Why Mark Meadows' use of personal email accounts matters

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The idiots who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton due to her emails still piss me off. The NYT and other media sources covered this issue in a way to to help elect TFG. Now the medial is ignoring the fact that TFG's COS did far worse

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But Meadows offers an even more striking example, not only because he was part of a Republican White House filled with Clinton critics who were doing what she did, but also because he was a GOP member of Congress — who helped investigate Clinton's email practices in 2016.

In fact, it was the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that held hearings on Clinton's email protocols ahead of Election Day 2016, and it was Meadows who served on the committee at the time.

Four years later, he became the White House chief of staff — a position in which Meadows had access to highly classified information, and a job in which he was required to use government-issued accounts and electronic devices.

It nevertheless appears that the Republican used "a personal cellphone, a Signal account and two personal Gmail accounts for government business."

It's something to keep in mind the next time a rabid GOP crowd starts chanting, "Lock her up."

[karynnj]

1. I doubt many people voted against Clinton because of the emails

What it did was it did attack her image as someone who was extremely experienced, competent, and trustworthy. That attack may have caused many who might have chosen her as the only acceptable choice may have used this as an excuse "not" to vote at all.

Looking at attacks, there are many ways that candidates have been attacked. One of the most consistent Republican attacks is to hit a strength or perceived strength of the person. Another is to underline a "flaw" long pointed out by opponents. You could argue that the monthly release of emails - something Clinton herself called for when it became an issue - led to the media covering several that made her look somewhat clue less on computer technology. The leak of Podesta's emails (certainly not her fault) amplified this. As to the flaw, BILL Clinton had long been seen as not completely trustworthy. Hillary Clinton's various not completely consistent statements on her emails made her look defensive. I suspect it was because the situation was likely "complicated". The records act of what must be saved had almost certainly been written before email became the default means of communication.

I would guess that the Obama team itself had become concerned about the use of personal emails at some point during the first term. The fact that John Kerry was immediately assigned a state department account and had a procedure for handling calls that he received on other accounts suggests that there likely was no policy when Clinton entered the job. Condi Rice indicated that she did not use email at all as secretary.

I suspect that a Republican (or even Bill Clinton) would have blustered through it - arguing nothing explicitly spoke of emails. Clinton, because she is an honest, ethical person, looked embarrassed - thus seeming to be hiding something. It may simply have been that explaining how things happened as they did was very complicated. One thing that the media did that exasperated things was that rather than report thatshe used a private account rather than a State Department account designed for messages that were unclassified they spoke of "confidential" and "secret" documents.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election

You are WRONG. The NYT pushed the Comey letter and the email bullshit and this was sufficient to give TFG the victory. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020.....

And yet, from almost the moment that Trump won the White House, many mainstream journalists have been in denial about the impact of Comey’s letter. The article that led The New York Times’s website the morning after the election did not mention Comey or “FBI” even once — a bizarre development considering the dramatic headlines that the Times had given to the letter while the campaign was underway. Books on the campaign have treated Comey’s letter as an incidental factor, meanwhile. And even though Clinton herself has repeatedly brought up the letter — including in comments she made at an event in New York on Tuesday — many pundits have preferred to change the conversation when the letter comes up, waving it away instead of debating the merits of the case......

News of the Comey letter broke just before 1 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 28, when Utah. Rep Jason Chaffetz tweeted about it, noting the existence of the letter and stating (incorrectly, it turned out2) that the case into Clinton’s private email server had been “reopened.” The story exploded onto the scene; Fox News was treating Chaffetz’s tweet as “breaking news” within 15 minutes, and the FBI story dominated headlines everywhere within roughly an hour. In an element of tabloid flair, it was soon reported that the emails in question were found on a computer owned by Anthony Weiner, the former congressman, as part of an investigation into whether he’d sent sexually explicit messages to teenage girls.

Few news organizations gave the story more velocity than The New York Times. On the morning of Oct. 29, Comey stories stretched across the print edition’s front page, accompanied by a photo showing Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s estranged wife. Although some of these articles contained detailed reporting, the headlines focused on speculation about the implications for the horse race — “NEW EMAILS JOLT CLINTON CAMPAIGN IN RACE’S LAST DAYS.”
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....Clinton’s standing in the polls fell sharply. She’d led Trump by 5.9 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s popular vote projection at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 28. A week later — after polls had time to fully reflect the letter — her lead had declined to 2.9 percentage points. That is to say, there was a shift of about 3 percentage points against Clinton. And it was an especially pernicious shift for Clinton because (at least according to the FiveThirtyEight model) Clinton was underperforming in swing states as compared to the country overall. In the average swing state,3 Clinton’s lead declined from 4.5 percentage points at the start of Oct. 28 to just 1.7 percentage points on Nov. 4. If the polls were off even slightly, Trump could be headed to the White House.
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[karynnj]

8. I do not disagree at all that the email thing hurt Hillary- and in fact, you misread what I said

I said I suspected that no one voted against her because of her emails. I then suggested it may have led people to not vote for her. In states like Michigan, there were examples of people who actually voted, but did not vote for President.

It is hard to conjure the mind set of anyone so concerned with following rules that they would reject HRC and vote for someone who violated norms and rules on a daily basis. What I think it did was lead to people uninterested in voting for either -- and that hurt her.

Remember that the Trump team also dealt with his infidelity et al issues by bringing people who accused Bill Clinton to a debate. This was similar -- in that it tried to create the idea that the Clintons were no better. Remember going into the election, both candidates had negative net approval ratings.

[sarcasmo]

2. Shocked that Susan Sarandon hasn't been tweeting about Meadows email accounts.

[Hortensis]

4. Oh, yeah. Probably still busy waiting for Hillary's "inevitable indictments"

for her email usage. Of course nothing Republicans do could ever compare with Democratic crimes, which caused her great relief after tRump took power that at least "dangerous" Hillary wasn't leading the nation.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. The Disparity in coverage is sad

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[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Whoever made this is brilliant. My Twitter favorite for the week.

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[Hekate]

7. KnR. I always read your posts -- thanks

[betsuni]

9. K&R

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Lock Meadows and company up

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[UTUSN]

11. K&R

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. Waiting for Republicans to form a Select Committee to investigate Mark Meadows' emails

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[yardwork]

13. Kick

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. Waiting for Republicans to form a Select Committee to investigate Mark Meadows' emails

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