Thread: The Leaking Wars Have Begun Over Hillary Clinton's FBI File

The Leaking Wars Have Begun Over Hillary Clinton's FBI File

KEVIN DRUM AUG. 19, 2016 2:46 PM

From the New York Times on Thursday:

Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, not to pursue criminal charges against her.

Well, that didn't take long. Should we assume that basically everything in the FBI file is going to be steadily leaked to the press? Magic 8-Ball says "Signs point to yes."

And I don't even know which side leaked this. Democrats who figured it justified Hillary's behavior? Republicans trying to make it look like Hillary is passing the buck? Hard to say. At this point, though, Congress might as well just release the entire package.

Whatever's in it, we're better off getting the whole thing instead of periodic leaks strategically taken out of context to make Hillary look either good or bad.

The Leaking Wars Have Begun Over Hillary Clinton's FBI File | Mother ...

NYT: Clinton told FBI Colin Powell advised her to use private email server

Last Updated Aug 19, 2016 2:34 PM EDT

Hillary Clinton told the FBI that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had advised her to use a personal email account when she served in that position, The New York Times reported Friday.

According to the Times, “The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, not to pursue criminal charges against her.”

Powell later said in a statement to the Associated Press that he had indeed emailed Clinton about using his personal AOL account for unclassified messages while leading the State department.

Powell said he told Clinton his use of personal email “vastly improved” communications within the department, which at the time did not have an equivalent internal system.

Powell said the FBI may have obtained a copy of his memo to Clinton during its year-long investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to handle sensitive information during her time as secretary. The FBI closed its investigation last month without finding evidence to support criminal charges against the Democratic presidential nominee.

This, as a new book about Bill Clinton reports that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton to use a personal email account when she took over the job.

Veteran political journalist Joe Conason writes that several former secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice, had dinner with Clinton early in her tenure, which began in 2009.

Conason writes that Powell,who served under President George W. Bush, told Clinton he had used personal email in the job, except for classified communications.

The description of the conversation appears in Conason’s forthcoming book “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” about the ex-president’s life after the White House.

But the Times says Powell’s office released a statement Thursday night “saying he had no recollection of the dinner conversation. He did write Mrs. Clinton an email memo, which may existin the F.B.I. files, describing his use of his personal email account for unclassified messages ‘and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,’ the statement said.”

Conason is described by the newspaper as a “longtime defender of the Clintons.”

The Times notes that, “Mrs. Clinton and her campaign have repeatedly pointed to the use of personal email by Mr. Powell and other government officials to try and explain the email controversy to voters, but Mrs. Clinton has not said publicly that Mr. Powell personally recommended that she rely on a private account.”

The newspaper adds that Clinton’s use of the private email server “has created particular controversy because of her family’s foundation and its donors, who had varying political and business interests while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.”

Bill Clinton said Thursday the foundation would no longer accept foreign and corporate donations if Hillary she is elected president.

NYT: Clinton told FBI Colin Powell advised her to use private email ...

I say open the faucet valve all the way and let the truth flow. The truth will set you free, Hillary, and maybe even get you out of our hair once and for all.

Hillary Clinton Tries to Blame Colin Powell For Her Email Disaster

Getty

by JOHN HAYWARD19 Aug 2016

FBI notes handed over to Congress this week reveal that Hillary Clinton told investigators that one of her Republican predecessors as Secretary of State, Colin Powell, advised her to use a personal email account. Powell soon issued a statement that he could recall no such conversation.

The New York Times reports that Clinton’s evidently false statement came during the three-and-a-half hour interview she gave FBI agents in early July.

It looks as if Clinton was trying to repurpose a dinner conversation she had with Powell, and other former Secretaries of State, well after she had already decided to set up her secret email server:

The journalist Joe Conason first reported the conversation between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Powell in his coming book about Bill Clinton’s postpresidency, “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” which The Times received an advanced copy of.

Mr. Conason describes a conversation in the early months of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at the State Department at a small dinner party hosted by Madeleine Albright, another former secretary of state, at her home in Washington. Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice also attended.

“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Mr. Conason writes. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”

Mr. Conason continued, “Saying that his use of personal email had been transformative for the department,” Mr. Powell “thus confirmed a decision she had made months earlier — to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.”

The Times notes that Clinton has not tried publicly claiming that Powell told her to use private email.

It was no doubt painful for writers at the pro-Clinton New York Times to admit she gave false testimony to the FBI, and to point out that the efforts by Clinton and her apologists to compare her server scheme to the use of private email by earlier Secretaries of State are absurd:

Mr. Powell’s office released a statement on Thursday night saying he had no recollection of the dinner conversation. He did write Mrs. Clinton an email memo, which may exist in the F.B.I. files, describing his use of his personal email account for unclassified messages “and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said.

In his memoir, “It Worked for Me,” Mr. Powell writes about his personal email, and he has taken pride in having tried to advance the antiquated technology practices at the State Department. But his use of personal email and Mrs. Clinton’s aren’t entirely parallel. Mr. Powell did not have a server at his house or rely on outside contractors, as Mrs. Clinton did at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

A State Department inspector general report released in May said that Mr. Powell and other senior officials had used personal email accounts for official business, but that by the time Mrs. Clinton took office the rules were clear that using a private server in such a manner was neither allowed nor encouraged because of “significant security risks.”

Powell also was not running a “nonprofit” organization that was raking in millions of dollars from special interests with business before the State Department, sending Mrs. Powell out to collect $350,000 per speech from those special interests, or delegating his staffers to give concierge service to big donors that wanted favors.

The FBI’s production of documents to Congress has been criticized by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who said the Bureau has “improperly” limited access to its files – producing an absurd situation where Hillary Clinton can’t be prosecuted for her actions, but congressional staffers who talk about her actions will be prosecuted.

The New York Post savored the irony on Thursday:

The Clinton campaign communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, scolded: “Would remind all that this material is classified. So this is leaking of classified material.”

The officials, though, didn’t seem so concerned about the safeguarding of classified information when it was housed on a private server owned by their boss, Clinton.

Indeed, Palmieri denied it even existed. “Hillary didn’t send any classified materials over email: Hillary only used her personal account for unclassified email,” Palmieri claimed in a blog post more than a year ago.

ClintonWorld doesn’t seem confident that the public will agree with the FBI’s strange decision to let Mrs. Clinton skate because she didn’t “intend” to commit gross negligence.

A public-service warning to all readers: do not, under any circumstances, believe that you will be able to peddle imaginary conversations to FBI agents without consequence. As with much of what the Clintons have done, this is a special privilege available only to political royalty with the right Party credentials.

Hillary Clinton Tries to Blame Colin Powell For Her Email Disaster