Ed Clintonemails.com: Who is Eric Hoteham Part 3

[Childlike Empress]

^ this isn't even funny anymore.

 

[OMGturt1es]

They either release it when the paperwork is finished, or they use their governmental powers to influence the election. The latter is illegal. I don't get why this is controversial.

Typical protocol is to tread with extreme caution around elections. Especially after Comey flagrantly discarded specific Justice Department guidance regarding his recent letter to congress, the FBI should be sensitive to its impact on elections. You can argue why it shouldn't matter, but the non-stop cable news speculation since Friday is an example of the empirical foundation for the typically exercised extreme caution.

The State Department released a batch of Clinton emails on Oct 21. No one got their panties in a twist that State was trying to influence the election for Trump when they did that.

1. The damage was already done. Once her private server was made public, Hillary knew people would assume the worst. She then requested her emails be made public so that folks would have time to review emails prior to the election. Unfortunately, they weren't. Which sucks for Hillary, because

2. They were forced to legally release emails due to lawsuit from a conservative organization.

3. It angered the hell out of me that conservative activist organizations like Judicial Watch have so much power to influence elections.

The fake outrage over the FBI is the opposite side of the democracy legitimizing coin from Trumps insistence that the election results were going be tampered with.

My outrage isn't fake. And it isn't just reserved for Comey's awful handling of this investigation. It's also reserved for those who refuse to see the big picture. As I noted in my initial response to you:

"The FBI becoming publicly involved with the email investigation was bad enough. Then Comey castigating Hillary publicly despite the fact that the FBI could not bring charges was even worse. Agreeing to work with congress and provide investigative documents was bad. And then his ill-timed letter regarding emails he didn't even yet have a warrant to search. And now this? And then consider Comey's role in past Clinton investigations. It looks really, really bad."

If you pull everything apart and focus on each event independently, it's far easier to argue that Comey should get the benefit of the doubt. Because his past doesn't get to come back to haunt him. When you squint at it all from a distance, you see that not only has he errored repeatedly, but that his errors have been rather biased. Not good.

You can refuse to see this if you like. That's your right. But you shouldn't. It may not be hurting your preferred candidate now. But it could in the future.

 

[Childlike Empress]

If my outrage would be fake I wouldn't tell everybody that my outrage isn't fake.

 

[OMGturt1es]

If my outrage would be fake I wouldn't tell everybody that my outrage isn't fake.

Not sure I follow the point of your response.

 

[The Big Dog]

I'm sorry for not being as clear as I should have been.

The fact that Hillary provided about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department and congressional investigators indicates she wasn't trying to delete her way out of this. I didn't mean to indicate that the "dump" language preceded the release of those emails; I meant to imply that the release of work-related 30,000 emails just isn't consistent with a delete-orientated strategy. We know what those look like. We've seen them. A lot. I provided a few examples.

It was around the time of the "dump" email that Hillary started calling for her emails to be released to the public for general consumption. Given the overall context, that seems a far more likely meaning behind this language. As the private server was going to become public knowledge, it was best to just dump it all for public consumption so folks could see that most of Hillary's day to day communication was typical, boring stuff. And it's good advice.

But the thrust of my post is about the farce of this investigation. Even if they find evidence that Hillary and team colluded to delete her private emails-- which I doubt this is, and I doubt they'll find-- it doesn't impact the thrust of my post. If Hillary were literally anyone else that had been implicated in far, far worse email scandals, none of this would have gone anywhere, and no one would have cared.

Hillary's biggest downfall is her never ending effort to shield herself from never ending witch hunts. But that's really a two way street. And that's my point. Most people in her position would do the same, because it just gets too difficult to do your job when your constantly having to defend yourself against baseless accusations.

Wow, that was a spectacular flip flop on the meaning of the dump email email.

That was right about the time that hillary lied about turning over all work related emails and lied about there being no classified info on them

The claim that th ICIG referral to the FBI is a witch hunt has been debunked.

Hillary has a lot of downfalls.

 

[shuize]

Here's something I've never really understood. If it's a felony to negligently allow the release of classified information to those not cleared to handle it, why doesn't that apply to the guy who set up the bathroom server? Or Clinton's lawyers?

It seems to me that using someone without security clearance to set up and manage an off the books, unsecure server for one of the highest officials in our government is negligent on its face. But even if it was not negligent at the beginning, how did it not become negligent when Clinton started to conduct (most?) business on it and classified information began to pass back and forth through the server that the guy without clearance was (supposedly) managing for her?

Similarly, I don't understand how passing all those emails to her attorneys (who were reportedly not cleared) to filter them for her was not negligent.

Am I crazy to suspect special treatment or would other people besides Clinton be allowed to do this or other things like repeatedly losing something like a dozen mobile devices containing potentially sensitive information without anyone batting an eye? From what I gather, lower level people in the government and military live in fear of mistakenly sending a sensitive email, leaving classified information on the wrong table, or taking a photo in the wrong place. Are they lying about these things?

 

[OMGturt1es]

Wow, that was a spectacular flip flop on the meaning of the dump email email.

Cut me some slack. I'm at work and posting in a hurry. I apologized for not being more clear. But I think my overall argument is clear. While I understand that it was sloppily worded enough that it some details could be interpreted differently than I anticipated, I apologized for the confusion and tried to explain what I meant. And no, my opinion of "dump" didn't change. I doubt that it is being used to refer to deleting email. That was the conclusion I expressed in my first response, and it's the conclusion I still express.

That was right about the time that hillary lied about turning over all work related emails and lied about there being no classified info on them

As far as we know, she did not lie about turning over all work-related emails.

Yes, some work-related emails had been deleted due to general purging. The timing stinks, but the IT professional testified that the request had come well before the subpoena-- according to the IT professional who deleted the emails, the timing looked bad because he effectively screwed up and then tried to cover his own ass by deleting the emails and just moving on.

It looked bad and I didn't necessarily buy it. But I didn't necessarily not buy it either. If you're honest and at all perceptive, you'll admit that this sort of stuff happens in work environments more often than we'd like. People screw up because they're human. And they try to avoid advertising it for obvious reasons. Yes, it's convenient to Hillary, but it's also perfectly probable.

Many of these emails were later recovered. And that provides us with a wonderful way to gauge the likelihood of the IT professional's story. If these emails provided damning information, it would be quite a coincidence. But if they didn't, it really wouldn't make much sense for Hillary to have intentionally, selectively deleted them.

They contained nothing. This doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't intentionally deleted, but it's strong evidence they weren't.

Again, context.

The claim that th ICIG referral to the FBI is a witch hunt has been debunked.

I hate the term "debunked" for the same reason that it's use here is just silly.

Reasonable explanations have been provided for the email investigation-- namely that classified information was compromised. Fine. That seems reasonable to me.

But the public nature of this investigation is not reasonable. It is absolutely silly to argue that it hasn't hurt Hillary's standings in the polls considerably. Look, we're now on Page 57 of the third thread concerning this investigation. An investigation that found zero evidence for criminal prosecution. But an investigation that has nonetheless dominated nearly all news concerning Hillary during her presidential bid. And it only arose after numerous Bengazi investigations that similarly failed to find anything of substance. But investigations that dragged Hillary's name through the mud all the same.

I don't have time to go on about history now. But this isn't an isolated event. Hillary has been repeatedly dragged through the mud for petty ********. This is just common practice. And you can't have decades of these meaningless investigations and at some pint not concede that these are trolling expeditions. They're witch hunts. The Bengazi investigations were absolutely witch hunts. The FBI investigation was born from Bengazi, and then handled exceedingly poorly.

Hillary has a lot of downfalls.[/QUOTE]

I agree. She does. And she has some upsides as well. Just like most humans do. I'm not super crazy about Hillary. But I am crazy about polarization that is so strong that people fail to see the obvious intentions of ******** investigations designed for political revenge, and therefore not only play into their hands by refusing to acknowledge context and instead becoming unjustly outraged and polarized, but then also fail to vote properly to discourage these antics.

But back to Hillary, it seems pretty clear that most folks who have read many of her (non-partisan) biographies and most investigative reporters who have followed her for decades all agree that her biggest downfall is her penchant for privacy. Otherwise, she seems a relatively honest politician-- as low a bar as that is. And that's not just opinions from the left; it was, for example, the opinion recently expressed even by The Economist.

 

[OMGturt1es]

Here's something I've never really understood. If it's a felony to negligently allow the release of classified information to those not cleared to handle it, why doesn't that apply to the guy who set up the bathroom server? Or Clinton's lawyers?

It seems to me that using someone without security clearance to set up and manage an off the books, unsecure server for one of the highest officials in our government is negligent on its face. But even if it was not negligent at the beginning, how did it not become negligent when Clinton started to conduct (most?) business on it and classified information began to pass back and forth through the server that the guy without clearance was (supposedly) managing for her?

Similarly, I don't understand how passing all those emails to her attorneys (who were reportedly not cleared) to filter them for her was not negligent.

Am I crazy to suspect special treatment or would other people besides Clinton be allowed to do this or other things like repeatedly losing something like a dozen mobile devices containing potentially sensitive information without anyone batting an eye? From what I gather, lower level people in the government and military live in fear of mistakenly sending a sensitive email, leaving classified information on the wrong table, or taking a photo in the wrong place. Are they lying about these things?

The server was set up specifically for non-classified emails. So it was perfectly legal for its intended purpose.

The fact that only ~100 pages of emails from something like ~50 email chains contained classified emails strongly suggests that Hillary and others made a very honest attempt to follow the law. We're talking about an error rate of something like 1 in a 1,000.

And that error rate likely at least partially reflects the margin of error in classifying emails. There's no single cut and dry, objective, obvious way to classify information. And over classification is a big deal that's been long known. I would suspect that these 1 out of every 1,000 or so emails probably often reflect difference of opinion between those who sent emails and those who reviewed emails.

At the end of the day, the small group of senior State Department advisers who emailed Hillary would all be considered experts in classification. As would likely those reviewing emails at the FBI. The fact that so few emails contained information that could be considered classified strongly suggests that these classified emails resulted due to differences in opinion about how they should be classified.

 

[The Big Dog]

As far as we know, she did not lie about turning over all work-related emails.

Yes, some work-related emails had been deleted due to general purging. The timing stinks, but the IT professional testified that the request had come well before the subpoena-- according to the IT professional who deleted the emails, the timing looked bad because he effectively screwed up and then tried to cover his own ass by deleting the emails and just moving on.

...

Many of these emails were later recovered. And that provides us with a wonderful way to gauge the likelihood of the IT professional's story. If these emails provided damning information, it would be quite a coincidence. But if they didn't, it really wouldn't make much sense for Hillary to have intentionally, selectively deleted them.

They contained nothing. This doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't intentionally deleted, but it's strong evidence they weren't.

....

But the public nature of this investigation is not reasonable. It is absolutely silly to argue that it hasn't hurt Hillary's standings in the polls considerably. Look, we're now on Page 57 of the third thread concerning this investigation. An investigation that found zero evidence for criminal prosecution. But an investigation that has nonetheless dominated nearly all news concerning Hillary during her presidential bid. And it only arose after numerous Bengazi investigations that similarly failed to find anything of substance. But investigations that dragged Hillary's name through the mud all the same.

I don't have time to go on about history now. But this isn't an isolated event. Hillary has been repeatedly dragged through the mud for petty ********. This is just common practice. And you can't have decades of these meaningless investigations and at some pint not concede that these are trolling expeditions. They're witch hunts. The Bengazi investigations were absolutely witch hunts. The FBI investigation was born from Bengazi, and then handled exceedingly poorly.

...

Everything above is false. Your understanding of the facts is grossly flawed.

By the way, Hillary's IT "professional" took the Fifth.

Page 57 of the third thread on this. I strongly suggest that you go back and read them.

 

[The Big Dog]

The server was set up specifically for non-classified emails. So it was perfectly legal for its intended purpose.

The fact that only ~100 pages of emails from something like ~50 email chains contained classified emails strongly suggests that Hillary and others made a very honest attempt to follow the law. We're talking about an error rate of something like 1 in a 1,000.

more than 2200 emails contained classified information.

why are you blatantly misrepresenting the facts????

 

[wareyin]

more than 2200 emails contained retroactively classified information.

why are you blatantly misrepresenting the facts????

ftfy...of course that little misrepresentation of yours kind of kills your claim when corrected, doesn't it?

 

[OMGturt1es]

Everything above is false. Your understanding of the facts is grossly flawed.

Thanks for the detailed response.

By the way, Hillary's IT "professional" took the Fifth.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...-33-000-hillary-clinton-e-mails-quicktake-q-a

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html

I read the relevant excerpts from the FBI report back in the day. But I can't be bothered to deal with that right now.

Page 57 of the third thread on this. I strongly suggest that you go back and read them.

I've been reading material from investigative reporters instead. And books. But thanks for the advice.

 

[OMGturt1es]

ftfy...of course that little misrepresentation of yours kind of kills your claim when corrected, doesn't it?

Thanks. You saved me some time. Appreciated.

 

[wareyin]

Thanks. You saved me some time. Appreciated.

You are welcome! I also appreciate your detailed and well thought out posts. It's too bad that your opponent can't or won't provide similarly detailed, well thought out, or even factual posts.

 

[shuize]

The server was set up specifically for non-classified emails. So it was perfectly legal for its intended purpose.

The fact that only ~100 pages of emails from something like ~50 email chains contained classified emails strongly suggests that Hillary and others made a very honest attempt to follow the law. We're talking about an error rate of something like 1 in a 1,000.

And that error rate likely at least partially reflects the margin of error in classifying emails. There's no single cut and dry, objective, obvious way to classify information. And over classification is a big deal that's been long known. I would suspect that these 1 out of every 1,000 or so emails probably often reflect difference of opinion between those who sent emails and those who reviewed emails.

At the end of the day, the small group of senior State Department advisers who emailed Hillary would all be considered experts in classification. As would likely those reviewing emails at the FBI. The fact that so few emails contained information that could be considered classified strongly suggests that these classified emails resulted due to differences in opinion about how they should be classified.

I don't really have time to respond in detail either. But just briefly, even if the initial purpose was innocent,* electing to conduct so much official business over a non-secure server opens the door to the risk of negligently releasing classified material, no?

Call me crazy, but somehow I don't believe many others would have been given the benefit of the doubt when even a small percentage of the information negligently released from an unapproved, "personal use" system contained top secret information. As I mentioned above, when I first heard about this I asked a friend working in the U.S. Foreign Service what would happen if he did what Clinton was accused of doing. His one word answer: "Prison." Since this all came out I've read a number of statements from lower level people in government and military who say they lived in fear of mistakenly sending a sensitive email or leaving classified material on the wrong place. I guess the rules are just different for them.

* It still seems suspicious to me that one of our highest government officials would go to the trouble of setting up an off the books server with reportedly even less security than my computer at work. I mean, I don't know jack about computers, but even I know that is really stupid. If we accept the "innocent mistake" argument, we have to believe that one of our highest government officials just didn't realize that maybe, just maybe, people might be trying to hack her computer system. Even if every single email was "private," doesn't it stand to reason that foreign intelligence services might be interested in knowing a little more about Sec. (possible future president) Clinton's private life? Also, the lack of security over her "private" information doesn't really seem to square with her desire to filter through lawyers and "bleach" it to keep it out of official hands later.

 

[The Big Dog]

Thanks for the detailed response.



http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...-33-000-hillary-clinton-e-mails-quicktake-q-a

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html

I read the relevant excerpts from the FBI report back in the day. But I can't be bothered to deal with that right now.



I've been reading material from investigative reporters instead. And books. But thanks for the advice.

You can't be bothered to look up the facts you are misrepresenting? No kidding.

The New York Times article you did bother to look up shows that her it guy took the fifth. Just like I said. And therefore contradicts your lie that the it professional testified.

Not sure what exactly what you are doing, but whatever. I got lots of time to correct falsehoods.

 

[wareyin]

I don't really have time to respond in detail either. But just briefly, even if the initial purpose was innocent,* electing to conduct so much official business over a non-secure server opens the door to the risk of negligently releasing classified material, no?

Call me crazy, but somehow I don't believe many others would have been given the benefit of the doubt when even a small percentage of the information negligently released from an unapproved, "personal use" system contained top secret information. As I mentioned above, when I first heard about this I asked a friend working in the U.S. Foreign Service what would happen if he did what Clinton was accused of doing. His one word answer: "Prison." Since this all came out I've read a number of statements from lower level people in government and military who say they lived in fear of mistakenly sending a sensitive email or leaving classified material on the wrong place. I guess the rules are just different for them.

* It still seems suspicious to me that one of our highest government officials would go to the trouble of setting up an off the books server with reportedly even less security than my computer at work. I mean, I don't know jack about computers, but even I know that is really stupid. If we accept the "innocent mistake" argument, we have to believe that one of our highest government officials just didn't realize that maybe, just maybe, people might be trying to hack her computer system. Even if every single email was "private," doesn't it stand to reason that foreign intelligence services might be interested in knowing a little more about Sec. Clinton's private life? Also, the lack of security over her "private" information doesn't really seem to square with her desire to "bleach" it to keep it out of official hands later.

I'm not going to call you crazy, but I am going to point out that your friend, and others, who lives in fear of prison for mistakenly sending an email, does not know the law, or the penalties of such as well as Comey. And how did Comey put it? Something about how nobody would be punished for what Clinton did, that singling her out would be celebrity hunting or some-such?

Heck, we had a poster in this thread (or one of the previous versions) whom claimed he would go to prison for touching a copy of one of the Jane's books, so I guess this fear and misunderstanding is not uncommon.

 

[The Big Dog]

ftfy...of course that little misrepresentation of yours kind of kills your claim when corrected, doesn't it?

Lolz, actually your little spin does not make my post a misrepresentation, the top secret posts were classified when drafted and sent, and most importantly?

Hillary and her gang of scumbags did not mark the classified emails classified? Knock me over with a feather!

With friends like this, Hillary does not need enemies!

Fantastic!

 

[Rare Truth]

The server was set up specifically for non-classified emails. So it was perfectly legal for its intended purpose.

The fact that only ~100 pages of emails from something like ~50 email chains contained classified emails strongly suggests that Hillary and others made a very honest attempt to follow the law. We're talking about an error rate of something like 1 in a 1,000.

And that error rate likely at least partially reflects the margin of error in classifying emails. There's no single cut and dry, objective, obvious way to classify information. And over classification is a big deal that's been long known. I would suspect that these 1 out of every 1,000 or so emails probably often reflect difference of opinion between those who sent emails and those who reviewed emails.

At the end of the day, the small group of senior State Department advisers who emailed Hillary would all be considered experts in classification. As would likely those reviewing emails at the FBI. The fact that so few emails contained information that could be considered classified strongly suggests that these classified emails resulted due to differences in opinion about how they should be classified.

I wish we had "Like" buttons here.

 

[wareyin]

Lolz, actually your little spin does not make my post a misrepresentation, the top secret posts were classified when drafted and sent, and most importantly?

You multiplied the real amount by 22, yet you weren't misrepresenting? Right, totes legit, bro!