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Anyone who follows American politics will have heard of Hillary Clinton's email server. Rather than using an official State Department address, she chose to use a private server for her official email. Federal law requires all official email to be archived on government servers. Armchair lawyers have pointed out that it doesn't require the use of government servers to send and receive the email, but the archival requirement is clear. This requirement was clearly violated in this case: in response to a subpoena, Hillary Clinton's private staff extracted emails from her private server and turned them over to the government. The contents of the server itself were never made available to the government, and now she has had the server erased:
Hillary Clinton wiped “clean” the private server housing emails from her tenure as secretary of state, the chairman of the House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi said Friday.
“While it is not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server, it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.
As Popehat tweeted:
@Popehat
I ask you, who among us hasn't wiped a server clean after its contents were requested by subpoena?
I naively wonder why she isn't in jail, but that's just me. Comments and views from those interested in American politics?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mrsam on Monday March 30 2015, @11:55AM
Because she's a Democrat. The NY Times, Washington Post, the rest of the mainstream media is completely uninterested; contrary, they're trying their best to clear the path for her, and take down anyone who stands in her way.
If it became known that, say, Dick Cheney did the same thing, and wiped his server after being subpoenaed; the reaction from the American media, and all the usual left-wing kookblogs (but I repeat myself), would've been such, that you'd be forgiven for thinking that Iran has finally managed to lob some nukes across the Atlantic.
(Score: 4, Informative) by skater on Monday March 30 2015, @12:38PM
There have been several front-page articles on the WaPo website about this story. I don't read the NY Times so I can't tell you there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @01:32PM
Yep. It has nothing to do with political party and everything to do with being a part of the ruling class.
Power is the ability to avoid consequences and power does not discriminate by party.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @03:09PM
Ding, ding, ding! You're a winner. You've hit the nail on the head exactly. Growing up in the West of the US, I had the same image of government and power in the US as everyone else in the rest of the world. I thought that Republican vs. Democrat were real distinctions, and that democracy was a real contest of ideas that was won through successful debate. Then I moved to NYC and walked with the wealthy and powerful, listened in on their private salons, and gained access to their inner sanctums. After the initial shock of, "Holy crap! I'm sitting in a meeting with a former President of the United States and one of the wealthiest men in the world!" wore off (about 4 minutes), I realized that the joke was on all the rest of us in the human race.
First, forget all the Left vs. Right stuff, it's a sham. They're all in bed with one another. Their private piques and prejudices ("So-and-so didn't invite me to her Spring Tea!") matter far more to them than the petty, mundane concerns of ours (ie, they voted to starve 10,000 poor children in W. Virginia to death).
Second, they will never, ever stop unless brought to a definitive end point like a guillotine. They're always working their networks and connections to get special consideration or treatment. That is their currency, and the only thing that matters to them.
Third, though bestowed with low cunning, they are fundamentally stupid, stupid human beings. They have no intelligence or skill or technical knowledge or ability to do anything meaningful, really. If confronted by determined forces who do possess those qualities, they will melt like snow in the summer sunshine.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @06:55PM
I would say that its just like "professional wrestling" but lots of people think that's real too, so it wouldn't really help much.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday March 30 2015, @02:53PM
Cheney and Clinton should get married. They share so much --- evil neo-con warmonger being top on the list.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @02:58PM
It's important to understand who the Clintons' constituency is: Baby-Boomer women, wealthy, predominantly Jewish, from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They comprise the core of the reliable donors to the Clintons, both during Bill's presidency and afterward to his Foundation (which only the Clintons could so mis-label, since it makes no grants and only solicits donations). That is the same core 300 people who are courted by every Democratic candidate in America, be they from New York or Oklahoma. They all hop on the plane to kneel before the women of the Upper West Side.
That's why it's very rare to get policy variation from Democrats around the country. They all have to kow-tow to the same people to fund their campaigns.
It should also be noted that the Upper West Side of Manhattan is where a great many of the people from the media elite of NYC and America live. They do cross paths with the Dem party mavens. It is not a coincidence. They all do know each other, belong to the same clubs, travel in the same circles, and collude. Boy, do they collude. If there is any rivalry at all in American politics, it is not between Republicans and Democrats, or left-wing and right-wing people, but between the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
There. I've said it, and now you all know it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday March 30 2015, @06:52PM
Sounds like a Bravo network show: "The Real Housewives of Upper West Side of Manhattan".
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @08:43PM
You could, though they don't advertise it. They are characters, and you could produce an entertaining series without excessive producer manipulation like the usual.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @01:08AM
Hello. I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Do you have a P.O. box, or should I just send my check to the nearest paranoid delusion treatment center?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @04:47PM
Oh stop.
There isn't any substantial difference between Democrat and Republican. They are both right-wing parties, pro-corporate, pro-finance sector, pro-intelectual property, pro-surveillance, pro-war, ...
The only place they really differ is how much they pander to the religious right-wing in this country. Republicans are far more likely to claim the earth is 6000 years old than Democrats. And, Republicans want to be able to legislate what you can and cannot do in your bedroom.
And, every major media outlet in the U.S. is owned by the rich who still tend to favor Republican. NBC used to be owned by GE who is a major weapons manufacturer. At the time of GE's ownership, the far right was complaining that NBC was "liberal" and anti-war. GE used to force their employees to watch right-wing propaganda narrated by Ronald Reagan for fucks sake. The NY Times suppressed the story of illegal US surveillance under Bush until after Bush was re-elected, because... they are so left leaning?!!! Rupert Murdock stated that he uses his media outlets to promote his viewpoints, in so many words.
So just stop with this bullshit.
Both right-wing parties suck, and all major media in this country leans right to extreme-right.