Editor’s Note: Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely served 32 years in the Army, having retired as Deputy Commanding General, US Army, Pacific.
The Clinton Revelations That Must Not Disappear as the News Cycle Changes
By Paul Vallely, MG U.S. Army (ret)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to bury the news on the Friday before Labor Day weekend; a major measuring stick for the Trump campaign will be how much they can get the revelations into the post-holiday-weekend news cycle.
Among the revelations . . .
1. The FBI investigation began because of a referral from the U.S. Intelligence Community Inspector General. This is not the vast right-wing conspiracy or one of Hillary Clinton’s partisan foes; the IG’s office is staffed by those whose professional duty is to protect our nation’s secrets. Looking at the evidence, they grew concerned that a crime may have or is likely to have been committed. The inspector general, I. Charles McCullough, III, is career law enforcement: FBI, Department of the Treasury, NSA.
2. The FBI cannot prove conclusively that hostile foreign actors accessed her server; but they did find that “hostile foreign actors successfully gained access to the personal e-mail accounts of individuals with whom Clinton was in regular contact and, in doing so, obtained e-mails sent to or received by Clinton on that personal account.”
3. As we all know, Clinton claimed she used the private server for “convenience” because she only wanted to use one device. The FBI found 13 total mobile devices used to send e-mails; they asked for them and Clinton’s lawyers said they could not locate any of those devices. The FBI identified five iPads used by Clinton; three were turned over to the FBI. Hillary’s Blackberry phones were off-the-shelf from AT&T stores around the Washington, D.C. area. Apparently Clinton didn’t like upgrades; “According to Abedin, it was not uncommon for Clinton to use a new Blackberry for a few days and then immediately switch it out for an older version with which she was more familiar.”
No one knows where the old phones are; in two instances, her phones were destroyed with a hammer. This means there are eleven or so mobile phones with God knows how much classified information on them effectively missing.
4. Clinton was obligated to get permission to use her personal device; at no time did she do so. Everything she has said about her use of the personal device being permitted is completely false.
5. “State employees alleged that John Bentel, [a senior State Department official, handling IT for senior officials] discouraged employees from raising concerns about Clinton’s use of personal e-mail.” When interviewed by the FBI, Bentel denied anyone raising any concerns, that he had discouraged anyone from raising those concerns, or that he was aware she was using a personal account for State business. This seems implausible. As Clinton herself said to the FBI, it was common knowledge among State Department employees.
6. This should be thrown in the face of any Clinton defender who cites Colin Powell as an exculpatory witness:
7. “In 2011, a notice to all State employees was sent on Clinton’s behalf, which recommended employees avoid conducting State business on personal e-mail accounts due to information security concerns.” Clinton said she didn’t recall sending that notice or ever getting any advice on using personal accounts.
Clinton told the FBI she could not recall or not remember 39 times.
Here’s the really galling part, considering the screams of outrage that greet any comment about Clinton’s age or health in this election cycle:
CLINTON stated she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from State during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in early 2013. However, in December of 2012, CLINTON suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot. Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received. CLINTON did not have any discussions with aides about turning over her email records, nor did anyone from State request them. She believed her work-related emails were captured by her practice of sending email to the state.gov email address of her staff. CLINTON was unaware of the requirement to turn over printed records at that time. Her physical records were boxed up and handled by aides.
Ace of Spades noticed, “Hillary’s Brain Damage came right at the sweet spot: It came to provide her an alibi, then left just in time to permit her to be president.”
Jeryl Bier reminds everyone that Hillary really cannot offer this excuse because she signed official documents affirming she had been properly briefed:
The second paragraph of the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement—which she signed on January 22, 2009—states that “I hereby acknowledge that I have received a security indoctrination concerning the nature and protection of classified information.” And the form also notes that classified information is not always so marked, but is still regulated by the agreement.
Obviously, you should be reading everything Andy McCarthy writes on issues of national security and the Clintons, and he points out that her excuses were nonsensical:
For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” — meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents — Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the “alphabetical order” story make sense — assuming, for argument’s sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqzoN90NH8E
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