Clinton aide reported to have walked out of FBI interview

[w4rma]

Source: The Hill

A former senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton briefly walked out of an interview with federal investigators when an FBI official began to discuss a topic considered off limits, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former State Department chief of staff, and her lawyer both returned to the interview room a short time later, according to the newspaper, citing several unidentified people.

The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject. It is unclear when the interview occurred.
…
Of the roughly 30,000 emails from Clinton’s server released by the State Department, approximately 2,000 have been classified at some level.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/279400-clinton-aide-reported-to-have-walked-out-of-fbi-interview

[grasswire]

1. there is no attorney client privilege with Mills and Clinton.

That's spin.

The chief of staff is not the counsel of record.

[JonLeibowitz]

16. Yeah this explanation makes no sense. Cheryl Mills is an advisor and confidant, not counsel.

[grasswire]

46. yep nt

[pnwmom]

62. The original WA Post story said Mills was counsel to Clinton, and the FBI

agreed to consider certain questions off limits "because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege."

The Hill's story chose to twist that part of the WA Post's story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-leaves-interview-once-the-fbi-broaches-an-off-limits-topic/2016/05/10/cce5e0e8-161c-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?postshare=4851462906536261&tid=ss_tw

The questions that were considered off limits had to do with the procedure used to produce emails to the State Department so they could possibly be released publicly, the people said. Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege, the people said.

[JonLeibowitz]

72. Uh, no.

"Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that ... because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege"

Being an attorney does not mean you serve as counsel to everyone you work for. Here's Wikipedia on how an attorney-client is established:

* The asserted holder of the privilege is (or sought to become) a client; and
* The person to whom the communication was made:
** is a member of the bar of a court, or his subordinate, and
** in connection with this communication, is acting as an attorney; and
*The communication was for the purpose of securing legal advice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privilege#General_requirements_under_United_States_law

The WA Post story did not say Mills ever established an attorney-client relationship. That is an inference left to an unsuspecting reader, but the text of the story certainly never said that.

[pnwmom]

74. Funny the part of the sentence that you not-so-cleverly left out.

Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege,

She was not supposed to be asked certain questions in the interview.
She was not asked these questions.
And the reason was because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege.

[JonLeibowitz]

92. The part I left out is irrelevant to the question of whether; it is why I left it out.

Your conjecture that it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege is just that -- conjecture. There is nothing in the Wa Post article which implies that Mills actually had an attorney-client relationship with Clinton (or indeed with anyone involved in this case)

But please, try to explain how that bolded sentence, or indeed any sentence in the article says or implies an attorney-client relationship.

[pnwmom]

99. I give up. You win.

You refuse to use your logic and reading skills, and I can't make you.

[grasswire]

107. there IS NO attorney client privilege between Mills and Clinton. nt

[pnwmom]

112. So you keep saying, on the basis of zero evidence -- and as contradicted by the WA Post.

[msanthrope]

140. There is until a judge rules there isn't. nt

[pnwmom]

209. After watching all this hyper-ventilating,

I finally googled and found out that the private server the FBI has been wanting to ask people about was set up in 2008 BEFORE Hillary or Cheryl ever came to State -- when Cheryl was serving only as Hillary's attorney. So of course it falls under attorney-client privilege.

And any legal advice that Cheryl gave Hillary AFTER they both left State -- such as about how to transmit emails to the public) would also be covered under attorney-client privilege.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

From the Hill article in the OP:

The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject.

[msanthrope]

252. Good analysis and fact-finding! nt

[pnwmom]

253. Thank you!

It makes me feel a little better about answering so many angry posts before I finally decided to check the dates myself -- since none of the haters had.

Also, I don't know if you saw, but Cheryl Mills didn't take a paying job at State till May 2009, so any advice she gave to Hillary during those first few months would also have been as her personal attorney.

And as of last September, Politico reported that she was STILL Hillary's attorney.

[pnwmom]

163. Mills has been the Clintons's family attorney since the 1990's.

This article was written last September.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[pnwmom]

198. Wrong. The FBI wanted to talk about the private server, and THAT was set up in 2008

during Hillary's campaign -- i.e., BEFORE either Hillary or Cheryl came to the State Department.

Before Cheryl Mills was hired to the State Dept. in May 2009, she worked for NYU on a part-time basis and also served as Hillary's personal attorney.

So any legal advice given to Hillary in 2008 and early 2009, before Mills came to State, fell under the category of attorney-client privilege.

And any legal advice given to Hillary after she and Cheryl left the State Dept -- such as how to transmit the emails in response to the FOIA requests -- ALSO would be covered under attorney-client privilege.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

From the Hill article in the OP:

The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject.

[cui bono]

179. She was not Hill's counsel, she worked for her as an employee of the State Dept.

This is just spin to try to keep her from answering questions. If someone from Bush's State Dept tried this DU would be all over it. But IOKIYHRC.

.

[pnwmom]

180. She was both her personal attorney and worked for the State Dept. as a manager.

And the FBI recognized this.

This article was written last September.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[cui bono]

181. Well isn't that convenient. I guess they saw this coming and knew they were doing something wrong.

I believe they have given up their attorney/client privileges then. That is some fucked up dirty shit right there.

.

[pnwmom]

183. The WA Post article says that after Cheryl cited attorney-client privilege, those questions

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:03 AM - Edit history (2)

were withdrawn.

[cui bono]

184. Well she walked out. Hard to question someone when they're not in the room.

What kind of behavior is that? If someone from Bush's State Dept had done that DU would be all over it. But IOKIYHRC.

.

[pnwmom]

186. That's perfectly normal behavior in a legal interview. She and her attorney stepped out of the room

so she could ask a question in private, and then they returned.

This is a big, fat, juicy, nothingburger.

[onenote]

232. It is exactly the "behavior" that any attorney would recommend

I guess respect for attorney-client privilege and the rights of those being questioned by the FBI and others in law enforcement is another progressive value being thrown under the bus by those who so desperately are hoping for some sort of legal action to be brought against Clinton.

Once upon a time, progressives were suspicious of law enforcement and supportive of those being questioned by them.

But apparently, that's a selective thing now.

[cui bono]

288. I guess conflict of interest got thrown out by Hillary when she worked in the State Dept.

Mills was an employee working under Clinton. She can't do that and be her counsel in a personal matter. If you think she can then you have serious ethics issues.

Once upon a time Democrats, progressive or not, cared about ethics in their party leaders. But apparently, now that Hillary is running, not so much.

.

[pnwmom]

294. The private server was set-up in 2008 so any advice about the set-up would be covered.

So would any advice about the use before Mills because Chief of Staff in May 2009. So would any legal advice after she left State till the present.

So that all covers a significant time period which was covered by attorney-client privilege.

[cui bono]

318. Well that is a good thing. But that doesn't cover the usage of it when it was up and running.

This reply to someone else lays out more clearly why I have a problem with this and why I think Hillary taking Mills on as attorney again at this time is fishy.:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1447661

.

[pnwmom]

319. She didn't take on Mills "again." Mills was involved in the events under discussion,

so of course she would be involved now.

[cui bono]

321. "Again" meaning as her attorney. Or are you stating that she was Hillary's attorney while a govt

employee?

This seems to be a good illustration of how the revolving doors in Washington do not serve justice or the people.

.

[pnwmom]

323. She was her private attorney during the period when the private server was set up, when the decision

to use it was made, and after they left State. On all those matters she continues to have an interest as an attorney.

[onenote]

298. It appears you've managed to miss the dozen or so posts explaining why there is no conflict

of interest.

Mills was Clinton's person attorney before either was at State. She then came over to State and became a government employee. Then she and Clinton left State and she went back to being Clinton's attorney.

For the periods before and after her employment at State, she had an attorney-client relationship with Clinton and questions relating to those periods are presumptively privileged. For the period during her time as Clinton's Chief of Staff at State, she did not have an attorney-client relationship and there is no privilege.

The issue that arose during the questioning was that the FBI interrogators wandered into questions relating to the time period when she was Clinton's private attorney, not when she was at State and those questions were off-limits.

There was no conflict of interest. And there is absolutely nothing unethical about her having been Clinton's personal attorney and then following her to State where she was a government attorney with no attorney-client relationship and then after her government service ended, resuming her attorney-client relationship with Clinton. None.

[cui bono]

310. Yes, and she is answering questions about the time when she was a govt employee

so there is no attorney/client privilege for that time period.

This is a con game, dirty tricks, whatever you want to call it and you are buying it because Hillary.

.

[onenote]

313. Your comment makes zero sense

If she is answering questions about the time she was Chief of Staff and not Clinton's private attorney, how is it a con game?

And if you're saying invoking attorney-client privilege when it applies is a "con game" I'll just write you off as another "law and order" type who thinks that anyone who invokes any of the long-recognized privilege provider for under the law must be guilty of something.

[cui bono]

317. So you believe that she should not speak about anything that happened during her time as a govt

employee? And the reason is because she is NOW Hillary's counsel? Is that correct or am I misunderstanding?

If that is correct, then why do you think she became Hillary's counsel again?

What I'm saying has nothing to do the law about attorney/client privilege being a bad thing. It has to do with Hillary hiring Mills as counsel again in order to protect herself using that law. So the law is being misused in this case in order to protect the person who is under FBI investigation.

Would you have any issue with Mills not being "allowed" to be Hillary's counsel due to conflict of interest? Or due to her being a subject of the investigation as well?

You see, there is something wrong when attorney/client privilege is causing evidence to be hidden in this manner. We are not talking about things Hillary said to her when she was her attorney, we are talking about everything that happened during the time when Mills was a govt employee. Why does that become "secret" and "unknowable" because Mills becomes her attorney after the fact?

What if Christie was doing something like this with Bridgegate?

.

[pnwmom]

320. The articles say that the Justice Department and the attorney

had agreed on areas of discussion that wouldn't infringe on the attorney-client relationship. And she is free to speak of those matters and time periods.

[onenote]

324. No. I said exactly the opposite.

Not sure why you are having so much trouble comprehending this.

During the period when Mills and Clinton were out of government and Mills was Clinton's private attorney -- both before and after but not during -- her service as a government employee, the privilege applies.

During the period when Mills and Clinton were both in government, the privilege doesn't apply.

Mills is answering questions about that period -- the period when she was Chief of Staff. What she isn't answering questions about -- and should be asked questions about -- is the period before or after her government service.

[leveymg]

221. What's significant isn't whether her conversation w/HRC was privileged, it's that the FBI asked her

about this and she invoked privilege. It shows a branch of where the investigation is going. A major question about the server has always been, why would any attorney give Clinton such terrible, high-risk legal advice that HRC would get away with continuing to operate a private, uncertified server hooked up to an unsecure Blackberry. We are now learning that Cheryl Mills doesn't want to go there.

Her refusal to cooperate is, as far as what FBI will now do with this avenue of investigation, is most telling and damaging to the Clinton defense. Hillary's prospects of exoneration are now practically nil.

[pnwmom]

223. No, that's not significant. Mills was doing her job as an attorney, the job she was sworn to do,

when she said that attorney-client privilege applied.

It applied to all the advice she gave to Hillary on the set-up of the private server, which occurred in 2008; and to advice on its use before May 2009 when Cheryl was hired as Chief of Staff; and to legal advice she's given to Hillary since they both left state.

Her answer citing attorney-client privilege is supported by an important legal principle and is not damaging to the defense at all.

[leveymg]

282. This incident points out one thing: HRC doesn't want the FBI to go there. The FBI does. She lost,

and Mills behavior only highlights where the Bureau wants to go with this subject.

[pnwmom]

291. No conclusion can be drawn from the fact that the attorney asserted attorney-client

privilege, anymore than a legal conclusion can be drawn from the fact of any person asserting their legal rights.

[onenote]

303. It is so sad to see how folks are throwing important protections afforded to those being questioned

by law enforcement -- protections that Democrats have long fought to create and sustain -- under the bus for nothing more than partisan gain.

Here's what the Second Circuit had to say (and what I would have thought most progressives would agree should be the law):

We also reject defendants' argument that it was improper for Cherry and Raymond to assert the attorney-client privilege outside the presence of the jury on the basis that they were entitled to an adverse inference because of the witnesses' invocation of the privilege. There is nothing in our case law to suggest that such an assertion of privilege must be made in the presence of the jury. Indeed, in the civil context, we have held that there is no basis for the jury to draw an adverse inference because of the assertion of the attorney-client privilege. See Nabisco, Inc. v. PF Brands, Inc., 191 F.3d 208, 226 (2d Cir. 1999) ("[W]e know of no precedent supporting such an [entitlement to an adverse] inference based on the invocation of the attorney-client privilege.&quot , abrogated on other grounds, Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. , 537 U.S. 418, 123 S. Ct. 1115, 155 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2003).

To the same effect, see Knorr-Bremse Systeme Fuer Nutzfahrzeuge GmbH v. Dana Corp., 383 F.3d 1337, 1344-1345 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing cases); In re Tudor Associates, Ltd., II, 20 F. 3d 115, 120 (4th Cir. 1994) ("A negative inference should not be drawn from the proper invocation of the attorney-client privilege.&quot ; United States v. United Techs. Corp., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46731, *9-*10 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 2, 2005); Anascape, Ltd. v. Microsoft Corp., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111828 (E.D. Tex. Apr. 25, 2008).

[pnwmom]

304. They think that legal rights should only apply to their fav people.

Like if Bernie somehow needed lawyers because a victim sued all the politicos who publicly supported that real estate developer, who was actually operating a huge ponzi scheme based on EB-5.

They would certainly be screaming for Bernie's right to exercise his legal rights.

[synergie]

101. Uh, yes. Kinda weird that you did not reference the WaPo story, but went with selectively

pasting from wiki instead.

Here is the portion of the WaPo story that you chose to ignore.

The questions that were considered off limits had to do with the procedure used to produce emails to the State Department so they could possibly be released publicly, the people said. Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege, the people said.

The text of the story actually specifically asserts the attorney client privilege, readers who chose to ignore certain words might have been confused, but ones who read all the words were not so affected.

[grasswire]

109. the WaPo is not the determiner of any attorney client privilege!!

Nor are the unnamed people.

[pnwmom]

113. Oh, but YOU are!

[grasswire]

115. show me some proof

otherwise, I am correct. There is none.

I have shown the description of her duties.

[pnwmom]

117. I showed you evidence. You just keep making completely unsupported claims. n/t

[grasswire]

124. evidence?????

unnamed "peoples" in the WaPo?

Baloney. Baloney.

[msanthrope]

201. You've now had two licensed attorneys on this thread tell you you're wrong on privilege.

Well, counselor.....are you going to admit your mistake?

[leveymg]

222. Privilege isn't the issue. It's what HRC knew and when did she know it.

What's significant isn't whether her conversation w/HRC was privileged, it's that the FBI asked her
about this and she invoked privilege.

By going on and on about how Mills and Clinton had attorney-client privilege, you are only drawing our attention to the question of why she wouldn't want to answer questions on this topic of what legal advise Clinton received about operating the server. Thank you for focusing on this as you have.

Her refusal to cooperate is, as far as what FBI will now do with this avenue of investigation, is most telling and damaging to the Clinton defense. Hillary's prospects of exoneration are now practically nil.

[pnwmom]

225. Mills invoked privilege, not Hillary. And when she did that Mills was doing the job

she was sworn to do. If she hadn't invoked attorney-client privilege, that could have been malpractice.

From the American Bar Association:

http://www.americanbar.org/publications/blt/2013/10/01_unger.html

The attorney-client privilege is the backbone of the legal profession. It encourages the client to be open and honest with his or her attorney without fear that others will be able to pry into those conversations. Further, being fully informed by the client enables the attorney to provide the best legal advice.

The privilege is in play on a daily basis, whether litigated in court or serving as a background consideration in how best to advise the client while maintaining confidences. Even in business transactions, it is critical to maintain the privilege as unseen conflicts may result in litigation down the road where attorney-client communications become of interest to an opponent.

[leveymg]

228. Exactly. She talked to her client and her client didn't want her to go there. Who is her client?

The net result of your efforts is that you have simply proved that Hillary instructed Mills, her attorney, not to talk to the FBI about this. Obviously, they both believe that candor will get Clinton into even worse trouble. It was Clinton's decision. If you had ever prepped clients for hearings, you would know that is the conclusion the FBI will draw. Now, the public knows, too.

Good job!

[pnwmom]

243. I have shown that Mills had a legal obligation to protect attorney-client privilege.

This does not implicate Hillary in any way, except to Hillary haters like you.

[leveymg]

251. Think again. She would have an obligation to discuss her testimony with her client before being

interviewed to determine what could and could not be discussed with investigators. If she refused to answer that line of questioning and left the room it indicates that she had been instructed not to go into what she knew about the subject. Thanks for doing such a good job to clarify these things for us. Now, let's kick the thread again!

[pnwmom]

295. The attorney had the legal obligation to inform her client about attorney client privilege,

and to guard it herself. She had NO legal obligation to advise her client to waive it OR to advise her client about political consequences.

[synergie]

157. The "proof" is in the WaPo article, you are not correct. You made an assertion

based on not reading or understanding words in an article, either you back up your assertion, to counter what's in the article, or you're incorrect.

Either back up your statement or you remain wrong and questions about your reading comprehension remain. You have shown nothing to deny the assertions in that article. Either do so, or remain WRONG and terribly embarrassed at your poor reading skills.

[grasswire]

158. laughing heartily at your silly authoritarian nonsense.

I don't accept unnamed "people" as sources for "proof" of anything.

[floriduck]

136. Cheryl will have her day in court. And I doubt it will be pretty.

[grasswire]

138. yes

She may be the one who takes the fall.

Personally, I believe there will be more than one person indicted.

[Justice]

145. Believe, or desperately hope?

[grasswire]

149. Do I want anyone indicted?

Only if the evidence warrants. If it does, let justice roll down, unfettered.

Because I believe in transparency in public service. I believe in fidelity to the American people, not to special interest groups who profiteer from war, or from private prisons, or from fossil fuels industry, not to those who believe regime change at will anywhere around the globe is something the American people should be paying for with their treasure and their children's blood.

My personal feeling is that Clinton's arrogant insubordination of Obama is unforgiveable even aside from the possibility of criminality. She evidently thought so little of him or so highly of herself that she carried out a rogue foreign policy out of his sight -- out of sight of the President of the United States. She jeopardized his administration then, and she jeopardizes his legacy now.

That's what really burns me.

[pnwmom]

193. Obama obviously doesn't think she was insubordinate or arrogant,

but I guess you think YOU are in a better position to know.

[pnwmom]

199. Why? Hillary set up the private server in 2008, before she came to State. So Mills

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:05 AM - Edit history (1)

was correct when she explained that FBI questions about the set-up violated attorney-client privilege.

So would any advice that was given before Mills was hired as Chief of Staff in May 2009.

And so would any advice Cheryl gave to Hillary since they both left State -- such as how to respond to the FOIA requests.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[leveymg]

224. It's not when the server was purchased, it's when Hillary started using it for official DOS business

and what did she understand about the legality of that arrangement that's the issue.

[pnwmom]

227. That would be when Hillary arrived at State. And any advice Cheryl gave her in the first

several months would also have been covered, because Cheryl didn't leave her job at NYU and become Chief of Staff till May 2009.

[leveymg]

244. You're missing the point. Mills discussed with HRC the NSA warnings about the Blackberry. HRC

proceeded to have her unsecure hand-held hooked up and used on the uncertified private server, regardless. Do you understand what this means? Mills was part of the decision chain that led to the mishandling of classified information. A Judge will rule she doesn't have privilege, if ever comes to that.

[pnwmom]

296. Mills's employment with State didn't begin till May 2009. n/t

[leveymg]

300. She advised Hillary on the NSA warning about using her Blackberry in February

That Blackberry was hooked up to her server that she started using for official State Dept business within a few days of her taking office in late January 2009. Mills appears to have had involvement in whatever criminal behavior transpired as a result of operating the uncertified system. A Judge would likely pierce her privilege.

Clinton's desire for a secure "BlackBerry-like" device, like the one provided to President Barack Obama, is recounted in a series of February 2009 exchanges between high-level officials at the State Department and NSA. Clinton was sworn in as secretary the prior month, and had become "hooked" on reading and answering emails on a BlackBerry she used during the 2008 presidential race.

8 quirky emails from Hillary Clinton's private server

"We began examining options for (Secretary Clinton) with respect to secure 'BlackBerry-like' communications," wrote Donald R. Reid, the department's assistant director for security infrastructure. "The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure at State, and is very expensive."

Reid wrote that each time they asked the NSA what solution they had worked up to provide a mobile device to Obama, "we were politely told to shut up and color."

Resolving the issue was given such priority as to result in a face-to-face meeting between Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, seven senior State Department staffers with five NSA security experts. According to a summary of the meeting, the request was driven by Clinton's reliance on her BlackBerry for email and keeping track of her calendar. Clinton chose not to use a laptop or desktop computer that could have provided her access to email in her office, according to the summary.

[pnwmom]

301. Thank you for showing that this would have been covered by attorney-client privilege

because Mills's wasn't hired on at State till May 2009, several months after January 2009.

There is no suggestion that any criminal charges have been suggested for her using the server that was set up at her home in 2008. That's your fantasy.

[leveymg]

311. Thank you for making my basic point: the FBI is investigating HRC and her attorneys for setting up

an uncertified, unsecure communications system which was used to transmit and store classified information, in some cases knowingly by Clinton. Hillary's aides and her attorneys then proceeded to wipe approximately 30,000 messages on the pretext that they were private. In a number of instances, emails withheld as "private" by Clinton's advisers proved to be official business which contained classified materials.

Mills was involved from the start in advising Clinton and was the chief negotiator with the NSA on Clinton's communications in the early days of the Secretary's first term. After the NSA refused to clone a half dozen copies of the President's phone for the Secretary and her aides, Mills was involved in the decision-making process to create an "end run" private communications to be used instead of the approved State Department system. It matters not at all that Mills wasn't on the State Department payroll until several months later.

What is the point you are trying to make, anyway?

[synergie]

156. Did anyone other than you suggest they were. The sources asserted that there were

some attorney/client issues, the poster claimed that the WaPo article did not state there were, he was wrong.

Your non-sequitur is meaningless.

[Perogie]

128. Here's the kicker

To actually have attorney-client privilege you actually have to be a client. So you have to had paid the Attorney to retain them.

Check out Cheryl Mills Bio at Wiki. Why is she accepting money from a private foundation while working in the Government?


Department of State[edit]
Mills served as the Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beginning in January 2009.[18] In her capacity as Counselor, she was a principal officer who served the Secretary as a special advisor on major foreign policy challenges.[5] As Chief of Staff, Mills managed the Department's staff, providing support to the Secretary in administering operations of the Department. At some point during her employment in the Department Mills was also paid for unknown services by the Clinton Foundation/Clinton Global Initiative



.

[JonLeibowitz]

133. I was reading a Politico article from this past September and realized I was wrong

Cheryl Mills actually was their attorney. How absurd! The Chief of Staff is the SOS' counsel. So the top two people at State have no obligation to testify in any proceeding due to conflict of interest. Cute!

As you correctly point out, there must have been some payment to Mills as a result of being the attorney (one of the conditions for legal counsel is an actual financial transaction between counsel and client) -- who paid her?

The conflicts of interest and blurred lines of responsibility are maddening.

If we are so unfortunate, Clinton's presidency truly will be the worst in a generation in terms of transparent government.

[cui bono]

187. Yep. It seems that they knew they were doing something very wrong and put things in place to try to

thwart any investigation.

IMO, they gave up attorney/client privilege when they hired Mills as a State employee.

.

[JonLeibowitz]

189. I tend to agree; Isn't this what the Mafia does -- they hire a lawyer as a confidant/advisor

[cui bono]

190. And didn't Hillary have a campaign ad that mimicked the Sopranos?

.

[leveymg]

226. They're all lawyers. This tactic is as old as Washington, and it is routinely pierced

in court when prosecutors want their questions answered. Impeachment Committees also get answers. The question is what did she know and when did she know it? Where have we heard that one before?

[pnwmom]

200. What you missed was that the private server was set up at the Clinton's home

during Hillary's campaign in 2008 -- before either Hillary or Cheryl came to the State Department. The FBI wanted to question Cheryl about the set-up, but that clearly fell under attorney-client privilege, because she was Hillary's personal attorney then.

No conflict of interest -- Hillary was still a private citizen and Cheryl wasn't yet working for State. (She wasn't officially hired till May 2009 because she was finishing up a part-time job at NYU.)

And after they both left State, Cheryl gave Hillary legal advice that also fell under attorney-client privilege -- such as Cheryl's advice on the proper form of responses to FOIA requests.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.

[onenote]

236. The scope of the privilege covers when she was Clinton's attorney.

Not afterwards. Which is why some questions were off limits and some were not.

She has an obligation to testify about matters not within the privilege.

I'm curious. Are you a practicing attorney or do you just play one on DU?

[pnwmom]

250. She's still Clinton's attorney.

This Politico piece was written last September.


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[onenote]

267. She was her attorney. Then she wasn't (when she was Chief of Staff) and now she is again

There is nothing wrong with that. It only means that there are periods when their communications are considered privileged and periods when they're not. Which is why some questions were off-limits and some weren't. Cutting off the interview when it moved into privileged territory was entirely appropriate and would not be considered anything but that by any attorney with a passing familiarity with such matters.

[pnwmom]

269. Yes. And it's discouraging to see so-called progressives acting like Ken Starr

or Inspector Javert on a witch-hunt, ready to toss all our legal rights.

[grasswire]

139. looks like payola to me

If, as you think, the Foundation was paying her for legal counsel to HRC, I doubt that they can reveal this. Such an admission would raise even deeper and greater questions!!

[Yo_Mama]

159. Mills was Clinton's chief of staff at State

Attorney-client privilege would not extend to that. This implies that the investigation is not a genuine one.

This would be about the FOIA request of which Mills was notified. No Hillary emails were produced in response.

Sorry, attorney-client privilege does not apply to administrative matters. Mills was in an administrative function at the time. It's detailed in the State Inspector General's report:
https://oig.state.gov/system/files/esp-16-01.pdf

It's external pages 17 and 18, internal pages 14 and 15:

In December 2012, the nonprofit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) sent a FOIA request to the Department seeking records “sufficient
to show the number of email accounts of, or associated with, Secretary Hillary Rodham
Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or
associated with Secretary Clinton.”62 On May 10, 2013, IPS replied to CREW, stating that
“no records responsive to your request were located.”63 At the time the request was
received, dozens of senior officials throughout the Department, including members of
Secretary Clinton’s immediate staff, exchanged emails with the Secretary using the
personal accounts she used to conduct official business. OIG found evidence that the
Secretary’s then-Chief of Staff was informed of the request at the time it was received
and subsequently tasked staff to follow up. However, OIG found no evidence to indicate
that any of these senior officials reviewed the search results or approved the response to
CREW. OIG also found no evidence that the S/ES, L, and IPS staff involved in responding
to requests for information, searching for records, or drafting the response had
knowledge of the Secretary’s email usage. 64 Furthermore, it does not appear that S/ES
searched any email records, even though the request clearly encompassed emails.

[pnwmom]

165. She has been the Clinton's personal attorney since the 1990's. And still is.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[Yo_Mama]

168. That has nothing to do with the administrative handling of the FOIA request.

If I am your lawyer, any information we exchange which involves legal matters is privileged. But if I also work in an administrative position (technically Mills was employed by the Dept of State), my functioning in administrative matters is not privileged.

The only way it WOULD be privileged would be if Hillary Clinton were involved in the hiding of documents, and in her personal legal relationship, that had come up. I don't think that's what you mean to be claiming, because it would be quite damning for Clinton.

[pnwmom]

172. Of course it does. When these requests were made neither of them was working at the

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:08 AM - Edit history (1)

State Department. They had both left in 2012. Cheryl advised Hillary as her personal attorney.

[leveymg]

230. Precisely why Hillary instructed her not to talk to the FBI about this subject. Silence is damning.

[pnwmom]

238. She didn't. Cheryl Mills, Hillary's attorney, had an obligation to the legal profession

to guard attorney-client privilege and she did so.

[leveymg]

246. Wrong again. If she were a good att'y and there was no reason to withhold info, she would have her

client release her to discuss these matters with investigators. The only conclusion is that HRC feels she has something to hide from the FBI.

[pnwmom]

248. There is nothing about being a "good attorney" that would suggest she "should have her client

release her to discuss these matters with investigators."

Mills isn't in charge of Public Relations; she's an attorney. Good attorneys understand the importance of attorney-client privilege and try to uphold it.

[leveymg]

258. Mills had a dual role as Chief of Staff. Part of that is political and part is legal. Where there

is a conflict, she must protect her client's legal interests first. To be a good attorney, she has to discuss her voluntary testimony with her client, or ex-client, before revealing anything that might be prejudicial. It's pretty basic, but you didn't know that.

[pnwmom]

261. Her role now is as a legal advisor. She has no obligation to do anything but represent her client

and protect attorney-client privilege.

[leveymg]

264. Exactly. Thank you for making my point.

Mills couldn't answer those questions because she had already determined with her client, HRC, and her own attorney that it would be damaging to Clinton and herself to discuss her knowledge on the subject. The answer to the question is incriminating or prejudicial, so the FBI will have to include that lack of cooperation in its report. The answer can be compelled in further proceedings. The FBI report cannot fully exonerate Clinton. QED.

[pnwmom]

271. No. No conclusion of guilt can be drawn from the fact of invoking attorney-client privilege

or any other legal right.

Otherwise, there would be a constant, systemic pressure on clients to waive their rights.

[leveymg]

278. This was a subject that Hillary, Mills, and her attorney tried to make off-limits

By balking at answering it, Mills confirmed that it is a subject that is considered incriminating or prejudicial to her client. That is apparent on its face. While the FBI could not compel her to answer, the FBI wanted to underline that point to her and her client by pressing the issue.

[pnwmom]

292. They had a pre-agreement, and it was the attorney's job to make them stick to it. n/t

[leveymg]

312. It was a bad move by Mills because it focused the public's attention on the role of HRC's lawyers in

the purge of 30,000 "private" emails. There have been a number of "private" emails that HRC failed to produce (upon advise of counsel, who were personally involved in what may be characterized as the attempted destruction of evidence) that when these missing emails were located elsewhere, or were produced after delay, were found to contain classified materials.

From Paul Thompson's Timeline:

Specifically, it appears her personal lawyer David Kendall, her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, and another lawyer Heather Samuelson are the ones who sort the emails, with Samuelson leading the effort. Samuelson is said to be a Clinton loyalist, and she worked under Clinton in the State Department. But she has no background in federal record keeping, and it is unclear if she has any security clearance. It is also unknown if Kendall or Mills have the necessary security clearances or qualifications to make such decisions. (Politico, 9/4/2015) Once the sorting process is done, they move all the emails they deem work-related on one or more thumb drives. It is not known when this happens exactly, but the Post specifies it takes place in 2014. The remainder of the emails apparently are set to be automatically deleted after 30 or 60 days of inactivity (reports differ). (The Washington Post, 9/12/2015) (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

If the FBI is interested in this (no surprise they are) it shows they suspect the emails were improperly deleted. That opens up a whole new can of worms from the mishandling of classified information angle.

Withholding classified materials after leaving gov't service is itself a violation of Clinton's signed non-disclose agreement, below, as well as a specific felony violation of 18 USC Sec. 793, as referenced:

Here is Hillary's Security Oath and the statute it references, 18 USC Sec. 793. Go ahead and read it.

1) Hillary signed this document on 01/22/09:

?w=500&h=262

UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2015-05069 Doc No. C05833708 Date: 11/05/2015
! I RELEASE IN PART I
B7(C),B6
---------------------------------1REVIEW AUTHORITY:
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT Barbara Nielsen, Senior
Reviewer
AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN Hillary Rodham Clinton AND THE UNITED STATES
1. lntending to be legally bound. I hereby accept the obligations contained In this Agreement In consideration of my being granted access to classified information. As used in this Agreement, classified Information is marked or unmarked classified Information, including oral communications, that is classified under the standards or Executive Order 12958, or under any other Executive order or statute that prohibits unauthorized disclosure of lnformation in the Interest of national security; and unclassified Information that meets the standards for classification and is in the process of a classification determination as provided In Section 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1A(e) of Executive Order 12958 or under any other Executive order or statute that requires protection for such information in the of national security. I understand and accept that by being granted access to classified lnformation special confidence and trust have been placed in me by the United States Government .
2. I hereby acknowledge that I have received a security lndoctrination concerning the nature and protection of classified information, including the procedures to be followed in ascertaining whether other persons to whom I contemplate disclosing this Information have been approved for access to it, and that I understand these procedures.
3. I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified Information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation. I hereby agree that I will not divulge classified information to anyone unless: (a) I have officially verified that the recipient has been properly authorized by the United States Government to receive it, or (b) I have been given prior written notice of authorization from the United States Government Department or Agency (hereinafter Department or Agency) 1'9SJ) responsible for the classification of information or last granting me a security clearance that such disclosure is permitted. I understand that lf I am uncertain about the classification status of Information, I am required to confirm from an authorized official that the Information is unclassified before I may disclose It, except to a person as provided in (a) or (b), above. I further understand that I am obligated to comply with laws and regulations that prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of classified lnformation.
4. I have been advised that any breach of this may result In the termination of any security clearances I hold; removal from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such clearances; or termination of my employment or other relationships with the Departments or Agencies that granted my security clearance or clearances. In addition, I have been advised that any unauthorized disclosure of classified lnformation by me may constitute a violation, or violations. of Untied States criminal laws, including the provisions of Sections 641. 793, 794, 798, *952 and 1924, Title 18, United States Code, and the provisions of Section 783(b), Title 50,
United Slates code. and the provisions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. I recognize that nothing In the Agreement constitutes a waiver by the United States of the right to prosecute me for any statutory violation..
5. I hereby assign to the United States Government all royalties, remunerations. and emoluments that have resulted, wiII result or may result from any disclosure, publication or revelation of classified Information not consistent with the terms of this Agreement
6. I understand that the United States Government may seek any remedy available to it to enforce this Agreement Including, but not but not limited to application for a court order prohibiting disclosure of Information In breach of this Agreement.
1. I understand that all classified information to which I have access or may obtain access by signing this Agreement will remain the property of, or under the control of the United States Government unless and until otherwise determined by an authorized official or final ruling of a court of law. I agree that I shall return all classified materials which have or may come into my possession or for which I am responsible because of such access: (a) upon demand by an authorized representative of the United States Government; (b) upon the conclusion of employment or other relationship with the Department or Agency that last granted me a security clearance or- that provided me access ID classifled Information; or (c) upon the conclusion of my employment or other relationship that requires access to classified information. If I do not return such materials upon request, I understand that this may be a violation of Sections 793 and/or 1924, § 18, United States Code, a United States criminal law.
8. Unless and until I am released In writing by an authorized representative or the United States Government.. I understand that all conditions and obligations imposed upon me by this Agreement apply during the time I am granted access to classified lnformation, and at all times thereafter.
9. Each provision of this Agreement is severable. If a court should find provision of this Agreement to be unenforceable, all other provisions of this Agreement shall remain In full force and effect.

Sec 793 (e) and (f) linked here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251552653

[pnwmom]

322. Not a bad move, despite all your speculation and fond hopes. And none of the emails contained

info that was classified at the time, so your nondisclosure agreement doesn't apply.

[leveymg]

325. You think that drawing attention to Clinton's lawyers involvement was a good move by Mills?

The emails that contained information found to have been based in pre-existing classified documents certainly were classified. Others classified as containing "foreign government information" at the moment of their creation under Presidential Order were also classified.

[pnwmom]

326. "foreign government information" doesn't mean it should have been classified at the time.

And it is common for State dept. employees to include "foreign government information' in emails sent through the .gov system, which isn't classified.

I think Mills and her attorney handled the interview very well.

[leveymg]

331. Whoever wrote Executive Order 13526 disagrees with your take on that>

Executive Order 13526 - Classified National Security Information

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 29, 2009
Executive Order 13526- Classified National Security Information

This order prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information, including information relating to defense against transnational terrorism.

. . .

(4) the original classification authority determines that the unauthorized disclosure of the information reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism, and the original classification authority is able to identify or describe the damage.

(b) If there is significant doubt about the need to classify information, it shall not be classified. This provision does not:

(1) amplify or modify the substantive criteria or procedures for classification; or

(2) create any substantive or procedural rights subject to judicial review.

(c) Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information.

(d) The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security.

[pnwmom]

332. A strict definition of "foreign government information" would mean that the State Department --

whose mission is to work with foreign governments -- would be forced to abandon almost all use of .gov accounts (which are the functional equivalent of Hillary's private email), and send everything classified all the time.

Clearly the State department has been interpreting that phrase to mean something like "sensitive foreign information."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/hillary-clinton-prosecution-past-cases-221744

“If you consider the business of the State Department is foreign diplomacy….if everything that concerns foreign government information were to be classified then, arguably, the majority of State Department emails should be,” Aftergood said.

Asked about the presence of such information in unclassified accounts, one former federal prosecutor said: “If that is, in fact, a basis for criminal prosecution then the State Department should shut down its email system.”

Lawyers say the broad circulation of the information State now says is classified points to another potential problem with prosecuting Clinton: the question of how many others would or should be charged in such a case. Almost all of the now-classified messages on her account were sent by other State officials. Should they be prosecuted? What about those who didn’t send her such information but wound up with that information in their work accounts and even personal ones investigators are now combing through?

“On the theory people are putting forward for making this criminal, every single one of those people [who sent a classified message on an unclassified system] is equally guilty, probably more guilty” than Clinton, the ex-prosecutor said. “People three or four levels down, closer to the information, presumably had greater reason to know if it contained classified information … It would make no sense to aim your fire at the person at the end of the chain, instead of at the beginning of the chain.”

In addition, attorneys noted that mishandling of diplomatic information that doesn’t have an obvious national security component to it probably couldn’t be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which is the felony statute most widely cited in discussions of the potential legal fallout of the Clinton email flap.

[leveymg]

333. That is precisely why the State Dept went through each and every email on a case-by-case basis

to determine which "foreign gov't information" email contained classified information. The Department found more than 2,000. For her own part, Clinton wrote 104 such classified emails. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-on-her-private-server-wrote-104-emails-the-government-says-are-classified/2016/03/05/11e2ee06-dbd6-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html

When her use of a private system was first revealed, she told reporters, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email.” At other points, she has said that none of the emails was “marked classified” at the time she sent or received them — a point she reiterated Friday in a CNBC interview.

But government rules require senders of classified information to properly mark it. And the inspector general for the intelligence community has said that some of Clinton’s correspondence contained classified material when it was sent — even if it was not labeled.

The State Department has sidestepped the question.

Spokesman John Kirby said only that the department’s reviewers “focused on whether information needs to be classified today — prior to documents being publicly released.”

These weren't emails that contained information about diplomats swapping cookie recipes. The criteria for classification of information is that they revealed sources and methods, might reveal the identities of US intelligence officers and assets, or revealed information that would otherwise be injurious to the national security if publicly released. During the time that Clinton was Secretary, the State Department's role in collecting HUMINT and intelligence related to NSA monitoring of communications was vastly expanded. The NYT reported:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29spy.html?_r=0

U.S. Expands Role of Diplomats in Spying

By MARK MAZZETTINOV. 28, 2010
Continue reading the main story
Share This Page

WASHINGTON — The United States has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas and at the United Nations, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries.

Revealed in classified State Department cables, the directives, going back to 2008, appear to blur the traditional boundaries between statesmen and spies.

The cables give a laundry list of instructions for how State Department employees can fulfill the demands of a “National Humint Collection Directive.” (“Humint” is spy-world jargon for human intelligence collection.) One cable asks officers overseas to gather information about “office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cellphones, pagers and faxes,” as well as “internet and intranet ‘handles’, internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent-flier account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information.”

{ . . .}

While the State Department has long provided information about foreign officials’ duties to the Central Intelligence Agency to help build biographical profiles, the more intrusive personal information diplomats are now being asked to gather could be used by the National Security Agency for data mining and surveillance operations. A frequent-flier number, for example, could be used to track the travel plans of foreign officials.

Several of the cables also asked diplomats for details about the telecommunications networks supporting foreign militaries and intelligence agencies.

The United States regularly puts undercover intelligence officers in countries posing as diplomats, but a vast majority of diplomats are not spies. Several retired ambassadors, told about the information-gathering assignments disclosed in the cables, expressed concern that State Department employees abroad could routinely come under suspicion of spying and find it difficult to do their work or even risk expulsion.

{ . . .}

Unlike the thousands of cables, originally obtained by WikiLeaks, that were sent from embassies to the State Department, the roughly half-dozen cables from 2008 and 2009 detailing the more aggressive intelligence collection were sent from Washington and signed by Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

One of the cables, signed by Mrs. Clinton, lists information-gathering priorities to the American staff at the United Nations in New York, including “biographic and biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats.”

While several treaties prohibit spying at the United Nations, it is an open secret that countries try nevertheless. In one 2004 episode, a British official revealed that the United States and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

{ . . .}

[pnwmom]

334. Clinton did not write 104 classified emails.

She wrote 104 emails that were classified RETROACTIVELY by analysts from outside State who used different standards than she did.

As the head of her agency, she had the full authority, according to Federal law, to determine which of her documents were classified or unclassified.

Years later, in response to a FOIA request, other people could and did second-guess her decisions. But that doesn't mean her emails were classified at the time she sent them.

http://prospect.org/article/why-hillary-wont-be-indicted-and-shouldnt-be-objective-legal-analysis

[leveymg]

335. "Retroactive classification" is a campaign talking point, not a legal defense.

I am sorry to inform you that while as head of agency she can declassify State Dept. documents that are already classified, she cannot declassify classified "information," particularly foreign source information that might endanger national security. That is the information that was found to be classified in her 104 emails. Not cookie recipes, as explained above. According to the controlling E.O., such information is classified at its birth, and she as much as the lowliest GS-9 is bound by that Order to hold such information as classified.

[pnwmom]

336. She had the authority to decide whether any state department document was classified or not.

Legally, there is no such term as "classified at birth." That's a made-up P.R. term that will not be found in any Federal statute.

Here is a pdf copy of a letter dated May 2, 2016 from the State Department to Patrick Leahy explaining that the State Department could not function if foreign government information was never discussed in non-classified emails.

http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000154-a6fe-d7ba-afd5-affec6200000

[merrily]

177. See Reply 176. Also, a WAPO writer is not the be all and end all of legal issues.

It's a newspaper article, not a legal brief. The wording may not be as precise as you make it out to be.

[pnwmom]

22. Mills is an attorney herself and offered legal advice. Clinton could have more than one attorney.

She's not limited to only one.

[grasswire]

39. sorry

you are simply wrong, and speaking above your pay grade.

[pnwmom]

59. This is what the original article in the WAPost says. They left it out in the Hill's

abridged version.

Mills, Clinton, and the FBI agreed to consider certain questions off limits "because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-leaves-interview-once-the-fbi-broaches-an-off-limits-topic/2016/05/10/cce5e0e8-161c-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?postshare=4851462906536261&tid=ss_tw

The questions that were considered off limits had to do with the procedure used to produce emails to the State Department so they could possibly be released publicly, the people said. Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege, the people said.

[grasswire]

79. "the people"??

Who are "the people"??

LOL

[pnwmom]

83. I know it's hard but you could try reading. The answer to your question's in the WA Post article.

"by several people, including U.S. law enforcement officials"

[grasswire]

85. bogus.

simply bogus.

[moriah]

88. I want to know that every time I see a story on this.

All this unnamed source crapola suggests they were low on real news so had to give us someone who may or may not even exist, and may or may not actually be speaking the truth, to keep the readers from forgetting or something. Gah.

But from the article:

The incident was described to The Washington Post by several people, including U.S. law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing and those involved could face professional consequences for discussing it publicly.

[grasswire]

102. worthless, isn't it? nt

[moriah]

108. The entirety of all these stories? Absolutely. Nt

[pnwmom]

114. One more nothingburger. nt

[CoffeeCat]

119. What is going on with this drip, drip, drip?

We're getting a steady stream of articles in the Clinton FBI investigation. Something new is released almost every day. These articles are usually very shallow and give out cosmetic info about the case (Mills walked out, etc).

These articles are also very poorly sourced, quoting anonymous unnamed sources and now, "the people."

Seriously. What is the point of this? It's certailnly not stellar journalism.

If like to know who is behind these drips and why these half-baked leaks are being published?

It's highly unlikely that the FBI is talking. Are the leaks coming from the State Dept or the Clinton camp?

[moriah]

132. Well, I don't know. It could be simply that...

... it's impossible to carry out an investigation in complete privacy, so the journalists may be getting more from third parties (like apparently according to this possibly a security guard) but unnamed sources can't be held to scrutiny.

All that I can actually accept as credible is that an observer may have seen her exit the interview room briefly, may even have known by seeing where she went or who she spoke to that she consulted her own attorney during that time, then went back in. Whatever it was about, I don't know, but that is not unusual.

All I know is that I'd like to see some of the policies about anonymous sourcing, the NYTimes is allegedly trying to crack down on irresponsible use of it.

[pnwmom]

194. As it turns out, the private server was set up in 2008, for Hillary's campaign -- when Cheryl Mills

only connection to Hillary was as her attorney.

Also, she didn't start her job as Chief of Staff till May 2009. Between January and April, they let her finish up her part-time paid work with NYU, while she assisted Hillary at State on a part-time unpaid basis.

(Cheryl had been the Clinton's attorney since the 1990's.)

So that's why some of this fell under attorney-client privilege. The FBI has been asking about how the private server was set up, but that was done long before Mills became Chief of Staff at State -- when her only connection to Hillary was as her attorney. And any legal advice Mills gave her in the first part of 2009 also would have been as her personal attorney.

And finally, any advice given by Cheryl to Hillary AFTER they both left State would also fall under attorney-client privilege. For example, her advice on how to respond to FOIA's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[Mustellus]

153. Amazing, isn't it.....

That the Clinton camp would be trying to keep the email thing on the front page? Or the State Department, 'cause they want everyone to know that they use gmail for diplomatic communications....

Amazing you could think either one.

But not the republicans, heavens no. They had nothing to do with Whitewater, either. Or the Monica Lewinsky thing. Republicans wouldn't post-classify emails. Republicans wouldn't drip half truths.

And republicans wouldn't join DU to pretend to be D's ,when they were really R Shills.

Amazing isn't it...

[merrily]

176. They need to hide something or there would be no claim of privilege as to the emails.

[onenote]

239. And there you have it: those being questioned by law enforcement should have no rights

because if they have nothing to hide, why do they need them.

Another progressive ideal -- the rights of those being questioned by law enforcement -- bites the dust under the zeal of some people (or should I say hatred) regarding Clinton.

[merrily]

273. Not at all what I said. Imputing hate to me says more about you than it does me. nt

[onenote]

274. Actually, it is exactly what you said.

Your words:They need to hide something or there would be no claim of privilege as to the emails.

The argument that the only reason someone claims the right not to testify (whether because of attorney-client privilege, Fifth Amendment, spousal privilege, failure to be Mirandized, etc etc) is that "they need to hide something" is the canard used by those who think little or nothing of the rights of those subjected to questioning by law enforcement.

And you used exactly that argument.

[merrily]

275. This is what you claimed* I said: "those being questioned by law enforcement should have no rights"

"No rights" is a bs claim. I told you that, whereupon you doubled down.

Buh bye.

[onenote]

276. Yes Run away. It's what one does when they have nothing else.

[Bob41213]

330. It is kinda odd is it not considering HRC's statement

that she encourages all of her staff to cooperate fully.

[leveymg]

233. There's Hillary's mission right there. She didn't want her lawyer to talk about this very topic.

By not cooperating with voluntary disclosure, this basically forces the FBI to conclude that they were noncooperative for a reason and to state that this is an unanswered question that will have to be brought out in further proceedings where attorney-client privilege can be pierced. Game, set, match.

This isn't making Hillary's case look any better, Madam.

[pnwmom]

235. Cheryl and her lawyer invoked the privilege, not Hillary, as it is the lawyer's JOB TO DO,

whenever it applies.

This does not force the FBI to conclude that they are being non-cooperative. The FBI understands, even if you don't, that attorney-client privilege is, as the bar association article says, "the backbone" of the legal system.

[leveymg]

240. But, by invoking privilege she's carrying out her client's instructions not to talk about this.

In the eyes of the public, this looks like cover-up. And, it makes this even worse for Mrs. Clinton.

[pnwmom]

242. There is no such legal conclusion to be drawn. Mills has an obligation to protect attorney-client

privilege.

[leveymg]

247. If what she knew was exculpatory, she is free to discuss it. But, HRC doesn't want Mills to talk

about this.

[pnwmom]

249. Your lack of legal training is showing. n/t

[leveymg]

254. When you don't have the law or the facts on your side, go ad hominem. You've got nothing else left

and have proceeded on this thread to show how you don't know the law or anything about how to make legal arguments. Because you don't understand the process of prepping with an attorney for hearings, you've only managed to unknowingly concede that HRC instructed Mills not to reveal her knowledge on these subjects. How do you know anything about me or my background?

[pnwmom]

255. I have conceded nothing about Hillary. You have only proven that you think

guarding attorney-client privilege is less important than P.R.

[leveymg]

257. This case is all about politics as well as the law. The facts show that Mills

balked at a line of questioning, and that she knew that discussing that topic would be damaging to HRC, her client, and possibly herself. Mills has the same obligation to her ex-clients.

[pnwmom]

260. No. It merely showed that she wanted to end the interview as expeditiously as possible.

She had no reason to assist them in a fishing expedition.

[leveymg]

262. Gee, why would that be?

Thank you for your role in clarifying these issues. There's a box of tissues in front of you.

[grasswire]

285. it was early in the interview

you are embarrasing yourself

[pnwmom]

286. So? That meant they could move on to the next topic. n/t

[1StrongBlackMan]

64. Okay. Please explain where pwnmom went astray ...

This ought to be pay grade good!

[pnwmom]

211. It turns out most of this fuss is because people didn't bother to check the most basic facts.

Of course attorney-client privilege applies to questions about the set-up of the server, because that happened in 2008, before Hillary or Cheryl arrived at the State Department.

And of course attorney-client privilege applies to advice now about how to respond to FOIA requests and other demands, because neither of them is working for State anymore.

[1StrongBlackMan]

266. And even if it was about when they were in office ...

People still don't understand how the privilege works.

[moriah]

110. That's mighty crude.

I suppose you invoke your own superior paygrade/knowledge here? Because surely you aren't deliberately making personal attacks.... no, you're a veteran on here, you'd remember this is Latest Breaking News, not GD: Pee where it seems civility is suspended the rest of the primary.

[grasswire]

125. well, no..

I invoked the description of Mills' duties at the State Department and the general knowledge that when you hire an attorney to review policy and manage people at work, that attorney does not represent you in a criminal investigation.

[moriah]

135. Surely you aren't suggesting confidentiality of attorney work product...

... only applies in criminal investigations?

One final consideration arises in the context of in-house counsel. A communication relating to corporate legal matters between a corporation's in-house counsel and the corporation's outside counsel is normally subject to the privilege. However, when the communication is between a representative of the corporation and the in-house counsel, the distinction is less clear. Because in-house counsel often wears several hats, courts have struggled with the application of the privilege. The privilege would extend to any legal advice rendered, but it does not protect communications that are strictly business-related. Problems arise when the communication contains both legal and business advice, and the courts take different approaches in determining whether or not to apply the privilege. At the very least, it appears that the court will first attempt to determine what role in-house counsel plays within the company -- that of a lawyer or that of a corporate executive. From there, many courts will examine the content of the communication, and this examination will yield varying results. As such, the in-house lawyer should be careful to separate his legal advice from his business opinions.

http://www.sgrlaw.com/resources/trust_the_leaders/leaders_issues/ttl5/916/

If the FBI had agreed that, should Hillary have sought Mills' opinion on the legality of the server, it would have qualified as in-house counsel legal advice and agreed not to go there, and they did, it would have been reason for Mills' to request a moment with her attorney to verify if the phrasing of the question was such she could answer.

Whether that was why, I have no clue at all. The only part of it I'm taking as possible truth is someone saw her step out briefly to speak with her own attorney.

[grasswire]

137. there is little comparison between corporate counsel matters (as you reference above)

....and governmental counsel matters as part of a WH administration.

NOTE: Mills was not legal counsel in her position as policy counselor and chief of staff. Nowhere in the description of her duties is there any mention of her providing legal advice.

Nor was she paid by Clinton to serve as outside legal counsel, as David Kendall is Clinton's attorney of record.

Ergo, there is no relationship of client - attorney.

They are BOTH potential defendants in the criminal investigation.

[msanthrope]

142. Um, wrong. If you pm me for legal advice knowing I am an attorney....privilege attaches.

Doesn't matter if you don't hire me. Doesn't matter what my duties are. You sought legal advice, which is privileged.

[moriah]

152. Or at the very least, you'd want to CYA by having your own lawyer's advice...

... before potentially breaking it, I would imagine.

However, does a PM on a server were Admins can access PMs count under privilege laws as reasonable expectation of privacy? Many attorney websites are saying under their initial consultation form requests that such communications may not be private, which I presumed were warnings that they potentially weren't privileged communications and their clients should be cautious.

In other words, don't all go PM-bombing msanthrope for free legal advice

Hugs to you, take care...

[moriah]

143. I put a lot of ifs in my statement...

... but the biggest "if" was if there was any real information about what went on behind closed doors.

Really, stepping out briefly to talk with your own lawyer isn't unusual in depositions (edit or other times when a person is speaking under oath outside a courtroom).

[pnwmom]

166. Yes -- the fact that she consulted her lawyer during an important FBI interview

sounds like a nothingburger of a story to me.

[jberryhill]

154. A job description does not determine that

If you are an attorney and someone approaches you seeking legal advice, and you render legal advice to that person, then it doesn't matter if you were hired to bake cookies.

[Yo_Mama]

160. Mills was not acting as Hillary Clinton's lawyer when she was Chief of Staff

See my prior comment. This is bogus.

[pnwmom]

162. If it's so bogus why did the FBI honor it? And why does Politico

say she's been their family attorney since the 90's?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[Yo_Mama]

167. Because the fix is in. Attorney client privilege would apply only to

legal communications between Mills and Clinton on the topic, not to the actual administrative procedure that was followed and who knew what.

[pnwmom]

188. Hillary had the private server set up during her 2008 campaign, so Cheryl Mills was only

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:17 AM - Edit history (3)

her attorney then, not yet her State Dept. Chief of Staff (a position which didn't officially begin till May 2009)

That's why discussing the set-up, as the FBI wanted to do, would be covered under attorney-client privilege.

And any advice Cheryl has given Hillary since they both left the State Department, such as how to respond to the FOIA requests, is also covered under attorney-client privilege.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[leveymg]

237. She was her attorney when HRC operated the server to conduct official State Dept business. In her

role as Chief of Staff, Mills discussed with Secretary Clinton whether to hook up her unsecure Blackberry to the server. That's precisely what they ended up doing, together. Mills didn't serve her client very well, did she?

[pnwmom]

241. We don't know what they discussed, but any legal advice to Hillary before May 2009, when State

hired Mills as Chief of Staff, or after they left State, would be covered by attorney-client privilege.

[leveymg]

256. Yes, we do. Mills had an obligation to discuss with her client what she could and couldn't discuss

with investigators before a voluntary interview. It would be malpractice not to get her client's input on this. Mills could always have refused to be interviewed, which would have been her right, but chose to do so on the basis of consultation with her client and her own attorneys. Her walk-out proves she was in an area she knew that would be prejudicial to her client, HRC, and possibly herself.

[pnwmom]

263. She had NO legal obligation to advise Hillary to release her from attorney-client privilege,

as you suggested. That's just nonsense.

Her walk-out proves nothing more than she needed a moment to discuss something with her attorney.

[leveymg]

265. That's right. HRC and Mills calculated the legal damage would exceed the political. What does

that tell YOU? Think about it.

[pnwmom]

270. It tells no one anything. n/t

[DebbieCDC]

42. ^This^ n/t

[awake]

51. No - there is no attorney client privilege with Mills and Clinton!

Where do you get that idea?

[radical noodle]

57. She was counsel and chief advisor to Clinton

during Hillary's term as SoS.

[awake]

63. She was working for the American people She could not have been Hillary's lawer

Hillary was her boss not her client. Any advise that was given to Hillary was only as an employee of the State Department in no way can she call her self Hillary's lawer. The fact that she has information which the FBI was asking about and she did not want to share does not bode well for Hillary it seem to appear that this may not go down as Hillary had hopped.

[pnwmom]

203. No, Mills wasn't working for the US when the private server was set up -- in 2008,

during Hillary's campaign.

She was only working for Hillary (and in a part-time job at NYU till May 2009, when she began her job as Chief of Staff at the State Dept.) So the legal advice she gave her in 2008 and early 2009 would all fall under attorney-client privilege.

It would be nice if anyone ever thought about getting basic facts before attacking Hillary. The FBI wanted to ask questions about how the server was set up, but this happened before Mills came to State, so the answers clearly fell under attorney-client privilege. But no one bothered to check the facts before gleefully jumping on this.

The hate is so obvious.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[awake]

208. I did not know that the question asked by the FBI were about her action in 2008

Nice that you cleared up this information, from the OP it seem that the questioning was about her action while at the State Department. I quests that you have more knowledge as to the question that the FBI was asking, care to share with us the source of your info? As for any "hate" I have in regards to this issue, the only thing that I would hate would be if this email problem blows up in our face and leads to Trump winning the Whitehouse.

[pnwmom]

210. There have been MANY reports that a major focus of the investigation

was how the private server was set up, and what Hillary's intentions were when she did it -- if she did it to avoid FOIA requests.

Have you been following the issues? Surely you've read that this is a major focus of the investigation?

But the other point mentioned in that article (excerpted below) ALSO would be covered by attorney-client privilege because it would cover Cheryl Mills advice to Hillary AFTER they both left the State Dept.

The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject.

[awake]

212. Oh we have been told that the FBI was just doing a "routine security review"

And there is nothing to see here ... Just move along.

I think that you may be confusing the FBI investigation with the lawsuit regarding the FOIA request. As for the "emails being given" to the State Department it should have been stated as the way in which emails were "returned" to the State Department, Hillary seems to have a problem understanding that her work while is was the SOS was not owned by her but is owned by the American people.

[pnwmom]

213. The fact remains that any questions directed to Cheryl about matters she worked on for Hillary

BEFORE or AFTER Mills's employment at State are covered by attorney-client privilege.

[awake]

217. If Cheryl had been given classified emails belonging to the Goverment

After her employment at the State Department attorney-client privilege may or may not exist. Unless we were in the room we do not know what was being asked, what is reported is only spin from one side or the other.

[pnwmom]

220. Of course it applied. She had been Hillary's personal attorney for decades. Legal advice

Cheryl gave her after they both left State, on how to respond to all these legal proceedings and FOIA requests, would fall under the privilege.

[karynnj]

77. But this was 2014 when they gave the SD the emails

The question was did Clinton have counsel at that point, when theoretically she was deciding whether to run and doing her book tour and speeches.

[Yo_Mama]

161. No, I think these questions were referencing, in particular, the CREW FOIA request in 2012

https://oig.state.gov/system/files/esp-16-01.pdf

That's the Inspector General's report on FOIA deficiencies. Beginning on internal page 14:

In December 2012, the nonprofit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) sent a FOIA request to the Department seeking records “sufficient
to show the number of email accounts of, or associated with, Secretary Hillary Rodham
Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or
associated with Secretary Clinton.”62 On May 10, 2013, IPS replied to CREW, stating that
“no records responsive to your request were located.”63 At the time the request was
received, dozens of senior officials throughout the Department, including members of
Secretary Clinton’s immediate staff, exchanged emails with the Secretary using the
personal accounts she used to conduct official business. OIG found evidence that the
Secretary’s then-Chief of Staff was informed of the request at the time it was received
and subsequently tasked staff to follow up. However, OIG found no evidence to indicate
that any of these senior officials reviewed the search results or approved the response to
CREW. OIG also found no evidence that the S/ES, L, and IPS staff involved in responding
to requests for information, searching for records, or drafting the response had
knowledge of the Secretary’s email usage. 64 Furthermore, it does not appear that S/ES
searched any email records, even though the request clearly encompassed emails.

[dreamnightwind]

174. Before Brock took over CREW for HRC

and stopped CREW's efforts into this investigation.

[karynnj]

259. Thanks. Nt

[pnwmom]

297. She did have counsel at that point -- including Cheryl. Cheryl has been her personal attorney

since the 1990's and the Politico article in late 2015 said she still was their attorney.

[grasswire]

80. she was chief of staff. nt

[pnwmom]

204. And the private server was set up in 2008 during Hillary's campaign,

before Hillary or Mills came to State. So Mills's involvement would have been as her personal attorney.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[pnwmom]

60. The WA Post story says there was, and the FBI agreed to keep certain areas off limits

in recognition of that.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-leaves-interview-once-the-fbi-broaches-an-off-limits-topic/2016/05/10/cce5e0e8-161c-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?postshare=4851462906536261&tid=ss_tw

The questions that were considered off limits had to do with the procedure used to produce emails to the State Department so they could possibly be released publicly, the people said. Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege, the people said.

[grasswire]

84. keep trying nt

[scscholar]

61. But that issue doesn't matter

The real issue is the FBI publicly lying and misleading the public by lying to get the interview under false pretenses then doing what they knew wasn't right by asking questions they previously agreed not to answer. just shows the FBI is a political organization now.

[azureblue]

73. wrong

know the players before you comment. Mills is an attorney.

Further: "Of the roughly 30,000 emails from Clinton’s server released by the State Department, approximately 2,000 have been classified at some level."

Out of the claimed 2000 emails how many were reclassified after Clinton left office? And from what level to what level?

This figure is highly inflated by after the fact reclassification and this has been public knowledge for a long time now. So why lie again?

[grasswire]

76. duh. we know she is an attorney.

But that does NOT mean she has atty client privilege in a criminal investigation.

[pnwmom]

214. Of course she does. Any legal advice she gave to Hillary in the years BEFORE

she came to State or in the years AFTER are covered under attorney-client privilege.

The private server was set up during 2008, so legal advice about that would be covered.

And any legal advice since they both left State -- such as how to respond to FOIA requests -- would also be covered.

And, despite what you imply, there is NO evidence that Hillary or Cheryl is the target of a criminal investigation.

[Peace Patriot]

116. As I understand it, people of SoS Clinton's 'pay grade' are supposed to KNOW what is classifiable.

Certain types of documents and information are "born classified" because such items are highly sensitive and may come to the SoS's attention BEFORE they are vetted for classification, and the SoS is presumed to have the ability to recognize them.

I assume this would be true, also, of highly sensitive docs, like those Sydney Blumenthal emailed to Clinton, where the classification had been removed. And there is at least one known instance in which Clinton ordered an aide to strip off a classification and cut & paste the doc into her private server.

So you are just playing with words, to defend your candidate, when you ask, "Out of the claimed 2000 emails how many were reclassified after Clinton left office?" That is irrelevant. If the NSA classifies a doc that Clinton mishandled and does so "after Clinton left office," she is still responsible because, as SoS, she should have known what was sensitive and what wasn't. She was the highest authority in the SoS office. Classification of senstive documents in that office was her responsibility.

And, in the case of Blumenthal, she blew it royally. She not only didn't classify these docs and turn them back over to the NSA for an investigation of where the hell he got them from (--Blumenthal was a civilian, banned from employment in the State Department by President Obama, and working at the private Clinton Foundation), she tried to cover it up. These emails were only discovered when a hacker got into Blumenthal's account. (And that is also how Clinton's private, secret email server was discovered.)

I think you are blind to how much trouble your candidate is in. It is understandable. I may be blind, myself, to how narrow Sanders' path to the nomination really is, because I want him to win. I try to be realistic, but I'm a partisan and that's a fact, too. You want Clinton to win, so you can't see what she did to herself with this private server. It reminds me of Nixon and "the tapes." He couldn't see that his vanity about taping everything he said, for his future memoirs and "for history," would be his doom.

You also seem to have faith that anybody as rich and powerful and well-connected as Clinton cannot be prosecuted. You may be right there. "We need to look forward not backward" and all that. But I guarantee you that if anything "funny" happens with this investigation--FBI report redacted, Obama pardon before the GE, that sort of thing--all hell is going to break loose, not only within the federal government, but in the country. People are FED UP with the rich and powerful running our country like their own boudior!

And we, as Democrats, also need to ask what this cloud hanging over Clinton will mean to the GE. She already has dismal trustworthy and favorability numbers. In recent polls, she already loses to Trump in one swing state (Ohio) and beats him by only 1 pt in two others (while Sanders beats Trump by 6 pts in PA, and by 2 pts in the other two swing states, OH and FLA). And Sanders continues to demolish Trump in national match-ups, while Clinton beats Trump but by far less (or actually loses in one poll--Rasmussen).

Add this FBI cloud, and what do we get, with Clinton as the nominee? Indeed, what do we get if Clinton beats Trump in the GE, but faces Articles of Impeachment the day after her inauguration?

She is a bundle of trouble for our party and for our country, in more ways than this. And she does NOT have a strong, broad-based constituency that will rally to her. She doesn't have one now as she struggles to fend off the Sanders challenge, with all odds having been against him and in her favor, and she will not have one in November or in the White House, if and when she gets into trouble, politically or legally. She is not Bill, who maintained high poll approval even through the worst of Monicagate. She is starting off with low approval and lots of dislike and distrust.

[hopemountain]

173. thank you for your post, peace patriot -

it is challenging to see the forest for the trees. for too many, "emotional" and assumed privilege are blinders clouding our ability to discern truth.

[pnwmom]

299. No, there is no classified info that is so sensitive it is "born classified."

This is by a U Mich law professor who wrote the manual about classification while employed with Homeland Security.

http://prospect.org/article/why-hillary-wont-be-indicted-and-shouldnt-be-objective-legal-analysis

Why Hillary Won't Be Indicted and Shouldn't Be: An Objective Legal Analysis
There is no reason to think that Clinton committed any crimes with respect to the use of her email server.

Richard O. Lempert
March 20, 2016

What follows reflects the knowledge and experience I have gained from working at the Department of Homeland Security from 2008 until 2011. While there, I took the lead in drafting a security classification manual for one of the divisions of the DHS science and technology directorate. In this discussion, I offer answers to questions about the former secretary of state’s email that have not been frequently asked, but should be.

SNIP

Standards for classifying information and procedures to be followed are found in EO 15326 and elaborated on in later regulations. The regulations provide that information “may be originally classified” only if classified by an “original classification authority” and if certain conditions relating to the source of the information and the need to protect it are met. The regulations also provide that “f there is significant doubt about the need to classify information, it shall not be classified.” Within the State Department, Secretary Clinton was the original classification authority and those in the department who had original classification authority had it only by virtue of a delegation from her. As the font of their authority Clinton could legally override any classification determination a subordinate made.

These standards make it difficult to conclude that Clinton violated any law regarding the disclosure of classified information. As indicated by the word “may,” which I italicized, the regulations do not require that any information, no matter how sensitive, be classified. They also indicate that when in doubt information should not be classified or should be classified at the lowest level consistent with national security. Not only was Secretary Clinton the ultimate authority within the State Department to determine whether State Department information should be classified, but she was also the ultimate authority in determining whether classified information should be declassified. Moreover, declassification when done at the highest level appears to require no formal procedure. Indeed, we have a history of high-level officials engaging in “instant declassification,” most notably by leaking classified information to the press for political or strategic advantage. Since the leakers are typically speaking off the record or on deep background, some disclosures may have been made by people lacking the authority to declassify information, instantly or otherwise. No such leaker has been criminally prosecuted, and so long as the authorization to reveal classified information was approved at the cabinet level, it is unlikely that anyone could be.

[fasttense]

245. I guess this puts to rest the lie that Hillary is Not under investigation by the FBI. NT

[grasswire]

2. good that the leaks have begun

helps to keep things honest

[yallerdawg]

3. Oh, yes.

Very particular "leaks" keeps it honest.

[Gomez163]

5. Especially those Trey Gowdy leaks to the NYT. They were awesome

[Cryptoad]

20. Benghazi,,,, Drink!,,,,,,

[senz]

52. Hillary's problems all caused by Rightwingers! Brock meme!

[Democat]

279. You support Republicans leaking info about Democrats

You support Republicans over Democrats.

[grasswire]

284. I support the truth being in the hands of the people.

I don't care who leaks it.

Truth and transparency are paramount to the welfare of a democracy.

[thereismore]

4. So we know that her Chief of staff got interviewed and that she did not like the line of questioning

.

I guess they asked about Clinton herself. Mills threw a tantrum. Good.

[leftynyc]

8. That's quite the fantasy life

you have there. The article above says why she walked out - there was no tantrum. But keep lying. It's sure to lead to that indictment you're praying for.

[Blue_Adept]

10. Some are certainly forcing the narrative to fit their worldview

Aren't they? :sigh:

[RoccoR5955]

15. Yeah

Especially those who don't believe that any wrong was done.

[Blue_Adept]

36. I think the "especially" part is definitely on both sides.

[senz]

53. Oh yeah, getting up and walking out on the FBI -- so normal.

Nothing to see here, folks.

[ReRe]

6. Doesn't sound like a significant...

... discovery, but little by little, things add up.

"Inch by inch,
row by row,
gonna make
this garden grow..."

[yallerdawg]

9. 30 years in the making!

Never what we know - always what we don't know. That higher Clinton standard.

[Fla Dem]

21. Because there was never more we don't know and what we know is there was never anything.

Last edited Tue May 10, 2016, 05:58 PM - Edit history (1)

Except RW crap, propaganda and an endless persecution of President Clinton and the First Lady.

[yallerdawg]

48. I think you need to reread my comment.

When it comes to accusing and condemning Hillary there's never any substance - it's always about innuendo and speculation.

Everyone else has to have tangible evidence - the "higher standard" Hillary is held to requires mere thought!

I very rarely align with "RW cretins." If I did, I wouldn't be posting on a Democratic website.

[Fla Dem]

65. I apologize.

Last edited Tue May 10, 2016, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)

My reading comprehension needs some work, especially after 4:00. Again, sorry. I fixed it. My original comment is ok, just not the last sentence.

[RiverNoord]

50. And would Hillary Clinton ever had come this close to the Presidency

without all of the absurd right-wing propaganda?

Not a chance. Ever heard the maxim that there's no such thing as bad press?

If creeps like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck hadn't relied on her as a regular target for juvenile bullshit, she would never had made it so far in politics.

Look at what it gives people like you. Leaping to her defense over issues that might have been problematic for you otherwise, because all of that right-wing crap has conditioned you to filter any criticism through the 'is this similar to attacks that have come from right-wing groups?' filter.

Actual, substantive concerns about her candidacy are almost impossible to flesh out in public because of this reflex.

She gets this, and that's why she's able to maintain substantial ties with people like Rupert Murdoch - she's largely immunized against criticism from the left among people like you.

[rury]

123. Awesome post...

[grasswire]

141. the Clintons have used the VRWC as a shield.

Very effectively. It's a con game.

[SammyWinstonJack]

148. So true.

[frylock]

82. That was positively Rumsfeldian.

[deathrind]

111. The...

Known unknowns...which are not to be confused with the unknown knowns or unknown unknowns or known knowns...

[ReRe]

32. Agree..

... I can't imagine what it would be like to exist in that world. What on God's blue earth are they effing hiding?

We should never let a person get close to a public office of this land if he or she is HIDING something. Unless they can PROVE who they are: by laying bare their life, papers, whereabouts and doings. No liars, no cheats, no thieves. No effing psychopaths/sociopaths/narcissists need apply.

[leftofcool]

26. Right out of freeperville.

[ReRe]

38. You wish...

... but I'm not. So much so that I wouldn't even know how to find that place. OTOH, sociopaths are people who stand around and accuse people of behaving in a certain way, when he himself is the one behaving in that way.

[840high]

93. Don't you wish....

[pnwmom]

205. It isn't. Mills was Hillary's personal attorney in 2008, when the private server was set up.

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:27 AM - Edit history (1)

So a discussion of the set-up clearly fell within attorney-client privilege.

And any legal advice Cheryl has given to Hillary since they both left State -- such as how to respond to FOIA requests -- is also covered by privilege.

This whole story is just typical smoke-and-mirrors.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[misterhighwasted]

7. "investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject"

Mills had every right to protest that line of questioning. Smart decision.
There never has been any "there" there.
But dang if it doesn't make for great RW campaign fodder.
Mills knew they overstepped their own agreement.
Thank you Cheryl Mills

[LonePirate]

28. I'm glad I'm not the only person who read that line. Seems like much ado about nothing.

[misterhighwasted]

30. That was the only line that mattered.

Too bad they even "went there" at all. Mills was the smartest person in the room at that moment.

Good for her.

[LonePirate]

34. Indeed she was. I'm still amazed by all the revolutionaries giving a wide berth to law & order types

I guess I have a different understanding and expectation of how a revolutionary acts and thinks.

[misterhighwasted]

45. LOL.. Rules only apply to others

I mean things like downloading your opponants voter data,.. i guess thats ok for them . But we'll never know if its ok for others since No One Else Did It !

[AgerolanAmerican]

47. Isn't that odd in itself, though?

Since when do people get to set topics "off-limits" before being interviewed by the FBI? Doesn't the FBI decide its own topics of interest?

For what reason would details of the email setup be part of a set of "off-limits" topics anyway? Isn't that what the FBI is investigating in the first place?

[misterhighwasted]

49. They're not the Gestapo. This wasn't Guantanamo.

Yes there are rules set before they interviewed Mills.
This was an interview, not a trial. And you could maybe ask an attorney familiar with this particular event.

Mills walked out because they overstepped their own agreement. She had the right to do so.
Good for her.

[senz]

71. How dare the FBI ask questions? They have no right to information.

Who do they think they represent? The American people?

[Stryder]

58. That was the first and only thought I had about this post.

Do I get to negotiate what the FBI can and can not
interrogate me about. That sounds kinda handy.
And if I'm displeased, I can get up and walk out?

[yallerdawg]

70. It is an FBI interview!

Do you interview possible witnesses, or do you "interrogate" them?

They can't even find a crime - the Secretary of State did nothing illegal!

[pnwmom]

305. Since the time of ancient Rome, when the concept of attorney-client privilege

was first introduced.

FYI, Hillary set up that private server in 2008, while she was running for office. Cheryl Mills was her attorney then. So any questions directed to Cheryl about the set-up would have been covered by the privilege. It was Mills's job to guard that privilege and she did.

[grasswire]

40. if there's no there, why protect and deflect?? nt

[Pauldg47]

56. But they still want to hide something? WHY !!!!?????

[mmonk]

272. That is the right question.

[PoliticalMalcontent]

11. Truth should trump all when aspiring to the highest office in the land.

If you have something to hide in this very high profile job interview, perhaps you aren't cut out for the job.

If the people that work under Clinton don't feel comfortable with the truth that probably reflects on the candidate. It does in my eyes anyway.

Anyway, you guys have a fun time with this election. I hope some day we find the truth in all of this (without the stonewalling) before the election commences.

[Cryptoad]

17. NIce working "Trump" into the content

u couldnt figure a way to use "crooked Hillary" anyway?

[PoliticalMalcontent]

33. No pun intended. I'm a user of english and that was the most apt word.

Sorry if it offended you.

Edit: When we're all diagnosing each others' posts for nit-picky things to get angry at perhaps we're missing the big picture.

[senz]

69. Well said. nt

[Lazy Daisy]

120. So much for continuing Obama's legacy

You know the one about transparency.

[PoliticalMalcontent]

121. Hear Hear. I'm a fan of Obama. I'd like to truly continue his legacy.

Clinton is a big fan of lip service. I'd have preferred someone with a bit more integrity to win the nomination. It'll be interesting.

[tularetom]

12. It's a criminal investigation, not a friendly chit chat

Clinton is the target of the investigation. Her staff members do not get to dictate the subjects to be questioned. There is no attorney-client privelege, and I seriously doubt that investigators would agree to limit the scope of the questioning.

This is just more incredibly sloppy journalism by the Post. It speaks very poorly of their objectivity and/or their professionalism.

[antigop]

14. I thought that was weird that "investigators would agree to limit the scope of the questioning."

Why would they do that?

[Merryland]

100. they probably didn't agree to limit the scope

but that's more cover-her-ass for hillary writing - implies the FBI f'd up.

[misterhighwasted]

35. investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject"

They overstepped their own agreement.
Pity that Mills had to remind them of their own agreement.
She did the absolute right thing by stopping them.

I applaud her for standing up for her rights.
Smart lady.

[40RatRod]

144. I agree!

But you will never convince those looking for anything to use against HRC to nominate an independent which will hand the election to Trump. IMHO.

[misterhighwasted]

146. independent progressive socialist democratic socialist and back to independent

He's everywhere!

[still_one]

178. Also, the "walk out" characterization is somewhat distorted, since they returned to the

interview room a short time later.

The last sentence in the article is also relevant:

"According to reports, the FBI and federal prosecutors have found little evidence of mishandled government documents that would warrant pushing ahead with a criminal case."

[grasswire]

41. technically, as far as we know she is not the "named" target. Yet.

You are right that there is no attorney client privilege between Mills and Clinton.

[tularetom]

89. I know that, I just like the way it sounds

Actually that makes a good bumper sticker message:

"Vote for Hillary: She's not yet the named target of a federal criminal investigation"

[grasswire]

91. I can dig it.

[Cryptoad]

13. Thanks for

propagating the RWNJ attack on HRC.......Oh,,,, Emails....Oh the Horror.

[RoccoR5955]

19. Yeah, the truth is always a RWNJ attack

Sorry, I paid my taxes, and thus paid her salary. I want to know the truth.
It may not even be about the emails, it may just be about the illusion of transparency that they keep trying to foist upon us, while hiding everything that they do not want us to see.

[Cryptoad]

23. Trouble with the,,

pedestal u are preaching from, there is no data to support you premise..... but carry on soldier,,

[RoccoR5955]

122. Just because you do not see it

does not mean that it does not exist. You cannot see air, but it does exist, doesn't it?

[MisterFred]

283. That's true, but there's a reason.

There's no data for why the server was set up because Clinton's employees took the fifth rather than say why.

[leftofcool]

27. Drama queen much?

[840high]

95. Thank Hillary for this mess.

[pnwmom]

18. So what? She wanted to ask her lawyer a question privately, which is her right. n/t

[grasswire]

43. Mills is not her lawyer.

Mills is her chief of staff.

[pnwmom]

55. Mills left the room to speak privately with HER lawyer, to which is her right. n/t

[markpkessinger]

147. Of course that's her right, BUT . . .

. . . the question of violation of attorney-client privilege concerned Mills' role vis-a-vis Clinton, not her relationship with her own attorney.

[pnwmom]

216. And that is easily explained.

Attorney-client privilege applies to any legal advice Mills gave Hillary on the set-up of the server, because that happened in 2008, before they went to State.

And attorney-client privilege also applies to any legal advice she's given Hillary since they both left State, such as how to respond to FOIA requests.

[markpkessinger]

287. Mills was a chief of staff . ,. .

. . . Attorney-client privilege does not apply.

[pnwmom]

289. She wasn't hired on as Chief of Staff till May 2009, so any advice she gave before then

or after she left State would have been as a personal attorney.

[markpkessinger]

307. A very Nixonian argument n/t

[pnwmom]

309. No, the argument of someone who believe in civil rights and donates to the ACLU.

It's amazing how many DUers are ready to give it all up.

[jalan48]

24. Good for her. Don't let the Obama Administration push you around!

[frylock]

87. Ha!

[closeupready]

25. Oh, the drama.

As someone else said, she doesn't get to dictate or pre-approve questions, or lines of questioning.

[FreakinDJ]

29. with the FBI not all answers need to be verbal

FBI is well known in extracting non-verbal replies

Looks like the found the Mother Lode

[silvershadow]

31. Ouch. Drip, drip, drip. nt

[awake]

37. So much for this being "no big deal, nothing to see here, move along"

The FBI must have found something because why else would some one need to walk out to have a talk with their lawyer if this was just a "routine security check". It is becoming clear that this investigation is far from "routine" it may turn out that an adviser gave Hillery bad advice and she is above reproach and this FBI probe will clear her, for the sake of the party and the country I truly hope so, for if not and Hillary is involved in even a small part of what some are accusing her of then this will not end well.

[grasswire]

44. she has taken other breaks to confer with her atty aside from this one.

Deep doo doo there.

[pnwmom]

75. No, it's just being careful. Anytime you are being interviewed by the FBI

you should get advice from your attorney as needed. That's what she did.

[grasswire]

78. That is a very simplistic interpretation.

Good thing Mills doesn't have to rely on you for counsel.

[nolabear]

54. BRIEFLY walked out of an interview. Then, I assume, she walked back in.

[leftyladyfrommo]

66. They came right back in.

Talk about a tempest in a teapot.

[paulthompson]

67. Very strange

This story is very strange. The reason for this walk out has to do with this, from my timeline:

Late 2014: Clinton and her lawyers keep about half of her emails from her time as secretary of state and delete the rest. (Clinton will later claim that all the deleted emails were personal and not work-related.) Clinton's team takes possession of the private server being managed by the Platte River Networks company, which is actually a copy of the original server that used to be in Clinton's Chappaqua, New York, house. (The Washington Post, 9/12/2015) According to Politico, the process at least begins while Platte River still controls the server, because employees for the company "initially pulled emails off the server and sent them to Clinton's legal team." Clinton will later claim that she had no direct involvement in determining which emails to keep or delete and left that process to her lawyers. Specifically, it appears her personal lawyer David Kendall, her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, and another lawyer Heather Samuelson are the ones who sort the emails, with Samuelson leading the effort. Samuelson is said to be a Clinton loyalist, and she worked under Clinton in the State Department. But she has no background in federal record keeping, and it is unclear if she has any security clearance. It is also unknown if Kendall or Mills have the necessary security clearances or qualifications to make such decisions. (Politico, 9/4/2015) Once the sorting process is done, they move all the emails they deem work-related on one or more thumb drives. It is not known when this happens exactly, but the Post specifies it takes place in 2014. The remainder of the emails apparently are set to be automatically deleted after 30 or 60 days of inactivity (reports differ). (The Washington Post, 9/12/2015) (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

thompsontimeline.com

Clinton handed over 30,000 emails and deleted another 31,000 emails. Since then, there are four known instances where some of Clinton's work emails have turned up that were not handed over. In the most recent, from just a few days ago, a newly released random selection of emails from Clinton aide Huma Abedin show that over half of about 50 emails to or from Clinton were work related and were not handed over. That's from a sample of only 1% of Abedin's emails, so one can easily extrapolate that thousands of work emails were not handed over. (36 of the 50 were Clinton work emails that were not handed over, so if that holds true for the rest of Abedin's emails, that would be over 3,000 Clinton work emails not handed over, and Abedin's emails only make up about 15% of Clinton's released emails, so the number of work emails not turned over could easily be over 10,000, or one third of all the 31,000 deleted emails.)

Furthermore, Clinton signed an oath in court swearing that all her work emails were turned over:

August 10, 2015: Clinton writes under oath that she has provided the State Department all of her work-related emails that were on her personal email account she used while secretary of state. Her short statement includes this sentence: "I have directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done." (The New York Times, 8/10/2015)

So this is a big problem. Of course the FBI would want to ask Mills, Kendall, and Samuelson about this. They were the ones doing the sorting and deleting, it would seem. So I find it very bizarre if the FBI agrees to not even ask them about this, and that it would be off-limits due to attorney-client privilege. If that's the case, how the heck could the FBI ever find out why it is that so many of Clinton's emails that should have not been deleted were deleted?! It seems to me that if these initial indications are true and thousands of work emails were improperly deleted, Mills, Kendall, and Samuelson should be in trouble for that. Kendall was and still is Clinton's personal lawyer, but Mills and Samuelson are not, and I've never seen it claimed that they ever were. How should any of them get a pass on this?!

[antigop]

81. yep, very strange. Very strange indeed. nt

[leveymg]

90. Thanks for identifying that, Paul. What vexed her was the issue of why emails were deleted

This would seem to be the operative section. Correct?

Specifically, it appears her personal lawyer David Kendall, her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, and another lawyer Heather Samuelson are the ones who sort the emails, with Samuelson leading the effort. Samuelson is said to be a Clinton loyalist, and she worked under Clinton in the State Department. But she has no background in federal record keeping, and it is unclear if she has any security clearance. It is also unknown if Kendall or Mills have the necessary security clearances or qualifications to make such decisions. (Politico, 9/4/2015) Once the sorting process is done, they move all the emails they deem work-related on one or more thumb drives. It is not known when this happens exactly, but the Post specifies it takes place in 2014. The remainder of the emails apparently are set to be automatically deleted after 30 or 60 days of inactivity (reports differ). (The Washington Post, 9/12/2015) (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

If the FBI is interested in this (no surprise they are) it shows they suspect the emails were improperly deleted. That opens up a whole new can of worms from the mishandling of classified information angle.

[paulthompson]

131. Yes

This is a whole other can of worms.

I talked about it in the essay I wrote a week ago:

http://thompsontimeline.com/IS_CLINTON'S_EMAIL_SCANDAL_FOR_REAL%3F

Specifically, this part:

How do we know the FBI has recovered Clinton's deleted emails?

In late August 2015, a week after the FBI took possession of Clinton's private email server, Clinton's campaign acknowledged "that there was an attempt to wipe her server before it was turned over last week to the FBI. But two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News... that the bureau may be able to recover at least some data." In September 2015, Bloomberg News reported that, "Once the emails have been extracted, a group of agents has been separating personal correspondence and passing along work-related messages to agents leading the investigation..." That same month, The New York Times reported that according to two unnamed government officials, "It was not clear whether the entire trove of roughly 60,000 emails had been found on the server, but one official said it had not been very hard for the FBI to recover the messages." In late March 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported that since the FBI took possession of Clinton's private server on August 12, 2015, the FBI has "recovered most, if not all, of the deleted correspondence, said a person familiar with the investigation."

That the FBI did not find it hard to recover the emails says to me that all of her deleted emails have been recovered. Furthermore, there were multiple copies of her server, so the FBI probably didn't have any trouble at all if only one server copy was wiped – that is, overwritten repeatedly so that old data cannot be recovered. When a company named Platte River Networks took over management of Clinton's email server in mid-2013, it transferred all the contents of her server onto a new server and managed that, but also kept the old server, and the FBI eventually took possession of both servers. Plus, Platte River Networks had a contract with another company called Datto, which made monthly copies of the server in the cloud. But Platte River Networks didn't know this was happening since they didn't ask for it or pay for it, and they only found out about it after the FBI had taken the servers away.

Did Clinton obstruct the investigation?

The Datto monthly backups not only would ensure the FBI had copies of all the deleted emails, but also would also allow the FBI to figure out which month the emails were deleted. Clinton has never indicated when the deletion happened; she could be in more trouble if it happened after December 2014, when the State Department formally asked for copies of all her emails.

Clinton's lawyer David Kendall has asserted that the server was never wiped. He has said the emails were merely deleted in the normal way one deletes email from one's inbox, and then they were permanently deleted after 30 or 60 days in the deletion folder. But the NBC News report mentioned above specifically says the emails were wiped. That's another indicator of destruction of evidence.

Wiping those deleted emails further suggests there was material in them that Clinton didn't want the FBI to see. Keep in mind that Clinton has said that she turned over not only all her emails that were work-related emails, but also any that may have been in doubt just to be on the safe side. On August 10, 2015, just two days before the FBI took possession of her servers, she even signed the following statement under oath: "I have directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done."

However, we know that Clinton didn't turn over all her work-related emails, because on at least three separate occasions since she turned over her 30,000 emails, more have turned up. The State Department permanently archived far less than one percent of all emails during Clinton's time as secretary of state, so Clinton probably figured she didn't have to worry too much about other copies of her emails showing up.

But senders also keep copies of email messages. In September 2015, one month after Clinton's oath, about ten emails between Clinton and General David Petraeus were found by the Defense Department. These were from January and February 2009, the first two months of Clinton's time as secretary of state, despite the fact that she firmly claimed that she didn't start using her email account until March 18, 2009.

Additionally, when Clinton confidant Sid Blumenthal testified before the House Benghazi Committee in June 2015, he brought 60 Libya-related emails between himself and Clinton that the committee didn't have already. He probably felt obliged to turn them over because he believed they were known after a hacker named Guccifer broke into his email account in 2013 and took screenshots of his inbox as well as individual emails. The State Department found that all of nine and parts of six emails handed over by Blumenthal were missing from the 30,000 emails Clinton had turned over. The New York Times reported two months later, "The Clinton campaign has not explained the discrepancy." It is probable there are more emails between Clinton and Blumenthal still to see the light of day, since Blumenthal was obliged to turn over the only Libya-related ones to the House Benghazi Committee.

In late March 2016, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the State Department turned over two more Clinton work-related emails that were not in the 30,000 emails Clinton had turned over already. This shows that The State Department has more Clinton emails that it won't turn over unless lawsuits force them to. That lawsuit had a very specific target of emails relating to Clinton's discussions of her iPhone or BlackBerry use. No doubt, a State Department search for all work-related Clinton emails would turn up many more, even though the department probably archived only a small percentage of all her emails.

Recall the Bloomberg News report that said FBI agents were sorting all of Clinton's deleted emails into the work-related ones and the genuinely personal ones. That suggests there's a significant percentage of work-related ones and not just a few stragglers. Consider that when experts comment on the chances of Clinton being indicted or not, they're only considering the known released Clinton emails. What if the more damning material was in the deleted emails?

Imagine if you were the target of an FBI investigation and you realized after the fact that you had screwed up and discussed highly classified information in unsecure emails. Wouldn't you be tempted to delete the worst emails if you thought you could permanently get rid of them?

In just the week since I wrote that, more Clinton emails have come out that in my opinion indicate thousands of emails were improperly deleted. There hasn't been any good reporting on this yet, but you can see the emails here:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-6th-production-huma-emails-00684/

http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-5th-production-huma-emails-00684-3/

If you check the emails in those links to or from Clinton against the State Department database of all of Clinton's released emails, you'll see a majority of them are not in that database. In five cases, the emails are actually replies to emails that ARE in the database. For instance, Huma Abedin sent Clinton an email, which is in the database, and then Clinton sent back a reply (such as "please print&quot , which is not. That is inexplicable. How could only argue that the email to her is work related but her reply back is not? (The State Department database normally has all the emails in a chain.)

Clinton has described in the press the process through which the emails were selected, and a look through those above links show that process wasn't followed. For instance, all her emails to and from Abedin should have been flagged early on as work emails by virtue of the fact they were with Abedin, her deputy chief of staff (unless they were of a personal nature, which you can see from the links above they were not, except maybe in one or two cases).

So yeah, there should be lots of questions here! I would think someone or some people would be in danger of obstuction of justice and destruction of evidence changes, though one might argue just who is responsible for how much of the problem. It would be outrageous if the whole email deletion problem is waved away due to attorney-client privilege. Imagine if you shot someone with a gun and then you asked your friend who is a lawyer to dispose of the gun, and then the lawyer did. Would investigators not be allowed to ask about that due to attorney-client privilege?! That can't possibly be, can it?

[leveymg]

155. They're all lawyers so they try to claim privilege. Oldest game in the book.

The FBI and DOJ has been piercing this line of defense for 70 or 80 years and they will again, if they want to. It tells me that if the HRC circle is trying this old game they aren't cooperating and Comey likely can and should nail them all for OOJ and possibly conspiracy as well as the underlying charges of mishandling classified materials and failure to return classified info when requested under (Sec 793(e) ).

The end game is nigh. Run with it.

[onenote]

308. those nasty old games lawyers play to defend people

As progressives, shouldn't we want those under questioning by law enforcement to be able to invoke their protections and privileges? Or did I miss when progressives suddenly became "law and order" types who don't like those icky privileges and protections.

And maybe invoking privilege is an old tactic, but it is one quite settled and respected in the law. For example, here's what the second circuit had to say about the attorney-client privilege.


"We also reject defendants' argument that it was improper for Cherry and Raymond to assert the attorney-client privilege outside the presence of the jury on the basis that they were entitled to an adverse inference because of the witnesses' invocation of the privilege. There is nothing in our case law to suggest that such an assertion of privilege must be made in the presence of the jury. Indeed, in the civil context, we have held that there is no basis for the jury to draw an adverse inference because of the assertion of the attorney-client privilege. See Nabisco, Inc. v. PF Brands, Inc., 191 F.3d 208, 226 (2d Cir. 1999) ("e know of no precedent supporting such an inference based on the invocation of the attorney-client privilege.&quot , abrogated on other grounds, Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. , 537 U.S. 418, 123 S. Ct. 1115, 155 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2003).

To the same effect, see Knorr-Bremse Systeme Fuer Nutzfahrzeuge GmbH v. Dana Corp., 383 F.3d 1337, 1344-1345 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing cases); In re Tudor Associates, Ltd., II, 20 F. 3d 115, 120 (4th Cir. 1994) ("A negative inference should not be drawn from the proper invocation of the attorney-client privilege.&quot ; United States v. United Techs. Corp., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46731, *9-*10 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 2, 2005); Anascape, Ltd. v. Microsoft Corp., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111828 (E.D. Tex. Apr. 25, 2008)."

[grasswire]

105. I wonder too, Paul.

And I hope we start to get more leaks soon.

[thereismore]

277. Clinton lied under oath. Sound familiar? nt

[magical thyme]

68. great example of "cooperating" with the FBI

So it looks like they got their instructions and are tiptoeing around this investigation. 22 Top Secret intel emails on an unprotected server. Nothing to see here....

[Kingofalldems]

86. She talked to her lawyer?

Indict Hillary!!

And Bill too!!

[dlwickham]

129. and the grandbaby as well

[Kingofalldems]

130. Yeah, that kid is suspicious.

And the one on the way too.

[Mutant456]

94. witchhunt

Foolhardy stay safe

[840high]

96. boo - Hillary did

this mess.

[merrily]

97. Remember how many threads we saw when Bernie allegedly walked out of an interview with a local

reporter because the reporter exceeded the allotted time?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280151508

I bet we'll see fewer threads about this.

Next time the FBI questions you, just tell them the questions are out of line and the let us know what happens. Maybe first, though, find out if posting from federal prison is allowed.

[synergie]

98. There is a portion of that link that you "forgot" to include, I've supplied it for you.

"According to reports, the FBI and federal prosecutors have found little evidence of mishandled government documents that would warrant pushing ahead with a criminal case."

There you go.

[grasswire]

103. little is the same as scant

scant means "some"

[awake]

268. "According to reports" reports from whom? this is just more spin

I do not think anyone here has the inside scoop on what the FBI knows or will do, this is just spin spin spin. I hope we find out the truth soon. If the worst is true then we can not have Hillary as our candidate if on the other hand the FBI clears Hillary of any wrong doing then we have no problem.

Let us all hope this comes to a close soon for it will be the best for our party to remover the clouds of uncertainty and have the sunshine in, for the truth will set us free.

[deathrind]

104. So if you

Hire a Chief of Staff who has a law degree you get attorney/client privledge or was there a contract in place...if there was this becomes very convoluted...and even worse, if there was no contract there is no privledge.

[grasswire]

106. no

I have started a thread on the duties of Cheryl Mills as counselor on foreign policy matters and chief of staff. She did not ever serve as a legal advisor to the Secretary of State.

No atty client privilege.

[BobTheSubgenius]

118. The FBI thought it was a solid enough point of law.

Or perhaps the FBI is part of the Clinton Grand Conspiracy. Is that the contention here?

[grasswire]

126. solid enough to ask about it, yes.

And solid enough that the interviewee sought to keep it from the record.

[passiveporcupine]

127. Just found something that may pertain to this particular e-mail issue.

op Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills sent classified information about a foreign government to a Clinton Foundation employee, according to an e-mail released by the State Department through a public records lawsuit.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424723/hillary-clinton-cheryl-mills-classified-information-clinton-foundation

Mills’s lawyer objected to the idea that the e-mail represented a breach of classification law, pointing out that the State Department only classified the information on July 30, 2015, during preparations to release the documents publicly. But former Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) director J. William Leonard told Reuters in August that foreign-government information is “born classified,” and should be presumed as such by all federal officials.

In the July 2012 message, obtained by conservative group Citizens United and reported by the Washington Free Beacon, Mills sent classified information about the governments of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Amitabh Desai, Bill Clinton’s foreign-policy director at the Clinton Foundation.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424723/top-hillary-clinton-aide-sent-classified-info-clinton-foundation-brendan-bordelon

Yes this is a conservative link, (but it's not Brietbart or Freeper), and I'm not saying anything bad about this "walk-out" issue with Mills. I'm just saying the reason this topic may have been off-limits may have been because it referred to emails that were classified after they were sent by Clinton or Mills.

[paulthompson]

134. Sourcing

I get annoyed at people who say something isn't valid because it's reported by a right wing source like the National Review. If it's a case of us having to take the source's word for it, then yeah, that could be a problem. But when they're merely reporting what some document says, then you can go to the document and see for yourself.

In this case, you can see the document the National Review is talking about right here:

http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SKM_C224e150924120101.pdf

And sure enough, it shows what National Review says it does - namely, Cheryl Mills sent information deemed classified to the Clinton Foundation. So the problem isn't with what National Review claims - that's blaming the messenger. The problem is what's in the document. Even Charles Manson could comment on it and that wouldn't change the undisputed facts shown in the document.

[grasswire]

151. +1000

Some people just don't "get" that, Paul. Others fully understand it but have grown accustomed to using attacks on source as a shield. (It never works, IMO.)

[WhoWoodaKnew]

150. With the way things are going I don't think Hillary or Bernie are gonna beat Trump.

I really hope I'm wrong. He's gonna harp on everything that Hillary has done and he'll make Bernie will seem like the most radical communist in history.

I hope somebody bookmarks this post and bumps it because I was wrong.

[Peace Patriot]

175. Naw, the "communist" thing is dead in the water.

Most people know that "communists" are not the enemy--corporations are, and banksters and war profiteers, and "triangulating" Democrats who sell us out at every turn.

If David Brock knows it is useless dirt these days, so does Trump. Brock is trying everything he can get his nasty little fingers on. Not that.

I'm much more worried about the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines (all over this land) than I am about Trump calling Sanders "a communist." It didn't work on FDR, and got them four terms of New Deal hell. And it won't work now when all that's left of communism is really good health care in Cuba.

[pnwmom]

192. The "commie" is still the biggest boogie-man for most US voters.

And the Rethugs would spend months using it to smear Bernie.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

More than nine in 10 would vote for a Catholic, black, or woman

Ninety-one percent would vote for a Jewish or Hispanic candidate

Americans show most bias toward socialists (47%), atheists (58%)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the 2016 presidential election field takes shape, more than nine in 10 Americans say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is Catholic, a woman, black, Hispanic or Jewish. Less than half of Americans would vote for a candidate who is a socialist.

[paulthompson]

164. Upon closer inspection

I just took another look at the Washington Post article this story came from today, and realized something important: the story is really all about the conflict between the FBI and the Justice Department in the investigation.

Look at the wording from these paragraphs in the article, with bolding added by me:

Near the beginning of a recent interview, an FBI investigator broached a topic with longtime Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills that her lawyer and the Justice Department had agreed would be off limits, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Mills and her lawyer left the room — though both returned a short time later — and prosecutors were somewhat taken aback that their FBI colleague had ventured beyond what was anticipated, the people said.

It is not completely unknown for FBI agents and prosecutors to diverge on interview tactics and approach, and the people familiar with the matter said Mills answered investigators’ questions.

So what it sounds like to me is that the Justice Department agreed with Mills' lawyer that certain topics would not be discussed, and the FBI wasn't aware of this so they went ahead and started asking questions about one of those topics almost from the start of the interview.

It's widely believed that the Justice Department is far more succeptible to political pressure than the FBI is. This dispute shown in the article suggests to me that the FBI is more gung ho than the Justice Department to pursue a serious investigation here. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a signficant difference of opinion between the FBI and the Justice Department on this investigation, and the recent report that there's "scant evidence" to charge Clinton is coming from the Justice Department side.

Personally, I think the FBI might recommend an indictment against Clinton. I don't know (since I can't read their minds), but there's a fair chance. Then I think it's much less likely the Justice Department would go forward with an indictment, due to the way the Justice Department is more influenced by political considerations, and Obama has made clear he wants this to go away.

[grasswire]

170. in that case, the leaks from the FBI begin

That's what we have been led to believe will happen if political pressures come to bear on the work the FBI has done.

[paulthompson]

171. Also

Also, if you look at the wording, it appears the leaks from this story all come from the Justice Department side. For instance, this sentence: "prosecutors were somewhat taken aback that their FBI colleague had ventured beyond what was anticipated."

That shows what the Justice Department prosecutors were feeling. But where's the side of the story from the FBI point of view? We don't get that. It seems to me that the FBI has had very few leaks, at least in the last few months. And that makes sense to me. With interviews of Clinton and her aides taking place in this month, they don't want to tip their hand until those are all over. The fact that Justice Department people are leaking shows they have different motives.

[grasswire]

182. what I saw somewhere else on the Internet...

...was the speculation that the DoJ had made a deal with Mills and the FBI was not in on it. And that's why the FBI asked the "verboten" question(s) and Mills objected. It also (if true) may explain why Comey is holding a press conference today.

[dorkzilla]

219. grasswire, can you...

link to something announcing Comey's presser today? The Google machine is coming up with nothing. This could be significant.

[pnwmom]

206. You missed the key point. We know that the FBI has questions about the set-up

of the private server.

We also know that Mills has been the Clinton's private attorney since the 1990's.

And we also know the private server was set up during Hillary's campaign in 2008, before either Hillary or Cheryl came to the State Department.

So any questions about how the server was set up, or about Hillary's intent at the time, have to do with Cheryl's function as Hillary's private attorney. Therefore they fell under attorney-client privilege.

And any legal advice given to Hillary since they both left State, such as how to respond to FOIA requests, also falls under attorney-client privilege.

With all the research you seem to have done, it seems very odd that you didn't know this.

Your Bernie bias is showing.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

Before becoming Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis for four month while also working for New York University

[grasswire]

327. or......................

...(and I was thinking about this last night)...

the FBI and DoJ played rope-a-dope with Mills here. DoJ let her think she had a deal, and FBI stepped right in it to tweak her and see how she responded.

If that is the case, then leveymg is correct when he says that Mills revealed more than she might know by her quick objection to certain questions.

[grasswire]

328. it's akin to a doctor poking your stomach to see where it hurts.

And Mills hollered OUCH!

[Vote2016]

169. Cover up much?

[Peace Patriot]

185. Clinton has NOT been "cleared" of any crimes.

All we have to go on, as to this, is the statement by anonymous "government officials" purportedly not connected to the investigation, who said that, "There is scant evidence that Clinton intentionally broke any laws."

This is fudgy language, from fudgy sources. (It's all gooey and soft.) "Scant" evidence of intent. This leaves room for lots of evidence of malfeasance and "unintentional" law breaking. Though it's true that the rich and powerful break major laws and commit horrible crimes that we are told we must not look back at ("We need to look forward not backward&quot , it is theoretically true that "ignorance of the law is no excuse," most especially, I would think, if you are Secretary of State (for godssakes) and are yourself an attorney.

And it still leaves room for "intent" (though "scant&quot . This may be why Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff, somehow convinced the FBI that she was Clinton's lawyer and thus has lawyer-client privilege to pick and choose her topics with the FBI. She holds the "scant" evidence of Clinton's intent.

I wonder how she convinced them that she is Clinton's lawyer--if she did convince them. They may be just biding their time until she falls on her sword. I'll bet "Scooter" Libby wished he'd thought of this--lawyer-client privilege. (Everybody "inside the Beltway" seems to be a lawyer, so I presume he was.)

Did Clinton give her a dollar as a retainer? Is it pro bono? Is it written down somewhere? (Maybe a disappeared email?) Clinton's lawyer. Right. What next?

---------------------

On using RW sources:

It's quite dumbfounding to have the frontrunner for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, and former Sec of State, and former First Lady, and a former U.S. senator, as the focus of a year-long FBI investigation into said candidate for her breaches of national security with her private, secret email server, and violations of FOIA laws, and obstruction of justice, and who knows what else, and we get nothing but bits and pieces about what's going on, from the Corporate Media, if we get even that. She wants to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Jeez. Does everyone realize how bizarre this is? It is without precedent.

So, if the only news sources interested are those who oppose her politically, and they cite checkable documents and facts, then, if you want to study the matter, or report on it, you are forced to cite those news sources. It doesn't mean you endorse the news source, any more than I endorse the New York Slimes, if I am forced to cite them on something. I don't trust the Slimes. They sold us a horrifying bill of goods on Iraq! You have to be smart about citing news sources, and consider context and other factors in deciding whether or not to trust a particular item. But no general endorsement is implied merely for citing verifiable information.

I will say, though, that what is NOT reliable are anonymous "government officials." So this "scant" business may be bullshit by some agency or person with an agenda. The FBI may have LOTS of evidence of intent, or none, or they think Cheryl Mills knows and they're stringing her along. We don't know.

To use this fudgy stuff to claim that Clinton has been exonerated is absurd, and wrong. It means nothing of the kind, as allegedly spoken, and it could be a lie, or "disinformation" or any number of things, in either direction, toward guilt or not.

[pnwmom]

191. Hillary set up the private server in her home during her 2008 campaign. So any legal advice

Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 06:34 AM - Edit history (2)

she got from Cheryl Mills, her personal attorney since the 1990's, would have fallen under attorney-client privilege. This is why the FBI had to back off from asking Mills questions about the set-up of the server.

(And Mills wasn't hired by the State Department till May 2009, so any advice she provided in those first four months was also only as a personal attorney.)

And any advice Cheryl has given Hillary since they both left State ALSO falls under attorney-client privilege.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

At the time of Senate confirmation hearings on Hillary Clinton's nomination as Secretary of State, the domain names clintonemail.com, wjcoffice.com, and presidentclinton.com were registered to Eric Hoteham,[2] with the home of Clinton and her husband in Chappaqua, New York, as the contact address.[3][4] The domains were pointed to a private email server that Clinton (who never had a state.gov email account) used to send and receive email, and which was purchased and installed in the Clintons' home for her 2008 presidential campaign.

[paulthompson]

229. This is not about that

See this paragraph from the Washington Post article:

"The questions that were considered off limits had to do with the procedure used to produce emails to the State Department so they could possibly be released publicly, the people said. Mills, an attorney herself, was not supposed to be asked questions about that — and ultimately never was in the recent interview — because it was considered confidential as an example of attorney-client privilege, the people said."

In other words, as I said in my email above, it's about how Mills and two others sorted Clinton's emails into work and personal. That took place in late 2014. So your 2008 timeframe is way off. I haven't seen any evidence anywhere that Mills was Clinton's lawyer in 2014. This dispute in the article has nothing to do with the set-up of Clinton's server.

[pnwmom]

231. You missed the part where I said this:

And any advice Cheryl has given Hillary since they both left State ALSO falls under attorney-client privilege.

Mills has been the Clinton family lawyer since the 1990's. She still is. That's why she's claiming privilege -- for work she's done as a personal lawyer both before and after she worked at State.


Politico published this in September 2015:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cheryl-mills-hillary-clinton-aide-213242

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s 50-year-old former chief of staff at the State Department and a family attorney dating back to the early '90s, stands out for her uniquely unvarnished communications with the boss.

SNIP

The frank relationship comes from the fact that Mills has been their lawyer for a long time.

[tomm2thumbs]

195. why didn't she just say 'cut it out'

because that works with Wall Street I hear

[whereisjustice]

197. +1

[whereisjustice]

196. I want to get my company email on a private server

can anyone set me up like Hillary's system.? Don't worry, it's just for emails about my mother.

[msanthrope]

202. At least 2 attorneys on this thread have schooled you on privilege. Are you going to admit your

mistake?

[onenote]

234. I wouldn't hold you breath.

Attorney-client privilege and the rights of those being questioned by law enforcement are no longer progressive values to some around here.

[Democat]

280. Pro-Trump trolls are never wrong

Hopefully all of the pro-Trump trolls on this thread will be banned soon.

[Mike Nelson]

207. Maybe the aide had...

...to go to the bathroom? Really, this is like heirs to someone on their death-bed cheering between blips on the heart monitor. This investigation will be over, soon. Hillary Clinton not be sent to prison.

[riversedge]

215. Well, at least she did not fly out....

The Hill has a very misleading headline--which has never been friendly toward Democrats. Usually when a headline says a person walks out of a meeting, it means they do not come back. She stepped out for a bit and came back.



Clinton aide Cheryl Mills leaves FBI interview briefly after being asked about emails https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-leaves-interview-once-the-fbi-broaches-an-off-limits-topic/2016/05/10/cce5e0e8-161c-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html?postshare=4851462906536261&tid=ss_tw

[pnwmom]

218. Yes. It's always suspicious when someone posts an article from the Hill INSTEAD of the

original article that the Hill is spinning -- which in this case was from the WA Post.

[blackspade]

281. How would that violate attorney-client privilege?

Was Mills chief of staff and Clinton's attorney?

Or did Mills become Clinton's attorney later?
Either way, it shows how corrupt and broken the system is.
It's set up to obfuscate and misdirect to avoid transparency and accountability.

[pnwmom]

302. Mills was Clinton's personal attorney dating back to the 90's.

And she didn't get hired by State till May 2009. And since she and Hillary left State, Mills has continued as her personal attorney.

So that leaves a lot of time to be covered under attorney-client privilege.

There is nothing broken or corrupt about paying a personal attorney for legal advice.

[blackspade]

306. What is corrupt is using the 'privilege' as a way to avoid transparency.

Which is exactly what is happening here.
It was no accident that Mills was hired at the State Dept....
The on again, off again, attorney-client privilege sets up a mosaic of conflicts of interest that obfuscates how, in this case, Clinton does business both in and out of public office.
She is not the only one doing it, but she is the only one running as a Democrat in a political climate that is seething with unrest over real and perceived corruption.

[Adrahil]

314. How is that "corrupt?"

Generally speaking, it's a terrible idea to just have everybody say everything on their mind. People have different recollections, interpretations, and and opinions of events. I dunno... the first thing I learned when I took a class on basic law in college was "never answer any question you don't have to." Not necessarily because one is attempting to conceal guilt, but because it can lead to incorrect impressions. The Fifth Amendment exists for a very good reason.

[blackspade]

315. I already explained how I think it is corrupt.

Also, Mills is not invoking her Fifth Amendment rights.
She is invoking attorney/client privilege.

[Adrahil]

316. Yes, I am speaking of the Fifth Amendment rights of Sec. Clinton.

As well as the Sixth Amendment. She has a right to seek effective counsel and have that counsel what she said to counsel held confidential. As someone who recently went through a lawsuit, I can tell you that one discusses ALL KINDS of scenarios with their lawyer, even really outrageous scenarios. I certainly would not have wanted those discussions entered into the record without context.

[blackspade]

329. that's fine and all, but....

Mills isn't making that claim.

[itcfish]

290. Since the FBI

Cleared Hillary of any criminal intent, this post is irrelevant. Hillary haters will continue with their propaganda.

[IdaBriggs]

293. The FBI has not cleared Hillary. There was a Comey press conference

today smacking that spin job down.