FBI Reviewing New Email

Wasn't there a saying about "ignorance of the law doesn't count"?

 

Another point of view for the Hillary emails, from Vox:

Colin Powell also used a private email address for routine work. At the time Clinton took office, only one previous secretary of state had ever faced the question of what email account to use, and he reached the exact same conclusion Clinton did — just use your personal email address.

Former president Bill Clinton stepped down from office in January of 2001. He launched a charitable foundation, he established his presidential library, and he made big bucks on speaking tours. He had a staff and he needed IT infrastructure and support. So he paid a guy to set up an email server that he could use.

Hillary Clinton — who is his wife — also set herself up with an account on the same server. This is a bit unusual, but a lot about being married to a former president is unusual. What it’s not is suspicious.

After Hillary left office, the State Department told her she had to turn all her work-related emails over to them, so she tasked a legal team with determining which emails were work emails and which were not. She turned the work emails over because that’s what she was legally required to do. She deleted the others, because they were personal and private.

When US government officials have conversations about classified matters, they are not supposed to use regular email. They are supposed to use special secure channels.

Nonetheless, mistakes happen in part because classification standards are vague and ever-changing. Technically speaking, forwarding a Washington Post article detailing things revealed by Edward Snowden could constitute an improper discussion of classified matters.

As FBI Director James Comey concluded, “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Clinton over this matter. Almost all of the relevant statutes require an intent to mishandle classified information in order to bring a prosecution, a standard that Clinton’s conduct clearly does not meet.

Ben Wittes, a veteran legal journalist and Brookings fellow who has spent the past several years specializing in national security law, wrote that Comey’s characterization was clearly correct.

For the last several months, people have been asking me what I thought the chances of an indictment were. I have said each time that there is no chance without evidence of bad faith action of some kind. People simply don't get indicted for accidental, non-malicious mishandling of classified material. I have followed leak cases for a very long time, both at the Washington Post and since starting Lawfare. I have never seen a criminal matter proceed without even an allegation of something more than mere mishandling of sensitive information. Hillary Clinton is not above the law, but to indict her on these facts, she'd have to be significantly below the law.

It’s true that to a layman the Espionage Act’s reference to “gross negligence” sounds similar to Comey’s characterization of Clinton’s actions as “extremely careless.”

The reason Clinton isn’t getting locked up is that there was no malign intent.

Hillary Clinton broke no laws according to the FBI itself. Her setup gave her no power to evade federal transparency laws beyond what anyone who has a personal email account of any kind has. Her stated explanation for her conduct is entirely believable, fits the facts perfectly, and is entirely plausible to anyone who doesn't simply start with the assumption that she's guilty of something.

Given Powell’s conduct, Clinton wasn't even breaking with an informal precedent. The very worst you can say is that, faced with an annoying government IT policy, she used her stature to find a personal workaround rather than a systemic fix that would work for everyone. To spend so much time on such a trivial matter would be absurd in a city council race, much less a presidential election. To do so in circumstances when it advances the electoral prospects of a rival who has shattered all precedents in terms of lacking transparency or basic honesty is infinitely more scandalous than anything related to the server itself.

From:
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http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/4/13500018/clinton-email-scandal-bull(*)(*)(*)(*)
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So what isn't? Did Powell use a personal email address or a private email address?

 

Powell wasn't STOOPID enough to use a private email system for classified information (doh!)....

But, it's all a moot point now. Looks like the best thing for Comey to do now is see if he can find himself a job as some kind of "rent-a-cop" job... maybe in a shopping mall somewhere in simple shoplifting situations where nobody needs to be weighed-down with worries about "intent"....

. "I'll teach Jimmy everything I know and he'll be fine!"

 

Powell did not have a spouse with their own server in their house and an IT guy to maintain it, like Hillary. Like all government employees, they are told to not discuss secrets during emails or phone calls or other conversations, except while in a secure area and with secure devices, under threat of arrest and jail time.

From a Politico article:

“Colin Powell is defending his use of a personal email account during his time as secretary of state, as Democrats stepped up complaints that the intense focus on Hillary Clinton's email practices reflects a double standard.

Powell said- "I was not aware at the time of any requirement for private, unclassified exchanges to be treated as official records."

[The State Department] asked Powell for all official records in his possession but was told he no longer has access to his emails from that era, which were stored in an America Online account.” [He did not use Bleachbit free software like Hillary's IT guy, just lost track of his personal emails at AOL.]

From:
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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/colin-powell-defends-personal-email-227889
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So you're not going to complain when President Trump and the members of his staff and cabinet decide to use just the Trump.com email system for all their official communications and keep them from anyone else seeing them until after he is out of office and then his lawyers get to go through all of them and decide which ones to turn over and which ones to destroy.

Correct?

 

There is no saying like that.

 

Yes there is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat

Unless you're being sarcastic.