Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Clinton: Incompetent Even As A Scofflaw, Evidence Scrubber

‘Top Secret’ emails found as Clinton probe expands to key aides

"As pressure builds on Hillary Clinton to explain her official use of personal email while serving as secretary of state, she faced new complications Tuesday. It was disclosed her top aides are being drawn into a burgeoning federal inquiry and that two emails on her private account have been classified as “Top Secret.”

The inspector general for the Intelligence Community notified senior members of Congress that two of four classified emails discovered on the server Clinton maintained at her New York home contained material deemed to be in one of the highest security classifications - more sensitive than previously known.

The notice came as the State Department inspector general’s office acknowledged that it is reviewing the use of “personal communications hardware and software” by Clinton’s former top aides after requests from Congress.

“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate,” said Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general.

Despite the acknowledgment, the State Department inspector general’s office has left numerous unanswered questions, including exactly who and what is being investigated. The office initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Intelligence Community inspector general’s office, which said it is not currently involved in any inquiry into aides and is being denied full access to aides’ emails by the State Department. Clinton, herself, is not a target.

The expanding inquiry threatens to further erode Clinton’s standing as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since her reliance on private email was revealed in March, polls in crucial swing states show that increasing numbers of voters say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, in part, because of her use of private emails."
They couldn't even cleanse her released emails properly, it appears.

I've noticed that several states have towns named "Clinton". If I lived in one of those, I think I'd propose a name change, maybe to "Corleone".

UPDATE:
WaPo:

"The findings by McCullough stemmed from his office’s review of a sample of 40 of Clinton’s ­e-mails. Previously, he had said that the sample included four classified e-mails, but on Tuesday he adjusted his assessment — saying that intelligence agencies deemed two of those e-mails to have contained top-secret information.

McCullough has asked for access to all of the e-mails to conduct a more thorough review but was denied by State Department officials in July.

Last week, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that while the agency was working to “resolve whether, in fact, this material is actually classified, we are taking steps to ensure the information is protected and stored appropriately.”

McCullough also located two e-mails that included classified material from among a separate batch of 296 related to the 2012 attacks on U.S. outposts in Benghazi. One of those e-mails had been publicly released by the State Department, causing consternation within the intelligence community.

He has also located one additional e-mail in the sample of 40 that was classified at the time it was sent but has since been declassified, suggesting that there is no longer a reason to protect the information or that it has since become public, two people familiar with the finding said.

McCullough also told lawmakers that his reviewers found two e-mails they believe contain information that the State Department considers classified, and they have alerted the agency so it can conduct its own review.

All told, McCullough has pointed to seven e-mails that he said contained classified information, including two with top-secret material."
So. 40 emails; 7 classified and 2 top secret. What difference does it make at this point, any way???

5 comments:

Robert Coble said...

So, after bringing in technical experts to scrub all incriminating evidence off of Clinton's private email server under the direction of her private attorneys, after pledging to "fully cooperate" while stonewalling Congress's request for all emails sent to and from the private email server, when faced with a criminal probe by the FBI under the Obama Dept. of (In)Justice which cannot find "a smidgen of corruption" anywhere in the Obama administration, and especially not in the State Dept. or the IRS, we are supposed to believe that the HildeBeast is "fully cooperating" and really, REALLY wants to "prove" how innocent she really is, and that all this kerfuffle is just another "vast right-wing conspiracy against the pure-as-the-driven-slush Clintons?!?

So, the FBI examines the slicked server, finds NO emails, and declares Hillary Clinton innocent of all wrongdoing based on the fact that there is NO evidence. "Nothing to see here, folks, MOVE ON, and elect the FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT!"

This takes farce to an entirely different (astronomical) level. (As Buzz Lightyear would say, "To infinity - AND BEYOND!)

Let's try some elementary math. 7 out of 40 IN A SAMPLE turn out to be classified. Since we are assuming that no chicanery is involved in obtaining the sample (a quite generous assumption given the evidence so far), then a simple extrapolation based on the estimate (by Clinton's attorneys) of 30,000 emails that got "wiped" would raise the number of compromised classified emails to 5250. Let's (generously) assume that only one tenth of that 5250 were actually classified; that still leaves 525 classified emails that were compromised.

Anyone care to bet on whether Hillary Clinton will actually be indicted by the Obama administration DOJ?!? IT WILL NOT HAPPEN!

Robert Coble said...

The current estimate (by a partisan report on MSNBC) is that some 1,500 emails FROM THE EMAILS THAT CLINTON DID N-O-T DELETE) will turn out to contain "sensitive" information. That's 3 times more than my previous "generous" estimate of 525 above.

The latest evasion of responsibility (taqiyya?) by Dame (or is that Damn?) Clinton is this statement in Iowa:

“I never sent classified material on my email, and I never received any that was marked classified.”

Please note that highlighted phrase: "that was marked classified". This is more Clinton weasel-words to evade legal responsibility for violating the law in so many ways in order to remove the evidence.

As anyone who has been cleared for any level of classified information knows, it does not matter if there is a classified marking on the document contents or not. In her role as Secretary of State, she was well aware of things that were classified by their very nature. Removing the classification (perhaps done by her staff after the fact to give her plausible deniability under direction by her lawyers) does not remove the responsibility to safeguard classified and sensitive information until it can be returned into secure storage.

What more is it going to take, at this point,to make a significant difference in her "true believers"?

And now she is cracking jokes about her new Snapchat account, as if joking about it will make it all go away just like emails disappear automatically in Snapchat.

Will we never be done with Clintons and Bushes?!?

Robert Coble said...

In addition to the requirement to hold a clearance at a specific level in order to have legal access to classified materials at or below the clearance level, there is a concurrent requirement to have "a need to know" that classified information. Holding a particular clearance level does NOT legally justify having access to materials for which no need to know has been established.

It will be interesting to see if the Clinton lawyer or any of the senior aide-de-camps will be thrown under the bus to deflect culpability. If they are, then the question will be whether they will "roll over" on Dame Clinton. If any one of them cracks and breaks ranks, then it will move into an entirely different phase. So far, the Obamas (and Valerie Jarret) do not seem to be interfering with the FBI probe. That has to be a bad sign for Dame Clinton.

Robert Coble said...

An attorney's take on this situation (read all of his TWITS):

Gabriel Malor counters spin that classified info was sent to Hillary Clinton, but not by her

The lame Dame jokes are not resonating with the public, much less with the FBI.

It remains to be seen if Clinton has enough dirt on Obama to either avoid actual prosecution or to at least obtain a Presidential pardon in time for the 2016 coronation.

Robert Coble said...

Update - 31 AUG 2015

Latest Clinton Email Server Dump Reveals 150 More Documents Flagged For Classified Information

"The State Department is set to release a batch of 6,000 personal emails belonging to Clinton tonight, but we're already getting a sneak peak of what they contain."

"Just in: State Dept found about another 150 Clinton emails with classified information -- more now @FoxNews @GretchenCarlson" - Ed Henry on Twitter

"That's right, 150 more documents flagged for classified information. This news comes on top of revelations earlier this month Clinton had at least 300 classified documents passing through her private email server, which intelligence officials are almost certain was hacked by foreign governments. Also keep in mind that out of hundreds of classified documents, at least two found in Clinton's system were deemed top secret (the highest level of classification)."

Okay, totaling the score so far: I "guesstimated" 500-1500 eventually. We're up to approximately 450 as of right now, and there are still plenty of emails to be searched, ignoring the 32,000 that she deleted by her own admission. It will be interesting to see the "spin" if the FBI magically "recovers" those emails from the "wiped" (with a cloth?!?) server.

So when does the FBI arrest the Holdebeast for felony violations of the Espionage Act - 18 US Code 793: before or after her coronation as the first WOMAN President?!? Don't you someday want to see a WOMAN President being perp-walked by the FBI into an orange jumpsuit?