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Fact check: Not if your name was Hillary Clinton. A veteran took the opportunity at last night’s “Commander-in-Chief Forum” on MSNBC to put Hillary’s e-mail scandal and serial mishandling of classified information in its proper perspective. The veteran, who served in both the Air Force and Navy and held clearances at the highest levels, told Hillary she’s lucky she’s on stage and not on trial:

An Air Force and Navy veteran, who said he held “the top secret sensitive compartmentalized information clearance,” challenged Clinton’s actions as secretary of state live on MSNBC’s commander-in-chief forum.

“Had I communicated this information not following prescribed protocols, I would have been prosecuted and imprisoned,” said the veteran, identified by MSNBC as a Republican. “Secretary Clinton, how can you expect those such as myself who were and are trusted with America’s most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?”

Hillary’s response was, well … not terribly responsive:

“Well I appreciate your concern and also your experience, but let me try to make the distinctions that I think are important for me to answer your question,” Clinton responded. “First, as I said to Matt, you know and I know, classified material is designated. … And what we have here is the use of an unclassified system by hundreds of people in our government to send information that was not marked, there were no headers, there was no statement top secret, secret, or confidential.”

Those are at best half-truths, and at points flat-out lies. At least some of the classified information on e-mail chains in which Hillary participated did have markings, specifically “(C)” for CONFIDENTIAL. She told the FBI that she thought it was an alphabetical marking, an absurd explanation made even more absurd by the presence of “(SBU)” markings on other paragraphs. Moreover, the “unclassified system” in question was Hillary’s own creation, for which she had no authorization, and the reason people used it was because she refused to get an e-mail account on an official State Department e-mail system.

On top of all of that, as the veteran could have reminded her, a security clearance comes with the responsibility to recognize when information might be classified and to take corrective action when put out into the clear. That’s also a point I made in my column for The Week yesterday when it came to a glaringly obvious example of Hillary’s lies on the subject:

The onus falls on cleared personnel to discern what requires protection even when markings may be absent, let alone when they are present. Instead of pursuing that contradiction, the FBI swallowed one of the biggest whoppers of all. When asked whether a discussion of an upcoming covert operation should have prompted her to recognize the classified nature of the information, she told the FBI that “deliberation over a future drone strike did not give her cause for concern regarding classification.”

It doesn’t take von Clausewitz to know that discussions of military and intelligence operations require secrecy, especially covert operations such as the drone-strike program and its targets. To accept these answers at face value, one would have to consider Hillary Clinton an idiot, and especially dangerous if put in charge of the military as commander-in-chief.

Hillary’s answer to this question insults the years of service this veteran provided to the US, and everyone else’s intelligence.

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In his post this morning, Ed highlighted an exchange between a US military veteran and Hillary Clinton during Wednesday’s Commander-in-Chief forum on NBC. The questioner challenged Clinton on a glaring national security double standard: If I’d done what you did with your emails, I’d have been “prosecuted and imprisoned,” he said:


Navy vet asks Clinton how she expects those with access to classified info to trust her as president #NBCNewsForum https://t.co/4vxgBhRqgU

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 8, 2016

In response, Clinton ran through a litany of excuses, some of which were flat-out lies. She asserted, for instance, that none of her emails were marked classified, even though some were. That’s the whole reason she had to concoct the nonsensical story that she believed ‘(C) for confidential’ was an effort at alphabetizing paragraphs — which is preposterous, especially given this context. She wrapped up her answer by insisting that she did “exactly what I should have done,” which is also false. But a prominent new element of her shifting email spin is a heightened focus on the absence of classification headers at the top of her emails as a key exculpatory factor. This is irrelevant, misleading, and stands in direct contradiction to a previous Clinton claim. First, those headers are used to underscore classification levels on emails sent through the official secure systems, which Hillary was knowingly and intentionally bypassing with the exclusive use of her private and unsecure server. Second, at the outset of her term at the State Department, Mrs. Clinton signed a binding nondisclosure agreement swearing to identify and protect all classified information, “marked or unmarked:”

Re: HRC “markings” excuse, several emails *were* marked + she swore to ID & protect *unmarked* classified info. pic.twitter.com/AQVQhzwL6C

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 8, 2016

Perhaps Clinton can be cut some slack for not immediately recognizing low-level classified information as such, but she also sent and received messages that were secret, top secret, and above top secret from the moment of origination. A number of these emails remain so sensitive that the State Department refused to release them in any form, even with major redactions. “But there were no headers” is not a valid explanation for these egregious security lapses, particularly in light of her formally-acknowledged duty to safeguard unmarked secrets. But since she suddenly wants to fixate on headers, how’s this for a relevant flashback?

With HRC now emphasizing “there were no headers!” excuse, please recall when she instructed aide to strip headers: pic.twitter.com/T674AYU3bC

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 8, 2016

When this instruction to a subordinate to ditch the “identifying heading” on an email and “send nonsecure” caused a problem for her in January, Hillary told CBS News it was no big deal because — ta da! — “headings are not classification notices.” Oops:

This week, a core facet of her email scheme defense is that she didn’t do anything wrong because none of her emails contained those telltale and crucial headings, which are the determinative form of classification notices. But just a few months ago, she said those same headings didn’t meaningfully pertain to classification. An incoherent, entirely self-serving about face.

She cannot keep her own lies straight

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Yup, googled it. Never happened, no credible citation of it anywhere.

Ronald Reagan said: "Facts are stupid things". Nutsuckers have taken it and ran with it. Google it.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

the bummer thing about that little episode is it probably gives vile critter parts some sense of scholarly satisfaction that, to his own mind, legitimizes (falsely) many of his other "complaints" about sources and information.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

i suspect theres some truth to that.

yet at the same time, im mindful of some casual readers who might not recognize, on the whole, how illegitimate he is.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

the bummer thing about that little episode is it probably gives vile critter parts some sense of scholarly satisfaction that, to his own mind, legitimizes (falsely) many of his other "complaints" about sources and information.