Hillary vs. FOIA

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-vs-foia-1443136818

If Hillary Clinton loses this election,it won’t be because of Bernie Sanders. It won’t be because of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush or Carly Fiorina. It will be because of a 1966 statute.

The Clintons are street fighters,and over their scandal-plagued years they have mastered outwitting the press,Congress,the Justice Department,even special prosecutors. But the reason Mrs. Clinton isn’t winning her latest scandal is because she faces a new opponent—one she can’t beat: the Freedom of Information Act.

Of all the Clinton email revelations this week,none compared with a filing by the State Department in federal Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court in Washington on Monday. The filing was a response to a FOIA lawsuit brought in March by conservative organization Citizens United. The group demanded documents from Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state related to the Clinton Foundation and to the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi,Libya. What the State Department revealed was a testament to the power of FOIA.

Congressional investigators can subpoena documents,but even if after long delays they get them,the investigators must trust that the agency handed over everything. The agency usually doesn’t. Under FOIA,by contrast,the agency is required by law to provide plaintiffs with a complete inventory and broad description of every document it has that pertains to the request—but is withholding. This is known as a Vaughn index. The State Department on Monday handed over its Vaughn indexto Citizens United and,boy,are these email descriptions revealing.

We find that the State Department has—but is not releasing—an email chain between then-Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and a Clinton Foundation board member about the secretary of state’s planned trip to Africa. We find that the State Department has—but is not releasing—emails between Ms. Mills and foundation staff discussing “invitations to foreign business executives to attend the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.” We find many undisclosed email chains in which State Department officials talk with Clinton Foundation officials about Bill Clinton speeches and Bill Clinton travel,including to events in North Korea and Congo.

Huma Abedin,a longtime confidante of Mrs. Clinton’s,was somehow allowed to work,simultaneously,at the State Department,the Clinton Foundation and as a consultant to Teneo—a consulting firm run by Clinton loyalist Doug Band. All three of Ms. Abedin’s hats come into play in an undisclosed email exchange regarding a 2012 dinner in Ireland. As the Washington Examiner reported in May,Mrs. Clinton received an award at the dinner from a Clinton Foundation donor. The ceremony was promoted by Teneo. Mrs. Clinton attended in her official capacity as secretary of state. Sort through that.

We already know that the Clinton Foundation continued to take foreign money even while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. We now know this was only the start of the entwining. These email summaries show that the Clinton Foundation was the State Department and the State Department was the Clinton Foundation. All one,big,seamless,Clinton-promoting entity. We would know far more if State released the full emails. It is citing personal privacy as one reason not to make some public. In others,it claims the emails “shed no light on the conduct of U.S. Government business.”

Separately,we learn that the State Department is withholding from Citizens United and congressional investigators 14 separate exchanges between department employees regarding Benghazi. Most of these involve discussions of the State Department’s statement about the attack,or its responses to congressional inquiries about the attack. In short,those documents go directly to the focus of Congress’s probe: whether the administration covered up what it knew about the attack or the risks to the four American diplomats who were killed. The State Department is claiming attorney-client privilege for its withholding,since most of the exchanges involve Ms. Mills—who we now find also served as an attorney at the department. The Clintons think of everything.

All told,there are at least 35 FOIA lawsuits pending for Clinton-related email. Nearly everything important we’ve learned has come from those suits. They are why the State Department is releasing emails; why we know they contained classified information; why we know Mrs. Clinton’s aides also used unsanctioned email accounts; why we know that the State Department is covering for Mrs. Clinton.

Which explains why the Justice Department wants the judiciary to “consolidate” the lawsuits,claiming that the State Department is overwhelmed. The real goal is to shut down the process. Consolidation will slow discovery,and the chances of stopping the information flow is better if all the suits come before one judge,who might be friendly,rather than six unpredictable ones. But each organization bringing a suit deserves a separate hearing. It isn’t these groups’ fault that the State Department allowed Mrs. Clinton to go email rogue and now has a mess.

What Democrats are only beginning to understand is that 35 FOIA lawsuits is a guarantee of weekly Clinton email-news bombs. This isn’t ending. The polls keep measuring Mrs. Clinton in theoretical matchups. The only matchup that matters is this one: Clinton vs. FOIA. And FOIA is crushing it.

She brought this email mess on herself. Such arrogance.

gatorfan wrote:She brought this email mess on herself. Such arrogance.

It's getting worse for Hillary Clinton as it is now coming out from the "wiped" illegal server emails concerning Benghazi. Previously undisclosed emails.

And worse yet still... the white house "found" new work related emails... AFTER hillary had signed an affidavit in august.

Rut ro.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/56059b9de4b0768126fd7dc4

WASHINGTON (AP) —The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state,officials said Friday,adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner's unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.

The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military's U.S. Central Command,responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Petraeus emails,first discovered by the Defense Department and then passed to the State Department's inspector general,challenge that claim. They start on Jan. 10,2009,with Clinton using the older email account. But by Jan. 28 —a week after her swearing in —she switched to using the private email address on a homebrew server that she would rely on for the rest of her tenure. There are less than 10 emails back and forth in total, officials said,and the chain ends on Feb. 1.

The State Department's record of Clinton emails begins on March 18,2009 —almost two months after she entered office. Before then,Clinton has said she used an old AT&T Blackberry email account,the contents of which she no longer can access.

The officials weren't authorized to speak on the matter and demanded anonymity. But State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the agency received the emails in the "last several days" and that they "were not previously in the possession of the department."

Kirby said they would be subject to a Freedom of Information Act review like the rest of Clinton's emails. She gave the department some 30,000 emails last year that she sent or received while in office,and officials plan to finish releasing all of them by the end of January,after sensitive or classified information is censored. A quarter has been made public so far. "We have also informed Congress of this matter," he added.

Clinton has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. "When I did it,it was allowed,it was above board. And now I'm being as transparent as possible,more than anybody else ever has been," she said earlier this week.

Clinton has been dogged for months by questions about her email practices. She initially described her choice as a matter of convenience,but later took responsibility for making a wrong decision.

Separately Friday,State Department officials said they were providing the Benghazi-focused probe more email exchanges from senior officials pertaining to Libya. The committee broadened its scope after examining tens of thousands of documents more specifically focused on the Benghazi attack.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSKCN0RP29820150925

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department has found an email chain that Hillary Clinton did not give to the State Department,the State Department said on Friday,despite her saying she had provided all work emails from her time as secretary of state.

The correspondence with General David Petraeus,who was commander of U.S. Central Command at the time,started shortly before she entered office and continued during her first days as the top U.S. diplomat in January and February of 2009.

The Defense Department provided the emails to the State Department in "the last several days," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

The exchange of 10 or so emails,the existence of which were first reported by the Associated Press on Friday,largely dealt with personnel issues, according to the State Department.

Clinton's use of a private email account connected to a server in her home instead of a government-issued email address came to light in March.

News of the previously undisclosed email thread only adds to a steady stream of revelations about the emails over the last sixmonths,which have forced Clinton to revise her account of the setup which she first gave in March.

Nearly a third of all Democrats and 58 percent of all voters think Clinton is lying about
her handling of her emails,according to a FoxNews poll released this week.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/us/politics/string-of-emails-raises-questions-about-when-hillary-clinton-began-using-personal-account.html

WASHINGTON —A string of emails that has been provided to the State Department raises new questions about whether Hillary Rodham Clinton has accurately described her use of a personal account when she was secretary of state.

Mrs. Clinton has said that she retained no emails from her first two months in office because she used an account that she no longer has access to. She has said that on March 19,2009,she began using the personal account —hdr22@clintonemail.com —that she relied on for the rest of her time in office.

But on Friday,State Department officials said they had been given copies of an email chain between Mrs. Clinton and David H. Petraeus,the commander of United States Central Command at the time,that shows that Mrs. Clinton was using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account by Jan. 28,2009.

The chain,with emails from Jan. 10,2009,to Feb. 1,2009,was provided to the State Department by its inspector general and by the Defense Department,according to State Department officials.

Mrs. Clinton has said publicly AND IN A COURT FILING UNDER OATH that she gave the State Department last year all of the 30,000 work-related emails in her possession. It is not clear why she never provided the newly discovered email chain to the State Department or why she said she did not begin using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account until two months after she took office.

A spokesman for her presidential campaign declined to comment.

It sucks for u

Yep, we heard the three of your birther arguments about President Obama and how it sucked for him......Nothing.....absolutely nothing. The funniest part in these slanted so called news reports about nothing, there is an admission that they will be posting nothing right up to election and the other candidates do not matter, but the propaganda does......now that is funny. Any thinking person sees that the propaganda tool of association is in full force. Hillary had a private server......lets associate the same with transferring classified documents to third partes.....propaganda value to idiots.....high, but to thinking folks it is laughable, now the focus is associating SOS to the Clinton Foundation....you know the 503c not for profit which helps people all over the world, as if there is a conflict of interest.......This junior high Donald Trump stuff, or swift boating......it is what Clintons eat for lunch every day and get stronger. The Hilarious part is the idea that Hillary is going to lose the nomination.....How dull does the knife have to be before somebody puts it back in the drawer.

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/

Flashback: Rove Erases 22 Million White House Emails on Private Server at Height of U.S. Attorney Scandal – Media Yawns

Jon Ponder | Mar 18, 2015


Now that they’ve taken control of Congress, Republicans are wielding power much the same way they did in the Clinton era and for the six years afterward when they controlled the White House and Congress under George W. Bush: ineptly — ex. 1, 2, 3, etc.

RELATED:
Jeb Bush broke Florida’s “Sunshine Laws” by deleting at least 300,000 emails.
Then as now, it’s clear that the only thing Republicans do very well is inflame the media with bogus scandals — which is a handy way to distract attention from their ineptitude. They are doing this with their usual aplomb, and considerable success, in the matter of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send emails.

Clinton has said she deleted about 50,000 emails that dealt with personal matters, citing her daughter’s wedding and her mother’s funeral as examples. All the correspondence pertaining to official business was turned over to archived by State. The deletion of the emails, though perfectly legal, has excited House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, who has announced plans to deploy House committees to investigate what might aptly be called Servergate.


Never mind that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, has said 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, 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 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 that it had deleted at least 5 million emails from the server. In December 2009, technicians who had examined the server reported that the number of emails that had been deleted was far greater — 22 million.

What was in the emails? No one will ever know. It’s likely as not that there was incriminating evidence in the correspondence that tied Rove and others to the treasonous exposure of Agent Plame (which, at a minimum, was a violation of government security), the U.S. attorneys’ purge and perhaps other scandals, including the inquiry into charges that Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff had used his entre with others in the GOP to bribe government officials. Abramoff was in prison serving the first year of his sentence when the email scandal broke.

But what sort of evidence might have been lost in the 50,000 emails Hillary Clinton deleted? The insinuation from Republicans is that something dispositive about the Benghazi scandal might have been erased. It’s hard to guess what that might have been. What the GOP seems to be looking for in its eight investigations into Benghazi, so far, is a stand-down order issued by the State Department or the White House to the military that left the Benghazi consulate vulnerable to the attack that ensued. These Republicans know, of course, that the Secretary of State doesn’t have the authority to issue orders to the military.

Given that, there’s no question that the coverage of the Clinton email “scandal” is out of scale, but how does the incessant media coverage today stack up against the scandal seven years ago when Rove’s political operation in the White House erased 22 million emails many of which likely included evidence of serious crimes?

Last week, the fact-checking organization Politifact, which tends to skew to the right, compared coverage of the two scandals. Here’s it’s verdict:

We did a search through Lexis-Nexis, a research service that tracks news articles and transcripts, between March and May 2007. We found more than 125 transcripts from the major cable networks and National Public Radio that include “Republican National Committee” and “email” within 10 words of each other.

The Lexis-Nexis search also yielded more than 200 related newspaper articles across the country within the same time frame.

Let’s compare that to coverage of the Clinton controversy.

Since the story broke March 3, 2015 — two weeks ago — we found 204 cable and public radio transcripts that include “Clinton” and “email.” We also found 1,700 newspaper articles across the country.

That’s several times as many articles and transcripts about Clinton than there were about the Bush email controversy in a quarter of the time. It’s a rough measurement, but clearly there has been more media attention on Clinton’s use of private email than that of the White House staffers.

Even so, Politifact rated the claim that coverage of Clinton’s email deletions is out of scale compared with coverage of Rove’s in 2007 is “mostly false.”

Wait. What?

In the Rove scandal, there were 125 broadcast reports and 200 newspaper articles over three months about the millions of deleted emails. Today, in just two weeks there have been 200 broadcast reports and 1,700 newspaper articles about the 50,000 deleted emails.

And yet Politifact finds the assertion that there’s been more coverage of Clinton than there was of Rove to be “mostly false.” How did they do that?

Simple. Politifact keyed its verdict to a Fox pundit’s hyperbolic statement there was “zero coverage” of Rove’s scandal when it broke. So, yeah, it’s “mostly false” that there was “zero coverage.”

Republicans’ objective in using its lapdogs in the “liberal media” to exaggerate the Clinton emails controversy is to damage her image in advance of her run for the presidency. Polls show that their strategy is working — while Hillary Clinton remains the odds-on favorite among Democratic voters, her approval rating has slipped among all voters in polls released since the email deletions came to light.

At least Republicans are good at something.

**************

2seaoat wrote:Yep, we heard the three of your birther arguments about President Obama and how it sucked for him......Nothing.....absolutely nothing.   The funniest part in these slanted so called news reports about nothing, there is an admission that they will be posting nothing right up to election and the other candidates do not matter, but the propaganda does......now that is funny.  Any thinking person sees that the propaganda tool of association is in full force.  Hillary had a private server......lets associate the same with transferring classified documents to third partes.....propaganda value to idiots.....high, but to thinking folks it is laughable, now the focus is associating SOS to the Clinton Foundation....you know the 503c not for profit which helps people all over the world, as if there is a conflict of interest.......This junior high Donald Trump stuff, or swift boating......it is what Clintons eat for lunch every day and get stronger.  The Hilarious part is the idea that Hillary is going to lose the nomination.....How dull does the knife have to be before somebody puts it back in the drawer.

HIllary started the birther arguments...thanks for playing moron.

This is bigger than Whitewater and she's going down. Her days in politics are done.

2seaoat wrote:Yep, we heard the three of your birther arguments about President Obama and how it sucked for him......Nothing.....absolutely nothing. The funniest part in these slanted so called news reports about nothing, there is an admission that they will be posting nothing right up to election and the other candidates do not matter, but the propaganda does......now that is funny. Any thinking person sees that the propaganda tool of association is in full force. Hillary had a private server......lets associate the same with transferring classified documents to third partes.....propaganda value to idiots.....high, but to thinking folks it is laughable, now the focus is associating SOS to the Clinton Foundation....you know the 503c not for profit which helps people all over the world, as if there is a conflict of interest.......This junior high Donald Trump stuff, or swift boating......it is what Clintons eat for lunch every day and get stronger. The Hilarious part is the idea that Hillary is going to lose the nomination.....How dull does the knife have to be before somebody puts it back in the drawer.

Lol... It's obviously getting more and more desperate to maintain your devotion. Deep breaths comrade.

" Mrs. Clinton has said publicly AND IN A COURT FILING UNDER OATH that she gave the State Department last year all of the 30,000 work-related emails in her possession. It is not clear why she never provided the newly discovered email chain to the State Department or why she said she did not begin using the hdr22@clintonemail.com account until two months after she took office."

You must like being lied to and deceived. If y'all were smart... you'ld be demanding a viable plan b.

You must like being lied to and deceived.

You obviously have never made a freedom of information request of a government unit, and understand its limitations, its purpose, and how it is NOT used to prosecute a crime. The tools of a prosecutor is discovery using multiple tools including subpoenas which have built into them far more strict sanctions than a freedom of information request. I average two requests before I get what I want, sometimes intentionally stonewalling, but most times utter incompetence and terrible record systems. Such naive analysis of Hillary without having a clue how the real world works. The emails are comical, as was the birther attempts.......there is nothing here.

She signed an affidavit swearing under penalty of perjury that she had turned over all of the requested emails.

This isn't going away comrade. Better start looking for another dear leader... although I really hope you don't.

She's unelectable... not everyone is as deaf, dumb, and blind as you, flatex, and sal. Thank goodness.

The new Washington-Post ABC News poll contains lots of bad news for Hillary Clinton. She's lost more than 20 points in a hypothetical Democratic primary ballot since July and now finds herself in a statistical dead heat with Donald Trump --not a typo -- in a potential general election matchup.

Those top-line numbers, though, aren't the cause of Clinton's problems; they're the effect. The cause is buried deeper in the poll in a trio of questions about the private e-mail server Clinton used as secretary of state.

Consider:

1. Just 1 in 3 registered voters approve of how Clinton has handled the issue, while 55 percent of voters do not.

2. Just 32 percent of registered voters think Clinton "stayed within government regulations" in the establishment and use of a private server, while 51 percent believe she broke those regulations.

3. Thirty-four percent of those polled say Clinton has "honestly disclosed" the facts about her e-mail usage, while 54 percent believe she has "tried to cover up the facts."

On top of all that, add this:

4. Just 35 percent of registered voters believe that the words "honest" and "trustworthy" describe Clinton, while 56 percent say they do not.

That number has been in steady decline.