Obama may have a very difficult decision to make re: Hillary

[grasswire]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by In_The_Wind (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Many, many discussions of possible indictment of Hillary Clinton are taking place on television and in Washington and on social media.

This involves Obama, and there is great potential risk for him.

If the FBI sends a report of criminality in the server matter to Comey, and if Comey asks the AG to act on it, and Obama says no to that, Comey could potentially resign in protest as he nearly did during the Bush administration.

The political ramifications on all sides and for all the actors are intense. The server matter has the potential to be a new Watergate, if things blow up.

So, heads up, kids. It's a great year to be a journalist, not so great a year to be living through another political trauma.

[onecaliberal]

1. Another Clinton, another monumental lapse in judgement. I just want them to go away!

[Hortensis]

27. Have you been awaiting HRC indictments for 20 years

like so many on the right? I can imagine that would be extremely...frustrating for them. Hopes constantly raised by new reports of imminent indictment, only to be dashed year after year.

How many of them will eventually go to their graves STILL waiting for Hillary to be handcuffed and lead away by federal marshalls? Bless their hearts...

[onecaliberal]

39. No, and you're support of her proves you are the right leaning one.

My candidate is for the people not for of and by the money. My candidate has received NO money from big corporations, your candidate is owned by them. Your comment would be comical if not so sad.

[karynnj]

48. Even without an indictment or a recommendation of an indictment, this has been a blemish on Obama's

administration. Not indicted is a pretty low bar!

The fact is that, Republican efforts to claim otherwise to the contrary, Obama has avoided any real scandals - though there were of course some negative stories.

Already there are questions of whether Obama - even tacitly - approved this unique email arrangement, with no arrangement to insure the email was archived. Note that the emails also show that HRC completely flouted Obama's decision that Sid Blumenthal have no role in his administration. There are others questioning why it look about 14 months before the SD demanded that HRC return the work email - AND NO, THIS WAS NOT REALLY VOLUNTARY . It is complete chutzpah that HRC actually tried to spin this as her being unusually transparent.

My underlying problem with this is that HRC USED her political position - which meant that Obama could not really control her and he certainly could never have asked her to resign - to do things that have put him in a bad position. Not to mention, she was the likely nominee from the moment she stepped down, making dealing with this a complete mess. It seems that associating too closely with the Clintons risks damaging anyone's reputation.

[hedgehog]

53. Bypassing the State Department to rely on Blumenthal may have

been legal, but it was the wrong thing to do.

[karynnj]

56. I agree that it was not illegal

One question I have is whether he was given a security clearance - maybe as a contractor. It is clear that he had access to material that was classified.

Here, I would suggest that it was disrespectful to President Obama, who gave her unusual say in all the people reporting to her. (Note he did not give the same say to John Kerry, who is arguably both more loyal and more successful.) It seems a very sneaky thing to do and she herself must have seen it as a negative because she initially lied about how extensive their relationship was. One question is what role this man will play in her administration.

[Hortensis]

57. Don't deflect to Obama. This is about the blemish

on the character of the percentage-wise small but nationwide pack of witch burners who chose Hilary as their victim years ago and who won't be stopped by any amount of evidence pointing to their own guilt.

Hillary has been accused of literally dozens of crimes over two decades to feed this vicious appetite and has been proven completely innocent of most of them, and for the rest no evidence of either crime or guilt has turned up in extremely extensive investigations. Every aspect of her life has been scrutinized for decades, and no crime has been found.

So I ask that person again, WHY her? WHY do you Just. Want. This. Admirable. Woman. Gone? Destroyed? In prison?

[karynnj]

65. What person are you speaking of who wants HRC in prison? It's not me and not the op, that I have

seen. Not to mention, what is this "don't deflect to Obama" suppose to mean? Do you seriously argue that this entire mess has not created a problem for him as the State Department? The SD briefing are easy to find - and questions come up at least weekly. Almost every month there has been a negative story because the SD has had difficulty meeting an arbitrary schedule -- likely because they prioritized being exceptionally careful about inadvertently putting out something that should be redacted over meeting the deadline.

The fact that there are bizarre allegations - ie Vince Foster - does not mean that have never been any fair questions asked. This op deals with an issue that has created a pretty big mess for the State Department and the Obama administration.

[Hortensis]

70. The people I'm talking want indictments,

year after year they leap eagerly on every lie that she is about to be indicted only to be disappointed. Evidence of innocence simply does not matter to them. These people want her indicted, ruined, and in prison.

Since she is a Democrat and closely tied to Obama, obviously these people dont care that they ARE damaging him and the entire left for a very long time to satisfy their desire to ruin a truly admirable and extremely hard-working woman.

Tell me, when do you think that kind of behavior would become more than just profoundly indecent? At what point should a person refuse to associate with those people?

[grasswire]

2. oh, and another risk factor for Obama

He said on television that he found out about the server when all of the rest of us did, on television.

But if he was emailing back and forth with Hillary to her private server, then he knew it wasn't a government entity.

[karynnj]

50. Not necessarily - we don't know how his email worked

Most email packages create address books. I would not be surprised if the President's blackberry's address book was maintained by his staff. In that case - if he personally typed the email .. and it is not clear that someone on his staff didn't do that with him dictating .. he likely just had to type "Hillary Clinton" and the To line would be filled.

In addition, even if he noticed, it is not clear that he would know that she had ALL her email there and that she was not, in real time, archiving it. He did after all have more to thing of than that. As to the various people who worked in the State Department consider that they likely worked for at least one political person reporting to Clinton. Even if they understood completely what was happening - who could they go to? No one higher in the State Department - she controlled the top of that pyramid. The position of State Department IG was unfilled for 5 1/2 years starting in 2008 - so that path was not as effective as possible. Could someone troubled enough have contacted someone in the White House?

We know that John Kerry got a state.gov account day one. That suggests that someone on that transition either asked it be set up (maybe Kerry's chief of staff) or the career SD people created it and gave it to him. That's how things normally work so it is totally unremarkable that he did this. Just as every Senator has a .gov address, you would expect anyone working at the SD .. all the way up to the Secretary.. would routinely be given an email.

The bigger question is why this utterly normal process not happen with HRC. There is a big question as to why she was never given a SD account -- even if she never then used it.

At some point the Obama administration had to learn that HRC did this. There is a story here we don't know. I doubt they were happy, but knew politically they could not force her to change. Politically, Obama could not demand HRC resign. There is a good question to be asked of when Obama was told of the extraordinary decision of Clinton running the SD on her own server. Another question is whether - as she told the public - Clinton assured high level Obama people that the email was captured by the SD system. It does seem that it took almost a year before the fact that stuff was missing went to a high enough level that they could "negotiate" with HRC to get them back. (Note the word "negotiate" suggests again that she had unusual power.)

This has been why I have been intensely angry at Clinton on this issue, that her supporters want to make go away by putting their fingers in their ears - calling everyone concerned as pushing RW talking points. The fact is that this is a mess created out of Clinton's paranoia that has the potential of raising questions about the State Department and the WH - all the way up to the top.

[Merryland]

54. Not necessarily...

Since as I understand it, he may have been receiving emails from clintonone or whatever, but he didn't know that they were coming from an unsecured server.

[tularetom]

3. If they're gonna indict her, do it soon

If she gets nominated and then indicted, the party's chances in November go lower than whale shit.

Even with Bernie Sanders at the top of the ticket, Hillary will still be hung around his neck.

[glinda]

6. Conservative Venus Fly Trap method.

[CajunBlazer]

4. Shouildn't this post be on the Primaries page?

[Darb]

5. Blatant Repugnant dishonesty, repeated.........

nearly verbatim. Concern noted.

[Hortensis]

38. Hillary is the MOST ADMIRED WOMAN ON THE PLANET.

Funny, isn't it? She is both greatly admired around the world and extremely popular with Democrats and also the person most loathed and despised by a small percentage who are constant in their enmity and imperviousness to facts.

These people have been hopefully awaiting indictments on a long stream of phony charges for over two decades and never stop grabbing eagerly at the newest "reason" for hope.

Given this, I've seriously wondered: For some, could Bernie mainly just be an excuse for a fresh orgy of Hillary-bashing? After all, which came first: the intense, immortal desire to see Hillary destroyed or Bernie's candidacy, mercifully declared after years of the press practically anointing her our inevitable nominee.

Whatever the genesis of this syndrome, I'm sure of one thing: it can only be explained by psychologists, not political events.

[cali]

41. I'd be willing to bet she's also the most disliked woman in the U.S.

[Darb]

42. Maybe this will help you with your thesis,

http://www.gallup.com/poll/187922/clinton-admired-woman-record-20th-time.aspx

As for the hate, well start counting, start with yourself.

[razorman]

67. The "most admired" and "most disliked" are often one and the same.

With such polls, name recognition counts for much, since the American people are sheep.

[Renew Deal]

7. The president doesn't control the Attorney General.

[razorman]

66. At least the president is not supposed to control the AG.

That has not always been the case, in numerous administrations. I believe the president's best option in this case is to stay out of it and just tell the AG, "Do your job." Go where the evidence leads.

[pnwmom]

8. You're being duped by the Rethugs. The only issue, as stated by Obama's spokesman,

concerns retroactive classification -- deciding whether information that wasn't classified then should be classified now.

As head of the agency, Hillary was the authority for deciding whether any State document needed to be classified or not. And no one has ever shown any evidence that this concerns classified info from other agencies.

But now, because of the practice of retroactive classification, other people can review her emails and second guess her department's decisions. It doesn't mean she was wrong then -- anymore than it is wrong that different agencies in the government have different subjective judgments about what needs to be classified.

The head of the national archives, who must store all this classified info, says that in his opinion more than half should have never been classified.

[grasswire]

9. you are operating on old information...

...and are, therefore, wrong.

[pnwmom]

10. Then link to the new information. Has the state department taken back

their earlier statement? (The one they made on Friday.)

[murielm99]

11. The only new information

is Issa talking through his hat about indictments. Who listens to him?

[Agschmid]

26. I get most of my information from car thieves.

[Hortensis]

34. Drudge has it first.

[vorgan24]

37. Some Sanders Supporters, apparently.

[Hekate]

15. +1,000. Thank you for facts, pnwmom.

[jeff47]

40. And you're wrong again.

As head of the agency, Hillary was the authority for deciding whether any State document needed to be classified or not.

Only if the information enters the government through the State Department.

If the information enters the government through an intelligence agency, the DNI gets to decide what's classified. Clinton can not overrule the DNI's decision - he's her peer.

The information in the emails entered the government through an intelligence agency. Clinton gets no say as to whether or not it is classified. (Neither does the Secretary of Defense, or the Secretary of Energy)

But now, because of the practice of retroactive classification

Nope, it was already classified. It was not properly marked. The only retroactive is properly marking the classified information.

Clinton, the State Department spokesman, and her supporters have worked very, very hard to imply retroactive marking is retroactive classification. This is not true.

The head of the national archives, who must store all this classified info, says that in his opinion more than half should have never been classified.

He's not the DNI. So he can't overrule the original classification. Heck, he doesn't even have classification authority.

I've explained this to you many times in many threads. Please stop spreading disinformation.

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. Won't happen, but the beneficiary will certainly be Martin O'Malley, not BS.

[hopemountain]

21. sincerely, how is that?

please explain. i don't follow how you are thinking.

[Tarheel_Dem]

71. O'Malley is the only other Democrat in the race.

[lovemydog]

13. Watergate involved, among other things, illegal breaking and entering

into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, multiple criminal convictions for burglary and wiretapping of political opponents and allies, hush money paid to keep people quiet, illegal money laundering, a team of 'plumbers' paid to perform blackmail and bribery and other nefarious and criminal behavior, widespread coverup efforts including slush funds used for paying people to commit perjury, on the record contemplation of firebombing the Brookings Institute (a group that opposed the war in Vietnam), ransacking the office Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist and stealing his confidential files in order to smear him, taped discussions in the oval office of repeatedly breaking the law in myriad ways, attacking both democrats and republicans, a 'smoking gun' of the President ordering his chief of staff to call the director of the CIA to tell the FBI to call off the investigation, tape recordings revealing overtly racist and anti-semitic conversations, tapes revealing incredibly offensive discussions of people in both parties and in the general public, blatantly illegal coverups, and numerous criminal convictions of top members of the President's Administration.

Unless there's solid proof of rampant abuse of power along those lines, I don't see how this is anything even remotely approaching Watergate. With Watergate top members of both parties turned against the President and his Administration.

Right now I see this more like the stupid impeachment of Bill Clinton - a partisan and cynical effort by one political party to discredit and falsely smear another party. Knowing there's no smoking gun. Knowing there's nothing that harmed the country or the constitution. Most likely very little other than some dumb or misguided behavior that's already been corrected. That's just my hunch at this point.

[Hekate]

16. +1,000. Thank you for facts, and I love your dog, too.

[lovemydog]

18. Thanks Hekate.

Hope you enjoy a great evening.

[pnwmom]

19. And that's why even her accusers say that they're certain she'll never be

charged with anything -- as if that's a sign of Obama's corruption. They have nothing on her, so all they can is smear her with baseless claims.

[lovemydog]

20. So it's just smears and innuendo, without any charges.

It's good that most progressives don't fall for it.

[karynnj]

64. I agree that this is not Watergate and closer to the impeachment, but I differ on how to describe it

Impeaching the President, when they KNEW the Senate would not vote to remove, was political. However, it was based on things that did happen and were wrong. I read most of the Democratic statements before their final vote on that. As this was a high profile vote, each spent considerable time with their staff with their staffs writing their Senate speeches. The purpose was to embarrass Clinton and the Democrats, to make the charges far more public and details than they already were and to force Democrats to be on record voting not to remove Clinton.

The Democratic senators' speeches - fascinating in the points brought up and their choice of how to condemn the underlying things done by Clinton - lying under oath or having an inappropriate relationship - are worth reading.

Most followed this basic format:

First speaking of how seriously they took this vote
Second speaking in negative terms of what Clinton did - in some cases saying they agreed he obstructed justice , lied under oath etc - in others expressing dismay with his behavior.
Third arguing why this did not meet the criteria of high crimes and misdemeanors.

This backfired politically on the Republicans and it was seen as a witch hunt, but it did allow a man the media knew as a mean drunk until he was 40 years old to run with a slogan of bringing honor and decency back to WH -- and no one in the media that I remember ever made run of how weird it was when he was running against Al Gore, an Eagle scout married to his high school sweetheart.

[jmowreader]

14. Does the term "ex post facto" mean anything to Bernie Bros? Sheesh!

The government publishes books to tell you what to classify, and how high to classify it. If the thing you are working with hasn't made it to those books, it's not classified. And in America, we don't punish people for things they did before those things were illegal.

Two other things you might want to ruminate on:

First! If social media had shit to say about prosecution, President Obama would be at the end of a rope for treason already. And so would Hillary. AND SO WOULD YOU! There are PLENTY of Republicans out there who think "being a Democrat" is a capital crime. So don't bring this Social Media horseshit in here again.

And Second! Half the people bellyaching about Clinton and her 25 documents, or whatever in hell it is this week, were cheering when Manning stole three quarters of a million classified documents and dumped them on the Internet, and Snowden stole every classified document the NSA has and turned them over to Glenn Greenwald. Security is GONE, dude. Thanks to those two, half my Army buddies are sitting on our closed discussion groups wondering if the nondisclosure agreements we signed are valid anymore.

[Hekate]

17. +1,000. Thank you for facts, jmowreader. LOVE your second point.

[hopemountain]

22. who are berniebros? what do they have

to do with this thread? i am not trying to make light of your post - but i don't understand what you are getting at. further, isn't it understood there are trolls/sock puppets masquerading as bernie supporters for shits and giggles? but, what does that issue have to do with the email server issue - which we know is contrived bullshit by the gop to hurt the entire democratic vote - regardless of who is at the top of the ticket.

things are getting so convoluted on du, the coyotes are out coyote-ing themselves. not good for the coyote.

[thesquanderer]

28. Manning and Snowden? Really?

1. Manning and Snowden's "mishandling" of classified data was ostensibly done for the public good.

2. Nobody thinks Manning or Snowden could be elected President.

[randome]

43. And you'll want to claim that Clinton's 'mishandling' was to subvert our way of life or something?

Last edited Mon Feb 1, 2016, 12:19 PM - Edit history (1)

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

[thesquanderer]

47. *If* she mishandled data, it would have been for her own benefit. (n/t)

[treestar]

35. +1 to your last paragraph

Suddenly information should be classified! Whereas before, they were calling lawbreakers "heroes" because "transparency."

[backtomn]

73. Not actually "ex post facto"

The operative law does not even mention "classification", but something like 'important to National Security'. She had at least 22 emails on her home server, not encrypted, that were above top secret/SAP and everyone with clearance is trained to know what that material is and the it is "born classified". I am not certain she will ever face charges, but her fanatical need for secrecy caused her to f-up badly.

[B Calm]

23. Wrong forum, but you knew that before posting didn't you.

[Lil Missy]

24. oh my god, it's all bullshit. it's another Benghazi ginned up by Republicans

But the Republican scandal creating machine thanks you. It's more wishful thinking for Hillary haters. And you are going to be disappointed.

[B Calm]

25. The facts still remain the same, none of the emails were classified top secret when she received

them.

[Yupster]

44. What if she sent top secret info to Huma?

Would it not be top secret because it wasn't marked top secret?

Who would have marked it?

Are we saying something Hillary sends to her aide is only top secret if she marks it top secret? That can't be right.

[B Calm]

45. and she might have called the Benghazi terrorists and said attack now. Blah, Blah, Blah

[Yupster]

49. What kind of a response is that?

You think it's impossible that she e-mailed secret info to Huma? They probably e-mailed each other back and forth over 1,000 times.

If Hillary e-mailed secret info to Huma neither the State Department or any other department would have marked it classified because they wouldn't even know the e-mail existed.

So if the info wasn't marked classified when Hillary sent it to Huma would that mean it wasn't classified? That's ridiculous.

[KingCharlemagne]

29. if she's to be indicted, I sure as hell hope it comes soon , preferably

before SuperTuesday.

[Vinca]

30. This is the anti-Hillary campaign if she is the nominee.

We could be royally screwed if everything comes to a head close to the general. I've been wondering why, with this hanging over her head, she decided to jeopardize the election. If she had a definitive statement about the inquiry being closed and nothing was going to happen, it would be different. It could all go really, really bad (think President Trump).

[RiverLover]

31. But she raises a lot of money for the party! All those moneyed interests buying US off.

The leaders are rolling the dice on this one.

All in.

[B Calm]

32. If it wasn't the emails, the cons would have fabricated some other type of BS.

[awake]

59. Unfortunately Hillary's home server was real & not fabricated

Yes this shit but it shit made all by Hillery herself and she has no one else to blame

[justiceischeap]

36. You seem to have forgotten that the majority of Americans

don't want to hear about the email server "scandal." The thing is, both this and Benghazi only appeal to Bernie supporters and Republicans (and only the nastiest of those).

If there was anything "there" she'd have been truly crucified by now. Instead it's just another Republican-generated smear attempt to discredit the current front runner because there is nothing else to attack her with.

[Darb]

46. There is nothing "hanging over her head",

except Darryl Issa's bullshit. Are you really on his side on this? He's not a strong progressive, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Jussayin'.

[Vinca]

52. Of course I'm not on his side. Don't be silly.

But ignoring what their attack will be is equally silly. Hillary has a ton of baggage and if Trump focuses in on her the way he has Jeb (the presumed GOP candidate), Ben Carson and the other goofballs on the right, we might have a problem.

[Darb]

62. Is there any of her "baggage" that is ACTUALLY REAL?

Or is it all just winger nutbaggery? Is Benghazi real, for instance? What baggage is it that you speak? Her emails? Please, only two SoSs have even used email. It is a completely new phenomena that they are whining about. Are you in agreement with the Pugs on that one too?

Show me some real baggage.

[grasswire]

55. some say she's campaigning precisely to shield herself from prosecution

It's harder to prosecute a party's nominee for POTUS than it is to prosecute a former SoS.

[mythology]

33. Okay Trey

I get that you are eager to see Sanders win the nomination, but damn is this silly. Desperately hoping she gets indicted so Sanders can win. Is Ken Starr busy, maybe he can help you find something.

[hoosierlib]

51. If a criminal referral comes down from the FBI...

Prior to Super Tuesday, would this significantly impact the race?

Methinks yes...

[joeybee12]

58. I used to have to go to free republic or Fox Noise for such right-wing smears

Thanks to you, it's all in one place now.

[840high]

61. You can thank Hillary for all this.

[joeybee12]

63. Nope

I have right-wing enablers to thank.

[DemocraticWing]

68. I don't think Hillary should be indicted, but it's a real possibility

Indictments are funny things: not only do the people who handle them know more than we do about the case, but their motivations are impossible to predict.

I just want them to either announce indictment or no indictment ASAP. If she's indicted she can drop out, if not then if she gets the nomination there is no risk to the Party.

If she secures the nomination and is indicted before the Convention, hopefully she's got the decency to step aside (probably for Biden) even though I think it'll tank our general election chances regardless. If she's indicted after the convention we're probably just screwed.

All that said, I don't think she did anything that anybody else hasn't been doing for the last decade or two.

[mwrguy]

69. This is just another smear that she will rise above

[In_The_Wind]

72. Locking

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