Ah. Politics. I missed you.
We’re talking about classified information today because the FBI recently raided the home of former President Donald Trump, ostensibly looking for documents, some of which they found. We don’t have the affidavit as of time of posting (and that’s not unusual). I’ll update this when we do, but for now, the documents we have are here.
What’s Going On?
I’ve done a little digging, and what seems to have happened is that as Trump was vacating the White House he took several boxes of information with him, including pieces of the presidential record and items of various classification levels. That makes sense; There was time between him vacating the White House and vacating the presidency, and while it might cause some people to experience vapors Trump did in fact have access to, for instance, the nuclear codes (which are obviously classified). America’s enemies might take the opportunity to do something stupid if there was a point in time when no one had those, and so even if there was only hours left in his presidency, he almost by definition would need classified material to finish his job, and he could be creating classified items and pieces of the presidential record in real time.
What doesn’t make sense was what followed: Trump didn’t return all the material. It’s not like at the strike of midnight he became a Federal criminal by dint of holding the documents… Frankly, he still has the classification to hold them. But at some point he really should have returned the items and we’re about a year and a half past where that was reasonable. Worse, he told the FBI that he had classified material, was negotiating the return of the material, handed over some of it, and then was dicking around with the remainder. It really is indefensible, so I’m not going to try.
Which means, at this point, no one should really be too upset with the FBI… What were they supposed to do? Trump was being Trumpey…. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
But to be fair to Trump’s defenders, the POTUS has the ability, by word or by deed, to unilaterally (and metaphorically) wave his magic wand and declassify whatever he wants to. Trump could have declassified every iota of American intelligence. He could have passed out the nuclear codes like ticker tape at a Macy’s Day Parade. The POTUS, and only the POTUS, has that level of power in regards to classification. The idea was that the POTUS needs the flexibility to conduct foreign relations in real time - In practice, if the President is holding a top secret document, and needs to show it to a foreign head of state, he can just do it, and it is assumed that by showing that person that document, it has been unclassified.
One could argue that Trump, when taking the materials from the White House could be assumed to have declassified the material so as to not be a criminal. It’s not a bad argument. Well… One could argue that… But there’s a couple of problems with that in this case: One is that his team was still referring to the material as being classified after the raid, which could mean that they assume that it still was classified. And if it was still classified…. Trump’s ability to declassify the material lapsed with his presidency.
Legal minds can fight over the intricacies.
What I’m going to do is point out that the progressive narrative is so far out over their skis that it isn’t funny, and that by definition, what Clinton did was worse, but the FBI never raided her (although they could have, using exactly the same justification) and they declined to press charges (and if they do press charges here… boy howdy).
What Did Clinton Do?
Lie. But you could tell she was doing that because her mouth was moving. During her time as Secretary of State, a position that did not include the power to declassify documents, Hillary Clinton set up a private Email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, New York residence. It stayed there until 2013, when it was transferred to a Platte River Networks location in New Jersey for management. From this server, she hosted clintonemail.com, wjcoffice.com, and presidentclinton.com (That last one must smart, no?). Email sent from Clinton was exclusively through accounts tied to that server, and in fact Hillary Clinton was never supplied a .gov email address.
Why Did She Do It?
It’s a good question. I mean, the alternative is y’know… Not spending the money on a server, not keeping it in your basement, not paying someone to keep it up, not registering domain names, and not breaking the law. We’ll never hear the truth from Clinton’s mouth, mostly because she’s incapable, but there are all kinds of scenarios ranging from the innocent to the insidious, but what we have to realize here is that the choice is between stupid and corrupt. If Clinton Magoo’d her way into this, that is breathtakingly stupid. If she did it knowing what she was doing, that’s worse… But there’s no good option here.
As an example of an innocent option, it’s possible that Clinton was used to using a BlackBerry device, and the State Department wasn’t keen on using that platform (Too Canadian, perhaps?). Clinton, as someone very used to getting her way, might have asked the question “what do I need to do to continue using my BlackBerry?” And this might have been the option floated by one of her idiot aides.
But more likely, I think, was that this was an attempt to foil FOIA. The benefit of having all your records stored outside of secure servers was that those perky records clerks wouldn’t process the information and store it searchable for future Freedom Of Information Act requests. This is appealing for someone with say….. future Presidential aspirations, because it curbs an avenue for opposition research. In fact, when people made FOIA requests to the state department on any correspondence from Secretary Clinton, the requests uniformly came back “No information found”.
So How Bad Was It?
Well, it certainly wasn’t good. What annoys me most, I think, was the double standard involved. Look at the case of Kristian Saucier, who took a couple of pictures in the engine room of a nuclear sub, the design of which was classified, and then destroyed his equipment when he learned he was under investigation. On that fact pattern, he was charged, convicted, and sentenced to 10-30 years in prison.
There’s no good comparison here for Clinton. Saucier meant to take some pictures, the pictures, because they had the sub’s engine and controls visible, were designated “confidential”, he then destroyed evidence when he was being investigated. Clinton set up a private email server, used it to send over 100 pieces of information of various classification (including “Top Secret”) to people that didn’t have security clearance (Sidney Blumenthal, as an example), then wiped her servers with BleachBit software.
And in order to keep from having to prosecute, James Comey found an intent requirement in a law that had never had an intent requirement before. Laws are for little people, I suppose.
The other part of this that annoyed me was the constant, consistent lying…. “It was permitted” (It wasn’t), “I complied with policy” (she didn’t), “I co-operated with the FBI” (not really), “Nothing was marked classified” (Some were).
And that last one was particularly galling. Believe it or not, not every bit of classified information is marked classified, and if you think about it for a second, and people in high government office probably should, that only makes sense: Let’s say that you’re a 60 year old wine mom that managed to ride the coattails of your immensely successful husband to a high position inside the government and you’re about to send an Email about say… troop placement in…. say… Benghazi. There’s no magical classification fairy hovering over your shoulder, booping the screen with their classification wand to let you know that what you’re about to send is classified. In fact, if you send if from an email outside the state .gov servers, it will never go through the process of classification, and will never be marked. But probability is that troop positioning is probably some level of classified, and if it’s not… maybe better to be safe than sorry. It was always more reasonable to assume that her Yoga schedule (one of the excuses) was classified than it was to assume that none of her work Email was.
Just saying.
(This is the magical classification fairy… Google failed me and I couldn’t find an image of a fairy holding a rubber stamp… This is Dall-E’s attempt. Is that a stamp? You be the judge!)
So to Tie All That Up
What Trump did wasn’t good. Period. But what Trump did was more defensible than what Saucier did, and that was more defensible than what Clinton did. And I refuse to be lectured to about it by people that carried water for Clinton or mocked “BuT hEr EmAiLs” at anyone over the last few years. Her Emails were bad. If she was held to the same standard as Saucier or Petraeus, she’d be in jail. I’m not sure if that should be the standard, but it is what it is. And if the FBI actually manages to bring charges to Trump here when they didn’t for Clinton… Hold on to your butts.