BREAKING: Hillary Clinton Put Spies’ Lives at Risk

[ejbr]

It's not the 'nothing-burger' Clinton allies have tried to portray -- lives are literally at stake
By John R. Schindler • 02/01/16 1:00pm

http://observer.com/2016/02/breaking-hillary-clinton-put-spies-lives-at-risk/


For months you’ve read about EmailGate in this column. I’ve elaborated how Hillary Clinton, the apparent Democratic frontrunner for President this year, put large amounts of classified information at grave risk through slipshod security practices by herself and her staff. Now that scandal has taken a significant turn for the more ominous.

Last Friday afternoon the State Department’s latest court-mandated release of Hillary Clinton’s emails from when she was Secretary of State caused a new political firestorm. While many more emails were released by Foggy Bottom, some with redactions due to classified materials they contained, twenty-two emails totaling thirty-seven pages of text were withheld entirely at the request of the Intelligence Community. Those twenty-two emails, deemed “unclassified” by Ms. Clinton and her staff, were judged to be Top Secret in reality.

Since Top Secret is the U.S. Government’s highest official classification level, this revelation exploded months of denials from the Clinton presidential campaign that Hillary had done no wrong. The Federal government defines Top Secret materials as “information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” The disclosure of Top Secret information is a serious criminal matter that normal Americans face prosecution and substantial jail time for perpetrating.



---snip---




And what about those 30,000 emails that Ms. Clinton had deleted? “I’ll spend the rest of my career trying to figure out what classified information was in those,” stated an exasperated Pentagon counterintelligence official, “everybody is mad as hell right now.” “The worst part,” the counterspy added,” is that Moscow and Beijing have that information but the Intelligence Community maybe never will.”



(John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he's also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. )

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[Agschmid]

1. What do you know about your source?

[bigwillq]

2. 22,222 posts

That's cool.

[ejbr]

3. Good question.

I just put the brief bio available on the site above or:



John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he's also been a Navy officer and a War College professor.

[randys1]

4. Remember John Schindler, the conservative talking head,

http://blackbag.gawker.com/the-crazy-emails-that-took-down-nsa-spook-john-schindle-1610203101

[riversedge]

23. uga. THAT john schindle. I did not did the link. Thanks.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. That the source has written several columns making judgments on the illegality of HRC's actions ...

despite those judgments conflicting with National Security experts judgment on the topic; but, that is enough to post to DU, and get plenty of recs.

[GusBob]

9. But....ITS BREAKING! Omg!!

[VMA131Marine]

5. Really! You post a link to an article from the New York Observer

a paper owned and published by the son-in-law of Donald Trump. Really!

This isn't a story either. It's an opinion piece without a single named attribution other than to a Fox News Story. It's a load of bollocks!

[ejbr]

11. Then have this OP hidden

It was linked to Yahoo, and his credentials seem to be adequate

[VMA131Marine]

15. I'd rather it stay up so you remain associated with posting this crap!

[ejbr]

22. Why, thank you!

[emulatorloo]

31. Yes, he's highly credentialed as a right-wing hack.

Bernie doesn't need right wing hacks to win.

[ejbr]

39. Fair enough

but the story is out there. The only push back other than the source is that she is not in legal jeopardy, no comments on her continuous poor judgment.

[NCTraveler]

6. DU has gone full Beghazi.

Clinton is putting American lives at risk. What shady shit and something the right throws at democrats every single election season.

[NurseJackie]

10. I smell desperation.

[NCTraveler]

17. Big time.

The really messed up part is that this directly echoes right wing smears on the Clintons for decades. There is simply nothing there with the emails so they have to spin it. The rights favorite way to do so is to point at deems and say they are weak or are putting American lives at risk.

[NurseJackie]

8. Oh brother ...

[Autumn]

21. The Koch Industries fund the Tax Foundation being used to trash Bernie and

that seems to be fine and worthy of a rec and no complaint.

[salib]

12. Even Fox News knows this story is disingenuous

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-greta-van-susteren-sees-no-legal-liability-in-hillary-emails/

The e-mails' content WAS NOT CONSIDERED CLASSIFIED at the time they were sent.

Classification changes. That does not make those who touched it before guilty of anything.

[ejbr]

27. She may have no legal jeopardy,

but her unauthorized set-up could do damage whether she was ignorant of the importance of the emails or not. Poor judgment, like Iraq

[salib]

30. Still disingenuous.

So, if someone designates information that you passed along as not classified. Was it poor judgement on your part to pass it along?

Then, someone in Gov't decides that it is actually top secret. Are you saying that you had bad judgement retroactively?

We are better than this.

[msongs]

33. ya can't tell the sanders supporters from the right wingers anymore lol nt

[salib]

35. I am a Sanders supporter

And am not a right winger.

Rather insulting generalization.

So, we have disingenuous rumor mongering vs. disingenuous generalizations.

Many might call both slander.

[ejbr]

38. Given your support of a Corporatist war hawk,

one could say the same of Clinton supporters...just sayin'

[ejbr]

36. The judgement I am referring to

is not the passing of the information, but of the private email use for state department business. We would not be discussing this if her innocently sending and receiving information was a problem.

[Maedhros]

40. This point is valid:

Most controversially, Hillary and her mouthpieces have kept pushing the line that none of this information was “marked” classified when it appeared in her personal emails, despite the fact that this claim, even if true, does not mitigate any disclosure of classified information. Her defense seems to be that neither she nor anybody on her staff were able to recognize that Top Secret information was actually Top Secret, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of Hillary’s qualifications to be our next commander-in-chief.

[wyldwolf]

13. OP = rookie mistake

[Mike Nelson]

14. This story should be shared...

...with FOX "News"!

[riversedge]

19. The Observer has a RW hit piece on Hillary almost every day that is posted here on DU. It is

shameful that Sanders supporters and the vile RW share the same mentality.

[Autumn]

24. The Koch Industries fund the Tax Foundation.

Using that source seems to be fine.

[zappaman]

16. ok. n/t

[KingFlorez]

18. LOL

So informative. I'm just totally glad you posted this, really I am....

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. Pitiful. How desperate are you?

[NurseJackie]

26. Very? Extremely? Exceedingly? Bunches?

[ejbr]

28. Awwww....

you hurt my fee fees...

[DanTex]

25. LOL. Right-winger John Schindler.

[emulatorloo]

29. Wonkette: Hillary Clinton Definitely Going To Email Jail This Time For Sure

Hillary Clinton Definitely Going To Email Jail This Time For Sure
By Doktor Zoom - January 30, 2016 - 12:13pm

http://wonkette.com/598345/hillary-clinton-definitely-going-to-email-jail-this-time-for-sure#kkEfU4SQHKhtkjM7.99

Better call the House Select Committee on Benghazi back into session, because with just days to go before the Iowa caucuses, there’s finally some huge shocking news about Hillary Clinton and all the Top Secret emails on her private server, which as everyone knows is the one issue that Americans simply can’t seem to stop talking about, at least after they’ve exhausted talking about the weather, sportsball, television, movies, their children, cat videos they saw on YouTube, and whether this milk is giving their coffee that funny taste. The carton says it’s not expired yet, but it might be a little off. Here, smell it, what do you think? And then right after that, Hillary’s emails.

What happened was that before releasing January’s monthly stash of emails Friday, the State Department announced that it was withholding 22 of the emails because they contained information that has been reclassified as “Top Secret,” although State Department spokesman John Kirby pointed out that “these documents were not marked classified at the time they were sent.” It’s also not clear whether the newly reclassified emails were sent by Clinton, or had been sent to her by other State Department staff; the New York Times notes that the bulk of emails released from Clinton’s server so far “were messages written by other State Department officials and forwarded by her closest aides.”

Still, they were on her private server, and they’re now marked classified, so the only logical conclusion is that Hillary Clinton is a spy. Be careful, her bowtie is really a camera.

<snip>

So anyway, Hillz, it was nice knowing you, bummer about how this HUGE SCANDAL will finally murder your campaign just like you personally strangled Vince Foster while not declaring your tax losses on Whitewater and planning the attack on Benghazi. Maybe if you’re lucky, you really will get another 11 hours of grilling from House Republicans, seeing as how that made you look great last time.


<Much more at link>

[blm]

32. RW propagandist also claimed Valerie Plame outing was a 'contrived scandal'. The guy's psychotic.

.

[senz]

34. We'll see if the story comes out on other media.

If it's true, it doesn't look good for Clinton.

Discussions with Intelligence Community officials have revealed that Ms. Clinton’s “unclassified” emails included Holy Grail items of American espionage such as the true names of Central Intelligence Agency intelligence officers serving overseas under cover. Worse, some of those exposed are serving under non-official cover. NOCs (see this for an explanation of their important role in espionage) are the pointy end of the CIA spear and they are always at risk of exposure – which is what Ms. Clinton’s emails have done.

[mcar]

37. ..

[geek tragedy]

41. The wages of derp are derp.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511110050

[Autumn]

42. Recomended

Not all "RW sources" are equal

[840high]

43. K/R

[Festivito]

44. Ahhh, the half-truth brigade. Shhhh! Don't tell that those emails were not secret when she got them!

Nor were they classified when she may have sent them.

Carefully word everything to make it sound bad bad bad. (Even though you know it was not bad at all!)

Remind that it is a criminal matter.... even though that would not apply to someone who only handled it before it was classified.

Remind that people's lives could be at risk ... even though the chances of that are nil and even if it was it was SOMEONE ELSE'S MISTAKE.

Then wait and re-post it as though no one ever said a thing about it.

[ejbr]

45. My bad

We should give her the benefit of the doubt about the 30,000 deleted emails because... Hillary or something. Got it.