FBI Releases Documents in Hillary Clinton E-Mail Investigation | Hacker News Reader

FBI Releases Documents in Hillary Clinton E-Mail Investigation

fbi.gov

72 pointsuptown49 comments

> FBI investigation indicated the Tor user logged into ____'s email account and browsed email folders and attachments. When asked during her interview, _____ stated to the FBI she is not familiar with nor has she ever used Tor software. FBI investigation to date was unable to identify the actor(s) responsible for this login or how _____'s login credentials were compromised.

Was this info already public? This seems to me that not only did Secretary Clinton use a private email server to mask her activities from public records law but in taking it under her/her staff's responsibility, she effectively leaked state secrets. How in the world does that not make her criminally culpable?

EDIT: Sorry for the tangent -- I'm really curious: is this part new or had the press already reported it (or discovered it and decided not to report it?)

I am not a lawyer, but criminal culpability has everything to do with state of mind / mens rea. This is why "murder" is a crime but accidental homicide is not, even though in both cases the same actions might have led to the same consequences.

"State secrets" is also one thing, "classified material" is another thing.

Accidental homicide isn't a crime? I thought that was what involuntary manslaughter was?

IANAL. It depends on who is at fault. If you are driving your car down the highway and a pedestrian jumps in front of you so close that there is nothing you can do...

That's not really homicide though.

Homicide doesn't mean murder. It simply means the killing of a person by another.

People make a big deal about how in capital punishment, the death certificate says 'homicide'. This isn't a political statement that capital punishment is murder; it is just the objective fact of what happened.

So if someone jumps out in front of you and they die, you're the victim of a homicide?

They would be the victim....

I'm talking about accidentally killing someone where there is no negligence or intent. It's not a crime. It's still homicide.

Accidental -> reckless -> negligent -> intentional

At least she should get punished at some level.Not like nothing happend and she can still run for president. What a joke. Shame on us.

Agreed. Even if she _actually_ didn't mean any harm by this, it's insane that we would be okay having someone this negligent vying for the most powerful office in the world.

Of course, the argument that she had no intent is getting tougher to prove with each bit of information coming out. The fact that she (or one of her people) just happened to use BleachBit once they realized investigation was imminent is pretty damning.

The voters are the ultimate authority in all of this, and we get to decide in November.

> "State secrets" is also one thing, "classified material" is another thing.

No, actually (in the US at least) they are the same thing.

Perhaps he meant that not all classified material is state secret.

In the sense that not all classified material should be classified, perhaps. By definition, though, the US government considers everything classified to be a state secret.

Accidental homicide is called manslaughter, and is very much a crime.

Manslaughter requires negligence. Not all homicides are a result of negligence, i.e., shit happens.

"Gross negligence" in handling classified material is also criminal, regardless of intent.

For those of us interested in the context, can you tell us where in the documents you found this?

Page 29 of 47: https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/politics/hillaryclinto...

It's not so much the use of an email server that bothers me personally, it's the lack of accountability and double standard afterward.

For the purpose of staying somewhat on-topic for HN, and this is entirely speculative for entertainment purposes only, but I wonder if there were deeper motives to running a personal email server. Maybe she knows something about the intelligence agencies or the state department's official email system we don't, and was deliberately avoiding (or aiding?) them. Are there any such legitimate technical reasons for running a separate email server?

Well, state dept email was notoriously crap. It was also hacked [1]. She also asked for the same fake blackberry (blackberry tied to a local radio that travels with the person) that POTUS gets and was refused.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/politics/state-department-hack...

I don't think this was reported. However there's a few points in the surrounding context that likely diminishes this as a significant detail:

1) The account belonged to a President (Bill) Clinton staffer, and not to Hillary or someone who worked at State with Hillary. Given the FBIs findings, it seems unlikely any classified information was found in their account.

2) The FBI did not identify any other successful scanning attempts on Clinton's server.

I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that these are being released on the Friday before the Labor Day long weekend.

"In a follow-up FBI interview on May 3, 2016, ____ indicated he had an "oh shit" moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server and used BleachBit to delete the .PST files he had created on the server system containing Clinton's e-mails."

> "Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA"

So, I'm confused. I thought they said she _didn't_ mishandle classified information.

I can't tell if you're joking or not, so I'll bite: Comey said that they didn't have the elements that normally support a case such as malicious intent or efforts to obstruct the investigation. [his words not mine]

Of course, classified information existed on the servers and it stands to reason that the investigation report itself could contain classified material.

I was joking, and denying the obvious (which you stated).

It's just infuriating that an ordinary citizen like myself can get a ticket for speeding, even though my intention was not to harm anyone and I wasn't aware the signs had changed a few miles back. I'm convinced the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, Kenndedys, etc literally have a different set of laws that apply to them.

Speeding laws are written such that it is a violation regardless of intent or reason.

So too are the laws on classified information. I would have been in jail months ago had I done what she did.

exabrial is correct; there is, and has been for decades, a double standard between what the politicos can get away with and what we GS plebs can do.

> exabrial is correct; there is, and has been for decades, a double standard between what the politicos can get away with and what we GS plebs can do.

s/politicos/connected politicos/

If Joe Public Servant tries this he goes to jail too ... Only the connected elites are immune.

Joe Public Servant is one of the "GS plebs" I was referring to. Sure, some junior Congresscritter is going to get in more trouble than a SecState, but it will still be quite a bit less trouble than the random unelected staffer who will likely get scapegoated for said Congresscritter's transgression.

I don't think that's right. Most laws require a trial. Speeding does not require a trial: you are guilty if a cop says you were speeding. You can appeal, of course.

I was strictly addressing the parent's comparison about speeding tickets. They are not like other laws.

That is not correct. When you return the ticket, they make you check a box on the form indicating your plea, either "guilty, here's my money" or "not guilty, give me a trial."

You're not guilty just because a cop says so. You have a right to a trial for every speeding ticket. Most people just waive that right.

I stand corrected. Sounds like you are technically not guilty unless you waive a trial.

You are right, unfortunately. An ordinary citizen would have been punished for this. The FBI director has said as much. This is an excerpt from the director's statement to the press:

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-b...

Also, documents are available here with verifiable hash (in case content changes):

Hillary R. Clinton Part 01 of 02 - 1353814-0 - LHM.PDF — PDF document, 2,568 kB (2,629,920 bytes)

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmePNKoSunyVnbye94tojqt5qhn1WVmmTrEygf9...

Hillary R. Clinton Part 02 of 02 - 1353814-0 - HRC 302 -V2.PDF — PDF document, 1,226 kB (1,255,658 bytes)

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVfowJwBQ5LJGxMatQ8FiS89RWfyqGE6WbfoGs...

You've just landed the job as the second most powerful person in the USA. You work constantly, and rely on 24/7 access to email and messages through your Blackberry (or iPhone/Android now). Your boss has a functional Blackberry. Your predecessor had one too.

You are told you can not have a mobile device, but only use a secure computer in a secure location.

Your job requires constant travel.

Given the setup I'm unsurprised that someone as resourceful as a Secretary of State solved the problem.

Running around corporate/government IT departments that say no to everything is a long-standing tradition, and long may it continue. It is how Blackberry and Apple devices got into the hands of these organisations.

weird this isn't on the front page even though it's only 5 hours old as of now

Where are the documents?

On the vault, I just get:

> There are currently no items in this folder.

I've linked mirror of the documents here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12415174

why is this news on site like Hacker News?

Because this investigation would never have happened if it weren't for a hacker?

> why is this news on site like Hacker News?

Why not? I'd much rather read and interact with the opinions of the fine people that make up this community on this topic than anywhere else on the interwebs.

my bad. I simply said thinking it as just another politics related news. Sorry about it. It's too late to delete it now.

Because I submitted it.

Because nothing happened with Elon Musk today

Maybe for similar reasons you posted this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8651298

Reply on news.ycombinator.com