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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumPaul Waldman, senior writer at The American Prospect: Clinton emails continue to be non-scandal
PROLOGUE: The American Prospects mission is summed up in the phrase liberal intelligence that runs under the logo on the magazines cover. We aim to advance liberal and progressive goals through reporting, analysis, and debate about todays realities and tomorrows possibilities.Founded in 1990 by Robert Kuttner, Paul Starr, and Robert Reich.
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heres what we know at this point, put as succinctly as I can:
1. Clinton set up a personal email account and used it for work. Even though previous Secretaries of State did the same thing, and even though thousands of people in government use personal emails for work, she still shouldnt have done it. She may have violated department policies, but theres no evidence she broke any laws.
2. Clinton has said it was a mistake and apologized for it.
3. There were concerns that her email server could have been vulnerable to hacking from a foreign power. But it does not appear to have been hacked.
4. None of the work-related emails she sent and received were marked classified at the time. However, some 200 of them were retroactively classified. This is now the subject of a spat between the State Department and the intelligence community, which classifies many things that people elsewhere in the government think are absurd to classify.
5. For Clinton to be charged with mishandling classified information, she would have had to knowingly passed such information to someone not authorized to have it like David Petraeus showing classified documents to his mistress or acted with such gross negligence that people without authorization were bound to see it. According to what we know, neither of those things happened.
6. The FBI is investigating the matter, but has said that Clinton herself is not a target of that investigation, meaning that they dont suspect that she committed any crime.
7. That former aide, Bryan Pagliano, has been granted immunity by the Justice Department and is working with them as they complete their investigation, which will probably conclude this spring.
Now lets be honest. When this story broke, Republicans were desperately hoping that we would learn that some criminal wrongdoing or catastrophic security breach had taken place, so they could then use that against Clinton in her run for the White House. But that turns out not to be the case. So the next best thing from their perspective is that theres some vaguely-defined scandal that the public doesnt really understand, but that voters will hold against her if you just repeat the words Clinton email scandal often enough.
In recent weeks, Ive had a couple of liberal friends and relatives ask me, with something approaching panic, I just heard that Clinton is about to be indicted. Is that true?!? The answer is no, but they heard that because its something conservatives say constantly... It hasnt happened and it wont happen, but that isnt going to stop them from saying it.
Finally, theres a phrase you should watch out for when you see this issue discussed: Drip, drip, drip. Sometimes itll be a Republican partisan using it, but more often it will be some pundit explaining why the issue is important. What drip, drip drip means is that despite the fact that there was no crime and no security breach, the media will keep discussing the story as the investigations continue, and that will cause political difficulty for Clinton. Drip, drip, drip is this controversys version of, its out there, meaning, there isnt anything scandalous about the substance of this matter, but heres how well justify talking about it as though it actually were something scandalous.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/04/clinton-emails-continue-to-be-non-scandal-disappointing-republicans/
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Paul Waldman, senior writer at The American Prospect: Clinton emails continue to be non-scandal (Original Post)
wyldwolf
Mar 2016
OP
djean111
(14,255 posts)1. it is not like the email stuff is what makes me support Bernie and not support Hillary.
So - yawn.