August 23, 2015

2 very different interviews about Hillary Clinton's email troubles, this morning on Fox News Sunday.

Shannon Bream was the interviewer (instead of the usual Chris Wallace) and the guests were former Attorney General Mike Mukasey —who was calm and seemingly neutral — and Ellen Tauscher — who was there to defend Hillary and looked so terrified that I took screen shots of her:


Full transcript here. Excerpts:

BREAM [to Mukasey]: You have speculated that there are a number of potential legal charges she could be facing, including felony charges under the same federal statute that swept up General David Petraeus....[S]he says it was never marked classified. If not, could she... meet the requirements that a prosecutor would have to fulfill for knowingly violating some of these laws?

MUKASEY: Sure, because the statute protects information. It doesn't protect documents simply that are stamped or not stamped. That's not the determining factor. The determining factor is the information and the question, as you point out, is what she knew about what was on those e-mails that she sent and that she received and what she did with respect to them....

BREAM [to Tauscher] : Former CIA Director John Deutsch was investigated under the same law as was General David Petraeus, for keeping classified material on a government-owned computer at his house. The CIA has said, the inspector general, that the computer was designated only for use with only unclassified material and referred this investigation to the DOJ. Reportedly, Mr. Deutsch was in talks for a plea deal when he was pardoned by then-President Clinton. Obviously, that was a good deal for him in the end. General Petraeus a different end. And he narrowly avoided jail, but two years probation, $100,000 fine. How is -- how are those cases different than Mrs. Clinton's?

TAUSCHER: Well, they're completely different. You're talking about classified information.... But what is clear is that while she was secretary, Hillary Clinton did not receive on her unclassified, unsecure e-mail system, the same as the dot-gov system at the state department anything that said header/footer that it was classified. So, you know, we can quibble about whether things should be reclassified as they go out to the public, but there is no question all of the classified e-mails that Hillary Clinton used, saw and supervised as secretary are on the classified server. There's no question about that. So, this idea that we're spinning everybody up about perjury and talking about previous cases between John Deutsche and Dave Petraeus, it's just dancing on the head of a pin, and frankly, partisan politics.

BREAM: What do you make of the "Reuters" report that came out? A nonpartisan, mainstream news organization, people would agree on that. They say that by their estimation, at least 30 e-mail streams involved information that was foreign government information. By its nature, it would be classified, presumed as such. Former director of the U.S. government's information security oversight office, J. William Leonard, called that kind of information, quote, "born classified." As secretary of state, shouldn't Mrs. Clinton have known that?

TAUSCHER: Look, Secretary Clinton has former foreign service officers, civil servants. I did as undersecretary too, that make sure all of this information is protected. It is physically impossible to move things from the classified system to the unclassified system. We are only talking about the classified system, unclassified system. Everything on the classified system is where it belongs and there is no question about that. The Federal Records Act makes very clear that the person that transmits the information is responsible for the classified -- classification of the information. And is it possible that Secretary Clinton was passed something by somebody and somebody and somebody? Yes. That would have been true if it had been on the state dot-gov e-mail system. But I mean, I think that we all understand that Hillary Clinton is held to a different standard. But let's get it straight. Let's be lawful and let's be smart about this. We're talking about unclassified e-mails. We're not talking about classified e-mails, we're talking about unclassified e-mails and they are clearly subject to what people interpret.... And there are differences between the State Department and the intelligence community right now.

BREAM: There are, because there are at least two nonpartisan, again, neutral inspectors general who have pointed out that they believe there was classified information, enough that they referred it to the DOJ for investigation. One of the e-mails that's come to light involves Huma Abedin, obviously, a very close associate and adviser to the former first lady, forwarding a note from an aide to former British foreign minister, David Milliband, saying, didn't want to go through the system, didn't want to go by the channels, wanted it to be seen by the secretary only. It talks about information in Afghanistan. It is five pages, all five pages of redacted. That is classified information at least per some concerns. We also have a judge who was appointed by then-President Clinton, Judge Emmet Sullivan, and he said this about Mrs. Clinton during a heated hearing on Thursday. He said, quote, "We wouldn't be here today if this employee had followed government policy." So, does she have herself to blame for being in this position?

TAUSCHER: Look, Secretary Clinton has made it very clear that what was done for convenience has become anything but convenient, and in hindsight, some mistakes were made. But let's face it, Secretary Clinton is not someone who takes her national security responsibilities lightly and has done a fabulous job as secretary and as a senator, making sure that she's done everything she can to keep America safe. So I think what's really important here is that if we're going to cherry pick, let's stay with the cherry tree....

99 comments:

Unknown said...

General Petraeus was convicted of an offense that can be compared to driving 25 miles an hour in a 20 mile per hour school zone. Hillary is accused of driving 180 miles an hour with a school bus full of orphans and loaded weapons. Wonder why our foreign policy sucked under Hillary? Its because the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians were reading her emails before her staff was.

Hagar said...

But there are no more trial balloons about Petraeus running for president.

The drip-drip leaks and comments are now coming from within the administration. Hillary! is toast.

Big Mike said...

... and in hindsight, some mistakes were made.

Boy! Isn't that the standard Washington way to say "yes, I cheated, and I'm sorry I got caught, now please go away."

David said...

It's telling that they have trotted out Trauscher, the political equivalent of a has been B movie actress. It tells me that more competent defenders are unwilling to step up.

Phil 314 said...

dancing on the header of a pin

Hillary just didn't realizing she was dancing on the sharp end of the pin.

The Bergall said...

I have never heard of Tauscher before. But she was absolutely awful. Who's idea was it to put her up to this?

AllenS said...

TAUSCHER: ... But what is clear is that while she was secretary, Hillary Clinton did not receive on her unclassified, unsecure e-mail system,

How on earth did Hillary conduct business as Sec of State if she never received or sent classified infomation?

paminwi said...

I watched the mentioned show and wondered who chose her to represent the HRC views. This woman was a disaster from the get-go and totally was off the rails by the end of the interview. When she said something to the effect of that the former Attorney General had issues understanding the classification laws I laughed out loud.

Unknown said...

--But there are no more trial balloons about Petraeus running for president.

The point is there is more to life than politics. This is a real national security crime probably co-mingled with global big money corruption. We won’t know for years how much damage has been done.

khesanh0802 said...

Tauscher made what I thought were at least two very incriminating comments: "It is physically impossible to move things from the classified system to the unclassified system. We are only talking about the classified system, unclassified system" and "The Federal Records Act makes very clear that the person that transmits the information is responsible for the classified -- classification of the information." Hillary did not use the classified system she used her own system she never even got close to the classified system. Hillary was also responsible for correctly classifying the e-mails that she sent. She could not even get that part right. Tauscher should look scared. She is trying to spin something she knows is wrong. She'll make a hell of a defense witness.

buwaya said...

What did they have to pay this woman ?
Or, how desperate is she ?

Jim S. said...

Here's video of the whole interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD7-4K0zz0Y

I have to say that Ellen Tauscher doesn't just look terrified, she sounds terrified. Her voice -- which may just be how her voice naturally sounds -- is constantly wavering and cracking. It sounded like she was about to burst into tears. And it looked like she was about to burst into tears. It reminded me of that scene in Fun With Dick and Jane where Jim Carrey is interviewed and completely blows it. Here's that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdf-jKsKA9k

Anonymous said...

Maybe Hillary can go with the Dick Cheney defense and claim she wasn't really in charge just a figurehead. Samantha Power or was the real SoS.

Bobber Fleck said...

The Bergall said: "I have never heard of Tauscher before. But she was absolutely awful. Who's idea was it to put her up to this?

Hillary said: "Commrade Tauscher, you have been selected for the highest of honors. It is your privilege to serve our great cause by running 100 yards across the open field while avoiding machine gun fire to use your knife to kill 12 heavily armed enemy troops in their fortified position.

I enjoyed Shannon Bream's sly smile as Tauscher spun her lies. Shannon did a very nice job of picking apart Tauscher's story.

Quaestor said...
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Quaestor said...

It is physically impossible to move things from the classified system to the unclassified system. We are only talking about the classified system, unclassified system

Is that Hillary's defense tactic, sending out someone without an earthly clue about anything she's been sent to comment on? Somebody should have tried that line on Eric Snowden.

Original Mike said...

"Wonder why our foreign policy sucked under Hillary? Its because the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians were reading her emails before her staff was."

I really want to know if the bad guys knew Stevens was going to be Benghazi that day by reading Hillary's emails.

pm317 said...

Apparently there is STATE.SGOV for classified stuff and STATE.GOV for unclassified. I don't think email from .SGOV can be that easily transmitted over STATE.GOV let alone to Hillary's private server. So I think there is a lot of misinformation going around. But I hang it on Hillary's head for keeping a private email server. And bear in mind that all these leaks about the investigation are coming from the Obama WH.

Original Mike said...

I hate watching people make fools of themselves. The Tauscher interview was painful.

Tauscher, BTW, was Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security under Clinton. Dismaying.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hillary was able to stuff the Clinton Foundation coffers with mega-favor bucks, so it was worth it.

pm317 said...

Meanwhile, Biden met with Warren over the weekend. Screw all these bastards. I will vote for Trump.

YoungHegelian said...

You think Tauscher was looking apoplectic? Just wait until the Democrats find out at the last minute that their front-runner candidate is facing an indictment, won't step down, & has just sucked the wind out of every other possible Democratic candidate.

Then you'll see apoplexy on a galactic level. The Democratic establishment will not take the destruction of their aims for 2016 & beyond lightly.

Brando said...

I try to be fair when reading these, but Tauscher makes absolutely no sense. Is this the official Clintonite line? If so, this looks real bad for them.

I'm hopeful we're watching the unraveling of her candidacy, certainly if DOJ has to indict her--but I've had my hopes up before. If Biden jumps in that may be a sign that the Dems see blood in the water.

Sam L. said...

Tauscher: Feminist Icon, or Feminist exaggeration for ugly effect?

Ron Nelson said...

Tauscher is a long-time Clinton loyalist going back to her days as a California congress woman in the years of the first Clinton administration.

Even taking Tauscher's assertion that Clinton was only receiving classified information from someone else, Clinton had a responsibility to get her security people in, get the data into the classified system and scrubbing the unclassified system of any classified data for fear that it would be hacked or further disseminated. So far as has been revealed thus far SHE DID NONE OF THAT. That is a security violation even if true. Instead she seemed perfectly content to receive and disseminate unmarked classified information on her private email server that was readily accessible by uncleared persons and possibly foreign agents.

dbp said...

Saturday morning we were driving up in NH to pick up our daughter from running camp and MuKasey was on NPR discussing the issue.

Some part of Hillary's last presser had her essentially denying she had the technical know how to wipe a server. The former attorney general replied to the effect, I don't know how to wipe a server either, but I know how to tell someone to wipe a server.

We all had to guffaw, the lies Hillary is telling are laughably bad.

Michael K said...

It is physically impossible to move things from the classified system to the unclassified system.

Yes, that is why someone had to copy the classified file and then copy it to e-format. That is a felony. Somebody will squeal.

The real problem for Hilalry and company is HERE !

Working on a classified project, I had an actual terminal at my desk, and could send email to my colleagues. But only the ones on that project, because the whole computer, network and all, was in a shielded Secure Compartmented Information Facility, a SCIF. The only connections to the outside world were telephones with push-to-talk buttons, and the power lines – which were specially isolated so that no signals could leak out.

The effect was an air gap – there were no electronic connections to the outside world, so there were no pathways for secrets to escape by electronic means. Someone would have to carry a document, or a disk drive, out of the room, and we had guards and such to see they didn’t.


Somebody is going to prison.

“NOFORN,” as is pretty obvious, means “no foreign distribution.” Not even Canada.
I’ve gone on at a little length there because I want to make it clear: this classification is pretty heavy stuff, with the potential to cause “exceptionally grave damage,” and containing information that can be identified as coming from both Earth-based and satellite-based collection, that shouldn’t be shared with any foreign national.

This information would always be air-gapped. There is no (legitimate) way that a computer system could be connected to TS//SI//TK//NOFORN data and to the outside world.

What can happen is that someone copies information, onto a piece of paper or a thumb drive (actually systems that can handle TS shouldn’t have thumb drives either, but it’s too easy to sneak one in or out) and then copied into an email in an uncontrolled system – a cell phone or a laptop or an iPad. The person doing it has to know that it’s coming from a secure system, has to know how sensitive the data really is; they go through lots of training, repeated reminders, and come and go to the office through a freaking vault door that would do credit to a bank.

It has to be done on purpose, and it has to be done knowingly. There has to have been conscious intent to do it.


Maybe Maximum Security Prison.

The Godfather said...

OK, there may be some valuable information dribbling out here. According to Tauscher, Hillary! didn't want to receive classified info on her private, unsecured server, just as she would not have wanted to receive such info on her State.Gov email account if she'd used it. So how did she go about making sure that people who had access to her private email account knew they shouldn't use it for classified information? What method were they told to use to get that information to her? What did Hillary! do when, as was probably inevitable, and as apparently did happen, someone used her personal account to pass on classified information? Given that Hillary! only used the one email account, what method did she use to cause classified information to be transmitted to others that she thought should receive it?

We're talking about the GOVERNMENT here. Shouldn't there be directives and memos and so forth and so on that deal with all these issues? Unless Hillary! and Trauscher are just blowing smoke up our respective anuses. Ani?

Barry Dauphin said...

Yes, HRC is in trouble. The Clintons have made nice with Bill Richardson.

Anonymous said...

It is physically impossible to move things from the classified system to the unclassified system. We are only talking about the classified system, unclassified system

True as far as it means electronically.

However, one can read info on SGov or on JWICS and then write an email to HDR22@Clintonemail that says, the "NSA has discovered" or "the CIA thinks" and if you do that, you need to go to jail. both the sender and the receiver if the receiver did not report the breach...

Anonymous said...

I predict this is heading to a special counsel...

Rusty said...

Oh. Crap. That's funny.
She knows there's going to be a tarinwreck and she also knows she can't get out of the way.

PB said...
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PB said...

The only reason for Hillary to set up the email server and not use government email, AND not turn over government emails for over 2 years after leaving office is to evade the ability of people to look at those emails. It is clear classified information was stored on that server and thus she is in violation of federal law, likely hundreds of counts.

It is not credible to believe that some of those emails didn't involve pay-to-play activities of the Clinton Foundation.

She is entirely unfit for any public office.

MikeR said...

We don't know too much about what's there, but what about the following case:
Putin decides to send a secret email to Clinton. He decides to send it to her personal email instead of official channels.
The email is clearly going to be classified Top Secret.
What is supposed to happen? Does Clinton have to scrub her server and start over every time that happens? Should she ask him as a favor not to do that? What if he sent it to her Facebook account?
I'm just trying to understand how all this airgap/sealed room security works when the information arrives at her private account from outside. Obviously, if it's the other direction , and she or her aides originated an email with classified material, she or they are in big trouble.

Anonymous said...

PB said...
She is entirely unfit for any public office.


I saw a poll about 2 weeks ago that asked the question:

Is Clinton telling the truth about her emails. It went something like:

67%: She's lying
31%: I don't know
2%: she is telling the truth

With those numbers, let her try to run....

Etienne said...
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Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
madAsHell said...

Hillary breached the air gap between secret, and unclassified systems. This goes both ways. She moved secret to unclassified, but may have also unwittingly moved some malicious virus from unclassified to secret.

Ask the Iranians about their centrifuges.

Monty Kingsbury said...

A tip of the Hatlo Hat to Prof. Althouse for pointing this out. I just watched the Tauscher interview and suggest that it be filed away until subsequent events cut the legs out from under her. Store it someplace handy, like on the desktop, because it won't be long. I was a youth at the time but I still remember Ron Ziegler, President Nixon's press spokesman, having to declare that a previous statement he had made was "inoperative" when events proved it false a few weeks later. A lot of folks will have that egg on their faces when this situation gests fully resolved.

CachorroQuente said...

I have no idea why people try to trivialize Petraeus's crimes. When the FBI searched his home, they found a number of notebooks in an unlocked desk drawer. The notebooks contained a bunch of classified information including the identities of covert agents. According to the Washington Post, "The books contained top-secret information that the Justice Department said could cause 'exceptionally grave damage' to national security if disclosed." This is clearly a violation of the law and not a technical inadvertent violation -- the crime was intentional and willful.

Not only did Petraeus illegally possess these notebooks, he shared them with his mistress, Paula Broadwell. It was Broadwell's possession of the classified information that led to the finding that Petraeus had the notebooks. It's not important that Broadwell had a TS clearance when she was given the information -- at the time, she was a reserve officer with, apparently, no official military duties and surely no official position which would allow her access to the information in question. Just having the proper security clearance does not create the necessary "need to know."

Then, when he was interviewed by the FBI about the classified information, according to the FBI, Petreaus lied about possessing the information. That's another crime which Petraeus apparently skated on.

Dildo Donald claims that Petraeus's crimes were minor and that his life was destroyed as a result. This is bullshit twice: his crimes were willful and serious and to the extent his life was destroyed (and that assertion is doubtful, at best. David is doing quite well.) it was because of his serious errors in judgement and failures of character.

No doubt, Petraeus was a great general and fantastic leader and he deserves great praise and admiration for his accomplishments. He's also very lucky to have gotten off with such a light penalty (probation and $100k fine).

Sayyid said...

"But I mean, I think that we all understand that Hillary Clinton is held to a different standard."

Jarring. Had to read it three times before I got the intended meaning.

CachorroQuente said...

"Putin decides to send a secret email to Clinton. He decides to send it to her personal email instead of official channels.
The email is clearly going to be classified Top Secret."

That's one problem (of many) with the way Clinton had it set up. If she had used the State Department unclassified email system, it would not have been her problem to control access to the information and the destruction of it and the sanitization of the servers. All she would have had to do was assign somebody the task of regularly looking over her emails and notifying State Department IT people if there was any question. Surely, the State Department has a bunch of people dedicated to keeping their unclassified email system sanitary. But, by taking her email private, it would seem that she took that responsibility on. It's not clear to me that there is an actionable criminal accusation -- we'll find out eventually -- but it was most certainly bad judgement for Clinton to handle it the way she did.

Michael said...

"...has done a fabulous job as secretary..."

Please. Is there a single country in the world (except possibly Myanmar) with which the US had better relations when Hillary left the State Department than when she joined it? I very much doubt it. I'm talking about their government's willingness to support American interests, not whatever Pew Research might say about the state of public opinion (although that's probably not better now either.)

Hagar said...

Baghdad Ellen.

sane_voter said...

Ellen Tauscher looked like Cruella DeVille. And sounded like a babbling idiot.

I put the over/under when Clinton drops out of the Dem primary at Oct 23rd. Oct 22nd is the date when she is scheduled to testify to the House Select Committee on Benghazi committee chaired by former federal prosecutor Trey Gowdy. I believe Gowdy knows a lot more than he lets on, and will destroy her in that hearing. If she hadn't already dropped out before then due to other information coming out, I expect that hearing will finish her off.

Gahrie said...

claims that Petraeus's crimes were minor and that his life was destroyed as a result. This is bullshit twice: his crimes were willful and serious

As serious and willful as Hillary's?


and to the extent his life was destroyed (and that assertion is doubtful, at best. David is doing quite well.) it was because of his serious errors in judgement and failures of character.

Like Hillary's?

OK...Petraeus deserved what he got. By any objective standard what Hillary did was far worse. When is she going to be punished?

Gahrie said...

It's telling that they have trotted out Trauscher, the political equivalent of a has been B movie actress. It tells me that more competent defenders are unwilling to step up.

At least unwilling to go on Fox.

Anyone notice how quiet Carville and Maitlyn have been?

Beldar said...

Helen Tauscher gave an amazing performance.

Amazingly awful. She sounded and looked as if she were psychotic. I'm not speaking here of her arguments, which I thought were awful too, but rather, of her manner: "Barely holding it together" might be the kindest way to describe it, but actually I don't think she was "holding it together" unless you include shrieking as part of that.

Who chose her to make this defense? Someone from the Hillary Clinton campaign?

chickelit said...

Remember that Hillary! presser where she briefly explained what happened? She made it perfectly clear that she used only one email account and only one device when on the road at SoS. You can listen for yourself here. It's buried at the 2.25 min mark, but I'm sure a transcript is still available.

This means that Tauscher is lying too. That explains the terror in her voice.

Beldar said...

@ paminwi (8/23/15, 2:55 PM), who wrote: "When [Ellen Tauscher] she said something to the effect of that the former Attorney General had issues understanding the classification laws I laughed out loud."

So did I! Then I immediately went to the 'net, since I had never seen or heard of this obscure former Congresswoman before, to see how her good her own legal background is, and found this:

"The first member of her family to attend college, she graduated in 1974 from Seton Hall University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood education. She then worked as an investment banker with Bache & Co. and, at age 25, was the youngest and one of the first women to become a member of the New York Stock Exchange."

Okay, that's well and good, I suppose, if you want to teach kids or sell stock. But how does that background, even supplemented by her later having served in Congress and the State Department, give her standing or credibility to condemn the legal chops of Michael Mukasey? Judge Mukasey got his law degree from Yale in 1967, practiced law for 20 years with NYC powerhouse Patterson Belknap and the U.S. Attorney's office, followed by 18 years as a judge (and eventually the chief judge) on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, all the time teaching part-time at Columbia Law School; and then served as Attorney General of the United States, the nation's very top lawyer charged with enforcing the national security laws Tauscher says he doesn't understand.

Credentials and experience don't, by themselves, automatically make him right and her wrong, I suppose. But if she can't come up with anything more specific than just a blanket ad hominem attack on him and his knowledge of the law, without even the slightest hint of a basis for that, she's beclowning herself.

Beldar said...

@ Coupe (8/23/15, 5:30 PM), who asked: "Is her name Helen or Ellen?"

It's Ellen. Perhaps Prof. Althouse will correct her typo -- an entirely forgivable one, given how previously obscure this woman has been -- which I also repeated once above.

I'm Full of Soup said...

My tweet this morning re Tauscher's appearance:

"Holy Crap - Clinton's defender Ellen Tauscher was so shrill and full of soup on Fox News. She was a disaster in defending Hillary."

Anonymous said...

This whole secure server, confidential server, nonconfidential server, SCIF stuff is all a distraction.

There are different kinds of materials out there which are confidential. You've got confidential, secret, top secret, and more. As an example, anything in the Treasury Enforcement Computer System (TECS).

You can read more here. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy-pia-cbp-tecs-sar-update.pdf

Sharing information in a system like that could get you fired, and worse, thrown in jail. The Department of State is no different. They have access to information involving anyone's application for a US Passport (As an example).

Suppose Hillary decided to access the Department of State database on passports and research how Barack Obama applied for a US Passport, did he provide a birth certificate? Can she do that? Only if she has an official "need to know".

Let's suppose she does have an official need to know. Can she then share it through Email with other people via her private server?

Hell no!

It's not Top Secret information. It doesn't have to be. It just has to be protected information. And there is a lot of protected information out there that one could easily share with Hillary via Email.

Big Mike said...

Hillary's team is carefully avoiding the true crux of the matter: the unbelievable stupidity of using unsecured Email servers in the era of nationally-sponsored hackers.

Unknown said...

----This is bullshit twice: his crimes were willful and serious and to the extent his life was destroyed (and that assertion is doubtful, at best. David is doing quite well.) it was because of his serious errors in judgement and failures of character.

All true of Hillary at exponential levels.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Irt definitely seems to be Ellen, not Helen and Tauscher, not Trauscher, like one commentator had it.

She was a Democratic Congresswoman from California, from the 10th district, east of San Francisco, in the interior portion ofthe San francisco Bay area, first elected in 1996, in an area that used to vote Republican - she defeated a 2-term incumbent. She eventually became chairwoman of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Here is a New York Times oped piece co-authored by her, arguing against a nucear deal with India:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20markey.html

Here is a New York Times piece that shows an earlier picture of her:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/tauscher-wields-house-gavel-one-more-time/

Sh was appointed under secretary of state for arms control in 2009, but her resignation was postponed so she could cast a crucial vote on the bill to heal the planet and stop the rising of the oceans (it died in the Senate)

Barack Obama never thought he could do that on his own. It required an Act of Congress.

Sammy Finkelman said...

MUKASEY: Well, perhaps one piece of potential liability that might arise from making a false statement on the document. Obviously, if she didn't sign it, she cannot have made a false statement on the document.

On the other hand, she did, I believe, sign a statement to the court within the last week or two, saying that she had turned overall the information


No, she didn't say she turned over all work-related e-mails. She says she DIRECTED that that be done. Hillary and her lawyers don't make careless mistakes!

Work-related emails were defined according to what she and her lawyers had negotiated with the State Department. Mostly mail that came from or went to stats.gov e-mail addresses.

Yes, you may argue, other e-mails were work-related too. But the State Department had declared itself satisfied. So she's covered. Certainly from the perjury count.

Bill R said...

Am I crazy? I just Googled for "Helen Tauscher clinton email" and got NOTHING except Ann's post here

Sammy Finkelman said...

I think David Petraeus also dealt wth something that was not marked classified.

Of course you could argue that he had a good defense that he didn't use.

Hagar said...

It was his own note books and his BFF (with security clerance) was writing a biography of him.

Sammy Finkelman said...

We have two issues here:

1) The Federal Records Act, and record-keeping in general

Hillary is in really really bad shape here. Even worse, when it becomes known who she shared emails with or what's in the e-mails, but we are not at that stage yet

AND

2) The issue of whether or not classified material was sent on an unclassified system.

Ellen Tauher (or rather the people who told her what to say) is correct that that would be an issue even if she had used a state.gov e-mail address.

Unless, of course, she stuck to the classified system for everything dealing with her job, except where she needed to communicate with someone outside of that system.

You might then evaluate its classification.

I see a problem, though:

If everything to and from, especially from, a foreign goernment, or at least everything important, is classified, how are you going to communicate with them via e-mail, since they are not on the U.S. classified system?

Well, an ambassador could transmit things, I suppose. And you could use the phone, or meet in person. Or it doesn't count until it is received.

Sammy Finkelman said...

A comparison to Petraeus would be if he had been prosecuted, not for sharing his notebooks, but for not storing them properly.

You can easily get to a standard too high to meet, and one that interferes with work.


David Begley said...

When I saw that Tauscher woman on Fox my first thought was: Keep sending her out as a proxy.

How stupid is Hillary?

Sammy Finkelman said...

I think the moles in the CIA got rid of the Director before he could get rid of them, That's what I think really happened here. The whole thing only came to light because of a phony investigation - e-mails that were never sent by the person accused of sending them. But that gave cause to investigate and the affair was discovered. This affair was probably known to people inside the CIA since Petraues had communicated from inside the CIA building. The probem for the underlings was how to make that known.

Sammy Finkelman said...

David Begley said... 8/23/15, 9:20 PM

How stupid is Hillary?

The first criteria is political loyalty to Hillary.

A person would have to be really stupid to believe taht Hillary's stated reasons for doing things are the real ones.


Sammy Finkelman said...

@Bill R.

It's Ellen, not Helen. The name is that way even on the screen grab.

Bill R said...

Sammy,

Thanks. So I AM crazy. I suspected as much.

Bill

Sammy Finkelman said...

Ellen Tauscher claimed:

1) Former Attorney General Mukasey is an advisor to Jeb Bush - and thus mounting a political attack.

2) He doesn't understand the Federal Records Act, as David Kendall's law firm explained it. According to him, once there is a record anywhere, in fact once there is a possibility of a record being preserved somewhere, that's all you need, because you only need one copy of a record. If the other copy is destroyed, that proves it legitimately wasn't considered a record (or the other person is equally guilty.) And it doesn't need to be in its proper place.

3) He doesn't understand the way they had two systems of classified and unclassified e-mail in the State Department, and how you can't move anything from the classified system anywhere else. And when something is not marked classified, classification is in the eyes of the beholder, and everyone can do whatever they think is right. At least legally. And this would have been a problem even if she had had an unclassified state.gov address because the issue is why it is anywhere outside the classified system. (She got stuck on the question of anything born classified.)

4) There is no significant difference between the use of a private server and the use of a personal e-mail address.

5) The employee the judge talked about is not Hillary Clinton. She got that in. (Is tha correct?)

Sammy Finkelman said...

Now, Anne Althouse solently corrected the name.

Unknown said...

----A comparison to Petraeus would be if he had been prosecuted, not for sharing his notebooks, but for not storing them properly.

Uhhh, Sammy, Sir?

Petraus plead guilty to one federal charge of removing and retaining classified information

Petraeus admitted removing several so-called black books -- notebooks in which he kept classified and non-classified information from his tenure as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan

That turned out not to be true when the FBI in April 2013 conducted a search of his house and found the black notebooks in an unlocked desk drawer in a first floor study.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/politics/general-david-petraeus-guilty-charges/index.html

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sane_voter said...

Hillary will be under oath subject to the penalty of perjury at the Oct 22nd hearing. She wasn't under oath during the famous senate hearing when she uttered the immortal words "what difference, at this point, does it make?!" referring to questions if she mislead everyone by blaming the Benghazi attack on some obscure movie.

Dr Weevil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr Weevil said...

Hmmm. Täuscher (with an umlaut) is German for 'hoaxer'. Nomen omen?

Real American said...

Tauscher the partisan hack doesn't know what "hindsight" means. They were obvious "mistakes" [at best] at the time.

chickelit said...

sane_voter said...
Hillary will be under oath subject to the penalty of perjury at the Oct 22nd hearing.

She's going to do a lot of "I don't recall" and point out how long ago it all was. That was her plan all along.

CachorroQuente said...

Gahrie said...

[...] "As serious and willful as Hillary's?"


As far as I can tell.

There can be no doubt that Petraeus knew how information becomes classified and how it is supposed to be handled. He knew that when he wrote the information in his notebooks that the information was classified and that he was creating classified documents. If the information should have been marked as classified when he wrote it down, he knew that too. He deliberately shared the documents that he created with someone who was not authorized to have access to that information, though she may have had the required security clearance, and the reason that he shared that information was to enhance his image as recorded in his biography, I infer. It doesn't get any more intentional, deliberate, willful or venal than that.

Normal people go to jail for this kind of shit. Petraeus got probation and a nominal ($100k would be big to me, and maybe you, but David is in no pain. He can recoup that with a simple 3 hour course taught at Harvard or Columbia or NYU) fine. Considering his service to the country, which is exceptional by any measure, perhaps such a light sentence is appropriate, I don't know.

"OK...Petraeus deserved what he got. By any objective standard what Hillary did was far worse. When is she going to be punished?"

It's not obvious to me that what is alleged against Hillary is worse than what Petraeus admitted to. But, Clinton's behavior is being investigated by DOJ and the Congress, so we shall see. If it turns out that she is proven to have violated the law, and that has not yet been proven, she should, as they say, be forced to face the music. Perhaps leniency may be appropriate, considering that she took peace to Northern Ireland and faced down the Serbian menace and all.

cubanbob said...

Why is everyone seem to be skipping the obvious? She was conducting government business on her private server. There is no excuse for that and no beyond that.

Qwinn said...

It hasn't yet been proven that Hillary violated the law? Seriously? What could possibly constitute proof that we don't already have?

Bruce Hayden said...

Yes, she was conducting govt business on a personal email server, but why? Why do something that brazenly illegal and wrong? My working theory is that she believes in a Vast Rightwing Conspiracy (VRC) out to get her. And, yes, it exists, and many of us here belong to it. In my case, proudly - I find her a loathsome person, but also include her old nemisis, BHO II in similar low regard. She is correct that the VRC would/will try to take her down, and one of their big weapons is FOIA. knowing this up front, she likely figured that dancing around the legality of her own server was preferable to having her tenure at State be second guessed by the VRC through FOIA. And it appears to be working, with her supporters, led by long term family attorney Kendall, generating enough of a legal fog that she may indeed survive what is clear to me, and to many others, to be massive criminal misbehavior on her part, as well as by Kendall and a number of her other minions. (And, yes, Sammy, that is exactly what I think Kendall was up to - confusing the public with Clintinite artful legal mumble jumble to protect his client (and maybe himself)).

CachorroQuente said...

It's not clear to me exactly what laws Clinton is alleged to have violated and in exactly what way she is alleged to have violated those laws. If someone wrote an email that ended up on her server that contained classified information and she failed to safeguard that information and to properly handle the email and the relevant record, she may be guilty of a crime. It's really hard to say exactly what that crime may be if she was not the originator of the email and if the there is doubt as to whether the information was classified at the time the email was sent. Some sort of improper handling charge, not unlike in Petraeus's case, I suppose.

There have been allegations that some of the classified information in some of the emails is of such a nature that the information was classified when the emails were created simply by the nature of the information. Not because it was learned by somebody as a result of reading documents marked as classified or anything, but just because of the nature of the information. If that's true and if Clinton was aware that the information had made its way onto her server, than she had an obligation to insure that the information was properly marked and handled. It seems obvious that if that's the case she may have a big problem. If the information was not classified at the time, or if Clinton and her staff had no reason to know that it was classified at the time, or if there is a genuine dispute as to whether the information was classified, nailing her for a crime may be tough.

What seems to be beyond dispute is that using a private server system was a significant error in judgement even if it was not illegal (and it may have been illegal though that is not well established, if so). Whichever of her advisers told her that this was a good idea, and whoever implemented the system for her, really screwed her over, but good. Whoever took car of deactivating the server and filtering out the personal email stuff from the government business email stuff also did a job on her. She's going to pay a price for that even if it turns out that she bears no peronal criminal liability.

CachorroQuente said...

Qwinn said...

It hasn't yet been proven that Hillary violated the law? Seriously? What could possibly constitute proof that we don't already have?


Exactly what law has it been proven that Clinton violated and in what way, exactly did she personally violate that law? There appears to be evidence that some classified information was found among her received emails. If that turns out to be true and if it can be established that the information was classified at the time and should have been handled differently from the way it was, then there may be some criminal liability. But at this time, all there appears to be is allegations and rumors.

Probably there were some technical requirements for the deactivation of the server, and storage/disposition of the information, that were not met. How is it established that Clinton's behavior in that respect is criminal? Exactly, what is it she has alleged to have done and how has it been proven?

Kyzer SoSay said...

Exactly what law has it been proven that Clinton violated and in what way, exactly did she personally violate that law?

Treason. Via the use of her influential position as the Secretary of State, representing the interests of the United States of America to foreign governments while at the same time personally enriching herself through bribery, illegal and unethical dealings, and general sleaze. All of which caused her official duties to lapse, resulting in negligent handling of multiple crises including the Arab Spring, the coups in Egypt, the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, and the "reset" with Russia, as well as a deepening of the rift between the United States and our allies overseas. The one happy moment in our foreign affairs, which in my opinion was the Bin Laden raid, took place with minimal input, if any, from the feckless Mrs. Clinton, who was too busy counting her stacks and screening the calls Bill was making from Sex Slave Island with their pal Epstein and about 40 underage hookers.

Clark said...

The cricket chirping coming from the direction of the usual lefty defenders is telling.

Nichevo said...

Cachorro,


While Gen Petraeus was imprudent, I'm scoffing at the notion that anybody would have ridden Gen. Eisenhower for keeping his logs for biography, or that he would have regarded it as a risk. The chances are well over 99% that no actual information reached the enemy. The slqit didn't betray him. No Russian black bag team raided his home and opened the "unlocked drawer" and photographed the pages full of historical tidbits. It was unwise but no actual harm was done.


The odds are 99%+, otoh, that HRC's persistent use of insecure systems exposed vital, current, TS/SCI communications to any enemy with an intelligence apparatus capable of hiring hackers. Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Norks, script-kiddies; even our allies, and from even our allies we keep some secrets.

So whatever the codified offense in.question, HRC's actions caused far more actual harm.

Sammy Finkelman said...

CachorroQuente said... 8/24/15, 5:59 AM

What seems to be beyond dispute is that using a private server system was a significant error in judgement even if it was not illegal (and it may have been illegal though that is not well established, if so). Whichever of her advisers told her that this was a good idea, and whoever implemented the system for her, really screwed her over, but good.

I think the name of that adviser is Bill Clinton.

Whoever took car of deactivating the server and filtering out the personal email stuff from the government business email stuff also did a job on her.

That would be true only if there were no important crimes or secrets to protect.I.

Bruce Hayden said...

Probably not real Treason. The technical, legal, reason is intent. Sure, she intentionally set up the server and had everyone she dealtwithduring that time contact her that way. But likely did not intend to cause harm to the U.S. Likely, her thought process went only so far as she wanted to avoid giving her opponents the ability to criticize the job she did via FOIA requests. She most likely never went the next step, which would have been to realize that doing so would make it likely that her emails would be hacked by the Ruskies, ChiComs, etc, to the detriment of this country. And that is what I think it would have taken for it to have been treason.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Bruce Hayden said... 8/24/15, 4:19 AM

...she likely figured that dancing around the legality of her own server was preferable to having her tenure at State be second guessed by the VRC through FOIA.


You must remember, she was hoping to keep the existence of that server a secret all the way through the 2016 election and more. The FOIA requests by Judicial Watch and others didn't cause that to become known. The FOIA request by gawker after the hdr22@clintonemail.com address was leaked by russia didn't either.

Only the multiple subpoeans of lots of people by the Benghazi committee did.

And it appears to be working, with her supporters, led by long term family attorney Kendall, generating enough of a legal fog that she may indeed survive what is clear to me, and to many others, to be massive criminal misbehavior on her part, as well as by Kendall and a number of her other minions. (And, yes, Sammy, that is exactly what I think Kendall was up to - confusing the public with Clintinite artful legal mumble jumble to protect his client (and maybe himself)).

I think there more to it than that.

Drago said...

cubanbob: "Why is everyone seem to be skipping the obvious? She was conducting government business on her private server. There is no excuse for that and no beyond that."

No excuse?

Well, I beg to differ.

There is Breitbart. There are the Koch brothers.

I really don't know why you would need any other excuses.

Plus, the Confederacy and continuing Wars on Women.

......yep. That about sums it up.

Matt Sablan said...

"I don't think email from .SGOV can be that easily transmitted over STATE.GOV let alone to Hillary's private server."


-- People are mixing "ought" with "can." It ought not be done, but it can be done -- one thumbdrive at a time.

Achilles said...

YoungHegelian said...

"Then you'll see apoplexy on a galactic level. The Democratic establishment will not take the destruction of their aims for 2016 & beyond lightly."

This is inter-party warfare. Obama is the one taking her down.

The funny part is libs are still supporting Hillary despite her obvious moral failures and the fact it is Obama that is taking her down. Obama has turned into an obvious antisemite and they still support him.

Dale said...

There are MILLIONS of Americans that want Hillary's lying ass nailed to the wall, because we are so tired of the "everybody else does it" even though everybody else goes to jail, not the Clintons. Tauscher was right about one thing: Hillary is held to a different standard. By Hillary. And its not the same as any other person.

And by the way, Tauscher was wrong in saying that just because classified emails were all on a classified system, that then having it on Hillary's system as well then doesn't matter. It matters. Classified material on a non secure server is against the law. Against the law.

Fuck her.

buddy larsen said...

Ellen Tauscher is more than she's being given credit for. I just left a comment at Legal Insurrection that refers to my comment on Claudia Rosett's blog. Lazy i guess, but it's late. Anyhoo, it's the info that's important: Here's the latest copy, there see the earlier copy, and some links therein:

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/08/video-hillary-surrogate-loses-it/comment-page-1/#comment-610942

(oops, rejected for length --i'll break into two)

buddy larsen said...

(part two)

Here's the comment, with an extra phrase or three inserted:

National security implications? I’ll say. Ellen Tauscher is none other than the New Start Treaty negotiator who found some secret lever to break a 20 year impasse on signing that treaty.

She’s a heavyweight in the Democratic Party’s strategic deterrence deep-inside privy council. She’s one of the “eyeball-to-eyeball-with-Ivan” negotiators responsible for verification of treaty protocols. She’s one of the very few folks who can get us all killed except for whoever qualifies for salt-mine work in Siberia.

I wrote a rather inflamed comment on her a day or two ago on Claudia Rosett’s blog at PJM. I could link it but i think i’ll go for max readership and copy it, if the boss here doesn’t mind a long comment.

I like others here cannot understand why Ms Tauscher, who has been absent from the news since the 2010 New Start wrap-up in Spain, was dragged out into the Sunday premier news show, only to make such a pitiful defense of –what –something on that server?

I have about five comments at Ms. Rosett’s blog ; several on that Shannon Bream interview, and one linking to a longtime Kremlin watcher who thinks the “Iran Deal” is being set-up to fail. There is something wrong with the way the Mullahs have been going out of their way, working against interest, provoking the anti-deal Americans on a daily basis. There’s a rat smell, and Ms. Tauscher is a strange loop-closer, if indeed something bad has been set up, and that server has the plotters running scared.

Anyhoo, that link is in one of my Rosett comments, here:

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/obama-and-the-iran-nuclear-veil-covering-up-iran-nuclear-weapons-cooperation-with-north-korea/2/

buddy larsen said...

(part three)

The comment i threatened to copy/paste is here:

JayWye mentions New Start. Today, Ellen Tauscher, the retired congresswoman from Frisco who was brought into that nuclear weapons negotiation at the last minute to save it via some new something or other related to verification inspections, appeared on Fox News to offer a wild & wooley outrage at how badly Hillary is being served by the server scandal.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-anchor-grills-hillary-surrogate-over-emails-doesnt-she-have-herself-to-blame/

She’s been absent from the news since that treaty signing, and reappeared today voicing a strong desire to stop the momentum on anyone learning something related to that server.

Turns out, she’s been quite a player in the Dem party's strategic defense of this nation, and is fairly newly on the governing boards of Sandia and Livermore national defense laboratories both, as well as some other related highly sensitive missions and organizations.

It is very striking indeed. imho, how the small coterie of strategic defense policy enforcers can be so critical to national survival and yet be so obscure that to an outsider no one seems to be monitoring them, as they perform inside a small ensemble featuring mostly Rhodes Scholar-to-Oxford-to-Carnegie Institue-to-State Dept-to-treaty negotiating-to-verifying compliance, Russian-language speakers.

Anyhoo, New Start had set unsignable for 20 years on compliance verification issues, and Obama swoops in with Ms. Tauscher and signs it ASAP he’s in office. It was signed on the premise that Russia and USA were allies in the Terror War, and would cooperate in good faith on meeting the treaty’s protocols.

buddy larsen said...

(part four, jeez i'm sorry)

But soon after, that premise was utterly collapsed by Russia, and the collapse is continuing (Crimea, Ukraine, new weapons, war threats) and gathering force.

So what did WE do? Well, under Tauscher's replacement Ms Rose Gottemoellar, instead of any sort of peep of complaint about Putin's about-face, with say, a compliance slow-down to recreate incentive to behave on others' borders, we’ve done the very opposite, and have leaped far ahead of the mileposts of the timeline of our build-down. Putin’s mood change? Not a problem!

Last I heard we’re complying two years ahead of schedule (on a govt program, mind you) and busily bulldozing –not just vacating, mind you, but bulldozing facilities that are absolutely vital to our re-arming if neccessary –and selling the land off to private investors, all in a sheer tornado of efficiency and crisp can-do American know-how, in meeting the New Start build-down of strategic deterrence.

Meanwhile, this is all explained away by Tauscher and crew along the lines of “we can’t let the daily news interfere with our duty to our commitments”. The speeches are on the net --Gottemoellar's are of course the latest.

America had a fine leader against New Start, Senator Jon Kyle of Arizona, who had great arguments against ratification (see on web) –including that it paid no attention at all to China’s war-surge armament rate. But then, during the recess before the ratification vote, he suddenly retired, and took a job with Covington & Burling, which is Eric Holder’s law firm and has been the Kremlin’s white-shoe D.C. representative ever since it defended Alger Hiss. The dirty laundry list there trails thru a great number of national failures. Dunno what happened to Kyle. Maybe he just had a change of heart (cough). But the defense against the treaty collapsed with the unexpected loss, and it sailed thru. Putin has rearmed on his savings.

Anyhoo, suggest you read up on Ms Tauscher, and her replacement at the (winking) eyeball-to-eyeball table with Ivan, Ms. Rose Gottemoeller.

BTW, that ‘thing’ that was hanging up New Start, that the nice lady made go away, was probably the verification rules applied to the Yamantau Mountain underground mystery complex, in the southern Ural mountains. Never heard of it? Natch –that’s the whole idea!

===

Well, thanks for reading. Those two national security research labs she’s on the board of governors of, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia, are a helluva couple organizations to have someone like Tauscher aboard. We MUST keep digging –if we don’t the nasty surprise, AKA the sum of all fears, may get the drop on us, or get dropped on us, as it were. If it hasn’t already.

Rusty said...

I don't know, buddy.

But wouldn't it be a hoot to see that first photo on a milk carton.

buddy larsen said...

--i think you're right. That's what she's worried about.