Hillary Clinton Was Asked About Her Email Use Years Ago and Didn't Respond

That was ages ago; we've moved on to analyzing her lunches.

Hillary for America

Back in 2012, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), as part of his frequent investigations of the behavior within President Barack Obama's administration as the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter directly asking then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if she or any other senior agency official at the State Department had used a personal email account to conduct business.

She never responded, according to story at the The New York Times:

Mr. Issa also asked Mrs. Clinton, "Does the agency require employees to certify on a periodic basis or at the end of their employment with the agency they have turned over any communications involving official business that they have sent or received using nonofficial accounts?"

Mr. Issa's letter also sought written documentation of the department's policies for the use of personal email for government business. Mrs. Clinton left the State Department on Feb. 1, 2013, seven weeks after the letter was sent to her.

When Mr. Issa received a response from the State Department on March 27, all he got was a description of the department's email policies. According to the letter, any employee using a personal account "should make it clear that his or her personal email is not being used for official business."

A Clinton aide is taking the "everybody who mattered already knew" argument as a response:

An aide to Mrs. Clinton said in a statement Tuesday that "her usage was widely known to the over 100 department and U.S. government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent."

The relevant question (and what goes unanswered) was whether people outside the government knew she was using a non-governmental email address and whether those correspondences were hidden from public review. Also of note: Issa wasn't even targeting Clinton here. This was all a response to the discovery that staffers of the Environmental Protection Agency had been using their private or secret email accounts (and fake names) to conduct business in a way that allowed them to conceal correspondence from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

That was Issa's fault. He should have sent the inquiry to [e-mail]. She never checks [e-mail].

[See Double You]

Well, it was literally "years ago," so WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT, HMM?!

[Hey Nikki!]

The question you are looking for is, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"

[See Double You]

Exactly.

[R C Dean]

An aide to Mrs. Clinton said in a statement Tuesday that "her usage was widely known to the over 100 department and U.S. government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent."

So over 100 people (well, pubsecs, anyway) knew she was breaking the law, and nobody said a thing about it.

This is supposed to make it all better?

[sarcasmic]

In fairness, I'm sure there was a certain amount of self-preservation involved. You don't blow a whistle on a Clinton and live to tell the tale.

[Dark Lord of the Cis]

How can you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

[Charles Easterly]

"Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone."

I was thinking of that movie this morning, DL, and wondering if/how I could work something similar to Verbal's fictitious narratives* into a comment thread on Reason.

*The stories Verbal weaves effortlessly while speaking with Agent Dave Kujan.

[Rich]

This.

Fire every recipient. Maybe somebody will roll over on H.

[John]

Why? She was the Secretary of State. What were they supposed to do about it? Fire her? They could have gone to the media, but that would have resulted in it not being printed and ending their careers and maybe ending up in jail given Obama's attitude towards leakers.

[Rich]

She is not SoS *now*.

Kick up the stink.

[John]

Apparently someone did. And beyond that, even after she left, the media still has to be willing to print it and DOJ can still come after you. I bet you anything people did say something and the media just ignored the story.

[Rich]

Another aspect to this is the failure/complicity of the NSA.

[John]

I suspect they did say something about it. Since she ran the department, who was going to do anything about it? The larger failure here is that of the media. No way did the media not know about this. They just choose not to report it. Without media scrutiny, there was no public pressure to stop it and since she ran the agency nothing anyone could do about it.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

You can't, functionally, be more honest than your boss.

[Idle Hands]

pretty much this.

[sarcasmic]

I'm sure some media outlet would have ran with it. Infowars and The Blaze come to mind off the top of my head.

[John]

Sure. But do you want to be the State Department employee who leaked this story to Blaze? Moreover, even if they did report it, she hadn't yet erased the hard drive. So she could have claimed "no story here, i will turn these over when I leave" and it the major media would have ensured it was a two day story.

[sarcasmic]

Now you're moving the goalposts.

[John]

No I am not. I am admitting you make a fair point that the right wing media would have reported it. The problem is that it wouldn't have made any difference even if they had. Moreover, it would have almost certainly ended the career of whoever leaked it.

Given all of that, you can't blame the people at State for not running to the media. It likely would have accomplished nothing beyond ending their careers or if they were not lucky landing them in jail.

[sarcasmic]

you can't blame the people at State for not running to the media. It likely would have accomplished nothing beyond ending their careers or if they were not lucky landing them in jail.

I agree, but you still moved the goalposts from "No way did the media not know about this. They just choose not to report it" to "the major media would have ensured it was a two day story."

[John]

No. I admitted you made a fair point and adjusted my position accordingly. That is not goal post moving, that is being reasonable.

That being said, just because the right wing media didn't know about it, doesn't mean no media knew about it. I seriously doubt the reporters at the Blaze are very close personally with the people who knew this. The left wing media? Almost certainly. Maybe they didn't know but I find it unlikely that this was not known by a fair number of people in the left wing media and they choose not to pursue it.

[Jerry on the sea]

You assume those 100 people actually know how to operate computers and emails.

[Rich]

The relevant question (and what goes unanswered) was whether people outside the government knew she was using a non-governmental email address and whether those correspondences were hidden from public review.

Come off it, Scott. *By definition*, that correspondence was *personal*.

[kinnath]

How did this shriveled up cunt become the only viable candidate for the democratic party?

[wadair]

It's her turn. Besides, the democrats will be running women and minorities from now on. No more boring, patriarchal white guys.

[Pro Libertate]

It speaks volumes for how positively awful the Democrats are now. I mean, the Republicans suck ass, but at least they aren't anointing candidates.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

If it really comes down to Jeb vs Hillary I will clone myself just so I can boycott the election twice.

[John]

It won't. Jeb won't win. My guess is that Walker will be the guy. But it won't be Jeb whoever it is.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, I don't see him getting the nomination.

[Brett L]

My early take is that it will be Rand or Walker with Cruz having an outside choice. Mostly because the first two have been willing to punch hard at the media and the Democrats. And that is more important than anything to Republican primary voters. I keep forgetting Cruz is running, Rubio is a lightweight and Jeb is already doing his best Rick Perry imitation of not being able to play in the national arena.

[sarcasmic]

Did they anoint her, or did she anoint herself?

[Pro Libertate]

The latter, but the media is pretending it was by national acclaim. There are other candidates, after all, who should all start announcing soon.

[sarcasmic]

Is the media pretending it was by national acclaim, or is she?

A politician is someone who runs to the front of a parade and pretends leads it like it was their idea all along. That's what Hillary is doing. And she's quite good at it.

[Pro Libertate]

No, it's the media. They could be talking about other candidates--there are actually a decent number likely to run. Though, to be sure, by totally ignoring even the possibility of other candidates, the media may actually make this lie into a reality.

[sarcasmic]

I don't necessarily think the media is in on it so much as they believe she's leading the parade.

[Pro Libertate]

They want the FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT. That's why they're ignoring everyone else. And everything else. The e-mail scandal is bad enough that she'd be getting prosecuted already in a non-corrupt republic.

[R C Dean]

did she anoint herself

Ewwwww.

[sarcasmic]

When I was working in Kennebunkport, the Bush's Secret Service detail would come and drink at my employer's bar once in a while. After a few drinks they'd tell stories about lesbian perfume parties hosted by Hillary. Don't know if the stories were true or not, but they were enough to make your skin crawl.

[Citizen Nothing]

lesbian perfume parties
I did not know this was a thing. Live and learn.

[Citizen Nothing]

And I still don't know what it means.

[kinnath]

We have a candidate that established a "charity" to funnel "donations" to political causes; actively solicited those donations while holding public office; established a private communications channel to bypass the official government channels to make those solicitations; and then destroyed the evidence afterwards.

Nixon himself would have been ashamed to behave this way. And yet, she is a goddess to a big chunk of the left voting block.

I thought I couldn't loathe the Democratic Party any more than during Obama's reign. I guess I was wrong.

[John]

If she wins the nomination it will just show that the Democratic Party is no more machine than man. It doesn't matter that she is corrupt, a horrible liar and a terrible politician. She is a figurehead for the larger Democratic machine. It is the machine that matters. The candidate is irrelevant and can be anyone the machine chooses.

[kinnath]

We have discovered that electing "young" men to the presidency comes with a terrible price. Their wives become political leaders and cause enormous damage for decades. Just imagine what the wookie is going to do for the next 30 years.

[John]

Two words, Evita Peron. Look how that worked out for Argentina.

[Ted S.]

She died young, the country got rid of her widower only for him to return later with an older spouse who couldn't stand up to the generals after her husband died?

[dfnj2015]

Republicans as just as bad as the Democrats.

[Ted S.]

By having a shriveled-up cunt.

[Dweebston]

Is there any question as to whether those emails are stashed away by some foreign espionage service? Genuine question. I don't see this addressed often.

[R C Dean]

Foreign? Hell, the NSA has every single one them, you know they do.

If anyone had the balls, they could put the NSA in a real bind:

(1) Given your massive electronic surveillance program, you should have/must have known about this, and at a minimum archived every email.

(2) If you didn't, why shouldn't we fire you all for incompetence?

[sarcasmic]

That would be an impressive burn.

[Dweebston]

She's a Clinton, man. You don't cross a Clinton.

[John]

Why don't we just ask the Chinese or the Russians? I am sure they would give them over for the right price.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Methinks the drip-drip-drip of emails will come in inverse proportion to the amount of money the Clinton Global Slush Fund "invests" in a few particular new shitholes next year.

They pay out, the emails stay locked away. They don't pay out the emails get released one at a time over a period of time that will destroy her. Seriously. Watch where they start "doing charity" next year where it hadn't been done before. That's where the hacker is.

[John]

The other thing to remember about this is that since she wiped the hard drive we will never know if it was compromised. So the threat of the Russians or Chinese having blackmail material on her will never go away. That alone should disqualify her for the office.

[Sudden]

I know way too many people who say Clinton is qualified because she was Secretary of State.

My stock response: Saying Hillary is qualified to be POTUS because she was Secretary of State from 2009-2013 is like saying Dick Fuld is qualified to run the Fed because he was CEO of Lehman in 2008.

[dfnj2015]

Since George W Bush anyone is really qualified at this point. But being able to speak in complete sentences is probably important.

[wadair]

If she would do something as dishonest toward the American people as to hide her official correspondence as SoS, what would she do as POTUS?

[Hamster of Doom]

Anything she wants.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I don't get people blaming the media here. Fuck that. They're not obligated to report anything. And short of having multiple sources to corroborate the claim of a single person, they don't even have something to take to print.

The fault lies with every pubsec employee that knew the law but ignored it. It lies with every pubsec IT person that worked in State and knew she was breaking the law. It lies with the archivist that never reported her lack of information being handed to them in accordance with law.

And all of them should have immediately gone to the Congressional Oversight committee and reported the malfeasance. Not to the press. Not to another employee. To the people tasked with direct oversight of the upper echelons of government. Failing to do so is what permitted the criminal conspiracy to perpetuate. No more, no less.

[John]

What was the IT person supposed to do? She ran the department. I am sure they did say "hey this is illegal you need to stop". But they had no authority to stop her. The only person who had the authority to do that was Obama or maybe Holder and DOJ. How in the hell can you hold some GS employee or contractor responsible for not stopping the Secretary of State from breaking the law? The people responsible for this are Hillary, her boss Obama, and Holder who was her peer and charged with enforcing the law. You are dead wrong if you think the people below her are responsible for stopping her when they had neither the authority nor the ability to do so.

The most they could have done was gone to the media. The media, however was utterly in the tank for Obama and would have been very unfriendly to such a story. So how can you blame them for not going to the media when everyone knew the media wouldn't care? Moreover, we don't know that they didn't. They might have and been ignored.

[Ivan Pike]

The most they could have done was gone to the media

Drop a line to the IG, anonymously of course. Call your congressman or senator although that is more risky. But most GS's will not do that and the fault is with Clinton.

[John]

Obama has bullied and effectively neutered the IGs offices. Telling the IG only does any good if the IG is willing to do something. And that is rarely the case, especially if it involves a powerful political.

[Ivan Pike]

Telling the IG only does any good if the IG is willing to do something. And that is rarely the case, especially if it involves a powerful political.

I agree, but I am saying they would have at least done something, even if it has no effect. And depending on who your congressman is, that can also cause some issues. But I agree with you that nothing would have happened, Secretaries are not to be messed with.

[kinnath]

What was the IT person supposed to do?

Well, in the real world, the IT person calls the ombudsman office and heads roll.

But in the alternate universe of government agencies, the IT person steals a bunch of secure data; hands it off to an investigative journalist; moves to Moscow; and then nothing happens.

[sarcasmic]

To be fair to those pubsec employees, they were only acting on their self-preservation instinct. Reporting this would have cost them their job for sure, quite possibly their freedom, and maybe even their life (we're talking about the Clintons here).

[John]

I can't blame some IT guy for being unwilling to take on the Secretary of State. If you want to blame someone other than Hillary here, blame Obama. He was her boss and either was negligent and didn't know it was happening or did know and allowed it to happen.

[Pro Libertate]

That's why you have to go after the IT guy personally. If it's jail time or Clinton-time, the former should prevail.

Where's the special prosecutor?

[TxJack 112]

anyone really surprised? She has always and continues to think she is above the law. The GOP and Libertarians need to keep hammering two things - her tendency towards secrecy and that her husband, not her has the humble roots. Hillary was born rich and has been rich her entire life. The only contact she has ever had with little people was to step on them as she walked by.

[kinnath]

She has always and continues to think she is above the law.

Circumstances indicate she is correct.

[dfnj2015]

I am pretty confident that if Hillary actually broke any laws she would be arrested. There just no there-there with this story.

Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats.

Republican opinions are facts given to them directly from God. Just because you think your opinion is a fact does not make it so.

[dfnj2015]

I predict we will see an endless barrage of mud slinging against Hillary from the Republicans.

[TxJack 112]

Hillary is a scheming, lying, power hungry progressive who is a greater threat to the US than a nuclear Iran. Fortunately, the more she attempts to look "genuine" the more phony she becomes. In 2008, she was the sure thing Democratic nominee until a person with no experience and little name recognition took it from her. Unfortunately, the result has been a disaster for the country, but the larger point is when given a choice, ANY CHOICE, Democrats and the country picked anyone who is NOT Hillary Clinton. The more she talks to people they come to remember why they do not like her.