RE: clintonemails.com: Who is Eric Hoteham?

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Fudbucker said:
I honestly don't know. Suppose I have a thumbdrive with the names of undercover agents, I put it in my briefcase, set my briefcase down in a hotel lobby, get distracted, and it gets stolen. Nothing I did there was intentionally negligent, and I may not even remember putting the thumbdrive in there. Would I be prosecuted if an agent was killed because of my negligence? I don't know. Like you say, it's in the eye of the beholder.
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Better yet, actually not! I am told not to use thumb drive, and I do because the POTUS has one. I am annoyed that I can't, and ignore hundreds of red flags! Numerous secrets are outed because of my arrogance. People die from my lack of security.
It is called. Hillliary 2016!
 
Fudbucker said:
I honestly don't know. Suppose I have a thumbdrive with the names of undercover agents, I put it in my briefcase, set my briefcase down in a hotel lobby, get distracted, and it gets stolen. Nothing I did there was intentionally negligent, and I may not even remember putting the thumbdrive in there. Would I be prosecuted if an agent was killed because of my negligence? I don't know. Like you say, it's in the eye of the beholder.
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Was it legal for you to put the thumb drive in your briefcase and go to the hotel lobby. I assume in your scenario it was. Still when I used the word intentional I meant to cover this situation. You intentionally took an action and then failed to take reasonable precautions.

Regardless, your scenario makes two points. Some actions that didn't involve an intentional violation of rules could lead to a prosecution. And secondly exactly where one draws the lines on what is to be prosecuted will be a subjective decision and in the case of Clinton I expect the close calls to fall in her favor.

But this is a damn mess. I see now the Republicans are going after another one of the State Department IT guys, John Benton. This situation has put a bunch of people at various degrees of risk and it continues to look like Clinton may not survive this. For Democrats the best out come might be a decisive blow against her before the die is cast.
 
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davefoc said:
Was it legal for you to put the thumb drive in your briefcase and go to the hotel lobby. I assume in your scenario it was. Still when I used the word intentional I meant to cover this situation. You intentionally took an action and then failed to take reasonable precautions.

Regardless, your scenario makes two points. Some actions that didn't involve an intentional violation of rules could lead to a prosecution. And secondly exactly where one draws the lines on what is to be prosecuted will be a subjective decision and in the case of Clinton I expect the close calls to fall in her favor.

But this is a damn mess. I see now the Republicans are going after another one of the State Department IT guys, John Benton. This situation has put a bunch of people at various degrees of risk and it continues to look like Clinton may not survive this. For Democrats the best out come might be a decisive blow against her before the die is cast.
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This is pretty much where I'm at too, except I don't think it that unlikely she'll be indicted. I would put the odds around 1 in 3, which is why I was happy to take a $20 bet at 100-1 odds against one of the forum members here (although I seriously doubt anyone would pay out $2,000 to settle an online forum debate).

The reason I think it's more likely than you do is that the Justice Dept is kind of irrelevant. If the FBI recommends criminal charges, DoJ will have to indict, because they know what will happen if they don't- the same thing that happened when Nixon fired prosecutor Archibald Cox: mass resignations of high level officials. Obama will avoid that at all costs.
 
Fudbucker said:
This is pretty much where I'm at too, except I don't think it that unlikely she'll be indicted. I would put the odds around 1 in 3, which is why I was happy to take a $20 bet at 100-1 odds against one of the forum members here (although I seriously doubt anyone would pay out $2,000 to settle an online forum debate).

The reason I think it's more likely than you do is that the Justice Dept is kind of irrelevant. If the FBI recommends criminal charges, DoJ will have to indict, because they know what will happen if they don't- the same thing that happened when Nixon fired prosecutor Archibald Cox: mass resignations of high level officials. Obama will avoid that at all costs.
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Yes we agree, I think the chances are not as high as 1 in 3, but I don't know enough to venture a guess. The counter argument to your idea about the FBI is that they will have noted the political situation and they will avoid recommendations and try to keep their report to a simple review of the facts. That's what I'd do. Let this whole thing fall on Loretta Lynch. I would want to keep my job regardless of what party comes to power.

Another element of this mess which hasn't been discussed is what a Republican congress will do about this after the election. Sadly, I think, they will hang on to this throughout Clinton's term regardless of what is in the best interest of the nation. Politics is a dirty business and the Republicans will prove this in spades with regard to this issue if Clinton is elected.
 
If the focus of the debate becomes whether setting up an unapproved and unsecure cowboy server in her bathroom to handle all her government business was grossly negligent or not, then I think Clinton is in trouble.
 
Fudbucker said:
I honestly don't know. Suppose I have a thumbdrive with the names of undercover agents, I put it in my briefcase, set my briefcase down in a hotel lobby, get distracted, and it gets stolen. Nothing I did there was intentionally negligent, and I may not even remember putting the thumbdrive in there. Would I be prosecuted if an agent was killed because of my negligence? I don't know. Like you say, it's in the eye of the beholder.
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I'd say there is a very good chance of prosecution in that scenario.* "I was distracted" is not a defense to texting and driving and I doubt it would be a valid defense to the charge of negligently handling a briefcase containing top secret information. That's kind of the point: Don't let yourself get distracted when you're carrying information that could cost people their lives.

*If your last name is not "Clinton."
 
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TheL8Elvis said:
No. Even if it was , it's still not the same thing as what you claimed.
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You don't remember seeing this quote in the news?

"Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible," Clinton replied.
 
There will be no charges, no prosecution. The election will be Crooked Hillary (Trump calls her that) and Idiot Trump (everybody knows.)

How will this election be run? I got a letter begging $ from the Democrats. It had a survey. They are clueless. They need to employ the Comedy Channel crew from this point on to bring down Trump. Where is our election thread? There were a bunch and all down to second page now.
 
There will be no charges, no prosecution. The election will be Crooked Hillary (Trump calls her that) and Idiot Trump (everybody knows.)

How will this election be run? I got a letter begging $ from the Democrats. It had a survey. They are clueless. They need to employ the Comedy Channel crew from this point on to bring down Trump. Where is our election thread? There were a bunch and all down to second page now.
 
Tero said:
There will be no charges, no prosecution. The election will be Crooked Hillary (Trump calls her that) and Idiot Trump (everybody knows.)

How will this election be run? I got a letter begging $ from the Democrats. It had a survey. They are clueless. They need to employ the Comedy Channel crew from this point on to bring down Trump. Where is our election thread? There were a bunch and all down to second page now.
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I dont think her getting prosecuted is an issue. Its whether voters as a majority trust her with this issue and others enough to trump the trump
 
shuize said:
If the focus of the debate becomes whether setting up an unapproved and unsecure cowboy server in her bathroom to handle all her government business was grossly negligent or not, then I think Clinton is in trouble.
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I agree that for various reasons it was grossly negligent, but whether there is an indictment or not won't hang on whether she set up a server.

On the mishandling of classified material the issue will revolve around when did she have unequivocal knowledge that there was classified material in her email system and did she comply with the law if and when she was aware.

A lot of us think the act of setting up the server makes a de facto case that she put in place a mechanism that guaranteed the mishandling of classified material. It is not credible to believe that emails to the SoS would not on occasion contain arguably classified material. But if that argument would lead to indictment her ship would have already sunk.

Assuming the leaks are correct it seems like at least some obviously highly classified material made its way on to her server. When did she become aware of that? If she did become aware of it, did she comply with the law about a discovery of mishandled classified material? My guess right now is that there will be enough evidence to prove or suggest strongly that she was aware of classified material in her email system and that she didn't comply with the relevant laws with regard to that. But my guess is also that without provable explicit intent to violate security laws Clinton won't be indicted.

Regardless, it looks to me like Clinton will remain highly vulnerable on this issue. It is very likely that her political opponents will judge that the FBI found incriminating evidence and will attempt to force this case forward if Lynch doesn't move to indict Clinton.

And then there are the ancillary issues that might prove embarrassing for Clinton, like possible security breeches in her email system and her probable (in my judgment) use of unencrypted email when she first became SoS. And then there will be the continuing efforts to use her attempts to skirt archiving and FOIA laws to embarrass her and even to get some sort of censure or other punishment for that. Overall I put this situation in the horrible range for somebody that doesn't want Trump to be president.
 
davefoc said:
I agree that for various reasons it was grossly negligent, but whether there is an indictment or not won't hang on whether she set up a server.

On the mishandling of classified material the issue will revolve around when did she have unequivocal knowledge that there was classified material in her email system and did she comply with the law if and when she was aware.

A lot of us think the act of setting up the server makes a de facto case that she put in place a mechanism that guaranteed the mishandling of classified material. It is not credible to believe that emails to the SoS would not on occasion contain arguably classified material. But if that argument would lead to indictment her ship would have already sunk.

Assuming the leaks are correct it seems like at least some obviously highly classified material made its way on to her server. When did she become aware of that? If she did become aware of it, did she comply with the law about a discovery of mishandled classified material? My guess right now is that there will be enough evidence to prove or suggest strongly that she was aware of classified material in her email system and that she didn't comply with the relevant laws with regard to that. But my guess is also that without provable explicit intent to violate security laws Clinton won't be indicted.

Regardless, it looks to me like Clinton will remain highly vulnerable on this issue. It is very likely that her political opponents will judge that the FBI found incriminating evidence and will attempt to force this case forward if Lynch doesn't move to indict Clinton.

And then there are the ancillary issues that might prove embarrassing for Clinton, like possible security breeches in her email system and her probable (in my judgment) use of unencrypted email when she first became SoS. And then there will be the continuing efforts to use her attempts to skirt archiving and FOIA laws to embarrass her and even to get some sort of censure or other punishment for that. Overall I put this situation in the horrible range for somebody that doesn't want Trump to be president.
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I agree that this issue is not going away. My point was not so much that setting up the bathroom server will definitely lead to an indictment (she is a Clinton after all). It was that in the arena of public opinion, if the debate gets framed as whether setting up an unapproved, unsecure cowboy server to handle all her business as Secretary of State was negligence (mere stupidity) or gross negligence (exceptional stupidity), Clinton comes out badly. Especially considering the alternative to "stupid" or "exceptionally stupid" is "criminal," and in this case "exceptionally stupid" is also "criminal." So the debate is now framed such that Clinton's best argument is to claim that she was just stupid. Over and over again.
 
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shuize said:
I agree that this issue is not going away. My point was not so much that setting up the bathroom server will definitely lead to an indictment (she is a Clinton after all). It was that in the arena of public opinion, if the debate gets framed as whether setting up an unapproved, unsecure cowboy server to handle all her business as Secretary of State was negligence (mere stupidity) or gross negligence (exceptional stupidity), Clinton comes out badly. Especially considering the alternative to "stupid" or "exceptionally stupid" is "criminal," and in this case "exceptionally stupid" is also "criminal." So the debate is now framed such that Clinton's best argument is to claim that she was just stupid. Over and over again.
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As a person that really wants Trump not to be president and would kind of like Clinton to be president I wish I did not find your description of the situation correct. It is also a strange paradox. Clinton has written five books, played a key role in the candidacies of her husband, was a successful lawyer, got elected senator of New York and was appointed SoS by people who decided that she must be at least reasonably qualified even if her appointment was for political purposes all of which shows some pretty significant skills and intelligence. And yet she somehow has committed a series of acts that show a staggering lack of skill and intelligence. I don't know what is going on here. I think SG's theory might be that I have overestimated the significance of all this. I hope she's right.

ETA: Even if you assume that it was long after the fact that she became aware of classified data on her server it seems that her situation is still troubling. She gave the hard drive to her lawyer? I guess he wanted to be the big man on campus, but that was really stupid. He led her to commit a crime and it also seems like he was a leading source of advice during the stupid email separation process. At some point probably years from now the key players are going to reveal what was going on here. Right now most of the key players seem to be Clinton loyalists who are being directed by her lawyer. I don't expect candid revelations for a long time unless the justice department starts turning the screws.
 
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The issue won't go away because it's the only one!

If Hillary's only guilt is mucking with the IT manager of the country, then she's got smooth sailing versus that POS she's running against.*


*Assuming no miracles await Bernie.
 
NoahFence said:
The issue won't go away because it's the only one!

If Hillary's only guilt is mucking with the IT manager of the country, then she's got smooth sailing versus that POS she's running against.*


*Assuming no miracles await Bernie.
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Fixed, sort of. There's no font on this forum big enough for that "if".
 
davefoc said:
And yet she somehow has committed a series of acts that show a staggering lack of skill and intelligence.
....
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A flaw I have noted in some indisputably intelligent people is that they think everybody else is stupid, that people who don't see the world as they do are just too dumb to understand it as they do. It's pretty clear that Hillary thought her motives justified her actions, and that mere rules and staff objections didn't carry much weight. Her initial responses to the email business ("I couldn't carry two Blackberries," "Everybody else did it," "I obtained approval," etc., etc.) were insults to our intelligence, a quality she seems to think we lack.
 
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