Hillary Clinton’s Email Hairball Summarized in 11 Points (a Test of Presidential Character)

[Karmadillo]

This was posted by Lambert over at Naked Capitalism. It's a nice summary of the fire burning away at the foundations of the Clinton campaign. It's hard not to imagine the Republican candidate, whomever he/she might be, having a great time with this sort of material. It's even harder not to imagine something devastating coming out of the FBI either by way of recommending an indictment or leaking the refusal of Justice to follow up on a recommendation for an indictment.

One can only wonder what HIllary was thinking as she did all of this, most likely pretty certain she was going to be running for the presidency. She trumpets her experience, but whether it's her disastrous decisions regarding Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Honduras or her terrible embrace of trade deals that have grievously harmed the workers of the USA or her inexplicable behavior regarding her private server and classified material, the closer one looks at her experience, the more one fervently hopes Bernie is able to pull a rabbit out of his hat these next couple of months and take the lead in pledged delegates before the convention.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/hillary-clintons-email-hairball-summarized-11-points-a-test-of-presidential-character.html

Hillary Clinton’s Email Hairball Summarized in 11 Points (a Test of Presidential Character)
Posted on March 29, 2016 by Lambert Strether

Reader ScottW summarized this very thorough explainer from the Washington Post of March 27: “How Clinton’s email scandal took root”. Hoisted from comments and very lightly edited:

<edit>

5. Clinton was told early on she should not (nor should any government employee) use her private Blackberry for State business. She was warned it could be hacked into and used as a listening device. She said she understood. She nevertheless continued using it throughout her tenure at home and abroad.

6. When the first FOIA for her email messages was initially submitted she responded there were none.

7. Only after the Benghazi controversy heated up, did she admit there were over 30,000 email messages concerning State Department Business. She unilaterally claimed another 30,000 plus emails were private. Side note: Public officials normally don’t have the luxury of deciding which email messages are public business, as opposed to private matters.

8. She stated there were no classified documents on the private email survivor.

9. Over 2,000 classified email chains were found on the server. Clinton claimed they were all classified after the fact. This is not true. A unspecified number were in fact classified (or of higher classification) at the time they landed on her server. Clinton herself authored emails that contained classified material.

<edit>

<from Lambert's comments> Clinton’s email hairball foreshadows her character as President. As ScottW comments: “Clinton did what Clinton wanted to do.” And that’s regardless of what she said, and despite advice given to her in good faith. So if Clinton wants TPP, a Grand Bargain, or war in [insert country here], that’s what she’ll go for, regardless of what she says on the trail, or the counsel of the wise.

more...

[scscholar]

1. How could they have not been classified after the fact...

if they weren't classified when they were received? Republicans are illogical.

[thereismore]

2. Don't play dumb. Some information is born classified and she should have known better. nt

[scscholar]

4. When you use terms like "born classified..."

no one takes you seriously. The general public doesn't like things like that, and the party is turning them off by using terms like that. It sounds nutty to describe an email message being a living thing that is given birth to. Given birth to.

[noiretextatique]

6. Simple...they were already classified

They weren't claasified after-the-fact. That statement is clear as a bell...there is no confusion.

[scscholar]

8. Thank you for giving birth to a reply

[thereismore]

7. Don't argue semantics. You need to change your tone to be taken seriously. Bye now. nt

[VulgarPoet]

11. Please. They support arguably the masters of semantic spin-- you can't expect them to not

be the most irritating pedants to read on the web since posters on /pol/.

[Scuba]

3. Pales in comparison to her many other problems.

[MisterP]

5. it's another "would the candidate make it through a tour of Wonka's factory?"

and of course there's the contents--coups toppled because someone close to her got bought out by some far-right camarilla or has investments there, toppling Qaddafi and Assad to let Riyadh and Jerusalem wage their long-demanded war against Iran, constant corrupt pay-to-play

[SheilaT]

9. She made the basic mistake an awful lot of people do,

which is to use their work email as their only email. Most people don't have to worry about classified information, but a lot of companies don't look very kindly on personal messages of any kind being sent from the work email. And people have been fired for doing just that.

[nichomachus]

10. That's not correct

When you're repeatedly told not to do something and you do it anyway, that's not a mistake. That's arrogance.

[VulgarPoet]

12. +1.

[SheilaT]

13. Hmm. Then I will rethink my opinion

of ordinary folks who do exactly that, use the company email for personal email, even though they're explicitly told not to.

And I agree with your assessment.

[antigop]

14. "No State Department head...ever exclusively used a private email server

for both private and public email messages."

It's not just the emails themselves...it's the SERVER that was placed outside the purview of the State Department.

[SheilaT]

15. I get that.

And having her own private server was beyond stupid.