From Hillary Clinton's book, "What Happened."

This is from page 297, in a chapter titled "Those Damn Emails."

"With respect to the potential intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton's personal email domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked."

--FBI Director James Comey, in a press conference on July 5. 2016.

A lot of people suggest that the server maintained by my husband;s office might be vulnerable to hacking. As it turned out, the State Department network and many other highly sensitive government systems, including the White House and Pentagon, were all hacked. Colin Powell's emails were hacked. But as Comey stated, there has never been any evidence that my system was ever compromised. Ironically, it turns out it may have been one the safest possible places for my email.

I wanted to share this portion with you, mostly because it was what I had been saying for more than a year. But also because it is one of the clearest signs that Hillary is treated completely differently than just about anybody else you can imagine.

If this had been a Republican who managed to outsmart the hackers and store their emails on a server that proved to be unhackable, while all around them supposedly secure servers were being hacked almost on a daily basis, the GOP would have insisted that they receive some kind of award.

But for Hillary Clinton, there is a completely different standard.

Hillary actually explains, in great detail, exactly how she first decided to use this server (Simple convenience.), which was already in place in her husband's office, and how amazed she was that it became weaponized and used against her by the Republicans.

When you read it you almost cannot believe that such a simple decision inspired so much vitriol, and even resulted in people screaming "Lock her up" at Trump campaign rallies.

The strange case of the Trump Organization computer. Another piece in the Trump/Russia collusion puzzle? Perhaps.

Courtesy of CNN:

Last year, a small group of computer scientists obtained internet traffic records from the complex system that serves as the internet's phone book. Access to these records is reserved for highly trusted cybersecurity firms and companies that provide this lookup service. 

These signals were captured as they traveled along the internet's Domain Name System (DNS). 

These leaked records show that Alfa Bank servers repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular Trump Organization computer server in the United States.

Alfa Bank is of course a Russian bank, but I bet you figured that out all on your own.

And what did this small group of computer scientists find that troubles them so?

From May 4 until September 23, the Russian bank looked up the address to this Trump corporate server 2,820 times -- more lookups than the Trump server received from any other source. 

As noted, Alfa Bank alone represents 80% of the lookups, according to these leaked internet records.

Well, isn't THAT interesting?

That is a hell of a lot of lookups just to be a coincidence, but that is exactly how the Alfa Bank characterized them:  

Alfa Bank has maintained that the most likely explanation is that the server communication was the result of spam marketing. Bank executives have stayed at Trump hotels, so it's possible they got subsequent spam marketing emails from the Trump Organization. Those emails might have set off defensive cybersecurity measures at the bank, whose servers would respond with a cautious DNS lookup. Alfa Bank said it used antispam software from Trend Micro, whose tools would do a DNS lookup to know the source of the spam.

2,820 responses to spam in less than five months?  That really does not pass the smell test:  

"If it were spam, then a lot of other organizations would be doing DNS lookups. There would be evidence of widespread connectivity with devices," said L. Jean Camp, a computer scientist at Indiana University who has studied the data.

Now here is the other suspicious puzzle piece:  

Far back in second place, with 714 such lookups, was a company called Spectrum Health. 

Spectrum is a medical facility chain led by Dick DeVos, the husband of Betsy DeVos, who was appointed by Trump as U.S. education secretary. 

Together, Alfa and Spectrum accounted for 99% of the lookups.

Spectrum Health joined with Alfa Bank in claiming that it was all spam related. 

Nothing to see here, just move along.

Not so fast.

I am not sure what this means exactly, but if you developed a spam program to increase business and it only targeted two businesses, that would seem like a real waste of money in my book.

So I would agree with these computer scientists that this deserves a lot more scrutiny.

And it might very well have been receiving it since it was this server that Louise Mensch identified as the trigger which caused the FBI to seek a FISA warrant.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz decides it is better to continue the Clinton witch hunt than to bother investigating Trump's ties with Russia.

Courtesy of the AP: 

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who has refused Democratic requests to investigate possible conflicts of interest involving President Donald Trump, is seeking criminal charges against a former State Department employee who helped set up Hillary Clinton's private email server. 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday asking him to convene a grand jury or charge Bryan Pagliano, the computer specialist who helped establish Clinton's server while she was secretary of state.

Pagliano did not comply with two subpoenas ordering him to appear before the oversight panel. The GOP-led committee later voted to hold him in contempt of Congress. 

Earlier this month, Chaffetz met with Trump at the White House and agreed not to discuss oversight. He has rebuffed calls for his panel to look into Trump's businesses and possible conflicts. 

Chaffetz said in a statement that allowing Pagliano's conduct "to go unaddressed would gravely harm Congress' ability to conduct oversight."

I am literally so disgusted by this that I cannot even come up with anything clever to say about it.

It is like these partisan pricks cannot even be bothered to PRETEND they are doing their actual jobs anymore. 

Mother Jones reporter slams liberals for failing to defend Hillary Clinton during the witch hunt over her private e-mail server.

Much of what is in this article I have pointed out on this blog repeatedly.

Seeing it laid out in a time line is however rather revealing. (There are also a number of editorial comments so take note.)

Here we go: 

So here's a timeline of the email server affair. FAIR WARNING: It's not a complete timeline. Google has plenty of those for you. It's a timeline that highlights a few very specific things that I think even a lot of liberals never quite understood. Let's start: 

March 2009: Two months after being confirmed as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton makes the fateful decision to host her unclassified email on a private server. 


THIS IS IMPORTANT. Everybody at the State Department has an unclassified email account. In the aughts, most used state.gov alone, but lots of people also used Gmail or another commercial email service. These accounts are used routinely for day-to-day business, but only for unclassified material. There is an entirely different system for classified communications. The only way that Clinton's email account differed from a state.gov account is that it was hosted on a private server. 

September 12, 2012: The American consulate in Benghazi is attacked. Even though Clinton is literally faultless in this,1 conservatives begin a four-year campaign of investigations, subpoenas, and conspiracy theories that are plainly little more than partisan attacks designed to smear Clinton. 

February 2013: Clinton steps down as secretary of state. 

September 2013: The National Archives updates its regulations on the handling of email and other public records. October 2014: After yet another records request in the Benghazi affair, the State Department asks all former secretaries of state for any official records in their possession. 

December 2014: After removing her personal emails, Clinton delivers all her official emails to the State Department. Her staff asks Clinton what they should do with the personal emails, and she tells them she no longer needs them. The hosting company in Colorado, Platte River Networks, is instructed to delete Clinton's existing email archives and to thenceforth preserve new emails for 60 days before deleting them. 

March 2015: The New York Times reveals that Clinton's emails were hosted on a private server. The Benghazi zealots immediately subpoena her email server. 

March 2015: A Platte River tech discovers that he never deleted the email archives. At this point, even though Clinton's staff has notified him not to make any changes (due to the subpoena), he deletes the old archive. 

THIS IS IMPORTANT. It is now six years since Clinton began her tenure at the State Department and two years since she left. In that entire time, there was never any concern over the possibility that Clinton sent or received classified material over unclassified channels. In fact, I don't think there has ever been any official concern about any secretary of state sending classified information over unclassified channels. 

March 2015: Republicans in Congress ask the inspectors general of both the State Department and the intelligence community to review Clinton's email practices. Their letter states, "We are concerned that diplomatically sensitive, and possibly classified, information may have been transmitted and stored in an insecure manner." 

July 2015: The IC inspector general tells Congress that it found classified information in a small sample of Clinton's email that it reviewed. Both inspectors general ask the Justice Department to review all of Clinton's email for a "potential compromise of classified information." This is the start of the FBI investigation. 

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Although the referral came from both IGs, the underlying issue is an ancient feud between the State Department and the CIA. The CIA basically wants to classify everything. The State Department, which has to work in the real world, takes the pragmatic view that classified information sometimes has to be discussed over unclassified channels. It just has to done carefully and circuitously. 

July 2016: After a full year, the FBI finally concludes its investigation. Normally, FBI officials merely turn over their recommendations to prosecutors at the Justice Department, but this time FBI Director James Comey decides to host a detailed press conference about the investigation. He says Clinton did nothing illegal, a conclusion that he later describes as "not even a close call." However, he also declares that Clinton was "extremely careless" with her email. 

August 2016: The FBI releases its interview notes, which make it clear that Comey exaggerated wildly in his press conference. Clinton's archives contained only three trivial emails that were marked classified. A couple of thousand more emails were retroactively classified. Should they have been? The CIA says yes. Clinton says no: They were carefully worded discussions between professionals who knew perfectly well how to conduct conversations like this. Comments from other State Department officials back up Clinton's view. There was, it turns out, little evidence that anyone was careless, let alone "extremely careless," but since the emails are now classified, no one will ever know for sure.2 

October 2016: Two weeks before Election Day, Comey writes a letter announcing that the FBI has discovered records of emails between Clinton and her aide, Huma Abedin, on the computer of Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. There is nothing unexpected about this. All of Clinton's aides probably have copies of emails from her, and as we now know, the FBI had no reason to think Abedin's emails were anything they hadn't already seen. But Comey declines to say any of this in his letter and the press goes nuts. 

November 6, 2016: Comey announces that the investigation is over and none of the Abedin emails were relevant. 

November 8, 2016: Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.

This is how the article ends:

The bottom line is simple: There was never any real reason for either the IG investigations or the FBI investigation. And in the end, the FBI found nothing out of the ordinary—just the usual State-CIA squabbling. Nevertheless, under pressure from Republicans, Comey spent a full year on the investigation; reported its conclusions in the most damaging possible way; and then did it again two weeks before the election. Because of this, Clinton lost about 2 percent of the vote, and the presidency. 

Liberals should have defended her with gusto from the start. There was never anything here and no evidence that Clinton did anything seriously wrong. And yet we didn't. Many liberals just steered clear of the whole thing. Others—including me sometimes—felt like every defense had to contain a series of caveats acknowledging that, yes, the private server was a bad idea, harumph harumph. And some others didn't even go that far. The result was that in the public eye, both liberals and conservatives were more or less agreeing that there was a lot of smoke here. So smoke there was. And now Donald Trump is a month away from being president.

I find myself in almost total agreement with everything that is said here.

What the e-mail probe, the Wikileaks dumps, and the Comey letter did was to create the shadow of a doubt that they talk about during criminal trials.

However typically the shadow of a doubt is what keeps somebody from being convicted, in this case it kept Hillary from being completely exonerated.

No matter how many investigations failed to prove criminality, or how many accusations failed to amount to anything significant, it all still hung around her like a fog which continued to create just enough mistrust, for Putin and his puppet to do their thing.

So you may ask why is this important to get on the record now?

Simple, history is written by the winners, and those winners despise Hillary Clinton. So you can bet they are going to trash her reputation at every opportunity and impugn her character constantly until those who read about her in the years to come will wonder how such a completely flawed individual ever even came close to winning the presidency.

However in reality Hillary Clinton was a fierce warrior who fought off her attackers and dictators at every turn. A woman arguably more prepared to be President of the United States than every man who came before her. And a person who it took the combined efforts of Wikileaks, the Russian government, the Republican witch hunters, and the FBI to finally defeat.

That is what history needs to remember about the woman who should be our leader for the next four years, NOT the garbage that the Right Wing will be slinging in her direction to destroy her legacy until her name fades into the darkness.

As liberals we should have completely ignored the right wing mudslingers and defended her more effectively. The least we can do now is to defend the truth about her campaign.

We fucking owe her that.

Trump's pick for deputy Secretary of State, John Bolton, thinks he knows who is behind these Russian hacks, President Obama.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Donald Trump’s reported pick for deputy secretary of state alleged Sunday that reports Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential election may be a “false flag” planted by the Obama administration. 

“It's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation,” former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said in an interview on Fox News. 

Bolton questioned why FBI Director James Comey said the agency did not find any “direct evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration” in its review of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, but found “cyber fingerprints” while looking into alleged hacks of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. 

“The question that has to be asked is why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary's server but their dumb intelligence services against the election,” Bolton said.

Why did Comey not find “direct evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration?”

Because she was smart enough to have a private server and they could not find a way to hack her that's why!

How hard is that to figure out?

But no it makes so much more sense that the President orchestrated a hack of the State Department, the DNC, and the Clinton campaign in order to help the guy who accused him of not being born in America to win the presidency.

And THIS is the guy that Doanld Trump feels should be second in command of the State Department?

No Hillary Clinton was NOT a flawed candidate, and NO she did not lose this election.

Before this election season started, right when I first heard murmurings that Hillary Clinton was going to throw her hat into the ring, I thought oh well that's it nobody else will really have a chance at the nomination with her in the race.

I also knew that I would vote for her but that I would never feel inspired by her or think she was the best candidate for the job.

On those last two points I was dead wrong.

At the end of the 2008 nomination process I was very unhappy with Hillary Clinton, for the same reasons that I was unhappy with Bernie Sanders during this nomination cycle.

In my opinion there is a point when a candidate running for the nomination should recognize that continuing to fight for the position, does nothing to help them reach that goal, but it does a lot to hurt their opponent in the general election.

I thought that in 2008 Hillary passed that point of no return and that her stubbornness was going to help the Republicans and damage Obama's chances, and I was pissed!

But then she finally realized that it was over, and in the end came out hard to help her former rival rally the Democrats to his side and even pleaded with her former supporters to put their hard feelings aside and vote for him.

And they did.

So like I said I supported her run for the nomination this time around, as well as her candidacy in the general election, but sometimes my support felt a little pedestrian, like I was just going through the motions.

But then I saw her spend those 11 hours testifying in front of that Republican led Benghazi witch hunt, and that may have been the first time that I realized what a badass she was!

And my support went from tepid, to full speed ahead. 

Clinton campaign believes that Comey letters cost them the election.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

The Hillary Clinton campaign pinned blame on FBI Director James Comey for its stunning election night loss to Donald Trump. 

Navin Nayak, the director of opinion research on the campaign, sent an email to senior staff Thursday evening outlining what the campaign believed were the reasons for its loss. The email, which was first reported by Politico, was confirmed to Business Insider by a Clinton campaign staffer. 

Nayak signaled in the email that the campaign believes two bombshells from Comey in the final days of the election helped swing the electorate toward Trump — an initial Comey letter to Congress that reactivated an investigation into Clinton's private email server, and a subsequent letter last Sunday that again cleared her of wrongdoing. 

"We believe that we lost this election in the last week. Comey's letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters — particularly in the suburbs," Nayak wrote. "We also think Comey's 2nd letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump's turnout."

While I also think that the impact of the Comey letter was devastating for Hillary Clinton, that first letter changed poll numbers almost overnight, I also think there were other factors at play.

Such as the third party candidates:

In Michigan, where the election was so close that the Associated Press still hasn’t called the result, Trump is ahead by about 12,000 votes. That’s significantly less than the 242,867 votes that went to third-party candidates in Michigan. It’s a similar story elsewhere: third-party candidates won more total votes than the Trump’s margin of victory in Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida. Without those states, Trump would not have won the presidency.

Some pundits are dismissing the impact of third party voters on the outcome of this election, but I think it is pretty clear they had a significant impact. And I think fewer protest votes might very well have carried the day for Clinton.

However as bad as the FBI intrusion and the third party votes were, I also think we need to remember that the Russian hackers and Wikileaks definitely had an impact as well.

We have now seen more of Hillary Clinton's e-mails than any other presidential candidate in history, and I would argue that if we had been given a similar peek into Donald Trump's e-mails he would not only NOT be the president-elect but he would probably be serving time. 

I keep hearing idiots saying that Hillary Clinton lost this election, but if that were true it would not have required the combined forces of the Republican party, conservative media, Wikileaks, Russia, and the FBI to bring her down. 

So did James Comey cost Hillary Clinton the election?

Well if he did he certainly had a lot of help in doing so.

Here are a couple of sensible tweets from the great George Takei.

1) Stop yelling that she's a "criminal." We're a nation of laws, and we presume innocence until guilt is proven by a court of law.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

2) Here, Hillary Clinton wasn't even charged let alone tried and adjudicated guilty by a judge or jury.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

3) Think about it. All the power of Congress, all the investigatory authority of the FBI, all the money of the GOP. And nada. Zilch. Zip.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

4) You can try and blow enough smoke until people believe there is a fire. But maybe, just maybe, we should conclude there's nothing here.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

6) But a mistake over the use of an email server is NOT the equivalent of the litany of horrific statements and actions of her opponent.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

7) So, when people say, "But what about the EMAILS?!" tell them firmly and resoundingly to please. sit. back. down.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2016

One of my all time favorite Twitter users.

And a truth teller of the first order. 

Despite Republican talking points it turns out the FBI did NOT ask Clinton aides for all of their electronic devices.

Courtesy of Politico: 

The FBI never asked Hillary Clinton's top aides to turn over all the computers and smartphones they used while Clinton was secretary of state, an omission that is now triggering questions from Republican lawmakers. 

While the FBI made a concerted effort to obtain all the computers that were used as Clinton's private server and ultimately asked two of Clinton's lawyers for laptops used to review her email messages, investigators never requested or demanded all equipment her top staffers used for work purposes during her four years at State, a source familiar with the investigation told POLITICO. 

"No one was asked for devices by the FBI," said the source, who requested anonymity. 

Even if you have only casually been paying attention to this story you have probably heard one of Trump's surrogates, or a GOP operative, ranting that these discovered e-mails prove that the Clinton camp defied a court order to turn over ALL of their electronic devices during the investigation into Hillary's private server.

But as it turns out there was never a subpoena served nor even an official request made.

The only known official requests Abedin and other Clinton aides appear to have received for their own emails from the period were requests the State Department made last year for potential federal records the aides might have in their possession and requests the House Benghazi Committee made for certain Libya-related records around the same time. In neither instance were the aides asked for their computers , smartphones or backup drives. 

In most news reports we learned that Abedin was cooperative during the investigation and there is no reason to suspect otherwise at this point.

And as it turns out even SHE was surprised that e-mails were found on this device: 

In another twist to the investigative saga over Hillary Clinton’s private emails, CBS News has learned that Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide and longtime confidant, says she has no knowledge of any of her emails being on the electronic device belonging to her estranged husband, disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner. 

A source familiar with the investigation told CBS News that the computer where FBI investigators found the latest trove of emails belonged to Weiner, not Abedin. The two separated earlier this year, following news of Weiner’s continued sexting practices. 

My prediction is that just like every....other....time this is going to prove to be much ado about nothing.

And if all of this really does have an effect on the outcome of this election then James Comey should be investigated fully to determine just how twisted his arm or paid him off to throw a wrench into the works.

FBI to reopen Clinton email server case based on "new evidence." Update!

Courtesy of Politico: 

The FBI on Friday dropped a bombshell on Hillary Clinton’s campaign less than two weeks before Election Day, announcing that it is reviewing new evidence in its investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state. 

In a letter to several congressional committee chairmen, FBI Director James Comey wrote that, “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to this investigation.” 

Comey said he was briefed on those emails on Thursday and that he “agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” 

He did not specify where the additional emails came from. 

"He did not specify where the additional emails came from."

Gee could it be from...oh I don't know...Russia?

If true that would mean that the FBI was facilitating the ability of a foreign power to impact the selection of this country's next President.

That is completely unprecedented.

And even if that is not the source, this is hard to see as anything other than a political move by somebody who is very upset at the prospect of Hillary Clinton being elected President.

I think we know that this investigation, like every one before it, will find nothing criminal and will only waste taxpayer money and the FBI's time while creating new talking points for the Trump campaign.

Not at all suspicious is it?

Update: The New York Times is now saying that these emails were found on a device in the possession of Anthony Weiner:  

Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner. 

The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands — potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.

Okay so at this point I have no idea what could be on Weiner's electronic device,  or what impact if any this might have on the campaign.

John Oliver comparing the scandals of Hillary to Donald Trump's is something you must see before the debate tonight.

My favorite part:

Think of it like this: Ethical failings in a politician are like raisins in a cookie ... They shouldn't be there. They disgust people. But most politicians have at least a few raisins. Hillary arguably has more raisins than average. There's probably 10 of these little fuckers in there … But [Trump] is a fucking raisin monsoon! He is ethically compromised to an almost unprecedented degree. So if you don't like raisins, I get it – they're disgusting. But unfortunately, this November, you're gonna have to swallow 10 or we're all going to be eating this shit for years.

I hate raisins so this was the perfect metaphor.

And that is really it.

Sure Hillary Clinton has done some things which can be interpreted as shady. But when you really examine them, there is really very little or nothing scandalous to be found.

However Donald Trump is so unbelievably corrupt, manipulative,  and full of shit that you become exhausted when reading about his numerous and never ending scandals.

There really is no choice here.

Only one of these people should ever even be considered for a job in politics, especially for the most important political job on the planet.

Colin Powell hacked emails show him calling the Benghazi investigations a "stupid witch hunt" and referring to Donald Trump as a "national disgrace."

Courtesy of TPM:  

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the years-long Republican outcry over the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya as “a stupid witch hunt” in leaked emails published by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. 

“Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt. Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thoughts Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place,” Powell wrote in a December 2015 email to former Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, according to BuzzFeed. 

His email refers to Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, one of four Americans killed in the 2012 raid.

I think this is my favorite tidbit of information because it confirms what those of us on the Left have been saying for years.

However that was by no means the ONLY explosive bit of information exposed by this hack.

Courtesy of the Buzzfeed: 

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired four-star general who served under three Republican presidents, slammed GOP nominee Donald Trump as “a national disgrace” and an “international pariah,” according to his personal emails seen by BuzzFeed News. 

The remarks came in a June 17, 2016, email to Emily Miller, a journalist who was once Powell’s aide. In that same email Powell also said Trump “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him. [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan is calibrating his position again.

”In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US. 

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

So apparently Colin Powell has the same opinion of Donald Trump as every other rational halfway intelligent person in this country.  Most of who are apparently NOT members of the Republican party.

In other e-mails shared by CNN Powell also expressed irritation with Hillary Clinton and her team for drawing him into the whole e-mail investigation kerfuffle:

"The only thing I would add is to simply say she had a private account on a public server before becoming SecState and continued to use it when she became SecState. On the other hand this might to lead to questions about the basement," Powell said.

His main point seems to be that he advised her to use a private e-mail address, but not a private server which in his eyes is completely different. However he also fails to mention that the entire Bush administration used the RNC's private email server and then deleted 22 million emails which was against the law.

Which does not do much to support his faux outrage over Hillary's choices.

FBI letter to Congress reveals that Hillary Clinton did not write nor send classified e-mails. Email-gate comes to a shuddering stop.

In a letter to the House Oversight Committee the FBI sticks a pin in allegations that Hillary Clinton sent classified data over her private e-mail server, or put any confidential information at risk.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

A letter sent by FBI Acting Assistant Director Jason Herring to the House Oversight Committee confirms that the three emails media is making such hay over did not originate with Secretary Clinton, nor was the use of the term "extremely careless" meant to establish some mythical standard of conduct which did not exist before Director Comey's statement.

Herring also specifically compared the Clinton emails with the prosecutions of Bryan Nishimura, David Petraeus, and Sandy Berger. In all of those cases, the FBI said, there was "clear evidence of knowledge and intent," which was not present in this investigation. 

As for the term "extremely careless," Herring explained that the term was "intended to be a common sense way of describing the actions of Secretary Clinton and her colleagues." He further clarified that "the facts did not support a recommendation to prosecute her or others within the scope of the investigation for gross negligence."

The main three facts are the following:

1. Clinton did not send emails with information marked classified in them. She received them. 
2. There was no intent on her part -- or her staff's -- to share classified information with people not entitled to see it.
3. There has been no determination by the State Department as to whether these three e-mails were classified at the time they were sent.

In other words, Hillary did not lie about not sending classified e-mails on her private server.

Now of course the Republicans will still try to make the case that having these e-mails stored on her private server put them at risk of falling into the hands of our enemies.

However we then have to remind ourselves that the State Department, White House, FBI, DNC, and Hillary Clinton's campaign have all been hacked. In fact there is new evidence that even the NSA was hacked.

In other words perhaps the safest e-mail system in the country was the one that Hillary Clinton was using as Secretary of State.