Politico has done a fantastic job of sifting through the silt of the FBI’s notes on its recently concluded investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server issue and they have found twelve nuggets of gold.
Here they are:
1. The ‘oh shit’ moment
One of Clinton’s staffers realized that he dropped the ball on making a requested update needed to comply with the office’s updated email retention policy. Once he realized his mistake, needless to say he had an “oh shit” moment!
2. Trusting judgment of others
The FBI report states that Clinton said:
“She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address.”
Let’s chalk that up as a lesson learned!
3. Breaking and smashing
Sometimes the only way to ensure that no one gets data off your old phone, is to smash it to bits.
4. Powell’s warning
Former Secretary Powell’s advice to Hillary Clinton was something along the lines of “communicate via invisible ink and decoder rings.”
5. Server switch
Clinton, like most us, wasn’t terribly interested in the differences between an Apple server and whatever type of server that Bryan Pagliano built. Imagine that.
6. The meaning of (C)
Clinton told the FBI that as near as she could tell, areas of emails marked with (C) were just a way of placing them in alphabetical order. But she treated all emails with same level of seriousness.
7. Drone classification
While the U.S. treats CIA-conducted drone operations as classified, Secretary Clinton told the FBI that she was not concerned about email exchanges regarding future strikes.
8. The suspicious porn email
Apparently Hillary Clinton was concerned when she got an email from someone she knew, that contained a link to porn site. She was worried that it was a phishing scam or worse, a backdoor for another nefarious information stealing program. Good for her for not opening that one and backdoor? Ewww!
9. Email security
According to the notes, the State Department’s email system pretty much sucked. Given that assessment, Clinton told the FBI that she:
“Understood the email system used by her husband’s personal staff had an excellent track record with respect to security and had never been breached.”
That’s the old tried and true, “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
10. Concussion
The timing of Clinton’s concussion rendered her work hours and quite possibly her memory of any detailed instructions regarding saving emails, a bit shorter than usual.
11. Blumenthal’s work
Mrs. Clinton viewed Sidney Blumenthal as more of a journalist than someone who might have access to classified information.
12. The work-related email that wasn’t; a ‘difficult time’ at State
Clinton recalled that the time frame near the end of 2010 that coincided with the WikiLeaks disclosures “was a difficult time at State.”
Here’s a video on how Hillary is not a force you can reckon with.
Featured image is a YouTube screengrab.
