Arguably, as a third party I'm more swayed by RedKing's argument than yours my good man. I can agree that most of the emails sent out aren't worth Republican's and layfolk shitting their pants about, but one does have to wonder about that percentage of documents we don't know about.
What secret documents we dont know about? There are documents that are still classified. There are no secret documents we dont know about. These fall into two categories.
A) When the investigation started, a large number of documents were put under scrutiny. The various agencies kicked them around and retroactively classified 2000 of them. The key word here is retroactively. This information was not classified at the time. Clinton could CC'd the editors of Russia Today on these emails and she wouldn't have been breaking any rules. If you want an issue with these, you need to go find some new person to try and blame.
B) A much smaller number weren't classified but contained scattered bits of classified information that has since been declassified. During the investigation it turned out that Clinton had 110 emails that contained classified information plus the remnants of 3 more emails containing classified information that were deleted before the investigation started by typical server maintenance but could be retrieved by forensics. Of these, two included "(C)" and none of them contained headers or footers indicating classification. The classified information seems to overwhelmingly have taken the form of reply quotes, including the two "(C)".
Of these the vast majority have been declassified. This includes all 8 which were marked top secret. Of the top secret classifications, 7 discussed the drone program in pakistan and yemen (the last mentioned details about a private conversation with the president of malawi and is automatically top secret even if they just discussed his jock itch.) The details of the drone program were all things that were freely available on the new york times or various other news outlets. The US government just classifies a whole lot of drone stuff because the governments of those pakistan and yemen dont want the US doing overt actions in their territory and they're allies for what it's worth.
C) And now finally we get to the handful that aren't declassified yet. I'm having trouble figuring out the exact number because Comey didn't say it and the news sources keep mixing up their terms. It's somewhere between 18 and 3 email chains. If someone emailed Clinton and Clinton replied with a quote, that's an email chain. You can click the links in the OP for examples of email chains. These dont have to involve Clinton being the one actually putting the information in an unsafe place. Her just receiving the information would count towards this total.
So there are a handful of email chains. They have been gone over with a fine toothed comb by the nations leading lawyers, spies and military officials. These people have given absolutely no indication that the contents of these emails were radically different from the declassified ones. Several of them have testified to congress under oath and said as much. These emails didn't contain "Top Secret" information. They refuse to release them because they involve an ongoing operation, a rule that has been in place for decades.
Now consider the two possibilities:
1) Every single person who has seen those emails has decided to become an accomplice to criminal activity, perjure themselves extensively and commit all kinds of major crimes. So for example Comey and McCullough just went to Congress today and made themselves eligible for life in prison.
2) The handful of emails still classified were a lot like all the other ones but mention an ongoing operation. Like hypothetically maybe the US is still operating drones in Pakistan and someone in the Pakistani government secretly admitted to knowing about it. If this were the case then all you would need to do to get a sense of the handful of "secret" documents is read any of the thousands of unsecret ones at your disposal.
The only common factor as put forth by RedKing is that they classified documents shouldn't be unprotected. Period. End of discussion.
I would agree with that actually. It's the "therefore she is a horrible person" part I take issue with.
Edit: BONUS!
A group of concerned citizens have started helpfully listing US legal codes on the FBI webpage:
https://www.facebook.com/FBI/reviews/So far they seem to keep doing the same one but it's still an extremely useful project.
18 U.S. Code § 798 – Disclosure of classified information
(a)Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both
So if you want to see what law she didn't break but which those two dudes from before did break, theere ya go!
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Topic: Anyone ever read those Clinton emails? (Read 5125 times)