APNewsBreak: Gov't finds 'top secret' info in Clinton emails

[Smithson]

Does the US still have secrets?

[Basil B]

So how secure is the governments own email system, who runs it? CIA by any chance? the same people who employed Edward Snowden,

[chuckd]

Another non-story.

:<Yawn>

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the emails were not marked classified at the time they were sent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35446455

<yawn>

Being marked or unmarked is not a defense.

1. Hillary signed a security form SF-312 when she was first provided access to her office. That form clearly states...

"As used in this Agreement, classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications, that is classified under the standards of Executive Order 12356, or under any other Executive order or statute that prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of information in the interest of national security; and unclassified information that meets the standards for classification and is in the process of a classification determination as provided in Sections 1.1© and 1.2(e) of Executive Order 12356, or under any other Executive order or statute that requires protection for such information in the interest of national security."

Notice the operative words here, "marked or unmarked". She has no defense for this reason.

2. Four years later when she left the employment of the government, she then signed the debriefing portion of form SF-312.

What she attested to is the following:

"I reaffirm that the provisions of the espionage laws, other federal criminal laws and executive orders applicable to the safeguarding of classified information have been made available to me; that I have returned all classified information in my custody; that I will not communicate or transmit classified information to any unauthorized person or organization; that I will promptly report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation any attempt by an unauthorized person to solicit classified information, and that I (have) (have not) (strike out inappropriate word or words) received a security debriefing."

She was obviously in violation of this portion of the agreement as well. Her use of a private server was not even public knowledge until the Benghazi Investigating Committee discovered it two years after she left office. She had turned nothing over when she left office.

As a matter of fact, she is still holding out emails that she is calling personal in nature, claiming to have scrubbed her server clean. Her server is currently in the hands of the FBI which forms a part of their investigation.

The government has her truly in the shorts both coming and going.

If Obama refuses to indict her or grants her immunity from prosecution, she is in trouble.

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/forms/download/116218

[Chicog]

If Obama refuses to indict her or grants her immunity from prosecution, she is in trouble.

Who says he has to?

She isn't charged with anything, and unless you know different (and I don't mean spurious Focks News allegations), she won't be.

[Publicus]

It is past time to investigate the investigators.

FBI may soon be put to investigating the IG of both State Department and the IG of the intelligence agencies himself. There are two immediate matters of salient investigation being pursued.

1) Ilegal leaks of presently classified information by more than one agency constitute one prima facie probe of the office of each IG.

2) Political conflict of interest by the DepState IG Office is another matter now being pursued due to indications of undisclosed ongoing contacts between the office of DepState IG and Republican Senators to include their staff members.

A Clinton support group made today an FOI filing in each respect. The purpose is to determine the extent of leaks by the two IG Offices to include the IC IG himself. DepState IG Office is especially suspected of surreptitious political contact with Repubican Senators and their staff members.

As reported this morning by Politico, the organisation Correct The Record today filed an FOI request against the DepState IG.

Correct The Record also called for the number three ranking DepState IG Office guy to recuse himself from the emails inquiries.

The DepState IG Office culprit is David Seide, who has a longtime anti-Clinton history that until now has remained largely out of public awareness.

Seide in 2003 had, as a GW Bush and Karl Rove appointed assistant US attorney, failed in his attempts to prosecute then-Senator Hillary Clinton's director of fundraising. A federal jury took about ten minutes to acquit Hillary's guy whom Seide had ham-sandwich indicted after a Hollywood huge event sponsored by Stan Lee Media.

Correct The Record said today:

“David Seide must recuse himself from handling matters related to Hillary Clinton as his conflict of interest is apparent and absolutely appalling. It’s terrifying that the watchdog organization that is supposed to protect the integrity of our public institutions could in fact be a perpetuator of bias,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Correct The Record.

Following previous allegations of bias and leaks by State OIG, Correct The Record yesterday FOIA’ed communications between Seide and members of the Senate. It is clear the State IG office may have failed to operate as an independent watchdog and the public has a right to know the extent to which State’s OIG has been complicit in its staffers’ efforts to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/01/clinton-email-prober-had-deeper-role-in-inquiry-into-2000-clinton-campaign-218407#ixzz3yefBjQlS

http://correctrecord.org/ctr-calls-on-david-seide-to-recuse-himself-from-matters-related-to-hillary-clintons-email/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_U.S._attorney_firings_controversy

HR Clinton is meanwhile respecting the professionalism and the confidentiality of the FBI inquiry that is still underway of the classification and transmitting process of intelligence information by the intelligence officials of the US Government in all respects. Classification processes and procedures especially and in particular.

This is only the beginning now of exposing the right wing gang of right wing intelligence community politicos and their right wing political operatives and of nexus between them and the right wing Republican party in the Congress.

The one thing the right wing does not want in any of this is for Congressman Kevin McCarthy to appear again on Faux. Or anywhere else.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Publicus

[chuckd]

I never claimed she had been indicted. I never claimed she had been charged with a crime.

I merely claimed she has committed criminal acts, is therefore a criminal and needs to be indicted and go to jail.

Remember these famous words uttered by her on 17 January 2016. We may be hearing them more often in coming days.

"CLINTON: There’s no daylight on the basic premise that there should be no bank too big to fail, and no individual too powerful to jail. We agree on that. "

[Chicog]

I never claimed she had been indicted. I never claimed she had been charged with a crime.

I merely claimed she has committed criminal acts, is therefore a criminal and needs to be indicted and go to jail.

Yes, it's funny. Focks News do that a lot, too.

[Publicus]

I never claimed she had been indicted. I never claimed she had been charged with a crime.

I merely claimed she has committed criminal acts, is therefore a criminal and needs to be indicted and go to jail.

Remember these famous words uttered by her on 17 January 2016. We may be hearing them more often in coming days.

"CLINTON: There’s no daylight on the basic premise that there should be no bank too big to fail, and no individual too powerful to jail. We agree on that. "

President Hillary Clinton....say it to get used to it.

[up-country_sinclair]

While this is an interesting development, it's not nearly the five-alarm fire that the hyperpartisans would like it to be. First of all, the information was marked as classified retroactively. Secondly, she hasn't been indicted. The ignorami who are suddenly trying to change the definition of the definition of the word, "criminal" need to step away from their keyboards and take a deep breath. Only a court of law can determine who is or isn't a criminal.

Will this sink Secretary Clinton's campaign? It's far too early to tell, but I think it's very unlikely for the reasons listed above. That's not to say it won't cost her votes, but I can't imagine she's going to let this stop her.

By the way, I find it interesting that those screaming the loudest about this development were strangely silent (or worse yet, making excuses) when General Petraeus was found to have broken the law when he gave his girlfriend classified material.

[Publicus]

I never claimed she had been indicted. I never claimed she had been charged with a crime.

I merely claimed she has committed criminal acts, is therefore a criminal and needs to be indicted and go to jail.

Remember these famous words uttered by her on 17 January 2016. We may be hearing them more often in coming days.

"CLINTON: There’s no daylight on the basic premise that there should be no bank too big to fail, and no individual too powerful to jail. We agree on that. "

My Logic prof many moons ago always advised we learners to be cautious of "therefore" in any supposed argument.

"Thereby" is usually appropriately used, but "therefore" is consistently misused to the extent it had long become banal. It is misused in a proliferation of self-serving ways.

President Hillary Clinton....say it to thereby get used to it.

Roger Alles is btw the only kid in social services recorded history whose parents asked him to run away from home .

[arjunadawn]

Politically driven BS. The servers were never compromised. All servers can be attacked

so all are by definition at risk.

Wrong. US secure nets are not actually on open server access like you suggest- they are in essence a type of intranet. Someone must "wash" classified traffic by writing it on to an open net, you cannot even transfer by thumbdrive. This manner scrubs the headers but not the material. The classification header is not what is classified, its the material. Thus no matter how you scrubbed it if it remotely resembles the same information it is classified. It is likely that penetration attempts were made daily to the ex president, ex senator, secstate as hundreds of thousands a day are made routinely to US Gov sites. Someone would have attempted to penetrate this and they would have been detected quickly that SecState was not on the Gov network. If it was penetrated this fact would be too precious to release now. Most certainly its greatest value would come once she was elected, as leverage. What is at risk is so great that no one can really consider allowing this to go unprosecuted.

[arjunadawn]

While this is an interesting development, it's not nearly the five-alarm fire that the hyperpartisans would like it to be. First of all, the information was marked as classified retroactively. Secondly, she hasn't been indicted. The ignorami who are suddenly trying to change the definition of the definition of the word, "criminal" need to step away from their keyboards and take a deep breath. Only a court of law can determine who is or isn't a criminal.

Will this sink Secretary Clinton's campaign? It's far too early to tell, but I think it's very unlikely for the reasons listed above. That's not to say it won't cost her votes, but I can't imagine she's going to let this stop her.

By the way, I find it interesting that those screaming the loudest about this development were strangely silent (or worse yet, making excuses) when General Petraeus was found to have broken the law when he gave his girlfriend classified material.

There may be a handful of explanations here, a valid excuse there, but in total it is an obscenity. More importantly, on one single issue alone there is enough to prosecute and imprison, should Obama choose this pretext to insert Biden. Some information is classified at the highest level regardless of whether or not it is classified by heading. Certain information such as that from foreign sources regarding leaders, etc., is automatically classified by content as the highest classification there is. It does not need a header. She had this too. It is classified on the day it happened, by definition.

[mopar71]

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW: The State Department is refusing to discuss the content of the 22 emails deemed to contain "top secret" information. It remains unclear if the information could have come from publicly available sources despite now being classified as "top secret." It also remains unclear if Clinton will face any punitive action over the revelation as multiple investigations into her use of a homebrew server are continuing. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0b462012d8e74183b265c3acd677ed76/what-we-know-8-anti-government-activists-arrested-1-dead

Just ask the Chinese or the Russians. I'm sure they know what was in those emails.

[Publicus]

Politically driven BS. The servers were never compromised. All servers can be attacked

so all are by definition at risk.

Wrong. US secure nets are not actually on open server access like you suggest- they are in essence a type of intranet. Someone must "wash" classified traffic by writing it on to an open net, you cannot even transfer by thumbdrive. This manner scrubs the headers but not the material. The classification header is not what is classified, its the material. Thus no matter how you scrubbed it if it remotely resembles the same information it is classified. It is likely that penetration attempts were made daily to the ex president, ex senator, secstate as hundreds of thousands a day are made routinely to US Gov sites. Someone would have attempted to penetrate this and they would have been detected quickly that SecState was not on the Gov network. If it was penetrated this fact would be too precious to release now. Most certainly its greatest value would come once she was elected, as leverage. What is at risk is so great that no one can really consider allowing this to go unprosecuted.

Be patient.

FBI will make its conclusions and present them to the Director. No one among the public to include at TVF knows what FBI is doing specifically and exactly. No one knows what or when.

FBI has no legal authority or basis to indict or acquit. It investigates and concludes. It is not investigating any public figure or official. There is no subject person or a target person of its inquries.

FBI Director will present a report to the Attorney General. The report may be classified or not, whether completely or in part.

Most reports the public does have are calculated leaks from the right wing intelligence agencies that have always been dominated completely by right wing super patriots. Rightwhingenut mass media are full of speculation based in right wing politics and calculated leaks.

Anyone who knows anything based on experience in Washington knows Department of State and the "intelligence community" are opposites. DeptState focuse on diplomacy talks and time while agencies such as CIA act in many ways that are more immediate, often shameless, almost always clandestine; necessary. Each respective approach has its merits and its limits.

DepState does not listen in on our phone conversations nor does it record their existence. DepState does not assassinate anyone nor does it bomb anyone.

DepState and the "intelligence community" are almost always in disagreement and have entirely opposite professional and political personnel, attitudes, approaches; world view. There is practically zero crossover of personnel or leaders between DepState and the "intelligence community," just as there is virtually no like crossover between DepState and DoD.

Chill.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Publicus

[Publicus]

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW: The State Department is refusing to discuss the content of the 22 emails deemed to contain "top secret" information. It remains unclear if the information could have come from publicly available sources despite now being classified as "top secret." It also remains unclear if Clinton will face any punitive action over the revelation as multiple investigations into her use of a homebrew server are continuing. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0b462012d8e74183b265c3acd677ed76/what-we-know-8-anti-government-activists-arrested-1-dead

Just ask the Chinese or the Russians. I'm sure they know what was in those emails.

Starting with Edward Snowden.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong where he was hosted in private by the CCP. Then he went to Moscow under the wing of Vlad the Putin.

Soon to reside in Europe where he should be inspected for polonium viles.

HR Clinton as SecState probably had to have come across his name, yes. Probably more than once.

[arjunadawn]

The effort to isolate State intel from OGA (Other Government Agencies) intel is actually only practically correct. Realistically, there is considerable crossover. There are too numerous to count examples of State taking lead on intel and military related affairs in different countries. Having worked for Diplomatic Security Service, DoS, for years I can tell you that the intel relationship described above is incorrect. It is true that State and other agencies are often at odds. This is even evidenced in State security clearances. Many other agencies will not translate State security clearances into their own. They will conduct in house. But State does operate in hybrid intel with other agencies. This point is best made with all the evidence surrounding the Libya debacle- an intel based military invasion launched and sustained primarily by the SecState. Everyone knows State drove the entire train in opposition by DoD and other recommends. SecState is the architect of that entire illegal invasion. State also worked quite closely with OGA in moving weapons through third party actors, sanctioned by the White House before congressional approval for white arms transfers. In fact, there is a lawsuit pending now where State is throwing a third party civilian contractor under the bus for its moving of weapons in conjunction with OGA.

In any event, the points above have no bearing on origination of classified material. The State only has control over its own classification and no control over either other agencies classification or source classification. So, even if a person from country x presented certain information to a State agent regarding leader y the State would not even have the power to degrade that classification- it is automatically top secret, even without header classification. Thus based on the information that is available in the public already all the boxes are checked for negligence, and perhaps worse. Of course someone with this cloud should not be promoted. It is stunning that there is even questions of grand jury or prosecution. There is so much overwhelming direct and circumstantial evidence to warrant prosecution. The great problem is that the damage continues.

There is only one situation, IMO, in which Obama will prosecute: in order to move Biden into play. Without Biden entering the game DOJ will not move forward.

EDIT: In any event, the State Department now confirms Top Secret emails are involved. The obvious can no longer be disassembled. Hillary Clinton broke the law.

Edited January 30, 2016 by arjunadawn

[chuckd]

What our ever present Hillary defenders are overlooking is, as Secretary of State, she was one of the few people in the government that had the power to classify or declassify documents, relating to the State Department alone.

She had no authority to alter the classification or any other departments findings. She could dispute them but not overrule them.

As an approving agent she would also have received many hours of additional security training. My guess is she spent most of thos hours of training sending text messages to Chelsea or trying to find out who Bill was doing that day.

As far as the poster that said only a court could declare somebody a criminal, let me pose this question. If a bank robber shoots somebody during the robbery and flees the scene, did he commit a crime?

One of the recently released emails was instructing one of her aides to "scrub" the header and send her a classified message unsecured.

Cry, moan and make feeble attempts to clear her all you want, if a normal person pulled some of these stunts they would already be in Leavenworth.

Despite all the left field stances some have taken here in her defense, nobody has responded to the SF-312 issue. I know its importance since I lived with administering it to my employees for around 20 years.

What say you security experts out there?

@ Arjunadawn:

The term "born classified" isn't common knowledge among the left whiners.

Edited January 31, 2016 by chuckd

[Pinot]

Hilary Clinton is a criminal and deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Justice Department needs to prove that it is not corrupt.

Let's sort through the republican B.S. concerning the Clinton “Top Secret Email Controversy” the most pointless non-story I’ve ever seen.

Clinton is not under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Politifact says this:

"The FBI is conducting a general inquiry into the security of Clinton’s private email server. But law enforcement officials have said Clinton herself is not the target of the inquiry, and it is not a full-blown criminal investigation." They point out how Fox News, one of the main drivers of all of this nonsense, almost always cites “unnamed sources,” making it impossible to verify if anything their “experts” claim to know about what’s going on with the FBI’s inquiry is remotely factually based.

And the part almost all these Republicans and conservative media news sources leave out is the fact that all of these emails that have now been deemed “classified” or “top secret” have been done so retroactively. Meaning that, at the time they were sent, they were not deemed “classified” or “top secret.”

Also what’s almost never mentioned by most of these conservative “news” entities is that Clinton wants those 22 emails to be released to prove she did nothing wrong. Because, you know, someone who knows that they’re on the verge of being indicted would really want these emails made public, right?

There’s been zero evidence showing where Clinton knowingly sent “classified” or “top secret” information on her server.

This rhetoric being pushed by the wingnuts has nothing to do with any real belief that Clinton is going to be indicted or even remotely get close to the inside of a prison cell. All it’s about is the Republican party doing its best to make people think that’s what’s going to happen.

It's simply ALL BULLSHIT. The Republicans know they have nothing so they're doing the only thing they've ever done, make stuff up and then get outraged. That's the Republican way.

[chuckd]

And yet another left whiner ignores the SF-312 matter.

And regardless of what Polittifo says, the FBI isn't much into investigating equipment, unless it has been illegally handling classified materials.

Give that a little thought while you are picking the lint out of your mavel.

[Ulysses G.]

Clinton is not under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Yeah, sure. So what are those 150 FBI Agents investigating?

Edited January 31, 2016 by Ulysses G.

[Pinot]

Republicans don't have anything except lies. That's how they roll...zombie lies.

By the way putting up a Fox News BS video doesn't prove your point. Sorry. Outside of Wingnuttia, no one believes anything from Fox News.

[Ulysses G.]

The video is from MSNBC and it is a liberal TV network. No one on the video has anything to do with Fox News. Find something else to whine about!

Hillary is in deep doo-doo and it is not just conservatives reporting it.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Ulysses G.

[Publicus]

Former SecState Hillary Clinton continues to have her Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance which is the clearance she has held from the time she became SecState.

Meanwhile someone is on a wild goose chase concerning the Form SF-312 Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreement. Only one or possibly two people on the planet have invoked this document in this instance.

Here's a report about HR Clinton's present and continued top secret etc security clearance, as described by McClatchy Newspaper Group....

It’s unclear if any agency, including those that generated the material now deemed classified, has asked for Clinton’s clearance to be suspended. Security clearances are generally granted for five years at a time.

“If this were a normal employee, it would be entirely routine to temporarily suspend their access pending investigation,” said Bradley Moss, a Washington lawyer who handles national security information.

But Paul Pillar, a former CIA official and deputy chief of the intelligence community’s counterterrorism center who serves as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he is not aware of any rule that mandates that once a case has been referred to an agency, such as the FBI, that a clearance must be suspended. The result of an FBI inquiry can vary drastically and may not warrant a suspension, he said. (emphasis added)

Clinton’s Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance was re-validated after she left office.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article36978426.html#storylink=cpy

The regular and normal pattern and practice thus is made clear and unmistakable.

And how quickly people also forget that former CIA directors John Deutch and Leon Panetta had inquiries for alleged mishandling of classified information. Neither were locked away or prosecuted. Former SecState Clinton has done nothing remotely resembling their deeds and moreover is not being investigated.

Then there is Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for briefly removing classified documents from the National Archives.

King of the hill however is the vile and malicious Bush Administration and the case of Scooter Libby who was chief of staff to Darth Dick Cheney.

The slimebag (Libby) was convicted of lying and obstructing justice to conceal his leak to the news media that identified and destroyed the career of clandestine CIA Agent Valerie Plame. The senior slimebag Cheney wasn't ever called to account for it. And GW took care of things anyway by commuting Libby's two and a half year prison sentence.

General Patraeus is one of the few people who violated his oath so severely and so blatantly that he has suffered serious and drastic consequences. Patraeus' offenses were so profound and offensive to the Constitution they're talking about taking away his stars.

[Publicus]

Clinton is not under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Yeah, sure. So what are those 150 FBI Agents investigating?

Didn't hear anything about 150 FBI agents.

Last week you posted 100 FBI and another poster took you up on that. If you had a reply (which would be unusual) I missed it.

Regardless, any such number presented by the right will need a credible citation, preferably a quote by someone in the FBI or the Department of Justice, not some rightwhingenut mass of well financed media. I reiterate that no one on MSNBC that I heard in the clip or otherwise said 150 FBI.

Cause who knows, next week the posts might say 175 FBI or even 200.

1000.

[Scorcher]

Much ado about nothing. Its not as if she gave the info out to anyone.

When this investigation is over and nothing comes of it...again, will there be another investigation? One a year for the next ten or so years should do it.

[Chicog]

Much ado about nothing. Its not as if she gave the info out to anyone.

When this investigation is over and nothing comes of it...again, will there be another investigation? One a year for the next ten or so years should do it.

Nah, it's all being co-ordinated to try and wreck her presidential campaign.

It's the only way the GOP can see themselves winning.

The problem is that, other than drooling Focks News viewers, I suspect people are sick of listening to their perpetual carping.

[Chicog]

They point out how Fox News, one of the main drivers of all of this nonsense, almost always cites “unnamed sources”

This technique essentially allows Fox News to lie through their teeth - which they do with monotonous regularity.

[lostboy]

And yet another left whiner ignores the SF-312 matter.

And regardless of what Polittifo says, the FBI isn't much into investigating equipment, unless it has been illegally handling classified materials.

Give that a little thought while you are picking the lint out of your mavel.

Pettifogging and nitpicking. Straight out of Dickens' Pickwick Papers or Bleak House. The minutiae of bureaucrats, administrators and lawyers. The mere fact that lesser persons at the fringe and margins of the security state are bound by officious regulations and absurdly anal paranoic methods is irrelevant to those who occupy High Office in the US Federal Bureaucracy. While they are clearly not above the law, they are the ones who are served by subordinate regulations, not constrained by them. You were bound by these rules. High Officials are the ones who design and modify them. It is called Authority.

There has been a blizzard of small minds encircling the Clintons for decades. Trying to bring them down for anything. She was entirely justified in keeping and maintaining a separate server to help keep sensitive information out of the hands of her political enemies. Any regulations, such as they are, and in the US system, they are legion, must fit to the requirements of a High Official to maintain such insulation from ideologically driven foes. The same applies to the other side of the fence.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy will not be bringing down HRC through non-compliance with a piece of paper.

[Chicog]

it does amaze me how the right spends so much time and effort trying to smear the opposition. it seems to be a permanent tactic these days.

If they had so much as a shred of integrity they would start questioning their own choices for President.

[Andreas2]

It's actually very frightening to read some posts of people who are so blindly committed to "their" party and its representatives, that they don't realise that it's exactly their blindness, which enables the state (including its bureaucrats and state approved politicians) to always get away with their crimes; Again and again and again. They hardly ever argue based on moral principles, and if they do so once in a while, sooner or later they are back in their favourite, one-dimensional game, where they feel so much more comfortable:
- The ignorant, stupid, <fill in whatever offences come to mind> fanboys of the other team, Left vs. Right that is, are responsible and enablers of all the evil that counts, or

- The information comes from the wrong channel / mouth piece, so it must be a lie - of half-lie at least, or

- Politicians and bureaucrats from the other team do and did it too, so... bla, bla, bla.

And yes, they are absolutely right. What they just don't see, is, that they, with their unconditional party allegiance, are also part of the problem as they are themselves the tools and enablers of exactly this inherently corrupt system. They identify themselves so much with a party, that they are even defending the worst deeds of the state, if, and only if, one of "their own" team players was responsible for or even committed it.

If the things they enable with their blind loyalty weren't so bad and evil, their arguments would have at least a certain entertainment value. But, unfortunately, they aren't.