There are few bigger yes men on the political scene these days than Lanny Davis. He is more of a Clinton talking point with legs than a commentator on current events. That's why it's worth taking a moment to look at a defense of Hillary Clinton's email system and its use to see what Team Hillary has dreamed up as the defense for the indefensible. Davis wrote an article earlier this week in The Hill that lays out what he calls five indisputable facts about Clinton's email system. Let's take a closer look at those five:
(1) "The former secretary of State did nothing illegal by having a private email system. The department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) pointed to “policies” that were violated but cited
no laws that were violated." This is a very Clintonian defense. Having a private email system is not a violation. Using it to transmit and receive both national security information and State Department business is a violation of the Espionage Act and the Records Act. Hillary's usage of her system put classified information at risk and it prevented both Congress and the American people from gaining access to her public records AS REQUIRED BY LAW.
(2) "Clinton was not trying to hide her use of her own private email address. In fact, 90 percent of all the emails she sent went to State Department employees with a state.gov email address, which she thought, mistakenly, would be automatically preserved on the department’s email server." Of course, according to the Inspector General, the State Department legal counsel and the State Department office in charge of responding to document requests from Congress and under the Freedom of Information Act had no knowledge of Clinton's email system. Somehow, Hillary kept her system a secret from them. Maybe that is why her staff was told never to speak of the email system.
(3) "No email received or sent by Clinton was labeled at any level of classification." This is the ultimate red herring. First, we know that at least 22 email is so secret that none of it, not even the date, was released to the public. Were these super secret documents marked classified? Neither we nor Lanny Davis knows the answer. More important, however, documents need not be marked to be classified. Hillary Clinton was surely able to recognize much of this information as top secret. Nevertheless, she still left it to sit in her unsecure, private server.
(4) "According to the OIG, there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked." Interestingly, Davis attributes this to the Inspector General who was not trying to determine if the system had been hacked. There is testimony from the hacker known as Guccifer that he hacked into the Clinton system more than once and that he could tell that other hackers had preceded him there.
(5) "As pointed out by the inspector general, there was ample precedent for the use of private emails for official and private business, from Colin Powell to senior aides for Condoleezza Rice." Colin Powell was the first Secretary of State to use email. He occasionally made use of his own account, but the vast bulk of his usage was on the State Department system. No other Secretary of State used a private account for State Department work and none of them had their own private email system.
So the five indisputable facts turn out not to be either facts nor indisputable. It's yet another Clintonian lie.
(1) "The former secretary of State did nothing illegal by having a private email system. The department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) pointed to “policies” that were violated but cited
no laws that were violated." This is a very Clintonian defense. Having a private email system is not a violation. Using it to transmit and receive both national security information and State Department business is a violation of the Espionage Act and the Records Act. Hillary's usage of her system put classified information at risk and it prevented both Congress and the American people from gaining access to her public records AS REQUIRED BY LAW.
(2) "Clinton was not trying to hide her use of her own private email address. In fact, 90 percent of all the emails she sent went to State Department employees with a state.gov email address, which she thought, mistakenly, would be automatically preserved on the department’s email server." Of course, according to the Inspector General, the State Department legal counsel and the State Department office in charge of responding to document requests from Congress and under the Freedom of Information Act had no knowledge of Clinton's email system. Somehow, Hillary kept her system a secret from them. Maybe that is why her staff was told never to speak of the email system.
(3) "No email received or sent by Clinton was labeled at any level of classification." This is the ultimate red herring. First, we know that at least 22 email is so secret that none of it, not even the date, was released to the public. Were these super secret documents marked classified? Neither we nor Lanny Davis knows the answer. More important, however, documents need not be marked to be classified. Hillary Clinton was surely able to recognize much of this information as top secret. Nevertheless, she still left it to sit in her unsecure, private server.
(4) "According to the OIG, there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked." Interestingly, Davis attributes this to the Inspector General who was not trying to determine if the system had been hacked. There is testimony from the hacker known as Guccifer that he hacked into the Clinton system more than once and that he could tell that other hackers had preceded him there.
(5) "As pointed out by the inspector general, there was ample precedent for the use of private emails for official and private business, from Colin Powell to senior aides for Condoleezza Rice." Colin Powell was the first Secretary of State to use email. He occasionally made use of his own account, but the vast bulk of his usage was on the State Department system. No other Secretary of State used a private account for State Department work and none of them had their own private email system.
So the five indisputable facts turn out not to be either facts nor indisputable. It's yet another Clintonian lie.
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