How Clinton’s email scandal took root

[LiberalArkie]

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. March 27 at 4:00 PM


Hillary Clinton, who at the time was selected to be secretary of state, checks her BlackBerry on an elevator at the U.S. Capitol in the District in January 2009. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton’s email problems began in her first days as secretary of state. She insisted on using her personal BlackBerry for all her email communications, but she wasn’t allowed to take the device into her seventh-floor suite of offices, a secure space known as Mahogany Row.

For Clinton, this was frustrating. As a political heavyweight and chief of the nation’s diplomatic corps, she needed to manage a torrent of email to stay connected to colleagues, friends and supporters. She hated having to put her BlackBerry into a lockbox before going into her own office.

Her aides and senior officials pushed to find a way to enable her to use the device in the secure area. But their efforts unsettled the diplomatic security bureau, which was worried that foreign intelligence services could hack her BlackBerry and transform it into a listening device.

On Feb. 17, 2009, less than a month into Clinton’s tenure, the issue came to a head. Department security, intelligence and technology specialists, along with five officials from the National Security Agency, gathered in a Mahogany Row conference room. They explained the risks to Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, while also seeking “mitigation options” that would accommodate Clinton’s wishes.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html

[Ghost Dog]

1. So Ms. Mills is for the chop, instead of her boss? n/t

[cprise]

10. The HRC philosophy of accountability:

She refused to let State have an Inspector General.

While she refused to use State's email server.

This is a person who insists on impunity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QApICxqiZcw#t=194

She scoffs, "With all the investigations, why would I want to use EMAIL?"

[femmedem]

2. This Bernie supporter has no joy in her heart reading this

given how likely it is that Clinton will be our nominee.

It isn't as if the WaPo has it in for Clinton, either.

[AgerolanAmerican]

3. this is a limited hangout

maybe a modified limited hangout

[grasswire]

4. yep

What do you think is the deeper story? I have a thesis.

[AgerolanAmerican]

6. That State and CF were essentially an integrated business operation

... and that the email server is only one symptom of the overall problem of HRC seeing and using the office of SoS as a private asset rather than as a duty to the public.

the multiple people on multiple payrolls is another symptom

as are the arms deals that curiously match large CF donations

and the outrageously large "speaking fees" for He and She are also probably part of it

[grasswire]

7. that's part of it.

I believe that Hillary was running a rogue foreign policy out of sight of Obama, combining Clinton Foundation pay to play with donations to the Foundation. Arms deals, working with governments with human rights deficits, using Bill as bait to meet with foreign leaders. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

[Chasstev365]

9. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

They know it too, yet push on while endangering the Democratric Party! How selfish is that?

[grasswire]

11. It's a desperate run to gain office before indicted.

Much harder to indict a nominee or a POTUS than a former official.

[Fast Walker 52]

17. wow-- I didn't think my opinion of her could get much lower

but I've been worse and worse vibes as this campaign goes on.

[Darb]

14. Prove one iota of that.

Damn, that's worse than anything I've seen from the baggerest of teabaggers. Why do you sound so much like the ridiculous Hillary haters from years and years ago. Why? Just because you want the socialist to win? What, want something for free?

[PatrickforO]

19. Come on. Nothing is free. You know that.

But when an increasing number of big corporations and billionaires have salted away over $20 trillion offshore and untaxed, I've got a problem with that.

What it all boils down to, for me at least, is that if we truly have a government 'of, by and for' us, the people, then why aren't we raising taxes and then using that money for programs that make our lives better? Hey, we spend over a trillion a year on our forever war and the illusion of national security, which is actually domestic spying. But how does that really help you and I?

How come we can't use OUR tax money to pay for single payer healthcare. Hey, I already pay out the nose for shitty, rationed healthcare from an HMO that cares far more about cutting costs than taking care of me and my wife. My premiums make up 18.8% of my gross pay, and they have risen double digits the last five years, so that my HMO can build all kinds of new facilities and attract many new patients. Because service has gotten WORSE. My copays have gone up and my deductible is huge. If I have to have surgery, I'm screwed.

Now, Darb, WHY should I be grateful for that? And why should I be grateful to your candidate for telling me that I'm some kind of unicorn and what I KNOW would be best for me isn't practical, isn't real? Sorry, but that won't do, Darb.

As to your point that concerns about Clinton's email are nothing but right wing talking points, why are you using right wing 'something for free?' talking point if you don't want posters on this thread to express concern about the emails and appearance of impropriety when the boundaries between State, Obama, Bill and the Foundation seem like they were pretty porous? Seems like the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle black...

[merrily]

26. So many false stereotypes and insuts packed into one post. And you're the one calling out haters? ok

[OnyxCollie]

21. I believe drugs are involved.

Drug money out of Colombia, laundered through HSBC, and into the Clinton Foundation.

[Darb]

13. Shark Jump.

Nice form, was that a gainer?

[AgerolanAmerican]

20. ayyyyyyyyy

[grasswire]

5. please cross post to GDP

Or I will do so if you wish.

Thank you.

[Cryptoad]

8. Ohhhh NO,,, EMAILS,,,,, Oh the horror of it all!,,Drink!

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. This isn't remotely about 'those damn emails' and you know it.

It is a pattern that is much more disturbing, as it is revealed. And like the poster said above, there can be no joy in peeling this onion for Democrats as we head into the general election in November

[Darb]

23. Can't wait for your free stuff?

What are you most looking forward to? Free college?

[FailureToCommunicate]

25. I see that, while high school was free for

you, it didn't help all that much.

See, I can do playground snark too.

But seriously:
If Bernie is not the candidate in November, do you image this will NOT be a huge problem for Hillary?

[SheilaT]

12. The scary thing, and what's not being properly discussed ever,

is that there are so many old dinosaurs, like Hillary Clinton, who simply don't understand modern technology.

I'm a year or so younger than Hillary, and I depend on the kindness of younger people to help me out with this stuff. But I'm also not a Secretary of State.

This is going to continue to be a huge problem until the Millennials fully take over.

[Darb]

15. Millennials take over?

That'll be great. Not.

[SheilaT]

16. It's inevitable. Generations get old, die, pass from the scene.

The youngest Boomers are now at least 50, more like 56, depending on which years you consider the birth years for that cohort. We're pretty much senior citizens now, and are beginning to pass from public view.

GenX, that largely forgotten generation, are the people currently in charge, and they're doing the best they can, everything considered. The Millennials, those bright young things born between 1982 and 2001, are moving into young adulthood, coming of age, finishing college and starting careers. They're where the Boomers were in the late 1970's.

Time marches on.

[Darb]

24. Really?

Fucking derrrrr.

[merrily]

29. The Boomers did so great?

[merrily]

28. This was not a lack of understanding. We REALLY need to stop chalking things Democrats do up to

lack of knowledge or lack of spine.

The dangers of what she was doing had been explained to her.

She knew enough to have her own server, to refuse to have an IG, to hand stuff to her lawyer when she got an FOIA request, etc.

She's been in government for years. She was no babe in the woods.

[SheilaT]

30. She was told the dangers, she had been in government for years,

but I believe I've read that she didn't even know how to check her own email when she was first Secretary of State. It sounds as if I'm cutting her a lot of slack, when I'm not. I'm pointing out that she simply hadn't much of a clue about how the technology really works, and probably convinced herself that having a server in her own home was not any different from having another phone line. And that lack of understanding allowed her to blissfully go ahead with it. I'm sure that there weren't very many people willing to tell her what an incredibly bad idea it was.

Count me among those who think there should be real consequences for what she did. And count me among those who are not very convinced by the assurances that her server was never hacked.

[merrily]

31. Yeah. Did you read about how she didn't even know how to check her own email before or after her own

email scandal hit the fan? Cause I never heard about how incompetent with email she was when she was First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the US, US Senator from NY or Secretary of State. But I sure heard that nonsense and the "wipe? you mean like with a cloth?" nonsense after the private server stuff hit the fan. I didn't hear it from anyone official, just her DU fans claiming people her age probably can't grok email. Please! (She tweets just fine, though!)

Can we refer to ordinary human experience, please? I was at a free class given at my library about using a computer. I had assumed the class would be more advanced than it was. Literally, thought, it turned out to be about how to turn on a computer and how to access the internet. However, the woman who taught the class was so ditsy and rambling that some older women in the class--I'm guessing maybe close to 80, didn't get it. So, I stayed afterward and taught them both in under a minute. A woman who lived next door to me didn't know how to access her email, or even how to find her pointer when she couldn't see it on the screen. I taught her both things in under two minutes and she over sixty at the time. It's really not rocket science. I don't know anyone of any age who wanted to learn it and could not.

I just don't believe that she never sought to access her email in any of her capacities--including her capacity as a mom, a wife or someone running several homes--before she became ex-secretary of state. Or that she was too stupid to learn if someone sat her down and showed her. And, surely, there was no shortage of people willing available to sit her down and show her.

[SheilaT]

32. I agree with you, except that I wouldn't be surprised if she

didn't really quite understand a lot of how computers work.

I've heard far too many people my age (I'm 67) say things like: I just got a new computer and now I can't check my email. I try to explain to them if all they have is a new computer, they can still sign in to their email server just as before, but a lot of them, surprisingly, still don't get it. They think their ability to access email exists on one and only one computer.

And I keep on being surprised at the people my age who never learned to type. I know one particularly successful, much-published, award-winning science fiction writer who can't touch type. Can't even begin to imagine how she manages, but there it is.

Hillary has always had staff to help her with all sorts of things. It's highly possible she relied on them to do a lot of tasks you and I do on our own, although I agree with you that's it's hard to believe she never accessed her own email before becoming Secretary of State, but from my own experiences with computer illiterates, I wouldn't be surprised.

Keep in mind that back when she was First Lady of Arkansas, none of us had email. And it's possible that the entire time she was First Lady of the United States she either didn't have email or never checked it herself, because she just wasn't communicating with anyone that way.

I got my first PC in 1991. It was connected to the internet, but on dial-up, and I almost never used the internet capability at the time. I'd be hard pressed to tell you when I finally got an email account, maybe in 1997 or 1998. So it's more than possible that Hillary didn't get one until around then. Of course she'd have had one as Senator, but again her staff were probably checking that for her. Presumably she'd have had a personal email she used with family and friends, but I'm not sure I'd count on that.

In any case, I have zero sympathy for the crap of having a server in her own home that was vastly less secure than an official one.

[merrily]

33. How computers work is a entirely different subject from how to use a computer.

There is zero evidence she did not know how to use a computer. She was using a blackberry while Secretary. She knew to set up her own server. Were any of the people who thought they could not access their email on their new computer using a blackberry? Thinking about setting up their own server?

[SheilaT]

34. I was offering examples of people

in my age range, the same as Hillary's, who fundamentally don't understand much about computers, even though they use them. And I seriously doubt any of them were using Blackberries, which is a good point. Someone who can use one of those shouldn't have any trouble understanding all of these issues.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

27. GOP thanks you for your attention.