Head-Desk, the Hillary Server-Gate Thing is Over the Top

Posted on August 18, 2015August 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

What about that Hillary lawyer, David Kendall?

Hillary Clinton’s private attorney, who was permitted to retain copies of Clinton’s emails until earlier this month, may not have had the proper security clearance or adequate tools to protect those documents.

“[I]t appears the FBI has determined that your clearance is not sufficient to allow you to maintain custody of the emails,” wrote Sen. Charles Grassley in a letter Friday to David Kendall, Clinton’s attorney.

Three days earlier, the FBI had taken from Kendall a thumb drive that he used to store copies of the work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in December of last year.

Investigators grew increasingly concerned about the documents Clinton and her attorney still possessed after the intelligence community inspector general determined some of the emails were classified up to “top secret,” the highest level of classification in government.

Grassley noted the State Department had identified classified information among Clinton’s emails as early as May.

But the agency did not give Kendall a safe in which to store the thumb drive until July, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said.

“Thus, since at least May 2015 and possibly December 2014, it appears that in addition to not having an adequate security clearance, you did not have the appropriate tools in place to secure the thumb drives,” Grassley wrote. “Even with the safe, there are questions as to whether it was an adequate mechanism to secure [top secret] material.”

The Iowa Republican pressed Kendall on whether his security clearance was active when the State Department allowed him to keep the thumb drive despite knowing it contained classified information.

Grassley also demanded to know who besides Kendall was granted access to the emails at Williams & Connolly, the law firm where he works.

Daily Mail:

The IT company Hilary Clinton chose to maintain her private email account was run from a loft apartment and its servers were housed in the bathroom closet, Daily Mail Online can reveal.

Daily Mail Online tracked down ex-employees of Platte River Networks in Denver, Colorado, who revealed the outfit’s strong links to the Democratic Party but expressed shock that the 2016 presidential candidate chose the small private company for such a sensitive job. One, Tera Dadiotis, called it ‘a mom and pop shop’ which was an excellent place to work, but hardly seemed likely to be used to secure state secrets. And Tom Welch, who helped found the company, confirmed the servers were in a bathroom closet.

It can also be disclosed that the small number of employees who were aware of the Clinton contract were told to keep it secret. The way in which Clinton came to contract a company described as a ‘mom and pop’ operation remains unclear. However Daily Mail Online has established a series of connections between the firm and the Democratic Party.

Platte River Networks worked for Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper – once heavily tipped to be Clinton’s 2016 running mate – during his election to be mayor of the city in 2003

The company’s controversial vice president of sales David DeCamillis is also said to be a ‘big Democrat’ supporter who offered his house to Joe Biden for the party’s convention held in Denver in 2008.

It will be the small scale of the firm and its own home-made arrangements which will raise the most significant questions over security and over what checks Clinton’s aides made about how suitable it was for dealing with what new transpires to be classified material.

Daily Mail Online spoke to former employees of the firm, including Tera Dadiotis, who was a customer relations consultant between 2007 and 2010. Describing it as ‘a great place to work, but kind of like a mom and pop shop’, Tera reacted with disbelief that her former company was hired to manage the email system of Democratic juggernaut Hilary Clinton.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online at her home in Castle Rock, Colorado, Tera said: ‘I think it’s really bizarre, I don’t know how that relationship evolved. ‘At the time I worked for them they wouldn’t have been equipped to work for Hilary Clinton because I don’t think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn’t even have an alarm.

‘I don’t know how they run their operation now, but we literally had our server racks in the bathroom. I mean knowing how small Platte River Networks… I don’t see how that would be secure [enough for Clinton].’

Founded in 2002 by entrepreneurs Treve Suazo, Brent Allshouse and Tom Welch, Platte River Networks worked out of a 1,858 square feet loft apartment in downtown Denver up until this earlier year when they moved to a much bigger 12,000 sq.ft space.

The company celebrated the upgrade with an open house party on June 18, which they excitedly posted on their website and facebook page. Describing the old office, Tera, 30, said: ‘It was a loft downtown and they [the co-founders] owned it. It was one big open space where we had cubicles and two bathrooms.

‘I actually lived in the same building.’

Clinton’s ‘homebrew’ computer system housed her emails while she was Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013. Platte River Networks provided its services in mid-2013 according to Barbara Wells, the company’s lawyer. In March Clinton said she wiped the server clean but experts say some of the more than 60,000 emails she deleted may be recoverable.

The server is now in the hands of the FBI who took it off Platte River Networks hands last Wednesday. Four emails on the private server are said to have been ‘classified’ with two of them labeled ‘top secret’, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Tuesday. Up to 60 in all may have been found during further samples, it has been reported. Clinton has maintained nothing on her server was classified at the time she saw it.

Wherever the truth lies, Tera thinks Platte River was an unsuitable choice for Clinton, she said: ‘It’s so weird, because it’s just a small IT company. I know they’ve expanded quite a bit since I left but I do think it’s strange, we only had the three owners and like eight employees. We didn’t do any work in other states.

‘No offense to them, but who are they? I know of a lot of IT companies that are much bigger. When I was there I answered all the phone calls, paid all the bills, and had a good handle on what was coming in and going out.

‘We were like your local IT company, nothing special or fancy, we had a really good reputation but that was on a local level.’

She thinks Clinton should have used a company with government security clearance, adding: ‘I just think government stuff should be handled by the government.’ Baffled by how Clinton decided to hire Platte River, ex-employees suggested David DeCamillis, the company’s vice-president of sales and marketing might have had a hand in courting her business.

Another theory put forward was that Colorado governor John Hickenlooper recommended them to her. The Democratic National Convention was held in Denver in 2008.

Tera said: ‘David DeCamillis was a big Democrat. He went to the Democrat Convention. ‘He definitely helped Platte River grow, he had a strong sales background. And he brought a lot of clients on, that was his role as the VP of sales.’

Platte River co-founder Tom Welch revealed DeCamillis – who we revealed was sued for fraud when he worked for Lou Pearlman, the disgraced music impresario who discovered Backstreet Boys and NSync – had hoped to put up Joe Biden, now the vice-president, during the 2008 convention. ‘During that Democratic Convention David DeCamillis was going to rent his home to Joe Biden. It was in a relatively posh part of Denver, it was called Washington Park in downtown Denver,’ Welch said.

‘Then Joe Biden was selected as [vice-presidential] candidate and didn’t take him up on the deal.

‘I’m not sure how that all happened, all I know he was saying he had the opportunity to make quite a bit of money doing it. ‘I think when he was selected as a Vice President candidate he got more luxurious accommodation.’

Welch, 47, sold his third of the company to Suazo and Allshouse in February 2010.

He had no idea Clinton became a client until the news broke last week. He said: ‘The whole thing is very surprising to me. ‘I had no idea they had that kind of client, when I was with the company we were a small Denver business focused company, we really didn’t do a lot, we did some stuff statewide, may have had a client or two in the western region but we certainly weren’t doing business in Washington DC or on the East coast.’

Welch, who now runs his own IT company Colorado Cloud, revealed Platte River did work for John Hickenlooper when he was running to be mayor of Denver. He said: ‘In the past, when I was with the company we did some work with John Hickenlooper, he was running for mayor of Denver Colorado, around 2004.

The space that we had our office was essentially designed as a residential unit… the bathroom connected to the master closet and that’s what we retrofitted as a server room

Tom Welch, former Platte River Networks executive

‘We did some IT support for his campaign.’

Asked if that was the connection to Clinton, he said: ‘I would have no idea, it’s the only connection I can possibly imagine. Hickenlooper was elected Mayor of Denver in 2003 and served two terms until 2011 when he became Governor.

Welch also said it was also ‘very possible’ Clinton’s team came across Platte River thanks to the 2008 Denver convention.

Welch confirmed his former company kept its servers in the bathroom closet.

He said: ‘The space that we had our office was essentially designed as a residential unit… the bathroom connected to the master closet and that’s what we retrofitted as a server room.’ He claimed the set up was secure, adding: ‘Our internal network was extremely secure. At the time Inca St was a relatively obscure location, second floor office. The technology we had in place was pretty good. The security we had in place at the office was really good to protect our well-being.’

Asked if he thinks Clinton’s emails could ever have been at risk from hackers, he said: ‘What changed after I left the company I have no idea, I really could not comment on that. I don’t know.’ However he thinks the company will struggle to overcome the Clinton controversy.

He said: ‘If they can get through this hurdle I suspect its going to cost them a fair amount of money, if they can survive the money side of it, they’re going to have a pretty serious black eye from an industry perspective if it’s shown they didn’t take the proper security measures or anything along those lines – that could hurt them.’ Asked if the fault lay with Clinton and not Platte River, he added: ‘I don’t know where you assign blame. Is it her fault for hiring an IT management company?’

Jim Zimmerman, another ex-employee recalled the company being secretive about acquiring Clinton as a client.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online, he said: ‘Before they actually did the work, they said “that we’ve got this contract we’re going to do it, we don’t want a lot of talk about it, we just want to get in and get out”. ‘The sales rep made a general announcement to say we were going to do it and we would just prefer to keep it private.

‘I don’t know the techs were who dealt with her account, they didn’t say, they said they’re doing it and that’s it.’

Zimmerman, 55, added: ‘It was an ego trip for somebody I’m sure. They may have seen it as a feather in their cap and a challenge. And I’m sure it wasn’t Hillary that hired them directly, I’m sure it was whoever was doing the managing. ‘I’m sure it was an exciting contract for the guys who sold it [to her].’

Zimmerman also thinks the Democratic National Convention may have been where Platte River first came onto Clinton’s radar.

He said: ‘To acquire business like that, my best guess is it had something to do with the convention being in town… that would be three degrees of separation, everybody had something to do with that. ‘I’m sure someone knew somebody at DNC and said “hey how would you guys like to do this” and they probably thought, that would be such a cool thing to do for our company.

‘I know at that time Platte River was marketing heavily, I mean they were jumping on work.

‘And when I heard it on the radio about Hilary Clinton emails a year or so ago. I thought “I can think of two guys who are c***ing their pants right now, they did not expect this.’ Defending his ex-employers from criticism, Zimmerman added: ‘I’m sure they didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t write the emails, they didn’t make the choice to tell her she was going to use that email server. They were just turning the wrenches… you make it as secure as possible.

‘If she did stupid stuff on the email and sent out classified information, that’s all on her, Platte River can’t control what she does with it. In the end they can only build something to her requirements. ‘They were just doing what they were contracted to do to the best of their abilities.’

For me details, photos and the timeline of server-gate, click here.

New Cuba Relations May Reveal Nasty Truths and People

Posted on August 18, 2015August 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Cuba thaw could bring answers to mystery of fugitive financier

FNC: Restored relations between the U.S. and Cuba could help investigators find hundreds of millions of dollars embezzled more than 40 years ago by a high-flying fugitive, but they acknowledge it is more likely Robert Vesco took his secrets to the grave.

Vesco was a 35-year-old Wall Street whiz when he mounted a takeover of mutual fund investment firm, Investors Overseas Service,which had $1.5 billion in investors’ money. Three years later, Vesco left America for good aboard a private jet with an estimated $220 million, as the Securities and Exchange Commission closed in on him for allegedly hiding his clients’ money in foreign accounts. Rumored contributions to President Nixon’s re-election campaign, possibly in the hopes of staving off the SEC probe, proved to be no help as Vesco settled in Costa Rica.

“He would go to a country with weak extradition laws like Colombia or Costa Rica and once the laws would change he would go to another country until his only option was Cuba,” said Ed Butowsky, whose father, David Butowsky, was chief enforcement officer for the SEC when he began hunting Vesco in 1973.

“We know one thing, that money is still in Cuba if it was being kept anywhere else, it would have already made its way back to the U.S.”

– Ed Butowsky

In 1982, Vesco moved to Havana, where his money was good and he was safe from U.S. authorities. Butowsky, in his government role and then later as an attorney for a private firm hired to recoup the stolen loot, knew where Vesco was but that brought him no closer to the money.

The elder Butowsky is no longer alive, but Ted Altman, an attorney who worked with him recalled interviewing the mustachioed embezzler on multiple occasions.

“We met with him a few times, first in Costa Rica, then in the Bahamas,” Altman said. “We asked about what he did with the money and he answered every question but without an ounce of truth.”

Vesco was arrested by Cuban authorities in 1995 for being “under suspicion of being a provocateur and an agent of foreign special services” and charged with fraud. He served a 10-year sentence, then resumed a quiet life in Havana, according to The New York Times. A chain smoker, he reportedly died in 2007. But even his death was reported with skepticism worthy of a wily con artist who had spent decades eluding authorities.

“If so, it was never reported publicly by the Cuban authorities, who said Friday that they considered him a “non-issue,” read a May 3, 2008 article in the New York Times written some five months after Vesco’s alleged death and entitled “A Last Vanishing Act for Robert Vesco, Fugitive.”

Ed Butowsky believes that new diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba – Secretary of State John Kerry opened an American embassy in Havana last week – should allow authorities to find the millions his father once hunted.

“It should be an open case,” Butowsky said. “We know one thing, that money is still in Cuba if it was being kept anywhere else, it would have already made its way back to the U.S.”

But Altman doubts that Vesco’s money ever wound up in Cuba.

“I could only speculate with what I know about Vesco,” he said. “But the bulk of that money would be in a much more secure location than Cuba.”

“More than likely, it would be in accounts in Europe, if anywhere at all.”

Reminder of the Cuban spies case and how far the Obama administration colluded

January 2015

Havana, Cuba (CNN)It might be the most bizarre of the closely guarded secrets from last week’s historic agreement between the United States and Cuba: How did the leader of a Cuban spy ring serving life in a California federal prison manage to impregnate his wife 2,245 miles away in Havana?

As part of the most significant diplomatic breakthrough between the United States and Cuba in more than 50 years, a prisoner swap was made. To uphold its part of the bargain, the U.S. released three Cuban spies, including Gerardo Hernandez, the head of the spy ring known as the Wasp Network.

Hernandez had an ear-to-ear smile Wednesday as he arrived at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport. State TV showed Hernandez as he was greeted by President Raul Castro and then embraced and kissed his wife, Adriana Perez.

Cubans watching the nonstop coverage of the prisoner swap were shocked when the cameras zeroed in on Hernandez hugging Perez. She was obviously in the late stages of a pregnancy that had no easy explanation.

Not only had Hernandez been serving a double life sentence, but his wife also worked for Cuba’s intelligence services and was banned by U.S. officials from visiting her husband in prison, according to the Cuban government.

Rumors swirl in sultry Havana

The subject became the immediate hot topic in Havana where rumors swirled fast about the baby’s paternity and whether the Cuban government could have somehow arranged a clandestine conjugal visit under the nose of U.S. authorities.

The couple appeared at another event on Saturday, where together with the other freed spies, Castro and the communist island’s top political and military officials showered them with applause.

A beaming Hernandez stood by Perez, whose round stomach was clearly visible for viewers of the live broadcast

As the couple left the celebration, Hernandez hinted at the secret surrounding the pregnancy.

“Everyone’s asking, and we have had a lot of fun with the comments and speculations. The reality is it had to be kept quiet,” Hernandez told the government-run television channel. “We can’t give a lot of details, because we don’t want to hurt people who meant well.”

He said his wife’s pregnancy was a direct result of the high-level talks.

“One of the first things accomplished by this process was this,” Hernandez said, gesturing to his Perez’s stomach. “I had to do it by ‘remote control,’ but everything turned out well.”

Two sources involved with the diplomatic talks, when questioned by CNN, uncloaked the mystery: During the negotiations, Hernandez’s sperm was collected and sent to Cuba, where Perez was artificially inseminated.

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed the story, without going into the details.

“We can confirm the United States facilitated Mrs. Hernandez’s request to have a baby with her husband,” spokesman Brian Fallon said.

What the U.S. would gain

Why would the U.S. government do this? The artificial insemination was made possible in exchange for better conditions for Alan Gross, a U.S. contractor imprisoned in Cuba. Gross was released last week as part of the prisoner swap.

“In light of Mr. Hernandez’s two life sentences,” Fallon said, “the request was passed along by Senator [Patrick] Leahy, who was seeking to improve the conditions for Mr. Gross while he was imprisoned in Cuba.”

The discretion on both sides makes sense.

For 18 months, officials from both countries refused to admit that they were even holding high-level talks.

Officials communicated via back channels, knowing that any leak about the talks could doom the talks.

Impregnating Perez involved cutting through bureaucratic red tape at multiple U.S. government agencies.

As Perez began to show, officials from both countries fretted over how they would explain her pregnancy and what to do if the baby arrived before the talks succeeded.

2001 conviction

Hernandez was convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down that left four Cuban-Americans dead after Cuban Air Force MIGs blew up the two civilian planes as they flew toward Havana to distribute anti-government leaflets. He received two life sentences.

Cuban authorities said Hernandez and the other operatives were trying to prevent terrorist attacks from being carried out on their homeland by violent Miami exiles.

That the U.S. government helped a man convicted of plotting the murder of four Cuban-Americans and spying on the exile community in Miami will likely further rankle many of the same Cuban-Americans who were already furious that Washington is restoring diplomatic relations with Havana.

But Tim Reiser, an aide to Leahy who worked to broker the landmark agreement with Cuba, said helping Hernandez conceive a child led to better treatment for Gross by Cuban authorities and was an important concession to help reach a historic deal.

“The expectation was that this man would die in prison. This was her only chance of having a child,” Rieser told CNN.

Gerardo Hernandez said he and his wife are expecting their baby daughter to arrive in two weeks and they will name her Gema.

Mexican Drug Cartels Embedded with Terrorists

Posted on August 18, 2015August 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Motorist With ISIS Flag Makes Bomb Threat Against Police

Emad Karakrah (Chicago Police Department)

A man who had an ISIS flag waving from his vehicle is facing several charges after he threatened police with a bomb Wednesday morning when he was pulled over on the Southwest Side.

Emad Karakrah, 49, was charged with felony counts of disorderly conduct and aggravated fleeing; and a misdemeanor count of driving on a never-issued license, according to Chicago police. He was also issued three traffic citations.

Someone called police after seeing a “suspicious person” driving a silver Pontiac southbound in the 7700 block of South Kedzie at 9:18 a.m. with an ISIS flag waving out the window, according to a police report.

Officers attempted to pull over the vehicle, but the driver took off, according to the report. The officers called for assistance, and another officer pulled the vehicle over after it went through several red lights.

The man told police during his arrest that there was a bomb in the car and he would detonate it if they searched the vehicle, according to the report.

A bomb squad, the FBI and Homeland Security responded to the scene and searched the vehicle, but no bomb was found, authorities said.

Judge Laura Sullivan ordered Karakrah held on a $55,000 bond Thursday. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 3.

Investigation: Collusion Between Terrorists and Mexican Cartels is a Threat to U.S.

Lead investigator says Obama administration has a responsibility to stop it

Muslim terrorists are using Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate the U.S. southern border to plan attacks on the United States from within, according to Sun City Cell, a documentary produced in collaboration between Judicial Watch and TheBlaze TV.

“Mexican drug cartels are smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso and they’re using remote farm roads—rather than interstates—to elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers,” states Judicial Watch. “Our nation’s unsecured border with Mexico is an existential threat to our nation.”

Chris Farrell, the director of research and investigations at Judicial Watch, says the cartel’s ability to completely control the El Paso region paved the way for a sophisticated narcoterrorism partnership.

“If you want to move something from point A to point B, a contraband item, you need their assistance, there’s a price tag with it, its all about making money,” he says. “There’s a tremendous amount of public corruption. There are cartels and those criminal enterprises do billions and billions of dollars worth of elicit business. Their corruption runs deep and it runs high and so there are people that are afraid frankly for this story to come out.”

Jonathan Gilliam, retired Navy Seal and former FBI special agent, says it’s always been his fear that high-level terrorist leaders would try to get into the United States and plan things here.

“For them to send out orders from overseas is one thing, but to see them come into the United States and actually start helping plan and give orders, that just shows another level of commitment and it shows a drastic shift in their mindset and where there dedication is,” says Gilliam. “I mean you don’t just go embed yourself into where you want to start a war, unless you’re serious about starting a war.”

“It probably means that’s not the first time they’ve gotten people in this way. And it’s really scary when you think about it,” said Gilliam.

Despite the alleged collusion between the Mexican cartels and Muslim terrorists, many tout El Paso, Texas, as a safe city to live.

“The cartel wants El Paso to be the shiny penny where everything is good, don’t look behind the curtain over here,” says an anonymous source in the documentary. “Everything is wonderful. And so, it’s known by the gang members and the criminals in all the area, if you draw attention, you hurt a police officer, you do anything that interferes with their business, they’ll melt you in a bucket of acid and not think twice about it.”

“The law enforcement for the most part is bought and paid for,” the source continues. “Not a lot of people have respect for police. The criminals certainly don’t, but what they have fear of is an organization that doesn’t have Fourth Amendment and doesn’t use jail cells, and that’s the cartel.”

Farrell says the Obama administration has a responsibility in putting an end to the alleged narcoterrorism ring.

“The principal functions of the administration, certainly of a president, is to provide for the security of the country and this is an issue that goes to terrorism, it goes to narcotics trafficking, human smuggling all sorts of areas of security and criminality, preventing crime,” he said. “And so of course it’s the administration’s responsibility.”

A former military intelligence officer specializing in counterintelligence and human intelligence, Farrell spent four years on the investigation and has traveled to El Paso many times to meet with dozens of sources for this story.

He says the investigation will continue.

“This is probably one-third of the whole story about what’s going on in El Paso right now,” he said. “Two-thirds of the story we have not even reported on. There is so much more and our investigation continues.”

“It only gets worse, frankly,” he said. “If people were disturbed or concerned about what they saw in this portion of the story, it is a fragment of the overall story.”

State Dept Gave a Safe to Hillary as Email List Grows

Posted on August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 by Denise Simon

Foggy Bottom is an understatement…

No….wait it IS MUCH WORSE…Those pesky FOIA requests…Seems the State Department is about to fall completely. Obstruction too is an understatement.

Gawker: Earlier this year, Gawker Media sued the State Department over its response to a Freedom of Information Act request we filed in 2013, in which we sought emails exchanged between reporters at 33 news outlets and Philippe Reines, the former deputy assistant secretary of state and aggressive defender of Hillary Clinton. Over two years ago, the department claimed that “no records responsive to your request were located”—a baffling assertion, given Reines’ well-documented correspondence with journalists. Late last week, however, the State Department came up with a very different answer: It had located an estimated 17,000 emails responsive to Gawker’s request.

On August 13, lawyers for the U.S. Attorney General submitted a court-ordered status report to the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in which it disclosed that State employees had somehow discovered “5.5 gigabytes of data containing 81,159 emails of varying length” that were sent or received by Reines during his government tenure. Of those emails, the attorneys added, “an estimated 17,855” were likely responsive to Gawker’s request:

The Department has conducted its preliminary review of the potentially responsive electronic documents in its possession, custody, and control from Mr. Reines’ state.gov email account (as opposed to records it received from his personal email account). The assemblage comprises approximately 5.5 gigabytes of data containing 81,159 emails of varying length. Based on a review of a portion of these emails, the Department estimates that 22% of the 81,159 emails may be responsive. Therefore, the Department believes that it will need to conduct a line- by-line review of an estimated 17,855 emails for applicable FOIA exemptions. Moreover, some of the responsive records may need to be referred to other agencies for consultation or processing.

It is not clear how the State Department managed to locate this tranche of Reines’ correspondence when it had previously asserted that the emails simply didn’t exist. These newly discovered records are from Reines’ government account, and are not related to the 20 boxes of government-business emails stored on his personal account that Reines recently handed over to the government, despite his prior claims to Gawker that his official use of non-governmental email was limited: “My personal email was the last place I wanted reporters intruding.”

Considering the number of potentially responsive emails contained in Reines’ State.gov email account, it’s hard to see the agency’s initial denial as anything other than willful incompetence—if not the conscious effort, or the result of someone else’s conscious effort, to stonewall news outlets. Either way, the precedent it establishes is pernicious: Journalists should not have to file expensive lawsuits to force the government to comply with the basic provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the same status report, the State Department intends to produce the first set of Reines’ emails on September 30, 2015—three years and six days after Gawker filed its initial request.

We’ve asked the State Department and Reines for comment and will update this post if we hear back from either.

State Department Delivered a Safe to Hillary Clinton’s Attorney to Secure Classified Emails

Breitbart: The State Department sent a safe to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer in early July in an effort to ensure a thumb drive containing classified emails was being stored securely. The unusual move by State came to light Friday, more than a week after the drive itself was turned over to the Department of Justice.

McClatchy reports that evidence of classified information on Hillary’s personal email sever first turned up in May, earlier than previously known. A debate ensued between the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community and the State Department about whether the material, including copies of Hillary’s emails on a thumb drive kept by her attorney, were properly secured. It is not known what, if any, security precautions were taken between May and July, but in early July the State Department became concerned enough that it delivered a safe to Kendall’s office.

The State Department has previously mentioned that it had physically verified the security of the thumb drive in Kendall’s office, but never mentioned providing a safe. On July 30th, about a week after word of the thumb drive’s existence became public knowledge, a State Department spokesman told Politico, “We’ve provided the lawyers with instructions regarding appropriate measures for physically securing the documents and confirmed via a physical security expert that they are taking those measures.”

Nearly a week later, State spokesman Mark Toner again noted that State had sent a security expert to Kendall’s office. He told CBS News, “We simply cleared the site where they’re being held, made sure that it was a secure facility, and capable of holding what could be classified material.” Again, there was no mention of State providing a safe in which to keep the thumb drive.

Throughout this time the State Department has firmly denied that any material on Hillary’s server was classified at the time it was generated. But two Inspectors General–for State and for the Intelligence Community–have been equally firm in saying some of the emails were classified “when they were generated.”

State’s decision to deliver the safe to Kendall’s office in July could be seen in one of two ways: as an admission by the Agency that there is indeed classified material on the drive, despite what its spokespeople have said publicly, or as an effort by State to placate the Inspectors General.

Earlier this week, Senator Chuck Grassley published a letter from the Intelligence Community Inspector General which indicated that two emails in Hillary’s inbox had been judged to contain Top Secret information. Shortly afterwards, Hillary announced that she had agreed to turn over her email server, which had been wiped clean and was sitting in a data center in New Jersey.

McClatchy reports that the thumb drive in Kendall’s possession was actually turned over on August 6th, a day after stories indicated the FBI was seeking to verify the security of the drive. It’s not clear what prompted the decision to take the drive at that time or why the FBI waited another week to collect the server.

There is no word on whether the State Department has retrieved its safe from Kendall’s office.

*** First there were 2 emails, then 60 and now over 300?

New Clinton email count: 305 documents with potentially classified information

WashingtonTimes:

More than 300 of former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails — or 5.1 percent of those processed so far — have been flagged for potential secret information, the State Department reported to a federal court Monday.

Officials insisted, however, that the screening process is running smoothly and they are back on track after falling behind a judge’s schedule for making all of the emails public.

The reviewers have screened about 20 percent of the 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton returned to the department, which means if the rate of potentially secret information remains steady, more than 1,500 messages will have to be sent to intelligence community agencies, known in government as “IC,” to screen out classified information.

“Out of a sample of approximately 20% of the Clinton emails, the IC reviewers have only recommended 305 documents — approximately 5.1% — for referral to their agencies for consultation,” the Obama administration said in new court papers.

Officials are trying to head off a request by the plaintiffs, who sued to get a look at Mrs. Clinton’s emails and who want the court to impose new oversight to make sure the State Department is working quickly and fairly.

Dozens of messages already released publicly have had information redacted as classified, raising questions about Mrs. Clinton’s security practices when she declined to use the regular State.gov system and instead issued herself an email account on a server she kept at her home in New York.

Mrs. Clinton has insisted she never sent any information that was classified and said she never received information from others that was marked classified at the time — though it has since been marked as such.

“I was permitted to and used a personal email and, obviously in retrospect, given all the concerns that have been raised, it would have been probably smarter not to,” she told Iowa Public Radio last week. “But I never sent nor received any classified email, nothing marked ’Classified.’ And I think this will all sort itself out.”

She also took credit for the release of the emails, which she returned to the government nearly two years after she left office, saying that “if I had not asked for my emails all to be made public, none of this would have been in the public arena.”

The emails, however, are being made public by federal District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in response to the lawsuit from Jason Leopold, a reporter at Vice.

Judge Sullivan has set a strict schedule for the State Department to meet in releasing the emails on a monthly basis. The department, however, missed the July target by more than 1,000 pages of emails, and blamed the need to screen out classified information as the reason for breaking the judge’s order.

In its new filing Monday, the State Department said it will catch up by the end of September, saying intelligence community screeners are now integrated into the process.

Why is Putin in Ukraine?

Posted on August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 by Denise Simon

Putin calls an emergency defense meeting as tensions mount in Ukraine

Russian-backed rebel forces in Ukraine are building up to “full combat readiness” after an urgent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and some of his top military advisers.

The announcement that the rebels were getting prepared in eastern Ukraine came hours after Putin called the defense meeting.

The situation on the ground in Ukraine has been tense lately. Violence has surged in recent months.

Ukrainian officials have claimed that the pro-Russian forces have violated a peace treaty signed in February and have targeted Ukrainian troops with heavy weaponry.

The head of Ukraine’s national security and defense council has said that the “shelling is carried out around the clock using large-calibre artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, prohibited by the [peace agreements]. During the day, the enemy carried out 153 artillery attacks.”

War, apparently, is imminent and soldiers in the area had their August vacation leave taken away following concerns that the violence might escalate more and result in an all out confrontation.

Also on Friday, it was reported that Russia and Finland might be preparing to go to war with one another. The two countries share over 800 miles of border. The reserve units in Finland on active duty jumped from 6,000 to 18,000 from last year to this year as tensions between Helsinki and Moscow have become increasingly strained. More details found here.

Ukraine Live Day 546: Devastating Attack On Village Outside Mariupol Leaves Two Dead, Six Wounded

Putin Visits Russian-Occupied Crimea, Raising Tension As Fighting Escalates

14:04 (GMT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Russian-occupied Crimea today at a time when the fighting in Ukraine looks like it is about to explode.

Ukraine Today reports that, among other things, Putin will be chairing a meeting of the Russian State Council to discuss increasing tourism to the peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia last March. Tourism has been hindered due to three key factors: sanctions passed by the US and the EU prohibit tourism, Ukrainian citizens are not visiting the peninsula, and the collapse of the Russian economy means that many Russian citizens cannot afford to go on vacation either.

Any visit by Putin to Crimea is seen as a provocation by the Ukrainian government and many in the West, but the timing of this visit has not gone unnoticed by Kiev. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Putin’s trip a “challenge to the civilized world” and stressed that it needed to be viewed in context of events in eastern Ukraine. RFE/RL reports:

“Such trips mean further militarization of the occupied Ukrainian peninsula and lead to its greater isolation,” the presidential spokesman quoted Poroshenko as saying.

Poroshenko said that Crimea has a future only as a part of Ukraine.

Reuters adds:

“This is a challenge to the civilized world and a continuation of the plan to escalate the situation which is being carried out by Russian troops and their mercenaries in the Donbass (east Ukraine),” Poroshenko said in a Facebook post.

The reasons that Poroshenko and the Ukrainian people might be upset by Putin’s visit are obvious — the Russian military seized control of the peninsula at the end of February, 2014, all the while claiming that the gun-wielding “little green men” were local activists (Putin later admitted the obvious — these were Russian troops), and then held an illegal, deeply flawed, and internationally unrecognized referendum on annexation. Russia then directly intervened in the Donbass, culminating in the “Russian invasion” that effectively cut a large part of the Donbass off from the rest of Ukraine.

But is Poroshenko right that Putin’s visit is linked to violence in eastern Ukraine?

Last week a key leader of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic,” Denis Pushilin, warned that “full-scale fighting could break out at any moment.” We noted at the time that his statement was part of a flurry of warnings and heated rhetoric coming out of both the Kremlin (and the Russian state-run media) and the leadership of the Russian-backed separatists, corresponding to an increase in fighting and troop movement in eastern Ukraine. We also noted that this pattern matched what preceded other major escalations in Ukraine such as the “Russian invasion” one year ago, the conclusion of the battle for Donetsk airport, and the run-up to February’s capture of Debaltsevo.

Since we wrote than analysis on August 12, daily fighting has only grown more intense, civilian and military casualties have risen, and the conflict feels even closer to an ignition point.

— James Miller