2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumFBI Director Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Were Not Properly Marked Classified
Hillary Clintons political and media critics jumped all over a key portion of FBI Director James Comeys lengthy statement on the investigation into email practices at the State Department in which Comey said that a very small number of emails sent or received by Secretary Clinton bore markings indicating the presence of classified information as evidence that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied when she said she hadnt sent or received material that was marked classified.
At a Congressional hearing Thursday morning, however, Comey admitted that the three emails to which he was referring were not, in fact, properly marked as classified, and that even a person with reasonable expertise in identifying classified material could make the reasonable inference that these emails were not classified:
-snip- (video)
FBI Director James Comey: no There were three e-mails. The c was in the body, in the text but there was no header on the e-mail or the text.
Rep. Matt Cartwright: So if Secretary Clinton really were an expert at whats classified and whats not classified, and were following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that?
FBI Director James Comey: That would be a reasonable inference.
-snip-
http://www.mediaite.com/online/fbi-director-admits-hillary-clinton-emails-were-not-properly-marked-classified/
MADem
(135,425 posts)I sometimes wonder if Comey isn't playing the "Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly" game with the GOP legislators.....or it could be that the shoe is being crammed on the other foot:
At a Congressional hearing Thursday morning, however, Comey admitted that the three emails to which he was referring were not, in fact, properly marked as classified, and that even a person with reasonable expertise in identifying classified material could make the reasonable inference that these emails were not classified:
So, I guess, Comey was "EXTREMELY CARELESS" when he made that comment that they were marked?
LOL!
DLCWIdem
(1,580 posts)IDK I think Comey's responses actually came off defending Clinton and it looked like he was making fools out of the GOP? He was actually defending himself and his decision. He probably shouldn't have publically reprimanded her if he wasn't going to indict, but because of that his actions couldn't possibly be seen as bias.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Then, he made those snarky reprimanding comments, and it turns out he was "careless" as well! See, JC? It can happen! If she wasn't to know that the excerpts were classified, how, then, could she have been careless?
It's a total win-win for HRC. The Republicans in Congress look like asses, and she looks like a winner!
DLCWIdem
(1,580 posts)Especially his snark. The GOP would fake outrage and try to ask a question that would say she should be indicted and he would say No theres never been a prosecution for this. I particularly liked when they asked if he would fire an underling and he said he might not fire the underling.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)This is the sticking point where the rat bastards would love to "catch" her on a "perjury" charge for lying to Congress under oath.
If at some moment she forgot to add the qualifier "knowingly", when saying that she'd neither sent nor received classified material, they'll try to pounce on it.
politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)about those 3 documents:
1. The first (I believe it may have been Elizah Cummings who said it I'm not sure) was that those documents according to the State Dept which had a (C) was not intended to be a security Classification symbol but was Hillary's State Dept. assistant's way of letting others in the email chain know that that particular paragraph would need to be updated later by the SoS regarding its contents which may or may not be of a classified nature. It was not intended as its final format.
2. Later in the hearing Cummings stated that the State Dept had said that upon further review, that those 3 items were not Classified.
Either way, there did not appear to be an agreement that this matter was settled. Regardless, Cummings was able to secure Comey's consensus that there were only 3 actual Classified items being contested out of 30,000 documents reviewed. As another Congressman pointed out, that amounts to less than 1/300th of one percent. Time to move on.