Petraeus was prosecuted for mishandling classified materials. What HRC did was worse.

[leveymg]

HRC's actions differed from Petraeus. But, it's not what her defenders say. What she did was worse, both legally and ethically.

Far worse. When David Petraeus retained his diaries, "black books" after leaving DOD/CIA, and shared them with his paramour, Paula Broadwell, he put the two of them in legal jeopardy. On April 23, Petraeus pled guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials under 18 USC §1924. His indictment referenced a far more serious felony violation of his signed security oath, unauthorized release of Top Secret/Special Access Programs (TS/SAP). Had the former CIA Director not plea bargained down, Petraeus could have been prosecuted under the felony statute, 18 USC § 793, Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information.

When HRC set up a private email server the day of her Senate confirmation hearing, and used it exclusively until after she resigned four years later, she never displayed any sort of warning or disclaimer on the system or her messages to caution others that they were communicating on a non-secure, private system. In so doing, she required her aides to use it to communicate with her -- along with hundreds of other federal officials. In so doing, this caused them all significant risk, and some may be prosecuted for transmitting classified information across that unauthorized server.

On at least one occasion, she instructed an aide to strip out classified information from a document stamped Secret and send it to her by unsecured email. After examination by the State Department, the server holds at least 100 documents that contained information that was found by other agencies to have been classified by them as Top Secret or above, TS/SAP.

If the AG decides to prosecute her and/or some of her staff, those found to have transmitted classified information face felony charges under Section 793, which carries with it a potential penalty of ten years imprisonment. See, http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251552653

But, Hillary may hold a Stay Out of Jail Free card that her staff members don't. As Secretary of State, she gets to classify or declassify her own agency's information. She may be able to claim immunity as head of agency for releasing materials that originated with DOS. But, she could not legally permit information that were originally classified by CIA, Department of Defense, or other originating agencies to be placed on her own server. The server she set up and operated was never certified as secure to contain or transmit secret information.

If her aides are prosecuted, and she isn't, it would be incredibly irresponsible and callous of her to benefit from head of agency immunity for herself and the information she posted that would have otherwise been classified at the moment it was written, while her aides go on trial.

What a shitty boss.

Just wait until she's President and thinks she can claim Executive Privilege for everything she does.

[yourpaljoey]

1. Bernie better win, or we are hooped

[tularetom]

2. When the president does it that means that it is not illegal

So there...

[msongs]

3. "shared them with his paramour" - that's the issue with Petraeus nt

[bobthedrummer]

4. K&R

[bobthedrummer]

5. I'm a thread kicker, not a thread killer...n/t

[mythology]

6. You somehow neglected to mention that the State Department has said none of the

documents were classified at the time they were sent to the server. Which is a rather significant detail for you to "accidentally" omit.

In addition at least some of the disputed material is "classified" because it mentions drone strikes, which even Obama has mentioned, but for some utterly silly reason even acknowledging the drone program is classified.

Petraeus had multiple notebooks full of then classified information sitting on his desk and gave it to a woman who had no clearance and lied about it.

Comparing to two at this point is more than a little silly especially considering previous Secretaries of State like Colin Powell also had their own private server.

[DCBob]

7. +1

Amazing the misinformation that is posted on this site as fact.

[ebayfool]

11. Correction. Colin Powell did not have his own private server.

snip/

Although Powell did acknowledge that he used personal email for official business, there’s no evidence that he — or any other previous secretary of state — maintained emails on a personal server.

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/clinton-spins-immigration-emails/


Unless you have found proof otherwise? I've looked and so far, nope.

[leveymg]

14. The information was classified, not the documents. Important distinction you may have missed.

I am afraid that you may have fallen for an old lawyer's trick. Note that Hillary claims that none of the "documents" or "material" on the server were classified when placed on the server. That is true, but it's a partial truth. The fact is, the information later found to be classified upon examination was taken from classified documents created by other agencies. I gave an example of how that can happen. In at least one case, Hillary instructed an aide to strip out the contents of a classified document and send that over the unsecure, uncertified server.

Here's what I'm talking about:

The fact that she instructed the aide to transmit contents of a classified document across her uncertified private email system has not been refuted. According to http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-releases-more-clinton-emails-several-marked-classified/ :

On the campaign trail, the presidential candidate has insisted that no classified information was sent or received through her private email server.

But in one email exchange between Clinton and staffer Jake Sullivan from June 17, 2011, the then-secretary advised her aide on sending a set of talking points by email when he had trouble sending them through secure means.

Part of the exchange is redacted, so the context of the emails is unknown, but at one point, Sullivan tells Clinton that aides "say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it."

Play Video
Clinton: " I did not email any classified material"

Clinton responds, "If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

As for Petraeus, he was prosecuted despite the fact that the woman he shared his diaries with was an Army officer with a security clearance. In Clinton's case, she shared "presumed" classified (foreign gov't) information with Syd Blumenthal who isn't even a gov't employee. Sorry, what she did was worse.

[DCBob]

8. No one is going to be prosecuted.

Good grief.

[bigtree]

9. Petraeus betrayed us

...deliberately, knowingly offered up state secrets in exchange for sex and a future book deal.

You make yourself look silly with this nonsense.

[zappaman]

10. Keep trying.

It's kinda amusing to watch.

[Jitter65]

12. Not even close. nt

[bobthedrummer]

13. Wesley Clark once ran for POTUS, so did George Wallace and Ross Perot....n/t

[Octafish]

15. ''When the president does it, that means that it's not illegal.''

Traditional American Presidential saying. And since Nixon's day, they'll pardon themselves if they do break the law and shred the Constitution. It not only keeps them in a position of power to do even worse things, like making money off their office, it perpetuates their corruption.

PFC Chelsea Manning is in jail for 35 years for exposing war crimes. CIA man Sterling is in for who knows how long for having a reporter phone him. Petraeus and the powerful walk.

Simply put: Warmongers run Wall Street-on-the-Potomac.

The judge presiding over the case, US Magistrate Judge David Keesler, increased the government's recommended fine of $40,000 to $100,000 because of Petraeus' "grave but uncharacteristic error in judgement."

That didn't sit well with independent journalist and surveillance critic Marcy Wheeler. "Judge Keesler thinks he sent a message by fining Petraeus 75 percent of one speaking fee for leaking covert IDs," she tweeted.

-- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/former-cia-directors-no-jail-sentence-for-leaking-decried-as-gross-hypocrisy/

Somehow, the interested parties will be getting a nice keep quiet reminder and the secrecy obligations their government service now require. As long as things can get classified "national security," they'll dodge the investigations and prosecutions their actions so richly deserve.