What, me worry?
Posted on 08/20/2015 7:13:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hillary Clinton’s awkward intransigence in the face of an unrelenting e-mail scandal is playing out under the harsh media spotlight of a presidential campaign. Garnering less attention is the intransigence of a former Clinton colleague at Foggy Bottom, who appears to be leading an effort to shield her potentially classified e-mails from further scrutiny by the intelligence community.
He is Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, and for weeks now he has denied the intelligence community inspector general (IG) access to Clinton’s e-mails, while substantially limiting the access granted to the State Department’s own IG. He’s also ignored official guidance from both IGs on how his department can improve its classification-review process and catch sensitive material before it’s publicly released.
Kennedy’s ongoing resistance is the latest skirmish in a three-month battle between the State Department and the two federal watchdogs over how many of Clinton’s e-mails contain classified information. Since June, the department has pushed back forcefully against the IGs’ repeated warnings that reams of classified material sat on Clinton’s private server. A preliminary probe by the IGs in June found that State Department attorneys had overruled findings by their subordinates that some of the e-mails contained national-security secrets. Without sustained pressure from both IGs — and two bombshell announcements the watchdogs made on July 23 and August 11 — the public would likely still be unaware that classified materials were found in e-mails on the server, that these materials were classified at the time of their sending, and that in at least two cases these materials were Top Secret.
Even now, Kennedy and State Department management continue to drag their feet — quibbling over whether the information contained in the e-mails was classified retroactively and refusing to confirm the Top Secret designation of the two e-mails found by the intelligence community. A spokeswoman for intelligence community IG I. Charles McCullough tells National Review that McCullough “has had no further communications from Undersecretary Kennedy since he declined [on July 24] to implement two out of four recommendations and denied our office any further access to the 30,000 e-mails.” (The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.)
To some, the dispute is little more than a federal turf war, albeit one waged on a highly visible battleground. But congressional investigators continue to worry that unless intelligence reviewers are better integrated into the process, the public may never know the quantity and importance of the classified information exposed by Clinton’s use of a private server.
The dispute began in early June after State Department inspector general Steve Linick was directed by Congress to investigate the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) review of approximately 30,000 government e-mails stored on Clinton’s private server. Linick invited McCullough to provide outside help from the intelligence community, and the two IGs launched a dual inquiry into the State Department’s efforts to determine how many of Clinton’s e-mails contained classified information.
Both IGs expressed alarm at State’s use of retired Foreign Service officers rather than intelligence officers to review Clinton’s communications; at the department’s storage of the e-mails on a system that wasn’t designed to safeguard “Top Secret” information; and, especially, at the apparent reversal of at least four findings of classified material by the department’s lawyers. They recommended that State include FOIA specialists from several intelligence agencies in the review process; that it have intelligence personnel review the system on which the e-mails are being stored while they’re reviewed to ensure that it is secure enough to house Top Secret materials; and that it allow the intelligence community to act as the “final arbiter” on classification questions.
Kennedy rebuffed their requests. “The Department finds the issues raised by the ICIG are either already addressed in current processes or are inconsistent with interagency practices,” he wrote, according to a series of memos later published by Linick.
One ex–State Department official says Kennedy was right to stand his ground. “The State Department is not going to want another agency to start reviewing all its e-mails and go, ‘Oh, this should’ve been classified, and that should’ve been classified,’” he says. “That seems like a dangerous precedent to set.”
Others find the pushback unfortunate, particularly since McCullough’s inquiry was sanctioned by the State Department’s own inspector general. “If their own IG agrees with the IG of the intelligence community, then [State] needs to take it up with their own IG,” says a former general counsel to a federal inspector general.
Kennedy relented on one issue as Linick and McCullough unearthed more evidence. In a June 29 letter they said department staff had found “hundreds of potentially classified e-mails,” and that there was concern the sensitive information could be publicly released. “Under the circumstances, we continue to urge the Department to adopt the recommendations made by the IC IG in our June 19 memorandum,” they wrote.
Kennedy responded on July 14, indicating he was “making arrangements” with the intelligence community to allow their FOIA reviewers to join the State Department team tasked with combing through the e-mails. But he continued to resist the remaining recommendations, and the inspectors general sent a curt response letter two days later, informing Kennedy they considered the other two recommendations “unresolved.”
“There are clearly some raw nerves between these two programs,” says a senior security policy official. “The State Department, institutionally, feels that it does not fall under the oversight of intelligence community elements. For it to be perceived as being criticized, or being directed by, an intelligence community authority — that rubs them the wrong way.”
The tussle between the two institutions went public soon after Kennedy’s final refusal. On July 23, McCullough released a statement explaining that reviewers from his office had found four e-mails containing classified information in a mere 40 e-mail sample. The news contradicted Clinton’s earlier contention that she had never sent or received classified information over her private server, putting her presidential campaign on the defensive in the press.
McCullough also asked the State Department to provide him and Linick with copies of all 30,000 e-mails in order to perform further sampling for classified material. But while the department agreed to provide Linick with limited access, McCullough wrote that State “rejected my office’s requests on jurisdictional grounds.”
The next day, the two IGs challenged the State Department’s claim that Clinton’s e-mails had not been classified when they were first sent or received. “These e-mails contained classified information when they were generated and, according to [intelligence community] classification officials, the information remains classified today,” they said July 24. Linick also posted the complete correspondence between the IGs and Kennedy on his website.
The State Department has remained largely unresponsive to the concerns. Nearly two weeks after Linick and McCullough’s statement, a department spokesperson said they still “frankly [didn’t] know” if the IGs were correct in their assertion that the material was classified when it was first sent. And although Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) revealed on August 11 that McCullough had found two of the e-mails contained Top Secret information, State won’t confirm that finding.
While the stalemate between State and the IGs continues, Grassley is expressing ever-louder concerns about the integrity of the department’s investigation. Yesterday, he released a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry warning that the “process for vetting e-mails for Freedom of Information Act requests at the State Department may be compromised.” The letter demanded that the department provide a response to the intelligence community IG’s questions and concerns over the e-mail review, and explain “what steps are being taken to ensure any [classification] disputes are resolved fairly and objectively based on the merits rather than on political considerations or any loyalties to the former Secretary and her private counsel.”
If, as Grassley fears, the process truly is compromised, and if reviewers from the intelligence community aren’t given greater access to Clinton’s e-mails and oversight of their classification, it could make it more difficult to accurately determine how much sensitive material she shared on her private server, and how sensitive it was. Despite the IGs’ efforts, the full truth of the case may never be known.
— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.
Once all of this comes out, I’m afraid Hillary will still be able to get the low information retard vote.
Two words, Special Prosecutor.
(Maybe, two more, Grand Jury.)
RE: Two words, Special Prosecutor.
(Maybe, two more, Grand Jury.)
____________________________
Next question, which government department appoints the Special Prosecutor and empanels the Grand Jury and who heads this department?
They’ve probably already got a copy from when it was transmitted in the clear over the internet.
This is all a bunch of kabuki theater.
What, me worry?
Chinagate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate, Cattlefutures, Lootergate, Benghizi, and others.......child’s play compared to Emailgate
A federal judge yesterday held President Clinton in contempt of court for giving "intentionally false" testimony about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in the Paula Jones lawsuit, marking the first time that a sitting president has been sanctioned for disobeying a court order.
In a biting, 32-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Arkansas said Clinton gave "false, misleading and evasive answers that were designed to obstruct the judicial process" in Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. She specifically cited Clinton's assertions that he was never alone with Lewinsky and that he did not have a sexual relationship with the former White House intern.
Today, we have Judicial Watch's FOI case with Judge Emmett Sullivan:
Judicial Watch announced that at 7:33 pm ET on Friday, August 7, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an order to the State Department explicitly instructing that all federal documents relating to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills be preserved:
So, If an email she sent to a .gov email mailbox turns up that was not provided by her, she's in contempt.
From Wikipedia:
“Benghazi Affair[edit]
Kennedy’s role in diplomatic security decisions has come under scrutiny from politicians since the terrorist attacks on the US Mission in Benghazi. Kennedy testified to the House Oversight Committee on 10 October 2012 about the death of Chris Stevens.[4] His position was that after the October 2011 fall of Gaddafi, the government of Libya was in flux, and that Stevens first arrived in Benghazi “during the height of the revolution”, which occurred between 17 February and 23 October 2011, “when the city was the heart of the opposition to Colonel Qadhafi and the rebels there were fighting for their lives.” At that time he was Special Representative to the National Transitional Council. Stevens was to return to Libya as Ambassador in June 2012, and perish on 11 September of that year.
“ Ambassador Stevens understood that the State Department must operate in many places where the U.S. military cannot or does not, where there are no other boots on the ground, where there are serious threats to our security. And he understood that the new Libya was being born in Benghazi and that it was critical that the United States have an active presence there. That is why Ambassador Stevens stayed in Benghazi during those difficult days. And it’s why he kept returning as the Libyan people began their difficult transition to democracy. He knew his mission was vital to U.S. interests and values, and was an investment that would pay off in a strong partnership with a free Libya. ”
The Republican minority on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has alleged that Kennedy, as Undersecretary for Management, failed to approve requests for additional security in Benghazi and Tripoli, and failed to implement recommendations regarding high-risk diplomatic posts that had been issued after the bombings of embassies in 1998.[5] In fact, the facility was classified as a U.S. Special Mission, which was then a novel category,[6] that required a waiver which “legally allowed the CIA annex to be housed in a location about one mile from the U.S. special mission.”[7]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_F._Kennedy
This isn’t about old Granny Clinton going senile and forgetting that she was dealing with classified information.
I would check and see where she got that computer and server and Blackberry from.
She’s a cheapskate. She might have been transmitting to two different locations, one of them unfriendly to the United States.
Are you starting to see how big this really is?
They are willing to take small hits in exchange for covering up the huge crimes that were committed by the Obama Administration.
Hillary and Obama did some very bad things concerning Libya and Qadaffi.
Very bad things.
Let’s hear from the 40 CIA employees who were in Benghazi.
FREE THE BENGHAZI FORTY!!!!!
However bad you think this is, I can assure you it is far, far worse. She was running her own foreign policy through State, at the behest of her donors (banks and foreign powers and various criminal organizations) and destroyed no fewer than four nations in the process (Honduras, Ukraine, Syria, Libya). It is treason of a magnitude never even dreamed of at any prior time in history.
Her primary patrons are an unholy alliance of the globalist money cult (CFR, multinational banks especially but not limited to Goldman Sachs) and Gulf oil monarchies (Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE).
Don’t have time to read it all, but isn’t Patrick Kennedy the same bum who prosecuted Scooter Libby???
Trump will appoint men with backbone...
The attorney general, Loretta Lynch, is empowered to appoint an independent counselor if there is the possibility of conflict of interest in an investigation within the government.
Of course, you knew that, and we have a government which seems to believe Iran can investigate it’s own nuclear sites.
No, you’re thinking of Patrick Fitzgerald.
Oh, OK. Thanks for the correction.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.