Was Hillary Clinton "extremely careless?"

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2016

Post bungles the basics again: When she was secretary of state, was Hillary Clinton "extremely careless" in her email practices?

More specifically, did she send or receive 110 emails which contained classified information, as James B. Comey said in a July 5 statement, then again in congressional testimony on July 7? Should she and her associates have known that the material in question, by its very nature, was classified information?

(Additional question: Did Clinton send or receive three additional emails which were marked "classified?" In our view, this additonal question seems to have been settled in a way which is unflattering to Comey. The question about the 110 emails is the stronger remaining question.)

Silly us! We're still curious about the answers to these questions! But as we've often noted, serious discussion no longer exists within our journalistic culture. Beyond that, information and facts play little role in our national discourse.

Last Friday, the Washington Post helped demonstrate these points. (So did NBC Nightly News and the PBS NewsHour.) Here's how the bungling went down at the Post:

At midday Friday, Clinton spoke to a national association of journalists. She answered several questions about what Comey has said.
At 2:57 that afternoon, the Washington Post published its first news report concerning Clinton's new statements. And uh-oh! In just her fourth paragraph, the Post's Abby Phillip composed a statement which was, at best, grossly misleading.

Here's the way Phillip's report began. No link is available. Original headline included:

PHILLIP (8/5/16): Clinton acknowledges misspeaking about FBI director’s testimony

Hillary Clinton on Friday acknowledged that she had misspoken in two recent media interviews when she claimed that FBI Director James Comey had characterized as "truthful" all of her public statements about her controversial use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Clinton explained that Comey was referring only to her interviews with the FBI—but she also insisted that all of her other public statements on the matter have been consistent with those interviews.

“I may have short-circuited and I will try to clarify,” Clinton told reporters at a convention of black and Hispanic journalists in Washington Friday.

Clinton also made a reference to Comey's testimony on the existence of about 100 emails that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received—but she continued to suggest, contrary to Comey's description, that they were not marked classified at the time and were retroactively classified.

Phillip noted that Clinton had acknowledged recent mistakes. But in just her fourth paragraph, she seemed to make a glaring error about the emails in question.

Phillip referred to "Comey's testimony on the existence of about 100 emails that [allegedly] contained classified information at the time they were sent or received." According to Phillip, Clinton had "continued to suggest, contrary to Comey's description, that they were not marked classified at the time and were retroactively classified" (our emphasis).

Lodged in that statement by Phillip was a major bungle.

Good lord! In fact, Comey never said or suggested that the 110 emails in question were "marked classified at the time." In fact, he has specifically said that these 110 emails didn't contain any such "markings."

Comey has only alleged that an additional three of Clinton's 30,000 emails contained any "markings." This basic fact was completely obscured by Phillip's presentation.

Everybody makes mistakes—but Phillips' original presentation was grossly misleading. It's hard to believe that the Post could have published such an obvious bungle, but publish the bungle they did.

At some point, someone apparently noticed! At 5:02 that same afternoon, the Post replaced Phillip's original report with a new, revised version. This new version of Phillips' report also appeared in Saturday's hard-copy Post.

In this revised version of the report, the Post eliminated the most misleading part of Phillip's original presentation. But the highlighted passage shown below is still grossly misleading. This is the text which appeared in Saturday's hard-copy Post:

PHILLIP (8/6/16): In an effort to clarify her most recent statements about her use of a private email server as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton on Friday only further muddled a controversy that has dogged her presidential candidacy from the start.

Clinton acknowledged that she had misspoken in two recent media interviews when she claimed that FBI Director James B. Comey had characterized as "truthful" all of her public statements about her use of a private email server.

She explained that Comey was referring only to her interviews with the FBI—but she also insisted that all of her other public statements on the matter have been consistent with those interviews.

“I may have short-circuited, and I will try to clarify,” Clinton told reporters Friday at a convention of black and Hispanic journalists in Washington.

Clinton also made a reference to Comey's testimony on the existence of about 100 emails containing classified information at the time they were sent or received—but she continued to suggest they were not marked classified at the time and were retroactively classified.

Even as the Post eliminated Phillip's most misleading presentation, her lede became snarkier and more critical of Clinton. And uh-oh:
Even in this amended version of Phillip's report, the highlighted passage is at best grossly misleading.

According to Phillip, Clinton "continued to suggest" in her Friday remarks that "[about 100 emails containing classified information] were not marked classified at the time and were retroactively classified" Rather plainly, this implies that some sort of dispute exists about that "suggestion."

But no such dispute has ever existed, and no such dispute exists now. More specifically, Comey has only said that three of Clinton's emails were "marked" as being classified. Even Phillip's revised report conveys a quite different impression—an impression which is much more damaging to Clinton.

Everybody makes mistakes, but not all mistakes are born equal. A full month after Comey's public statements, it's amazing to think that the Washington Post still can't produce clear reports about what the god has said.

The irony here is obvious. Last Friday, Clinton was acknowledging that she had misrepresented something Comey said in early July. Even as Phillip snarked at Clinton, she herself produced a grossly misleading account of what Comey said.

We return to our original question:

When she was secretary of state, was Hillary Clinton "extremely careless" concerning 110 emails? Incomparably, inquiring minds at this site would still like to know.

(In our view, the question seems to be settled about three "marked" emails—settled in a way which reflects poorly on Comey rather than on Clinton.)

We'd like to know if Hillary Clinton really was "extremely careless" with those 110 emails! That said, the Washington Post still seems unable to produce a clear account of the basic things Comey has said. Could a newspaper which seems so unclear on the basic facts help resolve that question?

Last Friday, Phillip penned two grossly misleading accounts. Her editor or editors didn't notice, and the second misleading account went into the hard-copy Post.

Meanwhile, does anyone here know how to play this game? Tomorrow, we'll show you the pair of questions to which Clinton was responding last Friday.

The questions came from Kristin Welker. How clear is she on the basic facts about what Comey has said?

Who is Abby Phillip: She's Harvard class of 2010. We'd assume she's a very nice person.

We can't describe her unnamed editor or editors, assuming such people exist.