The sharp rebuke from the State Department’s inspector general, which found Ms Clinton did not seek legal approval for her homebrew email server, guarantees that the issue will remain alive and well for the likely Democratic presidential nominee for a second summer.
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The May 18 deposition of Lukens came in a Judicial Watch lawsuit seeking records about employment outside the State Department by Huma Abedin while she served as deputy chief of staff. Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides, now serves as vice chairman of her presidential campaign.
“Contrary to the false theories advanced for some time now, the report notes that her use of personal email was known to officials within the Department during her tenure, and that there is no evidence of any successful breach of the Secretary’s server”, Fallon said in the statement.
Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server and private email account differentiate her from other secretaries of state that used non-State Department email accounts.
The Obama administration’s own State Department inspector general has exposed a variety of lies told by Hillary Clinton in defense of her email use. She retreated to the secure communications facility in the basement of Pacific Command headquarters to make calls to various military officials and humanitarian groups to help organize a response to the catastrophe.
The report concluded that the email server set up at Clinton’s NY home had violated federal rules for how government business is conducted.
The IG report indicated she refused a request for an interview. President George W. Bush’s secretary of State, Colin Powell, never bothered to print his out, despite urging from State Department minions, thus breaking the rules too.
The report said Clinton should have discussed the arrangement with the department’s security and technology officials.
‘At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act, ‘ the report said. But Mr. Powell’s use of private email was limited, and he never set up an unsecure server in his home. For a host of reasons – including the cloud of bogus right-wing allegations that has hovered over her since her days in Arkansas, as well as her own inclination to be less than forthright about many questions – millions of voters think Hillary is a liar. But her lawyer, David Kendall, told the committee that Clinton aides had changed the server’s settings so that only emails she sent and received in the previous 60 days would be saved.
Clinton added that she had been “incredibly open” about her emails, which were routed through a server located in the basement of her NY home during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomate from 2009 to 2013. It’s no longer about the nuances of State Department policies; the shifting security classifications assigned to emails; and the technical vulnerabilities of email servers.
According to the IG’s report, Clinton did not cooperate with them, as noted by Politico. Across town, the FBI is investigating whether criminal activity was involved in the setup of clintonemail.com, and whether authentically highly classified material went hurtling through its insecure digital pathways.
“It was allowed, and the rules have been clarified since I left about the practice”, Clinton said Thursday in comments to reporters about her e-mails.
Will the email scandal destroy Hillary Clinton’s chances for the presidency?
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Team Clinton, scrambling to defend Her Highness, is employing the same old tactics used by Team Bill Clinton for many years: Counsel disbelief of your lying eyes; downplay; deny; and then viciously attack your opponents.
