Trump Dismisses Report on Ivanka: She ‘Did Some Emails,’ They Weren’t Classified Like Hillary’s

President Donald Trump dismissed the Washington Post report on his daughterIvanka Trump, accessing and sending government-related emails on her private email account.

“Early on, and for a little period of time, Ivanka did some emails,” the president said. “They weren’t classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren’t deleted like Hillary Clinton, who deleted 33 [thousand] … She wasn’t doing anything to hide her e-mails.”

Trump claimed that his daughter’s emails were in the presidential record. The Washington Post piece was unclear on that point.

“Using personal emails for government business could violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all official White House communications and records be preserved as a permanent archive of each administration,” the piece read.

“What Ivanka Trump did, all in the presidential records, everything is there,” Trump said. “There was no deletion, no nothing. What it is is a false story. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 e-mails, she had a server in the basement, that is the real story.”

[Mediaite]

When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese Listen and Learn

When President Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones. White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them.

Mr. Trump’s use of his iPhones was detailed by several current and former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss classified intelligence and sensitive security arrangements. The officials said they were doing so not to undermine Mr. Trump, but out of frustration with what they considered the president’s casual approach to electronic security.

American spy agencies, the officials said, had learned that China and Russia were eavesdropping on the president’s cellphone calls from human sources inside foreign governments and intercepting communications between foreign officials.

The officials said they have also determined that China is seeking to use what it is learning from the calls — how Mr. Trump thinks, what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further. In what amounts to a marriage of lobbying and espionage, the Chinese have pieced together a list of the people with whom Mr. Trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president, the officials said.

Among those on the list are Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group chief executive who has endowed a master’s program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Steve Wynn, the former Las Vegas casino magnate who used to own a lucrative property in Macau.

The Chinese have identified friends of both men and others among the president’s regulars, and are now relying on Chinese businessmen and others with ties to Beijing to feed arguments to the friends of the Trump friends. The strategy is that those people will pass on what they are hearing, and that Beijing’s views will eventually be delivered to the president by trusted voices, the officials said. They added that the Trump friends were most likely unaware of any Chinese effort.

L. Lin Wood, a lawyer for Mr. Wynn, said his client was retired and had no comment. A spokeswoman for Blackstone, Christine Anderson, declined to comment on Chinese efforts to influence Mr. Schwarzman but said that he “has been happy to serve as an intermediary on certain critical matters between the two countries at the request of both heads of state.”

Russia is not believed to be running as sophisticated an influence effort as China because of Mr. Trump’s apparent affinity for President Vladimir V. Putin, a former official said.

China’s effort is a 21st-century version of what officials there have been doing for many decades, which is trying to influence American leaders by cultivating an informal network of prominent businesspeople and academics who can be sold on ideas and policy prescriptions and then carry them to the White House. The difference now is that China, through its eavesdropping on Mr. Trump’s calls, has a far clearer idea of who carries the most influence with the president, and what arguments tend to work.

The Chinese and the Russians “would look for any little thing — how easily was he talked out of something, what was the argument that was used,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency who served in Moscow in the 1990s and later ran the agency’s Russia program.

Trump friends like Mr. Schwarzman, who figured prominently in the first meeting between President Xi Jinping of China and Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida resort, already hold pro-China and pro-trade views, and thus are ideal targets in the eyes of the Chinese, the officials said. Targeting the friends of Mr. Schwarzman and Mr. Wynn can reinforce the views of the two, the officials said. The friends are also most likely to be more accessible.

One official said the Chinese were pushing for the friends to persuade Mr. Trump to sit down with Mr. Xi as often as possible. The Chinese, the official said, correctly perceive that Mr. Trump places tremendous value on personal relationships, and that one-on-one meetings yield breakthroughs far more often than regular contacts between Chinese and American officials.

Whether the friends can stop Mr. Trump from pursuing a trade war with China is another question.

Officials said the president has two official iPhones that have been altered by the National Security Agency to limit their capabilities — and vulnerabilities — and a third personal phone that is no different from hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world. Mr. Trump keeps the personal phone, White House officials said, because unlike his other two phones, he can store his contacts in it.

Apple declined to comment on the president’s iPhones. None of them are completely secure and are vulnerable to hackers who could remotely break into the phones themselves.

But the calls made from the phones are intercepted as they travel through the cell towers, cables and switches that make up national and international cellphone networks. Calls made from any cellphone — iPhone, Android, an old-school Samsung flip phone — are vulnerable.

The issue of secure communications is fraught for Mr. Trump. As a presidential candidate, he regularly attacked his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 campaign for her use of an unsecured email server while she was secretary state, and he basked in chants of “lock her up” at his rallies.

Intercepting calls is a relatively easy skill for governments. American intelligence agencies consider it an essential tool of spycraft, and they routinely try to tap the phones of important foreign leaders. In a diplomatic blowup during the Obama administration, documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, showed that the American government had tapped the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

Foreign governments are well aware of the risk, and so leaders like Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin avoid using cellphones when possible.

President Barack Obama was careful with cellphones, too. He used an iPhone in his second term, but it could not make calls and could receive email only from a special address that was given to a select group of staff members and intimates. It had no camera or microphone and could not be used to download apps at will. Texting was forbidden because there was no way to collect and store the messages, as required by the Presidential Records Act.

“It is a great phone, state of the art, but it doesn’t take pictures, you can’t text. The phone doesn’t work, you know, you can’t play your music on it,” Mr. Obama said on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in June 2016. “So basically, it’s like — does your 3-year-old have one of those play phones?”

When Mr. Obama needed a cellphone, the officials said, he used one of those of his aides.
Mr. Trump has insisted on more capable devices, although he did agree during the transition to give up his Android phone (the Google operating system is considered more vulnerable than Apple’s). And since becoming president, Mr. Trump has agreed to a slightly cumbersome arrangement of having two official phones: one for Twitter and other apps, and one for calls.

Mr. Trump typically relies on his mobile phones when he does not want a call going through the White House switchboard and logged for senior aides to see, his aides said. Many of those Mr. Trump speaks with most often on one of his cellphones, such as hosts at Fox News, share the president’s political views, or simply enable his sense of grievance about any number of subjects.

Administration officials said Mr. Trump’s longtime paranoia about surveillance — well before coming to the White House he believed his phone conversations were often being recorded — gave them some comfort that he was not disclosing classified information on the calls.

They said they had further confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.

In an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump quipped about his phones being insecure. When asked what American officials in Turkey had learned about the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he replied, “I actually said don’t give it to me on the phone. I don’t want it on the phone. As good as these phones are supposed to be.”

But Mr. Trump is also famously indiscreet. In a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office with Russian officials, he shared highly sensitive intelligence passed to the United States by Israel. He also told the Russians that James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was “a real nut job” and that firing him had relieved “great pressure.”

Still, Mr. Trump’s lack of tech savvy has alleviated some other security concerns. He does not use email, so the risk of a phishing attack like those used by Russian intelligence to gain access to Democratic Party emails is close to nil. The same goes for texts, which are disabled on his official phones.

His Twitter phone can connect to the internet only over a Wi-Fi connection, and he rarely, if ever, has access to unsecured wireless networks, officials said. But the security of the device ultimately depends on the user, and protecting the president’s phones has sometimes proved difficult.

Last year, Mr. Trump’s cellphone was left behind in a golf cart at his club in Bedminster, N.J., causing a scramble to locate it, according to two people familiar with what took place.

Mr. Trump is supposed to swap out his two official phones every 30 days for new ones but rarely does, bristling at the inconvenience. White House staff members are supposed to set up the new phones exactly like the old ones, but the new iPhones cannot be restored from backups of his old phones, because doing so would transfer over any malware.

New phone or old, though, the Chinese and the Russians are listening, and learning.

[The New York Times]

Trump asks why ‘deep state authorities’ aren’t investigating Clinton emails

President Trump on Tuesday asked why “deep state authorities” aren’t looking into the handling of the investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, referencing a guest who had just appeared on Fox News.

“Charles McCullough, the respected fmr Intel Comm Inspector General, said the public was misled on Crooked Hillary Emails,” Trump tweeted. “Why aren’t our deep State authorities looking at this? Rigged and corrupt?”

McCullough, who was appointed to his post by former President Obama, said in an interview on Monday with Fox News that he experienced pushback from Democrats when he tried to explain the seriousness of the investigation into Clinton’s emails.

“I’ve heard people say this is overblown, I’ve heard people say this is much ado about nothing. Had the information been released, there would have been harm to national security,” McCullough said in the interview.

“There was personal blowback. Personal blowback to me, to my family, to my office,” McCullough told Fox News.

McCullough appeared Tuesday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to reiterate his claims, roughly an hour before Trump’s tweet.

The FBI concluded last year that it would not pursue criminal charges against Clinton for her “extremely careless” handling of classified materials while she was secretary of State.

Trump throughout the 2016 presidential campaign said Clinton should be prosecuted for using a personal server to handle classified emails.

Republican lawmakers have in recent weeks pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor to look into how the email case was handled.

[The Hill]

Kushner Used Private Email For White House Work

President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has used a private email account to communicate with other officials in the administration about White House business, according to Politico. 

Kushner has used the email to talk about various topics — including media planning and event coverage — with figures such as former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Stephen Bannon and President Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn.

Kushner set up the account during the transition period after he campaigned for Trump, who frequently attacked former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her user of a private email server while she was secretary of State.

“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told Politico in a statement.

“Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”

The report comes as special counsel Robert Mueller continues to probe alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the presidential campaign.

Kushner has been seen as a person of interest by Mueller.

The Washington Post reported in May that Kushner and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. had discussed setting up a secret communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin.

It was reported in June that Kushner was present at a Trump Tower meeting in the summer of 2016 with a Russian lawyer that was organized by Donald Trump Jr. after he was told the lawyer could provide damaging information on Clinton.

[The Hill]

Trump: Why is Clinton Not Investigated But I Am?

President Trump on Thursday questioned why Hillary Clinton isn’t the subject of Russia-related investigations but he is.

“Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?” Trump tweeted.

“Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, ‘bleached’ emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” he added, in reference to the investigation into Clinton’s private email server.

Trump has previously called into question the Clinton campaign, referencing potential contacts between her campaign staff and the Kremlin.

“What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?”  Trump asked on March 20.

Later that month, Trump asked why the “fake news” did not cover “ties” between the Kremlin and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

“Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?” Trump tweeted at the time.

The president has also accused former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who presided over the Justice Department while it conducted the investigation into Clinton’s private server use, of making “law enforcement decisions for political purposes.”

The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia interfered in the presidential election specifically to help Trump defeat Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

The Justice Department, FBI and Senate and House Intelligence committees are investigating Russian election meddling, including possible ties between Trump’s team and Russia.

In addition, a special counsel is reportedly probing whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey last month. Comey testified that Trump leaned on him to “let go” of the bureau’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

[The Hill]

Reality

Okay let’s step through these one at a time.

Clinton did not sell a uranium mine to Russia, she was Secretary of the State Department when they and, this is important, 9 total agencies signed-off on a sale of an energy company to a Canadian-based Russian subsidiary. Again, very important, she didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal.

Hillary Clinton destroyed her old phones “with a hammer” because destroying old devices is standard operating procedure, and state.gov emails would have been on government servers, not on her phone.

You can’t “bleach” emails, that’s not a thing.

Yes Bill Clinton met with Lorretta Lynch on a tarmac, they probably didn’t just talk about their grandkids, but Lynch recused herself from the Hillary Clinton private email server investigation immediately afterwards. That’s why the investigation then fell to James Comey, who found so little wrongdoing he could not imagine a reasonable prosecutor could bring a case.

Trump Has Fired FBI Director James Comey

In a stunning turn of events, FBI Director James Comey has been fired. In a letter informing Comey of his termination, President Donald Trump wrote that he made the decision on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and newly minted deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation,” Trump wrote to Comey, “I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.” The president concluded his letter by noting, “I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.”

Comey, who was himself the deputy attorney general of the United States under George W. Bush, has been the director of the FBI since 2013, when he was appointed to the position by President Obama. Comey became embroiled in controversy during the 2016 presidential campaign, when his agency was placed in the extraordinary position of investigating both members of the Trump campaign for possible involvement in Russian efforts to interfere with the election and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information stored on a private email server.

The investigation into Clinton’s emails was closed in July, with Comey recommending no criminal charges. But on Oct. 28, just days before the election, Comey sent a letter to Congress indicating the investigation had been reopened because of the potential discovery of new emails related to the probe. The FBI reported a week later that it had found no evidence of wrongdoing, but Comey’s decision to send the letter is thought to have been a decisive factor in Clinton’s defeat in November. In recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn’t change the decision.”

In a memo to Sessions titled “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI,” Rosenstein argues that “the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage” in the past year under Comey’s stewardship. In the memo, which can be read in full here via NBC’s Katy Tur, Rosenstein states he “cannot defend” Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation—including his decision to publicly announce in July that he was not recommending charges be brought against her—and does “not understand [Comey’s] refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”

In a White House press release, Trump is quoted as saying, “The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will make a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement.”

(h/t Slate)

Reality

Trump and some Republicans have backed the move, pointing out that Democrats wanted Comey gone just as much as they did. And this is true, but the timing of the firing is at issue. America just learned a few weeks ago, by James Comey, that the Trump team is under investigation by the FBI for collusion and for business ties with Russia, and he was very involved.

Also, Trump’s rationale for Comey’s dismissal does not pass a smell test. Donald Trump’s aides went on news shows that night and tried to explain that he wasn’t happy with how Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, which exonerated her.

But just a few weeks prior, Trump was happy with the investigation, and in an interview with Fox News he said he still had confidence in him. Also, Comey’s letter of dismissal has exactly zero references to Hillary Clinton and her emails, but it does reference the Trump-Russia investigation.

So the problem that Trump supporters, most Republicans, and Fox News is missing is Trump fired the person who was leading an investigation into his collusion with Russia and now he gets to pick a replacement.

 

Trump Hammers FBI’s Comey For Not Jailing Clinton: ‘She Was Guilty of Every Charge’

President Donald Trump is not happy with FBI Director James Comey for not arresting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo claimed that many people don’t understand why there are still so many appointees or staff from President Barack Obama’s administration. She was specifically talking about Comey. Still, Trump expressed confidence in the embattled director.

“When Jim Comey came out, he saved Hillary Clinton. He saved her life,” referring to Comey’s declaration that he would not be charging Clinton with a crime.

“When he was reading those charges, she was guilty of every charge, and then he said she was essentially OK,” Trump continued.

Yet, when it comes to the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia, Trump still has confidence in Comey.

He went on to complain about the obstruction in Congress and pesky things like “the law” that blocks him from doing what he’d like to do. “I wish they’d explain better the obstructionist nature,” he said.

When it comes to former Obama advisor Susan Rice, Trump continued to claim she ordered the unmasking of the name of the American being investigated. These unmaskings are part of the responsibilities of the national security advisor.

“Does anybody really believe that,” Trump said. “What they did is horrible.”

(h/t Raw Story)

Reality

Let’s revisit James Comey’s conclusion from July 2016:

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.

Pence Used Personal Email for State Business — and Was Hacked

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cyber-security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence’s are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence’s personal account was hacked last summer.

Furthermore, advocates for open government expressed concerns about transparency because personal emails aren’t immediately captured on state servers that are searched in response to public records requests.

Pence’s office in Washington said in a written statement Thursday: “Similar to previous governors, during his time as Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal email account. As Governor, Mr. Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention. Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law, and are being managed according to Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act.”

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office released 29 pages of emails from Pence’s AOL account, but declined to release an unspecified number of others because the state considers them confidential and too sensitive to release to the public.

That’s of particular concern to Justin Cappos, a computer security professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. “It’s one thing to have an AOL account and use it to send birthday cards to grandkids,” he said. “But it’s another thing to use it to send and receive messages that are sensitive and could negatively impact people if that information is public.”

Indiana law does not prohibit public officials from using personal email accounts, although the law is generally interpreted to mean that official business conducted on private email must be retained for public record purposes.

Pence’s office said his campaign hired outside counsel as he was departing as governor to review his AOL emails and transfer any involving public business to the state.

Concerns also surrounded Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server and email account during her tenure as secretary of state. Pence as governor would not have dealt with national security issues as sensitive or as broad as those handled by Clinton in her position or with classified matters.

Pence fiercely criticized Clinton throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, accusing her of trying to keep her emails out of public reach and exposing classified information to potential hackers.

Pence spokesman Marc Lotter called any comparisons between Pence and Clinton “absurd,” noting that Pence didn’t deal with federally classified information as governor. While Pence used a well-known consumer email provider, Clinton had a private server installed in her home, he said.

Cybersecurity experts say Pence’s emails were likely just as insecure as Clinton’s. While there has been speculation about whether Clinton’s emails were hacked, Pence’s account was actually compromised last summer by a scammer who sent an email to his contacts claiming Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and in urgent need of money.

Corey Nachreiner, chief technology officer at computer security company WatchGuard Technologies, said the email accounts of Pence and Clinton were probably about equally vulnerable to attacks.

“In this case, you know the email address has been hacked,” he said. “It would be hypocritical to consider this issue any different than a private email server.”

He and other experts say personal accounts such as the one Pence used are typically less secure than government email accounts, which often receive additional layers of monitoring and security, and are linked to servers under government control.

Indiana law requires all records dealing with state business to be retained and available for public information requests. Emails exchanged on state accounts are captured on state servers, which can be searched in response to such requests. But any emails Pence sent from his AOL account to another private account likely would have been hidden from public record searches unless he took steps to make them available.

Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt, who was appointed by Pence in 2013, said he advises state officials to copy or forward their emails involving state business to their government accounts to ensure the record is preserved on state servers.

But there is no indication that Pence took any such steps to preserve his AOL emails until he was leaving the governor’s office.

When public officials fail to retain their private-account emails pertaining to public business, “they’re running the risk of violating the law,” Britt said. “A good steward of those messages and best practice is going to dictate they preserve those.”

All of the emails provided to IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network, were ones captured on state servers.

The emails were obtained after a series of public records requests that the Pence administration did not fulfill for nearly four months before Pence left office.

The administration of Pence’s successor, Gov. Eric Holcomb, released 29 pages of emails late this past week. But it withheld others, saying they are deliberative or advisory, confidential under rules adopted by the Indiana Supreme Court or the work product of an attorney.

Holcomb’s office declined to disclose how many emails were withheld.

Cyber-security experts and government transparency advocates said Pence’s use of a personal email account for matters of state business — including confidential ones — is surprising given his attacks on Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” in September, for example, Pence called Clinton “the most dishonest candidate for president of the United States since Richard Nixon.”

“What’s evident from all of the revelations over the last several weeks is that Hillary Clinton operated in such a way to keep her emails, and particularly her interactions while Secretary of State with the Clinton Foundation, out of the public reach, out of public accountability,” Pence said. “And with regard to classified information she either knew or should have known that she was placing classified information in a way that exposed it to being hacked and being made available in the public domain even to enemies of this country.”

The experts told IndyStar that similar arguments about a lack of transparency could be made about Pence’s use of a personal email account.

“There is an issue of double standard here,” said Gerry Lanosga, a professor at Indiana University and past president of the Indiana Coalition for Open Government. “He has been far from forthcoming about his own private email account on which it’s clear he has conducted state business. So there is a disconnect there that cannot be avoided.”

Security concerns

As governor, Pence oversaw Indiana’s state police, national guard and department of homeland security, all of which collaborate with federal authorities and handle sensitive information.

The emails provided to IndyStar show that Pence corresponded with his then-chief of staff, Jim Atterholt, and his top public safety and homeland security adviser John Hill, on subjects including Pence’s efforts to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees and the state’s response to a shooting at Canada’s national parliament building.

“I just received an update from the FBI regarding the individuals arrested for support of ISIS,” Hill wrote to Pence in a Jan. 8, 2016 email with the subject, “Arrests of Refugees.”

At that time, the Pence administration was embroiled in a lawsuit over the governor’s effort to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana.

Hill went on to explain how many people were arrested, on what charges and in which cities before adding in underlined type: “Both of the earlier referenced refugees are reported now as ‘Iraqi’ — not Syrian.”

Much if not all of that information appears to have been reported in the media at the time. But questions remain about the more sensitive information contained in Pence’s AOL account that the Holcomb administration declined to release.

Experts say there have been high-profile security lapses involving AOL email accounts in the past. The company reported a major breach of its email in 2014 affecting hundreds of thousands of users. The following year, messages hackers obtained from then-CIA Director John Brennan’s personal AOL account were posted on WikiLeaks.

Pence’s own account was compromised in June when a hacker sent a counterfeit email to his contacts claiming Pence he and his wife had been attacked on their way back to their hotel in the Philippines, losing their money, bank cards and mobile phone.

In response, Pence sent an email to those who had received the fake communication apologizing for any inconvenience. He also set up a new AOL account.

Because the hacker appears to have gained access to Pence’s contacts, experts say it is likely that the account was actually penetrated, giving the hacker access to Pence’s inbox and sent messages.

The nature of that hack suggests it was part of a broad, impersonal attack — not one carefully crafted to target Pence in particular, Cappos said.

“It’s particularly concerning that someone who didn’t do a very particular, very specific attack was able to hack this account,” he said.

That’s especially true given that at least some of the emails Pence sent or received have been deemed confidential or exempt from public disclosure.

“The fact that these emails are stored in a private AOL account is crazy to me,” Cappos said. “This account was used to handle these messages that are so sensitive they can’t be turned over in a records request.”

As governor, Pence was less likely than the U.S. secretary of state to encounter national security secrets, said Adam Segal, director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But much of the rationale behind the criticism of Clinton’s emails would apply to Pence, too, he said.

“A large part of the criticism of (Hillary Clinton’s) personal server by the GOP — that it was unsafe or that it was to circumvent oversight — would be misplaced if Pence was using an AOL account,” he said. “The Secretary of State would be in possession of secrets that had more of a national impact, but at a lower level, a private email account has the same implications.”

Transparency issues

In addition to security issues, Pence’s personal email account also raises new concerns about transparency, according to ethics experts and government accountability advocates.

Pence is already fighting in state court to conceal the contents of emails involving his decision to join a 2014 lawsuit challenging then-President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration. The emails are being sought by William Groth, a Democrat and labor lawyer who says he wants to expose waste in the Republican administration.

Richard Painter, former chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush, said it’s bothersome that Pence is only now transferring his AOL emails to the state. It raises questions about whether those emails were included in previous responses to public records requests. “That’s a problem that should have been dealt with back then,” he said. “The existence of the private email account should have been dealt with at the time the record requests were made.”

The use of personal email accounts by public officials — including governors — is nothing new. But the increased risk that hackers, including foreign actors, could break into the account of someone as high-ranking as the vice president of the United States is disconcerting, Painter said.

“Clinton did it. The Bush White House was doing it. It’s nothing new. But it’s a bad idea,” he said, noting that Pence’s account was vulnerable to a low-level hacker.  “If they can get in there, ex-KGB agents can get in there. It’s a bad idea because of the hacking thing and the potential destruction of records.”

Lanosga of the Indiana Coalition for Open Government said it’s a problem that seems to cross party lines.

“Officials are eager to point the finger at a lack of transparency when it happens on the other side,” he said, “but they dodge those issues when it comes to their own side.”

(h/t IndyStar)

 

 

Trump Adviser Repeats Call For Hillary Clinton To Be Executed

A Donald Trump adviser repeated calls for Hillary Clinton to be executed while blaming reporters for misunderstanding exactly what type of harm he wishes her.

A reporter for The Republican/MassLive.com asked Baldasaro on Tuesday, after an unrelated event in Cambridge, whether he still stands by his remarks.

Baldasaro said his comments were in accordance with U.S. law establishing the death penalty for treason. He suggested that Clinton’s use of a private email server could be considered treasonous.

“That’s aiding and abetting the enemy by those emails on letting (out) names of Secret Service special agents, our veterans, on those emails,” Baldasaro said.

Asked if he was concerned about the impact of his rhetoric on someone who might take it upon themselves to act violently, Baldasaro said, “No. … Americans are better than that.”

“What you in the liberal media consider rhetoric, I consider freedom of speech,” Baldasaro said.

Baldasaro said if people are worried about the impact of him talking about the law on treason, “Maybe they need to take it off the books if they’re that worried.” He compared it to someone saying a person who killed a police officer should get the death penalty, which is the law in New Hampshire.

Asked whether he had spoken to Trump about his views, Baldasaro said he had. “Donald Trump, he might not agree on the way I said it, but I said it as a veteran,” Baldasaro said.

Baldasaro said the law is “in black and white.”

“If people are that stupid and don’t understand, that’s not my fault,” he said.

(h/t New York Daily News, MassLive.com)

Reality

Al Baldasaro is making the assumption that Hillary Clinton’s email server was compromised, which FBI Director James Comey speculated it was likely but as of yet there is no evidence. Without proof of a hack, or the ability to prove intent, then Mr. Baldasaro’s claims of treason fall apart.

Perphas Al Baldasaro should stop reading right-wing conspiracy articles on Breitbart.com that make the same unsubstantiated claims he is parroting.

But make no mistake people understand what he is saying, and they understand the history of what has happened before when leaders incite violence.

Yitzhak Rabin, was Prime Minister of Israel in early 1990s who attempted to pursue peaceful relations with the Palestinians, culmination in the Oslo Accords. In response, in some of the Israeli press Rabi was called a traitor, and posters of him dressed as a Nazi war criminal were waved at right-wing rallies. Many critics saw him as a traitor for giving away land they viewed as rightfully belonging to Israel.

In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. Amir was motivated by the hate speech in the media.

In 2011, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot outside a Tucson Safeway, by Jared Lee Loughner. Congresswoman Giffords was featured on Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘crosshairs’ map, which targeted legislators who voted for Obama’s health care bill.

And finally, a black man, Rakeem Jones, protested a Donald Trump rally in North Carolina. As he was being escorted out of the rally by men in “Sheriff’s Office” uniforms, Jones was punched in the face by Trump supporter John McGraw. For months Donald Trump egged his supporters on, telling them if they saw a protester to “knock the crap out of them” and to not fear repercussions because he will “defend them in court” and “pay their legal fees.

Trump’s Dishonest Attack on Clinton After Iran Executes Nuclear Scientist

The execution of an Iranian nuclear scientist accused of spying for the US is reverberating from Tehran to the presidential campaign trail.

Critics, including opponent Donald Trump, are slamming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for having received emails mentioning him on her controversial personal email server.

Trump took to Twitter on Monday to link Clinton to Shahram Amiri’s death, writing, “Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.”

The emails mentioning Amiri were were part of a tranche released by the State Department last year pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request in the wake of the revelation that Clinton used a personal server to conduct official business. The FBI has said there is no direct evidence the server was hacked, noting such evidence would be hard to come by.

The Clinton campaign fired back at GOP attacks on Monday, releasing a statement even before Trump’s tweet accusing the GOP presidential nominee of using “increasingly desperate rhetoric to attack Hillary Clinton and make absurd accusations because they have no ideas for the American people.”

The State Department Monday denied any connection between the emails mentioning the delicate case and Amiri’s execution.

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters “there was public reporting on this topic back in 2010,” referencing a news conference in which Clinton mentioned the scientist.

“This is not something that became public when the State Department released those emails,” she added, noting that none of the emails mentioning Amiri were classified or retroactively classified as such upon their release — as some emails sent to Clinton were — a sign the Amiri material was not considered too sensitive to be made public.

“We’re not going to comment on what may have led to this event,” Trudeau added, referring to Amiri’s prosecution and execution.

Amiri was initially greeted as a hero upon returning to Iran six years ago. At the time, he had claimed he was kidnapped by American spies while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, saying that he had been offered millions of dollars to spy on the US’s behalf but had opted to turn it down. While in the US, he seemed to appear in one video saying he was kidnapped but later in another video said he was there by choice.

On Sunday, however, Iran’s Judiciary Ministry announced Amiri had been hanged for sharing Iran’s nuclear secrets with the enemy.

“He was put on trial and was convicted and sentenced to death,” Iran judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told reporters Monday.

“(He) not only did not make up for his crime and did not repent, he also tried to send information from prison. Anyway, after due process, he received his punishment,” he added.

US officials have said that Amiri willingly defected but then changed his mind, choosing to return to Iran to be with his family. Officials suspect he feared for the safety of his family living in Iran.

“Mr. Amiri has been in the United States of his own free will and he is free to go,” Clinton said at a July 2010 press conference.

But the appearance of veiled references to the Amiri case in Clinton’s emails has fueled another round of recriminations over her private email account.

One message, written by Richard Morningstar, acting special envoy of the US secretary of state for Eurasian energy at the time, was sent to Clinton on July 5, 2010, just days after the videos purportedly of Amiri were posted online and less than two weeks before he left the US.

The email appears to reference Amiri’s hesitation at continuing on as a defector and his wish to leave the US.

“Per the subject we discussed, we have a diplomatic, ‘psychological’ issue, not a legal issue,” Morningstar wrote. “Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. Our person won’t be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it.”

After arriving in Tehran, Amiri repeated his allegation that he was kidnapped by American intelligence agents.

Other Clinton critics accused her of being careless with sensitive information.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas drew a link between the emails and Amiri’s execution Sunday, saying on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “In the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman.”

He continued, “That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decisions were to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server, but I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump has been intentionally and deceitfully conflating two separate incidents of the Russian hack of the DNC emails with Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

All of the information in the emails was public knowledge back in 2010, for example in this article from CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/missing-iranian-scientist-turns-up-in-dc/

Trump is simply being dishonest in a cheap attempt to link the execution of a possible spy with an email hack that never happened, using nothing but hearsay.

A technique perfected by Fox News.

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