Originally Posted by spence
I'm not saying it's not important, but the recent IG report found both Powell and aids to Rice all had classified information transmitted on their personal email accounts.
Making a surface comparison is a sly trick, the rational being that it will be accepted without a deeper analysis. Powell's and Rice's statements as abbreviated by Reuters:
"Powell has said the State Department was technologically backward when he joined in 2001 and that he had to fight to get an Internet-connected computer installed in his office, from which he continued to use his personal email account.
Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of staff at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said Rice did not use email while at the State Department, and that the 10 emails to her staff were reports on 'diplomatic conversations.'"
A deeper analysis of the comparison to Hilary's personal email account is this by Guy Benson in a Feb. 5, 2016 article in Townhall:
"'Condi and Colin did it, too!' relies on a thoroughly bogus equivalency. Above all else, neither Rice nor Powell set up and used a recklessly unsecure private emails server on which they conducted all of their official business, against "clear cut rules" implemented in 2005. (A former CIA director and Secretary of Defense have each stated that her [Clinton's] vulnerable server was likely penetrated by foreign powers like the Russians and Chinese). This review identified ten -- total -- emails that have now been assigned retroactive, low-level classification levels. Only two of them went to then-Secretary of State Powell, with the others going to Rice's aides, and both of those are now classified at the lowest level ("confidential"). As mentioned above, Hillary's server contained 1,600 classified emails and counting, including the most sensitive level of intelligence in existence (SAP, beyond-top-secret). There is no comparison between the conduct of Hillary Clinton and that of her immediate predecessors. Beyond her exclusive use of an improper and unsecure server, Sec. Clinton was personally and specifically warned about the vulnerability of her email scheme in 2011, when a State Department security expert sounded the alarm over foreign hackers seeking to infiltrate US secrets by targeting high-ranking officials' private emails. Mrs. Clinton carried on with her arrangement anyway.
"In summary, Hillary Clinton's server is the scandal. It's possible that Rice's aides and Sec. Powell may have acted improperly (though the email rules were set forth after Powell left office). They may have been sloppy with a small number of low-level classified information on an ad hoc basis. The rules and laws pertaining to the US government's data security must be followed. By everyone. But Clinton mishandled hundreds upon hundreds of classified emails, which held state secrets at the highest classification levels. In fact, just this week, the State Department deemed another seven Clinton emails too sensitive to release in any form, even with redactions, bringing that total to 29. Intelligence officials who've seen some of the documents in question say they betray operational intelligence, the leakage of which puts covert missions and lives at risk. A former NSA official has intelligence community sources who say Clinton's emails included the true identities of CIA operatives and assets, including foreign nationals working for the agency. Unlike Powell and Rice, Mrs. Clinton exhibited ongoing gross negligence by exposing reams of sensitive and classified intelligence to foreign governments. She ignored her sworn duty to safeguard secrets, 'marked and unmarked,' and declined to alter her behavior after she was admonished of an explicit vulnerability pertaining to personal email use. And unlike Powell and Rice, Hillary has consistently lied about this scandal. Her smug assertion that the (twice expanded) FBI investigation won't go anywhere amounts to waving a red flag in front of career investigators and intelligence officials, who are reportedly fuming over her irresponsible, and likely criminal, conduct. Remember, the probe reportedly entails more than just her email misconduct, Gen. David Petraeus was charged for classified intelligence spillage that was far more limited and contained, and a former US Attorney General says there's already sufficient evidence to justify an indictment. Clinton seems confident that her political power and privilege will shield her from accountability in the end, sending a less-than-subtle message to the Justice Department, which has already been influenced by two public White House statements.
It was a system problem and State tightened up the rules after Clinton as a result.
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