2016 elections - because it's never too early

[derspiess]

I...um...er...

Ok what the fuck are you talking about?

That her extreme carelessness is not anywhere close to gross negligence.

[The Minsky Moment]

How much space is there between "extreme carelessness" and "gross negligence"?

It's a meaningless question without including the subjects, and verbs contained in the sentences.
In Comey's statement, the subject committing the "extreme carelessness" is "Secretary Clinton or her colleagues."  A prosecution of Clinton can only occur if one of those disjunctive alternatives is true.
In Comey's statement the verb is "handling".   Carelessness in "handling" national defense information is not a violation of the Code in itself, even in grossly negligent. Material must be "removed from its proper place of custody" or delivered in violation of trust.

The argument is now being made that the mere use of a non-government email server constitutes removal of material from its proper place of custody.  This is the argument Comey was referring to when speaking about "no reasonable prosecutor" bringing that case.  It would be unprecedented to base a 793 prosecution simply because email went though a non State server.    Indeed on such a standard virtually every senior state department official since the invention of email would be guilty of felonies.

I am not suggesting an equivalency between Clinton's homebrew private email server and (to take one example) Colin Powell's use of his AOL email account to send foreign policy emails.  Having decided to set up her own private server, there is simply no good reason HC did not follow appropriate protocols to secure it.  One could say as per Fouche, c'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.  But it's still not a crime.

[Valmy]

That her extreme carelessness is not anywhere close to gross negligence.

I don't think it is a political leaders job to worry about that shit. They hire people for that. Her people fucked it up.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Carelessness in "handling" national defense information is not a violation of the Code in itself, even in grossly negligent. Material must be "removed from its proper place of custody" or delivered in violation of trust.

The argument is now being made that the mere use of a non-government email server constitutes removal of material from its proper place of custody.  This is the argument Comey was referring to when speaking about "no reasonable prosecutor" bringing that case.  It would be unprecedented to base a 793 prosecution simply because email went though a non State server.    Indeed on such a standard virtually every senior state department official since the invention of email would be guilty of felonies.

You should ask Wen Ho Lee how unprecedented such a prosecution would be.  Based on what the DSS fills our heads with, we are led to believe that we would be prosecuted at the drop of a hat for doing what Clinton did.  At the very least we would be permanently barred from accessing classified information again.

[The Minsky Moment]

You should ask Wen Ho Lee how unprecedented such a prosecution would be. 

I don't think a case where the judge publically condemned the government for lying and abuse of power, and where the defendant was paid over a million dollars of damages is the kind of precedent Comey was looking for.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I don't think a case where the judge publically condemned the government for lying and abuse of power, and where the defendant was paid over a million dollars of damages is the kind of precedent Comey was looking for.

I agree.  My point is that prosecutors take cases they think they can win, regardless of the merits.  Which actually ties in to the rest of my post.

[derspiess]

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/588c1ba16f51484e8e0010b12b9e8b28/ap-fact-check-clinton-email-claims-collapse-under-fbi-probe

CLINTON: "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Actually, the FBI identified at least 113 emails that passed through Clinton's server and contained materials that were classified at the time they were sent, including some that were Top Secret and referred to a highly classified special access program, Comey said.

Most of those emails — 110 of them — were included among 30,000 emails that Clinton returned to the State Department around the time her use of a private email server was discovered. The three others were recovered from a forensic analysis of Clinton's server. "Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation," Comey said. Clinton and her aides "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said.

___

CLINTON: "I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified." NBC interview, July 2016.

THE FACTS: Clinton has separately clung to her rationale that there were no classification markings on her emails that would have warned her and others not to transmit the sensitive material. But the private system did, in fact, handle emails that bore markings indicating they contained classified information, Comey said.

He said the marked emails were "a very small number." But that's not the only standard for judging how officials handle sensitive material, he added. "Even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know, or should know, that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it."

___

CLINTON: "I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related" to the State Department. News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Not so, the FBI found.

Comey said that when his forensic team examined Clinton's server it found there were "several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000" that had been returned by Clinton to the State Department.

___

CLINTON: "I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails instead of two." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: This reasoning for using private email both for public business and private correspondence didn't hold up in the investigation. Clinton "used numerous mobile devices to view and send email" using her personal account, Comey said. He also said Clinton had used different servers.

___

CLINTON: "It was on property guarded by the Secret Service, and there were no security breaches. ... The use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure." News conference, March 2015.

CLINTON campaign website: "There is no evidence there was ever a breach."

THE FACTS: The campaign website claimed "no evidence" of a breach, a less categorical statement than Clinton herself made last year, when she said there was no breach. The FBI did not uncover a breach but made clear that that possibility cannot be ruled out.

"We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account," Comey said.

He said evidence would be hard to find because hackers are sophisticated and can cover their tracks. Comey said his investigators learned that Clinton's security lapses included using "her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries." Comey also noted that hackers breached the email accounts of several outsiders who messaged with Clinton.

Comey did not mention names, but a Romanian hacker who called himself Guccifer accessed and later leaked emails from Sidney Blumenthal, an outside adviser to Clinton who regularly communicated with her.

___

CLINTON: "I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department." News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Comey did not address Clinton's reason for using a private server instead of a government one, but he highlighted the perils in routing sensitive information through a home server.

The FBI found that Clinton's personal server was "not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail," the director said.

A May 2016 audit by the State Department inspector general found there was no evidence Clinton sought or received approval to operate a private server, and that she "had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices." Courts have frowned on such a practice.

In an unrelated case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the purpose of public records law is "hardly served" when a department head "can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to" by maintaining emails on a private system.

[The Minsky Moment]

Again, Comey did not say any emails contained TS material.  He said 7 email chains concerned matters that were classified TS. 

If HC put in an email a comment made a foreign diplomat, no matter how trivial or innocuous, that could count as one of the 113 emails containing classified information because any non-public statement by a foreign diplomat is subject to classification. Foreign government Information is defined simply as any statement made in confidence (i.e. non public) by a representative of a foreign government.  The Foreign Affairs Manual advises that such "foreign government information" can be transmitted or memorialized in email form, and that "[w]hen adequate to achieve the required protection, FGI may be handled under standards that are less restrictive than the safeguarding standards that ordinarily apply to U.S.'Confidential' information, including modified handling and transmission and allowing access to individuals with a need-to-know who have not otherwise been cleared for access to classified information or executed an approved nondisclosure agreement."

[derspiess]

Take it up with the AP, Joan.

[Valmy]

Take it up with the AP, Joan.

Did the AP hijack your account and post the story here?

[FunkMonk]

It seems Donald has raised a boatload of money in June.

Hillary's overconfidence will bury her. It's over for her. Just call the election now.

[Admiral Yi]

It seems Donald has raised a boatload of money in June.

Hillary's overconfidence will bury her. It's over for her. Just call the election now.

How much of it will he have to return to Icelandic and British elected officials?

[Barrister]

It seems Donald has raised a boatload of money in June.

Hillary's overconfidence will bury her. It's over for her. Just call the election now.

That is, if you believe Trump.

Lets see what his FEC filings say.

[FunkMonk]

It seems Donald has raised a boatload of money in June.

Hillary's overconfidence will bury her. It's over for her. Just call the election now.

How much of it will he have to return to Icelandic and British elected officials?

And the sherriffs. Don't forget the sherriffs.

Also the Russians. Putin's man Manafort has his fingerprints all over this operation. 

[Admiral Yi]

And the sherriffs. Don't forget the sherriffs.

Also the Russians. Putin's man Manafort has his fingerprints all over this operation. 

What's this about the sheriffs?