SHAFAQNA – Under questioning by federal investigators over whether she had been briefed on how to preserve government records as she was about to leave the US State Department, Hillary Clinton said she suffered a concussion, was working part-time and could not recall every briefing.
Here is the conundrum Hillary Clinton now finds herself in…
She claims to be perfectly healthy and competent to be President of the United States when it suits her campaign narrative. When she is being questioned by the FBI to remember basic protocol on how to handle classified documents, Hillary claims she is too sick to properly comply with US federal laws.
The smoking gun from the FBI’s summary said…
Clinton told investigators she could not recall getting any briefings on how to handle classified information or comply with laws governing the preservation of federal records, the summary of her interview shows.
“However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot.”
“Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received.”
With much of the recent discussion focusing on Hillary Clinton’s general health condition, and mental acuity in particular, we wonder if the FBI just threw her under the bus with the following statement which links Hillary’s “inability” to remember her transition instructions with her 2012 concussion and blood clot:
CLINTON stated she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from State during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in early 2013. However, in December of 2012, CLINTON suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot. Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received. CLINTON did not have any discussions with aides about turning over her email records, nor did anyone from State request them. She believed her work-related emails were captured by her practice of sending email to the state.gov email address of her staff. CLINTON was unaware of the requirement to turn over printed records at that time. Her physical records were boxed up and handled by aides.
The original, on page 9 of 11:
Reuters reports that things do not look good for Hillary Clinton, as Republicans see the files as confirming their belief that the Department of Justice should have prosecuted Clinton.
“These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton’s reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state,” Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said in a statement. “This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information.”
And we are just at the beginning of Hillary’s email woes.
After the FBI documents are all flushed out, we can look forward to more Wikileaks documents that will bury Hillary Clinton further in scandal and corruption allegations.
Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, raised the health scare during her 3-1/2-hour interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department prosecutors on July 2, according to an FBI summary released on Friday.
Besides the 11-page interview summary, the FBI also released other details of its investigation into her use of an unauthorized private email system while running the State Department in which it concluded she mishandled classified information but not in a way that warranted a criminal prosecution.
Clinton told investigators she could not recall getting any briefings on how to handle classified information or comply with laws governing the preservation of federal records, the summary of her interview shows.
“However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot,” the FBI’s summary said. “Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received.”
The concussion was widely reported at the time, and Republicans have since used it to attack the 68-year-old candidate’s health in a way her staff have said is unfounded.
According to the report, Clinton told the FBI that she did not set up a private email server to sidestep the law requiring her to keep her business communications a matter of public record.
At least one federal judge is examining whether this was the case as part of a lawsuit against the State Department concerning public access to Clinton’s government records, which the U.S. government said it had no access to in response to requests from members of the public.
The documents also show that Clinton contacted former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2009 to ask about his use of a personal BlackBerry phone.
In his reply to Clinton via email, Powell told Clinton to “be very careful” because the work-related emails she sent on her BlackBerry could become public record.
“I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data,” Powell said, according to the summary.
After her use of a private email system became public knowledge in March 2015, Clinton repeatedly said she did not use it to send or receive classified information. The government forbids handling such information outside secure channels.
The FBI has since concluded Clinton was wrong to say that: At least 81 email threads contained information that was classified at the time, although the final number may be more than 2,000, the report says. Some of the emails appear to include discussion of planned future attacks by unmanned U.S. military drones, the FBI report shows.
“CLINTON believed the classification level of future drone strikes depended on the context,” the FBI’s interview summary said. The U.S. government requires that military plans be classified.
The FBI released its report on Friday afternoon before the Labor Day holiday weekend, a time many Americans are preparing to travel.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said he would not comment on the FBI’s findings because the department “does not have full insight into the FBI’s investigation.”
He declined to say whether State Department officials still discussed the planning of future attacks using drones in unclassified emails.
“I’m not going to speak to past email practices,” he said. “We trust State Department employees to use their best judgment when conveying sensitive information, taking into account a range of factors.”
Spokesmen for Clinton did not respond to questions about the concussion and other aspects of the FBI’s summary, but released a statement welcoming the summary’s release.
“While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case,” Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.