Re: MAGAchud bringing up Clinton's emails when Trump's mishandling of classified documents is brought up.It's whataboutism. You should know what that is since you whine about it all the time.
Actually I wouldn't even characterize Clinton's emails as "whataboutism". To me whataboutism involves bringing up something of roughly equal impact (such as "you kicked me in the shin"... "Well what about when you stepped on my foot?")
A whataboutism would be "Clinton's Emails"... "Well what about when Kushner used private emails for government business?"
From:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/21/705561586/kushner-used-private-email-to-conduct-official-business-house-committee-saysJared Kushner's attorney told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that Kushner uses private messaging applications and personal email to communicate about official White House matters... The oversight panel said that Kushner, the president's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, had been using WhatsApp as part of his official duties — an apparent violation of a law governing White House records.You see, those 2 situations are roughly equivalent.
On the other hand, Trump's mishandling of classified documents is MUCH more serious than anything that Clinton is done. Bringing up Clinton's emails in response to Trump's document theft is like someone responding to "you blew up a schoolbus full of children" with "but what about when you farted in an elevator?"
Here is why Trump's actions are much more significant and Clinton's private email server is irrelevant....
1) The scale of the issue
Yes, Clinton had a private email server. And yes, there were some sensitive documents on it. But, context is important... In some cases, documents were classified only AFTER they were on her server. In other cases, the documents were not properly marked. In some cases, classification was rather broad (where discussion of stuff already available to the public is still considered sensitive). Plus, in some cases documents were sent TO her, so the blame belongs with the sender rather than the recipient.
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversyNews reports by NBC and CNN indicated that the emails discussed "innocuous" matters already available in the public domain. For example, the CIA drone program has been widely discussed in the public domain since the early 2000s; however, the existence of the program is technically classified, so sharing a newspaper article that mentions it would constitute a security breach, according to the CIA.On the other hand, Trump had many many more government documents. And unlike the case of Clinton, it was a) obvious that many documents were classified (given the markings on them), and b) he and his minions actually had to manually go and collect/pack said documents
2) Why they had them
The clinton email issue occurred when Clinton was actually working for the state department. Even if she were not as careful as she should have been with the documents, at least she had a reason to have access to them.
And why did she have a private server in the first place? Because at the time, the network infrastructure available at the state department was rather poor. And previous secretaries of state (including REPUBLICAN Colin Powel) were known to use private equipment/email account to do government business. Basically it allowed her to do her job better (which involved, you know, serving the U.S.).
From:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-powell-clinton-email-commentary-idUSKCN10Y1HNPowell advised Clinton to use a personal email account as an efficient way to communicate.... he did write Clinton an email after she started using her private email server, describing his limited use of a personal AOL email account.... When the rest of the world was working on PCs and using then-modern software in their offices, State clung to an old, clunky mainframe system made by the now-defunct company WANG.Why did Trump have dozens of classified documents, and hundreds of other documents that were the property of the government? Who knows. He has never given any real justification. He is no longer president, nor is he engaged in any activity on behalf of the government. There is no reason he should have had the documents, except for his own personal uses/benefit.
3) The responses
Clinton largely complied with the FBI. She turned over the server to the FBI for analysis. And... that's about it. They may be unhappy about Comey publically mentioning reopening the investigation right before the election (and they have a point, since the FBI and DoJ should avoid taking actions that affect elections unnecessarily), but that was about it. No claim of "witch hunt".
"Oh but what about the deleted emails?" I hear the MAGAchud whining. What about them? The state department allows the deletion of personal emails (they had set a 2 month retention period on the server.) And as far as I remember, at the time the FBI didn't specifically ask for those emails to be turned over at the time.
So how did Trump handle things? Well, first of all, he failed to turn over documents months ago even when presented with a subpoena. (He basically had TWO chances to "come clean", and had he actually complied, you probably wouldn't have heard anything more about classified documents at Mar a Lardo.) Then he and his lawyers lied (which is, you know, perjury/obstruction of justice) when they claimed months ago "no more documents, we turned everything over".)
And since the search warrant was executed? Trump and his minions have engaged in attacks on the FBI (calls to have them "defunded", claiming they are biased despite the fact that the head of the FBI was a Trump pick. One republican politician even suggested that FBI agents should be shot.) They claimed that they were "cooperating" and that a search warrant was unnecessary (which of course is untrue, since they had already lied when they said they "had nothing left".) They have also made multiple (and often contradictory) claims about the documents... that the FBI both planted the documents and that he had automatically declassified them (which of course is considered a lie even by former members of the Trump administration.)
So who is showing more integrity, the person who said "Might have made a mistake... here's the server so you can analyze it", or the one who cries "Witch hunt!" when he gets his hand stuck in the cookie jar (after of course claiming he never eats cookies.)
4) The end game
Clinton was investigated by the FBI. They decided that nothing that was done rose to the level that would warrant criminal prosecution.
Trump was in power for 4 years, in which he got to pick his Att. General (as well as other law enforcement individuals). Republicans also controlled both the senate and house much of that time. If Clinton was guilty, they would have had plenty of time to investigate and press charges. Yet... nothing. Either Trump and his administration are totally incompetent in prosecuting what should be an obvious crime (in which case, why would anyone want them in power?) or Clinton isn't really "a criminal".
Compare that to Trump. It is true that he hasn't YET been charged with a crime. But the investigation has only been going on for less than a year, and he is ALREADY at greater danger of getting indicted than Clinton ever was.
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So no, bringing up Clinton's emails when talking about Trump's document theft isn't "whataboutism"... its a distraction from someone who doesn't have anything useful to say.
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