Do Roy Cooper And Deborah Ross Support Hillary Clinton's "Extremely Careless" Behavior? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Raleigh, N.C.     After a week of hearing nothing asked nor answered, the North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) today questioned whether Roy Cooper and Deborah Ross support Hillary Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of classified material while serving as Secretary of State.

    The state's top two Democrats have remained notably silent, especially considering they proudly campaigned with Clinton hours after FBI Director Comey debunked the many lies she peddled to the American public over the last 16 months. Just years ago, Attorney General Roy Cooper defended Mike Easley's administration for their practice of deleting emails to avoid public records laws. Certainly with his experience, Cooper has thoughts on Hillary Clinton's email practices.

    "Do Roy Cooper and Deborah Ross support Hillary Clinton's reckless actions that endangered our national security or do they think she should be held accountable? It's appalling the state's top two Democrats have yet to comment on Clinton's corrupt behavior," said Chairman Robin Hayes. "The notion Cooper and Ross would campaign with Clinton last week is clearly an endorsement of her careless judgement. North Carolinians deserve to know whether Cooper and Ross support putting personal interests over protecting the country and subsequently misleading the people."


    Comey Said Clinton And Her Aides Were "Extremely Careless" In Their Handling Of Classified Information. FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later "up-classified" e-mails). None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government-or even with a commercial service like Gmail." (FBI Director James Comey, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/5/16)


    In March 2015, Clinton Said She Carried "Just One Device" To Access Her Emails. CLINTON: "First, when I got to work as secretary of state, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two. Looking back, it would've been better if I'd simply used a second email account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn't seem like an issue." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At The United Nations, New York, NY, 3/10/15)

    The FBI Discovered That Clinton Used "Several Different Servers" And "Numerous Mobile Devices To Send And To Read Email..." FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "I have so far used the singular term e-mail server in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and she also used numerous mobile devices to send and to read e-mail on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored and decommissioned in various ways." (FBI Director James Comey, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/5/16)


    Clinton Said She Turned Over All Emails "That Could Possibly Be Work Related" Right Away. CLINTON: "Third, after I left office, the State Department asked former Secretaries of State for our assistance in providing copies of work- related emails from our personal accounts. I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work-related, which totalled roughly 55,000 printed pages, even though I knew that the State Department already had the vast majority of them. We went through a thorough process to identify all of my work- related emails and deliver them to the State Department." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At A Press Conference, New York, NY, 3/10/15)

    Comey Said Clinton Failed To Turn Over "Several Thousand" Work-Related Emails. FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails returned by Secretary Clinton to state in 2014. We found those e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces on them on servers or devices that have been connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archive government accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high ranking officials at other agencies, folks with whom a Secretary of State might normally correspond. This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 that were produced to state. Still others we recovered from the painstaking review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server that was decommissioned in 2013. With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the secret level and two at the confidential level." (James Comey, Remarks, Washington, DC 7/5/16)


    In March 2015 Clinton Said "There Is No Classified Material." CLINTON: "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material." (Hillary Clinton, Press Conference, New York, NY 3/10/15)

    FBI Director: Clinton Sent More Than 100 Emails With Information That Was Classified At The Time. FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the state department in 2014, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time they were sent. 36 of those chains contained secret information at the time. And eight contained confidential information at the time. That's the lowest level of classification." (FBI Director James Comey, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/5/16)


    During The March 2015 Press Conference, Clinton Said The Server "Had Numerous Safeguards. It Was On Property Guarded By The Secret Service. There Were No Security Breaches" CLINTON: "Well, the system we used was set up for President Clinton's office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches. So, I think that the - the use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At A Press Conference At The United Nations, New York, NY, 3/10/15)

    Comey Said That It Is "Possible That Hostile Actors Gained Access" To Clinton's Server. FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "Given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account." (James Comey, Remarks, Washington, DC 7/5/16)


    Clinton Claimed That The Search Was "Thorough" And That Neither Her Or Her Aides Deleted Anything From The Server. QUESTION: "Did you or any of your aides delete any government related emails from your personal account, and what lengths are you willing to go to to prove that you didn't, some people including supporters of yours suggest having an independent arbiter look at your server for instance?" CLINTON: "We did not. In fact, my direction to conduct the thorough investigation was to air on the side of providing anything that could be possibly viewed as work related, that doesn't mean they will be by the State Department once the State Department goes through them but out of an abundance of caution and care, we wanted to send that message unequivocally." (Hillary Clinton, Remarks At A Press Conference At The United Nations, New York, NY, 3/10/15)

    FBI Director: Clinton's Lawyers Did Not Read Individual Emails And Had Devices Wiped. FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails as we did for those available to us. Instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 that were remaining on her system at the end of 2014. It's highly likely that their search missed some work-related e-mails and that we later found them. For example, in the mail boxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. It's also likely that there are other work-related e-mails they did not produce to state and that we did not find elsewhere and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not produce to state, and the lawyers then cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery."(FBI Director James Comey, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/5/16)


    President Obama Said He Doesn't Think Clinton's Secret Server Was A Security Problem. CBS'S STEVE KROFT: "Do you think it posed a national security problem?" PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: "I don't think it posed a national security problem, I think that it was a mistake that she has acknowledged." (CBS Interview With President Obama, 10/11/15)

    Comey Said That It Is "Possible That Hostile Actors Gained Access" To Clinton's Server Because She Used Her Email Devices "In The Territory Of Sophisticated Adversaries." FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY: "Given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account." (James Comey, Remarks, Washington, DC 7/5/16)

    Attorney General Roy Cooper Defended Governor Mike Easley And His Administration Against Lawsuit Brought By Media Outlets Regarding Deleted Email Scandal. (Deposition of Reuben Young, page 2, 8/5/2010)

• "Media organizations from across North Carolina sued Gov. Mike Easley on Monday, accusing his administration of violating the state's public records law through the "systematic deletion, destruction or concealment" of e-mail messages." (Gary D. Robertson, "Media Outlets Sue N.C. Gov. Over E-Mails," The Associated Press, 4/15/2008)

    Roy Cooper "Believed The Lawsuit Should Be Settled," Attempted To Settle The Easley Deleted Emails Lawsuit For $20,000. "Cooper attempted to settle the lawsuit for $20,000...Kelley also said that Attorney General Roy Cooper 'has always indicated to me that he believed the lawsuit should be settled.'" (Rick Henderson, "Depositions Could Pose Legal Peril for Easley Aides," Carolina Journal, 2/4/2010)

    Roy Cooper Asked Judge To Dismiss Lawsuit Against Mike Easley For Destroyed Public Records. "Attorney General Roy Cooper has asked a state judge to dismiss a lawsuit against embattled former Gov. Mike Easley and several top officials from his administration, arguing that because Easley is no longer in office, and others named in the suit no longer hold the jobs they did with Easley, they cannot be held liable for alleged violations of the state's open records law." (Rick Henderson, "Cooper: Easley's lawbreaking doesn't matter," Carolina Journal, 12/9/2009)

• Contact: NCGOP Communications
•     communications@ncgop.org