Did Obama Obstruct Hillary's Prosecution?

DOJ Prevented FBI From Pursuing Gross Negligence Charges Against Clinton

Early in the Hillary Clinton email case, the Department of Justice reached a decision that would have far-reaching implications for the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

The Justice Department (DOJ), under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, decided to set an unusually high threshold for prosecuting Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.

In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the DOJ required the FBI to establish evidence of intent—even though the gross negligence statute explicitly does not require this.

Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term “gross negligence” to describe Clinton’s actions from his prepared statement by, among others, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, FBI agent Peter Strzok, senior legal counsel Trisha Anderson, and FBI analyst Jonathan Moffa.

Because of Comey’s statement, many have mistakenly concluded that the FBI acted independently from DOJ influence in its investigation of Clinton. Congressional testimonies by high-ranking FBI officials involved in the investigation reveal, however, that this was not the case.

DOJ Involvement in Clinton Case and Requirement of Intent

Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who served as special counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe during the time of the Clinton investigation, noted during her testimony in July 2018 that the DOJ was intimately involved in the investigation.

“Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step, other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction of the Justice Department,” Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.

Comey had also hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation in his July recommendation, stating that “there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent.”

Intent is a requirement of several statutes the FBI was looking into, but it is specifically not a factor under the charge of gross negligence—contained within 18 U.S. Code § 793(f)—a fact that was brought up by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) during Page’s testimony

:

(see article for her testimony here and for others testimonies)

Trouble Defining Intent

The word “intent” drove the entirety of the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton email server.

It appears, however, that there were differing understandings of the word “intent” within the FBI. Trisha Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer at the bureau, told investigators that what she viewed as intent was “an email that the Secretary sent saying, I set up this server for the purpose of sending unclassified information for my convenience, even though I know it’s not a secure system.”

Page viewed the situation somewhat differently, agreeing they were looking for “an intent to do an act which is in violation of the law’s central command.” As she told investigators, the FBI “couldn’t find any indicia of knowledge that she knew that these [classified emails] shouldn’t be traversing her server.”

In Anderson’s understanding, she was looking for a prosecutable reason behind the establishment of the server itself. Page, however, was looking at whether Clinton knew which emails should not have traveled through the private server.

Meanwhile, Bill Priestap, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and who was officially in charge of the Clinton investigation, said during testimony that he thought the “number of instances is absolutely a proper consideration” in establishing intent.

According to Ryan Breitenbach, who was the House majority counsel at the time of Priestap’s interview, the State Department had identified 22 top-secret emails and 1,300 classified emails on Clinton’s email server. As Breitenbach noted to Priestap during testimony, “I think there might be many who would question whether people in this room would still be in this room if we had hit 1,300 emails on our personal Gmail service.”

- But Lisa Page, a lawyer by training, seemed to have a very different understanding of what would be allowed by the DOJ. Page appeared to indicate during her testimony that because of the DOJ’s position, there was no reason for the FBI to even pursue evidence related to the specific statute of gross negligence.

- FBI General Counsel James Baker, who called Clinton’s behavior “alarming, appalling,” told congressional lawmakers, “I thought these folks should know that this stuff is classified, that it was alarming what they were talking about, especially some of the most highly classified stuff.”

FBI Used Gross Negligence Statute to Obtain Search Warrant

- Interestingly, despite the DOJ’s unwillingness to pursue a charge under the gross negligence statute, the FBI utilized it while obtaining a search warrant in the Clinton email case:

FBI Never Looked for Evidence of Negligence

“Obviously, the use of the phrase ‘extremely careless’ has been open to interpretation and confusion after the fact. So, perhaps, that issue is something we should have more carefully considered, we as a group. I’m not saying, you know, there was anything that I did incorrectly here, but — so I don’t know that there is a single meaning of extremely careless.”

Which begs the question of why Anderson, among others, felt compelled to push Comey to change the language within his statement from the legal term of gross negligence to the non-legal term of extremely careless.

Anderson, who told congressional investigators that the phrase “extremely careless” had been the subject of competing interpretations, was quickly countered by Breitenbach, who noted, “It’s competing, because it has no legal effect, whereas gross negligence does.”

“I think you would agree with me that negligence is different than intent,” he told Anderson.

But according to Anderson’s testimony, the FBI never even looked into negligence due to the DOJ’s legal position:

The issue at the heart of the Clinton email investigation was summarized by Breitenbach, who said that “the Department of Justice made a decision that intent was required, even though we have a statute on the books that does not require intent that [only] requires gross negligence.”

Anyone not think that Hillary knew that her private email server was an unsecured system and that she should not have used it, but did so because she knew that she would get away with it? Why did she insist on using it though? So that people who worked for her foundation could keep up with her travels so they knew where to send Bill to give speeches just before or after Hillary gave foreign governments, corporations and people special treatment?

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Pricknick's picture

Yes.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Steven D's picture

to damage the interests of the government. I know because every Clinton supporter I ever spoke to said so, and they would know, right?

/snark

As a practical matter, the Democratic President and his administration were never going to find that his hand-picked (even if they twisted his arm) successor as leader would be indicted. For anything. Hell, he wouldn't even indict anyone in the Bush administration for all their crimes either.

Too Big To Jail is a real thing.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

@Steven D Anyone can be negligent for running a stop sign. But run through it when drunk and accidentally kill somebody, intent is presumed. You go to prison.
When have you heard of PROSECUTORS not going full tilt after a suspect?
They aim as high on the punishment books as they can, then drop down to lesser included offenses as either a plea bargain or jury charge strategy. They DO NOT start at the defense posture.
I entered a plea for an alleged capitol murderer to just murder. No way the possibility of death penalty was not going to be used as leverage.
He was a poor black man, not a Clinton.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

k9disc's picture

the meaning of what the word is is.

She's a war criminal and defrauder of government. She debases the institution of government with her continued presence on the scene. I wish we could slough off these selfish, immoral cretins.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

Independent Counsel should have been appointed to investigate Hillary, too, especially (1) because the D of J was answering to the guy who nominated her to be Secretary of State and (2) Bill and Loretta had that little jet to jet meeting on the tarmac.

Avoid even the appearance of impropriety? Yeah, right.

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snoopydawg's picture

@HenryAWallace

That the DOJ was running interference for Hillary who was the presumed nominee brings in all kinds of conflicts of interests into play. Sessions appointed Huber to look and see if the FBI played by the book and from his initial report it's obvious that they didn't.

Does anyone remember if Huber addressed what the DOJ did in his report? I don't remember that he did because it seems that this is the first time we are hearing about it.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

@snoopydawg

I didn't follow emailgate as closely as some did because I knew from the start how it would end and why. And I also knew that people who really knew the full story were never going to tell the truth about it.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

Eliot, T.S,, The Hollow Men
No way in hell was Democratic President Obama's D of J going to prosecute Democratic Dauphin Hillary, not to mention that Obama knew all along that she was using her own server.

Even if Obama wanted a prosecution, why would Democratic civil "servants," like Lynch, who serve at the will of the President, want to help a Republican succeed Democrat Obama and put her out of a job?

(The above are reasons why an independent investigator should have been appointed and also the reasons why no independent investigator was appointed. (Who knew that the next Democratic President after Clinton and his D of J would make Janet Reno look great?)

Also, I knew that other posters whose viewpoint is similar to mine and who were more interested in the ins and outs were following emailgate very closely, keeping timelines up dated, etc.

So, I checked in and out, focusing mostly only on highlights such as the Bubba-Lynch powwow, Comey's laughable rationale, etc. And, as it was, I got more aggravated over stuff that I have no ability to impact than I would have liked.

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dance you monster's picture

I mean, everyone knows, even the most diehard Clintonista apologists over at the orange website, know fully well, that she knew she was breaking the rules (and multiple laws) to have all those e-mails on her personal server. The only two plausible reasons for doing that are to use them inappropriately or to hide them, and both of those are crimes. She belongs in the pokey. So does everyone who participated in this or enabled it or benefited from it. Co-conspirators, obstructors of justice, or accessories after the fact -- all prosecutable.

If she did not know this was inappropriate, she never was qualified to hold the Secretary of State office, or any office above dogcatcher, at any time. And because not knowing the law does not absolve one from adhering to it, and because intent is not required in a prosecution for this particular violation of the law, she belongs in the pokey, along with anyone else who knew or abetted or benefited from it. The lawyers who argued otherwise (they couldn't have been that stupid, just that confident that they'd get away with it) should be disbarred before they are locked up as well.

If she didn't know this was wrong, and didn't know the contents of her server were classified, she is functionally incompetent and irresponsible, meaning she should not hold any office, including dogcatcher, but should be secured for her own and everyone else's protection in a comfortably padded room under sedation for the rest of time.

But we all know this script: they'll posture a little now and come summer will all gather together in Martha's Vineyard to share cocktails and hearty laughs. We'll probably have to pay for their drinks.

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The Justice Department (DOJ), under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, decided to set an unusually high threshold for prosecuting Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.

I'm sure the Tarmac Summit between Bubba and Lynch had nothing to do with it.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-and-jim-and-bubba-and-loretta

Comey once babbled something about Hillary had no intent to harm the country. That is not how criminal intent is measured. Intention to do the act, as opposed to its happening by accident, is all that is required. You don't have to intend the consequences. Driving a car drunk while praying over and over that you don't hit anyone is not going to get you off the hook if the car kills someone. https://sfcriminallawspecialist.com/blog/whats-the-penalty-for-killing-s...

Anyway, Justice may be blind, but she ain't deaf. Someone told her it was Hillary being judged and, under her blindfold, she winked.

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Bollox Ref's picture

Some people are just too big to fall... fail.

Oh, wait, she can fall all by herself. What was I thinking.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

gulfgal98's picture

may have been related to the fact that all of the email evidence led directly to Obama.

How is this not classified?”

So exclaimed Hillary Clinton’s close aide and confidante, Huma Abedin. The FBI had just shown her an old e-mail exchange, over Clinton’s private account, between the then-secretary of state and a second person, whose name Abedin did not recognize. The FBI then did what the FBI is never supposed to do: The agents informed their interviewee (Abedin) of the identity of the second person. It was the president of the United States, Barack Obama, using a pseudonym to conduct communications over a non-secure e-mail system — something anyone with a high-level security clearance, such as Huma Abedin, would instantly realize was a major breach.

All of the people involved in the Clinton email investigation had numerous reasons to cover for her, including the fact that the President of the United States was using a pseudonym to communicate with Clinton via her private email server.

Obama knew all along what Clinton was doing and chose to not only turn a blind eye to it, but also participated in it himself. The corruption goes all the way to the top.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 was also complicitous in his communications of official business with her over her clintonemail.com server address, something he and his staff who were on the routing list, and the NSA would have noticed immediately.

The President could not be prosecuted because he has the legal power to declassify any federal communications. However, the Secretary of State can only declassify State Department materials, not the President's, or the CIAs, or any agency other than her own. Was Hillary immunized in her email with Obama? That's an interesting question that might amount to a defense if she had been charged. However, there were dozens of classified CIA and NSA materials that were sent over her server, some of which were sent by her or transmitted to her by staff at her direction. Some of these exchanges were with persons, such as Sidney Blumenthal, whom she knew full well didn't even have a security clearance.

Some of most damning instances we are aware of are the classified materials about White House/CIA Predator kill orders that were communicated back and forth over her private email system when she was in Chapaqqua. Clinton was part of discussions about pending kill orders that she was receiving as a courtesy and consultation. This material had been originally classified TOP SECRET/SAP by the CIA. https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-clintons-e-mails-reveal-about-her-support-...

On another occasion, there was a technical problem with the "secure fax" system, also in her Chapaqqua house, and Hillary instructed Sullivan to strip off the classification markings and send the text to her through her private email. She knew exactly what she was doing. The emails back and forth between Clinton and Sullivan are quoted here: https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/265210-email-cli...

In an email marked June 17, 2011, that was released by the State Department on Friday, Clinton informs aide Jake Sullivan that she has not yet received a set of talking points.

“They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax,” Sullivan says. “They’re working on it.”

“If they can’t, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton responds.

There is no question about what her intent was on this and many other, similar occasions she transmitted or knowingly received classified materials over an unsecure system. The FBI certainly had a legal "nexus" to charge her. Page is simply misrepresenting the facts and the deliberative process that the FBI and Justice Department went through in letting Hillary Clinton skate.

The fact is Hillary Clinton knowingly violated Sec. 793(e)(with intent) and (f)(gross negligence) of the Espionage Act. The record supports her being charged under both sections, but she wasn't. She is above such concerns because she was immunized with a lifelong sanction by the CIA ever since it was first granted by George H.W. Bush. That is not exactly legal immunity. It is something higher.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@leveymg

@leveymg Was Hillary immunized in her email with Obama? That's an interesting question that might amount to a defense if she had been charged.

For Hillary's attorneys to argue the emails enjoy some sort of Presidential communications privilege, they would first have to stipulate it was Obama on the other end them, thus admitting, at the very least, that Obama knew about the server - the very outcome they want to avoid.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

snoopydawg's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

When the press asked Obama when he found out about her private server he said "at the same time you all did." Huma and Cheryl freaked out because they knew that he had been emailing her on her server. This detail is in either the Wikileaks emails or on the IG report.

Democrats are saying that Trump has obstructed justice many times and here we see that at the very least people in Obama's justice department were doing just that.

What did the president know and when did he know it?

But this mess gets even worse. People in his administration were making plans to disrupt Trumps presidency if Hillary lost. I covered some of that here:

One of the biggest revelations was that Page, who was having an affair with then-FBI agent Peter Strzok, said that the infamous "insurance policy" text message was referring to the Russia investigation.

"During her interview with the Judiciary Committee in July 2018, Page was questioned at length about that text — and essentially confirmed this referred to the Russia investigation while explaining that officials were proceeding with caution, concerned about the implications of the case while not wanting to go at 'total breakneck speed' and risk burning sources as they presumed Trump wouldn't be elected anyway," Fox News reported. "Further, she confirmed investigators only had a 'paucity' of evidence at the start."
....
In an August 15, 2016 text message, Strzok texted Page: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in [deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe’s] office that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40…"

The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro wrote the following about the text message when it was released in December 2017:

This looks an awful lot like motivation for launching an investigation into Trump in order to sink Trump as a hedge against Trump’s victory. The FBI’s investigation into Russian governmental interference in the election began in July 2016, just weeks before Strzok’s text message. And that means that there is now more of a smoking gun of FBI corruption against Trump than there is of Trump colluding with Russia.

The article is redundant with this one, but it also talks about what the insurance plan that Strozk and Page were talking about. There are others that have more detail on this though buried somewhere in my bookmarks. I see lots of shades of watergate in what was planned if she lost. There were so many things that they were doing to hinder Trump's campaign, but they never really thought she would lose so it would never come to light. Huber is supposed to be looking into this and still might be. Rumors are that Trump is waiting for Mueller to drop his report before he acts. Time will tell if that is true or not.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@snoopydawg

They only hang traitors, don't they?

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

snoopydawg's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

Yep. And she wasn't the only one who was saying that.

BTW. When is the last time a person ran for president while they were under investigation by the FBI? And after everything she pulled she still lost to the worst candidate ever!

Smile

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@snoopydawg

BTW. When is the last time a person ran for president while they were under investigation by the FBI?

Although the Feds had to first lie to the FISA court before 'legally' investigating Trump.

They had been illegally investigating Trump on behalf of the Hillary campaign for a long time before that.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger

What Trump actually did was say that Hillary's suffered enough. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clin...

As I posted on another thread earlier this morning...https://caucus99percent.com/comment/407566#comment-407566

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@snoopydawg her Blackberry to the Clintonemail.com server to spite the NSA just a month after she was confirmed. That certainly shows more than enough mens rea to charge her for mishandling classified materials in violation of her security oath she had just signed at the time she was sworn in as Secretary of State.

All this has been publicly known since Spring, 2016, at which time the US Attorney could have and should have indicted her. Here's a CBS article from 3/16/2016: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emails-show-nsa-rejected-hillary-clinton-re...

Clinton's desire for a secure "BlackBerry-like" device, like the one provided to President Barack Obama, is recounted in a series of February 2009 exchanges between high-level officials at the State Department and NSA. Clinton was sworn in as secretary the prior month, and had become "hooked" on reading and answering emails on a BlackBerry she used during the 2008 presidential race.

"We began examining options for (Secretary Clinton) with respect to secure 'BlackBerry-like' communications," wrote Donald R. Reid, the department's assistant director for security infrastructure. "The current state of the art is not too user friendly, has no infrastructure at State, and is very expensive."

Reid wrote that each time they asked the NSA what solution they had worked up to provide a mobile device to Obama, "we were politely told to shut up and color." Resolving the issue was given such priority as to result in a face-to-face meeting between Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, seven senior State Department staffers with five NSA security experts. According to a summary of the meeting, the request was driven by Clinton's reliance on her BlackBerry for email and keeping track of her calendar. Clinton chose not to use a laptop or desktop computer that could have provided her access to email in her office, according to the summary.

Standard smartphones are not allowed into areas designated as approved for the handling of classified information, such as the block of offices used by senior State Department officials, known by the nickname "Mahogany Row" for the quality of their paneling. Mills said that was inconvenient, because they had to leave their offices and retrieve their phones to check messages.

[ . . . ]

The following month, in March 2009, Clinton began using private email accounts accessed through her BlackBerry to exchange messages with her top aides. The State Department has thus far released more than 52,000 pages of Clinton's work-related emails, a small percentage of which have been withheld because they contain information considered sensitive to national security.

In recent months, Clinton has said her home-based email setup was a mistake, but that she never sent or received anything that was marked classified at the time.

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snoopydawg's picture

@leveymg

Sure Hillary. Just something you regret doing like leaving your keys in the car or locking yourself out of your house. Just a mistake. Kinda like using your blackberry was a mistake too huh? Lotsa people in prison for their mistakes ya know?

Thanks for the additions to the essay.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

@snoopydawg Accurate but hardly the truth. That's because she had instructed her faithful Undersecretary and Assistants to strip off the classification marks before they were sent. Just an innocent little old lady. No indicia of knowledge.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with the fact that so many Americans didn't trust her enough to vote for her. Blame it on Russia.

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@leveymg

the United States of America could not be expected to learn about devices and emails because of.....her age. (Hint: (1) If she had been that uneducable for any reason, she should not have been Secretary of State, so shame on her, her physician, Obama and the U.S. Senate. (2) Abedin or any of the Secret Service people who traveled with her at taxpayer expense could have done whatever she needed to get her to her email; and (3) the pictures of her on the plane using her Blackberry that those same posters later loved posting showed she did okay with devices, after all.)

But God forbid if anyone said a thing about her age when those same posters claimed Sanders was too old to run for POTUS. You couldn't say he was in better condition than she was either. Because things like that were both sexist AND racist.

Racist, supposedly, because many black people supported Hillary over Sanders and saying negative things about a white candidate whom many black people support is racist! Didn't matter if the person criticizing Hillary was a black woman, either. But, it was acceptable for anyone of any heritage, hue or gender to comment negatively on Sanders' appearance and age because "it's different for a man."

Dash 1

I'll retire to Bedlam.

Dickens, Charles, A Christmas Carol

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snoopydawg's picture

@leveymg

server. 22 Highly Classified Emails and yet she walks.

“With the compromise, State Department-CIA tensions began to subside. during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at State did U.S. diplomats object to a planned CIA strike, according to congressional and law-enforcement officials familiar with the emails.”

More evidence of Hillary's warmongering. The IG report stated that there was evidence that a foreign country got access to her emails. Most probably it was China, but possibly other ones.

Thanks for posting those links. People here are very knowledgeable about things that happen elsewhere.

OMG... it gets worse. From your second link.

The department announced that 18 emails exchanged between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama would also be withheld, citing the longstanding practice of preserving presidential communications for future release. The department’s spokesman, John Kirby, said that exchanges did not involve classified information.

The top secret emails lent credence to criticism by Mrs. Clinton’s rivals in the presidential race of her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. It is against the law for officials to discuss classified information on unclassified networks used for routine business or on private servers, and the F.B.I. is looking into whether such information was mishandled.

People covered for her again by saying that they were upgraded after she sent them. Bull pucky. How many people here would be able to tell that the information they read should be classified? Especially if you were in a high level position?

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said in a statement that it made no sense to her that “Secretary Clinton can be held responsible for email exchanges that originated with someone else.”

“The only reason to hold Secretary Clinton responsible for emails that didn’t originate with her is for political points, and that’s what we’ve seen over the past several months,” she added.

All of this information has been known to congress for over two years so it's not only Obama who obstructed justice, but every member of congress on both sides that did as well.

The funny thing is that every Russia Gater is screaming to high heaven that Trump is obstructing justice and that Manafort didn't get a long enough prison sentence. Neither did Jeffrey Epstein. Or any bank CEOs. Or anyone else who is in the club that Carlin said we're not in. But smoke some weed while black or poor and do up to twenty years. Unintentionally voted when you aren't supposed to and spend five years in prison. Or, or, or, or....

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

@gulfgal98

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Google reads All those mails. I assumed that someone with net assets a thousand times mine would use a paid service like I do. Instead she had to use free Gmail to send and receive TOP SECRET e-mails!
GROSS GROSS negligence. Like using a public bulletin board instead of the US mail.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

snoopydawg's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

No Hillary wasn't using Gmail, she used the private email server that Bill set up in their home back in 2006.

However there is evidence that some foreign governments were able to access her server and it was probably China according the the IG report.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Centaurea's picture

@snoopydawg It was John Podesta who used a gmail account, as shown in the DNC emails published by Wikileaks.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

snoopydawg's picture

@Centaurea

Smile

Hey John, what's your password?

"Password"

Since when did phishing become Russian hacking?

"When Hillary and Podesta said it did."

Wikileaks also has the email between Hillary and John deciding to blame the emails release on Russia to keep people from focusing on their content. Look at how well that worked.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

@snoopydawg I believe Podesta’s password was actually “Runner1234”. It was included in the first dump. Seems the genious emailed his password to someone. IIRC, it had been out on the web for 13 days before it was changed.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@snoopydawg

“I think there might be many who would question whether people in this room would still be in this room if we had hit 1,300 emails on our personal Gmail service.”
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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lookout's picture

....and we know who they are. Clintons, Trumps, Bushies, and so on....

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Lookout One must wonder: If they are above the law's punishment, shouldn't that also mean they're above the law's protection?

It would make a hell of a legal argument...if they can't be prosecuted, for how long must the rest of us passively endure their abuse before it becomes a "Lethal Weapon II"-type situation?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Bisbonian's picture

https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/security-clearance-jobs/security-c...

The following are examples of security violations:

Leaving a classified file or security container unlocked and unattended either during or after normal working hours.
Keeping classified material in a desk or unauthorized cabinet, container, or area.
Leaving classified material unsecured or unattended on desks, tables, cabinets, or elsewhere in an unsecured area, either during or after normal working hours.
Reproducing or transmitting classified material without proper authorization.
Losing your security badge.
Removing classified material from the work area in order to work on it at home.
Granting a visitor, contractor, employee or any other person access to classified information without verifying both the individual's clearance level and need-to-know.
Discussing classified information over the telephone, other than a phone approved for classified discussion.
Discussing classified information in lobbies, cafeterias, corridors, or any other public area where the discussion might be overheard.
Carrying safe combinations or computer passwords (identifiable as such) on one's person, writing them on calendar pads, keeping them in desk drawers, or otherwise failing to protect the security of a safe or computer.
Failure to mark classified documents properly.
Failure to follow appropriate procedures for destruction of classified material.

The following behaviors are of particular concern and may affect your security clearance:

A pattern of routine security violations due to inattention, carelessness, or a cynical attitude toward security discipline.
Taking classified information home, ostensibly to work on it at home, or carrying it while in a travel status without proper authorization.
Prying into projects or activities for which the person does not have (or no longer has) a need to know. This includes requests for classified publications from reference libraries without a valid need to know, or any attempt to gain unauthorized access to computer systems, information, or data bases.
Intoxication while carrying classified materials or that causes one to speak inappropriately about classified matters or to unauthorized persons.
Deliberate revelation of classified information to unauthorized persons to impress them with one's self-importance.
Copying classified information in a manner designed to obscure classification markings. This may indicate intent to misuse classified information.
Making unauthorized or excessive copies of classified material. Going to another office to copy classified material when copier equipment is available in one's own work area is a potential indicator of unauthorized copies being made.
Failing to report requests for classified information from unauthorized individuals.

Failure to report a security violation is itself a security violation and may be a very serious concern.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Bisbonian Suddenly, "BUT HER E-MAIIIILS!" sounds like something to be a little less derisive of.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

snoopydawg's picture

@Bisbonian

knew damn well what the rules were and what the consequences would be if they screwed up. On top of the FBI finding some emails that had classified information on them there is also the fact that every one of Hillary's emails were found on Anthony Weiner's laptop because his wife Huma Abedin sent them to it.

The reason why Comey had to tell congress that his investigation wasn't over yet was because the NYC FBIs office that was prosecuting Weiner's sexting found them on his laptop. Including some that were classified. And there were many other emails about kids that made the agents literally sick.

And still there is more. Congress subpoenaed all of Hillary's emails and she deliberately deleted over 30,000 of them from her server. This was one more thing that she got away with. But.... every one of her emails going back to 2006 were found on Weiner's laptop. Every One of Them.

Why wasn't Abedin charged for doing that? Because Comey gave her immunity. Yup. Lots of people on Hillary's staff were given immunity and then Comey never questioned them.

But wait there's more....
Hillary's lawyers and the DOJ lawyers made a deal that she wouldn't be questioned under oath and they never took her computers, tablets or phones after they questioned her. Hillary's personal lawyer Cheryl Mills who got immunity was allowed to represent Hillary during the FBI questioning that Comey didn't attend. You'd think that would have been kinda important for him to do that.

BTW. The guy who took a picture of the inside of his submarine was sentenced to two years in prison for doing that. He broke the law and paid and then Hillary walked.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Bisbonian's picture

@snoopydawg I printed out the lists, because I think she did every damned one of those.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

gulfgal98's picture

@snoopydawg by using a private server to conduct State Dept. business, both classified and unclassified, but she is guilty of destroying evidence.

And still there is more. Congress subpoenaed all of Hillary's emails and she deliberately deleted over 30,000 of them from her server. This was one more thing that she got away with.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

for keeping all of this infuriating material in front of us. It's so frustrating.

One of the points I want to add is that after reading Lisa Page's testimony I have been aware that she is the consummate "lightweight." She's a high-level Department of Justice attorney with incredible power to change people's minds and influence decisions, but she can't remember the statute we're focussing on because it's not in front of her, she can't remember who was in which meeting, although it's the subject we're here to discuss, she doesn't know the actual meaning of certain legal decisions because she hasn't read them recently, even though they're crucial to the events being discussed. She's had two years to prepare for this hearing, but it's as if she stumbled into it accidentally totally unaware that she would be questioned about her work.

And she gets away with this crap because she's a young, fashionable, dainty, high-pitched, air-headed, forgetful, inflection point artist who says, "sort of," and "kind of," and "you know," as qualifiers for answers when she says, we, you know, sort of, decided to, kind of, change the wording blah blah blah.

I apologize for being so angry, but the Director of the FBI makes a public statement that Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” and yet the CIA and the media tell us Russia made us not vote for her.

You sure it wasn't Jim Comey telling us she was extremely careless with very sensitive, highly classified information? I mean, let's face it. Her defense is that she's a ditz. An air-headed moron who can't handle important documents. That's her defense. And her DOJ lawyers defend her by saying she obviously had no intent to keep the State Department's communication secret from the American people. She just didn't understand. Because...

And the assumption they think we're all working with is that: SHE'S AN AIR-HEADED WOMAN. Of course. What else could it be? It couldn't be that she's a crook. That's can't be right. So she's a dope. Naturally.

I don't believe any man could have gotten away with making the statements made by Trisha Anderson and Lisa Page that you quoted here, and it angers me that these women use their credentials as women lawyers to discredit themselves:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-doj-prevented-fbi-from-pursuing-...

… Trisha Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer at the bureau, told investigators that what she viewed as intent was “an email that the Secretary sent saying, I set up this server for the purpose of sending unclassified information for my convenience, even though I know it’s not a secure system.”

… Page viewed the situation somewhat differently, agreeing they were looking for “an intent to do an act which is in violation of the law’s central command.” As she told investigators, the FBI “couldn’t find any indicia of knowledge that she knew that these [classified emails] shouldn’t be traversing her server.”

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is among those found in the emails. Meaning that Obama could have self-preservation as a motive for interfering with the prosecution. It would further explain why establishment Dems ran around with their hair on fire and a metric pant load in their drawers when Trump won and they could not count on protection from POTUS.

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Bob In Portland's picture

Of course, Obama covered for his Secretary of State. That is the system. I thought once a Democrat got into the White House that the administrations that brought us the Iran-contra affair would finally get their just due.

But that was a misreading of how our government works. The two-party system is not that at all. The government is owned by the rich and powerful and have consolidated this power since WWII with its never-prosecuted secret police and all its human assets sitting in places throughout the government. The purpose of the two-party system is to give Americans the illusion of change when little change happens.

In reality, both Clintons have functioned as Republicans, and one of the worst crimes of Bill Clinton was to allow the Bush gang in place for twelve years to avoid almost all punishment for their crimes. Judging from what we are beginning to understand about Clinton's role in Iran-contra, one could explain this away with Mena. But the system is designed for the biggest thieves to get away. This was repeated after Dubya left office. All of the people who lied us into a series of wars in the Middle East pretty much got away with murder. Mass murder. Obama left office knowing that he wouldn't get prosecuted either.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Bob In Portland

Many of us thought once democrats got back into power they would clean the place up. Clinton for the Reagan and Bush crimes. Nancy for Bush part two crimes. Obama for Bush, Cheney's, the NSA and the bank's crimes.. and once again for the crimes that Trump is committing. Nope. No siree bob! Never going to happen!

But it's funny that Trump is being controlled by Vlad and the democrats don't think it's important to remove him from office. This should put Russia Gate in the grave as far as I'm concerned.

Nancy, "nope we're just going to let Russia continue setting Trump's course." Move along folks..

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

snoopydawg's picture

Or if this don't take the case, or hey look, it does seem that someone is out there looking at people's foundations and looking especially for pay to play.

The DOJ and Hillary's lawyers made sure that the FBI could not look at Hillary's foundation during the investigation into her email on her private server that combined her duties as SOS with her foundation where lots of people who did not have security clearances were able to access all of Hillary's SOS emails. Why? So they knew where to send Bill after Her completed her pay for play!!

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

convenience? "'tis something, nothing" Shakespeare, William, Othello, Act II

The bit about her own convenience is a joke. She had people waiting on her hand and foot. Someone could have been in charge of handing her a second device, with email already on the screen, when she wanted to plan her mother's funeral or her daughter's wedding.

Then again, her lips were moving when she said she wanted to used only one device. So, we should have known she was using more than one.

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