Omens for Ossof

DavidTC in reply to Stillwater says:

But really, it’s still a mystery why he did what he did.

Actually, it’s pretty clear what he was doing.

Comey knew he was about to be yelled at for *at least* another two years by Republicans demanding he do something about Clinton, and demand he constantly answer questions

It’s funny, but it’s weird how almost no one points out the *actual* problem was the environment the Executive Branch was being forced to deal with under Obama, where the Republicans in Congress just run around harassing everyone over make-believe scandals. And how that was *obviously* about to get so much more worse under President Clinton.

So Comey positioned himself, and the FBI, where he thought they would best deal with it, and carefully got the Justice Department out of the way so when the *liars* in Congress finally got a hold of the memo about the fake emails saying Lynch agreed to go easy on Clinton, and decided to pretend such an email really existed, the Justice Department wouldn’t have been involved in that decision at all, just the FBI.

Thus resulting in Comey doing something that looked odd at the time but, in retrospect, would indeed have helped shield the Justice Department as the Republicans constantly investigated President Hillary Clinton. He was prematurely cutting off another Benghazi, where the Republicans would keep hauling in Justice Department staff and demanding they answer questions about *more* completely made up stuff.

It makes perfect sense, except for one possibility no one took seriously…Report

DavidTC in reply to j r says:

You mentioned ‘Comey’s Fault’ twice in the comment, and for the life of me I can’t figure out if you think I said it *was* or if I said it *wasn’t*.

For the record, the reason I can’t figure it out is that I didn’t say either. I gave no opinion about how much fault he bears at all. (I *very rarely* discuss fault in any manner, mostly because almost no one on the planet seems to understand the difference between fault and blame and responsibility. So I just stay the hell away from those discussions.)

I didn’t say anything about how much I think what Comey did affected the election, nor was what I offered as an explanation intended as justification. Just as *motives*.

task of isolating the release of Comey’s letter from all the other noise in the election

What the fuck are you talking about? I did not, at any point in that post, state any opinion on whether or not the release of this information had any effect on the election! (In fact, I don’t even have an opinion on that. I consider it almost unknowable. A bunch of stuff added up to a loss. Did that push it over? We cannot know.)

So you’ve basically just *invented* an entirely different comment from me, where I blame the Comey letter for Clinton losing the election (Or..I say it *didn’t* do that. I’m still unclear on that.), and then try to justify the release of it!

I didn’t do *either* of those. All I said was point out what Comey thought was going to happen under President Clinton (Which is a ludicrously easy thing to figure out, as Republicans literally said they were going to spend years litigating her email.), and said that offers a very obvious explanation of why he did what he did.

I gave no judgement on that at all.

No, apparently you also have to posit theories of Comey’s state of mind, while pretending that it is “pretty clear” what happened.

So what part of ‘my’ theory are you disputing?

Because we already know 90% of it from leaks! We have been specifically told that Comey leaked because he was afraid that the memo about the fake email would come out, and make the DoJ look bad *even though it’s a fake*.

We also have been pretty explicitly told by Republicans they would continue to investigate emails until forever.

If we assume that Comey, like everyone else, thought Clinton was going to win, it’s pretty damn easy to see how he would think that plays out, in that the people constantly attacking the DoJ for deliberately going easy on Clinton would be Republican Congessmen. That the Attorney General, and the head of the FBI, would be called in *constantly* and forced to relive the investigation over and over and over.

Everything to that point is, basically, obvious. I don’t think it’s even *debatable*!

And then Comey did something that removed the person who supposedly had the fake agreement to ‘go easy’ on Clinton from the decision-making process. Maybe *everyone else* thinks that’s some inexplicably thing, but a pretty logical reason spring out at me.

In fact, *I didn’t even bring the theory up*. Stillwater did! To quote him:

The only explanation that makes any sense at this point is that he was trying to get in front of the political elements in play, which includes his skepticism about the DOJ’s impartiality as well as political fallout re: the FBI.

As much as I’d love to take credit for the theory, it’s a theory that half the people paying attention came up with, the second they heard about how Comey was afraid what would happen when the fake memo got out. It’s so obvious Stillwater barely had to explain it.

I just clearly laid the theory out to make sure I had what Stillwater was talking about correct, and that we were all following along, (Kazzy seemed confused.) and I said the theory worked and was very obvious to me, whereas Stillwater was saying he wasn’t sure the theory was correct. (He didn’t give a reason yet. Or maybe he just meant we cannot ever see inside his mind.)

But how dare I posit theories of Comey’s mind in a…discussion of why Comey did what he did!Report

DavidTC in reply to George Turner says:

Allowing a classified document to move to an unclassified system is a felony. Being in charge and not reporting knowledge that such a move happened is a felony. But she even ordered her people to do it.

As has been pointed out before, George, you are basically wrong in every possible way here.

Transferring classified information into the public *email system* is against the law. Full stop. It wouldn’t matter if it was her server’s or the State Department’s. Classified documents can only be transmitted over secure channels, and *no* public email server counts as a secure channel.

And thus the situation *you* think happened, where there was a normal transfer of classified documents and Clinton had some of it going to her email server, is completely disconnected from reality. That is *not how classified information works*.

There is literally no theory of crime WRT classified information where her *email server* is a cause at all. None. There is no crime where you can remove her server and reduce the crime. If there was a crime with classified information, it would have been *regardless* of her operating her own server.

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But, of course, not only does ‘people vaguely alluding to classified information over unsecured communications’ happen *all the time* in the government, it is not illegal.

Everyone who thinks it is illegal has misread statutes about ‘removing’ classified documents, (which also include copying electronically) into *making a reference to* classified information. But the removal statute clear applies to people looking at a specific classified document and *redistributing* that classified document to others.

It does not cover the situation that Clinton ‘committed’, where the *press* kept asking the State Department about drone attacks (Which it literally knows nothing about.), and the State Department wants to know how to respond. You’re trying to invent a legal theory where being *asked something by the press*, and never knowing any actual secrets about it beyond what the press just told you, and mentioning that *they asked you* about it over unsecured channels…is a felony.

That is not at all true. It is *technically* not correct behavior, and *in theory* risks your security clearance (In practice, no.), but that does not make it a felony.

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Not only is it not a felony, it cannot even logically be a felony. If the information is classified, how the hell would random people in the government *know* about it to know it is classified? (And thus that it need to be discussed over secure channels.)

Basically, you’re trying to assert that it’s a criminal act for a government employee to be asked about a thing that he has never heard of, and he obviously he has no answer, but then later he asked his boss about in an unsecured park(1) about it, repeating only what he was told by the reporter, and *boom* felony.

No. No it is not. There is no crime there. There *might* be incorrect handling of classified information in the strictly technical sense, but that is not a felony, or any sort of crime. The only crimes WRT classified information are mishandling *the documents themselves*, or deliberately passing classified information to people without security clearances. Neither of which she did.

1) And you seem to think it was relevant *which* unsecured park it was, that a Federally-owned park would be fine, but not someone’s private front yard, which is clearly not how anything would possibly work.Report

DavidTC in reply to Kimmi says:

You bring a thumbdrive onto government property. You plug it into a computer that has classified information on it. You’re going to get yourself fired, and I don’t care what the fuck you have done or not done.

Which would perhaps be relevant if that was what Clinton had done. Orr was in anyway related to what she did. Again, as I just spent an entire post pointing out, she did not distribute classified information in any manner, and thus did not commit any crime.

Nor was this, as your analogy trying to make out, some weird attempt to commit a crime she eventually didn’t do.

If she wanted to copy classified documents, her email address, which (like any email address, including State Department ones!) is not accessible on computers with classified documents, so is hardly relevant.

Clinton did things that would have gotten normal people fired in a heartbeat.

I started out trying to *guess* what you’re referring to, but honestly I have no idea. For all I know, you think she ran an illegal dog fighting ring on the roof the State Department.

What *is* clear, however, that she committed no crime WRT *the topic under discussion*. She was, however, in violation US government rules.

For which the proper response of Obama should probably have been ‘Start using State Department email or you’re fired’, not ‘You’re fired’…but whatever.

Another, perhaps more useful response for the future would be ‘Doesn’t the State Department have an Inspector General? (For the record, yes, it does.) Isn’t the entire point of an Inspector General to make sure that proper procedure is being followed? Do we need to give them more authority or something?’

BTW, there *is* a current OIG report about how not only did Clinton break the rules, but how document retention at the State Department is such *utter crap* (Before, during, and after Clinton.) they had problems figuring out if email policy was being followed. I had it open earlier, but I misplaced the tab.

Maybe the State Department can work on fixing that while we’re not using them.

Ha! Found it:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2842460-ESP-16-03-Final.html#document/p21Report

DavidTC in reply to Kimmi says:

Clinton should have been fired for making this channel that could allow classified material to get out of where it ought to reside.

I swear to God, half the people talking about Clinton’s email are complete morons.

Email is not a proper channel for conveying classified documents, period, full stop, end of story.

It would be exactly as improper and illegal for Hillary Clinton to use State Department email servers to email a classified document to the president at his White House email address as it would be for her to use goddamn yahoo mail to send a classified document to her aide’s gmail account to have it printed off at a public library.

This is because, again, EMAIL IS NOT A PROPER CHANNEL FOR CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS.

And thus *assuming* that her email was full of classified documents is *completely fucking idiotic*.

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Tons and tons of scrutiny over her entire email produced exactly *three* things that were possibly classified at the time they were talked about:

The ‘most serious’ is various state department employees *talking about how they were being questioned about drones* by the press. Here’s a fun hint for you: If the press are *publicly asking questions about something in government press briefings*, mentioning that they are doing so is probably not that severe a security breach.

The second is a discussion by Clinton about something said to her by a head of state, which a) is only classified because that sort of conversation is automatically considered classified, and b) *could have been declassified by Clinton herself* and she then could have announced it with a bullhorn from the roof of the State Department.

The last is Clinton discussing *her own schedule*, which is classified for security reasons.

That’s it. That’s the ‘classified information’ that passed through her email. Those three things are *technically* classified, but in actuality none of them actually are even *slightly* targets for any sort of foreign intelligence service. (Unless, perhaps, they wanted to assassinate her. Which would be her own damn fault.)

And I will point out, again, just to make sure everyone is following, that *communicating about classified matters* in a lax matter is not a crime. Copying *classified documents* is a crime. Deliberately passing classified information to people without proper security clearance is a crime. Nothing else about mishandling classified information is a crime.

I’m not fucking going over this again. There are *actual facts* here, events that really did occur. Actual real laws, too.Report

DavidTC in reply to Kimmi says:

We now know that Israel had the e-mails off Clinton’s server a year before the FBI did.

Uh, no, we do not know that! The only source we have for that is Rudy Giulinai, and *he* claims they got the emails because they hacked her server, not due to Abedin or Weiner.

And I feel I should point out your crazy conspiracy theory that Abedin is a foreign operative and Weiner is a foreign operative of a *different country*, and yet they are working together, is complete nonsense.

It’s not only complete nonsense, but it’s basically complete nonsense *solely originating from you*. While I’ve heard dubious claims that Abedin is a spy, I’ve never heard anyone claim Weiner is a Israeli spy.

I, at this point, do not really care whether or not they were classified. Her actions created a hole through which a “Not Hired By Her” foreign agent got StateDepartmentDocuments.

No, you are incorrect there also.

You appear to be operating on the false assumption that Clinton had something to do with Weiner’s lapop having Abedin’s email on it.

This…isn’t correct. It’s been a subject of much confusion, but it is not correct. The reason all those emails were on the laptop is that Abedin’s Blackberry had been set up to sync to it when it was her laptop. Clinton had literally nothing to do with it.

There has been some nonsensical talk about Clinton asking Abedin to print the emails, and Abedin forwarding them to print them, but those were a very small amount of emails, forwarded manually, and there’s no indication there was anything sensitive in them at all. (Nor does it seem particularly obvious why Clinton would even *know* about this.)

Comey, in fact, was saying wrong things about that very recently. The FBI had to correct the record.Report

DavidTC in reply to Kimmi says:

I bloody well hope not! This is the guy who thinks that Wikileaks had a compelling interest in killing Marc Rich.

Erm, no I don’t.

I said that in the hypothetical world where Seth Rich (Not Marc Rich) was murdered by people because he was the leak, and where everyone apparently can and will hire assassins, his murder makes much more sense as ‘Beneficiaries of the leak tying up loose ends’ instead of ‘Victims of leak vengefully killing leaker, after the information theft but before the information got out, without even slightly attempting to get any information from him’.

In reality, he was killed by some random mugger.

BTW, Kimmi, you realize there are only *three* writers of Sherlock, right? (Plus Arthur Conan Doyle is credited too.) And two of them would more properly be called the show creators, which just leaves Steve Thompson as the sole person that people would just call a ‘writer’ for Sherlock.

So is your friend Steve Thompson, or is it one of the two creators, or is it some person you’ve just made up? (Or is Arthur Conan Doyle talking to you from beyond the grave?)Report

DavidTC in reply to Kazzy says:

The “binders full of women” wasn’t the same thing, really. It wasn’t a ‘gaffe’ in the same way 47% or ‘deplorables’ or anything that can be read as an attack on a group of voters.

He was asked about pay equality for women, and he basically said, paraphrased, ‘We specifically looked for women when hiring in Massachusetts, and were given a long list of qualified women, and as a result, I am proud my administration in Massachusetts had more women in a senior leadership position than any other state’.

This is, admittedly, a fine example of a politician answering a *completely different* question than asked (What does that have to with pay equality?), but it would have been fine as a standard non-answer. There’s nothing *offensive* in there, there’s nothing disrespectful.

The problem is he just used completely goofy phrasing. If he’s said ‘binders full of names of women’, no one would have blinked.

This seems closer to Obama saying he had visited 57 states…his mouth just stopped working correctly for a second. But the 57 states is just funny for about ten seconds, whereas binders full of women is a hilarious mental image, and it didn’t help we, as society, had just discovered image macros didn’t have to be about cats.Report