5 ms·

To be absolutely objective about it, there really are people in prison for doing with confidential state secrets what Secretary Clinton did with confidential st

by malchow 10y ago

To be absolutely objective about it, there really are people in prison for doing with confidential state secrets what Secretary Clinton did with confidential state secrets. [1] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/kristian-saucier-investigation-hillary-clinton-223646 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/kristian-saucier-inves...

jljljl 10y ago
There's a few likely differences, although it's hard to tell from the limited info in the Clinton case: 1) Saucier generated the classified information. He took the photos. I don't think there was evidence the Clinton was knowingly sending classified information to non-cleared individuals 2) Saucier himself deleted the files from his laptop after learning he was under investigation. The FBI in Clinton's case determined that there was no willful attempt to obstruct justice 3) The quantity and quality of the information likely differs. If the Clinton emails contained photographs of classified military hardware, we'd probably see more motion. See Comey's quote comparing the Petraeus case to the Clinton case: "So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information," Comey said. "He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted." http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-clinton-david-petraeus/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-c...
- jbermudes 10y ago
  Regarding #2, there's some circumstantial evidence that there was an attempt to hide emails either through deleting them or not turning them over: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272#efmBA7BOJ https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272#efmBA7BOJ
  - jljljl 10y ago
    The FBI explicitly investigated whether there was an attempt to hide emails. Here is Comey's statment: > The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. > It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery. > We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort. http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-clinton-david-petraeus/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-c...
snowwrestler 10y ago
The biggest difference between the cases is that we know exactly what info this sailor had, how he got it, and why it was sensitive. We don't know that about Clinton, and the reason that matters is because information does not get declassified just because it is publicly known. The full text of a newspaper article about a Snowden disclosure contains information that to this day is classified top secret or higher. Someone sending her an email about a NYTimes story could result in classified info in her email. Another difference is that Clinton was legally empowered to determine which emails were work-related (and therefore must be archived) and which were personal (and therefore could legally be deleted). The fact that she and her team made mistakes in this process is not criminal; mistakes are not a crime. In addition the FBI recovered and reviewed many of these deleted emails and still recommended against prosecution. The extent to which one can point to a classified disclosure prosecution and say "this is just like Clinton!" is exaggerated. The details matter.

by malchow 10y ago

jljljl 10y ago

There's a few likely differences, although it's hard to tell from the limited info in the Clinton case: 1) Saucier generated the classified information. He took the photos. I don't think there was evidence the Clinton was knowingly sending classified information to non-cleared individuals 2) Saucier himself deleted the files from his laptop after learning he was under investigation. The FBI in Clinton's case determined that there was no willful attempt to obstruct justice 3) The quantity and quality of the information likely differs. If the Clinton emails contained photographs of classified military hardware, we'd probably see more motion. See Comey's quote comparing the Petraeus case to the Clinton case: "So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information," Comey said. "He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted." http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-clinton-david-petraeus/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-c...

jbermudes 10y ago
Regarding #2, there's some circumstantial evidence that there was an attempt to hide emails either through deleting them or not turning them over: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272#efmBA7BOJ https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272#efmBA7BOJ
- jljljl 10y ago
  The FBI explicitly investigated whether there was an attempt to hide emails. Here is Comey's statment: > The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. > It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery. > We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort. http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-clinton-david-petraeus/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-c...

snowwrestler 10y ago

The biggest difference between the cases is that we know exactly what info this sailor had, how he got it, and why it was sensitive. We don't know that about Clinton, and the reason that matters is because information does not get declassified just because it is publicly known. The full text of a newspaper article about a Snowden disclosure contains information that to this day is classified top secret or higher. Someone sending her an email about a NYTimes story could result in classified info in her email. Another difference is that Clinton was legally empowered to determine which emails were work-related (and therefore must be archived) and which were personal (and therefore could legally be deleted). The fact that she and her team made mistakes in this process is not criminal; mistakes are not a crime. In addition the FBI recovered and reviewed many of these deleted emails and still recommended against prosecution. The extent to which one can point to a classified disclosure prosecution and say "this is just like Clinton!" is exaggerated. The details matter.