Obama Coming out of the Taqiyyah Closet?

Posted on January 30, 2016January 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

One of this mosques hosted speakers in December was Shaykh Hamzah wald Maqbul who gave a twisted sermon on Christians a year ago. It was also last year that Obama and his team met with Muslim Brotherhood leaders at the White House, some of whom were pronounced as unindicted coconspirators in the Holyland Foundation trial. It appears during Obama’s last year in his presidency he is finishing some items in his bucket list and you can bet he is holding talks during this mosque visit to encourage aggressive Muslim community action against Donald Trump and to promote Muslim refugee resettlement in America which has been highly contested in several states by governors and citizens.

Obama to make first visit of his presidency to a U.S. mosque next week

WaPo: President Obama takes a moment to show respect as he receives a tour by the Grand Imam Tan Sri Syaikh Ismail Muhammad, left, and Abdul Rashid Bin Md Isa, as he visits the National Mosque of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 27, 2014. While Obaba has visited mosques overseas, he has never visited one in the United States during his presidency. (Larry Downing/ Reuters)

President Obama will make the first visit during his presidency to a U.S. mosque next week, the White House announced Saturday, as the administration tries to promote religious tolerance at a time when rhetoric linking Islam with terrorism is becoming more voluminous.

On Wednesday the president will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore, a sprawling community center in the the city’s western suburbs, that serves thousands of people with a place of worship, a housing complex and schools, according to its website. It is one of the Mid-Atlantic region’s largest Muslim centers and describes itself as aspiring “to be the anchor of a growing Muslim community with diverse backgrounds, democratically governed, relating to one another with inclusiveness and tolerance, and interacting with neighbors in an Islamic exemplary manner.”

On Saturday, a White House official said in an e-mail that the president is making the visit: “to celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.

The President believes that one of our nation’s greatest strengths is our rich diversity and the very idea that Americans of different faiths and backgrounds can thrive together – that we’re all part of the same American family. As the President has said, Muslim Americans are our friends, and neighbors; our co-workers, and sports heroes – and our men and women in uniform defending our country.”

At the Islamic Society, the president will hold a round table with community members, the official said.

For years Muslim Americans have lobbied the president to visit a mosque in order to counter the perception that Islam is inextricably linked to terrorism.

The trip to Baltimore comes a month after several prominent Muslim Americans met with senior White House officials to discuss concerns about rising hostility toward people of their faith. During that session — attended by White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Domestic Policy Council director Cecilia Muñoz and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes — the Islamic leaders asked for Obama to visit a mosque, ideally with former president George W. Bush, as well.

Bush visited the Islamic Cultural Center of Washington D.C. six days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, where he declared, “Islam is peace,” and “the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.”

At a time when some leading Republican presidential candidates, including businessman Donald Trump, have suggested barring foreign Muslims from entering the country, Obama has taken pains to criticize rhetoric that stereotypes one faith group.

“When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer,” Obama said during his State of the Union address earlier this month. “That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. It betrays who we are as a country.”

It wasn’t immediately clear why the White House selected the Islamic Society in Baltimore, although it has been the subject of threats in recent months. Baltimore County beefed up security there last spring after it received two phone threats, one citing a bomb and the other from someone threatening to “spill Muslim blood,” CBS Baltimore reported at the time.

It also is the mosque of the family of Adnan Syed, whose conviction for murder drew huge global interest when his story was told through the radio podcast “Serial.” The series was made because of the activism of a friend of Syed’s family from the Islamic Society, Rabia Chaudry, a Greenbelt lawyer who advises law enforcement about Islam, the Baltimore Sun reported in 2014.

President Obama tours the Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo with then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on June 4, 2009. Obama arrived in Egypt on Thursday for high level meetings before delivering a much heralded speech to an audience at Cairo University. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Obama has visited mosques overseas, but never one in this country while serving as president.

“I think it would be enormously comforting and also send powerful message to Americans about recommitting to religious freedom — especially if we had Bush and Obama visit together,” Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group, said last month when she met with the president’s aides.

Obama’s relationship with American Muslim has been complicated. They are among his most enthusiastic backers, but some feel he has not done enough to address their concerns at a time of social unrest.

He has shown support for Muslims overseas, including the 2009 “New Beginning” speech in Cairo before the Arab Spring, and he has drawn praise — and intense criticism from conservatives — for declining to connect Islam and terrorism.

However, concern about profiling and domestic surveillance at mosques has escalated under Obama, and some Muslim leaders expressed concern last year when he held a key summit about violent extremism that focused significantly on Muslim extremism.

And though Obama is a Christian, many Americans remain convinced he actually follows the Islamic faith. Recent polls show that 29 percent of Americans, and nearly 45 percent of Republicans, believe he is a Muslim.

Allies Hacked Israel’s Drone and Fighter Jet Feeds

Posted on January 29, 2016January 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

U.S. and Britain hacked into feeds from Israeli drones and fighter jets, according to report

WashingtonPost: The United States and Great Britain combined to hack into Israeli drone and fighter jet surveillance feeds as part of secret program that in part watched for a potential Israeli military strike against Iran, according to a new report published along with corresponding photos.

The Intercept reported that the secret program was called “Anarchist.” It was carried out by Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, and the National Security Agency from a mountaintop Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, according to the report.

“GCHQ files provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden include a series of ‘Anarchist snapshots’ — thumbnail images from videos recorded by drone cameras,” The Intercept reported. “The files also show location data mapping the flight paths of the aircraft. In essence, U.S. and British agencies stole a bird’s-eye view from the drones.”

An Israeli official downplayed the significance of the report on Friday, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the revelations weren’t “very dramatic.” Israeli military operations were not harmed in the process, the source told Haaretz, adding that “it goes without saying that foreign intelligence elements in the Middle East detect our operations, just like we detect the operations of other states in the region.”

Officials at the NSA couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, and have historically declined to comment on classified programs.

Anarchist was first started in 1998, according to The Intercept. It occasionally hacked into the feeds of drones operated by Syria and Hezbollah, but the bulk of the effort was focused on Israel, which has long had a complicated relationship with the United States when it comes to spying and intelligence collection. A summary of the CIA’s budget, also released by Snowden, notes that Israel is a “priority” target for U.S. counterintelligence operations. Although allies, the United States and Israel have a history of spying on one another.

Photographs from the program appear to show Israeli drones equipped with missiles. Israel has long declined to discuss the arming of any of its unmanned aircraft, saying they are used for surveillance and to mark targets so that fighter jets and others manned aircraft can carry out airstrikes.

A 2008 British military document quoted by The Intercept suggested the Anarchist program was “indispensable” for maintaining an understanding of Israeli military operations and gaining insight into possible future developments in the region.

“In times of crisis,” it said, “this access is critical and one of the only avenues to provide up to the minute information and support to U.S. and Allied operations in the area.”

Military technology experts do not consider hacking into a video feed from a manned jet or drone to be difficult. In 2009, for example, U.S. defense officials acknowledged in media reports that Iranian-backed militants in Iraq had used off-the-shelf software costing about $26 to hack the video feeds of Predator drones.

Air Force officials said that year that they were working toward encrypting all feeds by 2014. It is not clear if that has occurred.

****
These and other images from Anarchist will be on view as part of Intercept co-founder Laura Poitras’ solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The exhibition,Astro Noise, opens February 5.

On January 28, 2010, GCHQ analysts on Cyprus captured six minutes of video from what appears to be a Heron TP, a giant drone manufactured by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

In this snapshot still from the video, a large missile-shaped object is clearly visible on the left side. A GCHQ report mentions “regular collects of Heron TP carrying weapons” in 2009. A very similar image, likely from the same intercept, is named “Heron_TP_Payload.” The video is shot from the right-hand rear vertical stabilizer of the TP (this open-source videooffers a similar viewpoint).

Drone experts consulted byThe Intercept confirmed that the image shows a Heron TP.

“It certainly looks like the missile-shaped objects are weapons,” said Bill Sweetman, an editor at Aviation Week. “The bodies appear to have cruciform tail fins. The distortion makes it a bit to hard to tell size but — assuming they are bombs — these are definitely less than 500-pound class.” He added that because the Heron-TP is an Israeli strategic intelligence system, the objects could be decoys, used to “force a response from Iran’s air defenses, while the UAV orbits and hoovers up signals.”

This is another image taken from a Heron TP, intercepted on February 9, 2010. The Heron TP or Eitan (meaning “strong” or “steadfast”) has an 85-foot wingspan, can carry a 1-ton load, and can stay aloft for up to 36 hours. It has been described in the press as “the drone that can reach Iran.”

The image is blurred, but objects appear to be mounted under the wings. The GCHQ file notes that the signal was “too poor to process” further.

An IAI Heron, intercepted on April 26, 2009. “This is the standard IAI Heron, which can be recognized by the shape of the satellite communications radome,” said Sweetman.

Former U.S. drone pilots interviewed for this story told The Intercept that this view, showing the body of the aircraft, was a way of checking for ice or other problems.

This particular Heron seems to be modified to carry arms or other wing-mounted equipment such as sensors, but given the quality of the image, it is not entirely clear.

This is an IAI Searcher MK III, said Sweetman.The Searcher was developed in the 1980s, but is still used by the Israel Defense Forces and by a number of other countries.

This image was intercepted early on the morning of January 7, 2010. Based on the display markings like the dial in the upper right-hand corner, it appears to be from a drone made by the company Aeronautics. (This videofrom the manufacturer shows a similar view.) The image indicates that this model was equipped with Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera.

Unlike other Anarchist snapshots identified byThe Intercept, the video angles downward, and appears to show a view of buildings below.

A GCHQ document from 2010 reported that analysts on Cyprus had collected signals from Aeronautics’ Aerostar Tactical, a medium-sized drone that has been used by the Israeli military since 2000, and sold to countries from Poland toThailand.

This blurred image was recorded on August 25, 2009, the same day that news agencies reported that the IDF bombed a smuggler tunnel in Gaza, killing three Palestinians inside. According to an Anarchist document, the signal was “too poor to process” further.

This image is from a March 2008 internal NSA newsletter celebrating the successful capture of video from the cockpit of an Israeli F-16 during unrest in the Gaza Strip. The newsletter describes a “14-second long video” captured on January 3, 2008, which “showed an ‘unbroken line’ running through the targeting display, indicating that the target being tracked was on the ground.” On that same day, Israeli airstrikes and shelling from tanks reportedly killed nine people in Gaza.

The F-16 display was captured by operators of satellite surveillance systems at Menwith Hill, an important NSA site in England, working “closely with a GCHQ site in Cyprus for tip-offs.”

This image comes from a PowerPointpresentation and shows a video still from an Iranian-made Ababil III drone flying out of western Syria. The signal was captured by Anarchist analysts and recorded on March 11, 2012. Many more images and background are found here.

Source: http://defence.pk/threads/u-k-u-s-spy-program-hacked-into-video-feeds-on-israeli-drones-fighter-jets.419902/#ixzz3yg34WXj9

Link Between San Bernardino Attack, Prior Terror Plot

Posted on January 29, 2016January 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

If you don’t think the FBI is doing enough when it comes to investigating terrorists or plots across the homeland, the text below will give you reasons to change your mind. When we consider the major adjustments that Usama bin Ladin made when it came to communicating throughout the entire al Qaeda organization and with the matter of Edward Snowden releasing intelligence collection methods, we begin to understand the daunting task of the FBI.

Feds release new evidence, seek link between San Bernardino attack, prior terror plot

FNC: The couple behind the San Bernardino attack and a jihadist group that earlier plotted to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan operated so close to one another in a tight-knit Southern California community that investigators believe there may be a connection, but newly released evidence shows any missing link remains elusive.

Sohiel Omar Kabir, the ringleader of an Islamist terror cell whose Afghanistan plot was disrupted in November, 2012, shared the same violent objectives and lived in the same California community known as The Inland Empire as Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the pair who killed 14 and wounded 22 in a Dec. 2 attack at an Inland, Calif., social services building. But the FBI remains unable to say if the two terror cells were independent, or if there is an as-yet invisible hand responsible for radicalizing them and potentially organizing another attack.

“Because these cells operated in such close proximity to one another during the same time period, it seems very likely they crossed paths.”

– Veryan Khan, TRAC

“The focus should be on whether these two terror cells and their members are connected to each other and to other self-starter cells or other lone wolf operatives,” said Veryan Khan, editorial director of the U.S.-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium. “Because these cells operated in such close proximity to one another during the same time period, it seems very likely they crossed paths.”

Deleon, shown here on surveillance video at a paintball facility, intended to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan. (US Department of Justice)

This week, prosecutors made public evidence from the 2012 plot, including 15 hours of audio and video recordings made through wiretaps and an FBI confidential informant, and photographs, as well as hundreds of court records, and transcripts and other documents. But nothing so far establishes a direct connection between Kabir, who last year was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, and the jihadist couple behind the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

Farook, 28, a restaurant inspector born in the U.S. to a family from Pakistani, and Malik, 29, an immigrant from Pakistan, who entered the U.S. on a fiancé visa, were slain during a gunfight with law enforcement several hours after their initial assault at the holiday party. A computer hard drive belonging to the pair remains missing, and their cell phones were damaged to the point that investigators have been unable to recover potentially revealing information. A third person who authorities say previously plotted with Farook, Enrique Marquez, has been charged with providing the rifles the pair used in the massacre.

Before the San Bernardino attack, Marquez reportedly told associates there were terror cells in the area awaiting orders.

“He would say stuff like: ‘There’s so much going on. There’s so many sleeper cells, so many people just waiting. When it happens, it’s going to be big. Watch,’ ” Nick Rodriguez, who frequented a Riverside bar where Marquez drank.

Members of the Inland Empire terror cell posted jihadist propaganda on their social media pages. (US Department of Justice)

Finding other cells poised to attack could depend on establishing that a common handler is calling the shots. But compartmentalization is a hallmark of terrorist groups’ command and control structure, which, according to experts, means the two cells could have received their orders from the same source without ever knowing they were on the same team.

Kabir, 37, a naturalized citizen who was born in Afghanistan, and Ralph Deleon, 26, a permanent resident and citizen of the Philippines, were sentenced to identical terms for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to murder U.S. military and government personnel, and in Kabir’s case, also for conspiring to provide material support to Al Qaeda. Two other members of the cell pleaded guilty and cooperated with authorities.

Kabir’s group, dubbed by prosecutors the “Inland Empire Cell,” allegedly received guidance from a local radical imam, who remains unnamed in court records, and encouragement from a brother of one of the men.

Ironically, federal court documents tied to Marquez’s case show both he and Farook abruptly halted plans for a dual terror attack in 2012 after Kabir’s cabal was arrested. In that assault, Marquez and Farook planned to use pipe bombs and two AR-15 rifles “to maximize the number of casualties” at Riverside City College, a nearby institution they attended, and on state Route 91, a busy freeway with few exits where motorists are frequently stuck in heavy gridlock.

An FBI spokesman said the agency continues to investigate possible ties between the groups, who practiced shooting at local gun ranges, worshiped at area mosques and boasted of their plans on social media.

“I’d take C-4 number one but I want to enjoy my targets,” DeLeon wrote in one post revealed this week by investigators. “That’s why I want to go to the front line.”

Another common interest of cells operating in The Inland Empire was their devotion to teachings of the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s “leader of external operations” until he was killed in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike. Kabir and his followers listened to many hours of videos and audio recordings from al-Awlaki, according to audio and videotapes obtained by FoxNews.com.

“Even from the grave, the power of Anwar al-Awlaki cannot be underestimated,” Khan said.

Court records show Kabir was effective at recruiting others, according to his conspirator, Deleon, who compared Kabir to a “Mujahideen walking the streets of LA.” Deleon spoke of recruiting others into their cell, boasting he had four people who were “potentials” and was up for recruiting “Everyone!”

Deleon also claimed Kabir recruited many others before he left for Afghanistan, while Kabir himself boasted contacts within terrorist organizations including “the Students” – code for Taliban – and “the Professors” – meaning Al Qaeda.

Major Gang Arrests in Boston, Immigrant MS-13

Posted on January 29, 2016January 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

El Salvador:

Gangs like the MS13 and Barrio 18 in El Salvador are rigid about enforcing the boundaries of their territory. This has dramatic repercussions for both the bus drivers who drive and the students who walk across these borders.

“This street is the limit — look. The frontline of the war is right here. Here there are gunshots every so often. Down there are MS13. Up there are Barrio 18 Revolucionarios. It is an L. And we are in the middle.”

So says a middle-aged man. He is the extortion negotiator for a bus and minibus route. That is his job. In a country where even Coca Cola or Tigo pay extortion, in El Salvador there are architects, street vendors, shoemakers, teachers, and extortion negotiators. The country’s reality creates jobs. More details here.

Dozens said to be linked to El Salvador gang indicted in Boston area

Reuters:

Dozens of Boston-area residents linked to the Central American-based MS-13 street gang were being rounded up by law enforcement authorities on Friday after their indictments on racketeering conspiracy charges related to murders and other crimes, federal prosecutors said.

The indictment of 56 members, leaders and associates of “one of the largest criminal organizations in the United States” alleges that several of the accused played a role in the murders of at least five people since 2014 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and East Boston, as well as at least 14 attempted murders.

In Massachusetts, MS-13 is largely composed of immigrants and descendants of immigrants from El Salvador, recruited through intimidation in local high schools in towns with heavy concentrations of residents with ties to Central America, prosecutors said.

“Violence is a central tenet of MS-13, as evidenced by its core motto – ‘mata, viola, control,’ translated as, ‘kill, rape, control,'” the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts said in a statement.

The indictment also accuses Massachusetts-based members of MS-13, also known as “La Mara Salvatrucha,” of selling narcotics and committing robberies to raise money to send to leaders of the gang jailed in El Salvador.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 56 people indicted were under arrest on Friday afternoon. The statement said that 15 of the accused were already in custody on federal, state or immigration charges.

A representative of the U.S. attorney’s office could not be reached immediately for comment.

The racketeering conspiracy charge – under the federal law known as RICO – alone carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, or even life if the underlying criminal activity carries the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, prosecutors said.

***

There is more to the story and here are some other chilling facts:

CIS.org: Since the recent surge in Central American immigrants crossing the southern border illegally, many have had questions about the Central American community in the United States. News accounts indicate that, in recent months, some 290,000 illegal immigrants (primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) have been settled, or will soon be settled, by the federal government.¹ Listed below are some basic socio-demographic statistics for immigrants in the United States from these countries.

The figures below are for both legal and illegal immigrants from the public-use files of the 2012 American Community Survey, collected by the Census Bureau:

Population Totals: In 2012 there were 2.7 million immigrants from El Salvador (1.3 million), Guatemala (880,000), and Honduras (536,000) in the United States. Combined, the immigrant population from these three countries has grown 234 percent since 1990.

The Top-10 States of Settlement: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Illegal Immigrants: Department of Homeland Security estimates indicate that about 60 percent of immigrants from these three countries (1.6 million) are in the United States illegally.²

Language: Of immigrants from El Salvador, 70 percent report they speak English less than very well; for immigrants from Guatemala, it is 72 percent; and for immigrants from Honduras, it is 69 percent.

Home-ownership: Of households headed by Salvadoran immigrants, 41 percent are owner-occupied, as are 28 percent of Guatemalan households, and 29 percent of Honduran immigrant households. The corresponding figure for natives is 66 percent.

The figures below are for both legal and illegal immigrants from the public-use files of the March 2013 Current Population Survey, collected by the Census Bureau:

Educational Attainment: 54 percent of Guatemalan immigrants (ages 25 to 65) have not graduated high school. The figure for Salvadorans is 53 percent, and for Hondurans, 44 percent. The corresponding figure for native-born Americans is 7 percent.

Welfare Use: 57 percent of households headed by immigrants from El Salvador use at least one major welfare program, as do 54 percent of Honduran households, and 49 percent of Guatemalan immigrant households. Among native households it is 24 percent.³

Poverty: 65 percent of Honduran immigrants and their young children (under 18) live in or near poverty (under 200 percent of the poverty threshold). For Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants and their children, it is 61 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 31 percent.⁴

Health Insurance: 47 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and their young children (under 18) do not have health insurance. The figure for both Salvadoran and Honduran immigrants and their young children is 41 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 13 percent.⁵

Share Working: 77 percent of immigrants from El Salvador (ages 25 to 54) have a job, as do 74 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and 73 percent of Honduran immigrants. The corresponding figure for natives is 76 percent.

Too Damaging to Release, ah Hillary???

Posted on January 29, 2016January 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Official: Some Clinton emails ‘too damaging’ to release

FNC: EXCLUSIVE: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging” to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding.

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton’s personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from “special access programs,” or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.”A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that “several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels.”

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full — which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold “operational files.” Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as “HCS-O,” which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation.”

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server — and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and “turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.”

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.