DNC Superdelegate Jimmy Carter criticizes Hillary’s work as U.S. Secretary of State

Former President Jimmy Carter, who, by virtue of being a former president and a member of the Democratic Party, is a superdelegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, did not endorse a presidential candidate, but he did criticize one of the two Democratic presidential candidates who are currently seeking the party’s nomination on foreign policy:

Former President Carter says Hillary Clinton “took very little action” as secretary of State to bring about peace.

Carter, 89, made the remark about the former secretary of State and 2016 Democratic front-runner in a phone interview with Time magazine Wednesday night after he spoke at the Civil Rights Summit in Austin, Texas.

[…]

“In this occasion, when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State, she took very little action to bring about peace. It was only John Kerry’s coming into office that reinitiated all these very important and crucial issues,” he said.

Carter isn’t the only person to bring Hillary’s foreign policy credentials into question. President Barack Obama, who is also an officially-neutral DNC superdelegate by virtue of being the incumbent president and a Democrat, recently said that he thought that his biggest mistake as president was the 2011 military intervention in Libya by U.S./NATO and other pro-NATO coalition forces. While it removed brutal dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power, the military intervention in Libya left Libya politically unstable and mired in a civil war. Also, let’s not forget that Hillary has publicly hailed her role in the military intervention in Libya as one of her chief accomplishments as U.S. Secretary of State.

If you want a real champion of peace in the White House, support Bernie Sanders for president!

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CONFIRMED: Hillary Clinton was actively involved with developing TPP before she was against parts of it

Since launching her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton has voiced opposition to parts of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade agreement that, if fully implemented, would undermine American sovereignty and result in thousands of American jobs being moved overseas.

However, Hillary Clinton wasn’t simply for the TPP before she was against parts of it; she was heavily involved in developing the TPP before she was against parts of it. To prove this point, International Business Times, a business news website, linked to seven leaked diplomatic cables from September 2009 to February 2010 in their report about the U.S. State Department’s role in developing TPP under Hillary Clinton. These cables outline the then-Hillary Clinton-led U.S. State Department’s involvement in developing the TPP with other countries that would be parties to the TPP if fully implemented.

In chronological order according to the timestamp on each cable, here are the cables outlining how Hillary Clinton’s U.S. State Department was involved with the development of the TPP:

• September 18, 2009 – New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser “expressed his firm belief that the U.S. Administration would move forward on expanding multilateral trade when the timing is right”.
• September 30, 2009 – Then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg “was interested in moving beyond” the current bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Vietnam. Additionally, Then-Vietnamese Vice Foreign Minister (now-Vietnamese Foreign Minister) Pham Binh Minh complained that the U.S. was “too protective” regarding international trade.
• November 27, 2009 – Then-U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats visited Japan on November 16 and 17, 2009, and his visit was viewed by Japanese officials as “a strong sign of the importance the United States attaches to the U.S.-Japan economic relationship”. However, Japan was “not ready to join a broad regional trade agreement due to sensitivities over agriculture” at the time.
• December 22, 2009 – Then-U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak hosted a dinner for representatives of would-be TPP member countries, and said representatives “inquired about the goals and objectives of the United States at the upcoming Melbourne (Australia) meeting March 15-19, including the shape and content of the agreement to make it a 21st century agreement, timing, and rules for new members”. Michalak was only mentioned by last name at the very end of the diplomatic cable and was never mentioned by first name in any part of the cable.
• January 6, 2010 – Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand requested “an additional officer in the Political/Economic Section” for, among other purposes, “allow the Economics Officer to focus on preparations for Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations”.
• January 28, 2010 – Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia advised Then-U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis, who was referred to as an ambassador in the cable, on strategies for convincing Malaysia to join the TPP, including advising Marantis to “highlight the priority the Administration is giving to the Trans Pacific Partnership initiative, and the role that the TPP will play in promoting economic competitiveness and trade opportunities in the region”.
• February 19, 2010 – Then-U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Frankie Reed engaged with New Zealand officials “on a wide range of topics including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)”, and Mark Sinclair, New Zealand’s chief negotiator for the TPP, stated that the New Zealand government “views the TPP as a platform for future trade integration in the Asia Pacific (region)”.

The Deputy Secretary of State, Undersecretary of State, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, U.S. Ambassadors, and U.S. Embassies are all part of the U.S. State Department, both when Hillary Clinton was the head of the State Department, as well as today.

If you needed proof that Hillary Clinton’s recent opposition to parts of the TPP is purely political expediency, there it is. Her U.S. State Department has played a key role in developing the TPP, and that’s something that, as much as she wants to, she can’t deny.

George W. Bush-appointed Secretary of State Colin Powell also used personal email address illegally

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is an update to a blog post I wrote earlier today about the Hillary Clinton State Department email scandal.

Hillary Clinton isn’t the only one who apparently violated federal record-keeping laws by using a personal email address for official correspondence while our nation’s top diplomat.

When Republican George W. Bush was President and Colin Powell was U.S. Secretary of State, Powell had a virtually identical email policy to the one that Hillary used when she was Secretary of State, in which Powell used a personal email account for official State Department correspondence:

Who is the first Secretary of State to have an actual “.gov” email account? Ah, that would be current Secretary of State John Kerry. This is a fact and it can’t be disputed.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell used his personal email account during his tenure. According to the State Department, then-Secretary Condoleezza Rice didn’t use email to communicate with her staff. How transparent of her. These are facts and they can’t be disputed.

(emphasis mine)

That’s right…Secretaries of State appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, George W. Bush-appointed Secretary Colin Powell and Barack Obama-appointed Secretary Hillary Clinton, have apparently violated federal record-keeping laws by using a personal email address for official State Department correspondence. Despite that, the right-wing corporate news media is attacking Hillary over this and not mentioning the fact that Powell had a virtually identical email policy when he was at the helm of the State Department.

Earlier today, I called for the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation to determine whether or not Hillary Clinton violated federal laws, and, if she did, file charges against her and prosecute her. Now, I’m also calling for the Justice Department to investigate, and, if he violated federal laws, file charges against and prosecute, Colin Powell as well.

Why I’m calling for the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation against Hillary Clinton

The New York Times is reporting that then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Republican Wing of the Democratic Party’s preferred presidential candidate in the upcoming presidential election, used a personal email account to conduct official U.S. State Department business during her four-year tenure as head of the State Department, possibly in violation of federal record-keeping laws:

Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.

It appears to me that Hillary Clinton violated federal law by using a personal email address to conduct official correspondence without having the emails preserved on government servers. The U.S. Justice Department should launch a criminal investigation to determine whether or not Hillary violated federal record-keeping laws, and, if so, file appropriate criminal charges against Hillary and prosecute her to the fullest and fairest extent. Additionally, Bernie Sanders should run for the Democratic presidential nomination and attack Hillary over her use of a personal email account for government correspondence.