From a natural evolution viewpoint, the likelihood of one of your ancestor using a weapon to save his life or the life of your great great grandma, contributed greatly for you to have a philosophy right now.

Donald Trump’s big tent

The GOP should stop fooling itself. Trump is reaching more than just undereducated, angry white men.








Republicans explain away their unwelcome poll-leader by dismissing his supporters as a loud but narrow network of angry white men and celebrity chasers.

It’s not true. A POLITICO review of private and public polling data and interviews with GOP pollsters shows a coalition that certainly begins with conservative, blue-collar men now extends to pro-choice Republicans, independents and even registered Democrats unnerved, primarily, by illegal immigration.

Indeed, the uncomfortable truth, for the pundits and fellow Republicans who turned their noses up at Trump, is that his appeal has spread over seven months so far beyond a rabble-rousing, anti-establishment rump to encompass the very elements of the American electorate the GOP has been eager to reach. And while it’s no majority, it’s a bigger group than anything the rest of the fragmented Republican field has galvanized.

“His coalition is not all angry working white males,” said Adrian Gray, a Republican pollster. “It’s all stripes. It’s a pretty big coalition. And among other demographics where he’s doing worse, he’s still leading or in the top two.”

Certainly, non-college-educated men have formed his base. Every one of 10 recent Iowa, New Hampshire, and national polls of Republicans shows Trump with more male support than female support and significantly more support from non-college graduates than those with degrees.

Trump’s robust performance with this group, however, has deflected attention from the breadth of his coalition. Though Trump has less support with women and educated men, he’s still at or near the top of the GOP field in those categories. And, exposing the depth of the GOP establishment’s misunderstanding of Trump’s support network, his coalition includes far-right conservatives as well as people who hardly register on Republican radar.

Trump’s supporters skewed significantly against the GOP grain on abortion, for instance, in an internal poll of Iowa caucus-goers conducted for a rival presidential contender last summer. Respondents who identified themselves as “pro-choice” were three times more likely than “pro-life” voters to support Trump, according to a Republican strategist with knowledge of the survey.

One large dataset shows Trump excelling above all with voters who call themselves Republicans even though they aren’t officially registered as Republicans.

Civis Analytics, a Democratic data firm founded by veterans of President Barack Obama’s campaigns, built a model based on over 11,000 phone interviews with self-identified Republicans in 2015, part of a wider polling project. The data, first reported by The New York Times, shows Trump getting the support of 29 percent of registered Republicans but 36 percent of registered independents and 43 percent of registered Democrats, who in some states can still participate in GOP primaries.

The Civis data projects Trump’s support by congressional district, showing that Trump is especially strong in the rare pockets of the country where Obama performed worse while winning the 2008 presidential election than John Kerry did while losing in 2004, according to a POLITICO analysis.

In the Civis’ model, Trump runs ahead of his 33-percent national average in 30 of the 40 districts where Kerry matched or exceeded Obama’s performance, even though Obama ran about 5 points ahead of Kerry nationally.

Those districts are largely contained in a band running through Appalachia, from Pennsylvania to Tennessee, and then across the Deep South to Arkansas and Oklahoma. Once Democratic strongholds, voters there have sloughed off the party in recent decades — a trend that accelerated rapidly under Obama. Now, Trump is giving a voice to some of their protectionist concerns about immigration and trade.

“Essentially, the old base of the Democratic Party, non-college whites in the Midwest and Appalachia, have been cut loose and are floating like an iceberg in the middle of the electorate,” said one Republican strategist supporting another presidential candidate. “And they’ve glommed onto the Republicans because it’s a two-party system. But they have no affection for the Republican Party as an institution.”

Now, they form a key piece of the Trump puzzle.

The pro-Trump crowd’s varied background is matched by equally diverse reasons for supporting him. But even though it has faded in intensity as an issue since Trump burst on the political scene this summer with an incendiary announcement speech, immigration is still driving a core base of voters into Trump’s camp.

In WBUR’s most recent poll of the New Hampshire primary, Trump’s favorability numbers jumped from 46 percent overall to 62 percent among those who said that illegal immigration posed a “major threat” to “you and people you know.” While 27 percent of all respondents said they plan to vote for Trump in New Hampshire’s February primary, his support rose to 35 percent among the GOP voters most concerned about immigration.


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-supporters-big-tent-217481#.2gym7mj:wZ3k

Rasmussen Reports
Trump Change: More Voters Than Ever See Trump As Eventual GOP Nominee


Friday, January 08, 2016

Belief among Republicans that Donald Trump will be the next GOP presidential nominee now ties its highest level ever, and among all likely voters, more than ever agree.

The first Rasmussen Reports Trump Change national telephone survey of the new year finds that 74% of Likely Republican Voters think the billionaire businessman is likely to be their nominee in 2016, with 31% who say it is Very Likely. Just 23% disagree, and that includes only 11% who say it is Not At All Likely.

Among all likely voters, 61% now say Trump is likely to be the official Republican presidential candidate, with 24% who think it is Very Likely.


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/trump_change

Overflow Crowd for Donald Trump in Bernie Sanders’s Backyard







BURLINGTON, Vt. — Donald J. Trump touched down in one of America’s most progressive cities Thursday night, bringing the bombastic message that has captivated Republican voters into the backyard of a Democratic opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The visit came as the billionaire real estate mogul has made a point of broadening his focus beyond the early primary states, showcasing his popularity with packed rallies from Mississippi to Massachusetts, and now Vermont — a onetime Republican bastion that is now one of the most solid liberal states in the nation.

The choice of venue seemed curious to some, but Thursday’s rally served multiple purposes for the Trump campaign: needling Mr. Sanders in his own neighborhood; garnering attention in nearby New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first primary next month; and showing that the candidate can attract big crowds in a Democratic haven.

“They’re afraid to come up here because it has a tendency to be a little bit liberal, a little bit rough,” Mr. Trump said of his Republican rivals. “When you look at the candidates, I’m like the only one.”


A circuslike atmosphere greeted Mr. Trump as many more people tried to get into the event than the Flynn Center for Performing Arts could hold. A brass band played as demonstrators protested outside, and many waited hours to get into the rally, with organizers turning away activists who said they supported Mr. Sanders.

While much of Mr. Trump’s ire during the campaign has been directed at Hillary and Bill Clinton and Senator Ted Cruz as the voting nears, he has not hesitated to show his disdain for the policies of Mr. Sanders, whose socialist views he frequently derides. Thursday night was no different, as he accused Mr. Sanders of wanting to raise taxes sharply and called him a weakling for allowing Black Lives Matter activists to commandeer one of his rallies last year.

“Oh, I would love to run against Bernie,” Mr. Trump said to cheers. “That would be a dream come true.”

Offering a backhanded welcome ahead of his visit, Mr. Sanders said that he hoped some of Vermont’s progressive values might rub off on Mr. Trump. He also called Mr. Trump “a pathological liar.”

He added, “He just says things that have no basis in fact.”

While Mr. Sanders has said that he thinks his economic message could be appealing to Mr. Trump’s backers, Mr. Trump has also been promoting his potential to appeal to Democrats despite his criticism of the party’s leadership and policies.

In recent weeks, backers of Mr. Trump have even started a “ditch and switch” movement, urging Democrats and independents to join the Republican Party so that they can vote for Mr. Trump in primary elections.

On Thursday, many who waited to hear Mr. Trump speak said they thought he and Mr. Sanders have some things in common even though they sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

“I think he’s smart, and he has the best chance of winning support and maybe flipping the state,” Daniel Nadeau, 22, of St. Albans, Vt., said of Mr. Trump. “Bernie is my No. 1 choice, and Trump is No. 2. They’re not that different.”

Voters who were on the fence between the seemingly polar opposite candidates said both communicated well with working-class people and made strong cases for how they would improve the economy.

“I’m a Trump guy, but I do like Bernie,” said Peter Vincenzo, 59, who works installing hardwood floors and traveled from Ohio for the rally. “There are a lot of parallels between these two guys. There’s a populist appeal that comes with both of them.”

Mr. Trump’s visit brought a whirlwind of disruption to Burlington. To prevent supporters of Mr. Sanders from stealing the show, he released 20,000 tickets to a rally with a venue that holds just 1,400, leaving many out in the cold. Blocks of Burlington’s main corridor were shut as protesters held silent vigils and flooded the sidewalk and part of a nearby park waving anti-Trump signs.

One person who was did not make it into the event was Beth Griffin, 47, a letter carrier from Burlington, who stood with the group of demonstrators on Thursday night. She had reserved a ticket, but scrawled a peace sign and a heart on it instead of trying to get into the venue, hoping to quietly show her displeasure with Mr. Trump.

The line to get into the venue, she said, “is like nothing I’ve ever seen in Burlington.”

“Not for Phish, not on Free Cone Day, nothing,” she said, referring to the band and to the annual occasion when Ben and Jerry’s give out free ice cream.

Earlier in the day, even Ben Cohen, a co-founder of the iconic ice cream chain, got into protesting spirit as he walked down the street with a lit-up Sanders campaign sign.

“Trump is here in our backyard, and we want to make it clear that we are dyed-in-the-wool Bernie people,” Mr. Cohen said.

Despite the Trump campaign’s best efforts to filter out anyone who was not a fan of the candidate, protesters interrupted his remarks every few minutes during a meandering speech that lasted more than an hour.

Among promises to build a wall along the southern border, an explanation of how he plans to negotiate with Iran and a call to end gun-free zones in schools, Mr. Trump scolded protesters and told security to “get them out.” Supporters shook Trump signs as people were whisked away, creating a chaotic scene that belied the setting of a formal theater with gilded walls and a red curtain.

Through it all, Mr. Trump seemed amused, expressing pride in the fact that his events were not boring — as he said those of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton were — while showing little sympathy for his critics.

“Don’t give him his coat,” Mr. Trump said as one man who spoke out against him was removed from the theater. “Take the coat. Confiscate the coat. It’s about 10 degrees below freezing outside.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/politics/overflow-crowd-for-donald-trump-in-bernie-sanderss-backyard.html


 

Who is your ideal next POTUS, beside sanders?

Harpy clinton has the potential to go to jail for a long, long time too... She is running out of time.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1026037.msg13486317#msg13486317

Hillary Will Be Indicted, Says Former U.S. Attorney






A former U.S. Attorney predicts a Watergate-style showdown in the Department of Justice if Attorney General Loretta Lynch overrules a potential FBI recommendation to indict Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“The [FBI] has so much information about criminal conduct by her and her staff that there is no way that they walk away from this,” Joseph diGenova, formerly the District of Columbia’s U.S. Attorney, told Laura Ingraham in a Tuesday radio interview. “They are going to make a recommendation that people be charged and then Loretta Lynch is going to have the decision of a lifetime.

“I believe that the evidence that the FBI is compiling will be so compelling that, unless [Lynch] agrees to the charges, there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an attorney general. It will be like Watergate. It will be unbelievable.”


http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/07/hillary-clinton-will-be-indicted-says-former-us-attorney/

Obama on "Conspiracy" To Take Away Guns: "The United States Was Born Suspicious Of Some Distant Authority"


MARK KELLY: Often what you hear in the debate of expanding background checks to more gun sales, and, as you know, Gabby and I are 100% behind the concept of somebody getting a background check before buying a gun.

But, when we testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we heard not only from the gun lobby, but from United States Senators that expanding background checks will, not may, will lead to a registry, which will lead to confiscation, which will lead to a tyrannical government.

So, I would like you to explain with 350 million guns in 65 million places, households, from Key West, to Alaska, 350 million objects in 65 million places, if the Federal government wanted to confiscate those objects, how would they do that? (APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Well, look, first of all, everytime I see Gabby I'm just so thrilled because I visited her in the hospital, and, as I mentioned, I think, in the speech in the White House, as we left the hospital then to go to a memorial service, we got word that Gabby had opened her eyes for the first time.

And, we did not think she was going to be here, and she is, and Mark's just been extraordinary.

And, by the way, Mark's twin brothers up in space right now, and is breaking the record for the longest continuous orbiting of the planet, which is pretty impressive stuff.

What I think Mark is alluding to is what I said earlier, this notion of a conspiracy out there, and it gets wrapped up in concerns about the Federal government.

Now, there's a long history of that, that's in our DNA, you know? The United States was born suspicious of some distant authority...

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: ... now, let me just jump in here, is it fair to call it a conspiracy...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: ... well, yeah...

COOPER: ... because a lot of people really believe this deeply, that they just don't...

OBAMA: ... no...

COOPER: ... they just don't trust you.

OBAMA: I'm sorry, Cooper, yes. It is fair to call the conspiracy, what are you saying? Are you suggesting that the notion that we are creating a plot to take everybody's guns away so that we can impose martial law...

COOPER: ... not everybody, but there's certainly a lot of...

OBAMA: ... but a conspiracy? Yes, that is a conspiracy! I would hope that would agree with that.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Is that controversial? Except on some website...

COOPER: There are -- there are certainly a lot of people who just have a fundamental distrust that you do not want to get -- go further and further and further down this road.

OBAMA: Well, look, I mean, I'm only going to be here for another year. I don't know -- when -- when would I have started on this enterprise, right? I come from the state of Illinois, which we've been talking about

Chicago, but downstate Illinois is closer to Kentucky than it is to Chicago. And everybody hunts down there. And a lot of folks own guns. And so this is not, like, alien territory to me. I've got a lot of friends, like Mark, who are hunters. I just came back from Alaska where I ate a moose that had just been shot, and it was pretty good.

So, yes, it is -- it is a false notion that I believe is circulated for either political reasons or commercial reasons in order to prevent a coming-together among people of goodwill to develop commonsense rules that will make us safer while preserving the Second Amendment.

And the notion that we can't agree on some things while not agreeing on others, and the reason for that is because, "Well, the president secretly wants to do X," would mean that we'd be paralyzed about doing everything. I mean, maybe when I propose to make sure that, you know, unsafe drugs are taken off the market that secretly I'm trying to control the entire drug industry or take people's drugs away, but probably not. What's more likely is I just want to make sure that people are not dying by taking bad drugs.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/01/07/obama_on_conspiracy_to_take_away_guns_the_united_states_was_born_suspicious_of_some_distant_authority.html



----------------------------------------------
There is one constant element with 0bama since day one as a US president: he is a liar.

If he continues to improve you doubt he will win against harpy clinton?

SEIU chief says Trump can win


The head of the Service Employees International Union is worried about what Donald Trump is stirring up in her 2.1 million members, because she thinks he can win.

In an interview with David Axelrod out Thursday, Mary Kay Henry said her organization is going into “hyperdrive” to stand up against Trump because she sees him as a real threat.

Henry compared Trump to former California Gov. Pete Wilson who supported Proposition 226, a measure strongly opposed by unions that would have required them to get approval from individual members to spend their dues on political campaigns.

“This ad that Trump released today is horrific in my mind and reminds me of Pete Wilson in California on Proposition 226,” Henry said, likely referring to Trump's first TV ad talking about building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

"But Pete Wilson won,” Axelrod said.

"I know. I know. That’s why I think this is a very dangerous political moment in our country,” Henry said. She added that she thinks Trump appeals to some of her members because of the “terrible anxiety” some people in the working class are experiencing.

“I think he’s touching this vein of the terrible anxiety that working-class people feel about their current status, but more importantly, how terrified they are for their kids not being able to do as well as they have, never mind doing better,” Henry said. “ You know, so that broken sense of the future and that emotion having an easier appeal to fear than to what’s possible is what we found is why — we’re doing one-on-ones with every one of our members right now in this period because 64 percent of our public members identify as conservative and are much more interested in the Republican debate than the Democratic debate at this moment.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-seiu-mary-kay-henry-217445

Law Enforcement Officials, Medical Professionals: There’s Something Seriously Wrong With Hillary Clinton’s Health





Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s disappearance from the debate stage last month left people speculating that the former First Lady took a long bathroom break, but now a law-enforcement source with inside connections is alleging that Clinton was missing from the stage due to health issues stemming from a previous brain injury.


These long-lasting symptoms stemming from a concussion and blood clot, according to a neurologist, suggest Clinton is suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which can severely impact her cognitive abilities.

All that said, however, Clinton’s campaign maintained to Breitbart News that she is in good health and can serve as President of the United States.

“Strong source just told me something I suspected. Hillary’s debate ‘bathroom break’ wasn’t that, but flare up of problems from brain injury,” wrote John Cardillo on Twitter.

Cardillo, who previously worked as an officer who provided VIP security details for the New York Police Department (NYPD), told Breitbart News that he knows of two additional sources who have commented about Clinton’s health problems, which have even impacted her ability to walk to her car after delivering a speech.

“I got this from both a [federal agent] … and I also got it from a New York [NYPD] guy who worked security at a Hillary event in New York City,” Cardillo told Breitbart News, adding:

    These are two people that aren’t just personal friends. I worked with one and then post law-enforcement worked with another on some related things. So, these aren’t anonymous people. These are good friends. Both of them told me the same thing, that after her speeches, whether she did a talk or a policy speech, she had to sit behind – she would come off the podium backstage – and have to sit and rest before making it back to the car because she was so fatigued, dizzy and disoriented.

Cardillo said these two security officials don’t know each other and do not live in the same state, but “their stories were almost identical.”

One of the men told him that Clinton was “very pale, kind of disoriented. He said she looked like she was about to faint. She was very pale, almost sweaty.”

Cardillo said one of the incidents occurred while she was Secretary of State. The event worked by the NYPD official was roughly a year ago.

Veteran Republican strategist Roger Stone, who previously worked with GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, told Breitbart News that he has also heard about Clinton’s long-term health problems.

“A number of New York Democrats, very prominent, well-known, wealthy New York Democrats, told me last year that Hillary had very significant health issues and that they were surprised that she was running in view of her health problems and her lack of stamina,” Stone told Breitbart News. “So far, she’s run a very controlled campaign,”


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/06/law-enforcement-officials-medical-professionals-theres-something-seriously-wrong-hillary-clintons-health/

... And german girls are getting the raping seeds...


 

Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf… New Year’s Migrant Sex Assault In Every Major German City






German capital city Berlin has joined the sad parade of cities touched by migrant sex violence on New Year’s Eve, with hundreds of assaults now reported to police in Cologne and other cities.


Although on a smaller scale to the unrestrained and un-policed sex attacks in Cologne, the Berliner Morgenpost has now reported on assaults taking place on the street “in front of the Brandenburg gate”.

The revelation may prove difficult for the German media, which until now has stressed in most reports on the new year’s rapes that Berlin was not caught up in the scandal.

The paper reports four separate incidents around the cite, including a tourist being sexually assaulted by a group of “three to five men”, and two women being “sexually harassed” by men from Pakistan and Iraq.

Another woman came forward to police on Tuesday following national press coverage of the migrant rape scandal to report being “touched” at a music event by “several immoral men”.

More analagous to the Cologne attacks were events in Hamburg, where groups of “southern or Arab appearance” men aged between 20 and 40 sexually assaulted dozens of women.

Police have recieved 53 complaints of harrasment relating to new year’s eve so far, including 39 of sexual harassment. One 19 year old girl identified by the pseudonym of ‘Lotta’ went out to celebrate the new year in a ‘chic’ dress and high heels.

Spiegel reports their comments when they related while walking between two clubs, they were warned by a bouncer not to go down a particular street, to do so “would be your death”. Despite the warning Lotta and her girlfriends walked down the road but became separated by the men. She said: “I was suddenly alone… 20 to 30 men were standing around me… every time a hand went away, already arrived the next… I felt helpless”.

Having been assaulted under her dress, her hair pulled, and finally thrown to the ground, Lotta met up with her friends, who had all been treated similarly by other groups of men. The girl told Spiegel she thought they were “foreign origin”.

In Stuttgart two 18 year old women were assaulted and robbed by a gang of 15 men reports the Stuttgarter Zeitung, as well as an unspecified number of other “mostly young women” victims. The state prosecutor warned against making comparisons between Stuttgart and Cologne, remarkng “The incidents in both cities vary greatly in their dimensions”.

Düsseldorf saw at least eleven sexual assaults in the historic city centre by “North African” men. In contrast to Stuttgart a police source here was less reticent to admit the scale of the problem, admitting “The nature of the offenses with which is comparable in Cologne”.

Breitbart London was the first English language news site to report on the Cologne sex attacks this week, the events having been obscured by German news media until large numbers of women coming forward to report rapes and sexual abuse and on-line discussion forced events.


http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/06/berlin-cologne-hamburg-stuttgart-dusseldorf-new-years-migrant-sex-assault-every-major-german-city/

Can you point those rules via a link right here? Thank you in advance...

Bill Clinton rape accuser: Hillary 'tried to silence' me


A woman who publicly accused former President Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978 is resurrecting her claims on social media.

“I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me,” Juanita Broaddrick tweeted Wednesday.

“Hillary tried to silence me,” she wrote of Bill Clinton’s wife and the current Democratic presidential front-runner.  “I am now 73…it never goes away.”

    I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73....it never goes away.
    — Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 6, 2016

The Hill reached a woman by phone in Van Buren, Ark., on Wednesday who identified herself as Broaddrick. She said the Twitter account is hers.

Broaddrick said she set the account up in 2009 but hasn’t used it much since because she’s unfamiliar with Twitter.

The former nursing home administrator alleged in 1999 that Bill Clinton raped her in Little Rock, Ark., during his 1978 gubernatorial campaign.

In a brief interview, Broaddrick, who said she retired after selling her nursing home business in 2008, said she’s decided to play a more visible role heading into 2016.

“I’ve been quiet for too long, and now with the possibility of [Hillary Clinton] being the Democratic nominee and possibly president, I feel the need to get involved,” she said.

Broaddrick said that she doesn’t describe herself as Republican or Democrat, but is supporting Donald Trump for president.

“He says the things I like to hear,” Broaddrick said.

She lauded Trump for broaching the issue of Bill Clinton’s past marital infidelities and allegations of sexual assault.

“I’m glad someone did. Everyone has been hanging back and most of the mainstream media won’t approach it but it’s something that should be talked about.”

David E. Kendall, the Clinton’s then-personal attorney, strongly denied Broaddrick's charges when they first emerged during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

“Any allegation that the president assaulted Ms. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false,” he said in a statement released by the White House in February 1999, according to The Washington Post.

“Beyond that we are not going to comment,” the attorney added then.


http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/264988-bill-clinton-rape-accuser-hillary-tried-to-silence-me

State Department gave ‘inaccurate’ answer on Clinton email use, review says




Two years before the public learned of Hillary Clinton’s private server, the State Department gave an “inaccurate and incomplete” response about her email use when it told an outside group that it had no documents about Clinton’s email accounts beyond her government address, according to a report from the State Department’s inspector general to be released Thursday.

The State Department made its statement in response to a 2012 records request from the independent watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The response came even though Clinton’s chief of staff, who knew about the secretary’s private account, was aware of the inquiry, the report says. In addition, the IG review found that agency staffers had not searched Clinton’s office for emails.

The incident was one of four cases that the report highlights as examples of flawed responses to public-records requests made while Clinton was in office. The report found it was part of a long-standing problem stretching back through previous administrations.

Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system, which became public in March 2015, led to an FBI investigation into whether her unusual arrangement had compromised national secrets.

After a firestorm of controversy, Clinton’s email practice has become more muted as a campaign issue in recent months as she has maintained her status as the Democratic presidential front-runner.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responded to reporters in Las Vegas on Tuesday over the controversy surrounding her personal e-mail server. Clinton reiterated that she did not send or receive any classified material from her personal account. (AP)

But the new report demonstrates the potential peril Clinton still faces over the issue. In addition to the FBI probe, the State Department inspector general, Steve Linick, indicated that his work is not done.

His office is preparing an additional report that could touch even more directly on Clinton’s conduct — examining the use of personal email and its effect on the department’s compliance with its duty to preserve records.

Pointing to the report’s broad conclusions about weak records management, State Department officials concurred with the inspector general’s findings and recommendations to boost staff, training, procedures and oversight.

“The Department is committed to transparency, and the issues addressed in this report have the full attention of Secretary Kerry and the Department’s senior staff,” said spokesman John Kirby, referring to Clinton’s successor, John F. Kerry. “We know we must continue to improve our FOIA responsiveness and are taking additional steps to do so.”

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said, “The Department had a preexisting process in place to handle the tens of thousands of requests it received annually, and that established process was followed by the Secretary and her staff throughout her tenure.”

The report said that some seeking records from the secretary’s office have had to wait more than 500 days to get replies. The secretary’s office lacked any written procedures for handling records requests and had no senior official in charge of overseeing the work, the report says.

Of 417 records requests made from the era of Madeleine K. Albright to the present, 243 are still open and pending.

The inquiry found that the secretary’s office almost never searched its own email in ­public-records requests before 2011. From 2011 to 2015, the secretary’s office inconsistently searched office emails as it saw fit.

The 2012 request by CREW was sparked by the discovery that Lisa Jackson, then-administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, had been using an alias email at work with the name “Richard Windsor,” largely for personal communication.

CREW filed a public-records request with the State Department that month for “records sufficient to show the number of email accounts of or associated with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Staff soon after alerted Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, to CREW’s request. The inspector general found that Mills tasked a member of her staff to follow up on the request. In May 2013 — four months after Clinton left office — the State Department told CREW that “no records responsive to your request were located.”

The IG report cited no evidence that Mills intervened in the CREW inquiry or approved the final response — only that she knew about the request and wanted a close aide to keep track of it.

A lawyer for Mills did not respond to a request for comment.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of CREW at the time, said Wednesday that the findings showed the agency should have known its response was wrong.

“Cheryl Mills should have corrected the record,” Sloan said. “She knew this wasn’t a complete and full answer.”

Fallon, noting that the report found no sign that Mills reviewed the CREW records response, said Mills “did absolutely nothing wrong.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-clinton-led-state-department-gave-inaccurate-answer-on-email-use/2016/01/06/da01edf8-b4a1-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html