@EddyFree 1) She "said". That means that the reporter made that particular statement at a point in the past, not the present. That is why it is past tense.
2) " I can see printed documents being preserved, but ALL communications? Wouldn't that require voice recording or manual transcription of all meetings and phone conversations?" - Yep. The Federal Records Act requires agencies hold onto official communications, including all work-related emails, and government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records. And,the NARA regulations dictate how records should be created and maintained. They stress that materials must be maintained "by the agency," that they should be "readily found" and that the records must "make possible a proper scrutiny by the Congress." And, The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich reported "The final arbiter of what's public or what's turned over to Congress shouldn't be private staff working for Hillary Clinton. It should be State Department employees who are bound by duty to the public interest." (Source) I don't make the rules. I just expect everyone to live by the one's we have.
3) There will not be a smoking gun. Hillary's staff has made sure to delete any gun that is even slightly warm, let alone smoking. Just as we gave Hussein time to eliminate any WMD's (if there were any), Hillary's staff has plenty of time to clean them out. "Plausible Deniability".
I agree, without any hard evidence, not much can be done. And with "Plausible Deniability", this issue will become a non-issue. It will flow away and for ever be buried under a mountain of legal loopholes. And, with Hillary being the one that gets to decide which hard evidence gets out, ....
As I said, it is like having Enron audit their own financial statements. I just wonder if we will have a similar result as POTUS as we did with Enron.

@niceguyWould that mean that EVERYONE in the Federal Government (Congress Included) uses -only- Government E-Mail accounts for ALL their communications or they are/were in violation of the law too?....Was Hillary the only one?...If not, is there a list of others that did the same thing, and shouldn't they go after them also? I'd be willing to bet those Dems have a big list they'll be ready to spring at just the right time..I dunno about the Enron analogy because financial statements and other "official documents" are quite different from communications documents like e-mail, at least to me...

@EddyFree 1) The Enron analogy - you missed my point. What I was alluding to is that no company is permitted to be audited, at least for official reporting, by themselves or anyone with any close ties to that company. At Enron, they were "cooking the books" and lying to their stock holders and the SEC. Enron knew what they were doing, they new how they were doing it and they knew that it was illegal - or at least unethical. So, it should be expected that they would not find these irregularities and report them, since they were the ones that were doing it and that would mean putting their own necks into the noose. That is why you bring in outside, unrelated auditors to go through everything, Similarly, Hillary and her staff are not going to allow anything out to the public that is going to be a "smoking gun" nor anything that even has the hint of impropriety. If she wanted to be clear of this brew-ha-ha, she should have allowed confidential and independent auditors to review and select that which is appropriate to be archived and that which were personal. In my opinion, the very fact that she completely deleted one of her servers and purged documents from the other, without an independent review, screams of impropriety. If you have nothing to hide, you don't care who sees.
2) Everyone uses government email accounts - Yes, that is now the law, that all official government business is to be done with a government account. (It was a guideline and policy, but not a law when Hillary did it). They can have as many private accounts as they want. And, if for some reason they use a private account for government business, they have 20 days to submit the communication/correspondence to the government for archiving.
3) Was Hillary the only one? - I don't know. As far as I DO know, she is the only one who did it that is running for President.
4) Dems have a big list. Maybe. Don't know the answer to that one either. But let me ask you, IF they have a big list and IF there are multiple Repubs on that list, does that mean that Hillary should have a pass? Because EVERYONE was doing it, does that make it right? See, I don't think so. I think that IF there is this list and IF it is made public, : 1) it is a tactic that is being used to take Hillary out of the limelight and diffuse and dilute the entire issue; and 2) Hillary should have a whole bunch of company at the defense bench at the trial.Here is my whole position on this issue. I believe that the Office of the President of the Untied States is a position that has so many variables, so many responsibilities, so many different potential issues that could arise, there is no way that any candidate can possibly give a position on every conceivable thing that can happen. I.E. There is no way George W. or anyone running against him could have anticipated September 11th and discussed their response during the election campaign. So, we are to vet the candidates and try to find one that has the basic core values and beliefs that closely match what we want and believe and vote for that person. I, personally, do not want a person in the White House who spends their time doing whatever they want and hiding behind legal loopholes and "plausible deniability" to avoid public review or to hide, cover or potentially deceive the general populous. IMO, one of the things that made this country great is freedom of the press. Our press is free to dig into and find out anything they can about any issue they find appropriate and bring it out for public review and scrutiny - a la Richard Nixon and Watergate. Having a lawyer in the Office that is adept at hiding what he/she does or uses loopholes to skate around rules meant to provide clear and visible review of their actions is not the kind of person I want in the White House. JMO

@niceguy
The big difference to me here is that Enron was a publicly traded company...Hillary's server is private property...I'd venture to guess that, as such, it would be subject to the 4th Amendment Of The Constitution:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized."So, if you're big on The Constitution you'd have to agree that nobody has the right to go through her private property without a warrant looking for a "smoking gun"...This was obviously a big "repressive" issue back during the founding father's years for it to have been included it in Bill Of Rights...Besides, what if there were kinky e-mails from Bill on there that reveals he likes to wear panties on his head and dance a jig on Saturday nights?
Do the others know how to use e-mail yet? (Sorry....Couldn't help myself....LOL)
If it's a common practice among her peers, why would it be wrong? Seems to me everyone likes to complain about how crummy Government services, equipment, and facilities are and how poor they are run, except of course their IT infrastructure which I guess is all of the sudden the best in the world...And I wouldn't be saying that Hillary should get a pass, but more that they should round up all the "offenders" if what they were doing was "wrong"...And I guess by changing the law, as you said, they've clarified the issue the way they should have going forward...
And there you have it...Nothing "Illegal" at all...
I agree...Unfortunately, today's Press likes to create news more that just reporting it($$$)...One of the reasons the Country is so divided politically IMO...

Eddy, your goalkeeper pic was appropriate. Is that you under all that 'keeping gear?

@AtascaGuyGotta deflect the rhetoric...I made an Obama one too, maybe I'll get to play it soon...

@EddyFree You are doing exactly what she is doing - using loopholes to try to skate around the law.1) Her servers are private. Yes. The information on them is not. She knew when she took the position (and if she did not, ignorance of the law is not an excuse) that all of her official communications were public property. By accepting the position of Secretary of State, she is consenting to the rules and guidelines that apply to that office. If you don't like the rules, don't take the job. Therefore, the information on those servers was public property and the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
2) Hillary is no dummy. She said that she wanted to have just one email account for "convenience purposes". Please! IMO she wanted one email - note that she chose to use her private email as the one email, not her public one - to be her private one so that she had control over the archives. I have two email servers - one email at work and one at home. I would bet that a lot of people reading this thread do too. And, your work email is company property, as are the communications that go through that company email. If you send out emails on the company email saying that you like to "dance a jig with panties on your head", and it gets back to your boss, you have no one to blame except yourself. And, if by some chance, you send a business email on your personal account, you are probably required to send a copy to your work email so there is a record. And you know that. If you don't, go back and read some of the papers you signed when you started working at your employer. I would bet that you signed some sort of document that covers company work papers.
3) "If it is common practice, why would it be wrong". Because it is against the law. Just because everyone is doing it, doesn't mean that it is right. It means that there are a lot of people that have to face up to being wrong. And, your statement, "they should round up all the "offenders" if what they were doing was "wrong" - didn't I say in my post that - "Hillary should have a whole bunch of company at the defense bench at the trial. " This statement means they should ALL be there and face the same judgement and punishment. It is the LAW!!!
4) "And there you have it...Nothing "Illegal" at all." Except the destruction of public records that were required to be archived for possible congressional review. That WAS a law when Hillary was in the office. But, of course, we have "plausible deniability".
5) "One of the reasons the Country is so divided politically IMO." I disagree. I believe that this country is so politically divided because we have too many people that cast votes for people who they think will advance their political agenda, rather than looking at the big picture and voting for the person who will select and champion that which is best for the country as a whole. I.E. "I don't care about the national debt, as long as I have my flat screen TV". I think that we have the Dems out there implying to the masses that they will champion each persons personal agenda. Then doing whatever they damn well please and hiding behind political loopholes and the fact that no one ever holds them accountable to their campaign promises.But, hey, JMO!

She forked over the "public e-mails"...Not to mention that anything she sent must have gone to someone's .GOV address that would be recorded and archived...Unless everyone was "in on it" and had their own underground private servers...
So what would be her motive for all the secrecy and "underground" communications? What's in it for her?
As mentioned above, anything of substance that she sent most likely found it's way to a .GOV address somewhere...
But you said there wasn't a law about it when she did it, only a policy recommending the use of .GOV servers...
An "assumption", plain and simple...There's no proof that she failed to turn over anything required of her, and our legal system is big on burden of proof for good reason:

It's a majority rules system...The most votes win and have control...If the elected fail to deliver, they get the boot next cycle...What is the opposition offering that's better in order to get those votes? So far, doing nothing or degrading "Big Government" isn't working...

[I'll comment on my own comment because I'm feeling Schizophrenic today... ]Except for members of the Congress, who we tend to keep in there for decades because we're too busy blaming our Presidents for everything to see where the true fault lies...

@EddyFree 1) We assume that she "forked over the public emails". Plausible deniability. But, we only have her word on that. Even if everything was sent to a .gov address, that does not change the law. The law says all public communications are to be archived.
2) Obviously, a run for the White House. If she knew more than she claims to about Benghazi, and the emails back that up, she is in a world of hurt. Lying to Congress while testifying under oath is now, and always has been, against the law. If she did not "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth", the White House is out the window.
3) That's not the point. The law says ALL communications, not just the ones that can't be obtained from another source.
4) What was a policy was to use government emails for all official communications. That is now a law. What was a LAW when she was in office was that she was to turn over all official documents to be available for Congressional review. I know, I know - she said that she did. But since she has such a solid track record of blurring the lines and dodging the issues, and since she is running for the highest office in the land, and since you and I agree that freedom of the press and their ability to review and dig up anything they think is important is absolutely critical to developing and maintaining our republic, I would require an independent review of the emails to accept that she turned them all over.
5) Again, plausible deniability.
6) It is not a majority rules system. A majority rules system is a democracy. We are a constitutional democracy. Which means that even if 65% of American feel and vote that we should not have the right to bear arms (a majority), we still have the right to bear arms because the Constitution says that we have the right to bear arms. Yes, the majority rules, so long as the rules they want do not violate the Constitution. The Constitution trumps a simple majority vote. The only way you can take away the right to bear arms is to change the Constitution - and that requires 2/3 of the States to ratify any change. If you really think that majority rules, just ask Al Gore - who won the popular vote (the majority) but still lost the election (the Constitution).
7) I agree. There is not one candidate, on either side, that really gives us the opportunity to have a good leader. I also agree that degrading the current government is not working. People are looking for someone with vision and a plan. Neither side has come up with that. My concern with Hillary is that I worry that she has a plan but is not going to bring it out. She will say what she needs to in order to get elected then do whatever she wants to, and will hide behind her legal loopholes to avoid public disclosure and review. JMO