Hillary Update

[Coydog]

Except for war votes can you give a few examples?

Asked and answered. Thousands upon thousands of bi-partisan actions through the years.

You're delusional.

Probably, but not about this. Rarely does one party have a filibuster and/or veto proof majority. And when they do, they don't have it for long. To get anything done, literally anything, Congress almost always has to get some on the other side to cross the line.

[Mister Moose]

The article does not offer any conclusion of how the administration has done overall, or compared to other administrations. But it appears to fall short of "Most transparent ever" to me. Not exactly glass like transparency.

Ok, you tell me, falls short compared to what other administration? Surely you must have a clear example in mind to substantiate your claim.

And based on the apparent outrage in here over Clinton's "classified" emails, the desire for "glass like transparency" seems a wee bit of a contradiction.

There's a few aspects like the chart provided, that show the current administration is less transparent than recent others. Not surprisingly there is no bottom line offered, its going to be somewhat difficult to be quantitative about everything. But I think we need to reel back the conversation a little.

When I heard "The most transparent administration ever" I didn't expect it to mean "Possibly just squeaking under the second least sleazy by a hair". Identifying the second least sleazy is not a goal. What I heard was "We will not protect corruption at any level, and we will hide nothing in our effort to accomplish that"

I don't think we are seeing that in action. (How is the Clinton email episode a contradiction?)

[steamboat1]

Definitely the most transparent. Just about anyone could read Hillary's classified e mails.

[shortski]

Need to get a T-shirt.....

[Coydog]

The data from the WP makes a pretty good case for the "most transparent ever" argument. Is this the same as the most transparent possible? Of course not and clearly no administration has achieved that.

Here’s an early Presidential Memorandum to the heads of Departments and Agencies.

Memorandum of January 21, 2009 (PDF)

In particular:

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear pre-sumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

My problem with the Clinton email issue is not that she used a private server, this was allowed, was the practice of previous Secretaries and government officials and had essentially the same characteristics of an unclassified .gov account that could have otherwise been used. My problem is with her motivation. Unfortunately, I suspect she used the private server in a misguided effort to protect personal emails -- which should not have been mixed with business, though many of us do it -- and have the option to pick and choose which non-intergovernmental communications would be preserved. The latter absolutely defies the notion

Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.

But openness has never been a particularly strong point for the Clintons (and Bush, Reagan, Nixon, et al.).

[Mister Moose]

The data from the WP makes a pretty good case for the "most transparent ever" argument. Is this the same as the most transparent possible? Of course not and clearly no administration has achieved that.

Guess we'll have to disagree on that one. I thought the WP article showed both pro and con, and drew no conclusion, other than:

Nevertheless, at this moment, although the administration may still wind up as one of the better ones of the sunshine era, it may not serve as the model for the most transparent administration yet to come.

And this from a left leaning paper.

Here’s an early Presidential Memorandum to the heads of Departments and Agencies.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear pre-sumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

Oh, OK. So After Obama told us, he told the same thing to Department Heads. What matters is what the administration did, not what the administration said they were going to do. Leadership is more than just hand waving, otherwise we all could be great presidents. That edict did not seem to apply to Fast and Furious or the IRS, or the myriad of other scandals.

My problem with the Clinton email issue is not that she used a private server, this was allowed, was the practice of previous Secretaries and government officials and had essentially the same characteristics of an unclassified .gov account that could have otherwise been used. My problem is with her motivation. Unfortunately, I suspect she used the private server in a misguided effort to protect personal emails -- which should not have been mixed with business, though many of us do it -- and have the option to pick and choose which non-intergovernmental communications would be preserved. The latter absolutely defies the notion

Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.

But openness has never been a particularly strong point for the Clintons (and Bush, Reagan, Nixon, et al.).

It is NOT the same thing. .gov is archived, .Clinton is not. .gov doesn't get wiped at the discretion of a dept head, .Clinton does.

She can have a private server for her personal emails. Putting (unclassified) State business on a personal server if not illegal is such a glaring lapse of judgement that it alone should bar her from further office. To pass classified information on a personal server is criminal, and since the Sec of State can generate, create, write highly classified material herself, not just read someone else's, and since she received training on identifying classified materials, the Clintonese dodge of "Gee, it wasn't marked classified" is just weasel words for the gullible. She needs to have the judgment of what is classified and what is not (and err on the side of caution) even when it has no security tags attached. If she does not have this judgement, what we are left with is the Steve Urkel version of Sec of State.



Furthermore, the conflict of interest between the Clinton Foundation and the Secretary of State makes a wiped private server much worse.

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

She can have a private server for her personal emails. Putting (unclassified) State business on a personal server if not illegal is such a glaring lapse of judgement that it alone should bar her from further office. To pass classified information on a personal server is criminal, and since the Sec of State can generate, create, write highly classified material herself, not just read someone else's, and since she received training on identifying classified materials, the Clintonese dodge of "Gee, it wasn't marked classified" is just weasel words for the gullible. She needs to have the judgment of what is classified and what is not (and err on the side of caution) even when it has no security tags attached. If she does not have this judgement, what we are left with is the Steve Urkel version of Sec of State.

Amen.

[freeski]

In an effort to deflect attention from the server mess, HRC said something like...well you know when I started it was busy with a lot of problems in the world and I didn't think through... She has been called out on this by a few people. SHE made the decision to use a private server and it was a well calculated move to avoid scrutiny. She almost got away with it. If not for Congressional investigations no one would have ever known.

We've been hearing for months... well Colon Powell had a private email account. I was always skeptical about this, but never looked into it. Recently Powell went on the record and said he had two accounts. One for "house keeping" and one for secure communications. This is completely different from HRC's claim.

She lied/bent the truth in both of these situation. She really thinks we're stupid. No wonder her approval rating keep going down.

[Dr. NO]

The data from the WP makes a pretty good case for the "most transparent ever" argument. Is this the same as the most transparent possible? Of course not and clearly no administration has achieved that.

Guess we'll have to disagree on that one. I thought the WP article showed both pro and con, and drew no conclusion, other than:

Nevertheless, at this moment, although the administration may still wind up as one of the better ones of the sunshine era, it may not serve as the model for the most transparent administration yet to come.

And this from a left leaning paper.

Here’s an early Presidential Memorandum to the heads of Departments and Agencies.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear pre-sumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

Oh, OK. So After Obama told us, he told the same thing to Department Heads. What matters is what the administration did, not what the administration said they were going to do. Leadership is more than just hand waving, otherwise we all could be great presidents. That edict did not seem to apply to Fast and Furious or the IRS, or the myriad of other scandals.

My problem with the Clinton email issue is not that she used a private server, this was allowed, was the practice of previous Secretaries and government officials and had essentially the same characteristics of an unclassified .gov account that could have otherwise been used. My problem is with her motivation. Unfortunately, I suspect she used the private server in a misguided effort to protect personal emails -- which should not have been mixed with business, though many of us do it -- and have the option to pick and choose which non-intergovernmental communications would be preserved. The latter absolutely defies the notion

Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.

But openness has never been a particularly strong point for the Clintons (and Bush, Reagan, Nixon, et al.).

It is NOT the same thing. .gov is archived, .Clinton is not. .gov doesn't get wiped at the discretion of a dept head, .Clinton does.

She can have a private server for her personal emails. Putting (unclassified) State business on a personal server if not illegal is such a glaring lapse of judgement that it alone should bar her from further office. To pass classified information on a personal server is criminal, and since the Sec of State can generate, create, write highly classified material herself, not just read someone else's, and since she received training on identifying classified materials, the Clintonese dodge of "Gee, it wasn't marked classified" is just weasel words for the gullible. She needs to have the judgment of what is classified and what is not (and err on the side of caution) even when it has no security tags attached. If she does not have this judgement, what we are left with is the Steve Urkel version of Sec of State.



Furthermore, the conflict of interest between the Clinton Foundation and the Secretary of State makes a wiped private server much worse.

Ya left out the fact that ALL GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS MUST BE ARCHIVED. Just a little side note she failed to do.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Didn't all of this originate with the delays in fulfilling FOIA requests?

[freeski]

Didn't all of this originate with the delays in fulfilling FOIA requests?

I believe it was discovered during the Benghazi investigation. Then a conservative watchdog group made a FOIA request for all emails. I think that's how it went down.

[Coydog]

She can have a private server for her personal emails. Putting (unclassified) State business on a personal server if not illegal is such a glaring lapse of judgement that it alone should bar her from further office.

It was not illegal and this is what Colin Powell did before her.

To pass classified information on a personal server is criminal,

No, the law is "knowingly" and there is the issue of retroactive reclassification, completely SOP. Also, Clinton has no control if someone fails to send classified info to her through the secured system. If such information was sent to her private account, it would have the same security issues as if it went to an unclassified .gov account

We've been hearing for months... well Colon Powell had a private email account. I was always skeptical about this, but never looked into it. Recently Powell went on the record and said he had two accounts. One for "house keeping" and one for secure communications. This is completely different from HRC's claim.

Don’t see how, Clinton claims exactly the same - she used a private server for unclassified communications and a separate secured system for classified communications. BTW, in contrast to Clinton (30,000 emails turned over), we still don’t have any emails from Powell as requested by the State Department. He says he doesn’t have them (seems rather Clinton-esque), but I bet someone out there does. Also, Powell claims his important correspondences would have been archived since they were sent to State Department accounts – sound familiar?

Clinton is set to testify before the Republican led Select Committee on Benghazi in October and I expect she'll do better than fine. Seems to me the only sure fire way to prove indisputable wrongdoing is to uncover one or more emails she deleted, having claimed they were personal, but discover they actually contain classified national security information and are marked as such. This could indeed happen, after all the FBI is in possession of the server and we know that "wiping a server clean" is not nearly as definitive as some believe.

[Bubba]

She can have a private server for her personal emails. Putting (unclassified) State business on a personal server if not illegal is such a glaring lapse of judgement that it alone should bar her from further office.

It was not illegal and this is what Colin Powell did before her.

To pass classified information on a personal server is criminal,

No, the law is "knowingly" and there is the issue of retroactive reclassification, completely SOP. Also, Clinton has no control if someone fails to send classified info to her through the secured system. If such information was sent to her private account, it would have the same security issues as if it went to an unclassified .gov account

We've been hearing for months... well Colon Powell had a private email account. I was always skeptical about this, but never looked into it. Recently Powell went on the record and said he had two accounts. One for "house keeping" and one for secure communications. This is completely different from HRC's claim.

Don’t see how, Clinton claims exactly the same - she used a private server for unclassified communications and a separate secured system for classified communications. BTW, in contrast to Clinton (30,000 emails turned over), we still don’t have any emails from Powell as requested by the State Department. He says he doesn’t have them (seems rather Clinton-esque), but I bet someone out there does. Also, Powell claims his important correspondences would have been archived since they were sent to State Department accounts – sound familiar?

Clinton is set to testify before the Republican led Select Committee on Benghazi in October and I expect she'll do better than fine. Seems to me the only sure fire way to prove indisputable wrongdoing is to uncover one or more emails she deleted, having claimed they were personal, but discover they actually contain classified national security information and are marked as such. This could indeed happen, after all the FBI is in possession of the server and we know that "wiping a server clean" is not nearly as definitive as some believe.

Question: Did Hillary delete the e-mails herself following her personal review and, if not, who assisted with the review and deletion? (I know how long it takes me to review and delete old e-mails and I don't have 30,000 - 60,000 to review. Hard to picture her sitting at her desk night and day for weeks reviewing documents while simultaneously running around the country and the world making speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars AND planning a run for President.)

Question: Assuming Hillary had help, did the helper have a security clearance?

Question: Assuming Hillary had help, did the helper have experience with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act so as to know what had to be kept and not deleted?

[Dr. NO]

once again, it is required to Archive all Government e-mails. using a private server does not ensure this can happen. So, WHERE IS HILLARY'S ARCHIVE to the server? Don't give a crap if it was legal or stupid or whatever, there is no ARCHIVE.

And yes Bubba, to go through several thousand e-mails looking for what is or is not, or should or should, be classified would take a full scale office of a few hundred with backup and followup.

I keep hearing "wiped the server clean". If that happened, how are we now finding information on the server? When I received a new PC, my company sent out a thing called DOD clean. It removes all files and directories and then re-writes the entire hard drive several times. Good luck if it was wiped clean with that. Also a very good natural earth Magnet and then de-Mag would really fix things.

[Coydog]

Question: Did Hillary delete the e-mails herself following her personal review and, if not, who assisted with the review and deletion?

Her lawyers and aides performed the work. Now, as per the 2009 update to the US Code of federal regulations:

“Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.” The responsibility for making and preserving the records is assigned to “the head of each federal agency.”

Thus, like it or not, Clinton herself determines how and which records are to be preserved.

Question: Assuming Hillary had help, did the helper have a security clearance?

Probably not relevant because any decisions regarding her private server were between unclassified and personal emails.

Question: Assuming Hillary had help, did the helper have experience with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act so as to know what had to be kept and not deleted?

Again, as per regulations, Clinton decides how that is decided.

once again, it is required to Archive all Government e-mails. using a private server does not ensure this can happen. So, WHERE IS HILLARY'S ARCHIVE to the server? Don't give a crap if it was legal or stupid or whatever, there is no ARCHIVE.

Yes, well, unless you count the 55,000 pages of emails and other documents - unlike the big 0 we have from Powell.