The media is really going after Hillary Clinton over this email kerfuffle.

[Cali_Democrat]

Funny how the media always develops a spine when going after Dems.

If only they went after Bush with as much vigor and gusto when he lied the country into a multi-trillion dollar war which cost the lives of thousands of US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Go figure.

[ann---]

1. Why didn't she simply follow the guidelines

and there would be no kerfuffle.

[pnwmom]

4. Which guideline required her to use a government account? No guideline that I've seen.

And she was openly using the private account the whole time she was in office and no one told her to open a government account instead. It was never an issue till months after she left office.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Her own guideline, for one:

http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2015/03/05/just-got-this-document-from-fncs-catherine-herridge-about-secretary-clinton-and-personal-emails/

[karynnj]

11. Better question,why had she not given copies to the SD more than a year after she was out of office?

This is especially a question because the SD had to respond to FOIA requests and Congressional inquiries that should have included them. It is clear that "electronic records" were supposed to be archived --as letters were in earlier times.

It looks like it was not a routine request to all SoS that led to getting the records. In fact, it seems that was done a few months after the SD had demanded them in face to face meetings.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman and the State Department have cast her decision to hand over her emails as motivated by efforts to update the department’s record management system. “When the department asked former secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes,” Nick Merrill, the Clinton spokesman, said on Sunday.

But it was the review of Benghazi-related documents last summer that, within the State Department, set off the chain of events leading to the public disclosure this week of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email account, according to the current and former department officials.

The decision to ask Mrs. Clinton for her emails went all the way to Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff, who, along with officials working on the response to the Benghazi requests, signed off on it.

Beginning in August, senior State Department officials held negotiations with Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers and advisers to gain access to her personal email records. At one point, her advisers met face-to-face with department officials in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-asks-state-dept-to-review-emails-for-public-release.html


Not mentioned here is that this followed Issa issuing a subpoena to Kerry, who as he was a Senator during Benghazi was not involved was to be questioned on failing to provide documents. Documents that the SD did not have -- but likely did not want to say why given that it reflects on Obama as well.

Note 1: Hillary likely did not break any laws

Note 2: This flies in the face of transparency

Note 3: No one related to Clinton has yet admitted this was a blunder -- politically or to insure the credibility of the historical record.

Note 4: This is a self inflicted error that allows the Benghazi nuts to claim she is hiding things -- at a point where otherwise Benghazi is an issue only to the nuts.

[pnwmom]

14. She gave the State Department the records after the State Department asked for them

and not before.

What law or tradition required her to do otherwise?

[karynnj]

18. They are official records - and there are laws going back to the 1970s

This is NOT about where the email was, who secured it, or anything like this. It is about retaining the records that are required.

If it would have been acceptable for HRC to simply take them with her or even destroy them, wouldn't you have expected Kerry when first asked to just say -- he wasn't there then and he "had no idea what HRC did with her records. How would that have worked? It's not my problem"

[pnwmom]

19. The head of the Archives' sworn testimony was that there was no policy against her using her own email.

And she did preserve her emails and she did send them on when Kerry finally asked for them.

There was nothing in the policy that required her to give them to State until State asked for them.

[karynnj]

20. She had the responsibility when she was SOS to do this

IT is asinine that you are claiming it is Kerry's fault because he did not ask and innocent little HRC had no responsibility to do it. The archivist did not say that she had no responsibility to insure the information was retained within the SD.

Note the SD has said Kerry's own mail is contemporaneously archived. She went 4 years archiving nothing. There is a difference. Given that there were FOIA requests that HRC had to know about, wasn't it incumbent upon her to give them proactively what they were legally supposed to have?

[pnwmom]

21. Kerry is bound by a law that wasn't in effect while Hillary was S o S. That is the difference.

No law in effect while she was in office required her to use the government email account or to archive her records there. They only required the State Department to retain the records that were in its possession. Her email account never was.

[karynnj]

22. Kerry began exclusively using his government email the day he was sworn in

More than a year before the law went in - the difference, he always respected transparcy and she didn't.

Many links that say you could use private email - also said that they needed to then be given to the State Department. Not to mention, it took more than a simple request to get the emails - it took several meetings before HRC and her people agreed.

Note YOUR comment is exactly the type of thing that I am referring to - blame is assigned to anyone in the vicinity whenever the Clintons do something that gets criticism. So, here Kerry is somehow responsible that emails - as old as 6 years - are not at the State Department "because he did not ask for them". (Not to mention, his most important job was not micromanaging the records that his predecessor should have left.)

[pnwmom]

23. The law hadn't even been written when Hillary left office. But the Hatch Act had been in effect

since the 1930's, and she was probably more concerned about complying with that than with anything else. Since they only let her have one email address on her Blackberry, she used the personal address, since it wouldn't cause problems with the Hatch Act.

[karynnj]

24. This still does not excuse the fact that she did not send the private

emails to the SD in a timely manner -- or even in a big chunk when she left.

As to the Blackberry excuse, that is the most pathetic excuse ever.

[rtw]

12. If you don't like the Fox source, here is Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/state-department-email-rule-hillary-clinton-115804.html?ml=po

Her email should not have been handled this way.

[pnwmom]

15. Good article. And it contains this new (and key) point about the 2005 policy:

The 2005 policy says approved “telework solutions” satisfy the rule, which appears in a section of State Department regulations discussing “sensitive but unclassified” information — an extremely broad category of data. Former officials said a large volume of State Department paperwork and email falls into the swath of information known internally as “SBU.”

State Department rules say almost any information that could be withheld from a Freedom of Information Act request can be considered sensitive.

After this story was first published, a State Department official acknowledged the 2005 policy but emphasized that it is limited to records containing such sensitive information.

“Under State Department policy in the FAM referenced in news reports tonight, sensitive but unclassified information should be handled on a system with certain security requirements except in certain circumstances. That FAM policy pertains solely to SBU information,” the official said. “Reports claiming that by using personal email she is automatically out of step of that FAM are inaccurate.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/state-department-email-rule-hillary-clinton-115804.html#ixzz3TdUs1JBW

[rtw]

25. Don't bypass this portion

I thought you might focus on that. The article also says this,

"White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday there was no doubt that some of the data in Clinton's email was of a "sensitive" nature. I would stipulate that there was a substantial amount of sensitive information that was included in her email..."

[TwilightGardener]

2. If this is how she chose to manage her affairs as Secretary of State, what sort of

President would she make? Suddenly transparent, forthright and accountable? Do leopards change their spots at age 68?

[Thinkingabout]

3. Sometimes a nothing for some turns into kefuffle for others. It assists some in making them feel

good about themselves. Since there are hackers inside of government servers her server may have been safer.

[TwilightGardener]

5. We know there were hackers into government servers because there are IT professionals

who monitor for such things on those systems. On Hillary's home set-up...well, who was monitoring that? No one knows.

[Thinkingabout]

9. An easy problem to solve, it has already been determined there are

Are safeguards. Besides this who thinks the Clintons wants it to be was for hackers to dig into their business and we know the Clintons had their own system set up and pretty sure it was not done by Hillary or Bill, in other words a professional IT person or persons.

[TwilightGardener]

10. You think public officials should all be on the "trust me" system

when it comes to official business, record-keeping, documentation, and cybersecurity.

[Thinkingabout]

16. There are lots of ways to get information from a server. Do I trust

Hackers, never, do I know if the server Hillary used had any hackers, no, we do know there are hackers on the government systems. It just may be the server she used was very safe ir safer than was being used in the government. Do I trust everyone to tell the truth on this subject, no more than I would trust anyone.

[Spazito]

6. Ratings, it's all about ratings...

Hyping a faux scandal is an attempt to up their pathetic ratings and when it can include the Clinton name, well, all the better.

[madamesilverspurs]

7. ...

[2naSalit]

13. +10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. It is what it is

“Find me one persuadable voter who agrees with HRC on the issues but will vote against her because she has a non-archival-compliant email system and I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses,”

-Paul Begala

[libdem4life]

26. That's all they have now...the public has wearied of and forgotten the others. Next it will

be her hair style. Or, maybe they'll start early and rag on her grandbaby, like they did Chelsea. People don't even care what Bill did anymore. What's a pundit/political enemy to do?