Home Page Owners Registry Discussion Forums ProwlerMall Event Scrapbooks About
NEW... Back by popular demand... Here is a forum where you can express your political thoughts. As with the main off topic forum, please remain civil and keep it clean and friendly.
In order to see all of the threads in this forum, set your date view in the upper right corner to "show all topics"

Click here to return to the Prowler Online Board Main Page
  ProwlerOnline, Plymouth/Chrysler Prowler Discussion Forum
  Political Off Topic
  AP FACT CHECK: Clinton email claims collapse under FBI probe...

Post New Topic  Post A Reply
edit profile | register | preferences | faq | search

   Bottom of Page next newest topic | next oldest topic
Author Topic:   AP FACT CHECK: Clinton email claims collapse under FBI probe...
BeWare





POA Site Supporter
Prowler Junkie

From:Acworth , Georgia , USA
Registered: Jul 2000
Admin Use

posted 07-06-2016 11:42 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BeWare     send a private message to BeWare   Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote   Search for more posts by BeWare

By STEPHEN BRAUN and JACK GILLUM

Jul. 6, 2016 4:01 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Key assertions by Hillary Clinton in defense of her email practices have collapsed under FBI scrutiny.

The agency's yearlong investigation found that she did not, as she claimed, turn over all her work-related messages for release. It found that her private email server did carry classified emails, also contrary to her past statements. And it made clear that Clinton used many devices to send and receive email despite her statements that she set up her email system so that she only needed to carry one.

FBI Director James Comey's announcement Tuesday that he will not refer criminal charges to the Justice Department against Clinton spared her from prosecution and a devastating political predicament. But it left much of her account in tatters and may have aggravated questions of trust swirling around her Democratic presidential candidacy.

A look at Clinton's claims since questions about her email practices as secretary of state surfaced and how they compare with facts established in the FBI probe:


CLINTON: "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Actually, the FBI identified at least 113 emails that passed through Clinton's server and contained materials that were classified at the time they were sent, including some that were Top Secret and referred to a highly classified special access program, Comey said.

Most of those emails — 110 of them — were included among 30,000 emails that Clinton returned to the State Department around the time her use of a private email server was discovered. The three others were recovered from a forensic analysis of Clinton's server. "Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation," Comey said. Clinton and her aides "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said.

___

CLINTON: "I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified." NBC interview, July 2016.

THE FACTS: Clinton has separately clung to her rationale that there were no classification markings on her emails that would have warned her and others not to transmit the sensitive material. But the private system did, in fact, handle emails that bore markings indicating they contained classified information, Comey said.

He said the marked emails were "a very small number." But that's not the only standard for judging how officials handle sensitive material, he added. "Even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know, or should know, that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it."

___

CLINTON: "I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related" to the State Department. News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Not so, the FBI found.

Comey said that when his forensic team examined Clinton's server it found there were "several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000" that had been returned by Clinton to the State Department.

___

CLINTON: "I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails instead of two." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: This reasoning for using private email both for public business and private correspondence didn't hold up in the investigation. Clinton "used numerous mobile devices to view and send email" using her personal account, Comey said. He also said Clinton had used different servers.

___

CLINTON: "It was on property guarded by the Secret Service, and there were no security breaches. ... The use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure." News conference, March 2015.

CLINTON campaign website: "There is no evidence there was ever a breach."

THE FACTS: The campaign website claimed "no evidence" of a breach, a less categorical statement than Clinton herself made last year, when she said there was no breach. The FBI did not uncover a breach but made clear that that possibility cannot be ruled out.

"We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account," Comey said.

He said evidence would be hard to find because hackers are sophisticated and can cover their tracks. Comey said his investigators learned that Clinton's security lapses included using "her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries." Comey also noted that hackers breached the email accounts of several outsiders who messaged with Clinton.

Comey did not mention names, but a Romanian hacker who called himself Guccifer accessed and later leaked emails from Sidney Blumenthal, an outside adviser to Clinton who regularly communicated with her.

___

CLINTON: "I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Comey did not address Clinton's reason for using a private server instead of a government one, but he highlighted the perils in routing sensitive information through a home server.

The FBI found that Clinton's personal server was "not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail," the director said.

A May 2016 audit by the State Department inspector general found there was no evidence Clinton sought or received approval to operate a private server, and that she "had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices." Courts have frowned on such a practice.

In an unrelated case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the purpose of public records law is "hardly served" when a department head "can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to" by maintaining emails on a private system.

___


http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/588c1ba16f51484e8e0010b12b9e8b28/ap-fact-check-clinton-email-claims-collapse-under-fbi-probe

BeWare





POA Site Supporter
Prowler Junkie

From:Acworth , Georgia , USA
Registered: Jul 2000
Admin Use

posted 07-06-2016 11:52 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BeWare     send a private message to BeWare   Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote   Search for more posts by BeWare
LITTLE PEOPLE: Washington Obsessed With Punishing Secrecy Violations -- until Hillary...

Glenn Greenwald

July 5 2016, 3:58 p.m.

Secrecy is a virtual religion in Washington. Those who violate its dogma have been punished in the harshest and most excessive manner – at least when they possess little political power or influence. As has been widely noted, the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined. Secrecy in DC is so revered that even the most banal documents are reflexively marked classified, making their disclosure or mishandling a felony. As former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden said back in 2000, “Everything’s secret. I mean, I got an email saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ It carried a top secret NSA classification marking.”

People who leak to media outlets for the selfless purpose of informing the public – Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Drake, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden – face decades in prison. Those who leak for more ignoble and self-serving ends – such as enabling hagiography (Leon Panetta, David Petreaus) or ingratiating oneself to one’s mistress (Petraeus) – face career destruction, though they are usually spared if they are sufficiently Important-in-DC. For low-level, powerless Nobodies-in-DC, even the mere mishandling of classified information – without any intent to leak but merely to, say, work from home – has resulted in criminal prosecution, career destruction and the permanent loss of security clearance.

This extreme, unforgiving, unreasonable, excessive posture toward classified information came to an instant halt in Washington today – just in time to save Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations. FBI Director James Comey, an Obama appointee who served in the Bush DOJ, held a press conference earlier this afternoon in which he condemned Clinton on the ground that she and her colleagues were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” including Top Secret material.

Comey also detailed that her key public statements defending her conduct – i.e., she never sent classified information over her personal email account and that she had turned over all “work-related” emails to the State Department – were utterly false; insisted “that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position . . . should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation”; and argued that she endangered national security because of the possibility “that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.” Comey also noted that others who have done what Clinton did “are often subject to security or administrative sanctions” – such as demotion, career harm, or loss of security clearance.

Despite all of these highly incriminating findings, Comey explained, the FBI is recommending to the Justice Department that Clinton not be charged with any crime. “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” he said, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” To justify this claim, Comey cited “the context of a person’s actions” and her “intent.” In other words, there is evidence that she did exactly what the criminal law prohibits, but it was more negligent and careless than malicious and deliberate.

Looked at in isolation, I have no particular objection to this decision. In fact, I agree with it: I don’t think what Clinton did rose to the level of criminality, and if I were in the Justice Department, I would not want to see her prosecuted for it. I do think there was malignant intent: using a personal email account and installing a home server always seemed to be designed, at least in part, to control her communications and hide them from FOIA and similar disclosure obligations. As The New York Times noted in May about a highly incriminating report from the State Department’s own Auditor General: “emails disclosed in the report made it clear that she worried that personal emails could be publicly released under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Moreover, Comey expressly found that – contrary to her repeated statements – “the FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014.” The Inspector General’s report similarly, in the words of the NYT, “undermined some of Mrs. Clinton’s previous statements defending her use of the server.” Still, charging someone with a felony requires more than lying or unethical motives; it should require a clear intent to break the law along with substantial intended harm, none of which is sufficiently present here.

But this case does not exist in isolation. It exists in a political climate where secrecy is regarded as the highest end, where people have their lives destroyed for the most trivial – or, worse, the most well-intentioned – violations of secrecy laws, even in the absence of any evidence of harm or malignant intent. And these are injustices that Hillary Clinton and most of her stalwart Democratic followers have never once opposed – but rather enthusiastically cheered. In 2011, Army Private Chelsea Manning was charged with multiple felonies and faced decades in prison for leaking documents that she firmly believed the public had the right to see; unlike the documents Clinton recklessly mishandled, none of those was Top Secret. Nonetheless, this is what then-Secretary Clinton said in justifying her prosecution:


I think that in an age where so much information is flying through cyberspace, we all have to be aware of the fact that some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary steps to do so.

Comey’s announcement also takes place in a society that imprisons more of its citizens than any other in the world by far, for more trivial offenses than any western nation – overwhelmingly when they are poor or otherwise marginalized due to their race or ethnicity. The sort of leniency and mercy and prosecutorial restraint Comey extended today to Hillary Clinton is simply unavailable for most Americans.

What happened here is glaringly obvious. It is the tawdry by-product of a criminal justice mentality in which – as I documented in my 2011 book With Liberty and Justice for Some – those who wield the greatest political and economic power are virtually exempt from the rule of law even when they commit the most egregious crimes, while only those who are powerless and marginalized are harshly punished, often for the most trivial transgressions.

Had someone who was obscure and unimportant and powerless done what Hillary Clinton did – recklessly and secretly install a shoddy home server and worked with Top Secret information on it, then outright lied to the public about it when they were caught – they would have been criminally charged long ago, with little fuss or objection. But Hillary Clinton is the opposite of unimportant. She’s the multi-millionaire former First Lady, Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, supported by virtually the entire political, financial and media establishment to be the next President, arguably the only person standing between Donald Trump and the White House.

Like the Wall Street tycoons whose systemic fraud triggered the 2008 global financial crisis, and like the military and political officials who instituted a worldwide regime of torture, Hillary Clinton is too important to be treated the same as everyone else under the law. “Felony charges appear to be reserved for people of the lowest ranks. Everyone else who does it either doesn’t get charged or gets charged with a misdemeanor,” Virginia defense attorney Edward MacMahon told Politico last year about secrecy prosecutions. Washington defense attorney Abbe Lowell has similarly denounced the “profound double standard” governing how the Obama DOJ prosecutes secrecy cases: “lower-level employees are prosecuted . . . because they are easy targets and lack the resources and political connections to fight back.”

The fact that Clinton is who she is: that is undoubtedly what caused the FBI to accord her the massive benefit of the doubt when assessing her motives. Her identity, rather than her conduct, was clearly a major factor in his finding nothing that was – in the words of Comey – “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice.”

But a system that accords treatment based on who someone is, rather than what they’ve done, is the opposite of one conducted under the rule of law. It is, instead, one of systemic privilege. As Thomas Jefferson put it in a 1784 letter to George Washington, the ultimate foundation of any constitutional order is “the denial of every preeminence.” Hillary Clinton has long been the beneficiary of this systemic privilege in so many ways, and today, she received her biggest gift from it yet.

The Obama-appointed FBI Director gave a press conference showing that she recklessly handled Top Secret information, engaged in conduct prohibited by law, and lied about it repeatedly to the public. But she won’t be prosecuted or imprisoned for any of that, so Democrats are celebrating. But if there is to be anything positive that can come from this lowly affair, perhaps Democrats might start demanding the same reasonable leniency and prosecutorial restraint for everyone else who isn’t Hillary Clinton.


https://theintercept.com/2016/07/05/washington-has-been-obsessed-with-punishing-secrecy-violations-until-hillary-clinton/


2015: DOJ Prosecutes A Naval Reservist For Mishandling Classified Info WITHOUT MALICIOUS INTENT


During a Tuesday press conference, FBI Director James Comey recommended that Hillary Clinton not be charged for mishandling classified information while serving as secretary of state.

Comey argued that based on “the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent… and how similar situations have been handled in the past,” “no reasonable prosecutor” would even consider bringing a case like Clinton’s to court.

Only, that isn’t exactly accurate.


Less than one year ago, Assistant US attorneys Jean M. Hobler and Lee S. Bickley successfully prosecuted Naval Reservist Brian Nishimura in a strikingly similar case.

Back in 2012, Nishimura admitted to handling “classified materials inappropriately” while deployed to Afghanistan from 2007-2008.


Do You Think This Case And Hillary's Case Reveal A Double Standard On The Part Of The FBI?

Yes No

Completing this poll entitles you to Daily Caller news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Nishimura served as a Regional Engineer and, according to the FBI’s investigation into the incident, “had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers.”

“Nishimura, however, caused the materials to be downloaded and stored on his personal, unclassified electronic devices and storage media,” wrote the FBI. “He carried such classified materials on his unauthorized media when he traveled off-base in Afghanistan and, ultimately, carried those materials back to the United States at the end of his deployment.”


Like Clinton, Nishimura admitted to destroying “a large quantity of classified materials.”


Like Clinton, the FBI investigation into his actions “did not reveal evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.”

Unlike Clinton, he was sentenced to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials.

He was also “ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and to never again seek such a clearance.”

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/05/2015-doj-prosecutes-a-naval-reservist-for-mishandling-classified-info-without-malicious-intent/

BeWare





POA Site Supporter
Prowler Junkie

From:Acworth , Georgia , USA
Registered: Jul 2000
Admin Use

posted 07-06-2016 12:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for BeWare     send a private message to BeWare   Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote   Search for more posts by BeWare
July 05, 2016, 04:25 pm
FBI's Clinton decision proves rules don't apply to rich
By Chuck Hobbs, contributor

As I sat in my law office watching CNN's coverage of FBI Director James Comey's statement, where he outlined his department's much-awaited decision regarding the Hillary Clinton email scandal and all but concluded that Clinton had broken the law but would not be indicted, his words merely confirmed what I have always known as a former prosecutor and a current criminal defense attorney: Our nation maintains a separate and unequal criminal justice system that is stratified according to wealth and power.


Now, in full disclosure, before you think that this is a Clinton-bashing article, I endorsed Clinton for president last month after it was clear that my preferred candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), had been defeated in the Democratic primary. As such, my analysis of this issue has less to a with my personal politics and more to do with concerns I share with millions of Americans that the justice system is entirely corrupt.


Earlier this year in this space, I chronicled the history of presidential orders regarding classified information, a practice first begun under President Franklin Roosevelt and continued by each of his successors. In 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13526, one that proscribed penalties for mishandling such information. To be clear, there is no dispute that then-Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged, by signing a nondisclosure agreement, the rules governing the knowing or negligent mishandling of classified information. Nevertheless, Clinton used a private email account and home-brew server located in her New York state home to conduct official business while serving as secretary of State.

With Comey indicating that over 100 emails analyzed by his agents contained some level of classified information, and with him further indicating that Clinton used her private servers in areas where "hostile actors" could have easily accessed her account, as a former prosecutor, I would think that a prosecution should be forthcoming; such would be the logical conclusion considering the facts that Clinton agreed not to break the law and that she broke the law either knowingly or negligently.

Comey's comments constitute a form of legal sophistry in that prosecutors did not need to prove that Clinton intended to commit a criminal act. Comey and staunch Clinton apologists keep providing cover by adding that element — intent — that simply is not needed. Indeed, under federal and state laws, negligence roughly means an "indifference" or careless attitude toward the proscribed conduct and with Comey calling the conduct "extremely careless," an argument can be made that Clinton was grossly negligent in her acts.

But the fact that no prosecution is pending this day is so not because Clinton was right or has been vindicated, but because the Washington elites in both major political parties protect their own. Generally, I am not prone to conspiracy theories, but I do not find it coincidental that last week, former President Bill Clinton just happened to force a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch — in private — on an airport tarmac in Arizona only days before Lynch's employee, James Comey, announces his recommendation that no charges should be pursued. Or that on the same day that Comey announces his decision, that his big boss — President Obama — just happens to be campaigning with Clinton in Charlotte, North Carolina.

But even if each of the above were coincidental, we cannot ignore that any other career Foreign Service officer or governmental official with security clearances would have been charged with a criminal offense, fired or both. Most would have faced arrest and indictment by federal agents and prosecutors, not a public press conference where the head of the FBI makes arguments usually proffered by defense counsel that has been retained at great expense by the accused. If for no other reason, this is disconcerting because the only thing that keeps our nation of laws intact is belief that no person is above the law. But since the two major parties' presumptive candidates — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump — both have skeletons in their closets, ranging from public corruption to marital assault, and with neither ever having had to endure a peregrination through the justice system at any point in their adult lives, it becomes more obvious than ever that the rich and powerful seem to know instinctively that when accused of wrongdoing, absolutely nothing will come of it, no matter how serious the allegations.

Hobbs is a trial lawyer and award-winning freelance writer based in Florida.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign /286553-fbis-clinton-decision-proves-rules-dont-apply-to

This message has been edited by BeWare on 07-06-2016 at 12:03 PM

ALLEY CAT





POA Lifetime Site Supporter
Prowler Junkie

From:mesa, az, USA
Registered: Jul 2000
Admin Use

posted 07-06-2016 12:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ALLEY CAT     send a private message to ALLEY CAT   Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote   Search for more posts by ALLEY CAT
After Comey's chickensh!t announcement yesterday,,,,let us call it for what it really is:

.

.
TRUE FACTS!

All times are CT (US)  Top of Page  Previous Page

 Return to Political Off Topic  next newest topic | next oldest topic



Administrative Options: Close Topic |Make Sticky | Archive/Move | Delete Topic
Post New Topic  Post A Reply
Hop to:

Contact Us | Prowler Online Homepage

All material contained herein, Copyright 2000 - 2012 ProwlerOnline.com
E-Innovations, LP

POA Terms of Service