There are some excellent analyses of the report out there (Austin Bey's, in particular is worth reading). Not MUCH I can add except . . .
Back in January, I noted that the email scandal would not go away, and prior to that post I had stated,
Hillary Clinton is a liar who does not think the laws apply to her. If I had handled classified information at State the way she did, I would be in jail.The big take-away from the IG report is precisely that: Hillary Clinton ignored for her own convenience and political reasons the well-established laws and regulations governing the handling of classified materials. She did so willfully and with the intention of hiding her communications from government record keeping. In the process, of course, she put US national security at risk and comprised methods and sources of information.
The killer pages in the report, as far as I am concerned, are pages 37-40 (document page numbers not the PDF numbers). Also look at the footnotes throughout the report which have some devastating commentary and show how Clinton and her staff refused to cooperate with the investigation.
The report is written in bureaucratese and contains some not totally relevant references to sloppy email handling by some prior SecStates. The Clinton campaign has grabbed onto that, and is trying to show that her email practices were not any different from those of her predecessors. Don't buy it. The report makes clear that by the time of Clinton's tenure the rules on email had been clarified and, above all, she never requested permission to use her own private server. No other secretary ever had used a private server for all of his or her communications. In addition, you will see that a substantial number of people at State were aware of her practices and raised concerns, only to be told to stand down.
Remember, folks, this is the IG's report. If the IG can dig this up, what will the FBI have found?
I doubt that Bernie will make much use of this report, because neither he nor his supporters have ever shown any particular interest in US national security. I hope (and trust) that Trump will use this report's conclusions to club her like a baby seal.
Clinton belongs in the slammer.
A year ago I would have rated the chance that HRC would be indicted as the same as Trump winning the R nomination. I was hoping for the former, not the latter. Now that the latter has come to be, I hope HRC's indictment comes through too.
ReplyDeleteThe Clintonistas will try like mad to muddy the water around the IG report. Pravda on the Hudson and Pravda on the Potomac are already doing so. If they succeed, the FBI report may not have too much punch with the voters. This is Hillary after all, evil and power mad to her core.
ReplyDeleteIf Hellery goes down, it will be because Obummer (and Jarrett) want it so. And they will only want it so because they think she will lose in November. Since the current polls have her on the ropes and Bernie leading Trump, I think the vultures are circling. Besides Sander's politics are much closer to that dastardly duo in the White House than Hellery's. I doubt she will still be standing after California ...
ReplyDeleteHillary will still be in a position to garner the nomination by mid June. We.ve heard nothing out of the Justice Department that indicates an indictment is near, though the investigation into Virginia's Governor might suggest what's next.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking back at the Torch Toricelli withdrawal from the New Jersey Senate race when it became obvious that he would lose.
So Justice holds off on an indictment coming up on the conventions, when Hillary becomes too ill to campaign and withdraws. (I had thought that it would be in mid June, but end of July works better.) As part of the situation (deal) Hillary is pardoned, and Obama get to choose his replacement.
It won't be Ol' Comrade Bernie ... not with Venezuela imploding.
"The report ... contains some not totally [ir]relevant references to sloppy email handling by some prior SecStates. The Clinton campaign has grabbed onto that, and is trying to show that her email practices were not any different from those of her predecessors."
ReplyDeleteThe difference being, the [cited] former officials cooperated with the IG's investigation.
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And they did not install their own private (hackable) server ...
DeleteDo you chaps still have the option of execution for those guilty of treason?
ReplyDeleteOh, yea, we do. However, treason is the only crime actually defined in the Constitution. "Making war upon the United States, giving aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war." That's it. Even the Rosenburgs were executed for espionage, not treason, although they had given the secret of the atomic bomb to the Russians. That hurt us pretty badly, but it did not fit the legal definition of treason.Sure, I'd like to pull the drop lever on both of them, but, so far, we are still a nation of laws. Abandoning that would do us infinitely more harm than even Obama and Jarret and Clinton, combined.
DeleteYou fought a war with Libya. You might claim that it was mere unprovoked aggression by the US rather than a (declared) war, but a war was what it was. You have also been fighting a war in Afghanistan for what seems like centuries. Her antics might well have extended aid and comfort to your enemies there.
DeleteNo, DM, it has to be a legal war, declared by Congress, who retains the sole power to declare war. That Presidents have maneuvered around that does not change the law. The Cold War, after all, was an existential struggle for survival, and it did occasionally turn hot, but still, not a legal war. I am very glad that we are still such sticklers, at least on a few points. Our problems, of course, arise from the sad morass of reality that Democrat governments do not follow the fundamental law of the land, the Constitution. One might even carry it further, and accuse the Republicans of violating the law, in invading Afghanistan and Iraq. That argument takes up more pixels than even the argument about the wisdom of the adventures, to equally scant effect.
Delete"it has to be a legal war, declared by Congress": why not give the country the joy of watching a test case?
DeleteThe voting for funding for the war functions as a declaration of war. That made both Afghanistan and Iraq legal. Obama's Libyan Adventure, not so much.
DeleteI'd prefer 13 turns of hemp for both Bill and Hill.
ReplyDeleteI have met two retired Arkansas State Troopers who asserted confidently that Bill should be on Death Row, and Hill in prison. In sixty five years, have heard enough scurrilous rumor and general knowledgeable scuttlebutt to know the difference. What they say makes a good bit of quiet sense. Arkansas is one of those small states that were ruled by Democrats for a century and a half, and hopelessly corrupt. (Louisiana, pre-Jindal, also comes to mind.) It is not at all surprising to hear tales of multilayered corruption. Within Arkansas, as within Lousiana, it is openly discussed as a well know matter of fact.
DeleteOne of the quotes I read was roughly that IT folks to brought this up as a problem were told that it was already dealt with 'at the highest levels of the dept of state', which makes me wonder, did Hillary have the unilateral authority to authorize her email server without any review?
ReplyDeleteIf so, this really isn't going to get beyond "that was really stupid, this lady doesn't understand technology and put us all at risk".
- reader #1482
This whole thing is so anger making. ANYONE who has been a part of a classified environment truly understands the gravity of what she did. It's gob-smacking the press can't at least accurately discuss what classified information is and how unclassified facts can ladder up to a classified whole. Well, I guess maybe not. Despite the supposed vast right wing conspiracy, in reality the media protects those two ingrates beyond the bounds of what is good for the nation.
ReplyDeleteIt's frustrating that Ambassadors and the like have been stating openly they feel blind-sided and worried at who has seen their missives, but no one notes it.
It's frustrating this b.s. about what Secs Rice and Powell did. Do people not remember how young the internet is? And again, those who've worked in a classified environment, understand that working with emails and classified information lagged significantly behind what consumers in the private sector got because it took for ever and a day for enterprise units to figure it out. And equally that they still figure it out. What is the email system today at State is not remotely what it was even a few years ago, and certainly not when Rice or Powell were in residence. And again, the supposed vast right wing conspiracy media can't seem to explain this.
It's as if people think it's like someone getting ahold of their personal email and maybe attempting a spot or two of identity theft. Irritating to clean up, but one CAN clean it up. But once classified information (or a set of facts that make reaching a classified conclusion a snap) it can't ever be clawed back. It's out there forever more.
Grr. I'm cool with the idea that someone may be ideologically or politically far removed from me (even as I disdain their intellect), so in that sense if you're a Bernie fan, or a good-government/the leviathan loves us fan I can understand, but that people cannot see what Clinton really did means they are either truly feeble-minded or stuck over-looking something ridiculously criminal in service of supporting a D and/or a woman.
"It's frustrating this b.s. about what Secs Rice and Powell did. Do people not remember how young the internet is?"
DeletePrecisely LC!
Could Albright, Powell, heck even Condolezza, possibly ever foresee ... oh heck, let's say for instance, an Estonia?
https://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia?currentPage=all
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anyone who has ever held a position of public trust or a security clearance knew from the get-go that clinton was maliciously and willfully wrong. there are about 7 separate information related sections of the u.s.c. that she could be charged under, plus conspiracy. what galls me almost as much as clinton are the msm and political hacks who shamelessly cover for her.
ReplyDeleteNow what? That is the question. Hillary's Sctick has always been "Rules for thee, not for me". She declared her own private email and comms channel, no one stopped her. It comes down to so what if it is against the law, I can exempt myself from the law, because of who I am. Ironically, Nixon also used this rationalization.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing about this whole sordid business I enjoy, is that it vexes President Obama more than anything else in his time as president.
The only thing that vexes Mr. Cool is when he miss a putt or when Reggie Love is given the boot ...
DeleteObama is too busy working on his legacy. Under his leadership, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats and 13 Senate seats. As you can see, he's got a lot of work to do.
Deletesyd B.: After the O leaves office, there probably won't be many ghost writers willing to work on his memoirs--and I think that the one good thing about the O's administration was that the O is a fundamentally lazy person.
DeleteNixon was right, in that the president has constitutional authority to conduct intelligence operations. One risk to that is the capability to conduct intelligence operations can unfortunately be usurped by person's other than the president.
DeleteSo, who is to blame? Who was hilliary's boss at the time, who could have stopped this-why it was the halfrican, so ultimately it was the halfrican's fault was it not?
ReplyDeletePresident empty chair. No hope no change. No we can't. What an utter disaster the halfrican has been for the USA and world peace.
I'm personally pretty unexcited about the term 'halfrican'. Ostensibly it's some sort of pejorative? Is it some sort of allusion to Obama's positions on issues, so many of which are simply insane and idiotic? Is it indicating somehow that Obama's dislike for America is spurred by his father's African anti-colonialist roots?
Delete- reader #1482
I guess this term reminds me of the term 'pantsuit' in discussing Clinton, which threatens to undermine very legitimate criticism of her tenure as sec-state during what is arguably among the worst foreign affairs terms in our history. An essay can explain in great detail exactly what a disaster it's been and how she was responsible for the whole frigging thing, but throw in one 'pantsuit' and a very large subset of people will summarily (and possibly correctly) dismiss the whole argument as derogatory and unfair.
DeleteHer actions and her "antieffectiveness" are quite enough on their own!
- reader #1482
Reader 1482, it is a mark of my disdain, in the same way that I used hilliary. Some may consider it petty, but I think you just proved that it rarely stops people from reading on.
DeleteIt indicates if anything the stupidity of the enormous regard and hopes many liberals had for the first "black" president even though patently he is half-white. Over time though, I think his policies have followed those of African dictators with predictable outcomes-disaster in all the many policies he has enacted. So halfrican is I think well-deserved, if it offends, so be it.
I do not subscribe to the thought that such name-calling is too petty, I am not of the opinion that comments here (or other venues) will sway "progressives" but if gentle mocking sways people away from ever "judging people by the colour of their skin rather than the content of their character" or achievements then perhaps it may be worthwhile.
Frankly it was stolen from somebody here who called obama the halfrican princess an admirable name for the narcissist.
Cascadian--Our first black president, as the scion of East African Muslims, comes from stock that was hunting, catching, enslaving, and even castrating people for sale to the Middle East a good while after the last US slave holders were ruined in the Civil War. East Africa gave up slaving at the point of British bayonets.
DeleteAnd east Africa resumed slave trading after the British bayonets went home.
Delete