Hillary Clinton Exclusively Used Personal Email Account During Her Tenure At State
[guest post by Dana]
Because she is Hillary Clinton:
Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.
Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.
It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.
Given that “under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional committees, historians and members of the news media can find them”, it begs the question: why wouldn’t a sitting secretary of state who was appointed by the president of the most transparent administration in history, not comply with policy?
The existence of Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account was discovered by a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi as it sought correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and her aides about the attack.
Two weeks ago, the State Department, after reviewing Mrs. Clinton’s emails, provided the committee with about 300 emails — amounting to roughly 900 pages — about the Benghazi attacks.
As to whether this will impact her future plans to run for president, and whether supporters will now have doubts about her honesty, well, if “Barb” in the comments at the linked article is representative of Democrats at large, then the answer is a resounding no:
I don’t care. Having a woman in the oval office is more important to the evolution of gender equality and that is more important than anything to me. Women still are objectified everyday and still make much less and still face hurdles as we all live in the shadow of the patriarchy. And all of the politicians are the same in the end, so I vote for the one that may give women an easier/less hard time in this world of ours, regardless of their email address.
Also, as of this morning, I don’t see any comments about Hillary’s “misstep” from possible contender Elizabeth Warren. And more importantly, not a peep from Scott Walker or Rand Paul. Jeb Bush, however, is on it:
Transparency matters. Unclassified @HillaryClinton emails should be released. You can see mine, here. http://t.co/wZbtwd8O2j
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) March 3, 2015
(Just for fun, I wonder which media outlet will demand an examination of Every. Single. Email. that Hillary sent because, well, you know, Palin!)
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 3/3/2015 @ 6:59 amAs to whether this will impact her future plans to run for president, and whether supporters will now have doubts about her honesty, well, if “Barb” in the comments at the linked article is representative of Democrats at large, then the answer is a resounding no:
I have never had any doubts about Hillary’s honesty – I know exactly how honest she is
rose law firm billing records
100k cattle future profits
whitewater/whitewash/whitewatergate
We all know how honest Hillary is.
joe (debac0) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:04 amI don’t care. Having a woman in the oval office is more important to the evolution of gender equality and that is more important than anything to me. Women still are objectified everyday and still make much less and still face hurdles as we all live in the shadow of the patriarchy. And all of the politicians are the same in the end, so I vote for the one that may give women an easier/less hard time in this world of ours, regardless of their email address.
We all know how important it is to have a black man in the office for racial equality – far more important the competency – we all know how that has turned out.
joe (debac0) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:06 amshe’s a sleazy lil thang
but I’ll vote for her over a p.o.s. like Jeb Bush
I already know where you go to do this it’s at the high school across the street from me
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:10 amThe New York Times headline was, “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.” You know that if this had been a Republican Secretary of State, especially one who thought he should run for President, the headline would have been “Ted Cruz Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Breaking the Law!”
There is no reason at all for the Times to mealy-mouth the story, replacing “law” with “rules” and “requirements,” but that is exactly what they did.
There is no way on God’s earth that Secretary Clinton was not informed of the law; when she took her position, the career foreign service employees in the Secretary’s office would have presented her with the e-mail account, and whatever codes were necessary to use the secure accounts; that would have been standard procedure. These people had to have known that Mrs Clinton was breaking the law, but either willingly ignored it, or failed to tell her, throughout her four years in office.
The Dana who can recognize lies when he sees them (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:27 amIt would be ironic if this stupid regulation was part of the Watergate fallout. She was involved in that. Shrilly. Shrillarly?
nk (dbc370) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:29 amThe much better-looking Dana asked:
Fox. Only Fox will ask, because the rest of the media are wholly in bed with the Clintons specifically, and the Democrats in general.
The Dana with the answer (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:32 ammaybe Orrin Hatch’s new attorney general will investigate this possible malfeasance
lol
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:32 amIn the end, it won’t matter in the slightest for the Democrats and the left. They will not care that Hillary Clinton willfully broke the law on a serious matter in which it was not in any way necessary for her to break the law. They will not care if she is dishonest — they have known that anyway, for years and years, and haven’t cared yet — and they will not care that she is secretive to a fault, they will not care about anything along any of those matters, as long as they think she can defeat the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.
The Dana too realistic to be disappointed (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:36 amAt some point, you have to ask why a graduate of Yale Law School, a former Senator, and someone who thinks that she’s qualified to be President of the United States, would deliberately break a law that she had no need to break. It wouldn’t have hurt her in any way to have used the State Department’s official system, unless she was already planning to send e-mails on things she knew were illegal, or unless she really is dumb as a box of rocks.
Well, in one way, it’s simple: for the Clintons, both of them — we don’t know about their lovely daughter yet — if it’s a choice between doing something honestly and cheating, they’ll pick cheating every time! They would rather tell a lie than the truth, even if the truth doesn’t hurt them and the lie doesn’t help them.
The Dana who thinks that Hillary Clinton might even break Barack Hussein Obama's record as worst President ever! (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:42 ambut I’ll vote for her over a p.o.s. like Jeb Bush
There’s “pos” and then there’s “P . O . S .” Sniper-fire Hillary is the latter.
But your sentiment pretty much confirms what I’ve long guessed about you, happyfeet. You’re more of a Democrat/liberal (at best, a squish-squish) than you let on—although you’ve make no secret of your left-leaning social preferences. If you had truly conservative instincts, you’d say, at most, that you won’t vote for either Hillary or Jeb, or you’ll favor a third-party candidate.
However, plenty of Americans in general are falling for your POV about the POS, which is why we — as a non-Eurosclerotic, non-Mexico-ized society — may be DOA.
Mark (c160ec) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:47 amThere’s something just completely appropriate about the fact that the Secretary of State in an administration which believes that
The wryly amused Dana (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:50 amIslamicterrorism should be fought through law enforcement means rather than just killing them all stone-cold graveyard dead would be breaking the law herself.they’ll pick cheating every time!
And the people who tolerate that or look the other way (ie, a good percentage of the American public) are why nations that lean left end up quite corrupt in various shapes and forms.
Even if I admired Hillary’s ideology, I’d have enough sense to know something was defective about her. IOW, I find myself no less demanding about a Bush or Palin, or McCain, dotting his (or her) i’s, crossing his t’s, than what I expect of a liberal like Clinton.
Mark (c160ec) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:51 amMark, you’re not fooling anybody, either. Your party is the America First Party, right? And you think they’re on the squish side too. Right? Right?
nk (dbc370) — 3/3/2015 @ 7:53 amWonder if Téa Leoni will have to change her e-mail address. 🙂
The Dana who refuses to watch Madam Secretary (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:05 ami’m not a liberal not even a little
ooh hey checkitout
here’s a cool picture of Jeb Bush giving Hillary an award for her super-awesome service as Secretary of State
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:10 amThe blurb for Madam Secretary tells us that Téa Leoni left her job as a CIA analyst before becoming Secretary of State, so now we know: Marie Lucas is their model! 🙂
The slightly amused Dana (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:10 amMark wrote:
Among the people who looked the other way are the President of the United States and the Attorney General. Unless you believe that Secretary Clinton never either emailed nor was sent an email by the White House or the Department of Justice, and that neither Justice nor the White House knew her email address, then they knew she was using an illegal e-mail address as well. The Times article tells us that President Obama emails from a secure government account, with every record preserved for historical purposes, so this isn’t somehow a strange system to the White House.
The unsurprised Dana (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:18 amre #18: and every member of the Foreign Relations Committee and their staff.
This was illegal and DUMB. I am more angry about the DUMB part.
Wonder how many of her missives ended with “sent from my iPhone”
seeRpea (3383a9) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:25 amI am confused about the ‘Téa Leoni‘ references. the X-File’s guy wife??
seeRpea (3383a9) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:29 amseeRpea wrote:
I’m more angry about the illegal part: way, way, way too many people in this stupid administration knew what Mrs Clinton was doing, and knew that it was illegal, and didn’t do one fornicating thing about it. Mrs Clinton herself might be dumb, but a whole bunch of people who aren’t dumb went right along with it.
Mrs Clinton’s minions have gone through all of her emails, and, according to the Times article, “decided which ones to turn over to the State Department.” I’m old enough to remember when The Washington Post and The New York Times and every Democrat — and not a few Republicans — were frothing at the mouth over the “eighteen-minute gap.” I’m expecting nothing more than crickets chirping over this one.
The completely unsurprised Dana (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:33 amTéa Leoni plays the Secretary of State in Madam Secretary, a TV show meant to promote Mrs Clinton.
The Dana who doesn't watch it (f6a568) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:34 amIs it sponsored by KFC? http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2211/525/1600/HillaryKFC.jpg
nk (dbc370) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:38 amTéa’s ivy league trash ex-husband is a self-described “sex addict” who wanted to sleep with like a hundred womens other than her
so this role isn’t much of a stretch for her
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:39 amGreetings:
Me, I’m kind of guessing that Barb’s gender equality problem may very well be that she doesn’t get “objectified” often enough.
11B40 (844d04) — 3/3/2015 @ 8:43 amre #25: not that is just cruel.
cruel but funny 🙂
occurs to me that woman were saying the same thing about HC’s husband. He was so good for wamen they didn’t care what the f»░k he did with women.
seeRpea (3383a9) — 3/3/2015 @ 9:17 amWhen Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase “defining deviancy down,” he might as well have added the footnote: “Yes, I’m talking about the Clintons and the people who enable them.”
M. Scott Eiland (8d3966) — 3/3/2015 @ 9:17 amGreat! Let’s all hold our noses and pretend that some unidentified State Department staffers inexplicably failed to notify the incoming Secretary of State that all communication from that high office is subject to the same standard record keeping procedures as all other Cabinet level offices. After all, What difference does it make?
Let’s also pretend the smartest woman in the world, Slick Willy’s wife, the cookie baking little woman in the White House, the leading champion of women’s rights, the one who aggressively suppressed Bimbo Eruptions (including rape accusations against her husband), the former First Lady who ordered the assault (86 dead men, women, and children) on the Branch Davidians at Waco, the unindicted co-conspirator who obstructed the investigation into Vince Foster’s murder, stonewalled inquires into WhiteWater, Madison Guarantee, and Casa Grande, callously fired long-term WH Travel Office employees so her Hollywood pals could profit, conducted a hidden operation in the WH basement to copy the secret FBI files J Edgar Hoover used to blackmail Congressmen, Cabinet Secretaries, Supreme Court Justices, and even Presidents.
She’s the same women who claimed tax benefits for “charitable donations” of her husbands worn-out knickers, the one who ignored subpoenas for her Rose Firm billing records and later couldn’t explain how they suddenly turned up on a table in her residence, she’s the one who claimed the attack in Benghazi resulted from a video tape, and you know, what difference does it make?
ropelight (a2eadb) — 3/3/2015 @ 9:26 amIt’s somehow appropriate that Hillary is from the Chicago area.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/3/2015 @ 9:34 amof course, few inquired about the underlying data in the documents:
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/hacked-emails-saudi-money-financed-benghazi-attack/
narciso (ee1f88) — 3/3/2015 @ 1:04 pmPant suit wax museum instead of a presidential library.
mg (31009b) — 3/3/2015 @ 1:15 pmThat simply blows my mind. I’m with you that Jeb would be another GHWB/W clone – but nothing on the horizon would be as contemptible and destructive as a Hilary presidency.
Nothing.
Steve Malynn (6b1ce5) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:00 pmHowzabout instead of just focusing down the chain of command, let’s look up as well. I am not merely repeating the obvious fact that people at the WH had to know Hillary! wasn’t using an official state department email account. And explicitly or tacitly approved.
I am as certain I can be at this point that people at the WH were engaging in the same practice.
Hillary! apparently created the domain she would use for her secstate email traffic as she was undergoing Senate confirmation.
Remember when Obama invented the official seal of the non-esistent “office of the President elect?”
Dollars to donuts that one of the first orders of business of that office was to set up new email domains so they could keep two sets of books, so to speak.
An official record, and then the illicit accounts on which all the real business was going to be conducted.
I’d bet that a search of that new Clinton domain’s traffic would show that the Secretary of State’s emails weren’t going to any “@whitehouse.gov” email accounts.
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:18 pmJudicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding potential criminal violations of law in Hillary Clinton’s conducting official State Department business using a private email account:
“The latest news that Hillary Clinton, while serving as Secretary of State, conducted all of her official business on a private account may impact nearly a dozen of our Freedom of Information Act lawsuits now active in federal courts as well as dozens of pending FOIA requests. As with what happened when Judicial Watch forced the disclosure of the ‘missing’ IRS emails, I am convinced that these emails would never have been disclosed but for our FOIA lawsuits that broke open the Benghazi scandal and first exposed the scandal of her and Bill Clinton raising money illicitly while she was Secretary of State.
“We are concerned that the Obama administration may have withheld material information and may have purposely misled and lied to Judicial Watch, as well as at least one federal court about these emails.
“One key concern is that these emails must be immediately secured so that they can be searched in response to our lawful FOIA requests. In addition to violations of the Freedom of Information Act, laws governing the preservation of federal records and the handling of classified information also may be implicated in this latest Clinton scandal.”
Will you donate $
Judy Eaton (29f139) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:24 pmhttp://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/03/03/harf-yes-harf-attempts-to-defend-hillary-clintons-exclusive-use-of-non-government-email-account/#more-97430
Comedy ensues. Along with more transparent WH administration lies.
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:33 pmWhat are the penalties for evading the open records laws?
Brent Glines (82509b) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:34 pmIf you recall this was a non-existent issue when the Senate was considering the confirmation of Assistant Attorney General/Secretary of Labor nominee Thomas Perez.
He used his personal emails to conduct DoJ business in order to evade record keeping and congressional oversight requirements.
The House sued Perez to get access to his Verizon (?) account. Perez was fighting tooth and nail to prevent access to his “private” emails. The ones in which he conducted official business.
The Democrats keep trying to argue that somehow these people have to use private email accounts (and text messaging) because they’re so busy and travel so much and can’t be tied to their desks.
As if this is something that hasn’t come up before, and the Departments of State and Defense and Justice, etc., don’t have laptops and mobile devices available for people who must conduct official business on-the-go. As if everybody who works in these departments below the exalted political appointee level couldn’t testify that they get annual training on what resources and procedures exist, and why, and what would happen to them if they attempted to do the same end-run around the law.
It’s going to be interesting to see how State and its hapless spokesweasel Harf respond when inevitably the former Republican Secretaries of State push back and say, no, this was never standard practice. Despite this administration’s smear, they always used official email accounts to conduct official business. Thus putting former Democratic SecStates in the position of either defending themselves and their practices or falling on their swords for their Messiah and claiming to have broken the same laws as a matter of course that Hillary! broke. So once again the Obama administration shows it hasn’t learned the first rule of holes; stop digging.
Back to the beginning, the fact that Perez made the conscious decision to use his private email accounts to conduct official business to evade the law and congressional scrutiny should have been a major issue blocking his confirmation. But the GOP capitulation to Obama started long before they won control of the Senate.
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:49 pmI don’t think there are any. The real crime will involve sending and receiving classified information on an unclassified system. Those laws have teeth.
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:51 pmActually, wait one. There are penalties for destroying official records as defined by open records laws. That came up during the Lois Lerner dust-up and her “lost” emails and “destroyed” hard drives.
Wanna bet that a search of that new Clinton domain will show that Hillary! and her underlings attempted to destroy incriminating emails that were in fact official records?
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:54 pmHillary can always plead clotty brain or poverty that’s all better now.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:55 pmWanna bet that a search of that new Clinton domain will show that Hillary! and her underlings attempted to destroy incriminating emails that were in fact official records?
Has anyone checked Sandy Berger’s pants to see if they have been smuggled out of the archives?
JVW (05e1e2) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:56 pmHackethon
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-03/hdr22clintonemailcom-how-romanian-hacker-exposed-hillary-clintons-secret-email-life
mg (31009b) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:05 pmhttp://gawker.com/5991563/hacked-emails-show-hillary-clinton-was-receiving-advice-at-a-private-email-account-from-banned-obama-hating-former-staffer
mg (31009b) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:11 pmnarciso @30. I told you it was Prince Bandar.
Of course the source is Russia,. Does the Congressional committee have this e-mail. And this would make it look like it was not Bandar but other Saudis.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:41 pm41. JVW (05e1e2) — 3/3/2015 @ 3:56 pm
Now that you mention Sandy Berger…
http://i58.tinypic.com/ih8nx3.jpg shows you the smoking gun in the Vincent Foster case.
(the top of page 10 of the March 14, 1994 New Republic)
But without knowing a lot of facts you would not know this is the smoking gun.
(This leak to Fred Barnes, explained away a secret unscheduled meeting between Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan and President Clinton and Sandy Burglar
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:42 pm(Berger) that it looks like could have taken place on July 20, 1993 – a meeting for which I the FOIA did not work to confirm or rebut and the leak was right at the time of known Foster case leaks, and Prince Bandar lived right across the street from Fort Marcy Park. And there’s more.)
ropelight @28 ),
Where di you get that?>??
It was Bill.
Unless you knew other facts, which only became known later, you would not pay special attention to an article about a week in the life of President Clinton in the Tuesday, March 9, 1993 Wall Street Journal.
You can read. . .
For March 1:
” He also wants to know the condition of one particular ATF agent who
was wounded at Waco: Jay William Buford, an acquaintance of his from
Arkansas. ”
AND
” And Deputy Treasury Secretary Altman is dispatched to Waco to visit
Mr. Buford and the other wounded agents. ”
And, under Wednesday, March 3:
” Mr. Altman reports on his trip to Waco and his visit with the
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:44 pmPresident’s friend, Mr. Buford, who was nicked in the nose by a bullet.
The president wants to know if there will be any permanent scarring. Mr.
Altman says he doesn’t think so. “
Mr. Malynn i will not enable these establishment republican weirdos i just won’t
They’re stupid
and especially after watching the tragic cowardly incompetence of Boehner, McConnell, and Meghan’s coward daddy this week
I’m just done done done with that nonsense
happyfeet (831175) — 3/3/2015 @ 4:52 pmWow! Just, wow! Is there any crime a progressive can be charged with any longer?
I suppose if HRC provided cocaine, alcohol, tobacco and AR-15 ammo to an underage girl would that be a crime?
Would having sex with the underage girl absolve her of the other aforementioned hypothetical crimes?
Sure, as long as they were in love….
WarEagle82 (b18ccf) — 3/3/2015 @ 5:03 pmUmm, WarEagle, speaking of underage sex, let me direct your attention to this. As you seem to have missed it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363452/Bill-Clinton-15-year-old-masseuse-I-met-twice-claims-Epsteins-girl.html
You’d think the vagina warriors hell bent on Hillary! as President might be concerned about Bill Clinton’s multiple trips (perhaps as many as 21 times) to convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein’s Pedophile Island. And the credible, multiple accusations of rape against Bill.
But no. Somehow a woman who only ever ended up having doors opened to her because she married a governor has become a symbol of feminist empowerment. So what’s a little virgin child sacrifice compared to putting Hillary! in the WH?
Steve57 (127339) — 3/3/2015 @ 5:40 pmSteve57, I recently retired from federal civil service, and among our many training requirements was semi annual refresher training on Open records requirements. The training I received said that using a private email address to circumvent open records requirements was forbidden, and subject to penalties, but the penalties were unspecified, hence my question.
This always aggravated the Hell out me and my coworkers. We had to to take endless training covering regulations and laws violated with impunity by higher ups, in this case, by a cabinet level official. Whenever a violation like this is discovered, the corrective action is additional training imposed upon the innocent.
Brent Glines (82509b) — 3/4/2015 @ 7:23 amYou might find this interesting, then, Mr. Glines.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414835/did-hillary-commit-felony-shannen-coffin
Steve57 (813c29) — 3/4/2015 @ 5:56 pmThis is not remotely believable.
http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-emails-inject-obamas-administration-2016-fray-081233081–election.html
CEOs like Bernie Ebbers who claimed to be unaware of what their subordinates were doing have been sent to prison on less evidence of complicity.
Steve57 (813c29) — 3/5/2015 @ 5:28 amshe’s certainly a worthy successor to food stamp
she might even be sleazier
happyfeet (831175) — 3/5/2015 @ 5:35 amThe Clintons are infinitely sleazier than Obama. In every conceivable way. They lowered the bar for
nk (dbc370) — 3/5/2015 @ 5:48 amthe Presidencypublic office to sewer level.I found this exchange fascinating:
http://gawker.com/so-philippe-reines-sent-us-an-email-1689406566
carlitos (c24ed5) — 3/5/2015 @ 6:30 amnarciso @30 amending what I wrote @44
I think that’s all a Putin forgery. What reason would Sidney Blumenthal have for having all this information? And then, he’s protecting his sources. In a secret, private e-mail?
Ad there’s nothing at all indicating that these memos, or Guccifer the hacker * for that matter, are real.
* A hacker supposedly of Blumennethal not clintonemail.com!
Sammy Finkelman (a551ff) — 3/12/2015 @ 12:13 pm