Pirate's Cove

And no apology for you!

(AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she does not need to apologize for using a private email account and server while at the State Department because “what I did was allowed.”

In an interview with The Associated Press during a Labor Day campaign swing through Iowa, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination also said the lingering questions about her email practices while serving as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state have not damaged her campaign. (snip)

As she has often said in recent weeks, Clinton told AP it would have been a “better choice” for her to use separate email accounts for her personal and public business. “I’ve also tried to not only take responsibility, because it was my decision, but to be as transparent as possible,” Clinton said.

Sadly, AP writer Catherine Lucey failed to do more than really regurgitate her talking points, rather than doing any research and finding things like this, which took me all of 1 minute

The department’s security policy basically forbade employees from having a mobile device on which they could use its built-in mail application to connect to a State Department account and other accounts at the same time, according to department spokeswoman Jen Psaki at a press conference on Thursday. The policy allowed users to check State Department email accounts only on a department-issued device, she said. And it barred users from connecting the mail programs on those devices to personal or other accounts, Psaki said.

State Dept policy at the time forbid anyone to receive their work email account on anything but a department issued device, because they had proper security. Hillary used her own device and created a homebrew, insecure server rather than use the appropriate device and email platform. Sure seems like Hillary did something wrong.

The one-on-one interview with AP was the second for Clinton in the past four days. On Friday, she did not apologize for using a private email system when asked directly by NBC, “Are you sorry?” Asked Monday by the AP why she won’t directly apologize, Clinton said: “What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that.

The State Department long ago stated it was not allowed. And, perhaps the interviewer could have asked Hillary what specific policies made Hillary think she could do this? You can bet a Republican would have been asked those follow up questions.

“I did not send or receive any information marked classified,” Clinton said. “I take the responsibilities of handling classified materials very seriously and did so.”

The article fails to mention that, in fact, classified information was on her server. A second review shows that, yes, there was classified information within her email. It’s absurd to think that nothing classified nor sensitive would not be emailed to the US Secretary of State. Hillary is attempting an “it depends on the definition of “is”” moment with the “marked classified” talking point. In fact, as the AP forgets to include, it doesn’t matter. 18 USC 793 specifically notes that it doesn’t matter. The Espionage Act specifically says it doesn’t matter.

“There is always a debate among different agencies about what something should be retroactively (marked classified),” Clinton told the AP on Monday. “But at the time, there were none. So I’m going to keep answering the questions and providing the facts so that people can understand better what happened.”

Well, for one thing, the documents were never meant to be transmitted in any electronic form, they were meant to be kept in secure reading rooms. Her aides could end up being guilty of the same thing as David Patreaus, unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents, which was a misdemeanor. Or even felonies. Hillary was in possession of that information, and, per her initial read-in when she took over State, should have known. And, per, US Code, it doesn’t matter: she was in possession.

“It is not a criminal investigation, it is a security review,” Clinton said. “People are asked to provide any copies of any of these materials that are the subject of the debate. So, I immediately said, ‘turn over everything.'”

The FBI wouldn’t be the ones doing a security review: that would be State. And, apparently, Hillary never received the exit briefing, nor signed the proper exit documents. Hillary, and the AP, can spin it all they want: it’s a criminal investigation.

Crossed at Right Wing News.