Clinton broke law with private email server

A report by the US State Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has found presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton did breach record-keeping laws – by using a personal server for work emails. The watchdog added she was not alone in the practice.

The 89-page dossier [PDF] found that three senior State Department figures had broken the rules by using personal email accounts for departmental business: Colin Powell, Hilary Clinton, and Scott Gration, the US ambassador to Kenya.

General Powell, who was Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005, had a private line installed in his office and used a laptop to exchange emails with colleagues and department staff. He was unable to provide copies of all emails sent to investigators.

The report states that Clinton took this further and set up a private email server to handle extensive email correspondence and has handed over hard copies of around 30,000 emails handled by that system. However, she hasn't included messages from January 21, 2009, to March 17, 2009, for received messages; and from January 21, 2009, to April 12, 2009, for sent messages.

"Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary," the OIG report states.

"At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act."

Yep, well, I've been saying for months now that she committed multiple felonies in the handling of classified information. Someone's finally listening.

More on arstechnica:

The new document arrives on the same day as Romanian "Guccifer" pleaded guilty to unrelated hacking charges in Virginia. Guccifer previously claimed he hacked into Clinton's e-mail, but he's now facing the courts after admitting to breaking into 100 Americans' accounts, including family members of former Presidents George W. and George H.W. Bush.

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To me, what is so galling about Hillary and her email server is that it is clearly spelled out what you can and can't do, in regards to personal communication. It is clearly dictated that official business is not to be conducted through personal channels like that. If Wayne or I did that, the question wouldn't be if there was any wrongdoing. The question would be would be how many felonies, and could treason possibly be linked in. Honestly, the record keeping violations are secondary to having written and ordered forwarded to her sensitive and classified documents through this unsecured and unmanaged channel.

But, of course, for Hillary and the other muckety-mucks, it's all good. No wrongdoing here.

Someday these people need to be held accountable.

Ars op-ed piece from today:

And lest we forget, well before Clinton came to the State Department, members of the George W. Bush administration used a private e-mail server (at gwb43.com) run and paid for by the Republican National Committee—at least 88 accounts were set up for Bush administration officials in order to bypass the official White House e-mail system and avoid the regulations around presidential record retention, the Federal Records Act, and the Hatch Act (which bans the use of government e-mail accounts for political purposes, among other things). In the process of using that system, more than 5 million e-mail messages were "lost," which led to the resignation of a number of White House officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. None of the e-mails for 51 of the 88 accounts was preserved by the RNC.

Clinton was well aware of the Bush administration e-mail fiasco before she was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of State. She even told the State Department's assistant secretary for diplomatic security that she "gets it" after being briefed on why there were problems with her using a BlackBerry.

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Besides, Clinton's excuse basically boils down to this: other people broke the rules, so she should have been allowed to as well. It's the entitled executive syndrome writ large.

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Turtles Scumbags all the way down.

Like Wayne I've been surprised that it's taken as long as it has to gather any steam. As far as classified materials handling goes, you simply do not mess around with that stuff. There is absolutely no reason why she should have been using some homebrew server for official business like this.

I do wonder if this will be the thing that sinks her. Certainly if timed right, she could well end up campaigning at the same time as an indictment goes through, which is what has me baffled as to why she continues to campaign rather than deal with this.

Having a democratic election where one of the hopefuls is in prison isn't at all democratic. Maybe Sanders would lose against Trump (certainly the polls suggest that would be the case), but at least he is a candidate that isn't in very real danger of going to prison.

the_leander said:

Maybe Sanders would lose against Trump (certainly the polls suggest that would be the case), but at least he is a candidate that isn't in very real danger of going to prison.

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I think that would change if he could take down Clinton or be seen to best her in some way. Trump has winner's momentum right now.
I also think that Bernie would fair better in debates with Trump - I think it would be easy for Trump to get under her skin (she has many vulnerabilities) and make her act defensive.

the_leander said:

There is absolutely no reason why she should have been using some homebrew server for official business like this

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Would mail.ru have been better? I do not see how a custom email solution is bad per se given how many large websites have been broken into and are prime targets for hackers, it seems.

The root cause of all of this is that the federal government of the richest country in the world (certainly not per capita, but at least in total) and the home nation to essentially all major IT companies was unable to provide a secured Blackberry device to one of the highest ranking members of the Obama administration whose job required her to constantly travel. While Condoleza Rice was allowed to use a Blackberry for work, Hilary Clinton was told she could not.

If Trump was accused of the same wrongdoing, he would shift all blame on the "incompetent" government workers and justify his actions by fighting against "unfair treatment" and by simply using modern technology (American mail software on an American server) to increase his work productivity as any good business leader would do (no matter what objections bean counters and other clueless bureaucrats may have).

I do wonder if this will be the thing that sinks her. Certainly if timed right, she could well end up campaigning at the same time as an indictment goes through, which is what has me baffled as to why she continues to campaign rather than deal with this.

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Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a serious interest in seeing Clinton being punished for this. If she had to drop out of the race, the Republicans would have to face Sanders who, despite all the Clinton hate, would be a much more difficult to deal with as a future president.

Plus, the longer this gets dragged out, the longer the Republicans can use it to bash Clinton in public...

Having a democratic election where one of the hopefuls is in prison isn't at all democratic. Maybe Sanders would lose against Trump (certainly the polls suggest that would be the case), but at least he is a candidate that isn't in very real danger of going to prison.

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So far, polls have shown that Sanders would fare better against Trump than Clinton would. By quite a bit even. That being said, it is fair to add that Sanders has not exactly been a target for negative campaigning as he has not been seen as a serious threat by the Republicans who have remained focused on Clinton.

JoBBo said:

I do not see how a custom email solution is bad per se given

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The main reason for me is that it is a blatant attempt to get around record keeping policies. Work and communications of public servants is supposed to be a matter of public record so that we can know what they were doing for (to?) us. This is why the Bush Whitehouse were pushing their emails through non-government servers - for which they should have been prosecuted, and maybe if they go after Hillary they can go after Bush and Cheney next. (Hey, I can dream)

JoBBo said:

Would mail.ru have been better? I do not see how a custom email solution is bad per se given how many large websites have been broken into and are prime targets for hackers, it seems.

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mail.ru? Obviously not. But most any major US commercial venture would have been a better choice. They at least have logging and documented security checklists.

The root cause of all of this is that the federal government of the richest country in the world (certainly not per capita, but at least in total) and the home nation to essentially all major IT companies was unable to provide a secured Blackberry device to one of the highest ranking members of the Obama administration whose job required her to constantly travel. While Condoleza Rice was allowed to use a Blackberry for work, Hilary Clinton was told she could not.

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Source, please. As I understand it, Hillary never requested a secured Blackberry, and declined the one offered to her, preferring to use her own, instead.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/hillary-clinton-email-blackberry/2015/03/12/id/629871/ (not the original source I read, but one I found in 10 seconds of google fu.)

If Trump was accused of the same wrongdoing, he would shift all blame on the "incompetent" government workers and justify his actions by fighting against "unfair treatment" and by simply using modern technology (American mail software on an American server) to increase his work productivity as any good business leader would do (no matter what objections bean counters and other clueless bureaucrats may have).

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Very true. But then that CEO would then be held up by the Board when his compromised email costs the company.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a serious interest in seeing Clinton being punished for this. If she had to drop out of the race, the Republicans would have to face Sanders who, despite all the Clinton hate, would be a much more difficult to deal with as a future president.

Plus, the longer this gets dragged out, the longer the Republicans can use it to bash Clinton in public...

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Unfortunately, agreed on both counts.

The two party system sucks. We need to break it.

ilwrath said:

mail.ru? Obviously not. But most any major US commercial venture would have been a better choice. They at least have logging and documented security checklists.

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Maybe. Maybe not. My argument was that I do not quite understand why a custom email server set up has to be worse per se.

Robert mentioned Guccifer in one of his posts earlier who managed to get access to private emails and photos of many celebrities by "hacking" into their Google and Apple accounts despite the existence of logging functionality and security checklists...

Source, please.

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Ars Technica

Very true. But then that CEO would then be held up by the Board when his compromised email costs the company.

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Held up... as in... "given a golden parachute" (i.e. be paid millions for not screwing up even more), which seems to be the common procedure at large corporations?

The two party system sucks. We need to break it.

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A multi-party system has its own challenges but I think it would be an improvement compared to your current situation.

JoBBo said:

Maybe. Maybe not. My argument was that I do not quite understand why a custom email server set up has to be worse per se.

Robert mentioned Guccifer in one of his posts earlier who managed to get access to private emails and photos of many celebrities by "hacking" into their Google and Apple accounts despite the existence of logging functionality and security checklists...

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Well, you need some way to be able to audit the service before you can assume any security, at all. As far as I know, there was absolutely no auditing on that personal server. So it's out before it starts.

Ars Technica

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Ah, oh brother. What a cluster.... So, Hillary requested a device that was hobbled together as a one-off for the president and a few of his pals, and also not that secure (but better than just going rogue), and was denied that request.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/11/will-the-next-obamaberry-be-a-nexus-or-an-ipad/ (implies that Blackberry is only qualified for "classified" information)

Instead, the IT folks tried to force her to use the secure solution the plebs have to put up with. Makes it all a little more understandable. Still not excusable, in any way. If she didn't feel comfortable using a computer, why the hell didn't she just hire a secretary to handle the email and messages for her? As far as I can tell, that is how George W Bush did it...? She couldn't find an intern with a security clearance or something? (Didn't want any getting near Bill?) C'mon... She should know that you have to find some way to work within the system.

Held up... as in... "given a golden parachute" (i.e. be paid millions for not screwing up even more), which seems to be the common procedure at large corporations?

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Yeah, true.

A multi-party system has its own challenges but I think it would be an improvement compared to your current situation.

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Agreed.

Have to confess this gave me a chuckle:

CrowdStrike had previously said the hack was carried out by two professional hacking teams with close ties to the Russian government.

In the post, Guccifer 2 mocks that suggestion: "CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by 'sophisticated' hacker groups. I'm very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy."

He also questions the company's assertion that no financial, donor or personal information had been accessed or stolen, and in response posts several Excel files that list donors and potential donors alongside their names, locations and donated amounts. Along with those comes a 237-page attack document on Donald Trump labeled confidential.

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More here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/16/lone_hacker_claims_to_have_broken_into_democrat_servers/

More on this at Ars:

Readers are once again advised to keep an open mind, and that means recognizing that Wednesday's leak by Guccifer 2.0 is merely consistent with what CrowdStrike has reported. On its own, the leak neither impeaches the veracity of the report nor does it prove it. If the government of Russia or any other country is using hacking in an attempt to influence the outcome of a US presidential election, that's an extremely serious development. But given the house of mirrors surrounding this entire episode, the evidence should be thoroughly investigated before anyone reaches that conclusion.

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Like I mentioned in another thread, Assange says Wikileaks has some stuff on Hillary's emails coming out soon.
But this whole thing has taken a rather ominous turn recently - it seems like no crisis can go unexploited. Dated June 14, in the Washington Post and echoed in Forbes (and other places around the web) story given as fact that Russian government agents hacked the DNC. Apparently there is some terribly damaging document on how to attack Trump. What's the implication supposed to be here? Putin is working for Trump? Trump is a Russian agent? Russia says, no way - nothing to do with them, they didn't do it.
So far just accusation and denial, maybe they did (but why bother) maybe they didn't - however, also June 14, "NATO agreed Tuesday to make cyber operations part of its war domain, ..." noting that "In 2014, after years of debate, NATO finally agreed that a cyberattack could rise to the level of a military assault and could trigger the Article 5 protections, which allow the alliance to go to the collective defense of another member that has been attacked." So, does that mean a Russian hack could be a reason to activate all those NATO troops that are currently performing military exercises on Russia's borders? Or is it a personal message from Hillary to Putin saying - don't mess with my servers?

Yes, the whole "Russian government must be behind it" thing stinks of fish.

From Techdirt ... perhaps to circumvent FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests

Robert said:

Top Clinton aide was “frustrated” with her boss’s e-mail practices

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if I wasn't getting messages I'd be annoyed too

of course, this is one of the problems with depending on one method of communication.

they should have hired an Amiga programmer

News: FBI recommends no prosecution of Clinton

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

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In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

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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.

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