2016-02-08

Washington Post editorial lie about Clinton emails

2016-02-08-Washington-Post-editorial-the-voters-need-answers-about-the-clinton-emails
The voters need answers about the Clinton emails
By Editorial Board
Washington Post Editorial, 2016-02-08

[The editorial's first two paragraphs,
with emphasis added by the author of the current blog:]


WAS HILLARY CLINTON, as secretary of state,
careless with classified information that could bring harm to intelligence sources or otherwise benefit U.S. adversaries,
or is she being slammed by her partisan opponents over action that was not criminal
and may have simply reflected a lapse in judgment?
The fog was only deepened by the recent announcement that “top secret” information
was found in seven email chains, covering 22 documents totaling 37 pages,
in the State Department’s review of her emails for release.
Since the “top secret” information will remain hidden, it is hard to know what to make of it.

As we’ve said before, Mrs. Clinton should not have stored her official business on a private computer server based in her home.
It was faulty thinking, perhaps borne of her desire to keep control over the communications and long experience in the political trenches.
She has since turned everything over to the State Department for screening and release.
The emails in question — many of them sent to her by others —
came from the unclassified systems of the government,
and, we are told, did not have any markings on them that identified them as classified.
So it does not seem that she knowingly or willfully mishandled anything classified.
The question of intent here is crucial.

[I have copied the entire first two paragraphs, to show context.
Those of us who have been following this story with some attention know that
she most certainly has not
"turned everything over to the State Department for screening and release."
Rather, she turned over to the State Department roughly half
of the approximately 60,000 emails on her private server.

As a separate action, she has turned over to the FBI the server itself,
for their examination.
They may, or may not, be able to recover and examine the other half of her emails,
evaluating them by whatever criteria they feel necessary to assess her forthcomingness and propriety.
But the general public as yet has not been clued in on their progress,
and may never be.

In any case, the Post's statement highlighted above
is demonstrably untrue.
And who cannot believe that the Post's editorial board has been following this story with sufficient attention to know that that statement is and was untrue?
Thus it qualifies for the phrase "a lie."]

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