Clinton Emails: FBI Recommends 'No Charges'

Clinton Emails: FBI Recommends 'No Charges'(news.sky.com)

46 points by wolfwyrd 9 years ago | 14 comments

rrggrr 9 years ago |

I wonder how John Deutsche and Samuel Berger feel about this. Both were charged for retaining classified data. And the many regular people whose clearances have been revoked or who faced administrative sanctions and lost jobs. The FBI recommendation is statutorily correct, but the absence of any accountability doesn't seem just.

simbalion 9 years ago | |

Statutorily correct, what does that mean? They claim a lack of precedent. The only reason there's a lack of precedent is that email is a young technology.

hga 9 years ago | | |

John Deutsche was specifically using his unsecured home computer to work on and email out TS/SCI and/or SAP material. That should tell you all you need to know about why what he did was so verboten, it was material at the level where you're only allowed to access it in secured facilities, you're not allowed to remove your notes from them, etc. etc.

rrggrr 9 years ago | | |

No, they claim no evidence of intent, which is key for proving criminality. Gross negligence is an impossible prosecution where a defendant at a jury trial is a 68 yr old grandmother and the central issue is an email server. The upside here - if there is any - is that now Comey has all the credibility he needs to investigate the Clinton Foundation.

wesnerm2 9 years ago |

The difference between Hillary Clinton and others who were charged for retaining classified data is that Hillary Clinton had the authority bestowed to her by Executive Order 12958 and 13526 to classify and declassify information at the "top secret" level that originated from the State Department.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/...

tynpeddler 9 years ago | |

I guess we would have to read the emails to know if she had the authority to reclassify them. Otherwise “This authority(...) did not extend to information generated by other agencies, such as CIA.”

hga 9 years ago | | |

And the very worst stuff we've learned about is some of Sid Blumenthal's emails, who shouldn't even have access to this stuff, forwarding highest level NSA stuff, the sort that can get people killed in real time, the stuff that's protected at as or higher a level than, say, nuclear weapons secrets (I have friends who've worked for both the NSA and LLNL).

There is no possible way she has the authority on her own, or the State Department by itself, to allow her kitchen cabinet blow the covers of these people and methods, she in fact had a duty to report such breaches.

ethanbond 9 years ago | |

Ah, so she's not an sketchy outlaw... she's a sketchy lawman.

That puts my mind at ease.

devillius 9 years ago |

I'll just leave this here. Eerily similar: https://www.fbi.gov/sacramento/press-releases/2015/folsom-na...

arkem 9 years ago | |

I wouldn't call the two cases eerily similar.

One is about operating a private email server and using it for official business that occasionally included sensitive information that shouldn't be held on internet connected computers.

The other is removing classified information from secure systems (I think it's implying SIPRNET) and keeping copies of them in your home.

One case is a person not saying "hey guys, we shouldn't talk about this here" when topics get sensitive and the other is a deliberate copying of classified information.

One constitutes careless handling of sensitive information, one constitutes intentional mishandling of classified information.

appleflaxen 9 years ago |

This isn't fair to the men and women charged for the same or similar actions.

nikdaheratik 9 years ago | |

Nothing about the process is fair, and neither outcome in Clinton's case would change that. The government needs to stop classifying material indiscriminately, and stop treating all whistleblowers like criminals. And that's just for starters.

PopsiclePete 9 years ago |

Gotta be careful, don't wanna piss off your future boss.