boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

In the FBI logs of the Clinton interview she said while under oath that she did not recall signing security statements as a result of a fall. If this is a true statement she just disqualified herself. Do you want a president who cant recall?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Bobbo, that's why Presidents have staff. Ronnie Reagan could not remember where he put his glasses. Nancy told him.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Staff can't help her when she testifies to the FBI. She couldn't even recall signing security regs when she became Sec'y os State. Is that something some one must remember? So it must be that she didn't know what the regs were. Perhaps even worse. In a position of some importance to the security of the nation that is a thing that she MUST remember. So the "I don't recall" statement is a lie, which is a major felony, or she really can't remember. I don't know which is worse.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

From the Observer


Hillary is either dishonest or dumb—there is no third choice
By John R. Schindler • 09/02/16 4:05pm

Today, on the Friday afternoon before the long Labor Day weekend, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released documents on its investigation of Hillary Clinton and her mishandling of email while she was secretary of state. The Friday afternoon data dump is a venerable Washington cliché, a shady way to bury a story that the bureaucracy doesn’t want covered in depth, but even by Beltway standards this was a shocker.

Nobody expected much from the FBI here, given the Bureau’s recent punting on its formal inquiry into Hillary’s dubious activities with her “unclassified” email of bathroom server infamy. I’ve been covering the EmailGate story for over a year, from the beginning, and I too didn’t expect the FBI to reveal much about what Hillary did that was unwise and perhaps criminal.

To be fair, a good amount of today’s release has been redacted. The original documents were classified at the Secret/Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals level, and to make it Unclassified about a third of the text has been cut out.

But what’s there is awful enough for Team Clinton. Although the FBI’s press release is terse, the documents themselves indelibly portray the Democratic presidential nominee as dishonest, entitled, and thoroughly incompetent.

Considering that Hillary has been accused of mishandling classified information on an almost industrial scale, what shines through is that Clinton is utterly clueless about classification matters, betraying an ignorance that is shocking when encountered in a former top official of our government—and one who wants to be our next commander-in-chief.

Our Federal classification system isn’t particularly complicated, the basics can be explained in a quarter-hour, and there are courses of instruction that exist precisely to explain how to identify classified information and properly handle it. In fact, they’re mandatory. Since Hillary blew off those courses, even though they are required for government workers at all levels, it’s not surprising that she has no idea what she’s talking about.

There are three basic classification levels (with a bunch of handling caveats that can be added): Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. These are abbreviated in classified documents as C, S, and TS, respectively (for a quick primer on how this works in the real world, read this).

Since Hillary had been accused of mishandling a lot of classified information, in her July 2 interview with the FBI, agents understandably asked her about this, only to discover that America’s former top diplomat doesn’t have the smallest clue how classification works.

If Hillary actually is as dumb as she appears in these FBI documents, she is nowhere near smart enough to be our commander-in-chief.

When asked, “Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined,” the FBI recorded. Hillary could not explain what the (C)—for Confidential—classification marking at the beginning of a paragraph was. She thought it perhaps had something to do with alphabetical order.

This tragicomedy continued with the FBI pressing Hillary on specific examples of classified information that wound up in her “Unclassified” emails. She explained her position concisely. As the FBI noted, “Clinton stated that she did not pay attention to the ‘level’ of classified information.”

We can safely assume that the FBI agents present gasped at that one, since classification is all about the level. Simply put, compromising Confidential information will get you a letter of reprimand, while compromising Top Secret information can easily get you a trip to the Federal penitentiary. Not to mention that brave Americans have died to protect Top Secret information.

The Clinton follies continued, with Hillary’s lawerly position clear: “Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system,” the FBI recorded. She even stood her ground when asked about emails regarding drone strikes—a subject that the CIA and the Pentagon consider to be highly classified. Indeed, it’s Top Secret and part of a super-sensitive Special Access Program or SAP.

Not to Hillary. Such SAP information wound up in her “Unclassified” emails but Clinton would have none of it. As the FBI noted, “Clinton stated deliberation over a future drone strike did not give her cause for concern regarding classification.” This would be stunning news to the thousands of American military and intelligence personnel who have to treat such Top Secret SAP information according to the strict rules and regulations that apply to anybody not named Clinton.

Here Hillary has confirmed what many have long suspected—that there’s one set of laws for Clintons and Friends, and a very different set for the rest of us. Classes on how to handle classified materials—much less actually following those rules on pain of arrest and prosecution—are for Little People, not for Clintons and their charmed retinue.

The FBI inquiry descended into farce. The Bureau’s investigation determined that hundreds of the emails containing classified information had been sent by Hillary while she was out of the United States—including in Russia. Since these were sent on Clinton’s ubiquitous Blackberry, all of those should now be assumed to be in the hands of foreign intelligence agencies—particularly the security service of whatever country Hillary was in when she clicked “open” or “send.”

The FBI could not find evidence of cyber-tampering with Hillary’s Blackberry, but that’s irrelevant here. As someone who used to do these things for a living when I worked for NSA, let me state that it’s easy for any marginally competent intelligence service to intercept unencrypted (or lightly encrypted) messages sent to or from a Blackberry. No “hacking” is required. Such routine intercepts would leave few, if any, traces for the FBI to find.

Not that Hillary and her staff took even the most rudimentary security precautions. They emailed each other everywhere, all the time, even in high-threat countries like Russia and China. Anybody who doesn’t understand that Moscow and Beijing—and probably many others—have those emails (and worse, may have used them to crack into other, even more sensitive U.S. Government systems) is uninformed about 21st century espionage.

In perhaps the most laughable of the FBI’s revelations, we learned that Hillary had a bad habit of losing her personal electronic devices. As many as thirteen of them went missing—including ones that possibly had classified emails on them. In a couple cases, Clinton staffers disposed of old devices by smashing them with a hammer. Which does nothing to render whatever classified information may have been on them unreadable to any competent spy service.

There are strict rules about how to destroy classified information systems that are no longer needed. Of course, Hillary followed those rules no more than she did any of the dozens if not hundreds of other security regulations she ignored altogether when she was secretary of state.

Saddest of all in this sordid saga is that Hillary had no excuse for any of it. It’s ok not to be a whiz at the nuances of classification. Cabinet secretaries are busy people. When you’re the secretary of state, you’ve got seasoned security personnel on call, 24/7, anywhere in the world, to answer questions and resolve security dilemmas like how to handle classified materials. Calling them apparently would have been too much trouble for Hillary and her inner circle.

It beggars belief that Hillary Clinton is really as clueless as she came across in her interview with the FBI. I’ve given classified briefings to cabinet officials. None of them were ever this out of it. Perhaps, accompanied by her lawyers, the Democratic nominee decided to play dumb to dodge possible prosecution. If that’s the case, Hillary repeatedly flat-out lied to the FBI—which, yet again, is something normal Americans go to prison for doing.

If Hillary actually is as dumb as she appears in these FBI documents—utterly clueless about basic classification matters even after years of Federal service at the highest levels—she is nowhere near smart enough to be our commander-in-chief.

In my time with NSA I worked in counterintelligence and I investigated people who mishandled classified information. It was rarely a pretty story and it seldom ended well. Let me state with 100 percent confidence, having now seen at least some of what the FBI discovered about Hillary and her emails, that anybody not named Clinton who did these things would be facing severe criminal charges and potentially years in prison. Democrats need to seriously ask themselves if this is the kind of person they want to represent them on November 8.

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Then her and her astrologer ran the country for the last 36 months while
Ronnie vegetable brain thought the bedside end table was Jean Harlow
showing up for a mid day romp-

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Are you really saying that because some one else did it. so it's ok that another person does it? Hillary has shown that she was either a felon or a mental incompetent. In either case she must not be president.

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

All I'm saying is Reagan was a footstool the last 2+ years of his administration.


Am I wrong?



Nancy did the best job she could-
She was a far better President that Trump could ever be.

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

Do we want another president in the same situation.
Especially the way things are in the world.
I always knew Regan wasn't running the country.

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Oh for fucks sake- are you really drinking that koolaid?

Jesus christ Soba...

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

What's wrong with questioning this woman's state of mind.

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

His is from ABC

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/hillary-clinton-took-6-months-to-get-over-concussion-bill-says-of-timeline/

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Well, whatever Reagan's (Regan) state of health was, we do know that Nancy could not sign bills, issue executive orders or act as Commander in Chief. Whatever political involvement she may have been involved in could not have involved the powers of the Presidency.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

What Nancy did, and/or what Ronnie did or did not do is a total amd wilful distraction. Hillary is either a mental incompetent or guilty of lying under oath. No other conclusion is possible. What anyone else did or did not do is not at issue.

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

Funny, I remember:

(U) Unclassified
(U) For your eyes only (Usually between General Officers)
(U) FOUO Unclassified For Official Use Only
(C) Confidential
(S) Secret
(TS) Top Secret
(TS) (SCI) Top Secret Special Compartmented Information
(TS) TK B - These indicate special information such as Atomic Information or messages between members of Congress.

I was a Special Security Officer for the Commanding General 7th Signal Brigade for over 3 years. I had a TS SBI (Special Background Investigation) and Compartmented Information.

Each morning I had to go to a classified SCIF (Special Compartmented Information Facility) get messages from the FBI, DIA, NSA and others which related to the 7th Signal and put it in his briefcase. This was usually at 3am for his staff briefings starting at 7am.

Upon entering the room where the briefing was to take place, the window blinds had to be pulled and the phone taken off the hook. Any questions the General had for me had to be written on my note book which had hard plastic seperating the top page from others to prevent write-through to the next page. Then I wrote answers back. The pages were put in the briefcase and returned to the SCIF to be destroyed by schreding and burning in a furnance the next morning.

For this, I had debriefings at each organization I worked for/with, which had a 10 year Non-Disclosure stipulation also and it was made very clear the consequences of breaking that non-disclosure signed document.

Hillary is breaking all the laws concerning access to and non-disclosure. What a lame list of excuses she is handing out. A military member would be burned for her errors and lies.

Sarge69 (30 year veteran in communications and security)
I retired in 1990 so my 10 year non-disclosure is over as probably all my information and knowlege is outdated now.