By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly attacked Ed Snowden for being careless with government information. So it is ironic that she has been found guilty of being . . . careless with government information. She, of course, will suffer no consequences, since she is part of the ruling class.
Here’s an ironic juxtaposition:
FBI Director James B. Comey: “From the group of . . . e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time . . . Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Hillary Clinton on Edward Snowden: “He broke the laws of the United States . . . He stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”
But anyway the real source of her annoyance with Snowden is that she believes in Big Government surveillance of the general population, no matter how unconstitutional it is. (So does Comey). Hillary Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act, which gutted the fourth amendment right to protection from unreasonable, warrantless search and seizure of papers and personal effects. She also voted to renew it in 2005 and 2006. It was practices that the FBI and NSA alleged were authorized by these laws that Clinton helped pass that constituted the abuses on which Ed Snowden felt compelled to blow the whistle. She now talks in excruciatingly vague terms about striking a “balance” between security and democracy, but there is no evidence anywhere that she cares about the invasion of the privacy of millions of Americans online that she has assiduously enabled.
Clinton has also wrongly and irresponsibly said that Ed Snowden could have gone through internal channels to blow the whistle on NSA abuses, and would thereby have gained legal protections.
First of all, no such legal protections exist with regard to his particular circumstances. A whole string of other intelligence whistleblowers has gone to jail, which is what would have happened to Snowden. That is not to mention the evidence for dirty tricks played on whistleblowers by government agencies, including the destruction of exculpatory evidence.
Second of all, the NSA has now been forced to admit that Snowden did in fact repeatedly try official channels and was stonewalled.
Clinton should apologize for her earlier allegations about Snowden and acknowledge her mistake in suggesting that he could have blown the whistle through official channels and been legally protected. She could just ask Thomas Drake if any of that were true. While she has admitted that the USA Patriot Act vote was a mistake, she should have the decency to admit that she put persons of conscience like Snowden in a position where they had to risk their lives to let Americans know that the National Security State had repealed the Constitution.
At the very least, you would hope that, having almost fallen victim to its vague and unconstitutional provisions, Sec. Clinton would at least now commit to repealing the Espionage Act of 1919, passed at the height of an earlier Trump-style immigration hysteria. But guess what? Obama has loved this law to death and used it viciously against whistleblowers, and the likelihood that Clinton will seek to repeal or revise it is low.
The irony is that we may finally be getting ethnic and gender diversity at the top of our politics, but those considerations pall before the distinction between the governmental class and the hoi polloi.
Because on the animal farm, some animals are more equal than others.
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Related video:
“FBI Director James Comey FULL STATEMENT on Hillary Clinton Email Investigation (C-SPAN)
To extend the reference in the article’s title, I find it the height of double-think that some people, most of them “conservatives” castigate Hillary Clinton for using private email for State Department business, but conveniently ignore the other former Secretaries of State who have said they did so also. Apparently some animals committing the same error are more equal than others.
While other Secretaries of State occasionally used their private E-mail accounts to conduct State Department business, Hillary Clinton’s use was magnitudes greater. Unlike other Secretaries who occasionally used their private accounts, Secretary Clinton actually had her own server installed in the basement of her residence and used it as her primary conduit for State Department E-mails. Her misuse and violations of State Department regulations regarding E-mail use was vastly greater than those of her predecessors.
WIlliam – Got some facts? The Bush Administration admits to “losing 15 MILLION emails during a Congressional investigation. How is it possible to know what went over what server during that maladministration? Whatever she may have done is not a crime.
I have my facts. Had you read my comment more carefully you would have noted that I didn’t say what she may have done is a crime. I wrote, “Her misuse and violations of State Department regulations regarding E-mail use was vastly greater than those of her predecessors, i.e., former Secretaries of State.
William – where are those facts? e.g,”. . . .E-mail use was vastly greater than those of her predecessors.”
Her misuse and violations of State Department regulations regarding E-mail use was vastly greater than those of her predecessors, i.e., former Secretaries of State. None of her predecessors had their own personal servers in the basement of their residence. Magnitudes greater.
I find it the height of stupidity to compare having a server in your basement to using a “public” server. Does stupidity know no bounds?
CLINTON: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” News conference, March 2015.
THE FACTS: Actually, the FBI identified at least 113 emails that passed through Clinton’s server and contained materials that were classified at the time they were sent, including some that were Top Secret and referred to a highly classified special access program.
Politifact:
Clinton said, “I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified.”
Clinton has made this claim over and over again. An independent FBI investigation has found that to be inaccurate.
It’s important to remember that only “a very small number” of her emails, two, were marked classified when they were first sent, and just 110 out of the 30,000 she turned over were classified but unmarked. Evidence seems to indicate that Clinton generally dealt with classified information in an appropriate manner.
But over the course of a year, Clinton and her staff have painted a picture of an email setup where absolutely zero classified information slipped through the cracks, case closed.
We rate this statement False.
Editor’s note: The day after we published this fact-check, Comey testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 7. Comey said he believes three emails on Clinton’s server contained information labeled classified at the time they were sent. This information was not properly marked in that the emails did not have a classification header, even though a “(c)” immediately preceded text in the body of the emails, designating confidential information. Without the clear classification header, it’s reasonable to infer that Clinton did not realize these three emails contained classified information, he said.
Comey also said that everyone involved with those 110 ‘classified at the time” emails should have known they were classified because of the content. Clinton is hiding behind legalisms, one of the oldest tricks in the book, used also by Bill to deny he ‘had sex’ with ‘that woman.’
@rbtl
then why have a classification system? BTW Ever heard of up classification? They change the classification of docs all the time. Yeah, you should know if its classified–rubbish.
@rbtl BTW “The best Republicans could do was turn up three emails out of tens of thousands where certain paragraphs within the body may have been marked “C,” for “classified,” “confidential,” although they technically should have had a header denoting them as classified. Comey concluded Clinton may not have even known they were classified because they were improperly marked.
“I think it’s possible, possible that she didn’t understand what a C meant when she saw it in the body of an email like that,” Comey said. “I don’t think our investigation established she was particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information and the levels.”
On the other hand, Comey thoroughly debunked Donald Trump’s talking point that Gen. David Patraeus got charged for doing “far less” than Clinton.
President Bush’s White House used a private server and his Justice Department pressed no charges, even though he conveniently “lost” five million emails when they were requested by Congress.
So, yes, it would be ridiculous to prosecute Clinton when Bush was subject to no investigation at all over his server.
Heck, let all our elected officials off the hook. Why should they be equal under the law? Meanwhile, if you underpay your taxes by even $20 the IRS goes after you.
Is the taxpayer really paying for corruption? Are we now expected to not ask questions and roll over?
You can keep your head in the sand. I am meanwhile not voting for change and tolerating getting more corruption — just that it is my candidate. You pay for their third summer home in the Caribbean and full length furs for the mistresses. I work too hard for my money. I’m also not adverse to thinking critically and demanding the best values from people lucky to get my vote. Supposedly this is or was a democracy
BTW, tens of billions of dollars were lost in IRaq — you let the Bushes off a little too easy and candidate Clinton voted to support this. No wonder the Neo-Cons are voting for her and holding fund raisings for her. As a class, they have to work together to protect their bank accounts fed with our monies
I worked at State previously. What people don’t realize is that Colin Powell brought State into the digital age. There was no widespread use of internet at State because it was deemed a security risk. Fast forward, by the time Mrs Clinton was there — the policies had evolved. She had a State email, I read somewhere — Rice sure did.
Documents were printed off special classified systems, headers removed and people were told by someone — to retype the material and email via Clinton’s personal system. A no-no. If a regular employee did that – they would have their clearance terminated, their job terminated and could not ever hold a classified job again. So why the exception? Our leaders are not applicable to the laws?
Mrs C is disingenuous to say she didn’t know the law. Come on. We have trainings we are required to go through before we get access to anything at State. How can she not know?
Lastly, she needs to rehire all the whistle blowers she allowed State to fire or force out. Sometimes security was used as a ‘cover’ for this – go look up Peter Van Buren who wrote a book exposing corruption of USG money in Iraq. I myself wrote against cancelling programs for Gazan Fulbrighters. I never was told why my clearance was pulled. That is against the regulations but hey, if you are lower-ranking — the law’s safeguards can’t be used in your defense. I asked for an Ombudsman, no dice I was told. Flip side, if you are a leader the law doesnt apply to you. Something is broken. No excuses
I have to admit to mixed feelings about this, as once again the Clintons skate away from yet another brush with a questionable ethics violation that would send a lesser person to jail or at the very least wreck their careers. In a way they seem to me to be American versions of Berlusconi and share his ability to stay one step ahead of the law and prosper (at least till the EU forced the Italian to resign, albeit in a questionably way for a democratic society). On the other hand the alternative is the Trump so…
To expect decency from HRC would be a miracle.
yup.
do as i say not as i do.
steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.
Seems like quite a stretch to compare Snowden to Clinton and make the claim that Clinton isn’t in legal trouble because she is a member of the ruling class.
I noticed that you mentioned Clinton shared 110 emails in 52 chains over her personal server (in many cases these emails were sent to her, putting responsibility on the sender not the receiver) but failed to mention the total of documents Snowden took.
What is it 1.7 million?
And that doesn’t even begin to address the difference in use. Clinton emailed through an unapproved server while Snowden stole data for years then gave the data to the Guardian.
That isn’t a difference of privilege that is a difference of scope, intent, action. and result
Comparing Clinton to Snowden would be like comparing the police who shot Christy Sheats to the police who strangled and killed Eric Garner.
Thank you, Darren. I feel like the Record is more Correct now.
Thanks, now I don’t have to take the time to point out what should be obvious. Intent is usually extremely important in determining illegality. There is so much hypocrisy on this issue from all sides. From the left I saw a bunch of lefties at TruthOut excoriating Clinton for her carelessness while most of these same people applauded Snowden for what he did. And of course the righties ignore things like the outing of Valerie Plame. You not only need to include intent, but also scope as you so rightly point out. While in the military I dealt with Top Secret material every day I was at work and I can tell you from first hand experience that the government way over classifies things and I doubt that anything Clinton kept on her server even approaches some of the materials released by Snowden in importance or security.
Yes, Gary, Snowden intended to release documents that were classified and most certainly violated the law.
But his action was a brave act of civil disobedience aimed at informing the American people of the extent of government surveillance and the intrusion of government into people’s lives and privacy and the government’s violations of the spirit, if not the letter, of the US Constitution.
Clinton’s actions were nothing more nor less than negligence and incompetence.
Hillary is wrong. Snowden wasn’t careless, he was willfully abusing his work privileges as a contractor to access confidential data. There is no comparison between the two.
Oh right. There’s no difference at all between carelessly handling email info and stealing data to sell to the Chinese and Russian govts. Not a single difference.
What a blatant misrepresentation of the truth. Very Hillaryesque.
The only misrepresentation there is that he didn’t sell it, he just gave it to Putin.
Did he give anything to Putin that he did not give to the American Public? I am only asking.
“Did he give anything to Putin that he did not give to the American Public?”
He didn’t have to. By ensuring the release of the highly classified information via the media, Snowden ensured that Putin, China, and every terrorist organization working against us had the information, now in the public domain, and could alter their communications to avoid NSA capturing it.
Yeah, his loyalty.
Ha ha. Anyway, you answered my question. Presumably you prefer to be spied upon without knowing about it. Too late for that now.
John Tinker apparently you don’t mind corporations tracking you and maintaining info on you but the govt! omg. Please. get over yourself.
Bev McCartt, thanks for setting me straight about that. Whoever a person as kind and thoughtful as yourself feels would be a great president, must be ok. You have convinced me to become a Hillarybot myself. Now I am going to plug my ears and shut my eyes to all reality, to give myself more time to FOCUS ON THE TASK BEFORE US! OMG!! We will convince ALL OF THOSE OTHER IDIOTS to support her, too!! WE RULE!!!
As I recollect the Orwell quote was:
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
Clinton is a disaster that keeps getting worse by the day. If the Democratic party wants to “stop Trump” they have it in their power to do so — simply nominate Sanders, the enemy of the 1%, who can beat him hands down.
But the Dem elite seem more interested in maintaining their power and control over the party apparatus even if it means losing the election.
kinda apples and oranges. One released huge scores of documents to the media purposely, the other did not.
Documents showing that the government was engaged in mass illegal spying on US citizens. He “purposely released” them because we needed to know.
Also how is accidentally leaking state secrets to guys like Guccifer preferable to controlled and measured release of data in the public interest?
To paraphrase the line used during the banking crisis…Hillary…Is too big to jail.
Hillary Clinton did not accuse Snowden of “being careless” with government information. As you note in your piece, Clinton stated, “He broke the laws of the United States . . . He stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”
Moreover, the statement that, “she should have the decency to admit that she put persons of conscience like Snowden in a position where they had to risk their lives to let Americans know that the National Security State had repealed the Constitution.” way overstates the danger Snowden faced. He hardly “risked his life” by taking highly classified information and handing it over to the media for public dissemination.
There is no equivalency between Clinton’s and Snowden’s respective actions regarding classified information. While Clinton certainly was wrong in setting up a private E-mail server that sent and received classified information, she did not intentionally release classified information for public dissemination. Snowden, on the other hand, was not “careless” in his handling of classified information. He deliberately passed classified information to media elements with the intention that it be made public.
Sorry, but the two situations are completely different. Hillary Clinton’s “careless” handling was to send classified information via a network that wasn’t technically classified, but in reality was more secure than the actual classified information system, which has had multiple breaches.
Snowden actually took classified information and released it publicly; plus, he brought a lot more to where the Russians can try to break encryption at their leisure.
The intent and result of Hillary’s actions were to keep classified information in the control of the US government. The intent and result of Snowden’s actions were to release some classified information to the public and (possibly) much more to Russia. They are diametrically opposed actions.
“..in reality was more secure than the actual classified information system, which has had multiple breaches.’ a very important point often overlooked by those with “mommy-issues”.
Thank you.
“…plus, he brought a lot more to where the Russians can try to break encryption at their leisure.”
Snowden stated that he gave all the information he had to Greenwald and The Guardian, and that he took nothing with him when he left Hong Kong. He is not dumb–he knew that keeping any files with him would open him to exactly the accusation you are making.
Thank you, Juan. It needs to be said. They locked up Chelsea Manning, abused her, and threw away the key. Kiriakou served time. Julian Assange is in the same boat. If Snowden came back to the US, they’d lynch him. Treatment of whistleblowers is one of the ugliest sides of the Obama/Clinton coterie.
If Hillary would pledge to pardon, or grant immunity to, Edward Snowden, I would consider voting for her.
I have to disagree with you on this, though I appreciate the points you made.
Hillary Clinton did not do anything illegal. She was “extremely careless” according to the findings. And the reason charges were not brought is because so many others had and were doing the same thing. That is what I found significant. At the scariest time in human history and all the espionage going on, our elected officials are engaging in “extremely careless behavior. Let’s stop worrying about what we should do about Hillary and address what we are going to do concerning our blase government attitude and our national security.
I think the more apt comparison is with David Petraeus, who at least was found guilty of a misdemenor and paid a $100,000 fine for mishandling government information during his affair with the biographer.
He deliberately gave what he knew to be classified information to someone not authorized to see it. Clinton exchanged information with others in the department who were authorized and some of it may have been classified. As near as I can tell, most all of the “classified” items kept by Clinton on the server were classified after the fact. If that is true, they probably didn’t deserve to be classified.
Prosecuting Secretary Clinton for email oversights would open the door to break the unwritten rule protecting the Criminal Bush Administration from charges of treason and for war crimes including the mass murder of tens o thousands innocent civilians .
Secretaries Rice and Powell used private (not U.S. government controlled) email servers in the Bush Years as secretary Clinton did, Where is the public and very partisan outcry for equality there?
If you think the Bush Administration was guilty of treason, I suggest you read the Constitution and its definition of treason, as you don’t appear to know what it is. Under Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution, any person who levies war against the United States or adheres to its enemies by giving them Aid and Comfort has committed treason within the meaning of the Constitution. Whatever the Bush Administration is guilty of, it is not treason.
Your George W. Bush Kneerpads are in the mail.
When did you become a Constitutional lawyer?
LYING TO CONGRESS and the public placing all U.S. Citizens at a greater risk for terrorism ought to do it?
Can you defend that? Person who voted for Bush ,TWICE!
The subject is your suggestion that Bush committed treason. I suggest you better inform yourself by looking up Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.
How many times can we hold our noses and vote for “the lesser of two evils”. yes, Trump is a dangerous ignoramus, but Hillary is possibly more dangerous and reasonably intelligeny. Which is really the worse choice? Or how about third party? Where is Ralph Nader when we need him?
Your point is well taken. What does it say about our democracy that a person running for the highest office in the land cannot be held accountable for negligence/carelessness? And what of the character of the same person for not bowing out?! In a way Snowden’s actions, and other whistleblowers, serve to better our system, whereas the Clinton denials and spin do the opposite. Where would we be if Nixon tapes were recorded on a private device? What if half of the tapes had been erased? I don’t recall Obama carting such hefty luggage in summer of ’08. We are capable of far better leaders!
Hopefully, Juan, she WON’T suffer any consequences because the most obvious consequence would be that she would lose the election. Somehow, I am certain that would be less satisfactory to my liberal friends who are her critics than her NOT suffering any consequences. Right?
I have seen many leftists who take the position that we have to burn down the village in order to save it. In short, they would prefer a Trump victory since that would bring about a real change sooner because he would be so bad. This totally ignores the damage that could be caused in the meantime. I would remind my friends that we would have been much better off with that “no better than Bush” Al Gore in 2000. Trump would probably be worse than Bush.
According to Judge Napolitano, the Fox legal expert, the FBI was engaged in two investigations. The one given most play in the press focused on national security, espionage, private servers and emails, etc. The other was focused on public corruption, the Clinton family foundation and whether or not the Secretary of State and a former President were complicit in a “pay to play” scam involving the exchange of State Department favours for huge donations to the Foundation.
These investigations were based in separate, pre-existing departments of the Bureau.
Director Comey’s statement dealt only with the national security investigation. Not a word in it described the existence, history or outcome of the public corruption effort. It’s as if it didn’t exist and the press is just as silent. I would very much like to think that the latter is still active and that we’re awaiting the the fall of the second shoe. If what we’re seeing is, however, the silent abandonment without any explanation of the public corruption issue, it will eventually be seen as a gross humiliation for American democracy.
I used to work in elections administration that included an initial evaluation of local officials campaign statements and their following disclosure laws. We would flag anything suspicious to the City Attorney for review of violation. I used to be quite conversant with the various election laws at all three levels of government. I have never seen anything that would suggest that soliciting a donation to a charity is a violation of any campaign or election laws. A person must directly benefit for there to be any violation or conflict of interest. Only if the Clintons were to directly benefit, such as getting a commission for any donations they produced, could there possibly be a conflict of interest. And, in fact, the Supreme Court even loosened the law recently in the case of former Virginia Bob McDonald by saying that his receiving apparent bribes were not illegal if there was not a clear quid pro quo. There is no case to be found in the Clinton charity.
I don’t see much difference in consideration of appropriate responsibility and behavior between carelessness by a nuclear missile silo crew, and carelessness by a person whose past duties may well have been requested to contribute to decisions on the use of a nuclear missile, whose current wish is to gain full power over nuclear decisions in the future. What would the FBI’s decision have been if they were judging nuclear or other military carelessness, or carelessness within their own ranks? Loose lips….
The long term effect of Bernie Sanders making his little tilt at the Presidential windmill will be the forcing to the surface of that portion of the Left that despises the Democratic Party even as it has been shielded for decades by the Party.
Lurking in the darkness they have been free to cultivate their fantasies: powerful, numerous, and far more intellegent than anyone could credit. Bernie brought them up into the light, and it turns out that the American people don’t agree with their own assessment of themselves. Which is one function of elections, if some people need to be reminded.
So now the Left has been split, and one faction of the Left is going to run the country while the faction of the Left is going to whine and complain and insist on thinking of itself as the only True Left. In consequence, it will be ignored – no one likes a nag and a scold – until it finds a way to make itself relevant.
Which is great. A line is drawn, and we know know who stands on which side.
I rather think Bernie’s “little tilt” allowed us to see those who want government to deal with reality vs. those who prefer the status quo.
Also: Hillary is not “the Left”, she’s just a bit more left than Trump. Bernie is not “the Left”, either. He just seems that way because he talks about solving real problems, and solving real problems and talking about real issues is not what the Tim Howes of the Democratic Party want.
Oh yeah: go ahead and tell me how “impossible” Bernie’s economic plans are. How we can’t possibly have Universal Education, or Universal Healthcare, or decent infrastructure or honestly address Global Climate Change. I suppose you’ll also tell me how impossible the Manhattan project was, and how impossible Ike’s highway system was, and how impossible it was to put a man on the Moon.
Yup, we know now who’s on what side.
Those arguing that Clinton’s actions did not violate any law should take a careful look at the sentencing of John Kiriakou, and what his judge informed him. Kiriakou writes:
“All I did was to confirm the name of a former CIA colleague to a reporter. The reporter never made the name public, and there was no harm to the national security. But I still faced up to 10 years in prison just for that revelation. So why should the criterion for Clinton be that nobody died? [/] The judge in my case was clear about a number of issues. First, the very definition of ‘espionage’ is incredibly broad. Espionage is the act of ‘providing national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it.’ Period. My judge also said that there did not have to be mens rea, or criminal intent, for there to be guilt in an espionage case. And the concept of ‘harm to the national security’ was irrelevant. … Clinton revealed the names of perhaps dozens of undercover CIA officers in her unclassified emails.”
(Source: link to truthdig.com)
True, there are clear circumstantial and qualitative differences between Snowden and Clinton. I would, in fact, argue that those differences weigh in favor of Snowden, who made a controlled leak for ethical reasons and for the benefit of public debate, but that is another argument for another time. What is at issue here is that the law is not equal. Clinton made the names of CIA operatives and other classified information available to “persons not entitled to receive it.”
If Kiriakou went to prison for this, then why not Clinton?
The answer seems clear: There are separate standards for hegemons. Look at Petraeus, for example. Nick Turse conducts an illuminating investigation into the Petraeus brand at Tomdispatch (link to tomdispatch.com).
Abandon the democratic party while there is still time. If Sanders has accomplished anything, it is to demonstrate once again that the above-mentioned party is impervious to reform. Locate the nearest exit and make your way to the left, if you haven’t done so already.
Well said.
Snowden was not merely ‘careless’; he intentionally defected to Russia with vast amounts of classsified information, of which the Russians themselves have boasted, and which according to the UK have compromised their agents.
“Snowden was not merely ‘careless’; he intentionally defected to Russia with vast amounts of classsified information, of which the Russians themselves have boasted, and which according to the UK have compromised their agents.”
You should cite some sources if you are going to make statements like that. Snowden himself stated that he left all the digital files he took from the NSA with Greenwald and the Guardian. He took nothing with him when he left Hong Kong because he knew that it would open him to the sort of accusations you are making.
Snowden was trying to expose war crimes/atrocities. Hillary was trying to commit and cover up war crimes and atrocities.
One substantial difference between Clinton’s handling of US government emails and Snowden’s release of documents is the matter of intent.
Snowden intended to release classified material, whereas it is doubtful that Clinton did.
It is unlikely that she had any interest in revealing the secretes of the US government, including those of the State Department.
Her mistake was one on negligence or sloppiness.
Lacking intent, there is a category of criminal law (I am not a lawyer) called criminal negligence. But there, I think, substantial damage to some party, the US government in this case, has to be shown. What damage was done is difficult to access, and remains only speculation. I strongly suspect that regular communications of the State Department has already been hacked by Israel, or China, or whomever else.
I watch all those glassy eyed smiling faces of young Americans as they gaze up at their future woman president with such hope in their visages and say to myself, “they know not what they do”. Mme. Clinton is no saint believe me and she does not have the best interests of ordinary people in mind ever. She is an elite and whether or not you believe she is corrupt, she still is not someone you want sitting in the oval office. Her stint at the State Department proves her to be untrustworthy and a warmonger. Make her president and there will be no US to worry about. It will be a smoking pile of radioactive trash.
I did not support Bill Clinton when he ran in 1992. I opposed most of his DLC policies. I supported Obama in 2008. But these left wing attacks on Hillary Clinton are so over the top as to be ridiculous. I cannot wait for her to come into the White House so that the delusional parts of the left will be proven so totally wrong. Of course, ideologues will never admit to error, but those of us who are rational will recognize and accept what is fact. Her positions right now are to the left of almost every previous major party nominee in history. The one exception may be George McGovern. And that did not turn out well.
Hillary’s intention was to KNOWINGLY BRAKE THE SECURITY PROTOCOL out of arrogance and laziness. And the information got to several people, her lawyers, the people who cared for her private server and who knows how many. If the romanian hacker Guccifer exists – as the story goes – then lots of other governments may know what was in the e-mails. Snowden’s intention was to inform the US population of the government’s overreach, i.e. much more respectable and heroic than Clinton ever was. And he is paying a high price for it, the Clinton’s never did.
Archie 1954 – GET A GRIP! And call you mom – seriously.
In his testimony today we find out from Comey that only 3 emails out of over 30,000 contained information that was classified at the time that Clinton received them. Further, they were marked with a C in parentheses (C). This is a violation of the rules. Any time a page of any document contains any classified information, the top of that page must be marked in large bold, capital letters, the level of classification. Also, if it is a multi-page document, then the front of that document must be so marked with the highest classification level found in that document. Thus, if there is a 10 page report and on page 8 there is one sentence that is considered confidential, then page 8 must have CONFIDENTIAL marked at the top of the page and the whole document must be considered as confidential. I was both a user and producer of classified information while in military intelligence. If i were reading a document that was not so marked, I would automatically assume that nothing in the document was considered classified. This is very important in considering the culpability of Secretary Clinton.
Your factual comment serves only to cut down on the Hillary ClInton email hysteria rampant here. Where is the fun in that?
Well from an outsider point of view, (Canadian) you can either prosecute Clinton or have Trump as POTUS. Take your pick.
We do have other parties, though. It’s just our corporate-owned media refuses to cover them