Ed clintonemails.com: Who is Eric Hoteham?

[The Big Dog]

Indeed. It's only an average of at least 6 FOIA requests per day 7 days a week for 5 years. If that's not harassment...

The State Department of the United States Government is being "harassed" by freedom of information act requests.

Words fail me.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Boo FOIA

Yep, it's a great tool for getting rid of your political opponents - even if you can't dig up anything substantial on them.

Death by a Thousand FOIAs

This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire...

Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed...

Most have centered on Ms. Palin's use of government resources, and to date have turned up little... In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Words fail me.

Finally, some progress! Now, how to make it stick...

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

By her own admission, they only flagged emails that were to sent to or received from a .gov account or contained the full names of one of 100 work-related email correspondents, or contained a handful of keywords related to the Benghazi fiasco. By her own admission, over 30,000 of the roughly 60,000 emails in her account did not fit the search criteria. What are the chances that at least one of those was a work-related email that just happened to escape the rather porous filter she chose? What are the chances that thousands did? Pretty good I bet.

<snip>

That doesn't seem particularly porous to me.

Quite the opposite. It sounds like it could snag a whole lot of stuff that didn't really have anything to do with state business.

 

[The Big Dog]

That doesn't seem particularly porous to me.

Quite the opposite. It sounds like it could snag a whole lot of stuff that didn't really have anything to do with state business.

Those are just the ones that they selected for a person to review. The 31,000 that didn't make that cut were destroyed.

You know what would have been better? If they looked at all of them and then didn't destroy them.

Hillary didn't do that, too inconvenient

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Those are just the ones that they selected for a person to review. The 31,000 that didn't make that cut were destroyed.

You know what would have been better? If they looked at all of them and then didn't destroy them.

Hillary didn't do that, too inconvenient

~60,000 emails.

Say an average of 3 minutes to review each email = 3000 hours

So at 8 hours a day, that's 375 days.

Yeah, that's a tad 'inconvenient'

 

[nvidiot]

I'm relatively ignorant of this whole mess, but it seems to me if there is a reasonable suspicion some kind of crime has occurred the authorities could simply seize the physical server couldn't they?

 

[davefoc]

I'm relatively ignorant of this whole mess, but it seems to me if there is a reasonable suspicion some kind of crime has occurred the authorities could simply seize the physical server couldn't they?

I suspect the Obama administration is not too enthused about going after Clinton on this, so I doubt they're going to be leading the charge. But Clinton is in a bit of bind as to whether she signed the separation agreement or not. If she signed it, it looks like she didn't comply with it and that is beginning to sound like a real crime that the Obama administration might need to do something about. But if she didn't sign it, the situation may only be embarrassing. Why wouldn't she be required to sign a separation agreement like everybody else? Assuming that she didn't sign it, the Obama administration might take some heat for preferential treatment which might lead to a question about who else is getting preferential treatment in his administration and not being forced to play by the rules everybody else is but legally it might be difficult to prosecute Clinton for anything.

My guess, is that Clinton didn't sign the agreement and legally she will get away with this completely. She will have done the selective erasing that she wanted to accomplish before she turned the records over and she will have held on to the records until public scrutiny forced her to do so and the Republicans will whine about it as long as she is presidential candidate but there won't be any criminal consequences.

As to the specifics of grabbing the server: Somebody, some time might do that but I don't see much point, you can bet whatever Clinton wanted erased has been well and truly erased. I presume that she has an adviser that would have seen to that.

Another aspect of this: Most of the discussion of this issue has assumed only two kinds of email, private and work related, but for Clinton (and every other highly placed politician) politics probably makes up a big part of his correspondence, so when she says she erased 30,000 private emails one would imagine that the vast majority of those were of a political nature. Karl Rove claimed that while he was in the White House he was required to turn over those kinds of emails for archiving. In fact, if I understood him correctly, about 90% of his White House emails were of a political nature.

 

[The Big Dog]

~60,000 emails.

Say an average of 3 minutes to review each email = 3000 hours

So at 8 hours a day, that's 375 days.

Yeah, that's a tad 'inconvenient'

Never did a document review did you? Obviously not.

On the other hand, just destroying them is more inconvenient.

Hillary 2016, Doing What is Convenient.

 

[Leftus]

Indeed. It's only an average of at least 6 FOIA requests per day 7 days a week for 5 years. If that's not harassment...

The government receives around half a million FOIA requests a years through it's various departments. Obama reported that his administration last year responded to 678391 FOIA requests . So while it looks like a big number, it's a whopping 1.6% of the normal workload. And it's not like all of those 11 thousand requests were for what Hillary did. Nor did they all come in today.

Since around 2009, according to the State Department, 12000 FOIA request are about the average yearly new requests. http://foia.state.gov/Learn/Reports.aspx They got absolutely hammered in 2010. The state department has been ending each fiscal year with around 9000 pending cases since 2009. If you look at their quarterly incoming request, you will see that since Q1 FY13 they have been pulling in 4000 to 5000 requests a quarter. 11000 FOIA requests is around their annual backlog. It's not harassment. It's SOP.

Before all of this blew up, according to the Center for Effective Government, the absolute worst agency for processing FOIA requests was the State Department.

http://www.foreffectivegov.org/access-to-information-scorecard-2015

http://www.foreffectivegov.org/access-to-information-scorecard-2014

Both years they rated them at 37% and most of that was because they had a well built website that made it really easy to make the requests.

 

[sunmaster14]

That doesn't seem particularly porous to me.

Quite the opposite. It sounds like it could snag a whole lot of stuff that didn't really have anything to do with state business.

The problem with keyword searches is that misspelled words and typos escape the filter. Also synonyms or abbreviations, or even carefully worded emails which refer indirectly to something in order to escape being flagged in a keyword search. And of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that Clinton's team could have refined the search terms to miss important categories of emails. It was completely under their control.

 

[varwoche]

As soon as I get done gathering evidence that water is wet, I look into the crazy assed idea that the news business try to find juicy news on front running presidential candidates.

Fair enough.

Also fair if I add to the end of your sentence "as is their job as journalists".

 

[sunmaster14]

~60,000 emails.

Say an average of 3 minutes to review each email = 3000 hours

So at 8 hours a day, that's 375 days.

Yeah, that's a tad 'inconvenient'

Well, now Hillary is claiming that they did manually review every email. I don't actually believe that her team reviewed every email that was deleted. I do believe that her team reviewed every email that was sent back to the State Department. Very carefully in fact. And that number was about 30,000.

 

[plague311]

Well, now Hillary is claiming that they did manually review every email. I don't actually believe that her team reviewed every email that was deleted. I do believe that her team reviewed every email that was sent back to the State Department. Very carefully in fact. And that number was about 30,000.

Well, it's good that this investigation isn't based upon your beliefs. Isn't the whole point of this to find out what happened in Benghazi? Do you think, honestly, that Hillary used her "private, homebrew, cowboy, fightin' the machine, disrespectful, law-breaking" server to break the law in regards to Benghazi? It doesn't concern you that Republicans have put together 4ish other investigation committees that weren't even competent enough to find out that she was using personal email in the first place?

This has done exactly what Republicans wanted it to, it has painted Hillary in a less than positive light. So it was a success. It hasn't done **** to further the Benghazi investigation, but let's be honest. Every committee after the first hasn't been about furthering the investigation anyway.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Never did a document review did you? Obviously not.

On the other hand, just destroying them is more inconvenient.

Hillary 2016, Doing What is Convenient.

No , I've never had to review 60,000 emails. Enlighten me, what am I missing ?

Well, now Hillary is claiming that they did manually review every email. I don't actually believe that her team reviewed every email that was deleted. I do believe that her team reviewed every email that was sent back to the State Department. Very carefully in fact. And that number was about 30,000.

And you don't believe that they reviewed every email, because ... ?

 

[sunmaster14]

Well, it's good that this investigation isn't based upon your beliefs. Isn't the whole point of this to find out what happened in Benghazi? Do you think, honestly, that Hillary used her "private, homebrew, cowboy, fightin' the machine, disrespectful, law-breaking" server to break the law in regards to Benghazi? It doesn't concern you that Republicans have put together 4ish other investigation committees that weren't even competent enough to find out that she was using personal email in the first place?

All previous investigations have been stonewalled by the administration, with the acquiescence, if not the complicity, of the Democrats in Congress, as well as the mainstream media. If Nixon had this level of support by his party and the press (but I repeat myself in the case of Democrats), the Watergate investigation would have gone nowhere, and it would now be remembered as a pathetic witch hunt.

If you can't admit that the fact that we're just discovering now that Hillary's emails were outside the reach of subpoenas and FOIA requests is evidence that the investigations were obstructed rather than that the investigations were incompetent, then I just don't know how to have a reasonable discussion.

This has done exactly what Republicans wanted it to, it has painted Hillary in a less than positive light. So it was a success. It hasn't done **** to further the Benghazi investigation, but let's be honest. Every committee after the first hasn't been about furthering the investigation anyway.

The goal is to make Clinton and Obama pay a political price for the fact that they played politics with the Benghazi fiasco from day one. I think that's an eminently worthy goal. It will discourage future administrations from playing politics on such serious issues in the future, and, if Congress is successful here, it will also discourage them from obstructing future congressional investigations in so blatant a manner.

 

[sunmaster14]

No , I've never had to review 60,000 emails. Enlighten me, what am I missing ?



And you don't believe that they reviewed every email, because ... ?

Because Hillary's team changed their story over the weekend. The initial fact sheet sent out after Hillary's press conference explained that the emails were reviewed using automated search methods. There was no mention of a manual review.

 

[plague311]

All previous investigations have been stonewalled by the administration, with the acquiescence, if not the complicity, of the Democrats in Congress, as well as the mainstream media. If Nixon had this level of support by his party and the press (but I repeat myself in the case of Democrats), the Watergate investigation would have gone nowhere, and it would now be remembered as a pathetic witch hunt.

Nixon's situation had a whistleblower, is that the case here? So everyone is acting in support of Hillary\Obama, and the Repubs are currently the white knights here? Is that what you're claiming? I mean, the comparison between Watergate and this email scandal is.....it's not even apples to oranges. It's...tangerines to...I don't know, chickens? One was blatant treason on the highest of levels, this is just partisan nonsense.

If you can't admit that the fact that we're just discovering now that Hillary's emails were outside the reach of subpoenas and FOIA requests is evidence that the investigations were obstructed rather than that the investigations were incompetent, then I just don't know how to have a reasonable discussion.

I think it's pathetic that all of these investigations haven't found the email address previously. It's so pathetic that I feel it may be planned. It goes to show that the previous committees were not only useless but poorly planned and poorly run. You can say that it's all a cover up by the media and the President, but I don't buy it.

You're right though, reasonable discussion in all relation to Benghazi and it's subsequent investigations has flown out the window. You don't need to address me though, or discuss things with me. I'm fine with that. We're both doing the same thing, agreeing with those we support. Nothing either of us posts is going to change the others minds.

The goal is to make Clinton and Obama pay a political price for the fact that they played politics with the Benghazi fiasco from day one.

Not that I'm agreeing, but it's rare that you see the "two wrongs make a right" argument style. Where's the tu quoque police? "Well Obama and Clinton played politics, so we should play politics too!" Wait, let me guess, in your (unbiased) opinion the committees aren't playing politics, just doing the due diligence?

I think that's an eminently worthy goal.

No kidding? I'm shocked, just shocked

It will discourage future administrations from playing politics on such serious issues in the future, and, if Congress is successful here, it will also discourage them from obstructing future congressional investigations in so blatant a manner.

You mean like all of the previous instances of events similar to this have happened in previous administrations that have apparently taught this one? Interesting outlook.

 

[The Big Dog]

No , I've never had to review 60,000 emails. Enlighten me, what am I missing ?

1. your three minutes per email is ridiculously high.
2. to do a large scale document review, you hire a law firm with lots of baby lawyers to review every single scrap of paper.
3. can you imagine going in before a federal judge and telling her that you destroyed over half the documents that the other side was seeking? No of course you can't because that would be criminally insane. Yet that is what Hillary just did.

 

[The Big Dog]

Because Hillary's team changed their story over the weekend. The initial fact sheet sent out after Hillary's press conference explained that the emails were reviewed using automated search methods. There was no mention of a manual review.

That abrupt change in the story was so ridiculous, I assume whoever came up with it must have been drunk as a skunk.

If they looked at every email, why did they do a key word search? Mind boggling, but par for the course for the Clintons