Posted tagged ‘Clinton unsecured server’

« WarSclerotic home page
Newer Entries »

A Hillary Clinton Presidency Would Be An American Tragedy

August 8, 2016

A Hillary Clinton Presidency Would Be An American Tragedy, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, August 7, 2016

tragedy

The American people are generally goodhearted. Historically, most presidents have a honeymoon period when they are newly elected. The majority of our citizens want them to do well, at least for a while.

This cannot happen for Hillary Clinton. Over half the country, even many who will have voted for her, do not believe she is remotely honest. Almost as many believe criminal charges should have been brought against her for her email scandal. They are convinced, quite arguably, that were her name not Clinton, she would be in jail.

And this before what we have just now learned–how serious, even fatal to our (and humanity’s) best friends, her use of an easily hacked home-brew email server could be.

Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday.”I’m not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman,” he said on “Face the Nation.” Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear program.

The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.

To say the least, but there’s more.

Many do not think Clinton is even a moral human being. Any person who could lie to the parents of the dead over the fresh caskets of their sons, as Clinton has apparently done with the Benghazi victims–if you believe the testimony of the parents themselves as many of us do–has lost contact with basic human values.

So Hillary Clinton would be beginning her incumbency with an unprecedented level of distrust, even disgust, for an incoming president and it is hard to conceive how she could regain the public confidence necessary to govern. What could she say or do? Continue to lie, as she did yet again at her recent press conference and interview with Chris Wallace? Suddenly tell the truth after decades of dissembling? The result would be a psychic unraveling so extreme she would likely dissolve like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.

No, she would undoubtedly do her best to ignore everything while a Damoclean sword in the form of  the +/- 33,000 emails, depending on what transpires between now and November, hung over her head. Who knows what’s in them? Hillary undoubtedly doesn’t like to think about it herself, but stress and endless prevarication have clearly taken a toll on her. Most 68-year old women I know can walk up the stairs by themselves.

According to FBI Director Comey, her lawyers don’t know what was in the emails either, even though they supposedly supervised their deletion. They only read the subject lines, they testified. To know the truth, it should be obvious, would have been inconvenient for them.

It’s also obvious from the mass releases so far from all sides that her server could have been permeated by who knows how many parties, state and non-state. This would lead to the inevitable.  Every even slightly controversial policy decision she makes as president would be open to question—and for good reason. Is someone blackmailing her?

And what about the Clinton Foundation? Suppose Putin — or someone else for whatever reason… destabilizing the United States perhaps — decides to reveal information definitively tying the Clintons to treasonous activities with foreign companies, potential “high crimes and misdemeanors” of the kind we are beginning to learn about in the uranium business. An impeachment trial would follow that dwarfs in implications any such trials before. Many would be swept up in it.

Is this a stretch? Not at all. More a likelihood. We’ve already seen enough of this in Clinton Cash, book and movie, to know how real it is. People aren’t going to stop looking for the truth if Hillary is elected, nor should they.

No, a Hillary Clinton presidency would be An American Tragedy waiting to happen—and not just a symbolic one like that described by Theodore Dreiser in his classic novel of that title, but one that engulfs the whole country and the world. In that worst-case scenario, our lives would never be the same.

Civil war is even a possibility. I never thought that until now, but when the rule of law has been broken, no telling what will happen.

For that reason, I desperately hope that Donald Trump will prevail, as unproven, erratic and self-destructive as he often is. I was truly disheartened the last couple of weeks. Like many, I haven’t come close to sleeping through the night. The man seemed incapable of reform.

But Friday evening there was a reprieve. Donald Trump the grown-up reappeared as he relented in his battles with people he should never have been fighting in the first place. For all our sakes, now more than ever, he should hold firm to this approach. No more dumb mistakes, if he can possibly manage it. Somebody has to prevent this American Tragedy.

As Trump himself has said, it’s not about him. It sure isn’t. Not in the slightest. It’s about us. Try to remember that, Donald, or our country is in trouble as never before.

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton character, Clinton Foundation, Clinton unsecured server, Donald Trump
Tags: , , ,

Comments: 5 Comments

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Completed No Security Briefings Or Courses At State Dept

August 2, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Completed No Security Briefings Or Courses At State Dept, Daily Caller, Richard Pollock, August 1, 2016

The admission also could play a role in the State Department’s re-opening of an internal investigation of Clinton and her aides over their handling of classified materials.

The new State Department internal probe was announced after Comey declined to call for an indictment of Clinton over her use of a private email server to conduct official State Department business. The FBI noted that 22 emails found on Clinton’s private server were “Top Secret.”

***************************

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completed no security briefings or courses on the proper handling of classified materials and how to conduct secure communications while at the Department of State, according to new Obama administration legal filings before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The surprise admission was released late Friday and could reignite the controversy over Clinton’s “careless” handling of classified materials as asserted by FBI Director James Comey, which has already been a central part of the presidential race.

The revelation also could renew calls for the Department of State to strip her of her security clearance. The co-founder of at least one retired military officers organization has called for a suspension of her clearance.

State Department officials previously reported they could not locate records certifying that Clinton or her top aides took the annually required security courses and briefings.

But on July 29, Obama administration officials went further, saying their failure to locate any documents meant that the “courses were not completed” by the secretary or her aides.

In comparison, State Department officials reported that Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy engaged in 12 separate security classes and briefings during Clinton’s time in office.

“If the search of these databases did not locate any such training records, then the courses were not completed,” concluded Eric Stein, the co-director of the State Department’s Office of Information Programs and Services in the July 29 filing before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon.

Mark Toner, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, told TheDCNF in a statement that the lack of briefing records doesn’t necessarily mean they were not trained.

He said Clinton received “in person orientation” on handling classified information. “The absence of documentation from training resources they did not use does not indicate that they were not trained.”

But Department of Justice officials were clear in their filing that if Clinton had security briefings or classes, it would show up in their databases.

They reported to the court that the State Department scoured the files and databases held by four different department training divisions: the Student Management Training System; the Cyber Security Administration; the Sensitive Compartmented Information electronic training records; and the certification records at the Foreign Service Institute’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

“State searched the record systems and databases that would contain records showing that the specified individuals completed the mandatory training courses — if they in fact completed them,” stated Benjamin Mizer, the principal deputy assistant Attorney General, and Marcia Berman, the assistant director of the Federal Program Branch at the Justice Department, in their filing before Judge Leon.

The government’s lawyers explained that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is “the primary training institution for [State]” and would possess training records for Clinton and her aides. The SCI also “has access to SCI electronic training records.”

“If its search of STMS, the Cyber Security Administration database, and SCI electronic training records did not locate training certifications, then such courses were not completed,” both DOJ officials concluded.

Stein said that the same is true concerning the Bureau of Diplomatic Security records.“If DS’s search of the SCI training records did not locate any training records for an individual, then the training was not completed,” he stated in his affidavit before the court.

The government’s unexpected admissions were filed in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

TheDCNF is seeking records that confirmed Clinton and her top aides completed mandatory security briefings on the handling of classified materials and on the proper way to engage in secure communications.

When the State Department released only a few documents to TheDCNF earlier this year, the news organization asked the department to search the private hard drives of the computers operated by Clinton and her aides.

State was not obligated “to conduct an additional search of individual-specific or shared drives for copies of the requested training certifications, because such certifications, if they existed, would be retained in the databases and records systems previously searched,” the Justice Department filed before the court.

“The State Department, under penalty of perjury, effectively just threw a former Secretary of State and her aides under the bus for failing to do what all State Department officials are required to do,” said Bradley Moss, a national security attorney who handled TheDCNF case.

DOJ lawyers also explained that the Cybersecurity Administration database further “contains records of all online training activity specifically related to the Department’s Cyber Security Awareness course.”

“There is no real wiggle room in the affidavit submitted by the State Department. If the training records are not there, then Secretary Clinton and her aides never did the training. Period,” he said.

All government officials within the national security establishment must take annual reviews of the handling of classified materials.

Some of the reviews are conducted in face-to-face briefings and others are in online sessions.

“You have to complete paperwork. You have to have face-to-face briefings,” recalled retired Col. James Williamson, a former Special Operations Forces officer and co-founder of OPSEC, a nonpartisan organization of Special Operations and intelligence officers.

“There’s an electronic record,” Williamson recalled in an interview with TheDCNF. “I would get a nastygram if I didn’t complete my online course. I have to make sure every year my employees would take the online course.”

He called the latest information about Clinton “just mind-boggling.”

State Department records released to TheDCNF show that Cheryl Mills and Jacob Sullivan, two top Clinton aides, took cybersecurity awareness courses once, but not for all four years.

The records show Clinton and aide Huma Abedin never took any cybersecurity awareness training.

Last March retired Lt. General Michael T. Flynn, President Barack Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told TheDCNF that the State Department should suspend her security clearance. He said the former secretary of state should be denied “any access to any classified or sensitive information.”

This was echoed by Williamson. Her security clearance “absolutely should be pulled. There is no way this woman should be trusted with classified documents, period,” he told TheDCNF.

Mark Zaid, the lead attorney for TheDCNF, said the latest filing shows the State Department is in “disarray” over its security requirements.

“The recent admission portray a State Department in disarray when it comes to upholding security requirements of senior officials with the greatest access to classified information,” he said.

The admission also could play a role in the State Department’s re-opening of an internal investigation of Clinton and her aides over their handling of classified materials.

The new State Department internal probe was announced after Comey declined to call for an indictment of Clinton over her use of a private email server to conduct official State Department business. The FBI noted that 22 emails found on Clinton’s private server were “Top Secret.”

Toner refused to respond to the effect of the revelations on their internal investigation. “As we have previously stated, in order to protect the integrity of our internal review we are not going to comment on its scope.”

Categories: Clinton e-mails, Clinton unsecured server, Department of State, FBI
Tags: , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Hillary Clinton beats the rap while condemning others to face it

July 14, 2016

Hillary Clinton beats the rap while condemning others to face it, Washington Times, Monica Crowley, July 13, 2016

(Please see also, Is Hillary Guilty? — DM)

She obviously knew that her actions jeopardized national security and ongoing operations. And she knew these things because she terminated an ambassador for committing similar but lesser violations. His firing demonstrates more than gross negligence on her part. It shows clear intent and awareness of her own guilt.

*****************************

As he methodically laid out the case against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private, unsecure server and email accounts to carry out all of her official government business as secretary of state before declining to recommend criminal charges, FBI Director James B. Comey left out one major piece of evidence. It’s the one piece of the puzzle that truly nails her, since it demonstrates consciousness of guilt.

She fired an ambassador serving under her for doing eerily similar, but far less damaging, things.

There has been a lot of chatter about the “lack of criminal intent” since Mr. Comey’s announcement. Consider that “gross negligence” and not “intent” was the standard, and that she asked top staff to remove classified markings from documents sent to her, and that despite her original pronouncement that “there is no classified material,” the FBI found more than 100 classified documents, including several designated Top Secret/SAP. And consider that she instructed her aides to “design the system we want,” one that would prevent “the personal” from being “accessible.”

She knew what she was doing. But perhaps the ultimate demonstration of intent was her June 2012 decision to force the resignation of Scott Gration, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, for, in part, setting up and using an unapproved private email system in 2011.

The matter got scant attention, even after the department’s inspector general’s report was issued shortly after his resignation and after news of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a far more sophisticated private server arrangement broke last year.

“Very soon after the Ambassador’s arrival in May 2011,” the report stated, “he broadcast his lack of confidence in the information management staff. Because the information management office could not change the Department’s policy for handling Sensitive But Unclassified material, he assumed charge of the mission’s information management operations. He ordered a commercial internet connection installed in his embassy office bathroom so he could work there on a laptop not connected to the Department email system. He drafted and distributed a mission policy authorizing himself and other mission personnel to use commercial email for daily communication of official government business. During the inspection, the Ambassador continued to use commercial email for official government business.”

It specifically called him out for willfully violating departmental information security policies, demonstrating his “reluctance to accept clear-cut U.S. Government decisions.”

When Mrs. Clinton’s far more dangerous use of a private, unsecure server came to light, her defenders rushed to fuzz up the issue by pointing to other issues for his dismissal. (At least he just got fired. His fate under this particular boss could have been worse. See: Ambassador Stevens, Christopher.)

But the inspector general’s report made clear that his use of an unauthorized private email system was the primary reason for his firing, stating outright that his unwillingness to obey governmental security policies was his “greatest weakness.”

Following the report’s disclosure, Mr. Gration took criticism from all sides, with leftist publications leading the charge. As the Federalist website detailed last March, The Washington Post recounted Mr. Gration’s various security violations as U.S. ambassador, noting that he had “repeatedly violated diplomatic security protocols at the embassy by using unsecured internet connections.”

A 2012 story in The New Republic noted that Mr. Gration’s email scheme “put classified information about the U.S.’s operations in East Africa at a higher risk for exposure.”

The New York Times wrote that Mr. Gration “preferred to use Gmail for official business and set up private offices in his residence — and an embassy bathroom — to work outside the purview of the embassy staff.”

Mr. Gration’s case takes on urgent importance in light of Mrs. Clinton’s excuses for having done worse: that she made a mistake, that the rules weren’t clear, that the guidelines had changed after she left State, that everyone knew she was using private email accounts.

All lies. And all now excused by the FBI.

Mr. Gration’s case demonstrates that she clearly knew what the rules were — and deliberately chose to violate them.

But Mr. Comey rejected that. She put classified information on a server that she knew was not secure. She caused it to be put there. By way of deferring to her, Mr. Comey chose to invoke the euphemism “extremely careless” rather than legal standard of “gross negligence”.

She obviously knew that her actions jeopardized national security and ongoing operations. And she knew these things because she terminated an ambassador for committing similar but lesser violations. His firing demonstrates more than gross negligence on her part. It shows clear intent and awareness of her own guilt.

Mr. Comey’s decision proves that what was good for the goose is not good for the gander — particularly if the goose’s last name is Clinton.

Categories: Clinton e-mails, Clinton unsecured server, FBI, Hillary Clinton
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Newer Entries »