6 ms·

Ok, as someone from outside of the US, I'm still not getting the issue here? So she put some e-mails on a private a server and she deleted them. I actually cou

Ok, as someone from outside of the US, I'm still not getting the issue here? So she put some e-mails on a private a server and she deleted them. I actually couldn't care less. What is the deal here? EDIT: thanks all for the responses. I have to say, from afar, the Occam's razor in me (which i accept will be different for all) says that if Clinton was involved in corruption it is likely we would have heard about it by now ... like Bill and his lady ... like Trump and, well, everything ... like Nixon ... etc. No one involved in serious corruption does it my e-mail (I presume).

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
As a public servant (and a high ranking official with access to top secret information at that) she was supposed to use government email. Deletion was an obstruction of justice. The reason it gets so much attention is because the Clintons are very wealthy and powerful and there is a longtime suspicion that they are up to nefarious activities or using their access and power to bring about personal wealth, which many people view as corrupt. However there has never been a "smoking gun" found to definitively prove the existence of these claims. Hope that clears it up for you.
- dkhenry 10y ago
  I would say there have been numerous smoking guns, but most of them have been ignored by those who should have brought charges. To claim that the law wasn't broken because she didn't mean to leak classified information is incredulous and wouldn't hold up in any legitimate criminal trial.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - siidooloo 10y ago
    The law says it is a crime to sell or leak to foreign governments/the media. It isn't a crime to be incompetant.
    - hulahoof 10y ago
      It is a crime to willingly and knowingly violate regulations in a position where you have legally sworn to abide by said regulations.
      - ethanbond 10y ago
        Specifically in this case you don't even have to knowingly or willingly violate the rules. The law makes both malicious intent and gross negligence illegal. And those are just to be prosecuted in criminal court. The burden of proof to have your clearance revoked? Uhh... there isn't one. 100% of normal people would have their clearances revoked with little drama for doing something like this.
        dkhenry 10y ago
        Many people have had their clearance revoked, lost their jobs, and been sent to jail for similar acts. I think anyone who has held a security clearance is appalled at what has happened.
    - dkhenry 10y ago
      No in the case of classified material, it is a crime to be incompetent. The only burdon of proof is that the disclosure in some way harms the United States, and that the disclosure was knowingly and willfully done. She knew she had and E-mail server doing state business, She willfully continued to use it and no precautions were taken to ensure classified information was not sent over it, and in some cases she willfully altered documents without properly declassifying them. Its a pretty clear felony.
rstupek 10y ago
The emails contained information that was classified and she was legally obligated to ensure they were not placed in a manner where they could be compromised. She may have deleted them after she was asked by congress to provide them, again that would be breaking the law
dkhenry 10y ago
Some of those E-mails contained classified information which is illegal to have on non secured systems. There are many cases of others who have leaked secured information onto unsecured systems and they ended up in federal prison. After the fact there has been a never ending circus of denials and then cover-ups that have been sequentially dis-proven and uncovered, and this is just another instance of that.
- openasocket 10y ago
  Serious question: if that is illegal, isn't it the sender of the email that committed the crime, not the receiver? I'm assuming the email address wasn't something official like hillary@state.gov, I'm guessing it was something like hillary@clintonpersonalsite.com. I'm probably wrong, but I'd like a clear explanation why.
  - dmix 10y ago
    The question is it reasonable to assume that the person should have known that the email address Hillary was using was hosted on a private email server or on a secure government system. I don't think the vast majority of people would be able to tell. They'd likely trust her people set it up properly. Those who are technically inclined might have noticed the non .gov email but then the question is how much authority they have to question her on the matter. Largely the onus would have been on Hillary to use a government email when engaging in business related to the state. How did that person get the email in the first place? Did Hillary say this should be for personal emails only? etc.
  - dkhenry 10y ago
    the short answer is yes, they are both in trouble. The sender has a plausible defense they they didn't know it was a unsecured server as there is the case to be made that the secretary of state should be trustworthy to be operating in a safe fashion, additionally if upon receipt Clinton had raised the alarm and turned over all the hardware she wouldn't have been held accountable for having the information sent to her, but she didn't and then she kept it a secret and then she was hacked and then she lied about it, and then the emails leaked and then she was not prosecuted because she didn't mean to break the law she just wanted a blackberry and didn't like being told no, and then the American people are like WTF man if I did this I would be sent to jail ( in fact two defendants made this exact case in their defense in similar trials ), but no one cares are there are armies of people who just want to see their team win an election so they will defend pretty much anything that was done. America
yolesaber 10y ago
She, or rather the tech guy her team hired and who worked at their behest, deleted them at the onset of a federal investigation. That's called destroying evidence. Furthermore, many of the emails contain undeniable evidence that the Clinton Foundation used its connections to score business opportunities and cash for Bill and Hillary. They have illuminated the huge rift between the Clinton we see in public and the one giving speeches to Wall street behind closed doors. Even the Clinton-cuddling NYT reported on this.
rudolf0 10y ago
The allegation is that she was using private email to conduct official government business while she served as Secretary of State (one of the highest-ranking positions in the government; chief diplomat). This was likely done to avoid requirements to turn over emails in cases of FOIA requests, or I think a few other conditions. There's supposed to be some degree of transparency in government communications. By itself, that alone isn't too bad, I think. But the other reason why government officials should use government infrastructure for communications is security. Messages that were classified after-the-fact (not at the time) were found to have been sent to/from Clinton's private server. I believe some messages that were classified at the time were also there, but were improperly marked, so someone could plausibly claim they did not know they were classified. EDIT: There were in fact many emails properly marked as classified at the time. Some marked top secret. This definitely demonstrates carelessness. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/286513-fbi-director-clinton-emails-were-marked-and-classified-at-the-time http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/286513-fbi-direc... Further, after she received a subpoena from the FBI to turn over all emails on her server, 33,000 emails were allegedly deleted. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, but could indicate a cover-up of something shady or even illegal. For the most part it's just a lot of speculation and character judgment. Even if this second investigation doesn't find anything illegal, it shows someone trying to shield themselves from public scrutiny at best, or potentially trying to cover things up at worst.
- patrickmay 10y ago
  > This was likely done to avoid requirements to turn over emails in cases of FOIA requests, or I think a few other conditions. There's supposed to be some degree of transparency in government communications. > By itself, that alone isn't too bad, I think. Really? I think it demonstrates clear intent to deliberately avoid a federal law (the FOIA). Clinton appears to value keeping her behavior secret over protecting classified information.
  - untog 10y ago
    That's certainly not provable, though - she's said she did it so that she could use the device of her choice (Blackberry), not to hide from FOIA. Not sure how easy it would be to establish intent, there.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tomohawk 10y ago
She signed NDAs stating that she understood that handling classified information had to be performed using systems designed and approved for it. Then she denied signing anything or knowing anything. She later claimed that she did not know what those little classification markings in the emails were. Another lie. Then she claimed that the emails were not classified at the time they were sent. Another lie. She was told on many occasions that she could not communicate using unapproved systems for official business. It's not only unwise, but against the law. The only way those classified emails end up on that server is if someone breaks the law. Several people have been put in jail for much less mishandling of classified information. There's only two possible conclusions. Either she's completely inept, and therefore cannot be trusted with classified information or she's a criminal and cannot be trusted with classified information.
scintill76 10y ago
Regarding your edit that corruption is not apparent... it's pretty easy to argue she was trying to hide from public scrutiny and avoid transparency policies. I think it's fair to be concerned and upset about that, even if you think she wasn't doing anything outright wrong otherwise. Also, exchanging sensitive, potentially-classified information on your own infrastructure when the usual policy is for the government to run it, comes off as arrogant, careless, and dismissive of safe/transparent operating procedures carefully designed by a combination of democracy and the bureaucracy -- again a valid cause for some of us to have concerns about someone who wants to be one of the most powerful leaders in the world. Or, we can just be worried about setting this precedent for people in high offices, even if we think this particular person is a benevolent, un-corrupted rule-breaker.
slantedview 10y ago
> Occam's razor in me (which i accept will be different for all) says that if Clinton was involved in corruption Corruption aside, she clearly mishandled classified information, as the FBI found. The problem here is that the FBI chose not to prosecute her while other military servicemen HAVE been prosecuted for much less. This is a problem.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Clinton is not a military service member, so (even ignoring the "men" part) your "other military servicemen" is wrong in a fairly critical way. Civilian and military law differs.
  - scintill76 10y ago
    Consider General David Petraeus. He was investigated by the FBI, similarly to Clinton, and charged by the DOJ at their recommendation. He pled guilty and got a pretty big punishment (2 year probation and $100k fine.) As far as the actual laws go, I don't think that proceeded much differently than it could have with Clinton, so I'm not sure your distinction between civilian/military is significant here. I could be wrong though, as I am not sure whether he was "officially in the military" (under their jurisdiction) at the time of the crime, and retired generals and such might be a special case anyway. There are differences in the specifics of the cases, such that the different outcomes are justifiable enough in my mind, but I think there is a fair amount of unofficially cutting the bumbling civilian some slack and/or holding the foolish general more accountable, when the applicable laws and court process are probably the same. I think they could have held her to a similar standard, if they wanted to.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      I don't think the cases are meaningfully similar; petraeus deliberately and knowingly gave highly classified information including current combat information and identities of covert agents to an unauthorized person whose intended use was writing a book (he was also having a affair with her at the time, but that's less relevant to the security-related offense); the FBI concluded they had evidence to pursue a felony charge under the Espionage Act, but they ended up getting him to plea to a lesser charge of mishandling classified information.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

As a public servant (and a high ranking official with access to top secret information at that) she was supposed to use government email. Deletion was an obstruction of justice. The reason it gets so much attention is because the Clintons are very wealthy and powerful and there is a longtime suspicion that they are up to nefarious activities or using their access and power to bring about personal wealth, which many people view as corrupt. However there has never been a "smoking gun" found to definitively prove the existence of these claims. Hope that clears it up for you.

dkhenry 10y ago
I would say there have been numerous smoking guns, but most of them have been ignored by those who should have brought charges. To claim that the law wasn't broken because she didn't mean to leak classified information is incredulous and wouldn't hold up in any legitimate criminal trial.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- siidooloo 10y ago
  The law says it is a crime to sell or leak to foreign governments/the media. It isn't a crime to be incompetant.
  - hulahoof 10y ago
    It is a crime to willingly and knowingly violate regulations in a position where you have legally sworn to abide by said regulations.
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      Specifically in this case you don't even have to knowingly or willingly violate the rules. The law makes both malicious intent and gross negligence illegal. And those are just to be prosecuted in criminal court. The burden of proof to have your clearance revoked? Uhh... there isn't one. 100% of normal people would have their clearances revoked with little drama for doing something like this.
      - dkhenry 10y ago
        Many people have had their clearance revoked, lost their jobs, and been sent to jail for similar acts. I think anyone who has held a security clearance is appalled at what has happened.
  - dkhenry 10y ago
    No in the case of classified material, it is a crime to be incompetent. The only burdon of proof is that the disclosure in some way harms the United States, and that the disclosure was knowingly and willfully done. She knew she had and E-mail server doing state business, She willfully continued to use it and no precautions were taken to ensure classified information was not sent over it, and in some cases she willfully altered documents without properly declassifying them. Its a pretty clear felony.

rstupek 10y ago

The emails contained information that was classified and she was legally obligated to ensure they were not placed in a manner where they could be compromised. She may have deleted them after she was asked by congress to provide them, again that would be breaking the law

dkhenry 10y ago

Some of those E-mails contained classified information which is illegal to have on non secured systems. There are many cases of others who have leaked secured information onto unsecured systems and they ended up in federal prison. After the fact there has been a never ending circus of denials and then cover-ups that have been sequentially dis-proven and uncovered, and this is just another instance of that.

openasocket 10y ago
Serious question: if that is illegal, isn't it the sender of the email that committed the crime, not the receiver? I'm assuming the email address wasn't something official like hillary@state.gov, I'm guessing it was something like hillary@clintonpersonalsite.com. I'm probably wrong, but I'd like a clear explanation why.
- dmix 10y ago
  The question is it reasonable to assume that the person should have known that the email address Hillary was using was hosted on a private email server or on a secure government system. I don't think the vast majority of people would be able to tell. They'd likely trust her people set it up properly. Those who are technically inclined might have noticed the non .gov email but then the question is how much authority they have to question her on the matter. Largely the onus would have been on Hillary to use a government email when engaging in business related to the state. How did that person get the email in the first place? Did Hillary say this should be for personal emails only? etc.
- dkhenry 10y ago
  the short answer is yes, they are both in trouble. The sender has a plausible defense they they didn't know it was a unsecured server as there is the case to be made that the secretary of state should be trustworthy to be operating in a safe fashion, additionally if upon receipt Clinton had raised the alarm and turned over all the hardware she wouldn't have been held accountable for having the information sent to her, but she didn't and then she kept it a secret and then she was hacked and then she lied about it, and then the emails leaked and then she was not prosecuted because she didn't mean to break the law she just wanted a blackberry and didn't like being told no, and then the American people are like WTF man if I did this I would be sent to jail ( in fact two defendants made this exact case in their defense in similar trials ), but no one cares are there are armies of people who just want to see their team win an election so they will defend pretty much anything that was done. America

yolesaber 10y ago

She, or rather the tech guy her team hired and who worked at their behest, deleted them at the onset of a federal investigation. That's called destroying evidence. Furthermore, many of the emails contain undeniable evidence that the Clinton Foundation used its connections to score business opportunities and cash for Bill and Hillary. They have illuminated the huge rift between the Clinton we see in public and the one giving speeches to Wall street behind closed doors. Even the Clinton-cuddling NYT reported on this.

rudolf0 10y ago

The allegation is that she was using private email to conduct official government business while she served as Secretary of State (one of the highest-ranking positions in the government; chief diplomat). This was likely done to avoid requirements to turn over emails in cases of FOIA requests, or I think a few other conditions. There's supposed to be some degree of transparency in government communications. By itself, that alone isn't too bad, I think. But the other reason why government officials should use government infrastructure for communications is security. Messages that were classified after-the-fact (not at the time) were found to have been sent to/from Clinton's private server. I believe some messages that were classified at the time were also there, but were improperly marked, so someone could plausibly claim they did not know they were classified. EDIT: There were in fact many emails properly marked as classified at the time. Some marked top secret. This definitely demonstrates carelessness. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/286513-fbi-director-clinton-emails-were-marked-and-classified-at-the-time http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/286513-fbi-direc... Further, after she received a subpoena from the FBI to turn over all emails on her server, 33,000 emails were allegedly deleted. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, but could indicate a cover-up of something shady or even illegal. For the most part it's just a lot of speculation and character judgment. Even if this second investigation doesn't find anything illegal, it shows someone trying to shield themselves from public scrutiny at best, or potentially trying to cover things up at worst.

patrickmay 10y ago
> This was likely done to avoid requirements to turn over emails in cases of FOIA requests, or I think a few other conditions. There's supposed to be some degree of transparency in government communications. > By itself, that alone isn't too bad, I think. Really? I think it demonstrates clear intent to deliberately avoid a federal law (the FOIA). Clinton appears to value keeping her behavior secret over protecting classified information.
- untog 10y ago
  That's certainly not provable, though - she's said she did it so that she could use the device of her choice (Blackberry), not to hide from FOIA. Not sure how easy it would be to establish intent, there.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tomohawk 10y ago

She signed NDAs stating that she understood that handling classified information had to be performed using systems designed and approved for it. Then she denied signing anything or knowing anything. She later claimed that she did not know what those little classification markings in the emails were. Another lie. Then she claimed that the emails were not classified at the time they were sent. Another lie. She was told on many occasions that she could not communicate using unapproved systems for official business. It's not only unwise, but against the law. The only way those classified emails end up on that server is if someone breaks the law. Several people have been put in jail for much less mishandling of classified information. There's only two possible conclusions. Either she's completely inept, and therefore cannot be trusted with classified information or she's a criminal and cannot be trusted with classified information.

scintill76 10y ago

Regarding your edit that corruption is not apparent... it's pretty easy to argue she was trying to hide from public scrutiny and avoid transparency policies. I think it's fair to be concerned and upset about that, even if you think she wasn't doing anything outright wrong otherwise. Also, exchanging sensitive, potentially-classified information on your own infrastructure when the usual policy is for the government to run it, comes off as arrogant, careless, and dismissive of safe/transparent operating procedures carefully designed by a combination of democracy and the bureaucracy -- again a valid cause for some of us to have concerns about someone who wants to be one of the most powerful leaders in the world. Or, we can just be worried about setting this precedent for people in high offices, even if we think this particular person is a benevolent, un-corrupted rule-breaker.

slantedview 10y ago

> Occam's razor in me (which i accept will be different for all) says that if Clinton was involved in corruption Corruption aside, she clearly mishandled classified information, as the FBI found. The problem here is that the FBI chose not to prosecute her while other military servicemen HAVE been prosecuted for much less. This is a problem.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Clinton is not a military service member, so (even ignoring the "men" part) your "other military servicemen" is wrong in a fairly critical way. Civilian and military law differs.
- scintill76 10y ago
  Consider General David Petraeus. He was investigated by the FBI, similarly to Clinton, and charged by the DOJ at their recommendation. He pled guilty and got a pretty big punishment (2 year probation and $100k fine.) As far as the actual laws go, I don't think that proceeded much differently than it could have with Clinton, so I'm not sure your distinction between civilian/military is significant here. I could be wrong though, as I am not sure whether he was "officially in the military" (under their jurisdiction) at the time of the crime, and retired generals and such might be a special case anyway. There are differences in the specifics of the cases, such that the different outcomes are justifiable enough in my mind, but I think there is a fair amount of unofficially cutting the bumbling civilian some slack and/or holding the foolish general more accountable, when the applicable laws and court process are probably the same. I think they could have held her to a similar standard, if they wanted to.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    I don't think the cases are meaningfully similar; petraeus deliberately and knowingly gave highly classified information including current combat information and identities of covert agents to an unauthorized person whose intended use was writing a book (he was also having a affair with her at the time, but that's less relevant to the security-related offense); the FBI concluded they had evidence to pursue a felony charge under the Espionage Act, but they ended up getting him to plea to a lesser charge of mishandling classified information.