Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Hillary's Emails

Rich Galen

Thursday March 12, 2015

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I hope this is the last time I write about this, but Hillary's email issue is not going to go away any time soon in spite of her press conference at the United Nations on Tuesday.

First, you have to give the Clintons credit for using the tools they have available. No other non-incumbent, sort-of candidate for President in the history of the Republic would have been able to hold a presser at the UN immediately after having delivered a speech there.

Jeb might be able to hold a press conference in Miami after an appearance at the in-water boat show, but � you see what I mean.

In fact, before taking any questions she thanked the UN for allowing her to speak there. Just in case you forgot who you were dealing with.

It was clear that Hillary's team had been in touch with Obama's team because she also took a swipe at the 47 Republicans in the Senate who signed a letter to Iran to remind the Iranian government that a deal with President Obama without Congressional approval is not a deal. Clinton asked what the Senators could have had in mind. This via CNN:

"There appear to be two logical answers," Clinton said. "Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander-in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letter's signatories."

That was guaranteed to make at last an additional headline to distract from the issue at hand: Her emails.

I'm not a federal administrative law expert and I'm not an ethics genius. I've been in the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch and I have, like everyone else, chafed under what I thought were dumb or indecipherable rules. But I did my best to obey.

Clinton said that she didn't want to carry two devices around so she decided to carry one and the one she carried went through her private family email server. Secondly, she used emails pertaining to her mother's funeral and Chelsea's wedding/pregnancy as the sort of private matters she doesn't think need to see the light of day. Third, she said (offhandedly, I thought) that the server was private and would remain private.

Finally, she said she never sent nor received any classified emails.

Without parsing every syllable of every word in every sentence let me make a few points.

-- A lot of people in government carry two devices. My most recent boss, former U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, routinely switched from one to another depending upon whether she was doing Senate business or checking on her kids.
-- Secretary Clinton had aides in abundance where ever she travelled. It is not unheard of in the highest of government circles for an aide to carry the briefcase and/or the purse of the principal. Carrying one of the two email devices would not have broken any backs of any of the camels on the payroll.
-- On the matter of not getting or sending any classified emails (using the same false choice construct that she did with that Senate letter to Iran): Either (A) Classified emails were sent to an aide travelling with her in which case - why haven't they been produced? Or (b) Clinton was do distrusted by the Obama team that nothing classified north of the lunch menu in the Main State cafeteria was ever to be sent to her.

Secretary Clinton gets points for saying something, but I do not believe she said anything that will put the matter to rest.

New Topic

Quick! What State do you think of when I say "Embarrassing and dysfunctional? Right. Arizona.

Arizona has a new Governor, Republican Doug Ducey, and he has done what I would have thought impossible: He got the state legislature to approve a budget on time (only Virginia passed a budget earlier) and that budget closed a budget shortfall that was in the area of $1.5 billion.

It was bipartisan in the sense that a couple of Democrats in the Legislature signed on, but it does show that leadership counts and 48 other Governors might want to put someone on a plane to chat with Gov. Ducey's folks to figure out how they did it.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: USA Today's coverage of the Hillary presser, and the InsideSources.com coverage of Arizona.

Also a power-of-positive-thinking Mullfoto

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