The Email Saga

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

John R. Bolton

Feb 15, 2016

 

 

For alumni of U.S. national-security departments and agencies, Hillary Clinton’s email saga is mind-numbing. The publicly available information makes clear she and her aides violated so many elementary security prohibitions that alumni are speechless. They wonder, had they done what she did, how quickly they would have lost their clearances and jobs and how extensive the criminal indictments against them would be.

 

By contrast, many who have never served in government or dealt with classified information see the affair as opaque, even overblown. Certainly Clinton has worked hard to foster that impression. Leaving political spin aside, and without delving into arcane legal analysis, which is it? What did Clinton and her entourage actually do day-to-day, and what does it mean? In hopes of making things a little clearer, herewith the observations of one State Department alumnus, who has pondered how he would look in an orange jumpsuit were he in Clinton's shoes.

 

State, like other national-security agencies, has both classified and unclassified ways for its employees, especially the most senior, to communicate. Clinton erred in two separate but often confused ways. First, she used private channels for official government business, and second, she used unclassified channels to send and receive classified information.

 

(Snip)

 

Clinton has many other points of vulnerability that have barely been noticed. For example, hostile intelligence services can remotely capture control of cell phones and other electronic devices with microphones and have them transmit back everything the microphones pick up, even when the devices are apparently turned off. This is why, on entering a secure classified information facility, people must leave their electronic devices outside the room. This is also why senior U.S. officials are asked not to bring cell phones and laptops when they visit countries like Russia and China, because of the severe risk the equipment could be compromised during their trips. Yet for four years, Clinton and her top political staff apparently traveled worldwide with personal electronic gear such as cell phones and iPads, ignoring specific recommendations from State IT personnel not to do so.

 

 

We have just scratched the surface here of the irregularity of Clinton's practices while at State. And that could be the FBI's hardest job: how to find sufficient resources to investigate properly before the suspect becomes their boss. The race is on.

[Valin]

None Dare Call It Treason
The disclosure about Valerie Plame was called "treason" and people have gone to jail for mishandling classified info, what Hillary Clinton is accused of.
A. Barton Hinkle
February 8, 2016

Few might remember it now, but there was a time when certain members of George W. Bush's administration were denounced as traitors. Virginia's current governor, Terry McAuliffe, was among the denouncers. Back then—in 2004—McAuliffe headed up the Democratic National Committee. In an Oct. 15 interview on CNN, McAuliffe said Bush adviser Karl Rove had just spent "two and a half hours before a federal grand jury today answering questions about who in the White House committed treason by outing a CIA operative."

(Snip)

To say this intrigue consumed Washington would be putting it mildly. A special counsel was appointed. Reporters went to jail for not revealing sources. The thing dragged on for years. The news coverage alone bordered on obsessive, for obvious reasons. "Villainous War-Mongering President Violates Sacred Tenets of National Security to Slime Truth-Telling Critic of War" must have been auto-saved on a thousand newsroom computers for easy repetition.

(Snip)

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton.

 

As the AP reported several days ago, "Clinton's home (e-mail) server contained closely guarded government secrets," including "material requiring one of the highest levels of classification." That material involves "special access programs," a "highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs."

 

Some of the material is so closely guarded that the State Department has chosen to withhold 22 of the e-mails, on the grounds that releasing them would be too damaging. One unnamed government official alleges the e-mails contain "operational intelligence" that could jeopardize "sources, methods, and lives."

 

(Snip)

 

The very best that can be said of Clinton's behavior, which she claims was driven by personal convenience, is that it constitutes grotesque negligence. The FBI continues to investigate the matter. Perhaps, one of these days, she will testify about it before a federal grand jury. If so, it will be interesting to hear what Terry McAuliffe, et al., have to say about that.