Well, the latest batch of Hillary Clinton e-mails released by the State Department has already provided for quite a bit of comic relief.
For instance, there’s a particularly amusing exchange (profiled earlier today [9]) between Clinton and a Dept. of State help desk rep and if that’s not enough for you, have a look at the following message which, in the subject line, references a classic Jewish dish served on Passover and in the body simply says "where are we on this?"
[10]
But it’s not all IT help desk bloopers and Gefilte fish.
Predictably, the 7,000 or so pages of e-mails released on Monday evening contain at least 125 classified exchanges, lending still more credence (as if anyone had any remaining doubts) to the idea that, Clinton’s protestations aside, quite a bit of sensitive information was sent and received from on the former First Lady's private server. Here’s WSJ [11]:
The largest batch of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to date—some 7,000 pages—was released by the State Department Monday night, offering a glimpse into her small circle of advisers and gatekeepers at the State Department.
The department has now deemed about 125 emails in the latest release classified. The classified material appears in redacted form, occasionally in emails discussing internal operations and personnel.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that all the emails weren’t classified when sent but have since been retroactively made classified.
Of course at this juncture, it’s probably safe to say that the whole "retroactive classification" excuse has been thoroughly discredited in the minds of many voters. Initially, it seemed like a plausible argument. That is, if you wanted to play devil’s advocate, you might ask something like this: "why is Clinton responsible for someone else failing to mark a message as classified before it was sent?" As logical as that might sound on the surface, subsequent analysis and commentary casts considerable doubt on the idea that Clinton can deflect blame by essentially claiming ignorance.
High-ranking government officials are expected to exercise a certain degree of prudence when handling potentially sensitive communications and as it turns out, running such communications through a home e-mail server hardly counts as "prudent" and even if one forgives that rather extraordinary blunder, the idea that Hillary Clinton, a Washington insider from way back, wouldn’t be able to tell what type of information is likely to one day be considered classified is questionable at best and laughable at worst.
Late last month, Reuters moved to bury the "I didn’t know" excuse once and for all by suggesting that [12] in fact, much of what was sent and received on Clinton’s home server would have been "presumed classified" and according to one former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office, the State Department’s attempt to suggest otherwise amounts to "blowing smoke."
So that was the backdrop for the latest e-mail dump and with that in mind consider the following excerpts, again from The Journal, which should give you some further insight into what types of conversations were going outside of the (relative) safety of an official government e-mail account:
Mr. Blumenthal and Mrs. Clinton exchanged emails about the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that helped reshape the campaign finance landscape, with Mrs. Clinton calling it “unbelievable.” Mr. Blumenthal suggested a legislative fix, but Mrs. Clinton said it may take a constitutional amendment.
Weeks earlier, Mr. Blumenthal said he had a “eureka idea” for the midterm elections, which ended with the Democratic loss of control of the House. He also sent a lengthy memo about the state of the Republican Party in 2010, saying it was “captive to the swamp fevers of the extreme right.”
The emails offer hints to the now-redacted information. In September 2010, Mrs. Clinton asked former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to go to the Middle East in hopes of advancing the peace process.
At one point, he emailed her to say that he had an update to offer. “Ready to speak when convenient but should do it on secure line.”
Despite that concern, he continued to email her account with information that was later deemed classified as “confidential” and blocked from public release.
Mrs. Clinton and one of her top aides, Jake Sullivan, also sent emails that were redacted as part of the same chain.
And more from WaPo [13]:
About 150 of the e-mails were partially or entirely censored because the State Department determined they contained classified material, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday.
In one case, an e-mail later deemed classified by the State Department was written by Jacob J. Sullivan, Clinton’s top foreign policy adviser and now the senior policy adviser for her presidential campaign.
On Feb. 20, 2010, Clinton wrote Sullivan and asked, “I’d like to know about Bill Burns’s call w Russians today about both Iran and Start. Where are we on these?”
Sullivan responded with what he described as a “barebones readout” that career diplomat William J. Burns, an undersecretary of state, had typed out on his BlackBerry about efforts to tighten international sanctions against Iran and renew the Soviet-era nuclear arms agreement known as START.
The remainder of the e-mail has been redacted — withheld, according to a code included on the document, because it contained “foreign government information” and “foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.”
And on, and on.
The point here (obviously) is that at this juncture everyone involved - the State Department, Clinton, GOP lawmakers, the FBI, etc. - looks to be beating a dead horse. That's not to say anyone should leave Clinton alone. In fact, it's precisely the opposite. It's been established that classified e-mails were exchanged on Clinton's personal server. It seems entirely likely that she knew what she was sending and receiving was classified. Therefore, Republicans need to decide what they're going to do about it. In other words: are you going to hold Clinton accountable or are you not and if not, how are you going to explain to the American public that Clinton is apparently above the law?
For the Clinton campaign, the dilemma is this: now that voters are aware of what was being transmitted on the private server, and now that it's become fairly clear that Clinton is employing obfuscation and calling it transparency, the former First Lady's advisers must figure out how to move forward - or (as Donald Trump predicts) not.
