Clinton faulted on emails by State Department audit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke in Commerce, Calif. on Tuesday. A State Department audit faulted Hillary Clinton and previous top U.S. diplomats for poorly managing information and slowly responding to new cybersecurity risks.
WASHINGTON » Hillary Clinton and her team ignored clear guidance from the State Department that her email setup broke federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers, an independent audit has found. Her aides twice brushed aside concerns, in one case telling technical staff “the matter was not to be discussed further.”
The inspector general’s review also revealed that hacking attempts forced then-Secretary of State Clinton off email at one point in 2011, though she insists the personal server she used was never breached. Clinton and several of her senior staff declined to be interviewed for the State Department investigation.
Opponents of her Democratic presidential campaign pointed to the audit today as proof that Clinton has not been truthful about her private email use and fresh evidence she is not trustworthy or qualified to be commander in chief.
A Clinton spokesman declared the audit showed her email use was consistent with that of her predecessors.
Earlier this month, Clinton declared that she was happy to “talk to anybody, anytime” about the matter and would encourage her staff to do the same.
The 78-page analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says Clinton ignored clear directives. She never sought approval to conduct government business over private email, and never demonstrated the server or the Blackberry she used while in office “met minimum information security requirements.”
Twice in 2010, information management staff at the State Department raised concerns that Clinton’s email practices failed to meet federal records-keeping requirements. The staff’s director responded that Clinton’s personal email system had been reviewed and approved by legal staff, “and that the matter was not to be discussed any further.”
The audit found no evidence of a legal staff review or approval. It said any such request would have been denied by senior information officers because of security risks.
The inspector general’s inquiry was prompted by revelations of Clinton’s email use, a subject that has dogged her presidential campaign.
The review encompassed the email and information practices of the past five secretaries of state, finding them “slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership.”
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon underscored that point today.
“The inspector general documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email,” Fallon said, noting that the report says “her use of personal email was known to officials within the department during her tenure, and that there is no evidence of any successful breach of the secretary’s server.”
But the failings of Clinton, who was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, were singled out in the audit as being more serious than her predecessors.
“By Secretary Clinton’s tenure, the department’s guidance was considerably more detailed and more sophisticated,” the report concluded. “Secretary Clinton’s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives.”
Republicans said today the audit shows Clinton was in clear violation of the Federal Records Act.
“The inspector general’s findings are just the latest chapter in the long saga of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment that broke federal rules and endangered our national security,” said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. “The stakes are too high in this election to entrust the White House to someone with as much poor judgment and reckless disregard for the law as Hillary Clinton.”
The State Department has released more than 52,000 pages of Clinton’s work-related emails, including some that have since been classified. Clinton has withheld thousands of additional emails, saying they were personal.
Critics have questioned whether her server might have made a tempting target for hackers, especially those working with or for foreign intelligence services.
Separately from the State Department audit, the FBI has been investigating whether Clinton’s use of the private email server imperiled government secrets. It has recently interviewed Clinton’s top aides, including former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin. Clinton is expected to be interviewed.
Clinton has acknowledged in the campaign that the homebrew email setup in her New York home was a mistake. She said she never sent or received anything marked classified at the time, and says hackers never breached the server.
The audit said a Clinton aide had to shut down the server on Jan. 9, 2011, because he believed “someone was trying to hack us.” Later that day, he said: “We were attacked again so I shut (the server) down for a few min.”
The next day, a senior official told two of Clinton’s top aides not to email their boss “anything sensitive,” saying she could “explain more in person.”
On CBS’ “Face the Nation” this month, Clinton said, “I’ve made it clear that I’m more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime. And I’ve encouraged all of (my staff) to be very forthcoming.”
The audit said three of her closest State Department aides — Mills, Abedin and policy chief Jake Sullivan — declined interview requests.
Associated Press reporters Stephen Braun, Chad Day, Jack Gillum in Washington and Lisa Lerer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
45 responses to “Clinton faulted on emails by State Department audit”
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Crooked Hilary
Unworthy to be our president.
It was disgraceful for her to campaign with this cloud over her head. If the DNC still allows her to be the presidential nominee over Bernie after this report, then the party only has itself to blame if Trump becomes President. So many people in the Democratic Party were so blinded by their ideals of getting to see a woman become President that they didn’t even care who that woman was or what kind of baggage she was bringing to the table. Shameful.
Sadly, true. Even sadder still that the best alternative the party could come up with was an aging Bolshevik, stuck in 1960s radicalism.
Nothing can compare with the republicans when it comes to candidates. Lets see they started out with almost 20 and the final two consisted of a Cuban Canadian anchor baby and someone with zero political experience. Only republicans could do this. lol
Yea Boots, The Dems started with an Old Socialist, a “Deer in the headlights” guy, and a career criminal. Was that the best they could do?
And BTW, its stuff like this that makes the majority of the citizenry not trust establishment career politicians. Trump’s appeal comes from knowing how politicians come into politics poor and leave wealthy.
Hillary claimed to be broke in 2001, now she is worth 10s of millions, and her crooked “foundation” is worth 100’s of millions thanks to donations by countries that claim to hate us. Go figure.
It’s time she releases the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street Bankers, that she claims to hate, and yet paid her $200,000 per 20 minute speech. She is such a fraud!
And, Peter (Boots) the drip drip of bad reports results in less and less support from the Democrats. Now, some of the elected Congress Democrats are turning on their own Party Chairman, Debbie. Peter, you may end up without a political party.
Another ridiculous reply by Boots. Rather than address the facts as reported in the article Boots resorts to a red herring. LOL
LOL mahalo Boots for another ANALogy!!
If the Donald becomes president, will just show how stupid the American public has become. Might as well request the towns butcher to perform brain surgery. How idiotic to think that someone with zero political experience can just walk into the presidency. Just goes to show that Americans no longer respect knowledge or intelligence. A pity.
LOL another funny ANALogy
Boots, you seem to have forgotten that Americans elected a community organizer to be president. How idiotic to think that someone so unqualified could walk into the presidency as Barrack Obama did. It was not just a pity, it was a tragedy.
Hilary Milhouse Rodham Whatsis: “I am not a crook. So there.”
Yeah. I still don’t understand this. I’d really like to know who convinced her that she needed her own email server. (she is not a digital technology professional) I had a graduate Systems Administration seminar from a guy who was a SysAd for Deutsche Telekom and was the chief technical guy for Cisco Europe. After he showed us how to set up a email system his advice was just don’t do it. There are too many things that can go wrong. I can’t believe that Mrs. Clinton couldn’t get better advice.
The Clinton family believe that the American people are stupid and will flaunt their arrogance right to your face. The problems she is experiencing with the server issue is a prime example. Like the Obama underling that was the author of the Obama Care Health Plan who stated that the American citizens are like lambs and stupid and very gullible. Follow the their foundation revelations. Seems that at every turn there is something askew if the Clinton family is involved. Wonder who pays Chelsea’s salaries and expenses?
Oh, poor innocent Hillary, a victim of bad advice.
Puleeze, give me a break. Clinton has been in high government positions since here husband became president, virtually surrounded by classified information at the highest level. One can not possibly be in the White House for 8 years, then the Senate, then State Dept. without a complete grounding in the measures and obligations to protect sensitive material. Simply being awarded a clearance requires briefings/instruction on how to handle that information. The higher the clearance, the more stringent the obligation to protect information covered by it.
Clinton knew what her obligations were, to use the secure comm systems available in DOD and state, but she ignored them. She says for convenience. I say to avoid scrutiny in advance of a presidential run. What ever the case, she is a liar and a felon. The pitiful excuse that she didn’t receive anything “marked” classified is another instance of deceit on her part, knowing full well that she was obligated by law to protect sensitive information, marked or not.
hiLIARy is a liar and a deceitful person h3ll bent on getting power…PERIOD!
Yet you will probably vote for the candidate who has told the most lies. lol
Well Boots, at least you finally are out of denial about Hillary being a liar.
Yuk, Yuk. Yuk. I’ll be LOLing all day come Nov 7 when Trump beats Hillary like a drum.
Why will he win? Because of all the wonderful accomplishments of the Obama administration/democrat party. Here’s your reminder (got this committed to memory yet?):
Inflaming an ever increasing racial divide.
Impoverishing the largest progressive run state, California, with the highest percentage of those living under the poverty line.
Ignoring our soon to be insolvent entitlement programs (Social Security Disability next year).
Presiding over the slowest economic recovery, the lowest labor participation rate in 4 decades.
Squandering US influence in the world at the expense of vital national interests, particularly the Middle East.
Negotiating a nuclear agreement that will set of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and actually shelter the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
An immigration policy that amounts to the dissolution of our borders in order to import democrat party voters.
Use of the IRS like a sort of political gestapo to shut up conservative groups.
Supporting the sale of baby body parts.
These appear to be the guiding principles of the Democrat party, either by design or by ignorance, aimed at a slow destruction of the country.
No Winston, if the Donald win it will probably be because his questions on American foreign policy struck home.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/22/trumps-five-questions-on-us-foreign-policy/
“Only Donald Trump (among the Presidential candidates) has said anything meaningful and critical of U.S. foreign policy.” No, that is not Reince Priebus, chair of the RNC, speaking up in favor of the presumptive Republican nominee. It is Stephen F. Cohen, Emeritus Professor of Russian History at Princeton and NYU, a contributing editor for The Nation, that most liberal of political journals.
While I cannot support the Donald, I appreciate his critical thinking of US foreign policy which sadly both parties have been guilty of over reach. Hopefully the Donald can bring some real discussion to the table.
Sadly though, I just cannot vote for someone for the most powerful job in the United states who has zero political experience.
oh, DD, calling someone a liar is so petty. Hillary may not have been totally truthful, but what politician has? Certainly not the republican presumptive nominee who has been rated as the politician with the most lies. Can you name one politician who did not tell a lie? I would say Jimmy Carter but look where his honesty got him.
Fact is American public expects their politicians to lie to them. Sad that they cannot take the truth.
Not being “totally truthful” is the same as “lying by omission”. Boots, give it up, she’s a loser. The best thing that could happen is that Hillary is charged. That way they can steal it from Bernie, and give it to Biden at the Convention. If it all looks to Obama that Hillary may not be able to beat the Donald, Obama will let the Dept. Of Justice indict. Biden would take the job. That will be Obama’s payback to Biden for assuring votes for Obamacare.
Maybe she did but ignored them?
Trust me. Having had security clearances from secret to above top secret for over thirty years, there is no way Clinton wasn’t exposed, repeatedly, to her obligation to protect that information. She is flat out lying if she says otherwise.
Any 2LT in the military knows the consequences if they did what she did, and knowing that she was committing a security breach makes it that much worse, especially in the case of TS SCI material.
What we should be seeing now is a perp walk, not a presidential campaign.
Correct Winston, she is in clearly in violation of espionage. Search: “18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” to read the exact statute.
Don’t understand why she has not already been charged.
An even bigger question is: How many special agents, personnel, and programs did she compromise? Has it cost anyone their lives?
Russian, Chinese, and this guy in custody all claimed to have hacked her account. They would have even known were she would be having lunch so they could go in advance and bug the place.
Of course, this all from the “What does it matter how they died” person!
You missed the whole point of your thought..hiLIARy is to BLAME….NO ONE else.
There exists a video in where Hillary talks about setting it up because of her past investigations. If I find it again, will post.
Cellodad,
I don’t know what single person convinced her to rely on her personal e-mail server for government correspondence, but Hillary Clinton found out what happens when loyalty is overvalued and you end up accustomed to trusting the advice of a close circle of friends instead of hired professionals or outsiders. It’s a self reinforcing system as long as nothing goes terribly wrong. President JFK realized something similar had befallen him after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
She covers up everything, including her big but t. Huge one she has.
Wow, insightful political commentary.
G A S P!!! I was having my breakfast and now it’s all over my screen for crying out loud because of your provoking comment! lol
Sorry. I should not have made that post. Cannot delete.
No apologies, sometimes “doing as the liberals do” is good for the health!
How dare you common people question Hillary Clinton? She was Secretary of State for the greatest person in U.S. history and the world President Obama and the wife and first lady of the second greatest person President Bill Clinton. Hillary is destined to take her place as one of the top three. SHE CAN DO ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING SHE WANTS. She is following in the lead and footsteps of the other two. Enough of the BS meaning what I said here.
lol
hiLIARy for Prison 2016
where are the Hillary supporters like boots and klastri? nothing to say? thats because there is no way anyone can justify what she has done. she deleted 30,000 e-mails. if even on e-mail was classified or deemed classified, thats a felony. over 2000 e-mails were found to be classified in the ones she turned over. what is the chance that not even one was classified in the bunch that she deleted? answer is zero chance. zero. nada. i’m not saying this because she’s a democrat. if this was a republican presidential contender, i would be saying the same thing. no way i could support that person to be president. unfortunately there are too many fools out there who want to put a woman, a Clinton, back in the white house no matter what. honesty and integrity does not matter i guess. shameful.
Agree. Excellent post.
Much ado about nothing. Republicans are just being stupid trying to make this an issue. They would be better served if they try to make the case that Hillary is basically a chicken hawk. Sadly republicans would probably be the first ones to push for war.
Wow! “State Department Audit”????? It was the State Department Independent Inspector General’s Report that was made public. Star-Advertiser and AP attempting to hide the impact of the IG Report? Not very nice.
hiliar is losing the democrat party’s support. her lies about the email are being slowly parsed and proven false. hiliar’s lies about wanting to cooperate fully with the investigations into the emails are being unravelled. the lies about telling her staff to fully cooperate with the investigations are now exposed.
pagliano accepted immunity. lazar accepted immunity. her inner cabal is weighing the risks of staying with the conspiracy versus seeking out immunity before the next round of f.b.i. interrogations. even democrat leaders are now openly talking about ousting shultz as the party chair.
hiliar’s campaign with continue to wither under the bright lights of truth relentlessly exposing her lies and corrupt enterprises.
Hate to say it but she’s done. Now we may have a president who goes off and calls people names every time some one attacks him. Of course there is Mr. Sanders ( A guy with a lot of energy) who may still pull it off which would make Gabbard very happy.
Whatever happens its a great show to watch if you want some laughs, and its free.
It seems to me there is another person who should be investigated regarding Hillary’s email server scandal and that is her husband and former president Bill Clinton. The server was set up in his home in New York. He had to know it was there and the purpose for which it was being used. It seems to me he violated some national security law. What did he know, when did he know it and why did he allow it to happen?