Ruth Marcus scoffs at the kerfuffle over Hillary Clinton’s emails:
The latest controversy over Hillary Clinton’s e-mails — the allegation that classified information was improperly transmitted on her private e-mail server — is, or should be, a non-scandal.
Clinton has only herself to blame for a lot of the e-mail mess. She should have behaved like other government officials and used an official account, however cumbersome the multiple-device consequences might have been.
[…]
Nonetheless, the classification kerfuffle is a non-scandal blown out of proportion by a toxic combination of sloppy reporting, official miscommunication and partisan positioning.
Ms. Marcus mischaracterizes the affair. In a sample of 40 emails the IG found that 10% contained classified information. The odds favor there being a lot more and each of those emails containing classified information is a serious infraction.
Every single email held back by Sec. Clinton or her staff for any reason whatever constitutes a violation of regulations. And multiple individuals have worked together to accomplish that mess which makes it a conspiracy to break laws and regulations, itself a serious infraction.
The question Ms. Marcus should be asking herself is whether we should have classified information or a Freedom of Information Act. If we should and if anyone should be prosecuted for releasing classified information or not preserving an official record, then everyone should and especially Secretaries of State who violate those laws and regulations.
That’s what makes it a real scandal.
You focused on the same factoid I did: 10%. That’s a lot. Scale it up.
Further, the Clinton’s are the ultimate veterans of political battle, scandal management etc. The fact that they did not fully address in open fashion these issues right up front rather than choose to see what was uncovered tells us they preferred to deal with fallout rather than what’s really in the emails. As usual, the Clinton’s are above the law.
They have destroyed evidence, but as is now coming out in the Lois Lerner IRS stuff, that info is somewhere. Could be interesting, but costly to the national interest. But when did the Clinton’s ever care about that?
The Clintons, though, are the mascots for the democratic party. They hauled “Bill” out to improve Obama’s flagging numbers in the last presidential round…and, it worked like a charm! With such blind devotion it’s clear to see why this couple feels they can get away with anything — pull the wool over anyone in their party. In fact, their unruliness, ruthlessness, hubris has been either overlooked, rationalized, dismissed, subtly endorsed, or flagrantly denied or applauded (whatever best suits the circumstances) by the MSM and the herd mentality of so many democrats.
This is in the same article.
““We note that none of the e-mails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings, but some included [intelligence community]-derived classified information and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network,†the intelligence inspector general, I. Charles McCullough III, wrote to Congress last week.”
If these had been on a regular (non-secure) govt server they would have been, as I understand it, easily hackable. If you don’t want people doing this, write a clear law and enforce it.
Steve
And if you do not want a former Clinton national security adviser inadvertently stealing and then shredding original documents that make his former boss look bad, “write a clear law and enforce it.”
This is real simple folks. They do not break any laws because there are no laws to be broken. It depends on the meaning of the word “is” is. If you cannot define “is” correctly, you are the problem.
If, as Clinton claims, the classified stuff wasn’t classified at the time, does that really exonerate her? In my view, that almost seems worse in the sense of her competence and fitness for office. Shouldn’t a Sec of State be able to determine the level of sensitivity of a document and handle it appropriately, without needing others to review it and stamp it as “Classified”?
As I’ve tried to make clear I am as if not more concerned about Sec. Clinton’s failure to preserve records, a clear and confessed violation of regulations, as I am about classified material.
Agree on that separate issue (which relates to transparency and accountability.) But on the issue of transmitting sensitive information, it seems worse to me if the person at the top of the State Department didn’t consider the contents before sending documents, rather than relying on a system by which other people would determine the appropriate level of care needed. It’s like she’s choosing a defense that she was incompetent rather than criminal in her actions.
It does seem to cut against her resume argument for her becoming president, doesn’t it? Which brings up another gripe of mine. I think that Sec. Clinton is one of those people who has confused a resume with accomplishments.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was an “original classification authority” which means that she had the authority to say what is and isn’t classified for information originating in the DoS. Like other cabinet officials, I’m sure she delegated this authority to others in the bureaucracy who issued formal guidance. I would be very surprised if she (or any other cabinet official outside of the intelligence community) understood what was and wasn’t classified. Senior officials don’t deal with that kind of thing and in general they don’t think the rules necessarily apply to them.
From what I’ve read, Clinton was sent emails that contained classified information that was classified by other departments or agencies (not the DoS). However, the material wasn’t marked as classified – in that case the person who sent it is responsible for the security breach, not the recipient. Normal procedure for such “leakage” is to quarantine and delete the information, conduct an investigation and possibly administratively punish rule-breakers (usually by revoking access or their security clearance).
So I don’t see much of a scandal here with Clinton. If she emailed information on an unclassified network that should have been classified, and that information was owned by the State Department, then she can be criticized for irresponsibility but not illegality.
Personally, the biggest problem is that all of this happened on a private server which was intentionally destroyed. A cabinet official’s email would be a high priority target for foreign intelligence agencies and it wouldn’t be hard to figure out that Clinton wasn’t using official email. So at this point we should assume that everything that passed through that server ended up in the hands of the Chinese or Russians (or both), but we’ll never know because Clinton’s lackeys destroyed any evidence.
Why should we assume that the server run by the Clintons was less secure than the one run by the US government? We know the US government is not able to secure its networks or servers. The US government has Chinese contractors administering its servers. The Clinton server would have to have been co-located in China to out do the US government.
The Clinton’s email server was probably the most secure server in the US government. Instead of bitching about them, the government should hire them to secure all government information. Even if the Chinese could steal Clinton protected data, they could never figure out what they had. (Instead of 256 bit encryption, it would be encrypted using Clinton logic.)
“Personally, the biggest problem is that all of this happened on a private server which was intentionally destroyed.”
A felony. I think you are right to start with the basics. The Federal Records Act requires her e-mails relating to the performance of her official duties to be kept, maintained and not concealed. That basic notion, that these documents belong to the government is the principle on which a lot of other laws and policies depend: freedom of information, classification, Congressional oversight, internet security, individual privacy, etc. These all depend upon preservation of information in an orderly fashion that ensures that the other requirements can be met.
One point about the FOIA issues to be emphasized” Where we are now in FOIA policy is not simply a matter of giving newspapers and interested parties access to information, it is about encouraging good governance by creating a reliable apprehension that government’s deeds will be discovered because of the knowledge of being watched. By removing public documents to a private server, she eliminated the deterrent effect of FOIA.
“Why should we assume that the server run by the Clintons was less secure than the one run by the US government? ”
Because the head of each department is responsible for security. I’m not sure who he is, but he should be subject to much greater scrutiny. Or she.
That’s my point. Add that any email on that server is public property using “fruit of the tree” logic. Destruction of each email is itself a felony. Several people working together to maintain the private server and subsequently destroy emails is prima facie criminal conspiracy, yet another felony.