Now it’s up to voters to decide if Clinton’s email use matters

Listen to Military Veteran Talk Radio
iHeart.SmythRadio.com
Facebook.com/SmythRadio

www.mcclatchydc.com

The mixed FBI judgment on Hillary Clinton’s email practices – that she’d shown extreme carelessness in her handling of classified information but not enough to merit criminal charges – left Democratic Party loyalists in a familiar place: relieved, exasperated and yet hopeful, with fingers crossed, that once again the Clintons had won.

It was another chapter in what’s now a 25-year-old saga that has seen Hillary and Bill Clinton survive controversies that usually end political careers. Think Bill Clinton’s denials of an extramarital affair early in his 1992 campaign for the presidency or his 1998 impeachment after the separate Monica Lewinsky dalliance exposed him to obstruction-of-justice claims.

Yet he wound up completing his term in 2001 with a 66 percent Gallup approval rating and his wife had been elected to the Senate.

The trust issue will stick around for a while. David Paleologos, Suffolk University Political Research Center

The email mess that came to the public’s attention a year ago had been a weight around Hillary Clinton that she couldn’t shake, not with attempts at humor or lengthy explanations. Now it’s left to voters to settle whether the finding by FBI Director James Comey that no criminal charges are merited will put an end to the controversy.

In focus groups in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Florida throughout this year, McClatchy found that the emails kept coming up among undecided voters. While most people were not familiar with the emails’ contents, they thought this much: They were stark evidence that Clinton was arrogant and untrustworthy.

The question now: Does Comey’s exoneration counter that view, even though the FBI found that Clinton and her aides “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”?

 

EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM

Democratic insiders were nearly universal in their praise for the FBI’s recommendation of no charges.

“Most voters will see this as Secretary Clinton doing 67 mph in a 65 mile zone and the officials say, ‘No ticket,’ ” said Bob Mulholland, a Chico, California-based Democratic consultant and convention superdelegate for Clinton.

Reaction from rival Bernie Sanders and his backers was largely muted. National Nurses United, one of the Vermont senator’s most vocal supporters, had no comment. Sanders himself had no statement, and he was tweeting about trade and environmental change in the immediate hours after the FBI announcement.

Sanders has been wary of sharply criticizing Clinton over the email controversy, calling it a “very serious issue.” His focus is on affecting the party platform, which party officials will be writing later this week.

 

EDITORS: END OPTIONAL TRIM

To most Democrats, the announcement ends the threat of having a presidential candidate in legal jeopardy.

“No more dealing with the cloud of an FBI investigation into her server hanging over her or the drip drip of bad news,” said Doug Thornell, managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a political consulting firm that specializes in Democratic campaigns.

After today, Clinton will be in a stronger position. Doug Thornell, Democratic consultant

Comey, though, left skeptics with plenty of fodder: Notably, that 110 emails sent or received on Clinton’s private server contained classified material. He said seven of those were classified at one of the highest possible levels, Top Secret/Special Access Program.

“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position . . . should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Comey said.

That sort of finding is likely to hurt the former secretary of state. “It plays right into the perception that Clinton is not trustworthy,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a former media consultant who’s now an associate professor of advertising at Boston University.

That’s especially true with a segment of voters that David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, calls the “haters” – the roughly 1 in 5 people who dislike both Clinton and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Forty-four percent of them were undecided in a recent Paleologos poll.

Clinton leads Trump by 41.1 percent to 36.4 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics average of national polls

Paleologos thinks that many of those “haters” were Republicans who were having trouble warming to Trump. As Republicans maintain a drumbeat of criticism of Clinton, pounding away at the idea that she can’t be trusted, Trump might benefit, he said.

“People who dislike Trump aren’t as deeply rooted” in their opinion as those who dislike Clinton, Paleologos said.

EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM

Republicans were eagerly playing to that audience Tuesday. GOP Chairman Reince Priebus said the findings “confirm what we’ve long known: Hillary Clinton has spent the last 16 months looking into cameras deliberately lying to the American people.” And Republican calls for a special counsel went unheeded.

EDITORS: END OPTIONAL TRIM

The email controversy, though, might have another unpredictable result in this year of surprises: boosting support for third-party candidates. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, is averaging 7.4 percent support in national polls, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is at 3.9 percent.

The more the Republicans pounce, and the more the Clinton emails are discussed, “what you’re going to get is more disgruntled voters,” said Berkovitz of Boston University.

That’s why, he figured, “This could be a boost for everybody.”

COMMENTS

How the State Department Caved to Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer on Classified Emails

www.thedailybeast.com

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP01.15.16 5:01 AM ETClinton’s private lawyer got his way when he pushed back after being asked to delete all copies of a classified email—a level of deference an expert calls ‘far from the norm.’

The State Department put up virtually no resistance when Hillary Clinton’s private lawyer requested to keep copies of her emails—even though those emails contained classified information, and even though it was unclear whether the attorney was cleared to see such secrets.

Experts on the handling of classified information tell The Daily Beast that the seemingly chummy arrangement between Clinton’s lawyer and her former State Department aides was “quite unusual.”

Newly released documents, obtained by The Daily Beast in coordination with the James Madison Project under the Freedom of Information Act, include legal correspondence and internal State Department communications about Clinton’s emails. Those documents provide new details about how officials tried to accommodate the former secretary of state and presidential candidate.

In May 2015, a senior State Department official informed Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, that government reviewers had found at least one classified email among the messages she sent using a private account, which she used exclusively while in office. That email was only part of the “first tranche” of the review, a State Department employee noted at the time, leaving open the possibility that more classified information would be found, which it was.

Patrick F. Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, who had worked under Clinton, asked Kendall to delete all electronic copies of the message in his possession. (Copies were sent to the State Department.)

But Kendall resisted, saying he needed a full record of his own of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton had sent, in order to respond to information requests from a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya, and from the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies.

“I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete” the email from the “master copies” that Kendall’s firm was maintaining, he wrote.

There is no indication that Kennedy, who oversees physical and information security for the State Department, protested the private lawyer’s position or tried further to persuade Kendall to delete the classified email. The message had been forwarded to Clinton by one of her senior aides, Jacob Sullivan, in November 2012 and contained references to the attack in Benghazi two months earlier.

Rather, within a few days, State Department employees were told to develop a system that would let Kendall keep the emails in a State Department-provided safe at his law firm in Washington, D.C., where he and a partner had access to them.

“The arrangement with Kendall was far from the norm,” Steven Aftergood, an expert on classification and security policy at the Federation of American Scientists, told The Daily Beast. “There are a number of attorneys around who handle clients and cases involving classified information. They are almost never allowed to retain classified material in their office, whether they have a safe or not. Sometimes they are not even allowed to review the classified information, even if they are cleared for it, because an agency will say they don’t have a ‘need to know.’ In any event, the deference shown to Mr. Kendall by the State Department was quite unusual.”

As early as May 2015, Kendall had been made aware that at least one email in Clinton’s archives included classified information. But that didn’t become public knowledge for some time, and when the Clinton campaign became aware of it is unclear.

As late as July 1, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Karen Finney was pushing back against the notion, telling MSNBC that “the assumption that there was classified information being communicated on this BlackBerry I think has been shown in these emails to just be simply untrue.”

Get The Beast In Your Inbox!Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the smartest, sharpest takes from The Daily Beast Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of news and must-reads from The Daily Beast and across the WebBy clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use andPrivacy PolicySubscribeThank You!You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason

Kendall did not respond to requests for comment. Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman, noted that Kendall had an obligation to retain the former secretary’s emails in order to respond to various government inquiries. “David Kendall was adhering to a preservation request from the FBI, State Department inspector general, and the House Select Committee on Benghazi,” Fallon told The Daily Beast.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby defended the government’s actions. “The State Department takes the protection of sensitive information seriously,” Kirby told The Daily Beast, noting that Kendal had told the department that her emails were still subject to preservation requests. “Accordingly, the department provided Secretary Clinton’s lawyers with instructions on physically securing the documents while additional options were under discussion.”

But a spokesperson for the committee investigating the Benghazi attacks was unpersuaded that the arrangement was appropriate.

“Perhaps if Secretary Clinton had turned her server over to an independent, neutral third-party, such as the State Department Inspector General or the Archivist of the Unites States as the Benghazi Committee suggested when it first uncovered her unusual email arrangement, perhaps the damage to our national security would be less than it is now,” Jamal Ware, a spokesperson for the committee, told The Daily Beast.

The FBI, not the Benghazi committee, is examining the classification issues related to Clinton’s personal email account.

The arrangement with Kendall has been previously reported. But the documents reveal new details about what was happening inside the State Department as officials moved ahead with the unorthodox setup.

At one point, a State Department lawyer questioned whether Kendall or one of his associates, Katherine Turner, was qualified to receive and maintain classified information.

“Do any of the lawyers have TS [top secret] clearances,” Sarah Prosser, a legal adviser at State, asked colleagues in an email in August 2015, after more classified material had been found in Clinton’s emails.

It’s not clear from the emails, portions of which are heavily redacted, what the answer was, but Kendall later said he and Turner did have a top secret-level clearance, given to him previously by the State Department as part of his work representing Clinton before the Benghazi committee. There’s no indication of what legal review State undertook to verify that or determine whether the arrangement was acceptable.

Top secret clearances don’t necessarily entitle someone to all classified information. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) later questioned whether there may have been information in the emails for which Kendall and Turner didn’t have the appropriate clearances, including so-called compartmented information that is derived from some of the most highly classified intelligence-collecting systems in the U.S. government.

The internal State Department correspondence also shows that security officials intended to install a safe and records-keeping system that was suitable only up to the secret level, a lower designation than top secret.

Kendall has long argued, particularly in correspondence with lawmakers, that the emails in his possession were not originally classified and were only deemed so after they were reviewed by government auditors.

One internal email shows that the State Department shared that assessment. “In the first tranche of emails there was one that was subsequently classified,” an executive assistant at State told Gregory Starr, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security, in an email recounting the exchanges between Kennedy and Kendall.

Starr was asked to appoint someone from State’s diplomatic security bureau to go to Kendall’s law firm, Williams & Connolly, “to do a thorough security review to include physical security of area/safe in which document/electronic versions are being kept, who has access to the area/safe, do those individuals have appropriate clearances…”

It’s not clear from the documents what reviews took place.

The question of whether Kendall should be allowed to keep classified email received new scrutiny in July 2015, after investigators found additional Clinton emails that they thought contained classified information.

At the time, Grassley said that at least two emails contained “top secret, sensitive compartmented information.” Investigators found that Clinton’s emails contained information from at least five intelligence agencies.

Kendall gave the thumb drive to the Justice Department on Aug. 6 and gave copies to the FBI.

The internal State Department emails show employees reacting to news that the FBI had taken possession of the thumb drive as well as a server in Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York, and that some of the emails were said to contain classified information. On Aug. 11, a State press officer sent around clips of news articles, noting that “this is breaking widely” and providing a brief summary. The nearly 20 recipients included press staff, a senior attorney, and Kennedy.

Prosser, the State Department attorney who’d asked whether Kendall and Turner had proper security clearances, forwarded the email to other attorneys and department security personnel, including some of those she’d been corresponding with about the clearance question.

While State Department officials initially may have felt that non-government lawyers were qualified to maintain classified emails at their office, they changed their tune as investigators began to discover more top secret information among Clinton’s communications.

In late July, as the FBI was preparing to take possession of the thumb drive, Kennedy wrote to lawyers for three of Clinton’s top aides—Sullivan, Philippe Reines, and Huma Abedin—asking them to turn over “all copies of potential federal records” in their clients’ possession.

Kennedy acknowled

Hillary Could Face Indictment within 60 days

As Written By Sarah Westwood for The Washington Examiner:

A former U.S. attorney thinks Hillary Clinton could face a criminal indictment from the FBI within the next 60 days.

Joe DiGenova, a Republican U.S. attorney appointed by President Reagan, said Clinton’s “biggest problem right now” is the open FBI investigation into the contents of her private emails.

“They have reached a critical mass in their investigation of the secretary and all of her senior staff,” DiGenova said Tuesday on the “Laura Ingraham Show” radio program. “And, it’s going to come to a head, I would suggest, in the next 60 days.”

FBI Director James Comey has refused to answer questions about when his agents will wrap up a months-long probe into whether Clinton and her staff mishandled classified information on an unsecured network.

KEEP READING THE REST OF THIS STORY HERE

Bill Cosby charged with 2004 sex assault, free on $1M bail

www.nydailynews.com

Bill Cosby was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a Temple University employee at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

Montgomery County Prosecutor Kevin Steele announced the aggravated indecent assault case against the creepy comedian at a spellbinding press conference that dealt the most devastating blow yet to Cosby's once-wholesome image as America's Dad.

“The evidence is strong,” Steele said. "We made this determination because it was the right thing to do."

The new case marks the first criminal prosecution of the fallen funnyman and sets the stage for what could be a blockbuster trial involving other accusers with similar stories.

Police Handout

Bill Cosby booking photo after being charged with sexually assaulting a Temple University employee at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004.

Cosby, 78, faces up to a decade behind bars if convicted. He walked into the courtroom for his arraignment using a cane and wore a gray hoodie sweater.

He replied yes several times to Magistrate Judge Elizabeth McHugh in Montgomery County as she set his bail at $1 million and ordered him to hand over his passport.

He did not enter a plea and is due back in court Jan. 14.

“Make no mistake, we intend to mount a vigorous defense against this unjustified charge and we expect that Mr. Cosby will be exonerated,” Cosby’s attorneys said in a statement.

Authorities said in an affidavit that Cosby made two separate and unwanted sexual advances on victim Andrea Constand in the months leading up to the January 2004 assault.

Constand, who worked with Temple’s women’s basketball team, stepped forward a decade ago and said Cosby doped and groped her, but prosecutors at the time declined to file charges citing a lack of evidence.

KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images

Bill Cosby arrives in court to be arraigned in Elkins Park, Pa. on Wednesday.

The affidavit made public Wednesday said Constand returned to his home on the day of the assault thinking they were going to discuss her career. Instead, Cosby offered her three blue pills to “take the edge off” and urged her to drink wine, according to the paperwork.

"These will make you feel good. The blue things will take the edge off,” Cosby said, according to documents.

Constand asked if the pills were herbal.

“Yes,” Cosby allegedly replied, according to the affidavit. “Down them. Put ‘em down. Put them in your mouth.”

“Just taste the wine,” he urged her afterwards, according to documents.

She later claimed to have experienced blurred vision and difficulty speaking and was unable to consent when Cosby had sex with her, the affidavit states.

View GalleryWomen who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault

Constand passed out and eventually woke up around 4 a.m. the next day with her bra undone, according to the affidavit.

Cosby, dressed in a robe, gave her a muffin, walked to the front door, opened it and said, “Alright,” the paperwork states.

Ron Bull/AP

Andrea Constand in 1987. 

Constand told investigators she left the residence without saying anything.

After the alleged assault, Constand fled to Canada to be near family and eventually told her mom what happened. The mom confronted Cosby over the telephone.

Cosby admitted the encounter during their conversation, said he gave Constand some type of "prescription" medication and invited the women on an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida, the affidavit states.

Cosby later gave an interview to Cheltenham Township police in January 2005 and claimed the sexual encounter was consensual, according to the affidavit.

He admitting giving Constand one and a half over-the-counter Benadryl pills and claimed she willingly engaged in petting and kissing and "never pushed him away," the affidavit states.

“When directly asked if he ever had sexual intercourse with the victim, Cosby gave (police) the unusual answer, ‘never asleep or awake,’” the affidavit claims.

KING:

Constand sued Cosby in 2005 and settled out of court in 2006.

Victoria Will/Victoria Will/Invision/AP

Over 50 women have accused Bill Cosby of drugging and assaulting them.

MARK BLINCH/REUTERS

Constand, who has accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting her, walks in a park in Toronto, Canada, on Wednesday, the same day a Pennsylvania prosecutor announced sexual assault charges against the comedian stemming from their alleged 2004 encounter at his Philadelphia mansion. 

Bill Cosby is accused of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand (r.) in 2004. He was arraigned in a Montgomery County, Pa. court Wednesday and released on $1 million bail.

In deposition testimony related to the civil lawsuit, Cosby said under oath that he gave Constand three halved pills that he described as "three friends to make (her) relax," according to the affidavit.

He also acknowledged under oath that he obtained seven prescriptions in his own name for Quaaludes.

CNN

Montgomery County Prosecutor Kevin Steele announced the charges against Cosby. 

"When you go the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" Constand's lawyer asked Cosby on Sept. 29, 2005, according to the deposition excerpted in the affidavit.

"Yes," Cosby replied.

Constand has said she will cooperate with prosecutors in the new case, Steele said.

"He urged her to take pills he provided and drink wine," Steele said during the press conference. "Unable to move or respond to his advances, he committed aggravated indecent assault.

View GalleryCelebrity mug shots

"Frozen, paralyzed, unable to move. A person in that state is unable to consent," Steele added.

Her attorneysreleased a statementthanking Montgomery County authorities for "the consideration and courtesy they have shown Andrea during this difficult time."

Cosby has said the sex was consensual.

Authorities had until next month to file charges against Cosby under the state's 12-year statute of limitations for felony sexual assault.

A judge unsealed depositions in Constand's suit filed in Philadelphia federal court earlier this year, prompting prosecutors to reopen her case.

"We examined evidence from the civil case and information from other alleged victims," Steele said.

“Reopening this case was not a question. Rather, reopening this was our duty.”

He said Cosby's prior testimony about obtaining and distributing Quaaludes, which Cosby called "disco biscuits" during his deposition in the Constand case, played a significant role in the charging decision.

Over 50 women have accused Cosby of assaulting them. They have shared similar stories in which Cosby targeted them after gaining their trust and using his trusted public persona to his advantage.

Cosby has denied the accusations and said the women are out to get money.

His career irreparably damaged, Cosby has fought back in the last month by filing defamation suits against some of his accusers.

sbrown@nydailynews.com

Tags:bill cosby ,sex crimes ,pennsylvania

COMMENTS