A View From the Clinton Scandal Nonsense Mill

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-view-from-the-clinton-scandal-nonsense-mill
ByJOSH MARSHALLPublishedAUGUST 21, 2015, 1:17 PM EDT


There's no question that the Clinton email 'scandal' has become a major issue for Hillary Clinton's campaign. Not that it should necessarily but it has. It's the focus of negative press stories that appear clearly to have at least helped pull down her favorability numbers nationwide. And yet at least the 'classification' aspect of it all turns on an administrative tug of war which occurred long after the emails were sent: should some information that was not considered classified at the time now be re-designated as classified? And if that happens, should Hillary be in trouble for discussing classified information on her personal email server by some sort of time warp logic because some government officials now think these documents should be classified differently.

If you've been paying attention to this pseudo-scandal you're probably aware of all this. But now Reuters comes into the mix with an "exclusive" which dresses up the same basic issue in new clothes.

------- clip from the Reuters article posted here on DU here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141184063


In other words, this is a news article. So we're not saying this is a big deal. But others may decide this is a big deal. So we wanted to let you know that.

The logic goes something like this. The State Department that then-Secretary Clinton didn't violate any rules because whatever administrative discussion there may be today about whether various documents should have been classified they were not classified at the time. But we've now found that these then-unclassified documents really, really clearly should have been classified and Clinton definitely should have known they were presumptively classified.

This is silly. It's the same set of facts dressed up to be a new development and even an 'exclusive'.

More at the link