OK, I have officially had it up to here regarding the whole Hillary Clinton email thing, but not in the Bernie Sanders perspective, where no one cares about the emails. Everyone cares; it's just that many of the people are trying to apply their own logic to something they know nothing about.
We have all probably read the comments sections of articles touching on the email issue that the former first lady has gotten herself embroiled in. The latest was some Democrat commentator on Fox News being interviewed Monday morning and dropping some talking point about how "long ago" this all happened, as if that were even relevant (note: there is no statute of limitations on selfishness, pathological control-freakism and particularly exposing national secrets).
But that is really not the point. What is at issue is this whole part of the argument about when material is classified. And what has me up a wall is when people who do not hold, and never have held clearances, who have no real understanding about classified material (but fondly believe that they do) try to make an argument in defense of Hillary regarding the material that flew through her personal email server. Hillary says that herself.
You know the argument -- "Well, none of that material was classified when she sent it and received it ...". That sort of thing. And people who should know a lot better than to make assumptions about how material is classified, or when it becomes classified, blather on about the "when" part in an effort to defuse the situation and defend the indefensible actions of Mrs. Clinton.
So let us start with the facts, ma'am, and just the facts.
(1) The people who are currently reviewing the emails before they are being sent to the FBI are with the State Department. That is the current administration's State Department, run by John Kerry, who reports to Barack Obama. When they say that material is classified, it is by definition a shot at Hillary's integrity, so you just know they're doing this reluctantly.
(2) To date, over 2,000 of the emails which passed through her private server and have been turned over to the FBI have been deemed to contain classified information, including over 100 that she wrote herself, meaning that she "created" the content.
(3) Classified information is not classified because of its classification "headers" -- confidential, secret or top secret -- but because of its content. According to Federal guidelines for the handling of such material, it is "born classified." If it is suitably sensitive, it should (A) be labeled as such on its creation, and (B) handled only in accordance with those guidelines.
(4) Every individual in government or industry who holds a clearance is given annual retraining in handling classified material. That includes the Secretary of State. That training is mighty specific about not doing any of the things that Mrs. Clinton did. That specifically includes being trained that sensitive material without markings is still classified, as Judge Andrew Napolitano pointed out this morning. There is absolutely no leeway for an "I didn't know" defense.
So I hope you understand that for someone creating, receiving or passing along perhaps 2-3 items in a career containing sensitive but unmarked information, that is bad, and would get you a slap on the wrist (and possibly the loss of security clearance). To have done so over 2,000 times, including your own initiation of over 100 such emails, is horrific.
There are, at this point, two sets of people. One set includes those who handle such information, almost none of whom can support Hillary or her contention and claims. They simply know better, and shake their heads at both her arguments and her sycophants. They know that her actions regarding that information are beyond specious.
The others are the sycophants themselves -- the Hillary supporters who either know better but feel obliged to push a narrative they don't believe, or who don't understand that there is no legitimate waffling on this issue. And the latter group includes those who bug me the most, because they are trying to make a case -- "Well, gee, all those emails weren't marked classified at the time" -- that has absolutely no grounding in reality or law.
"Born classified" means just that. That is why it is so devastating to her argument and those of her sycophants that it now comes out that she herself initiated over 100 such messages that should have been labeled when she created them. "Oh no", she said last night. "The State Department decides whether those are classified." Quoth the head of the Department as she includes the names and itineraries of agents and ambassadors on a private, unsecure server. L'etat, c'est moi.
It is incredibly frustrating when people who don't know the law try to defend her with an argument that does not really exist. It is equally frustrating when they are put on television -- or when Hillary says this stuff herself -- without someone standing there like an interpreter for the deaf next to a speaker, pointing out calmly that as everyone knows who handles such material, classified material without a header is just as classified.
It is similarly devastating that there is email evidence -- provided to the FBI, it should again be pointed out, by the Obama/Kerry State Department -- that she asked for certain material to be stripped of its headers before forwarding. That she arranged for the private email server to be set up on the day her confirmation hearings began. That she communicated regarding national security information with Sid Blumenthal, an uncleared person not even part of the Government.
So for those of you who might possibly read this and still want to say that "it wasn't classified when she sent it or received it", I have this instruction for you.
You don't know what you're talking about.
You don't know the laws.
Please shut up.
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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