HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT

[Blindgreed1]

Just to be clear, your premise is that Hillary knew the difference between classified and non-classified material OR she needed to be told the difference?

As I understand it, emails were clearly labeled classified or not classified. A classified email shouldn't have been sent to her from some just .gov address. The emails she responded to or forwarded have been subsequently "classified". They weren't at the time that she received or responded to them.

ETA: I could see how emails might transition from unclassified to classified based on following events.

Hmmm... well: When Hillary Clinton decided not to use a State Department email address for her official or personal business, it must have seemed like a great idea. Today, even she might regret it. She, after all, is the "employee" the judge was referring to at a hearing on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit"We wouldn't be here today if this employee had followed government policy."
— U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, Aug. 20, 2015.

Had the former secretary of state relied on a state.gov account, her lawyers would not be in court facing an exasperated Judge Sullivan — one of three federal jurists now dealing with records excavations from her time at State. Her presidential campaign would be able to focus fully on the issues she wants to talk about — instead of being dogged by questions about a persistent controversy that has left her looking evasive and secretive.

Might these inquiries about Clinton's time in the Obama administration be just politics — one "Gotcha!" moment in an election cycle sure to be rife with them?

No. This is serious. Political operatives only dream of entangling their foes in this much federal scrutiny: The FBI is now on the case, and those judges sound impatient for responses.

To recap what's known: Clinton set up her own email address and private server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., rather than use a State Department account. After she left office and the department requested copies of all work-related messages, she turned over some 30,000 of them — after deleting another 31,000 that she deemed personal.

What's the problem? There are several. One is that her system gave her complete control over her email archive, sheltering communications from legitimate inquiries. Another is that she flouted the policy of President Barack Obama, as well as the State Department's own guidelines for its employees. Using a private server also put official communications at risk of being compromised by hackers worldwide.

The entire brouhaha is a self-inflicted injury that she keeps aggravating. And it clearly poses serious risks to her White House hopes. A recent Quinnipiac University poll of voters in three large swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, found that only 1 in 3 regards Clinton as "honest and trustworthy" — compared with over half for Jeb
Bush.

Clinton's defenses have repeatedly turned out to be implausible, incomplete, doubtful or just wrong. She said she didn't violate government policy — but Sullivan said last week that she did. She said she did nothing different from her predecessors, but State says Colin Powell is the only one who used personal email for government matters. She said none of her emails contained classified information — but two federal inspectors general said at least two of her messages contained "top secret" material that should have been labeled as such but wasn't.

She said she deleted only personal communications — but among those she did not turn over were several about Libya from a former aide; their existence became known when he provided them. She said all her official emails to and from State employees would have been preserved in the department's system — but one of her top aides also had a private account on Clinton's server.

Did she violate the law? We won't prejudge the still-unfolding evidence, although the FBI's inquiry may provide more answers. But it's clear she used poor judgment. Former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said, "Put legality aside for just a second, it's stupid and dangerous."

Questions about her dubious conduct dog Clinton at every turn. She and her campaign staff keep trying to deal with the suspicions by shrugging them off, making jokes about them or attributing them to the cynical motives of Republicans. But that approach has only contributed to the sense that she has something to hide.

With those three federal judges now frequently making news about records from Clinton's time at State, her opponents don't have to lift a finger to keep the controversy alive. Nor have her explanations quashed it.

Clinton has to answer all the questions, assume responsibility for her mistakes and tell the public what she's learned from this episode. She is the only person who has the ability to put it to rest.