The Drip Drip Drip...

[MajGenl.Meade]

clintonemail.com

See... Clintone!

Clintones, meet the Clintones
They're the modern stonewall family

[Lord Jim]

I want to add that personally, due to the nomination of Donald Trump, I take absolutely no pleasure from these developments, and I certainly do NOT want to see her indicted. (Even though by the yardstick of what she did versus what others did who were indicted, I firmly believe it would be entirely justified and appropriate for her to be indicted.)

I don't want Hillary indicted and forced from the race, because the fact is that when it comes to foreign policy, national security and national defense, she is clearly the best the Democrats have to offer. Anyone who might replace her as the nominee would be far weaker (Biden, Kerry, Warren, etc.) in these critical areas than she is, in fact they'd probably even be weaker than the incumbent...

That's the very last thing this country needs, and for me it greatly outweighs in importance the reckless negligence she engaged in over this, and all the lies she's told about it.

[Econoline]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/05/25/state-department-report-on-email-vindicates-clinton-rather-than-nails-her/#16cc58c52c7d

State Department Report On Email Vindicates Clinton Rather Than Nails Her

[Lord Jim]

That's an interesting article Econo...

What makes it interesting, is that there doesn't appear to be one single quote from the report in it...(Unlike the two articles I posted which quote the report extensively)

Probably for the prudent and logical reason that if the author actually quoted the report, it would completely undermine and contradict his assertions and conclusions...

[Big RR]

The other thing I see is the "defense" that she was only doing what other secretaries of state and Powell did? So what? I'm not the only one is not a defense, as Nixon learned.

And I'm with Jim; I think defeat of Trump is paramount so I take no joy in this (although, unlike Jim, I do think there are other dems who would be a better president than Hillary). But politics is the art of the possible, and the possibility of a Trump presidency is too horrible to imagine.

[Jarlaxle]

That's an interesting article Econo...

What makes it interesting, is that there doesn't appear to be one single quote from the report in it...(Unlike the two articles I posted which quote the report extensively)

Probably for the prudent and logical reason that if the author actually quoted the report, it would completely undermine and contradict his assertions and conclusions...

You mean Ozzie wrote it?

[wesw]

Hillary is corrupt. she is a liar, and possibly a traitor.

if she is indicted before jan 20, Obama will give her a blanket pardon, perhaps if she is not indicted he will pre emptively pardon her anyway.....

if she is not pardoned she will serve time for multiple felonies, unless she wins the election, which she won t.

she will not be alone in jail. the Clinton foundation is a conduit for corruption.

everyone knows the truth.

there will be systemic change or there will be Revolution.

and that is the way it is.

I hope for political revolution with all my heart.

the alternative is civil war. god help us all....

trump is the only hope for our union.

vote trump.

wesw

[Big RR]

trump is the only hope for our union.

No union I want to be part of.

[RayThom]

Oh, no! This is going to cause Hillary much embarrassment after she's sworn in as president on January 20th.

She'll need to resign from office immediately... or not.

Meanwhile... I'm still feelin' the Bern.

[rubato]

The NYT article actually said she was 'sharply criticised' which sounds like a very low-level and technical error. More of the nothing new the sun shines upon each day.



yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

That's an interesting article Econo...

What makes it interesting, is that there doesn't appear to be one single quote from the report in it...(Unlike the two articles I posted which quote the report extensively)

Probably for the prudent and logical reason that if the author actually quoted the report, it would completely undermine and contradict his assertions and conclusions...

You DO understand the difference between violating the law and violating "departmental policy" don't you? The author of the Forbes article I linked to obviously does, which is why he came to the conclusions he did, and why Forbes used the headline they did.

[Sue U]

OK, so Hillary violated departmental rules about how she sent and where she kept her emails. This appears to be a procedural rather than a substantive issue. Honestly, I'm having a really hard time finding the "scandal" here. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before talking douchenozzle Trey Gowdy finds the email where she confesses to murdering that Ben Ghazi feller.

[Lord Jim]

You DO understand the difference between violating the law and violating "departmental policy" don't you?

Oh yes, indeed I do...

Do you understand the difference between an investigation designed to determine whether or not departmental policy was violated, and an investigation whose brief is to determine violations of law?

For over a year, Hillary Clinton has steadfastly asserted repeatedly two things regarding her email set-up:

1. She violated no State Department rules.

2.She violated no laws.

Her claim regarding Number #1 has now been definitively proven to be absolutely false.

Of course this repeated claim has been known to be absolutely false for a long time to those (like your humble correspondent) who have actually read the relevant guidelines established in 2009 shortly after she became SOS, but now this fact has been definitively, authoritatively, and indisputably established by the State Department itself...

To argue that "this report report doesn't provide evidence for criminal conduct, so therefore she didn't commit any crime" is just plain silly...

That's not what this investigation was about...

It would be like arguing in the case of a private corporation, that while their internal investigation found violations of company policy, they found no proof of criminality...

And therefore, there was no criminality....

Even though finding evidence of criminality is not something they were ever charged with doing...

1. She violated no State Department rules.

2.She violated no laws.

The State Department IG has now definitively established the first claim as false ...

The second claim is now in the hands of the FBI...

[Jarlaxle]

~

[Lord Jim]

And another thing this report makes abundantly, and in detail , very clear is the falsity of making comparisons with her actions and that of her predecessors...

To draw an analogy, it would be like arguing that because previous drivers made a rolling stop at an intersection where there was a "Yield" sign, she was doing nothing differently after a STOP sign had been erected at the intersection...

[Lord Jim]

But as low an opinion as I have of Hillary Clinton, she has one thing going for her...

She is not Donald Trump...

When presented with a choice between the detestable and the unthinkable, I will choose the detestable every time...

[Econoline]

OOOHH...look where the drip is dripping now:

Donald Trump has his own email problem. Court records reveal that Trump has a history of destroying email evidence in cases where he is being sued.

USA Today reported:

• In 2006, when a judge ordered Donald Trump’s casino operation to hand over several years’ worth of emails, the answer surprised him: The Trump Organization routinely erased emails and had no records from 1996 to 2001. The defendants in a case that Trump brought said this amounted to destruction of evidence, a charge never resolved.
  
  At that time, a Trump IT director testified that until 2001, executives in Trump Tower relied on personal email accounts using dial-up Internet services, despite the fact that Trump had launched a high-speed Internet provider in 1998 and announced he would wire his whole building with it. Another said Trump had no routine process for preserving emails before 2005.
  
  Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld was stunned. “He has a house up in Palm Beach County listed for $125 million, but he doesn’t keep emails. That’s a tough one,” he said, according to transcripts obtained by USA TODAY. “If somebody starts to put forth as a fact something that doesn’t make any sense to me and causes me to have a concern about their credibility in the discovery process, that’s not a good direction to go, and I am really having a hard time with this.”

Trump brings up Clinton’s emails during every speech. The Republican nominee is fond of saying that Clinton should go to prison for her use of private email, but it turns out that Donald Trump has been destroying emails that were related to court cases that he was involved in, a.k.a. evidence, for years.

Donald Trump willfully and knowingly destroys evidence in legal matters, but Republicans want voters to believe that Hillary Clinton is the criminal. Congressional Republicans have spent years trying to dig up something on Clinton’s emails only to have their party nominate the one person who has no credibility when it comes to emails.

Trump destroyed the only argument that Republicans might have had against Hillary Clinton as life with Donald Trump continues only to get worse for the GOP.

[Long Run]

Two problems with this argument. 1) Clinton is being compared with Trump who everyone knows has no ethics, so if you want to argue that she is fine because she is just as (dis)honest as Trump, go ahead; and 2) once again, the comparison is to email practices from a whole different era -- they were still using dial up! Now the law is much more clear regarding preservation of emails, and in Clinton's case, the policy and law were absolutely clear and were designed to protect national security. This mess is just one of many examples of why so many people do not trust Clinton, almost as many as don't trust Trump.

[Burning Petard]

"the policy and law were absolutely clear and were designed to protect national security".

Yep, I can agree completely. On the other hand, all the extensive searches and investigations into Clinton private server have found no instance of data of national security import going to where the intent is damage to national security. There was no outside hacking.

Lots of official servers cannot say that.

(((((((((snailgate)))))))))

[Guinevere]

Two problems with this argument. 1) Clinton is being compared with Trump who everyone knows has no ethics, so if you want to argue that she is fine because she is just as (dis)honest as Trump, go ahead; and 2) once again, the comparison is to email practices from a whole different era -- they were still using dial up! Now the law is much more clear regarding preservation of emails, and in Clinton's case, the policy and law were absolutely clear and were designed to protect national security. This mess is just one of many examples of why so many people do not trust Clinton, almost as many as don't trust Trump.

I agree that on its face the comparison is difficult to make. However, I find it difficult to believe that there was wholesale document (hardcopy and electronic) destruction going on, even back then. Most companies had backups and other preservation methods in effect, especially as we approached Y2K. Plus, one specific difference is that Trump/the Trump entities were ordered to turn over documents and thus could have been guilty of spoliation of the evidence, and civil and/or criminal contempt, assuming those documents were destroyed after a preservation letter was sent (which is standard practice is big stakes litigation and the term "document" would have been broadly construed), and/or the court order was issued.