
Report: FBI moves to interview Clinton over emails - aburan28
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/274840-report-clinton-could-be-interviewed-by-fbi-within-days
======
more_corn
I can't believe there's even discussion about this. The facts are clear.
Hillary Clinton didn't like the onerous security rules she had to follow so
she ignored them. details: [http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-
problem/](http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/) If any of
you have security clearance consider for a moment what would happen if you did
the same. Your access would be suspended and you'd be called to account for
every piece of information you mishandled. At the end you'd be prosecuted for
any beech of secrecy that was discovered and your clearance would almost
certainly be revoked.

If we treat her differently because of her name and her connections we call
into question the very rule of law in this country. Maybe Anarchists would
rejoice in such an outcome as proof of the utter corruption and uselessness of
our justice system, but people who care about law and justice certainly
shouldn't applaud it.

In her defense I agree that the security policies were silly and didn't
actually increase security enough to warrant the disruption. I can totally
understand that someone wouldn't want to comply.

On the other hand she was the goddamned Secretary of State, the person who
should be most concerned about protecting information security in the State
Department. Rather than thinking like a leader and working to set a policy
that is both secure and usable she simply ignored the rules she didn't like.

Aside from questions of prosecution this behavior causes me to seriously
question her ability to lead. If you had to classify her behavior in this case
would you put in the category of things a leader does or things a petulant
child does?

~~~
cylinder
Question the rule of law -- has an upper or even upper middle white male ever
received the death penalty in this country? It would be a good thing if poor
black males weren't being executed left and right every year.

------
chvid
I don't really understand this story.

If I read the LA Times article ([http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-
email-probe-2016...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-email-
probe-20160327-story.html)) which the main article links to; running a
personal email server and using it for official business was not illegal at
the time for mrs. Clinton.

Yet there is "roughly a dozen" FBI agents on the case.

Why would that be if it is slamduck that nothing illegal was going on?

~~~
chattin35
It's hard to understand if you haven't handled classified information before.
If the average DoD employee or military member did what she did (allegedly),
they'd already be in prison. The only reason it's taking so long is because
it's a high profile person. And, well... politics.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The "classified" information wasn't regarded as such at the time. It is only
_now_ regarded as secret information through reclassification, likely stemming
from political influence to ante up the charges against Clinton. That entails
a responsibility to maintain secrecy from here on out but doesn't mean the
original act (however stupid) was a breach of national security.

~~~
woodman
A big part of the whole security clearance process is determining the
competency of the individual in recognizing incorrectly classified material.
Saying that the designated markings were missing is no longer an excuse once
you get the clearance. Over two thousand emails were determined to contain
classified material, that is over two thousand opportunities to recognize how
badly you've screwed up in using a private server for official government
business. Twenty of those where classified top-secret, which is really
difficult to mistake for uncontrolled information. I'm pretty sure that the
issue of competency will be front and center during these interviews.

------
mchahn
I'm sure Clinton pushed to have this happen ASAP. She can't have this hanging
over her when she gets to the general election.

~~~
justncase80
More likely she would want to draw it out as much as possible so she could get
immunity as president.

~~~
mc808
Presidents aren't immune to the law. But it's theoretically possible that she
would be convicted and impeached, and then pardoned by Vice President Bill
Clinton after he takes office.

~~~
tptacek
This whole thread is a case study for why we just shouldn't host discussions
like this on HN. There are a million better places to do it than here.

Clinton is probably not legally eligible to be Vice President --- a position
that, were he to occupy it, would give him no authority over any prosecution
(except possibly an impeachment trial --- over which he would _preside_ , but
not control).

Clinton is _definitely_ not eligible to serve as President, even if he is the
Vice President at the time his President is impeached. The next in succession
after VP would be sworn in as President.

~~~
hackuser
> There are a million better places to do it than here.

Where is there informed, intelligent, valuable discussion of politics? I'd
love to find it.

~~~
zachwooddoughty
Plug: I'm launching Discoverboard.com for this in a couple weeks

~~~
hackuser
Great! How will you improve the quality over other boards?

~~~
zachwooddoughty
You'll have to verify your phone number to sign up, which will make moderation
more effective (hard to make an additional account after getting kicked out).

If it grows and that isn't enough to keep it respectful, I will add a $1-2
signup fee for new users.

I'm also going to be spending most of my time recruiting quality people to
join the discussions.

~~~
hackuser
Feedback from one potential user: I won't sign up if I can't do it
anonymously. 1) I don't like being tracked, 2) the bad behavior of others who
track users has made me resent the practice, and 3) people need to be able to
express political opinions without thinking they will be tied to their phone
numbers. It threatens the civil rights of unpopular minorities, and I've come
across several studies which conclude that people self-censor in those
situations.

But how to promote quality? One thing I would like to see is a forum that
cracks down on thoughtless posts, especially hyperbole ad rants. It's not only
a waste of time but that kind of behavior spreads like a virus.

~~~
zachwooddoughty
While I empathize, anonymity makes moderation very hard. Most people I've
talked to prefer the tradeoff of reduced anonymity for improved moderation. If
you email me at zach@discoverboard.com I can set you up with a pre-verified
account that you can use anonymously.

Quality is hard. I don't think there's any silver bullet, but you can check
out the community guidelines at discoverboard.com/about which hope to curtail
the thoughtlessness you're talking about.

------
hackuser
Note the pattern: Another attempt to trap a Clinton in a situation where it's
illegal to lie (Bill to a Grand Jury, Hillary to an FBI officer).

Bill, way back in the 1990s before the testimony that caused all the problems,
said that their only goal was to ask him damaging things under oath and then
leak his responses or prosecute him for perjury. Remember that Bill was not
testifying in a case about Lewinksy, but in an unrelated case regarding Paula
Jones. But once he was under oath they just used it as a fishing expedition to
achieve political ends.

Is this how we want our democracy to work? Probably law enforcement can find
something to justify prosecuting or at least investigating anyone.

\-----

EDIT: It turns out FBI Director Comey has a history investigating the
Clintons:

 _Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking
to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on
as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after
months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was
personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block
investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a
pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in
two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the
interference by White House officials, which included destruction of
documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political
naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a
highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”

Comey parlayed the Whitewater job into top posts in Virginia and New York,
returning to Manhattan in 2002 to be the top federal prosecutor there. One of
his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had
been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international
financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill
Clinton pardoned Rich. “I was stunned,” Comey later told Congress. As top U.S.
prosecutor in New York in 2002, appointed by George W. Bush, Comey inherited
the criminal probe into the Rich pardon and 175 others Clinton had made at the
11th hour.

Despite evidence that several pardon recipients, including Rich, had
connections to donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary
Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, Comey found no criminal wrongdoing._

[http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-
clinton/](http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/)

~~~
Mithaldu
Are you seriously saying you'd prefer the US president be allowed to lie?

If that is not what you're saying, please phrase it clearly and directly, and
not by implying.

~~~
hackuser
> you'd prefer the US president be allowed to lie?

Of course I'd prefer a completely trustworthy person as president, but such
people don't exist. I think law enforcement can find a reason to investigate
anyone, including any candidate or President; once an investigation starts, it
can be used as a fishing expedition and lead anywhere, for the reasons I
described above. That's a risk to our democracy; law enforcement could have a
veto, to a degree, over the American people's choices.

By the way, let's tone it down. By your demands, one might think I'm the one
being deposed.

------
rbcgerard
Not that it would ever happen, but would love to tune into cspan for this

------
eli
This is a very thinly sourced article.

It's surprising that "law enforcement officials" would be sharing details
about this incredibly high profile case, but only with a reporter for AJAM, a
channel that is in its last weeks on the air. And that presented with such a
big scoop, Al Jazeera apparently hasn't even bothered to post an article about
it to their website. So there's just an unofficial clip of what the reporter
said on the air in a brief report floating around. Not saying it's false...
it's just very thinly sourced.

------
ianferrel
"Reports about the number of federal agents assigned to the Clinton probe have
ranged from roughly a dozen to fewer than 50."

That's not a range.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yes it is. There were multiple estimates. The lowest was "roughly a dozen" the
highest was "less than 50". The two ends of the range use different units and
have different significant figures because they came from two different
calculations.

In theory the author could have tried to unify those points on the same number
line with the same sig figs, but I'm not even sure what the rules are for
ranges built from two separate calculations. If there even is a rule you'd get
something like "range from 10 to 50" and only math geeks would have a clear
picture of what those zeroes really mean, and even they would've lost the "not
50" and "quite possibly less than 10" information the existing phrasing
provides.

------
retbull
So what would an interview like this entail?

~~~
j79
Some have speculated that it could be an honest Q&A with the former SoS based
on their findings (to get an official response). Others are speculating that
it could be a chance to actually catch her in a lie, based on their findings
("Five months ago, you stated X, is that still true?" having evidence that X
is no longer true).

Pure speculation, of course, but man would I like to be a fly on THAT wall...

------
irixusr
If Aaron Schwartz faced decades in jail for piracy what the tax payer
financed, how much time should Clinton face?

~~~
meritt
He was wrongly charged under the CFAA which does not apply here. Sen. Ron
Wyden (OR) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA) have been pushing for "Aaron's Law" to
curb the judicial abuse of the CFAA in cases like Aaron's and many others.
They need all the support they can get to have this legislation pushed
through. They are both Clinton supporters, btw.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/aarons-law-
reintroduce...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/aarons-law-reintroduced-
cfaa-didnt-fix-itself)

~~~
ryanlol
>wrongly charged

Source? Everyone familiar with the law seems to disagree.

------
fweespee_ch
Someone is going to take the fall for Clinton if they actually press criminal
charges against anyone even if, morally and ethically, it is really on her.

Honestly, Clinton should at a minimum be banned from handling classified
information in the future.

~~~
jakub_h
> Clinton should at a minimum be banned from handling classified information
> in the future.

That sounds like a good idea for many more politicians of this world.

~~~
jlarocco
That's a terrible idea.

We need less classified information, not less access to it.

------
hackuser
It's very important that this business is concluded before the Democratic
Party's convention, beginning July 25th.

Otherwise it is a threat to democracy. The FBI would essentially choose the
next president if they took down one of the two nominees. Consider that they
could do that in any election, federal, state or local. Also consider that the
FBI's employees are, as far as I know, overwhelmingly Republican, and that in
the past the FBI has illicitly tried to influence politics (under J. Edgar
Hoover, for example).

Even now they are letting this go on much too long and exercising far too much
influence. Crimes should be investigated appropriately; I don't think
candidates should get a pass. I do question whether the investigation is out
of proportion to the crime; many use personal email for official business and
many mishandle classified info (including multiple past CIA directors) with no
significant penalty.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
> I don't think candidates should get a pass.

Nor should their opposition have the power to delay proceedings until such a
time as it is politically advantageous to them. This should have been dealt
with last year.

