Trump won’t pursue charges against Clinton
Conway says that Trump will not pursue charges against Clinton:
I think when the president-elect who’s also the head of your party … tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content, to the members. Look, I think, he’s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them. I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that’s a good thing.
FBI sends Clinton report to Congress
The FBI sends Congress a report the bureau provided to the Justice Department last month to explain why it recommended no charges in the Clinton email server investigation. The decision to provide the investigative material on a case in which charges were not brought is exceedingly rare. The report includes notes from the interviews of Clinton and other witnesses in the investigation. The notes, called 302s, represent an FBI agent’s memos on the interviews and will be provided along with other investigative material. The classified material will be reviewed by congressional officials in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, and cannot legally be shared with the public. FBI:
[It’s being shared with Congress] with the expectation it will not be disseminated or disclosed without FBI concurrence…The FBI conducted this investigation, as it does all investigations, in a competent, honest and independent way. As the director stated, the FBI did find evidence that Secretary Clinton and her colleagues were extremely careless in their handling of certain, very sensitive, highly classified information. The term ‘extremely careless’ was intended to be a common sense way of describing the actions of Secretary Clinton and her colleagues. The director did not equate ‘extreme carelessness’ with the legal standard of ‘gross negligence’ that is required by the statute. In this case, the FBI assessed that the facts did not support a recommendation to prosecute her or others within the scope of the investigation for gross negligence.
The Clinton campaign calls for the notes to be released:
This is an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI. We believe that if these materials are going to be shared outside the Justice Department, they should be released widely so that the public can see them for themselves, rather than allow Republicans to mischaracterize them through selective, partisan leaks.
Told adviser to send sensitive messages ‘nonsecure’
According to one of 1,262 emails released by the State Department, on June 17, 2011, Clinton told Jake Sullivan, one of her top advisers, to send her a sensitive message ‘nonsecure’. The batch also contains 66 classified messages, bringing the total from her email server to 1,340. The exchange happened when Sullivan had trouble sending a faxed set of talking points to Clinton securely. Clinton responds:
If they can’t, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.
It is unclear whether the talking points themselves contained classified information. The State Department says a review showed that the document in question was sent “apparently by secure fax, after all,” and was never was sent to Clinton by email. Clinton’s campaign:
It is false that Hillary Clinton asked for classified material to be sent over a nonsecure system.
Testifies to Benghazi committee
Clinton testifies about her role in the 2012 Benghazi attack, in an 11-hour congressional hearing. An email to her daughter was shown, where Clinton said the attack was by Al-Qaeda, despite telling the public the attack was a result of the video. She acknowledged that she couldn’t recall having talked to Ambassador Stevens after having sworn him in as ambassador, though she believed they had spoken. She said he did not have her email. At another point, clinton laughed when she said she spent the night alone after she left the office on the night of the attack.
I came here because I said I would. And I’ve done everything I know to do, as have the people with whom I worked, to try to answer your questions. I cannot do any more than that.
CNN interview
Clinton is interviewed by Tapper on State of The Union. Tapper:
With all your experience, why wouldn’t you anticipate that over the course of four years, handling very sensitive diplomatic negotiations, overseeing military interventions and surveillance, why wouldn’t you anticipate that something classified, whether about North Korea or Iran or drones or an informant for the CIA, that it wouldn’t be emailed to you? And why wouldn’t you consider that having it on your personal account with some server in Colorado might be a personal risk
Clinton:
It was allowed under the rules of the State Department…No, no, it was allowed. You know, one of my predecessors did the same thing
FBI focuses on ‘gross negligence’
An intelligence source tells Fox News that FBI is now focused on whether there were violations of an Espionage Act subsection pertaining to “gross negligence” in the safekeeping of national defense information. It is a violation for the “lawful possession” of national defense information by a security clearance holder who “through gross negligence,” such as the use of an unsecure computer network, permits the material to be removed or abstracted from its proper, secure location. The section also requires the clearance holder to report any loss, theft or destruction to their superior. The penalty is a fine and/or no more than ten years in jail. The source also says that the FBI are investigating possible obstruction of justice:
If someone knows there is an ongoing investigation and takes action to impede an investigation, for example destruction of documents or threatening of witnesses, that could be a separate charge but still remain under a single case.
Defends Clinton on emails
At the first Democratic debate, Sanders defends Clinton over her email controversy.
Clinton: I’ve taken responsibility for it. I did say it was a mistake. I have been as transparent as I know to be, turning over 55,000 pages of my e-mails, asking that they be made public. [I’d rather spend my time talking about] the issues that matter to the American people
Sanders: Let me say — let me say something that may not be great politics. But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.
Clinton: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.
The two then exchange a friendly handshake.
First Democratic debate
Clinton faces Bernie Sanders, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb at the first Democratic Party debate, hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
I’m a progressive. But I’m a progressive who likes to get things done.
I respect [Sander’s] passion and intensity. I represented Wall Street as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 — before the big crash that we had — and I basically said, ‘Cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors.
Server connected openly to Internet
According to The Associated Press, Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appears to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts say the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn’t intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders. Clinton also operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet.
Claim: Most transparent person in US history
At a town hall in Iowa, Clinton claims she is the most transparent person in U.S. history.
I have gone further than anybody that I’m aware of in American history. Now it’s not a long history since we haven’t had emails that long–as long as we’ve had them, I’ve gone longer and farther to be as transparent as possible. Nobody else has done that. [I’m] a little embarrassed that the emails are so boring.
Republican claims are ‘conspiracy theory’
During an interview with Todd on Meet the Press, Clinton is asked if she decided to use a homebrew server to keep her emails out of the hands of Republicans, congressional investigators and those filing Freedom of Information Act requests.
Another conspiracy theory? It’s totally ridiculous…I have, as you’re rightly pointing out, been involved from the receiving side, in a lot of these accusations,’ Clinton continued. ‘In fact, as you might remember during the ’90s there were a lot of them. All of them turned out to be not true. That was the outcome.
Clinton tells Todd that despite earlier allegations, she was able to win voters over anyway when she ran for U.S. Senate in 2000.
They overlooked all of that and they looked at my record and they looked at what I would do for them and I was elected Senator, after going through years of this kind of back and forth,’ she said. ‘And it is regrettable. But it’s part of the system.
Clinton also says that the discrepancy in the Petraeus emails was due to a “transition period”. She also talks about her changing views on gay marriage and the Keystone XL pipeline.
More emails found
Despite Clinton saying she had provided all work emails from her time as secretary of state, the Department of Defense uncovers a chain of emails between Clinton and General Petraeus. The exchange of ten emails, which mainly covers personnel issues, starts shortly before Clinton enters office and continues during her first days as the top U.S. diplomat in January and February of 2009. The Petraeus exchange also shows she started using the clintonemail.com account by January 2009, contradiciting her campaign’s claim that she used a private BlackBerry email account for her first two months at the department before setting up her clintonemail.com account in March 2009. The campaign gave her use of the Blackberry as the reason for not handing over any emails from those two months to the State Department.
State Dept withheld Benghazi emails
Citizens United files a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit describing a dozen Benghazi-related emails that were withheld in whole or in part when the State Department responded to one of the group’s requests seeking information about contacts between a top aide to Clinton and officials with the Clinton Foundation. Most of the documents also appear to have been withheld from the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating State’s response to the attack. A panel spokesman says he could not immediately confirm which of the documents had been turned over to the committee, but Citizens United President Bossie told reporters that staffers at the House panel told the group State never produced the records to Congress.
To the best of their knowledge, they do not have these documents either, even though they are under subpoena for an extended period of time.
State Dept:
The Department has made every effort to cooperate with the Benghazi Committee, providing 32 witnesses for interviews and over 70,000 pages of documents, including over 20,000 pages in the last month alone. We will continue to respond to the Benghazi Committee’s requests, but as they mount and modify over time, so too must we plan accordingly for the time and resources they consume.
FBI recovers personal emails
A source says the FBI has recovered an unknown number of Clinton’s personal emails from her server. Clinton has said that she deleted 30,000 personal emails out of 60,000 total mails, and that most of the personal mails concerned planning for Chelsea’s wedding, yoga routines and condolence messages. The bureau’s probe is expected to last at least several more months.
Disputes email discrepancy report
After a meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Clinton is questioned about a Washington Post story that says the State Department’s request for her emails was prompted entirely by the discovery that Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system. This came three months before, and contradicts Clinton’s account, which is that agency officials asked her for her emails as part of a benign, general record-keeping effort that included mails from other secretaries of state.
I don’t know that. I can’t answer that. All I know is that they sent the same letter to everybody. That’s my understanding…You’re telling me something I don’t know [about the three month discrepancy] All I know is what I have said. What I have said is it was allowed. The State Department has confirmed that. The same letter went to, as far as I know, my predecessors, and I’m the one who said, ‘Hey, I’ll be glad to help.
Five month’s emails missing
Judicial Watch President Fitton says mails sent by Clinton and received from her on a private server are missing over periods totaling five months, beginning when she took office as secretary of state in February 2009. Fittons suggests Clinton lied under oath when she said all her emails had been turned over and it suggested government officials had not turned over everything they were required to deliver. Fitton says other State Department officials, including the one in charge of email production, Patrick Kennedy, previously had been informed of the five-month gap.
No indication server was ‘wiped’
Platte River Networks says that even though Clinton deleted her emails form the server, the server itself was not wiped of data. The statement indicates that 31,000 personal e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered. Company:
Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped. All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped.
Apologizes
In an interview with Muir on ABC News, Clinton apologizes for using a private email server while she was secretary of state.
That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility. And I’m trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.
Second review confirms classified mails
A special intelligence review by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency of two emails that Clinton received on her personal account while secretary of state — including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — supports a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies that the emails were marked “Top Secret,” when Clinton received them. Clinton’s campaign disagrees with the conclusion and notes that agencies within the government often have different views of what should be considered classified:
Our hope remains that these releases continue without being hampered by bureaucratic infighting among the intelligence community, and that the releases continue to be as inclusive and transparent as possible.
State Department spokesperson:
Classification is rarely a black and white question, and it is common for the State Department to engage internally and with our interagency partners to arrive at the appropriate decision. Very often both the State Department and the intelligence community acquire information on the same matter through separate channels. Thus, there can be two or more separate reports and not all of them based on classified means. At this time, any conclusion about the classification of the documents in question would be premature.
Paid staffer to maintain private email server
After a campaign appearance in New Hampshire, Clinton says she and her family paid State Department technology specialist Pagliano to maintain her private email server. The Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for computer services before he joined the State Department, and after he joined. A campaign official says the arrangement with Pagliano ensured that taxpayer dollars were not spent on a private server. Clinton:
With respect to personal services that he provided to me and my family, we obviously paid for those services and did so because, during a period of time, we continued to need his technical assistance. And I think that’s in the public record.
Campaign spokesman:
Bryan was hired by the Clinton family as a consultant in order to help out periodically with the management of the system in Chappaqua that hosted the family’s emails.