# Is Hillary Clinton being criminally investigated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 10, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984 "2016-06-10T00:44:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/41 "2016-06-11T04:28:47Z")
Just read summaries of the IG report. Clinton was the only one with a private server. Powell was the only one who didn’t turn over all his emails(Besides Clinton). Rice’s staff(and Powell himself) did receive some classified info via private email, as well as Clinton. The main issue with Clinton is the evasion of the Federal Records Act. Well, there’s also the fact that her lawyer, despite no security clearance, got to see all her emails, which is why she insists nothing was classified at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/42 "2016-06-11T04:32:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If you have, I’m sure you can link to training documents. They themselves should not be classified. Where do you get this information that those types of info are automatically classified? You are so sure that type of information is automatically classified, you must have read about it somewhere in some sort of official government document. Which one was it? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/43 "2016-06-11T04:34:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The main issue with Clinton is the evasion of the Federal Records Act. Yep, she failed to print out and file her emails when she left the office. OH THE HORROR! ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/44 "2016-06-11T04:34:40Z")
Not from government documents, but from news reports like this one: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821) > [@](#): > > The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton’s emails from her time as the nation’s most senior diplomat are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department’s own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go — regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not. > > In the small fraction of emails made public so far, Reuters has found at least 30 email threads from 2009, representing scores of individual emails, that include what the State Department’s own “Classified” stamps now identify as so-called ‘foreign government information.’ The U.S. government defines this as any information, written or spoken, provided in confidence to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts. > > This sort of information, which the department says Clinton both sent and received in her emails, is the only kind that must be “presumed” classified, in part to protect national security and the integrity of diplomatic interactions, according to U.S. regulations examined by Reuters. > > “It’s born classified,” said J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). Leonard was director of ISOO, part of the National Archives and Records Administration, from 2002 until 2008, and worked for both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. > > “If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it’s in U.S. channels and U.S. possession,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that for the State Department to say otherwise was “blowing smoke.” ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/45 "2016-06-11T04:40:42Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Not from government documents, but from news reports like this one: > > [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821) So nothing, is what you have. Appeal to authority maybe at the most. I suggest you stop repeating false information in General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/46 "2016-06-11T04:42:35Z")
The Reuters report is false? That should be pretty easy for you to prove. Besides, I’d love to know that the US government has laxer security standards than private companies. That would just be so much fun to throw in my liberal friends’ faces. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/47 "2016-06-11T04:44:40Z")
Also, if it’s that easy, if “markings” are such an easy defense, then why didn’t the FBI investigation take just one day? “Hey, did you have classified info on your private server?” “Nothing marked” “Oh, thank you then, we’ll wrap this up.” ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/48 "2016-06-11T04:48:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Reuters report is false? That should be pretty easy for you to prove. Besides, I’d love to know that the US government has laxer security standards than private companies. That would just be so much fun to throw in my liberal friends’ faces. A news article not knowing the exact inner workings of classification policy and procedures? No way!!! Not sure where you got that the US government has laxer security standards. Things need to have a REASON to be classified, that are spelled out in the Executive Order and the derived classification guides, in order to avoid over-classifying information to withhold it from the public. Don’t you want transparency? Or would you rather everyone be able to slap a “Top Secret” sticker on whatever they want, to withhold it from public view? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/49 "2016-06-11T04:52:17Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Also, if it’s that easy, if “markings” are such an easy defense, then why didn’t the FBI investigation take just one day? “Hey, did you have classified info on your private server?” “Nothing marked” “Oh, thank you then, we’ll wrap this up.” Who knows why the FBI investigation is taking so long? Maybe the longer it takes, the longer they get to stay in New York getting per diem or whatever. Maybe they don’t want to wrap it up so quickly because people would just say “No way that could be a complete investigation! It only took one day! I read a news article that said FBI investigations MUST take 4 weeks minimum!” Why don’t you go find a poorly sourced news article that explains the inner workings of the FBI investigative process? ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/50 "2016-06-11T05:06:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Reuters report is false? That should be pretty easy for you to prove. Besides, I’d love to know that the US government has laxer security standards than private companies. That would just be so much fun to throw in my liberal friends’ faces. Not sure about that, will you tell them that the right wing echo chamber missed that it is not so simple as Reuters assumed? > **[Hillary Clinton's emails: classified or not?](https://www.politifact.com/article/2015/sep/10/hillary-clintons-emails-classified-or-not/)** > > Hillary Clinton has said over and over again that there was no classified material on the private email server she used > [@](#): > > Reuters and others point to a November 2009 email containing a memo about Afghanistan written by then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. In the email – sent to Clinton aide Huma Abedin, then forwarded to Clinton – a Miliband aide writes that the memo is intended for Clinton’s eyes “only.” > > This seems like an obvious indicator that the information was provided in confidence, and thus should be deemed classified, as required by the Foreign Affairs Manual. > > “I cannot think of a clearer sign of an expectation that this was to be treated in confidence,” former Information Security and Oversight Office director J. William Leonard told our friends at the Washington Post Fact Checker. > > But not all experts agree that Clinton’s handling of foreign government information is an obvious violation. > > First of all, the confidentiality of the email is not 100 percent clear. Yes, the memo was intended solely for Clinton. But Miliband’s aide sent the email from his own personal account to Abedin at her [state.gov](http://state.gov) email address – not the State Department’s secure system. The memo also didn’t carry a marker indicating the British equivalent of classification. > > If the confidentiality of the information is not explicit, there’s room for disagreement about whether there was a violation, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. > > Also, information can’t be classified until someone with the proper authority declares it so. Because the memo didn’t come with an official British classification marker, someone in the U.S. government would have had to make that call. So even if the memo required classification, it was not classified when it landed in Clinton’s email – meaning it does not necessarily go against the claim that she did not receive classified material, Goitein said. > > While Abedin may have misstepped in forwarding the memo along, “Clinton’s own culpability in simply receiving the email is a much murkier question,” Goitein said. > > Our conclusion > > We’ve noticed several Republican candidates claiming that Clinton negligently handled classified information. But they’re jumping the gun. There isn’t enough evidence to prove that. Some evidence suggests Clinton and her team went to some trouble to keep classified information out the email system. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/51 "2016-06-11T05:17:30Z")
> [@](#): > > This seems like an obvious indicator that the information was provided in confidence, and thus should be deemed classified, as required by the Foreign Affairs Manual. GIGO just unintentionally backed up my argument about some information being treated as classified automatically. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/52 "2016-06-11T05:25:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > GIGO just unintentionally backed up my argument about some information being treated as classified automatically. Again: > [@](#): > > But not all experts agree that Clinton’s handling of foreign government information is an obvious violation. > > First of all, the confidentiality of the email is not 100 percent clear. Yes, the memo was intended solely for Clinton. But Miliband’s aide sent the email from his own personal account to Abedin at her [state.gov](http://state.gov) email address – not the State Department’s secure system. The memo also didn’t carry a marker indicating the British equivalent of classification. Remember, the claim included the bit about being in Clinton’s email. Point being that there was no marker then, not what Reuters was telling us. > [@](#): > > Our conclusion > > We’ve noticed several Republican candidates claiming that Clinton negligently handled classified information. But they’re jumping the gun. There isn’t enough evidence to prove that. Some evidence suggests Clinton and her team went to some trouble to keep classified information out the email system. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/53 "2016-06-11T05:32:19Z")
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/10/despite-clinton-claims-2012-email-had-classified-marking.html?intcmp=hpbt1](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/10/despite-clinton-claims-2012-email-had-classified-marking.html?intcmp=hpbt1) Yes it is a criminal investigation according to the White House, not sure if that specifically means her or just a general of all the staffers. It appears so far they’ve been able to pull up a 2012 e-mail that was sent to her was marked classified, despite claims according to her that none were. I’m not a legal expert I’m not sure what if anything would be the consequences. > [@](#): > > While he could not speak directly to the April 2012 email, he said, “I’ve seen information like that often. Often certain parts of a particular message will be unclassified and other parts will be classified and they are almost always marked paragraph by paragraph.” > > Pompeo added, “If, in fact, it is truly marked confidential that would… and she read it, that made it to her, that would conflict with what she had previously said." > > On Wednesday, Clinton told Bret Baier on Special Report, “the fact is, nothing that I sent or received was marked classified, and nothing has been demonstrated to contradict that. “ ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/54 "2016-06-11T05:36:42Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Again: > Remember, the claim included the bit about being in Clinton’s email. Point being that there was no marker then, not what Reuters was telling us. And that’s probably why there’s a long investigation. The issue is not crystal clear, as Politifact points out. If it was, this would already be over. Plus, news reports keep on saying intent matters, although I’ve never heard of the little guy receiving that kind of benefit of the doubt. Aren’t we little people told that ignorance of the law is no excuse? ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/55 "2016-06-11T05:48:53Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > And that’s probably why there’s a long investigation. The issue is not crystal clear, as Politifact points out. If it was, this would already be over. Plus, news reports keep on saying intent matters, although I’ve never heard of the little guy receiving that kind of benefit of the doubt. Aren’t we little people told that ignorance of the law is no excuse? And I have seen articles that point that the most likely punishment would be a revocation of security clearances. Not a criminal offense, but an internal matter. I remember in previous threads that backup companies and other issues were being investigated, but as it was also noted that the talking point that the number of investigators being increased was demonstrated to be incorrect, the delay may have just a very pedantic explanation. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/56 "2016-06-11T05:51:20Z")
Which would also doom her aspirations, although it would keep her out of jail. No one’s voting for a candidate who has been deemed unfit for a clearance. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/57 "2016-06-11T06:41:38Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Yes it is a criminal investigation according to the White House, not sure if that specifically means her or just a general of all the staffers. Already replied to in the thread, the white house spokesman said “Any criminal investigation” The straw grasping is happening in right wing sources of information. [http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/fox-news-obama-hillary-clinton-fbi-224143](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/fox-news-obama-hillary-clinton-fbi-224143) > [@](#): > > But Earnest seemed to be describing the White House’s practices in general terms, not characterizing the case as a “criminal” investigation. Asked to clarify, the White House noted that Earnest has previously said that he had “not talked to anybody at the Department of Justice with knowledge about this situation” – meaning that he would have no way of knowing whether the investigation was indeed criminal. > [@pool](#): > > It appears so far they’ve been able to pull up a 2012 e-mail that was sent to her was marked classified, despite claims according to her that none were. I’m not a legal expert I’m not sure what if anything would be the consequences. Uh, FOX news was really weaseling there, “While he could not speak directly to the April 2012 email, he said, “I’ve seen information like that often.”” Unsupported and still and not even related to the email they point out. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/58 "2016-06-11T06:42:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Which would also doom her aspirations, although it would keep her out of jail. No one’s voting for a candidate who has been deemed unfit for a clearance. I mentioned that only to humor you, in reality I think it is more likely that no indictment nor even that security clearance revocation is coming. Bottom line: it is clear to me that the procedures will be changed and it will be less likely that the Republicans will not check constantly , just as they promised to do with Trump for all the beheaded abuses even the Republicans admit he could do. The point here is that so far there is only one potential deal breaker issue for Clinton while there are boatloads of issues with Trump. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2016, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/59 "2016-06-11T06:50:17Z")
Uh, run out of edit time, I meant to say **boneheaded** abuses that could come from Trump, but since he supports harsh torture _beheaded_ may be appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984/60 "2016-06-11T07:05:00Z")
Probably time to move this over to GD. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hillary-clinton-being-criminally-investigated/756984.md?page=4)