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[nenjin]

What it said was, as long as a lobbyist isn't being paid by their firm to provide sexual favors to a politician, it's legal. So that comes down to what a firm pays their lobbyist to do. I'm sure a faithful lobbyist would be the first to say they boned according to free will, not because it's what their firm required, even though virtually everyone would understand that's bullshit.

But god, I love the tone of that response. It's very clearly spoken with eyebrows arched, like, "We seriously can't believe you posed this question to us, because it seems self-evident and more than a little suspicious you need clarification on this issue, but we're obligated to respond."

And I'm sure there will be people who try to stretch the wording provided to the loosest possible interpretations.

... the wording there was intentional, wasn't it.

No one paid that man for his innuendo, we swear.

[smjjames]

What do people think about the whole thing where Hillary apparently used her personal email for government stuff while Secretary of State rather than the government email, which is illegal or something.

As for me, I'm just wondering why this didn't come up WHILE she was Secretary of State.

[FearfulJesuit]

What do people think about the whole thing where Hillary apparently used her personal email for government stuff while Secretary of State rather than the government email, which is illegal or something.

As for me, I'm just wondering why this didn't come up WHILE she was Secretary of State.

I doubt anything will come of it. I'm pretty sure the Justice Department would have to go after her, because impeachment by Congress isn't technically a criminal trial- it fires you from your position, but you can't face criminal penalties until you go to a real court, and Clinton isn't a Cabinet member anymore. Does anyone really think Obama is going to order Eric Holder to prosecute his own ex-Secretary of State?

[nenjin]

While I don't think there were any strictly illegal reasons for doing it, it does make you wonder how someone who has been in government that long, and is the tip of our foreign policy spear, didn't abide by using their official governmental email address.

If it turns out she was doing it because she knew private email offers a level of confidentiality government email doesn't, regardless of the actual reasons behind it, that's a problem.

Not to mention, the 2nd most powerful politician in the country using a private email which the government cannot protect or control (lulz) is a cause for concern.

Who knows. Maybe she did it because federal IT services wouldn't give her "hdawg@us.gov."

[wierd]

"What's good for the goose..."
coupled with
"Those with nothing to hide..."

That's what I think.  Why did Hillary feel that running her own personal email server from her house, when the govt has specialists for maintaining and securing strategic communications equipment, was a good idea?  Unless she was fearful of somebody archiving her emails, and their coming back to haunt her later, I dont see a reason for her actions.

She cant really claim ignorance here, since the ignorant would more than likely just use webmail, because they dont have to maintain an email server and keep spamlords from bouncing gillions of viagra spams through it constantly.  No-- This kind of action smacks heavily of her KNOWING what she was doing--  So, why was she doing it? What was in those emails that she wanted to keep them out of permanent archives so badly?

[Rez]

ZOMG CONSERVATIVE CONSPIRACY MAKING MOUNTAINS OF MOLEHILLS!

[wierd]

No-- Breaking rules is breaking rules, and those in power need to be held to higher standards.  Not weaker ones.  I dont care what political affiliation Hillary has.  She clearly knew what she was doing.  The question still remains, why she did it.

[Rez]

Why do you think?  She was using the State Department as a platform for grifting foreign governments.

ED: Just an added bonus that she was able to use this deniability to make it very hard to prove that she and her staff orchestrated the PR response to Benghazi.  Is Benghazi still a conservatard conspiracy theory?

[wierd]

In which case, she was actively engaged in a conspiracy.  If so, why the hyperbole over conspiracy theory?

[Angle]

Rez, who are you making fun of? I can't tell.

[Reelya]

Why do you think?  She was using the State Department as a platform for grifting foreign governments.

ED: Just an added bonus that she was able to use this deniability to make it very hard to prove that she and her staff orchestrated the PR response to Benghazi.  Is Benghazi still a conservatard conspiracy theory?

Benghazi is a load of bullcrap. But orchestrating the whitehouse's PR response to foreign affairs matters, well that's pretty much what the State Department is there for. It wouldn't be a conspiracy since it's their job. Though if just she was using private email, then it would be difficult to make the claim her staff were in on something dodgy, if they were all using their official email. Anything she sent to other staffers would have to be to the email they were using day to day, so lets stick to the evidence.

EDIT: Plus, using some private email service ... NSA, CIA and all the foreign governments probably already knows what she was writing about presumably. I'd imagine if there was anything in her emails that could harm her or the US's reputation we'd probably have had someone leak something. What would be smoking guns isn't what she wrote to her staffers, none of whom are accused of also using private email, but to parties outside the state department, who are outside her control, and thus she'd be more careful what she wrote.

[wierd]

Precisely.  Which is why organizations like that have policies against the use of private email addresses.

Did hillary think she was above the state department's rules, or was there some other reason?

No matter how you dice this, Hillary comes out as untrustworthy.

1) She felt the rules didnt apply to her.
2) She needed to be off the radar for some of her exchanges (Conspiracy)

[Reelya]

1) So did everyone before her. As noted in news articles, Colin Powell also used private email for much of his Secretary of State functions including emailing foreign government officials. No-one is calling out that as suspicious. After that, Condoleeza Rice apparently didn't email anyone for her entire tenure as Secretary of State. So she's off the hook. John Kerry is, according to articles, the first ever Secretary of State to extensively use a government email. So it's not like Hilary's actions were some abberation from normal procedures. Doing it properly is the modern abberation.

2) doesn't make a lot of sense since people aren't limited to one email address. If this was planned malice, she could have used her official email most of the time, but used a third party service only for the "off the record" stuff. There would be almost no leads to sniff anything out then, she could just deny any communications even took place.

All up though, I think this was a huge failure on her advisors part. She's not a techie, she should be being advised on technical matters and compliance and when the rules change. Hell, my college advises me on technical matters, why didn't the state department have mechanisms to advise it's officials of the technical stuff?

This would not have been something that was in her field of previous knowledge, so there's that: there was no precedent nor censure for a Secretary of State doing things any differently in the past. What I think most likely is that she used her private email because of familiarity, and pre-existing relations she had with other diplomats. She had a diplomatic presense that precedes her time as Secretary of State, so she may have sought continuity of communications with many parties, rather than switching to a wholy new email address.

[Descan]

So, why was she doing it? What was in those emails that she wanted to keep them out of permanent archives so badly?

Offers of sexual favours from lobbyists, obviously.

[nenjin]

Is Benghazi still a conservatard conspiracy theory?

Oh yes, and it's picked up more steam again after this revelation. Republicans were already demanding access to her emails relating to the incident, now to be told "Oh hey, you can't actually get them because they're not in the hands of a government body."

She effectively handed them legitimacy on their Benghazi probe, wrapped in a bow. The fact there might be no emails to go over isn't going to clear her of anything or condemn her; it's just going to give Republican investigative committees more latitude to speculate.

--

Oh, and now Israel is asking for another $300 million for their missile defense system, on top of the $155 million we're already providing, which is separate from ALLL the other aid money we give them. Why are we giving them so much fucking money? If we're chipping into their national defense like this, I think we should get more out of the deal than having their president come over here and tell us our business. Of course, that money is a drop of water in the bucket of several billion dollars in aid we give them each year. Christ, I think that money would be better spent on Ukraine, who is currently, actually having their territorial integrity violated. This shit starts to look like military-industrial-complex cronyism considering how many years its gone on.