Even her protectors are turning on her. I love it!

State Department audit faults Clinton on emails, says she broke records rules
Published May 25, 2016 FoxNews.com
State Dept. audit faults Clinton for email mismanagement
The State Department watchdog, in an extensive and detailed report, accused Hillary Clinton of flouting federal records rules and cybersecurity guidelines with her exclusive use of personal email for government business while secretary of state.

The forthcoming audit, a copy of which was obtained by FoxNews.com, faults Clinton and her predecessors for poorly managing email and other computer information.

The report says the department and its secretaries were "slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications." It cites "longstanding, systemic weaknesses" related to communications that started before Clinton's appointment as secretary of state.

But the report singles out Clinton’s failures as more serious. The audit comes as Clinton, now the Democratic presidential front-runner, tries to wrap up a grueling primary battle and pivot to a general election fight -- the audit could provide her Republican foes with fresh ammunition.

It specifically accuses her of violating department policy by not giving over emails when she left office.

The report says: "Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records ... 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 while there were many examples of staff using personal accounts for official business, they could only find three cases where officials used non-department accounts “on an exclusive basis for day-to-day operations”: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Ambassador to Kenya Jonathan Scott Gration and Clinton.

In the case of Gration, the department initiated disciplinary action against him, though he resigned before that materialized. The IG report said of Gration, “the Department’s response to his actions demonstrates how such usage is normally handled when Department cybersecurity officials become aware of it.”

The report noted that by the time Clinton took the helm of the department, internal guidance was “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”

Yet, the report said, “Secretary Clinton used mobile devices to conduct official business using the personal email account on her private server extensively, as illustrated by the 55,000 pages of material making up the approximately 30,000 emails she provided to the Department in December 2014.” The report said investigators found “no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.”

The report touched on the security risks of this set-up, saying that in January 2011, a “non-Departmental advisor to President Clinton who provided technical support to the Clinton email system” told a department official he had to shut down the server because he thought someone was “trying to hack us.” The adviser later wrote that same day, “We were attacked again so I shut [the server] down for a few min.”

While some officials said they were unaware of the extent of Clinton’s personal email use, the report said they found evidence “that various staff and senior officials throughout the Department had discussions related to the Secretary’s use of non-Departmental systems, suggesting there was some awareness of Secretary Clinton’s practices.”

The review came after revelations Clinton exclusively used a private email account and server while in office. Clinton is now the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

The audit comes as the FBI is thought to be nearing the final phases of its own investigation into Clinton’s email use as secretary of state.

Republicans seized on the report to challenge Clinton’s repeated claims that he was only following precedent.

"Although Clinton has long claimed her practices were like those of other Secretaries of State and allowed, the report states she was in clear violation of the Federal Records Act,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.

Democrats, though, jumped to her defense. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said in a statement: “The Inspector General confirmed what we have known all along – that Secretary Clinton followed the practice of her predecessor when she used a personal email account. … Republicans need to stop wasting taxpayer dollars singling out Secretary Clinton just because she is running for President.”

The OIG made eight recommendations, including “enhanced and more frequent guidance on the permissible use of personal email accounts to conduct official business.”

The report, further, said Clinton “declined OIG’s request for an interview.” The office was able to interview others including Powell and sitting Secretary of State John Kerry.

The report said the department issued “numerous warnings” about security risks across multiple tenures.

In March 2009, after unsuccessful efforts to supply Clinton with a secure government smartphone, a top official sent her a classified memo about her use of the BlackBerry. Clinton told the official she “gets it,” while apparently continuing to use it.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the agency is "already working" to improve its email and records management system.

Toner said "it is clear that the department could have done a better job preserving emails and records of secretaries of state and their senior staff going back several administrations." He said the State Department also agrees that compliance with its rules has been "inconsistent across several administrations."

On another front, Romanian hacker Guccifer – who recently claimed he breached Clinton’s server – pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to separate hacking charges.

Under a deal struck with the federal government, he has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the future. The plea agreement does not mention the FBI investigation of Clinton's email practices or his claims that he accessed her private server in March 2013. Such agreements typically do not stipulate how a defendant will aid the government.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

I can hear her now...... every SOS before me did the same thing! I hope something comes of this but I'm not going to hold my breath!

Yawn...

Carefully worded. "she broke the RULES" of the State Dept and not the LAW (which she did, as Rules are crafted from the law).

"violated policies"..."could have done a better job"..."followed the practice of her predecessor"..."inconsistent across several administrations"

In other words, she skates.

yup, just a smoke screen. she is protected.

^ this ^

Yep, what they left out was the small fact that while her predecessor did use private emails for personal stuff, NONE had a private server that totally circumvented the .gov system, AND there is an email from her to her staff directing them to cut and paste classified stuff to the unclas side because the secure Fax was not working. On THAT alone, she should have been indicted.

Yup.

But...but... those OTHER guys did it too!!! Cripes, it's still kindergarten. Hell. Arrest THEM too

No they didn't.

I see things are as murky as even at Foggy Bottom.

I'm afraid so. There is no appetite from the Left to presecute her. Knew it from the start. The only way to get rid of her is to crush her at the polls. Let's hope that's what happens. If she should lose an Al Gore type election, she'll be back. If she wins, we are doomed.

If Zero decides she can't beat Trump he will pull the rug out from under her.

She will skate.

interesting, but all a smoke screen.

It's all noise until the word "Indictment" comes out.

I hope she stays in the race.

She's probably enjoying it....since Bill never did!!

She CERTAINLY did violate rules. When I was working in the government, we had IT ethics and cyber-security training every year. One of the cardinal rules (not a law, but an administrative rule) is that no government business nor messages were to be transmitted over anything other than a government system and services. She needs to be held accountable.

Probably happens more than we'd like to think, but it's still wrong.

Bullcrap. Its a "red herring" event, staged to be objective.

Exactly.

Even if it is a red herring, what kind of moron would entrust her with any state secrets at all? They would surely be sold to the highest bidder.

Water off a duck's back.

Nice scam because she could sell secrets, and them claim they were stolen, and better yet she is a victim of the right wing conspiracy. She is the oppressed and the victim of breaking the law.

It's a BS press release and "sanction", IMO.

State is trying to help her out by 'punishing' her so DOJ doesn't have to.

She needs and deserves to be indicted, tried, and imprisoned.

To add to that, any transmission, by any means of classified material, be it compartmented or special access, via an unsecure means, unintentionally, forgetfully, intentionally, or maliciously is is a crime. A crime, that in the governments own words pronounces the individual guilty until proven otherwise, not the other way around.

Hillary for PRISON, nor President.

OTOH wanna run trump again her or bern.....?

Yea not so much. More like State Department GOING down on Hillary.

If Trump gets way ahead in the polls the Ds will replace her. I've seen them do it before.

Guy on the radio said only the Dept of inJustice can grant immunity, or cut "deals", not the FIB.

So, IF the guy that set up the server got immunity, and IF the guccifer guy got a "deal", that means the DOJ OK'd the process, which means that the DOJ will prosecute Hitlery.

That was the theory.

Had I broken the rules she broke I would still be in federal prison. Probably in Leavenworth.

I just read an objective, accurate, critical article in the NYT. 80% of the comments are brutal, in the NYT.

State and the Times in the same week. Things that make you go hmmm.

Et tu Barak?

The battle for control of the D party could be epic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/us/politics/state-department-hillary-clinton-emails.html?_r=0

beat that dead horse, that sob!

I'm thinking the FBI will probably end up recommending indictment.

However, that doesn't mean she's indicted, because the FBI can't do that. Obama's attorney general Loretta Lynch has to do the actual indictment, and I don't think she will.

But if she does, I feel sure that Obama will immediately pardon her: outgoing Presidents frequently strew pardons around pretty indiscriminately.

At this point it's pretty inconceivable that Hillary will spend a day in jail, or even see a pair of handcuffs. If the email thing is going to affect her candidacy, the vehicle won't be the government, it'll be media, Old and New alike.

Exactly.. Laws are to be followed only by us peons, NOT to be worth obeying by the elite..

Yep. Prepare for nothing to happen.

A very probable scenario, Barak. Punishment is for little fish. Big fish walk. Sooner or later, this must change. Not that it matters, but I will never accept it.

They are written for us peons by elites.

And the relief pitcher is warming up now...




Joe Biden.

Thanks for the heads up but I've been prepared every since the story first broke....

Yes. With the fake indian as his running mate.

AND THE LAW, as the rules are based on same and it says exactly that on the State Dept Instructions. Further, there is a direct email from her to the staff to cut and paste stuff from the "High Side Fax" and send it to her via her UNCLAS email. Had I done that, I'd be in Leavenworth. Your continued defense of this felon is sickening.

If anyone actually believes that DOS is going to come down on the HildaBeast, I have a bridge for sale.

Having worked for State, I can tell you that the hyper liberal culture within literally worships the ground she walks on.

She could literally execute an innocent child, and the entire diplomatic corps would rally around in support of her actions.

People have no clue the cult-like influence and power she holds.

"Breaking the rules" is what a lot of our members want the POTUS to do. That is liberalism by definition. You either are...or you ain't conservative. They can't twist it away.

Damn. You dashed any vestiges of hope I had for seeing her in an orange jumpsuit.

We doom ourselves by not repeatedly and forcefully petitioning our representatives to bring this traitor to justice.

The millennials and illegals are much more persistant in protesting Trump and pushing socialism and we just stand by and watch.

We get the government we deserve and it will be hell on earth due to complacency and slothful acceptance.

I understand the FBI’s investigation is looking into whether any classified information went through the private server; the investigation has yet to be concluded. But, her problems with this issue are certainly getting worse.

See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tons-email-problems-just-got-much-worse/

Classified information DID go through her server, the emails have been out for sometime now. Especially damming is her direction to cut and paste classified stuff to her email because the secure fax was not working. Christ...

little bit of smoke ... the old ho will skate on this one.

I am not sure how you can explain / spin that one away. Maybe by claiming that other
Secretaries of State did the same thing? Yah ... Right. Sort of like saying, " ... other people gave away, or put at risk, secret or sensitive information ... and nothing happened to them ..."

Obama let her hang herself. The report is almost completely contradictory to everything she has been saying about the matter for the last six months or more.

They've got problems. If they get rid of Hillary now, they get the 75 year old Commie. They don't want that because they know that regardless of the polls, America isn't ready to go that far yet. If they slide in a Biden or a Warren, then the Bernie supporters will burn the whole damned thing to the ground.

The e-mails are just the evidence of what Hillary was doing. She was running her own personal fiefdom completely independent of Congress, the administration, and the intelligence community,...and using private citizens to spy on US intelligence then report back to her via her personal server.

For who?, you might ask,...but probably not.

This is why it wasn't just swept under the rug. Hillary has been spying on the US intelligence community.

https://www.propublica.org/article/private-emails-reveal-ex-clinton-aides-secret-spy-network

Update, March 27, 6:48 p.m.: This story has been updated to include responses from the FBI and the State Department.

Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account.

What was her server intended to hide? The FBI is also looking into influence peddling, pay to play. The Clinton Foundation is based in Canada because they don't require donor identification.

You need Uranium mining rights. Military technology. US aid. Talk to Chelsea.

In the State Dept release, the use of the private server was omitted.

Only DOJ can bring a case.

If they don't Feebies will leak it all.

Either way she's toast and Obama get's what he really wants, the Biden/Warren ticket.

IMHO, harder to beat than Hillary.

Until she's elected and pardon's herself and pedophile husband.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along...

Ain't nothin' never gonna happen.

Makes me sick to my stomach. Went through this [bleep] with Bill for 8 damn long years.

Damn the Clintons. Hell... damn the whole executive, judicial and legislative branches!

Just sayin'....

Bill didn't get caught spying on the NSA.

Hillary's NSA problem:

This is what's been put out there for the public to see. It's a memo about Sudan, so although it was intended to be very secretive, it's something that can be detailed to shed light on the situation which exists between Hillary and Sidney Blumenthal without giving out any truly important pieces of information.

http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/

To anybody familiar with intelligence reporting, this unmistakably signals intelligence, termed SIGINT in the trade. In other words, Mr. Blumenthal, a private citizen who had enjoyed no access to U.S. intelligence for over a decade when he sent that email, somehow got hold of SIGINT about the Sudanese leadership and managed to send it, via open, unclassified email, to his friend Ms. Clinton only one day later.

NSA officials were appalled by the State Department’s release of this email, since it bore all the hallmarks of Agency reporting. Back in early January when I reported this, I was confident that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from highly classified NSA sources, based on my years of reading and writing such reports myself, and one veteran agency official told me it was NSA information with “at least 90 percent confidence.”

Now, over two months later, I can confirm that the contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011, email to Hillary Clinton, sent to her personal, unclassified account, were indeed based on highly sensitive NSA information.

Another account. Basically, Sidney Blumenthal,..a citizen, has been getting hold of highly secretive pieces of classified information and sending it to Hillary via her private server.

So,...yeah,..the government can screw over you and me and get away with it. But this is different. This is someone in the government screwing over the government's intelligence community. It should be interesting to see how it gets handled.

http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/2016/03/22/hillarys-strawman-aided-by-an-inside-man/

Blumenthal was sending to Hillary, above top secret, or SAP documents…documents that he, as a private citizen who had not had any access to secured info in more than a decade, should have never had access to in the first place.

John R. Schindler, a former NSA analyst in counterintelligence, a man with knowledge of the inner workings of the agency, has reported that Blumenthal somehow got his hands on above top secret, SAP documents from the NSA and less than 24 hours later, sent them, in whole or in part, to Hillary Clinton via her unsecured private email account on June 8th, 2011 with regard to top level security meetings amongst the military leaders in Sudan.

According to Schindler…” Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified “Top Secret / Special Intelligence.” Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program, or SAP, several of which from the CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.”

Why are they doing that, coming down on the former secretary. Real simple, a preemptive strike. They know perfectly well that worthless stinking criminal (c)unt will drag them all into the mud to cover her arse.

Sometimes it's better to shoot a cock sucker (or (c)unt licker)before they have a chance to shoot you. They know perfectly well what that (c)unt is capable of. I'm supersized people around all that chit aren't dying. Let it go to prosecution, witness's or members of their families will mysteriously die suddenly.

How are they going to get Biden/Warren on the ticket over against Bernie?

Hillary is done in the eyes of the handlers.

Oh Gawd...let it happen.

I hope she gets cooked like a pig on a spit! Of course any pig is better than her.

I'm glad to hear Trump bringing up stuff like Vince Foster, but I'm afraid that I might be the only one that cares....

Damn the Clintons!

Your outrage is commendable, but this is not an outrageous situation; it's quite a mundane, run-of-the-mill, everyday one. All governments operate this way. They have to.

We are taught from toddlerhood that multiple moral standards are justified, and it becomes so thoroughly ingrained in us that it takes a significant effort over a long period of time even to recognize the indoctrination, much less get rid of it.

For example:

If you do it, it's extortion; if the government does it, it's taxation.
If you do it, it's counterfeiting; if the government does it, it's quantitative easing.
If you do it, it's manslaughter or negligent homicide; if the government does it, it's collateral damage.
If you do it, it's first-degree aggravated murder; if the government does it, it's execution.
If you do it, it's sexual assault; if the government does it, it's airport security.
If you do it, it's kidnapping; if the government does it, it's imprisonment.
If you do it, it's indentured servitude; if the government does it, it's jury duty.
If you do it, it's bribery; if the government does it, it's subsidy.
If you do it, it's home invasion and possibly murder; if the government does it, it's Department Policy.

And the list goes on and on. We're taught to believe that the rules that apply to us not only don't apply to those who wish to rule us, but shouldn't apply to those who wish to rule us. Most of us continue to believe it our whole lives.

To tell the honest truth, the reason most people here are interested in Hillary's emails is not because of some outraged sense of moral justice, but because they're Republicans and Hillary is a Democrat and they're looking for a way to keep her from winning the election. If there weren't an election on, this whole scandal would be a non-issue, because we all understand that of course it's okay for government people to do things it's not okay for us mundanes to do. Why, the alternative would be...anarchy!

Hasn't been indicted yet..and won't be
The BitchOfBenghazi walks instead of hanging out to dry

That's part of it. The fact that she's a cold blooded radical feminist is a bigger part of it for me, however.

She carries all the faults of any politician, *plus* she's predisposed to hate the male of the species on top of it.

You best hope she walks and is the nominee.

If not, it's Biden or Bloomberg, who will appeal to many "safety first" types will probably beat Trump.

Even should she win IF she does not get back the Congress, she'll be impeached and convicted.

We all hate her, but we have to take the long view.

Feel the Bern !

Another Larry Root persona slithering in.

"slithering in."

Funny comin' from a snake troll who would have nothing to say w/o the " " button.

IF you disagree with that post, why don't you try something new for you ?

Come up with a cogent, detailed argument to refute the premise.

Probably impossible for you as it requires and understanding of voting patterns, demographics, history, social trends and probability theory .... none of which are taught under a rock where snake trolls live.

<yawn>

Hi, Larry. Bye, Larry.