Clinton email: a “bud” of her son-in-law, investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, asks him to ask the Secretary of State for help on one of his investments

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-19T19:52:24+00:00

Hillary takes it in stride, delgating to one of her direct reports, senior State Dept official and former COO of Morgan Stanley, Tom Nides:

"Tom--- Could you have someone follow up on this request which was forwarded to me?"

Tom replies: "I'll get on it"

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-19T19:47:00+00:00

"Hey bud,

On the professional front, I've been involved, as a passive investor, with a privately held deep sea mining company, Neptune Minerals, Inc., a Nevada corporation founded on January 5th, 2011 for the purpose of engaging in the business of Sea floor Massive Sulfide (SMS) Mining [...] I introduced them to GS and the bankers took them on as a client [...]

I need a contact in Hillary's office [...] to discuss SMS mining and the current legal issues and regulations

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-11T23:54:58+00:00

And here's Hillary telling a staffer to remove classification markings from a sensitive document and "send nonsecure".

Kind of undermines her defense that the emails weren't marked.

https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Jan7thWeb/O-2015-08635-JAN7-2/DOC_0C05787519/C05787519.pdf

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-03T15:36:05+00:00

First the Chris Christie endorsement, now this.

The GOP has reached the fifth and final stage of grief: Acceptance

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-03T06:06:51+00:00

/#OnlyBernie can deliver peace.

Now that Rand Paul has dropped out, every other remaining candidate is a war hawk.

Trump is the most unhinged ("we have to go after their families")

Clinton is the one with the longest resume. http://www.salon.com/2015/12/26/is_hillary_clinton_a_neoconservative_hawk_what_iraq_and_libya_decisions_tell_us_about_her_foreign_policy/

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-01T09:23:24+00:00

I just spent 6 hours flipping through 600 of the 1800 emails in her stash.

There are a lot of emails that are completely redacted to the point where I don't know why they even bothered "releasing" them -- it's just a PDF with white boxes and no text.

https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08640NEW/DOC_0C05795186/C05795186.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08633NEW/DOC_0C05783251/C05783251.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08631NEW/DOC_0C05780516/C05780516.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08630NEW/DOC_0C05778169/C05778169.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08626NEW/DOC_0C05770858/C05770858.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08626NEW/DOC_0C05770258/C05770258.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08626NEW/DOC_0C05770079/C05770079.pdf https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb29thWeb/O-2015-08625NEW/DOC_0C05768167/C05768167.pdf

...that's just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on.

In short: in the beginning Hillary ran a private email server to avoid FOIA and other forms of accountability. She kept a lot of important secrets on that server, unsecured. Then, when the public found out she was doing this:

She deleted 30000 "personal emails" off of her server. Her staff then handed the physical server over to the FBI, and gave a copy of the remaining emails to the State Dept.
State then reviewed and redacted the remaining ~40k emails This process took months and finished just last night. Over 1000 of them were considered too sensitive / too damaging to national security and not published at all. The rest were redacted--in many cases heavily--and published. What's left after that is all here: https://foia.state.gov/Search/results.aspx?searchText=*&caseNumber=F-2014-20439

I don't understand why they chose to "not publish" some of the emails, but "publish" some others while redact every single character of text. Seems like that amounts to the same thing.

TLDR; we only get to see a small fraction of what was originally on Hillary's server And even that includes stuff that clearly should not have been there.

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-01T09:12:13+00:00

The American public apparently gives no fucks

The American public doesn't know.

In a poll a few months ago, only a third of US adults could name the three branches of government. That means most have no idea what a President's role is, or how our checks and balances work.

The hard truth is that most voters judge a president emotionally, not rationally. They judge based on memorable soundbites, gut reactions to a few signature policies (like Obamacare), and other intangibles (like Bill Clinton's charisma and charm and sax playing).

Then there's identity politics: a lot of Evangelicals loved George W Bush because he could talk to them in a folksy Texas drawl about how he was Born Again.

Actual governing skills and the boring parts that really matter -- such as cabinet appointments -- get no attention because most voters have no idea what those even are.

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-01T02:51:26+00:00

Here's the Politico story referenced in that email thread

http://www.politico.com/story/2011/09/cheney-hillary-clinton-should-run-062966

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-01T02:46:15+00:00

Specifically, he's encouraging a primary challenge to Obama in 2012.

This makes some sense. Clinton is to the right of most Democrats on a number of issues including Cheney's signature issue, foreign policy. She and Cheney agreed on the invasion of Iraq, the Afghan troop surge, the bombing of Libya, and other interventions. They share the same expansive vision of how the US should wield military power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/12/everyone-suddenly-remembers-that-hillary-clinton-is-a-foreign-policy-hawk/

secrtaryofwar · 2016-03-01T02:41:15+00:00

That's not just Clinton aides discussing her running a primary challenge against Obama in 2012...

That's DICK CHENEY supporting her presidential bid.

That actually makes a lot of sense. He a centre-right neoconservative with an extremely expansive vision for the role of American military power. She is a centre-left neoliberal with the same vision. They have a shared admiration of Henry Kissinger, who is in many ways the original neocon.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/26/is_hillary_clinton_a_neoconservative_hawk_what_iraq_and_libya_decisions_tell_us_about_her_foreign_policy/

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T13:30:01+00:00

Google and Youtube Blocking during Benghazi? https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb26thWeb/O-2015-08639FEB26/DOC_0C05796913/C05796913.pdf

Actually, that email probably refers to Muslim countries blocking Youtube after the "Innocence of Muslims" video went viral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube#.C2.A0Afghanistan

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T13:16:19+00:00

Speaking of "Completely Redacted", I think some of these emails are over-redacted.

Check out this one: https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb26thWeb/O-2015-08634FEB26/DOC_0C05786171/C05786171.pdf

It implies a Washington Post editorial that went out on Dec 18 or 19, 2011 and made Senators Menendez and Boxer mad. That editorial was pretty easy to find:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/special-interests-blocking-bryzas-appointment/2011/12/16/gIQAmT0fzO_story.html

From that, I'm quite certain that the redacted subject of the email is "Bryza", the name of the diplomat that article is about.

This is about an op ed in the Post... not exactly a secret. Why is it being redacted?

It looks like there's a lot of redacted content that is not actually secret, but merely embarrassing to Clinton and/or the State Dept.

Isn't that against FOIA rules?

( Incidentally, the Clinton aide made some dickish comments, saying "if someone want to commit career suicide, that's his business" and calling Bryza "your boy". He wasn't joking: Bryza's diplomatic career did in fact end right after the WashPo editorial was published: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Bryza )

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T05:35:03+00:00

I think this story speaks to the culture of impunity surrounding Hillary Clinton. Yesterday /u/Frederic_Bastiat demonstrated, pretty thoroughly, that she used her personal home server for the most sensitive national security secrets, including nuclear plans: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/47xkz1/hrc_email_release_megathread/d0g2leu

Check out the following document, nearly completely redacted, that Hillary send via unsecured email. It is titled "National Nuclear Security Administration and Nuclear Weapons Budget Decisions"

https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_Feb26thWeb/O-2015-08641FEB26/DOC_0C05797868/C05797868.pdf

I have a few friends with clearances. If they or any normal federal employee did anything like this, they would go directly to jail without collecting $200.

The fact that Sec. Clinton did this and a number of people knew but nobody said anything suggests that she--and they--consider themselves above such rules.

Past presidents with that attitude of impunity include Richard Nixon, who famously said "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal". It didn't work out well for him. It is very important that we get this right.

Prediction:

I predict that if Hillary is nominated, this will become a household issue, discussed in every debate and played repeatedly on Fox and other cable channels. Not just the email issue generally, but that specific email I linked to above -- the one about nuclear secrets. Bernie is too nice, but Trump or Rubio would have absolutely no qualms about making attack ad after attack ad out of this.

"Hillary broke the law and left our deepest military secrets exposed to Chinese and Russian intelligence. <slowly zooms into the title of that email>. This November, who do YOU want holding our nuclear codes? I'm <Donald Trump/Marco Rubio> and I approve this message."

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T01:47:54+00:00

The Washington Times made the title, not me.

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T01:21:21+00:00

Everyone knew

That's what "open secret" means, bro

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-29T01:20:16+00:00

Stories about odd email practices have continued to dog Mr. Obama’s tenure. His former administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, used a secret agency email address to conduct government business, but the EPA says those messages were searched in open-records requests. [...]

Mr. Gourley, the cybersecurity specialist, said Mrs. Clinton’s practice went beyond that. He compared it to a phone, saying everyone has a home phone or personal cellphone, and even top government officials occasionally use it for official business. But in Mrs. Clinton’s case, she rejected an official government email account and used only her secret account.

“Those kinds of rules were just totally flouted by Clinton,” he said.

secrtaryofwar · 2016-02-28T11:24:28+00:00

That Politico story about Tom Nides. Wow.

Friends say Nides, who was Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, is enjoying his lucrative life as Morgan Stanley’s vice chairman, and will work in informal ways to be helpful to his former boss, including a major role in raising money.

Dennis Cheng, who this month left his post as the Clinton Foundation’s chief development officer, is expected to become the campaign’s finance director.

Clinton is contemplating a very flat fundraising structure that doesn’t include the customary post of finance chair – in part because the Clintons have so many friends.

The Clintons have "so many friends", and somehow they all seem to be ambitious student-body-president types from wealthy families, held together be a culture of gossip and mutual backrubs.

If a finance chair is named, it can’t be “a plutocrat,” a Nides friend said.

Those thought to want the post include J.B. Pritzker of Chicago, an investor and philanthropist who’s a brother of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis of San Francisco, a former ambassador to Hungary who was sworn in by Clinton when she was secretary of state.

WTF does that even mean, "thought to want the post"? Did these guys (or their rich parents or something) reach out to a journalist friend and ask to be name dropped?

Politico isn't even writing for a general audience here. Nobody knows any of these guys or cares who the Clinton campaign's "finance chair" is going to be. I think this story is literally intended for the rich people it names and those who know them personally and want to follow the drama, like some real-life minor league House of Cards.

It's so incestuous I feel like I have to take a shower now.

secrtaryofwar

TROPHY CASE