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Sunday, September 29, 2019

Briefly Noted: Whither The Hillary Email Investigation?

You didn't know there was such an investigation? Yes, well, the wheels of the State Departments internal security process and the ICIG grind slowly but exceedingly fine. It seems the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security has finally finished reviewing three million emails that were found on Hillary's "basement server." They've determined which ones should have been classified and, therefore, not sent to non-secure addresses. Per Zerodedge, Clinton Emailers Rattled After State Department Fires Off 'Culpability Letters' For Homebrew Server Messages:

The State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security has finally finished sifting through millions of emails from Hillary Clinton's controversial 'basement server' - many of which were classified, and/or blind-copied to a Gmail address bearing the name of a Chinese company according to intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) Frank Rucker.

While State Department investigators began contacting former officials around 18 months ago, the probe actually began under President Obama. In recent weeks, the State Department has contacted approximately 130 officials whose emails which went through Clinton's special server have been retroactively classified and may now pose potential security violations, according to the Washington Post.
...
The flood of letters which began in August read "You have been identified as possibly bearing some culpability" regarding "security incidents," according to the report.

I imagine that's a nasty surprise for those 130 "folks." Indeed, Zerohedge reports that the hearts of "former Obama administration officials" bleed for them:

"It is such an obscene abuse of power and time involving so many people for so many years," said one former US official of the inquiry, adding "This has just sucked up people’s lives for years and years."

Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort were, apparently, unavailable for comment.

Zerohedge quotes a WaPo report that claims to have reviewed at least some of the materials in question--which seems somewhat remarkable.

"[T]he incidents appear to center on the sending of information attributed to foreign officials, including summaries of phone conversations with foreign diplomats — a routine occurrence among State Department employees." 
... 
And while The Post may have no indication that any of the emails contained sensitive information about classified US initiatives or programs, they don't disclose how many of the underlying emails they reviewed, or who they came from.  
According to the report, many of those contacted in the probe have been found "not culpable" - with many letters reading that investigators "determined that the [security] incident is valid," but that the person did not "bear any individual culpability." 

5 comments:

  1. From what I've been reading about the ICIG's opinion about the whistleblower having credibility, it seems he is part of the "deep state".
    Is there any confidence that the ICIG has been handling this email investigation properly?

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    1. Again, the word "properly" is a lot like the word "is."

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  2. I am going to call bullsh*t on the claim that WaPo examined these materials. If they were classified, the WaPo likely didn't see them, and if they saw them, then they weren't the stuff that was retroactively classified. I smell a lie in the core of this story.

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    1. I'm agnostic on this one. I suppose it's possible that some of these people knew they were under scrutiny and showed the stuff to the WaPo before it was classified. OTOH, I'm always open to the notion of media dishonesty.

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    2. Then again, if David Ignatius could be shown transcripts of conversations between the Russian ambassador and the US National Security Director most anything of the leak sort is possible.

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