Powell email advising Clinton on personal email released

 

 

 

 

Former secretary of State Colin Powell advised his successor, Hillary Clinton, on how to circumvent federal records requirements in a newly released email exchange about how best to handle communications over digital devices.

The email, dated two days after Clinton was sworn into office in 2009, was released by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Cummings also included documentation showing that, during his tenure, Powell had sent classified emails over his private AOL account - but as of July, had still not responded to a request to contact his service provider to retrieve them.  

"I had an ancient version of a PDA and used it," Powell said in the exchange with Clinton. "If it is public that you have a Blackberry," he said, "it may become an official record and subject to the law."

"Be very careful," warned Powell. "I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data," he said. 

The exchange shows that Powell gave Clinton “a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice," said Cummings. It "also illustrates the longstanding problem that no secretary of State ever used an official unclassified email account until the current secretary of State," said Cummings.

Republicans are pressing for additional investigations into Clinton's use of a private email server after FBI director James Comey declined to press criminal charges, even as he concluded that Clinton was "extremely careless" in her use of a private server. The email corroborates what Clinton told the FBI about Powell's advice to her, according to transcripts of her interview released last week.

© Susan Walsh, AP In this Oct. 10, 2008 file photo, former Secretary of State Colin Powell is seen in Washington. Powell says he sent Hillary Clinton a memo touting his use of a personal email account after she took over as the nation’s top diplomat in…

In both 2014 and 2015, the State Department asked Powell to provide all of his records that were not in the agency’s record-keeping system. In March of 2015, Powell said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week that he no longer had emails from his personal account:  “I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files," he said.

As of July, Powell still had not responded to a request to contact AOL. The Powell emails containing classified information had been identified by the agency's inspector general in February. 

"The Republican obsession with Secretary Clinton has reached a fever pitch, and they have been using taxpayer resources to single her out in a desperate and abusive attempt to hurt her presidential campaign," said Cummings.

"If Republicans were truly concerned with transparency, strengthening FOIA, and preserving federal records, they would be attempting to recover Secretary Powell’s emails from AOL, but they have taken no steps to do so despite the fact that this period — including the run-up to the Iraq War — was critical to our nation’s history," said Cummings.

The release also shows the nature of Clinton's original solicitation for advice, dated Jan. 23 of 2009: "What were the restrictions on your use of your blackberry? Did you use it in your personal office? I've been told that the DSS personnel knew you had one and used it but no one fesses up to knowing how you used it! President Obama has struck a blow for berry addicts like us."

Powell has disputed the suggestion that he played a role in Clinton's decision to use a private system. “The truth is she was using it (her personal email) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did," Powell told the New York Post in August. "Her people have been trying to pin it on me," he said.

Above is from:  http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/powell-email-advising-clinton-on-personal-email-released/ar-AAiCTsx?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

A different view of the coming Presidential Election

How Trump Is Corrupting Hillary’s Administration

May 14, 2016by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Graham Fuller, Hillary Clinton, neocons, the Left •

How Trump Is Corrupting Hillary’s Administration

Graham E. Fuller (grahamefuller.com)

14 May 2016

The scariest thing about Donald Trump’s candidacy is not that a guy like him is running for top office, but rather the disastrous impact he is going to have on a Hillary administration.

Now, in this crazy year—actually non-stop circus for 18 months—the press has engaged in an orgy of vitriol and bloodletting against the Republican nominee for the presidency with a hysteria I have never seen in my life against any mainstream party candidate.

And the Donald probably deserves a great deal of it.

Yes, we can all see now how Trump is engaged in shredding, maybe even remaking the Republican party—creative destruction. That, in the view of many including myself, is basically a good thing, given how far off the rails of reality the party has drifted. Trump has trashed the neocon war party, blamed George W. Bush for the debacle in Iraq and elsewhere, wants to throttle way back on foreign wars, and has declared a readiness to talk to Putin—otherwise treated in the US press as toxic and satanic. (Though even Chuck Hagel, former Secretary of Defense, recently had the temerity to suggest that things with Russia were getting dangerous and that we should be in constant dialog with Putin.)

Like many others, I have been galvanized at watching the spectacle of  Bernie Sanders proclaiming issues in his campaign that had been virtually off limits for political discussion for decades: gap between rich and poor, rapacious international trade deals, a fair wage, free university education, the call for US balance (gasp!) in handling the Arab-Israeli, issue, etc.

The great thing about Bernie—even if he probably won’t get nominated—is that he has pushed hawkish, friend-of-Wall-St Hillary to the left. She has as much acknowledged that. That will be Bernie’s greatest legacy. I would have hoped that the issues Sanders has raised can never be shoved back into the political toothpaste tube again.

That was the hope. But now along comes Trump. The right—and especially the neocons—are hysterical about what he is doing to the Republican party— of neo-cons, hawks, Wall Street cash recipients, fundamentalist Christian, Tea Party, and US global supremacy.  They are pulling out all stops in a desperate attempt to block Trump at all costs. Many of them already say they will vote for Hillary, such is their fear of the Donald.

And herein lies the fear. Just what does that do to Hillary—ever tacking to the shifting winds of popular opinion?  Bottom line is that Democrat party nominee Hillary will no longer have to worry about winning over the Sanders’ left—some of whom might have stayed home on election day. The massive support of Republicans, and especially neocons, will bail Hillary out. Hillary will indeed embrace this Republican support—and will accommodate to it. Indeed her basic political instincts have been all along in that direction anyway— rather than to the left.

And that means we are guaranteed to have a President Hillary Clinton far to the right of Obama—who barely qualifies even as centrist himself.) 

In short, the essential pressures that Bernie has been exerting to pressure Hillary to the left—so vital to balanced government—are being cancelled out. Bernie’s influence, and all those who revel in the fresh air of his platform, will be drowned in the new love-fest between Hillary and the Republicans—whose key neocon figures like Robert Kagan and Charles Krauthammer now enthusiastically and publicly embrace her.

The handwriting on the wall is clear: the advisors,  counsellors, so-called brain trusts and special aides around her (some of whom even infiltrated into Obama’s ranks) —those who remain blindly impervious in their serial defeats in foreign policy—they will all be back in full force to offer us same old same old losing foreign policies dating back to George W.

And so the US will continue to be virtually the only democratic country in the world whose political spectrum runs boldly from Right to Center—and then stops. There is no Left in America. We operate on half a spectrum.

Why do I cringe in using the word “Left”—even to describe myself? Because Left is a dirty word in the US. One can speak freely of politicians on the Right. But to say that someone is on the Left is fightin’ words—it smacks of the un-American.

Trump’s delivery of the neons and Republican establishment to Hillary’s door will be his final and greatest damage to our political order. He will now bring out all the very worst instincts in Hillary that some of us had hoped might have been softened or nuanced through Bernie’s unwavering spotlight on what really ails the nation.  Precisely in his own defeat will Trump bring about his greatest revenge in decisively coloring the next administration.

Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is “Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American’s crisis of conscience in Pakistan.” (Amazon, Kindle) grahamefuller.com

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Graham E. Fuller

Above is from:  http://grahamefuller.com/how-trump-is-corrupting-hillarys-administration/

Scott Walker had his own email controversy

 

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have at least one thing in common: controversy over emails.

While Clinton has been scrutinized for her use of private email for public purposes, Walker’s county executive office once faced questions, and even a criminal investigation, over its use of a private email system to do campaign work on public time. Walker, who served as Milwaukee County Executive from 2002 to 2010, was never charged.

Last week, Walker denounced Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State.

USA TODAY

IGs ask Justice for security review of Clinton emails

Jay Heck, executive director for Common Cause Wisconsin, a nonpartisan good government organization, found Walker’s statement “highly ironic.”

“I was like, ‘Hello? Pot calling the kettle black,’ ” he said.

While he was serving as county executive, two of Walker's staffers, Kelly Rindfleisch and Darlene Wink, were convicted of campaigning on public time because of work they did for Walker’s successful 2010 gubernatorial bid and then-state representative Brett Davis’ campaign for lieutenant governor.

Four other aides were convicted as well, but on charges of money laundering, embezzlement and violating campaign finance laws. Records show Walker’s staff used a separate Wi-Fi system, private email accounts and different laptops in his county office to correspond with campaign aides.

Emails from Rindfleisch showed she used a separate laptop and email “to do things I shouldn’t be doing on my county computer,” she wrote in a February 2010 email.

Another email showed Walker’s former chief of staff, Tom Nardelli, coordinating daily conference calls with Walker’s campaign manager, Keith Gilkes.

Gilkes now serves as chairman of the super PAC supporting Walker’s 2016 presidential bid, Unintimidated PAC, alongside former campaign aide Stephan Thompson. Records show Thompson also coordinated messaging with county staffers using the secret email system.

Walker’s campaign had no comment and referred USA TODAY to a March interview the governor did with TheWeekly Standard before he was a presidential candidate.

In that interview, Walker downplayed the findings from the emails, saying “the craziest news story” to emerge from their release was a letter responding to a request to put up a menorah candle for Hanukkah that ended with “Molotov” instead of “Mazel Tov.”

ONPOLITICS

Scott Walker slams Hillary Clinton's 'audacity' with e-mails

In his statement denouncing Clinton, Walker raised the possibility that the former secretary of State had threatened national security and called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to determine whether Clinton broke the law.

“The United States cannot afford to have a commander-in-chief who believes it is worth risking the safety and security of the American people in order to avoid personal accountability and scrutiny,” Walker said.

Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Walker probably doesn’t find his statement about Clinton hypocritical because compromising national security is far different than campaign activities on public time.

“I think the press release is more about him trying to get attention as a Republican candidate who will be tough on Hillary Clinton,” Burden said.

The Walker probe ended in 2013. It was one of two John Doe investigations Walker has taken heat for since his election as governor in 2010 (John Doe probes are mechanisms allowed by Wisconsin statute to independently and secretly determine whether a crime has been committed). The second investigation, which looked into whether his 2012 bid to fend off a recall effort collaborated with a pro-Walker group, ended this month after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling.

ONPOLITICS

Walker investigation shut down by court

This wasn't Wisconsin’s first scandal involving public officials campaigning on the taxpayers’ dime. In the early 2000s, the Wisconsin State Journal revealed state lawmakers and aides were doing campaign work at Capitol offices in addition to directing donations from lobbyists to certain candidates. The “legislative caucus scandal” resulted in seven convictions.

Gordon Myse, a former member of the Government Accountability Board, a nonpartisan agency that oversees Wisconsin elections and campaign finance laws, said the caucus scandal was "a violation of trust" but said the Walker staff email system was also serious.

How significant the violation in the Walker case is will ultimately be determined by voters, Myse added.

Comparing Clinton’s situation to the case with Walker’s office is like comparing “apples and oranges,” former state attorney general Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat, said.

“The use of private servers to do government work isn’t all that unusual in some ways,” said Lautenschlager. “Now the technology has changed so you can access your government email on your cellphone or whatever.”

Walker’s case is just the opposite: private email system to do political work on government time, rather than a private server to do government work using personal resources, she said.

“There is nothing iffy about this,” Lautenschlager said. “You can’t do political work on government time. Period, end of story.”

Behr reports for (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent Media. Follow her on Twitter: @madeleinebehr

Scott Walker had his own email controversy