So, ok. Out of 20% of the documents on former secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server, “305” are being reviewed further if they may possibly be classified. Where there’s smoke, there’s probably at least a spark or 2 - if the same statistical rate is found elsewhere, then 1500 documents will get reviewed for classification, and there’s probably at least one that is technically a secret and was a secret before Clinton first received it.
This kind of thing was enough to take down David Petraeus. However, does it state anywhere that a person cannot run for President if they were found guilty of a felony? I’m trying to imagine the ways this might go down :
Due to the government being inefficient, and stalling efforts by Clintons’ lawyers, they don’t actually conclude she committed a felony until *after *she’s been elected President. Constitution doesn’t let them arrest her, and the matter would go to the House and Senate I think for impeachment and removal. If the House and Senate are not 2/3 majority Republicans, she stays in office.
They do conclude she committed a felony, and manage to sentence her to prison, *and *manage to actually have her sent to prison before election day. Then she might not be able to run…although…if you are elected president while in a jail cell, don’t they have to let you go…
Barry pardons her and the whole thing stops.
Anyways, near as I can tell, the law has no actual power over her. Most any scenario, the only consequence of those emails, even if they find a smoking gun that says she’s a scofflaw of classification rules, it only matters if the public find her crime distasteful. If the public conclude that the “Zimbabwe grain harvest intercept from 1999-2004” is such a pathetic secret that they just don’t care if she put it on a less secure server, and vote for her in the same numbers they were going to vote for her anyway, it won’t matter in the slightest.
You know, for that matter, it sounds like her “crime” was sticking these documents in a place where they might get stolen. Does this mean if I have legal access to classified documents, and I leave some in the glove box of my car while going into a restaurant, I can get prosecuted for it? Or leave it on the top of my desk at my townhouse in DC or something? It doesn’t seem reasonable to sent people to prison for leaving secret documents where a burglar might be able to take them but probably won’t…leaving it on a locked computer that is not as secure as a bank vault but is still locked still sounds more like a failure to follow procedure and less like a crime.
Quick addendum : this is a general question because I am asking if known laws or Constitution requirements affect the following.
a. Can someone convicted of a felony become the President?
b. Can someone sentenced to prison but elected President be held in custody, or would the prison be forced to release that person as a result of executive privilege? (would the secret service be bound to assault the prison if they refused to release the president?)
c. Is there a state law she’s being accused of violating? If not, that means that a presidential pardon from Barrack Obama would instantly make everyone go home, correct?
d. The “my” is that if I were a washington insider, I’d probably drive a nice car and frequently have classified documents in my private notes or papers, and probably leave that car with the valet at restaurants during dinner meetings. I’d probably live in a rented townhouse while in DC and might have my notes in a filing cabinet or out on the desk, where a burglar or the maid could gain access. Would “I” be a criminal because someone might be able to break in without too much trouble and steal the secrets?
If you are a Clinton supporter or hater, this is the wrong thread to mention this. It’s not about whether she should or should not get in legal trouble over this little scandal, it’s about whether the government can nail her if it doesn’t affect her popularity.
a. As a legal matter, all you need to get elected President is 270 electoral votes (or the vote of the House if no electoral majority). The only requirements to being elected President are spelled out in the Constitution (age 35, natural born citizen). Whether it is politically possible is a different question, but plenty of people have been elected to Congress or state office after convictions.
b. Almost certainly, election to the Presidency wouldn’t have any effect on a custodial sentence. I don’t think there is any clear precedent, but the closest may be the holding that President Clinton had to testify in a civil deposition while President. If the President were in custody, there is the possibility that under the 25th Amendment, the President might be found to be temporarily disabled by the VP and Cabinet.
c. A Presidential pardon would relieve her of all federal criminal legal consequences (not any state law violations, but the everything here appears to be federal). Politically, however, it would be disastrous.
d. I don’t know what the protocols are for classified documents are (I’m sure there is someone here who has or had security clearance who can tell us), but I imagine you would get the proper training on the requirements when you get your clearance.
I can’t speak to the Presidential part. But I do know how safeguarding of classified docs was done, at least in my era which was largely before portable computers.
Stuff at the ordinary SECRET level was properly kept either in a locked safe of an approved design or on your person, period. Nowhere else. So stuff in a briefcase you were carrying was OK. Stuff in a briefcase sitting in your hotel room while you’re downstairs eating, not good. Whenever stuff was visible you had to ensure everybody in eye-shot had the appropriate clearance. Back around 1990ish some Navy officers were fired (& IIRC briefly imprisoned) for reading SECRET material on an airliner where a civilian seated behind them saw & recognized the SECRET markings and called the NIS on them.
Somebody who routinely dealt with SECRET stuff away from the office, like a cabinet level official, would probably have an approved safe installed at their home. These were/are remarkably stout 2 or 4 drawer filing cabinets.
Stuff at the higher TOP SECRET level was kept in a properly approved secured facility (building or rooms), period, and never left the building. When not being actively handled the stuff lived in a safe, or more likely a vault, within the secure building and was under signature control at all times. TOP SECRET messages & materials could be couriered around the base under rules I never had to deal with and can’t comment on.
In my era desktop PCs were coming in but the public Internet and widespread use of email was in the future. I can’t comment on how that may have changed things.
I am not a lawyer nor anyone with expert knowledge on this subject, but I have several decades of experience and exposure to Government classification procedures. As millions of people in the country do. I have seen such leakages before, some far worse than anything alleged in the Clinton email issue.
I have observed several of these “leakages” over the years. If, and it is a big if, classified data was contained in those emails and people knew it or should have known it at the time, that would result in individuals having their security clearances suspended. Unless the individual does something to reveal or transfer information known to be classified to a foreign power or to non-cleared personnel, just being careless isn’t a crime that could get one arrested. It will greatly reduce her chances of getting a clearance, but given her goals in life at this point that won’t be a significant problem.
There are two classification issues involved here. First, information must be properly marked by a relevant government official when it is created. Second, all information must be handled in accordance with it’s markings. According to what I have read, none of the information in the Clinton emails were marked classified. So she is correct and didn’t do anything wrong from a security aspect in that regard. As for information that should have been marked but wasn’t, it is up to the federal employee who created the email to have marked it correctly. Not just anyone can do so. If Clinton created the information and has the authority to classify information (as Sec. of State I assume she had that authority but I don’t know that), she messed up. Again, making that mistake isn’t likely to be a criminal offense. Where she could easily have gotten into trouble is if she was told something in a classified briefing that she repeated in an unclassified email. If that happened, her chances of getting a job requiring a security clearance aren’t good and in extreme cases, say director of the CIA or Secretary of State, could result in further penalties. But that would require the Government to prove that the individual involved knew the information was classified at the time and carelessly revealed it to non-cleared people or foreign agents. In all cases I am aware of where further criminal investigations occurred, the information in question was marked and the person knew at the time it was classified. Unless that happened no prosecutable crime occurred.
And by the way, the President doesn’t have (or actually doesn’t need) a clearance. High elected officials have access and need to know by virtue of their position, not by the blessing of some government bureaucrat. So the issue of a security clearance for the President doesn’t come up.
Lastly, none of the above depends on what email system she used. All the above apply if she had used a Government email system.
The real problem comes from the efforts of the Government to locate and secure every computer that might have contained the classified data. The Government takes the equipment and doesn’t get around to returning it for a very long time. So her ISP is likely out some of their equipment and perhaps a bunch of backup tapes. That is, I can tell you from personal experience, a pain in the rear. But that is the worst of it for anyone who manages to keep their clearances.
The real effect of all of this is it keeps Clinton’s name in the press in a negative light. Whether someone as experienced as she will suffer from this, or if she makes lemonade out of lemons, remains to be seen.
I think I kept all this in the spirit of General Questions. I tried!
One thing we learned from the birthers is that there probably isn’t an effective method of weeding out candidates who do not meet the constitutional qualifications. Philip Berg’s 2008 federal suit sought to block the seating of the Electoral College pending a (presumably) determination by the court of Obama’s eligibility. There were also two state-court suits filed seeking to prevent his inauguration. All were dismissed on standing grounds without reaching the merits.
In 2009, the Orly Taitz suits began, which did not seek to disqualify Obama per se but sought to block his deployment orders for members of the military on the grounds that he was not lawfully the Commander in Chief.
By 2012, the birther lawsuits generally sought to have Obama removed from the ballot for 2012 in states where the plaintiffs resided and were registered to vote. They figured that would obviate some of the standing issues that arose in previous cases. However, the majority of those cases were filed in state courts and tossed for lack of jurisdiction.
Other than noted nutjob Roy Moore, courts have held that it is the job of either Congress or the voters to determine whether candidates are qualified.
Hypothetically, if Secy. Clinton was found guilty of something that would land her in Federal prison (note the qualifier), like sending classified information somewhere she shouldn’t, but if it happened with such timing that she was already on ballots and was elected President.
Could she pardon herself, from her prison cell, the minute she officially takes over? (Jan 20, 2017)? She technically doesn’t have to be sworn in to officially start executing the powers of the office.
There is nothing that says a POTUS can’t pardon him- or herself, but I don’t know where you are getting the idea that she doesn’t have to be sworn in first. Until the inauguration, the prior president retains the powers of the office, though as a matter of custom he exercises them as little as possible.
Of course, a self-pardon would more or less guarantee impeachment.
That’s true. But she wouldn’t necessarily have to be a felon to end up in federal choky. If she was convicted on, say, a misdemeanor regulatory charge I suspect she might be able to stave off impeachment. Look at Bill: he was (probably) technically guilty, but voters didn’t hear “perjury,” they heard “lying about a blowjob” and the impeachment proceedings massively backfired against the GOP.
In 1920, Eugene Debs was the Socialist Party candidate for President, and received 3.41% of the popular vote, while serving time in prison. So, it would not be unprecedented for Clinton to be a candidate for the office even if she was found guilty of a crime.
Pretty similar to what you experienced except the entire computer system was at the appropriate level of classification. The network was wholly separate. Everything related to that system was separate and secured in accordance with the rules for the highest level of classification of the data on the system. Media related to those systems also had to be treated like they were at the highest level of information a system carried. Want to put a new printer cartridge in the Secret printer or use a burnable CD/DVD in the classified system? Label and log it before use. There was no going back either. Once that item was so labeled it couldn’t touch an unclassified system. It was like 100% infectious security herpes.
My question about all this is what felony she would have been guilty of? What she was doing with her email was not against the law nor even (at that time, at least) against rules or recommended procedure. That is the case with general email, anyway.
So if (say) one or two classified emails slipped through against her specific practice and intent, would that be a felony? What law, exactly, would this have been in violation of, and that could result in a felony conviction?
All this talk about “Hillary is going to the big house instead of the White House” makes no sense to me, it seems to be just another made-up political point. Note that this observation comes from someone who doesn’t particularly like the prospect of Hillary as president.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand this comment. Are you saying that the OP has made some unspoken assumptions in an attempt to score a political point, and that this is not really just a GQ? In any case, it doesn’t seem to answer my question which you quoted, and which itself might be considered something of a hijack (for which, apologies all around). I’m still interested to find out what felony Hillary could be convicted of.
It is very hard to find sources online that aren’t frothing partisan rambling, but the consensus seems to be that she might be found to have violated the Espionage Act of 1917.
[QUOTE=The Relevant Portion of the Act]
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
[/QUOTE]
Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano keeps referring to the Federal Records Act (presumably of 1950) but I can’t find any reference to criminal (or even civil) penalties for violations.
I have seen such leakages before, some far worse than anything alleged in the Clinton email issue.