State Department report slams Clinton email use

[KeepTalking]

Regardless, the statement refers to an issue that occurred as she was leaving office, so revoking her security clearance would have had no effect, she was already out the door.

That statement is calling out the minimum remedy she could have taken -

To avoid the violation of their policy, which may or may not have also been a violation of the Federal Record Keeping act. The violation did not occur until she failed to do that.

the violation happened when she was in her appointment as SecState.

Show your work. What was the violation, and what policy of the State Department, or provision of the Federal Record Keeping act did it violate?

Reading that as something which happened after she was out of the position defies standard English.

Hardly. It was a fairly straightforward statement in standard English.

"At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and," - This is the first part of the sentence, it tells us what she did not do that she should have done.

"because she did not do so," - The word "because" notes that what happened in the first part of the sentence (failure to surrender all emails) is the cause of what is about to be stated next.

"she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act." - Now we finally come to what her action (or inaction) noted at the beginning of the sentence caused, namely non-compliance with policy.

 

[KeepTalking]

It was in the OP, quoting the linked article:

A State Department Inspector General report said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to follow the rules or inform key department staff regarding her use of a private email server, according to a copy of the report obtained by CNN on Wednesday.

The report, which was provided to lawmakers, states, "At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/state-department-report-faults-clinton-over-email-use/

I don't think it was a big deal because no one really spied on her successfully and used such information to wreak havoc on the nation, but technically it seems it was illegal.

The two things seem related.

i.e, because it was on a private email server, she did not retain the records for dept/govt use. It's not just that the next guy should have access to information from the last guy. Record retention is an important part of business/govt and various regulations cover the extent of necessary compliance.

Regardless, the statement refers to an issue that occurred as she was leaving office, so revoking her security clearance would have had no effect, she was already out the door.

If her actions violated the Federal Records Act which the article seems to suggest, then it's even more serious than that.

The devil is in the details there. The statement seems carefully worded so as not to say that she violated the Federal Records Act, but rather that she did not comply with policies that were implemented in accordance with that Act. The policies could have gone above and beyond what is stipulated in the Act, so non-compliance with the policies is not necessarily a violation of the Act.

If that were true, then it'd be a non-sequitur or superfluous.

In what way? It just seems like carefully constructed weasel-wording to me.

Sometimes, the way these things work is that the regulation says you must have a policy to handle X and in those cases if you do not follow the policy you are in violation of the law. Record retention is sometimes in those areas, though often not.

"Sometimes" is not "always", so what's your point? That she could have violated the Act? I agree, it's possible, but I don't have a full understanding of what is and is not in the act. It seems pretty unequivocal that she violated policy, but that is not necessarily a violation of the act, and not necessarily criminal.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The basic problem is the government bureaucracy did not provide the e-mail support it should have. Lots of powerful people worked around it, now that working around is being used as the basis for a witch-hunt.

 

[RavenSky]

A federal law requires the preservation of government records, and Clinton has said that since most of her emails were sent to people on the State Department system, she was complying.

This defense makes no sense. Just because someone complies most of the time, doesn't mean the times they were not compliant with law is legal. So the times [the some times] she did not email State Dept people about official business, she was acting contrary to federal law because she was not preserving govt records.

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This defense makes no sense. Just because someone complies most of the time, doesn't mean the times they were not compliant with law is legal. So the times [the some times] she did not email State Dept people about official business, she was acting contrary to federal law because she was not preserving govt records.

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

She regularly corresponded with Sid Blumenthal regarding official business, no?

 

[RavenSky]

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

She regularly corresponded with Sid Blumenthal regarding official business, no?

Official business? I will need a citation for that. It does sound like he sent her quite a few emails with his opinions on stuff, though.

 

[Deepak]

That statement is calling out the minimum remedy she could have taken -

To avoid the violation of their policy, which may or may not have also been a violation of the Federal Record Keeping act. The violation did not occur until she failed to do that.

the violation happened when she was in her appointment as SecState.

Show your work. What was the violation, and what policy of the State Department, or provision of the Federal Record Keeping act did it violate?

Reading that as something which happened after she was out of the position defies standard English.

Hardly. It was a fairly straightforward statement in standard English.

"At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and," - This is the first part of the sentence, it tells us what she did not do that she should have done.

"because she did not do so," - The word "because" notes that what happened in the first part of the sentence (failure to surrender all emails) is the cause of what is about to be stated next.

"she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act." - Now we finally come to what her action (or inaction) noted at the beginning of the sentence caused, namely non-compliance with policy.

The Federal Record Keeping Act is part of Title 44 of the US Code - that's not a policy that's a law. Their statement is saying that she could have taken the recommended action to avoid falling afoul of the law, but it's definitely a law and not a policy. The policy she violated was having an unapproved private server which wasn't under the purview of standard governmental controls regarding secure information. The policy is developed in accordance with the wording of the Act, but that's not to say that the Act is merely a policy.

 

[laughing dog]

This defense makes no sense. Just because someone complies most of the time, doesn't mean the times they were not compliant with law is legal. So the times [the some times] she did not email State Dept people about official business, she was acting contrary to federal law because she was not preserving govt records.

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

True, but allowing her to judge what is personal/private and what is official gives the appearance of allowing the fox to guard the henhouse.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

She regularly corresponded with Sid Blumenthal regarding official business, no?

Official business? I will need a citation for that. It does sound like he sent her quite a few emails with his opinions on stuff, though.

That the emails were unsolicited is a claim from the Clinton camp. At least with emails available Clinton would ask him to go on...and she'd ask follow up questions.
http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clin...ther-light-adviser-sidney-blumenthals-1991345

The contents of the emails also seem to go against Clinton’s*earlier claims*that Blumenthal’s advice had been “unsolicited” as in many of the email threads, Clinton reportedly responds by asking follow-up questions.

 

[bilby]

The biggest state secret is the USA it dysfunctional.

Worst. Secret. Ever.

 

[dismal]

This defense makes no sense. Just because someone complies most of the time, doesn't mean the times they were not compliant with law is legal. So the times [the some times] she did not email State Dept people about official business, she was acting contrary to federal law because she was not preserving govt records.

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

Why do you imagine they keep finding work related emails that she did not turn over? Like her correspondence with Blumenthal that emerged because his account was hacked and yesterday's revelation that emails regarding her system itself were tanked:

After 14 months of public scrutiny and skepticism over Clinton's motives in keeping her emails secret, new questions emerged Thursday. They centered on her apparent failure to turn over a November 2010 message in which she worried that her personal messages could become accessible to outsiders, along with two other messages a year later that divulged possible security weaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state.

The Clinton campaign has previously denied that her home server was breached, but newly revealed emails show an aide worried it could have been compromised.

The existence of these previously unreleased messages — which appear to have been found among electronic files of four former top Clinton State Department aides — renews concerns that Clinton was not completely forthcoming when she turned over a trove of 55,000 pages of work-related emails

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/origin-key-clinton-emails-report-mystery-39405983

I'm amazed people don't seem to grasp that the only reason she went to the extraordinary step of setting up her own server is so that she could control the emails personally. (aka, hide what she did not want seen.)

There is no other plausible explanation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This defense makes no sense. Just because someone complies most of the time, doesn't mean the times they were not compliant with law is legal. So the times [the some times] she did not email State Dept people about official business, she was acting contrary to federal law because she was not preserving govt records.

Only if the emails that were not cc'd to state department officials were actually official business. She has said multiple times that the private server and email account was used for both official and personal business. She was under no obligation to provide a record of her private/personal emails.

Yes, but we do understand how there can be a conflict here, right?

She broke the rules. She didn't leak shit to our enemies. Time to move on. We need to discuss more about President Clinton's sex life.

 

[braces_for_impact]

To me more than anything, this story is about the red tape a government moves through when it slowly tries to adapt to new technologies, while the old people that use these technologies but don't understand them continue to use them in an inept way.

It's no surprise of course that Hillary tried to spin it as a non-issue.

 

[dismal]

To me more than anything, this story is about the red tape a government moves through when it slowly tries to adapt to new technologies, while the old people that use these technologies but don't understand them continue to use them in an inept way.

It's no surprise of course that Hillary tried to spin it as a non-issue.

Huh? I don't see it as that at all. The government had email that was suited for any purpose she might have. Except for the purpose of controlling the release of her own emails, which is an illegitimate purpose.

Indeed it had both secure and non-secure email, with special restrictions on the secure systems. She seems to have found these security features inconvenient, but the inconveniences were intended parts of the design to make it secure.

 

[KeepTalking]

To avoid the violation of their policy, which may or may not have also been a violation of the Federal Record Keeping act. The violation did not occur until she failed to do that.

the violation happened when she was in her appointment as SecState.

Show your work. What was the violation, and what policy of the State Department, or provision of the Federal Record Keeping act did it violate?

Reading that as something which happened after she was out of the position defies standard English.

Hardly. It was a fairly straightforward statement in standard English.

"At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and," - This is the first part of the sentence, it tells us what she did not do that she should have done.

"because she did not do so," - The word "because" notes that what happened in the first part of the sentence (failure to surrender all emails) is the cause of what is about to be stated next.

"she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act." - Now we finally come to what her action (or inaction) noted at the beginning of the sentence caused, namely non-compliance with policy.

The Federal Record Keeping Act is part of Title 44 of the US Code - that's not a policy that's a law.

Okay. Now, what does it say with regard to what Clinton was doing?

Their statement is saying that she could have taken the recommended action to avoid falling afoul of the law, but it's definitely a law and not a policy.

No, their statement refers to her non-compliance with the policy, which was crafted in accordance with the law. There is a distinct difference.

The policy she violated was having an unapproved private server which wasn't under the purview of standard governmental controls regarding secure information. The policy is developed in accordance with the wording of the Act, but that's not to say that the Act is merely a policy.

Then to prove your point, all you need to do is provide the wording from the Act that applies to having unapproved private servers. Of course, you would also need to show that the wording provided existed in the act previous to her departure from office.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

To me more than anything, this story is about the red tape a government moves through when it slowly tries to adapt to new technologies, while the old people that use these technologies but don't understand them continue to use them in an inept way.

It's no surprise of course that Hillary tried to spin it as a non-issue.

She must be very "inept" then? because in 2011 President Obama sent a memorandum regarding government record retention.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...ential-memorandum-managing-government-records

 

[Derec]

Hillary can't run email on a desktop computer, thinks she can run the country.
Hillary Clinton Wasn’t Adept at Using a Desktop for Email, Inquiry Is Told
So what's the Hillary Email Excuse Count at now?

 

[braces_for_impact]

To me more than anything, this story is about the red tape a government moves through when it slowly tries to adapt to new technologies, while the old people that use these technologies but don't understand them continue to use them in an inept way.

It's no surprise of course that Hillary tried to spin it as a non-issue.

She must be very "inept" then? because in 2011 President Obama sent a memorandum regarding government record retention.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...ential-memorandum-managing-government-records

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I also know the official policy for quite some time was literally "print every single email and put it in this box." Not terribly high tech. But we have Colin Powell doing the same thing, and many members of the Bush administration using personal email as well. Clinton of course used a private server, which is quite different. So Obama sends of a memo in 2011 and that's kinda my point. Not terribly prescient. Now in my view, at the very least she should have switched during that time.

By the way, I don't think being technically inept is the only reason this was done here, just part of it.

 

[Will Wiley]

First Deposition Testimony from Clinton Email Discovery Released

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Ambassador Lewis Lukens, former deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director of the State Department’s executive secretariat. The transcript is available here. Amb. Lukens was deposed last week as part of the discovery granted to Judicial Watch by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in response to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured, non-government email system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).

Lukens is the first of seven depositions of former Clinton top aides and State Department officials that Judicial Watch has scheduled over the next four weeks. Also to be deposed are Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, as well as top State Department official Patrick Kennedy, and former State IT employee Bryan Pagliano.