The Hillary Haters

[Lord Jim]

Here's what should be apparent to anyone who isn't willfully ignorant:

Fact Checker

Clinton’s claim that the FBI director said her email answers were ‘truthful’

“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
—Hillary Clinton, interview on “Fox News Sunday,” July 31, 2016

Clinton made these remarks after “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace played a video of her saying: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials. I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.”

As Wallace put it, “After a long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true.”

After Clinton denied that, Wallace played another video of an exchange between Comey and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi:

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true?
COMEY: That’s not true.
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” Was that true?
COMEY: There was classified material emailed.

So what’s going on here?

The Facts

Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server. This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation

For instance, when Clinton asserts “my answers were truthful,” a campaign aide said she is referring to this statement by Comey to Congress: “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”

But that’s not the whole story. When House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked whether Clinton had lied to the American public, Comey dodged: “That’s a question I’m not qualified to answer. I can speak about what she said to the FBI.”

At another point, Comey told Congress: “I really don’t want to get in the business of trying to parse and judge her public statements. And so I think I’ve tried to avoid doing that sitting here. … What matters to me is what did she say to the FBI. That’s obviously first and foremost for us.”

Comey was also asked whether Clinton broke the law: “In connection with her use of the email server? My judgment is that she did not,” Comey said.

As for retroactive classification of emails, Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified. But he also said that some emails were classified at the time — and Clinton and her aides should have been aware of that.

Here’s how Comey put it in his lengthy statement when he announced the completion of the investigation:

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Comey said “seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters.”

He added: “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.” He noted that “even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”

In her response to Wallace, Clinton at one point appeared to deflect responsibility to her aides: “I relied on and had every reason to rely on the judgments of the professionals with whom I worked. And so, in retrospect, maybe some people are saying, well, among those 300 people, they made the wrong call.”

Testifying before Congress, Comey said it was possible Clinton was not “technically sophisticated” enough to understand what the classified markings meant. But he said a government official should be attentive to such a marking.

The Pinocchio Test

As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.

And although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fac ... -truthful/

[Guinevere]

Yes, I read that piece on Monday (or whenever it came out). I agree, there is a difference between saying "there is no evidence I lied to the FBI" and "I told the truth."

I also agree she needs to run the hell away from this entire discussion, and just let it die. I'd prefer to as well.

[Burning Petard]

This afternoon on MSNBC I saw a clip with the Donald speaking to this latest 'lie' from The Donald's Devil. He was proudly announcing the Washington Post gave it 4 Pinnochios. (Its fact checker column most extreme untruth rating). I don't have enuff fingers and toes to count up all the 4 Pinnochios they have given the Donald. I think even they gave up trying to track all of them.

snailgate

[Sue U]

I don't have enuff fingers and toes to count up all the 4 Pinnochios they have given the Donald. I think even they gave up trying to track all of them.

snailgate

According to right-wing apologist Jennifer Rubin, as of yesterday Trump had earned 33 WaPo 4-Pinnocchio ratings. I'm frankly surprised it's so low, but then again they don't actually check all the ridiculous claims he makes -- ain't nobody got time for that.

[Gob]

Can Hillary tell the truth?

[Lord Jim]

So now her latest round of lying about the emails and the FBI conclusions earlier is one of the lead stories on State Of Nation on CNN...(and I'm sure it will probably be featured on all the other Sunday morning political talk shows as well...)

If she doesn't finally, at long last, start doing something like what I suggested earlier:

Stop lying, and stop sending your campaign manager, and your campaign press secretary, and other surrogates out to lie about this too...

Just STFU about this, and tell everyone connected to your campaign to STFU about it as well....

If you don't, as that article points out, you could wind up electing Donald Trump...( if you don't, you'll wind up with just the votes of hardcore partisans and people as brain dead as rubato, and that wont be a majority)

Repeat after me:

"I made a mistake. I've apologized. I certainly wouldn't do it again. Mr. Comey concluded what he concluded, and I'm not going to get into an argument about it, I've said everything I have to say about it, I have nothing further to say.

Now lets talk about Donald Trump..."

People are going to start questioning her mental stability, because of her seeming inability to resist the compulsion to blatantly lie about this, over and over, no matter how much damage it does to her candidacy...

It seems to me that she could use an "intervention" on this....

Donna Brazile, James Carville and a few other longtime pros that she trusts and has confidence in need to get her in a room and explain the facts of life to her about this, because for whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to be sinking in...

They need to tell her in no uncertain terms that if she doesn't cut this shit out, she's going to run the very real risk of losing the Presidency to the worst and least qualified major party nominee in the history.

I really don't get this. This a very bright and politically astute person. In just about every other respect, she's running a nearly flawless campaign, deftly exploiting all the great openings that Drumpf so obligingly provides her. Her campaign is doing a brilliant job of using Trump against Trump and defining him as an unacceptable and unfit candidate. She's pulling off a larger and larger portion of Republicans and Republican leaning independents, and her poll numbers reflect this.

But she has some kind of inexplicable blind spot and political tin ear about these damn emails. She can't open her mouth and talk about this thing at all without kicking her own ass, and reminding people all over again why they don't consider her honest and trustworthy.

She needs to find some way to contain herself about this. There are 90 plus days to go before the election, and anytime she takes questions from the press, you can betcher boots this going too be one of the top topics, particularly so long as she continues to lie about it. And it is certain to come up in any debate. (Maybe her cunning plan is that if she just lies about this enough, it will somehow cease to be news, and people will stop asking about it and reporting on it. )

She needs to stop listening to the know-nothings and shills who are saying this is "a big nothing", realize that it is serious as a political heart attack, and that it is critical to her candidacy that she finally get this right.

She is never going to be able to consolidate the vote of people who have serious doubts abut Trump but aren't completely comfortable with her until she does, and without that vote she cannot be guaranteed of winning. Period.

As someone who actually wants Clinton to win, this is really quite exasperating...

[RayThom]

Hillary indicates this whole, silly, blown-out-of-proportion, email kerfuffle has never been a question of lying, but merely a "short circuit" in a precise understanding of the matter. Thank God she has finally -- once and for all -- clarified this whole debacle.

A ‘Short-Circuit’ on F.B.I. Inquiry? Hillary Clinton Seeks to (Re)Explain:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/us/po ... .html?_r=0

That's her story and she's sticking to it... for now.
"I did not have illegal relations with that server."

[Lord Jim]

That's a really badly written article given the fact that it included this that she said at the Journalists convention:

“I was pointing out in both of those instances that Director Comey had said that my answers in my F.B.I. interview were truthful,” she said.

“That’s really the bottom line here.”

But leaves out this:

CLINTON: “I have said during the interview and in many other occasions over the past months that what I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/ap- ... all-short/

If she had only said what was quoted in the NYT article, that would have been an improvement, but the whole quote of what she says shows her lying again...

That's uh, kind of an important bit of information to include in a news story about this...

Another thing that's going to happen in the not too distant future if she keeps this up, is that it's going to occur to some reporter to ask this question:

"Secretary Clinton, since you are certain that what you said to the FBI is the same as what you said publicly, would you now call on Director Comey to publicly release the transcript of your FBI interview in order to confirm this?"

I'm reasonably certain that is just about the very last thing Hillary would like to find herself under pressure to do...Provide a 3 and a half hour FBI interview to the press to dissect...

This is an example of the kind of negative domino effect of additional problems she is going to create for herself if she doesn't quit lying about this...

[Bicycle Bill]

Why are people like Trump so fixated on Hillary?  Here's why.



-"BB"-

[Econoline]