Connecticut firm backed up Clinton’s server, might still have personal emails

[Oceander]

I wonder how many "little people" - aides, assistants, secretaries, interns - will have to be sacrificed by Clinton so she can avoid criminal prosecution. Y'all know she will never be prosecuted.

[Valin]

State Department Won’t Acknowledge That Clinton Emails Were Born Classified

 

 

[WestVirginiaRebel]

REVEALED: OBAMA EMAILED HILLARY 18 TIMES!

What did Obama email and when did he email it?

[Valin]

‘This was all planned’: Former IG says Hillary, State Dept. are lying
Paul Sperry
January 31, 2016

The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal e-mails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency e-mail address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov e-mail address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private e-mail server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without e-mail?”

 

He also points to the unusual absence of a permanent inspector general during Clinton’s entire 2009-2013 term at the department. He said the 5¹/₂-year vacancy was unprecedented.

 

(Snip)

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Obviously This Is All Just A Giant Insidious PLOT By The VRWC....Just Like All The Others.

[Valin]

Hillary Calls on State Department to Publish Her Top Secret E-mails

Tom S. Elliott

January 31, 2016

 

During an interview this morning on This Week, Hillary Clinton called on the State Department to publish 22 top secret e-mails. “Let’s just get it out,” the Democratic front-runner told host George Stephanopoulos. “Let’s see what it is and let the American people draw their own conclusions.”

 

(Snip)

 

[Valin]

Legal Issues Relating to (Former) Secretary Hillary Clinton's Candidacy:

[Valin]

E-mail ‘Did Not Originate with Me’ — Hillary Blames Her Underlings, Again
Shannen W. Coffin
February 1, 2016

(Snip)

When confronted this weekend by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos with this signed non-disclosure agreement, Mrs. Clinton argued that she had complied with the agreement, insisting, contrary to its plain terms, that “when you receive information . . . there has to be some markings, some indication that someone down the chain thought that this was classified, and that was not the case.” It’s not the case, indeed.

According to the intelligence community’s inspector general, more than a handful of Mrs. Clinton’s e-mails contain “sensitive compartmentalized information.” This information relates to programs whose access is strictly controlled on a need-to-know basis and protected in “codeword” programs. In order to gain access to this information, an official must be “read into” the particular security program. Even the inspector general’s investigators had to be read into several such programs simply to read the contents of Mrs. Clinton’s e-mails. That read-in is designed to fully brief the cleared official into the program and to ensure that the individual protects any information about the program. If Mrs. Clinton was cleared into these codeword programs — which you might expect for the secretary of state — she has no excuse for not recognizing and taking steps to protect classified information about those programs.

(Snip)

Perhaps recognizing these problems with her defense that the e-mails weren’t “marked classified,” Mrs. Clinton trotted out a new excuse this weekend, telling Stephanopoulos that the classified e-mail chains “did not originate with me.” She falls back on a time-tested Clinton standard: throwing her staff under the bus.

But even there, the former secretary of state cannot completely avoid legal liability for the classified e-mails found on her server. She certainly forwarded many of the e-mails containing classified information to other staffers. And even where she didn’t, she had an obligation to report any security violations to the State Department’s classification officials. Federal criminal statutes make it a felony for any person entrusted with classified information to fail to report the illegal removal of that information from its proper place of custody. So even if Mrs. Clinton did not originate the e-mails containing classified information, she would have had an obligation to report the illegal mishandling of that classified information by others.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Clinton’s email defenses continue to erode
Paul Mirengoff
February 1, 2016

(Snip)

Thus, Clinton acknowledged in writing that the distinction she now relies isn’t controlling. Her first defense, accordingly, seems to have lost much of its force in the public square.

Now, to make matters worse for Clinton, the State Department has undermined her fallback position that she is the victim of “over-classification.” It did so by making clear, in public, that at some of the emails on her server are “Top Secret.” The Department’s spokesman, John Kirby, stated that seven email chains, consisting of 37 pages, “are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information.”

Kirby did what he could to help Clinton when he said the upgrade was at the request of the intelligence community. But his statement was unambiguous that, regardless of who made the request, the documents “contain a category of top secret information.”

In short, there is no interagency dispute about this material. It is too sensitive to be released even with redaction.

The earth keeps moving under Hillary Clinton’s feet.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

CBS: Emails: Hillary Clinton aides sought non-State PC for private account
Feb 1 2016

Emails released to conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch suggest that while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the State Department planned to accommodate her private email server by setting up a separate computer network in an office "across [the] hall." The arrangement was made after Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, asked about accessing web email "using a non-DOS [Department of State] computer."

Judicial Watch obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit requesting information about Clinton's private email server.

On Jan. 23, 2009, Mills wrote to Lewis Lukens, who was charged with providing all logistical support to Clinton.

The email as released reads:

From: Cheryl Mills

Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:45 AM

To: Lukens, Lewis A

Subject: Re: Series of questions

Lew - who can I talk to about:

1. Can our email be accessed remotely through the web using a non-DOS computer like my laptop?

2. I am traveling to the M-E - will my DOS bb work there and is there a cell phone attached?

3. Spoke to Dan [Daniel B. Smith, former DOS executive secretary] re: bb for HRC (and reports that POTUS is able to use a super encrypted one which)

4. Spoke to Dan re: setting up Counselor office for HRC so she can go across hall regularly to check her email

Lukens responded in an email that he would "set up the office across the hall as requested."

(Snip)

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton called the emails "shocking" because they show the State Department was setting up non-government computers to allow Clinton to bypass the formal network.

"That these records were withheld from the American people until now is scandalous and shows the criminal probe of Hillary Clinton's email system should include current and former officials of the Obama administration," he said.

They are using the emails as evidence in a separate lawsuit seeking information about Abedin's "special government employee" status while at the State Department. They argue the emails create "reasonable suspicion" that Clinton and her employees at the State Department "deliberately thwarted FOIA" by creating the separate email system.

 

(Snip)

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

More Here The Hill

[Valin]

"HH: …because on Friday, Hillary was revealed to have 22 such secret materials that they could not release a word. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told me high probability the Russians had compromised her server. Everybody knows she has committed a felony. It’s not a felony, maybe it’s misdemeanors of 18 USC 1924, but it could be the felon, it could be the higher one, the reckless. Why doesn’t the national news media report on this? This is a big crisis?

 

CC: Well, because the national news media wants Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States. This is now shock to you, Hugh, is it?"

 

(Snip)

 

"HH: So how do you explain to voters, because I do think the reason you came in second in the last debate is Rubio hit Hillary the hardest, and you hit her the second-hardest on this particular set of issues. She is a terrible candidate. In fact, Bill Clinton looked like an extra from World War Z last night. He looks horrible, too. But this is a complicated issue. Does it matter to the public that she compromised the national security?

 

CC: Well, I think it depends on how you communicate it, Hugh. And I think I communicate it rather simply. I say, I use Hillary Clinton’s own words. She said at this town hall in Iowa last week that she had her own personal email server for her own convenience. So I say to folks she was willing to compromise national security for her convenience. She was willing to compromise homeland security for her convenience. She was willing to compromise the lives of intelligence officers for her convenience. The fact is that anyone who is willing to compromise national and homeland security and our intelligence officers’ capabilities for their own convenience is not only a criminal, but is de facto disqualified to be commander-in-chief of the United States military."

 

Chris Christie

[Valin]

Seven more Hillary server e-mails too secret to release in any form
Ed Morrissey
February 4, 2016

The State Department has decided to withhold seven more e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized and nonsecure homebrew system as too sensitive to release even in redacted form. That brings the total number of such messages to 29, and one member of Congress who has seen them is aghast at what may have been exposed:

 

“There are more than 22, and it’s not just one or two more,” Rep. Chris Stewart told the Washington Examiner, referring to the 22 emails deemed top secret by the State Department last week. “It’s a more meaningful number than that.”

Stewart said the State Department has classified seven additional emails as “top secret.” The agency will now withhold 29 emails from the public due to their sensitive content.

“These were classified at the top secret level, and in some cases, above that,” he said.

 

(Snip)

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3py2TgMStY

Edited February 4, 2016 by Valin

[Valin]

Report: Clinton Emails Contained References to Undercover CIA Officers
Morgan Chalfant
February 4, 2016

Multiple emails held on Hillary Clinton’s personal, unsecured server indirectly referenced undercover CIA officers, according to a report Thursday citing U.S. officials who have viewed the messages.

 

NBC News reported that the emails in question were forwarded to Clinton when she was serving as secretary of state. The officials said that the messages, in which officials from the State Department and other agencies made indirect references to undercover officers, have since been classified in State’s review of Clinton’s emails.

 

One email referenced an undercover officer who was killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan in 2012. The email, now classified as secret, was sent the day after the agent was killed in the attack. The message was released by the State Department in the latest batch of emails from Clinton’s private server Friday.

 

Three of the officials who spoke to NBC disputed reports that one message on Clinton’s server revealed the identity of an undercover officer directly.

 

(Snip)

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Yup Cybersecurity is really important....except when its....inconvenient.

[Valin]

Hillary misleading about email probe during debate, former FBI agents say
Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne
February 06, 2016

Hillary Clinton used misleading language in Thursday night’s Democratic debate to describe the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct official government business while she was secretary of state, according to former senior FBI agents. In the New Hampshire debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, which aired on MSNBC, Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out.”

Not true says Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau. “They (the FBI) do not do security reviews,” Pomerantz said. “What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.”

Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation.” Separately, an intelligence source familiar with the two prongs of the ongoing FBI probe, stressed to Fox that the criminal and national security elements remain “inseparable.” The source, not authorized to speak on the record, characterized Clinton’s statement “as a typical Clinton diversion… and what is she going to say, “I’m 95 percent sure that I am going to get away with it?”

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

What A Shock!....What? A Shock?

FBI confirms Clinton probe
Julian Hattem
02/08/16

The FBI formally confirmed that its investigation connected to Hillary Clinton’s private email server remains ongoing in a letter released on Monday.

 

The letter from FBI general counsel James Baker comes one day before the New Hampshire primary. The message does not offer new details about the probe, which the bureau has been reluctant to discuss. However, it represents the FBI’s formal notification to the State Department that it is investigating the issue.

Since last September, “in public statements and testimony, the Bureau has acknowledged generally that it is working on matters related to former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server,” Baker wrote to the State Department.

“The FBI has not, however, publicly acknowledged the specific focus, scope, or potential targets of any such proceedings.

 

“Thus … we remain unable [to] provide [details about the case] without adversely affecting on-going law enforcement efforts,” he concluded. The letter was sent on Feb. 2 but released on Monday as part of an ongoing lawsuit related to the disclosure of Clinton’s emails from conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

State Department offers to release some Hillary Clinton emails on Saturday
Laura Koran
February 11, 2016

(CNN)The State Department has offered to release some of Hillary Clinton's remaining emails on Saturday, after a federal judge admonished them for continued delays.

 

Under the new proposal, the State Department would release 550 emails this weekend, out of the approximately 3,700 that remain.

 

Judge Rudolph Contreras, who ordered the State Department to release Clinton's emails in monthly installments last spring as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, warned the agency at a hearing on Tuesday that it should be prepared to speed up production, but has yet to approve this latest time line.

 

Contreras said he felt he was being forced to choose between accepting the State Department's proposed time line without question, or else risk the accidental release of sensitive information by hurrying the process.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server
Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne
February 11, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.

The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and others. There is no public evidence they were authorized to receive the intelligence some of which was beyond Top Secret.

A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.

“My contacts with former colleagues and current active duty personnel involved in sensitive programs reveal a universal feeling that the HRC issue is more serious than the general public realizes,” Dan Maguire, a former strategic planner with Africom, and with 46 years combined service, told Fox. “Most opine they would already be behind bars if they had apparently compromised sensitive information as reported.”

 

(Snip)

[WestVirginiaRebel]

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, AND SMOKE, AND SMOKE, AND SMOKE....

 

The State Department’s inspector general last year subpoenaed the Clinton Foundation for documents related to work that required approval from the Hillary Clinton State Department, making it now at least four investigations involving the Democratic presidential candidate being conducted by federal agencies.

According to The Washington Post, the State Department inspector general’s subpoena, which was filed in the fall, also sought records related to longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s concurrent employment in 2012 with the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Teneo Holdings, a Clinton-connected consulting firm.

Clinton’s critics have asserted that the overlap between the State Department, her family’s foundation, and Teneo during her tenure created potential conflicts of interest. The book “Clinton Cash,” which was released last year, laid out numerous examples of the Clinton Foundation’s wealthy donors gaining special access to Clinton’s State Department. Other examples have emerged from the release of Clinton’s State Department emails.

The newly revealed IG probe is in addition to the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s private email server. That probe began last summer after the Intelligence Community’s inspector general discovered “top secret” emails among Clinton’s records. It also comes on top of the State Department’s investigation of Clinton’s emails. And as Fox News reported last month, the FBI also opened an investigation last year into whether the State Department provided special access and agency contracts to Clinton Foundation donors.

 

[Valin]

 

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, AND SMOKE, AND SMOKE, AND SMOKE....

 

According to The Washington Post, the State Department inspector general’s subpoena, which was filed in the fall, also sought records related to longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s concurrent employment in 2012 with the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Teneo Holdings, a Clinton-connected consulting firm.

 

 

 

From the WaPo Comments

 

PapayaSF

11:54 AM CST [Edited]

I just love the bit about how this "could further complicate her campaign." Yeah, the way a few more Lakota further complicated Custer's campaign at Little Big Horn.

[Valin]

“Damn, it feels good to be Clinton.”

 

[Valin]

Mark Toner concedes
Scott Johnson
Feb. 13 2016

In his post “Debate this,” Paul Mirengoff reviewed the latest developments in the Clinton email scandal as reported by Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne of FOX News. I found the significance of the developments hard to understand without Paul’s explanation. If you are interested in the scandal but haven’t taken the time to read up on the latest developments, I highly recommend Paul’s post.

(Snip)

 

 

[Valin]

Trey Gowdy

(Snip)

HH: Now Chairman Gowdy, you’ve been studying this yourself, and you’re under all sorts of obligations vis-à-vis that information not to share with the public anything that ought not to be shared with the public. But do you think the public understands, yet, the scale of, I call her the Willie Sutton of classified information, the scale of the breaches that occurred vis-à-vis what ought not to have been shared on a private server?

TG: And surprisingly, Hugh, that’s just what we know. And I’m a big fan, you worked for the Department of Justice. I worked for the Department of Justice. I actually wish we did not know as much as we do, because I like the investigations to be confidential like they’re supposed to. But just take the universe of information that you have now, and how do you feel about that. And obviously, you don’t know what you don’t know, and Jim Comey’s a really good man and he’s a straight arrow. So he’s certainly not out there talking about what the Bureau has found. If there were attempts to access her server, and Heaven forbid if those attempts were successful, I think in many ways that’s potentially a game changer with respect to November.

HH: You know, Mike Morell, former acting director of the CIA and deputy director of the CIA said on this show, he actually just agreed with my assertion that compromise had to have occurred from the Russians, the Chinese, and maybe the Iranians. He said yup. And then former Secretary of Defense Gates said on this show three weeks ago he’s very concerned, and the probability was high the Russians had compromised the server. What are the consequences of our enemies knowing in real time what our Secretary of State is doing, saying and hearing?

TG: It’s impossible to calculate, and that doesn’t frankly even get to the Special Access Programs. It’s, you know, there would be lives at risk, to put it mildly, with some of the information that we already know about.

HH: Wow.

TG: So it’s, I can’t tell you the number of folks who come up to me at town halls who serve in the military, and it’s not just a classification issue. It’s not just a threat. It’s this notion that we have in our country, the bedrock notion, that the same rules apply no matter who you are or no matter what your title is. And the number of staff sergeants and others who come up to me and say if I had done this, I would be in Leavenworth right now. And I always caution them and say look, you don’t know what the Bureau has found, yet. You can’t go based on news accounts. But there’s, I trust Comey. I’m going to wait and make any assessments until he has finished his investigation, and we’ll see what the Department of Justice does.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Republicans stand down for FBI investigation of Clinton server
Cory Bennett and Julian Hattem
02/15/16

Republicans are refusing to use the Benghazi playbook to go after Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

 

Instead of launching formal investigations or propping up a new special committee to investigate the emails — as they did with the 2012 Libya terror attack — House Republicans have gone out of their way to avoid formal inquiries into allegations that classified information was mishandled on Clinton’s personal machine.

 

“We have not had a pinpointed, targeted investigation of Hillary Clinton,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told The Hill this week. “The FBI’s got the lead on this.”

Chaffetz’s comments came after The Hill and other media outlets reported on his committee’s investigation into federal recordkeeping, which is likely to touch on Clinton’s use of a “homebrew” email setup. But Chaffetz said that inquiry is only on the margins of the FBI’s investigation.

 

“Some of the reporting’s kind of been on the extremes on this,” Chaffetz said.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Clinton email chain discussed Afghan national's CIA ties, official says
Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne
February 17, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlbY7m-w_4

[Valin]

[Valin]

Hillary: FBI Investigation 'Not At All Political'
'I am personally not concerned about it'
Daniel Halper
Feb 26, 2016

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview this morning that the FBI investigation into her is "not at all political." Clinton did, though, call the investigation "a security inquiry," actively playing down the severity of the matter.

"No," said Clinton, the FBI investigation is not politicized. "We respect that. It's on its own timetable but it's moving forward."

When Clinton spokesmen say the email issue is politicized, they are "not at all" talking about the FBI, Clinton said. "I am personally not concerned about it. I think that there will be a resolution on the security inquiry."

(Snip)


______________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________


Meanwhile Back At The Ranch......

FBI professionals ‘will be angry’ if no indictment recommendation is made
John Sexton
February 25, 2016

In a story published Thursday, Catherine Herridge of Fox News added incrementally to what we know about the ongoing investigation, but the buried lede may be word of the current mood at the FBI. Herridge quotes an unnamed source with knowledge of the investigation who tells her career professionals at the FBI, “will be angry and walk off if no indictment recommendation is followed through.”

 

That certainly makes it sound as if some portion of the FBI–presumably those with knowledge of the case–think there is enough evidence to recommend prosecution (of someone). They wouldn’t be ready to “walk off” unless they were pretty certain the evidence supported their conclusion. And, reading a bit more between the lines, it seems there is some impatience in the ranks to go ahead and conclude the matter in the way these professionals have already concluded is warranted.

 

(Snip)