When her use of an unclassified email server first broke in March 2015, Hillary Clinton’s earliest statements were that no classified information was sent or received.
She quickly changed her standard reply to say nothing sent or received was marked classified at the time. As recently as Wednesday of last week, she told reporters, “nothing that I sent or received was marked classified. And nothing has been demonstrated to contradict that. So it is the fact. It was the fact when I first said it. It is the fact that I’m saying it now.”
(The statement is itself an outright lie. Some information — the names of CIA undercover personnel, imminent drone strikes, details on U.S. NSA sources and methods, for example — is inherently classified and does not need to be marked to restate that. In addition, many suspected classified documents that were marked as such were simply retyped minus the marker when they were sent to Hillary. Leaving the marker off does not “declassify” information, and is in fact a national security crime.)
Marked Classified
However, even Clinton’s statement that nothing was marked classified has now been proven a lie.
One of her just-released emails carries a clear classification marking known as a portion marking. That marking was on the email when it was sent directly to Clinton’s account.” Nothing done retroactively, though retroactive classification is a standard tool used throughout the government and validly changes a document.
Portion marking is used when a document contains paragraphs of various levels of classification. Paragraph one may be marked as (U) for unclassified, paragraph two as (S) for secret and so forth.
The Clinton email in question has a paragraph marked (C), which means it is classified at the confidential level. The text refers to a phone call with Malawi’s first female president.
Everything after that (C) was fully redacted before it was publicly released by the State Department. One can only guess that someone sending Clinton the information via an unsecured device forgot to delete the (C), and then in the clearance process at State the (C) portion marker was overlooked. Accidents do happen. People make mistakes.
So, you want a smoking gun? You got it.
For Hillary Supporters:
It does not matter whether the classification was a high or low level one. You simply cannot include any classified information on an unclassified system. To do so is a violation of law. It does not matter if, in your opinion, whether or not he material should have been classified, or was over-classified. Clinton could have declassified it following standard procedures but did not do so (see, because you can retroactively classify something, you can also retroactively declassify something.)
But what is most significant here is that Clinton lied. Stone cold lied. There was marked classified on her unclassified server. And that does matter.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
chuck said...
1Liar,liar,pantsuit on Fire!
06/13/16 8:11 AM | Comment Link
chuck said...
2Will Obama and Hillary announce they saved Chelsea Manning from the terror in Orlando by putting him in jail for “Truth”? Stop all Terror.
06/13/16 10:18 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
3Peter said:
“But what is most significant here is that Clinton lied. Stone cold lied. There was marked classified on her unclassified server. And that does matter.”
The question is..to whom does it matter? At this point, I would say Comey is getting fenced, day by day. And with this latest disclosure, I’d bet he’s beginning to sweat. Of course, the Orlando attack will give him some time as it will take up every news cycle for two months at least. I wonder if the killer had a smartphone. If so, that too will add time to which Clintons email crime might just get buried. On the other hand, this heinous massacre will give Trump an arsenal of Muslim hate spewing, to which Clinton will have to respond, also giving cover to her as no one will give a damn now about her email problem. It will ALL be directed at GUN CONTROL and National Security fear mongering.
Thing is though, just like I heard on NPR this morning, the Muslim community is in for a shitload of racist hate filled finger pointing as the program I was listening to was a 3 person panel on a call in and ask a question program, and featured a leading Muslim community spokesperson. Man, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes today.
06/13/16 12:18 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
4ps.. speaking of gun control, massacres actually spark a huge increase in gun sales. DUH.
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/13/election-gun-sales/
Meanwhile, outrage by gun control advocates will slow down the internet today… like this..
http://theweek.com/articles/469373/guns-need-food-starve?google_editors_picks=true
You can bet the “comment sections” of a billion blogs will be filled with mud slinging battles between the two opposing views of gun control. Let the mud slinging begin!!!!
Actually. I’m not saying a word. Been there..done that.
06/13/16 12:27 PM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
5Queen HELL, You say ! We (The PEOPLE) Are NOT EMPREϟϟED !!
06/13/16 12:54 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
6Hillary, “We need to take a hard look at the lone wolf terrorist…..” Uh oh, I see another intelligence gathering department forming within the NSA. Business is good for the national security state- so good they may have to have a draft the blue light guys.
So if you have a black tricked out Dodge Nitro with the blue light on top you might be “mobilized”. It will be more exciting than chasing the local fire truck to a house fire site.
The Orlando shooter’s follow up common law wife who had a kid with him before splitting might have some insights so she should head the women’s auxiliary for the lone wolf terrorist work force. Geez, we’ll get the unemployment figure down to 1% eventually. We’ll all be working in surveillance!
06/13/16 2:43 PM | Comment Link
chuck... said...
7If I used Whiteout on the documents and then copied and sent the emails, would those be legal? (rest of comments deleted)
06/13/16 2:46 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
8Will Comey be a whistleblower, a fall guy, or a so-called defender of freedom?
06/13/16 2:56 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
9usa…repeat, and cross the Delaware! Enjoy!
06/13/16 3:32 PM | Comment Link