# FBI not recommending charges against Clinton **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 5, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125 "2016-07-05T15:20:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/281 "2016-07-08T20:38:08Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Hillary Clinton said that the reason she set up the server is because she thought it would be easier to just use one device than to use several. That was her ‘convenience’ argument. Comey said that she regularly communicated using multiple difference devices, so that blew her ‘convenience’ argument out of the water. AFAICT, the only time Comey even brings this up is in an offhand way, when he’s discussing the fact that there were several servers, and it was challenging for the FBI to recover everything across all of them. He also mentions devices, but doesn’t elaborate much. Here’s his quote: [QUOTE=James Comey] Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain. [/QUOTE] Unless you are actually referring to some other statement (in which case, cite?), this simply doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. You want it to mean that she was using several devices at the same time, and switching between them, thereby invaliding the convenience excuse. But he doesn’t say that. In fact, the more logical inference is that she used the devices serially: use a phone until it’s obsolete, then upgrade. You know, like everyone else in the developed world. You can reject the convenience excuse for other reasons - I do - but in no way does Comey blow this argument out of the water. ETA: while I was typing this, Lobohan brought up a good point, too. I took ‘device’ to mean cell phone, but he easily could have been talking about other devices as well. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/282 "2016-07-08T20:38:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There are so many ways that Trump should be disqualified from being President that it’s hard to count them. Habitually making shit up is only one of them. > > Why on Earth would you assume that I support Trump in any way? The man is a dangerous buffoon. But we should not let the existence of a dangerous buffoon one one side of the aisle blind us to the dangerous buffoonery on the other. I think your fear is misplaced. The Republican’s have a lock on buffoons this cycle. It’s not even close. The Orange comb-over just can’t keep his foot out of his mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/283 "2016-07-08T20:40:28Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/284 "2016-07-08T20:43:28Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I just read the link - it said that Powell was the only regular user of E-mail, and that while he did receive an unspecified small number of e-mails now deemed classified, it wasn’t clear if they were considered classified at the time. > > In the end, they deemed Hillary’s ‘other SoS did it too’ defense to be ‘mostly false’. Yes, that’s been discussed. It’s their opinion, which I don’t think the facts warrant. The facts are that Powell used a non-government email server, though not one he deployed himself, but one where he had no control over the classified data that he was storing on it. Same with Rice, although in her case, it was her aides rather than herself. To me, that sufficiently similar. To Politifact, it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/285 "2016-07-08T20:49:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Hillary Clinton said that the reason she set up the server is because she thought it would be easier to just use one device than to use several. That was her ‘convenience’ argument. Comey said that she regularly communicated using multiple difference devices, so that blew her ‘convenience’ argument out of the water. What **Lobohan** and **Do not Taunt** posted. And no, that was not the whole thing, the convenience argument was mainly about the server being there already, not just about the number of devices. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/05/revisiting-clintons-claim-she-used-personal-email-out-of-convenience-and-it-was-allowed-by-state-department/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/05/revisiting-clintons-claim-she-used-personal-email-out-of-convenience-and-it-was-allowed-by-state-department/) > [@](#): > > [Update: In a July 7, 2016 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, FBI Director James Comey was asked several times whether Clinton used her private email server out of convenience. > > When asked whether Clinton “knowingly, clearly set up her own private server … to shield communications from Congress and the public,” Comey replied: “I can’t say that. Our best information is that she set it up as a matter of convenience. It was an existing system her husband had and she decided to have a domain on that system.” > > > [@](#): > > > > FBI agents asked her why she set up the email system, and her answer was that it was out of convenience, “it was already there. It was a system her husband had and so she just jumped on to it,” Comey said. > > Comey said he did not know whether FBI agents investigating Clinton specifically asked her whether she stands by her convenience claim. But he said “they established, in talking to her, she used many devices during her four years. So I don’t know whether they asked her specifically about that statement.” Comey said he didn’t “want to get in the business of trying to parse and judge her public statements.”] Of course the fact checkers do go for one item of convenience mentioned in 2015 and not the original convenience reason. IMHO assigning a lie to this item is splitting hairs. In any case the point stands, Comey did not blow that excuse. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/286 "2016-07-08T20:50:32Z")
If bank of America was being investigated by the FBI and all the C level folks and their secretaries used a separate email system from the rest of the company located in the Cayman islands because he didn’t want to carry two devices how much benefit of the doubt would people give them? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125/287 "2016-07-08T20:53:11Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > If bank of America was being investigated by the FBI and all the C level folks and their secretaries used a separate email system from the rest of the company located in the Cayman islands because he didn’t want to carry two devices how much benefit of the doubt would people give them? Since the two scenarios aren’t remotely the same, why does it matter? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-not-recommending-charges-against-clinton/759125.md?page=14)