Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Nov 6, 2016 - 5:06pm
haresfur wrote:
I actually don't agree although I don't agree with his public statements on this.
I really think that Comey is trying to act with integrity, which is a rare thing.
I do feel that if he wants to run an agency to the highest standards he needs to pull the field offices into line, and likely kick some serious butt in the process. This is particularly true of the NY office. Frankly he is probably the only person who has pissed off enough people on both sides of politics and has the clout to do so without breaking the organization. That to me would be the true test of his integrity.
I actually don't agree although I don't agree with his public statements on this.
I really think that Comey is trying to act with integrity, which is a rare thing.
I do feel that if he wants to run an agency to the highest standards he needs to pull the field offices into line, and likely kick some serious butt in the process. This is particularly true of the NY office. Frankly he is probably the only person who has pissed off enough people on both sides of politics and has the clout to do so without breaking the organization. That to me would be the true test of his integrity.
I could go on for a day and a half about the all the problems with Clinton's policies and general world outlook, and yet never come anywhere near this email server business.
Lazy8, maybe I should re-phrase:
=> Do Americans have any idea how elites in other countries view this scandal? By elites, I mean people who understand digital information and have at least some understanding of information security issues, particularly those folks in the defence and foreign policy establishments.
If somebody similar to James Comey in the RCMP or Canada's intelligence service CSIS ever did something similar to what Comey just did, that senior official would be gone within days.
Scott already answered your question about comparisons to Watergate, but I'll just add this:we now have two candidates competing to be the worst president since Richard Nixon.
I went on for many paragraphs on unrelated topics detailing my ethical criticisms of Mrs. Clinton; can't recall if I got around to her server or not but you can scroll back a few pages and read it if you like.
Again, no I (and I imagine most other Americans) don't know how "elites" in other countries view the email scandal. I also understand digital information, have managed server systems, and dealt with security issues firsthand—not for anything as security-critical as defense or government domains, just for ordinary businesses—and I recognize how spectacularly reckless operating a private email server for government communications is.
James Comey testified under oath that the investigation into Clinton's email server was complete. With new information emerging it is no longer complete; he felt obliged to inform the people he had testified to of that fact, and they played the information for its political value. He didn't post an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal or throw a press conference, he informed congress that what he had told them was no longer true.
Tell me, what would happen to a government minister in Canada who operated her own private email server to conduct state business, then destroyed the contents of that server when lawfully ordered to turn them over by her government? Anything? No big deal? What if she was shaking down foreign governments and individuals to contribute to her private charity in order to meet with them in her official capacity and the server contained evidence of that?
I honestly don't know (or, honestly, give a rat's ass—tho yes, I did just ask; it was rhetorical) how other governments handle that kind of behavior. If I were a member of those other governments and had to deal with Secretary Clinton in her role at the state department (and soon, as president) I'd be a bit dismayed by these revelations. I'd be dismayed at a few other things (her denigration of trade deals with some of those countries, many of which she campaigned for until that became politically inconvenient, for instance) but probably not as appalled as I'd be by the fact that both of the incumbent party candidates in this election have taken the position that trade deals with other countries are a Bad Thing.
I do not recall police or intelligence officers reporting to parliament during the course of an active investigation. After yes. Ministers generally try to stay out of active investigations.
Perhaps Congress should stop trying to play an executive role? Better yet. Ditch the presidential system and come over to the parliament model. ;-)
Defying some kind of order and destroying documents would likely mean immediate resignation in Canada, possibly charges. But then I strongly doubt a Canadian cabinet minister could continue to be active on behalf of a charitable organization of the nature of the Clinton Foundation. Question of appearance of conflict of interest.
I have enjoyed in the past security clearance and prior to that probably read a hundred or more declassified documents. Most of it was a big yawn — even if it involved NATO, NORAD, NA Defence Industrial Base issues, confidential socio-economic data, etc. Then I also believe that civil servants should be able to converse, e-mail and text back and forth, voice crazy opinions, and disagree without outside interference. That is increasingly tough these days.
Frankly, bureaucracies and politically appointed leaders can and should be judged on published documents and public statements as well as execution.
Then there is actual risk of the private server mistake to national security relative to the perceived risk which I find prone to excessive hysterical exaggeration. And I suppose I am relativizing to the extent that I view the USA as facing far more serious international security as well as domestic structural economic adjustment issues elsewhere.
You might be appalled at the anti-freer trade rhetoric from both candidates; I am terrified. Imagine the sentiment within both private and public sectors in America's major trading partners.
The irony is that freer trade and investment flows are the only ways to cost effectively drive net immigration into the USA from Mexico and Central America to near zero in a relatively short period of time. Freer investment and trade flows to the region will also help reduce violent narcotics trafficking and in general bolster regional security.
Here's a timeline of events surrounding the deletion of Clinton's emails*. The emails were intentionally deleted, and this was done after the house of representatives subpoenaed some, and politely requested the rest when it looked like she hadn't been forthcoming. Her IT firm (a Keystone Cops outfit in Colorado where no one had so much as a security clearance) did the actual deleting.
Can it be proved that they were deleted in an attempt to conceal them rather than just because they were taking up space she needed for pictures of puppies to be posted to her Facebook page? Can we prove the IT guy didn't just do it acting alone to cover for the fact that he had been asked to do it months before, but forgot? Not without a paper trail. But they were certainly deleted, and this happened after the House Benghazi Subcommittee asked to see them.
Perhaps to a die-hard Clinton supporter this is all about how bad it makes her look, poor her. Mistakes were made. Maybe blame an intern and for dog's sake move on, nothing to see here. To anyone else, particularly those of us about to be governed by her, this is an example of the lengths she'll go, the lies she'll tell, the strings she'll pull to cover her own ass. What happens when it's something really important?
Remember, this started with a single lieâthat looks quite trivial in retrospectâabout the motives for an attack on an embassy. She could have come clean years ago, taken a two-week hit in the polls, and put it behind her. But that wouldn't fit her narrative since her first scandals in the '90s: poor innocent saintly woman attacked by a vast right-wing conspiracy. Without that she's just another scheming politician.
 This perfectly sums up why I dislike her immensely. I don't care what anyone says, if you or I were suspected of doing something similar and the FBI was involved I assure you they would not have been politely asked for emails giving us time to delete and hand over what was felt to be pertinent to the case. No, they would not have asked for anything nor we would suspect we were under investigation at all, the first notice would have been the door being bust down, all of our pets would be promptly shot, all occupants in our dwelling forced to the ground with those nice little plastic ties around our wrist with guns pointed to our heads as they trashed the place taking any and all electronic equipment capable of storing data. I know because this exact scenario has been taking place with suspected whistleblowers at an alarming rate since 2001. Any one who is intellectually honest and has any knowledge of computers and how law enforcement operates knows this.
Bold part 1: Incorrect. Per Washington Post he said, "In July, Comey had testified under oath before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the FBI was finished investigating the Clinton email matter and that there would be no criminal charges.
"Comey was asked at the hearing whether, if the FBI came across new information, he would review it. “My first question is this, would you reopen the Clinton investigation if you discovered new information that was both relevant and substantial?” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) asked Comey.
“It’s hard for me to answer in the abstract,” Comey replied. “We would certainly look at any new and substantial information.”
He was following exactly what he told them and although they certainly would have been interested in the new developments, he shouldn't have released the preliminary information of the newly discovered email copies. Look, if Clinton gets elected and the investigation finds something sufficiently inappropriate, then they can always impeach her. That's the way the system is supposed to work, not on innuendo.
Maybe your parsing skills are such that you can spin a difference between "finished" and "complete", but mine aren't up to it.
Smith asked him if he would re-open the investigation if new information came to light and he said he would. You're mad that he told the people he made that promise to that he was keeping it?
Bold part 2: Incorrect. Per the FBI press release, "I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them."
In my view, Clinton really screwed up by trying to do damage control. You don't say something never occurred unless you are 100% sure that this is the case (or I suppose unless you are 100% sure no one would ever find out). I think you are much better off taking any hits early and then moving on. She should have used appropriate waffle words like, "Our policy was not to use my private email system for anything classified. I don't know of any case where that was not done. We will work with the FBI to ensure that this is the case and to assess if any foreign parties could have accessed classified information." If she did know of anything, it would have been much better to bring the matter up herself, "Ok someone screwed up here. Here's how it happened. Won't do it again."
So, yeah, not good political skills, particularly when tied with other cases where she didn't consider the optics. You think she would have learned by now.
I also think the classification system (systems actually because different agencies do it differently) is problematic. I have heard plenty of suggestions things get classified or up classified as a CYA, to make yourself look more important, to keep your competitors in other agencies or other groups in your agency from accessing information or from getting funded to work on something ("you can't do that, we made it classified so we have to do it"). Also the systems basically recognize that breaches occur and the appropriate response from a security viewpoint is not to draw attention to them. In that sense the whole investigation should have been classified. Say some foreign government had got hold of some emails, you don't want to let them know that there is something worth studying there.
I think the real travesty is that this isn't being evaluated from a proper lessons-learned perspective. You don't address a stuff-up by looking for someone to hang. You look at the situations and series of events that lead to the stuff-up and figure out how to do things better. Often mishaps result from a cascading series of smaller situations and mistaken actions that don't become an obvious problem until something fails spectacularly. For example, the whole email problem was that the spooks couldn't or wouldn't provide a secure system so the Secretary of State could get her job done. So someone comes up with a work-around. Then that gets tweaked and no one really has a total grasp on the security issues. Then someone uses the wrong system for the wrong email ... Congressional oversight didn't do its job because they were focused on the politics, not on the governance. So what else is new?
Here's a timeline of events surrounding the deletion of Clinton's emails*. The emails were intentionally deleted, and this was done after the house of representatives subpoenaed some, and politely requested the rest when it looked like she hadn't been forthcoming. Her IT firm (a Keystone Cops outfit in Colorado where no one had so much as a security clearance) did the actual deleting.
Can it be proved that they were deleted in an attempt to conceal them rather than just because they were taking up space she needed for pictures of puppies to be posted to her Facebook page? Can we prove the IT guy didn't just do it acting alone to cover for the fact that he had been asked to do it months before, but forgot? Not without a paper trail. But they were certainly deleted, and this happened after the House Benghazi Subcommittee asked to see them.
Perhaps to a die-hard Clinton supporter this is all about how bad it makes her look, poor her. Mistakes were made. Maybe blame an intern and for dog's sake move on, nothing to see here. To anyone else, particularly those of us about to be governed by her, this is an example of the lengths she'll go, the lies she'll tell, the strings she'll pull to cover her own ass. What happens when it's something really important?
Remember, this started with a single lie—that looks quite trivial in retrospect—about the motives for an attack on an embassy. She could have come clean years ago, taken a two-week hit in the polls, and put it behind her. But that wouldn't fit her narrative since her first scandals in the '90s: poor innocent saintly woman attacked by a vast right-wing conspiracy. Without that she's just another scheming politician.
Bold part 1: Incorrect. Per Washington Post he said, "In July, Comey had testified under oath before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the FBI was finished investigating the Clinton email matter and that there would be no criminal charges.
"Comey was asked at the hearing whether, if the FBI came across new information, he would review it. “My first question is this, would you reopen the Clinton investigation if you discovered new information that was both relevant and substantial?” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) asked Comey.
“It’s hard for me to answer in the abstract,” Comey replied. “We would certainly look at any new and substantial information.”
He was following exactly what he told them and although they certainly would have been interested in the new developments, he shouldn't have released the preliminary information of the newly discovered email copies. Look, if Clinton gets elected and the investigation finds something sufficiently inappropriate, then they can always impeach her. That's the way the system is supposed to work, not on innuendo.
Bold part 2: Incorrect. Per the FBI press release, "I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them."
In my view, Clinton really screwed up by trying to do damage control. You don't say something never occurred unless you are 100% sure that this is the case (or I suppose unless you are 100% sure no one would ever find out). I think you are much better off taking any hits early and then moving on. She should have used appropriate waffle words like, "Our policy was not to use my private email system for anything classified. I don't know of any case where that was not done. We will work with the FBI to ensure that this is the case and to assess if any foreign parties could have accessed classified information." If she did know of anything, it would have been much better to bring the matter up herself, "Ok someone screwed up here. Here's how it happened. Won't do it again."
So, yeah, not good political skills, particularly when tied with other cases where she didn't consider the optics. You think she would have learned by now.
I also think the classification system (systems actually because different agencies do it differently) is problematic. I have heard plenty of suggestions things get classified or up classified as a CYA, to make yourself look more important, to keep your competitors in other agencies or other groups in your agency from accessing information or from getting funded to work on something ("you can't do that, we made it classified so we have to do it"). Also the systems basically recognize that breaches occur and the appropriate response from a security viewpoint is not to draw attention to them. In that sense the whole investigation should have been classified. Say some foreign government had got hold of some emails, you don't want to let them know that there is something worth studying there.
I think the real travesty is that this isn't being evaluated from a proper lessons-learned perspective. You don't address a stuff-up by looking for someone to hang. You look at the situations and series of events that lead to the stuff-up and figure out how to do things better. Often mishaps result from a cascading series of smaller situations and mistaken actions that don't become an obvious problem until something fails spectacularly. For example, the whole email problem was that the spooks couldn't or wouldn't provide a secure system so the Secretary of State could get her job done. So someone comes up with a work-around. Then that gets tweaked and no one really has a total grasp on the security issues. Then someone uses the wrong system for the wrong email ... Congressional oversight didn't do its job because they were focused on the politics, not on the governance. So what else is new?
Great post. I pray that this whole email mess has seared into Hillary Clinton's mind that departing from SOP and doing things in a secretive manner are recipes for disaster and/or invitations for Republicans to call for investigations. I don't expect Republicans in Congress to suddenly become tired of obstruction (how many calls to repeal Obamacare did the House ring up?) but it's time for Hillary to change. She can have very bad instincts when it comes to how her actions can be mis/interpreted.
James Comey testified under oath that the investigation into Clinton's email server was complete. With new information emerging it is no longer complete; he felt obliged to inform the people he had testified to of that fact, and they played the information for its political value. He didn't post an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal or throw a press conference, he informed congress that what he had told them was no longer true.
Tell me, what would happen to a government minister in Canada who operated her own private email server to conduct state business, then destroyed the contents of that server when lawfully ordered to turn them over by her government? Anything? No big deal? What if she was shaking down foreign governments and individuals to contribute to her private charity in order to meet with them in her official capacity and the server contained evidence of that?
I honestly don't know (or, honestly, give a rat's ass—tho yes, I did just ask; it was rhetorical) how other governments handle that kind of behavior. If I were a member of those other governments and had to deal with Secretary Clinton in her role at the state department (and soon, as president) I'd be a bit dismayed by these revelations. I'd be dismayed at a few other things (her denigration of trade deals with some of those countries, many of which she campaigned for until that became politically inconvenient, for instance) but probably not as appalled as I'd be by the fact that both of the incumbent party candidates in this election have taken the position that trade deals with other countries are a Bad Thing.
Bold part 1: Incorrect. Per Washington Post he said, "In July, Comey had testified under oath before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the FBI was finished investigating the Clinton email matter and that there would be no criminal charges.
"Comey was asked at the hearing whether, if the FBI came across new information, he would review it. “My first question is this, would you reopen the Clinton investigation if you discovered new information that was both relevant and substantial?” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) asked Comey.
“It’s hard for me to answer in the abstract,” Comey replied. “We would certainly look at any new and substantial information.”
He was following exactly what he told them and although they certainly would have been interested in the new developments, he shouldn't have released the preliminary information of the newly discovered email copies. Look, if Clinton gets elected and the investigation finds something sufficiently inappropriate, then they can always impeach her. That's the way the system is supposed to work, not on innuendo.
Bold part 2: Incorrect. Per the FBI press release, "I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them."
In my view, Clinton really screwed up by trying to do damage control. You don't say something never occurred unless you are 100% sure that this is the case (or I suppose unless you are 100% sure no one would ever find out). I think you are much better off taking any hits early and then moving on. She should have used appropriate waffle words like, "Our policy was not to use my private email system for anything classified. I don't know of any case where that was not done. We will work with the FBI to ensure that this is the case and to assess if any foreign parties could have accessed classified information." If she did know of anything, it would have been much better to bring the matter up herself, "Ok someone screwed up here. Here's how it happened. Won't do it again."
So, yeah, not good political skills, particularly when tied with other cases where she didn't consider the optics. You think she would have learned by now.
I also think the classification system (systems actually because different agencies do it differently) is problematic. I have heard plenty of suggestions things get classified or up classified as a CYA, to make yourself look more important, to keep your competitors in other agencies or other groups in your agency from accessing information or from getting funded to work on something ("you can't do that, we made it classified so we have to do it"). Also the systems basically recognize that breaches occur and the appropriate response from a security viewpoint is not to draw attention to them. In that sense the whole investigation should have been classified. Say some foreign government had got hold of some emails, you don't want to let them know that there is something worth studying there.
I think the real travesty is that this isn't being evaluated from a proper lessons-learned perspective. You don't address a stuff-up by looking for someone to hang. You look at the situations and series of events that lead to the stuff-up and figure out how to do things better. Often mishaps result from a cascading series of smaller situations and mistaken actions that don't become an obvious problem until something fails spectacularly. For example, the whole email problem was that the spooks couldn't or wouldn't provide a secure system so the Secretary of State could get her job done. So someone comes up with a work-around. Then that gets tweaked and no one really has a total grasp on the security issues. Then someone uses the wrong system for the wrong email ... Congressional oversight didn't do its job because they were focused on the politics, not on the governance. So what else is new?
I could go on for a day and a half about the all the problems with Clinton's policies and general world outlook, and yet never come anywhere near this email server business.
Lazy8, maybe I should re-phrase:
=> Do Americans have any idea how elites in other countries view this scandal? By elites, I mean people who understand digital information and have at least some understanding of information security issues, particularly those folks in the defence and foreign policy establishments.
If somebody similar to James Comey in the RCMP or Canada's intelligence service CSIS ever did something similar to what Comey just did, that senior official would be gone within days.
Scott already answered your question about comparisons to Watergate, but I'll just add this:we now have two candidates competing to be the worst president since Richard Nixon.
I went on for many paragraphs on unrelated topics detailing my ethical criticisms of Mrs. Clinton; can't recall if I got around to her server or not but you can scroll back a few pages and read it if you like.
Again, no I (and I imagine most other Americans) don't know how "elites" in other countries view the email scandal. I also understand digital information, have managed server systems, and dealt with security issues firsthand—not for anything as security-critical as defense or government domains, just for ordinary businesses—and I recognize how spectacularly reckless operating a private email server for government communications is.
James Comey testified under oath that the investigation into Clinton's email server was complete. With new information emerging it is no longer complete; he felt obliged to inform the people he had testified to of that fact, and they played the information for its political value. He didn't post an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal or throw a press conference, he informed congress that what he had told them was no longer true.
Tell me, what would happen to a government minister in Canada who operated her own private email server to conduct state business, then destroyed the contents of that server when lawfully ordered to turn them over by her government? Anything? No big deal? What if she was shaking down foreign governments and individuals to contribute to her private charity in order to meet with them in her official capacity and the server contained evidence of that?
I honestly don't know (or, honestly, give a rat's ass—tho yes, I did just ask; it was rhetorical) how other governments handle that kind of behavior. If I were a member of those other governments and had to deal with Secretary Clinton in her role at the state department (and soon, as president) I'd be a bit dismayed by these revelations. I'd be dismayed at a few other things (her denigration of trade deals with some of those countries, many of which she campaigned for until that became politically inconvenient, for instance) but probably not as appalled as I'd be by the fact that both of the incumbent party candidates in this election have taken the position that trade deals with other countries are a Bad Thing.
The discussion about Comey's actions might improve with another perspective—that of Justin Shur, "a former federal prosecutor for the Department of Justice. From 2008 to 2012, he served as deputy chief of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which is tasked with prosecuting public corruption cases across the country." Sean Illig of Vox.com interviewed Shur about Comey's decisions; the whole interview is not that long and well worth reading.
The "this" in Illig's first question below refers to Comey's sending his letter to Congress. The emphases in the excerpt below is mine.
No. The DOJ policy that I've seen referenced when this story broke discusses the sensitivity around public corruption investigations and prosecutions. You might be familiar with this policy, which basically says: If it can be avoided, the DOJ and FBI should not do something publicly, such as bringing indictment or taking some overt investigative steps, if it may have a juristic impact on the outcome.
I think that policy can be challenging for prosecutor because when it comes to the timing of bringing a case, especially on the eve of an election, there are always difficult choices. Its’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.
I know people have said that Comey’s in a similar situation here, but I think this is different for a number of reasons. Number one, we are not talking about the timing of bringing a case — all we're talking about is reviewing additional emails. So this is not what people would say is an overt investigative step, meaning it's not as if the only way it could review these emails is by making the review public.
The fact that the FBI has decided to review additional emails, at least in my view, is not the type of material information that voters would feel deprived of if they hadn't learned of it before the election. And the director himself has said that the FBI has not concluded whether or not any of these emails are significant.
What are voters supposed to do with this? Doesn't really add anything to the mix, doesn't provide them with any concrete information. It could be something; it could be nothing. All it does, as we've seen, is create speculation and become political fodder which the DOJ and the FBI is not in the business of doing.
...
Sean Illing
What did you think of the substance of the letter? What struck me was how vacuous it was. It was just an empty gesture, a big blinking question mark. It revealed nothing new or concrete.
Why go public if there’s nothing definitive to report, knowing it will only fuel reckless speculation?
Justin Shur
I think what triggered it was Comey’s desire to keep Congress apprised of any new information, however speculative or trivial. And so I assume that he felt that it would be misleading to not supplement or update things.
But I think he would've never been in that situation to begin with if he hadn't given that press conference over the summer, which was highly unusual. I mean, the FBI doesn't make charging decisions. The Bureau makes a recommendation to DOJ about charging decisions. It's a partnership between the agents and prosecutors working together, but the DOJ has the final call.
The press conference where he publicly disclosed the FBI's recommendation before even telling DOJ what that recommendation was, and before DOJ had any decision, was very unusual.
And so I think it has created this unusual situation.
I could go on for a day and a half about the all the problems with Clinton's policies and general world outlook, and yet never come anywhere near this email server business.
Lazy8, maybe I should re-phrase:
=> Do Americans have any idea how elites in other countries view this scandal? By elites, I mean people who understand digital information and have at least some understanding of information security issues, particularly those folks in the defence and foreign policy establishments.
If somebody similar to James Comey in the RCMP or Canada's intelligence service CSIS ever did something similar to what Comey just did, that senior official would be gone within days.
Scott already answered your question about comparisons to Watergate, but I'll just add this:we now have two candidates competing to be the worst president since Richard Nixon.
I went on for many paragraphs on unrelated topics detailing my ethical criticisms of Mrs. Clinton; can't recall if I got around to her server or not but you can scroll back a few pages and read it if you like.
Again, no I (and I imagine most other Americans) don't know how "elites" in other countries view the email scandal. I also understand digital information, have managed server systems, and dealt with security issues firsthand—not for anything as security-critical as defense or government domains, just for ordinary businesses—and I recognize how spectacularly reckless operating a private email server for government communications is.
James Comey testified under oath that the investigation into Clinton's email server was complete. With new information emerging it is no longer complete; he felt obliged to inform the people he had testified to of that fact, and they played the information for its political value. He didn't post an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal or throw a press conference, he informed congress that what he had told them was no longer true.
Tell me, what would happen to a government minister in Canada who operated her own private email server to conduct state business, then destroyed the contents of that server when lawfully ordered to turn them over by her government? Anything? No big deal? What if she was shaking down foreign governments and individuals to contribute to her private charity in order to meet with them in her official capacity and the server contained evidence of that?
I honestly don't know (or, honestly, give a rat's ass—tho yes, I did just ask; it was rhetorical) how other governments handle that kind of behavior. If I were a member of those other governments and had to deal with Secretary Clinton in her role at the state department (and soon, as president) I'd be a bit dismayed by these revelations. I'd be dismayed at a few other things (her denigration of trade deals with some of those countries, many of which she campaigned for until that became politically inconvenient, for instance) but probably not as appalled as I'd be by the fact that both of the incumbent party candidates in this election have taken the position that trade deals with other countries are a Bad Thing.
Margaret Wente is an ex-pat American who writes a popular and controversial column for the Globe and Mail newspaper based in Toronto.
October 31, 2016
Hillary Clinton's Halloween horror show
By Margaret Wente
When will America's national nightmare end? Don't ask
Only one thing is clear about this strange, surreal, seemingly endless U.S. election season. Every time you think it can't get worse, it gets worse. Just when you thought that Donald Trump had finally driven a stake through his own heart, he has leapt from the grave – thanks to an incorrigible sexter named Anthony Weiner.
If this were the season finale of House of Cards, fans would agree the writers had jumped the shark. (Sorry for the dated boomer reference, kids.)
Mr. Weiner, who once described himself1 as a "perpetually horny middle-aged man," is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin. His nom de sext is Carlos Danger. Ms. Abedin is Hillary Clinton's most loyal and longest-serving aide. Somehow, a whole bunch of Ms. Clinton's private e-mails wound up on Mr. Weiner's computer. The FBI, which had already cleared Ms. Clinton over her careless handling of classified information, discovered these e-mails when they were investigating Mr. Weiner for allegedly sexting underage girls. Ms. Abedin says she doesn't have a clue how they got there.
Globe editorial: FBI director's poor decision about Clinton e-mails could taint the U.S. election2
Related: Clinton's ethical issues are still her biggest liability, and other things we learned this week3
Was it a setup? Or was the FBI director just covering his butt? Conspiracy theories abound. No one knows what's in the e-mails, which may simply be duplicates of stuff the FBI has seen already. But the timing of the announcement, in the home stretch of the race, is massively unfortunate.
"Stroking gun," screeched the cover of the New York Post in unalloyed glee. Ms. Clinton must be wondering what she's done to have yet another middle-aged man wreck her life because he can't control his libido. She has another problem too. Huma has finally broken up with Carlos Danger, but now Hillary may have to break up with Huma.
The FBI's Halloween surprise may cost her dearly. Her hefty lead in the polls has narrowed, and she may lose the battle to control the Senate. Meanwhile, everyone has switched sides on what they think of FBI director James Comey. Donald Trump, who only last month was accusing him of a shocking politically motivated whitewash, now proclaims him a national hero. Ms. Clinton, who once praised his forthright rectitude, now says his morals are just this side of Freddy Krueger's. The voters are probably wishing the ground would open up and swallow them all.
My sympathies are with Ms. Clinton on this one. Her judgment, as her staffers have agreed, can be terrible, and she made her e-mail troubles worse by stonewalling and dissembling. But compared to the damage done by WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden and other assorted thieves and hackers, her misdemeanours are barely worth a mention. As U.S. national security expert Eli Lake wrote4, "Calling for the prosecution of Clinton in the name of cybersecurity or the protection of state secrets is a bit like cracking down on jaywalking when a serial killer is on the loose." The real sleaze surrounding Ms. Clinton's campaign is the big-money cronyism and sophisticated influence-peddling techniques cultivated by some of her key fundraisers5. Their antics make even hardened Democrats want to toss their cookies.
The poisoned atmosphere of U.S. politics won't end soon. Republicans – even those who aren't endorsing Mr. Trump – are relishing the thought of tearing President Clinton to shreds. "It's a target-rich environment," Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz told6 The Washington Post. "Even before we get to Day One, we've got two years' worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain't good."
Meantime, the world's most powerful nation has become a laughingstock – overcome by groping scandals, e-mail leaks, and the antics of a guy named like a slang word who takes selfies of his crotch. America's allies are appalled, and its enemies can scarcely believe their luck. Demagogues and authoritarians around the globe are crowing about the obvious deficiencies of democracy. Vladimir Putin is squirming with delight. The Chinese must be concluding that we've reached the twilight of the Western age. America has been brought to its knees – not by its enemies, but by itself.
I want this to be over. I want it to stop. But I'm afraid that it will never stop. I'm afraid that we'll wake up on Nov. 9 only to discover that one nightmare may be over, but the next has just begun.
Do Americans have any idea how people in other countries — particularly countries that have close trade and military relations with the USA — view this email server scandal?
Not to suggest that they care but all the same.
No, but many years ago I worked with a Mexican colleague who—years after Nixon's resignation—was still baffled by the Watergate scandal. It seems that the kinds of abuses of power he engaged in were par for the course in a lot of the world.
I would like to think we hold our elected officials to higher standards of personal integrity than, say, Mexico...but look at who we run for office.
Good grief. You are comparing the Watergate scandal to this email private server scandal?
This after security breaches by WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden and others, the Iraq fiasco and the decision to not just invade but to actually occupy Afghanistan? Stunning.
I could go on for a day and a half about the all the problems with Clinton's policies and general world outlook, and yet never come anywhere near this email server business.
Lazy8, maybe I should re-phrase:
=> Do Americans have any idea how elites in other countries view this scandal? By elites, I mean people who understand digital information and have at least some understanding of information security issues, particularly those folks in the defence and foreign policy establishments.
If somebody similar to James Comey in the RCMP or Canada's intelligence service CSIS ever did something similar to what Comey just did, that senior official would be gone within days.
Do Americans have any idea how people in other countries — particularly countries that have close trade and military relations with the USA — view this email server scandal?
Not to suggest that they care but all the same.
No, but many years ago I worked with a Mexican colleague who—years after Nixon's resignation—was still baffled by the Watergate scandal. It seems that the kinds of abuses of power he engaged in were par for the course in a lot of the world.
I would like to think we hold our elected officials to higher standards of personal integrity than, say, Mexico...but look at who we run for office.
There would be nothing happening to begin with if Hillary did not have her own server. She started all this and caused it to drag on as long as it has by stonewalling every thing possible. She is responsible for all of this. She is not a victim here.
........
Do Americans have any idea how people in other countries — particularly countries that have close trade and military relations with the USA — view this email server scandal?
