quote:

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton could wind up at the center of yet another congressional investigation, according to a new report from Politico.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is moving forward with his plan to begin an investigation of the federal government’s record keeping, likely putting the former secretary of state in the crosshairs of his investigation.

He was recently given the green light from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), but top leadership figures have urged Chaffetz to tread lightly, given the FBI’s continued criminal probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

“The Oversight Committee has jurisdiction on the Federal Records Act, and we intend to pursue that,” Chaffetz told Politico. “We also have jurisdiction on FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act], so if you’re not providing emails, it begs the question of your compliance under FOIA. So, I’m not specifically trying to target the secretary, but when she creates her own private email system, she’s ensnarled herself.”

“I’m trying to be as cautious as I can,” he added. “I don’t think we should be any harder on her, but I don’t think we should be any easier on her. It’s bigger and broader than just Hillary Clinton.”

quote:

Critics are blasting Hillary Clinton for claiming at Thursday night’s Democratic debate nothing will come of the FBI probe into her email practices and seizing on reports that other former officials received classified information on personal accounts -- saying she’s glossing over glaring differences between her case and theirs.

[that latter part sounds like the comrades here]

“The attempt to paint her predecessors in the State Department as equal offenders in mishandling classified material is an insult to what we now know to be the truth,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement Thursday, calling the argument an “everybody did it” defense...

But the dozen emails reportedly connected to those cases represent a fraction of the more than 1,600 now-classified emails found on Clinton’s server. Further, no other secretary of state set up a private, “homebrew” server as she did.

“We’re talking apples and oranges here,” the National Journal’s Ron Fournier told Fox News.

“Official investigations have confirmed that Secretary Clinton’s unsecure server stored more than 1,000 emails containing classified information, including some classified at the very highest levels,” Issa said in his statement, put out earlier Thursday. “Her guarantee to the nation that the number was zero now seems more like desperation than news cycle spin.”

quote:

Team Clinton seized on this report yesterday, claiming it was an email scandal "game-changer" that shifts the terrain of a controversy that has plagued Hillary's campaign for months. It is, and does, nothing of the sort, for reasons we'll address in a moment...

(1) Yesterday evening, Hillary said, "I never sent or received any classified material," without her (legally irrelevant) "marked" caveat. This is a flat falsehood. It is an established fact that she personally sent and received classified material. The State Department's review has discovered more than 1,600 classified emails on her server thus far, with another batch still outstanding -- to say nothing of the 32,000 messages she unilaterally deleted, some of which we now know did pertain to official business.

(2) She also blames this controversy on the issue of retroactive classification, which Powell complains about, too. This gripe may apply to some of Hillary's emails, and to both of Powell's, but Hillary is being deeply disingenuous here. The nonpartisan IC Inspector General has determined that a number of her classified emails were absolutely classified at the time they originated, including top secret and beyond-top-secret intelligence. There was nothing "retroactive" about these classifications. News organizations have also confirmed that scores of her emails were, in fact, classified at the time. It was her duty to identify and protect highly sensitive information, regardless of markings, a responsibility she acknowledged and swore to uphold upon assuming office:

(3) "See? Condi and Colin did it, too!" relies on a thoroughly bogus equivalency. Above all else, neither Rice nor Powell set up and used a recklessly unsecure private emails server on which they conducted all of their official business, against "clear cut rules" implemented in 2005....Beyond her exclusive use of an improper and unsecure server, Sec. Clinton was personally and specifically warned about the vulnerability of her email scheme in 2011, when a State Department security expert sounded the alarm over foreign hackers seeking to infiltrate US secrets by targeting high-ranking officials' private emails. Mrs. Clinton carried on with her arrangement anyway.

In summary, Hillary Clinton's server is the scandal. It's possible that Rice's aides and Sec. Powell may have acted improperly (though the email rules were set forth after Powell left office). They may have been sloppy with a small number of low-level classified information on an ad hoc basis. The rules and laws pertaining to the US government's data security must be followed. By everyone. But Clinton mishandled hundreds upon hundreds of classified emails, which held state secrets at the highest classification levels. In fact, just this week, the State Department deemed another seven Clinton emails too sensitive to release in any form, even with redactions, bringing that total to 29. Intelligence officials who've seen some of the documents in question say they betray operational intelligence, the leakage of which puts covert missions and lives at risk. A former NSA official has intelligence community sources who say Clinton's emails included the true identities of CIA operatives and assets, including foreign nationals working for the agency.

...unlike Powell and Rice, Hillary has consistently lied about this scandal. Her smug assertion that the (twice expanded) FBI investigation won't go anywhere amounts to waving a red flag in front of career investigators and intelligence officials, who are reportedly fuming over her irresponsible, and likely criminal, conduct. Remember, the probe reportedly entails more than just her email misconduct, Gen. David Petraeus was charged for classified intelligence spillage that was far more limited and contained, and a former US Attorney General says there's already sufficient evidence to justify an indictment. Clinton seems confident that her political power and privilege will shield her from accountability in the end, sending a less-than-subtle message to the Justice Department, which has already been influenced by two public White House statements. [http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/02/01/hillary-emails-latest-n2112080]

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Anyway, cockgarglers, nutsuckers, toiletlickers aside... Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell did exactly the same, they were not charged, and I don't see any crime that any of these three have committed,

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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Anyway, cockgarglers, nutsuckers, toiletlickers aside... Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell did exactly the same, they were not charged, and I don't see any crime that any of these three have committed,

LOL. Of course you don't.

Lets see - the news was released by Elijah Cummings (d), ranking member.
The classification was done *ten years* after the email was sent.
The person that classified the emails at the state dept was a hillary clinton appointee.

Colin Powell says he doesn't see anything classified in the emails - which were comments by two US ambassadors on publicly available knowledge being relayed to Powell.

I'm not going to go into the other email, which was emails sent to Condi's assistant. Suffice it to say - its the same thing - two attempts by democrats to provide clinton with political cover saying - oh look everyone does it.

Even if true (and its not) its not a defense when your 4, not a defense when your Secretary of State.

quote:

ORIGINAL: bounty44

this is all better than a soap opera.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

quote:


LOL. Of course you don't.

Lets see - the news was released by Elijah Cummings (d), ranking member.
The classification was done *ten years* after the email was sent.
The person that classified the emails at the state dept was a hillary clinton appointee.

Colin Powell says he doesn't see anything classified in the emails - which were comments by two US ambassadors on publicly available knowledge being relayed to Powell.

I'm not going to go into the other email, which was emails sent to Condi's assistant. Suffice it to say - its the same thing - two attempts by democrats to provide clinton with political cover saying - oh look everyone does it.

Even if true (and its not) its not a defense when your 4, not a defense when your Secretary of State.

but it should be the policy of the government that government business is done on government computers. That has not really been the policy beforehand.

quote:

Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out.” Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation. Not true says Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau. “They (the FBI) do not do security reviews,” Pomerantz said. “What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.”

quote:

ORIGINAL: DominantWrestler

Or Hillary's change of stance on gay marriage? Hillary is bought and paid for. Hillary will play politics Say what you may about Bernie, His moral superiority above Clinton is very significant. What is a strong point of Hillary, she is very politically aware and her ability to notice trends and take advantage of them is tied into her ability in politics in general

Hillary follows trends for political popularity
Bernie Sanders has Principals

quote:

If the FBI finds sufficient evidence to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton or one of her top aides for mishandling classified information, Lynch’s Justice Department will have to decide whether to press ahead...

Even if no evidence of wrongdoing is found, Clinton’s many critics are unlikely to take the word of an appointee of President Obama’s and will doubt that justice has been served.

Already, top Republicans are calling for a special prosecutor to be brought in and evaluate the situation.

No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn (Texas) took to the floor of the Senate last week to call for a special counsel to be appointed “because of the conflict of interest by asking Attorney General Lynch to investigate and perhaps even prosecute somebody in the Obama administration.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agrees that Lynch ought to consider a special counsel, a representative said, to reassure the country that decisions are made “without regard to any political considerations.”
The Justice Department, however, has so far declined the request.

“This matter is being reviewed by career attorneys and investigators and does not meet the criteria for the appointment of a special prosecutor,” department spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement...

Lynch’s critics are unconvinced that the attorney general can be a neutral arbiter.

“That Hillary Clinton could be the Democrat nominee and potential next president represents an extraordinary circumstance that commends the appointment of a special counsel,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), the head of the House Oversight subcommittee on national security, in a statement to The Hill. “For a Democrat-appointed attorney general such as Lynch, this is obviously something that distinguishes the Clinton investigation from other cases.”

Along with 43 other Republicans, DeSantis wrote a letter to the Justice Department last year asking for a special counsel to be appointed so that the investigation can be conducted “impartially.”

Former colleagues of Lynch rejected the notion that she would be biased in the Clinton probe.

“I cannot imagine allowing any personal relationship to affect her work. It’s just not the way she is,” said Tracey...