"Email-gate" Is The New Watergate

Discussion in 'Politics' started by CoinOKC, Aug 19, 2015.

  1. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    Is the Hillary email scandal Watergate all over again?

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    By K.T. McFarland

    Published August 18, 2015

    The reporter who broke the Watergate scandal wide open, Bob Woodward, says the Hillary email scandal reminds him of Nixon’s drawn out battle over the White House tapes 40 years ago. Just a few weeks ago Hillary Clinton seemed unstoppable: a shoo-in to win the Democratic nomination, and favored to win the presidency. Now there is open speculation that her candidacy is in trouble, and that she could be held criminally liable for mishandling highly classified documents – a crime that has sent lesser-known people to jail.

    Woodward is right. Hillary’s troubles are taking on the tones of Nixon’s demise. I was a young staffer in the Nixon White House, working in the West Wing before, during and after the Watergate scandal. There are eerie similarities. In 1972, Richard Nixon was headed for a landslide re-election: his foreign policy successes were stunning -- the opening to China, arms control with the USSR, ending the Vietnam War -- and the economy was good.

    But then the Democratic National Committee headquarters, in the Watergate office building, was broken into just before the election and files stolen. The burglars were traced back to several mid-level people on Nixon’s staff. Congress eventually formed a Watergate committee to investigate wrongdoing. The Justice Department created a special prosecutor with subpoena powers.

    One by one my colleagues in the West Wing were brought in to testify publicly before Congress, and summoned to meet behind closed doors with the special prosecutor. Every week investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had a new story on the front page of the Washington Post, with details of the investigation.

    One revelation involved a previously unknown Oval Office taping system that recorded the president’s meetings. The special prosecutor wanted Nixon to turn over those tapes. Nixon refused. In late July 1974 the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to turn over the tapes. There were hours and hours of tapes, but three seemed to implicate Nixon personally in the Watergate cover-up, and one ‘smoking gun’ tape condemned him.

    Nixon’s support in Congress, which had waned for months, collapsed overnight. Suddenly the most powerful man in the world, who had been re-elected less than two years before in the greatest landslide in U.S. history, was forced to resign the presidency or face impeachment, trial and removal from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

    Nixon never went to trial or did jail time. His guilt was never proved, and recently released evidence indicates that the rush to indict Nixon was probably more about politics than policies. But Nixon’s presidency was over. On August 9, 1974, I walked from my West Basement office to the East Room to watch a man who had dominated American politics for a generation say farewell to the staff.

    It was one of the most stunning political reversals in modern times.
    For years, commentators have wondered why Nixon didn’t just destroy the tapes when he had the chance.

    Today it seems like déjà vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra.
    Did Hillary Rodham learn from Nixon’s mistakes? Did Hillary Rodman Clinton think if she destroyed her email server, or wiped it clean, she could avoid Nixon’s fate? The problem is in the digital age nothing is permanently wiped away. Even if Hillary succeeded in deleting the emails, they probably exist on other people’s computers.

    Why did Clinton have a private email system in the first place? Did she think by keeping her email and files under her control she could decide what to make public and what to keep out of prying eyes? She is famously rigorous about her statements and public image. Did she believe if she could control the historical record she could fashion her own legacy?

    Why did Clinton, like Nixon, refuse to turn them over in the first place? Does she have something to hide? She claims the emails she did not turn over were personal, about her yoga schedule and her mother’s funeral. She claims they were deleted because of convenience. But she is the one who made that call, not some neutral third party. Nixon claimed his tapes were his property, too. He claimed the ones that were not turned over contained top secret national security information. Was Secretary Clinton trying to hide some wrongdoing? Are those missing emails about the Benghazi scandal? About a relationship between the Clinton Foundation donors and her decisions at the State Department?

    Why has the administration suddenly reversed course to allow inquiries into Hillary’s emails? It’s hard to believe that in one of the most partisan administrations of all time, the sudden onslaught of Executive Branch investigations are an accident. She is now being investigated by three government agencies – The Justice Department, the State Department and the Intelligence Community. If so, why? Has someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue concluded they do not want Hillary Clinton to succeed President Obama.

    Will the investigations find any evidence of wrongdoing? Once special prosecutors are appointed, or congressional investigations begun, they always find something. Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater.

    Secretary Clinton has gone from saying she never received classified emails on her personal email account, to saying she never received emails that were marked classified. That’s a big leap. If they were classified, and someone deleted the classification, that’s an offense.

    We are not at the end of investigations into Hillary Clinton. They are likely just beginning. Once the emails are recreated, which they will be with time, where will the trail lead?

    It may not be as earth shattering as Nixon’s forced resignation from office in August 1974. But it could present Secretary Clinton with insurmountable difficulties in her quest to be the first woman President. The greatest irony of all? One of the staff members on the Watergate Committee that investigated Nixon’s files and tapes was a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham. Déjà vu, all over again.

    Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com's "DefCon 3." She served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015...l-watergate-all-over-again.html?intcmp=hphz03

     
  2. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

    Yep, some republicans truly desire a "Watergate" moment to materialize among the Democrats, despite the harm such a moment would incur. Hillary, for example, has been thoroughly scrutinized for decades now but, nadda.

    Funny how some things are and some things are not, despite foolish wishes for it to be otherwise. :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2015
    JoeNation likes this.
  3. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    Hey, if it IS the new Watergate, it's of her own making. Do you disagree that she brought this on herself?
     
  4. rlm's cents
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    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    Poll: 2% of Americans Believe Hillary Clinton
    58% say she knowingly lied about emails
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    Hillary Rodham Clinton / AP

    BY: Stephen Gutowski
    August 17, 2015 12:40 pm

    A Fox News poll conducted last week shows only 2 percent of Americans believe Hillary Clinton told the truth about whether emails on her private server contained classified information.

    The survey of 1,008 registered voters, conducted between August 11 and 13, showed 58 percent of respondents believe Clinton knowingly lied about her emails, while another 33 percent said they believe there is another explanation. Another 7 percent said they didn’t know if Clinton had lied.

    The poll comes as the Washington Times reports that as many as 60 of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server contained classified information.
     
  5. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Everything is the new Watergate to them.
     
    IQless1 likes this.
  6. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    The 7 other ‘scandals’ that didn’t turn out to be Obama’s Watergate
    05/13/13 04:30 PM—UPDATED 10/02/13 10:03 PM
    By Morgan Whitaker

    Between the recent Benghazi hearing and reports of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups, Republicans and the right-wing media have had a field day waxing on about the new scandals that will bring down President Obama. The comparisons to Watergate abound, especially among those who remember that Nixon’s impeachment articles included criticism of his use income tax audits in a “discriminatory matter.”

    But this is far from the first time we’ve heard the right compare a story reflecting less than positively on Obama or someone in his administration to Watergate.

    Here, an abridged collection of the scandals that Republicans wished were Watergate, but weren’t:

    Solyndra

    “This makes Watergate look like child’s play.” - Michele Bachmann, November 2011


    Back in 2011, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann dropped the Watergate comparison to the controversy surrounding the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a company the president once touted as a model of clean technology and job creation. Conservative groups spent millions of dollars on ads designed to use the issue to bring the president down. Then he won reelection.

    Fast & Furious

    “This is far worse than Watergate.” - Louie Gohmert, June 2012


    Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert was one of many who tried to argue that the controversy over the Fast & Furious “gun walking” program was worse than Watergate. He based that claim on Obama’s decision to claim executive privilege in the case after months of House investigations into how the program, which was started in the Bush administration, lost track of hundreds of guns it purposefully allowed into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Gohmert claimed that Obama’s decision to assert executive privilege put him on par with Nixon, who used executive privilege to try to hide the audio recordings that eventually incriminated him in the Watergate scandal. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa echoed those Watergate-level accusations.

    Sestak “bribe”

    “”The White House is facing a major scandal—one that threatens to bring down President Obama. It could be his Watergate.” - Jeffrey Kuhner, May 2010


    The Right pounced on an offhand remark from Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak suggesting that he was offered a job in the Obama administration for not running against Arlen Specter. California Congressman Darrell Issa, of the House Oversight Committee, wondered the same thing and even demanded a special prosecutor investigate the story. Conservative columnist Jeffrey Kuhner said it could be Obama’s Watergate. The story went away as Republicans lost interest in exploiting it not long after a Bush administration ethics lawyer pointed out how overblown the story had been.

    Alleged national security leaks from Obama White House

    “Watergate meant nothing… This is far more important than Watergate. To me there’s no comparison at all.” - Peter King, June 2012


    New York Congressman Peter King was outraged over allegations that White House officials might have leaked national security information to outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek and the Associated Press, in an attempt to make the president look good. The story came nowhere near Watergate-level leaks, in part because Attorney General Eric Holder quickly picked two senior Department of Justice prosecutors to investigate the leaks.

    Obama’s birth certificate

    “Why does the press protect him? Is this another Watergate?” - Donald Trump, May 2012


    When a promotional brochure from Obama’s old publisher with a typo declaring Obama’s birth place as Kenya was revealed this past summer, Donald Trump pounced. He tweeted that the press was protecting the president on an issue that might turn out to be his Watergate. Then the literary agent took the blame for the fact-checking error and the story quickly went away, perhaps in part because the president had already released his long-form birth certificate.

    Media Matters

    “Is Media Matters Obama’s Watergate?” - The American Spectator, February 2012


    That’s what the American Spectator asked in February of last year after a report of Obama administration connections to left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters. The Spectator’s report tried to draw comparisons between that story and Tony Ulasewicz, who delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to Watergate defendants.

    Work permits for immigrants under 30

    Whatever Nixon did pales in comparison to just this move today.” - Rush Limbaugh, June 2012


    Rush Limbaugh declared the president’s plan to offer “amnesty” to 8 million undocumented immigrants was far worse than anything Nixon “supposedly” ever did.

    In all these cases, the proclamations of a Nixonian level scandal proved to be more wishful thinking than political reality. But Republicans appear determined to make the Benghazi scandal stick to the president in a more meaningful way, specifically over news that administration talking points about the attack were edited. The only problem is that Republicans knew about the timeline for the talking points months ago.

    President Obama pointed out that Republicans knew about the emails Monday and called the conversation a “sideshow” Monday.

    “The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” Obama said. “What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were.”
     
    IQless1 likes this.
  7. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    I almost feel sorry for Hillary. Almost. She brought this on herself and has no one to blame but herself. If she has to bow out of the race (and she probably will), it serves her right for thinking she is above the law.
     
  8. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    With the FBI digging into it now, I do not know how she is not going to wind up behind bars.
     
  9. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Except, she is not being investigated. Oops!
     
  10. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    FBI investigation of Hillary’s emails is ‘criminal probe’
    By Jamie Schram, Geoff Earle and Laura Italiano

    August 5, 2015 | 7:26pm

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    The FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unsecured email account is not just a fact-finding venture — it’s a criminal probe, sources told The Post on Wednesday.

    The feds are investigating to what extent Clinton relied on her home server and other private devices to send and store classified documents, according to a federal source with knowledge of the inquiry.

    “It’s definitely a criminal probe,” said the source. “I’m not sure why they’re not calling it a criminal probe.

    “The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI can conduct civil investigations in very limited circumstances,” but that’s not what this is, the source stressed. “In this case, a security violation would lead to criminal charges. Maybe DOJ is trying to protect her campaign.”

    Clinton’s camp has downplayed the inquiry as civil and fact-finding in nature. Clinton herself has said she is “confident” that she never knowingly sent or received anything that was classified via her private email account.

    But the inspector general for the intelligence community has told Congress that of 40 Clinton emails randomly reviewed as a sample of her correspondence as secretary of state, four contained classified information.

    If it is proved that Clinton knowingly sent, received or stored classified information in an unauthorized location, she risks prosecution under the same misdemeanor federal security statute used to prosecute former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, said former federal prosecutor Bradley Simon.

    The statute — which was also used to prosecute Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, in 2005 — is rarely used and would be subject to the discretion of the attorney general.

    Still, “They didn’t hesitate to charge Gen. Petraeus with doing the same thing, downloading documents that are classified,” Simon said. “The threshold under the statute is not high — they only need to prove there was an unauthorized removal and retention” of classified material, he said.

    Clinton’s lawyer in the email probe is longtime Bill Clinton attorney David Kendall, who also repped Petraeus, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to providing classified documents to his mistress biographer.

    “My guess is they’re looking to see if there’s been either any breach of that data that’s gone into the wrong hands [in Clinton’s case], through their counter-intelligence group, or they are looking to see if a crime has been committed,” said Makin Delrahim, former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, who served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Bush DOJ.

    “They’re not in the business of providing advisory security services,” Delrahim said of the FBI. “This is real.”

    The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
     
  11. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

    Gate-schmate, what they really want is something like this:
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    Ain't gonna happen. :rolleyes:
     
  12. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Sources told? Really? Sources?

    False reports of Hillary Clinton investigation just keep falling apart
    byLaura Clawson

    [​IMG]
    Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

    The false story that the Justice Department was being asked to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton continues to be shoved back into the faces of the New York Times and whoever leaked the fake version of the story. And the fact that one of the key sources of push back is Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, might provide a wee clue as to the likely source of that leak. (There's no good explanation for the Times falling for it.)
    Cummings provides more support for the fact that the investigation the State Department Inspector General wants to see is not into Clinton's actions but into the State Department's later handling of the emails she turned over:

    "I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday, and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,” Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Friday in a statement.
    Instead, State Inspector General Steve A. Linick, “told me the Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that they identified classified information in a few emails that were part of the [Freedom of Information Act] review, and that none of those emails had been previously marked as classified."

    Cummings also provided another memo from the Office of the Inspector General making clear that the investigation in question wasn't about Hillary Clinton's actions, and that the classified emails were not marked as classified at the time. For more on that question, Marcy Wheeler has a great look at the practice of retroactive classification.
    On top of the investigation referral not being about Hillary Clinton's actions, the Justice Department is now also saying it's not a criminal inquiry at all. Could this story have been any more screwed up?

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...linton-investigation-just-keep-falling-apart#
     
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  13. rlm's cents
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    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    Funny, but the FBI is not driven by the Rep. Elijah Cummings and, hopefully, it will not be politically driven by Obama.
     
    CoinOKC likes this.
  14. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Funny, your "sources" seem a bit unnamed.
     
  15. rlm's cents
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    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    Sources for what? That Obama hasn't yet poluted the FBI?
     
  16. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    I'm not even going to try and guess at what that might mean. I just going to assume that it is more Obama derangement syndrome.
     
    IQless1 likes this.
  17. rlm's cents
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    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    It is a common ordinary English sentence, so I must assume there is a word in there you do not understand. Would you care to elaborate?
     

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