Her defense, I think, resides off what she did on day one as a new Sec of State. Most all new employees arrive....they get a gov’t email account, then log on to complete two or three certification episodes....telling them basic security rules about what can or cannot be done. By not having the gov’t email account....she never completed security training (for the whole four years) and will be able to cite that as her chief line of defense.
Her dozen junior helpers? They are screwed. They got their gov’t email account, and did the security training...a yearly thing. Over and over, they were trained and they cut-and-paste classified onto unclassified messages. My guess is that they will be brought in eventually, and be told that their clearances are permanently revoked....never to be activated again. They won’t be able to work as a GS or contractor for the gov’t. Some might even face federal charges if they were cutting on TS documents.
Ignorance of the law is a perfect defense?
——will be able to cite that as her chief line of defense——
that line can be twisted to be malice aforethought
her crime then becomes first degree
I’m not too sure that will fly. From Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton:
Like other sensitive government agencies the State Department was frequently target and increasingly sophisticated phishing attempts. When we first arrived at State, these attempts were similar to the fraudulent emails many Americans experience at home on their personal computers. The often sloppy early attempts to penetrate our secure systems were easy to spot. But by 2012, the sophistication and fluency had advanced considerably, with the attackers impersonating State Department officials in an attempt to dupe their colleagues into opening legitimate looking attachments.When we traveled to sensitive places like Russia, we often received warnings from the Department security officials to leave our BlackBerries, laptops--anything that communicated with the outside world--on the plane, with their batteries removed to prevent foreign intelligence services from compromising them. Even in friendly settings we conducted business under strict security precautions, taking care where and how we read secret material and used our technology. One means of protecting material was to read it inside an opaque tent in a hotel room. In less well equipped settings we were told to improvise by reading sensitive material with a blanket over our head. I felt like I was 10 years old again, reading covertly by flashlight under the covers after bedtime. On more than one occasion I was cautioned not to speak freely in my own hotel room.
And it wasn't just US government agencies and officials who were targets. American companies were also in the crosshairs. I fielded calls from frustrated CEOs complaining about aggressive theft of an intellectual property and trade secrets, even breaches of their home computers. To better focus our efforts against this increasingly serious threat, I appointed the Department's first Coordinator for Cyber Issues in February 2011.
Clinton sat on the Armed Services Committee for six years. She sat on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe for nearly eight years.
There is zero chance that she didn’t recognize classified material.
But, as a follow-up to your email, I’d like to know if , while acting as a carpet-bagger Senator from New York, did Hillary Clinton use her own email account, or did she use the one provided by the government? That might have had the security training.
That defense can only be effective in the court of public opinion. Legally, not completing such training is not a defense, especially for a classification authority like Secretary of State.
Perhaps I should say "should not be" a defense, as I am not a lawyer.
The more important of her fall-takers will be given do-nothing jobs at the Clinton Foundation. The others will be screwed over and forgotten, run flat by the bus.
I don't buy it. Not being properly trained to do your job by not following standard procedures is not a line of defense. From all appearances, she knowingly configured a private server from which to avoid scrutiny and oversight.