Discussion: Clinton Won't Apologize For Private Email Use: 'What I Did Was Allowed'

Absolutely, and the media’s greed for profit at all costs comes at the cost to our body politic.

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Except that ALL SoSs before Kerry, many senators and governors have done pretty much the same thing. Just ask Colin Powell. The strenuous attempt on the part of the media to twist this into something nefarious is ridiculous.

Don’t fall for it.

The Clintons had a private server already established, to handle family and business correspondence. I don’t blame Hillary for being paranoid about privacy after the relentless bashing she’s taken for over 2 decades from her enemies. In fact, as it turns out, the Clintons’ private server was MORE secure than the government servers which were hacked a few years ago.

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I guess I don’t understand why you think it’s so unusual for her to use a private server for personal and business (Clinton Foundation) stuff. Everyone I know, whether the federal government is their employer or not, generally separates the two, although there is inevitably overlap, as business associates may also be personal friends.

Again, this is just another wearisome attempt by Republicans and Hillary-bashers to find something - ANYTHING - to make her look bad, even if they have to invent it.

Let’s save our energy for the real issues.

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I’m not pro-Hillary. I understand how personal and business email servers work, and I’ve dealt with Federal IT systems. They suck, they use ancient technology and often lack security.

This is not an issue. At all. It’s drummed up to gin up fear and hostility against Hillary Clinton. If any Republican dares to use it against her, they should be reminded of the thousands of government emails Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney destroyed as governors, or the millions of emails W’s administration destroyed that centered around the run-up to the Iraq war and the attorney general scandals. Deliberately destroyed. Also, the dozens of government executives who used private email systems to disguise campaign work done on the government dime.

If Hillary’s private server is so horrible, why do all the others get a pass? Because it’s NOTHING!

It’s a phony issue that’s only being hyped now because the phony Benghazi issue ran out of steam.

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“No matter what, Pagliano was obligated to disclose that arrangement and the dollar amount paid every year on his financial disclosure forms. He didn’t do so. What possible case is there to justify his failing to do that yet signing the forms anyway?”

Well, we have to assume it’s something nefarious, and speculate that HRC is behind it, don’t we?

“In general, federal ethics rules would never let a manager hire one of their own agency’s employees to do ANY kind of private work for them, due to the various ways that could be abused by either party.”

OK, so what exactly were the rules at State?

“When you are hiring an State Dept IT email guy to set up your private server to connect to the State Dept email …”

Oooh, that sounds vaguely suspicious - connecting her private server to the State Department. Except, and correct me if I’m wrong, that connection was the internet.

“As I noted, agencies have specific rules on how to get approval for any – ANY – outside employment, which includes review of the proposed arrangement by agency attorneys. If that didn’t happen, that also is an issue.”

Well, OK, what were the rules at State? And how do you know that did not happen?

Sorry, but it’s all just kind of a non-accusation, isn’t it?

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Powells system was much better from a national security viewpoint. Powell could easily get his classified information directly on his State Department issued classified system. For more day to day information he could use his personal email. He did make a serious mistake in not saving the emails from his personal account.

Hillary used only a personal system. She relied upon her staff to perform a Readers-Digest assembly of information, some of which appears to have been derived from classified information, and then emailed it to her.

This is one reason she sticks closely to her statement “I did not send or receive any information marked classified.”

Something that isn’t being discussed much yet, but that could have serious legal ramifications, is the question of how much of the information Clinton received had lost its classified markings in the transcription by her staff.

… and women voters.

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I’m not familiar with the rules and procedures, but if she hired someone who was not part of the State Dept., wouldn’t that conceivably send up flags as to possible security breaches?

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The poster you replied to upthread joined TPM today. :wink:

jw1

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No. Powell’s system was the same as Clinton’s. He used the laptop for personal emails and also for business emails, but he used more secure systems for classified communications. This is what Clinton did, and that is what she’s saying when she says she did not send classified material on the email system. Notice that Powell did not say he had two email systems. He said he had a laptop for email and “a secure State Department machine for ‘secure material.’” Clinton has said repeatedly that she used other systems for secure communications, and there has been no evidence to the contrary.

“some of which appears to have been derived from classified material.” Back it up, or it’s just innuendo.

“the question of how much of the information Clinton received had lost its classified markings in the transcription by her staff.” What the hell does that mean? Are you implying that her staff ignored whatever you’re calling “classified markings” when they conveyed information to the Secretary? Are you suggesting that when her work emails were turned over to State recently, that her staff “transcribed” them and redacted “classified markings?” Do you have any actual information to contribute? Or is all this just supposition, speculation, innuendo, and bullshit?

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I don’t blame Hillary for not apologizing, because she has nothing to apologize for! The right wing media and if course the right wing itself are pumping this lie for milk, in other words, cause damage and smearing of someone’s name just because they can.

Well, I for one am not buying the hype and if folks would investigate the matter for themselves rather than solely relying on the media to give them the news in an unbiased manner, this story would have already been dead…non grata!

And the issue you Hillary paying the aide who managed her server is exactly what she should have done! Imagine, if she and her family relied upon this young man’s talent and didn’t pay him one red cent! Imagine that, will ya!

I for one and very glad that is NOT the case! So all you news reporters out there…tell the story…tell the true story about the emails…

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hmmm…

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Those newbie posters stick out like a sore thumb.

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I had the same reaction. It’s called lose, lose. No matter what she says or does Republicans take issue with the MSM doing their bullying.

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Exactly.

[quote=“anirprof, post:40, topic:25916”]
to set up your private server to connect to the State Dept email [/quote]
Hmmmmm. I thought she had her own server.

I will certainly vote for Hillary over any Republican if she is nominated. But I would like to ask a serious question about this email controversy. I see many Hillary supporters dismissing the whole story as a media creation, but I cannot get myself past the fact that, as I understand it, she deleted all her self-determined ‘personal’ emails from the server before she turned the rest of them over. Why should we trust her or any other politician to delete whatever she wanted to delete, unseen by outside eyes, and turn over only what she chose to turn over? Am I missing something? This is a serious question, not a provocation. I truly believe I may be misunderstanding something about what she did, because what she did as I currently understand it seems unavoidably, flagrantly suspicious, something we would howl and scream about if a Republican did it. If am not understanding this correctly, please enlighten me. Thanks.

Hillary had a team of lawyers review the more than 60,000 emails on her server and determine which were business and which were private. A description of that process . . .

The law requiring emails sent to private addresses be transferred to government servers was enacted in 2014 after Hillary left State. As far as howling and screaming if a Republican did it, they did do it. All government employees were allowed to determine which of their emails were private and which were business. This is another example of Democrats in general and the Clintons in particular being held to a different standard.

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You got that part wrong, she was not connected to the State Dept Server, and did not have a State Dept “dot gov” email address. That’s the whole problem. So not only was it not a private email (like gmail, etc.), it was her own server that she had complete control over. It looks bad, and went against advice of a State Dept memo with her name on it. Definitely looks bad. Note she said “it was allowed”, because it was not authorized by anyone. There is just no law against it, and the memo was more if a directive, it did not specifically mention there would be disciplinary action, etc. She specifically used the word “allowed” (which means there were not specific disciplinary rules against it), not “authorized” (which means she was told it was OK, which would be false). Even the White House said they were not aware of what she was doing.

So once again the whole point is that it looks bad, especially with the employee not disclosing the income he got for setting it up. That looks like he was hiding something, and is indeed against the rules, and could lead to losing his security clearance.

No crime, but without a doubt looks bad. No one else in the Cabinet did this. And even the President did not, and Republicans were looking to dig up a lot more dirt on him than her, so the “defense” that she was worried about emails being leaked to Republicans is silly.

Thanks for the link, manutgop. I now have more information than I had before. And while seeing the fairly thorough steps in the process allays my concerns somewhat, it does not end them.

First, it was her own lawyers that did the sorting. Why not have an independent source do that? Second, and more troubling in my mind, she destroyed the emails deemed personal. Would it not have been prudent to keep them just in case she needed to further demonstrate the veracity of the process? For instance, somebody could have read a small, randomly selected sample of those deemed personal to verify. No chance of that now. Suspicious on the face of it, whatever the facts may be. And she had to know that destroying the emails would be viewed with skepticism, yet chose to do so nonetheless.

As for Republicans doing it, too. Hell yes, they should be held to the same standard.

As I said, if she is nominated, I will vote for her. But I don’t believe the email concerns are baseless.

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