Hillary Was More Interested In Hiding Her Own Secrets Than Protecting U.S. Secrets

The Hillary Daily

by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: In sworn testimony given in a deposition by Judicial Watch, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin revealed that she and Hillary used the private server for some government business, especially while traveling abroad.

Both Hillary and Huma knew that they were not permitted to use their devices outside the U.S. Hillary admitted that she and her aides was explicitly warned by State Dept. security experts that her phone could easily be hacked in foreign countries. In her book Hard Choices, she describes the specific instructions to refrain from using her personal Blackberry, laptops, and any other electronic devices in foreign countries.

But she completely ignored them. She was more interested in protecting her own secrets than the U.S. government secrets.

Now Huma has confirmed that she -- and her staff -- arrogantly ignored those serious warnings.

In Hard Choices, Hillary recalls that:

"When we traveled to sensitive places, like Russia, we often received warnings from Department security officers to leave our Blackberrys, laptops, anything that communicated with the outside world -- on the plane, with their batteries removed to prevent foreign intelligent services from compromising them. Even in friendly settings, we conducted business under strict security protections, taking care where and how we read secret material and used our technology."

So there's no question that she knew what she was supposed to do. She just chose to disregard it.

Emails show what Huma has now confirmed that despite the acknowledged and understood warnings, Hillary and her top aides routinely -- and carelessly -- used their Blackberrys all over the world.

She refused to use a government issued Blackberry, even though Eric Boswell, the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security at the time, issued another strong warning about the dangers of using an unclassified Blackberry:

"I cannot stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified Blackberry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving emails, and exploiting calendars."

But Hillary and her aides continued to use her unsecured Blackberry that was connected to her private server housed in the basement of her Chappaqua home.

Hillary used her "berry" as she called it, all over the world, including in unfriendly places like China, Russia.

On March 17, 2010, at a stopover in Shannon, Ireland, en route to Russia, Hillary indicated to Cheryl Mills that when was in Shannon and would be available on her Blackberry:

Although Clinton denies that her Blackberry was ever hacked, The Daily Caller has reported on a March 5, 2009 email that suggests otherwise. The email appears to be from Boswell, but is heavily redacted:

"Her attention was drawn to the sentence that indicates that we (Diplomatic Security) have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to China."

So what was the intelligence they had regarding the "vulnerability" of Hillary's unsecured Blackberry? Most likely that other intelligence sources found that her "berry" had been hacked.

Now Huma has testified that it was a regular practice for her, as well as Hillary, to use the basement private server in foreign countries for State Department business.

Hillary knew about the risks, was warned about the dangers and ignored those warnings. She did what she wanted -- putting U.S. secrets in jeopardy. But she made sure that her private dealings were well protected.

So where's the FBI?
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Richard "Dick" Morris is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant. He has worked on both sides of politics for candidates. Eileen McGann is an attorney who, with her husband, Dick, write columns. Their articles can be found at DickMorris.com and HillaryDaily.com.

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