Comey Denies Clinton Email 'Reddit' Cover-Up (politico.com) 459
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The FBI concluded that a computer technician working on Clinton's email was not engaged in an illicit cover-up when he asked on the Reddit website for a tool that could delete a "VIP" email address throughout a large file, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday. Republican lawmakers have suggested that the July 2014 Reddit post from a user believed to be Platte River Networks specialist Paul Combetta showed an effort to hide Clinton's emails from investigators. However, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Comey said FBI agents concluded that all the computer aide was trying to do was replace Clinton's email address so it wouldn't be revealed to the public. "Our team concluded that what he was trying to do was when they produced emails not have the actual address but have some name or placeholder instead of the actual dot-com address in the 'From:' line," Comey said. Comey said he wasn't sure whether the FBI knew about the Reddit posting when prosecutors granted Combetta immunity to get statements from him about what transpired. However, he added that such a deletion wouldn't automatically be considered an effort to destroy evidence. "Not necessarily ... It would depend what his intention was and why he wanted to do it," the FBI director said.
Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Insightful)
just get used to it. they have mastered the coverup and own everyone who could charge them.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Interesting)
In truth, anyone who has enough money and/or power gets to circumvent the law easier than poor people or average Joes.
A poor man and a rich man get charged with the same crime with the same amount of evidence; the rich man is more likely to walk away a free man. Various reasons: better access to better lawyers; society are more likely to take for granted the word of a well-dressed well groomed person than some scruffy guy in a hoody.
Re: (Score:3)
Asked on Reddit???
Jeez, they need a better "computer technician". Doesn't the NSA have somebody?
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably amazed he didn't know about Stack Overflow.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably amazed he didn't know about Stack Overflow.
Hah, very true! If you know about Google, you should know about Stack Overflow. :)
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Funny)
Goes and looks just to be sure
Damn, scratch that, it does!
I'll be damned!
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the accepted answer uses a turkey instead of a chicken for some reason, and the one with the most votes rants about meat being murder.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Funny)
Probably amazed he didn't know about Stack Overflow.
He did. I believe it went something like this:
Hi, I need to remove an emil address from a big file
* We're not here to do your homework n00b
* Try using Node.js
* Closed because fuck you that's why.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Funny)
"I know you're using Exchange server, but I have a script for Postfix installations I use on Ubuntu and it works great"
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Insightful)
The good old "you too" fallacy - why no one ever holds politicians accountable for their misdeeds and illegal activitites today.
"Sure, my client robbed this bank, but come on. Is he the first person ever to rob a bank? Haven't plenty of bank robbers gotten off scot free? Is it really fair for us to single this one person out?"
Re: (Score:3)
The good old "you too" fallacy - why no one ever holds politicians accountable for their misdeeds and illegal activitites today.
If your politician does something and you say "That's perfectly moral and legal, I have no problem with that." and then someone else's preferred politician does the exact same thing you and you scream "EXECUTE THEM FOR TREASON THEN HANG THEM!" then it shows that either you're more than happy to play fast and loose with morality when it favors you which means your moral condemnation now is hypocritical and selective, or it shows that nothing bad actually took place in either instance and it's just a trumped
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why people still use the "But Bobby's Mom lets him smoke" argument, little kids try on parents. The thing of it is, we are supposed to be adults and not persuaded by childish arguments.
Pointing to another person's wrong NEVER justifies the wrong you're doing. Justice is never going to be exact, so we should stop trying comparison justice, and let each case stand on its own merits. Anything less leads to lawless anarchy.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but pointing to someone else's acquittal does give you grounds to demand to be acquitted as well on the basis of equality under law, to which you are entitled.
Re: (Score:2)
The people who are made an example of received justice. The people who didn't received mercy. No one has received injustice.
Re: Clinton is above the law (Score:2, Insightful)
When "mercy" is continuously given to one subset of the population whist others are served "justice", I would say "injustice" is present in the system.
Re: (Score:2)
If I did something and am punished for it, I have not received injustice.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole system and a large part of the government is corrupt to the point where nothing will be done.
I'm sure that even most liberals would agree, but the solution liberals have is "more government" (and thus, more corruption), rather than reigning in the corruption we have now by limiting government actions. Liberty is messy. The greatest promotion of Fascism was "at least the trains run on time" (nice neat orderly).
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure that even most liberals would agree, but the solution liberals have is "more government" (and thus, more corruption), rather than reigning in the corruption we have now by limiting government actions.
So we'd expect the least corrupt countries to have the smallest governments [wikipedia.org] right?
Fascism was "at least the trains run on time"
Nope [snopes.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh just quit all the conspiracy nonsense.
1. Back in the early and mid 00's having your own email was the "Cool" thing to do. As for people in such short term government positions will want an email that will follow them.
2. Shouldn't the government have a track of all the email sent on its servers. And we just pull all of them that went to Clinton's server and we will know what sensitive information that went across.
3. Is there any evidence that she scolded or discouraged people from sending emails to her w
Fired and blacklisted (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's run with your conclusion - average guy does this, loses their job.
Let's also add that average guy does this, is then blacklisted from ever having any job with a security clearance again.
Hell, I'd be more than happy to see Hillary Clinton avoid jail if she was disqualified from working in any position in the government that required a security clearance :)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
then why would he delete the evidence, and what about the whole Bleachbit thing https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/08/26/1954241/hillary-clinton-used-bleachbit-to-wipe-emails
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Insightful)
I can answer #4. Because she fucking hid everything until a lawsuit from Judicial Watch forced the State Department to release some of the public documents generated by her term as SOS. Once the people had access to her public records, they started to notice that her email wasn't entirely on the government servers, but on her own. Then her lawyers and IT people started to panic (the infamous reddit post) because they knew that Congress would get involved soon, and it did.
The answer to #2 is that every agency seems to be in on the coverup to some extent. They have all been dragging their feet producing records, and several have "lost" drives, tapes, records, etc. IRS Commissioner Koskinen is facing impeachment for this same crap, but for a different scandal (not for Hillary's emails). Obama is probably going to need to pardon every single member of his cabinet and most of the senior management, or President Trump is going to need to build a brand new prison to house the "Most Transparent Administration in history (TM)".
#1 is crap. See Powell's email leaks. #3 is no, or at least not that I've heard of.
Here are at least three of the laws that she apparently broke:
18 US Code 793 [cornell.edu]
18 US Code 798 [cornell.edu]
18 US Code 1924 [cornell.edu]
As to your conclusion, there are guys in prison today for violations of the exact same laws, and several are now attempting to appeal their sentences. At the time they were convicted, those laws were seen as strict liability, so their trial records do not include proof of intent. If those same laws, which haven't changed, require mens rea now, at the very least they need a retrial to establish intent.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the most important one...
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 âoeofficeâ 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. 101â"510, div. A, title V, Ââ552(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1566; Pub. L. 103â"322, title XXXIII, Ââ330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
Re: (Score:3)
No, Willfully means you were not forced, it does not mean you did it with intent.
They are two very VERY different things.
However, the US has become the land of the childish, so I do not excect that to be understood, sadly.
Pathetic, when word games are allowed to defend a person holding nearly the most important job
in the country from such things.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember their names. Over the last few months I've heard several radio interviews with lawyers involved in these cases, mostly while driving. I tried google using bits and pieces of the stories that (I think) I remember, but I didn't have much luck.
One guy that with a case still in the process (as in, he wasn't in prison yet at the time, and maybe still isn't) was a mechanic in the Navy who took a picture or a selfie of his (classified) work area so that he could tell his kids "this is where I worked when I was away". No criminal intent, prosecuted anyway. I remember clearly one of the lawyers talking about that case said that they were preparing appeals paperwork for their other clients to have ready depending on how his use of the "Clinton Defense" went.
I mean that no one knows, in the legal sense, if they had intent or not, because it wasn't examined at trial. Criminal trials are narrowly focused on the elements of the crime. Since the laws relating to classified documents were intentionally written by Congress to exclude intent as an element, it never gets examined at trial. Prosecutors don't raise the question because they didn't need to, and defense lawyers don't bring it up because it wouldn't help. At best, it might be in an opening or closing statement, but those are just fluff.
If the courts agree that some level of intent is necessary for a conviction now, all of those cases are appealable because their trial records no longer contain facts sufficient to sustain their conviction.
If you've ever pled guilty to something in court, the judge will ask you to affirm each element of the crime. They won't take your word at it that you are guilty of jaywalking, they want you to agree that "Don't Walk" was lit, that you knew it, and that you crossed anyway. The same thing happens in a real trial. The prosecutor lists the elements of the crime and argues that you did them, the defense disputes those claims (among other defenses). If the prosecutor is successful in establishing all of the elements beyond a reasonable doubt, you get convicted.
Espionage is very hard to prove. A person doesn't have to wrap up a bundle of secret documents in a bow and sign a card saying "Here's the spy work you wanted me to do!", they can do, and have done, things that can plausibly be mere carelessness. For example, you could accidentally leave a document out on your desk instead of locking it in the safe. Oops, careless! Unless the cleaning guy is also compromised and drops it in the trash to be fetched later. Now the secrets left the building, but in a way that both of the people involved can plausibly claim they didn't intend.
And motivation can be tricky too. Cash is obvious enough, but what about blackmail? Or loss of faith in the government? Or anger at a manager or director? Want to impress a girl? Want to experience the thrill of rule-breaking at middle-age?
Because it can be so complicated, Congress also made carelessness with classified information punishable, regardless of intent. That's basically our espionage law: If you give away our secrets, or, if you allow through carelessness the conditions for someone else to steal them, we are going to prosecute you and probably throw you in prison for a while.
Comey is claiming now that the second part should be "...or, if you intentionally allow through carelessness the conditions...", which is just asinine, and if we had honest media in this country, would be seen as such by everyone.
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Informative)
1- This isn't about some mx redirect thing (or a domain name), this is about storing the emails on a private server.
2- No, they don't necessarily. If you wanted to email a private email server, why would the government have that on record? At least one of the two parties would need to have their emails on a government controlled system. Which one seems like the better plan to you: you, me, and everyone else in the world, needs to somehow have accounts on a government server -OR- the secretary of state keeps emails on a state department server as per policy?
3- I don't know what you mean here. She used the clintonemail.com server for her work in the state department. There were tens of thousands of emails that were in question.
4- You are wrong. She announced her candidacy in April 2015. Here's a wired article from March 2015:
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/c... [wired.com]
(and archive: http://archive.is/2015.03.05-0... [archive.is] )
"The person who may had broke the law is the person who sent classified information to her email address."
That's not really how this works. But pretend it did. Here's Comey on it:
"For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters."
"However she is a politician not a IT expert."
She employed numerous IT experts, however, and certainly could be expected to know the implications.
"If it was an average guy who did this... Chances are they may had lost their job, but not had criminal activity put on him."
Clinton doesn't have any criminal charges being placed on her. She's never been indicted. Comey pretty much stated that anyone else would be in hot steaming shit.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press... [fbi.gov]
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now."
Quite honestly man, you can google this. You've been able to google this for awhile. To me, the most interesting part isn't the emails, it's the consistent stream of bad information out of Clinton herself. On March 10th, 2015 (before she announced for president), she said "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material."
That was either an omission or a lie. But if you follow it forward, it just gets sillier- at almost every chance to discuss this, she dissembled, provided false information, or maybe even straight fucking lied. The fact that you or I would never work again if we made this kind of mistake, the bizarre deletions, the possible foreign intel implications- that's all whatever compared to the fact that this was just deny, deny, deny until the evidence caught up.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The mastery isn't concocting a coverup that is effective in perpetuity, the mastery is having the coverup unravel so slowly that people are desensitized to each revelation. Hillary is cleared of deleted 30,000 emails that are Government records, by an FBI director that is entangled financially both personally and professionally up to his eyeballs. Just detailing the facts are enough to make you sound like a Conspiracy Kook. 13 people associated with the Clintons have been murdered, 14 or 15 have died by sui
Re:Clinton is above the law (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the deletion of email was enough "evidence" of guilt because legally it can be assumed that doing so is evidence of guilt. Gowdy made that case when confronting the FBI director. In fact, Gowdy pretty much proved that the FBI was complicit in the coverup by not prosecuting Clinton on the grounds that the FBI director actually gave.
But there is more, Clinton's Lawyer AND personal Aide (convenient dual role) Mills said in sworn testimony that she didn't know about the server until after it was destroyed, but they just found an email in which she ASKS about that same server, years before. She perjured herself. But nothing will come of it, because she is both a Clinton Aide and her Lawyer. The convenience of having Aides that are also Lawyers will now be fully realized, they will be pretty much untouchable, because you cannot untangle when she was being a Lawyer, and when she was being an Aide.
Two types of laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Laws for people who are named 'Clinton' and laws for the rest of us.
Like gwb43.com? (Score:2, Informative)
Oh such Republican mock outrage.... where was it when George Bush was sending his emails using gwb43.com? His private email account used for official Whitehouse emails!?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That was when it was legal to do so. then along came a law after that which the former Administrative Assistant of State broke.
Re:Like gwb43.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me where he passed classified information though his private address..... Then we can talk..
I guess you are OK with Bush's private E-mails? No? So Clinton has NO EXCUSE here... You say so yourself if you want to hold this issue up as an example of what not to do..
Re:Like gwb43.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Bush was worse" logic of liberals ...
Pointing to bad behavior to excuse bad behavior is supposed to stop working when you're like 5 years old. Why does it still work with adults?
Re:Two types of laws (Score:5, Informative)
I've posted this before, but I guess that I'll have to keep reposting it every time someone claims there was no proof of intent.
Transcript of Gowdy questioning Comey. Lots of context, but note the bolded section:
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said "I did not e-mail any classified information to anyone on my e-mail there was no classified material." That is true?
Comey: There was classified information emailed.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton used one device, was that true?
Comey: She used multiple devices during the four years of her term as Secretary of State.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned to the State Department. Was that true?
Comey: No. We found work related email, thousands, that were not returned.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said neither she or anyone else deleted work related emails from her personal account.
Comey: That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work related emails in — on devices or in space. Whether they were deleted or when a server was changed out something happened to them, there's no doubt that the work related emails that were removed electronically from the email system.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said her lawyers read every one of the emails and were overly inclusive. Did her lawyers read the email content individually?
Comey: No.
Gowdy: Well, in the interest of time and because I have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon, I'm not going to go through any more of the false statements but I am going to ask you to put on your old hat. False exculpatory statements are used for what?
Comey: Well, either for a substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Gowdy: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
Comey: That is right?
Gowdy: Consciousness of guilt and intent? In your old job you would prove intent as you referenced by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction that you and i just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve. You would argue all of that under the heading of content. You would also — intent. You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme when it started, when it ended and the number of emails whether They were originally classified or of classified under the heading of intent. You would also, probably, under common scheme or plan, argue the burn bags of daily calendar entries or the missing daily calendar entries as a common scheme or plan to conceal.
Two days ago, Director, you said a reasonable person in her position should have known a private email was no place to send and receive classified information. You're right. An average person does know not to do that.
This is no average person. This is a former First Lady, a former United States senator, and a former Secretary of State that the president now contends is the most competent, qualified person to be president since Jefferson. He didn't say that in '08 but says it now.
She affirmatively rejected efforts to give her a state.gov account, kept the private emails for almost two years and only turned them over to Congress because we found out she had a private email account.
So you have a rogue email system set up before she took the oath of office, thousands of what we now know to be classified emails, some of which were classified at the time. One of her more frequent email comrades was hacked and you don't know whether or not she was.
And this scheme took place over a long period of time and resulted in the destruction of public records and yet you say there is insufficient evidence of intent. You say she was extremely careless, but not intentionally so.
You and I
Re: (Score:2)
But if we're going to use these emails as part of a measuring stick as to who is more trustworthy, when we tally up all lie and half truths of our major candidates - Trump and Clinton - Trump loses.
No, America loses.
And what's sickening is that our parties have allowed such people to be the ones running for POTUS.
The founders wanted to pretend parties didn't exist so they didn't place any limitations on them. This was a gross mistake, one which must be corrected if we are to approach democracy.
Re: People deserve their government. (Score:2, Insightful)
Couldn't agree more. There is no reason to allow political parties unlimited speech. We limit advertisers in every other venue. Consumer protection should be at its maximum when it comes to politics; not to limit choices but to ensure good practices by all actors.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But if we're going to use these emails as part of a measuring stick as to who is more trustworthy, when we tally up all lie and half truths of our major candidates
If your best case for your candidate is that "they lie less than the other guy", and there are a huge long line of lies both candidates have, you're making the best case I have that you shouldn't vote for either one.
The newest revelation is the darling Hispanic Woman who says (no actual proof, which is what you're claiming for Clinton now) Trump said some "mean things" to her, was allegedly involved in a murder, and had relationships with drug dealers. A perfect fit for the Clinton Crime Family if you ask m
Re: (Score:3)
If you look at snopes.com, you'll find them debunking a fair number of accusations against Trump. Right now, I don't trust accusations against either Clinton or Trump until I get some sort of evidence (and normally Snopes and Politifact provide this in verifiable form).
I've been studying the accusations against Clinton enough to know that they're largely unfounded. The number of people who think she did something seriously wrong about Benghazi, or who believe the Clintons kill their political enemies,
Re:People deserve their government. (Score:5, Insightful)
So the choice is between someone that says mean things, and an unindicted felon who is above the law, and played fast and loose with Top Secret information.
Glad we've got our priorities straight on what to care about.
Re: (Score:3)
To be fair Trump would be well and truly under on multiple accounts of fraud if he didn't also represent the 1%. Dumbing it down to "says mean things" just shows your incredible bias on the topic.
Both of them are so deep in shit they are being kept warm by the core of the earth itself.
Re:Two types of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, intent matters when determining guilt.
I suggest you try, "Officer, I didn't see the sign" the next time you're pulled over for running a stop sign.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It depends completely on the particular law at issue. Some require mens, some don't. For example, prosecution of traffic laws does not require intent; read your state's code. However, much of criminal law does require intent, hence the difference between manslaughter and murder, for example.
Re:Two types of laws (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Two types of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why they go through a series of training meeting, of which Clinton doesn't recall attending, due to traumatic brain injury, but she is okay to be president.
Another "convenient" excuse. She either didn't attend the requisite training (a dereliction of duty, and evidence she isn't qualified to be President) or she did, and ignorance is no longer an excuse. Now, you might claim she is too stupid to understand (as Director of the FBI basically said), but then that doesn't look to good if you're running for President either.
The whole EMAIL thing is a tar pit for the Clinton's because she is either incompetent, or evil. There really is no other option. And as I have said before, (apologies to Arthur C. Clarke) "Any sufficient level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice". So which is it, is she incompetent or evil?
Of all the things Clinton should have done, she did none of them. The argument "no proof" is utter bullshit, there is plenty of evidence, and proof is only a conclusion. If you see all the evidence, and can't conclude she is either stupid or evil, you're just being an obtuse party hack.
Re: (Score:2)
She can declare something classified with the stroke of a pen.
Declassifying something is a lot more involved.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Two types of laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Did the head of the FBI really say that it was not uncommon for people in our government to handle classified information "extremely carelessly" (which, BTW, is another way of saying "with extreme negligence", which is what the law specifies as the violation)? If so, that is scary.
The problem with your explanation is that there ARE numerous cases of people who were thrown in jail for LESSER violations of the same law.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Second - Comey is a Republican. What does he really have to lose by recommending an indictment, even if he thinks the AG will refuse to follow up on it? Why would he decide to be the one to take the hit for "covering for Clinton" rather than doing what h
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Two types of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence .
Double Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
I appreciate the lengths Comey has gone through to show the double standard justice system. He says Clinton had no intent to hide anything, he never asked her if she did. He says the administrator had no intention of doing anything wrong, and again probably didn't ask him. Comey also rewrote the law claiming Congress wanted intention to be part of the law, which they didn't include in the wording, without having asked them. He also outright ignored her lying under oath to Congress, along with all the people who lied to the FBI during the investigation. He also failed to investigate any of the bribes Clinton took while SOS, didn't even look into it to see if there might be something.
Meanwhile...
The IRS targets individuals because they don't follow the correct political views.
Peter Thiel is investigated by department of Labor because he supports Trump.
Were the tea party members asked if their intention was to break laws? Was Peter Thiel asked if he intended to be discriminatory in hiring? It doesn't matter in those cases because they are not "important" like Clinton.
My big question, what can they now do to restore confidence in the system? I actually don't have an answer to that question at this time.
Re: (Score:2)
My big question, what can they now do to restore confidence in the system? I actually don't have an answer to that question at this time.
The next administration could prosecute those responsible for that government abuse and claw back their pay and pensions.
Re:Double Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that there was only one left-leaning organization in that entire group and when it came to light, they were approved forthwith. But those tea party groups were still waiting, some are. And the IRS is still refusing to comply with lawful orders to turn over evidence. On top of that Thiel isn't a racist, he has opinions you don't like. And like many on the left, you use whatever label is convenient to smear people because you think it'll hurt their image. Too bad you've(along with the radical left) been using that shit for so long now that people believe all you've done is cry wolf. Just like the whining about how everything is sexist, or against women or some other inane bullshit.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way he obviously tried to alter records that we under subpoena. This is so fucking corrupt it is unbelievable.
Will I get the same leniency and benefit of doubt if the FBI or Justice Department ever investigates me for the same or less serious crimes? (not that I'm planning any)
Re: (Score:2)
When exactly were the records officially subpoenaed or at least intent to be subponaed? July 24, 2014 was when the reddit post was made. The closest that I could quickly find was that an unofficial request was made sometime in July of 2014 [politico.com], the State Department didn't work with Clinton until August to turn over emails [nytimes.com], and finally a formal request in October to all previous Secretaries going back to Madeleine K. Albright for any records t
VIP is not Clinton (Score:5, Interesting)
In light of recent events, the VIP email address spoken about was probably Obama's, not Clinton's.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the Saudis. Who knows what Clinton got on that e-mail server. Who knows what Clinton Foundation / Secretary of State stuff mixed next to each other in a private e-mail account "off the books".
Re: (Score:2)
Corruption at the highest level (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, absolutely fucking nothing anyone can seem to do about it.
Anyone else would be in jail.
Give immunity to people you could prosecute for leverage, but they won't talk anyways. Pure evidence of intent and corruption, but oh well.
I mean, we might as well have the North Korean dictator feeding us propaganda. We the people know it's all lies, but we can't do anything about it and our state media is just bobbing their heads saying what they're supposed to say with their talking points that get sent out every morning.
Talk about totally fucked as a country.
Re: (Score:3)
Every time he pleads the fifth, including those things that guarantee his immunity.
Poorly config'd server's existence is proof (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been doing this IT thing for a long time. A very long time.
I don't think there is an IT expert/admin on Slashdot who would attest that--if given the job to engineer/configure an email server for Secretary of State (much less, merely private citizen) Clinton--this server was in any way designed or implemented properly. Not for security, not for compliance, nothing.
So... am I to believe that Hillary Clinton is so woefully incapable of finding a competent IT engineer/admin? Here is ALL OF SLASHDOT. Am I to believe that? Because, if so, she's woefully incompetent for ANY governmental position; I don't believe she should be in any position of power that directly impacts me, my freedom. And anyone who supports her, at this point, in this community, given what is so obvious to see about her character and her intentions, either has to be insane or be seen as complicit in her and her "party's" power grab. It is that simple.
Re: (Score:3)
So... am I to believe that Hillary Clinton is so woefully incapable of finding a competent IT engineer/admin?
When a recruiter called me to do IT work in the Palo Alto campaign office of Meg Whitman for California Governor campaign in 2010, I rejected the job out of hand. Never mind that I've been out of work for a year-and-a-half at that time. That job wasn't worth the trouble. The recruiter was astonished that I would reject it out hand. Although I previously worked at eBay, Meg Whitman wasn't well loved by most employees — and I voted for her opponent, Tom Campbell, a moderate Republican, in the primary.
of course (Score:2)
Considering that the FBI has *already* directly said that they won't prosecute for something more obvious and worse, is ANYONE shocked by this?
Yes, a sysadmin asking generally how he can purge someone's name from emails - how could anyone /possibly/ think that had anything to do with a coverup? Clearly, you'd have to be a paranoid Republican to believe that.
What we know so far (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.thompsontimeline.com/the-hidden-smoking-gun-the-combetta-cover-up/ [thompsontimeline.com]
Get a cup of coffee, it's long but worth it. The timeline is non-partisan and sticks to the facts, basically it is alt-right/trump troll/conspiracy free.
Bottom line: It doesn't look good at all.
October 28, 2014: The State Department formally asks Clinton for all of her work-related emails.
December 5, 2014: She turns over 30,000 emails from her @clintonemail.com account to the State Department. Another 31,000 emails from the same account were deemed personal, and Clinton kept those. Her lawyers did the sorting, no State Department or National Archives personnel had a chance to appraise or examine the remaining 31,000.
December 2014: Shorty after turning the 30,000 emails, Clinton decides she no longer needs access to any of her emails older than 60 days. Her staff is told to change the retention policy on her server, which will lead to the deletion of all her the emails that weren't turned over to the State Department.
The FBI later recovered about 17,500 of Clinton’s “personal” emails. FBI Director James Comey has said that “thousands” were indeed work-related.
March 25, 2015 and March 31, 2015: There were two conference calls between Clinton staffers and PNR, the company managing her emails. Between those two calls, Combetta, the PNR employee managing Clinton server (and Reddit user 'Stonetear'), has an “Oh shit!” moment and remembers that he’d forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December 2014. He immediately deletes all of Clinton’s emails and uses BleachBit to permanently wipe them.
He later told the FBI that at the time he was aware of emails mentioning a Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton’s emails.
Sometimes in 2016: The Justice Department gives Combetta some form of legal immunity.
The FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making an immunity deal with him *could* be a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. That part isn't clear yet.
In any circumstances, the FBI giving Combetta immunity makes no sense at all. It's the equivalent of giving a hired hitman immunity without going after the person who hired him.
Re: (Score:3)
In any circumstances, the FBI giving Combetta immunity makes no sense at all.
As someone currently working in government IT, I would plead the fifth until I've gotten immunity from the government. If I'm going to be thrown underneath the bus, I'm going to make it as difficult as possible.
Re: (Score:3)
A couple of points left out:
- she publicly, repeatedly, INSISTED that there was no personal email server, then that it was only used for private mails, then 'not for secret stuff' etc. Her personal conduct and remonstrations during this span are very much relevant.
- hilariously, today (https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/09/23/platte-river-networks-employee-referred-to-hilary-cover-up-operation-in-work-email/):
"An employee at Platte River Networks, the company that managed Hillary Clinton's emails after she
Homeopathy? (Score:2)
Are we finally entering an era of fully homeopathic politics: where the issues are diluted until the point where there is no trace of substance and it is all 'magic water'? Where are the discussions about real problems, like the wars in the Middle East, or the several migrations crises, or the declining economy? Where are the realistic proposals for American politics over the next decade? Certainly not here; apparently it is much more interesting to groom one's personal navel fluff and gossip about the favo
Competence (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously? He was asking Reddit how to do a global search and replace? He should have been just using Google.
"I'm Just Misunderstood" Defense Employed (Score:2)
"It's not what it looks like."
"I would never do something like that."
"You just don't understand."
"Trust me, I wasn't doing anything wrong."
Filter? (Score:2)
Here you go:
s/Hillary@\Clintonemail\.com/Anonymous Coward/gi
Re: It won't matter what Comey says (Score:2, Redundant)
Apropos username, BTW.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Birtherism (itself) was started by Clinton
Rafael Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) assisted in assassinated Kennedy
Global Warming is a Chinese hoax
Asbestos is safe
California is not suffering under a drought
Thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered 9/11
Google is helping Clinton
Vaccines cause autism
Obama is a Muslim
Obama never attended Columbia University
Clintons murdered Foster
Scalia was murdered
ISIS provides phones to refugees seeking t
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe someone should invent an autism vaccine to prevent people getting autism.
Re: (Score:2)
Alright... how many people Trump treated as badly or worse?
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for proving my point, Anonymous coward.
Re:It won't matter what Comey says (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm surprised you didn't also mention Benghazi.
Why should Benghazi come up? That affair, in and of itself, isn't an example of her law breaking. It was an example (in the event of the death of the ambassador and three others) an example of her incompetence and dismissive attitude towards underlings. And it was an example (in the event of her and her boss deliberately, knowingly lying repeatedly to the public generally and to the faces of the dead people's families literally while standing next to their coffins) of her general aversion to the truth and
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should Benghazi come up?
Other than the fact that multiple investigations by Republicans over many years failed to point to anything that was really her fault. No, it's just their desperation (and yours) to pin it on her. I think you'd pin the Lindberg kidnapping on her if it would make you feel better. Even in your response you can't separate Benghazi with other things she may have done.
That last bit IS about law breaking, but was more about the cover-up of her incompetence and lying. Her email arrangements, of course, were made so that she could run her foundation-related influence selling machinery without those pesky FOIA requests coming in later for a look.
Yes she's so incompetent that the GOP can't charge with anything. What does that say about the GOP? Let me ask you: if you think she broke the law
Re: (Score:2)
Yes she's so incompetent that the GOP can't charge with anything. What does that say about the GOP?
It says the GOP is not the potential prosecutor in this case. Comey said that no one would seek conviction in this situation, because he couldn't find sufficient evidence to seek a conviction. Not that there wasn't evidence of malfeasance.
I am with you in being puzzled by people who think that Trump is somehow better than Clinton. What I am confused by are people who think that Clinton is great.
Re: It won't matter what Comey says (Score:2)
Personally I despise the fact that Clinton is my only real choice this election myself but I see people doing to her what they did to Obama: he wasn't born here; he's a Muslim, he founded ISIS, etc.
You can disagree with a candidate's political views without resorting to outright dishonesty about them. With Trump, he's gotten this far by appealing to dishonesty.
Comey's decision is rooted in practicality. Frankly if it was a low level government employee, they probably would be in jail right now. But Clinton
Re: (Score:3)
he founded ISIS
You're not really saying that you can't understand a rhetorical reference to the rise of ISIS coming from the power vacuum that Obama created by pulling out of Iraq. Really? Or are you that unable to understand those sorts of references?
Comey's decision is rooted in practicality.
Right. In practical terms, he can't recommend prosecution because it was clear before hand that Obama's political appointee in charge of the DoJ wasn't going to prosecute his designated successor no matter how clearly the FBI established her trail of untruths and mis-handl
Re:It won't matter what Comey says (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you are confusing what is really happening here. I've seen all sorts of arguments about Hillary vs Donald and it almost always boils down to one basic argument.
1) Trump is worse than Clinton (Excusing bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior).
They mostly try to avoid her actual record, because quite frankly it SUCKS.Her four years as SoS are a complete disaster. Her stint as Senator is mostly resume lining material (no actual accomplishments), and that she won because she was Bill's wife isn't really that great either. Basically, she has no record of accomplishments. None. Which is why she is playing the "gotcha" game, and sitting there wondering why she isn't "50 points ahead". Well, when you run douchbad against asshole (I'll let you figure out which is which), it is clear that she shouldn't be "50 points" ahead, and why they are basically neck n neck.
If everyone who actually believes that NEITHER are good for America, actually voted for Gary Johnson (or Jill Stein), it would cause chaos in the election.
Re: It won't matter what Comey says (Score:2)
While I agree with you that she got most of her initial positions because she's Bill's wife, it is somewhat dishonest to say she has no accomplishments on her own. She has proven to be a capable Senator for New York. Her time as Secretary of State is certainly something she should be proud of. But she used a private email server and Benghazi happened while she was Secretary are two of the things people are using to negate and disqualify everything she's done.
Re: (Score:3)
She has proven to be a capable Senator for New York.
Really? Are you referring to the totally failed, money-wasting exercise on upstate NY revitalization? Or were you referring to her support and vote for the war in Iraq? Or were you referring to all of those other great pieces of legislation she sponsored and saw through ... oh, right, there really weren't any.
Her time as Secretary of State is certainly something she should be proud of.
Why? Because her phony "reset" stunt with Russia worked out so well? Check with the people in Crimea and throughout Ukraine on that one perhaps. Or were you thinking of her proud handling of the affa
Re:It won't matter what Comey says (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in your response you can't separate Benghazi with other things she may have done.
Because it was in the context of trying to get to the bottom of her (and her boss's) lying about the Benghazi mess for political reasons right before an election that it became clear she had been running her official email on (and ONLY on) a home computer. And in examining that situation, it became clear that she had - on becoming aware that she was under subpoena - that she destroyed tens of thousands of federal documents, and repeatedly lied about what she did, when she did it, and why she did it. Right: you can't separate the two topics because SHE is the one responsible for them being part of an uninterrupted spectrum of incompetence and deceit that doesn't begin and end with just one topic.
Yes she's so incompetent that the GOP can't charge with anything.
So the problem here is that you don't actually understand the different branches of government and how they work. That explains a lot about your rambling, here. "The GOP" is a political party. It has no authority. Are you talking about congress? They could charge her with contempt for lying as she did in under oath in front of them, and that's still a possibility. But otherwise, the only entity capable of charging her with anything is the Obama administration. You get that, right? No, apparently you don't.
Yes she said it but at the time...
Blah blah. She said that she did NOT say it, and that's simply a lie. Regardless, you're carefully avoiding the long career of deliberate lies about all sorts of things - from the ridiculously meaningless (why lie about why her parents called her Hillary?) to the clearly self-aggrandizing (landing under sniper fire!) to the long, long parade of lies designed to deflect from public awareness of her corruption. Everything from her days in Arkansas to countless bits of business under her control in the White House, to her frequent throwing-under-the-bus of staff with a lie about why, to her non-stop lying - right to this day - about her "mistake" in setting up an off-the-books mail server to hide her public records from scrutiny ... acts serious enough that the DoJ has been doling out immunity deals like candy. Focusing on how half-truthy her spin on the her "it's the Gold Standard" assertion was then or is now is just you trying to avoid the rest of her career's disingenuous handling of the truth.
Unstable? How do you know she's unstable, again. Are you already attacking her character first? Freudian slip?
OK, I guess you consider her to be a more authoritative voice on her character than the judge who said she threatened his life. Do you have a reason to consider that judge to be a liar? Please explain.
He certainly can say racist things (and he does)
Please explain some of the racist things he DOES say. Or are you one of these people who can't understand the difference between race and culture? While you're at it, of course, please chime in on Hillary Clinton's choice to do things like yukking her way through a skit at a fundraiser where the joke is that being late for events is an example of operating on "Colored People Time."
Now you are deflecting about Trump's clear misogynistic tendencies by bringing up Bill Clinton.
No, you just can't read. The issue isn't Bill Clinton, the issue is Hillary Clinton and her personal staff spending time and your tax dollars to deliberately engage in a campaign of character assassination against the women who - by either willingly or unwillingly being the Bill Clinton sexcapade and abuse show - were going to poison the well for Hillary's personal eventual quest for political power. She would never have progressed past being a lawyer getting rapists easy plea deals if she hadn't ridden her husband's coat-tails all the way to national office. S
Re: (Score:2)
Regardless, neither are well suited to the office. But one or the other of them will be seating Supreme Court justices. That's all that matters at this point. His choices - which will come from a list we've already seen - will skew towards constructionist jurists inclined to preserve the rights the Constitution protects. Her choices will without question be liberals who, like her, promise to act early and often to erode those rights. I'd rather have his likely flavor of jurists in place when we have future cases involving the Commerce Clause, campaign finance, balance of power issues, and friction around the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth amendments.
My biggest fear isn't the justices that he would appoint, although that concerning too. My biggest fear is that he will do exactly as he says, roll back the the checks and balances that we have in place for financial institutions. Because when he says that he wants to reduce regulation, that's what he really means. It's the removal of these regulations that lead to the housing crisis and allows for trading manipulation.
Re: (Score:3)
Statement by FBI Director James Comey [fbi.gov]
From the group of 30,000 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; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Emphasis mine.
18 USC 793 (f) [cornell.edu]:
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
So, to answer your question, 110 counts of violation of 18 USC 793 (f). Stop being an apologist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Combetta asked a question on Reddit, but nowhere does it say he actually followed through and deleted emails as a result of the question he asked or that the question was in relation to his work for Clinton; Platte River Networks has a lengthy list of clientele.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SOP
I worked at a place that answered a subpoena with 9 track tapes. Because they figured the opposition would have all sorts of trouble deciphering the record layout and EBCDIC data. If we could have found a 7 track tape drive, we would have used that. IIRC we wrote the tapes at a half obsolete data rate. If the record sets had been bigger we would have printed them on greenbar with almost dead ribbons. The calculus was that the computer work would cost much more than the data entry.
Re: (Score:2)