Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Rigged


To use Donald Trump's words, "the system is rigged." There is more rigging in government ... and, in particular, this administration ... than on the biggest of clipper ships under full sail. One of the best examples of same is FBI Director Comey's partial exoneration today of Hellery Clinton in her private e-mail scandal ... see: FBI Document.

Again for those in a hurry, here are some key passages:
From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent. 
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it. 
With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.
So Comey and Lynch will both be reappointed were Hellery to win in November. Hooray! And our mighty clipper ship of state will sail on ... fully rigged.

However, Director Comey didn't address in this release the possible public corruption of Hellery's office in how she solicited foreign donations for the Clinton Foundation in exchange for State Department favors. But, I think we all also know the probable results of this sewer cleaning.

5 comments:

DEN said...

This sounds a lot like the investigation into deflategate: something may have happened, and the principal may have known something, so it probably happened - even though it didn't affect the outcome of the game.

George W. Potts said...

Yes, but Trump's buddy, Brady, is still guilty ... Hellery walks.

DEN said...

Boo-Hoo, Brady gets a 4-game vacation for his crimes. Clinton walks...into the white house!
I chuckle at the faux outrage over a "rigged system". Everyone who pays attention has always known that every government and business organization (except maybe Ben and Jerry's) in the world is "rigged".

George W. Potts said...

There are few things more corrupt than tolerating corruption.

DEN said...

The most corrupt are the hypocritical bloggers who shamelessly smear the opposing candidate with half-baked and un-indictable accusations, while ignoring the obvious flaws of their bloviating nominee.