July 6, 2016
by Jill Stein
Yesterday FBI Director
James Comey described Hillary Clinton’s email communications as Secretary of
State as “extremely careless.” His statement undermined the defenses Clinton
put forward, stating the FBI found 110 emails on Clinton’s server that were
classified at the time they were sent or received; eight contained information
classified at the highest level, “top secret,” at the time they were sent. That
stands in direct contradiction to Clinton’s repeated insistence she never sent
or received any classified emails.
All the elements necessary to
prove a felony violation were found by the FBI investigation, specifically of
Title 18 Section 793(f) of the federal penal code, a law ensuring proper
protection of highly classified information. Director Comey said that Clinton
was “extremely careless” and “reckless” in handling such information. Contrary
to the implications of the FBI statement, the law does not require showing that
Clinton intended to harm the United States, but that she acted with gross
negligence.
The recent State Department
Inspector General (IG) report was clear that Clinton blithely disregarded
safeguards to protect the most highly classified national security information
and that she included on her unprotected email server the names of covert CIA
officers. The disclosure of such information is a felony under the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act.
While the FBI is giving
Clinton a pass for not “intending” to betray state secrets, her staff has said
Secretary Clinton stated she used her private email system because she did not
want her personal emails to become accessible under FOI laws. This is damning
on two counts – that she intended to disregard the protection of security
information, and that she had personal business to conceal.
This is not the end of the
Clinton email issues. Department of Justice officials filed a motion in federal
court on June 29th requesting a 27-month delay in producing correspondence
between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and
officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a public relations
firm that Bill Clinton helped launch.
Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000
emails claiming they were ‘personal’. This is equal to the volume of her emails
designated as department business. If half of an employee’s email volume is for
their personal business, they are not using their time for their job.
If Secretary Clinton was
conducting personal business for her family Foundation through the Secretary of
State’s Office, this is a matter the American public deserves to know about. As
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton routinely granted lucrative special
contracts, weapons deals and government partnerships to Clinton Foundation
donors. The Secretary of State’s office should not be a place to conduct
private back room business deals.
The blurring of the lines
between Clinton family private business and national security matters in the
Secretary of State Office underscores evidence on many other fronts that
Hillary Clinton is serving the 1%, not we the people.
Hillary Clinton’s failure to
protect critical security information is not the only thing in her tenure as
Secretary that deserves the term reckless, including her decision to pursue
catastrophic regime change in Libya, and to support the overthrow of
democratically elected governments in Ukraine and Honduras.
No comments:
Post a Comment