NYTimes: Hillary Clinton Used Only Personal Email While Sec’y Of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.
Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.
It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.
Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.
“It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”
[su_fb]
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo
David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.
* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.
84 responses to NYTimes: Hillary Clinton Used Only Personal Email While Sec’y Of State
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
dave-dr-gonzo March 2nd, 2015 at 22:34
Looks like that Bernie Sanders/Stephanie Miller ticket in 2016 is looking a lot more likely. Just sayin’…
rg9rts March 3rd, 2015 at 01:14
Nah… you know its about the $$$$$ and lots of it will be needed to bang heads with the Kochs ticket
Scopedog March 3rd, 2015 at 12:05
Uh…no offense to those two, but I want to win in 2016, mkay?
fancypants March 2nd, 2015 at 22:55
if you cant trust google Who can you trust ?
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-tracking-apple-users-2012-2
Hillary might want to run as vp
BillTheCat45 March 2nd, 2015 at 22:56
Tempest, teapot.
rg9rts March 3rd, 2015 at 01:12
And regular SD emails aren’t hacked
jybarz March 3rd, 2015 at 05:19
At such a very high level position as US Secretary of State, it shouldn’t be surprising that what she’d done or hadn’t done is normal. She had personal assistants who should be the ones expected to take care of the record keeping amongst other chores for her to be able to function smoothly at such very high level and not be burdened with low level office administrative/clerical activities. I’m sure many department or company heads are the same expecting their personal assistants to take care of the record keeping, even drafting or sorting letters to making coffee for them.
Talibandrew Breitbot March 3rd, 2015 at 09:02
True. BUT – Sec’y Clinton should nevertheless have established and used a State Department e-mail account. Yes, there are issued of keeping certain communications private and confidential, but there are ways to do this within the government’s e-mail system.
It’s boneheaded behavior from a generally brilliant public servant, and yes, people on both sides of the aisle are right to raise questions.
OTOH, it wopuld not surprise me if Team Clinton let this pointr of criticism and contention out of the bag early to mitigate damage.
John Tarter March 3rd, 2015 at 05:58
A Democrat violating Federal requirements? I’m shocked, truly shocked I tell you! This is another reason why this woman is unfit for any further public office. NO MORE CELEBRITY PRESIDENTS!
Anomaly 100 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:28
If she had an R after her name, you would justify this. Yes, I’ve read your comnents before.
John Tarter March 3rd, 2015 at 07:53
No, I would not and you are mistaken. I would like the law applied across the board and the Constitution respected by both political parties. The current group of establishment Republicans has no allegiance from me.
Anomaly 100 March 3rd, 2015 at 08:48
Uh huh.
Talibandrew Breitbot March 3rd, 2015 at 08:57
John, who would be your ideal GOP nominee in ’16?
William March 4th, 2015 at 10:34
I would like the law applied across the board and the Constitution respected by both political parties..
OK good, now who do you suggest as special prosecutor, because Bonehead is going away for A LONG TIME.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:29
Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary
of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official
business.
John Tarter March 3rd, 2015 at 07:50
And this kind of thing continues because no one is ever held accountable.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:55
Are you going to hold Bonehead accountable for committing an act of treason today with Nutanyahoo? Because that is a much bigger deal than this huge squirrel with Mrs. Clinton and her private emails.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:30
Oh FFS. We have TREASON going on TODAY with Nutyahoo speaking in front of Congress, and THIS BS is what we have to focus on?
http://www.priscillaharing.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/picard-facepalm.jpg
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 07:34
LOL, BS? This is big, she is sunk. Time to move on. Let’s consider nominating a liberal dove instead of a conservative hawk (who apparently can’t follow the law).
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:35
No, it’s not.
http://thedailybanter.com/2015/03/story-hillary-clintons-private-email-account-isnt-awful-seems/
It’s only big to those who would NEVER vote for Mrs. Clinton anyways, more squirrels.
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 07:42
I’ll vote for her if she’s nominated (assuming the repubs don’t nominate a liberal dove, ha). But someone as high up the chain as Ms. C taking steps to hide her official communications from we meter citizens? Huge.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:45
Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business.
The article doesn’t say which federal regulation, though. Why? Perhaps because the federal regulations went into effect in late November, 2014 when President Obama signed H.R. 1233, modernizing the Federal Records Act of 1950 to include electronic communications. It was signed two years after Clinton stepped down.
Like I said, more squirrels.
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 07:51
I wouldn’t nominate Colin Powell either, to be clear. Whether the article is overstated is one thing, whatever. The fact that she has hidden her official communications from us is a.very.big.deal.
No non-transparent conservative hawks on the Democratic ticket who only supported gay marriage after it became politically uncomfortable to use one’s bigotry to inform one’s policy. Tchauzinho, Hillary! Enjoy retirement.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:54
The NYT article quotes a former archivist who whines about NUCLEAR WINTER HAPPENING!
I’m not a fan of Mrs. Clinton, but this is turning out to be yet another failed attempt to squirrel her out of running for President.
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 08:07
Fully agree the original article was over the top w the nuclear winter silliness..
ShelleysLeg March 4th, 2015 at 10:23
LOL….like she “hid” 55,000 emails released? That is SOME hiding!!
Um Cara March 4th, 2015 at 12:18
Nope, the ones she released are not hidden. Obviously.
Scopedog March 3rd, 2015 at 12:04
Didn’t know about this–thanks.
Scopedog March 3rd, 2015 at 12:04
Yeah, or the idiots on our side who think Rand Paul is a better choice than Hillary–crazy, but true.
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 08:16
Right or wrong, doves don’t get elected, and if they do, they turn into hawks.
The problem is that the American people scare easily.
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:02
why, name the law she broke
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 18:08
The law of thermodynamics.
craig7120 March 4th, 2015 at 07:31
Ok that was funny,
Nice
Scopedog March 3rd, 2015 at 12:03
Yup.
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 07:31
OK, so now that Hillary has disqualified herself as a reasonable candidate, who should we nominate? Elizabeth Warren?
John Tarter March 3rd, 2015 at 07:55
Yes, nominate Elizabeth Warren, as the further left the better.
Suzanne McFly March 3rd, 2015 at 07:59
Wow tater tot, you have come towards the light we finally agree. Good job, keep on this path and you will have a positive IQ result one day.
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 08:12
What policies of Warren are to “the left”???
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:02
equality and middle class
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 15:08
Like Eisenhower.
Jan Civil March 3rd, 2015 at 12:42
Warren essentially agrees with Theodore Roosevelt. But you can’t know that, you’re not allowed to know things, your mind, and I use the word advisedly, is made of Silly Putty where your masters can easily imprint whatever works to keep you in line.
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:01
she would still be a modertae compared to all your preachy theocratic numbskulls
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 08:00
Warren has stated multiple times she isn’t running, and she’s only good towards the far left. Democrats need someone who can market themselves to a broader electorate.
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 08:16
I doubt this will affect anything at all.
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 08:36
you may be right, folks say they want transparency – but I think what they mean by that is they want transparency for the other guy.
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 08:41
It’s the scaredy cat nature of the American people.
They want what they want unless they are scared.
The media gets ratings by making people scared.
OldLefty March 3rd, 2015 at 08:48
I know I said this before, but I would rather see a Hillary in the White House and a Congress full of Warrens and Saunders than a Warren or Saunder in the White House and a Congress full of Hillarys, or worse, full of Gohmerts.
Unfortunately, with the attention paid by the American people, our most likely scenario is a Hillary in the White House and a Congress full of Hillarys AND Gohmerts, and a public wondering why everything is so screwed up.
Scopedog March 3rd, 2015 at 12:03
Spot-on, OL.
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:00
why, there is no law that makes her use a specific account. the Presidential records law does not apply to her
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 18:13
I have additional criteria beyond “not a criminal”. I want transparency in my public officials.
trees March 3rd, 2015 at 22:03
Hey! So, you’re opinion is that Hillary deliberately used a personal email account to hide her communications?
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 22:35
Yes, that’s what I believe.
If its official biz., use your official email, just like we corporate drones are typically required to do for discovery/other reasons. It will be interesting to see if she hid anything that should have been discovered via freedom of information act. Of course it will be pretty hard to tell, since she is choosing which of her emails were ‘official’ vs. personal.
Gina March 4th, 2015 at 19:21
Como é que se diz em ingles”Você tem posições políticas interessantes”? Apesar de que, vc sabe, Colin Powel fez o mesmo que ela!! E outros mais…
Um Cara March 4th, 2015 at 21:33
Boa noite, Gina. Vou descansar um pouco, mas vou responder amanhã. Abraços
Gina March 4th, 2015 at 21:41
Obrigada! Abraços.
Um Cara March 5th, 2015 at 18:10
Ta bom, então… I’m switching to English because this is more complicated than my terrible Brazilian Portuguese grammar can handle…
I am not partisan, at all. I recognize that the dems are the only semi-sane party currently that has a chance of winning, but I’m a lib, not a dem. I feel no obligation to knee-jerk defend bad actions on the part of Democrats, just because they are Democrats.
I actually do respect Clinton, but I’m very disappointed in her. Bad behavior is bad behavior, what party the person belongs to doesn’t enter into it. I’m also disappointed in our political system, where *supposedly* anyone can do anything, yet two families (Bush and Clinton) are prez/vice prez for decades. It’s shameful – our system is broken.
Should Hillary win the nomination, I will very strongly support her candidacy. Heck, the smartest woman in the world (minha mãe, claro) thinks she’s the best candidate, so she must be pretty darn awesome.
Bjs.
Gina March 5th, 2015 at 19:08
VC escreve em português perfeito. Correto, simpatico e coloquial, surpreendente mesmo. Eu cheguei a ler um novo comentário seu a respeito dela com sua posição bastante clara. Você acredita que foi deliberado e mal-intencionado o uso de email pessoal? O jogo politico Americano parece ter mudado muito de algumas décadas para cá e mais ainda recentemente, com grandes perdas para you the people (corporações, lobistas, a corrida dos Republicanos para posições mais à direita do que nunca, campanhas bilionárias, etc…), pelo que sinto muitíssimo, a democracia Americana foi um exemplo, internamente pelo menos, por muito tempo.
bahlers March 4th, 2015 at 00:21
But the federal records act requires that all federal communications be retained and specifies for how long. By using a personal email account, she can bypass the requirement to hand over official emails as there is no back up in the national archives, as required by federal law.
Obewon March 4th, 2015 at 08:26
Can ‘bahlers or your handlers read? Apparently not e.g. “to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department.”-NYT linked above.
NW10 March 3rd, 2015 at 07:47
I’ll also add that the timing of this article with Mrs. Clinton expected to announce next month is odd and suspicious.
wpadon March 3rd, 2015 at 07:55
I feel it would have a greater impact if it surfaced a month after she announced. I would not be surprised if her “team” was behind the information.
theReaL*Lydia85 March 3rd, 2015 at 09:13
*sighs.. Let it begin..
But Didn’t Cheney do the exact same thing? Got away with it scott free? The right wing hyenas are having a field day with this, if too much controversy surrounds Hillary, who do we have anymore?
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:00
cheney was required by law to use only federal accounts per the “presidential records act” Hillary is under no such order or law.
theReaL*Lydia85 March 3rd, 2015 at 16:43
Do you know who’s responsible for this?
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 17:22
No one, she broke no laws. She made her emails available and hid nothing, this is just another faux outrage to use against her.
Brian O March 3rd, 2015 at 17:58
Important issues:
How do we know she broke no laws? It’s been reported many times that the current law is very recent- so she couldn’t have broken that law. Fine. But what law was in effect in January 2009? I’ve seen no detailed reporting on this at all. So how can you say she broke no laws? What was the law at that time?
This BS that “she made her emails available” is patently BS. Her staff handed over emails that *they* chose to hand over. This is not how govt record keeping should work.
A big problem not yet addressed adequately is *when* she made what emails she made available, available. Govt employee emails need to be retained for current FOIA requests, not just for historians. Reporting and govt statements seem to suggest that the handover of these emails is relatively recent. I’d want to know how many emails were handed over on what dates.
Gawker (not a Republican-leaning outfit by any stretch), at http://gawker.com/this-is-hillary-clinton-s-secret-email-hdr22-clintonem-1689178736 charges that Hillary’s relevant private emails were not recovered under a FOIA request they made- though they should have been. If, as it seems, the handover is recent, how many FOIA requests did Clinton’s private email policy defeat?
Um Cara March 3rd, 2015 at 22:38
>how many FOIA requests did Clinton’s private email policy defeat?
Yep, my thoughts too – though we really will never know, given that she gets to pick and choose which of her emails she will deign to share with us. She needs to blanket release ALL the emails & allow computer forensic experts to analyze the server(s) to determine whether anything was scrubbed.
craig7120 March 3rd, 2015 at 10:07
LOL
She does drive the right crazy
It’s funny how a letter changes the dynamic, D or R
She’s more of a hawk than W and yet the right hates her
I’m certainly no fan, but she’s a better option than any gop candidate, cause that side is bat sht crazy and can’t get their act together enough to govern, why trust them with the presidency?
Dwendt44 March 3rd, 2015 at 12:29
Seems Hilary used private e-mail during all of her stay at the State Dept.. You can be the farm that the wacky right/FakeNews will use the word ‘secret’ e-mails, and beat this dead horse repeatedly. If she used private e-mails during ALL of her term, it’s hardly a secret.
tracey marie March 3rd, 2015 at 15:02
what law did she break?
rg9rts March 3rd, 2015 at 15:28
PIQUE…. Benghazi Benghazi…the committee investigating it …this is the result!! LOL
rg9rts March 3rd, 2015 at 15:27
DID YOU KNOW???? This is the result on the committee on Benghazi!!! LOL This is ALL they could find!!! LOL
burqa March 4th, 2015 at 21:48
Really?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
It’s like a bookend to the committee that finally got to the Lewinsky affair. It began with an investigation into sexual assault by Bill Clinton…
Robert M. Snyder March 3rd, 2015 at 21:58
Heard this evening on the John Batchelor show:
“Hillary Clinton is Richard Nixon’s long-lost daughter.”
Obewon March 4th, 2015 at 08:39
Did that throwback mention “The Bush administration also lost 22 million emails.“-Linked above^ or probing Cheney for subpoenaed missing emails? “One problem: Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week’s worth of e-mail from Cheney’s office was missing. The week was Sept. 30, 2003, to Oct. 6, 2003, the opening days of the Justice Department’s probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.” http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23367672/ns/politics-capitol_hill/t/cheneys-subpoenaed-e-mails-missing/#.VPcKCPnF8iU
Robert M. Snyder March 4th, 2015 at 10:09
Okay some maybe Cheney concealed a week’s worth of e-mail. Clinton concealed four years’ worth of e-mail. Nice work, Obewon. You’ve just demonstrated that Clinton is 52 x 4 = 208 times worse than Cheney!
Obewon March 4th, 2015 at 20:02
You’re math is abysmal e.g. 22 Million POTUS GWB & pleaded guilty Nigerian Bribery Felon VP/Halliburton Cheney, and Convicted felon Scooter Libby emails -that were illegally wiped & destroyed violating the Federal Records Act vs Hillary Clinton’s volunteered 55,000 pages that weren’t even covered by the FRA until 2014!
Hey ‘wha happened to Snyder? RW radio ate Robert’s cerebellum! POTUS Obama amended the Federal Records Act in 2014 requiring federal email account use. SoS & General Powell used private email too. http://www.alan.com/2015/03/04/colin-powell-also-used-personal-email-account-as-secretary-of-state/
Who’s your daddy!
burqa March 4th, 2015 at 21:44
I enjoy the Batchelor show, at least when he’s got an author on and they’re talking about something historical. It has the feel of classic radio to me.
If he’s got a regular political show on I listen to something else because it tends to sound like all the others.
Robert M. Snyder March 5th, 2015 at 12:08
I like the fact that Batchelor is more data-driven, and less ideology-driven, than many other commentators. I listen to him with one ear while working on software projects at night.
Last night he interviewed a guest who cited an economic study which showed that while recent immigrants do in fact compete with native-born citizens for jobs, they also consume products and services, thereby driving up the demand for workers. The guest’s position was that legal immigration should be welcomed and perhaps expanded. He contrasted our immigration system with that of other advanced economies, such as Germany. In many of those economies, the immigration system is much more focused on admitting people who have needed skills, as opposed to our system which is more focused on reuniting extended families.
The best things about Batchelor are (1) he has thoughtful, knowledgeable guests, and (2) he lets them speak at length and in depth, without constantly interrupting them.
Note to Hannity and O’Reilly: We already know what YOU think. We want to hear what your GUEST has to say. I hate it when they cut someone off in mid-sentence, just as I was waiting to hear the person conclude their thought.
With Batchelor, I often learn things that I did not know. I can rarely say that about Hannity or O’Reilly. They’re all heat and no light.
As a former (and continuing) fan of NASA, I also appreciate Batchelor’s frequent coverage of NASA and space-related topics in general.
burqa March 7th, 2015 at 08:24
Bachelor often has guests from the Heritage Foundation or Breitbart or something like that and it just kills it for me. I mean, Michael (“let me introduce you to my friend Manucher”) Ledeen?
I didn’t hear the show you mention, but on your description, prefer the focus of our system.
Our nation is a beacon of freedom and people come here to be free. You can’t put a price on it and it should not be limited to those who are engineers, doctors or scientists.
One thing I like is when he says, “I’m John Bachelor.”
Oh, and he’s got the best bumper music on the dial.
O’Reilly and Hannity are horrible interviewers for the very reasons you cite. A good interviewer is in the dark holding a spotlight on the guest and his or her views. A good interviewer will ask questions that tease out details and looks at what the guest has to say from different angles so the listener has a fuller view of what the guest has to say.
Hannity, O’Reilly and others can’t stay out of the spotlight and so the interview suffers because they obscure, rather than illuminate the guest, which is the object of the exercise.
Obewon March 4th, 2015 at 08:44
Hillary Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of personal emails unlike: “George W. Bush and Dick Cheney – The Bush White House was the Republican founding father of private email systems. In order to avoid, public accountability the Bush administration used a private email network on RNC servers. The Bush administration also lost 22 million emails. They just so happened to lose the emails from the architects of Bush’s torture policy. Within those 22 million lost emails were five million emails that were lost relating to the 2007 firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. The Bush administration denied for years that any emails were lost, but as part of settling a lawsuit, eventually admitted that twenty-two million emails had been lost. The Obama administration tried to clean up the Bush mess, but was only able to restore 61 days worth of emails.” http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/28/republicans-attacking-obama-missing-irs-emails-caught-web-hypocrisy.html Gov. Scott Walker, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have all had emails go missing, hidden, or intentionally destroyed.
Those are just a few of the Republicans who have either wiped hard drives, or lost emails.
burqa March 7th, 2015 at 08:05
What the Bush admin. did does not justify Hillary’s boner.
See my post above for questions Hillary needs to answer.
burqa March 4th, 2015 at 21:45
It was a bad idea from the beginning, whether she violated any regulations or not.
burqa March 7th, 2015 at 08:02
Ruth Marcus wrote a good column of questions Hillary needs to answer on this one.
Hopefully Hillary does quickly.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/03/06/thirteen_or_so_questions_for_hillary_clinton_125848.html