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State Department regulations allowed the Secretary of State to use an external email server in their official capacity. As I said, Colin Powell did exactly the

by GVIrish 10y ago

State Department regulations allowed the Secretary of State to use an external email server in their official capacity. As I said, Colin Powell did exactly the same thing, although his reason was because when he came in, State Dept. was woefully behind technologically. > And then there's intent. One must ask "Why did she request that a separate server be set up?" and then follow her answer to the base of her justification. Why her request? Is her justification valid? Was she ignorant of the ramifications (also bad if you're running for the Presidency)? These are all good questions. It sounds like she wanted to retain her personal email and be able to field personal business from that same account. However, as it stands she wasn't required to provide any sort of official justification. I often wonder if anyone told her how bad this could look for her, and whether she listened or not. I know from people that have worked directly with her that she is not particularly tech-savvy, but that could mean that maybe she thought having a personal server would shield her in ways it cannot, or it could mean that she didn't think it would be a big deal at all. Either way, poor judgement I think.

ryanmerket 10y ago
You keep saying Powell "did the same exact thing" -- but that's undeniably false. Powell used his personal AOL account from time to time when the official .gov mail servers were down. Clinton setup a private email server. Totally different things. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/09/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-said-my-predecessors-did-same-thin/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/...
- GVIrish 10y ago
  Used personal email for public business. Ended up with some classified emails on his personal account. Same thing. If you want to get very specific, yes, Colin Powell wasn't using colin@colinpowell.com as his email. But the issue is the same, although as I said, his reason for doing was different.
  - ryanmerket 10y ago
    Setting up a private email server in your bathroom closet to conduct 100% of all your government and foundation business, and using an AOL account from time to time is definitely not the same thing.
ryanmerket 10y ago
> "These are all good questions. It sounds like she wanted to retain her personal email and be able to field personal business from that same account." Except she could have done that with her .gov email. Classification laws state she can delete personal emails from her .gov account without fear of wrongdoing. So your theory falls flat. One reason she might have wanted to setup her own private email server was to skirt FOIA requests. Which seems plausible since there were numerous FOIA requests during the Benghazi ordeal. All of which were replied to with 'we have no emails'. It took Syndey Blumenthal's AOL account to be compromised for everyone to discover Clinton's private email server.
- dmix 10y ago
  > One reason she might have wanted to setup her own private email server was to skirt FOIA requests This is unlikely. It has to do with her addiction to Blackberry phones and the fact they were insecure. She refused to give up using it. The email server was hosted at home since her 2008 campaign. I assume she just continued to use the server afterward. She even contacted the NSA to find a solution to keep using her Blackberry but they couldn't find one. It was just too insecure. Edit: upon further investigation you might be right... > One year earlier, during her own presidential campaign, Clinton had said that if elected, “we will adopt a presumption of openness and Freedom of Information Act requests and urge agencies to release information quickly.” > But in those first few days, Clinton’s senior advisers were already taking steps that would help her circumvent those high-flown words, according to a chain of internal State Department emails released to Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit organization suing the government over Clinton’s emails. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-e...

by GVIrish 10y ago

ryanmerket 10y ago

You keep saying Powell "did the same exact thing" -- but that's undeniably false. Powell used his personal AOL account from time to time when the official .gov mail servers were down. Clinton setup a private email server. Totally different things. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/09/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-said-my-predecessors-did-same-thin/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/...

GVIrish 10y ago
Used personal email for public business. Ended up with some classified emails on his personal account. Same thing. If you want to get very specific, yes, Colin Powell wasn't using colin@colinpowell.com as his email. But the issue is the same, although as I said, his reason for doing was different.
- ryanmerket 10y ago
  Setting up a private email server in your bathroom closet to conduct 100% of all your government and foundation business, and using an AOL account from time to time is definitely not the same thing.

ryanmerket 10y ago

> "These are all good questions. It sounds like she wanted to retain her personal email and be able to field personal business from that same account." Except she could have done that with her .gov email. Classification laws state she can delete personal emails from her .gov account without fear of wrongdoing. So your theory falls flat. One reason she might have wanted to setup her own private email server was to skirt FOIA requests. Which seems plausible since there were numerous FOIA requests during the Benghazi ordeal. All of which were replied to with 'we have no emails'. It took Syndey Blumenthal's AOL account to be compromised for everyone to discover Clinton's private email server.

dmix 10y ago
> One reason she might have wanted to setup her own private email server was to skirt FOIA requests This is unlikely. It has to do with her addiction to Blackberry phones and the fact they were insecure. She refused to give up using it. The email server was hosted at home since her 2008 campaign. I assume she just continued to use the server afterward. She even contacted the NSA to find a solution to keep using her Blackberry but they couldn't find one. It was just too insecure. Edit: upon further investigation you might be right... > One year earlier, during her own presidential campaign, Clinton had said that if elected, “we will adopt a presumption of openness and Freedom of Information Act requests and urge agencies to release information quickly.” > But in those first few days, Clinton’s senior advisers were already taking steps that would help her circumvent those high-flown words, according to a chain of internal State Department emails released to Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit organization suing the government over Clinton’s emails. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-e...