From the vile depths of the bogus Republican attempt to find a scandal in the way the Obama administration handled the Benghazi incident comes a completely unrelated scandal. Now, what appeared to be more of a coronation that a campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination may be in doubt. One can only ask, “What the hell was she thinking?!!?”
Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.
Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.
It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.
Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.
“It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration…
Inserted from <NY Times>
Lawrence O’Donnell covered this story in more depth.
Now, if the person, who did this, was a Republican, I’d be screaming foul, and Republicans would be claiming it isn’t important. I can’t do that, because unlike Republicans, I’m not a hypocrite. This is very important and very suspect. I won’t pretend it isn’t. I hope she can offer an explanation, but cannot begin to imagine what might be a valid one.
Update: The law requiring her to use government email did not go into effect until AFTER Clinton left office.
20 Responses to “Oh Oh! Hillarygate?”
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No denying it, this is not good. I can think of ways it might technically been brought in line with regulations, but they are cumbersome, and there would have been better alternatives. Not good. In fact. very scary. At least it came out early.
I rather doubt that Clinton can offer any plausible reason behind this major faux pas. The Republicanus/Teabaggerum are going to have a field day with this lapse in security protocol which put at risk any and all Clinton's top secret work and contacts.
When I was working letterly as a senior major doing investigations of fraud etc, I had the capacity to work from home. But never, never was allowed to use my personal e-mail unless it was going into my work platform (on-line articles etc that I found on my own time). Had I used my personal e-mail as Clinton has done, I would have been fired for cause on the spot. Personal e-mail is too easily hijacked. Even today, banks in Canada do not send e-mails to clients with their account numbers, balances or services on them. It is all about security. One need only consider the data breaches at retailers who use Chase or Citibank credit card systems to begin to understand the magnitude of data breaches possible by hackers.
So if not Clinton, who will take up the Democratic mantle for 2016 . . . Warren, Sanders, ??, ??, ?
I have other commitments that prevent me from writing a longer response, but this is going to turn out to be "Much Ado About Very Little". And the reason is that the regulation the MSM is hanging their hats on is Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014 … a bill that wasn't signed into law unil November 26, 2014 – TWO YEARS AFTER HILLARY LEFT HER POST.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_and_Federal_Records_Act_Amendments_of_2014
Now maybe what she did was unwise – but it's what every SOS did before her. AND she's already submitted OVER 55,000 pages of email to meet the NEW 2014 guidelines.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hillary-clinton-used-her-personal-email-2015-3#ixzz3TL05B8g5
If I get the time, I'll try to flesh this out – but it's NOT going to be as bad as that "Librul Press" is currently trying to make it.
(Plus with Bibi's speech today PLUS DHS funding being passed in a CLEAN BILL [Thanks, Rep. Pelosi] – this will get pushed to the back burner.)
"Much Ado About Very Little (?Nothing?)" … Looking better all the time!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/03/1368297/-The-New-York-Times-Blows-It-With-Misleading-Hit-Job-on-Clinton-Emails
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/03/1368232/-The-NYT-Uses-Time-Machine-to-Insinuate-Misdeeds-about-Hillary
Would I rather see Sen. Warren in the White House come January, 2017? YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT!
But that ain't gonna happen in the 2016 election. I'm not a huge Hillary fan, but she's a HELLUVA LOT BETTER than anything the Rethuglicans have to offer. I'm a pragmatist, so I'll work for our best chance of keeping a Democrat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Need motivation? Two words: SUPREME COURT!
Just to be clear … Do I think the Reich-Wing media won't beat this dead horse to oblivion? NO! Hell, they've been flogging BEN-GHA-ZIIIIII for how many years now?
But even NBC "News" (now owned by Reigh-Wingers Comcast [God, I HATE Comcast]) switched from Matty (right up there w/ Rethuglican sycophants Dancin' Dave Gregory and Chucky Todd) Lauer trumpeting their LEAD story this morning of "Hillary Clinton Email SCANDAL" to this evening's news coverage of it on Page Six "Email Scrutiny".- even admitting at the end of Welker's report that the law wasn't in place untiol 2014 AND that the other SoS before Hillary also used personal emails.
Thanks for the links. I read them and shared them on FAcebook. They are wasting no time getting a smear campaign started against her.
I'm still trying to figure out how anyone got her Personal Email Address?..;) It's like having her personal phone..I can't believe the Federal Government doesn't Assign an Email Account (properly secured, etc.) Automatically to incoming Officers..????? I'm tending to agree with SoINeedAName right now..the Media hasn't Actually investigated this in depth & co-ordinated the dates.
Yvonne, I thought this when I posted my first comment and should have said it – I would bet she set up a new personal email address to dedicate to professional email. I didn't know until reading Nameless' comment that every Secretary of State before her had used a personal email address – but that makes it all the more likely that all of them set up something dedicated. Would you want the volume of professional mail there would be in that position coming to the address you use for personal business? Of course not; nobody would.
I cannot fathom why, other than she didn’t want the files open to being seen by all the people that go thru all the legal stuff, a la Asange and others that have leaked information to the press. She is a very savvy lady. She has a reason. But we may not ever hear about it!
And the repukkklicans WILL have a field day with it. You can just see them slobbering at the mouth for a reason to keep Hillary Clinton out of the race for President. But, as SoINeedAName has said, who will be the best next candidate? Bernie Sanders could be an easy choice. Elizabeth Warren would fill the bill for the woman and great leader part of it. I don’t know. Maybe Hillary may come out of this smelling like a rose!
We shall see. I just hope they can find a GREAT one soon!
Well Clinton has not even said yet if she is going to run but the right have not wasted any time in trying to paint her as a christie chris lier and trying to hide something. I say she did nothing wrong and as we as mere humans who love scandal would just love to have some. But how can we fall into to "PIT" with the republian/tea party and play? Oh how should she deal with this? How could she? An on and on
Since the bill wasn't signed until two years after she left office, she broke no law. It would be interesting to know if other SOS also used personal e mail. I don't think it was a good choice, but doubt it was as evil as the right wing will portray it. The Benghazi investigations will never end now.
I'm w/ you saying it probably wasn't a good choice. I'd call it an unforced error – maybe not wise, but certainly not illegal.
But like a hungry dog w/ a bone, you can bet Rethuglicans will gnaw on this until … well, until Hillary's done serving her eight years as "Madam President".
On your last sentence, from your mouth to God's ear!
Thanks to I Need A Name for the links. I wish I had read the;m before posting my above statement. Other Secretary of States had indeed used personal e mail. This is just a smear campaign.
I concur with Nameless. Even on Morning Joe, they said it was a Presidential order to only use Government emails. I din't know that it wasn't signed into Law until she had left office. Interesting they didn't mention that. She used a personal account because a Gov acct wasn't set up for her. She only sent the emails to Govt. accounts. They should have been saved on the receivvers' end.
TY TC
Thanks for the links Nameless. Like Edie, I wish I had seen these before posting my comment. If you don't mind (and I assume you don't), I am going to post your links etc on Care2 in hopes of quelling an uprising amongst the resident Republicanus/Teabaggerum and provide the additional information to others that may not look further.
Sure – post away, they're public domain.
And today, MotherJones has a very good summary analysis of the personal email use by Hillary. It's even-handed and raises some legitimate concern WRT "The Devil's in the Details" aspect of how she actually structured her email server, and if she has actually provided all relevant emails to State.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/hillary-clinton-state-department-emails
Republicans will throw anything at her and see if something sticks. That's why they repeat false allegations like Bengahzi. Who knows, they might stumble upon something while spewing their lies. It's just the begining.
Thanks everyone. I learned about the timing and updated the article, before I saw that Nameless had already posted a comment to that effect.
While what she did was legal, she's going to have a hard time fending off accusations, that may well be valid, that her intent was to hide her activities from legitimate oversight. At best what she did was unwise.
I have no doubt that the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, aka Faux Noise, and the rest of the Republican bubble machine will continue to parrot that she broke the law, and that most other media will fail to challenge them on it. This will get ugly.
I think Andy had the best idea. See todays Open Thread, which will be posted soon.