Obama says Clinton's private email account was news to him

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says it was through news reports that he first learned that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private, nongovernment email account while serving as his secretary of state.

In an interview Saturday with CBS News, Obama says he's glad that Clinton has instructed that those emails about official business be disclosed. He also maintains that his administration remains the most transparent administration ever.

Clinton has drawn criticism for using a private server during the four years she was the nation's top diplomat. Her sidestepping official government email also raises questions about whether all pertinent messages have been preserved as well as turned over for congressional investigations and lawsuits.

Clinton says that she's turned over all relevant emails — totaling 55,000 pages — to the State Department for review.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150307/us-obama-clinton-emails-73a2497f54.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. So I'm guessing she never emailed him, then.

Certainly possible, I suppose. She no doubt had enough access that she could get him in person or on the phone as needed. But it does kind of put the kibosh on people who were saying he was 'fine with it', unless they want to call him a liar when he says he didn't know.

[Thor_MN]

11. I doubt that there has or will be a POTUS that pays much attention to unaliased email addresses

Just saying. POTUS has more important things to worry about than the ownership of someone's domain. Hell, there a good chance that every email seen is prescreened and forwarded.

[pnwmom]

18. How could he not have noticed her email address over 4 years?

Who even opens an email without knowing where it came from?

[Thor_MN]

20. POTUS?

Is there anyone who can email him who isn't already tagged as a contact? Like I said, the email is likely prescreened and forwarded from the account that it was sent to, to the account where it is read. Why would any POTUS bother with something as trivial as pondering an email address? You believe he screens his own email?

[pnwmom]

21. I wouldn't expect him to "ponder." You can see an email address at a glance.

And none of hers, for 4 years, was coming from a .gov account.

How come nobody anywhere in the Obama administration noticed this? This doesn't pass the smell test -- unless nobody really cared. That I find much more believable.

[Thor_MN]

22. Not if it is aliased because the account is already a contact.

I seriously doubt the President has to check his inbox for spam emails for boner pills. He has staff to do that for him. And if an incoming email is valid, it would be set up as a contact for his convenience. You really believe he has nothing better to do than check email headers for domains?

I'm sorry, did the article say that everyone in the Obama admin didn't know where her email domain was? I must have missed that...

[pnwmom]

24. So you think it's believable that the Obama administration took this all

very seriously and yet no one was in charge of compliance?

[Thor_MN]

29. I believe that there were no issues with compliance at the time.

Did you actually read the short little article? It says jack about the Obama Administration. Only that Obama didn't know where her email domain was. He likely didn't care, as it not his job to check on that and THAT IT WASN'T A COMPLIANCE ISSUE UNDER THE RULES AT THE TIME.

You seem to believe that his email is just like yours and the the current rules have been in place forever. Neither is true.

[candelista]

51. WRONG.

Federal regulations, since 2009, have required that all emails be preserved as part of an agency’s record-keeping system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/using-private-email-hillary-clinton-thwarted-record-requests.html?_r=0

[Thor_MN]

62. Nice try. The emails were preserved.

The National Archives and Records Administration says you are wrong.

While NARA’s preference is that officials not use an email alias, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero said in sworn testimony in 2013 that “nothing in the law that prohibits them.”

“We don’t care how many accounts you have as long as those on which you’re doing federal business are captured for the record,” he also said.

The emails were preserved, denying you something to whine about.

Care to invent another "scandal"?

[candelista]

63. How do you know? We have only Hillary's word for this.

She will turn over the ones she wants to share. So your "argument" assumes the point at issue.

[Thor_MN]

64. NARA says they are satisfied.

I obviously have no clue, as do you. But if the agency that is responsible for the preservation of government records is satisfied, we should be too, rather than trying to perpetuate a GOP meme...

[candelista]

65. Where is your source for the "satisfaction" of NARA?

[Thor_MN]

66. Where is your source that you aren't beating a GOP meme into the ground?

[candelista]

71. So you pulled it out of your, er, hat.

The Party needs people like you, comrade!

[Thor_MN]

72. The GOP already has people like you

The GOP manufactured "scandal" is just so much hot air. The regulations in force at the time were complied with and the rest is Bengaaaahzi all over again.

[DhhD]

61. It is my opinion, a law changing this was passed in November of 2014; again 2014. Yes, AT That

Time, she was in compliance.

[Man from Pickens]

41. my guess

is that her setup was so outrageously unorthodox that no one had even considered the possibility

[MADem]

25. I doubt Obama opens ANY email.

It probably comes to him on an "action" board after being carefully screened, if at all. More likely it would come in the form of a bullet on a memorandum with a bunch of other summaries of messages.

Most realistically, if State needs to talk to POTUS, himself, that would be accomplished via a secure phone. Cabinet officials (and a lot of other senior leaders) travel with a comm team that can have them talking to anyone via satellite tout suite. The line isn't for chit-chat, mind you--it's for important communications of a classified nature.

[B2G]

42. BS. He's welded to his Blackberry

From the CBS interview:

“The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency… and that's why my emails -- the BlackBerry that I carry around -- all those records are available and archived and I'm glad that Hillary has instructed that those emails that had to do with official business need to be disclosed.”

[TwilightGardener]

45. I doubt Hillary or her staff were part of his regular communications, though

He's not exactly buds with most of his cabinet, except for Holder. This is kind of an under-the-bus moment, but there's probably some truth to it that he didn't really know.

[B2G]

47. I don't know one was or another

but proposing that he doesn't read his own email is laughable.

[MADem]

54. From family and friends, sure.

But I'd bet serious money that every "work product" communication goes through his chief of staff.

[B2G]

59. He has a government issued Blackberry that he is never without

He fought for that when he entered office because it wasn't normal protocol.

And I think you'd lose that bet.

[MADem]

60. He didn't "fight" for anything. He gave an order and it was obeyed, after he was given advice

and he made a determination.

Christ, everything is couched as a "battle." If that was a battle, he'd win every war.



I don't think I'd lose that bet at all--a good executive knows how to DELEGATE.

[MADem]

53. I agree--his Blackberry probably received emails from family and friends...

not work product.

[TwilightGardener]

55. Yep--family, friends, and close advisors--Jarret, Emmanuel, McDonough, Rice, etc.

The inner circle. From what I understand, cabinet members are generally not allowed frequent direct access to most Presidents, to prevent end-runs around other cabinet members and the much-vaunted inner circle. They are usually kept at a professional arm's-length.

[MADem]

56. Concur--that's what a chief of staff is for...to sort out that stuff.

It's imperative that the cabinet work as a unit, and there has to be a bandmaster--but it ain't the POTUS, it's his 'strong right arm.'

[TwilightGardener]

57. I remember reading something once about Colin Powell, from when he was

leaving the Bush admin in 2005. He was told by the WH that the President wanted to meet with him one last time to have sort of an "exit interview" before his last day. So Powell went to the WH at the appointed time and Bush was sent into the room at the appointed time...and Bush was surprised to see him, had no idea why Powell was there--Powell had to explain to Bush that Bush supposedly requested to see him. Bush brain-addled cluelessness aside, that's probably pretty close to how it sometimes works in most administrations.

[MADem]

58. To riff on the late GREAT Governor Richards.....

Poor George (Junior, this time)....he was born with a silver foot in his mouth!!!

All that hard living probably affected his memory!

[JonLP24]

40. You raise an interesting point

but none of us, which might be a fair guess has any idea how most of this communication stuff works regarding the President. Given the nature of the business it is set-up in a heavily secret way & I'm sure most it is sealed air tight. We know he makes phone calls with foreign leaders on a regular visit given that it is unreasonable to fly out every time you have something to say, we know he has been aggressive in policing leakers so probably some people would rather shut up than speak to reporters but overall we know transparency is a problem.

Like I said, I have no idea over what filters is set-up or how it was walked through with him but if he did or didn't know, he likely didn't or did know prior before the e-mails came so I doubt the e-mail addresses would say something to him which was kept a secret from him if Obama is telling the truth. At-this-point in his 8 years, I wonder how much of it he needs someone to look at something before he does or how personalized like does anyone know Obama's phone number? His e-mail address? I imagine many but I'm speculating that it might be more exclusive with certain contacts. If he does screener, I imagine Obama like any ordinary person would want a way to communicate privately with control (w/ expert level advice) over those communications & with who.

Regardless of what it is all really like, he does have a lot on his plate whatever what is viewed as important which keeping secrets seems to rank pretty high. I do agree he spends little time decoding alias especially if it is from a known & expected source but all I could do is speculate based on what could be likely which has its limitations.

I typed in "Obama leaks" (& variations) and while I wasn't expecting to find much which was a hot mike “I hope you’ve quit smoking,” President Obama said. “I haven’t had a cigarette in probably six years. That’s because I’m scared of my wife.”

however, this interests me more than whatever leak exists


Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei sent Obama secret letter: WSJ

(Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to overtures from U.S. President Barack Obama amid nuclear talks by sending him a secret letter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Citing an Iranian diplomat, the paper said the Iranian cleric had written to Obama in recent weeks in response to a presidential letter sent in October.

Obama's letter suggested the possibility of U.S.-Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State if a nuclear deal was secured, the paper said, quoting the diplomat.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/14/us-iran-nuclear-usa-idUSKBN0LI01220150214

Cooperation for a nuclear deal? The ramifications for such an alliance could be more troubling than to "back off" regarding their use of nuclear technology, Iran-backed Shia militias are all over Syria & Iraq fighting IS & whoever is fighting them & given the Alawite (sect of Shia Islam) Assad regime & the Shia Iraqi government (who raided the homes, killed 1, & chased away elected Sunni officials). An Iraqi helicopter gets shot down, 44-Sunni civilians get shot in the chest in a jail later, which is followed by a Shia neighborhood ethnically cleansed.

I could give a rats ass about nukes but a US-Iran cooperation regarding IS could either be very bad in continuing terrorism & oppression of Iraqi's minorities or oppression (while Obama does say Assad needs to go, Iraq's government & the liberal use "terrorism laws&quot which allows them to detain people without charges & they've been torturing since 2006. Not to mention the unregulated Shia militias which the top 5 corrupt government seems more interested in sustaining & growing & looking the other way because government forces imply oversight & accountability which is nonexistent. Or it could be good if the US seriously encourages Iran to scale back on the oppression & brutality their militias (with their money) engage in but what does nukes have to do with it? We're pathetic if we have to use nuclear technology freedom to leverage them to help out with ethics, fairness, & no torture or executions without trial.

[RiverNoord]

46. I disagree strenuously regarding cooperation with Iran.

Iran is a rational, theological state. It's rational in the sense that major decisions are made with the long-term national interest in mind. Of course, opinions differ regarding what the interests may be, but in that sense it's probably less dysfunctional than our wealth-sponsored two party system.

We do a lot of things with our military capabilities that are pretty despicable, viewed objectively. We defintely sponsor 'terrorism' when it suits our foreign policy objectives, and we kill with near-impunity routinely via drone attack all over the world. Our 'special forces' are very busy working with 'leaders' of countries around the world, typically providing military protection against threats to established orders that our military deems desirable.

So, Iran provides financing and training for groups that use that training to fight Israel. Not very effectively, of course, because Israel's conventional military and nuclear arsenal make any military action that isn't rather small-scale simply impossible.

Also, Iran is the preeminent Shia Muslim theocracy in the world, as Saudi Arabia is the Sunni one. (In the case of Saudi Arabia, the 'theocratic' element isn't a religious supreme leader, but rather a secular monarchy - although it works hard to portray itself otherwise - that provides massive support to a religious legal regime and its attendant leaders and enforcers). Well, Islam hasn't really worked out this religious schism, and there are plenty of power struggles involving 'spheres of interest' in the midst of the schism. Outsiders aren't going to somehow bring this to a conclusion, and we eliminated the relatively peaceful primary front of the power struggles when we broke Iraq.

So - oppression and brutality, well, these are aspects of any government. Israel, for example, is exceptionally brutal at times and its oppression of the populations of conquered territory is severe. If we stopped cooperating with countries that employ opression and brutality, we'd basically be dealing with no one, including ourselves.

The real question is what sort of foreign policies make the most sense from our national interest. Of course, our 'national interest' is a subject of neverending debate, but if we cooperate with regimes that seem to have very different values than ours, at least on the surface, because we have common goals, we are simply using the same common sense that has guided international relations for thousands of years.

[JonLP24]

68. House of Saud were once a one of their kind

regarding in practicing & enforcing their beliefs or interpretations, very violent as well.

They started a propaganda operation to portray themselves as something better than they are & sell themselves as similar Muslims. Then the petrodollars started flowing & shit really hit the fan. Southwest Asia is primarily dominated by Saudi Arabia television which is heavily censored and very favorable regarding the rulers of Saudi Arabia. I'm really not too familiar with Iran but during the modern colonization or 1800s-1900s, identity politics driven conflicts & oppression took over after the foreign government left or in Iran's case over through the US-backed ruler. Regarding Sunnis or anyone else, don't know why everyone oppresses the Kurds so much since they haven't really been in the possession & are used & discarded whenever they're a convenient ally, likely there is a lot of bad blood & grudges, especially given that Saudi Arabia has the most power & influence in the region & they way they interpret things -- everyone else is wrong except when Saudi Arabia compromises.

There way or the highway approach tends to create enemies, I overheard the TV -- a reporter say Obama is going to meet with Saudi Arabia and reassure them its a good idea like WTF? Iran certainly does support regional terrorists but those Arabian Peninsula allies have been known to support a global terrorist organization as well as governments that oppress such as the Taliban. Afghanistan was said to be in an armed conflict since 1978 according to a source I read.

BTW -- this book is mostly viewed a fact or fiction and it is questionable -- the debunking mentioned in the article doesn't really debunk like how does anyone really know for sure when someone from a very rural region & background or say it can't be true because he is only 10? What does cause me to doubt it is he says a very corrupt ulterior motive regarding influencing someone to start an off-brand sect to weaken Muslims than control them for British interests -- if it was true, it just seems so unlikely someone would admit it.

Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy to the Middle East

Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy to the Middle East or Confessions of a British Spy is a document purporting to be the account by an 18th-century British agent, Hempher, of his instrumental role in founding the conservative Islamic reform movement of Wahhabism, as part of a conspiracy to corrupt Islam. It first appeared in 1888, in Turkish, in the five-volume Mir'at al-Haramayn of Ayyub Sabri Pasha (who is thought to be the actual author by at least scholar[1]). It has been described as "apocryphal",[2] a "forgery",[3] "utter nonsense",[4] and "an Anglophobic variation on `The Protocols of the Elders of Zion`”.[2] It has been widely translated and disseminated, is available on the internet,[4][5][6][7] and still enjoys some currency among some individuals in the Middle East and beyond. In 2002, an Iraqi military officer recapitulated the book in a “top secret document”.[1][8]

In the book, a British spy named Hempher, working in the early 1700s, tells of disguising himself as a Muslim and infiltrating the Ottoman Empire with the goal of weakening it to destroy Islam once and for all. He tells his readers: "when the unity of Muslims is broken and the common sympathy among them is impaired, their forces will be dissolved and thus we shall easily destroy them... We, the English people, have to make mischief and arouse schism in all our colonies in order that we may live in welfare and luxury."[5]

Hempher intends ultimately to weaken Muslim morals by promoting "alcohol and fornication," but his first step is to promote innovation and disorder in Islam by creating Wahhabism, which is to gain credibility by being on the surface morally strict. For this purpose, he enlists "a gullible, hotheaded young Iraqi in Basra named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab". [4] Hempher corrupts and flatters Wahhab until the man is willing to found his own sect. According to Hempher, he is one of 5,000 British agents with the assignment of weakening Muslims, which the British government plans to increase to 100,000 by the end of the 18th century. Hempher writes, "when we reach this number we shall have brought all Muslims under our sway" and Islam will be rendered "into a miserable state from which it will never recover again."[5]
Analysis

George Packer has characterised Hempher's Memoirs as "probably the labor of a Sunni Muslim author whose intent is to present Muslims as both too holy and too weak to organize anything as destructive as Wahhabism".[9] Bernard Haykel of Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies describes the document as an anti-Wahhabi forgery, "probably fabricated by one Ayyub Sabri Pasha".[1] Sabri Pasha, an Ottoman writer, studied at the naval academy and earned the rank of naval officer, serving for a time in the Hijaz and Yemen. He wrote historical works on the Saudi dynasty and died in 1890.[3] In The Beginning and Spread of Wahhabism, Ayyub Sabri Pasha recounts the story of Abdul Wahhab's association with Hempher the British spy, and their plot to create a new religion.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_Mr._Hempher,_The_British_Spy_to_the_Middle_East#cite_note-Beginning-10

It certainly does highlight how controversial it was in the 19th century, now Saudi has century of propaganda & control behind them.

[RiverNoord]

44. Obama? I doubt it.

Either he would have noticed clearly or the screeners would have indicated to him that his Secretary of State was using an outside email address, with major attendent security concerns.

I don't really care about the 'archiving' issue, but the fact that a sitting US Secretary of State used private email exclusively for State business is messed up. If it had been prior practice due to poor quality encryption and/or equipment, then the whole State Department IT infrastructure needs a major upgrade.

We can throw billions at the NSA, providing it with the most advanced data collection and encryption cracking capabilities in the world, and our Department of State can't use internal email, possibly because it's considered compromised? Bizarro land, if that's the case.

[Fred Sanders]

12. How would Obama know Clinton had a secure private server during any email exchanges? Who cares?

[Android3.14]

13. You mean, besides the actual email?

The lack of the .gov suffix would be a "slight" clue.

[Fred Sanders]

14. Policy changed later......Who cared then? Better? Internal secure servers would not necessarily have suffixes.

Who cares?

What does it matter? What does it change?

[pnwmom]

19. Either no one cared, and that's why Hillary could openly use the personal account.

Or they did care, in which case someone should have noticed she wasn't using the government account -- for the entire four years before she left.

[philosslayer]

23. You think the POTUS communicates via email??

Really??

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

39. The guy constantly shown with his blackberry in the early half of his time in office?

You're right, he's obviously a texter, not an emailer.

[B2G]

43. Yes, he does

“The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency… and that's why my emails -- the BlackBerry that I carry around -- all those records are available and archived and I'm glad that Hillary has instructed that those emails that had to do with official business need to be disclosed.”

[leftofcool]

2. Oh no! You mean, Hillary didn't send super secret email to the President about Ben Gawzi?

[GuntherGebelWilliams]

3. Whoa! Anybody feel a little bump back there?

[DeSwiss]

9. Nice bus.

And those Fuckers have a wonderful vacation website too.

- Maybe that's a hint.....

[OnyxCollie]

4. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Autumn]

5. Interesting.

Very.

[Fearless]

6. Ask the NSA.

[candelista]

7. President Obama was her boss.

He had a right to have access to all her work products via the White House system, not just the ones she might choose to share with him from her private server. He had a right to know who she was communicating with and what she was communicating. Hillary denied him this right.

If one of my employees were conducting company business on his own private email account, I would wonder what he was trying to conceal from me.

[840high]

17. Yep

[DeSwiss]

8. Ouch!

- That's gonna leave a mark!

K&R

[Historic NY]

10. Damn she withheld the secret ...

recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

[madokie]

15. have you noticed

that even though there is no reason to suspect any wrong doing on anyones part the first thing the 'CONs ae talking needing these for investigations in the future and or lawsuits.
How stupid do they think we are not to see what the hell is going on. This concerted effort by the whole lot of the rightwing makes me think that maybe Hillary just might be the perfect person to elect come 2016. She has 'm running scared, i mean really fucking scared. I think part of it is they don't want a woman in the oval office like they didn't want a person of color, thats part of it but something else about Hillary has them scared shitless.

[TwilightGardener]

16. He let her take a huge number of staffers/loyalists into the State Dept, so much so

that the WH was afraid of a shadow political operation against him (see Chozick's NYT article). He basically let her do whatever she wanted as long as she wasn't undermining him. I doubt he saw emails--that's what his staff is for. That said, his staffers most certainly knew she and her staff had private email--they would have had to make their mail servers at the WH accommodate her private addresses, security-wise.

[MADem]

27. Why would anyone, at this stage of the game, trust ANYTHING coming out of Judy Miller's NYT?

The aspens are turning....!!!

I mean, please. They aren't reporters, they're stenographers.

[TwilightGardener]

28. I do take even the NYT with a grain of salt, but Amy Chozick has pretty good access

to Team Clinton, from what I've read.

[GusFring]

26. Why are people talking about their emails like they're the same as ours?

Pretty sure Obama has some kinda of top secret software. I doubt he's getting spam email. And I doubt they had the kind of relationship were they communicated by email. Biden sent 2 emails in like 6yrs. I just dont think many top secret talks were going on over email. If Hilary was emailing, it was probably to people who worked for her.

[TwilightGardener]

30. Obama and Hillary wouldn't email each other, but their staffs/advisors would.

Schedules, meetings, talking points, at the very least, I would think. But yeah, the White House IT guys would have had to understand and accommodate Hillary's email system--wonder if they ever brought it up to anyone? Someone had to give the OK to set it up that way. I wonder who paid for the server and the maintenance of it, if regular IT personnel were involved?

[DeSwiss]

34. Pretty sure, doubt, doubt, just don't think, probably.

- You can't argue with iron-clad logic like that.

[GusFring]

37. Ok, Obama is lying. Is that what u want? Again, so called democrats like u continue to bring down

POTUs and now Hilary. They have to deal w/ the lunatics on the right and then defend themselves to people who are suppose to be on their side. Its one thing to hold them accountable for policies, but this email crap is frivolous bs.

This email thing is nothing but a distraction. This wasnt a law, it was a rule and she's releasing emails. Would Obama claim to not know about emails if Hilary is going to release them? Its no secret they dont like each other, and this was a new rule that she just happened to be the first sos it was applied to. So it's not far fetched that the arranged meeting and phone conversations thru underlings. Not email.

[RiverNoord]

48. It's not about whether laws were broken.

It's about holding high office holders accountable for their actions, to the extent that we can (admittably, our capacity to do this has been declining severely for many years). If we don't apply the same standards to politicians that we generally support to those that we don't, we just sink deeper into a partisan abyss, where wrong is only done by those we don't support and any wrong that partisans on 'the other side' perceive, rightly or wrongly, is complete crap.

That's a formula for severe dysfunction, the death of republican democracy, and oligarchic rule screened from public view by continuous sham conflict between two more or less ficticious 'political parties.'

[candelista]

52. "Not a law, but a rule"? :)

It is a Federal Regulation. Federal Regulations are administrative laws, and include such things as regulations for protection of the environment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/using-private-email-hillary-clinton-thwarted-record-requests.html?_r=0

[DeSwiss]

67. Now that was sad.

Really, truly sad. Read what you wrote outloud. You'll be shocked.

We have given up in this country.

People like you who look the other way.

And then later complain about dishonest Republicans.

Democrats don't have to ''defend'' the TRUTH. It stands on it's own.

Frivolous, huh? One evening a night watchman saw some tape on a doorknob. I was a frivolous thing for someone to do, but he took it off. Next thing you know: WATERGATE and a Constitutional crisis.

- Oh, but nothing like that is going-on here. We can trust these ones. Because they're ours......


"The further a society drifts from Truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." ~George Orwell

[TwilightGardener]

31. BTW, the White House knew about the email situation in August--

because of the Benghazi committee request for emails from the State Dept. The NYT article by Schmidt said the WH decided to let Clinton aides handle the matter. So if he's just finding out this week, it's because his advisors never told him that there was an issue with State not being in possession of Clinton's cache of emails.

[Maedhros]

32. The White House Communications Director should have known.

Whether that knowledge made it to Obama is up for debate.

[Demeter]

33. After all, she was only the Secretary of State, dealing with unessentials

that couldn't possibly affect national security or foreign policy....


It must have been a very strained relationship.

[DeSwiss]

35. I know!

- She probably just emailed recipes and cat pics. Like Al-Queda's interested a new Hummus recipe!

[Demeter]

38. LOL!

Thanks, you made me laugh! So little does, these days.

[JonLP24]

36. If he did know about it, I don't expect him to say he knew about it

I don't know either way so that is how I take that. I haven't followed this e-mail server thing closely (seriously, the stuff that rates as potential scandal material pales in comparison to the shit that should be scandals.) but the only thing that interests is honesty regarding the aftermath or did they go to lengths to keep it a secret.

If she turned over all relevant emails and there are no incriminating e-mails being kept or deleted, I have no idea how one or the other but other than continuing the foreign policy set by predecessors what would there be? Probably some ideas & I should inform myself more but in what ways is the SoS required to communicate? I figure if its official business done by e-mail it has to be done or (I don't know the rule here) heavily implied it be done with the government e-mail but how likely would the "secrets" be sent through?

What about the cables?


US diplomats spied on UN leadership

• Diplomats ordered to gather intelligence on Ban Ki-moon
• Secret directives sent to more than 30 US embassies
• Call for DNA data, computer passwords and terrorist links

Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders" as well as intelligence on Ban's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.

Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un

The US seems to be far more interested in other countries' secrets so much they know it what ways they need to be careful, the private e-mail only interests in how they handle the aftermath. If what Clinton says is 100% true, that is a good sign but Obama either has no idea or knows so well that these troubling expansion of powers of executive agencies are only done to "keep us safe". How would he know? With no oversight and in control of what & how it is revealed, they can easily mislead on official reports.

[karynnj]

49. Timing is an issue too - She turned over NO emails until almost 2 years after she left office

and then only after several meetings with the SD negotiating this. All the while, the SD was responding to inquiries. Is it possible there were Clinton emails that should have been examined for those requests that the SD did not have a copy of?

Clinton supporters who dismiss this as standard procedure - ignore the words that could be used "cover up" -- particularly a self inflicted wound if there was nothing to cover up - as I believe.

[DeSwiss]

69. Define: ''all relevant emails''

- Therein lies the rub. And if relevant, are/were they secure being sent/received in this manner?


You'd think the NSA's want ''our information'' to be secure......

[JoePhilly]

50. I heard Obama did IT work in Benghazi!!!!

[Takashi Zara]

70. I hope Hillary has a ticket for that bus she was just thrown under

But on the other hand, I always have to wonder why a boss is aloof of what's going on in his/her demesne. I'm sure there are underlings specifically tasked with evaluating security protocol, but how do you not notice something like the address that emails are being sent from?! Unless he thinks those Nigerian banking princes really are fleeing from persecution with uncountable millions they want to share with you...