Hillary’s association with “The Family” was just another effort to work all the angles or she truly believed in this crackpot. Since “The Family” has been exposed for being involved in pushing anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda, she may have dropped out. Back in 2008, Hillary is the one that should have come under fire for her pastor and not Obama. In addition to that “The Family” is a secret religious operation — so Clintonesque — and a real power among members (mostly conservative) of Congress.
Another point about that email server. Clinton and her defenders have claimed that all Clinton to/from State employee communications also reside on the state.gov servers b/c that’s the host for the other gov employees. However, that would only be true if that employee always used his/her state email address when communicating with Hillary. We know that Clinton’s server also hosted an Abedin address (no word on who else was in the circle). So, H to/from A were at least partially (depending on the frequency of Abedin ever made using her State Dept address in communicating with H) not on the State servers at all. This would be an obvious subject of inquiry for DOJ and one that lends itself to statistical analysis of what could be missing. In Abedin’s case it was complicated by that period of time when she was employed by State and private clients, such as Teneo (another can of worms related to the Clintons that has received limited scrutiny).
For me the forest in the server issue is the Clintons penchant for secrecy. Their supporters claim this is necessary because the rightwing is always on attack wrt the Clintons. OTOH, if they never do anything wrong, secrecy isn’t necessary and the existence of secret arrangements gives the RW attack fodder.
well there’s this.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495914/-Bill-Clinton-s-Massachusetts-Primary-Hijack-Gains-
Steam-NY-Post-Picks-Up-100-000-Arrest-Petition
And anyone that dares to claim that what Bill did in MA was not only unseemly but illegal will be called a rightwing Clinton hater.
Other than interfering with an election, which almost every eighteen year old knows is a no-no, his stunt cost taxpayers a lot of money.
He and Trump are birds of a feather competing for public attention and adulation. A pox on all people that acting like fourteen year old groupies to satisfy the ego needs of these two old men. Neither of whom ever stood a chance to become matinee idols.
Hillary Clinton is a part of the oligarchy, if she is ever prosecuted for anything I will truly be shocked
Clinton’s whole problem, both of them, is they continually underestimate both how much the left and right will try to destroy them over behavior (outside of Bill’s sexapades) that was normal in whatever role they currently reside.
Norms of SoS obviously change over time but usually it’s a little at a time and there’s rarely a red line.
Thanks to Bill Black for writing this up instead of letting it flit briefly in his consciousness: The Clintons Have Not Changed: The Clintonian War on the IGs
(It’s getting more and more difficult for me not to see that Obama cut a really big deal with the Clinton’s in ’08. Likely extracted before McCain named his dumb-bunny running mate and the financial meltdown, both of which practically assured his election.)
No wonder that the current State IG is looking into the email issue. Since there wasn’t even a Clinton lapdog around to look over her shoulder during her years at State.
We assumed at the time Obama and Hillary met in DC after he secured the nomination that a big deal was made between them to secure the Clintons’ support during the general election campaign and afterwards. As time has gone by, our thoughts about just how big a deal was cut have expanded, especially as we read more and more about the foundation. I also recently read about Madeleine Albright’s lucrative businesses (consulting and lobbying) that take full advantage of the connectons she made as SOS. If Hillary is elected I expect her enemies to redouble their efforts to discredit both Clintons, and as said several times in this discussion they are their own worst enemy.
You were obviously way ahead of the curve on this one than I was. I bought into the notion that Hill and Bill behaved like good loyal DEMs when they backed Obama in the general. Too often I’m not cynical enough because I do try to cut people some slack.
I checked the D of S OIG website online and found that the current IG was appointed in 2013 (https://oig.state.gov/about/IG). Are you saying there was no IG while Clinton was SOS but one was appointed after Kerry took over the position?
There was no DOS IG at any time during Clinton’s tenure. That’s Obama’s failing. However, all cabinet secretary’s weigh in on proposed IGs and administrations do listen. For good reason because appointing an IG that is hostile to a Secretary isn’t a constructive situation either. As I understand it, objections were raised to a couple of possible appointees and then nothing further was done to fill the position or information about filling it didn’t make it to the public. No explanation for the absence of an IG while Clinton was Secretary appears to have been offered.