SPECIAL: 3 QUESTIONS FOR HILLARY CLINTON
Posted by Tim Bryce on March 12, 2015
BRYCE ON POLITICS
– Inquiring minds want to know…
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I watched Mrs. Clinton’s press conference on Tuesday regarding her recent e-mail troubles. For some strange reason, she began by discussing women’s rights and the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Perhaps this was a smoke screen. I listened to her explanation about e-mails during her tenure as Secretary of State but wasn’t satisfied. As citizens, we want assurances our government workers are working diligently and not exposing themselves to hacking of information, thereby allowing the misappropriation of our country’s intelligence. We also do not want to see our systems inappropriately used for personal purposes, just like any business. In addition, the government needs to be able to control and safeguard all pertinent records for future reference, which is the purpose of the National Archives.
The first question is, why didn’t Mrs. Clinton use the government’s e-mail system? According to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 12 on Diplomatic Security, “It is the Department’s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized AIS (Automated Information System), which has the proper level of security control…” It goes on to read, “The Department is expected to provide, and employees are expected to use, approved secure methods to transmit SBU (Sensitive But Unclassified) information when available and practical.” This begs the question, Who approved her use of her e-mail server (clintonemail.com)? If it wasn’t approved, it wasn’t proper to use it.
Some journalists point out every Secretary of State for the last couple of decades has used private e-mail. Such claims are attempting to establish precedence, but it certainly doesn’t make it right. I never understood this logic. If you want precedence, let’s consider U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration who, in 2012, was forced to resign his post for using private e-mail outside of the department’s secure system. If this is good for an Ambassador, how about the Secretary of State?
Mrs. Clinton should answer why she needed a separate e-mail server. Unless she can come forward with valid answers, the assumption will be she has something to hide. Certainly, it cannot mean a person can only use one e-mail account on a handheld device, as she suggests. People have used multiple e-mail accounts on a single device for a long time.
Second, did Mrs. Clinton transfer all of her records to the National Archives as prescribed by law? Obviously not. If she had, Congress could readily obtain them and this wouldn’t have flared up into an issue. If she is still in private possession of any e-mails on her server, she is in violation of the rules she was obliged to enforce.
Third and final, did Mrs. Clinton instruct the employees in the State Department as to security of e-mails? Allegedly she did, but I have scoured the Internet and cannot find anything to substantiate this.
The policies regarding e-mail security are universally applicable for all federal government agencies. This means people like Lois Lerner, formerly of the IRS, is probably guilty of violating federal policy.
Not surprising, the federal statutes were written by attorneys and appear to be voluminous. It will likely take some time to sort them out and determine if Mrs. Clinton is guilty of anything. However, let us not forget she is also a graduate of the Yale Law School and served a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, Senator, and former Chair of the Legal Services Corporation, not to mention she is married to another attorney. In other words, she should have known better.
Keep the Faith!
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Tim Bryce is a writer and the Managing Director of M&JB Investment Company (M&JB) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has over 30 years of experience in the management consulting field. He can be reached at timb001@phmainstreet.com
For Tim’s columns, see: timbryce.com
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Copyright © 2015 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.
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Wayne Brown said
Clearly Ms. Clinton fully understood the ramification of her actions in using a private email account. She emphasized over and over that her emails were a matter of record because she always “replied” to the solicitor’s .gov email account. Of course, she failed to note that the reason she did that is because the person she was exchaning emails with was following protocol on the email procedure and using a .gov account. I believe she knew from that outset that she could selectively conduct business outside the circle of scrutiny set by the .gov server and thereby also be the only person who had access to the records coupled with the sole ability to either produce them or destroy them. Ms. Clinton has a long history of “unethical legal behavior” which does not bode well in attesting to her honesty in this situation. On the other hand, I am deeply concerned that no effort was made to put Ms. Clinton under oath in her first testimony on Benghazi. I think this failure in the system is indicative of the cronyism in Washington which is going on across the aisles. America is quickly finding out that no one will hold anyone accountable and no actions of substance will be taken to gain information which is rightly property of the American people. As she has so, so, many times, Hillary Clinton is thumbing her nose at the American people and looking down it all at the same time. I can only hope that the day will come when this women gets her just due and the American people are there to witness it.
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Tim Bryce said
If Clinton is the best the Democrats can do, heaven help them.
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Tim Bryce said
A K.O. of Washington, DC wrote…
“Madam Secretary is nobility, don’t you know that? Laws don’t apply to Clintons or Democrats for that matter. Defending her in any way shows how bankrupt our system has become.”
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Tim Bryce said
A W.H. of Boulder, Colorado wrote…
“Oh, you do not need to “assume” she is hiding something, it is a GIVEN. And, her recent release of thousands of spam emails is smoke and mirrors designed, as lawyers often do, to innundate you with Bulls**t and obscure the fact that they have something to hide – because THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING in the VOLUME of materials they are releasing. This way, she can claim she’s been open and released everything, and if you do find something, she can claim with the volume involved, there surely would be an occasional oversight somewhere. Certainly, it’s valid proof that she had a personal email account that was attacked by spammers just like everyone else. BUT…what is not being revealed is the nature and extent of any personal conversations that might have been carried out in her official capacity. Here’s the problem: We all are complaining about NSA’s ability to read emails from bulk collections. SO, people like SECSTATE know that their inside emails are subject to scrutiny and FOIA release criteria. BUT, PERSONAL email accounts are NOT subject to FOIA access and disclosure. And, if you obtain a warrant to LOOK FOR any breaches or classified information being resident on an unsecure system, you have to persuade the judge that a warrant to look at EVERYTHING in her private email account is justified – in other words, do you have “probable cause” to believe that there was a breach? Without that, the FISA judge is probably not likely to grant you that rather liberal warrant to search everything. And, for the average person, that is exactly what you want. For a government employee, especially one at the cabinet level, there have to be other considerations at work. People in the military KNOW that when they join, they give up certain of their rights under the Bill of Rights (not all of them, just some of them) by virtue of them being in uniform and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in addition to any civilian laws. Do you think for one moment that SECDEF or SECSTATE took a polygraph exam which is required for anyone else, including the Director of NSA, to have access to certain sensitive classified information? I know for a fact that history records a few of those Secretary level people telling the polygraph people to take a hike, and nothing was done about it – and they kept their clearances. People in positions of power are rarely afraid to exercise those powers. I kind of doubt that the President has ever been required to undergo a poly like everyone else.”
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Don Frankel said
Tim, some very good questions but I don’t think she’s going to answer them or any other questions. Since she’s not in office what would be the result of an investigation? She’ll plead guilty to a few counts of ooops I destroyed some records? The question her supporters need to ask is this one. Do you think this is the only mistake she made while in office for four years? I mean since she doesn’t follow the rules and all.
Basically, you can put a fork in her she’s done. Much to my chagrin I might add, as HerHillaryness is one of my favorite characters to write about. Of course I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. We’ll see.
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Tim Bryce said
Don – I still find it troubling how the media defends the Clintons. However, the tide may be turning on this one. For example, the local Tampa Bay Times (a well known liberal paper) is lining up against Hillary. This surprises everyone down here.
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William Achbach said
Probably the appropriate assumption (and well before Mrs. Clinton would have had anything specific to hide) is that she made the decision to use the private account in anticipation of having something that would be easier to hide/delete/destroy/stonewall from the archives of a private account than from an official government server. Her comment about the convenience of doing so was a reference to it being “easier to carry just one device.” That, of course means that she’s probably not sufficiently tech savvy to know that she could access multiple accounts from one phone. That issue is addressed here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/10/why-couldnt-hillary-clinton-have-two-email-accounts-on-one-phone/. With that reality fresh in my mind, I visualize an appearance for Hillary on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”
Several months ago, you did a piece that asked, in essence, “What did she accomplish as SecState that merits the high praise which was directed her way when she left that position?” Now, maybe a better question for critics to ask would be, “Do we want a President of the United States who potentially compromises national security because she’s either (a) too wrapped up in her own desire for plausible deniability to see the risk or (b) too dumb to set up an email account on her own phone?”
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2015 YEAR-END WRAP-UP « THE BRYCE IS RIGHT! said
[…] GOP Stereotype Season” “At the Breaking Point” “World War III” “Special: 3 Questions for Hillary Clinton” “Republican Portrayals” “Why the Left Hates Donald Trump” “Hillary […]
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