# If Hillary was still SoS what should Obama do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 9, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476 "2016-07-09T15:54:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/1 "2016-07-09T15:54:47Z")
Assume Hillary is still Secretary of State, following the FBI investigation which noted her violations of law, reckless behavior, and public dishonesty about her actions, what action should Obama take? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/2 "2016-07-09T15:58:26Z")
He wouldn’t do anything as she would resign. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/3 "2016-07-09T16:05:35Z")
It wouldn’t be an issue. The tradition has developed that sitting cabinet members don’t run for President. So the only way Clinton would be Secretary of State was if she wasn’t running for President. And if Clinton wasn’t running for President, the Republicans wouldn’t have a reason to be claiming she’s committed crimes. They’d be out there making up stories about whoever the Democratic front runner was instead. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/4 "2016-07-09T16:35:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It wouldn’t be an issue. The tradition has developed that sitting cabinet members don’t run for President. So the only way Clinton would be Secretary of State was if she wasn’t running for President. And if Clinton wasn’t running for President, the Republicans wouldn’t have a reason to be claiming she’s committed crimes. They’d be out there making up stories about whoever the Democratic front runner was instead. Exactly. If she wasn’t a candidate Benghazi and the emails wouldn’t rate a second glance. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/5 "2016-07-09T17:21:35Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Exactly. If she wasn’t a candidate Benghazi and the emails wouldn’t rate a second glance. So if this investigation and report occurred for a sitting Secretary of State it would be ignored? Whether or not she is running for president isn’t relevant to the question. If she was still in office at State, and this report came out, what should Obama do? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/6 "2016-07-09T17:29:05Z")
In the hypothetical world, she would almost certainly resign prior to the report being released - it is likely that she would have resigned once the FBI started investigating. In this world, the investigation would not have gotten this far, if at all, because the Repubs would have focused on somebody else for their partisan witchhunts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/7 "2016-07-09T17:36:08Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > So if this investigation and report occurred for a sitting Secretary of State it would be ignored? If Clinton wasn’t running for President, there wouldn’t have been an investigation or a report. The Republicans would be too busy investigating Bernie Sanders overdue library books instead. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/8 "2016-07-09T17:36:15Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > He wouldn’t do anything as she would resign. > [@JohnT](#): > > In the hypothetical world, she would almost certainly resign prior to the report being released - it is likely that she would have resigned once the FBI started investigating. > > In this world, the investigation would not have gotten this far, if at all, because the Repubs would have focused on somebody else for their partisan witchhunts. Really? Is there ample precedent for that? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/9 "2016-07-09T17:55:03Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Assume Hillary is still Secretary of State, following the FBI investigation which noted her violations of law, reckless behavior, and public dishonesty about her actions, what action should Obama take? The FBI didn’t note “her violations of law.” Seriously, did you not pay attention at all to what the FBI Director said? Was he speaking, but you just heard different words coming out of his mouth, like a poorly dubbed kung fu movie? Comey concluded – totally correctly – that the whole idea of an unofficial email address for conducting government business was a really bad idea. I don’t believe he called it reckless, however, and Comey most certainly weigh in on “public dishonesty” because he simply concluded that Clinton did not lie to the FBI. Jeebus Christ, I’m not sure how we can have a public debate on important issues if a decent amount of the population believe someone said literally the opposite thing of what they did say. In any case, the Administration clearly knew about the email deal when she was Secretary of State. They should have said something about it then, but didn’t. Clearly Clinton wasn’t fired over using a personal email address, so I tend to think that in an alternate universe, either nothing would have been made of this (as what happened until she ran for President) or someone would have told her to knock it off with the personal email. It also came to light recently that the current Secretary of Defense conducted some official business on his personal email address within the last year or so. He acknowledged he shouldn’t have done that, promised not to do it anymore, and literally everyone in the universe moved on. ---
**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 9, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/10 "2016-07-09T20:13:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > So if this investigation and report occurred for a sitting Secretary of State it would be ignored? > > Whether or not she is running for president isn’t relevant to the question. If she was still in office at State, and this report came out, what should Obama do? It’s nonsense, ignoring it is reasonable. 3 fucking emails had no classification headers, and a (c) buried in the text. Comey specifically said it was reasonable to infer that the documents weren’t actually classified because of that. This is not a scandal. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/11 "2016-07-09T20:21:48Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It’s nonsense, ignoring it is reasonable. 3 fucking emails had no classification headers, and a (c) buried in the text. Comey specifically said it was reasonable to infer that the documents weren’t actually classified because of that. > > This is not a scandal. And now anti-Hillary folks are reduced to arguing this absurdity: that _out of more than 30,000 emails_, those three with no classification header but a (c) buried in the text MUST have stood out to HRC in sharp relief, burned into her memory in lines of LIVING FIRE. So that when she said ‘I didn’t send or receive classified emails’ she HAD to have those _Burned Into Memory 3_ in mind—and therefore knowingly have been lying. Yeah. Sure. Totally reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/12 "2016-07-10T08:22:32Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Assume Hillary is still Secretary of State, following the FBI investigation which noted her violations of law, reckless behavior, and public dishonesty about her actions, what action should Obama take? You clearly are a Hillary hater, with an agenda. If she broke the law, where are the charges? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/13 "2016-07-10T12:43:15Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > So if this investigation and report occurred for a sitting Secretary of State it would be ignored? > > Whether or not she is running for president isn’t relevant to the question. If she was still in office at State, and this report came out, what should Obama do? Probably not a fucking thing. After all, Obama emailed her on that server too. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/14 "2016-07-11T20:17:20Z")
Without fighting the hypothetical, Obama would allow her to graciously resign with as little disruption to her campaign as possible. There is no way he would fire her, and there is no way he would refuse to have anything to do with her. A secondary scenario might be Obama ignoring it, repeating that the FBI said there were no crimes and he won’t ask her to resign and they ignore Republican teeth gnashing until November ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/15 "2016-07-11T20:50:58Z")
Since even now it seems people don’t know the basic details of the story, I am again linking to Comey’s [statement](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system) explaining why Clinton and her team were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/16 "2016-07-11T21:46:20Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Assume Hillary is still Secretary of State, following the FBI investigation which noted her violations of law, reckless behavior, and public dishonesty about her actions, what action should Obama take? He would probably say something like “She made some mistakes and we need to do more to safeguard computer security in the future” while simultaneously telling the press that it didn’t rise to the level of a criminal offense and that he’s not asking her to resign. All the while, his chief of staff or someone else would be commissioned to do the dirty work of basically telling her privately that she needs to retire. That’s usually how these things work. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/17 "2016-07-11T22:20:27Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Since even now it seems people don’t know the basic details of the story, I am again linking to Comey’s [statement](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system) explaining why Clinton and her team were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” This would be the statement where Comey explains that even though Clinton and her team were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”, it didn’t rise to the level of criminal behavior and therefore no reasonable person would pursue charges based on it? The statement that a bunch of unreasonable people are insisting is actually code for “she’s totes a criminal but I’m afraid of the Clinton Crime Family so I have to pretend I didn’t notice how crimey she is”. The statement that caused a bunch howling loonies to threaten him with his own investigation if he didn’t give them grounds to keep sniping at Clinton? This whole process is just a modern Reign of Terror. The Republicans (heh!) want Madame Clinton sent to the guillotine. They don’t care about the truth. They don’t care if she’s guilty. They only care about getting the verdict they want. Comey didn’t give them the justification they wanted to attack the Queen - so now Comey’s being threatened by the mob. Pardon me for not being impressed by all the Very Serious People trying to act like Comey’s statement was every bit the same as if she’d actually done something criminal. She didn’t. It’s not. All the same, this will undoubtedly be the material that launches the next Clinton Impeachment. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/18 "2016-07-11T22:30:28Z")
It’s impeachments, all the way down! ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/19 "2016-07-11T23:33:21Z")
I do think it would have come to light since the whole involvement of members of Congress in questioning what happened with Benghazi started within days of the incident when she was still SoS. And it was a natural extension of any such investigation that someone, whether Congress or an outside FOIA petition, would ask for emails. So if she was still SoS she would have been asked to resign. Whether criminal or not, it reflects poorly on her. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476/20 "2016-07-12T00:03:11Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > This would be the statement where Comey explains that even though Clinton and her team were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”, it didn’t rise to the level of criminal behavior and therefore no reasonable person would pursue charges based on it? Yes. That’s the one. The one that exploded partisan heads on both sides, who cannot seem to grok that something can be both an extremely bad judgment damaging to our national security and also not criminal. The one that many partisan Democrats cannot defend the substance of, so they resort to obvious straw men and red herrings about conservative fever swamp lunacy. I think the GOP investigated Clinton because they have a political grudge. They could give two shits about email security. The logical relevance of that to the topic of this thread is precisely nil. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hillary-was-still-sos-what-should-obama-do/759476.md?page=2)