# What happened with the Hillary email scandal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 29, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574 "2016-01-29T14:58:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/61 "2016-01-30T14:30:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Was it classified at the time? This may be a relevant point for deciding the question of criminal liability. But it has very little to do with whether the top-secret info could have fallen into the wrong hands. Once secret info is stored in an accessible place, the way its classification is marked ceases to matter much. As this case clearly shows, in the natural course of daily duties the Secretary of State will be receiving sensitive info, some of which may be - or become - highly classified. If her scheme is to funnel that info to an unsecured private server, it’s pretty much guaranteed that security will be spectacularly compromised. It’s decidedly lame for her to then say, in effect “The responsibility lies exclusively with those who originated that data - it’s not my job to evaluate the nature of the info I receive. And I shouldn’t be expected to store that info in a secure place [that the US Govt supplies for free] on the expectation that it might prove sensitive. Except when they’re clearly marked as classified, I can do what I like with emails I receive.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/62 "2016-01-30T14:42:20Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > This may be a relevant point for deciding the question of criminal liability. But it has very little to do with whether the top-secret info could have fallen into the wrong hands. Once secret info is stored in an accessible place, the way its classification is marked ceases to matter much. > > As this case clearly shows, in the natural course of daily duties the Secretary of State will be receiving sensitive info, some of which may be - or become - highly classified. If her scheme is to funnel that info to an unsecured private server, it’s pretty much guaranteed that security will be spectacularly compromised. > > It’s decidedly lame for her to then say, in effect “The responsibility lies exclusively with those who originated that data - it’s not my job to evaluate the nature of the info I receive. And I shouldn’t be expected to store that info in a secure place [that the US Govt supplies for free] on the expectation that it might prove sensitive. Except when they’re clearly marked as classified, I can do what I like with emails I receive.” It’s not about markings (though that might be important too) – was the information in question classified? Information can be unclassified one day, and then later determined to be classified, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/63 "2016-01-30T14:46:48Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Was it classified at the time? Absolutely. It was not MARKED classified, but that doesn’t mean as much as Clinton would like us to believe. She didn’t get tons of training just to tell the difference between “marked” and “unmarked”. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/64 "2016-01-30T14:50:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > ARE NOW top secret. They were not classified so when they were sent from her server. That is a crucial detail that the GOP would like people to overlook. Not the way I understand the situation after watching several news reviews. As i understand it they were, are now, will be for some time above top secret. Of course could be my lying eyes and ears, that might be the next excuse. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/65 "2016-01-30T15:16:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Absolutely. It was not MARKED classified, but that doesn’t mean as much as Clinton would like us to believe. She didn’t get tons of training just to tell the difference between “marked” and “unmarked”. Cite that the information at the time she sent it was classified? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/66 "2016-01-30T15:16:49Z")
They weren’t marked that way, but it doesn’t actually matter. If the info is secret, the info is secret. If she’d used a .gov account, wouldn’t have been an issue. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/67 "2016-01-30T15:18:27Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Cite that the information at the time she sent it was classified? All correspondence pertaining to foreign leaders is classified automatically, marked or not. So are intelligence assets. No one asked when Plame’s name was leaked if anyone in the BUsh administration had seen a document marked classified with her name on it. ---
**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:** [January 30, 2016, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/68 "2016-01-30T15:24:53Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > Not the way I understand the situation after watching several news reviews. As i understand it they were, are now, will be for some time above top secret. > > Of course could be my lying eyes and ears, that might be the next excuse. No, it is just the media that does want to have their horse race once the main election comes. You have to remember that already on this issue even the New York times that started the ball rolling was caught with several inaccuracies and exaggerations. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/69 "2016-01-30T15:27:22Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > This may be a relevant point for deciding the question of criminal liability. But it has very little to do with whether the top-secret info could have fallen into the wrong hands. Once secret info is stored in an accessible place, the way its classification is marked ceases to matter much. > > As this case clearly shows, in the natural course of daily duties the Secretary of State will be receiving sensitive info, some of which may be - or become - highly classified. If her scheme is to funnel that info to an unsecured private server, it’s pretty much guaranteed that security will be spectacularly Serious question: Has there been any indication that her server was any less secure than the govt server(s)? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/70 "2016-01-30T15:30:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > All correspondence pertaining to foreign leaders is classified automatically, marked or not. So are intelligence assets. No one asked when Plame’s name was leaked if anyone in the BUsh administration had seen a document marked classified with her name on it. Cite, that any of this is true, including that the info in question pertained to foreign leaders, and that this is automatically classified. I have experience in this, though not with State Dept stuff. I’m not going to accept anything you say without a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/71 "2016-01-30T15:31:28Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Cite that the information at the time she sent it was classified? From the [Daily Kos](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/28/1416309/-Hillary-Clinton-s-Felony-The-federal-laws-violated-by-the-private-server) > [@](#): > > Reuters has since reported that her unsecured private server email system contained “presumed classified” materials. Hillary personally exchanged such presumed classified information with Sidney Blumenthal, and those communications were intercepted and publicly released by a Romanian hacker. > > The fact that the email was not marked classified at the time does not excuse Mrs. Clinton. This is because information gathered from foreign government sources, a great deal of her email was so sourced, is presumed classified. Mrs Clinton received Departmental training on recognizing and handling classified materials. Presumed classified information is defined by Executive Order as “The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security.” > > Secretary Clinton was trained in handling of classified materials, and acknowledges that she understood them. By transmitting and receiving email correspondence that contained information gleaned from foreign government sources on an unauthorized, insecure system, she violated the law. This was not something she did unwittingly, and that the foreign government sourced material was not stamped classified is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/72 "2016-01-30T15:37:02Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > From the [Daily Kos](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/28/1416309/-Hillary-Clinton-s-Felony-The-federal-laws-violated-by-the-private-server) “Presumed classified” doesn’t mean classified, and stuff that is “presumed” to be so, looked at, can be determined not to be. “foreign leader’s wife likes puppies” would not be classified. What is the information? Until we know that, every claim about legality is guesswork. ---
**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:** [January 30, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/73 "2016-01-30T15:40:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They weren’t marked that way, but it doesn’t actually matter. If the info is secret, the info is secret. If she’d used a .gov account, wouldn’t have been an issue. > [@adaher](#): > > All correspondence pertaining to foreign leaders is classified automatically, marked or not. So are intelligence assets. No one asked when Plame’s name was leaked if anyone in the BUsh administration had seen a document marked classified with her name on it. And that is the speculation that it is coming from the right a lot nowadays. As pointed before that is what it is more likely to be wrong or miss the target. For example there was an accusation that a name of an intelligence operative was leaked thanks to one of then not marked classified emails. As it has been a pattern many times the accusation does not really match what Republicans are telling to the ones they are misleading. After Gaudy and others mentioned the Palme incident to compare to the current issue this was reported: > **[Rep. Elijah Cummings Debunks Right-Wing Media's Claim That Clinton Sent...](https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/rep-elijah-cummings-debunks-right-wing-medias-claim-clinton-sent-classified)** > > Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, cited information from the CIA to debunk the claim that Hillary Clinton compromised national security by revealing the name of a CIA source in an email sent... > [@](#): > > Cummings Letter On Gowdy’s Accusation: “You Failed To Check Your Facts Before You Made It, And The CIA Has Now Informed The Select Committee That You Were Wrong.” In an October 18 letter to Gowdy, Cummings wrote that Gowdy’s claim was wrong and the CIA had informed the committee that the information in Blumenthal’s email was not classified: > > > [@](#): > > > > On October 7, 2015, you sent me a 13-page letter making a grave new accusation against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Specifically, you accused her of compromising national security and endangering lives. > > > > ``` > > The problem with your accusation--as with so many others during this investigation--is that you failed to check your facts before you made it, and the CIA has now informed the Select Committee that you were wrong. I believe your accusations were irresponsible, and I believe you owe the Secretary an immediate apology. > > > > [...] > > > > To further inflate your claim, you placed your own redactions over the name of the individual with the words, "redacted due to sources and methods." To be clear, these redactions were not made, and these words were not added, by any agency of the federal government responsible for enforcing classification guidelines. > > > > Predictably, commentators began repeating your accusations in even more extreme terms, suggesting in headlines for example that "Clinton Burns CIA Libya Contact." > > > > Contrary to your claims, the CIA yesterday informed both the Republican and Democratic staffs of the Select Committee that they do not consider the information you highlighted in your letter to be classified. Specifically, the CIA confirmed that "the State Department consulted with the CIA on this production, the CIA reviewed these documents, and the CIA made no redactions to protect classified information." > > > > Unfortunately, you sent your letter on October 7 without checking first with the CIA. Now that we have done so, we have learned that your accusations were incorrect. > > > > ``` > > [Select Committee on Benghazi, 10/18/15] ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/74 "2016-01-30T15:49:12Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > “Presumed classified” doesn’t mean classified It certainly sounds as if it means exactly that. What’s your reason for believing otherwise? > [@](#): > > stuff that is “presumed” to be so, looked at, can be determined not to be. Sure - but until that has happened, it must be treated as classified. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/75 "2016-01-30T15:54:41Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > It certainly sounds as if it means exactly that. What’s your reason for believing otherwise? My experience working with classified into. > [@](#): > > Sure - but until that has happened, it must be treated as classified. How do you know it didn’t happen? ---
**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:** [January 30, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/76 "2016-01-30T15:58:33Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > “Presumed classified” doesn’t mean classified, and stuff that is “presumed” to be so, looked at, can be determined not to be. “foreign leader’s wife likes puppies” would not be classified. > > What is the information? Until we know that, every claim about legality is guesswork. It is indeed, what one should not guess is the context offered already by the State Department, they have said that Hillary didn’t do anything wrong. She broke no policies of having a private email account. Virtually all the speculations from the right are coming by using recently changed rules and regulations that they want them to be applied retroactively to Clinton for political reasons. Something that IMHO would be considered unamerican but it is par for the course for many authoritarian republicans. AFAIK there could be a complaint by the FBI later but the FBI itself cannot present an indictment on its own, a federal grand jury would be needed to bring charges against Clinton and then the item about malicious intent will have to be demonstrated to them. Very unlikely IMHO to indict even then. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/77 "2016-01-30T16:02:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > My experience working with classified into. We’d like to hear how this causes you to believe that “presumed classified” doesn’t mean “classified”. > [@](#): > > How do you know it didn’t happen? It may have happened - but it wouldn’t (and indeed couldn’t) have happened instantly to every piece of info originating from a foreign government. So storing such on a private server was a violation of the law. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/78 "2016-01-30T16:11:43Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > … a federal grand jury would be needed to bring charges against Clinton and then the item about malicious intent will have to be demonstrated to them. Why do you believe that malicious intent must be demonstrated? The relevant law - 18 U.S. Code § 793 (e) and (f) - certainly does not specify that a violation requires any malicious intent. ---
**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:** [January 30, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/79 "2016-01-30T16:15:16Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > We’d like to hear how this causes you to believe that “presumed classified” doesn’t mean “classified”. > It may have happened - but it wouldn’t (and indeed couldn’t) have happened instantly to every piece of info originating from a foreign government. So storing such on a private server was a violation of the law. Thing is, even from the beginning that was not a clear cut case, hence the ongoing point that speculations like this one are bound to be found wrong or insufficient to get an indictment or ultimately a conviction. > **[Fact Check: Hillary Clinton, Those Emails And The Law](https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/02/396823014/fact-check-hillary-clinton-those-emails-and-the-law)** > > A top Republican senator charged that Hillary Clinton "probably" broke the law with her use of private emails as secretary of state. But it's not likely to be so clear. > [@](#): > > Addressing the Federal Records Act, NPR’s Scott Horsley reported last month on the question of whether Clinton’s exclusive reliance on a private email account violated it. Here’s some of what he reported: > > ``` > "A State Department spokeswoman says Hillary Clinton did not break any rules by relying solely on her personal email account. Federal law allows government officials to use personal email so long as relevant documents are preserved for history." > > ``` > > The law was amended in late 2014 to require that personal emails be transferred to government servers within 20 days. But that was after Clinton left office. > [@](#): > > Nonetheless, Dan Metcalfe, who was the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy from 1981 to 2007, blasted Clinton in an op-ed in Politico. He said what was “unprecedented” actually was Clinton’s exclusive use of private email and her own Internet service provider in lieu of an official account “so that the records of her email account would reside solely within her personal control at home.” > > That means “she managed successfully to insulate her official emails, categorically, from the FOIA, both during her tenure at State and long after her departure from it — perhaps forever.” He called that “a blatant circumvention of the FOIA by someone who unquestionably knows better.” > > But was it “probably … a violation of law,” as Grassley charged? > > The Justice Department weighed in, calling it “sheer speculation” that “Clinton withheld any work-related emails from those provided to the Department of State.” What’s more, Justice wrote, “FOIA creates no obligation for an agency to search for and produce records that it does not possess and control.” ---
**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:** [January 30, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574/80 "2016-01-30T16:27:33Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Why do you believe that malicious intent must be demonstrated? The relevant law - 18 U.S. Code § 793 (e) and (f) - certainly does not specify that a violation requires any malicious intent. You need to read (a), (b), (c) and others, clearly the issue of intent is key. And that is why IMHO we get what we are seeing, Clinton is not the target of the investigation, of course that does not mean that mistakes were made and what this investigation looks like is what it is: To make better guidelines to identify secret messages properly between intelligence groups. To check where and how anyone could had gotten access to information, so as to prevent issues like this one from happening again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-with-the-hillary-email-scandal/744574.md?page=5)