Hillary Clinton imposed a double-standard on emails as Secretary of State, one for her underlings and one for herself, and now she’s using double-talk to excuse her behavior, writes Bart Gruzalski.
By Bart Gruzalski
Hillary Clinton’s smooth-talking subterfuges about her email server continued in the debate on March 9. Univision’s Jorge Ramos raised the issue: “When you were Secretary of State you wrote 104 emails in your private server that the government now says contained classified information according to the Washington Post and others. That goes against a memo you personally sent to employees in 2011 directing all of them to use official email precisely because of security concerns. So it seems that you issued one set of rules for yourself and a different set of rules for employees at the State Department.”
After asking who approved her private server, Ramos asked the memorable question: “If you get indicted will you drop out?”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)
The key line in Clinton’s response: “Here’s the cut-to-the-chase fact: I did not send any emails marked ‘classified’ at the time.” We’ve heard that line over and over again the past weeks. Ramos asked his question again: “If you get indicted would you drop out?” Hillary: “Oh, for goodness, it’s not gonna happen. I’m not even going to answer that question.”
By continually claiming that none of her emails were marked “classified,” Clinton has convinced many of her supporters that she is innocent of putting classified information at risk: Her parsing of words — “marked classified” rather than simply “classified” — continues to work for her.
We have excellent reasons for doubting that Hillary “never sent classified emails.” Hillary stated clearly that she was “well aware of the classification requirements.” The Washington Post discovered the email equivalent of a “smoking gun” when it reported that Clinton had written three-quarters of the classified emails herself. That undermined her defense that they weren’t “marked” classified. If any should have been marked “classified,” It was her job to label them.
Under pressure by Fox host Bret Baier on March 7, Hillary added that it was the State Department’s job to classify the emails she sent out. The suggestion that it was the State Department’s job to classify her outgoing emails is ludicrous. No one else had the access to her private server. In her 2011 email to State Department employees, she shows that she is aware of the dangers of using a private server.
Hillary will undoubtedly continue to dance around questions involving her email. Even if she is forced to testify before a grand jury, her grand jury testimony will remain sealed. Those who are asking her the hard questions in public need to ask very simple and direct questions that leave her no wiggle room. One such question: “Did you ever originate emails containing top secret information?”
Clinton has tried to sidestep the email brouhaha by pointing out that Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, used a private email address. The critical difference is that Powell did not use a home server. The potential security breach is not created by using a private email address, but by sending and keeping emails on a private home server.
Hillary will have to become an unparalleled Clintonesque wordsmith to keep the waters muddied. She may wave off a direct question, saying she’s answered it already (she hasn’t answered the one above) and asking for the “next question.” That response is already losing its effectiveness.
Regardless of what the FBI and Justice Department do, it’s hard to imagine what will protect Hillary from being indicted in the forum of public opinion. Hillary did send classified emails. That was part of her job as Secretary of State. She should not have used a home server which allowed classified information to be hacked. That too was her responsibility as Secretary of State.
Professor Emeritus Bart Gruzalski specialized in ethics, has published three books and over fifty articles, including online publications at Consortiumnews, Truthout’s Speakout, Counterpunch, and PolicyMic. EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
Did’nt General Petreaus Get RIFed, RIGed, FOLDed, Spindled,and Mutilated for ONE security breach?
Twice my poignant comments of the William Clinton’s journey beginning in Arkansas have been deleted. Tragically an appropriate comment on Mr and Mrs. William Clinton’s methods of reaching supreme US power.
I have been watching the Clintons since they appeared in Arkansas. Their deeply troubled political and personal journey across the US and the globe has been deeply tragic and gets worse. I suggest that what Mrs. William Clinton is dealing with is actual real disinterest in her political future with assurances daily it will be more of the same.. I think she is using her scandals of the past to fire up lost interest, as well as the affection US citizens can have for the pummelled underdog. Trouble is her scandals involve such henious crimes as to revolt most who read or hear more of them. That the US ally Libya’s gutting and dismemberment, so horrific to Africa as well as the whole world, came thanks her Secretary of State power, may make her as a US President have to always wear a bulletproof vest and surround herself with bullet proof shields and extra guards…Making the US look terrified of what it has wrought using this ex-Preisent’s wife. Not a powerful image for a country to use. But is a possibility that cannot be ignored. The very opposite than the one Russia exhibits.
From what i have read, if an email references something classified, then that email automatically becomes classified. Anybody supposedly handling secret documents should know this. Not sure if true, but if true, looks like Clinton is in some trouble.
In March 2013, the hacker Marcel Lehel released to RT and several other news outlets the four memos that had been sent to Clinton from her former political adviser Sidney Blumenthal. The memos contained information regarding the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the January 2013 hostage crisis in In Amenas, Algeria. This hacker is being extradited to the USA.
See here: https://www.rt.com/usa/334846-romanian-hacker-guccifer-extradition/
I am an older woman (over 70) and I am voting for Bernie.
If it came down to Hillary vs the Devil, I would not vote for Hillary the liar, warmonger, and the pro banker.
You just proved she has also committed treason by making top secret available to any good hacker from the Middle East to China to Russia to ISIS.
This includes to secret Benghazi.information.
Why aren’t more people catching on?
Marion, you raise a good point. Could Hillary’s unsecured server have been hacked? What would any of her hacked e mails be worth, to the right bidder? What did the Benghazi attackers know about the CIA annex, and how would they have gathered such intelligence? There is a reason why government computers are encrypted to hide sensitive data, and Hillary compromised that security when she choose to use her own private server. Let’s not forget how she deleted 30,000 e mails, which by itself is a security breach by her to hide something describing something she doesn’t want us to know about as to her goings on as Secretary of State. How much more money flowed into the Clinton Foundation while Hillary governed over the U.S. State Department? What contracts were awarded, and to whom were the benefactors of these contracts? So, Marion by bringing up any link to Benghazi and Hillary’s private e mails to me makes perfect sense to ponder such a breach.
Why aren’t people catching on to Mrs William Clinton? Frankly they have lost real interest in her years ago. She has always been a political lightweight hanging on the deeply troubled, articulate, cheating, husband who probably “bagged’ over one thousand women during his governorship. Revenge is and has on the minds of many of those victims,so Mrs. William Clinton harassed to even suicide as many former Bill ‘debased’ women as she could reach. Silence at any cost. Then the litany of corrupt financial dealings dogged her entire relentless way in political and personal life. A walking tragedy to millions of those helpless before US power, which means most of us. She at this point needs interest, real interest. Unbought. The finding of her tire wheels on her campaign truck become wobbling, lug nuts loosened, just the other day, was instructive how much her level of US power has cost. The damage she wrought so carefully in Libya and Africa, the death of the US ambassador in Behngazi, while her e-mail server was in her bathroom abroad, make it quite possible she should never travel the globe without a bullet proof vest and many guards. I’ve been watching the Clintons since they appeared in Arkansas. Their joined journey has been deeply tragically sad. The full acceptance of them troubling always.