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Comment by sanjeetsuhag | Hacker News Reader

I'd like a source on Clinton herself calling for Assange's execution.

The best I could find is a bit weak as it's second hand. "Can't we just drone this guy". http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/clinton-assange-drone/

There's just absolutely no way that Hillary Clinton was seriously proposing a drone strike on the on the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.

She allegedly said this in 2010, two years before Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy.

It looks like the True Pundit article (linked above) is the original source for this claim, which is sourced as "according to State Department sources". Then there was a wikileaks email (https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/1099) which has the subject "an SP memo on possible legal and nonlegal strategies re wikileaks", but which doesn't actually mention the strategies and only says "The result is the attached memo, which has one interesting legal approach and I think some very good suggestions about how to handle our public diplomacy". The attachment is not provided as far as I can tell.

IMO, it was likely a joke.

I agree that it sounded like a joke. However the article says she pushed ahead discussing it after the laughter ended. Given that the source didn't want to be identified it makes it rather hard to verify.

She didn't deny it, but said “It would have been a joke, if it had been said, but I don't recall that.” I say that indicates she likely said it, although maybe jokingly.

Speaking for myself I know I would never say that, so the response would be "No, I never said that."

When your entire life is recorded, you never know what soundbite is floating around out there that will contradict your position. If you say something as a joke or that could be taken out of context, and then later claim to have never said it, suddenly you are a liar even though you didn't actually do anything wrong. It's possible that she just didn't want to get contradicted by some frustrated exclamation she had made years previously.

and yet, it's exactly this same person who will strengthen the NSA security apparatus that slurps up domestic communication wholesale, and saves it for all eternity. I hope you don't end up on the wrong end of a powerful person's anger, because you will go down the exact same way.

I don't see how that is relevant at all. Some pointless, trite warning/threat about crap that I already know.

yeah, but everything she and WJC say has to be filtered through the lawyer lens... depending on what the definition of is is. She's good at that - almost anything she says can be spun multiple ways.

If candidate A gets to write off a controversial, possibly illegal, statement as "a joke" then candidate B does too, right?

This election is trending beyond being too much too keep up with. I think we'll see more bullheaded decision making in the this same vein as we get closer to the date.

Aside from the "can't we just drone this guy" comment that Clinton doesn't remember saying and if she did it was a joke, etc. the closest I can find:

I would also add that to the American people and to our friends and partners, I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.

https://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/11/1...

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