Tag Archives: State Department

Featured, Government Accountability, Politics, US

Rand Paul Announces He’ll Oppose Trump’s State Dept. & CIA Nominees

Mar 14, 2018 Jay Syrmopoulos Leave a comment

Washington, D.C.— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced on Wednesday that he would oppose President Trump’s nominees to head the State Department and CIA, potentially impeding their path to Senate confirmation.

“I will oppose both Pompeo’s nomination and Haspel’s nomination,” Paul said.

Senator Paul Press Conference on Secretary of State and CIA Nominations https://t.co/kQmxft8YI6

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 14, 2018

Trump announced the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday, and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo, an aggressive foreign policy hawk, to serve as his new Secretary of State – while nominating Gina Haspel, the CIA’s deputy director, to serve as the new head of the CIA after Pompeo moves to the State Department.

Paul said he was “perplexed” how Trump could nominate Pompeo given his support for regime change in Iraq as well as support and advocacy for regime change in Iran. The libertarian leaning Republican senator said Pompeo’s support of regime change contradicts the skepticism Trump expressed on the campaign trail toward foreign interventions and regime change.

“It perplexes me that he is now nominating someone for secretary of State who has advocated and pushed for regime change in Iran,” Paul said.

Director Pompeo has not learned the lessons of regime change and wants regime change in Iran.

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 14, 2018

Haspel, who oversaw the U.S. torture program at a secret CIA prison and later destroyed the recorded evidence, is a lighting rod for controversy given her intimate participation in the torture of individuals suspected by the US of being connected to terrorism. Paul noted his opposition for Haspel’s nomination due to her role in the Bush-era CIA torture program at black site prisons.

“My opposition to her is over her direct participation in interrogation and her gleeful enjoyment of someone being tortured,” said Paul.

“I find it just amazing that anyone would consider having this woman as the head of the CIA,” Paul said. “Certainly, there is a career officer at the CIA who did not directly participate in waterboarding that we can nominate,” he continued. “Rewarding someone who was in charge of something so heinous is a really big mistake.”

CBS News reports that Paul’s opposition to Haspel’s nomination could put her potential confirmation as head of the CIA in jeopardy if all 49 Democratic Senators voted against Haspel – with only one other Republican, aside from Paul, needing to vote no to block her nomination. Paul did not rule out a filibuster to prevent Pompeo from being confirmed.

Featured, Government Accountability, International, Politics, US

State Department Launches $40 Million Propaganda Offensive

Mar 5, 2018 Jay Syrmopoulos Leave a comment

Washington, D.C.— The U.S. State Department’s counter-propaganda office, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), has announced a partnership with the Pentagon that infused the organization with an additional $40 million in funding to go “on the offensive” in an ongoing information war.

The @StateDept is pleased to announce a new partnership with the @DeptofDefense for initiatives to counter propaganda & disinformation from foreign nations. @UnderSecPD said the transfer of funds announced today reiterates the U.S. commitment to the fight. https://t.co/oT1ffDZU7R

— Department of State (@StateDept) February 26, 2018

According to the State Department, included in this partnership is an initiative that creates “an Information Access Fund to support public and private partners working to expose and counter propaganda and disinformation from foreign nations.”

“Under the Information Access Fund, civil society groups, media content providers, nongovernmental organizations, federally funded research and development centers, private companies, and academic institutions will be eligible to compete for grants from the GEC to advance their important work to counter propaganda and disinformation,” read the agency’s statement.

The State Department highlighted that in addition to maintaining a defensive posture in the ongoing information war, the United States must go “on the offensive.”

“This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight,” Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steve Goldstein said. “It is not merely a defensive posture that we should take, we also need to be on the offensive.”

While the U.S. has a history of operationalizing propaganda campaigns overseas to influence global perception and advance American interests, the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948 outlawed the dissemination of propaganda, meant for a foreign audience, to American citizens.

However, in 2013, an amendment to the bill, known as the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which was contained within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013, modified the law that essentially re-allows propaganda— produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) for foreign dissemination— to be made available for consumption by the U.S. public, although US officials have been vague as to whether propaganda is currently being aimed at American citizens.

In addition, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act was quietly signed into law at the end of 2016 as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report, which aimed to “increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors.”

According to a press release from Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), co-sponsor of the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act:

The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering THE foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.

Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.

In a report about the infusion of funding to the Global Engagement Center, Daniel McAdams, writing for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity noted:

The State Department’s “counter-propanda” office, the “Global Engagement Center” has recently had its budget doubled by a $40 million cash transfer from the Pentagon. What does this mean? The US government will do much more meddling in the internal affairs of foreign countries with the excuse that it is “countering” unproven Russian meddling in the US elections and political life. Much of the money will go to NGOs that toe the US government line and act as force-multipliers for US neocon propaganda. The project is an assault on non-interventionists in the US.

Featured, Foreign Policy, Hot, International

Clinton Emails: Google Aided State Dept. in Attempt to Overthrow Assad

Mar 21, 2016 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

The latest batch of emails released from the private server of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton show Google officials working with the State Department to promote “defections” in Syria at a time when the United States was looking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The message, which was highlighted by Wikileaks, was sent by Jared Cohen, the head of Google Ideas, to Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, senior Clinton adviser Alec Ross and Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan.

[pull_quote_center]Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from. Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition.[/pull_quote_center]

Cohen went on to say that once the tool was created, Google planned to give it to Middle Eastern media outlets such as Al-Jazeera to “track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria.”

[pull_quote_center]Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria. I’ve attached a few visuals that show what the tool will look like. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything [else] you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact.[/pull_quote_center]

Cohen sent the email on July 25, 2012, and Sullivan forwarded it to Clinton, calling the tool “a pretty cool idea.”

The Washington Examiner reported that before he was hired to lead Google Ideas in 2010, Cohen “worked as a low-level staffer at the State Department” and was “tied to the use of social media to incite social uprisings,” which included asking Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to “hold off of conducting system maintenance that officials believed could have impeded a brief 2009 uprising in Iran.”

In a Reality Check segment in Nov. 2015, Ben Swann discussed a leaked 2012 document from the Department of Defense, which revealed that the countries opposing Assad’s leadership, including the U.S., wanted a “fundamental Islamic group to take over eastern Syria in order to isolate and overthrow the Syrian President Assad’s regime.”

Reality Check: Proof The U.S. Government Wanted ISIS to Emerge…

A newly released Pentagon document proves that the U.S., Saudis, Qatar and other Gulf states wanted a radical, Islamist, fundamentalist group to emerge in Syria. So why would we trust them to now get rid of ISIS?Learn more: http://bit.ly/1QxhmjG

Posted by Ben Swann on Friday, November 20, 2015

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Foreign Policy, International

US Dismisses ‘Doomed’ Russian Strikes in Syria, Warns Them Not to Attack Non-ISIS Rebels

Oct 1, 2015 Antiwar.com Leave a comment

by Jason Ditz

With the introduction of Russian warplanes carrying out airstrikes in Syria, the US is dramatically ratcheting up its rhetoric against the involvement of anyone not formally part of their coalition in the conflict, saying that Russia is “doomed to failure” in their attempts to fight ISIS.

That might be dismissed simply as sour grapes, as America’s own war against ISIS is already going extremely poorly and they’re loathe to see anyone achieve their military goals against ISIS as a consequence. At the same time, however, State Department officials warn they view Russia’s involvement with “grave concern” and are demanding that Russia not launch any airstrikes against non-ISIS rebel forces.

Ironically, this is the exact same thing the US was heavily criticized for early in their war in Syria, as the Pentagon has not restricted its airstrikes to ISIS, but attacked multiple factions, particularly al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, a move that fueled angry claims for other rebels that the US was undermining the rebellion, just like the US says Russia is now.

Pentagon officials say some of Russia’s early airstrikes “probably” weren’t in ISIS-held areas, though they were in the Homs Province, where ISIS has considerable influence. Some other rebel factions that have been armed in the past by the US are claiming that Russia hit them, while still other factions are claiming Russia hit random civilians.

Put even with US officials wringing their hands about Russia’s involvement in the war, State Department officials are saying that it won’t impact America’s war in Syria, and that they’re going to continue attacking targets in Syria.

This statement too is a confusing one, as Russia never called on the US to stop attacking ISIS, it was the other way around. Russia, indeed, has suggested the two nations should coordinate in fighting ISIS, something the US has rejected doing.

Election, Politics

Tech Company Used By Hillary Clinton Claims ‘No Knowledge’ of Server Being Wiped

Sep 14, 2015 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed for several months that she wiped her private server that contained about 31,000 emails, sent and received during her tenure as Secretary of State, which she’d deemed “personal.” The technology company that managed the server has now indicated that it may have never been “wiped,” and that the emails may still be accessible.

Andy Boian, the spokesperson for Platte River Networks, a Denver-based firm that has managed Clinton’s server since 2013, told The Washington Post that if the entire server had been wiped, then the data would be permanently gone; if the emails were simply deleted, they might still be retrievable.

[quote_center]“Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,” Boian said. “All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped.”[/quote_center]

Clinton has continually refused to clearly answer whether or not her server was wiped clean. When asked by a Fox News reporter in August if she had her server wiped, she answered with her own question: “Like what, with a cloth?”

“I don’t know how it works digitally at all,” Clinton added.

When asked about the server by CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Sept. 3, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, claimed that he didn’t know what the term “wiped” meant.

“There’s been no — I don’t know what ‘wiped’ means,” Fallon said. “Literally the emails were deleted off of the server, that’s true.”

Clinton’s use of a private email server for government business, during her tenure as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, came under scrutiny after her practices were revealed on March 2.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, released a statement on March 27, claiming that Clinton “unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server.”

Joseph Lorenzo Hall, the chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the Washington Post that the difference between a server that has had its emails deleted and a server that has been wiped clean is “night and day.”

“Wiping is designed to make the material that was underneath not recoverable. That’s the whole point,” Hall said. “The probability of recovering material is very, very much higher if you haven’t wiped it.”

After previously stating that she did not need to apologize for her use of personal email for government business during her tenure as Secretary of State, Clinton changed her tone on Sept. 8, and said she was sorry that the controversy surrounding her email use “raised all of these questions.”

In addition to other inconsistencies within her story regarding why she used her personal email for government business, Clinton has claimed that she did not send or receive any classified information on her private email.

In contrast, out of the 30,000 emails Clinton released to the State Department that are currently being examined by the FBI, over 300 have been marked as containing classified information.

As the Democratic frontrunner, the controversy surrounding Clinton’s private email use has affected her presidential campaign. According to a poll from Rasmussen Reports, 46 percent of likely voters think Clinton should suspend her campaign until the legal issues surrounding her private email use are resolved.

In a recent Reality Check segment, investigative journalist Ben Swann looked at whether the Democratic debates are “rigged” for Hillary Clinton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jai9OQFQeEA

For more election coverage, click here.

Election, Government Accountability, Videos

Report: Dozens Of Hillary Clinton Emails Were Classified From The Beginning

Video Aug 21, 2015 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

While Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed that she did not send or receive any classified information on the private email server she used for government business during her tenure as Secretary of State, the FBI has upgraded over 300 of the 30,000 emails it has access to, and reports suggest that those emails were in fact “born classified.”

A report from Reuters found that the “classified” stamps on the emails, which include dates, letters and numbers describing the classification, show that some of Clinton’s emails are “filled with a type of information both the U.S. government and the [state] department’s own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go — regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not.”

The report also claimed that out of the small number of emails that have been made public so far, at least 30 message chains from 2009 “include what the State Department’s own ‘Classified’ stamps now identify as so-called ‘foreign government information,'” which is the only kind of information that “must be presumed classified” to protect national security.

Although Clinton has said multiple times that she did not send or receive any classified information on her private email server, the report found that in the 30 classified emails it flagged, 17 of the message chains had “foreign government information” that was sent and received on an unsecured network between Clinton and her senior staff.

In a court filing, State department Executive Secretary Joseph Macmanus wrote that the BlackBerry devices issued to Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin while she was Security of State, have likely been “destroyed or excessed,” when they became “outdated models.”

J. William Leonard, the director of the U.S. government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) from 2002-2008, told Reuters that the now “classified” information on Clinton’s server was actually born classified, and that for the State Department to argue would be “blowing smoke.”

“It’s born classified,” Leonard said. “If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it’s in U.S. channels and U.S. possession.”

While Clinton turned 30,000 emails over to the State Department and the FBI, she revealed that she deleted approximately 32,000 emails from her server, because they contained “personal information.”

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, marked two of the emails Clinton “top-secret,” containing the highest form of classified information, and in response, federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the FBI to gain access to the trove of “personal” emails Clinton claimed she deleted.

For more election coverage, click here.

Election, Foreign Policy, Government Corruption, Politics, US

New Book Questions How Foreign Donations Impacted Hillary Clinton’s State Dept.

Apr 20, 2015 Rachel Blevins 2 Comments

A new book titled, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer, will be released on May 5, and is expected to provide insight into the influence of foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation had on US foreign policy during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

After obtaining a copy, the New York Times hailed the book, which “asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return” as the “most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.”

Peter Schweizer, a conservative author and the President of the Government Accountability Institute, has written books such as Architects of Ruin: How a Gang of Radical Activists and Liberal Politicians Destroyed Trillions of Dollars in Wealth in the Pursuit of Social Justice (2009), Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison (2011), and Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets (2013).

According to the New York Times, Clinton Cash includes examples of a free-trade agreement in Columbia that benefitted the head of an oil company who had personally donated millions to the foundation, development projects in Haiti following an earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Bill Clinton by a major Canadian shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the same time the State Department was debating the project.

As previously reported, a recent report from International Business Times detailed the Clintons’ involvement with the free-trade agreement between Columbia and the US, which included the fact that while then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was condemning human rights violations in Colombia, the Clinton family was also “forging a financial relationship” with the extensive petroleum company Pacific Rubiales, which is “at the center of Colombia’s labor strife.”

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Schweizer wrote.

The New York Times noted that Schweizer’s book “largely focuses on payments made to Mr. Clinton for speeches, which increased while his wife served as secretary of state,” as shown by the fact that out of the “13 Clinton speeches that fetched $500,000 or more,” only two occurred during the years that Hillary Clinton was not secretary of state.

“During Hillary’s years of public service, the Clintons have conducted or facilitated hundreds of large transactions,” wrote Schweizer, who highlighted that fact that “some of these transactions have put millions in their own pockets.”

Presidential candidate and Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who has highlighted the phrase “Liberty, Not Hillary” in his campaign, also has a page on his website asking for any “additional information about the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign contributions.”

Business Insider called Clinton Cash the “blockbuster exposé” Paul has been waiting for to derail Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign.

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, told the Times that Schweizer’s book is “twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories.”

While Hillary Clinton’s aides have worked to label critical books as “conservative propaganda,” the New York Times predicted that Clinton Cash will do more damage than other books such as Edward Klein’s Blood Feud, which looks at the relationship between the Clintons and the Obamas, and Daniel Halper’s Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, due to the fact that “major news organizations including The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book.”

Election, Government Accountability, Government Corruption, Politics, Technology, US

Trey Gowdy: Benghazi Committee Lacks Authority To Subpoena Hillary’s Private Server

Apr 16, 2015 Rachel Blevins 23 Comments

On Wednesday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said that while the House has the authority to subpoena Hillary Clinton’s private server, his committee has a “more limited jurisdiction.”

In an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Gowdy explained that although the Benghazi Committee lacks the authority under House rules, “most experts believe” that the House as an entity could issue a subpoena for the server.

“I would think if you’re interested in national security breaches, and also the completeness of the public record, that you would want a neutral, detached arbiter as opposed to her own lawyer,” Gowdy said. “The lawyer’s obligation is to the client. I want someone with an obligation to my fellow citizens to say the public record is complete. I can’t just take her lawyer’s word for it.”

Clinton’s personal email on a private server, which she used to conduct government business during her tenure as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, was revealed in a report from the New York Times on March 2.

The Committee issued subpoenas on March 4, for all emails related to the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, from both Clinton and her staff members’ personal accounts.

On March 27, Gowdy released a statement revealing that Clinton deleted all of her emails, and wiped her server clean. Gowdy explained that while it is not clear exactly when Clinton chose to delete the emails, he believes it was after the State Department first requested that she make her emails public in October 2014.

On March 31, the Benghazi Committee formally requested a transcribed interview with Clinton. The interview would include questions over Clinton’s use of private email for government business, along with questions on why Clinton chose to delete all of the emails on her server, after she was aware that they had been subpoenaed by the Committee.

While Gowdy’s request said that the Committee was willing to schedule the interview at a time that was convenient for Clinton, it gave a deadline of May 1.

Politico reported that a spokesperson for the Committee said that Clinton has yet to answer the request for either the interview about the emails, or a public hearing on the 2012 attack in Benghazi.

Gowdy told Hewitt that including Clinton, he plans to interview several others, regarding the Benghazi attack, such as former CIA deputy director Michael Morell, Clinton’s chief-of-staff Cheryl Mills and Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin. The interview list will also include Sidney Blumenthal, who according to Politico, is a “longtime confidant of the Clintons whose hacked emails to Hillary Clinton first revealed the existence of her private account.”

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that it obtained letters, which revealed that congressional investigators wrote to Clinton in Dec. 2012, asking about her use of private email for government business.

The Times noted that it was not until March 2013, two months after Clinton left office, that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the author of the letter, received an answer from the State Department, which “ignored the question and provided no response.”

Government Accountability, Government Corruption, Politics, Technology, US

Will Hillary Clinton Face Legal Trouble For Deleting Subpoenaed Emails?

Apr 1, 2015 Rachel Blevins 18 Comments

On Tuesday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, formally requested that Hillary Clinton appear before the Committee for a transcribed interview regarding her use of private email on a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State, and her decision to delete the emails and wipe her server clean, after she was aware that the emails had been subpoenaed by the Committee.

“On March 19, 2015, the Committee asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide her personal email server to the Inspector General for the State Department to ensure the full record of her tenure as Secretary was preserved,” wrote Gowdy.

Gowdy explained that Clinton’s refusal to allow the Inspector General to ensure that the public record was complete is “not only disappointing but portends to delay the ability of our Committee to complete its work as expeditiously as possible.”

“Toward that end and because of the Secretary’s unique arrangement with herself as it relates to public records during and after her tenure as Secretary of State, this Committee is left with no alternative but to request Secretary Clinton appear before this Committee for a transcribed interview to better understand decisions the Secretary made relevant to the creation, maintenance, retention, and ultimately deletion of public records,” wrote Gowdy. “The Committee is willing to schedule the interview at a time convenient for Secretary Clinton, but no later than May 1, 2015.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News, said that Clinton will only be in legal trouble for deleting the emails, if there is a federal prosecutor who has the courage to pursue a case against her.

Napolitano pointed out that not only has Clinton admitted she diverted government records from the government, she has also admitted that she put classified information in a non-classified venue, which is the same crime General David Petraeus committed.

“She was so good at this, she could have taught Richard Nixon some lessons,” Napolitano said. “First, she diverted all of her emails to her husband’s server, and then when she found out they all were subpoenaed, she destroyed the ones, by cleaning the server, that she didn’t want everyone else to see.”

Looking at whether or not, Clinton will be prosecuted for “obstruction of justice,” Napolitano said that it all depends on whether there is a prosecutor with the courage to pursue a case against her.

“She now has admitted to destroying subpoenaed evidence after she was on notice of the existence of the subpoena,” Napolitano said. “That’s known as obstruction of justice as well of the destruction of the documents, but none of her crimes will get to first base in terms of prosecution, without a prosecutor to pursue them.”

Napolitano said that if the Republicans continue to emphasize the now “20-year-long perception that the Clintons believe they’re above the law,” it could become a serious problems for Clinton if she runs for President in 2016.

Posing the question to President Obama, Napolitano said, “Why aren’t you having your prosecutors prosecute her? You went after General Petraeus for having some documents in a desk drawer. She destroyed evidence after it was subpoenaed!”

In his letter requesting a transcribed interview with Clinton, Gowdy said that while she has provided some answers for why she did what she did, there are still many questions that remain unanswered, such as why she decided to bypass an official government email account, why she chose to retain email records upon separation from the Department of State, and why she decided to delete the emails.

“We continue to believe Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement with herself is highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” Gowdy wrote. “The decision to delete these records during the pendency of a congressional investigation only exacerbates our need to better understand what the Secretary did, when she did it, and why she did it. While she has cited a variety of justifications for this arrangement, many questions and details about the arrangement remain unanswered.”

Featured, Government Accountability, Government Corruption, Politics, Technology, US

Hillary Clinton Deletes All Emails, Wipes Server Clean

Mar 30, 2015 Rachel Blevins 68 Comments

On Friday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, revealed that rumored 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton deleted all of the emails that were on the personal server she used to conduct government business during her tenure as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Gowdy released a statement saying that after the Committee granted Clinton a two-week extension, her attorney, David Kendall, informed them that Clinton “unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server.”

“After seeking and receiving a two week extension from the Committee, Secretary Clinton failed to provide a single new document to the subpoena issued by the Committee and refused to provide her private server to the Inspector General for the State Department or any other independent arbiter for analysis,” Gowdy said.

While Gowdy said that it is not clear exactly when Clinton deleted the emails, he believes it was after the State Department first requested that she make her emails public in October 2014.

“While it is not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server, it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department,” Gowdy said. “Not only was the Secretary the sole arbiter of what was a public record, she also summarily decided to delete all emails from her server ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest.”

Gowdy concluded his statement by saying that given Clinton’s “unprecedented email arrangement,” the Committee intends to question her about her decision to delete all of her emails nearly two years after leaving office.

“We will work with the leadership of the House of Representatives as the Committee considers next steps,” Gowdy said. “But it is clear Congress will need to speak with the former Secretary about her email arrangement and the decision to permanently delete those emails.”

On March 2, The New York Times released a report which revealed that during her tenure as Secretary of State, Clinton did not have a government email address and insisted on conducting business through a private email account on a private server, which has been traced back to her home in Chappaqua, New York.

On March 4, the Benghazi Committee issued subpoenas for all emails related to the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, from both Clinton and her staff members’ personal accounts.

On March 8, Gowdy revealed that although Clinton provided 50,000 pages of emails, there were “huge gaps” in her records and documentation from her trip to Libya following the terrorist attacks was not included.

On March 12, Clinton addressed her use of private email to conduct government business at a press conference. She claimed that it was done “for convenience,” so that she could carry only one device. However, on Feb. 24, Clinton had said that she was “like two steps short of a hoarder,” because she carried “an iPad, a mini iPad, an iPhone and a Blackberry.”

A poll conducted by CBS News found that in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, while 65 percent of Americans say that their opinion of her has not changed, 29 percent say their opinion of her has grown worse, which includes 49 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of Independents.

The poll also found that 47 percent of Americans do not see Clinton as trustworthy, and more than 6 in 10 Americans do not think Clinton’s use of a private email and server for government business was appropriate.

Politics, US

Breaking the Law? Hillary Clinton Used Private Email as Secretary of State

Mar 3, 2015 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

On Monday, the New York Times revealed that during her four years as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did not have a government email address, and used her private email account to conduct government business, possibly violating the Federal Records Act.

Vox reported that while Clinton’s use of her personal email looks bad now, it looked even worse in 2009, when she “initially refused to use a governmental account,” due to the fact that she was entering just as a Congressional oversight committee was investigating allegations that the Bush Administration fired several U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, and denied access to “millions of internal messages that might have incriminated the White House.”

The New York Times reported that it wasn’t until two months ago, when the State Department made a new effort to observe the Federal Records Act, that Clinton’s advisors “reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department.”

On Tuesday, Clinton’s spokesperson Nick Merrill released a statement, claiming that Clinton’s behavior was not out of the ordinary, and that previous Secretaries of State had also used their personal emails:

“Like Secretaries of State before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained. When the Department asked former Secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes.”

The statement went on to say that Clinton’s practice of using her personal email was a way of updating old policies:

“Both the letter and spirit of the rules permitted State Department officials to use non-government email, as long as appropriate records were preserved. As a result of State’s request for our help to make sure they in fact were, that is what happened here. As the Department stated, it is in the process of updating its record preservation policies to bring them in line with its retention responsibilities.”

In a statement from Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, he defended Clinton and said that her use of private email has been public knowledge for several years.

“It has been public for several years that Secretary Clinton used her personal account, apparently following the pattern of previous Secretaries of States,” said Cummings. “Although Secretary Clinton has produced her emails to the State Department, it is unclear from press reports whether previous Secretaries have done the same.”

According to Vox, the fact that Clinton chose to use her private email for conducting government business shows a “stunning disregard for governmental transparency requirements.”

Jason Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath and former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration told the New York Times that Clinton’s use her private email is not a common practice and should not have been allowed.

“It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario – short of nuclear winter – where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” Baron said.

March 5, 2015: UPDATE: Benghazi Committee Subpoenas Hillary Clinton’s Private Emails for Investigation

March 9, 2015: UPDATE: Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Fired Ambassador for Using Private Email

March 10, 2015: UPDATE: Benghazi Chairman: There are “Huge Gaps” in Hillary Clinton’s Email Records

March 12, 2015: UPDATE: Fact Check: Holes in Hillary’s Email Story

International, US

One American detained in North Korea is freed, but two more remain

Oct 21, 2014 Zach McAuliffe Leave a comment

Jeffrey Fowle, who was arrested and has been detained in North Korea since May for leaving a Bible behind in his hotel room, has been released from the country, but two more Americans are still behind bars in North Korea.

Fowle is reportedly already out of the country, and according to CNN, the news of his release was only made public after the plane he was on landed in Guam. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, according to NBC News, Fowle has been seen by a doctor already and appears to be in good health.

The North Korean government arrested Fowle on suspicion of trying to proselytize more Christian followers through the act of leaving his Bible behind. While there are many state-run churches within North Korea, the government does not allow independent religious activities to take place for fear of undermining their authority. Independent religious activities are considered any actions pertaining to a religious organization which is not under the control of the North Korean government.

While the White House welcomed the news of Fowle’s release and thanked the Swedish government for their part in securing transport for Fowle out of North Korea, officials are still working on arranging the release of Americans Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae from the country.

“While this is a positive decision by the DPRK,”said the State Department, according to the Guardian, “we remain focused on the continued detention of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller and again call on the DPRK to immediately release them.”

Bae was arrested by the North Korean government under charges of “hostile acts to bring down the government.” The government claims he was part of a Christian based plot to overthrow the North Korean government. Bae, as well as the other prisoners, was allowed an interview with CNN, and Bae reported he was being held in a labor camp where he worked six days a week for eight hours.

The charges Miller is facing are not clear as he told the CNN interview he would find those out when he went to trial. As of now, the North Korean government is accusing him of tearing up his tourist visa, but whether this is true or not and what charges might arise from this, are unclear.

The State Department and government are still trying to make a deal for the secure release of the Bae and Miller.

Featured, International, Politics, US

US Government Denies Threatening Foley Family

Sep 14, 2014 Annabelle Bamforth 12 Comments

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough denied accusations that the families of murdered journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were threatened with prosecution if ransom was paid to terrorists to free the men.

Last week, Diane Foley, the mother of executed journalist James Foley, told the media that the federal government threatened to file lawsuits against her and her family if they raised money to pay the ransom for their son. Following Diane Foley’s claims, the family of Sotloff corroborated their story and said that they had faced the same threats from the government.

On Sunday McDonough gave several interviews to media outlets advocating the Obama administration’s strategies for fighting the Islamic State and denied that threats were made against the families. “We didn’t threaten anybody, but we made clear what the law is. That’s our responsibility to make sure we explain the law and uphold the law,” said McDonough.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said “It’s part of our job to help the family understand what our laws are about terrorists paying – or paying ransom to terrorists? Absolutely. But this Department would never and did not ever intend to nor do we think we ever did anything that we would consider threatening.”

McDonough and Harf made the denials despite ABC News reporting that five officials connected to Foley’s case confirmed that threats were made.

Ben Swann's Truth In Media