Hacker News Reader

Comment by HenryKissinger | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much of the documentation involved exists only on paper vs. only in digital format. Digital is easier to destroy, so there would be an incentive for WH staff managers with less than honorable motivations to avoid leaving a paper trail as much as possible.

View on HN

Top White House staff are widely reported to use WhatsApp, Telegram, and other private, non-archivable communications methods. This is illegal[0], of course, but as Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

[0] https://www.co-equal.org/guide-to-congressional-oversight/co...

> Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

Haven’t they already done so earlier when the exact same issue came up during Hillary Clinton’s private email server affair?

The abdication to of power to the Executive has been going on longer than that. Personal IT device use has been too, things have only gotten worse since the Clinton email server debacle - which I did think was a big deal at the time, but in today's political landscape seems almost innocuous.

Right, but I mentioned Hillary Clinton email server not just as a general example of abdication of power to executive, but rather because it was pretty much about the same thing as we are discussing here. White House officials using non-official channels and apps for communication is wrong, but it was just as wrong when Hillary Clinton did it, and she didn’t face any consequences for that , or when these emails got missing instead of getting archived.

Supposedly it was only personal email and not official email that got deleted.

That's what she argued, but I don't think that if Trump officials claim the same, the media narrative and judicial system attitude will be "oh, okay, never mind then".

That politicians on both sides engage in all kinds of wrong doing is certainly not news to me. The interesting part here is rather the difference in what each side gets when they are caught on the exact same thing.

That is not supposed, given the outgoing and in-going email addressing that were routed. This is the nature of the controversy. Hard to prove, without a separate record.

I'd say she faced the consequence of not being elected President.

It's true she didn't face jail for multiple reasons (partially including the obvious unfairness of jailing only a former Sec. of State for what, at the time and before, appeared to be something like best practice for the upper echelons of the Executive), but the public appears to have passed judgment on the topic.

I don't think that the email controversy mattered very much for the 2016 election: I think many voters simply didn't like Clinton, and the email issue serve to support preexisting beliefs rather than swaying anyone. And yes, jailing her would be rather extreme step, as the practice does appear to be rather common, if not exactly "best", like you describe it (there were explicit laws against precisely that). However, this is just another example of the fact that among the elites, legal system is just an extension of politics, a tool used to achieve specific political goals. That does not give it much legitimacy in the eyes of the common folk, who see that they are simply lied to when they are told about "equality under the law".

Right, right, that was wrong on so many levels. Ivanka is doing the same damned thing, only it hasn't exactly made the news. Only difference this time, people are suing to try to force the issue that the law is followed.

Both campaigns this election relied heavily on both of those apps.

Campaigns are not supposed to follow the same procedures as the sitting president.

Whatever excuses you like for your government doing things behind closed doors away from public accountability to the electorate.

That's not what I'm looking for in my elected officials.

In order to have an elected official, there first must be an election. That is the phase during which campaigns operate.

I try hard not to make Reddit-esque jokes here but I can't help it:

username checks out.

Edit: Yes, I'll take my very deserved downvotes and go. But come on, Henry Kissinger talking about covering up Presidential crimes :-P We just need a RichardNixon to come in and concur.

I thought you were funny. Have an upvote. We need levity when talking about all of this.

There's a real flood of people downvoting opinions that they don't like and flagging in this thread for comments that are perfectly fine contributions to the discussion. It's a sign that we can't have a fair discourse in this community around certain topics.

Not our brightest day.

I don't think it's a partisan thing? The 70's is way past the political event horizon for most people. I think it's simply keeping HN free of memes but I couldn't stop giggling the connection.

For the broader point about the dangers of political discussions these days, society has lost all of its "ground rules" that keep things civil and level headed. There are no lines left to cross so tempers can run unchecked. I'm at a loss for a solution because I think the anger comes from a lack of resolution in the problems themselves. It's a spiraling feedback loop of despair.

Most of what's being downvoted isn't memes. This thread is full of brigade downvoted and dead comments. Comments espousing opinions in favor of either "side".

We are absurdly divided in our society right now and despite the guidelines of this site, folks seem not to care.

There's no reason to expect a forum to be separate from the division in the larger society.

Fora are populated by people, after all.

We can hold ourselves to a high standard. It's a choice.

I'm not convinced that it's holding ourselves to a higher standard to pretend that both sides of the divide are to be granted the assumption of equal good faith. There is too much evidence piled up that assumption is inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst.

And pretending technology to be in some way above, apart, or aside from the society using it is an error that has led to all sorts of historical horrors.

"Assume good faith" is literally in the site guidelines. Whether you believe that to be true or not, that's what's asked of us.

If you can't do that, don't respond to the comment.

While that is true, I am still unconvinced it's actually holding ourselves to a higher standard. The site is definitely allowed to demand its users hold themselves to a lower standard.

"Higher" implies "better," and giving, for example, Q-truthers bits and digital column inches may be counter-productive to the goals of this site long-term. Can't have as much cool technology talk when conspiracy theorists have disassembled Silicon Valley brick-by-brick as a side-effect of demolishing American democracy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com