State Department: Sailor Who Mishandled Classified Information Would Be ‘Held to Account’, Washington Free Beacon via YouTube, October 18, 2016
Archive for the ‘Clinton e-mails’ category
State Department: Sailor Who Mishandled Classified Information Would Be ‘Held to Account’
October 18, 2016State Dept claims “no discussion” of quid pro quo regarding Clinton email, calls charge ‘insulting’
October 17, 2016Lawyers Reviewed Classified Clinton Communications Without Clearance
October 17, 2016Lawyers Reviewed Classified Clinton Communications Without Clearance, Washington Free Beacon,
Hillary Clinton / AP
Lawyers without security clearances viewed emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server that included classified communications, according to files released by the FBI.
The revelation comes in a batch of interview summaries released by the bureau on Monday in connection with its investigation into Clinton’s use of personal email to conduct government business during her time as secretary of state.
Attorneys representing Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at the State Department, admitted to investigators during a meeting on August 17, 2015 that emails from Clinton’s private server “had been viewed by attorneys who did not have a security clearance at the time they reviewed the material.”
The meeting involved Katherine Turner, a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, as well as another attorney from the firm and legal counsel for Mills from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, whose names have been redacted. They met with FBI officials to discuss handing over six laptops used to review Clinton’s communications, which were “known to contain Top Secret classified information.”
During the August 17 meeting, Turner “acknowledged that these laptops contain Top Secret email communications” but said that attorneys who viewed them “were not aware that they were classified at the time” because the messages did not contain classification markings.
“Both [Mills’ counsel] and TURNER admitted that the emails contained on these laptops had been viewed by attorneys who did not have a security clearance at the time they reviewed the material,” the FBI documents state. “TURNER said the emails did not contain classification markers and thus they were not aware that they were classified at the time.”
FBI Director James Comey told a House panel in July that Clinton granted individuals without security clearances access to classified information, though he could not confirm that those individuals, particularly her lawyers, had read the classified material.
At the time, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign insisted that “the lawyers who sorted through Clinton’s emails had Top Secret-level clearance.”
Both David Kendall, Clinton’s personal attorney at Williams & Connolly, and Turner, his partner, had previously received top secret security clearances from the U.S. government. The files released Monday indicate that other lawyers without proper clearances also viewed Clinton’s emails.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Of the six laptops, one was in possession of Mills’ lawyer, whose name was redacted and who “admitted that the computer in his possession has been connected to the Internet on numerous occasions subsequent to being loaded with the classified email communications,” the FBI documents state.
This particular laptop was used by Heather Samuelson, a lawyer and 2008 Clinton campaign staffer, who worked under Mills to review Clinton’s 60,000 emails and delete half of them deemed personal.
The remaining work-related communications were eventually turned over to the FBI.
The FBI announced in July that it would not recommend charges in the case, though Comey faulted Clinton and her aides for being “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.
Clinton has repeatedly stated that she never sent or received classified information on her personal system. However, the FBI found 113 emails on Clinton’s server that contained classified material at the time they were sent or received, including some communications that were top secret.
The bureau on Monday released nearly three dozen summaries of interviews in connection with its investigation into Clinton’s use of private email at the State Department. The FBI, which has previously published declassified documents related to the investigation, released the summaries under pressure from congressional lawmakers.
Clinton’s personal email use was first revealed by the New York Times in March 2015 and quickly became a flashpoint of the 2016 presidential election.
What Should Americans Be Talking About?
October 17, 2016What Should Americans Be Talking About? Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, October 17, 2016
Should Americans uphold the Judeo-Christian values, which have governed Western civilization until now? Or should they quietly allow the defeat of those values by a false liberalism — false, because it is anything but liberal — which will allow values, such as that of Islamic sharia religious law to settle over the United States? Will people willingly surrender their own culture in order to avoid becoming victims of intimidation?
Worse, these policies often come in the seemingly benign-sounding terms of “diversity”, “multiculturalism”, “peace”, “anti-racism”, and “human rights”; but are often used in an Orwellian way to mean their own opposites. “Diversity” means, “It is great to look different so long as you think the same way I do” and is also an acceptance of Islamic values. “Anti-racism” often means, in a racist way, anti-white or anti-Jew. “Human rights” now means a political agenda. “Peace” is used to mean the destruction of Israel. “Multiculturalism” means any culture except the Judeo-Christian one — regardless of whether that culture supports denigrating women, slavery, flogging, amputating limbs, murdering gays and the intolerance of all other religions and cultures. These inversions of language are having devastating consequences not only on university campuses, but also throughout the U.S. and abroad.
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all [that] the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…” — Muslim Brotherhood, 1991.
The question of whether to submit to these policies, as Europe is doing, or to uphold freedom, as Israel is doing, has arrived in the United States. The choice Americans make will immeasurably affect not just the US, but, despite sounding melodramatic, the future of Western civilization.
For the American voter, issues of immense urgency to the survival of the free world — such as individual freedom, dispassionate enquiry and freedom of speech and thought, which we dangerously have come to take for granted — are being derailed by crude language and behavior, when Americans need to be paying attention to serious threats to the United States, its allies and to the values of the West.
Internationally, these threats come from Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and countless terrorist groups.
Domestically, they appear in the form of massive corruption — financial and otherwise — that is visibly hollowing out American institutions, such as the FBI (the failure to follow investigative procedure, followed by calls for FBI Director James Comey’s resignation); the Department of Justice (the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, and the Attorney General meeting with a former president whose wife is under investigation); the State Department (email leaks are still yielding up evidence of collusion between the Clinton Global Initiative and the State Department under Hillary Clinton); the IRS (targeting conservative non-profits, and raiding the businesses of private citizens, who disagree with policy); the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to acquire power over every puddle in America) and the Executive branch in the “I have a pen and I have a phone” president’s dealings with Iran.
There have also been attempts by outsiders to incite racial and religious anarchy. The entrepreneur George Soros, for example, donated $33 million to turn events in Ferguson, Missouri from a local protest into chaos.
There have been attempts by outsiders to incite racial and religious anarchy. The entrepreneur George Soros, for example, donated $33 million to turn events in Ferguson, Missouri from a local protest into chaos. (Image source: World Economic Forum)
Instead of helping Americans to create a safer, more prosperous way of life, the Ferguson events destroyed a community, devastated small business owners, and eroded security, the rule of law, and any hope for a better future. Who benefits? Creating chaos embeds a political dependency: rather than helping people to climb out of poverty, it keeps them voting for politicians to “rescue” them.
Jews and Israel are also targeted — often, regrettably, by other Jews, who appear naïvely to hope that they will thereby “immunize” themselves from attacks on Jews. Recently, for example, an article accused the U.S. Republican presidential election campaign of “significantly enhancing the presence of antisemitism in the public arena.”
Seriously?
While “conservative” radicals, such as white supremacists do exist, they are not even close to overtaking the mainstream discourse. That space, rather, seems to have been filled in the last decades by self-described “liberals” who now seem to dominate it to such a degree that the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago, John Ellison, felt obliged to write a letter warning prospective applicants not to expect a “safe space.” “Conservative” radicals are not the ones hunting down Jews — “liberals” and Islamists are victimizing and shutting them out.
Ironically of course, the liberals have not yet figured out that the agendas of these two groups are incompatible (as in gender equality); perhaps they are trying to “immunize” themselves, too.
Public debate in the US, particularly in the next few weeks, really needs to be about choosing what policies would actually improve the lives of Americans. Should they uphold the Judeo-Christian values, which have governed Western civilization until now? Or should they quietly allow the defeat of those values by a false liberalism — false, because it is anything but liberal — which will allow values, such as that of Islamic sharia religious law to settle over the United States? Will people willingly surrender their own culture in order to avoid becoming victims of intimidation?
American university campuses, which should proudly be championing debate of all ideas, have instead been rife with antisemitism for years, mostly because a “thought police” obsessed with identity politics — another way of saying my race, religion, skin color or sexual proclivity is good, yours is not — has overtaken campuses and turned them into embittered war-zones. It is postmodern Stalinism.
Worse, these policies often come in the seemingly benign-sounding terms of “diversity”, “multiculturalism”, “peace”, “anti-racism”, and “human rights”; but are often used in an Orwellian way to mean their own opposites. “Diversity” means, “it is great to look different so long as you think the same way I do” and is also and acceptance of Islamic values. “Anti-racism” often means, in a racist way, anti-white or anti-Jew. “Human rights” now means a political agenda. “Peace” is used to mean the destruction of Israel. “Multiculturalism” means any culture except the Judeo-Christian one — regardless of whether that culture supports denigrating women, slavery, flogging, amputating limbs, murdering gays and the intolerance of all other religions and cultures. These inversions of language are having devastating consequences not only on university campuses, but also throughout the U.S. and abroad.
The glue that brings “liberals” and Islamists, such as the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the US (a front[1] for the Muslim Brotherhood), together in a common cause is the goal of eradicating Israel — of course always only under the euphemisms of “helping Palestinians” and “Peace,” even though Jihadi camps for children were organized first by Palestinians.
A 1991 official document authored by the Muslim Brotherhood outlines its strategic goals for civilizational jihad in North America. It depicts the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans for civilization jihad in the United States stating:
“The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all [that] the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers… [W]e must possess a mastery of the art of “coalitions”, the art of “absorption” and the principles of “cooperation.”
The question of whether to submit to these policies, as Europe is doing, or to uphold freedom, as Israel is doing, has arrived in the United States. The choice Americans make will immeasurably affect not just the US, but, despite sounding melodramatic, the future of Western civilization.
________________-
[1] In a 1991 official document authored by the Muslim Brotherhood, outlining its strategic goals for civilizational jihad in North America, the Muslim Students Association was mentioned as “one of our organizations and the organizations of our friends”, that is, a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood. The document was entered as evidence in the 2008 Holyland Terror Funding Trial.
Clinton Associate Tried to Bribe FBI to Bury Hillary Email Permanently
October 17, 2016Clinton Associate Tried to Bribe FBI to Bury Hillary Email Permanently, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 16, 2016
It’s truly stunning. If ordinary people had tried to pull even a fraction of these stunts. Even highly influential people for that matter. They would be sitting in a jail cell. The scope of Clinton arrogance and ambition is truly breathtaking in the most horrifying ways. Here’s what we are now learning about how Clinton associates tried to bury Hillary emails.
According to FBI interview summaries set to be released in the coming days. Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, discussed providing additional overseas slots for the FBI in exchange for revisions to classifications of the sensitive emails.
What that means is that Kennedy was using government power to try and bribe another government agency to aid the Hillary cover up.
One email in particular concerned Kennedy and, according to the FBI summary, providing a B9 exemption “would allow him to archive the document in the basement of the department of state never to be seen again.” The FBI official told Kennedy that he would look into the email if Kennedy would authorize a pending request for additional FBI personnel in Iraq.
A summary of an interview with the section chief of the FBI records management division provides further evidence of Kennedy’s attempts to have the classification of some sensitive emails changed. The FBI records official, whose job includes making determinations on classification, told investigators that he was approached by his colleague in international operations after the initial discussion with Kennedy. The FBI records official says that his colleague “pressured” him to declassify an email “in exchange for a quid pro quo,” according to the interview summary. “In exchange for making the email unclassified State would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.” The request was denied.
In the days that followed, the FBI records official attended an “all-agency” meeting at the State Department to discuss the ongoing “classification review of pending Clinton FOIA materials.” One of the participants at the meeting asked Kennedy whether any of the emails were classified. Kennedy purposely looked at the FBI records chief and then replied: “Well, we’ll see.”
So we have rather blatant abuses in State and in the FBI… the agency that was ultimately tasked with investigating all this.
Clinton associates were absolutely shameless about throwing their weight around and the FBI appeared willing to at least listen.
CNN: It Is Illegal For Voters To Possess Wikileaks Material
October 17, 2016CNN: It Is Illegal For Voters To Possess Wikileaks Material, Jonathan Turley Blog, Jonathan Turley, October 17, 2016
There was an interesting segment on CNN last week where CNN anchor Chris Cuomo reminds viewers for it is illegal for them to “possess” Wikileaks material and that, as a result, they will have to rely on the media to tell them what is in these documents. The legal assertion is dubious, but the political implications are even more concerning. Polls show that many voters view the media as biased and this is a particularly strong view among supporters of Donald Trump who view CNN and other networks openly supporting Clinton or attacking Trump. More importantly, the mainstream media has reported relatively little from the Wikileaks material and has not delved deeply into their implications, including embarrassing emails showing reporters coordinating with the Clinton campaign and supposedly “neutral” media figures like Donna Brazile, formerly with CNN, allegedly slipping advance question material to Hillary Clinton. The credibility of the media is at an all-time low and most voters hardly feel comfortable with this material being reported second-hand or interpreted by the mainstream media. So is it really illegal for voters to have this material?
Cuomo was about to discuss embarrassing emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s inbox but he stopped to remind viewers “remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents,” Cuomo says. “It’s different for the media, so everything you’re learning about this, you’re learning from us.”
First, the criticism of Cuomo as trying to keep people from reading this material (which is damaging to Clinton) seems a bit far-fetched. It is more likely that he felt obligated to disclose the uncertain legal status of such documents. However, he overstated the case in my view.
It is true that possession of stolen items is a crime and documents can be treated as stolen items. However, this material has already been released and it is doubtful that downloading widely available material (particularly in a matter of great public interest) would be seen as prosecutable possession. Whoever had original possession has released them widely to the public like throwing copies out a window by the thousands. Whatever crime is alleged, it will be directed at the original hacker and not the public. Just downloading and reading public available material is unlikely to be viewed as a crime unless you use material to steal someone’s identity or commit a collateral crime. Otherwise, possession of the Pentagon Papers would lead to the arrest of tens of thousands of citizens.
More importantly, most people do not downloading [Sic] these documents but read them on line and there is no actionable crime in reading the material from any of the myriad of sites featuring the Wikileaks documents.
Cuomo is right about status of reporters being clear and protected. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the media is allowed to publish material that may have been obtained illegally and declared a law unconstitutional to the extent that it would make such media use unlawful. The Court reaffirmed the need to protect the first amendment interests and took particular note of the fact that the material was a matter of public interest:
“The Court holds that all of these statutes violate the First Amendment insofar as the illegally intercepted conversation touches upon a matter of “public concern,” an amorphous concept that the Court does not even attempt to define. But the Court’s decision diminishes, rather than enhances, the purposes of the First Amendment, thereby chilling the speech of the millions of Americans who rely upon electronic technology to communicate each day.”
While technical arguments could be made that downloading is a form of possession of stolen documents, it is a dubious argument when the material is widely distributed and a matter of public interest. The weight of the existing case law militates heavily against the legal threat described on CNN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DcATG9Qy_A
The Selling of America—by the Clinton Campaign
October 17, 2016The Selling of America—by the Clinton Campaign, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, October 16, 2016
While the American public is having their brains numbed by endless retellings of Donald Trump’s decades-old putatively unwanted sexual advances, the media is almost entirely, in many cases deliberately, ignoring the far more significant revelations being made by WikiLeaks. What does the media care? It doesn’t affect them, just the common folk. And the disclosures might impede the coronation of Queen Hillary.
Many stories have drifted by almost without notice — including confirmation that the president of the United States lied when he claimed he learned of Hillary Clinton’s private email server only when the public did. He had been communicating with her on it for over a year on multiple occasions under a pseudonym. (If a President Trump had done such a thing, the cries for his impeachment would drown out the Super Bowl.) Andrew McCarthy has cited this as the reason the FBI was prevented from recommending the prosecution of Clinton. To have done so would have implicated the president himself.
Today’s “Podesta Emails” revelations from WikiLeaks bring up another matter—money. The foreign kind. As the Federal Elections Commission notes, “Foreign nationals are prohibited from making any contributions or expenditures in connection with any election in the U.S.”
The reasons for this should be obvious—foreign subversion of our national interest, etc.—but, as we shall see, the crew at Hillary Clinton HQ evidently wasn’t convinced these risks were serious, not serious enough anyway to merit observing the federal regulation known to all.
(These are the same people—it should be noted—who blather on about the danger of Russia and insist that Putin & Co. are responsible for their computer break-ins rather than their own embarrassing [and hugely perilous] cyber idiocy. Unfortunately, there is now evidence that the culprits were notalways the FSB or the Chinese or even the Iranians, but in some cases a couple of twentysomethings in North Carolina known as the “Crackas With Attitude.” Working with UK teenagers they were, among other things, able to the break into the emails of CIA Director John Brennan, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, turning the results over to Wikileaks. Doesn’t sound much like the NKVD to me—though it does sound as if a lot of people should be fired…. If you read the link, hacking into Brennan’s account was the most simple of all.)
But back to today’s revelations, wherever they came from originally. An email chain–subject line: “RE: Registered foreign agents“—that wound up in the lap of Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri tells a tale of greed over national interest straight out of H. L. Mencken’s famous remark: “When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
On the cc. line and responding at various points were many of the usual suspects: Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, Huma Abedin (no identification necessary), John Podesta (ditto), campaign general counsel Marc Elias, national finance director Dennis Cheng, and quite a few others.
The issue at question was what to do about donations from representatives of several dozen countries, some, not surprisingly, misogynistic and homophobic, few democratic. Included are Iraq, Egypt, Libya, UAE, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, National Security Council of Georgia, Hong Kong Trade Dvelopment [sic] Council, Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Kosovo, Republic of Peru, Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Colombia (of Clinton Cash fame) and something called the Breaux Lott Leadership Group for Government of Taiwan that appears to have been bought by a group connected to the Embassy of China.
This only touches the surface because early in the chain Karuna Seshasai, also an attorney, writes: “This is only 23 names of the first 350 prospective bundlers we looked at pre-launch. I anticipate more coming down the pipeline. ”
More do. And there follows a debate about what to do. Can they get away with it? Can they disregard the inconvenient federal regulations proscribing foreign donations? Finally, campaign manager Robby Mook steps forward to clear up the legal and moral issues at hand:
Marc [campaign counsel Elias] made a convincing case to me this am that these sorts of restrictions don’t really get you anything…that Obama actually got judged MORE harshly as a result. He convinced me. So…in a complete U-turn, I’m ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks. Are you guys ok with that?
And after that “U-turn,” Ms. Palmieri wraps things up with this succinct comment: “Take the money!!”
Yes, the two exclamation points are hers. Don’t believe me? See the whole chain for yourself at the link below.
But before you do, before you go around assuming our country is being sold out to foreign despots by Democratic Party crony capitalists and that in a society that observed the rule of law these clowns would be up on RICO charges, just remember what’s really important: Donald Trump may have kissed a woman on the lips on Mother’s Day at Mar-a-Lago. Now go ahead and read.
UPDATE: Apparently Hillary was not told of this decision—to take foreign money—but read about it in the paper. However, she DID NOT move to stop it, just wanted to weigh in on choices. From Law Newz:
After this whole discussion over the course of several days of emails and at least one conference call, nobody told Clinton what the decision was. That turned out to be a mistake, because it got reported anyway. From campaign chairwoman Huma Abedin to Mook (Podesta is ostensible CCed):HRC read in paper that we are taking FARA money
We are going to discuss today in Elias meeting
talked to Elias
Flagging for you
Mook was slightly taken aback:
She doesn’t want to?
Abedin calmed him down:
she just didnt know that we had decided to accept it
wanted to know who the individuals are and wants to weigh in
karuna sending list for meeting
As Law Newz concludes, “And that was that, at least as far as the emails show.”
State Dept.: There’s A Concern Obama-Clinton Emails Not Be Made Public
October 14, 2016State Dept.: There’s A Concern Obama-Clinton Emails Not Be Made Public, Washington Free Beacon via YouTube, October 14, 2016
(At least he seems to acknowledge that there were Obama-Clinton e-mails which were not disclosed, made available or as to which privilege was claimed. — DM)



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