Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

What Did Hillary Do Wrong?

38 Comments

A summary from Sharyl Atkisson.

I think the commenter over there may be right. Obama wants this to hurt Hillary enough to keep her from becoming president, but he doesn’t want the emails related to Benghazi to be exposed to daylight.

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s not just about Hillary’s crimes and boobery, but the incredible ineptitude of the State Department:

The departing manager of the average pizza restaurant is handled more carefully than departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was. The Obama Administration was so utterly contemptuous of the public’s need to know, and the prerogatives of Congressional oversight committees, that it simply never gave any thought to securing emails the SecState wrote on behalf of the United States of America, until Congress and federal judges forced them to pay attention to the matter.

And I’m sure they’re very angry about it.

[Friday-afternoon update]

Two of Hillary’s scandals merge into one.

The email scandal is politically dangerous for Clinton because it supports the preconception of her as clannish, paranoid, and privileged. The Clinton Foundation scandal is toxic because it fosters the impression that, under Clinton, American diplomatic influence was a commodity available to the highest bidder, regardless of U.S. national interest. The convergence of those two scandals would doom the careers of Clinton and those who surrounded her all those Halcion years.

I wish. But she’s been getting away with lies, felonies and corruption for decades.

And the campaign is having trouble keeping its lies straight.

That’s always the problem with lying.

[Update a few minutes later]

Oopsie. More work emails from her “private” account. With David Petraeus.

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

Democrats starting to figure out what a terrible liar Hillary is.

They’d have no problem at all, as long as she was good at it, like Bill.

38 thoughts on “What Did Hillary Do Wrong?”

  1. The quote from Breitbart in the update has been my sense of the Obama Administration for a very long time. “The most transparent administration ever” is simply a bone the Administration throws to reporters when ever they ask about IGs being fired, whistle blowers being prosecuted, and emails being destroyed. And the press loves the bone. Those of us looking for meat behind the tag line notice something is missing.

    Human nature is to avoid having someone look over your shoulder. Governments should be above that nature, but they are run by humans. I get that not all information will be made available. However, when no information is available, no one cares about it being available, then they lie to you about it with a rotation of “you got everything”, “we lost everything”, “you don’t need to know anything”…. That is contempt.

  2. Clinton may have done nothing of significance wrong. She has not been charged with any violations of ethics, regulations or laws and it’s possible she may never be.

    A good summary. Clinton’s emails have gotten at least a thousand times as much scrutiny as those of any previous Secretary of State, despite the fact that to our knowledge she didn’t do anything questionable that hadn’t been done by a SoS before (and no, using a private server is no more suspicious than using a private email account at a commercial email service). Clinton, as usual, is subject to a media double standard.

    1. she didn’t do anything questionable that hadn’t been done by a SoS before (and no, using a private server is no more suspicious than using a private email account at a commercial email service).

      Repetition of nonsense doesn’t magically render it sensible.

    2. “using a private server is no more suspicious”

      Really? Keeping to oneself sole authority and ability to determine what official records are kept and what records are destroyed is not suspicious behavior for a public servant?

      I strongly suspect that for you that would only apply when said public servant has a (D) after their name.

      1. Colin Powell kept to himself “sole authority and ability to determine what official records are kept and what records are destroyed” by using a commercial email service, and in fact destroyed all of his work emails. Nothing Clinton did was more suspicious than that, but Powell’s actions were never investigated or subject to one percent of the attention that’s been directed at Clinton’s. It’s a politically-motivated double standard.

        1. State Dept regulations concerning the use of private email were updated the year after Powell left. I’m betting you knew that already.

          1. You’d win that bet.

            The question is…does it purposefully ignore facts?

            Or does he think everyone is too stupid to notice?

          2. 1) So all this fuss is about violating a new internal State Dept. regulation?

            2) Even the updated regulations did not bar use of a private account or private server, so if that’s all you’ve got she’s in the clear.

          3. Please see the Federal Records Act, requiring agencies to hold onto official communications, including all work-related emails, and government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records.

            See also, the Freedom of Information Act.

            See also the regulations set forth by the National Archives and Records Administration, requiring that materials must be maintained “by the agency,” that they should be “readily found” and that the records must “make possible a proper scrutiny by the Congress.”

            Especially, see also 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) and (f), also § 1924.

            tl;dr version: Someone committed multiple Federal felonies here, but seeing as how she’s a Clinton, “at this point, what difference does it make?”

          4. 1) So all this fuss is about violating a new internal State Dept. regulation?

            Colin Powell left office as SecState in 2005, that would make the change Ctrot discusses as 2006. Should Americans disregard the new Obamacare regulation, as it is even younger?

            2) Even the updated regulations did not bar use of a private account or private server, so if that’s all you’ve got she’s in the clear.

            Considering how wrong you are with number 1, it is pretty obvious that you are probably wrong on this too. And of course you are, because Powell also didn’t send classified emails on his private account, and such emails have already been found on Hillary’s server, which is to say, “there is more, Jim”.

            Please Jim, tie yourself very securely to the boat anchor that is Hillary’s campaign. Check the knots!

          5. “1) So all this fuss is about violating a new internal State Dept. regulation?”

            More nonsense from the nonsense machine

          6. “1) So all this fuss is about violating a new internal State Dept. regulation?”

            You’ve been shown the Federal statues many many times. You can continue to ignore them but that just makes you look more and more foolish every single time.

          7. Please see the Federal Records Act, requiring agencies to hold onto official communications, including all work-related emails, and government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records.

            Colin Powell deleted all of his work emails. Clinton handed over the server that held all of her emails, work and personal. How are Clinton’s actions a violation of the Federal Records Act, and Powell’s not?

            because Powell also didn’t send classified emails on his private account

            How can you be sure? Examples of State Department personnel sending classified information over email have been found going back to the Bush Administration.

        2. She had information that was, at the time, classified TS/SCI/SI/TK. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t marked as such. In fact, the only way marked classified data could have been on the server would have been had someone recorded a classified document from JWICS, and loaded it on an unclassified machine.

          If I had written the words “Talent Keyhole” in an unclassified venue three decades ago, I would still be in prison. Those two words together were classified at the time, and referring to them in the clear would have been a felony. You are full of shit, Jim. Period.

  3. That account and the ever-shifting denials has the flavor of Monty Python’s “The Piranha Brothers.”

    First they threatened to not burn down the businesses of shopkeepers who did not give them money. Then they tried to threaten to burn down the businesses of shopkeepers who gave them money. Finally, they achieved success by this formula, which was the turning point. They would burn down the businesses of shopkeepers who did not give them money . . .

    1. Now I want to see an interview with Hillary Clinton in which she demands a drink, then says that she’d seen James Carville pull his own head off to avoid talking with Kenneth Starr. Because he used sarcasm! He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes–and satire.

  4. They’ve got her now! A new release of emails from the state dept. as the FBI is recovering some of the same in their criminal investigation. It may still take some time, but she’s going to jail. This isn’t just 15 minutes of tape.

    1. Ken:

      A friendly wager: I will bet you my Rotary Rocket baseball cap against a SpaceX cap that Hillary Clinton will not see the inside of a jail cell over her email practices at the State Department, or even face a criminal indictment.

  5. From the bastion of conservative press, Reuters:

    “The U.S. Defense Department has found an email chain that Hillary Clinton did not give to the State Department, the State Department said on Friday, despite her saying she had provided all work emails from her time as secretary of state.

    The correspondence with General David Petraeus, who was commander of U.S. Central Command at the time, started shortly before she entered office and continued during her first days as the top U.S. diplomat in January and February of 2009.”

    Here was Jim’s previous lie:
    “The gaps:

    Jan. 21 – March 17, 2009 (Received Messages)
    Jan. 21 – April 12, 2009 (Sent Messages)
    Dec. 30, 2012 – Feb. 1, 2013 (Sent Messages)

    I.e. there are no emails to or from Clinton’s account for her first two months on the job, or emails from her account for her last month. ”

    Apparently there were emails to and from Clinton’s account before and during her first two months on the job, and since the transition really begins prior to taking office. These are emails that an employee of the United States tried to hide from her employer, the People of the United States. She’s unfit to be President.

    1. Hillary had previously claimed that she used her Blackberry email account for the first two months as SecState. This revelation proves that she lied, again.

    2. Sheesh. I was summarizing the Judicial Watch report, which stated that there were no emails from those periods in the emails that Clinton handed over. And there weren’t!

      Now it comes out that Clinton sent and/or received at least a few emails from her private server that she did not hand over. Who knows why — there’s nothing in the emails that she’d have any reason to hide. To anyone who isn’t sure that she’s hiding something, it looks like a routine mistake. But the GOP starts from an assumption of criminality, along with an assumption that they are entitled to see any email she ever sent or received, and that any failure to hand over a single one of those emails is further evidence of her criminality.

      Meanwhile Colin Powell deleted every single one of his work emails, but that’s no big deal.

      1. there’s nothing in the emails that she’d have any reason to hide.

        Hillary’s lack of respect and trust in the American People was enough for her to hide the emails regardless of the content.

      2. You keep going back to Powell, fine, throw him in jail too. I am perfectly okay with that. He can share a cell with Hillary.

        1. Yeah, Jim’s love of big government means he will excuse one corrupt federal employee because another corrupt federal employee got a pass. The rest of us see at least three corrupt federal employees that need to go to jail: the two that broke the law and at least one other that gave them a pass.

      3. I wrote:

        Now it comes out that Clinton sent and/or received at least a few emails from her private server that she did not hand over.

        That appears to be incorrect. According to her spokesperson the emails were to or from her private email address, but not to or from her private service; the server wasn’t set up yet, so she was using an account at a commercial service (AT&T was mentioned) that she’d been using as a Senator. They weren’t handed over because she only handed over emails from the private server.

        So Clinton, like Powell, used a commercial email account and does not have the emails from that period. Clinton used her commercial account for her first two months; Powell used his account for all four years he was SoS.

        1. Another correction; I meant to write: “the emails were to or from her private email address, but not to or from her private server”.

      4. “Now it comes out that Clinton sent and/or received at least a few emails from her private server that she did not hand over.”

        Uh oh–

        “Who knows why — there’s nothing in the emails that she’d have any reason to hide.”

        And you know this how, exactly, since they were NEVER HANDED OVER? Are you wearing a magic hat that gives you psychic powers, or something?

  6. I don’t see the problem? So far, the Clinton campaign has been wonderfully consistent (in its inconstancy.)

    And shame on those awful Republicans for claiming the server was wiped. (the aforementioned is truthful, so long as Hillary Clinton’s lawyer is a Republican operative acting on Republicans’ behalf when he made the “wiped” claim.)

  8. One of the articles says “In fact, if Clinton had used her government—rather than personal—device or email system for both work and personal emails … there would likely be no great fuss today.”

    Au contraire. The elephant in the room is how classified material ended up on a unsecurable hand-held device out wandering around in the world. TS/SCI material generally must be used in secure rooms.

  9. Like many others here, I have access to the SIPR net – if I ever transmitted anything (and by anything, I mean a power point slide with nothing SCI on it, but included in an SCI briefing) I would be in jail today.

    Not so much for my ‘betters’ . . . .

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