Not the Smoking Gun

For John, BLUF:  Just because one may not want Hunny Bunny for President is not a reason to abandon fairness in treatment.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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"Clinton abandoned secure line to use home phone, new email shows"

From The Hill, by Reporter Julian Hattem, on Thursday, the 12th of May.

Here is the lede plus four:

New emails released by a conservative watchdog group on Thursday appear to show former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directing a top aide to call her via an unsecured phone line when technical troubles prevented a secure phone conversation.

“I give up. Call me on my home #,” Clinton told then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills in a February 2009 email, after more than an hour of trouble trying to communicate via a secure line.

“I just spoke to ops and called you reg line - we have to wait until we see each other b/c [the] technology is not working,” Mills said in another email sent at almost exactly the same time.

“Pls try again,” responded Clinton, a few moments later.

It’s unclear whether the two did connect, or if they moderated any discussion they may have had to avoid sensitive topics while on an unsecure landline.

There are few who stand before me in deploying Ms Clinton's lack of concern for security of our Nation's Secrets.

At the same time, this is not the smoking gun.  This is a case where an "operator" (Ms Clinton) has to make a decision in defense of the nation and she finds that solving the problem is more important than the disclosure of classified information.  This is a problem faced by military commanders from time to time.  A decision is needed now and the consequences of now decision outweigh the risk of disclosing classified information.

I think former SecState Clinton gets a pass on this one, unless much more is forthcoming.

Regards  —  Cliff