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Hillary’s thumb drive of DOOM

Hillary’s thumb drive of DOOM

Hillary’s attorney has a thumb drive containing classified info

File this under: Things that would be hilarious if they weren’t real life and cross-reference under Not The Onion.

As if Hillary Clinton using a personal email account and home brewed server while serving as Secretary of State weren’t inept enough, Clinton’s private attorney is running around with a thumb drive full of classified info.

You read that correctly — a thumb drive.

flashbam

Mind you, Clinton has sworn time, and time again that no classified information was transmitted via her personal email account. Which, as we’ve noted repeatedly begs the question — how the hell did she do her job?!

In any case, the Inspector General debunked the whole “I did not send classified information from my email account” claim. And now we learn that her attorney has a pocket-full of classified info.

The law firm assured Politico “appropriate measures” were being taken to secure the thumb drive. What those measures are, we have no clue.

Hillary Clinton’s private lawyer has a thumb drive containing classified information from as many as five U.S. intelligence agencies — but the State Department told POLITICO the law firm is taking “appropriate measures” to secure the files.

The agency declined to detail steps made to protect the sensitive information in attorney David Kendall’s possession…

The thumb drive has copies of emails Clinton kept on a private server while she served as secretary of state, a trove now known to contain classified documents.

The agency told POLITICO that Clinton “does have counsel with clearance.” Kendall, a prominent Williams & Connolly attorney who defended former CIA director David Petraeus against charges of mishandling classified information, declined to comment.

Clinton’s campaign echoed the State Department.

“The thumb drive is secure,” said Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the Democratic front-runner’s presidential campaign, referring questions to state.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked the FBI to confirm that the thumb drive has been secured.

“This raises very serious questions and concerns if a private citizen is somehow retaining classified information,” Grassley’s said in a letter sent late last week. He asked for more information on Kendall’s clearance and whether the lawyer was authorized to “be the custodian of classified national security information.”

The FBI has not yet responded.

Thumb drive. Really. What could possibly go wrong?

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Comments

Not A Member of Any Organized Political | July 31, 2015 at 1:55 pm

Geesh!

How far and wide did Madame Traitor spread our national secrets?

Oh look, they just found Hillary Emails with classified info on some Bangladesh grade schooler’s cell phone!

I’m sure that Hellary’s attorney has tasked a law clerk with personally carrying the thumb drive in his/her pocket/purse.

And they’re bullet-proof.

And NOT named Vince. Or Foster.

    donb in reply to Ragspierre. | July 31, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    …law clerk [] personally carrying the thumb drive in his/her pocket/purse.

    Actually, it’s probably in Sandy Berger’s socks.

Q. “…how the hell did she do her job?!
A. She didn’t.

And in passing, her “private lawyer” (are we providing a ‘public” lawyer as well?) should be in jail for possession of the classified material. But then, those are the rules I lived with for thirty five years, and the whole lousy lot of them should be behind bars, anyway.

    Milhouse in reply to Owego. | July 31, 2015 at 2:52 pm

    Kendall doesn’t work for the government, so it’s not illegal for him to possess classified material. He never agreed not to, by taking government employment.

      Paul in reply to Milhouse. | July 31, 2015 at 3:28 pm

      Is it illegal for a government employee to transfer classified information to someone who does not have adequate clearance?

      And a related question: does a lion shit on the Savannah?

        Milhouse in reply to Paul. | July 31, 2015 at 6:04 pm

        Yes, it is illegal for a government employee to transfer classified information to someone who does not have adequate clearance. Let’s just suppose, without any evidence but for the sake of argument, that Kendall lacks such clearance, and thus Clinton had no right to give him the material. How does that make him guilty of anything?

      Estragon in reply to Milhouse. | July 31, 2015 at 6:00 pm

      Not true.

      JerryB in reply to Milhouse. | August 1, 2015 at 12:56 am

      Wrong. Kendall has a clearance, according to the article. His agreement with the government requires proper handling of classified material. If he receives classified material outside of proper channels, he has a duty to report it as soon as he knows what he has. This should have happened immediately because it has been known for months that HRC had classified material on her server. If he has been sitting on it, then he is in trouble.

      Furthermore, he has put his firm in jeopardy because there is the possibility that that thumb drive was introduced to the firm’s network. The gov’t could legally impound the firm’s entire system to “sanitize” it. No client will stay with such a firm. Were he defending a Republican, this would be going on right now.

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Owego. | July 31, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    her “private lawyer” (are we providing a ‘public” lawyer as well?) should be in jail for possession of the classified material.

    You’d have to breach Attorney-client privilege to confirm that.

    You don’t just get to look at attorney work product that easily.

    Besides, the lawyer arranged for Hillary Clinton to have permission to keep copies.

    And he’s in no trouble. Hillary might be, but now she has permission.

      I don’t believe that attorney-client privilege trumps the need for the gov’t to protect classified information. His knowledge of his client’s wrongdoing protected, but his possession of the classified information is not. Would a fair analogy be an attorney in possession of a murder weapon? Doesn’t the atty have a duty to produce that?

      Maybe Prof. Bill can help out on this.

Hillary is brilliant. She is the most far sighted and smartest female ever to walk the earth. She knew that the government computers were likely to be targeted by Chinese hackers and were vulnerable. But, she knew, no one would imagine she would keep State Department secrets on a system in her private home.

As the Brits say….. Brilliant.

Now do I get a job at MSNBC, home of classically trained professional journalists with the highest ethical standards?

    Not A Member of Any Organized Political in reply to Anchovy. | July 31, 2015 at 2:23 pm

    And it’s all because she’s got lady parts – just like Warren…after the operation…..

    Rick the Curmudgeon in reply to Anchovy. | July 31, 2015 at 4:27 pm

    And you know every intelligence service on the planet worked that server like a rented mule…

    Midwest Rhino in reply to Anchovy. | July 31, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    ha, yes.

    I did see some supposition that her home brew server may have provided a back door into the main system in government. In which case she may actually be the one responsible, not the one that avoided the Chinese hack. And given her Chinagate history, she probably was paid for the treason.

    But I have no idea if that is feasible. Surely we can trust Hillary, and Huma. Just because Huma’s immediate family is Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t mean we can’t trust her with all state secrets. /sarc

Why hasn’t this woman been indicted yet?

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Observer. | July 31, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    She has very, very, very good lawyers.

    And she didn’t leave any e-mails on State Department servers. That way, she wouldn’t inadvertantly leave behind any evidence of a crime. *

    You know like maybe the UBS case.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

    * I don’t think this was just to escape Congressional subpoenas and Freedom of Information Act requests.

      DaveGinOly in reply to Sammy Finkelman. | July 31, 2015 at 10:36 pm

      She must have known that merely keeping her official correspondence on a private server didn’t “privatize” the messages, putting them beyond retention requirements and document requests. If she didn’t, she’s too stupid to be president. If she did, what was the point? If she knew storing this data privately would not actually make it private, what was she really up to? Hoping to keep it private just long enough to become president? If so, that didn’t work out the way it was planned.

      It’s not so much the lawyers, but democrat — and GOP — corruption of so much of our government that has allowed this incompetent cancer on public life to survive. She was the great hope of so many deluded and ignorant liberals. She had enormous inertia, thanks to Bill. But Bill is yesterday’s news.

      Truth of her uselessness and her incredible corruption is sinking her faster than she’ll ever know how to react. No lawyer is going to save her.

Why on Earth should she be retaining classified material through her lawyer (to use attorney-client privilege as a shield)? She hasn’t been charged with anything. It’s not necessary for her legal defense in any pending matter.

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to JBourque. | July 31, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    Also see

    http://democrats.benghazi.house.gov/sites/democrats.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/2015_03_27_Kendall_to_TG_re_Response_to_March_4_Subpoena.pdf

    Bottom of page 2 and top of page 3.

    Her lawyers probably had a hand in drafting the letter sent to them, which says that while she and her lawyers can retain coopies of her work related e-mails, she can’t release them to any third party (not even in response to a Congressional subpoena he means) pending a review by he State Department for “privilege, privacy or other reasons.”

    Other reasons means that the State Department might determine that some e-mails ought to be marked classified.

    The letter itself starts on page 7.

    The letter says that they understand Secretary Clinton would like to continue to retain copies in order to assist her in responding to Congressional and other inquiries regarding the e-mails and about her tenure as head of the Department, and that the State Department, which also consulted the National Archives, believes that permitting Secretary Clinton continued access to the documents “is in the public interest as it will help promote informed discussion.”

    Accordingly, she and people assisting her can continue to hold on to them as long as steps are taken to safeguard them, and they not released without State Depatment permission, and returned if requested.

    Also, following the advice of the National Archives, they ask that anything now in lectronic format be preserved that way.

    And if State Department reviewers later determine that anything is classified, addirional steps will be required to safeguard and protect the information.

    But she release anything on her own.

    Isn’t that convenient?

Sammy Finkelman | July 31, 2015 at 3:43 pm

These are just simply the me e-mails which had paper printouts sent over to the State Department.

A considerable number of them should now be considered classified, although only a few have been examined for that.

That is besides the deleted e-mails, which he also might have.

Midwest Rhino | July 31, 2015 at 5:05 pm

The thumb drive would perhaps maintain the “metadata”. Seems they need to subpoena the thumb drive pronto, AND the metadata it contains. Destroying the metadata part of the emails is destroying evidence, as if the private server and destroying 30,000 emails (or maybe 300,000) is not illegal enough. Printing out the select emails seems contemptuous.

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Midwest Rhino. | July 31, 2015 at 6:16 pm

    It should be subpoeaned even if she will reply that she is precluded by the State Department from responding to the subpoena.

    (It might already be covered by a subpoena.)

    Metadata will tell you at least how many e-mail messages she sent, and probably sometimes show very short gaps in time between some “work-related” e-mails during which she sent some other e-mail not included.

    The deleted e-mails are probably stored, but stored separately from the non-deleted ones.

    “The thumb drive would perhaps maintain the “metadata”.

    Actually, there’s a fair chance you are horribly right. The emails that were provided were simply non-searchable plain scans, which would be almost as useless to the lawyer carrying them as they were to the State Department, since they have no searchable text. If the thumb drive instead contains the original *searchable* emails, even with the “Convert to PDF” feature of Outlook, the actual internal metadata is kept for searching purposes, including checksums which can show if an email has been edited or had the date modified. Not to mention as a thumb drive, it can unknowingly carry malware for the purposes of breaking the security of any system it is plugged into.

    Subpeona it now. For added irony, have a full set of armed police officers break down the lawyer’s door at 3AM with a search warrant.

Sooooooo this is the information that was supposed to have been never have been outside of a gov approved IT ring, then all materials expunged and handed back in when she left the role?

Yeah I can and do trust her… to clean the toilets in a white collar prison.

Hillary has always behaved as if she were above the law – going back to her firing for unethical behavior in the Watergate investigation, using the Rose Law Firm to sell Bill’s influence, hiding subpoenaed records, secret HillaryCare meetings, scouring Vince Foster’s office, selling influence at State for donations to the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees for Bill, and God only knows what else.

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Estragon. | July 31, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    With Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster’s files, what Hillary did is make it look like Bernard Nussbaum, the White House counsel, and Vincent Foster’s boss, who had been promised the job in 1974 – yes, that’s right, 1974 – the Clintons plan their cover-ups way in advance, when they can…

    (Bernard Nussbaum didn’t believe Bill Clinton would become president, but Hillary Rodham did)

    …and who was never privy to any Clinton secrets – that’s why he was made the White House counsel, while Vincent Foster was the Deputy White House counsel…

    …[She made it look like Bernard Nussbaum] was the one who had removed secret files, by setting up a whole drama two days later, when actually it was Hillary Clinton and a few close aides, and she removed them

    So that Bernard Nussbaum wouldn’t see them!!

    Believe it or not, but it doesn’t take too much knowledge and thinking to believe that.

      Sammy Finkelman in reply to Sammy Finkelman. | July 31, 2015 at 6:33 pm

      Nobody else, who wasn’t all along expected to, would have seen Vincent Foster’s secret files, except Bernard Nussbaum.

In March 2013, an adviser to Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, had his e-mail hacked by “Guccifer” — the Romanian hacker perhaps best known for revealing George W. Bush’s paintings to the world. At the time, Gawker reported that Blumenthal was communicating with an account that appeared to belong to Clinton at the “clintonemail.com” domain. The content of some of those e-mails was published by RT.com.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/02/hacked-emails-indicate-that-hillary-clinton-used-a-domain-registered-the-day-of-her-senate-hearings/

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to 4fun. | July 31, 2015 at 7:33 pm

    But I don’t know if the e-mail released by Russia in 20113 was the real e-mail, or the real e-mail altered, or what. It has not at all been confirmed that the contents fo the e-mail leaked then was genuine.

    There was indeed a lot of e-mail. Sidney Blumenthal testified that these reports were really written by Tyler Drumheller, who retired from the CIA in 2005, and was later attacking Bush, and who was the person who was responsible for originally vouching for the forged letters that said Saddam Hussein had had a contract to buy uranium from Niger, which Cheney tried to check out and the CIA finessed the issue.

    We never found out who really sent Joe Wilson to Niger (to make his non-report report, hat nly said Niger had not actually sent uranium to Iraq, and coiuldn’t have) except that it wasn’t the initial CIA cover story that they told other people in the U.S. government, after Judith Miller caused Scooter Libby to start asking about it, that it was his wife, Valerie Plame who was responsible for selecting or nominating him.

    Very peculiar what Hillary Clinton was doing there with the Drumheller/Blumenthal e-mails.

    She was possibly planting or testing out Russian or some otehr country’s disinformation.

      Sammy Finkelman in reply to Sammy Finkelman. | August 12, 2015 at 5:52 pm

      Sidney Blumenthal testified that these reports were really written by Tyler Drumheller, who retired from the CIA in 2005, and was later attacking Bush, and who was the person who was responsible for originally vouching for the forged letters that said Saddam Hussein had had a contract to buy uranium from Niger, which Cheney tried to check out and the CIA finessed the issue.

      Oh, look, he just died:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/us/tyler-drumheller-ex-cia-official-who-disputed-bush-dies-at-63.html?_r=0

      So I guess he can’t be subpoenaed now by the Trey Gowdy committee. Maybe his e-mail accounts will also now be inaccessible or deleted.

      The assertion is he died of complications from pancreatic cancer (which is often diagnosed only a short time before death)

      It’s not only the possibility that somehow the Klinton Konspiracy killed him that we have to consider.

      You also have to wonder, if Sidney Blumenthal was lying when he testified that Tyler Drumheller was the real author of the e-mails he sent to Hillary Clinton. Because he would have known he had cancer.

Sammy Finkelman | July 31, 2015 at 7:23 pm

The CBS Evening News had a report today in how Hillary engaged in a whirlwind of activity and tried to create all sprts of news. It must be reporters were talking about it.

They figured it must be intended to distract attention from something, but they couldn’t figure out what.

I suspect it might be something that doesn’t sound important in itself, but is very telling once you know more facts, or it might be news from yesterday, which they didn’t any second day coverage. That day old news could be the UBS bank matter, reported by the Wall Street Journal, or the fact that some e-mails from her aides just got released.

The most interesting thing in the e-mails was an aide mentioned a book “Send” about e-mailing.

There was also a statement of good health from her physician and the release of her medical records, or some of them.

She’s been taking Coumadin (the blood thinner for which aa person needs to have tesst taken all the time to adjust it for the diet) for phlebitis since 1998 and 2009 – or did she take it and stop and start again, or what?

There’s an aspect of this I don’t think I’ve seen raised anywhere. When Clinton “wiped” her server, she also destroyed any forensic value it may have had. An examination of the server could have shown if it was hacked, who hacked it, and what was compromised. This is all very important information for damage control on the leaked data, now impossible because of Clinton’s selfish (and probably ilegal) act.

Another thing: when you think ‘thumb’ and ‘Hillary Clinton,’ ‘drive’ is probably the last noun one would associate the other two nouns with. ‘Ass,’ is more likely.

Henry Hawkins | August 1, 2015 at 1:49 pm

Well, what is clearly needed here are congressional hearings by the appropriate GOP-led committees wherein a lot of harrumphing and moral preening occurs and once the cameras leave the hearing chamber it all fades away.

THAT would show folks who’s in charge.