Hillary's "Classified" Smokescreen

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/04/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-legal-definition-national-defense-information-classification-column/82446130/

Since the beginning of the Clinton email scandal,the nation has been subjected to a political and criminal defense generated smokescreen. The Clinton campaign has attempted to make the public believe that she is not guilty of anything because the information on her very unprotected server was not “marked as classified” or “classified at the time.”

The applicable statute,18 USC 793,however,does not even once mention the word “classified.” The focus is on “information respecting the national defense” that potentially “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” 793 (f) specifically makes it a crime for anyone “entrusted with … any document ... or information relating to the national defense … through gross negligence (to permit) the same to be removed from its proper place of custody.” A jury (not a Democrat or Republican political administration) is,of course,the best body to determine gross negligence on the facts of this case.

The courts have held repeatedly that “national defense information” includes closely held military,foreign policy and intelligence information and that evidence that the information is classified is not necessary for a prosecution. Evidence that the information was upon later review found to be classified,however,as is the case with approximately 2,000 Clinton messages,is of course one kind of proof that the information met the test of “national defense information” in the first place. (See U.S. v. Rosen and Weissman,445 F. Supp. 2d 602 (E.D. Va. 2006) pertaining to a different provision but containing a good summary of law on national defense information and classified information.) The fact that the information does not have to be “marked classified” at the time only makes sense because sometimes,as in the case of the Clinton case and other 793 cases,the information is originated and distributed before any security officer can perform a review and put a classification mark on it.

So why has this not been discussed in the television and print media? Why has Clinton not been grilled by her interviewers as to whether her emails contained national defense information that could harm the U.S.? Why has everyone bought into the “marked classified” rabbit trail? One suspects that many reporters and commentators have not bothered to read the actual law or are hesitant to blow the central defense of the Clinton campaign out of the water.

Regardless,I am not confidant that the Justice Department will indict. It is true that part of the reason is that the political appointees who make the final decisions will at least unconsciously be searching for ways to evaluate the case in a way that would evade an obvious debacle for the Democratic Party.

But there is more to it. Spending 25 years as an attorney and supervisor in U.S. Attorney’s offices and working with Main Justice in Washington provides an understanding of the process. Main Justice has not always had a reputation for being strong and aggressive,especially in the face of an intimidating defense. What a DA will indict in a week,and a U.S. Attorney in a month,will take Justice more than a year if they ever pull the trigger at all. They tend to be hamstrung by endless memos,briefs,meetings and approvals from multiple levels and divisions. There sometimes appears to be an institutional fear of losing,however minimal the chance. This is an endemic characteristic of many bureaucracies. Unfortunately,it is likely that,at this very moment,many good lawyers at DOJ may be using all sorts of sophistry and rationalization to try to avoid applying the plain language of the law to Hilary Clinton. A jury,which should make the final decision,may never get the chance.

Ronald J. Sievert,a 25-year veteran of the Department of Justice,teaches national security and international law at the George H.W. Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas School of Law.

The minions here don't care that Hillary has been a liar and a criminal since the beginning of her political career. Like the President, they only see that "it is her turn." They don't care of the line of bodies behind the Clinton political machine or that she is a habitual/serial liar that lies so much she can no longer keep her stories straight. I expect a full on revolution if she is elected because there's no way a majority of LEGAL voters in this country put this moron in office without rigging the election. Just the fact that she in under investigation which has her minions shrieking in hysteria for there even to be one, and can run for the highest office in the land, shows we are not a nation of laws. If we were a nation of laws, Hillary would be on the run and out of the country. I forsee her as POTUS bringing in the UN to try and restore order and that will be the worst thing she can do. Those bright blue helmets will make nice targets. What did Yamamoto say? "An invasion of America will find a rifle behind every blade of grass." Probably not to the word of the quote, but close enough.


Oh, and she WON'T have the support of the military. She pretty much blew that when WJC was President and she abused her authority with them with her words, deeds, and actions.

I hate to entertain talk of rigged elections. That's an infamous leftist tactic that doesn't even require actual fraud... for example you can see how soros used it to manipulate and cause chaos that benefitted him enormously financially. It's interesting though that the things our govt are actually tasked to ensure are the things they do in a halfassed job of: election integrity, border security, monetary stability, trade agreements... etc.

But back to hillary. If her policies and background and connections were taken objectively without the context of party affiliation... she would be despised by the very people that are now her supporters. Her saving grace is leftist apathy.

PkrBum wrote:I hate to entertain talk of rigged elections. That's an infamous leftist tactic that doesn't even require actual fraud... for example you can see how soros used it to manipulate and cause chaos that benefitted him enormously financially. It's interesting though that the things our govt are actually tasked to ensure are the things they do in a halfassed job of: election integrity, border security, monetary stability, trade agreements... etc.

But back to hillary. If her policies and background and connections were taken objectively without the context of party affiliation... she would be despised by the very people that are now her supporters. Her saving grace is leftist apathy.

Let's not forget extraordinary leftist hypocrisy....

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/10-questions-the-fbi-could-ask-hillary-clinton_b_9608306.html

The FBI’s upcoming interview of Hillary Clinton will be a turning point in the race for Democratic nominee,especially since Clinton won’t be able to speak to James Comey and his FBI agents in the same manner her campaign has communicated with the public. Unlike loyal Hillary supporters who view the marathon Benghazi hearings to be a badge of courage and countless prior scandals to be examples of exoneration,the FBI didn’t spend one year (investigating this email controversy) to give Clinton or her top aides parking tickets. They mean business,and lying to an FBI agent is a felony,so Hillary Clinton and her aides will be forced to tell the truth. The doublespeak involving convenience and retroactive classification won’t matter to seasoned FBI agents whose reputations are on the line; the entire country feels there’s a double-standard regarding this email controversy.

Imagine if you had 22 Top Secret emails on your computer?

Would you be able to claim negligence?

Also,the issue of negligence is a canard. Clinton and her top aides were smart enough to understand protocol. For every legal scholar saying that indictment isn’t likely (because it’s difficult to prove Clinton “knowingly” sent or received classified intelligence),there’s a former attorney general and former intelligence officials saying that indictment is justified.

Ultimately,every question asked of Hillary Clinton by James Comey will benefit the Sanders campaign. In a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party,one candidate is being investigated by the FBI and has negative favorability ratings in ten national polls. The other candidate,Bernie Sanders,just raised more money in February than Clinton,without the help of Wall Street or oil and gas lobbyists. If Clinton gets indicted,the Democratic establishment and superdelegates will have no choice but to rally around Bernie Sanders.

I explain three possible scenarios in my latest YouTube segment regarding how the Clinton campaign would react to the reality of indictment. No doubt,certain supporters would still vote for Clinton,even with the possibility of criminal behavior.

In reality,Bernie Sanders is the true front-runner,since he’s free of perpetual scandal and performs better against Trump in general election. Vermont’s Senator also isn’t linked to an FBI investigation,which used to mean automatic front-runner status in American politics.

Therefore,below are ten questions the FBI should ask Clinton and her top aides. These questions,if answered honestly,will most likely hand the Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders. Remember,the issue of convenience or negligence won’t be enough to circumvent repercussions from owning a private server as Secretary of State. FBI director James Comey and his agents aren’t Democratic superdelegates or beholden in any way to a political machine. They’ll demand answers to tough questions and below could be some of the topics discussed in Clinton’s FBI interview.

1. What was the political utility in owning a private server and never using a State.gov email address?

There was a political motive in circumventing U.S. government servers and networks. Clinton didn’t go to the trouble of owning a private server (something her predecessors never did) for work and private use,without thinking of the political ramifications.

An editorial from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled Clinton’s abysmal record on open government explains the possible political motive regarding Clinton’s unconventional email practices:

The issue immediately at hand —and under investigation by the FBI —is Clinton’s use of a private email server for State Department communications. Clinton may have violated national security laws by making top secret documents vulnerable to hackers and available to people without proper security clearance... In addition, regardless of Clinton’s excuses, the only believable reason for the private server in her basement was to keep her emails out of the public eye by willfully avoiding freedom of information laws. No president, no secretary of state, no public official at any level is above the law. She chose to ignore it, and must face the consequences... And donations to the foundation from foreign governments have raised conflict of interest questions for Clinton as secretary of state,an office with power over foreign affairs and favors second only to the president’s.

As stated in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,“the only believable reason for the private server in her basement was to keep her emails out of the public eye by willfully avoiding freedom of information laws.”

We can’t even see Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches,do you think Clinton wanted the public to know information about her foundation?

2. Were all 31,830 deleted private emails about yoga?

According to ABC News,Clinton’s staff had an amusing way of deciphering how to delete over 30,000 emails:

A Time magazine cover story about the email scandal released last week reported: “This review did not involve opening and reading each email. Instead, Clinton’s lawyers created a list of names and keywords related to her work and searched for those. Slightly more than half the total cache —31,830 emails —did not contain any of the search terms, according to Clinton’s staff, so they were deemed to be ‘private, personal records.’”

There was no government oversight,therefore the FBI has every right to ask why Clinton’s staff was allowed to pick and choose (through keyword searches) private emails from others that could have contained classified intelligence.

3. Why didn’t you know that intelligence could be retroactively classified?

This leads to the issue of negligence; a zero-sum proposition. Either Clinton wasn’t smart enough to know protocol,or breached protocol. Both scenarios aren’t good for a future presidency. Both scenarios won’t prevent legal repercussions,given the 22 Top Secret emails.

4. Why did you use a Blackberry that wasn’t approved by the NSA?

An article in Madison.com titled Emails: Clinton sought secure smartphone, rebuffed by NSA explains the issue of Clinton’s Blackberry:

WASHINGTON (AP) —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. A month later,she began using private email accounts accessed through her BlackBerry to exchange messages with her top aides. “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.”

Standard smartphones are not allowed into areas designated as approved for the handling of classified information...

Clinton used a Blackberry that wasn’t approved by the NSA. Along with the issue of political motive,and why she deleted tens of thousands of emails, the unsecure Blackberry use could easily lead to indictment.

5. What did you say to Bryan Pagliano?

Mr. Pagliano recently received immunity. He’s told the FBI,most likely, about his conversations with Hillary Clinton. Any discrepancy in stories could lead to a felony charge for Hillary Clinton or Pagliano’s immunity to be revoked. Both have every incentive to tell the truth.

6. Why were 22 Top Secret emails on a private server?

This is a simple question with no logical answer circumventing political repercussions. If Clinton and her staff are able to evade this issue,future government officials will also be able to have Top Secret intelligence on unguarded private servers.

7. Was any information about the Clinton Foundation mingled with State Department documents?

The answer to this question could lead to hundreds of other questions.

8. Did President Obama or his staff express any reservations about your private server?

President Obama’s White House communicated with Clinton via her private server. If anyone in the White House said anything about Clinton’s server, this could lead to new controversy.

9. Did Bill Clinton send or receive any emails on your private network?

The server was located in their home,so it’s a valid question.

10. How was your private server guarded against hacking attempts?

Foreign nations and hackers already tried to compromise Clinton’s server.

These questions could easily give Bernie Sanders the nomination. I explain that Clinton faces possible DOJ indictment in the following appearance on CNN International. Although Bernie can win without Clinton’s indictment, the email controversy will most likely become a giant story very soon. With issues revolving around trustworthiness before the FBI interviews,Clinton won’t be able to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination in 2016.

The media is finally doing it's job of investigative journalism... an actual service and trust to we the people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/04/was-an-asian-government-reading-hillary-clintons-emails-in-february-2009/

I continue to be fascinated by the very early chapters of the Hillary Clinton homebrew email saga. For one simple reason: the clintonemail.com server apparently didn’t have the digital certificate needed to encrypt communications until late March 2009 — more than two months after the server was up and running, and after Secretary Clinton’s swearing-in on January 22.

Two questions are raised by this timing: First, why didn’t the server have encryption from the start? And second, why did it get encryption in March, at a time when Clinton should have been extraordinarily busy getting up to speed at State, not messing with computer security protocols?

The simplest answer to the first question is that the lack of a certificate was just a mistake. But what about the second? What inspired the Secretary to get an encryption certificate in March when her team hadn’t bothered to get one in January or February?

The likely answer to that question is pretty troubling. There now seems to be a very real probability that Hillary Clinton rushed to install an encryption certificate in March 2009 because the U.S. intelligence community caught another country reading Clinton’s unencrypted messages during her February 16-21, 2009, trip to China, Indonesia, Japan, and S. Korea.

Thanks to FOIA lawsuits, the State Department has released a few documents from this early period. They show that Clinton began using the clintonemail.com server as early as January 28, 2009, just after her inauguration. Other messages from Cheryl Mills used the server in early February.

Even as she kept her homebrew server, Clinton and her staff were fighting to hang on to their Blackberries, just like President Obama. That provoked resistance from the State Department’s top security official, Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell. On March 2, he sent the Secretary a memo — “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row” — declaring that “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [the State Department’s seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.”

On March 11, at a staff meeting, Clinton seemed to throw in the towel on her Blackberry, telling Boswell that she had read the memo and “gets it.” We know this from correspondence among Boswell’s staff.

But what’s fascinating and troubling is something else in the correspondence. One staff message says that during Clinton’s conversation with Boswell, “her attention was drawn to a sentence that indicates we [the diplomatic security office] have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.”

I am struck by the mix of delicacy and insistence in that phrasing. It seems likely that Clinton’s attention was drawn to that sentence because the intelligence was about Secretary Clinton’s own communications security, something a discreet diplomat would not want to say directly in written communications. Clinton certainly acted like the intelligence concerned her. She asked Boswell to get her “the information.” On March 11, Boswell is told by his staff that the report is already on the classified system, and he is reminded that he had already been briefed on it. Presumably he conveyed it to Clinton soon after March 11.

Eighteen days later, Clinton’s server acquires a digital certificate supporting TLS encryption, closing the biggest security hole in her server.

I suppose this could all be coincidence, but the most likely scenario is that the Secretary’s Asia trip produced an intelligence report that was directly relevant to the security of Clinton’s communications. And that the report was sufficiently dramatic that it spurred Clinton to make immediate security changes on her homebrew server.

Did our agencies see Clinton’s unencrypted messages transiting foreign networks? Did they spot foreign agencies intercepting those messages? It’s hard to say, but either answer is bad, and the quick addition of encryption to the server suggests that Clinton saw it that way too.

If that’s what happened, it would raise more questions. Getting a digital certificate to support encryption is hardly a comprehensive response to the server’s security vulnerabilities. So who decided that that was all the security it needed? How pointed was the warning about her Asia trip? Does it expand the circle of officials who should have known about and addressed the server’s insecurity? And why, despite evidence that Clinton was using the server in connection with work in January and February, did Clinton turn over no emails before March 18?

We don’t know the answers to those questions, and they may have perfectly good answers. But they do suggest that the investigation should be focusing heavily on who did what to clintonemail.com in January through March of 2009.

Ya'll are total idiots. Read the Exec. Order about classified info. and see Hillary did not classify info. from other agencies. Sheesh! Keep on putting out that propaganda, though, it makes me laugh.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

From the original post... which you obviously didn't read"

" The applicable statute,18 USC 793 does not even once mention the word “classified.” The focus is on “information respecting the national defense” that potentially “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” 793 (f) specifically makes it a crime for anyone “entrusted with … any document ... or information relating to the national defense … through gross negligence (to permit) the same to be removed from its proper place of custody.” A jury (not a Democrat or Republican political administration) is,of course,the best body to determine gross negligence on the facts of this case.

The courts have held repeatedly that “national defense information” includes closely held military,foreign policy and intelligence information and that evidence that the information is classified is not necessary for a prosecution. Evidence that the information was upon later review found to be classified,however,as is the case with approximately 2,000 Clinton messages,is of course one kind of proof that the information met the test of “national defense information” in the first place. (See U.S. v. Rosen and Weissman,445 F. Supp. 2d 602 (E.D. Va. 2006) pertaining to a different provision but containing a good summary of law on national defense information and classified information.) The fact that the information does not have to be “marked classified” at the time only makes sense because sometimes,as in the case of the Clinton case and other 793 cases,the information is originated and distributed before any security officer can perform a review and put a classification mark on it."

So here we have three articles from three separate sources... each either left leaning or certainly considered neutral.

And you ignore them all. Very useful of you... hillary would stand no chance at all without you and those like you.

Vikingwoman wrote:Ya'll are total idiots. Read the Exec. Order about classified info. and see Hillary did not classify info. from other agencies. Sheesh! Keep on putting out that propaganda, though, it makes me laugh.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

You just demand to live in the world of DENIAL do you not?

It is really stunning!

From Abraham Lincoln: If we call the tail of a dog, a leg, how many legs does the dog have?

PkrBum wrote:From the original post... which you obviously didn't read"

" The applicable statute,18 USC 793 does not even once mention the word “classified.” The focus is on “information respecting the national defense” that potentially “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” 793 (f) specifically makes it a crime for anyone “entrusted with … any document ... or information relating to the national defense … through gross negligence (to permit) the same to be removed from its proper place of custody.” A jury (not a Democrat or Republican political administration) is,of course,the best body to determine gross negligence on the facts of this case.

The courts have held repeatedly that “national defense information” includes closely held military,foreign policy and intelligence information and that evidence that the information is classified is not necessary for a prosecution. Evidence that the information was upon later review found to be classified,however,as is the case with approximately 2,000 Clinton messages,is of course one kind of proof that the information met the test of “national defense information” in the first place. (See U.S. v. Rosen and Weissman,445 F. Supp. 2d 602 (E.D. Va. 2006) pertaining to a different provision but containing a good summary of law on national defense information and classified information.) The fact that the information does not have to be “marked classified” at the time only makes sense because sometimes,as in the case of the Clinton case and other 793 cases,the information is originated and distributed before any security officer can perform a review and put a classification mark on it."

So here we have three articles from three separate sources... each either left leaning or certainly considered neutral.

And you ignore them all. Very useful of you... hillary would stand no chance at all without you and those like you.

You can't be this dumb? This has nothing to do w/ the Hillary issue. Nobody removed any info. from" it's proper place of custody". Good grief!

Markle wrote:

Vikingwoman wrote:Ya'll are total idiots. Read the Exec. Order about classified info. and see Hillary did not classify info. from other agencies. Sheesh! Keep on putting out that propaganda, though, it makes me laugh.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

You just demand to live in the world of DENIAL do you not?

It is really stunning!

From Abraham Lincoln:  If we call the tail of a dog, a leg, how many legs does the dog have?

Good grief Farkle, you have no clue of what you're talking about. Makes me wonder how you get your pants on in the morning?

A private server in the basement of her home is not the "proper place of custody" for sensitive govt information.

I can't make it any simpler for you. Why don't you just say nothing she does or says matters to you. Literally nothing.

http://m.therepublic.com/view/story/4ebbd800343741e0b4d8f08d48a29039/US--Clinton-Email

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for the State Department have asked a federal judge to limit the scope of testimony about Hillary Clinton's use of a private email account as secretary of state.

The government filed its response late Tuesday in a public records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal advocacy group. Federal District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan last month granted the group "limited discovery" into why the Democratic presidential front runner used an email server at her New York home while serving as the nation's top diplomat.

Judicial Watch wants to question eight current and former department staffers under oath, including top Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.

In its response, the government asked the judge to strictly limit the questions that can be asked to those involving the 2009 creation of Clinton's private email system. Topics the government asked Sullivan to forbid include the "employment status of a single employee; the storage, handling, transmission, or protection of classified information, including cybersecurity issues; and questions about any pending investigations."

The FBI is investigating whether sensitive information that flowed through Clinton's email server was mishandled. The inspectors general at the State Department and for U.S. intelligence agencies are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken.

There are also at least 38 civil lawsuits, including one filed by The Associated Press, seeking records related to Clinton's time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Vikingwoman wrote:

PkrBum wrote:From the original post... which you obviously didn't read"

" The applicable statute,18 USC 793 does not even once mention the word “classified.” The focus is on “information respecting the national defense” that potentially “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” 793 (f) specifically makes it a crime for anyone “entrusted with … any document ... or information relating to the national defense … through gross negligence (to permit) the same to be removed from its proper place of custody.” A jury (not a Democrat or Republican political administration) is,of course,the best body to determine gross negligence on the facts of this case.

The courts have held repeatedly that “national defense information” includes closely held military,foreign policy and intelligence information and that evidence that the information is classified is not necessary for a prosecution. Evidence that the information was upon later review found to be classified,however,as is the case with approximately 2,000 Clinton messages,is of course one kind of proof that the information met the test of “national defense information” in the first place. (See U.S. v. Rosen and Weissman,445 F. Supp. 2d 602 (E.D. Va. 2006) pertaining to a different provision but containing a good summary of law on national defense information and classified information.) The fact that the information does not have to be “marked classified” at the time only makes sense because sometimes,as in the case of the Clinton case and other 793 cases,the information is originated and distributed before any security officer can perform a review and put a classification mark on it."

So here we have three articles from three separate sources... each either left leaning or certainly considered neutral.

And you ignore them all. Very useful of you... hillary would stand no chance at all without you and those like you.

You can't be this dumb? This has nothing to do w/ the Hillary issue. Nobody removed any info. from" it's proper place of custody". Good grief!

It is impossible for you to so ill informed. You must be playing the devil's advocate.

The Clinton Cabal INTENTIONALLY established a secret server in order to keep secret all her communications from the GOVERNMENT who owned those communications.

There can be no other explanation.

When it was discovered, she deleted 30,000 emails from that server with no government oversight. As you know, the first word people think of when they hear her name is LIAR. So she said those emails were all personal emails to family. Really, you believe that?

By setting up the secret, unsecured server she put all her communications and country at risk. She did that INTENTIONALLY.

By virtue of the server being hidden from the government, she removed ALL her correspondence from the government computers so she could keep all her and the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation secret.

Thus, the FBI criminal investigation.