Malia Zimmerman:
The State Department has opened a formal inquiry into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information while she was the nation’s top diplomat, Fox News has learned. Despite being under investigation, Clinton and her staffers still have security clearances to access sensitive government information.
The department’s investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBI’s probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.
Depending on the outcome of the current State Department inquiry, Clinton and her aides could have their access to sensitive government documents terminated.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed to Fox News the department’s formal inquiry.
Meanwhile, Grassley’s committee launched its own inquiry into Clinton’s handling of emails, an inquiry that began in March. Grassley cited among his concerns the July 5 statement of former FBI Director James Comey that the agency found Clinton and her staff members were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Grassley also contended there is “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information…”
During the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of top-secret and classified information on her private server, Comey said there were seven email chains on Clinton’s computer that were classified at the “Top Secret/Special Access Program level.” Another 2,000 emails on her private server were found to have contained information deemed classified now, though not marked classified when sent. In addition, the server also contained 22 top-secret emails deemed too damaging to national security to be released.
Clinton’s spokesperson, Nick Merrill, told Fox News that the investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information is done.
“Nothing’s been more thoroughly dissected. It’s over. Case closed. Literally,” said Merrill.
That’s not a universally held view.
Chris Farrell, of Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington-based government watchdog that has filed a number of lawsuits related to the Clinton email scandal, said he believes Clinton and her “circle of national security criminals” should not have access to any classified information for any reason.
“Their conduct has cost them that privileged position of special trust and confidence,” Farrell said.
I find it truly shocking that she still HAS access to any government data at all. While she should definitely be in jail, revoking her security clearance should be a no-brainer.
After all the b.s. about Clinton…
At Least 6 White House Advisers Used Private Email Accounts.
Of course that was then, and this is now. Or maybe that was them, but this is us. I’m sure some such rationalization will apply.
@Greg: Get back to me when they set up secret, unsecured servers and load it up with classified information and delete, wipe out, erase, destroy 33,000 emails before anyone ever gets to see what is on them. Using private email to conduct government business is wrong and should be stopped, maybe even punished, but this is in no form or fashion on the scale that Hillary was guilty of.
Nice try, though. Keep whining.
Apparently Clinton’s servers were secure, given that nobody ever got to see what was on them. That’s more than can be said for a number of government servers that have been hacked, or than can be said for Equifax, which recently lost sensitive information on virtually every adult in the country.
The right’s Hillary Clinton email scandal mysteriously evaporated shortly after the election, with nothing left but the fading echos still bouncing around the propaganda chamber. Remember Trump’s claim that, if elected, he would immediately see that Hillary was prosecuted for her many, many crimes? It was bullshit. There was nothing there—exactly as with all the slanderous allegations concerning Benghazi. That little politically-motivated exercise cost the taxpayers a hundreds of millions of dollars. Seven or eight formal investigations later, and they still came up with nothing. The last time, they’re official report didn’t even summarize their conclusions. “Let people draw their own conclusions,” they said. I have done: They’re a pack of lying, hypocritical weasels.
@Greg: It may have vanished from your newsfeed sources, as they were too busy with the Russia thingee. It is far from behind her voluminous:behind.
oops wrong scandal..there are sooo many to keep straight.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/08/14/bet-thought-hillary-clinton-email-scandal/
Threre are questions the people want to know, perhaps we need a team, like Muller has only filled with Trump cronies.
@Greg:
You don’t seem to get any information other than what the liberal propagandists want you to have. It was determined, with 99% certainty, that at least 4 individual parties hacked Hillary’s server. What they got we don’t know and have to assume they saw it all… including her no doubt disgusting Yoga routines.
Has it? You find one instance of someone in the Trump administration using personal email (though not to send information so sensitive and secret that investigators did not have the necessary clearance to view it) and you want to equivocate that with Hillary doing all State Department business on an email buffet, keeping classified information on it and illegally wiping out 33,000 emails as soon as the existence of the server (via a hacker, by the way) was known. YOU leftists have made it pertinent again, though many of us have never forgotten how Hillary abused US security, then expected to be promoted to President.
Was it slanderous to point out that Hillary knowingly lied about the attack being the result of a video? Was it slanderous to point out that Hillary ignored warnings of a terror attack? Was it slanderous to point out that Hillary denied security requests and refused to evacuate the consulate? Was it slanderous to be disgusted by Hillary’s “what difference does it make” write off of four American lives? You should probably look that word up; you don’t seem to know how it is used in a sentence.
The investigations revealed plenty. They revealed that the left do not care about national security, truth, justice, laws or honor. We found out about all the incompetence, lies, corruption and stupidity the Obama administration employed in its foreign policy. All we never got was a single honest answer from any of them.
@kitt, #5:
Both articles are the same tired, recycled bull crap that right-wing media has been rolling out for years.
@Deplorable Me, #6:
Nope. No such thing was ever “determined, with 99% certainty” anywhere outside the bat-infested belfry that is the right-wing propaganda echo chamber. The fact that you can find such claims inside that context is irrelevant.
@Greg:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/02/fbi_sources_tell_fox_news_indictment_likely_in_clinton_foundation_case.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/us/hillary-clintons-email-was-probably-hacked-experts-say.html
How about “settled science” and “end of debate”? Sorry, I know how much you hate facts that are not liberal facts, but they are facts none the less.
@Deplorable Me, #8:
You’re linking to the b.s. that FOX News was broadcasting about Clinton a few days ahead of the election and suggesting it’s evidence of something? “FBI sources tell FOX News Clinton days away from indictment” is what the URL said. Which, of course, was total bullshit. No such indictment ever happened. Nor were the “FBI sources” suggesting that it was about to happen ever named—most likely because they never existed.
Linked article No. 2 is the same sort of bull crap, dating from July 2016. First paragraph:
That’s what is known as an opinion, not a fact. Opinions are not evidence. The “private experts and federal investigators” supposedly holding such opinions were never named. Nor have their supposed opinions subsequently been demonstrated to have been factual.
An allegation that a crime occurred, but the criminals were too clever to leave any trace establishing that such a crime actually happened, is proof of nothing but a momentary lapse of journalistic standards. One would expect better from David E Sanger.
If Clinton’s server was hacked, why was the supposed damning evidence so obtained never made public? Everything else Wikileaks got their hands on certainly was. They hate Clinton. Anything damaging would have been used.
@Greg: Deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny. Yet, it still happened, she still illegally used a secret, unsecured private email server to store classified State Department information. Do you think she Bleachbit wiped clean those 33,000 emails because she didn’t want anyone to know she was fat? The true reason is more than apparent (if otherwise, Hillary should have come forth with evidence instead of destroying it) by the few emails that were recovered… and contained classified information. She is corrupt and a liar and she proved herself incompetent when Secretary of State.
Just because you will only listen to far left propaganda sources for fear of accidentally hearing some truth does not mean evidence does not exist and has been made public. Hillary actually perjured herself on video before Congress trying to keep it from becoming public. If she were innocent, she would not have stonewalled and destroyed evidence.
Your very question destroys your argument. They didn’t hack Hillary because they hated her; they hacked her because she made valuable information easily available to them. Why would they reveal all they had? They don’t WANT us to know what they know; otherwise we change everything and what they hacked is useless. I have a suspicion you know this, but are just trying to throw Hillary excuses/defenses against the wall to see if any of them stick. As slimy and gooey as they are, they just don’t hold up, Greg.
The only way she could have effectively defended her version of the story would have been to provide the 33,000 emails… and she promptly, totally and completely destroyed them. Why, Greg? Why destroy your only defense?
Maybe is simply wasn’t that good of a defense.
So why hasn’t the Trump administration indicted and prosecuted Clinton, as he promised his supporters he would?
There’s only one logical answer: Because, as with Benghazi, the claims and accusations against Clinton regarding her emails are A LOAD OF BULLSHIT, and doing so would quickly demonstrate that to be the case.
@Greg: #11 Because thats not what he Rothchilds want. 2 parties are an illusion. The last election simply slowed the adgenda, they need to disarm the citizens. They need to remove every protection of the constitution, a big step accomplished by the patriot act started under Bush, accelerated under BHO.
So easy to control BHO he had deep paranoia with good cause racism isnt dead, he knew how easy it was to remove security at just the right time add a good streak of marxism.
Trump has unlimited ego and a thin skin a 5th column controllers dream.
Nothing will change much they wont let go of controlling our non health care, Monsanto will continue to poison our food supply, our water supply intentionally polluted with the poison floride. The FDA, AMA and CDC will continue to be in cahoots with big pharma allowing them to release bad drugs no cures.
The media will continue to drive wedges between people because if we unite and converse we find out the others are not ogres we would find common ground tribalize and stop cooperating with our own destruction.
@Greg:
I don’t expect you to actually pay attention to what goes on in the nation, especially when it doesn’t fit the leftist agenda. Trump announced, early on in his term, that he was not going to pursue charges against Hillary to try and promote healing after the bitter campaign. I didn’t agree and think Hillary should be held accountable for all her crimes and mistakes, but I understand the point. However, since Hillary will not accept the grace extended to her, I fully expect prosecution to follow at some point.
I have made clear how important it is to the left to keep these phony “Russian collusion” investigations going forever. As long as they are continuing, any pursuit of investigations into Comey’s mishandling of the investigation of Hillary’s crimes (declaring her innocent before the investigation even got under way is not exactly an effective path to justice), of Mueller’s obvious conflicts of interest and political motivations or even into Hillary’s abuse of power and purposeful mishandling of classified information will be characterized as retaliation and obstruction of justice. It’s that simple; the Russia investigation is purely political and survival.
Answer this simple question as intelligently as you possibly can: if there was nothing incriminating on her private, secret, unsecured server, WHY did Hillary, the moment she realized it was no longer secret and was going to be investigated, OBLITERATE those 33,000 emails? Why not turn it over to a team to securely and confidentially filter through it and PROVE beyond any possible doubt her honesty and innocence?
@Greg: @Deplorable Me: Hmmm. No response.
@Deplorable Me, #13:
Because they were personal emails, and she was under absolutely no legal obligation to make them available to her political enemies.
Do you think the Trump family members and associated carpetbaggers who have come along to Washington like part of a traveling carnival show would willingly allow their private emails to be put on public display, if doing so was not a legal requirement?
That simple answer to your simple question has always been clear and apparent. She had them purged because they were personal, and there was no legal requirement that she provide them. Turning them over to the GOP’s politically motivated lynch mob would have been stupid.
Maybe we’ll see how consistent the right’s position on private email is, if the Mueller investigation becomes interested in the Trump administration’s use of private servers.
@Greg:
They were? Really? How do we know this?
Oh… Hillary SAID they were, right? Since she obliterated them all, that’s all we have to go on, isn’t it. This would be the same Hillary that said she dodged sniper bullets in Bosnia (she didn’t). The same Hillary that said the Clinton Foundation would take no foreign contribution while she was Secretary of State (they did). The same Hillary that said a video caused the sacking of our consulate (it didn’t). The same Hillary that said she turned over ALL State Department emails (she didn’t). Also the same Hillary that said there was no classified information on her private, secret, unsecured server (there was). So, you think we should simply suspend reality and believe her? I think otherwise.
Well, here’s the problem with that; when you mix all State Department emails with personal emails, she is not the one that gets to determine what is government and what is personal. They have to be reviewed THEN she can delete them. But, you trust her… despite her being a habitual and pathological liar.
That’s odd, considering you see conspiracies everywhere. Oh, wait… you only see conspiracies where Republicans are involve, not when a proven liar deletes 33,000 emails the moment she realizes the government knows they exist… because they are all about weddings and yoga. Uh-huh. Right.
Here’s the story; those emails contained more classified information and proof of influence peddling and the Clinton Foundation taking bribes and payoffs. THAT’S why they had to be vaporized out of existence before they were archived, AS IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Too bad the emails don’t exist anymore to prove me wrong, isn’t it?
I don’t think even YOU believe those were 33,000 personal emails so sensitive State Department archivists could not see them. And you’re not fooling me, either.