If Your Name Isn't Hillary, the Hammer for Mishandling Secrets
The double standard is obvious, says a former diplomat pounded by Clinton State Department.
By Steven Nelson | Staff Writer Aug. 14, 2015, at 12:43 p.m.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/08/14/if-your-name-isnt-hillary-the-hammer-for-mishandling-secrets?src=usn_twPeter Van Buren can’t wait for the court-ordered release of Hillary Clinton’s work emails from 2011, a nearly ruinous year for him that resulted in a negotiated retirement from the State Department.
The foreign affairs arm of the federal government, then led by Clinton, had accused the longtime foreign service officer of mishandling classified information and unsuccessfully asked the Justice Department to prosecute him.
Van Buren says his travails demonstrate a double standard at the State Department, which now defends Clinton’s use of a private email system that this week was revealed to contain highly classified top secret information.
At the same time Clinton, now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, was using her private and apparently unsecure email system, Van Buren lost his security clearance and then his job as a result of what he views as false allegations of mishandling information that wasn't secret at all.
The problems began in late 2010 when Van Buren wrote a book titled “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.” He submitted it to the department for prepublication review and, after a mandatory waiting period in 2011, it was shipped to bookstores. Just before it hit the shelves, his publisher was urged to hit the brakes.
There were three allegedly classified details, the department claimed about the book poised to sharply criticize U.S. diplomatic efforts. The details including mention that an unnamed CIA officer who had worked in Iraq and Afghanistan had also worked in Somalia, that the CIA controlled the budget of Iraqi intelligence services – a rehash, the author says, of mainstream press reporting – and that the CIA had once worked with Saddam Hussein.
Van Buren's publisher concluded the contested passages “clearly did not contain classified information” and brushed off the threat without legal consequences.
Then a ton of bricks fell on Van Buren. His security clearance was suspended. His access to State Department facilities was restricted. He was essentially unable to work. The reason he was given, he recalls, was that he linked to a WikiLeaks cable on his personal blog.
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