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IG Report Finds That Hillary Violated Government Records Act
The email scandal growsPolitico reports that the State Department inspector general has concluded that Hillary Clinton violated State’s recordkeeping protocols. The finding is contained in a much anticipated report provided to Congress today.
Significantly, the report also reveals that Clinton and her top aides at State — Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin, and possibly others — refused to cooperate with the IG’s investigation despite the IG’s requests that they submit to interviews.
The report is devastating, although it transparently strains to soften the blow. For example, it concludes that State’s “longstanding systemic weaknesses” in recordkeeping “go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State.” Yet, it cannot avoid finding that Clinton’s misconduct is singular in that she, unlike her predecessors, systematically used private e-mail for the purpose of evading recordkeeping requirements.
“Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary,” the report states. By failing to do so, and compounding that dereliction with a failure to “surrender[] all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service,” Clinton, the IG finds, “did not comply with the Department’s policies.”
This articulation of Mrs. Clinton’s offense is also sugar-coated. By saying Clinton violated “policies,” the IG avoids concluding that she violated the law. But the IG adds enough that we can connect the dots ourselves. The “policies,” he elaborates, “were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.” To violate the policies — as Shannen Coffin has explained here at National Review — is to violate the law.
The IG report provides additional detail:
“In November 2010, Secretary Clinton and her Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations discussed the fact that Secretary Clinton’s emails to Department employees were not being received,” the report said. “The Deputy Chief of Staff emailed the Secretary that “we should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” In response, the Secretary wrote, “Let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”
Is this the scandal that will end Hillary’s political career or will she skate once again?
Published in Law
Skate
I cannot imagine that even one percent of the people who have been supporting Hillary so far will drop their support because of this. It’s like having documented proof that Burt Reynolds was in fact a womanizer.
Skate.
More specifically, I think that the perfect “skate” method would be to indict her for a misdemeanor, have her plead guilty and be sentenced to 30 days community service as President of the United States.
What I mean is, she’ll get some slap on the wrist that will provide just enough cover for her supporters to say, “See! It wasn’t serious, she didn’t get any special treatment, and she paid her debt.”
Duh?
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Or . . . laws are for the little people.
Until they decide there is no law anymore, and we return to a state of nature.
Seawriter
My brother in law is a avowed Democrat even he is down on Hillary for this. He says he will not vote for her. He could be the 1% but I think she goes down.
She’ll probably skate once again. But that’s consistent with her phylum.
The big question is, why? Why did she try so hard to control all her electronic communications? What would be so compelling that she would circumvent State policy and protocol, disobey the law and expose secrets and her coveted private communications to our adversaries? Could she be that arrogant AND stupid?
She’ll skate. The MSM will never allow itself to be interested enough in this to hammer her on it. Timing plays a role here, too. She’s already basically locked down the Democratic Party’s nomination, and at the same time, this happens far enough in advance of the election itself that it’ll be old news in October/November. Even if the FBI recommends indictment in September or October (and the recommendation is leaked), Hillary’s campaign will label it old news (“This is nothing more than a replay of the IG’s report from last May – nothing new here – it’s no different than what other Secretaries of State have done – time to move on!” Etc., etc.). The only way anything different happens is if her poll numbers crater and the Dems see someway to put forward another candidate (Biden?); then Obama might let Loretta Lynch issue the indictment and put an end to the Clinton mess.
That’s the way she (and her husband) operate. They have a lot they don’t want in the public eye (in fairness, some of it is probably legitimate – I doubt any of us would want our truly personal e-mails available to the public). However, much of it probably dealt with political matters and specifically with Clinton Foundation matters, and one can only imagine the nature of much of that material. She couldn’t afford to have that readily available to the public. And yes, she is that arrogant AND stupid!
She’s gonna get off unless November becomes a likely loss and then Bamster will slam her and the Dems will go to court to put Bernie on the ballot.
Hillary Clinton? Of course. At least that arrogant. We will see if it was stupid later. If she suffers no ill consequences it is hard to conclude she was stupid. If she ends up in an orange jumpsuit instead of an orange pantsuit, then, yes – she was that stupid.
Seawriter
The only surprise here is that the State Department IG reported it. My guess is that the IG had to weigh which would do her and the State Department more damage – reporting the obvious, or not reporting it, thereby revealing the utter corruption at the top of the State Department. There really isn’t another choice.
She will skate, but she ought to skate right to cell block 13. Mr Trump should promise to indict her when elected. Mr Biden should offer to pardon her when elected.
Any “never trump” fools who vote for Mrs Clinton, if she is nominated, after this has come out, are complicit.
Whether she skates or not is directly proportional to the polls around Labor Day.
If she is losing to Trump by more than the margin of error and Democrats get a poll saying Biden/Warren would beat Trump then Hillary gets thrown under Guantanamo.
If Hillary is ahead of Trump and internal polling confirms there will be nothing to see here.
Is that the best photo of Ms Clinton that you could find?
The snip I heard on NPR sugar coated it.
The snip I heard on Fox Radio sugar coated it.
Skate. People who like her don’t care about things like national security.
Hell some of them don’t think there should be national security.
But let’s all take the time to remember a few things about this moment in history:
1. Hillary is obviously guilty of willful lawbreaking and mishandling classified documents.
2. This is merely the latest in a long series of crimes, scandals and misjudgement that place her amongst the most disgraceful politicians in American history.
3. People who call themselves conservative are declaring they’ll vote for her even knowing all this.
There are many things in this life I want: independent wealth, a supervillain lair, the ability to walk up a flight of stairs without being winded.
But I’d trade it all if we as a nation could rid ourselves of that cursed family of hillbilly grifters.
She did it during her first two terms in the White House. She learned that the news media and even conservatives would forget all about it. so why not do it again?
It doesn’t get much better than that.
Let’s keep thinking about how to make that presidency worth less than a bucket of warm spit. Because it sure looks like we’re going to get stuck with one of them. All we’ve got left is damage control. We’ve got to minimize the presidency’s power and prestige.
Biden will be the next POTUS after Hillary is forced to drop out and Joe cuts the poofy one down to size. I know, he’s not great, but compared to the other two, he is great!
Coming to a TV network soon – The Beverly Hillbilly Grifters.
Follow the antics of a wily country lawyer and his ambitious wife as they con an entire country. The season’s funniest and most frightening new hit show!
I’ll warm up the TARDIS.
I think that Jon just likes seeing her in an orange jumpsuit.
She is wearing an orange pantsuit in that picture. Jon (and I, and many others) would like to see her in an orange jumpsuit.
Seawriter
What difference, at this point, does it make?
That’s for the judge and jury to decide.