2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSeventeen Words That Spelled Trouble for Hillary Clinton
posted a lengthy piece on Hillary Clintons general-election prospects when a long-awaited report from the State Departments inspector general, a watchdog appointed by President Obama, was leaked, a day in advance of its release on Thursday. The report concluded that, as Secretary of State, Clinton violated the departments rules by conducting official business via a private e-mail account and setting up a private e-mail server to handle and store her correspondence.
The story is big news. On Wednesday, it was all over the Internet. The broadcast networks featured it prominently in their evening newscasts. On Thursday, it led the print editions of the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. While few readers and viewers will take in all the details in the report, they will surely get the message that Clinton broke the rules, and that her explanation for setting up her private e-mail system, which never seemed very credible, has now been discredited by her own words.
Clinton has repeatedly said that she set up her private e-mail system for the sake of convenience. The new report details an e-mail exchange from November, 2010, between Clinton and Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff. Abedin told her boss, We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam. (Apparently, some messages from Clintons private account were being intercepted by the departments spam filter.) Clinton replied to Abedin, Lets get separate address or device but I dont want any risk of the personal being accessible.
Those seventeen words seem to confirm what many observers have suspected from the outset: Clintons main motive in setting up the e-mail system wasnt to make it easier for her to receive all her messages in one place, or to do all her business on her beloved BlackBerry; it was to protect some of her correspondenceparticularly correspondence she considered privatefrom freedom-of-information requests and other demands for details, for example, from Republican-run congressional committees.
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/seventeen-words-that-spelled-trouble-for-hillary-clinton
tularetom
(23,664 posts)and she didn't want anybody to know she was doing that.
Especially her boss, President Obama.
Kind of a kick in the nuts to him IMO.
Arazi
(6,882 posts)I hate this scandal for tarnishing his legacy amongst other reasons
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)War and greed, war and greed...
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)She planned to subvert Obama's leadership while she was shaking his hand. His name was on the enemies list, it was fiat accompli.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)That is the character capable of destroying the Democratic Party in pursuit of her own ambitions. Potentially criminal, certainly unworthy of the presidency.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)with weapons of mass destruction and the devil in the board room
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Would recognize this as complete disregard for her boss.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)including me
grasswire
(50,130 posts)It's akin to the yellowcake, or the 16 words of George W. Bush.
The vulnerability for Clinton lies not with the personal privacy issue.
Her vulnerability is in her failure to obey laws regarding the protection of national secrets.
Don't allow the focus of these media stories to cover up the real culpability.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Framing the argument and issue is everything
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...also there is the question of official corruption, given the advantageous financial deals for the Clinton Foundation from entities doing business with the US, mediated by the State Dept. We don't know much about this side of things yet, but there had already been articles detailing some, er, "interesting" appearances of quid pro quo.
sorechasm
(631 posts)I can sympathize. I don't want my personal being accessible either. But I'm not running for the most public office in the land. I don't run an agency who's rules specifically prohibit privatizing public information. If you don't believe in transparency or the rules you are entrusted to enforce, why did you take the job of SOS? If you don't trust the rules or those enforcing the rules of the State Dept., and therefore take extreme measures to skirt those rules, it implies that your motives are not for public service. If a public office was used for personal gain, I can understand why you would not want the personal being accessible by the public. Nonetheless, it is the law.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)She didn't want FOIA request or nosy State Dept IT guy discovering quid-pro-quos. That would destroy any presidential ambitions.
JudyM
(29,491 posts)The Foundation in her capacity as SOS.
Couldn't let that get out!
polly7
(20,582 posts)and it pisses me off to no end. Yemeni children have suffered so much d/t those weapons gotten by Saudi Arabia through donations to her Foundation during her term as SoS. HRW has been calling out the war crimes, and no-one cares.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Every time she says "personal", substitute the word "Foundation".
You want to start an OP to that effect? If not, I will.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)I don't dick around on Facebook at work. I don't send raunchy emails from work. I don't do online shopping at work.
I DON'T CONDUCT MY PERSONAL BIZ AT WORK.
The idea that this would be a valid excuse for anyone over the age of 25 is laughable.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...this is a woman who vilified Edward Snowden for revealing how the NSA spies on all of us, and who wants to initiate a Manhattan Project to enable the government to spy on all of us even more effectively.
She claims to be ignorant of technology ("what, you mean with a cloth?" -- ha ha so cute -- and yet instead of hiring a true professional to set up her private email server, she hires a sort-of techie with a degree in political science to set it up. She then proceeds to conduct all of her U.S. Dept of State business on said server, compromising national security, but hey, she protected her own privacy, so it's all good, right?
Forgive me if I give a big, fat FU finger to that.
Seeinghope
(786 posts)Things like her keeping her friend Sydney Blumenthal as confidante advisor even though the White House ....President Obama Administration not to have Sydney Blumenthal as an advisor. Things like that needed to be kept secret because Hillary Clinton does what she thinks she should be able to do.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)She apparently thought so little of Obama and so highly of herself that she ran a rogue foreign policy right under Obama's nose.
Seeinghope
(786 posts)Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Because that is all her "foreign policy experience" amounts to: TPP, TTIP, Honduras Coup, Iraq War Resolution, pushing fracking to other nations, Libya, channeling weapons to various Syrian groups, then let Syria stew, ...
war and greed.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)It'd blow up anything less than a BlackBerry, Presidential DateWatch Oyster Perpetual Edition.
Besides, who can remember all those fool passwords?
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I didn't know that.
But, it's hard to keep up on all the news coming out about this situation.
Someone should write a book about it!
bobbobbins01
(1,681 posts)Why not have a government account for government business, and a personal account separate. Why did she go through all the extra, shady business?
Seeinghope
(786 posts)she was Secretary of State. The Obama Administration said no to Hillary using Blumenthal as her advisor.
She still used Blumenthal as her advisor.
Blumenthal was on the payroll for The Clinton Foundation.
She did have arms contracts given out to M.E. Countries
The Clinton Foundation did receive in the upper hundreds of millions of dollars in donations during that same time period from many of those same countries.
I am sure that there are many many of things like this.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Where she says "personal" you should substitute "Foundation".
She did not want Foundation matters to become public.
Now it makes sense, doesn't it?
bobbobbins01
(1,681 posts)Why not just keep a separate Foundation email that is private?
alc
(1,151 posts)is that she wanted the recipients to know that the "work" email about the arms sale being considered by the state dept. is coming from the same person sending a "personal" email to organize a meeting with a clinton foundation representative about donations.
I have to think that's what the FBI is looking at. There have been leaks/rumors that the investigation is about corruption not just classified information and I can't imagine an investigation about an email server would take 14+ months including 8+ months after the server and cloud data was found. The laws about classified information and communications aren't that complicated and don't require intent and it could have been concluded well before the DNC convention. Intent does matter for corruption. Was she just using a work connections to raise money for a charity (like selling girl scout cookies at work)? Did it only happen when the clinton foundation representative was having trouble contacting a potential donor? Or did she intentionally use the same email address to apply pressure for donations? What if it wasn't intentional on her part but was perceived that way by individuals/governments working with the US government?
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)She intended to dodge FOIA/ scrutiny
And her IT guy missing all his emails
Is further corroboration that intent was in bad faith
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)I haven't been paying attention to the email stuff but this is fairly scandalous.