Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she’s “absolutely confident” she’ll be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee but that she’s not taking anything for granted at this point.
Asked if she had to win the New York primary on April 19, Mrs. Clinton demurred.
“I am going to do everything I can to win in as many places as possible, but I’ve been through this before,” she said in an interview that aired Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I can remember how hard it was when my husband ran in ‘92; I ran a really tough campaign against then-Senator Obama,” she said. “I ended up with slightly more votes, but he ended up with more delegates, so we have a system, and I’m very confident that I will be the nominee, but I’m not taking anything or anyplace or anyone for granted.”
Even if she doesn’t win New York? she was asked.
“Oh, I’m absolutely confident I will be the nominee,” she said. “Now, I’m going to do everything I can to win New York. I represented New York for eight years, I care deeply about this state; I’m proud of the work that I did with so many thousands of New Yorkers, so of course I’m going to work incredibly hard.”
Hillary Clinton sent at least three dozen emails during seven different trips to China, Vietnam and Russia as secretary of state, a Daily Caller investigation reveals. Communicating through a personal email account, which Clinton had synced up to a private email server and a non-government-issued BlackBerry, put the Democratic presidential candidate’s communications at risk, especially in nations with robust spy agencies and government-owned telecoms companies like China and Russia, a cyber security specialist tells TheDC.
The risk would have been even greater if Clinton failed to use what’s known as a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, a so-called “middleware” program that encrypts emails and other information, says Stephen Perciballi, a cyber security expert who formerly worked for BlackBerry retailer Softchoice.
If she did not, “it puts her at more risk,” Perciballi told TheDC.
It is unclear how Clinton’s server was configured. The device, which is now in the FBI’s possession, was kept at Clinton’s home in New York during her tenure at State. It was managed by former State Department IT specialist Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Was that server just sitting there wide open, sitting on her Comcast cable connection?” Perciballi asked. “We don’t know, and that’s really the problem.” “Is she building up a fortress of security in her basement? The sheer fact that she did something as irresponsible as this with her work email, I’m guessing no.” The State Department declined to tell TheDC if Clinton utilized a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
“There are reviews and inquiries looking into this matter generally and we are not going to get ahead of that,” agency spokesman John Kirby told TheDC. Pagliano, who recently received immunity in exchange for cooperation with the FBI, did not respond to an email seeking comment. TheDC was able to determine which emails Clinton sent during overseas trips by comparing the emails released by the State Department to her travel schedule. Politico conducted a similar analysis last March, using press photos to determine when and where Clinton was using her BlackBerry overseas. The State Department has released Clinton’s 52,000-plus pages of emails since then, allowing for a better cross-reference of her email activities with her overseas travels. Most — if not all — of Clinton’s emails were sent from her personal BlackBerry. Clinton has said that she used a personal email account — and, thus, a personal BlackBerry — so that she would not have to carry around two devices. The State Department did not have the capability during Clinton’s tenure to fix BlackBerries with both types of email accounts. An Aug. 30, 2011 email recently obtained by TheDC shows that Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin rejected a proposal to provide Clinton with a second BlackBerry equipped with a State.gov email account. Abedin and other Clinton aides, such as her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, used BlackBerries issued by the State Department. Communications on those devices likely would have been much more secure than Clinton’s, given that the State Department has its own massive IT department. Clinton emailed heavily from China during a Nov. 2009 trip there to dedicate the USA Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, State Department records show. She did the same during a May 2010 trip to China where she again visited the USA Pavilion and attended a meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Clinton also used her BlackBerry and sent emails during trips to Vietnam and China in Oct. 2010. During her next trip to China, in May 2012, Clinton sent several emails and also received one containing now-classified information from her top foreign policy aide, Jake Sullivan. Sullivan forwarded the email, which had the subject line “Express Delivery in China,” to Clinton from Robert Hormats, who then served as under secretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment. She continued using her BlackBerry during overseas trips, including during visits to Russia in June and September 2012. She sent emails from China in Sept. 2012 as well, State Department records show. Clinton and her campaign have downplayed her use of a private email system, personal email account and personal BlackBerry by claiming that her server was never hacked. The campaign pointed to a New York Times article published last month which suggested that FBI investigators found no evidence that Clinton’s server was hacked. But as former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler wrote in a recent column at the Observer, The Times article relies on a layman’s definition of “hacking” and ignores other methods of compromising Clinton’s communications devices. “Unencrypted IT systems don’t need ‘hacking,'” Schindler wrote. “Ms. Clinton’s ‘private’ email, which was wholly unencrypted for a time, was incredibly vulnerable to interception, since it was traveling unprotected on normal commercial networks, which is where [signals intelligence] operators lurk, searching for nuggets of gold.” A “specific phone number, a chatroom handle, an email address” would be the equivalent of “waving a huge ‘I’m right here’ flag at hostile intelligence services,” Schindler wrote. Perciballi agrees that there would be other ways besides hacking directly into Clinton’s server to snoop on her communications. He also says that foreign states like China and Russia have enormous capabilities of pulling off such attacks. By using a man-in-the-middle attack, a hacker “could snoop on her email while she was sending it even without her knowing,” the expert said. While such an attack would be “very difficult” to pull off, it would not be as difficult for state-sanctioned actors to accomplish. That’s especially true in countries where telecoms agencies are owned or controlled by the state, such as is the case in China. Another method of attack would be through malware. Such a strategy would allow a hacker to remain silent in the background while stealing a user’s user name and password. If such an attack befell Clinton, the hacker could sync her email with their devices with little chance of detection. “And now they’re reading State Department email,” said Perciballi. It is known that Clinton received emails bearing viruses on her personal account. On Aug. 3, 2011 she received five emails designed as speeding tickets send from a New York police department. Clinton has claimed she did not open the emails. It is unclear, however, how many other phishing emails she received. As Politico’s Josh Gerstein pointed out in an article last year, Clinton has acknowledged that she deleted some “spam” emails. The State Department declined to say whether Clinton utilized a BlackBerry Enterprise Server or whether it was aware if she had. “As is standard, we don’t discuss State security protocols or speak to the full range of communications capabilities available to current or former Secretaries of State while on foreign travel,” spokesman John Kirby told TheDC. “Generally speaking, while traveling abroad, the Secretary of State has access to a range of communications capabilities, both classified and unclassified,” he added, noting that security for communications is “adjusted routinely from place to place.”
Hillary Clinton today issued a second apology for inaccurately stating a day earlier that the late Nancy Reagan and former President Ronald Reaganhelped to “start a national conversation”about HIV and AIDS.
“Yesterday, at Nancy Reagan’s funeral, I said something inaccurate when speaking about the Reagans’ record on HIV and AIDS,” Clinton wrote in a blog post on Medium published Saturday night.
Clinton’s lengthy statement continued:
“I made a mistake, plain and simple. …
To be clear, the Reagans did not start a national conversation about HIV and AIDS. That distinction belongs to generations of brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with straight allies, who started not just a conversation but a movement that continues to this day.
That distinction belongs to generations of brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with straight allies, who started not just a conversation but a movement that continues to this day.
The AIDS crisis in America began as a quiet, deadly epidemic. Because of discrimination and disregard, it remained that way for far too long. When many in positions of power turned a blind eye, it was groups like ACT UP, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and others that came forward to shatter the silence — because as they reminded us again and again, Silence = Death. They organized and marched, held die-ins on the steps of city halls and vigils in the streets. They fought alongside a few courageous voices in Washington, like U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, who spoke out from the floor of Congress.
Then there were all the people whose names we don’t often hear today — the unsung heroes who fought on the front lines of the crisis, from hospital wards and bedsides, some with their last breath. Slowly, too slowly, ignorance was crowded out by information. People who had once closed their eyes opened their hearts.
If not for those advocates, activists, and ordinary, heroic people, we would not be where we are in preventing and treating HIV and AIDS. Their courage — and their refusal to accept silence as the status quo — saved lives.
We’ve come a long way. But we still have work to do to eradicate this disease for good and to erase the stigma that is an echo of a shameful and painful period in our country’s history. (Read Clinton’s entire statement here.)
Clinton made the initial remarks in an interview at the funeral of the former First Lady Friday, praising Mrs. Reagan’s “very effective, low-key advocacy” as being crucial to encouraging the public to act as the virus ravaged the gay community in particular.
The presdient of the Human Rights Campaign (which endorsed Clinton early in the primary season) issued a sharply worded rebuke on Friday, reminding the former Secretary of State that Nancy Reagan was "no hero" about HIV and AIDS.
Clinton has 53% support among likely Democratic primary voters, compared to 44% for the Vermont senator, the poll shows.
The results come the day Michigan and Mississippi hold their Democratic primaries, and one week before critical contests in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri.
Age is a defining line between the two candidates. The survey shows Clinton besting Sanders among those aged 50 and older, 65% to 32%, while Sanders leads 60% to 38% among those younger than 50.
Clinton also has a big lead among non-whites, 63% to 34%, and women, 61% to 37%. There's also an age gap among women: Clinton wins those 50 and older by a huge 73% to 25% margin, while Sanders wins those under 50, 54% to 44%.
The survey of 410 Democratic primary voters was conducted March 3-6. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4.8 percentage points.
WASHINGTON
— As Hillary Clinton moves toward
the Democratic presidential nomination, she faces legal hurdles from her use of
a private computer server as secretary of state that could jar her campaign’s
momentum in the months ahead.
Foremost among a half-dozen inquiries and legal proceedings into
whether classified information was sent through Mrs. Clinton’s server is an
investigation by the F.B.I.,
whose agents, according to one law enforcement official, could seek to question
Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides and possibly the candidate herself within weeks.
It is
commonplace for the F.B.I. to
try to interview key figures before closing an investigation, and doing so is
not an indication the bureau thinks a person broke the law. Although defense
lawyers often discourage their clients from giving such interviews, Democrats
fear the refusal of Mrs. Clinton or her top aides to cooperate would be ready
ammunition for Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner.
A federal law
enforcement official said that barring any unforeseen changes, the F.B.I.
investigation could conclude by early May. Then the Justice Department will
decide whether to file criminal charges and, if so, against whom.
“As we have said
since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Justice
Department’s security inquiry, including offering in August to meet with them
to assist their efforts if needed,” said Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman.
Federal law
makes it a crime to mishandle classified information outside secure government
channels when someone does so “knowingly” or — more seriously — permits it
through “gross negligence.” Mrs. Clinton has correctly pointed out that none of
the emails on her server were marked as classified at the time.
The bureau’s
investigators have already interviewed Bryan Pagliano, a former aide who
installed the server Mrs. Clinton had in her home in New York and used
exclusively for her private and official email while secretary of state from
2009 to 2013.
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Mr. Pagliano, who last year invoked
his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before Congress, has cooperated with
the investigation, according to the law enforcement official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter
publicly. Mr. Pagliano’s lawyer declined to comment.
Mr. Fallon said
the campaign was “pleased” that Mr. Pagliano was cooperating, noting that it
had previously urged him to cooperate with the Capitol Hill inquiry.
In addition to
the F.B.I. investigation, there are continuing inquiries into Mrs. Clinton’s
emails by the inspector general of the State Department, the inspector general
of the intelligence agencies, the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic
Security and the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Aides to
Mrs. Clinton and officials from the State Department also face the prospect of
questioning under oath in a separate legal proceeding brought by Judicial
Watch, the conservative government watchdog group, under the Freedom of
Information Act. In that case, the group has sought emails related to the special
employment status given to Mrs. Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin so she
could receive additional salaries beyond the one she received from State.
Last week
Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of United States District Court in Washington allowed
the questioning after a hearing in which he criticized the State Department’s
“constant drip” of revelations about emails from the server and said there were
many unanswered questions about who authorized its use.
“It just boggles
the mind that the State Department allowed this circumstance to arise in the
first place,” said Judge Sullivan, who was appointed to the District Court in
1994 by President Bill Clinton and to lower courts by Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George Bush. “It’s just very, very, very troubling.”
He ordered
lawyers for Judicial Watch to submit a “narrowly tailored” plan for questioning
that could begin in April as primaries continue to be held in states like New
York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The organization, according to
its court filings so far, is expected to seek depositions from Ms. Abedin and
Mr. Pagliano; Mrs. Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl D. Mills; and
department officials like Patrick F. Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for
management.
Judge Sullivan’s
ruling left open the possibility of additional testimony, including testimony
from Mrs. Clinton. “I think there are some legitimate issues that arise because
of this very atypical system that was created,” he said.
The flurry of
questions around Mrs. Clinton’s server stem from the Benghazi committee’s
inquiry into the attack on the American government outposts in Libya on Sept.
11, 2012, that killed four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya, J.
Christopher Stevens.
It was through the committee’s request for records that the use of the
server became known. Mrs. Clinton testified before the committee last October
in what was widely viewed as a highly partisan confrontation.
The committee’s
Republican chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, pledged
recently to release its final report “as soon as possible,” but the committee
continues to schedule additional witnesses, suggesting its findings could still
be months away. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have ridiculed the committee’s
partisan edge.
In an
interview on MSNBC last Friday, Mrs. Clinton described the Judicial Watch
case as a partisan one, too, and referred to the F.B.I.’s investigation as a
“security inquiry.” She added that the two were often wrongly conflated.
“I am personally
not concerned about it,” she said. “I think there will be a resolution of the
security inquiry.”
The F.B.I.’s case did begin as a security
referral from the inspectors general of the State Department and the
nation’s intelligence agencies, who were concerned that classified information
might have been stored outside a secure government network. But multiple law
enforcement officials said the matter quickly became an investigation into
whether anyone had committed a crime in handling classified information.
The bureau’s inquiry is being overseen by career national security
prosecutors at the Justice Department, including a member of the prosecution
team that won a guilty plea last year from David H. Petraeus, the former
general and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The case against Mr.
Petraeus looms large over this investigation, according to officials and
lawyers involved, and its outcome will inevitably be a measure of the one this
time.
Mr.
Petraeus not only wrote down highly classified information in eight black
notebooks he kept in his home — including such details as the names of covert
officers and programs — but he also shared the notebooks with his lover and
biographer, Paula Broadwell. Those secrets were far more sensitive than the
information on Ms. Clinton’s server, a federal law enforcement official said,
and Mr. Petraeus told his biographer so in a recording she made of one of their
interviews.
“Umm, well,
they’re really — I mean they are highly classified, some of them,” he told her,
according to a transcript that was included in the plea agreement filed in
United States District Court in Charlotte, N.C., in March 2015. Mr. Petraeus
went on to refer to the code names that are used for the nation’s most guarded
information, programs and operations.
Mr. Petraeus
also lied when initially questioned by the bureau’s agents. After a lengthy
back-and-forth, the Justice Department — over the objection of the F.B.I. —
negotiated the agreement for Mr. Petraeus to plead guilty to a misdemeanor
charge of mishandling classified information.
While Mr.
Petraeus was recorded saying he knew the information was classified, no similar
evidence has surfaced regarding Mrs. Clinton or her aides.
On the contrary,
in some of the emails that have been made public, Mrs. Clinton and her senior
aides make reference to the
restrictions on discussing classified information on the “low side,” as the
department’s unclassified system is known, versus the “high side,” the
department’s classified computer system.
On Monday night,
the State Department released the last of 30,068 emails from Mrs. Clinton’s
private server that Mrs. Clinton and her lawyers have said were work-related.
Of those, 22 have now been classified by the State Department as “top secret,”
65 as “secret” and 2,028 at the lower level of “confidential.”
Since none were
marked classified at the time, the question is whether classified information —
details of secret programs or sources — nevertheless slipped into the emails.
Many of the “secret” and “top secret” emails were written or forwarded by Mrs.
Clinton’s senior aides.
In their
investigation, F.B.I. agents have sought to compare electronic timestamps on
classified sources to figure out whether the aides reviewed the sources and
then retyped the information into emails that were sent or forwarded to Mrs.
Clinton’s private server. That has proved challenging, and one official said
investigators have not concluded that such retyping occurred.
State Department officials said that an employee who divulges classified
information in the department’s unclassified network could face administrative
punishments, including reprimands or in severe cases the loss of any security
clearance.
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have both won the most states in the biggest day of the race for the US presidential nomination.
Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia were among the states where both triumphed.
Mr Trump was defeated by Ted Cruz in Texas and Oklahoma.
Democrat Bernie Sanders won four, including his home state of Vermont.
Super Tuesday sees 11 states voting on the biggest single day ahead of the 8 November presidential election. Super Tuesday states won so far:
Donald Trump (Republican): Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Vermont
Ted Cruz (Republican): Texas, Oklahoma
Marco Rubio (Republican): Minnesota
Hillary Clinton (Democrat): Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, Massachusetts
Bernie Sanders (Democrat): Vermont, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Colorado
The former secretary of state and real estate mogul entered Super Tuesday as the favorites to win the vast majority of states for their respective parties.
In her victory speech on Tuesday, Mrs Clinton appeared to already be looking towards a potential presidential race against Donald Trump, saying: "The stakes in this election have never been higher and the rhetoric we're hearing on the other side has never been lower."
Donald Trump, for his part, insisted that he was a "unifier" who could put internal fighting in the Republican party behind him to focus on a general election race against Mrs Clinton.
"Once we get all this finished, I'm going after one person - Hillary Clinton," he told reporters in Florida, where he has been campaigning ahead of the state's vote later this month.
The billionaire also insisted he had "expanded the Republican party", referring to higher turnout from a broad demographic in states that have already voted.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz called on his rivals to drop out of the race, which he says would enable him to contend Mr Trump's lead more effectively.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was hoping to emerge as the main alternative to Mr Trump, won his first state on Tuesday in the Minnesota caucuses.
Analysis - Jon Sopel, BBC North America editor, Florida
REUTERSDonald Trump says he is the best candidate to face Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.This was a man not looking to the next primary, the next bit of slog along that long and exhausting road. This was a man with an eye on the much bigger fight in November, and his presumptive opponent Hillary Clinton.
He graciously congratulated Ted Cruz over his wins in Texas and Oklahoma. No mention last night of him being the biggest liar he's ever met. And no demeaning of Marco Rubio either. Were it not for the unmistakable blond hair and the family members at his side, you might have been forgiven for thinking an impostor had entered the room.
But no it was Donald 2.0 that we had with us. The trouble, though, when you upload a new operating system is there are inevitable bugs and glitches. And the new OS takes a bit of getting used to.
And there will be many who say what brought me to the product was the original software. So can and will the new magnanimous Donald be able to keep up this new modus operandi, and will his army of fans like what they see?
This was a strikingly different Donald Trump who met reporters on Tuesday night. His tone was conciliatory. He was quietly spoken. He said he would be a unifier - of the Republican Party, of the nation. He didn't crow and he didn't claim to be the nominee, but he clearly thinks the primary race is effectively over.
Mr Trump has stunned the Republican establishment to become the party's front-runner. Despite his controversial policies on immigration, the former reality TV star has been consistently polling well above his rivals - Ted Cruz, Mr Rubio, Mr Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Both Senators Cruz and Rubio have ramped up their anti-Trump rhetoric over the past week, in a bid to halt his commanding lead in the race. The outcome of Super Tuesday will be critical for both candidates to remain the race.
Mr Trump has faced heavy criticism this week over his failure to disavow David Duke, a leader of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, who has endorsed the Republican candidate. The front-runner later said he had on several occasions in the past disavowed Mr Duke.
On the Democratic side, Mrs Clinton had already secured three wins in the first four early-voting states and has led significantly among blocs of black voters there.
Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, has put up an unexpectedly strong challenge against the former secretary of state after his sweeping victory in New Hampshire last month.
Alongside wins in Vermont and Oklahoma, he also was projected to win the Democratic Colorado caucuses - although this was merely a projection, as delegates do not vote until the state convention in April. Addressing cheering supporters at his victory speech in Vermont on Tuesday, Mr Sanders aimed a jibe at the Republican front-runner saying: "We are not going to let the Donald Trumps of the world divide us."
The proportion of vote won equates to the number of delegates who will then go on to the Democratic and Republican parties' national conventions in July to officially choose the nominees for the presidency.
Super Tuesday is pivotal because it allocates nearly a quarter of the 2,472 Republican delegates and some 20% of all delegates for the Democrats.
