Deferring to Comey the God: Did Secretary Clinton and her associates email secret stuff? Were they "extremely careless" with their email practices?
So said Comey the God when he testified, infallibly, before that House committee. He descended to earth for that purpose on Thursday, July 7. As we showed you yesterday, Lauren Carroll thumb-nailed his assessments in her PolitiFact post:
CARROLL (8/1/16): Take the video Wallace played on Fox News Sunday. In it, Clinton said, "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials" (March 10, 2015); "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (July 25, 2015); "I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified" (Aug. 18, 2015).That is what Comey said. But uh-oh! Last weekend, on Fox News Sunday, Clinton almost seemed to suggest that the god's assessment was bunk:
But Comey reported that, of the tens of thousands of emails investigators reviewed, 113 individual emails contained classified information, and three of them bore markings signifying their classification status. (Information can still be classified even if it does not have a label.) Eight email threads contained top-secret information, the highest level of classification, 36 contained secret information, and the remaining eight contained confidential information.”
WALLACE (7/31/16): Well, let me just say—[Comey] not only directly contradicted what you said, he also said in that hearing that you were "extremely careless" and "negligent."At that point, Wallace moved on.
CLINTON: Well, Chris, I looked at the whole transcript of everything that was said, and what I believe is, number one, I made a mistake not using two different e-mail addresses. I have said that and I repeat it again today. It is certainly not anything that I ever would do again.
I take classification seriously. I relied on and had every reason to rely on the judgments of the professionals with whom I worked. And so, in retrospect, maybe some people are saying, "Well, among those 300 people, they made the wrong call."
At the time, there was no reason in my view to doubt the professionalism and the determination by the people who work every single day on behalf of our country.
Let's note what Clinton didn't say in that particular statement. She didn't directly reject the claim that she was "extremely careless."
That said:
Earlier in their brief exchange, she had told Wallace this: "I was communicating with over 300 people in my e-mailing. They certainly did not believe, and had no reason to believe, that what they were sending was classified."
That's an intriguing statement.
According to Clinton, she was exchanging emails with 300 stone-cold professionals. Intriguingly, she said they "had no reason to believe that what they were sending was classified."
We shudder when we say it. But that would seem to constitute a challenge to Comey the God.
In god-like fashion, Comey declared that 110 of the 30,000 emails in question contained classified information. But when he testified to the House committee, no one asked him to explain the source for that assessment.
Why says that 110 emails contained classified material? On what authority was Comey the God making that god-like assessment?
No one asked, and the god didn't tell. Last Sunday, Clinton said there was no reason for State Department professionals to think any such thing in real time.
Who the heck is right about this? We're in no position to say.
That said, we can tell you this. When Jesse Singal fact-checked Clinton's appearance for New York Magazine, he blew right past all these conundrums.
He simply assumed that Comey the God's infallible assessments were right. Beyond that, he ran straight to the exciting term "lie:"
SINGAL (8/2/16): By any reasonable standard, she did lie to the American people—she repeatedly sent classified emails in a nonsecure way, and repeatedly said that she didn’t.Do you see the way Singal reasoned? According to Singal, because it was said by Comey the God, "there's no dispute about what she did wrong!"
As Carroll writes, according to Comey, “of the tens of thousands of emails investigators reviewed, 113 individual emails contained classified information, and three of them bore markings signifying their classification status. (Information can still be classified even if it does not have a label.) Eight email threads contained top-secret information, the highest level of classification, 36 contained secret information, and the remaining eight contained confidential information.” So there’s no dispute about what she did wrong, and there’s no dispute that she claimed, repeatedly, not to have done anything wrong. Either she intentionally wasn’t telling the truth in public statements on this issue, or she didn’t understand the categories in question well enough to realize that what she was saying wasn’t true. Either way, it is not a good position for a former secretary of State to be in.
(Thus assuming that Clinton had made a misstatement, he further declared that her assumed misstatement had to be a lie.)
Because it was said by Comey the God, "there's no dispute about what she did!" This is the way the "press corps" has reasoned about a succession of morally upright Republican scolds, dating back through Louis Freeh (Bill Clinton's FBI head) and the almighty Judge Starr.
The moral greatness of these men is always assumed, never challenged. Singal extended the pattern with that remarkable passage.
Like Carroll, Singal didn't even mention Comey's rather obvious game-playing regarding those three "marked" emails. He's plainly sympathetic to Clinton, but by the rules of his infernal guild, he simply assumed that she had to be wrong in what she clumsily said.
It's been the law of the guild for some time. By rule, the morally upright Republican scold simply can't be wrong.
As with Freeh and Starr and others, Singal assumes that Comey the God was right in his assessments. He simply asserts that Clinton is currently "spinning." It never enters his head to wonder if Clinton could be essentially truthful, with Comey serving the papal bull in this particular instance.
Were the emailers "extremely careless?" Were they emailing "classified information" of any actual significance or substance?
We aren't able to settle such points. Fred Kaplan's report at Slate could have started a real discussion.But as we've frequently told you, serious discussion no longer exists within our national culture.
Last night, Rachel was talking about David Duke, and about the baby who cried at Candidate Trump's event. That's the way Our Own Rhodes Scholars perform within our hollowed-out culture.
No, we aren't making this up: Concerning Duke, Maddow actually said it was "inspiring" when "Poppy Bush" and Lee Atwater opposed his 1989 run for the Louisiana House of Delegates.
Lee Atwater was shown opposing Duke. Rachel called it "inspiring."
The orange-shoed cable star actually said it. We really aren't making this up.
For what purpose would Clinton knowingly send classified material? What would be gained by this?
ReplyDeleteI believe her.
Does it really matter?
DeleteAs even Comey testified, most of these emails that he says contained classified material, were sent to her at the end of a chain of emails between career State Department professionals, using their own state.gov email accounts.
But state.gov is not meant to be used for any classified material.
So, what people seem to be overlooking is that Comey has stated publicly that the State Department career professionals are routinely sending classified information over their unsecured state.gov email system.
How serious is this remarkable discovery?
One clue you might consider is that the FBI hasn't cordoned off the State Department and seized their email servers, nor have they launched a ridiculous year investigation into the gross "careless" practices of career State Department and Foreign Service professionals.
I wonder why. Could it be that none of these people are named Clinton?
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DeleteClinton took such a hit from this when the press conference was held and everyone did their hilarious mash up videos.
ReplyDeleteYet they never reported a mash up from the hearing or asked still unanswered questions?
The terrible violence and conventions blew past all of this, and it's now only partially dragged up through an interview whether they still cut Clinton off.
Is it for better or for worse that Trump keeps pushing this out of the spotlight to ever follow up, because the same problems the media has covering comey results in the same problem here!
This post by Bob is one of the reasons why I drop by every now and then. He gets to a nugget in written journalistic pieces and wonders, in this case, and as he has before, “Why is Comey’s testimony taken as irreproachable truth?”
ReplyDeleteIt’s a question that goes completely by the wayside, and not many people notice that – in hindsight – it’s a really good question.
Maybe there’s a good explanation for the media’s complete acquiescence to the “truth” of Comey’s unprecedented testimony that Bob hasn’t found. But I doubt it.
I’m not defending Clinton, nor was Bob. But he does point out an interesting wrinkle in the whole narrative. Could have been funnier though. =)
Comey worked for Kenn starr. Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteSez Somerby:
ReplyDelete"In god-like fashion, Comey declared that 110 of the 30,000 emails in question contained classified information."
And how would Bob suggest Mr. Comey present his findings in an "ungod-like fashion?
Normally, in the United States of America, the FBI doesn't fucking "present his findings" on people they've investigated and decided there is no crime to indict. Normally, in the United States of America, due process compels Comey to just shut the fuck up. You're welcome.
DeleteAh, some humor! It's funny cuz it's true. And delivery is everything. Nicely said. =)
DeleteHe does it in god-like fashion because he interspersed his opinion into it. He should have stated the sterile facts and nothing more. "Extreme carelessness" because she forwarded emails that were improperly tagged by the originator? The fault was earlier in the chain, not hers. She's not blameless but she didn't lie.
Delete... with little surprise I find that nowhere is it noticed that Clinton, as Sec of State, was an Original Classification Authority.
ReplyDeleteExecutive Order 13526- Original Classification Authority
DeletePursuant to the provisions of section 1.3 of the Executive Order issued today, entitled "Classified National Security Information" (Executive Order), I hereby designate the following officials to classify information originally as "Top Secret" or "Secret":
...
Departments and Agencies:
The Secretary of State
...
Any delegation of this authority shall be in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, except that the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency may not delegate the authority granted in this order. If an agency head without original classification authority under this order, or otherwise delegated in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, has an exceptional need to classify information originated by their agency, the matter shall be referred to the agency head with appropriate subject matter interest and classification authority in accordance with section 1.3(e) of the Executive Order. If the agency with appropriate subject
matter interest and classification authority cannot readily be determined, the matter shall be referred to the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office.
Presidential designations ordered prior to the issuance of the Executive Order are revoked as of the date of this order. However, delegations of authority to classify information originally that were made in accordance with the provisions of section 1.4 of Executive Order 12958 of April 17, 1995, as amended, by officials designated under this order shall continue in effect, provided that the authority of such officials is delegable under this order.
This order shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 29, 2009.
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