Hillary Clinton Broke Rules, Waved Off Warnings To Use Secure Server, Reveals New Report
Hillary Clinton’s email troubles show no sign of abating.
Inspector General Steve Linick, who had been appointed by President Obama to submit a report on Clinton’s alleged misuse of a private server during her time as the Secretary of State, concluded that she broke rules, failed to report several attempts by hackers to breach her personal email, and waved off warnings by lower-level staffers to switch to a more secure email account.
The report, which found Hillary Clinton culpable of violating federal regulations, was sent to Congress and leaked to the press on Wednesday, according to Politico.
IG report reveals #Clinton private server was hacked in 2011 & advisors warned not to send her anything sensitive. https://t.co/EpYXqn4XcY
— unR?A?D?A?C?K?ted (@JesselynRadack) May 25, 2016
Hillary Clinton is currently the subject of two FBI investigations — one for public corruption and the other for espionage — and while the Democratic front-runner has often played down the severity of the investigations during her campaign trail, the scrutiny surrounding her email practices has only grown with time.
According to the Washington Times, Inspector General Steve Linick said that he found no evidence that Hillary Clinton received approval for her odd email arrangement.
“Hillary Clinton never requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.”
In fact, obtaining such an approval would have proved impossible for Clinton, because she would have “had to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices, who in turn would have attempted to provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs.”
Officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Information Resource Management testified that they approved no such email server setup because it would have compromised the security of the department.
Moreover, the report pointed out that Clinton repeatedly flouted norms and jumped protocols during her tenure as the Secretary of State, and lower-level staffers were even warned to “never speak of the secretary’s personal email system again,” when they confronted the nature of her compromised server.
Although Hillary Clinton and her top aides have cooperated with the FBI over the email investigation, they refused to cooperate with the Inspector General’s probe. Former secretaries Madeleine K. Albright, Colin L. Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, however, spoke with investigators.
Clinton has repeatedly pleaded ignorance because of the continuously “changing rules” regarding cyber-security risks during her tenure, a defense rejected by Steve Linick, who said that the directives towards not using a private server were more comprehensive by the time Hillary Clinton was appointed by the Obama administration.
“Beginning in late 2005 and continuing through 2011, the Department revised the [manual] and issued various memoranda specifically discussing the obligation to use Department systems in most circumstances and identifying the risks of not doing so. Secretary Clinton’s cyber-security practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives.”
Moreover, the reports mention several instances when Clinton and her top staffers ignored security risks. In 2001, for example, Clinton refused to report several hacking attempts despite being warned by her tech guru that he had shut down her private email system because of sustained cyber attacks by hackers.
State Dept watchdog says Clinton's private email server & missing records were violations of agency policy https://t.co/y8aXPsAbt6 @byrontau
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) May 25, 2016
The new report confirms many of the allegations that have been directed against Clinton regarding the use of her private email system and once again brings to light Hillary Clinton’s judgment (or lack thereof) while dealing with sensitive information on a compromised email system.
[Photo by Whitney Cutis/Getty Images]
