Shillary: If not classified or inappropriate, can you send it to the NYT?

[Will Hunting]

It's amazing to me how horribly she's handling this.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Does it matter who it was? The emails were unmarked.

She's most likely culpable for something but putting 100% blame on her is pretty stupid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...g-witness.html


A source close to the federal probe into Hillary Clinton's email scandal says one of the Democratic candidate's former IT specialists has proven to be a 'devastating witness'.


Bryan Pagliano, who worked as an IT specialist for Clinton when she was Secretary of State, sent shockwaves earlier this month when it was announced he struck an immunity deal with the FBI, agreeing to cooperate with the agency's investigation of Clinton's personal email server without the fear of being prosecuted.

[Reck]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3488211/Clinton-specialist-grantied-immunity-proven-devastating-witness.html


A source close to the federal probe into Hillary Clinton's email scandal says one of the Democratic candidate's former IT specialists has proven to be a 'devastating witness'.


Bryan Pagliano, who worked as an IT specialist for Clinton when she was Secretary of State, sent shockwaves earlier this month when it was announced he struck an immunity deal with the FBI, agreeing to cooperate with the agency's investigation of Clinton's personal email server without the fear of being prosecuted.

Welcome to two weeks ago.

On Twitter, a Clinton campaign spokesman says he's "pleased" the man who set up the server is cooperating with the feds.

"We disagreed w/ his decision not to answer questions from Benghazi Committee so are pleased he is cooperating now," Fallon says on Twitter.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/clinto...rticle/2001371

[boutons_deux]

agreeing to cooperate with the agency's investigation of Clinton's personal email server without the fear of being prosecuted.

They probably threatened to destroy him. Doesn't mean his any/sufficient evidence.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Welcome to two weeks ago.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/clinto...rticle/2001371

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...256086&page=10

[TheSanityAnnex]

They probably threatened to destroy him. Doesn't mean his any/sufficient evidence.

Is it common to grant immunity with no grand jury?

[CosmicCowboy]

one would think the justice department had to agree to the immunity agreement.

[ChumpDumper]

Why hasn't Clinton just had everyone involved killed by now?

[CosmicCowboy]

good question. hubris, probably.

[spankadelphia]

Why hasn't Clinton just had everyone involved killed by now?

Harder to do that sort of thing in the instant information age we live in. The Clinton's were busy filling body bags back in the 90's when people still trusted the media and not everyone had access to the internet.

[ChumpDumper]

good question. hubris, probably.

Harder to do that sort of thing in the instant information age we live in. The Clinton's were busy filling body bags back in the 90's when people still trusted the media and not everyone had access to the internet.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Second State employee refuses GOP questions on Clinton server

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz42u8u7mJX
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...artment-220689

A State Department staffer who oversaw security and technology issues for Hillary Clinton is refusing to answer Senate investigators’ questions about the former secretary of state’s use of a private email server — marking the second time an ex-State employee has declined to talk to lawmakers.

John Bentel, a now-retired State employee who managed IT security issues for the top echelon at the department, declined to be interviewed by GOP staff on the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.


The chairmen of both committees, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), are now threatening to consider other ways to compel him to discuss the matter.

“We are troubled by your refusal to engage with the committees even after repeated overtures of accommodation,” the letter to Bentel and his lawyer reads. “We need to speak with you. … We would, of course, prefer that you meet with us in a voluntary and informal manner, but we will consider other options if faced with a continuing lack of cooperation.”

Bentel’s lawyer, Randy Turk of Baker Botts in Washington, did not reply to a request for comment, but the recent letter notes that Bentel told House Benghazi investigators last year he did not recall the server matter, according to the Senate letter. And in email correspondence between the panel and Bentel's laywer, which was reviewed by POLITICO, Turk lamented that Bentel had already talked to the House Benghazi panel “about precisely what the committtees’ letter states is the subject of their investigation.”
“Mr Bentel… is understandably not inclined to go through that process again since he has already been questioned at great length about what he knows and what he recalls about that subject,” Turk wrote to Senate investigators in an email last Thursday. "[I]t seems to me that what is really fair here would be for you and the committees to respect Mr Bentel’s decision not to be interviewed a second time about the same subjects he has already been interviewed about at great length."
As Clinton continues battling with Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, this latest missive from Grassley and Johnson shows that the email scandal isn’t going away. Republican investigations into the server will continue through the spring, if not longer, as the FBI conducts its own investigation into whether classified information was mishandled by Clinton’s setup — a probe that is ongoing but could wrap up as soon as this summer. The campaign did not respond to request for comment for this story.
Bentel is now the second former State staffer to decline an interview request from congressional investigators. Last year, Clinton’s top IT staffer, Bryan Pagliano, who personally maintained her server at State, also refused to answer questions. He asserted his Fifth Amendment right before the House Benghazi Committee last September and rebuffed Judiciary and Homeland requests for interviews for their investigations.
Pagliano, who worked for Clinton on the campaign trail before following her to State, was recently reported to have been granted immunity from the FBI so he can discuss the email issue without fear of prosecution.
Law enforcement is investigating whether Clinton’s unusual setup ever put classified information at risk — or whether anyone unlawfully forwarded classified intelligence to her unsecured account. State has discovered more than 2,000 classified emails that passed through the server, including about two dozen that were “top secret.” Clinton maintains they were not marked classified at the time they were sent.
The Senate committees are also investigating the issue, though with a slightly different focus. While also probing the security of the server, the panels are questioning whether Clinton or her top staff ever intentionally sidestepped record-keeping laws under the Freedom of Information Act. That law requires all emails from public officials that mention work issues to be preserved and available for public request.
The FOIA question is also being litigated through federal courts, where conservative group Judicial Watch just won a major victory after a judge approved the group’s request to question Clinton’s closest staffers about whether they were intentionally hiding correspondence.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bentel joined State in 1974. He served as director of information resources management in the office of the executive secretariat, which includes the secretary and top staff as well as the deputy secretary and undersecretaries. The office also handles State’s relations with the White House, National Security Council and other agencies.
His position, according to the letter, would have made him responsible for Clinton’s information management and information technology needs, including perhaps her BlackBerry use.
On Dec. 4, 2015, Judiciary and Homeland investigators reached out to Bentel’s lawyer to schedule an interview. But Turk told them Bentel had already been asked about the matter when he sat before the House Benghazi Committee. Turk said Bentel told the committee he had “no memory of knowledge” of the server issue and there was “little point” in telling another committee the same thing, according to the letter.
But both Senate panels say Bentel may have been aware of the sever, noting that their investigators have been told that some of Bentel’s subordinates knew about the home setup: “It appears that you were an integral figure in the operations of the Executive Secretariat and that you would have particular and unique knowledge relevant to the committees’ inquiry. Indeed, Department personal have noted that your subordinates in the Executive Secretariat’s office, who reported directly to you, had knowledge of Secretary Clinton’s private email server, which leads one to conclude that you were likely made aware of the server.”
The panels also want to ask Bentel about how FOIAs were handled in the office of the executive secretariat.
State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement that the Department "is committed to transparency and has been working closely with the staffs of Senators Grassley and Johnson, providing do ents, briefings, and interviews on a regular basis in response to their numerous requests.” Since Bentel is no longer there but retired, however, the department cannot require him to answer questions.
After Turk initially rebuffed the panel’s request last winter, the committee continued to try to convince him that speaking to Bentel was necessary and offered to do a phone interview since he no longer lives in Washington, D.C.
“It is worth noting that the committees’ line of questioning would most certainly be different from the Benghazi Committee, since the respective committees are examining different issues,” they wrote.
Their last communication on Jan. 20, 2016, however, went unanswered until last week, when his lawyer reiterated that he was unwilling to answer questions.
“We have spoken to Mr. Bentel and there has been no change in what we have told you previously on several occasions now, both on the phone and in several emails, in response to your prior requests to interview him,” Turk said in the Thursday email to the committee.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz42u8grG1m
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

[ChumpDumper]

Keep hope alive, TSA!

[Nbadan]

In 2009, Hillary was Denied a Secure Blackberry Because Of Security Risks

Based on this information, she can't claim ignorance of risk or comprehension of the cir stances. She knowingly put national secrets at risk for the sake of her own convenience and hubris. She used her private blackberry via her private server to communicate official and sometimes secret information.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/emails-cl...-politics.html

Emails: Hillary Clinton asked for a BlackBerry in 2009, but the NSA said no
Newly released emails show a 2009 request to issue a secure government smartphone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was denied by the National Security Agency.
...

“We began examining options for (Secretary Clinton) with respect to secure ‘Blackberry-like’ communications,” wrote Donald R. Reid, the department’s assistant director for security infrastructure. “The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure at State, and is very expensive.”
...
According to a summary of the meeting, the request was driven by Clinton’s reliance on her Blackberry for email and keeping track of her calendar. Clinton chose not to use a laptop or desktop computer that could have provided her access to email in her office, according to the summary.
...
The department’s designated NSA liaison, whose name was redacted from the do ents, expressed concerns about security vulnerabilities inherent with using Blackberry devices for secure communications or in secure areas.
...
Clinton campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

The FBI is investigating whether sensitive information that flowed through Clinton’s email server was mishandled. The State Department has acknowledged that some emails included classified information, including at the top-secret level. The inspectors general at the State Department and for U.S. intelligence agencies are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken.

[rmt]

In 2009, Hillary was Denied a Secure Blackberry Because Of Security Risks

Based on this information, she can't claim ignorance of risk or comprehension of the cir stances. She knowingly put national secrets at risk for the sake of her own convenience and hubris. She used her private blackberry via her private server to communicate official and sometimes secret information.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/emails-cl...-politics.html

Emails: Hillary Clinton asked for a BlackBerry in 2009, but the NSA said no
Newly released emails show a 2009 request to issue a secure government smartphone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was denied by the National Security Agency.
...

Even working for a federal contractor (much less DoD or NSA or Secretary of State security level) involves a tremendous amount of security. There's no way Hillary was unaware of the risks/classification/security. She's not stupid.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Hillary Has an NSA Problem

The FBI has been investigating Clinton for months—but an even more secretive Federal agency has its own important beef with her

For a year now, Hillary Clinton’s misuse of email during her tenure as secretary of state has hung like a dark cloud over her presidential campaign. As I told you months ago, email-gate isn’t going away, despite the best efforts of Team Clinton to make it disappear. Instead, the scandal has gotten worse, with never-ending revelations of apparent misconduct by Ms. Clinton and her staff. At this point, email-gate may be the only thing standing between Ms. Clinton and the White House this November.
Specifically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation examination of email-gate, pursuant to provisions of the Espionage Act, poses a major threat to Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations. However, even if the FBI recommends prosecution of her or members of her inner circle for mishandling of classified information—which is something the politically unconnected routinely do face prosecution for—it’s by no means certain that the Department of Justice will follow the FBI’s lead.



What the DoJ decides to do with email-gate is ultimately a question of politics as much as justice. Ms. Clinton’s recent statement on her potential prosecution, “it’s not going to happen,” then refusing to address the question at all in a recent debate, led to speculation about a backroom deal with the White House to shield Ms. Clinton from prosecution as long as Mr. Obama is in the Oval Office. After mid-January, however, all bets would be off. In that case, winning the White House herself could be an urgent matter of avoiding prosecution for Ms. Clinton.


That said, if the DoJ declines to prosecute after the Bureau recommends doing so, a leak-fest of a kind not seen in Washington, D.C., since Watergate should be anticipated. The FBI would be angry that its exhaustive investigation was thwarted by dirty deals between Democrats. In that case, a great deal of Clintonian dirty laundry could wind up in the hands of the press, habitual mainstream media covering for the Clintons notwithstanding, perhaps having a major impact on the presidential race this year.
The FBI isn’t the only powerful federal agency that Hillary Clinton needs to worry about as she plots her path to the White House between scandals and leaks. For years, she has been on the bad side of the National Security Agency, America’s most important intelligence agency, as revealed by just-released State Department do ents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.


‘What did she not want put on a government system, where security people might see it? I sure wish I’d asked about it back in 2009.’


The do ents, though redacted, detail a bureaucratic showdown between Ms. Clinton and NSA at the outset of her tenure at Foggy Bottom. The new secretary of state, who had gotten “hooked” on her Blackberry during her failed 2008 presidential bid, according to a top State Department security official, wanted to use that Blackberry anywhere she went.


That, however, was impossible, since Secretary Clinton’s main office space at Foggy Bottom was actually a Secure Compartment Information Facility, called a SCIF (pronounced “skiff”) by insiders. A SCIF is required for handling any Top Secret-plus information. In most Washington, D.C., offices with a SCIF, which has to be certified as fully secure from human or technical penetration, that’s where you check Top-Secret email, read intelligence reports and conduct classified meetings that must be held inside such protected spaces.



But personal electronic devices—your cellphone, your Blackberry—can never be brought into a SCIF. They represent a serious technical threat that is actually employed by many intelligence agencies worldwide. Though few Americans realize it, taking remote control over a handheld device, then using it to record conversations, is surprisingly easy for any competent spy service. Your smartphone is a sophisticated surveillance device—on you, the user—that also happens to provide phone service and Internet access.
As a result, your phone and your Blackberry always need to be locked up before you enter any SCIF. Taking such items into one represents a serious security violation. And Ms. Clinton and her staff really hated that. Not even one month into the new administration in early 2009, Ms. Clinton and her inner circle were chafing under these rules. They were accustomed to having their personal Blackberrys with them at all times, checking and sending emails nonstop, and that was simply impossible in a SCIF like their new office.


This resulted in a February 2009 request by Secretary Clinton to the NSA, whose Information Assurance Directorate (IAD for short: see here for an explanation of Agency organization) secures the sensitive communications of many U.S. government en ies, from Top-Secret computer networks, to White House communications, to the classified codes that control our nuclear weapons.


The contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011, email to Hillary Clinton—to her personal, unclassified account—were based on highly sensitive NSA information.
IAD had recently created a special, custom-made secure Blackberry for Barack Obama, another technology addict. Now Ms. Clinton wanted one for herself. However, making the new president’s personal Blackberry had been a time-consuming and expensive exercise. The NSA was not inclined to provide Secretary Clinton with one of her own simply for her convenience: there had to be clearly demonstrated need.


And that seemed dubious to IAD since there was no problem with Ms. Clinton checking her personal email inside her office SCIF. Hers, like most, had open (i.e. unclassified) computer terminals connected to the Internet, and the secretary of state could log into her own email anytime she wanted to right from her desk.



But she did not want to. Ms. Clinton only checked her personal email on her Blackberry: she did not want to sit down at a computer terminal. As a result, the NSA informed Secretary Clinton in early 2009 that they could not help her. When Team Clinton kept pressing the point, “We were politely told to shut up and color” by IAD, explained the state security official.


The State Department has not released the full do ent trail here, so the complete story remains unknown to the public. However, one senior NSA official, now retired, recalled the kerfuffle with Team Clinton in early 2009 about Blackberrys. “It was the usual Clinton prima donna stuff,” he explained, “the whole ‘rules are for other people’ act that I remembered from the ’90s.” Why Ms. Clinton would not simply check her personal email on an office computer, like every other government employee less senior than the president, seems a germane question, given what a major scandal email-gate turned out to be. “What did she not want put on a government system, where security people might see it?” the former NSA official asked, adding, “I wonder now, and I sure wish I’d asked about it back in 2009.”



He’s not the only NSA affiliate with pointed questions about what Hillary Clinton and her staff at Foggy Bottom were really up to—and why they went to such trouble to cir vent federal laws about the use of IT systems and the handling of classified information. This has come to a head thanks to Team Clinton’s gross mishandling of highly classified NSA intelligence.


As I explained in this column in January, one of the most controversial of Ms. Clinton’s emails released by the State Department under judicial order was one sent on June 8, 2011, to the Secretary of State by Sidney Blumenthal, Ms. Clinton’s unsavory friend and confidant who was running a private intelligence service for Ms. Clinton. This email contains an amazingly detailed assessment of events in Sudan, specifically a coup being plotted by top generals in that war-torn country. Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from a top-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and recounted a high-level meeting that had taken place only 24 hours before.


To anybody familiar with intelligence reporting, this unmistakably signals intelligence, termed SIGINT in the trade. In other words, Mr. Blumenthal, a private citizen who had enjoyed no access to U.S. intelligence for over a decade when he sent that email, somehow got hold of SIGINT about the Sudanese leadership and managed to send it, via open, unclassified email, to his friend Ms. Clinton only one day later.


NSA officials were appalled by the State Department’s release of this email, since it bore all the hallmarks of Agency reporting. Back in early January when I reported this, I was confident that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from highly classified NSA sources, based on my years of reading and writing such reports myself, and one veteran agency official told me it was NSA information with “at least 90 percent confidence.”


Now, over two months later, I can confirm that the contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011, email to Hillary Clinton, sent to her personal, unclassified account, were indeed based on highly sensitive NSA information. The agency investigated this compromise and determined that Mr. Blumenthal’s highly detailed account of Sudanese goings-on, including the retelling of high-level conversations in that country, was indeed derived from NSA intelligence.


Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified “Top Secret / Special Intelligence.” Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program, or SAP, several of which from the CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.


Currently serving NSA officials have told me they have no doubt that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from their reports. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” one of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence.



How Mr. Blumenthal got his hands on this information is the key question, and there’s no firm answer yet. The fact that he was able to take four separate highly classified NSA reports—none of which he was supposed to have any access to—and pass the details of them to Hillary Clinton via email only hours after NSA released them in Top Secret / Special Intelligence channels indicates something highly unusual, as well as illegal, was going on.



Su ion naturally falls on Tyler Drum er, the former CIA senior official who was Mr. Blumenthal’s intelligence fixer, his supplier of juicy spy gossip, who conveniently died last August before email-gate became front-page news. However, he, too, had left federal service years before and should not have had any access to current NSA reports.


There are many questions here about what Hillary Clinton and her staff at Foggy Bottom were up to, including Sidney Blumenthal, an integral member of the Clinton organization, despite his lack of any government position. How Mr. Blumenthal got hold of this Top Secret-plus reporting is only the first question. Why he chose to email it to Ms. Clinton in open channels is another question. So is: How did nobody on Secretary Clinton’s staff notice that this highly detailed reporting looked exactly like SIGINT from the NSA? Last, why did the State Department see fit to release this email, unredacted, to the public?


These are the questions being asked by officials at the NSA and the FBI right now. All of them merit serious examination. Their answers may determine the political fate of Hillary Clinton—and who gets elected our next president in November.

http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/

[ChumpDumper]

The more walls of texts are posted trying to explain why this is a huge deal, the less of a big deal it seems tbh. Republicans might have to stick to benghazi.

[da_suns_fan]

Yeah, it does.

You cant blame someone for sending non-classified emails then retro actively making them classified after they were all sent and say, she sent top secret stuff. That makes no sense and it holds no water.

I can tell you the idea of sending ANYTHING that could be retroactively classified to a private server at someone's house is ing stupid.

[TheSanityAnnex]

The more walls of texts are posted trying to explain why this is a huge deal, the less of a big deal it seems tbh. Republicans might have to stick to benghazi.

If its not a big deal why is Obama's DOJ and 100 FBI agents investigating Clinton?

[spurraider21]

if Krazy Klinton getting indicted gets Bernie into office, i'm for it. he's going to pardon her, anyway

[Reck]

If its not a big deal why is Obama's DOJ and 100 FBI agents investigating Clinton?

Wouldn't she be behind bars by now? Or at least kept from running as president?

This is a huge distraction. But it doesn't seem to be working either because she's winning in the election. Either bring charges, or let it go already.

[boutons_deux]

If its not a big deal why is Obama's DOJ and 100 FBI agents investigating Clinton?

For the same reason CIA/NSA "fixed up the data" to match head's invade Irag-for-oil project: extreme political pressure.

[ChumpDumper]

If its not a big deal why is Obama's DOJ and 100 FBI agents investigating Clinton?

I doubt the veracity of the 100 agent story tbh. Imagine the meltdown from your blogs if the issue had not been investigated. I think the investigation itself is valid, but my question is why she was ever allowed to use a private server in the first place. Every Democrat and Republican who got an email from her knew the domain. It's not like any of this was a secret. The bureaucracy was in the process of transitioning to required gubmit servers, but her use of a private server and the deletion of emails on that server are not without precedent. If this is the most evil you can ascribe to Hillary, I can't think it's going to be the kind of thing to drive people to Trump. If you think she should be in a federal prison for this, just say so.

[CosmicCowboy]

Wouldn't she be behind bars by now? Or at least kept from running as president?

This is a huge distraction. But it doesn't seem to be working either because she's winning in the election. Either bring charges, or let it go already.

I read that they expect the investigation to conclude in May and they will present their findings then. Should be interesting.

[Winehole23]

where did you read that?