The State Dept. Inspector General Email Report

The WaPo gets a leaked version of the upcoming IG report into Hillary's private email server:

State Dept. inspector general report sharply criticizes Clinton’s email practices

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger May 25 at 10:18 AM

The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the “security risks in doing so.”

The inspector general, in a long awaited review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post in advance of its publication, found that Clinton’s use of private email for public business was “not an appropriate method” of preserving documents and that her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure federal record laws are followed.

The report says she should have printed and saved her emails during her four years in office or surrendered her work-related correspondence immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. Instead, Clinton provided those records in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office.

The report found that a top Clinton aide was warned in 2010 that the system may not properly preserve records but dismissed those worries, indicating that the system had passed legal muster. But the inspector general said it could not show evidence of a review by legal counsel.

IANAL and someone can doublecheck but when I looked recently my conclusion was that these [the record-keeping stuff, not the handling classified info stuff] are administrative, not criminal violations. Utter disdain for the FOIA, for example, earns a dressing-down from one's supervisor or a federal judge, not fines or imprisonment. Back to the WaPo:

The new report focuses on record keeping and how Clinton and previous secretaries of state have maintained documents regarding public business. She has said she complied with laws requiring the preservation of documents, including emails, because she emailed other government officials at their official accounts, knowing their emails would be retained on public servers.

However, she has not explained how she intended emails sent to private citizens, who did not use government email, to be preserved. Some emails have emerged, particularly from Clinton’s first months in office in 2009 when her aides have said she was transitioning technology, that she did not provide to the State Department.

 ERRATA: This is from the FOIA, section 4:

(F) Whenever the court orders the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant and assesses against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs, and the court additionally issues a written finding that the circumstances surrounding the withholding raise questions whether agency personnel acted arbitrarily or capriciously with respect to the withholding, the Special Counsel shall promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the officer or employee who was primarily responsible for the withholding. The Special Counsel, after investigation and consideration of the evidence submitted, shall submit his findings and recommendations to the administrative authority of the agency concerned and shall send copies of the findings and recommendations to the officer or employee or his representative. The administrative authority shall take the corrective action that the Special Counsel recommends.

(G) In the event of noncompliance with the order of the court, the district court may punish for contempt the responsible employee, and in the case of a uniformed service, the responsible member.

I guess a contempt of court finding could result in jail time but it is still not a felony, as best I know. Still, what a weird Hillary defense - she broke the law but the penalties are minor, so what's the big deal? Uhh, she broke the law? And now wants to be Chief Executive?

TO BE CLEAR: I am focusing on the record-keeping violations, not the potential mishandling of classified information.

Comments

[lyle]

Your 1:45 IS better, JiB!

[Lurker Susie]

Mike Cernovich
Mike Cernovich – ‏@Cernovich

A paid Hillary protester meets with @RichLowry to plot how to help her win.

[lyle]

BTW, those Chick-Fil-A cow calendars are epic hilarious. The TV spots are pretty good as well. I really like the three street musician cows "performing" the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[lyle]

ubiquitous spotted cows

AKA...Holsteins. What, no dairy farms in Alabammy? :)

[narciso]

the interesting bit about the fifth state, which was based in large part, on the works of domischeit, assuange's associate played by future
baron zemo, daniel bruhl, in retrospect. was the matters that laura linney's character was dealing with, was outside red queen's perview,

[henry]

Lyle, or the beer. Its in all the stores around here.

[James D.]

re: Chik-fil-a

At the Verison Center during Capitals games, one of the things they do during TV timeouts is the "Chik-fil-a Spot the Cow game"

One lucky fan gets a pair of binoculars (with a camera so everyone can see on the big video board) and has to spot the guy in the giant cow outfit somewhere in the stands (it could be a gal, I suppose; no way to know what's lurking inside the costume).

[lyle]

I'll take your word on the beer, henry, as I can't even remember when I last drank one...

#winesnobsmatter :)

[Miss Marple 2]

From the Anaheim rally (don't know who this guy is) reading from that book about Clinton Cash, he makes this point on how it worked:

Give money to Bill, get favors from Hil.

[Appalled]

Miss Marple:

That conjures up most unfortunate imagery. Do you sell brain bleach in your ebay store?

[jimmyk]

It goes both ways, Miss M, at least regarding The Energizer:

Give (sexual) favors to Bill, get money from Bill.

[Miss Marple 2]

Appalled,

Sorry, no brain bleach. However, he sure made his point.

Bet YOU won't forget it, will you? HA!

[narciso]

heh, political favors, appalled, like the smoothing of the russian uranium cartel deal,

[Miss Marple 2]

jimmyk,

Well we need a chart with arrows and dollar signs.

[lyle]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/clintons-new-reality-a-dogfight-with-trump-223549

Again: this website received over $700K from the Feds last year. If these hacks are calling it a "dogfight," internal polling for Hilligula must be terrible.

[narciso]

how about that,

http://observer.com/2016/05/natos-big-new-russian-spy-scandal/

[lyle]

Well we need a chart with arrows and dollar signs.

Isn't that already her campaign logo?

[Maryd]

Iggy, I called Tom Cotton's office to thank him. Hope Gus and I were two of many.

[Theo]

So for the "Trump is a political genius" folks here, can you answer Allapundit's question? What is the thinking behind saying that Ryan is ready to endorse if Ryan is not yet ready?

[Miss Marple 2]

God bless Tom Cotton! I have been waiting for 15 years for someone to tell Harry Reid he's a lying sack of manure.

[narciso]

this is concerning,

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-attacks-arrests-idUSKCN0YG2ND?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=69

[GUS]

Yeah, you tell 'em Theo!!

[lyle]

R. Simon quotes the "estimable" Thomas B. Edsall from the NYT:

Hillary Clinton, a Yale Law graduate whose résumé includes stints at the Children’s Defense Fund and the House Judiciary Committee working on Watergate, spent more than a decade as first lady of Arkansas, eight years as first lady of the United States, eight years as a senator and four years as secretary of state serving as one of the president’s principal foreign policy advisers. She collected more than 17 million votes in 2008 as the first woman to ever come close to winning the presidential nomination of a major party; she has been named 12 times by Forbes as one of most powerful women in the world and found 20 times by Gallup to be the woman Americans admire most in the world.

How could a candidate with as much baggage as Trump be neck-and-neck with one of the most admired, best credentialed and most broadly experienced nominees in the history of the Democratic Party?

My bold, not Simon's.

Read that first paragraph again. Only a [redacted] hack from the Slimes© could attempt to evince that those cites amount to "most admired," "best credentialed," and "most broadly experienced."

[Miss Marple 2]

Theo,

There are all sorts of possibilities:

1. No one in the Trump organization said any such thing, but the press is trying to stir up trouble. (I note that no names were used.)

2. Ryan was going to endorse, someone got wind of it and leaned on him (Mitt Romney comes to mind).

3. Someone in the Trump camp thought he could play hardball and it flopped.

4. Someone in the Ryan camp lured the Trump people into thinking he was about to endorse.

There's four possibilities off the top of my head. Of course, I am not a famous blogger like Allahpundit, so I guess we will all have to remain puzzled.

[narciso]

crawling from under his rock,

https://twitter.com/BSBully317/status/735497381932716039

[lyle]

Sorry, here's the link:

https://pjmedia.com/diaryofamadvoter/2016/05/25/desperate-establishment-seeks-to-resurrect-hillary/

Simon minces the "estimable" Edsall quite finely.

[henry]

Lyle, the guy confuses showing up with accomplishing something (besides getting fired as with the Watergate thing).

[narciso]

no named source, 1) did any spokesman talk about it 2) no one really cares 3)

[Threadkiller]

So for the "Trump is a political genius" folks here

This certainly sounds like a thoughtful beginning of a comment.

[henry]

Miss M, Manafort was listed as the source on the article I saw this morning.

[lyle]

If a click is too arduous: :)

Edsall blames this on the insulting and demeaning ambience of the campaign with Mrs. Clinton under constant attack from both the voluble Trump and the increasingly irascible leftist Sanders. But such attacks would not work if Mrs. Clinton was truly respected. Pace Mr. Edsall, she is not. She is merely famous for being famous. She filled a vacuum. She was simply there. More specifically, what exactly has Mrs. Clinton done? If not zero, given her opportunities, close enough to it.

What does not appear in this supposedly magnificent résumé is an actual record of accomplishment. It reads more like the vitae of an especially determined high school student anxious to get into an elite college -- lots of violin lessons but no recitals.

Ouch.

[Marlene]

Howie Carr is having fun with the high cheek-boned Elizabeth Warren's comments. He just played comments she made on the theme of "you didn't build that." She said, "Donald Trump didn't get rich on his own."
Her speaking voice is as bad as Hillary's.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Will not waste my time linking or reading it but have a look at Greg Sargent's headline in the Memorandum box.

[narciso]

you never go full vizzini, like sargent,

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

[lyle]

Does Sargent's headline read anything like this?

My Wondrous Menage-a-Trois With Hillary and Huma: How My Backside Will Never Recover But I Couldn't Be Happier

[narciso]

they though they were. . .no they are seriously nutz.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/25/secret-life-of-the-human-pups-the-men-who-live-as-dogs?CMP=twt_gu

[lyle]

That's a horrible story, Ig. Makes my tasteless joke worse by juxtaposition. Apologies to all.

[Appalled]

lyle:

And now I will be requiring a second order of brain bleach...

[Truthbetold5]

Trump is a buffoon!

[Thomas Collins]

Theo, according to the Bloomberg article linked below, the report emanated from Ryan's confidants.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-25/ryan-said-to-tell-confidants-he-s-ready-to-end-trump-standoff

[Appalled]

Lyle:

Yikes, and my follow on joke even worse. Good heavens.

[Threadkiller]

http://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2016/05/25/trump-officially-becomes-all-time-gop-primary-vote-leader/

[lyle]

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/05/25/half-the-puzzle/3/

DrJ linked this already but I want to note something about RF's final paragraph:

We may be in one of those situations where we must wait for history to move. The situation is made somewhat more complicated by the fact that we don't even know what we're waiting for. The consolation is we'll know it when we see it.

I thought this country already learned what we were waiting for, circa Nov., '08. I could have sworn all the right people told us back then...

[Thomas Collins]

As far as Trumpster and political genius goes, he has low dollar per delegate numbers, and he is about to pull off a feat I believe Scott Adams and not many others thought he could pull off. I'd say his political instincts are solid.

[Threadkiller]

http://www.weaselzippers.us/273425-cnn-airs-tweet-from-donald-trump-live-on-air-with-vulgar-replies-intact/#disqus_thread

#ThanksTrump

[Porchlight]

Scott Adams and Ann Coulter - anyone else?

Theo, what are your current thoughts about the possibility of Trump beating Hill? I think we tangled about it earlier and you were 100% sure it was impossible for him to win.

[Miss Marple 2]

henry,

Thanks. Articles I saw early this morning didn't quote anyone.

So, we can leave off my #1 and get on to figuring out which of the other 3 things it was.

[GUS]

She was first lady in Arkansas and Washingon D.C. and Billy Jeff was banging other women the whole time. She knew it, and she had the women Billy Jeff was banging investigated and attacked.
She was fired from the Watergate Committee,
She hid the Rose Law firm records and lied about it.
She carries Hot Sauce in her purse.
She was named after Sir Edmund Hillary,
She CorkScrewed under gunfire into Bosnia, and ran across the tarmac to safety, the greeting on the tarmac was cancelled.
She turned $1000 into $100,000 in a cattle futures trade.
She doesn't feel in NO WAYS TAAAAHHHRED.
She received $675,000.00 from GOLDMAN-SACHS for 3 speeches.
She deleted over 30,000 e-mails.
She set up a COMPUTER SERVER for the purpose of hiding her correspondence from the State Department and the American people
Her OWN FOUNDATION took hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it from FOREIGN NATIONS while sworn in as Secretary of State.
She is an alcoholic.
Did I mention the HOT SAUCE??

[Old Lurker]

If the Ryan endorsement is not true but for whatever reason the Trump camp thought it was, Trump wins either way since his supporters hate GOPe enough to assume "see, there he (Ryan) goes again...I was trying to mend fences but that damn football just gets moved everytime". Nobody will think less of Trump even if Ryan never endorses him because Ryan is a phony A**hole and the last few weeks in Ryan Land proves it.

At the end of the day, any vote for anyone besides Trump, including any non-vote is a vote for Obama III in the body and face of Hillary.

[GUS]

p.s. Four American men, actually SERVING THIS NATION were killed on September 11,2012.
Rodham let them die and LIED REPEATEDLY about it.
She lied as they lay dead in coffins directly behind her.

[Porchlight]

If Ryan comes off looking like he is not following through on an agreement he made, it only hurts him. He has the most to lose IMO. Trump just logged the all time GOP primary vote record.

[GUS]

Porchlight, why do you hate Theo??

[Marlene]

Gus,you forgot she doesn't bake cookies.

[Threadkiller]

Scott Adams and Ann Coulter - anyone else?

The resident loon.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--I'd say his political instincts are solid.--

Not only that but he is proving to be far more attuned to the actual zeitgeist of the nation.
This ruling class daisy chain of butches endlessly barking orders to the fems while the rest of us were forced to sit by and watch has finally been turned over by somebody.

Even if Trump leaves office with a bigger government as he almost surely would he has already done one thing that is worth electing him for all by itself.
He has begun to smash that power the Gramscian left has held over society and culture with its all-powerful peer pressure and PC shunning.
It's very similar to the falling of the Berlin wall in that this impenetrable edifice was shown to be a house of cards held up entirely by empty threats that were as powerless as OZ once somebody pulled the curtain back.
Let's hope his cantankerous insouciance rubs off on more and more as it seems to have on Senator Cotton.

Sane people of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our fake Marxist chains.
Oh and our embarrassing GOPe fems.

[narciso]

but conrad black, the piranha bros keep looting the place,

https://twitter.com/lindseyhilsum/status/735238803166797824

[mcl]

In the Drudge link, I especially liked this from Huma (in Nov. 2010 after almost 2 years on the job):
“we should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.”

She couldn't even email her own people.

[Old Lurker]

You are a trouble maker, Gus.

:-)

[GUS]

Oh yes she could MCL, she had 30,000 yoga e-mails.
30,000.

[narciso]

does anybody disagree with his characterization,

https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal

[Miss Marple 2]

HAHA! Trump currently calling out Bill Kristol. It's pretty funny! (I have never been a Kristol fan, so sorry if I have a little bit of glee about this.)

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

-- I think we tangled about it earlier and you were 100% sure it was impossible for him to win.--

I was just realizing today after an unpleasant wade through the wiener swamps at NRO and the Federalist that the #nevertrump crowd has switched from their almost incessant schoolgirl squealing of doom that "Oh no! Trump can never win!" to "Oh no! Trump is going to win!"

At first it was "What, you want Hillary the Seven Headed and Ten Horned Beast to be president, you imbeciles?!?"

Now it's "Hey, you know, maybe I could live with a Seven Headed Ten Horned Beast. How bad could it be?"

[centralcal]

Bret Baier Retweeted
Bloomberg Politics ‏@bpolitics 9m9 minutes ago

JUST IN: Donald Trump and Paul Ryan plan to speak by phone tonight http://bloom.bg/22poZeX

[narciso]

they are the green eggs and ham caucus,

[GUS]

Hey Old Lurker! I hope that was a compliment

[narciso]

so samaritan was busy, first with the radio carrier wave project, then concocting a viral outbreak, what will be their encore,

[Threadkiller]

Trump is a stalking horse...

[Threadkiller]

They should conference call Allahpundit and Theo.

[Beasts of England]

Don't y'all be bovine-agressing me!! :)

[Buckeye]

Well I think I went on record pretty early that I thought Trump would win, despite my misgivings about him.

Still plenty of time for me to be proven an idiot.

If Jeff would stick around for more than just a few minutes, our claims and counter claims could be debunked in a hurry;)

[daddy on the iPad with salt around the rim]

5 bucks says she doesn't make it to the convention and gets beat in California.

You're on Maryrose, and loser has to look at TC's tattoo:)

Buenos Dios from The Happy Mexican.

[narciso]

rush was debunking this, which came from a fmr?? politico journolist,

http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2016/05/25/as-trump-pushes-conspiracy-theories-right-wing-media-gets-its-wish/

[GUS]

TK and Buckeye, I'm just going with Theo's Theories. Y'know kind of like Clarice's Pieces.
Theo is on top of things. He's really quite brilliant.

[Marlene]

The 1990s were busy time for us because the daughter was in high school and college,but the Clintons are seared in my brain because their drama was in the news every day.
My mother loved Bill Clinton,you know,"boys will be boys." I remember becoming upset and saying,geez Mom,why don't you adopt him?!
I joke about Hillary and her cookie baking,but she is pathetic. Will her little granddaughter ever have a memory of baking cookies with Granny? I doubt it.

[RattlerGator]

Posted by: Ignatz Ratzkywatzky | May 25, 2016 at 04:04 PM

I agree, Iggy. Bigtime. He is a much-needed disruptor.

As for Trump & Ryan: I suspect discussions were had, Ryan wanted to control the schedule of when/where more than Trump desired, and they manipulated the Ryan confidantes via some news source to verify.

Trump is driving this train (along with a clearly well-functioning & tightly-held team) and driving it supremely well.

The odds say a major mistake *has* to be coming but it sure as heck hasn't happened yet.

[anonamom]

Ig, if those kids in your #:#5, I expect they'' be going to prison, where I am quite sure they will come to know exactly what that feels like.

[Old Lurker]

Always, Gus.

[anonamom]

ig at 3:35

[narciso]

theo takes things at face value, I have found often there is a narrative, about crime, terrorism and political optics, furnished by the usual suspects,

[lyle]

OT: I've been pretty hard on the WSJ lately but I've got to give them credit for their relentless Theranos coverage. Front page online story is a perfect example. You'd think some fraud reportedly worth billions could change her top every now and then...

[anonamom]

I imagine that Newt learned a whole lot from his time in exile, and Seantor Sessions has learned a thing or two over the years.

That's where I take my solace--in the people from whom Trump appears to be getting counsel .

[narciso]

what the old joke, 'doctor, when I move this way'

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/funding-lose-track-ex-gitmo-detainees/

[daddy on the iPad wit]

Tomatoes, avocados, potatoes, corn, chocolate, tequila, tacos, turkey, tobacco, and syphilus.

Is there anything from the Old World that remotely holds a candle to these fabulous New World productions?

[Marlene]

anonamom,how is your mother? I'm always on pins and needles about my mother and mother-in-law,they are both in their mid 80s. My mother-in-law drove herself to the ER the other day! Of course,she didn't want to "bother" anyone.

[narciso]

yes, have they given her some proper food, the merengue pie seemed dangerous,

[Miss Marple 2]

daddy,

Wine and smallpox.

:-)

[Buckeye]

Lemon meringue pie sure sounds good.

Wonder if Mrs. Buckeye knows how to make it?

[narciso]

of course, it's something else, zaphod is reversing,

http://babalublog.com/2016/05/24/eisenhowers-great-victory-the-cuba-embargo-helped-bankrupt-the-soviet-union-and-saved-the-u-s-taxpayer-billions/

[James D.]

The odds say a major mistake *has* to be coming but it sure as heck hasn't happened yet.

If he can keep his narrative going for probably not too much longer, it won't matter when he makes that major mistake.

Once the narrative of the campaign is set in stone, it's almost impossible to disrupt it. And everything that happens gets fit into it.

Dan Quayle was already thought of (unfairly) as an empty suit when "potatoe" happened. "potatoe" would not have hurt Bush Sr.

Just like the "47 percent" thing stuck to Romney because it fit the narrative the Dems had already stuck him with.

And all of Obama's stupid statements (57 states, not knowing how auto insurance worked, etc) did not hurt him because he was a "genius" and once that was determined, contrary evidence just got ignored.

[narciso]

well not if you are sugar sensitive, would that be the right phrasing,

[lyle]

PJM:

No Humanity Left: Trump Supporter In Wheelchair Assaulted By Protesters

Lovely.

[Old Lurker]

Buckeye, just bet her $10 that she can't.

[Thomas Collins]

"loser has to look at TC's tattoo:)"

Don't worry. It will be on a "safe for work" part of the body!

[Buckeye]

OL

You must know about her competitive nature;)

[Buckeye]

PJM:

No Humanity Left: Trump Supporter In Wheelchair Assaulted By Protesters

Lovely.

Dude needs a gun rack for that wheelchair.

[lyle]

Or a mounted 50 caliber...

[cheerleader]

Miss Marple, that was Stephen Miller reading. He joined the Trump campaign in January as a senior policy advisor, and he speaks at quite a few of the rallies. Before joining the campaign he was on Jeff Sessions staff, and I think he still officially works for Senator Sessions and is "on loan" to Mr. Trump.

[Old Lurker]

Married to one just like her Buckeye.

[jimmyk]

the #nevertrump crowd has switched from their almost incessant schoolgirl squealing of doom that "Oh no! Trump can never win!" to "Oh no! Trump is going to win!"

Kind of like how NR endorsed Reagan in '76 but not in '80 and '84.