Presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who used a secret unsecured private email server to conduct government business during her entire tenure as secretary of State–and deleted of those 30,000 emails before government investigators could review them, demanded the passwords to every social media account of every family member of her potential vice presidential candidates, according to a report in Politico published Saturday evening.
Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine.
Inside the VP hunt: How Clinton picked Kaine
How tough was the vetting? Finalists had to turn over every password for every social media account for every member of their families.
They had to turn over every password for every social media account for every member of their families.
They had to list every piece of property they’d ever owned, and copies of every résumé that they’d put out for the past 10 years. Every business partner. Every gift they’d ever received, according to those familiar with the details of the vetting process.
For the finalists in the hunt to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate, it was five weeks of questions and follow-up, and follow-up to the follow-up questions, starting from when they were summoned one-by-one to meet with campaign chairman John Podesta and lawyer Jim Hamilton and told to bring along just one trusted person who’d serve as the point of contact…
…The Clinton campaign, which provided traveling reporters Friday night with a press release in background, bullet point form about the process, was carefully nudging narratives throughout.
Even though Politico leads with the shockingly broad invasion of privacy of candidates’ family members, Politico never mentions it again in the article leaving many questions unasked and unanswered. How many candidates? Did the password demand cover adult children in addition to husbands and wives? Young children? Parents of the candidates? Grandparents? Aunts and uncles and cousins? In-laws? Any pushback? Who handled the passwords and searched the accounts, lawyers or college interns? What online habits were disqualifying? Will the accounts be monitored during the campaign? Instead the demand is just glowingly presented by Politico as a sign of Clinton’s toughness and thoroughness in her search for a running mate.
Clinton’ choice as her vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine is married and has three grown children in their twenties according to Wikipedia, including one who is a Marine. How comfortable must they feel knowing the Clinton campaign has their passwords–especially after the release this week by Wikileaks of thousands of hacked DNC email files.
