A Comprehensive Guide To Myths And Facts About Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, And Those Emails
mediamatters.org
( snip a whole lot of stuff @ link )....
FACT: Emails In Question Originated From State Dept. System, And Questions About Retroactive Classification Would Have Occurred Regardless Of Clinton's Server Use
Emails Originated With State Department Employees And Were Forwarded To Clinton. The State Department's statement on the retroactive "top secret" designation made clear that the emails at issue originated with State Department employees, not Clinton herself:
The following is attributable to Spokesperson John Kirby:
"The State Department takes seriously its obligations to protect sensitive information, holding its employees to a high standard of compliance with regulations and procedures.
"The Intelligence Community has recommended that portions of two of the four emails identified by the Intelligence Community's Inspector General should be upgraded to the Top Secret level. Department employees circulated these emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011 and ultimately some were forwarded to Secretary Clinton. They were not marked as classified.
"These emails have not been released to the public. While we work with the Director of National Intelligence to resolve whether, in fact, this material is actually classified, we are taking steps to ensure the information is protected and stored appropriately." [Twitter.com, 8/11/15]
Clinton Campaign: Emails Originated From "Unclassified .Gov Email System."
A fact sheet released by the presidential campaign for the former secretary of state explains that the emails at issue originated on "the unclassified .gov email system":
Would this issue not have arisen if she used a state.gov email address?
Even if Clinton's emails had been on a government email address and government device, these questions would be raised prior to public release.
While State Department's review of her 55,000 emails brought the issue to the Inspectors Generals' attentions, the four emails were on the unclassified .gov email system. They were not on the separate, closed system used by State Department for handling classified communications. [ hillaryclinton.com, "Updated: The Facts About Hillary Clinton's Emails," accessed 8/12/15]
Vox: Whether Or Not Emails Should Have Been Marked Classified Is Part Of "Bureaucratic Turf War."
Vox pointed out how the intra-agency disagreement over whether the emails were appropriately categorized "is a bureaucratic fight about how the State Department has handled the emails, not about Hillary Clinton" (emphasis added):
The State Department has been ordered by a federal judge to make public the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton turned over to the agency. So the State Department has Freedom of Information Act experts sifting through the documents to make sure that no information will be released that is either classified or sensitive (meaning not technically classified but also not covering material that the government doesn't want in the public domain).
This has caused a bureaucratic turf war between the department and the intelligence community, which believes at least one email that's already been released contains classified information and that hundreds of others in the full set may also have material that's not ready for public consumption. For a couple of months, the inspectors general of the State Department and the combined intelligence community agencies have been battling Patrick Kennedy, the lead State Department official, over who has access to the documents and the authority to release or withhold them.
Now, according to the Times and other publications, the IG team is asking the Justice Department to get involved in reviewing whether State has mishandled the emails. If Clinton was sending information that was, or should have been, classified -- and knew that it was, or should have been, classified -- that's a problem. But no one has accused her of that so far. Given the anodyne nature of what she sent in the emails we've already seen, it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that any sensitive information was sent to Clinton, not by her (though it's not clear whether forwarding such emails would constitute a legal issue for her). [Vox, 7/28/15]
MYTH: Hillary Clinton's Email Use Is Comparable To David Petraeus' Crimes
Fox's Doocy: Clinton's Email Use Is "The Same Thing That David Petraeus Pleaded Guilty To."
On the August 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy hyped the debunked claim that Clinton's email use was similar to Gen. David Petraeus' illegal mishandling of confidential information:
DOOCY: Big question is will this Department of Justice go ahead and fully prosecute? Because, keep in mind, she had unauthorized, for a home server, top secret documents, which was a direct violation of the U.S. laws. It's the same that David Petraeus pleaded guilty to. He had the same stuff at his house. She had at it at her house. He got, you know, they ran him up the flag(one word)pole, will they do the same for her? [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/12/15]
FACT: Unlike With Petraeus, There's No Evidence Clinton Knowingly Emailed Classified Information
Director Of Project On Government Secrecy: "There's No Comparison Between The Clinton Email Issue And The Petraeus Case." Steven Aftergood told The Washington Times that "[e]veryone agrees that there was no information in the Clinton emails that was marked as classified," and therefore Clinton's actions bear no resemblance to Petraeus':
While officials combing tens of thousands of emails that moved through Mrs. Clinton's server have pointed to the presence of "hundreds" of pieces of classified information -- apparently none of the messages had any official classification markings on them.
It's a situation that has triggered heated debate over the extent to which such information wasn't necessarily classified at the time Mrs. Clinton was emailing it.
"To the best of my understanding, there is no comparison between the Clinton email issue and the Petraeus case," says Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "Everyone agrees that there was no information in the Clinton emails that was marked as classified. So it would be difficult or impossible to show that those who sent or received the emails knowingly or negligently mishandled classified information." [The Washington Times, 8/2/15]
MYTH: Clinton Exposed Classified Information About Libyan Intelligence Source
Gowdy Said Clinton Sent Email Containing "Some Of The Most Protected Information In Our Intelligence Community" Concerning A "Human Source" In Libya. On October 7, Gowdy sent a letter to Cummings that said Hillary Clinton "apparently received classified information" at her personal email address from confidant Sidney Blumenthal while she was secretary of state. Gowdy said Clinton forwarded the email in question to a State Department employee, thus "debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private email address." Gowdy claimed that Clinton's action "could jeopardize not only national security but also human lives." [House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, 10/7/15]
Joe Scarborough Repeated Disproven Claim On Morning Joe: It's "Ridiculous" That Hillary Clinton Sending Information On Intelligence Asset "Is Not Marked Classified." On the October 19 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough parroted the debunked claim that Hillary Clinton had disseminated "classified information" regarding "the source of a human intelligence agent on the ground in a war zone in Libya." Scarborough made no mention of Cummings' evidence debunking this claim:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: But also, she says something that is just, it is just so misleading and it's so wrong, that I know you, of course, as much as anybody would know -- when she talks about, and I can't believe they're still saying this. After the intelligence community has knocked this down. She says, "Well nothing was marked classified at the time." That is the most ridiculous, inane justification --
BOB WOODWARD: It really is --
SCARBOROUGH: -- it really is! Because what happened when the FBI found out what went through her server, and the CIA found out, the State Department, they immediately said, "Oh my god, we have to mark this classified, and they backdated it to the moment she typed some of these statements down. Because no, if she's creating -- if she's generating a document at that moment that has classified information in it and she sends it, of course it's not going to be stamped "classified"! If Sidney Blumenthal reveals the source, I think it was him -- if somebody reveals the source of a human intelligence agent on the ground in a war zone in Libya, and it's not marked classified? That doesn't somehow make it right that its passes [sic] through her server and then it gets passed onto someone else, it's ridiculous! [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 10/19/15]
FACT: CIA Says Clinton Did Not Expose Classified Information With That Email
Cummings' Response To Gowdy's Accusation: "You Failed To Check Your Facts Before You Made It, And The CIA Has Now Informed The Select Committee That You Were Wrong." In an October 18 reply to Gowdy, Cummings wrote that Gowdy's claim that Clinton sent classified information from her private email address was wrong and that the CIA had informed the committee that the information in Blumenthal's email was not classified:
On October 7, 2015, you sent me a 13-page letter making a grave new accusation against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Specifically, you accused her of compromising national security and endangering lives.
The problem with your accusation--as with so many others during this investigation--is that you failed to check your facts before
you made it, and the CIA has now informed the Select Committee that you were wrong. I believe your accusations were irresponsible, and I believe you owe the Secretary an immediate apology.
[...]
To further inflate your claim, you placed your own redactions over the name of the individual with the words, "redacted due to sources and methods." To be clear, these redactions were not made, and these words were not added, by any agency of the federal government responsible for enforcing classification guidelines.
Predictably, commentators began repeating your accusations in even more extreme terms, suggesting in headlines for example that "Clinton Burns CIA Libya Contact."
Contrary to your claims, the CIA yesterday informed both the Republican and Democratic staffs of the Select Committee that they do not consider the information you highlighted in your letter to be classified. Specifically, the CIA confirmed that "the State Department consulted with the CIA on this production, the CIA reviewed these documents, and the CIA made no redactions to protect classified information."
Unfortunately, you sent your letter on October 7 without checking first with the CIA. Now that we have done so, we have learned that your accusations were incorrect. [Select Committee on Benghazi, 10/18/15] |
