Hillary Clinton: Much Like Obama

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton decided to hold a press conference today to talk about her email controversy, but before talking about that, she had to get in a rather ridiculous comment about republicans. She made the suggestion that republicans that wrote an open letter stating that any deal made by Obama without congressional approval is not valid, are helping the Iranians. I guess maybe she thought that making a meaningless but controversial accusation would deflect attention away from her troubles over her email issue. Uh, no…

She said several things during her press conference that were misleading, outright lies or just plain stupid, so I will talk about them one at a time.

The first thing she said was that the reason she did it was that it was simply a matter of 
“convenience” for her to have one email for her work and personal email rather than have 2 devices for separate email accounts. I take exception to this for several reasons.

Firstly, I would ask her if she is that stupid or does she think we are all that stupid? Any child knows you can set up more than one email account on one device, so the 2 device excuse makes absolutely no sense.

This is also a blatant lie, since she was asked in an interview a couple of weeks ago whether she used an iPhone or an Android and she first replied iPhone, but then said, for full disclosure, also a Blackberry. So she stated she uses 2 devices, so how can she claim 2 weeks later that she set up the private email so she would only have to use 1 device?

I also find it very difficult to believe that the private email she set up was the only email account she used for everything. Most people would have a private email account that’s only for family and friends and keep it totally separate from work.

Another thing is, she went to all the trouble to set up, or have set up, a private server to handle this email account. Setting up a server is no small task. It’s fairly complicated. I think it’s safe to say that she didn’t do it herself. I also think it’s safe to say that it’s far from “convenient” to set up your own server.

She didn’t say who set it up. She didn’t say where it is. She didn’t say what kind of security it had. She didn’t say a lot of things, but she did say she wouldn’t turn it over for investigation. Hmmm…

She said it was “guarded”. I wonder exactly what she meant by that. Is there an armed guard standing at the door where it is? Is she serious? There could be an army “guarding” the server but that’s not going to stop a cyber attack. Hackers don’t knock at the door or even break in the building. They attack over cyberspace. She stated that there was no security breach. Well, maybe there was no security breach that she KNOWS of. Does she think that if a foreign power hacked into her account, they would tell her or let it become known in any way? Spies don’t call up and say, “Hey, we found out some secrets”. From what I’ve read, the security on her private server is outdated, inadequate and insecure.

She also stated that having her own private email is allowed by the state department. This is a misleading statement because it may very well be allowed that she have a private email account. That doesn’t mean that it’s allowed that she use it for all of her government state department business.

I would also like to know if her own “convenience” is the most important thing to her. Is it more important than security and protecting the secrets of the U.S. while conducting the business of the secretary of state? Is it more important than complying with the law?

She said that she complied with the laws in effect at the time she was in office. This is not necessarily true. According to Judge Napolitano, the public records act of 1950, later added to by her husband when he was president, states that the government owns all the emails when you work for the government. It also states that they be in the position of the government. By her setting up a private server, not in possession of the government, she could have broken the law. She certainly thwarted the intention of the statute.

It also states that when you leave office, you can ask for your private emails back, but the government decides which ones are personal and which ones are government business. She stated that she made the decision which ones were which and only gave the ones SHE deemed governmental back to the government. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.

Also, according to the Judge, she should have signed documents upon taking office that stated she would keep in the government’s possession the control of classified documents. If any, even one, of her emails falls under the term “classified” then she is guilty of a felony. Concealing the government’s documents from the government when you work for the government, is a felony. If even one email shows up somewhere that she failed to turn over to the government, again, she is guilty. She may be guilty anyway, just because she kept them on her own private server and not in the possession of the government.

So, if it appears as though she broke the law, do you think she would be prosecuted? I would bet not. I would say that this administration would protect one of their own and decline to prosecute her even if she was clearly guilty as sin. The Obama administration plays pretty fast and loose when it comes to which laws they comply with and which ones they ignore anyway, but the democrat party would never prosecute one of their own. Especially one that was being touted as their candidate for president. She would get a pass, which is exactly what she expects. That was clear by her attitude at her press conference.

After everything she said, in the end we only have her word that she turned over all of the emails, didn’t delete anything she shouldn’t have and all the rest. She doesn’t want any further investigation. She wants to provide her “explanation” and have that be enough to satisfy everyone. She want’s us all to say, “OK, we believe everything you said. Case closed. Sorry we brought it up. Hope we didn’t “inconvenience” you.”

Does anyone on the planet believe that her word alone is good enough? Would anyone take the word of any other politician alone and be satisfied with it? Should she simply get a pass if she broke the law? I don’t think so.

In my opinion, there is only one good reason that she set up this private server and her private email account to conduct government business with and that was to intentionally keep the emails under her control and not the government. She could then keep or delete anything that she wanted without any other prying eyes. No other government official would be able to have any oversight on her communications. If the occasion arose that there was a problem with anything she did while in office, any incriminating emails could be mysteriously lost.

My, that IS “convenient”.