FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track

[tlongII]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html?intcmp=hpbt1

EXCLUSIVE: The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.

This new investigative track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server.

"The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," one source said.

The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration.

The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data.

Inside the FBI, pressure is growing to pursue the case.

One intelligence source told Fox News that FBI agents would be “screaming” if a prosecution is not pursued because “many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation.”

The FBI is particularly on edge in the wake of how the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus was handled.

One of the three sources said some FBI agents felt Petraeus was given a slap on the wrist for sharing highly classified information with his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell, as well as lying to FBI agents about his actions. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in March 2015 after a two-plus-year federal investigation in which Attorney General Eric Holder initially declined to prosecute.

In the Petraeus case, the exposure of classified information was assessed to be limited.

By contrast, in the Clinton case, the number of classified emails has risen to at least 1,340. A 2015 appeal by the State Department to challenge the “Top Secret” classification of at least two emails failed and, as Fox News first reported, is now considered a settled matter.

It is unclear which of the two lines of inquiry was opened first by the FBI and whether they eventually will be combined and presented before a special grand jury. One intelligence source said the public corruption angle dates back to at least April 2015. On their official website, the FBI lists "public corruption as the FBI's top criminal priority."

Fox News is told that about 100 special agents assigned to the investigations also were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, with as many as 50 additional agents on “temporary duty assignment,” or TDY. The request to sign a new NDA could reflect that agents are handling the highly classified material in the emails, or serve as a reminder not to leak about the case, or both.

"The pressure on the lead agents is brutal," a second source said. "Think of it like a military operation, you might need tanks called in along with infantry."

Separately, a former high-ranking State Department official emphasized to Fox News that Clinton’s deliberate non-use of her government email address may be increasingly “significant.”

“It is virtually automatic when one comes on board at the State Department to be assigned an email address,” the source said.

“It would have taken an affirmative act not to have one assigned ... and it would also mean it was all planned out before she took office. This certainly raises questions about the so-called legal advice she claimed to have received from inside the State Department that what she was doing was proper."

On Sunday, when asked about her email practices while secretary of state, Clinton insisted to CBS News’ "Face The Nation," "there is no there, there."

[clambake]

not to mention their connection to ashley olsen,

[Wild Cobra]

It's about time.

[ElNono]

lol secret sauces

[boutons_deux]

Benghazi!

email!

bimbo eruptions!

Whitewater!

She murdered Foster!

Christmas cards!

[tlongII]

She's a crook.

[tlongII]

And a liar.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Clinton instructing her aide to remove the classified heading should do her in.

[boutons_deux]

Benghazi!

email!

bimbo eruptions!

Whitewater!

She murdered Foster!

Christmas cards!

[Wild Cobra]

LOL...

We have a Boutons eruption occurring!

And at a 7.3 on the Sphincter scale.

[CosmicCowboy]

It is going to be funny as hell if Hillary self destructs over this shit and Bernie comes out as the nominee...

can you imagine if it came down to Trump running against Socialist Bernie?

[boutons_deux]

It is going to be funny as hell if Hillary self destructs over this shit and Bernie comes out as the nominee...

can you imagine if it came down to Trump running against Socialist Bernie?

no matter which Repug is the candidate, the Repug has already lost women, youth, Hispanics, blacks, LGBT, and the election.

[CosmicCowboy]

no matter which Repug is the candidate, the Repug has already lost women, youth, Hispanics, blacks, LGBT, and the election.

My blue heeler could beat Bernie.

[boutons_deux]

Polls show Bernie beating Trump and Cruz by 10+ points.

[CosmicCowboy]

Polls show Bernie beating Trump and Cruz by 10+ points.

:lmao:lmao:lmao

cherry pick much?

Most polls show Trump or Cruz beating Bernie. Rubio KILLS him.

[ElNono]

:lol if shillary is the next prez, there's going to be some serious meltdown in here

[rmt]

:lol if shillary is the next prez, there's going to be some serious meltdown in here

If you or I did the stuff Hillary did, we'd be in prison a long time ago (much less running for president) - talk about double standard.

[ChumpDumper]

If you or I did the stuff Hillary did, we'd be in prison a long time ago (much less running for president) - talk about double standard.What charges?

[boutons_deux]

:lmao:lmao:lmao

cherry pick much?

Most polls show Trump or Cruz beating Bernie. Rubio KILLS him.

Bernie Sanders 'Destroys' Donald Trump By 13 Points, 6 More Than Clinton. Here's Why

According to a December 22, 2015 article (http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/264023-in-blockbuster-poll-sanders-destroys-trump-by-13) in The Hill titled In blockbuster poll, Sanders destroys Trump by 13 points, Bernie Sanders would achieve a "landslide of epic proportions" against The Donald. The article explains that within "the new Quinnipiac poll, Clinton would defeat Trump by 7 percentage points... while the Sanders lead of 13 points would bring a landslide of epic proportions."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-destroys-donald-trump-by-13-points-6-more-than-clinton-_b_8936840.html

Rubio beats both Dems? Where, Repug in-house jokers Rasmussen? :lol

[Winehole23]

My blue heeler could beat Bernie.










General Election: Trump vs. Sanders




2k Shares

Polling Data



Poll
Date
Sample
MoE
Sanders (D)
Trump (R)
Spread


RCP Average
11/16 - 12/20
--
--
44.3
42.3
Sanders +2.0


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us12222015_Uhkm63g.pdf)
12/16 - 12/20
1140 RV
2.9
51
38
Sanders +13


PPP (D) (https://www.scribd.com/doc/293784795/Public-Policy-Polling-national-poll)
12/16 - 12/17
1267 RV
2.8
41
43
Trump +2


FOX News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/11/20/fox-news-poll-2016-matchups-syrian-refugees/)
11/16 - 11/19
1016 RV
4.0
41
46
Trump +5


All General Election: Trump vs. Sanders Polling Data (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html#polls)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/dev/mt-static/images/logo-sub.gif
RCP Poll Average
General Election: Trump vs. Sanders



44.3
Sanders (D)+2.0


42.3
Trump (R)
















Poll
Date
Sample
MoE
Sanders (D)
Trump (R)
Spread


RCP Average
11/16 - 12/20
--
--
44.3
42.3
Sanders +2.0


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us12222015_Uhkm63g.pdf)
12/16 - 12/20
1140 RV
2.9
51
38
Sanders +13


PPP (D) (https://www.scribd.com/doc/293784795/Public-Policy-Polling-national-poll)
12/16 - 12/17
1267 RV
2.8
41
43
Trump +2


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us12022015_U45hkpp.pdf)
11/23 - 11/30
1473 RV
2.6
49
41
Sanders +8


FOX News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/11/20/fox-news-poll-2016-matchups-syrian-refugees/)
11/16 - 11/19
1016 RV
4.0
41
46
Trump +5


PPP (D) (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/11/gop-has-clear-top-4-clinton-dominant-for-dems-general-election-tight.html#more)
11/16 - 11/17
1360 RV
2.7
41
44
Trump +3


McClatchy/Marist (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article43727049.ece/BINARY/Poll%20details)
10/29 - 11/4
540 RV
4.2
53
41
Sanders +12


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us11042015_xsq33a.pdf)
10/29 - 11/2
1144 RV
2.9
46
44
Sanders +2


NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl (http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/15463%20NBCWSJ%20Late%20October%20Poll%20%284%29.p df)
10/25 - 10/29
847 RV
3.4
50
41
Sanders +9


CNN/ORC (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/10/18/democrats.pdf)
10/14 - 10/17
956 RV
3.0
53
44
Sanders +9


PPP (D) (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NationalGOP_100615.pdf)
10/1 - 10/4
1338 RV
2.7
44
44
Tie


NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl (http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/15398%20NBCWSJ%20September%20Poll%20%282%29.pdf)
9/20 - 9/24
RV
--
52
36
Sanders +16


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us09242015_ui47mfb.pdf)
9/17 - 9/21
1574 RV
2.5
47
42
Sanders +5


SurveyUSA (http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d950cadf-05ce-4148-a125-35c0cdab26c6)
9/2 - 9/3
900 RV
3.3
40
44
Trump +4


PPP (D) (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_National_90315.pdf)
8/28 - 8/30
1254 RV
2.8
42
43
Trump +1


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us08272015_Ueg38d.pdf)
8/20 - 8/25
1563 RV
2.5
44
41
Sanders +3


Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us07302015_U645de.pdf)
7/23 - 7/28
1644 RV
2.4
45
37
Sanders +8


CNN/Opinion Research (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2179399-cnn-orc-poll-2016-election-9-a-m-july-26-2015.html)
7/22 - 7/25
898 RV
3.5
59
38
Sanders +21


PPP (D) (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_National_72215.pdf)
7/20 - 7/21
1087 RV
3.0
47
37
Sanders +10

[Winehole23]

what polls are you looking at, CC?

[Winehole23]

Rubio KILLS him.Rubio beats him in the polling data, but not by much beyond the margin of error.

are you citing the polls by heart?


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_rubio_vs_sanders-5564.html

[Winehole23]

or just making stuff up, like you do?

[Winehole23]

lol secret saucessecret sources leaking classified details about an ongoing investigation, unnamed former officials speculating about the significance of the leak in an election year. rumors and scuttlebutt.

hard to imagine WC, CC, rmt and Tlong would applaud the transparency if the the target were Republican.

[Winehole23]

that said, it's bad news for HRC

[Spurminator]

I would expect a VERY strong third party candidate if it was Sanders vs. Trump. But that's not going to happen.

[Winehole23]

HRC would have to slip on a banana peel, or charges against her announced during the campaign, but it could happen.

[Ball Buster]

if...


:lmao

[boutons_deux]

that said, it's bad news for HRC

like everything about the Clintons since 1992, it's fabricated and hyped by the rightwing hate media that denies even the legitimacy of anybody opposing the Repugs. Same with Obama, with the added feature of his skin color.

[CosmicCowboy]

At Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing for secretary of state, she promised she would take “extraordinary steps…to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Later, more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government paid former President Bill Clinton a total of more than $8 million to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Fifteen of them also donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s charity, according to foundation disclosures.

In several instances, State Department actions benefited those that paid Mr. Clinton. The Journal found no evidence that speaking fees were paid to the former president in exchange for any action by Mrs. Clinton, now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mrs. Clinton has come under fire from Republicans and some Democrats for potential conflicts of interest between her family’s work at the foundation and her duties as secretary of state between 2009 and February 2013. Her husband’s high-profile activities pose a unique challenge for Mrs. Clinton as she runs for president and he prepares to step up his role in her campaign.

RELATED

Super PAC Donors Taking Charge
Mr. Clinton, for example, collected $1 million for two appearances sponsored by the Abu Dhabi government that were arranged while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. His speeches there came during and after the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security were involved in discussions about a plan to open a U.S. facility in the Abu Dhabi airport to ease visa processing for travel to the U.S. The State Department supported the facility in the face of substantial opposition from unions, members of Congress and others.

The Journal based its analysis on financial-disclosure forms, lobbying records and emails released by the State Department. It looked at speeches given or arranged while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said “no evidence exists” to link any actions taken by Mrs. Clinton’s State Department to organizations hosting Mr. Clinton’s speeches, and that all of her actions were in line with Obama administration policies and priorities.

Representatives of most of the companies and organizations involved said there was no connection between their lobbying efforts and the speaking fees they paid Mr. Clinton. Representatives of Abu Dhabi and several companies declined to comment.

The Clintons struck an agreement with the Obama administration to allow State Department ethics officers to check for conflicts between speech sponsors and Mrs. Clinton’s government work.

State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach said not all activity at the department personally or substantially involves the secretary of state. “Her commitments did not equate to an indiscriminate prohibition on former President Clinton from working with any entity that interacted with the State Department, which would have encompassed an excessively broad range of companies, governments and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations],” he said.

The ethics reviews, he noted, “were conducted by career civil servants who have served in both Republican and Democratic administrations.”

Mr. Clinton was paid for more than 200 speeches while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, according to his wife’s disclosure forms. Documents released thus far by the State Department show the ethics office turned down five of his speech requests, including proposed talks sponsored by North Korea, China and the Republic of Congo.

Mr. Clinton has given mixed signals about whether he would abandon the paid-speaking circuit if his wife becomes president.

Asked by NBC in May if he would remain on the speech circuit while his wife was running for president, Mr. Clinton responded, “Oh, yeah. I gotta pay our bills.”

In June, Bloomberg TV asked Mr. Clinton if he would still give paid speeches if Mrs. Clinton gained the White House. “I don’t think so,” he replied, saying he didn’t want to make news that detracted from the presidency. Then he added: “I will still give speeches, though, on the subjects I’m interested in.”

A spokesman for Mr. Clinton, asked to clarify, pointed to the former president’s previous statements.

The State Department got involved in the Abu Dhabi matter after the capital of the United Arab Emirates asked for a facility to clear travelers for U.S. entry before they boarded planes so they could avoid delays when arriving in the U.S. Only five countries in the world at the time had such an arrangement: Canada, Ireland and three Caribbean countries.

According to two former State Department officials who worked on the matter, the U.S. wanted to help an important ally. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said it was “a continuation of a Bush administration initiative to expand preclearance conducted abroad,” and that the Department of Homeland Security led negotiations.

U.S.-based airlines, which have no direct flights between Abu Dhabi and the U.S., opposed the idea as a giveaway to the government-owned airline, Etihad Airways. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and unions for pilots and flight attendants opposed it. More than 150 lawmakers from both parties ultimately opposed it.

While Mrs. Clinton’s State Department and the Department of Homeland Security were working out a “letter of intent” with Abu Dhabi for the facility, Mr. Clinton sought permission to give a paid speech in Abu Dhabi. The invitation came from the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative, a group created by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Abu Dhabi, according to Mr. Clinton’s request to the State Department.

Requests for comment from the U.A.E. embassy in Washington were referred to a public-relations firm, which declined to comment on behalf of the government.

State Department ethics officer Katy Youel Page, in an August 2011 email, inquired about Mr. Clinton’s potential involvement with “high-level officials” from Abu Dhabi. She asked the State Department’s United Arab Emirates desk officer, “Would it be any harm to foreign policy to associate with this?” He replied: “No concerns here.”

On Dec. 6, 2011, U.S. officials signed the letter of intent. One week later, Mr. Clinton gave a 20-minute talk on climate change to the Abu Dhabi government environmental gathering. He collected $500,000, his wife’s disclosure report shows.

In December 2012, Mr. Clinton sought approval for another speech in Abu Dhabi before the World Travel and Tourism Council, State Department emails show. The request said the speech was sponsored by three Abu Dhabi tourism agencies, all owned by the government. A conference sponsor was Etihad Airways, the chief beneficiary of the inspection facility, the group’s promotional materials said. An Etihad spokeswoman referred questions about the facility to the government of Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Clinton gave a keynote address on the value of tourism. He was paid $500,000, his wife’s disclosure filings say.

One week later, the U.S. and Abu Dhabi signed the final agreement for the facility. Etihad Airways operated its first flight from it last year.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said it was “farcical” to suggest any connection between the speeches and the facility’s opening.

Mr. Clinton also had a large payday from Oracle Corp.: a total of $500,000 for two talks given or approved while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. He gave one in October 2012 as the company was urging the State Department to increase the number of skilled-worker visas being issued, lobbying reports show.

Oracle, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp., whose co-founder Bill Gates has suggested eliminating the visa cap altogether, paid Mr. Clinton a total of more than $1.1 million for speeches during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure.

Mrs. Clinton has long supported increasing skilled-worker visas, known as H-1B visas, as did her husband when he was president. The issue has remained mired in the broader congressional debate about immigration.

In 2009, the Biotechnology Industry Organization lobbied the State Department to get diplomats to oppose rules against genetically modified foods. In December, Mrs. Clinton sent a cable to diplomats telling them to “pay particular attention” to countries considering biotech regulation and to push an “active biotech agenda” that would “protect the interests of U.S. farmers and exporters,” according to a copy released by WikiLeaks.

Five months later, the biotechnology group paid Mr. Clinton $175,000 to appear at its convention. After Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, she also spoke at the trade group’s convention, earning $335,000.

A spokesman for the trade group said the speeches were unrelated to the company’s lobbying and Mr. Clinton was invited in part because he supported the group’s issues. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said a similar diplomatic cable was sent under the Bush administration.

Mr. Clinton also received a substantial payout in 2010 from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank whose executives were at risk of being hurt by possible U.S. sanctions tied to a complex and controversial case of alleged corruption in Russia.

Members of Congress wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2010 seeking to deny visas to people who had been implicated by Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who was jailed and died in prison after he uncovered evidence of a large tax-refund fraud. William Browder, a foreign investor in Russia who had hired Mr. Magnitsky, alleged that the accountant had turned up evidence that Renaissance officials, among others, participated in the fraud.

The Russian government was opposed to sanctions. At the time, the Obama administration was attempting to reset relations with Russia. The State Department rebuffed the request from Congress. “We…do not support such a measure at this time,” a department official wrote to one senator.

A few weeks later, Bill Clinton participated in a question-and-answer session at a Renaissance Capital investors conference. He was paid $500,000. After the appearance, Mr. Clinton received a personal thank-you call from Vladimir Putin, then the Russian prime minister, the government news agency TASS reported.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said she took aggressive steps on human-rights abuses in Russia and “personally acted to impose a ban on travel to the U.S. by several dozen officials believed to have been involved in Magnitsky’s death.” Sponsors of the congressional legislation said the move, coming in 2011, was a major step, but that it didn’t go far enough.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said she opposed congressional attempts to link broad sanctions to a bill to normalize trade relations with Russia, believing the two matters should be handled separately. Nevertheless, the Magnitsky Act passed in late 2012 with bipartisan support as a part of a trade-normalization bill. The law calls for sanctions on unnamed individuals whose alleged fraudulent schemes were uncovered by Mr. Magnitsky, including several linked to Renaissance Capital, according to congressional aides who helped draft the bill.

A spokeswoman for Renaissance declined to comment other than to say the bank is under new management since Mr. Magnitsky’s original investigation.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said there was no connection between her husband’s speech and the State Department’s handling of the matter.

[CosmicCowboy]

After his wife became Secretary of State, former President Bill Clinton began to collect speaking fees that often doubled or tripled what he had been charging earlier in his post White House years, bringing in millions of dollars from groups that included several with interests pending before the State Department, an ABC News review of financial disclosure records shows.

Where he once had drawn $150,000 for a typical address in the years following his presidency, Clinton saw a succession of staggering paydays for speeches in 2010 and 2011, including $500,000 paid by a Russian investment bank and $750,000 to address a telecom conference in China.

“It’s unusual to see a former president’s speaking fee go up over time,” said Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer in the White House Counsel’s office under President George W. Bush. “I must say I’m surprised that he raised his fees. There’s no prohibition on his raising it. But it does create some appearance problems if he raises his fee after she becomes Secretary of State.”

Hillary Clinton Says Republicans 'Talking Only About Me'
White House Won't Comment on Reports of Preferential Treatment for Clinton Foundation Donors
Public speaking became a natural and lucrative source of income for Clinton when he returned to private life in 2001. Records from disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her tenures in the U.S. Senate and then in the Obama Administration indicate he took in more than $105 million in speech fees during that 14 year period.

That steady flow of income has come under scrutiny in recent days, as it formed an element of a book by author and conservative think tank fellow Peter Schweizer called “Clinton Cash,” due for release in coming days. ABC News received an advanced copy of the book, which highlights instances where domestic and foreign companies with pending interests before the State Department made large donations to the Clinton’s charitable enterprises or, in some cases, helped underwrite the former president’s speeches. The book offers no proof that Hillary Clinton took any direct action to benefit the groups and interests that were paying her husband.

An independent review of source material by ABC News uncovered errors in the book, including an instance where paid and unpaid speaking appearances were conflated. Schweizer said the errors would be corrected. But those same records supported the premise that former President Clinton accepted speaking fees from numerous companies and individuals with interests pending before the State Department.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment from ABC News, but the campaign’s leadership has been very aggressive in attacking the premise and content of the book. John Podesta, the campaign chairman, told PBS, "He's cherry-picked information that's been disclosed and woven a bunch of conspiracy theories about it.”

During her first visit to New Hampshire as a presidential candidate Monday, Hillary Clinton brushed off other finance-related allegations referenced in "Clinton Cash" about the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of donations from foreign governments, dismissing them as being a "distraction" from the issues of her campaign.

"Well, we're back into the political season and therefore we will be subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks and I'm ready for that. I know that that comes unfortunately with the territory," Clinton told reporters.

When Hillary Clinton took over as Secretary of State, Bill Clinton's attorney, David E. Kendall, drafted guidelines intended to help him avoid conflicts as he continued to accept payment for speeches.

“l am writing to describe the voluntary steps, above and beyond the requirements of law and ethics regulations, that President Clinton intends to take to assist Senator Clinton to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with her duties as Secretary of State,” Kendall wrote.

The rules required the State Department’s ethics officials to review and approve speaking requests.

In practice, there were few if any instances where ethics officials inside the State Department asked the former president to refuse to accept payment for a speech. Hundreds of pages of emails, first obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the right-leaning group Judicial Watch, show that requests from Clinton’s personal office to the State Department for approval of speaking engagements were almost always granted.

In October 2010, for instance, Clinton accepted $225,000 to give a speech in Jamaica sponsored in part by the Irish telecom firm Digicel. Just weeks earlier, Digicel had submitted an application to USAID, an agency overseen by the State Department, for millions of dollars in grant money to fund a mobile-phone money transfer service in Haiti. Two months after the speech, Digicel received the first installment of grant money. The company’s chairman, Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien, was also a major contributor to the Clintons' charitable enterprises.

A spokeswoman for Digicel told ABC News that its sponsorship of the Jamaica speech had nothing to do with the company’s other projects. To imply otherwise, said spokeswoman Gillian Power, “suggests an association of unrelated events which create a misleading representation of Digicel and its founder, Denis O’Brien in relation to their collaboration with President Clinton in developing Haiti.”

“This sponsorship is just one of many that Digicel supports and falls under a large investment in a significant number of activities across the areas of sports, culture and the community – all of which are designed to foster development,” Power said. “President Clinton and Denis O’Brien’s relationship was founded on their common interest in developing Haiti – a goal which they continue to work together to achieve.”

The former president collected large payments from companies with global interests such Canada’s TD Bank, which had an interest in the Keystone Pipeline, a subject of intense lobbying in Washington. In just one week in March of 2011, Clinton collected $1.3 million giving speeches in Nigeria, Brazil and Grand Cayman.

One instance where the State Department did raise questions about a speech recipient came in 2012, when President Clinton requested to speak at an aviation conference sponsored in part by an organization called the Shanghai Airport Authority. The audience was billed as “6,000 business leaders, government officials, and high net worth individuals.” The State Department ethics officer, Kathryn Youel Page, flagged the request in an email back to the former president’s office indicating the sponsor had ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.

“I don't believe we've previously cleared acceptance of fees from PRC-linked entities, but could consider this variation,” she wrote.

Clinton did not accept the fee.

[ElNono]

^ what's your take on that CC? I think everyone knows she's a career politician... although only the GOP seems to have a hardon for 'outsiders', IMO

[angrydude]

If that ex-us attorney can be believed 150 fbi agents are on the case.

If there are even 50 that is a massive undertaking.

And if (big if) the FBI actually brought a case they would have her dead to rights. That's how they roll.

That said, I'll believe it when I see it.

[hater]

I knew she was a scumbag from the moment I saw her fuck up the Secretary of State position. Sh ruined it for the rest of history. They need to rename that position imo

She being president would mean the end of th e US of A imo.

Impeach her now and throw her in jail so she doesn't get to be even 1 second in the white house

[CosmicCowboy]

^ what's your take on that CC? I think everyone knows she's a career politician... although only the GOP seems to have a hardon for 'outsiders', IMO

The smoking gun seems to be Bills speaking fees immediately jumping from the $100,000 range to the half million range when she became sec of state. $500,000 for a 20 minute talk sure looks and smells like a bribe.

[Winehole23]

that's not a smoking gun, but it might be smoke.

the WSJ said they had no evidence HRC performed any actions in exchange for Bill Clinton's fees.

what evidence do you see?

[boutons_deux]

the entire area of what is classifiable or not is mushy, controversial, open to challenge.

My guess is Congressional Repugs are putting enormous pressure on FBI, just as dickhead put enormous pressure on CIA to lie about Saddam, WMD.

[Winehole23]

Congress isn't the FBI's boss, Obama is.

One theory has it the FBI is still pissed about the kid glove treatment David Petraeus got.

[boutons_deux]

Congress isn't the FBI's boss, Obama is.

One theory has it the FBI is still pissed about the kid glove treatment David Petraeus got.

So you think only the WH can influence the FBI/CIA? :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

that's not a smoking gun, but it might be smoke.

the WSJ said they had no evidence HRC performed any actions in exchange for Bill Clinton's fees.

what evidence do you see?

there was no way the NYT could prove cause and effect so it was only smart to say "here are the facts we see but we can't prove the payments were directly linked to results".

Do you not think it's circumstantially strange that Bills speaking fees increased enormously as soon as Hillary became SOS?

[boutons_deux]

there was no way the NYT could prove cause and effect so it was only smart to say "here are the facts we see but we can't prove the payments were directly linked to results".

Do you not think it's circumstantially strange that Bills speaking fees increased enormously as soon as Hillary became SOS?

CC, do you think it's circumstantially strange that Repug politicians who receive NRA/BigGun contributions ALWAYS block any gun regs and research?

[CosmicCowboy]

Does anyone not think it's strange that Boo is so stupid that he doesn't understand the legal distinction between political contributions and personal bribes?

[boutons_deux]

Does anyone not think it's strange that Boo is so stupid that he doesn't understand the legal distinction between political contributions and personal bribes?

political contributions aren't bribes? :lol CC so naively stupid.

[CosmicCowboy]

political contributions aren't bribes? :lol CC so naively stupid.

Boo conveniently ignored "legal distinction".

How Boorish.

[Winehole23]

there was no way the NYT could prove cause and effect so it was only smart to say "here are the facts we see but we can't prove the payments were directly linked to results".

Do you not think it's circumstantially strange that Bills speaking fees increased enormously as soon as Hillary became SOS?No. I would call it predictable.

Who wouldn't want to curry favor with a possible future president?

[Winehole23]

Sucking up to people in power isn't a crime, and taking the money in and of itself isn't corruption.

[boutons_deux]

Boo conveniently ignored "legal distinction".

How Boorish.

CC is so corruptly naive thinking that because the CORRUPT Repug/VRWC SCOTUS legalized massive, secretive "dark" bribery, that it's moral, ethical, and just wonderful.

Politicians, esp Federal politicians, are totally corrupted by BigMoney. They run for office exclusively to become (more) wealthy.

[CosmicCowboy]

Sucking up to people in power isn't a crime, and taking the money in and of itself isn't corruption.

True, but the quid pro quo is if the FBI proves it.

remember, smart money says they have recovered the 30,000 emails Hillary deleted.

All it takes is one mistake.

[Winehole23]

So you think only the WH can influence the FBI/CIA? :lolyour threadbare surmise that Congress has pressured the FBI to investigate HRC about this is just that.

[CosmicCowboy]

CC is so corruptly naive thinking that because the CORRUPT Repug/VRWC SCOTUS legalized massive, secretive "dark" bribery, that it's moral, ethical, and just wonderful.

Politicians, esp Federal politicians, are totally corrupted by BigMoney. They run for office exclusively to become (more) wealthy.

dumb fuck

I didn't say it was good.

I said one was legal, the other one isn't.

try to keep up.

The FBI's favorite case to make is public corruption, even more than bank robbers.

[CosmicCowboy]

Those FBI agents in Washington are knocking down middle class salaries while they see the politicians all around them getting filthy rich.

Bet they LOVE this case.

[Winehole23]

True, but the quid pro quo is if the FBI proves it.

remember, smart money says they have recovered the 30,000 emails Hillary deleted.

All it takes is one mistake.your tune won't change if they don't find it. you'll just shift to the next conspiracy du jour, like you did after Benghazi.

[CosmicCowboy]

your tune won't change if they don't find it. you'll just shift to the next conspiracy du jour, like you did after Benghazi.

Benghazi wasn't about the video.

I think that has been proven beyond a doubt.

[Winehole23]

hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster. your fervent anti-HRC bleating has consisted of mostly bs to date.

[boutons_deux]

your threadbare surmise that Congress has pressured the FBI to investigate HRC about this is just that.

so you think the FBI is participating in yet another Repug witch hunt, in an election year, of the Clinton's on their own?

esp on something as mushy, controversial as what's classified and what's not?

and when other govt honchos, fed and state, have used non-govt email servers for govt business?

Repugs fund the FBI, a HUGE lever.

[Winehole23]

you've been doing it for years. there's nothing to it, besides your strong feelings, valid though they might be.

[SpursforSix]

Expanding probe. Ouch!

[Winehole23]

unlike Congress, the FBI is relatively unpolitical. an FBI public announcement naming HRC as a target would be game-changing.

OTOH, the serial Congressional investigations of HRC and Benghazi -- which came up with bupkis -- have been an abuse of oversight privileges for a nakedly political purpose: to disqualify a candidate the GOP rightly fears it can't beat at the ballot box.

[TheSanityAnnex]

esp on something as mushy, controversial as what's classified and what's not?

:lol that weak excuse doesn't work in this instance

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-2016/index.html

Washington (CNN)The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee released a scathing statement Friday, calling on Hillary Clinton to "come clean" after the State Department released an email in which she asked an aide to send information on a non-secure system after attempts to send the document securely failed.


Sen. Chuck Grassley said the email, released at about 1:30 am Friday morning along with about 3,000 other emails from Clinton's State Department tenure, is "disturbing," and "appears to show the former Secretary of State instructing a subordinate to remove the headings from a classified document and send it to her in an unsecure manner."
On June 16, 2011, top Clinton aide Jake Sullivan wrote to Clinton to say she would get "tps" -- presumably short for "talking points" that evening. The subject of the email is redacted so it's not clear what topic these points covered.




The next morning, Clinton wrote back to say she hadn't received them yet, and after a few minutes Sullivan responded that staff were having issues sending the document in a secure fax but that they were "working on it."
"If they can't," Clinton replies, "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."


Clinton's critics are now seizing on the email, and say it shows a disregard of the security of classified information.
"It raises a host of serious questions and underscores the importance of the various inquiries into the transmittal of classified information through her non-government email server," said Grassley, who went on to ask: "How long has the State Department been aware of this email? Why is it just now being released? Was her instruction actually carried out? If so, has the FBI opened a criminal inquiry into these circumstances?"
A State Department official declined to comment on Grassley's statement, but told CNN earlier in the day that the department has "no indication at this time that the document being discussed was emailed to her."
"I'm not going to speculate about whether the document being discussed was classified," this official added. "Generally speaking, I can say that just because a document is sent via a secure method doesn't mean that it's classified. Many documents that are created or stored on a secure system are not classified."
A spokesperson for Grassley's office says it is working under the assumption the email was classified, since Clinton's aides would have had other ways to send the document to her if it wasn't, such as through email.

Clinton's email practices have been a source of criticism since March 2015, when it was revealed she used a private email server to conduct official business while at the State Department.
She has vehemently insisted she never sent or received information that was classified at the time it was sent.
The State Department has backed her on that claim, but have since retroactively classified information in over 1,000 of her emails.
The State Department is in the process of releasing Clinton's work-related emails, which total nearly 55,000 pages, to the public, which is how this new email came to Grassley's attention. The department is scheduled to release the last of Clinton's emails at the end of this month

[boutons_deux]

Repugs on another Clinton witch hunt, for 25 years and counting.

Benghazi!

whitewater!

Christmas card list!

WH visitors list!

She murdered Vince Foster!

[ElNono]

The smoking gun seems to be Bills speaking fees immediately jumping from the $100,000 range to the half million range when she became sec of state. $500,000 for a 20 minute talk sure looks and smells like a bribe.

or maybe just chump change to be able to curry favors from the potential next POTUS?

EDIT: WH beat me to it

[angrydude]

Repugs on another Clinton witch hunt, for 25 years and counting.

Benghazi!

whitewater!

Christmas card list!

WH visitors list!

She murdered Vince Foster!

If the republican establishment was capable of creating these Clinton scandals out of thin air, don't you think they would have used that trick against Obama?

Funny how Obama has never had a scandal where he was personally accused of doing anything illegal. Had terrible judgment? Sure. Ideologically hates America? Sure. Not American? Sure. But illegal as in broke the law? His underlings like Lois Lerner? Sure. But him personally? Nope. Never comes up.

The Clintons on the other hand are magically accused of taking bribes and breaking the law over and over and over.

I guess the vast right wing conspiracy is asleep at the switch.

[Winehole23]

If the republican establishment was capable of creating these Clinton scandals out of thin air, don't you think they would have used that trick against Obama?

Birth certificate, Muslim Kenyan Socialist, Fast and Furious, terrorist appeaser, Solyndra, divider not a uniter, there's a million tricks tried and failed against Obama. If you can't see them you're blind.

[Winehole23]

just like Hilary, none of it stuck except for true believers with stuck minds.

[Winehole23]

do I have gripes with Obama?

yeah,a bunch.

official secrecy, electronic dragnet, drone wars,ongoing wars in the middle east that haven't ceased yet including Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo, prosecuting whistleblowers, Obamacare, bailing out criminal banksters, erosion of the 4th amendment...I have my own laundry list of misdeeds.

but most of the bullshit in the headlines is just that.

[Winehole23]

Obama is the rarest of all rare breeds -- a moderate Republican. He's a fucking Tory. A caretaker of power.

He preserved and and enhanced the power of his office for his Republican successors. Give him credit (or blame) for that, at least.

[Winehole23]

When the economy shit the bed and the citizenry went batshit crazy, the country didn't fall apart. He deserves a modicum of credit for that too.

[Winehole23]

The rate of government spending decreased, the deficit shrunk.

Obama deserves blame for a lot of things, but not for most of the things ST posters blame him for.

[Winehole23]

you think it's bad now, just wait til we have President Trump or President Cruz.

[Winehole23]

I do wonder whether unnamed sources would compromise an ongoing investigation if they had confidence it was going somewhere...

[angrydude]

Birth certificate, Muslim Kenyan Socialist, Fast and Furious, terrorist appeaser, Solyndra, divider not a uniter, there's a million tricks tried and failed against Obama. If you can't see them you're blind.

Thanks for proving my point.

All of those are political scandals.

They aren't Obama personally going out and breaking the law in an individual capacity.

Get back to me when someone accuses Obama of rape.

[angrydude]

When the economy shit the bed and the citizenry went batshit crazy, the country didn't fall apart. He deserves a modicum of credit for that too.

The economy was never going to fall apart. Some assholes on wall street would have lost their jobs.

Instead your man of the people was completely content to pay those asshole bankers millions of dollars to not go out of business and now not to flood the market with the cheap money that their banking cartel printed and gave to themselves to keep their balance sheets in the black.

Meanwhile the real economy has been in the shitter for 7 years.

[Winehole23]

not my man of the people. you ain't been listening.

[Winehole23]

I called him a Tory and a caretaker of power. That ain't no man of the people. Toady to power and money is what I said.

[Winehole23]

If our government won't kick vicious exploiters in the nuts, who will?

[ElNono]

They're all "political scandals" until proven otherwise...

A cursory google search for "impeach Obama" should give you plenty of "breaking the law in an individual capacity" allegations...

So, yeah, the GOP and Dems both live out of manufacturing political scandals. The difference with Shillary is that she's been exposed for a long ass time. Everybody knew she was going to be a nominee and likely candidate for years now.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton's emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government's most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.
Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence known as "special access programs" (SAP).
That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.
“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” said the IG letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community and State Department. “According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.”
Intelligence from a "special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as "top secret" – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton's private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a "need-to-know" because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection -- or a human asset -- at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time.
“There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”
Executive Order 13526 -- called "Classified National Security Information" and signed Dec. 29, 2009 -- sets out the legal framework for establishing special access programs. The order says the programs can only be authorized by the president, "the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each."
The programs are created when "the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” and “the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved," it states.
According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/11/06/hillary-clinton-signed-non-disclosure-agreement-to-protect-classified-info.html) non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009.
Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general.
Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment.
In a statement, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “The State Department is focused on and committed to releasing former Secretary Clinton’s emails in a manner that protects sensitive information. No one takes this more seriously than we do.”
The intelligence community IG was responding in his message to a November letter from the Republican chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees that questioned the State Department email review process after it was wrongly reported the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” designation.
As Fox News first reported (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/15/sources-review-affirms-clinton-server-emails-were-top-secret-despite-department-challenge.html), those two emails were “top secret” when they hit the server, and it is now considered a settled matter.
The intelligence agencies now have their own reviewers embedded at the State Department as part of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The reviewers are identifying intelligence of a potentially classified nature, and referring it to the relevant intelligence agency for further review.
There is no formal appeals process for classification, and the agency that generates the intelligence has final say. The State Department only has control over the fraction of emails that pertain to their own intelligence.
While the State Department and Clinton campaign have said the emails in questions were “retroactively classified” or “upgraded” – to justify the more than 1,300 classified emails on her server – those terms are meaningless under federal law.
The former federal law enforcement official said the finding in the January IG letter represents a potential violation of USC 18 Section 793, “gross negligence (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/15/source-fbi-probe-clinton-email-focused-on-gross-negligence-provision.html)” in the handling of secure information under the Espionage Act.
[I]Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html?intcmp=hpbt1

[MultiTroll]

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html?intcmp=hpbt1
The article and Repug guy quoted may be 100% accurate.
But the very fact it's from Faux News means it has to be vetted before I would believe one word.
I've met Catherine Herridge. Did not like.

I am not a Hillary honk btw.

[TheSanityAnnex]

The article and Repug guy quoted may be 100% accurate.
But the very fact it's from Faux News means it has to be vetted before I would believe one word.
I've met Catherine Herridge. Did not like.

I am not a Hillary honk btw.
The IG letter is right in the link

[ElNono]

Hopefully this doesn't spark another Commission dog and pony show... an FBI indictment would be much more substantive...

[angrydude]

Hopefully this doesn't spark another Commission dog and pony show... an FBI indictment would be much more substantive...

The FBI doesn't recommend indictments unless they can nail your ass to the wall.

So yea, it would be more substantive.

[TheSanityAnnex]

The article and Repug guy quoted may be 100% accurate.
But the very fact it's from Faux News means it has to be vetted before I would believe one word.
I've met Catherine Herridge. Did not like.

I am not a Hillary honk btw.http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hillary-clinton-emails-contained-info-above-top-secret-ig-n499886

Hillary Clinton Emails Held Info Beyond Top Secret: IG

Emails from Hillary Clinton's home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including a level meant to protect some of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence, according to a document obtained by NBC News. In a letter to lawmakers, the intelligence community's internal watchdog says some of Clinton's emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters.
Two American intelligence officials tell NBC News these are not the same two emails from Clinton's server that have long been reported as containing information deemed Top Secret.
The letter, first reported by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html), doesn't make clear whether Clinton sent or received the emails in question, but in the past, emails containing classified information have tended to have been sent to Clinton, not written by her.
The new revelation underscores the extent to which the email classification issue could continue to dog Clinton, as State Department and intelligence officials review sensitive information within messages that were blacked out before being released to the public.
advertisement (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31066137/media-kit/)


Clinton, who tops national primary polling as a Democratic presidential candidate, has repeatedly said that none of the information she sent or received while secretary of state was marked classified, and nothing has emerged to contradict that. But it's become clear that classified information bled into the emails, which were sent over unencrypted channels open to interception by foreign intelligence agencies.

Charles McCulllough, the intelligence community's inspector general, said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign affairs committees that he has received sworn declarations from an intelligence agency he declined to name.
The declarations cover "several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET/SAP information."
advertisement (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31066137/media-kit/)


An intelligence official familiar with the matter told NBC News that the special access program in question was so sensitive that McCullough and some of his aides had to receive clearance to be read in on it before viewing the sworn declaration about the Clinton emails.
Clinton's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton conducted government business over private email. The arrangement was particularly unusual because the email system relied not on Yahoo or Google but her own server, which she kept in her home in Westchester County, N.Y.
The State Department is under court order to release Clinton's government-related emails under the Freedom of Information Act. Clinton has turned over about 55,000 emails, and almost all have been released, though they have been heavily censored. The last batch is due to be made public Jan. 29.
While Republicans have criticized Clinton over the issue, her defenders have pointed out that the State Department has long faced the problem of how to communicate about sensitive matters. Unlike the CIA, State does most of its business over an unclassified email system, and many officials do not have easy access to a classified messaging system.
advertisement (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31066137/media-kit/)


State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the State Department is "focused on and committed to releasing former Secretary Clinton's emails in a manner that protects sensitive information. No one takes this more seriously than we do. We have said repeatedly that we anticipate more upgrades throughout our release process. Our FOIA review process is still ongoing. Once that process is complete, if it is determined that information should be classified as Top Secret we will do so."‎

[boutons_deux]

so what are the witch hunters gonna do if they catch the witch?

[RandomGuy]

do I have gripes with Obama?

yeah,a bunch.

official secrecy, electronic dragnet, drone wars,ongoing wars in the middle east that haven't ceased yet including Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo, prosecuting whistleblowers, Obamacare, bailing out criminal banksters, erosion of the 4th amendment...I have my own laundry list of misdeeds.

but most of the bullshit in the headlines is just that.
+1

but for Obamacare. A kluge, but probably the best kluge that could be managed for an intractable problem.

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/forms/download/116218


Clinton signed the NDA to have access to SAP. If she isn't perp walked this administration is more corrupt than I thought.

[TheSanityAnnex]

so what are the witch hunters gonna do if they catch the witch?

What would be done to you or I? Should she not face the same?

[hehateme]

She should just blame it on boutard_deux so he takes the rap for this and gets "repug'd" in prison. Seriously though she won't be charged she is above that politician line we refer to as god like.

[boutons_deux]

What would be done to you or I? Should she not face the same?

of course not. Haven't you figured out the elites are treated differently?

and this Repug bullshit is political. They can't propose a single credible candidate to take on Hillary (or Bernie), so they witch hunt.

[CosmicCowboy]

of course not. Haven't you figured out the elites are treated differently?

and this Repug bullshit is political. They can't propose a single credible candidate to take on Hillary (or Bernie), so they witch hunt.

:lmao @ Boutons fantasy that Bernie is a credible candidate..

[TheSanityAnnex]

of course not. Haven't you figured out the elites are treated differently?

and this Repug bullshit is political. They can't propose a single credible candidate to take on Hillary (or Bernie), so they witch hunt.
This has moved past the witch hunt phase. The FBI continues to broaden their investigation and continues to leak to the media.

[boutons_deux]

This has moved past the witch hunt phase. The FBI continues to broaden their investigation and continues to leak to the media.

why is the FBI leaking to the media?

my guess is the Repug Congress assholes are putting enormous pressure on FBI, like dickhead did with CIA/NSA to get the Iraq info that suited his invasion-for-oil war.

iow, the Repugs are widespread corrupting poison throughout the govt and the USA

[ElNono]

The FBI doesn't recommend indictments unless they can nail your ass to the wall.

So yea, it would be more substantive.

That's the point though. But you can bet your ass we're going to get another dog and pony show, because that's all the House can really do.

[TheSanityAnnex]

why is the FBI leaking to the media?

my guess is the Repug Congress assholes are putting enormous pressure on FBI, like dickhead did with CIA/NSA to get the Iraq info that suited his invasion-for-oil war.

iow, the Repugs are widespread corrupting poison throughout the govt and the USAMy guess is the leaks all have the approval of Obama.

[TheSanityAnnex]

My lawyer uncle is working closely with her on her campaign and has known her for quite a while, even included a picture of them together in this year's Christmas family update. He has not responded to the article I emailed him with the most recent accusations :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

My guess is the leaks all have the approval of Obama.

X2

FBI works for the executive branch

[boutons_deux]

X2

FBI works for the executive branch

why Obama want the FBI to leak against Hillary?

[CosmicCowboy]

why Obama want the FBI to leak against Hillary?

:lmao

big O doesn't like the Clintons. I'm pretty sure he only made her SOS to keep the Clintons from backstabbing him.

[TheSanityAnnex]

why Obama want the FBI to leak against Hillary?It's been said for years he strongly dislikes the Clintons.

[boutons_deux]

Obama dislikes Hillary so much that he'd feed info to the Repugs? at this point, what would he gain?

[CosmicCowboy]

Obama dislikes Hillary so much that he'd feed info to the Repugs? at this point, what would he gain?

Guess he doesn't want her fat white ass sleeping in his bed and riding in his plane.

[CosmicCowboy]

It will be hilarious if this actually blows up. It's too late for Biden or Brown to step in and save the day...the primary deadlines have already passed in most states. As much as Boos manlove for Bernie is adorable, and no matter how much free stuff Bernie promises, I just don't think the country is ready yet to elect a socialist. 19.6 trillion in tax hikes that hit across the board are just too big for voters to swallow.

[boutons_deux]

it's not free stuff, it's paid for by taxes.

free stuff is your adorable dubya and dickhead putting their bullshit wars off the books AND cutting taxes, tripled the national debt.

[CosmicCowboy]

it's not free stuff, it's paid for by taxes.

free stuff is your adorable dubya and dickhead putting their bullshit wars off the books AND cutting taxes, tripled the national debt.

You like it because you think your free shit will be paid for by someone elses taxes.

[boutons_deux]

You like it because you think your free shit will be paid for by someone elses taxes.

the tax avoiders/evaders deserve to be hit hard. They looted American and the planet enough.

[CosmicCowboy]

the tax avoiders/evaders deserve to be hit hard. They looted American and the planet enough.

You realize Bernie is raising EVERYBODYS taxes, don't you?

[ElNono]

If Barry hated shillary as much as you guys are saying, he wouldn't have the Department of State batting for her. Don't forger that department is also under the executive.

[Winehole23]

You realize Bernie is raising EVERYBODYS taxes, don't you?So it isn't free shit. We still have to pay for it.

[Winehole23]

+1

but for Obamacare. A kluge, but probably the best kluge that could be managed for an intractable problem.eventually, it will become unaffordable, and the mandate will push people into the shadows.

[Wild Cobra]

You realize Bernie is raising EVERYBODYS taxes, don't you?

Do you think he would get that past a Republican congress?

[Winehole23]

in his second term, Congress might not be Republican anymore.

GOP is coming apart at the seams in this cycle. The elite and the party faithful are not of the same kidney.

[Winehole23]

The GOP has been hijacked by a cunning, mediagenic Nationalist who's not really all that conservative: Donald J. Trump

[TheSanityAnnex]

Washington (CNN)After misplacing about 7,000 pages of documents for several months, the State Department is now asking a federal judge for more time (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/01/22/state.motion.2.pdf) to release former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails, blaming the blizzard currently slamming Washington.

Lawyers for the department asked Judge Rudolph Contreras on Friday if State can release some of Clinton's emails on February 29, one month after it was initially supposed to turn over the last of the documents. That would also result in many emails not becoming public until after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. :lol

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/22/exclusive-at-least-one-clinton-email-had-most-sensitive-designation-exposing-that-it-had-human-intelligence-source-reporting.html?intcmp=hpbt4

At least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton's private server contained extremely sensitive information identified by an intelligence agency as "HCS-O," which is the code used for reporting on human intelligence sources in ongoing operations, according to two sources not authorized to speak on the record.

Both sources are familiar with the intelligence community inspector generals January 14 letter to Congress, advising the Oversight committees that intelligence beyond Top Secret -- known as Special Access Program (SAP) -- was identified in the Clinton emails, as well the supporting documents from the affected agencies that owned the information and have final say on classification.

According to a December 2013 policy document released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: The HSC-0 compartment (Operations) is used to protect exceptionally fragile and unique IC (intelligence community) clandestine HUMINT operations and methods that are not intended for dissemination outside of the originating agency.

It is not publicly known whether the information contained in the Clinton emails also revealed who the human source was, their nationality or affiliation.

Dan Maguire, former Special Operations strategic planner for Africom, told Fox News the disclosure of sensitive material impacts national security and exposes U.S. sources.

"There are peoples lives at stake. Certainly in an intel SAP, if youre talking about sources and methods, there may be one person in the world that would have access to the type of information contained in that SAP, he said.

It is not known what the impact was on the source, nor the findings of a damage assessment by the agency that controlled the source.

Separately, Fox News has learned that the so-called "spillage" of classified information is greater than the several dozen emails identified in the January 14 letter to Congress, which also acknowledged for the first time, that the Clinton emails contained intelligence beyond Top Secret, also known as Special Access Programs (SAPs).

The source said that the "several dozen" refers to the main or principal email thread identified by reviewers, not the number of times that classified information was forwarded, replied to or copied to people who did not have a need-to-know using unsecured communication channels -- in this case a personal server. More than one Special Access Program was affected.

"It's pretty tough to have SAP program material out in the public domain. I mean, it's a huge foul if that occurs, said Maguire, who retired after 46 years of service, and who was involved with Special Access Programs throughout his career. Maguire says a damage assessment to the program is mandatory and immediate.

"It's a fairly laborious investigation. Once you know something was out to one person, that person sends it to 15, 15 send it to someone else -- so it's very difficult to ascertain where it all went but that's all part of the damage control aspect to get all the information back in the box."

The two declarations provided to the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence committees -- as well as the leadership of Senate Foreign Affairs with oversight for the State Department -- include the emails containing SAP intelligence, as well as supporting documents from the agency affected, showing how they reached the determination it came from one of its sources, and not from publicly available information.

When the inspector generals letter was first reported by Fox News, Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said, This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received.

[rmt]

They want a month's delay (conveniently after the 1st 3 primaries) for a few days' blizzard. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Why aren't they investigating Congressional corruption, eg,

Repug Reps and Senators taking $100Ks from NRA/BigGun and voting 100% against any regulations?

Repug Reps and Senators taking $100K from BigFinance, then working like hell to gut, defund IRS, CFPB, SEC?

This Hillary email bullshit is typical Repug witch hunt. Multiple Benghazi committees, $Ms, dozens of people testifying, Repugs FOUND NOTHING. But they did discover this email thread they're pulling it very hard, and no doubt pressuring FBI/CIA/anybody to give them the "facts" to go after Hillary.

Same story with PP. The CMP vids were totally bullshit, but Repugs act on them as if they were revealed by God Himself.

you rightwingnut fuckers are so willingly gullible.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Why aren't they investigating Congressional corruption, eg,

Repug Reps and Senators taking $100Ks from NRA/BigGun and voting 100% against any regulations?

Repug Reps and Senators taking $100K from BigFinance, then working like hell to gut, defund IRS, CFPB, SEC?

This Hillary email bullshit is typical Repug witch hunt. Multiple Benghazi committees, $Ms, dozens of people testifying, Repugs FOUND NOTHING. But they did discover this email thread they're pulling it very hard, and no doubt pressuring FBI/CIA/anybody to give them the "facts" to go after Hillary.

Same story with PP. The CMP vids were totally bullshit, but Repugs act on them as if they were revealed by God Himself.

you rightwingnut fuckers are so willingly gullible.
You think there are 100+ FBI agents investigating Clinton because of Repug pressure?!?! :lol you are stupider than I thought.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Hillary’s team copied intel off top-secret server to email (http://nypost.com/2016/01/24/hillarys-team-copied-intel-off-top-secret-server-to-email/)

The two systems — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) — are not connected to the unclassified system, known as the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). You cannot email from one system to the other, though you can use NIPRNet to send ­emails outside the government.

Somehow, highly classified information from SIPRNet, as well as even the super-secure JWICS, jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 of Clinton’s home emails — including several the CIA earlier this month flagged as containing ultra-secret Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs, a subset of SCI.
SAP includes “dark projects,” such as drone operations, while SCI protects intelligence sources and methods.
Reuters Fox News reported Friday that at least one of Clinton’s emails included sensitive information on spies.
“It takes a very conscious effort to move a classified email or cable from the classified systems over to the unsecured open system and then send it to Hillary Clinton’s personal email account,” said Raymond Fournier, a veteran Diplomatic Security Service special agent. “That’s no less than a two-conscious-step process.”
He says it’s clear from some of the classified emails made public that someone on Clinton’s staff essentially “cut and pasted” content from classified cables into the messages sent to her. The classified markings are gone, but the content is classified at the highest levels — and so sensitive in nature that “it would have been obvious to Clinton.” Most likely the information was, in turn, emailed to her via NIPRNet.
To work around the closed, classified systems, which are accessible only by secure desktop workstations whose hard drives must be removed and stored overnight in a safe, Clinton’s staff would have simply retyped classified information from the systems into the non-classified system or taken a screen shot of the classified document, Fournier said. “Either way, it’s totally illegal.”
FBI agents are zeroing in on three of Clinton’s top department aides. Most of the Clinton emails deemed classified by intelligence agency reviewers were sent to her by her chief of staff Cheryl Mills or deputy chiefs Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan.


In one email, Clinton pressured Sullivan to declassify cabled remarks by a foreign leader.
“Just email it,” Clinton snapped, to which Sullivan replied: “Trust me, I share your exasperation. But until ops converts it to the unclassified email system, there is no physical way for me to email it.”
In another recently released email, Clinton instructed Sullivan to convert a classified document into an unclassified email attachment by scanning it into an unsecured computer and sending it to her without any classified markings. “Turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” she ordered.
Top Secret/SCI emails received by Clinton include a 2012 staff ­email sent to the then-secretary containing investigative data about Benghazi terrorist suspects wanted by the FBI and sourcing a regional security officer. They also include a 2011 message from Clinton’s top aides that contains military intelligence from United States Africa Command gleaned from satellite images of troop movements in Libya, along with the travel and protection plans for Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was later killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi.
“Receiving Top Secret SAP intelligence outside secure channels is a mortal sin,” said Chris Farrell, director of investigations for Judicial Watch, the Washington-based public law firm that has successfully sued State for Clinton’s emails.
“A regular government employee would be crucified, and they are, routinely,” added Farrell, who as a former Army counterintelligence agent investigated such violations.
The prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus for mishandling secret intelligence centered on a classified-information nondisclosure form he signed swearing to protect such information. Clinton signed the same agreement on Jan. 22, 2009.
As a result of Clinton’s negligence, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a recent interview he thinks “the odds are pretty high” that hostile foreign powers like Iran, China and Russia hacked Clinton’s homebrew email server and stole US secrets.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/24/hillarys-team-copied-intel-off-top-secret-server-to-email/

[Nbadan]

State dept. spokesman: none of the 37 email pages was classified when sent.


Seven email chains are being withheld in their entirety from a release scheduled later Friday for including "top secret" information.

"The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community, because they contain a category of top secret information," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. He added, though, that the messages had not been designated as top secret when they were sent, though the department "is focusing on whether they need to be classified today."

SNIP


White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest defended the delay in releasing all of Clinton’s emails on Friday.

“I can tell you with full confidence that there is — has been no political interference in this process,” he said. “I think the extraordinary request that Secretary Clinton put forward to actually release her emails is something that, I'm not sure has a precedent, at least for federal office holders.” . . .

“In the context of a presidential campaign, people are going to have a whole bunch of reasons to criticize any of the candidates,” he said. “So it's not surprising to me that there are certain political opponents of Secretary Clinton that are looking for a way to use this situation to criticize her. That is part of the process. And she and her team, I'm confident, will muster a robust defense.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/01/29/hillary-clinton-emails-state-department-top-secret/79530396/

[Nbadan]

Here's what you need to know about the 7 Clinton emails ...

...which the State Department is withholding due to classification issues.

1) There was no government rule which prevented Hillary from setting up and using a private email server to handle her government emails.

2) Other State Departments heads including Colon Powell used the exact same set up. I don't hear the Republicans complaining about him.

3) Hillary's server was used to send and receive messages to and from other government employees in the State Department and her personal emails as well.

4) Any official State Department emails set to or received from Hillary's server were also maintained the State Department's government servers - therefore there is a government record of each and every one.

5) Investigations determined that Hillary's server had the exact same security protections required on all State Department government servers.

6) Investigation have also concluded that that there was no security breaches of Hillary's server - yes IT security experts can determine if such a breach occurred.

7) Because an email server is most vulnerable to security breaches cause by user error - such as opening a document on a fake email which releases a virus which allows 0the server to be hacked - the less people having access to a server, the more secure it is. So Hillary's server was probably more secure than the State Department's email machines. (Note: There have been several reports of government servers being hacked and very sensitive data being lost. This did not happen on Hillary's server.)

9) The 7 emails in question were not classified when they were sent and received.

9) The State Department is not withholding the 7 emails because they believe they that the emails should be classified; it is another government agency that is claiming that they should be classified. It is a well known fact that there is a propensity in many government agencies to over classify data - often because the information in question may make the the agency look bad if it was ever publicized. It is their way of making sure that the public never knows that they screwed up. I am not saying that is what is going on here, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised me if it were the case because that is often a prime reason why different agencies disagree on information classification.

10) The State Department is not saying that they will never distribute the emails. They are saying that they are withholding them for now until they can do their own investigation as to whether the emails should be classified.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao

fool

[boutons_deux]

:lmao

fool

what have your Repug witchhunters been telling you that's different? and you believe them?

[CosmicCowboy]

what have your Repug witchhunters been telling you that's different? and you believe them?

"Hillary's servers were more secure than the State Departments servers"

Seriously? :lmao

Fool

[TheSanityAnnex]

Here's what you need to know about the 7 Clinton emails ...

...which the State Department is withholding due to classification issues.

1) There was no government rule which prevented Hillary from setting up and using a private email server to handle her government emails.

2) Other State Departments heads including Colon Powell used the exact same set up. I don't hear the Republicans complaining about him.

3) Hillary's server was used to send and receive messages to and from other government employees in the State Department and her personal emails as well.

4) Any official State Department emails set to or received from Hillary's server were also maintained the State Department's government servers - therefore there is a government record of each and every one.

5) Investigations determined that Hillary's server had the exact same security protections required on all State Department government servers.

6) Investigation have also concluded that that there was no security breaches of Hillary's server - yes IT security experts can determine if such a breach occurred.

7) Because an email server is most vulnerable to security breaches cause by user error - such as opening a document on a fake email which releases a virus which allows 0the server to be hacked - the less people having access to a server, the more secure it is. So Hillary's server was probably more secure than the State Department's email machines. (Note: There have been several reports of government servers being hacked and very sensitive data being lost. This did not happen on Hillary's server.)

9) The 7 emails in question were not classified when they were sent and received.

9) The State Department is not withholding the 7 emails because they believe they that the emails should be classified; it is another government agency that is claiming that they should be classified. It is a well known fact that there is a propensity in many government agencies to over classify data - often because the information in question may make the the agency look bad if it was ever publicized. It is their way of making sure that the public never knows that they screwed up. I am not saying that is what is going on here, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised me if it were the case because that is often a prime reason why different agencies disagree on information classification.

10) The State Department is not saying that they will never distribute the emails. They are saying that they are withholding them for now until they can do their own investigation as to whether the emails should be classified.
:lmao

[z0sa]

:lol people defending Hillary is really, really funny.

[spurraider21]

the funny thing is hillary is trying to avoid having to answer to this at all by just repeating "oh this is just like them coming after bengahzi"

while, yeah, the republicans are obviously using this as ammo, doesn't mean you can dismiss this entire thing as having no substance at all

[boutons_deux]

:lol people defending Hillary is really, really funny.

not defending Hillary, I reject her personally or policy-wise.

I attack the Repug witch hunt. A difference you rightwingnut assholes can't get your pea brains around.

Repugs know that none of their Klowns has chance electorally, so they try to destroy her. But Bernie polls as beating Trump by 10 points.

[z0sa]

not defending Hillary, I reject her personally or policy-wise.

I attack the Repug witch hunt. A difference you rightwingnut assholes can't get your pea brains around.

Repugs know that none of their Klowns has chance electorally, so they try to destroy her. But Bernie polls as beating Trump by 10 points.


I am a Bernie supporter. Winehole highlighted this personality flaw of yours - you don't allow people to agree with you because of all the assumptions you make about them.

[TheSanityAnnex]

I attack the Repug witch hunt. A difference you rightwingnut assholes can't get your pea brains around.


Who is leading the investigation and what branch are they taking orders from, pea brain.

[ElNono]

the funny thing is hillary is trying to avoid having to answer to this at all by just repeating "oh this is just like them coming after bengahzi"

while, yeah, the republicans are obviously using this as ammo, doesn't mean you can dismiss this entire thing as having no substance at all

I dunno about dismiss, but the real meat of this is if she broke the law, right? In that case, substance would show up in the form of an indictment (if it ever materializes).

Absent that indictment, is there much substance at all to this, other than the political pandering?

[HI-FI]

I dunno about dismiss, but the real meat of this is if she broke the law, right? In that case, substance would show up in the form of an indictment (if it ever materializes).

Absent that indictment, is there much substance at all to this, other than the political pandering?
what about reports the FBI is pissed off and might start leaking things since Obama doesn't want to indict (probably covering up for himself more than Shillary imo)? if those reports are true (and perhaps they're not), you still think it's political pandering?

[SpursforSix]

Bend over, I'll show you an expanding probe.

[ElNono]

what about reports the FBI is pissed off and might start leaking things since Obama doesn't want to indict (probably covering up for himself more than Shillary imo)? if those reports are true (and perhaps they're not), you still think it's political pandering?

That's the problem with "reports", "secret sauces" and "leaks" about what's supposed to be a secret investigation, it's hard to tell what's made up or not. The antithesis of substantial.

Even if it were to be true, does it really matter how they feel? I suppose they'll have to wait until next November and see if the GOP wins to press ahead. Then again, the DoJ might just burn everything by then.

I'm not a fan of Shillary, and I wouldn't doubt for a second she's into something fishy (again), but until we see and indictment it's hard to tell what's really fiction and what isn't.

[CosmicCowboy]

not defending Hillary, I reject her personally or policy-wise.

I attack the Repug witch hunt. A difference you rightwingnut assholes can't get your pea brains around.

Repugs know that none of their Klowns has chance electorally, so they try to destroy her. But Bernie polls as beating Trump by 10 points.

:lmao at boukaki's delusional fantasy that Bernie could actually be President.

[rmt]

:lmao at boukaki's delusional fantasy that Bernie could actually be President.

What is disturbing is that so MANY YOUNG people (who are gonna vote for a long time) are falling for his message. I keep reminding myself of what my son's teacher said when his classmates were going gaga at the thought of free x, y, z, "Free everything sounds good until they start taking it out of YOUR paycheck." That shut everyone up.

[Winehole23]

say what you want about Bernie, he isn't promising free shit. he's been upfront about raising taxes to pay for it.

[rmt]

say what you want about Bernie, he isn't promising free shit. he's been upfront about raising taxes to pay for it.

I still haven't heard from the Bernie fans (boutons did respond about marginal rate) on my question if they're okay with Danny Green getting taxed 73% on $2 million to $10 million and 77% over $10 million.

[Winehole23]

are you ok with it?

why or why not?

[rmt]

I'm definitely not okay with it. I am a fiscal conservative. We can't even afford what they're spending now - much less all that other stuff. The country is over $18 trillion dollars in debt. I believe one should not spend more than what's coming in whether it's an individual/family or the government.

I use Danny Green as an example because we are all (usually) Spurs fans and understand that he has a very limited time to earn money to secure the rest of his life. I haven't calculated how much tax he'd pay on just his salary (not counting his ads, endorsements, investments) but it's outrageous.

And this isn't even touching on what it does to an individual when you get "free" stuff without working for it, what happens to the incentive to risk your hard earned money for your return to be taxed so heavily, etc.

[boutons_deux]

:lmao at boukaki's delusional fantasy that Bernie could actually be President.

much better fantasy than having ANY of your Repug Klowns ever sniff the WH.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Title 18 part 1, check 101
2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

[ElNono]

What constitutes "willfully and unlawfully"?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

:lmao at boukaki's delusional fantasy that Bernie could actually be President.

It's like 2008 all over again. Bernie has more momentum at this point.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

What constitutes "willfully and unlawfully"?

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-house-benghazi-20141123-story.html

GOP panel on Benghazi finds no Obama administration wrongdoing

[ChumpDumper]

Title 18 part 1, check 101
2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.What does your indictment against Clinton say she actually did, counselor?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'm definitely not okay with it. I am a fiscal conservative. We can't even afford what they're spending now - much less all that other stuff. The country is over $18 trillion dollars in debt. I believe one should not spend more than what's coming in whether it's an individual/family or the government.

I use Danny Green as an example because we are all (usually) Spurs fans and understand that he has a very limited time to earn money to secure the rest of his life. I haven't calculated how much tax he'd pay on just his salary (not counting his ads, endorsements, investments) but it's outrageous.

And this isn't even touching on what it does to an individual when you get "free" stuff without working for it, what happens to the incentive to risk your hard earned money for your return to be taxed so heavily, etc.

I always find it interesting when people project personal ethics into policy discussions as if government operates and behaves like you and me. The Contract With America rhetoric still getting play in GOP circles decades and Newt's failure later is just gold.

[Nbadan]

What does your indictment against Clinton say she actually did, counselor?

:lol

More Wing-nut nuttery with no proof.....

[Nbadan]

:lol people defending Hillary is really, really funny.

Defending implies that Hillary did something wrong.....you haven't proven she did anything illegal other than your political pandering...

[Nbadan]

The way this thread is trending..the title of this thread should be changed to "FBI Clinton probe expands to public 'opinion" track.... really....

[z0sa]

Defending implies that Hillary did something wrong.....you haven't proven she did anything illegal other than your political pandering...

She certainly made some wrong choices. Whether they were illegal or not is the only real question. Unless youre a wingnut.

[boutons_deux]

Petraeus didn't even lose one star for giving classified info to his fuck buddy. Maintains full military pension. Where's the Repug outrage of their bogus "he won Iraq" hero?

[TheSanityAnnex]

Petraeus didn't even lose one star for giving classified info to his fuck buddy. Maintains full military pension. Where's the Repug outrage of their bogus "he won Iraq" hero?

That was bullshit he only got a misdemeanor.

And here is more bullshit from the White House:

""The President was aware of Secretary Clinton's email address, the two did exchange emails but the President I think, not surprisingly, was not aware of the existence of Secretary Clinton's private server," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday during the daily briefing.":lol

[TheSanityAnnex]

Here's what you need to know about the 7 Clinton emails ...

...which the State Department is withholding due to classification issues.

1) There was no government rule which prevented Hillary from setting up and using a private email server to handle her government emails.

2) Other State Departments heads including Colon Powell used the exact same set up. I don't hear the Republicans complaining about him.

3) Hillary's server was used to send and receive messages to and from other government employees in the State Department and her personal emails as well.

4) Any official State Department emails set to or received from Hillary's server were also maintained the State Department's government servers - therefore there is a government record of each and every one.

5) Investigations determined that Hillary's server had the exact same security protections required on all State Department government servers.

6) Investigation have also concluded that that there was no security breaches of Hillary's server - yes IT security experts can determine if such a breach occurred.

7) Because an email server is most vulnerable to security breaches cause by user error - such as opening a document on a fake email which releases a virus which allows 0the server to be hacked - the less people having access to a server, the more secure it is. So Hillary's server was probably more secure than the State Department's email machines. (Note: There have been several reports of government servers being hacked and very sensitive data being lost. This did not happen on Hillary's server.)

9) The 7 emails in question were not classified when they were sent and received.

9) The State Department is not withholding the 7 emails because they believe they that the emails should be classified; it is another government agency that is claiming that they should be classified. It is a well known fact that there is a propensity in many government agencies to over classify data - often because the information in question may make the the agency look bad if it was ever publicized. It is their way of making sure that the public never knows that they screwed up. I am not saying that is what is going on here, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised me if it were the case because that is often a prime reason why different agencies disagree on information classification.

10) The State Department is not saying that they will never distribute the emails. They are saying that they are withholding them for now until they can do their own investigation as to whether the emails should be classified.
“I can only repeat what happens to be the case — that I did not send nor receive information that was marked classified at the time that it was sent or received,” Clinton said in September.






:lol


The State Department did announce on Friday, however, that it will withhold in full 22 emails that contain “top secret” information. The agency also acknowledged that the information was classified at the time the emails were created.






Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/four-sid-blumenthal-emails-in-latest-clinton-release-are-completely-classified/#ixzz3zAIqVAI1

[boutons_deux]

"22 emails that contain “top secret” information"

to repeat, what is "top secret" now and for some is/was not "top secret" then and for all?

there are huge controversies within govt about what should be classified or not.

so the crux is: Hillary KNEW she was violating a rule that didn't exist then and she kept doing it? :lol

and was trying to overthrow the US govt? was giving secrets to foreign countries?

It's ALL REPUG FABRICATED BULLSHIT and decades-long Clinton witch hunting.

Benghazi!

and you rightwingnuts get suckered every time

[rmt]

"22 emails that contain “top secret” information"

to repeat, what is "top secret" now and for some is/was not "top secret" then and for all?

there are huge controversies within govt about what should be classified or not.

so the crux is: Hillary KNEW she was violating a rule that didn't exist then and she kept doing it? :lol

and was trying to overthrow the US govt? was giving secrets to foreign countries?

It's ALL REPUG FABRICATED BULLSHIT and decades-long Clinton witch hunting.

Benghazi!

and you rightwingnuts get suckered every time

Do you not see the words "The State Department did announce"? What about that leads you to believe it's a repub witch hunt? It's an FBI investigation.

[boutons_deux]

Do you not see the words "The State Department did announce"? What about that leads you to believe it's a repub witch hunt? It's an FBI investigation.

yes, the State Dept won't publish those emails because they are "considered" top secret NOW, and esp with the current Repug witch hunting and the different security/political environment of today.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Your defense of her is laughable at this point.
so the crux is: Hillary KNEW she was violating a rule that didn't exist then and she kept doing it? :lol




No, Hillary KNEW she was violating a rule that did exist and kept doing it.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton signed a nondisclosure agreement in which she acknowledged that classified information is classified regardless of whether it is “marked or unmarked” — a distinction which undermines one of the Democratic presidential candidate’s main defenses of her use of a home-brew email system.
Signers of the document, the existence of which the Washington Free Beacon reported (http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-signed-nda-laying-out-criminal-penalties-for-mishandling-of-classified-info/) on Friday, also agree that all information that they have access to “is now and will remain the property of, or under the control of the United States government unless and until otherwise determined by an authorized official or final ruling of a court of law.”
The “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement (http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/HRC-classified-NDA1.pdf),” or SF-312, also makes clear that “classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications.”
That poses two problems for Clinton, who signed the document on Jan. 22, 2009, a day after taking office.

Not only does nullify her claim that none of her emails contained information that was “marked” classified, it also calls into question her failure to turn over her work-related State Department emails to the agency in December, nearly two years after leaving office.
“I can only repeat what happens to be the case — that I did not send nor receive information that was marked classified at the time that it was sent or received,” Clinton said in September.

Many of the now-classified documents contain a type of information called foreign government information. As Reuters reported in August, the federal government considers such information, which comes from foreign officials, to be “born classified.”

By signing the “Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement (http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/HRC-SCI-NDA1.pdf),” Clinton agreed that she had been advised “that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”
That agreement pertains to the Clinton email scandal because of two emails she received on her personal email account that the intelligence community’s inspector general has determined contained “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” or TS/CSI.
The discovery of those emails prompted the Justice Department to open an investigation. The FBI also seized Clinton’s server, which was being maintained at a data center in New Jersey.
Two of Clinton’s top State Department aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, also signed that nondisclosure agreements. As with Clinton, both used off-the-books email accounts on which they sent and received classified information.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/06/document-completely-undermines-hillarys-classified-email-defense/#ixzz3zDtkVaUk

[TheSanityAnnex]

yes, the State Dept won't publish those emails because they are "considered" top secret NOW, and esp with the current Repug witch hunting and the different security/political environment of today.

I'll even bold it for you since you are having trouble comprehending.


The State Department did announce on Friday, however, that it will withhold in full 22 emails that contain “top secret” information. The agency also acknowledged that the information was classified at the time the emails were created.






Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/fo...#ixzz3zAIqVAI1 (http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/four-sid-blumenthal-emails-in-latest-clinton-release-are-completely-classified/#ixzz3zAIqVAI1)

[boutons_deux]

I'll even bold it for you since you are having trouble comprehending.


The State Department did announce on Friday, however, that it will withhold in full 22 emails that contain “top secret” information. The agency also acknowledged that the information was classified at the time the emails were created.




Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/fo...#ixzz3zAIqVAI1 (http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/four-sid-blumenthal-emails-in-latest-clinton-release-are-completely-classified/#ixzz3zAIqVAI1)

did Hillary and people know they were classified then?

did the persons sending her the emails know they were sending classified emails? what was the objective? treason?

[z0sa]

If the info was classified at the time of receipt, Obamas going to have to step in.

[TheSanityAnnex]

did Hillary and people know they were classified then?

What part of the non disclosure agreement are you having trouble understanding?

[TheSanityAnnex]

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said that there are more “explosive revelations” to come out of the Hillary Clinton email saga on top of the announcement that there were 22 top secret (http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/29/reports-some-of-hillary-clintons-emails-are-too-damaging-to-national-security-to-release-video/) emails on Clinton’s server Friday.
Monday on “Morning Joe,” panelist and Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin said that even if Bernie Sanders loses today’s Iowa caucus he “can go forward with lots of money, with debates on the schedule and see are there are developments in the legal front that allow him to start to win even after tonight if he doesn’t win.”

By the end of the day Friday, the State Department announced that they were unable to release 22 of Clinton’s (http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/29/reports-some-of-hillary-clintons-emails-are-too-damaging-to-national-security-to-release-video/)emails because they would compromise national security if they were released, even in part

“Everybody in the government, everybody in the media, everybody that runs anything is talking about how advanced this investigation is, and nobody’s telling the American people about it,” Scarborough argued. “So I had an executive in another network ask, ‘Is it safe to talk about it now?’ So we talked about it. And then that afternoon, explosive revelations came out, and there are more.”

Panelist John Heilemann added, “And I’ll tell you, to me the most interesting thing about that is that in the last 48 hours when Bernie Sanders has been asked about the Hillary Clinton email thing, having famously in the debate a few months ago said, ‘Don’t worry about it. No one wants to hear about your emails.’ Asked about it a couple of days ago, he said, ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s irrelevant at all, there’s a process playing out here.’ Bernie Sanders now edging towards kind of retracting his ‘Nobody cares about your dam emails thing.’ You can easily imagine Sanders not attacking her personally on this but him now saying, ‘Hey look, this is something we have to think about and bring into a discussion in a more active way.'”


“When Bernie Sanders is hearing from top leaders in the Obama administration that this is further along than expected, he doesn’t want to be caught saying it’s not a big deal and then having the FBI suggest it is,” Scarborough said.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/01/msnbc-explosive-revelations-still-to-come-in-hillary-email-saga-video/#ixzz3zE4hOn00

[TheSanityAnnex]

This newly discovered email demonstrates that there is at least a “reasonable suspicion” that the State Department and Mrs. Clinton deliberately thwarted FOIA by creating, using, and concealing the “clintonemail.com” record system for six years.

‘We should … set up a stand-alone PC in the Secretary’s office, connected to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check her emails from her desk’
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it recently received records from the Department of State (http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-hillary-computer-00689/#_blank) disclosing plans by senior State Department officials to set up a “stand-alone PC” so that Clinton could check her emails in an office “across the hall” through a separate, non-State Department computer network system. Referencing the special Clinton computer system, Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy (http://www.state.gov/m/), writes Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, “The stand-alone separate network PC is a great idea.” The emails are from January 23-24, 2009, a few days after Clinton was sworn in as Secretary of State.
The new emails were obtained by Judicial Watch in response a court order (http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-nov-30-order-00689/) in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-files-seven-new-foia-lawsuits-against-state-department-to-force-release-of-clinton-emails-other-secret-email-records/) for State Department records about Hillary Clinton’s separate email system (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-00689-clinton-non-state-emails/) (No. 1:15-cv-00689)).
In the email chain, Lewis Lukens (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewis-lukens-51a95525?authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=t8ps&locale=en_US&srchid=319784011454074914281&srchindex=1&srchtotal=2&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A319784011454074914281%2CVSR PtargetId%3A88946086%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPnm %3Atrue%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH#_blank), former deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director of the secretariat, responds to a request from Mills by informing her, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and Kennedy that the new personal computer “in the secretary’s office” would be “connected to the internet (but not through our system).” Abedin responds, “We are hoping for that if possible.”
The email exchange discussing plans to provide Clinton a separate computer to skirt the internal State Department computer network begins with a message from Mills to Lukens in which she requests Clinton being able to access her emails through “a non-DOS computer.” The email discusses how the stand-alone computer can be set up and why it is “a great idea’ and “the best solution:”

From: Cheryl Mills
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:45 AM
To: Lukens, Lewis A
Subject: Re: Series of questions
Lew – who can I talk to about:


Can our email be accessed remotely through the web using a non-DOS computer like my laptop?
I am traveling to the M-E – will my DOS bb work there and is there a cell phone attached?
Spoke to Dan [Daniel B. Smith, former DOS executive secretary] re: bb for HRC (and reports that POTUS is able to use a super encrypted one which)
Spoke to Dan re: setting up Counselor office for HRC so she can go across hall regularly to check her email


***From: Lukens, Lewis A
To: cmills [REDACTED]
Cc: Habedin [REDACTED]; Kennedy, Patrick F; Smith, Daniel B
Sent: Saturday, Jan. 24, 19:10:33 2009
Subject: Re: series of questions
We have already started checking into the NSA bb. Will set up the office across the hall as requested. Also, I think we should go ahead (but will await your green light) and set up a stand-alone PC in the Secretary’s office, connect to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check her emails from her desk. Lew.
From: Kennedy, Patrick F [email protected]
To: Lukens, Lewis A <[email protected]>; Cheryl Mills
Cc: Huma Abedin; Smith, Daniel B <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Jan 24 19:48:25 2009
Subject: Re: Series of questions
Cheryl
The stand-alone separate network PC is [a] great idea
Regards
Pat
From: Huma Abedin
To: Kennedy, Patrick F; Lukens, Lewis A; Cheryl Mills
Cc: Huma Abedin; Smith, Daniel B
Sent: Sat Jan 24 19:48:27 2009
Subject: Re: Series of questions
Yes we were hoping for that if possible so she can check her email in her office.

***
From: Lukens, Lewis A
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:26 PM
To: Kennedy, Patrick F
Subject: Re: Series of questions
I talked to Cheryl about this. She says a problem is hrc does not know how to use a computer to do email – only bb [Blackberry]. But, I said would not take much training to get her up to speed.
In separate litigation (http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-state-department-did-not-provide-secure-blackberry-to-hillary-clinton/), the State Department told Judicial Watch and federal courts that Hillary Clinton was never issued secure State Department computing devices.
“These emails are shocking. They show the Obama State Department’s plan to set up non-government computers and a computer network for Hillary Clinton to bypass the State Department network,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That these records were withheld from the American people until now is scandalous and shows the criminal probe of Hillary Clinton’s email system should include current and former officials of the Obama administration.”
Judicial Watch filed these new emails with U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan, who is now considering whether to grant discovery in a lawsuit (http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/clinton-aide-huma-abedin/#_blank) seeking information on the “special government employee” status of Abedin. In its filing (http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-additional-evidence-01363/), Judicial Watch states:

[Judicial Watch] just recently received additional evidence that demonstrates that senior management at the State Department was well aware that Mrs. Clinton was using a “non-state.gov” system to conduct official government business. This evidence also shows that the senior management at the State Department knowingly aided Mrs. Clinton in establishing and using a “non-state.gov” system.

***
[T]his newly discovered email demonstrates that there is at least a “reasonable suspicion” that the State Department and Mrs. Clinton deliberately thwarted FOIA by creating, using, and concealing the “clintonemail.com” record system for six years.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-state-department-emails-reveal-plan-to-set-up-separate-pc-computer-network-at-state-so-clinton-could-skirt-government-network-system-to-access-emails/

[TheSanityAnnex]

A Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that the State Department has classified seven more of Hillary Clinton's private emails as "top secret."
"There are more than 22, and it's not just one or two more," Rep. Chris Stewart told the Washington Examiner, referring to the 22 emails deemed top secret by the State Department last week. "It's a more meaningful number than that."
Stewart said the State Department has classified seven additional emails as "top secret." The agency will now withhold 29 emails from the public due to their sensitive content.
"These were classified at the top secret level, and in some cases, above that," he said.


Stewart said his years of experience handling highly classified material allowed him to recognize immediately the sensitive nature of Clinton's emails. The Utah Republican said he had never seen anything more sensitive than the information contained within the emails.
"They do reveal classified methods, they do reveal classified sources, and they do reveal human assets," he said during an appearance on Fox's "America's Newsroom" earlier in the day.
The State Department's decision on Friday to withhold 22 emails entirely, rather than redact only the sensitive portions, marked a departure from the agency's approach to the more than 1,300 emails that have been classified over the past eight months.
Clinton has attempted to downplay the move as a result of bureaucratic infighting. But the discovery of the highly classified messages has fueled speculation that the former secretary of state may be facing more serious legal trouble than previously thought.
John Kirby, spokesman for the State Department, declined to address questions about the additional top secret emails Wednesday

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/7-more-clinton-emails-to-be-top-secret/article/2582306

[TheSanityAnnex]

Feds fight disclosure of Hillary Clinton Whitewater indictment drafts By Josh Gerstein (http://www.politico.com/staff/josh-gerstein)
02/03/16 05:33 PM EST


The National Archives is fighting a lawsuit trying to force disclosure of several draft indictments of Hillary Clinton prepared by a Whitewater prosecutor in the 1990s.
In a brief filed late Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers and the Archives argue that disclosure of the draft indictments would lead to an unwarranted invasion of Clinton's privacy and violate a court rule protecting grand jury secrecy.
"Despite the role that Mrs. Clinton occupied as the First Lady during President Clinton's administration, Mrs. Clinton maintains a strong privacy interest in not having information about her from the files of the Independent Counsel disclosed," wrote (http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000152-a828-ddb3-a5ff-e8e9db930002) Martha Wagner Murphy, chief of the Archives "special access" branch that stores records of former independent counsels. "As an uncharged person, Hillary Rodham Clinton retains a significant interest in her personal privacy despite any status as a public figure."
The conservative group Judicial Watch, which filed suit for the records in October under the Freedom of Information Act (http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/10/group-files-suit-for-hillary-clinton-whitewater-draft-indictments-214981), is arguing that Clinton's ongoing bid for the presidency reinforces the public interest in records about her alleged misconduct.
"She's one of the most well-known women in the world, seeking the office of the presidency and her privacy interests outweigh the public interest in knowing what's in that indictment? It's absurd and it's shameful that the administration is proposing this," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in an interview. "This is a political decision to protect her candidacy—because it is laughable, legally."
The Archives and Justice Department were dismissive about the impact of Clinton's presidential bid on public access to the records.
"While there may be a scintilla of public interest in these documents since Mrs. Clinton is presently a Democratic presidential candidate, that fact alone is not a cognizable public interest alone under FOIA, as disclosure of the draft indictments would not shed light on what the government is up to," Murphy wrote.
"Her interest in avoiding disclosure of the drafts is not diminished by the fact that she is a former public official who is running for President," Justice Department lawyers added in their brief (http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000152-a828-ddb3-a5ff-e8e94b5a0002).
Law enforcement records about living people who did not face charges in criminal investigations normally are not released under FOIA, or the names are sanitized from the records before they're published. However, sometimes judges have ordered the release of such records in cases involving public officials.
Despite the usual practice, though, the Archives has released fairly detailed information about the independent counsel's focus on Hillary Clinton. Just last week, Judicial Watch announced (http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-releases-office-of-independent-counsel-oic-memoranda-laying-out-criminal-case-against-hillary-clinton-in-whitewatercastle-grande-land-scandal/) it had received 246 pages of records describing the crimes some prosecutors believed were committed in connection with the Whitewater land deal and related matters. Some of the memos are from the "HRC Team" in the counsel's office—apparently a team focused on Clinton. One discusses the jury appeal or lack thereof of a case based solely on circumstantial evidence. One prosecutor put the chance of a conviction for Clinton at 10 percent.
It's not clear from the government's court filings why the draft indictments would be more sensitive than that kind of analysis, but the new submissions do argue that the drafts are covered by grand jury secrecy. In its initial response to Judicial Watch, the Archives relied solely on Clinton's privacy (and that of others) and did not mention the grand jury secrecy issue. But the brief filed Tuesday contends the drafts would provide insight into the grand jury's activities by revealing the identities of witnesses and that they quote from grand jury testimony.
Fitton said that "if Mrs. Clinton was being truly transparent," she would provide a privacy waiver that could ease release of the records.
Spokesmen for the Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the legal filings.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/02/feds-fight-disclosure-of-hillary-clinton-whitewater-indictment-drafts-218681#ixzz3zE8ETx85

[Th'Pusher]

What makes your wiener harder TSA, this Hillary investigation or your guns?

[TheSanityAnnex]

Clinton Chief of Staff lost her personal Blackberry which contained classified emails

While working as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills lost her personal Blackberry, on which she sent emails that the State Department has determined contain classified information.

Records obtained by The Daily Caller through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show Mills revealed that she lost her Blackberry in a March 20, 2010 email she sent to Bryan Pagliano, the State Department IT staffer who managed Clinton’s private email server.
“Somewhere b/w my house and the plane to nyc yesterday my personal bb got misplaced; no on [sic] is answering it thought [sic] I have called,” Mills wrote from her personal email account to the address Pagliano used when he worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Other State Department records (http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/09-13-15-Hillary-email-gap-JW-v-DOS-687-2.pdf) indicate that Mills’ personal Blackberry appears to have been synced with her Gmail account. Many of the emails she sent from the personal account include footers which show they were sent from a Blackberry powered by AT&T.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/26/clinton-chief-of-staff-lost-her-personal-blackberry-which-contained-classified-emails/#ixzz3zEDFX1UE

[boutons_deux]

What part of the non disclosure agreement are you having trouble understanding?

what part of Repug decades of witch hunting are you having cretinous trouble understanding?

[TheSanityAnnex]

WASHINGTON — The White House will try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/13/us/elections/hillary-clinton.html?inline=nyt-per), citing longstanding precedent invoked by presidents of both parties to keep presidential communications confidential, officials said Friday.










The State Department discovered the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as part of its effort to release the former secretary’s emails, several thousand more of which were made public on Friday. A review of those emails showed Mrs. Clinton engaged in conversations with various aides about security in Libya, discussing talking points after the 2012 attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and — on a lighter note — complaining about the lack of emoticons on her phone.

Mr. Obama’s direct correspondence with Mrs. Clinton was forwarded by the State Department to the White House, which has decided against release, a move likely to intensify the struggle between Mrs. Clinton and congressional Republicans, who have pressed for disclosure of her emails as part of an investigation into the administration’s handling of the Benghazi events.


The contents of the emails between Mrs. Clinton, who is running for president, and Mr. Obama have not been disclosed, but their presumed existence has not been a secret. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, acknowledged in March that the two “did have the occasion to email one another” when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.
Mr. Obama told CBS News in March that he learned about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server “the same time everybody else learned it — through news reports.” Mr. Earnest later clarified that the president was aware that she sometimes used a private email address but did not know the details about how the server was set up.
White House officials said Friday that their refusal to release the emails between the two officials is not based on their content, but rather is intended to defend the principle that presidents must be free to receive advice from their top aides without fear that the conversations will be made public during their time in office. They noted the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will eventually become public many years after the Obama presidency ends, under the terms of federal records laws.


“There is a long history of presidential records being kept confidential while the president is in office,” a White House official said. “It is a principle that previous White Houses have vigorously defended as it goes to the core of the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel.”
White House officials said they were not asserting executive privilege, a specific legal authority that Mr. Obama has used only once, in the case of congressional inquiries into the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation, in which weapons ended up in the possession of Mexican gun cartels. Presidents often seek to avoid formally invoking executive privilege, which carries political overtones dating to President Richard M. Nixon’s assertion of the authority to block congressional investigations of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
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Continue reading the main story (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/politics/white-house-seeks-to-keep-some-clinton-emails-secret.html?_r=1#story-continues-5)

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Continue reading the main story (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/politics/white-house-seeks-to-keep-some-clinton-emails-secret.html?_r=1#story-continues-5)

But by refusing to release the emails, Mr. Obama is following a well-worn precedent that he and his predecessors have established. Mr. Obama has repeatedly resisted efforts by Congress to turn over the president’s private communications, which by law are exempt from Freedom of Information laws that are often used to pry information out of other parts of an administration.
Former presidents of both parties have done the same, often insisting that to do otherwise would open the president’s most sensitive deliberations to congressional and public inspection.
“Direct communications by the president and his senior advisers are really at the very center of what is trying to be protected by executive privilege and the separation of powers,” said William Burck, a deputy counsel for President George W. Bush. He called the decision by Mr. Obama’s administration “very reasonable” and praised the president for following Mr. Bush’s practice.
The emails released on Friday show Mrs. Clinton received at least some indication that J. Christopher Stevens, the United States ambassador to Libya, was concerned about security in Benghazi more than a year before he was killed in the attack there.
An email sent to Mrs. Clinton in April 2011 said Mr. Stevens would meet with Libyan officials to “make a written request for better security at the hotel and for better security-related coordination.” How much Mrs. Clinton knew about the deteriorating situation in Benghazi was a focus of Republican questions at a congressional hearing this month.
One email a few days after the Benghazi attack shows Jake Sullivan, a top aide, telling Mrs. Clinton that Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, went on the Sunday talk shows and “did make clear our view that this started spontaneously and then evolved.” But a week later, after Ms. Rice spoke about a video prompting the attack, Mr. Sullivan wrote Mrs. Clinton that “you never said spontaneous or characterized the motives.”
The emails also highlighted how much advice Mrs. Clinton received from Sidney Blumenthal, a family friend who had been barred by the White House from working at the State Department. In one, Mr. Blumenthal suggests that Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist, had discovered that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, was in Chad.
“This sounds credible,” Mrs. Clinton wrote to one of her top aides. “Can we verify.”
Other emails suggest tensions between Mr. Obama’s top aides. Cheryl Mills, one of Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers, forwarded an email suggesting that White House officials were thinking of appointing a protocol chief of their own, superseding the State Department’s protocol chief. “I really dislike them,” she wrote to Mrs. Clinton.
In one email, an aide to Mrs. Clinton offers a lengthy and detailed description of a book about former President Bill Clinton, taking note of passages that mentioned Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern with whom Mr. Clinton had an affair.
And in more than one email, Mrs. Clinton complained that her BlackBerry did not allow her to send emoticons. Emailing under the code name “Evergreen” in February 2012, she wrote that she was “quite bereft” at the lack of the tiny pictures. “Any way I can add them?” she asked. Two months later, she again sent a note to Philippe Reines, a top communications aide.
“On this new berry can I get smiley faces?” she wrote. Mr. Reines responded: “For email, no, I don’t think so — you need to type them out manually like :) for happy, or :-I I if you want to express anger at my tardiness.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/politics/white-house-seeks-to-keep-some-clinton-emails-secret.html?_r=1

[TheSanityAnnex]

what part of Repug decades of witch hunting are you having cretinous trouble understanding?

What part of Obama's DOJ and FBI are running the investigation are you having trouble understanding?

[TheSanityAnnex]

What makes your wiener harder TSA, this Hillary investigation or your guns?Hardon and Hillary will never be in the same sentence for me, inanimate objects don't arouse me either.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs Powell, Rice received sensitive info through private emails BUT NO REPUG OUTRAGE

When the political world’s interest in Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails was near its peak, theWashington Post’s Chris Cillizza defended the media’s fascination with the story. “Democrats, ask yourself this,” Cillizza wrote (https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/631445224619962368) in August. “If this was a former [Republican Secretary of State] and his/her private e-mail server, would it be a ‘non-story’?”

As a rule, I continue (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-the-shoe-was-the-other-foot) to believe that’s a smart way for political observers to look at every story. If the situations were reversed, how would you react to a controversy? If the accusations targeted someone you detest, as opposed to someone you like, would see the story as legitimate?

The problem in this case, however, is that Cillizza’s question wasn’t really a hypothetical. We learned nearly a year ago from a Politico article (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/colin-powell-personal-email-secretary-of-state-115707.html) that former Secretary of State Colin Powell “also used a personal email account” during his State Department tenure. Several months later, MSNBC found (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clinton-backers-defend-email) that Powell conducted official business from his personal email account managed through his personal laptop.

“But wait,” Clinton’s critics in the media and Republican circles protest, “what about emails that were later deemed to include sensitive information?” NBC News reports today (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rice-aides-powell-also-got-classified-info-personal-emails) that both of the Bush/Cheney-era Secretaries of State fall into the same category.

State Department officials have determined that classified information was sent to the personal email accounts of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the senior staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NBC News has learned. […]

In a letter to Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy dated Feb. 3, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick said that the State Department has determined that 12 emails examined from State’s archives contained national security information now classified “Secret” or “Confidential.” The letter was read to NBC News.


According to the report, of those 12 emails, two were sent to Powell’s personal account, while the other 10 were sent to personal accounts senior aides of Condoleezza Rice’s senior aides.

None of this is to suggest Powell or Rice’s office is guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, Powell told NBC News the messages in question include information that’s “fairly minor.”

There’s no reason whatsoever to believe otherwise.

The political salience of news like this, however, is that Clinton’s critics would like voters to believe she’s at the center of some damaging “scandal” because of her approach to email management. These new details suggest Clinton’s practices were fairly common, and unless Republicans and the media are prepared to start condemning Powell and Rice with equal vigor – an unlikely scenario – it’s starting to look like this entire line of attack lacks merit.

Or as the NBC News report put it, the new findings “show that past secretaries of state and senior officials used personal accounts to conduct government business and occasionally allowed secrets to spill into the insecure traffic.”

As for Chris Cillizza’s question – if were talking about a former Republican Secretary of State, would it be a “non-story” – it would appear the answer is, “Yep.”

Postscript: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement this morning, “Based on this new revelation, it is clear that the Republican investigations [into Clinton’s emails] are nothing more than a transparent political attempt to use taxpayer funds to target the Democratic candidate for president.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/powell-rice-received-sensitive-info-through-private-emails?cid=sm_fb_maddow

TSA! :lol

[boutons_deux]

Flashback: Rove Erases 22 Million White House Emails on Private Server at Height of U.S. Attorney Scandal – Media Yawns (http://www.pensitoreview.com/2015/03/18/flashback-rove-erases-22-million-white-house-emails-on-private-server-at-height-of-u-s-attorney-scandal-media-yawns/)

Never mind that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, has said (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/11/two-names-the-press-omits-from-email-coverage-c/202847) he used a system similar to Clinton’s — and never mind that in 2007 Karl Rove deleted 22 million emails from a private server in the Bush White House — a matter about which the Beltway media said little and Republicans in Congress, like Rep. John Boehner, said nothing.

Here is a brief refresher on the White House email scandal:

Not long after George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, Rove, his top political aide, set up a private email server for use in the White House. The stated purpose of the system — the primary domain name on which was gwb43.com — was that it would be used exclusively for the sort of political correspondence that Bush and Rove were not permitted to do on the taxpayer’s dime.

Seven years later, Bush and Rove were embroiled in two competing scandals — the Valerie Plame scandal, in which operatives for Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, including Rove and Scooter Libby, were accused of unmasking Valerie Plame (http://www.pensitoreview.com/2005/07/25/a-plame-name-game-timeline/), a CIA specialist in the black market for weapons of mass destruction, for purely partisan reasons, and the U.S. Attorney purge, in which Rove’s political operation in the White House was accused of ordering Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to purge eight U.S. attorneys (http://www.pensitoreview.com/tag/us-attorney-purge/) who were qualified prosecutors and replace them with political hacks with little or no prosecutorial experience.

Rove escaped prosecution in the Libby case, but Libby was convicted (Bush quickly commuted the sentence) on March 6, 2007, at the same time Bush and Rove were under fire for purging the U.S. attorneys. During the investigation, it came to light that Rove’s server had been used to send official, non-political emails — correspondence that was required by law to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act.

On April 12, 2007, Rove’s operation admitted (http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/04/13/bush-claims-secret-emails-have-been-erased/) that it had deleted at least 5 million emails from the server. In December 2009, technicians who had examined the server reported (http://www.telegram.com/article/20091214/NEWS/912149977/) that the number of emails that had been deleted was far greater — 22 million.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2015/03/18/flashback-rove-erases-22-million-white-house-emails-on-private-server-at-height-of-u-s-attorney-scandal-media-yawns/

[TheSanityAnnex]

so the crux is: Hillary KNEW she was violating a rule that didn't exist then and she kept doing it? :lol


:lol the irony :lmao boutons_deux

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on January 7, 2016, it obtained a new batch of documents from the Department of State (http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-petraeus-romney-docs-692/), including a “Confidential” memo from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal to the former secretary of state suggesting that a grand jury and the Senate Judiciary Committee should investigate whether former Rep. Eric Cantor or his staff violated the Espionage Act (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-37)by disclosing classified information related to the FBI investigation of former CIA Director David Petraeus.
According to the Blumenthal-to-Clinton email, if classified information was discussed by Cantor, his staff, or anyone “inside or outside the bureau,” it “is a felony” in violation of the Espionage Act. Many legal analysts now believe that if the FBI concludes that Clinton kept classified information on her non-state.gov server, that may be also be a criminal violation of the Espionage Act.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/new-state-department-emails-reveal-blumenthal-advised-clinton-that-former-rep-eric-cantor-committed-a-possible-felony-by-disclosing-petraeus-classified-information/

[TheSanityAnnex]

Repugs Powell, Rice received sensitive info through private emails BUT NO REPUG OUTRAGE

When the political world’s interest in Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails was near its peak, theWashington Post’s Chris Cillizza defended the media’s fascination with the story. “Democrats, ask yourself this,” Cillizza wrote (https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/631445224619962368) in August. “If this was a former [Republican Secretary of State] and his/her private e-mail server, would it be a ‘non-story’?”

As a rule, I continue (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-the-shoe-was-the-other-foot) to believe that’s a smart way for political observers to look at every story. If the situations were reversed, how would you react to a controversy? If the accusations targeted someone you detest, as opposed to someone you like, would see the story as legitimate?

The problem in this case, however, is that Cillizza’s question wasn’t really a hypothetical. We learned nearly a year ago from a Politico article (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/colin-powell-personal-email-secretary-of-state-115707.html) that former Secretary of State Colin Powell “also used a personal email account” during his State Department tenure. Several months later, MSNBC found (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clinton-backers-defend-email) that Powell conducted official business from his personal email account managed through his personal laptop.

“But wait,” Clinton’s critics in the media and Republican circles protest, “what about emails that were later deemed to include sensitive information?” NBC News reports today (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rice-aides-powell-also-got-classified-info-personal-emails) that both of the Bush/Cheney-era Secretaries of State fall into the same category.

State Department officials have determined that classified information was sent to the personal email accounts of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the senior staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NBC News has learned. […]

In a letter to Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy dated Feb. 3, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick said that the State Department has determined that 12 emails examined from State’s archives contained national security information now classified “Secret” or “Confidential.” The letter was read to NBC News.


According to the report, of those 12 emails, two were sent to Powell’s personal account, while the other 10 were sent to personal accounts senior aides of Condoleezza Rice’s senior aides.

None of this is to suggest Powell or Rice’s office is guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, Powell told NBC News the messages in question include information that’s “fairly minor.”

There’s no reason whatsoever to believe otherwise.

The political salience of news like this, however, is that Clinton’s critics would like voters to believe she’s at the center of some damaging “scandal” because of her approach to email management. These new details suggest Clinton’s practices were fairly common, and unless Republicans and the media are prepared to start condemning Powell and Rice with equal vigor – an unlikely scenario – it’s starting to look like this entire line of attack lacks merit.

Or as the NBC News report put it, the new findings “show that past secretaries of state and senior officials used personal accounts to conduct government business and occasionally allowed secrets to spill into the insecure traffic.”

As for Chris Cillizza’s question – if were talking about a former Republican Secretary of State, would it be a “non-story” – it would appear the answer is, “Yep.”

Postscript: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement this morning, “Based on this new revelation, it is clear that the Republican investigations [into Clinton’s emails] are nothing more than a transparent political attempt to use taxpayer funds to target the Democratic candidate for president.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/powell-rice-received-sensitive-info-through-private-emails?cid=sm_fb_maddow

TSA! :lol




Powell/Rice 12 total emails at the lowest security level. Clinton 1000+.
And did Powell/Rice set up their own server at home? :lol

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/05/clinton-hit-for-invoking-everybody-did-it-defense-on-email-scandal.html?intcmp=hpbt2

"but everyone else did it" defense :lol

[TheSanityAnnex]

Hillary misleading about email probe during debate, former FBI agents say (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/05/hillary-misleading-about-email-probe-during-debate-former-fbi-agents-say.html?intcmp=hpbt1)

Hillary Clinton used misleading language in Thursday night’s Democratic debate to describe the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct official government business while she was secretary of state, according to former senior FBI agents.

In the New Hampshire debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, which aired on MSNBC, Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out.”

Not true says Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau.

“They (the FBI) do not do security reviews,” Pomerantz said. “What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.”

Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation.”

Separately, an intelligence source familiar with the two prongs of the ongoing FBI probe, stressed to Fox that the criminal and national security elements remain “inseparable.” The source, not authorized to speak on the record, characterized Clinton’s statement “as a typical Clinton diversion… and what is she going to say, “I’m 95 percent sure that I am going to get away with it?”

Fox recently learned that one of the FBI's senior agents responsible for counterintelligence matters, Charles H. Kable IV, is working the Clinton case, another indicator the intelligence source said that the FBI probe is “extremely serious, and the A-team is handling.”

Kable, known as "Sandy," was appointed special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the Washington field office by Director James Comey in December

[TheSanityAnnex]

Documents suggest State Dept. asked Clinton to delete classified emails

A series of letters sent back and forth between State Department officials and Hillary Clinton's legal team last year sheds light on the agency's scramble to recover classified documents that had been stored in unsecured environments.
The letters (http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/JW-v-State-Hillary-email-gap-documents-00687.pdf), made public Wednesday by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, suggest the State Department was concerned about Clinton's lawyers handling records that had been upgraded to "secret," the second-highest level of classification in government.

Recovering now-classified emails that have been potentially touched by dozens of unqualified people posed problems for the State Department, especially since Clinton's lawyers said they were unable to delete the sensitive records as requested because they faced preservation orders from the House Select Committee on Benghazi.


Patrick Kennedy, State's undersecretary for management and the agency's top record-keeping official, warned Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, in May of last year that an email discussing Benghazi had been upgraded to "secret" and should be deleted from the Clinton's records.


Kendall promised in a subsequent letter to send hard copies of the email to the State Department, but argued Clinton could not delete the "secret" email because she faced separate orders from the Benghazi committee, the State Department inspector general and the intelligence community inspector general.

"I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete, as you request, the above-referenced email," Kendall wrote to Kennedy in June.

Contents of some of the letters were first made public in September, when scrutiny of Clinton's private email use had begun to peak ahead of her highly anticipated appearance before the Benghazi committee the following month.
In August, the FBI had confiscated Clinton's server after the two inspectors general who had issued preservation orders discovered emails classified up to "top secret" among the former secretary of state's records.
But the letters hold new significance in light of the news late last month that the State Department had upgraded 22 emails to "top secret," ending the dispute between the intelligence community and State over the highly sensitive nature of those records.


For example, one letter from Kennedy to Clinton's legal team in June laid out a list of 25 emails that had been classified up to that date. Since then, more than 1,600 emails have been upgraded to classified.
Kennedy described each email in detail and outlined specific instructions for the identification and removal of each one, a process that would be difficult and time-consuming if Clinton and her team still had possession of all 55,000 pages of emails.


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/documents-suggest-state-dept.-asked-clinton-to-delete-classified-emails/article/2582954

[TheSanityAnnex]

Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server

At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News. The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and others. There is no public evidence they were authorized to receive the intelligence some of which was beyond Top Secret.
A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.
“My contacts with former colleagues and current active duty personnel involved in sensitive programs reveal a universal feeling that the HRC issue is more serious than the general public realizes,” Dan Maguire, a former strategic planner with Africom, and with 46 years combined service, told Fox. “Most opine they would already be behind bars if they had apparently compromised sensitive information as reported.”
Without access to the actual e-mails, Maguire said it was hard to ascertain what damage might have been done by the disclosure of human spying intelligence and secret material.
“Either way, the intelligence community is undoubtedly conducting damage assessments and evaluating the viability of any ongoing operation that may have been exposed to unauthorized personnel. The vulnerability of HRC’s server to foreign government hacking cannot be overlooked - even the DCI, John Brennan, has been the target of hackers,” he said.
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Fox, “It is counterintuitive to suggest that they (Clinton’s aides) all had authorization and access through a non-secure server to information of that sensitivity.”
The State Department recently confirmed that the messages in question include the most sensitive kind of intelligence. On Jan. 29, Fox News first reported that some emails on Clinton’s server were too damaging to release in any form. The State Department subsequently announced that 22 “top secret” emails were being withheld in full; these were the messages being handled by more than a dozen accounts.
Pressed on whether a damage assessment was being done, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said, “To your broader question – what is being done to -- as you said spillage – I can’t speak to those efforts today. We’re aware obviously of those concerns. We are taking steps, but I don’t have any more details to provide.”
Aside from this week’s letter (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2016/02/10/fbi-letter-in-judicial-watch-vs-state/) confirming the FBI investigation is focused on Clinton’s server, the Bureau has not publicly acknowledged whom it has contracted or interviewed.
Kennedy recently told the House Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton's personal email from the beginning, but did not understand the "scope" of its use for Clinton’s government business.

Kennedy's testimony now appears to conflict with emails released through the Freedom of Information Act that show he routinely sent and received government business from the Clintonemail.com account.
Toner said Kennedy learned about Clinton’s arrangement later. “He did not have knowledge of the computer server that she had set up [for] personal email or computer server she'd set up at her residence,” he said.
However, on the official State Department website (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/95199.htm), Patrick F. Kennedy’s biography says that he has worked for the department since 1993 and, in his current position as Under Secretary for Management, he is responsible for the “people, resources, budget, facilities, technology, financial operations, consular affairs, logistics, contracting, and security for Department of State operations.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/11/official-top-clinton-aides-also-handled-top-secret-intel-on-server.html?intcmp=hpbt2

[spurraider21]

If the info was classified at the time of receipt, Obamas going to have to step in.
please. they're going to try to bury the story

[TheSanityAnnex]

please. they're going to try to bury the story

It would have already been buried had Obama wanted it so. He's allowing the DOJ and FBI to continue on, unless the FBI's gone rogue and aren't following his orders.

[TheSanityAnnex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-foundation-received-subpoena-from-state-department-investigators/2016/02/11/ca5125b2-cce4-11e5-88ff-e2d1b4289c2f_story.html

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.
The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.
The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department’s inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.
A foundation representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry, said the initial document request had been narrowed by investigators and that the foundation is not the focus of the probe.

A State IG spokesman declined to comment on that assessment or on the subpoena.
Representatives for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Abedin also declined comment.
There is no indication that the watchdog is looking at Clinton. But as she runs for president in part by promoting her leadership of the State Department, an inquiry involving a top aide and the relationship between her agency and her family’s charity could further complicate her campaign.
For months, Clinton has wrangled with controversy over her use of a private email server, which has sparked a separate investigation by the same State Department inspector general’s office. There is also an FBI investigation into whether her system compromised national security.
Clinton was asked about the FBI investigation at a debate last week and said she was “100 percent confident” nothing would come of it. Last month, Clinton denied a Fox News report that the FBI had expanded its probe to include ties between the foundation and the State Department. She called that report “an unsourced, irresponsible” claim with “no basis.”
During the years Clinton served as secretary of state, the foundation was led by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. She joined its board after leaving office in February 2013 and helped run it until launching her White House bid in April.

Abedin served as deputy chief of staff at State starting in 2009. For the second half of 2012, she participated in the “special government employee” program that enabled her to work simultaneously in the State Department, the foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal office and Teneo, a private consultancy with close ties to the Clintons.
Abedin has been a visible part of Hillary Clinton’s world since she served as an intern in the 1990s for the then-first lady while attending George Washington University. On the campaign trail, Clinton is rarely seen in public without Abedin somewhere nearby.
Republican lawmakers have alleged that foreign officials and other powerful interests with business before the U.S. government gave large donations to the Clinton Foundation to curry favor with a sitting secretary of state and a potential future president.
Both Clintons have dismissed those accusations, saying donors contributed to the $2 billion foundation to support its core missions: improving health care, education and environmental work around the world.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, has largely avoided raising either issue in his campaign. Last spring, Sanders expressed concerns about the Clinton Foundation being part of a political system “dominated by money.”
Sanders has batted away questions about the email scandal, famously saying at a debate last fall that, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”
The potential consequences of the IG investigation are unclear. Unlike federal prosecutors, who generally use subpoenas issued by a grand jury, inspectors general frequently subpoena documents without seeking approval from a grand jury or judge.

But their power is limited. They are able to obtain documents, but they cannot compel testimony. At times, IG inquiries result in criminal charges, but sometimes they lead to administrative review, civil penalties or reports that have no legal consequences.
The IG has investigated Abedin before. Last year, the watchdog concluded she was overpaid nearly $10,000 because of violations of sick leave and vacation policies, a finding that Abedin and her attorneys have contested.
Republican lawmakers, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have alleged that Abedin’s role at the center of overlapping public and private Clinton worlds created the potential for conflicts of interest.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol

FECIYlo3KRY

[SpursforSix]

An expanding probe! Ouch.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday that “the FBI now has leverage” in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and can indict Clinton’s top aides and trade less punishment for testimony against her.
Citing the report by Fox News’s Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/11/official-top-clinton-aides-also-handled-top-secret-intel-on-server.html), Napolitano said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” that “Mrs. Clinton’s top aides regularly received from Mrs. Clinton via her private server Top Secret emails. These are emails which the aides lacked the security clearance to receive.”

“So this tells us a couple things,” Napolitano said. “One, Mrs. Clinton was so reckless in the manner in which she sent out Top Secret emails, knowingly sending them to people who weren’t authorized to receive them.” “We know two, their acceptance, discussion and transfer of this is a felony. We know three, that the FBI now has leverage. The Justice Department can indict her top aides and trade with them,” Napolitano said. “What would they want? Testimony against Mrs. Clinton in return for a deal with them. This is the way the government works.”
The aides in question include Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan and Patrick Kennedy.

Later, Napolitano added when the aides were exchanging the Top Secret information with Clinton, it was “not OK because in the process their of exchanging Top Secret emails … they wittingly or unwittingly, and under the law it doesn’t matter, wittingly or unwittingly, exposed the nation’s most important secrets to persons who would cause us ill when they get those secrets.”

http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/11/napolitano-the-fbi-now-has-leverage-with-hillary-aides-video/

[TheSanityAnnex]

Pressure on Lynch to step aside in Clinton email probe

Loretta Lynch is on the edge of the spotlight, about to be dragged to the center.
If the FBI finds sufficient evidence to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton or one of her top aides for mishandling classified information, Lynch’s Justice Department will have to decide whether to press ahead.





Even if no evidence of wrongdoing is found, Clinton’s many critics are unlikely to take the word of an appointee of President Obama’s and will doubt that justice has been served.

Already, top Republicans are calling for a special prosecutor to be brought in and evaluate the situation.

No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn (Texas) took to the floor of the Senate last week to call for a special counsel to be appointed “because of the conflict of interest by asking Attorney General Lynch to investigate and perhaps even prosecute somebody in the Obama administration.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agrees that Lynch ought to consider a special counsel, a representative said, to reassure the country that decisions are made “without regard to any political considerations.”The Justice Department, however, has so far declined the request.
“This matter is being reviewed by career attorneys and investigators and does not meet the criteria for the appointment of a special prosecutor,” department spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement.
Federal officials are currently investigating the security of Clinton’s bespoke email arrangement and whether classified information may have been mishandled.
Critics of Clinton have called for indictments to be handed down following revelations that more than 1,500 classified emails — including 22 classified at the highest level — were found on her personal server. None of the messages were marked as classified, and accounts differ as to whether they should have been classified at the time they were sent.

During a Democratic presidential debate last week, Clinton insisted (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/268347-clinton-100-percent-confident-fbi-wont-find-wrongdoing) that she was “100 percent confident” that the FBI’s review will not evolve into a criminal matter.

Instead, she and other Democrats have decried the criticism about the emails as simple political gamesmanship designed to drag down her presidential campaign.

“I think the American people will know it’s an absurdity, and I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever,” said Clinton.

Lynch’s critics are unconvinced that the attorney general can be a neutral arbiter.

“I think they probably won’t indict her, because the attorney general is from New York, who I believe is a friend of Hillary Clinton,” Donald Trump, a leading Republican presidential candidate, said on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” in October.
Skeptics of Lynch have also pointed to an October interview in which President Obama appeared to dismiss concerns about Clinton’s private server.
“I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered,” Obama said (http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/256645-obama-clintons-email-wasnt-security-threat) on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
“It might appear that he’s trying to influence the conduct of the investigation,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor this week. “That’s a real problem.”
No close ties
Lynch and Clinton never had much of a personal relationship, former colleagues told The Hill in recent days.

“I’m not aware of any relationship with Hillary Clinton,” said Steven Edwards, who worked alongside Lynch for nearly a decade at the law firm Hogan Lovells (the firm was previously called Hogan & Hartson when Lynch joined it in 2001).

Lynch was appointed to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband.
However, she was personally recommended for the position by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and one government official said Clinton himself had a relatively minor role in the selection process.
For a period of months, she also worked as the district’s top prosecutor while Hillary Clinton was serving as the junior senator from New York, until Lynch left for private practice in 2001.
Lynch would return to become the U.S. attorney in 2010, before she was tapped to be the nation’s top law enforcement official last year.

But unlike some U.S. attorneys — such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Preet Bharara, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — Lynch never appeared to glad-hand with politicians, former colleagues say.

“I worked with her very closely and you know, I’ve got lots of partners who, when we chitchat, talk about their involvement in political campaigns or their lunches with people in Washington,” said Dennis Tracey, a partner at Hogan Lovells who worked with Lynch. “But she never did.”

“If Rudy is at one end of the spectrum, Loretta is at the other one, in terms of being political,” echoed Edwards, who is now at Quinn Emanuel. “She is a very, very cautious person and doesn’t operate that way.”

Lingering in the background is the prospect that Lynch’s decision may affect her own future.

Lynch was confirmed by the Senate last year after a five-month delay largely unrelated to her own qualifications. That left the nation’s top lawyer with just a year and a half in office, during Obama’s lame duck period in which policy efforts are likely to stall.

If Clinton becomes the next president, however, Lynch may be asked to stay on, at least for a short time. As such, she may have a little bit of skin in the game.

“That Hillary Clinton could be the Democrat nominee and potential next president represents an extraordinary circumstance that commends the appointment of a special counsel,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), the head of the House Oversight subcommittee on national security, in a statement to The Hill. “For a Democrat-appointed attorney general such as Lynch, this is obviously something that distinguishes the Clinton investigation from other cases.”

Along with 43 other Republicans, DeSantis wrote a letter (http://desantis.house.gov/sites/desantis.house.gov/files/LynchLetter.pdf) to the Justice Department last year asking for a special counsel to be appointed so that the investigation can be conducted “impartially.”

Former colleagues of Lynch rejected the notion that she would be biased in the Clinton probe.

“I cannot imagine allowing any personal relationship to affect her work. It’s just not the way she is,” said Tracey.

Special prosecutor
So far, the Justice Department has declined congressional requests to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the Clinton issue.

In a letter (https://www.scribd.com/doc/298165838/Loretta-Lynch-Letter-RESPONSE) to DeSantis in November, assistant attorney general Peter Kadzik said that the law allowing for a special counsel “has rarely been used.”

“Any investigation related to this referral [into Clinton’s server] will be conducted by law enforcement professionals and career attorneys in accordance with established department policies and procedures designed to ensure the integrity of all ongoing investigations,” Kadzik wrote.

The FBI has refused to share details about its investigation. So far, however, the bureau does not appear to be conducting a criminal probe, and officials have said it is not directly targeting Clinton.

Multiple lawyers watching the case have suggested that Clinton’s top aides may be in more trouble than she is.

As one former senior Justice Department official noted, there are many options for the government to take apart from either nothing or an indictment against Clinton.

“It could play out with people agreeing to plead to … a misdemeanor charge, people agreeing to leave office or withdraw in return for a pardon,” the former official said.

“I think ultimately, one of those events is going to happen,” the former official added.

“It’s no

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/268456-pressure-on-lynch-to-step-aside-in-clinton-email-probe

[TheSanityAnnex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-weighs-deeper-probe-into-clintons-private-email-system/2016/02/23/9c27412a-d997-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html




U.S. judge orders discovery to go forward over Clinton’s private email system

[ChumpDumper]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?

[TheSanityAnnex]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?

My call would be to put a special prosecutor on the case, I don't trust Loretta Lynch to act in good faith.

[ChumpDumper]

My call would be to put a special prosecutor on the case, I don't trust Loretta Lynch to act in good faith.That was not my question. Nice dodge.

Again.

[TheSanityAnnex]

That was not my question. Nice dodge.

Again.

:lol da fuck? You just asked what my call was.

[ChumpDumper]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?lol still dodging

[Blake]

:lol da fuck? You just asked what my call was.

Damn your reading comp skills blow

[TheSanityAnnex]

lol still dodging

All depends on if a special prosecutor is put on the case.

[ChumpDumper]

All depends on if a special prosecutor is put on the case.If there is a special prosecutor, how many years?

[TheSanityAnnex]

If there is a special prosecutor, how many years?

Depends on how many charges are brought. Do you have a point to make? If you want to know if I'd like to see her behind bars most definitely.

[spurraider21]

correct answer is zero. if she actually got indicted (let alone convicted) then sanders wins the race and pardons her.

[ChumpDumper]

Depends on how many charges are brought. Do you have a point to make? If you want to know if I'd like to see her behind bars most definitely.My point now is you are still dodging.

[TheSanityAnnex]

My point now is you are still dodging.
Your question was answered with depends on how many charges are brought. Your point now is to continue on with your typical faggot schtick. Good luck with that.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Gov employee (set up her server lol wtf) who earlier pleaded the 5th now granted immunity. Things are heating up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-clinton-email-investigation-justice-department-grants-immunity-to-former-state-department-staffer/2016/03/02/e421e39e-e0a0-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html?tid=sm_tw

The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.
The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.
As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents will likely want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.
The inquiry comes against a sensitive political backdrop in which Clinton is the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
So far, there is no indication that prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the email investigation to subpoena testimony or documents, which would require the participation of a U.S. attorney’s office.

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politics/hillary-clinton-email-server-justice-department/








Bryan Pagliano, a former Hillary Clinton (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/us/hillary-clinton---fast-facts/) staffer who helped set up her private email server, has accepted an immunity offer from the FBI and the Justice Department to provide an interview to investigators, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday.

The FBI has been asking for Pagliano's cooperation for months as dozens of investigators pored over thousands of Clinton emails in a secure room on the fourth floor of FBI headquarters.


The probe shifted into a new phase recently as investigators completed the review of the emails, working with intelligence agencies and the State Department to determine whether they were classified.
The Washington Post first reported (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-clinton-email-investigation-justice-department-grants-immunity-to-former-state-department-staffer/2016/03/02/e421e39e-e0a0-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_clintonemail830p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory) Pagliano's cooperation.
"As we have said since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Justice Department's security inquiry, including offering in August to meet with them to assist their efforts if needed," said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign.

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Fallon added that the campaign was "pleased" Pagliano was cooperating with the Justice Department.
Last fall, when Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment rights (http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/clinton-aide-fifth-amendment-emails/) and declined to talk to congressional investigators, Fallon said: "(Clinton has) encouraged everyone to cooperate because we want to make every good-faith effort to be transparent and answer any questions people have. With Mr. Pagliano, we encouraged him as well because we don't think he has any reason to not be transparent about the help that he provided from an IT perspective, but unfortunately, it is his choice what to do."
A message left with Pagliano's attorney was not immediately returned.
With the completion of the email review, FBI investigators are expected to shift their focus on whether the highly sensitive government information, including top secret and other classified matters, found on Clinton's private email server constitutes a crime.

The emails released publicly show some Clinton aides sent the sensitive information, often from the State Department's unclassified email system, to others, and eventually to Clinton at her private email address. She didn't use a State Department email account.
The released emails appear to align with her public statements that she didn't send emails that were marked as classified.
She did receive emails from aides that, while not marked as classified, did contain information that should not have been handled outside the government's secure email system, the emails released so far have found.

The FBI reviewers oversaw the process that upgraded the emails now known to be highly sensitive as part of a series of State Department Freedom of Information Act releases that ended Monday.
Clinton has said she hasn't been asked to be interviewed for the FBI probe.
Republican candidates quickly pounced on the development Wednesday night.
"This is an ominous development for the Clinton campaign and for Democrats as a whole," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/us/ted-cruz-fast-facts/) told Fox News' Megyn Kelly. "This suggests that the investigation is moving to a whole other level. She is going to be a badly wounded candidate, and if we nominate a strong Republican nominee, we're going to win this general election."