The inspector general found \u0022longstanding systemic weaknesses related to electronic record and communications\u0022 at the State Department.Video provided by Newsy Newslook
As secretary of State, she ignored repeated warnings about email security.
Everyone, including Hillary Clinton, now agrees that the newly confirmed secretary of State made a mistake in 2009 when she decided, for the sake of “convenience,” to run her own email system out of her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., rather than use an official State Department email account.
But a new report by State's inspector general makes clear that within two years, Clinton's bad decision had turned into something far worse: a threat to national security, one that she repeatedly ignored despite multiple warnings.
Warning No. 1: The report, released last week, reveals that in January 2011, hackers were attacking her private server. Twice, the Hillary and Bill Clinton staffer responsible for maintaining the server had to shut it off to protect data held by America's top diplomat and the former president. The staffer notified State Department officials of the attempted hack, and Clinton’s top aides there emailed each other to say that “sensitive” matters should not be discussed with Clinton over email.
Warning No. 2: Two months later, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security sent a memorandum on cybersecurity threats directly to Clinton, warning of a dramatic increase in efforts "to compromise the private home email accounts of senior department officials" in a likely attempt to "gain access to policy documents and personal information that could enable technical surveillance and possible blackmail.” The memo to Clinton warned her that some personal email accounts had already been compromised and had “been reconfigured … to automatically forward copies of all composed emails” to the hackers.
Warning No. 3: That May, Clinton herself suspected that there might have been another hacking incident when she "received an email with a suspicious link." Hours after her aides discussed the issue over email, Clinton received another email with a suspect link, this time from the personal account of the "under secretary of State for political affairs."
Warning No. 4: A month later, the State Department sent a cable to “all diplomatic and consular posts” about the dangers of unsecured personal email accounts. Staffers were ordered to “avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts.” Who signed that cable? Hillary Clinton.
Those warnings, coming in a span of six months, should have made any responsible public official, even one without Clinton’s access to classified information on cyber threats from the vast U.S. intelligence network, aware of the national security dangers of failing to secure the secretary of State’s email communications.
Instead, Clinton and several of her top aides continued to use personal email for sensitive State Department business thousands of times.
If Clinton wants to become the president of the United States, she needs to explain how she could make such a reckless decision. She had a chance to answer questions when the Obama administration-appointed inspector general contacted her about the investigation that was released last week. Among five recent secretaries of State, only Clinton refused.
While Clinton is under potential criminal investigation by the FBI for the mishandling of classified material sent through her email, remaining silent might be in her best interests and it is certainly her right. But to be president, she is going to have to convince voters that she can put the national security of the United States above her own short-term self-interest.
It's already clear that, in using the private email server, Clinton broke the rules. Now it remains to be seen whether she also broke the law.
5 comments:
Yawn...big deal. There are so many more important things to worry about or focus on...the e-mail issues don't rank up there with a zit on a teenagers face. Its all media and GOP hype..so she made a mistake...who cares? She has admitted in hindsight she made a mistake...numerous other top officials historically had private e-mail servers and most importantly no one told her NO in clear and concise manner.
Its time to move on and focus on something else ..
No. Truth will set us free. She hid her activities from our President, Barack Obama, and every FOIA requester. No, criminal violations of 18 U.S.C. 793(f) and 18 U.S.C. 1001 are not to be mocked or trivialized. You are mistaken.
We disagree...and btw she didn't hide anything from POTUS. Here is a nice quote from the Washington Post...puts this in the proper light...yawn...big whoopie!
However, Trump and his supporters have so far completely ignored the fact that State Department investigators found that former secretaries of state under President George W. Bush, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, also received, or had top staffers receive, classified information through personal email accounts. To them, the past does not illuminate the future; it's like old seasons of The Bachelor, buried on Hulu or Netflix, without relevance to the new show.
Old quote. Non sequitur. She refused to talk to the SoS IG, as did her staff. Why?
She is the only SoS in American history never to use the state.gov website. Why?
She is the only SoS in American history to use a private server for all SoS communications. Why?
Nixon's defense in Watergate (prior presidents were guilty of misconduct) was no defense at all.
Neither is HC's schoolyard bully invocation of sporadic e-mail use by prior secretaries.
Thomas Friedman says it so well....quote
Here is what is relevant: Lying is serious business. But Hillary’s fibs or lack of candor are all about bad judgments she made on issues that will not impact the future of either my family or my country. Private email servers? Cattle futures? Goldman Sachs lectures? All really stupid, but my kids will not be harmed by those poor calls. Debate where she came out on Iraq and Libya, if you will, but those were considered judgment calls, and if you disagree don’t vote for her.
But while Hillary’s struggles with the whole truth on certain issues have garnered huge attention, driving up her negatives, Trump and Bernie Sanders have been getting away with some full Burger King Double Whoppers that will come crashing down on the whole country if either gets the chance to do what he says.
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