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The GOP establishment has now picked its ticket. And Trump’s not on it. Not even close. You can thank Rupert Murdoch, the godfather of Fox and the Wall St. Journal. Not that Murdoch alone decided, but he put out the contract on Trump.
So dear Trumpers, you were right, the Republican establishment is not lettin’ you—or your kind—in. But I must say, you are pretty naive blaming it on Megyn Kelly. You think she sets Fox policy? Really? On July 12, Murdoch tweeted [Read more…]
It was obvious. I predicted before the debate that the Rs would go after Hillary not Bernie. In the main debate it was 16 jabs at Hillary to zero at Bernie. No use attacking the guy you want to run against.
The surprise was that Carly Fiorina won both debates and then wiped the floor [Read more…]
Frequently Asked Questions (Back to main email story)
Note that (FBI p.1-21) means page 21 of part 1 of the July FBI report. (These answer are compiled from a number of prior drafts and so are slightly disjointed.)
“The FBI’s investigation focused on determining whether classified information was transmitted or stored on unclassified systems in violation of federal criminal statutes [FBI Report (page 1)].” They faulted Clinton for having classified information on her “unclassified system,” in other words, on here private server. Some of this information was later declared to be Top Secret. (To top of page)
A: Three times during her four years as Secretary a paragraph or two was marked with a (C). This indicated “Confidential,” the lowest classification. The FBI asked the State Dept about these and “State did not provide a determination as to whether any of these three emails were classified at the time they were sent [FBI, p.1-20]. So these are not counted by the FBI as classified emails.
These few little markings are the only Classification markings of any kind found on any of Clinton’s emails [from FBI-1, p.20].
One of the chains with a “(C),” dated April 9, 2012, had the subject line “Call to President Banda” [FBI, p.2-8]. When the FBI informed Clinton that this email was Confidential and asked her what she thought of that, she explained she was not concerned that the email contained Confidential information because she “believed the email amounted to a condolence call” and she questioned its classification.
In fact President Mutharikaof of Malawi had died on April 5th, but this had been kept secret for a few days, after which Vice President Joyce Banda became President of Malawi. Almost certainly the paragraph was marked Confidential simply because of a misapplied rule concerning information gathered from foreign governments. (Malawi is a small landlocked country in South-East Africa with a GDP about four times smaller than Google’s.)
“Confidential” information is defined to be information that would damage national security if publicly disclosed without the proper authorization. Damage national security? (To top of page)
No, she didn’t know that the information she received would, years later, retroactively be deemed classified when originally sent. For example, Clinton receiving classified information from Dennis Ross, a foreign service professional who served under Carter, Clinton, H. W. Bush, and Obama. It was not marked as classified, and it came from an unclassified server (probably his private email account, since he was not then working for the government). But later the FBI classified it as Secret. We don’t know why.
Sending it from one unclassified server to another was a strong indication to Clinton that Ross must not think the email was classified. The fact that he did not mark it classified is another. Since he had 35 years of experience with this, starting in the Department of Defense, it was natural for Clinton to assume he was not mishandling classified information.
Of course, the FBI questioned Clinton about the classified emails that were sent to her; here is their summary: “Clinton did not recall receiving any e-mails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She relied on State officials to use their judgment when e-mailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her e-mail address.” [FBI p.1-26]
Here are a few details from her answers regarding specific emails.
It is worth mentioning that this last comment indicates some of the emails in question were actually marked as unclassified when they were sent to her, and only retroactively classified recently.
Since all the email she received were neither marked classified, nor sent to her in a way that classified information must be sent, and since it was sent by seasoned professionals at DOD, CIA, NSA etc., she naturally assumed she had received no classified information. And she new she had not sent any of her own because, as Secretary she was an Original Classification Authority (OCA). And an OCA has the authority to decide what is classified information. (To top of page)
There is a “classified system” for sending classified info, and Clinton used it every day. It’s usually done from inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). Her office was actually inside a SCIF so she could not even bring her Blackberry into her office. It is not even possible to “cut and paste” from the classified system into the unclassified system.
Because of her clarity regarding this distinction, she never sent information she believed was classified on her unclassified Blackberry, and she never thought others would be sending such information to her—from their unclassified system to hers.
The FBI reports no evidence that Clinton put any classified information into her emails. And with the two systems so clearly separate, it never occurred to her that the professionals with years of experience would be doing this. But the FBI does say she sent classified information from her unclassified home server. This is because she replied to emails containing unmarked secret information that were sent to her. Since her replies automatically include the original email, they contained classified information. (To top of page)
According to the FBI Report, those who sent Clinton emails with classified information either (1) thought it was no classified, or (2) thought it was and knew they were sending it from an unclassified emails server over an unclassified system to another unclassified server. In the first case the answer is obvious, but what about the second case?
It’s easy to tell if you’re on an unclassified email server, like state.gov, because they can send and receive emails over the internet. A classified email server can’t do that. So everyone sending Clinton classified information knew they were using unclassified system, which is against the rules. Of course when you’re breaking the rules, even if you think it’s for a good reason, you don’t want to advertized the fact that you are doing that.
(The FBI acknowledges that classified emails were being sent from unclassified systems: “approximately 193 individual e-mail exchangeseee that were classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time the e-mails were drafted on UNCLASSIFIED systems and sent to or from Clinton’s personal server [FBI, p.1-20].”)
And that’s why they didn’t mark anything they sent to Clinton as Confidential, Secret or Top Secret. (To top of page)
A: In 2015 the State Dept had to release the emails to the public. Before doing so, they needed to check if any should now be classified or withheld from the public (apparently there is another excuse that can be used for this). The result was that they said the State Department said 2092 of the emails were currently Confidential, one was Secret and none Top Secret [FBI p.1-21-22].
But this did not answer the question of whether they were classified at the time they were sent. So the FBI select the emails they thought might have been classified when sent and asked the agencies they came from what they thought. So in late 2015 or in 2016, determinations were made about whether the emails should have been classified at that time they were sent. FBI Director Comey said their were 110, while the FBI Report says 193. The 110 number is most widely cited. (To top of page)
Yes. That means they were saved on an sent from an unclassified server. Here are summaries of five quotes just below that prove this from several angles.
Point 5 is particularly telling. The FBI was asking the officials who wrote classified emails why they wrote them on and sent the from an unclassified system and then sent them to Clinton. Clearly, the FBI views their email systems (at the State Dept, the Dept of Defense and other agencies) as unclassified, and thinks they should not have been using them for sending classified messages anywhere.
The excuses of these officials show that they knew the FBI was right about this. (To top of page)
Here are the full quotes and sources. (FBI refers to the July FBI report)
A: No. When asked this question, FBI director Comey replied “In connection with her use of the email server? My judgment is that she did not.” Politico
Here’s the law: U.S. Code § 798 – Disclosure of classified information: Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, … for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information …
First, the classified information never reached any foreign government so it was not detrimental to the US. Second, what Clinton did was certainly not a knowing and willful communication with anyone. Her intent was to keep both her private emails and here State Dept emails safe from prying eyes. So it’s not even close. There was no intent to leak secrets to foreign governments and there is no evidence (and much evidence to the contrary) that any of the emails leaked. (To top of page)
A: Yes. But department rules are not laws. There is rarely any penalty specified for breaking them. There is no State Dept rule against using your private email for State-Dept business. There is only a “general policy that normal day-to-day” transmission of “Sensitive But Unclassified” (SBU) information be transmitted on an Authorized Information System (Name@state.gov email). A small fraction of Clinton’s emails were marked as SBU. For these emails she violated the “general policy,” and they she should have made her use her SSHC@state.gov email for these. But they didn’t.
Although the above rule is the one discussed in the press, there would seem to be a rule that classified information should not be conveyed over unclassified systems. But perhaps not, since the FBI Report says this: “Since there isn’t a classified system that allows DoS to communicate with its foreign counterparts, conversations that are held with foreign partners in unclassified channels are later “up-classified” to Secret to protect the information [FBI p.3-6].” In other words, the State Dept’s main business—talking to foreign nationals—would always violate a rule against communicating classified information through unclassified channels. (To top of page)
A: Not knowingly, and probably not at all. All emails systems are at risk. Hers was less well run, but it presented a vastly smaller target than the State Departments @state.gov system. While it can never be absolutely proven that a system has not been hacked, the FBI found no evidence that Clinton’s server was hacked and they found evidence that possible hacking attemps (there are always such attempts) fail on the three occasions they are aware of.
Hacking failures according to the FBI:
Massive hacks of the State Dept email and cable systems:
On 28 Nov 2010 the State Department sprung a massive Wikileak and lost 251,287 Classified “cables” (these are just emails transmitted on a classified system). For the next year, Clinton spent much of her time attempting to repair the damage from this massive leak of classified State Dept emails, known as Cablegate.
Then in Oct 2013 an Indonesian hacker placed this on the unclassified state.gov server:
But the State Dept did not secure it unclassified email server and in Nov 2014, Reuters reported they had been seriously hack some time earlier and the hack was continuing. And by Mar 2015 the hack was continuing and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation said it was “worst ever” cyberattack intrusion against a federal agency.
The State Dept said “We have no reason to believe classified information was compromised.” But they obviously meant only that the classified system was not compromised. However we now know that classified emails are frequently sent through the unclassified system. (To top of page)
A: No. Because she saved them on her private servers nearly all were preserved. Supposedly if she had used her State email, they would have all been automatically preserved. But in fact, essentially all of her emails came from accounts on that system, and all she sent went to accounts on that system. So they were all preserved in the government system for a while. Unfortunately, that system was in tatters and lost or misplaced most of the emails it was supposed to preserve. So without her private server, only a fraction of her emails would have been preserved. (To top of page)
This is only important because the Republicans claim that Clinton did not preserve her emails in the State Dept computer system. But almost all of her emails came through that system. And when they didn’t land there on their own, Clinton deliberately forwarded them to one of her staff to preserve them.
The reason they did not just pull Clinton’s old emails off of the state.gov server is because the State Dept lost most of them. “In a report released Wednesday, the inspector general [of the State Dept] found that of the one billion emails sent in 2011, only 61,156 were preserved. That number dropped to 41,749 in 2013.” (The Hill, Mar 11, 2015) If Clinton had not saved her emails on her own server, we would have many fewer of them.
A: Yes, but they were not the ones subpoenaed. Otherwise she would be in huge trouble. She deleted her private emails. Even if these had been on her State Dept email account she would have been allowed to decide which ones were her private emails and delete them.
A: One honest mistake and some the others mostly true
Not true, but an honest mistake. She still didn’t know gov spooks deliberately broke the rules and sent her unmarked secrets.
About 99% true. None of the Secret and Top Secret ones were marked at all. Three conversations had a paragraph or two marked with “(C)” for confidential, but had no “Confidential” header. And, when asked if they were confidential, the State Dept did not reply.
As to the first part, Comey said “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”
As to the second part, Politifact reads that as saying that “Comey said everything she told the America people was true.” Comey didn’t say that, so they gave her “Pants on Fire.” I read it as saying “What she told the FBI is consistent with here telling the American people that certain emails were retroactively classified.” In other words, they were not marked as Classified when she got them or replied to them. And that, as just noted, is 99% true as the FBI report of her interview makes clear. (To top of page)
If there is any blame for these inappropriate emails, it lies with those in the CIA, the Dept of Defense, Dept of State, the NSA, NGA and even the FBI (FBI p.1-21) who author the classified information. They put the classified information into their own unclassified systems sent it through the State Dept’s unclassified system. And they failed to mark it as classified.
Here the quote from the FBI Report: “In addition to State classified equities, the investigation determined the 81 e-mail chains contained classified equities from 5 other USIC agencies: the CIA, DOD, FBI, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and National Security Agency (NSA). [FBI, p.1-21]” (To top of page)
The FBI never pointed to any classified information that originated with Clinton, but it did interview multiple officials who authored classified emails on unclassified systems.
Here is a brief summary of the their reasons for violating the protocol and their claims the emails were actually not classified (so neither they nor Clinton were in violation). [FBI p.1-21–25] (more detail)
(For even more detail see Appendix A below.) (To top of page)
The Washington Post answers this as follows:
“It’s common” that people end up using unclassified systems to transmit classified information, said Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel who’s now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where he often represents defendants suspected of misusing classified information.
“It’s common knowledge that the classified communications system is impossible and isn’t used,” said one former high-level Justice Department official.
For many purposes, they are slow and bothersome to use. Also, much information is over-classified. For example things already reported in the press sometimes get classified. So everyone cheats from time to time and sends classified material through the standard convenient
Of course, even their actions entailed no intent to put such information into the wrong hands and indeed none of it ended up there. Moreover that had legitimate reasons for cutting corners in a very cumbersome system. (To top of page)
On Aug 22, every media outlet blared something like the pro-Clinton’s Washington Post headline: “The FBI found 15,000 emails Hillary Clinton didn’t turn over. Uh oh.” The idea was they would finally find a smoking regarding Benghazi.
But it turned out (Sept 7, CBS) that only 30 were related to Benghazi and all but one had already been turned over. That one said “I watched with great admiration as she dealt with a tough and personally painful issue in a fair, candid and determined manner, …” It was just a compliment after Clinton testified before a 2013 Senate panel about Benghazi, forwarded to Clinton by a State Dept aide. Notice that his happened long after Clinton was no longer Sect. of State. (To top of page)
Sources:
In this case the classified information is sent from an unclassified system at the Department of Defense to the State Department and finds it’s way to Clinton.
In this case lower level State Dept officials went classified info on unclassified system and it found its way to Clinton.
In this case, the authors did not think the information that sent to Clinton was classified.
In this case again, some classified information was apparently sent Clinton from other government agencies on unclassified systems and reach Clinton.
In this case, the authors thought they had avoided the classified information, but it was decided in 2016 that they had not. So again classified information was sent to Clinton on unclassified State Dept systems.
In this case information later determined to be classified was again originated in the unclassified State Dept system was sent to Clinton. In the authors view, the information was not classified.
Again the Classified information originated on unclassified system. Again, Sullivan question the recent decision retrospectively classify the information, stating it might have already been public.
Again the information came to Clinton inappropriately from the unclassified State Dept system.
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I’m sticking my neck out and making a prediction you can check — tomorrow. The Republican debate will focus heavily on Hillary, not Bernie. Here’s why. If they have to run against Bernie, they’ll all think they’ve died and gone to heaven. Now, I figured that out myself and I’m sure you did too, but it’s far from original. So let’s not get too smug if we’re right tomorrow.
As the left-wing Guardian points out, what amazes Republicans is that “an ex-hippie from Vermont is the only one who can affect her standing with voters.” They haven’t been able to touch her. Unfortunately, he can’t win for POTUS. So if he knocks her out, and he just might, who does that leave us with? Not Hillary, not Bernie … so … OMG, Bush III. Or worse.
But why can’t he win? ZFacts will go into that in the next few weeks, but simply put, an avowed socialist that knocks out the favorite Democratic women’s candidate (again) and doesn’t appeal to minorities, is not going to beat two Republican Parties (the Koch’s dark party is now the bigger of the two). Bernie just looks good now because (1) all the Republicans want him to win and (2) Hillary is going easy on him while he subtly hammers on her.
The sad thing is, none of this is necessary or even good for Bernie’s base. Since he can’t win, he should be furthering his cause rather than helping Republicans. How? Simple. Push his ideas. Attack Rs instead of Hillary and explain (correctly) that she cannot take the far-left positions he does because it’s her job to beat the Republicans in 2016. We need her to do that. (But you knew that.) We also need to discuss some things a serious candidate can’t say.
But there’s still some hope. Perhaps the Kochs will get so sure that with Hillary out they can elect any jerk they want that they will go for Scott Walker. And maybe Elizabeth Warren will surprise them and take out Walker. OK, I’m grasping at straws. But with the far left still helping the Kochs, it’s gonna take a miracle.
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I like Bernie. He says a lot of good stuff. But he can’t win the nomination and he can’t be President. He could usher in Jeorge Bush III. But don’t take my word for it read Nate Silver, the best political stats guy out there. Now a lot of Sander’s supporters will think I just said I’m against him. They should start over from the beginning. Sanders cannot win. Neither can you — doesn’t mean I don’t like you. Can we get that straight?
That leaves two possibilities, Bush III or Hillary Clinton. They’ve got the money. Now Sanderites will say I’m for money politics. No. [Read more…]
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Think back to World War II, before Republicans became anti-Uncle Sam and anti-US-government. Back then it was patriotic to refuse favoritism because your father was a top military commander, as McCain did.
And no buffoons ridiculed you if you were in a plane that got shot down over enemy territory. And if you showed defiance and even humor, despite being tortured, yes, you were a war hero.
So what is with the 20% or so Republicans that think they are patriots but stick with draft-dodger Trump when he ridicules war-hero McCain? No, the Tea Party is not patriotic. Waving the flag, whether the US or the anti-US confederate flag, is not enough. Not even close.
So where was Trump while McCain was in Vietnam? [Read more…]
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Presumably in an effort to distance himself from Washington (hard to do when you’re a senator) Ted Cruz stated outright that the Republican-controlled congress listens only to lobbyists, and he told us why they do that. “And let me tell you why: [Read more…]
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Bernie Sanders gets support from about half of white Democrats. That’s about it. He’s become a lot more popular lately, but Clinton still has her 80 to 85% favorability rating among Democrats. Her unfavorable rating is around 10 percent, right where it was in January. So among Democrats, Sanders’ gains are not Clinton’s losses. [Read more…]
Republicans are using a clever tactic to undermine confidence in Hillary Clinton. False accusations feed a media frenzy and all too many people think what they hear and read must be at least partly true. This is how it works:
For example: In April, Clinton was accused of “waging war on Christianity” because of her remarks on women’s reproductive health care. This scary story had no real basis as Clinton meant nothing of the kind, but simply more tolerance by some Christians.
In this case, the idea was widely spread in the media, fueled by the likes of Bobby Jindal who claimed [Read more…]
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Efraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, says “US President Barack Obama was right in labeling the document a ‘historic’ one,” and “Netanyahu .. is signaling that he doesn’t want the agreement and has his eyes on an aggressive solution.” The Republican’s hate the deal because they want to discredit Obama and take the White House. Read Efraim’s entire op-ed for yourself. It’s quite informative. [Read more…]
