Did Hillary Clinton Break the Laws with her Email Server?

It is scary to post about politics, especially with so many heated opinions.

Our media for whatever reason does not seem to be getting the unbiased facts across about Hillary’s Emails. People ARE getting their information from Social Media memes and bad 3rd party very biased news sites. Social media and your Facebook shares are part of the media now. That is the world we live in.. It IS up to us to spread the correct information and yeah be that person who corrects your friend when they are wrong. Ask questions, find facts, do your own research. Being “not polite to talk about politics” is not getting us very far is it people? It is scary to speak up – but speak up anyway. This is stuff worth talking about.

Thousand of people have seen and shared my Hillary Clinton Email post. (https://www.facebook.com/theamandablain/posts/1123231627711899) Not one person has presented one piece of actual evidence to say anything I posted was not factually correct. That doesn’t mean its flawless – If you think something is not correct please cite an original 1st party law, document, file, report etc… and I’ll investigate it and update where needed.

I posted about Hillary’s Emails for 2 reasons…
1. I think it is important people understand what the actual current facts are.
2. Most people have incorrect technical information when I talk to them about it and worse they are actually making voting decision based on that misinformation. This is very scary..

The biggest misinformation about Hillary’s Emails seems to float around:

“Hillary broke the law using the email server, she shared national secrets and anyone else would be in jail for much much less.”

1) “which law was broken” (none)
2) “what/which classified information was shared/hacked/made public” (none)
3) “Anyone else would be in jail for much less” (Nope nobody is).

I’m going to post the answers I posted repeatedly in the comments of the original post here to these points. They are indeed ridiculously long, but have a look if you are interested to the answers to the above points.

The laws surrounding Hillary Clinton’s Emails

These are the 3 more commonly used “SHE BROKE THESE LAWS USING THE SEVER”… No law has been broken.

1) Executive Order 13526 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) – https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 This is the law most people post that say she “broke the law” It comes from many media sites. This law ACTUALLY says taking information from one private system,  putting it on another public system. But even this concept in the law here is actually talking about physical items like files. Email is not mentioned anywhere in this section. Forgetting that pretty important technicality…..

What was found on Clinton’s server that was “top secret” had already been leaked by the media. Clinton and her team were discussing this leak of information. I found zero information that show Clinton as stealing/copying gov’t secrets and documents and putting them all over her email server and attempting to sell them for personal gain or to Russia and other countries. Do you think she was?

This was the point of the FBI investigation. She didn’t take classified info from the Gov’t ‘private’ server and copy and send it through a non classified ‘unsecured’ server. The FBI report details this extensively. Did the public get access to the information? Was it Hacked? (nope it wasn’t) and how did the classified information appear on the server. (Other people mess ups – these points in the original post) There is NO other case I’ve seen that shows someone being persecuted for something similar.. (TA Da… The FBI finding)

– National Archives and Records Administration Law – https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/36/1236.22 – Has been said several times including by the head of the NARA that she has not violated the law. https://twitter.com/danmericaCNN/status/572842630855430145 … In 2014, the NARA law has been changed to be more clear in this area. Even WITH that law change.. none of the gov’t is up to speed on Proper email records management as of today… NONE and its quite a few years later – https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news-foia-audit/foia/2016-03-14/saving-government-email-open-question-december-2016-deadline-looming

– Veterans for a Strong America has filed a lawsuit against the State Department over the Freedom Of Information Act..- https://foia.state.gov/The FOIA and its laws is a grey area.  If Clinton had in fact used 2 email servers – one personal and one gov’t then Clinton has complied with this request. She sent all .gov emails to record, which is all a .gov email would record. Her personal email and email address would NOT fall under the FOIA or record keeping requirements, because it would be her uhh personal accounts. Just like your personal and work email accounts would be considered separate in the same circumstance. Why this is an issue for so many is because Clinton didn’t USE the .gov email at all. (This was the bad part IMO, careless!) So what do you do when the request is made for your gov’t records? How do you separate them? Her team said well.. anything with .gov was work.. other emails? Personal. Then they copied all the .gov emails sent to other people and sent them to the gov’t. These .gov email are all that would have been covered in the FOIA request. The “missing” emails are not to a .gov email so they wouldn’t fall under the FOIA … Even with any subpoena. It is still careless… See my other post for more details about this specific stuff.

2) Classified information – “But she shared NATIONAL CLASSIFIED SECRETS and Her intent doesn’t matter she mishandled classified information. She is the Boss, she is responsible. ” – I talked a lot about classified information in the original post.. Not one national secret was shared. The FBI found 0 proof anyone hacked the server and got access to ANY of the emails… No information was shared to the public ever.

But what IS really important to note is how much MISHANDLING of classified information happens in the USA gov’t all the time.

Often times something becomes classified when 2 pieces of information appear in the same document… ie.. talking about Lab A is not classified.. Mr X Is also not classified… Talking about Lab A and Mr X TOGETHER is classified… And this frequently happens in email threads because the two pieces together mentioned in long threads now makes the document classified. This is a huge issue with classified info especially in email threads. It happens a lot…

Millions of pieces of classified information have been provided to the National Archive by members of the gov’t who have been trained on how not to do this… and it happened anyway. Many of these are changes in the classification terms.. ie – exactly the issue of mishandling classified info that has happened with Clinton. This is a National Archives Official report given to president Obama in 2014 about how many departments have issues with classified information – https://www.archives.gov/files/isoo/reports/2014-annual-report.pdf… a relevant direct quote from the article –

“Several agencies did not meet the security education and training requirements of E.O. 13526 and its implementing directive, 32 CFR Part 2001. Three of the agencies were not providing training, which is required by 32 CFR 2001.71(d), for persons who apply derivative classification markings. ISOO advised the agencies that this shortcoming required immediate attention. Two agencies did not offer specialized training for security staff or for personnel with special security duties, such as couriers. At two agencies, the annual refresher security training did not cover the elements required by 32 CFR 2001.71(f). We cannot over-emphasize the importance of security education and training to help ensure that personnel understand the classified national security program and their responsibilities under it. In addition to meeting the minimum requirements of E.O. 13526 and 32 CFR Part 2001, training must be tailored to the needs of the agency and the personnel who receive it to provide them knowledge of classification, safeguarding, and declassification in accordance with their duties. Three of the agencies had not established self-inspection programs as required by section 5.4(d)(4) of E.O. 13526 and 32 CFR 2001.60. Another agency, although it conducts self-inspections, does not review a representative sample of its classification actions, as the executive order and implementing directive mandate. Self-inspections are the most effective means for agencies to evaluate their classified national security information programs, so that they can identify areas of concern and take action to improve them. ”

Because of the nature of secrets its well… very hard to keep everything secret. Classified information changes frequently and its hard to keep up to speed on it all.. Especially if not using technology properly. This is why the law looks at did a person do this on PURPOSE. What was the intent.

When it comes to classified information, INTENT is a valid argument. To be charged it has to be proven that a person took classified information and sent/gave it to someone else, like the media or another gov’t.. because as i listed above.. too many people make mistakes about handling the information. Nothing in the FBI reports shows Clinton purposely taking this information and providing it to people who should not have it. That.. is.. the.. point… The direct quote from the report – “We did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information” listed here – https://www.fbi.gov/…/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-com…

To hold black and white all people accountable for mishandled classified information, well this would destroy the functioning gov’t in its current state. Multiple agencies referenced above would be removed. No one is witch hunting any of these gov’t officials by the way. No one is talking about how careless and they need to be in jail or they have bought out the govt because they are still walking around… No one I know even cares or has looked at this document. None of this is excusable either. This all shows my exact once again point. This is overall a USA gov’t technology issue.

3) Other people in Jail – “Anyone else would be in jail for much less… “

Not one person is in jail for similar.. or for much less.

There is not one case I’ve found or been made aware of that shows a person losing clearance, going to jail or otherwise being punished for participating in classified email thread discussions like i am talking about above..

These are three of the more popular – “But look what happened to these guys”

Retired four-star Gen. James Cartwright – Provided a whole bunch of top secret information that was published in a book by David Sanger.Took private info… Gave it to the media.. Lied about it to the Investigative team.. later pleaded guilty to lying and was sentenced to 6 months in jail. Zero email.

Gen. David Patraeus – Patreus took classified information and shared it with his lover who was writing a biography, who was planning to share that info public. But they ultimately did not. Again, Taking classified information from a private source and sharing it publicly is what the law says is the issue. Intent. Purpose. No part of Clinton’s emails reached ANY public, nor was she taking any of that information TO share with the public.

JOHN M. DEUTCH –  Deutch left the CIA on December 15, 1996 and soon after it was revealed that several of his laptop computers contained classified information wrongfully labeled as unclassified. Deutch was regularly using an unclassified computer to log into classified locations. This is seriously bad. It was attached to the internet and could easily be hacked. Worse yet, he used this computer to copy and move around classified files. His case is a good look at “precedent” – http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/ig_deutch.html Including the various questions and way the investigation was handled. End result though? He didn’t go to jail. He DID have his security revoked but again, he purposely used an unclassified computer to move and store top secret documents. He did not participate in email threads like Clinton did. Zero files of classified information were found downloaded to Clintons computers at this time.Her computers were not moving files around or storing them. He was of note also pardoned later on.

When comparing people,  have a look – Did the person take private secure info off a system and then share it somewhere public or with someone who should not have had it?

If people honestly feel the FBI is corrupt, then fine. Start another trial looking into the investigation of the FBI and how they handled the investigation. I’ll read that information too. Until such a time, I really think its quite ridiculous to say the FBI is covering up for Clinton. Especially when the factual evidence at this time shows she has not actually committed any crimes – A person would rather believe the whole gov’t has gone corrupt? It’s a pretty sad world view for the person who has lost all faith in the gov’t to that level of corruption.

Don’t Confuse Politics With Facts.

Finally, I would like to say, If you don’t like Hillary and her policies on X, Y, And Z , that is totally cool with me. Don’t or Do vote for her all you like, but to attempt to say she should be in jail, broke the law, etc is just misinformation spread by misinformed media and social media memes – unless you can present information that says otherwise here.

I hope this clears some of the previous points up a bit more. Feel free to correct me with direct sources like I mentioned… I am just a person. 🙂 It is important to discuss these things. I hope you will question, learn and look into all of this yourself. Have a great day 🙂