Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Hillary Faces the Press

Foom Bloomberg News:

For the first time in a month, Hillary Clinton took questions from reporters Tuesday, saying she wants e-mails that are at the heart of a controversy on Capitol Hill released as soon as possible.
"I want them out as soon as they can get out," she said. 
The brief session with reporters followed a roundtable in Iowa, where she was asked about another question dogging her campaign: where she stands on the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement. She said she's withholding judgement until she sees the final deal.

Clinton's comments come after 29 days in which she took no questions from the press, a stretch that earned criticism from potential Republican rivals and also the media. Even one Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, urged her to hold a news conference.
 
Her request for a quick release of the emails, sent from a personal server while she was secretary of state and turned over to the State Department when their existence was revealed, coincided with a federal district court judge ordering the department to move more quickly on their release.
 
So far, fewer than 300 of some 30,000 emails have been turned over to congressional investigators. The State Department has proposed a review that could take until January. But U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, rejected that on Tuesday afternoon, telling the department to release the emails more quickly, as soon as they are reviewed.
 
In Iowa, Clinton told reporters that she wants a faster release schedule too, expressing a hope that the agency she once headed will "please move as quickly as they possibly can."
 
She also addressed questions over the appropriateness of her e-mail exchanges with Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime associate, about Libya while she was secretary of state.
 
"When you're in the public eye, when you're in an official position, I think you do have to work to make sure you're not caught in a bubble and you only hear from a certain small group of people," she said. "I'm going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are." 

12 comments:

  1. 2016 Mick, that's as soon as possible. Probably be Thanksgiving after the election still in 2016.

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  2. Replies
    1. Still 2016 as committed to.

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    2. Were there any questions directly relevant to the Benghazi affair and has the Congressional hearing died a natural death as yet? Does anyone honestly believe a Politician as experienced as HRC would leave herself open to accusations of dishonesty? I remember the layers of Teflon coating sticking to this family even tougher that that sticking to the Kennedy clan. Perhaps there is a time line here designed to inflict the most pain during the campaign.

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    3. K,
      the party continues:
      More questions were raised Tuesday after The New York Times published emails showing she may have had a second personal email address, despite claims she only used one as secretary of state.

      During the Tuesday court hearing, a federal judge gave the State Department a week to craft a schedule for releasing the records, according to Vice News lawyer Jeffrey Light.

      The agency made its initial proposal in a federal court filing Monday night, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Vice News.

      In the filing, John F. Hackett, who is responsible for the department's responses to FOIA requests, said that following a review of the emails, the department will post the releasable portions of the 55,000 pages on its website. He said the review will take until the end of the year -- and asked the court to adopt a completion date of Jan. 15, 2016, to factor in the holidays. That's just a couple of weeks before the Iowa caucuses and early state primaries that follow.

      In Monday night's filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Hackett said the State Department received the 55,000 pages of emails from Clinton in paper form. Aside from those, Clinton's office has deleted about 30,000 emails deemed personal.

      The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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    4. Just an opinion here, if the Republicans, or Democrats for that matter, win the WH by doing nothing more than saying the other candidate sucks more than me, we will be stuck with a weak POTUS. We then will have no one to blame but ourselves for not demanding something more meaningful.

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    5. Hey Max
      How about the Blackhawks.

      It's how we ended up with the last 2 presidents.

      You are correct everyone needs to demand more and better candidates.

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    6. Whoa, that game was crazy last night! Made for a long day in clinical today. Funny thing to me is that the better team, IMO, lost on both nights. ANA won every stat last nigh except the score whereas I thought the Hawks played the overall better game in the opener. Back to Chi for two. If they somehow pull it off this year, I very big task indeed, I will do whatever it takes to go to Chicago for the parade. No where near ready to buy plane tickets yet though.

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  3. Max and Lou
    So how about forgetting the party color of the candidate; have a look and see if they truly have the interests of America front and center. If they do, then give them a go, it can certainly get better than it is now.
    Is the problem on the hill? or is it perhaps because the voters only see what the candidates as offering as freebies?. Kennedy’s words "Think not what America can do for ......" Whether from a Dem or a Repub,that message seems to have more relevance today than in the black days of the cold war. The level of accord between you both is perhaps a sign that maybe there is a rainbow somewhere.
    Cheers from Aussie
    Where by the way, the unaligned or swinging voter is a much rarer beast than in your country.

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  4. Today forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2014, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago. Republican identification is 25%, the dem's at 31%.

    The Independent voters decide who wins elections.

    p.s. Max and I tend to agree more than we disagree when it comes to some of the issues at hand. Perhaps a sign that we both tend to be centrist instead of partisan left or right.

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  5. Kingston, Max is right, both parties are playing a "elect us because we aren't as bad a them" game. Very little substance yet. Maybe we will get a better idea of where they all stand when the debates start. Saying that Hillary is a crook or that the Republican field resembles a car full of clowns at the circus doesn't really move me.

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    Replies
    1. Long before the debates we should be able to decide if a candidate is viable.

      Is Jeb a viable candidate? I think not from his stated positions.
      Is Hillary a viable candidate? Guess we should wait and she what her positions are before the debates as they seem to change on a regular basis. On that basis, many call flip flopping an egregious transgression as Walker has done, she should also not be considered a viable candidate.

      But then again Walker a flip flopper is out however Hillary a flip flopper is in. It's not about the person or their position on issues how much they lie or what they bring to the country but how much they offer to people. Want free vote for me has never been more applicable unless you compare it to 2008 and 12.

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