Clinton’s Emails

State released 7,000 more of Hilary Clinton’s emails, those…documents…transmitted via her private, unprotected email server. One hundred fifty of them contained classified information.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the emails in question were “subsequently upgraded” to classified. He stressed that none of the emails was considered classified at the time.

This is so utterly disingenuous as to be outright lies. The material in the emails were not “subsequently upgraded” to classified; they were only marked classified after the fact. The material was classified all along.

[S]ome of the information on Clinton’s server was inherently classified. Fox’s analysts cited a memo transmitting information provided by foreign diplomats about Sudan peace talks.

As Shannen Coffin explained, because such information is substantive and comes from foreign diplomats, it is “born classified.”

Information from other sources also is born classified. Recall the first set of emails discovered to be classified (if unmarked as such): they passed along information derived from Talent Keyhole programs.

There are two things about this. All the folks sending, receiving, and reading those emails—TO, FROM, CC, and BCC senders and receivers (and relayers—that’s one reason why the email headers (available only in the electronic copies) are so important), every single one of them—knew or should have known that the material was classified, regardless of their markings. All the folks sending, receiving, or reading those emails should have squawked to the classification authorities of the sender’s office and of State, and to the Security facilities of both offices, about the security violations those emails represented, both by their lack of markings and by their existence on an unclassified, unprotected server.

The other thing is that the mere transmission of such information via unsecured means, or the mere retention of them, however briefly, on unsecured media, is a felony, whether or not the information was properly marked. Everyone in that sequence of transmittal—TO, FROM, CC, and BCC senders and receivers and relayers—who did not so report committed a felony.

Every single one.

What Really Happened?

Regarding the cell phones used by Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, both aides to Hillary Clinton during the latter’s stint as Secretary of State, and other devices,

[T]he State Department said in a court filing that BlackBerry devices used by two former Clinton aides during her time as secretary of state have most likely been destroyed or sold off by the agency.

The devices, used by Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, have not been located by the agency, State Department Executive Secretary Joseph Macmanus wrote in a filing submitted in DC Federal Court, adding that the agency’s “standard procedure upon return of such devices is to perform a factory reset (which removes any user settings or configurations) and then to re-issue the device to another employee, to destroy it, or to excess it.”

“Because the devices issued to Ms Mills and Ms Abedin would have been outdated models, in accordance with standard operating procedures those devices would have been destroyed or excessed,” Macmanus wrote.

And

[Macmanus] also said that Clinton did not have a BlackBerry from the State Department or any other device. That means she did not have a department-issued device certified as secure, raising new security questions as the devices she carried would not have been government-encrypted.

The guy who currently sits in the SecState chair, John Kerry, chimed in through his State Spokesperson John Kirby:

…it is “standard practice” that when employees leave, their personal devices undergo a “factory reset,” as they’re often given to other employees.

“And it’s our understanding that that’s what happened in this case. It’s also likely that because this was a while, ago and that those devices were probably—may have been destroyed,”

“Most likely,” “standard procedure,” “standard practice,” “not State issued,” “often given,” “may have been….”

Yes, yes. We fully understand the speculations. Now stop stonewalling and evading: say what actually happened to the devices. Say, also, what device Clinton actually used and where it is, since you’ve known all along her device(s) weren’t government issued.

Russian Disingenuosity

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the Ukrainian government Monday for an uptick in violence in eastern Ukraine, saying Kiev’s forces were apparently preparing for a fresh offensive, as Ukraine blamed Russia-backed separatists for the escalation.

Never mind that, were it true that Ukraine is readying an offensive, it would only be true because the Ukrainian government has a right—a duty—to drive the Russian troops from Ukrainian soil and to bring the “separatists” to justice.

Politics

Here’s Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s view of “politics:”

I won’t pretend that this [homemade email server/classified email scandal] is anything other than what it is—the same old partisan games we’ve seen so many times before.

It’s not about Benghazi. And you know what? It’s not about emails or servers, either. It’s about politics. I will do my part to provide transparency to Americans[.]

Because it’s only politics that a Clinton, or any other politician, should be held to account for her misbehaviors regarding using homemade email servers to conduct State Department official business.

It’s only politics that a Clinton, or any other politician, should be held to account for her misbehaviors involving her handling of classified information via those servers.

It’s only politics that a Clinton, or any other politician, should be held to account for her misbehaviors involving her disingenuousness in claiming no emails passed through her servers that had classified markings on it, knowing that’s not the problem: having classified information, regardless of markings, is.

It’s only politics that a Clinton, or any other politician, should be held to account for her misbehaviors involving withholding such official records from State and from the National Archives in contravention of the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

It’s only politics.

This is the level of integrity and moral judgment that wants to be President of the United States. We already will have had eight years of that sewage by the time our next President is inaugurated. We can’t afford any more; our nation and our society have been damaged badly enough.

Leverage

In Thursday night’s GOP Presidential candidate debate, Donald Trump refused to rule out running as a third party candidate if he’s not the Republican nominee, or even if the party merely doesn’t treat him “nice.” He defended that position on a number of TV talk shows.

I’m a natural negotiator, and I like leverage to be honest with you. That’s really what the country needs. I just felt that why should I give up this leverage.

Apparently, extortion is the new leverage.