Carl Bernstein: Clinton Used Private Server to Avoid FOIA, Congressional Oversight

[portlander23]

Yep.

[Dustlawyer]

1. What did she think she needed to hide? HUBRIS

[Carolina]

9. And shady deals

connected to Clinton Foundation donations, not to mention all the correspondence with Sidney Blumenthal that Obama had forbidden.

She was hiding -- or trying to hide -- her slimy, Nixonian corruption

[ALBliberal]

35. Obama forbade? Just curious nt

[JonLeibowitz]

76. WSJ: Who Is Sidney Blumenthal?

The Blumenthal Files are the latest reminder that Mrs. Clinton’s email deletions deserve a criminal investigation. Recall that Mr. Blumenthal was barred by the Obama Administration from working at the State Department, despite Mrs. Clinton’s request to hire her old pal.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-sid-blumenthal-1432077350

[Carolina]

81. Thank you for providing that

link. Just shows how underhanded HRC was, is and will be

[840high]

77. yep +10

[Jitter65]

53. I think that was a good idea to avoid Congressional and FOIA. I worked inFOI:A and

people do not realize the number of frivolous and time-consuming FOIA requests that come in from the public and the Congress. It is frequently use by Congressional staff for political reasons or to go after political appointees they don't like. When personal information like e-mails are mixed in with records they get requested also. Except for her files being kept on her personal server at home her actions are not unlike many who work for the government. Most of the time they just say they don't have the record. Sometimes it takes months to redact records for an FOIA request. The Act itself needs to be changed to be more specific about what records are covered and should be narrowed. Also, the government needs to change the way they classify information and documents. The system for classifying information is very sloppy and subjective.

[zalinda]

69. Not mixing personal and business accounts together would be a start

I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than her, I certainly don't have the education, but even I know not to mix business with personal.

I had a little on line business and very carefully kept all emails AND phone calls separate from my personal email account and my home phone. I didn't have a lot of money and yet I figured out how to do it. She had EXPERTS AND THE MONEY FOR EXPERTS to tell her how to keep those things separate and she either didn't ask for their advice or ignored it. This is her mess, and she is the only one to blame.

Z

[Dustlawyer]

71. So because it's too hard we should let her skirt the law,

but punish the lower level workers for the same or similiar conduct? She should be able to hide everything? She could have a personal email that she did not use for work and thus only her government emails would be subject to FOIA requests. Not all FOIA requests are "frivolous."

[EdwardBernays]

2. excellent

another bit of truth leaks out...

"not fully candid" - lol.

Imagine cheating on your significant other and trying to use that defence...

The more her defenders try to parse her lies the more obvious her lies become... deliberately being "not fully candid" is the same as lying, as far as most people are concerned. Pretending that it's not a lie, makes it look like a desperate after the fact cover-up. And of course she doesn't have it in her to be honest about the situation, meaning it will drag on for as long as she's in the public eye.

[gordianot]

3. That really is hilarious so secretive then uses insecure servers.

There are bound to be several whistle blowers who come out of this mess. It would make high comedy as a movie. Pathetic

[MisterFred]

4. Can we put this in the "obviously" category.

And move on?

[George II]

5. Hillary Clinton will still win the Democratic nomination and be elected President.

[sulphurdunn]

8. Probably true and also

very bad for our country.

[SusanLarson]

11. Maybe but

She will be promptly be successfully impeached by the Republicans, before the ink is dry on an oath of office.

[nyabingi]

13. And take the Democratic Party

down the toilet along with the country.

[secondwind]

29. she doesn't deserve it, imho

[George II]

30. She does imho, and itho of millions of other Americans.

[KPN]

51. They and you are all wrong. That's all.

[George II]

57. "Wrong", or of a different opinion? Big difference.

[KPN]

62. Wrong.

Nobody "deserves" to be President. Some earn it, some finagle it.

[GoneOffShore]

74. ^This^

And HRC-WJC Inc. [since 1979] have been grifting and finagling since the beginning.

And now there's a new branch of the firm - CVC-M LLC. Wonder how long before we're burdened with a Chelsea Morning?

[840high]

78. .+1

[TransitJohn]

33. You should at least qualify that with 'I hope.'

It's far from certain. I really hope her decisions don't lead to President Trump.

[raindaddy]

34. Considering she already has a very low trust factor and those numbers continue to slide

By the time she reaches the Oval Office she'll be the weakest president in modern history with little public support.

I'm sure many in the Republican party would prefer a wounded Hillary Clinton with little capital to a Donald Trump...

[RiverNoord]

56. And the relevance to the OP is....?

[George II]

59. The relevance is that these continued attacks on Clinton will not change the nomination or...

....the election results in November.

[RiverNoord]

83. OK... But that's just a boilerplate, broad statement you could

use to respond to any sort of negative information about the campaign of Hillary Clinton for the Presidency.

The OP wasn't about Hillary Clinton's chances of securing the Democratic nomination or the general election outcome in November. It was about a specific activity that Hillary Clinton engaged in while she was the Secretary of State.

If you didn't have something specific to contribute/contest with respect to the actual topic of an OP, it's kind of... excessive to simply say 'The person who is the subject of the OP will become the Democratic nominee and the next President.'

[George II]

84. But we all know the not-so-subtle underlying objective of the OP.

[Scalded Nun]

63. And does that not say so much for this country. eom

[zentrum]

6. But it .....

.....was her turn, dammit! Wanted to run the SOS like a Queen.

[tk2kewl]

7. finally ssomeone on the teevee says what we all know

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." [laughter]

—?Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, (March 10, 1975)

[dchill]

23. Isn't that special!

[SusanLarson]

10. He is 100% right, here is her opinon on email before the server in her own words

Here's what she was hiding from in her own words...

"As much as I’ve been investigated and all of that, you know, why would I —- I don’t even want -— why would I ever want to do e-mail?" Clinton is seen on tape telling Peter Paul on home video captured at a fundraiser.

"Can you imagine?" she said.

She felt that she had discovered the perfect solution. She would use her own server which means she decided who got access to what, and when. It also meant that public records requests or congressional subpoenas would not find any responsive results when they searched the State Department's official record keeping system.

This meets the legal definition of the term concealment.

Concealment

n. fraudulent failure to reveal information which someone knows and is aware that in good faith he/she should communicate to another.

Here is the penalty for this very clear violation of federal law

18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795; Pub. L. 101–510, div. A, title V, § 552(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1566; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

She had custody, she had a official requirement to ensure that the records were indexed by the governments records keeping system, she chose not to do so to control and limit access. She is guilty.

If she is elected she will be promptly impeached and removed from office by the Republicans before the ink is dry on her oath.

[gordianot]

14. While I still can: But she has three million more votes.

It is all beside the point if indicted she will not withdraw from the race I have a lunch bet on her not withdrawing from the race on any circumstances.

[hellraiser69]

50. Are you still trying to push that b.s.?

She only has more votes because the caucus states and closed primary states where independents couldn't vote aren't included in those numbers. Keep drinking the corporate media kool-aid.

[gordianot]

61. Sorry did not include sarcasm notice.

[pnwmom]

21. And yet she was one of 90 people in State who were using personal emails

and unlike Powell, she turned hers over when the State Department requested them -- though State already had everything that had been saved to the .gov accounts of staffers she corresponded with.

OTOH, her system appears to have worked better than State's because she was able to turn over those 55,000 pages of emails. State has now acknowledged that many of the .gov emails, belonging to employees across the system, didn't get saved.

[Equinox Moon]

37. I think though that she is the first one to have a 'server'

The others used private email, but did not have a private server. That actually is quite different.

[pnwmom]

41. Legally there is no difference. The Federal records act would distinguish

between a .gov account and a private account but not between a private personal account vs. a private commercial account,.

[Equinox Moon]

75. Okay, good to know.

I did not research anything, I just know that personal email is very different from owning a personal server and hiring someone to maintain it.

If Hillary is going to be the nominee, I think we all would like this cleared up as soon as possible. No matter what candidate one supports, I think we are all very tired of this issue and want it over with. It is pathetic how long the Feds have dragged this out. It is not good for anyone. They need to finish the investigation and be done with it.

Peace

[pnwmom]

80. Unfortunately, there will never be an end to this -- and not because of Hillary's fault.

It started when she said she didn't want to bake cookies in the White House -- she wanted to do something more worthwhile. Suddenly we were being treated to the Travel Office scandal (was some travel agent fired improperly); the Christmas card scandal (did the Clintons send too many Christmas cards); the Rose Hill law office scandal (don't remember), the pork bellies scandal (a little money Hillary made in the futures market), the Vince Foster murder (a friend died); the Whitewater scandal (money the Clintons lost in real estate) and finally finally finally after several years and a $70 million investigation starring inspector Javert Starr, the Rethugs hit pay dirt with Monica Lewinsky.

They succeeded in establishing that President Clinton had consensual blow jobs from an college -graduate intern. And he was impeached because he misread the definition of "sexual relations" and thought it didn't include oral sex (it specifically didn't list the mouth along with all the other body parts, but it had a verb in there -- to "cause" -- that a more careful reader would have realized changed the meaning.)

And what killed the Rethugs after they impeached Clinton? The Senate failed to give the 2/3 necessary to find him guilty (a foregone conclusion ) -- and Clinton's popularity was higher than eve before.

So, no, it won't ever be over for Hillary. Her haters, and they are haters, will be on the warpath from day 1. But I won't blame her for that. And I won't make the mistake, as others do, of thinking that another Dem wouldn't be mistreated this way.

If you think they would be nicer to Jane Sanders, think again. She's a strong, smart, self-confidant career woman -- everything they'd despise. They've already got two things they can go after the Sanders's for -- Burlington College and the EB-5 ponzi scheme. And this will be just the beginning.

It's what the Rethugs do.

[nyabingi]

12. I don't think Obama

is a fan of Hillary Clinton. In fact, I think he looks at her about on the same level as he does Netanyahu - he doesn't like them very much but has to deal with them.

When he stated that his biggest mistake as president was what happened to Libya, I think he was taking a not-too-veiled jab at Hillary and the fact that he allowed her to make messes of several countries as Secretary of State. I think he saw appointing her as SoS as a necessary evil, but I think he regrets it everyday. The two of them obviously have major differences in terms of Israel, Syria and the American role in dealing with both.

She used her position to enrich herself through the shady Clinton Foundation and to carry out mayhem on a global scale, following the military desires of corporations and the military industrial complex.

[Ford_Prefect]

16. What you said! ^^^^^^^^^^

[Live and Learn]

19. +10,000 nt

[dchill]

25. Great post!

[MissDeeds]

47. Excellent post

[840high]

79. .that^

[pnwmom]

15. Except there's no evidence. He's just making it up as he goes. For example,

he doesn't even have the basic facts right. He accuses her of setting up her private server to avoid FOIA.

But the fact is that the private server was set up for Bill in NY after he left office, and then she used it before she got to State. She just kept using it.

[SusanLarson]

17. Ethical standards

Read post #10 in this thread. There is evidence from her own mouth. Also it's sad you can support such a low ethical standard for elected officials. I know you raise your children better than that.

[OwlinAZ]

20. ?????

Are you making this up?

[pnwmom]

22. No. Read Cheryl Mills testimony in the Judicial Watch deposition.

The Clintons already had the private server before she came to State.

[dchill]

26. That is COMPLETELY beside the point.

You know that.

[pnwmom]

42. No, it contradicts Carl Bernsteins claim that they set up the server to avoid

FOIA requests.

They set up the server for Bill before she came to State, and she was using it, too.

[AntiBank]

49. That makes zero sense. They hooked it up to DOS when she was

SOS. It doesn't matter when the actually bought it. What you are saying is the same as saying if I use a gun in a crime that I had before I ever considered the crime I am inocent in terms of using the gun in the actual crime.

[dchill]

52. It does not contradict anything.

A server can be set up to do whatever task is desired at any time, without interfering with previous setup(s). It's a server. It multitasks. Both scenarios coexist, without contradiction.

[Laser102]

18. Still trying and failing to be relevant after all these years. Bernstein and Woodward. Losers.

[AntiBank]

45. sorry, but shooting any and all messengers via ad hominen attacks

when it does suit your corporstist candidate's agenda just doesn't pass the smell test.

[Javaman]

70. yup they sure railroaded nixon...

[Gman]

24. BFD

Yawn...

[Equinox Moon]

27. I always wondered why...

This is my first time hearing a viable reason of why she would have a private server for high level Government work. That is an odd link to be sure - Government work & using a private server. Hmmm...?? Why? Hiding and being secretive? But why? Not because it was convenient, that's for sure. Why not trust the Government you work for?

So here is a possible reason, to "Avoid FOIA, Congressional Oversight".

This is my first time contemplating this. I always just glass over when I hear about HRC and email/server. It is so saturated in the media, I didn't listen or think for myself about it. Until now.

[Gman]

28. Why is this right wing conspiracy shit posted

In a place called DU? The standards have dropped to zero here.

[Matt_in_STL]

31. The FBI and the State IG are part of a RW conspiracy?

Someone should probably tell the President, ASAP. I vote for you. Look, you now have one vote more than anyone else for that task. It was a caucus, so I am sure the results are valid.

[TheSarcastinator]

39. YES: CARL BERNSTEIN IS A MISOGYNIST REPUBLICAN BERNIE BRO CONSPIRACY THEORIST

Run with that. I'm sure it will work out well.

[Gman]

46. Whatever. It's through right-wing horse shit

[AntiBank]

44. you and others have labled anything that doesn't suit

your pro Clinton agenda as right wing. Talk about defining deviancy down.

[Gman]

48. This is just more crap aiding fascism in America

[AntiBank]

54. no, it's about the long process of exposing truth, regardless

of where the truth takes us. You demand all to just bow down to Clinton regardless of what she did or did not do. THAT is fascism my fine spinning friend.

[Gman]

67. Truth??? HA!!!

[AntiBank]

68. Yes, I know it is perhaps an alien concept, but when it comes to criminal investigations, an

official finding of fact, aka truth, is eventually arrived at. All the grandstanding in the world will not stop this from coming out, one way or another,

[Gman]

72. Thank goodness we only have less than a week left of this crap

Here at DU.

[AntiBank]

73. do you really think this is going to go away on the 16th?

Oh, they may ban all postings about the emails here on this board, but that has zero impact on the real world.

[Orrex]

32. Is it the 16th yet?

[TheSarcastinator]

40. I know, right?

Only a few more days before the coronation is complete and Her Majesty and her sycophants can shout "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" at any critics. That will stop all this email "nonsense" once and for all, I am sure!

Grey skies are gonna clear up: put on a happy face!

[wolfie001]

58. If tRump wins those "Grey skies" are gonna be radioactive

Also, just think of the three or so Neanderthals he'll surely appoint to the SC. God help us all, and I'm not particularly religious.

[Orrex]

65. Or, less melodramatically...

DU will rally behind the overwhelmingly probable Democratic nominee, rather than fostering in-fighting solely for the benefit of the candidate who won't be nominated.

[AntiBank]

55. the FBI and the DOJ don't give a rat's arse about June 16th

[Uncle Joe]

36. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, portlander23.

[TheSarcastinator]

38. Carl Bernstein is a MISOGYNIST REPUBLICAN BERNIE BRO COMMIE

Obviously.

[zebonaut]

43. So the Dems want to nominate someone in Effing FREEFALL that they are scared of losing?????

Nominate Bernie!!!

[Mira]

64. ...

[KPN]

60. Top Democrats should be terrified!

If Hillary gets the nomination, this will absolutely be the WORST choice of Presidential candidates EVER!!!!

And I'm terrified Hillary will lose to whacko Drumpf!

[liberal N proud]

66. She did the same as previous Secretaries of State

It is just those Secretaries of State were Republicans.

Another Republican hypocrisy!

[AtomicKitten]

82. She is the only SOS that had their own unsecured server in their home.