Hillary’s Public Records Deception

Frontpagemagazine ^ | March 4, 2015 | Arnold Ahlert

[SJackson]

Hillary’s Public Records Deception

Posted By Arnold Ahlert On March 4, 2015 @ 12:45 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments

In yet another damning revelation underscoring her unfitness for the presidency, Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email account to conduct government business during her four-year tenure as Secretary of State. According to State Department officials, Clinton may have violated the Federal Records Act requiring correspondence by government officials to be retained as part of the agency’s records.

A National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) bulletin issued in 2013 makes it even clearer. Explaining that there may be times when the use of a personal email account is necessary, “such as in emergency situations when Federal accounts are not accessible or when an employee is initially contacted through a personal account,” the bulletin notes that employees “should not generally use personal email accounts to conduct official agency business.” However, if they do, they must “ensure that all Federal records sent or received on personal email systems are captured and managed in accordance with agency recordkeeping practices.” Clinton never had a government email address during her stint as Secretary of State, and her aides did nothing to preserve those personal emails on State Department servers.

Two months ago her aides did review tens of thousands of pages of those emails in response to a new departmental effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices. But it was the aides themselves who determined what emails to turn over to the State Department. Furthermore, as the New York Times explains, the total number of emails contained in Clinton’s account “is not clear and neither is the process her advisers used to determine which ones related to her work at the State Department before turning them over.” The aforementioned NARA bulletin also warns that Federal agency heads must “notify employees that there are criminal penalties for the unlawful removal or destruction of Federal records…and the unlawful disclosure of national security information[.]”  This would seem to suggest Clinton’s aides are required to turn over all of the emails they had. Whether they did or not is anyone’s guess at this point in time.

Nonetheless, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill defended her conduct, insisting she complied with the “letter and spirit of the rules.” Yet he wouldn’t explain why she chose to use a personal account to conduct official business. He tried to rationalize it by saying that since she was conducting such business with other Department officials over their government accounts, she had “every expectation they would be retained.” However, Merrill offered no explanation regarding emails sent to foreign leaders, private entities, or officials outside the Department of State.

Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at NARA, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013, wasn’t buying it. “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” he contended. “I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business,” he added.

Thomas S. Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a group of government transparency advocates based at George Washington University, thought it was a shame that such record-keeping didn’t take place automatically, “as it should have.” “Someone in the State Department deserves credit for taking the initiative to ask for the records back,” he contended. “Most of the time it takes the threat of litigation and embarrassment.” Blanton also offered the best rationale for avoiding the use of personal email accounts. “Personal emails are not secure,” he explained. “Senior officials should not be using them.”

The Times reports that Clinton’s email account was discovered by the committee investigating Benghazi, in the midst of seeking correspondence between Clinton and her aides regarding the attack there that cost Ambassador Chris Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith and Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty their lives. Yet the Smoking Gun insists a March 2013 report they published reveals that Marcel Lazar Lehel, aka “Guccifer,” a Romanian computer hacker currently serving time in a Bucharest prison for his attacks against public figures, accessed the email account of Sydney Blumenthal, who was senior advisor to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. During that breach Lehel discovered several pieces of correspondence sent to Hillary Clinton at the e-mail address hdr22@clintonemail.com. Those emails were sent via the web domain “clintonemail.com,” which was registered in 2009, just prior to Clinton’s nomination for Secretary of State.

Emphasizing the security breach involved, Lehel sent that correspondence to Russian news channel RT, an organization that is essentially a mouthpiece for Russian President Vladimir Putin. RT published several of those emails, including one with the following all-cap warning: “THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION COMES FROM EXTREMELY SENSITIVE SOURCES AND SHOULD BE HANDLED WITH CARE.”

That no such care was taken is transparently clear, and the National Journal’s Ron Fournier derisively illuminates the implications. “Clinton exposed confidential and potentially dangerous information to a nonsecure, commercial email system,” he writes. “She gave Chinese spies a better shot at reading her emails than U.S. taxpayers.”

Fournier further explains Clinton’s aides “quickly funneled through friendly media channels examples of Republicans who used private emails, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.” Yet as the Times points out, Powell did so before the current restraints went into effect, and Jeb Bush voluntarily released “a trove” of emails last December, chronicling his eight-year tenure as Florida’s governor. “This is another Clinton trope: Deflect attention from their wrongdoing by pointing fingers at others—as if two wrongs make a right and they had never promised to set a higher standard,” Fournier adds.

The Clintons’ efforts to deflect attention pale in comparison to those of the mainstream media. Last Thursday, Judicial Watch released a batch of critical State Department emails they obtained via a Freedom of Information Act. Those emails make it clear that top Clinton advisors not only knew the assault on Benghazi was an armed attack as early as 4:07 PM EST on September 11, 2012, but knew terror group Ansar al-Sharia claimed credit for it less than two hours later. These stunning and highly incriminating emails completely undermine Clinton’s first official statement, made at approximately 10PM that same night, linking the attacks to “inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

In other words Clinton told a bold-faced lie, and yet almost a week later, not a single mainstream media source has reported the story. With regard to Clinton’s private email account, Breitbart News’s John Nolte remarks on the equally corrupt level of media disinterest that attends it. “Not only did the media fail, over 4 full years, to discover the only email account Hillary Clinton used as Secretary of State, this same worthless, partisan media has spent 4 full years alternately mocking, ignoring, and dismissing as Old News! the ongoing Republican investigation into the fatal September 11th anniversary attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya,” he writes.

As if on cue, that media has already risen to Clinton’s defense, and the central theme is that her womanhood transcends her liabilities. “It seems that Hillary has found her outer woman, which is to say, she’s found the person that she wants to present on the campaign trail, and that person is resolutely female,” gushes former Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile in an article for CNN. “This time she seems to have decided to fully embrace her womanhood as an asset in her quest for the White House and to trust that the voters will do the same.”

Politico notes that “Clinton and company are hoping to skate through the February ice patch with a series of upcoming events that underscore the historical nature of her candidacy — her expected graduation from 2008 also-ran to the first woman who wins a major-party presidential nomination.”

Apparently the reality that she is an inveterate liar with a private email account she used for government business, as well as the recipient of millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments made to the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was Secretary of State—donations the State Department initially claimed were thoroughly vetted before backing off that claim—are irrelevant. Or worse, they will be characterized as misogynistic, in the same way reams of legitimate criticism of the current White House occupant is routinely dismissed as racist.

As of now the Benghazi committee and Clinton have declined to offer any comment on the content of Clinton’s emails, or whether they will be made public. Fournier puts that reticence in the proper perspective. “Those are our emails, not hers,” he writes. “What is she hiding?” As it always is with regard to Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is simple: the truth.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“What is she hiding?” As it always is with regard to Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is simple: the truth.

BUMP!

[MrBambaLaMamba]

There needs to be a NFW option in the voting booth.

[Graybeard58]

Nothing will come of this.

She’s Hillary.

[Gaffer]

He tried to rationalize it by saying that since she was conducting such business with other Department officials over their government accounts, she had “every expectation they would be retained.”

There's the BIG lie. It wasn't just a "personal account" on some arbitrary email server. It is an email server controlled by her, likely in her home or tucked away somewhere. It also is not just for her. It likely has a lot of other email accounts on it for those state department and other people to correspond with her, and those emails would also not be on government email servers.

[pepsionice]

There is a comical side to this story if you read through the various articles. Hillary didn’t just have one single non-government account.....she had several. It would appear that at various occasions....someone passed the address beyond the circle and she had people suddenly know this ‘other’ email account. You can figure not only did the President and his internal staff of forty people know it....but probably around another forty from the state department.

So a day would arrive where she felt her ‘chain’ was compromised, and she invented another email name. How she allowed the White House and insider State Department staff know her new email address? Unknown. But this repeated several times.

She probably got scammed by Nigerian guys, punks from North Korea, and French teenagers.

As for why no upgrade to security ever occurred with Benghazi before the attack? They probably didn’t send it to the right Hillary address. Sadly, it could be this simple.

The natural question to ask here....who else within the President’s circle does the same thing? But I’ve yet to hear that asked and it might reveal why Putin knows so much about the way things work with this administration.

[bert]

The domain registration data was posted yesterday. She set up a domain for the purpose of having private email.

The question that has not yet been asked is “regarding Obama’s black berry, does he have a private non .gov e mail account over which presidential business is conducted?”

[monocle]

Nothing will come of this.

She’s Hillary a Democrat.

[Yo-Yo]

It seems SOP for this administration to use non-governmental email accounts. Aside from violating federal law, how secure from foreign espionage is a Hotmail account?

[DJ Frisat]

"... Clinton’s aides “quickly funneled through friendly media channels examples of Republicans who used private emails, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.”"

Interesting that the two examples they cite are RINOs!!! Sheesh...

[snoringbear]

“Nothing will come of this. She’s Hillary.”

You are absolutely correct. It’s pathological condition. Dem’s will vote for her regardless of dirt found. Sadly, a lot of otherwise Republican women will covertly pull the handle for her - then lie about it afterward.

[Liz]

She's getting ready to roll into 2016 mode---- completely ignoring the reality that she conducted state business w/ one or more private email accounts and that she and the Clinton Foundation are recipients of millions of dollars in donations from foreign government while Clinton was Secretary of State—donations the State Department initially claimed were thoroughly vetted (found to be false).

The Internet domain used to facilitate Hillary's decepions was registered around the time Obama announced Hillary's nomination for secretary of state.

Gawker reported Sidney Blumenthal was communicating with on an account that appeared to belong to Clinton at the "clintonemail.com" domain.

The content of some of those emails was published by RT.com. Examining the domain registry information (below) for "clintonemail.com" reveals that the domain was first created on January 13, 2009 -- one week before Obama was sworn into office, and the same time Clinton's confirmation hearings began in the Senate.

===============================================

The report we all want to see----dates and times of Hillary's official emails WRT to US policy issues for foreign govts---and the dates and times of those infamous foreign govt donations to the Clinton Foundation(s).

================================================

The Buckraking Clintons sucking up foreign donations is morally reprehensible----but the real problem is what exactly they are doing with the foreign monies once its in their Foundation's tax-exempt coffers.

It's becoming clearer why Bill Clinton used a shocking 21 phone nos and email addresses----because L/E knows multiple phone no's and emails is an indication of possible money-laundering and tax evasion.

REFERENCE: Court documents in Clinton pal, Jeffrey Epstein's underage sex investigation, show that Epstein had 21 private e-mail addresses and phone numbers listed for Clinton and Clinton factotum, Doug Band.

Epstein kept Bill Clinton on speed dial as reports surfaced about Clinton attending sex parties at Epstein's "Orgy Island." Lawyers perusing documents stumbled upon e-mail addresses and 21 phone numbers for the fun-loving ex-president and his personal aide, Doug Band, stashed away in Jeffrey Epstein’s electronic directory, according to court documents.

================================================

CASE IN POINT An earlier two-year federal investigation revealed an elaborate web to carry out multiple frauds.

The frauds used a sophisticated system of multiple telephone voice-mail accounts and post office boxes to avoid detection.

The schemes involved swindling $$$millions from individuals, from banks, insurance companies...... and the US government.

The frauds were carried out using non-existent people, fake identities, ID theft, fraudulent SS nos, and phony tax ID numbers.

The defendants faced a range of charges including racketeering, govt fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, wire fraud, making false statements and bank fraud.

[ryan71]

The communist media picks winners and losers, today. Most liberals will never hear of this story. Ask them.

[Pearls Before Swine]

It also is not just for her. It likely has a lot of other email accounts on it for those state department and other people to correspond with her, and those emails would also not be on government email servers.

For US government employees, records of those emails should exist on the other employees' end, at government-run servers. UNLESS, there was a whole network of high-level US people using private email addresses to circumvent record keeping. THAT would be a major conspiracy, and one that could more easily be unraveled than the concentrated misdeeds of one person (i.e., Hil).

[DugwayDuke]

“Two months ago her aides did review tens of thousands of pages of those emails in response to a new departmental effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices. The aforementioned NARA bulletin ... and the unlawful disclosure of national security information”

Doesn’t matter if they turned over all the emails or not. Unless these aides were Department of State employees, their review of these emails was an unlawful disclosure. I would argue that Hillary’s retention of these emails after she left office was also unlawful. But, who cares?

[Gaffer]

whole network of high-level US people using private email addresses to circumvent record keeping.

And THAT is what I believe happened here. This wasn't the entire State Department. I believe the number of individuals part of this is rather small, but consists of some very well-placed and useful people that she didn't want to get caught colluding with.

[ViLaLuz]

I’m certain classified information spilled to a personal account is a violation.