New York Times alters Clinton email story

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Politico

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive report about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.

Read more: http://www.politico.com//blogs/media/2015/07/new-york-times-alters-clinton-email-story-211176.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. CYA language.

Somebody probably pointed out to an editor that it's possible Clinton allowed others to access her email, so the mere fact that something happened in her account doesn't mean she's the one that did it.

[Android3.14]

2. Passive voice in a headline and the lede?

Bad newspaper! Bad!

I should beat you with a rolled up puppy dog.

[Beauregard]

12. LOL.

[tularetom]

28. Mistakes were made

And up was fucked.

[Botany]

3. made up bullshit .... Hillary's emails, Behghazi, Swift Boats for Truth, and on and on

wake up and smell the Rove ..... the right wing and the media will use this email horse
crap to push the "Can Hillary be trusted" meme.

Meanwhile good old Jeb bush who helped to cheat and rig a Presidential Election in
2000 is treated as if nothing happened.

[awake]

4. "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account" is still on the table

This is not good news for Hillary and does not appear to be going away anytime soon.

[Divernan]

18. 1st they say potato, then they say potahto, but they won't call the whole thing off.

The statement was changed at the request of the Clinton campaign. From the OP link:

One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them,” Schmidt said.

More legalese parsing in the tradition of "It depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Bottom line: the criminal investigation remains on the table.

[DCBob]

5. I think they should do a inquiry and put this to rest.

I suspect they wont find any criminal intent.. just sloppiness on the part of the government and perhaps Ms Clinton.

[Evergreen Emerald]

6. The point is not to put anything to rest...there is nothing to put to rest.

The point is to continue the hype, attacks, distortions, lies until they take Clinton down.

[Lisa D]

7. ^^This^^

Republicans can read polls too. They'll do anything and everything to bring down the front runner.

[cosmicone]

23. It's not just the republicans .. some on DU as well... just saying.... n/t

[uhnope]

24. you know this how?

[freshwest]

46. Many updates debunking it. Even the NYT retracted their story. This is a 'Sorry, no cigar' thing. nt

[uhnope]

49. No, there was no retraction. Let's stick to the meaning of words.

The NY Times did change the story in a pretty clumsy way, but that's not a retraction, which is a different animal altogether.

I don't understand this tendency to strongly assert something that is not at all provable--that there's nothing there so let's not investigate if there is something there. Obviously this is a hot potato and conservatives will not be fair at all, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem in the first place.

If Condoleeza Rice had pulled a stunt like this, I would have thought it stank to high heaven.

[freshwest]

53. Words, huh? Partial retraction with a 64-page correction vs. the thrust of the article. Bye. n/t

[jeff47]

13. Intent doesn't particularly matter here.

Intent would matter for a criminal conviction. Assuming Clinton sent an email full of classified information, to convict her the government would have to show intent to either help a foreign country or to personally profit. (There's a hole in the federal law where leaking classified to non-foreigners or "everyone" for no money is legal. The UCMJ doesn't have this hole, so Manning could be convicted.)

But this is a political campaign. "I mishandled classified information, but I technically didn't break the law" is not a very effective statement in that context.

[Evergreen Emerald]

48. There is no evidence that she mishandled classified information.

Nice, we on DU are getting so good at propaganda

[jeff47]

54. At the time that comment was written, the NYT report had not been debunked.

But hey, time is hard!

[Evergreen Emerald]

55. The basic information has been out there for months.

But, for people looking for a weapon to attack, anything will do no matter how flimsy.

[jeff47]

56. Basic information like a referral to the DoJ?

Yep, there was absolutely nothing new.

[asjr]

8. I am so sick of this crap. Do they really think HRC is dumb enough to

Benghazi herself to death? This is the sort of news that will be the downfall of the Republican party. They are the dumb ones.

[jeff47]

14. It's really easy to do.

For example, Manning leaked a ton of classified information from the State Department. So "everyone" knows what was in those documents. But those documents are still classified. So anyone with a security clearance can't talk about what's in the documents.

Situations like that make it very easy to leak something that is meaningless in the real world, but technically a security breach.

[asjr]

16. I certainly agree with you. I just am so sick of

what we as a nation have become.

[jalan48]

9. Dirty politics-that's today's game.

[Laser102]

10. No one is safe. The Republicans managed to bring the Popes poll numbers down to about 47%. THE POPE!!!

Because he talked about climate change and evangelical Christians. Not something that sets well with the pond scum. Wait, pond scum is too good for them. Maggots is better.

[Beauregard]

11. This leaves room to blame it on Huma.

Or other members of Hillary's staff.

[Divernan]

20. This would make a super episode on next season's VEEP.

[Beauregard]

15. The Times altered the story "at Hillary's request."

One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them,” Schmidt said.

http://www.politico.com//blogs/media/2015/07/new-york-times-alters-clinton-email-story-211176.html

[geek tragedy]

19. Yes, the Clinton campaign pushed back against a false and borderline libelous story

and the paper quickly made the bare minimum changes to avoid getting sued and humiliated.

[Beauregard]

21. That is a real knee slapper! :)

[geek tragedy]

22. All you do is spread rightwing talking points and engage in factually

false attacks on Democrats here.

Why?

[Kingofalldems]

32. Are you beauregard?

[candelista]

33. Who is that?

And what kind of smear are you engaging in?

[Kingofalldems]

35. Geek tragedy responded to Beauregard and you responded

as if he were posting to you. Geek tragedy did not refer to you as far as I can tell.

Speaking of smears though, this whole Hillary email thing has just fallen flat for the republicans. Don't you think?

[candelista]

39. I defended the poster against Geek's unfounded attacks.

And no, this will NOT go away, because the Rethuglipukes will make a huge issue out of it.

[Kingofalldems]

40. Along with yourself I presume.

[candelista]

41. You can presume anything you want.

I really don't give a damn.

[geek tragedy]

43. "So you can call me "rightwing" (sic) if you want to."

That's how you responded to my post accusing Beauregard of pushing rightwing talking points.

You got busted sockpuppeting.

You actually got busted sockpuppeting two days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141154772#post2

But now you're flat-out proven to be sockpuppeting.

[BooScout]

45. hmmmmm

I love Friday nights at DU.....specially when someone gets busted!

[Cha]

52. And, they're accusing the person call them on it as "..fitting right in with the Stasi"..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141154772#post2

[Cha]

50. Totally fallen Flat for the gop and anyone else who has a sad about it.

[Cha]

51. You're not the only one who has noticed. "Why?" is a good question that will probably

never be answered.

[Kingofalldems]

30. Story just fell apart. Too bad. Shucks.

[freshwest]

47. Yeah, this is a real 'knee slapper.' NYT retracted it. LOL! n/t

[still_one]

27. Not because the justice department said the story was garbage?

They might as well rehire Judy miller, and have Murdock aquire them already

[candelista]

31. The justice department certainly did not say this.

They made a slight change in the language used by the NYT to allow Hillary to blame the emails on someone else--one of her staffers. That, my friend, is lawyers at work making distinctions to get their clients off..

[still_one]

34. Bullshit

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1156533

[candelista]

36. Your link doesn't justify your epithet.

Try harder.

[still_one]

38. It won't matter you have convicted and executed

[still_one]

57. Here is another link, but I have no doubt you will continue to believe the NY Times

http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-new-york-times-emails-357246


In March, the newspaper published a highly touted article about Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account that, as I wrote in an earlier column, was wrong in its major points. The Times’s public editor defended that piece, linking to a lengthy series of regulations that, in fact, proved the allegations contained in the article were false. While there has since been a lot of partisan hullaballoo about “email-bogus-gate”—something to be expected when the story involves a political party’s presidential front-runner—the reality remained that, when it came to this story, there was no there there.

Then, on Thursday night, the Times dropped a bombshell: Two government inspectors general had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Clinton and her handling of the emails. The story was largely impenetrable, because at no point did it offer even a suggestion of what might constitute a crime. By Friday morning, the Times did what is known in the media trade as a “skin back”—the article now said the criminal referral wasn’t about Clinton but about the department’s handling of emails. Still, it conveyed no indication of what possible crime might be involved.

The story seemed to further fall apart on Friday morning when Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) issued a statement saying that he had spoken to the inspector general of the State Department and that there had been no criminal referral regarding Clinton’s email usage. Rather, Cummings said, the inspectors general for State and the intelligence community had simply notified the Justice Department—which issues the regulations on Freedom of Information Act requests—that some emails subject to FOIA review had been identified as classified when they had not previously been designated that way.

So had the Times mixed up a criminal referral—a major news event—with a notification to the department responsible for overseeing FOIA errors that might affect some documents’ release? It’s impossible to tell, because the Times story—complete with its lack of identification of any possible criminal activity—continues to mention a criminal referral.

.........

"The problem is, it is not as if the real purpose of this memo was hard to discern. Here is the subject heading: “Potential Issues Identified by the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Concerning the Department of State’s Process for the Review of Former Secretary Clinton’s Emails under the Freedom of Information Act (ESP-15-05)”

Get it? This is about the process being used by FOIA officials in reviewing former Secretary Clinton. And former government officials have nothing to do with how FOIA officials deal with requests for documentation. To jump from this fact to a conclusion that, somehow, someone thinks there is a criminal case against Clinton (the original story) requires a level of recklessness that borders on, well, criminal behavior."

[Kingofalldems]

58. Good catch.

[still_one]

59. It is a scathing article about the competence of the NY Times

from that same link this summarizes it pretty well:

"The problem is, it is not as if the real purpose of this memo was hard to discern. Here is the subject heading: “Potential Issues Identified by the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Concerning the Department of State’s Process for the Review of Former Secretary Clinton’s Emails under the Freedom of Information Act (ESP-15-05)”

Get it? This is about the process being used by FOIA officials in reviewing former Secretary Clinton. And former government officials have nothing to do with how FOIA officials deal with requests for documentation. To jump from this fact to a conclusion that, somehow, someone thinks there is a criminal case against Clinton (the original story) requires a level of recklessness that borders on, well, criminal behavior."

[Kingofalldems]

37. Boom!

Republicans not liking this one. Getting angry.

[Kingofalldems]

17. Back at it I see.

[Kingofalldems]

25. Ouch! Ouch! False.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141156399

Take this post down!!

[still_one]

26. Maybe an apology for getting it wrong, since the justice department

has come out and said the NY Times story was full of shit, just like the ny times is

[Kingofalldems]

44. Hahahaha! Looky here OP:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141156556