http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/clinton-lynch-met-privately-phoenix-airport-40246433
Clinton and Lynch Met Privately at Phoenix Airport
By KEN THOMAS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Jun 30, 2016, 10:30 PM ET
Former President Bill Clinton spoke with Attorney General Loretta Lynch during an impromptu meeting in Phoenix, but Lynch said the discussion did not involve the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email use as secretary of state.
Lynch told reporters that the meeting at a Phoenix airport on Monday was unplanned and happened while the former president was waiting to depart and walked over to the attorney general's plane after she landed there.
Lynch was traveling with her husband and said her conversation with the former president "was a great deal about his grandchildren" and their travels. The former president, who recently became a grandfather for the second time, told her he had been playing golf in Arizona and they discussed former Attorney General Janet Reno, whom they both know.
"There was no discussion of any matter pending for the department or any matter pending for any other body. There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of the State Department emails, by way of example," Lynch said in Phoenix.
The exchange comes as the FBI is investigating the potential mishandling of sensitive information that passed through the server Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, used for personal and government correspondence as secretary of state.
Republicans have called for an independent prosecutor, saying the Justice Department under a Democratic president should not be investigating a Democratic presidential candidate.
"This incident does nothing to instill confidence in the American people that her department can fully and fairly conduct this investigation, and that's why a special counsel is needed now more than ever," said Texas Sen. John Cornyn in a statement.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he was surprised by the meeting between Lynch and the former president and sounded skeptical of the explanation of the meeting in an interview with ABC News.
"When you meet for a half-hour and you're talking about your grandchildren and a little about golf, I don't know, it sounds like a long meeting," Trump said Thursday.
Lynch, in a later meeting with reporters in Los Angeles, deflected questions about whether the meeting was appropriate — or created an appearance of impropriety — given the investigation. She noted that the investigation is being conducted by career investigators and agents "who always follow facts and the law."
David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, said on Twitter that he takes Lynch and the ex-president "at their word that their convo in Phoenix didn't touch on probe. But foolish to create such optics."
Top Senate Democrats defended Lynch on Thursday. Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said her ethics "are the best." Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, Reid's likely successor in Democratic leadership, said nothing discussed was related to the investigation.
Hillary Clinton has not been interviewed by the FBI, but the Justice Department's yearlong probe into the email server appears to be nearing a conclusion. Clinton has said that her decision to rely on a private server was a mistake but that other secretaries of state had also used personal email addresses.
The matter was referred for investigation last July by the inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community following the discovery of emails that they said contained classified information.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest wouldn't say whether the meeting was appropriate, only that Lynch understands that the rule of law is paramount, as does Obama.
"She certainly understands that investigations should be conducted free of political interference and consistent with the facts," Earnest said.
As a result of Bill Clinton's impromptu meeting, Loretta Lynch passed the responsibility for the decision to prosecute on to the FBI:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/us/politics/loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-email-server.html?_r=0
Loretta Lynch to Accept F.B.I. Recommendations in Clinton Email Inquiry
By MARK LANDLER, MATT APUZZO and AMY CHOZICK
JULY 1, 2016
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, conceding that her airport meeting with former President Bill Clinton this week had cast a shadow over the federal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s personal email account, said Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director made about whether to bring charges in the case.
Ms. Lynch said she had decided this spring to defer to the recommendations of her staff and the F.B.I. because her status as a political appointee sitting in judgment on a politically charged case would raise questions of a conflict of interest. But the meeting with Mr. Clinton, she acknowledged, had deepened those questions, and she said she now felt compelled to explain publicly her reasoning to try to put the concerns to rest.
“People have a whole host of reasons to have questions about how we in government do our business,” Ms. Lynch said at an Aspen Institute conference in Colorado. “My meeting on the plane with former President Clinton could give them another reason to have questions and concerns.”
Though she insisted the 30-minute conversation was a purely social encounter, Ms. Lynch said, “I certainly wouldn’t do it again.”
The attorney general’s response did little to quell a political tempest in Washington, with some Republicans calling for her to recuse herself from the case — a step she said she was not going to take. Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said the meeting had “opened up a Pandora’s box.” He cast doubt on whether it was entirely social, citing it as an example of how “the special interests are controlling your government.”
For Democrats, already anxious about the political impact of the email investigation, the incident revived fears that Mr. Clinton could become a rogue actor in a campaign that has so far operated more smoothly than Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid in 2008.
Mr. Clinton, who was on a seven-state fund-raising swing for his wife, strode across the tarmac at the airport in Phoenix to greet Ms. Lynch after her plane landed there on Monday night. The attorney general joked that she should have acted more swiftly to keep him from boarding. Asked by a journalist to name one thing she wished her predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr., had told her about her job, she replied, “Where the lock on the plane door was.”
Still, Ms. Lynch said the episode was personally distressing because it stained the reputation of the Justice Department. “The fact that the meeting that I had is now casting a shadow over how people are going to view that work is something that I take seriously, and deeply and painfully,” she said.
Even Ms. Lynch’s explanation of how she planned to distance herself from the case — without recusing herself — required further clarification. “The case will be resolved by the team that’s been working on it from the beginning,” she said in Aspen. But a Justice Department spokeswoman, Melanie Newman, noted afterward that even if Ms. Lynch accepted the recommendation of her staff, she would be the one making the decision.
“She’s the head of the department,” Ms. Newman said, “and with that comes ultimate responsibility for any decision.”
The White House declined to comment on Ms. Lynch’s decision. President Obama “believes that this matter should be handled without regard to politics,” the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said.
The F.B.I. is investigating whether Mrs. Clinton, her aides or anyone else broke the law by setting up a private email server for her to use as secretary of state. Internal investigators have concluded that the server was used to send classified information. For the Justice Department, the central question is whether the conduct met the legal standard for the crime of mishandling classified information.
Ms. Lynch, whom Mr. Clinton appointed to be a United States attorney in 1999, said that the meeting with the former president was unplanned and largely social, and did not touch on the email investigation.
“He said hello and we basically said hello, and congratulated him on his grandchildren, as people do,” said Ms. Lynch, who was traveling with her husband. “That led to a conversation about those grandchildren.”
For Mr. Clinton, who travels frequently by private jet, such airport socializing is common. Last month, he ran into Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, after speaking at the funeral of Muhammad Ali in Louisville, Ky. The two chatted before their planes took off. He has also greeted Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California, on the tarmac. And in Mobile, Ala., he chatted with Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has called for Mrs. Clinton’s imprisonment.
This meeting, however, created a particularly awkward situation for Ms. Lynch, a veteran prosecutor who was nominated from outside Washington’s political circles. During her confirmation, her allies sought to contrast her with her predecessor, Mr. Holder, an outspoken liberal voice who clashed frequently with Republicans who accused him of politicizing the office.
Ms. Lynch’s reassurance that she will not overrule her investigators is significant. When the F.B.I. sought to bring felony charges against David H. Petraeus, the former C.I.A. director, for mishandling classified information and lying about it, Mr. Holder stepped in and reduced the charge to a misdemeanor. That decision opened a deep — and public — rift.
Two other political appointees will review the findings of the email investigation before a final decision is made: John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. But both have also pledged to follow the recommendations of the career prosecutors and the F.B.I., Ms. Newman said.
The F.B.I. is expected to make a recommendation to the Justice Department in the coming weeks, though agents have yet to interview Mrs. Clinton. While some legal experts said they believed that criminal indictments in the case were unlikely, the investigation continues to cast a shadow over Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Beyond the day-to-day workings of the Justice Department, there is precedent for relying on career officials to make politically charged decisions. When the Justice Department was considering whether to recommend sanctions against former Bush administration lawyers who approved waterboarding, Mr. Holder relied on his most senior career prosecutor to make the decision. No sanctions were recommended.
For Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, the incident in Phoenix resurrected questions about how the campaign would rein in her irrepressible husband.
With approval ratings among Democrats of over 60 percent, Mr. Clinton is one of his wife’s most potent surrogates. He has traversed the country with a breakneck schedule, campaigning and raising money for Mrs. Clinton, traveling with a bare-bones staff and security detail.
Mr. Clinton and his chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, are in frequent contact with John D. Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, and Robby Mook, the campaign manager. He often listens in on campaign conference calls from the family’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y. But his unpredictable and sociable nature can also cause problems for his wife’s candidacy.
David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said on Twitter that he took Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lynch “at their word” that they had not discussed the investigation, but added that it was “foolish to create such optics.”
Yesterday (July 5th, 2016), FBI Director James B. Comey issued a press statement:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System
FBI National Press Office (202) 324-3691
Washington, D.C. July 05, 2016
Remarks prepared for delivery at press briefing.
Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.
After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.
This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.
I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.
So, first, what we have done:
The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.
Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal e-mail server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors.
I have so far used the singular term, “e-mail server,” in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal e-mail was used for government work—has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.
For example, when one of Secretary Clinton’s original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the e-mail software was removed. Doing that didn’t remove the e-mail content, but it was like removing the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on the floor. The effect was that millions of e-mail fragments end up unsorted in the server’s unused—or “slack”—space. We searched through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of the puzzle could be put back together.
FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).
From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.
This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.
With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”
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. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.
It could also be that some of the additional work-related e-mails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her e-mails for production in 2014.
The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.
It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.
We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.
And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton’s personal server, to staff members with whom she corresponded on e-mail, to those involved in the e-mail production to State, and finally, Secretary Clinton herself.
Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the personal e-mail operation.
That’s what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).
None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.
Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.
With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.
So that’s what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of Justice:
In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect. Although we don’t normally make public our recommendations to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence. In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order.
Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.
I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation—including people in government—but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this organization.
Rewarding bad behavior only causes more bad behavior. Just look at what's happened at Torrey Pines Gliderport:
- upclose_01_gabe_jebb_s.jpeg (41.21 KiB) Viewed 3930 times
