Mike Pence used an AOL e-mail account for state business and it got hacked

Original article by Dan Goodin -- Ars Technica
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As a candidate, Trump VP castigated Clinton for use of a private e-mail server.

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As the US Republican vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence vigorously chastised Hillary Clinton for using a personal server to send and receive official e-mails while she was Secretary of State. Not only was the arrangement an attempt to escape public accountability, he said, it also put classified information within dangerous reach of hackers.

Now come revelations that Pence routinely used a private AOL account to conduct government business while he was governor of Indiana and that the account was hacked last summer, just months before he turned the heat on his Democratic rival over her personal e-mail server. Use of the AOL account for state business came to light in a 2,100-word article published Thursday evening by The IndyStar. The news outlet based its report on e-mails it received under a public records request. State officials declined to release an unspecified number of e-mails because the state considers them confidential and too sensitive to release to the public.

Pence used the account starting in the mid 1990s and continued using it until it was hijacked in 2016, three years into Pence's four-year tenure as governor, the news outlet reported. The hackers who compromised the account used it to send a scam e-mail to Pence's contacts, falsely claiming that the governor and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and in urgent need of financial assistance. Pence then abandoned that account and opened a new AOL account.

The ability of the hackers to access Pence's contact list means they almost certainly gained access to Pence’s inbox and outbox. The hack of Pence's account came two years after AOL said an unknown number of its mail accounts had been compromised and directed all users to change their passwords. The scam e-mail sent to Pence's contacts suggests the hack was part of a broad, opportunistic attack, rather than one that targeted Pence in particular. Still, there's no way to rule out that more covert and targeted hacks also penetrated the account.

During Pence's four years as governor, e-mails obtained by The IndyStar show, he used the account to discuss official government business, including matters considered sensitive and security related. Correspondence among Pence, his then-chief of staff, Jim Atterholt, and his top public safety and homeland security adviser John Hill, discussed subjects including Pence’s efforts to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees and the state’s response to a shooting at Canada’s national parliament building.

Much or all of that information was reported in the news media, but it remains unclear what was discussed in the e-mails that officials declined to release. Personal e-mails aren't immediately captured on state servers that are searched in response to public records requests, raising questions about transparency. As The IndyStar reported:

Indiana law requires all records dealing with state business to be retained and available for public information requests. Emails exchanged on state accounts are captured on state servers, which can be searched in response to such requests. But any emails Pence sent from his AOL account to another private account likely would have been hidden from public record searches unless he took steps to make them available.

Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt, who was appointed by Pence in 2013, said he advises state officials to copy or forward their emails involving state business to their government accounts to ensure the record is preserved on state servers.

But there is no indication that Pence took any such steps to preserve his AOL emails until he was leaving the governor's office.

When public officials fail to retain their private-account emails pertaining to public business, "they're running the risk of violating the law,” Britt said. “A good steward of those messages and best practice is going to dictate they preserve those."

All of the emails provided to IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network, were ones captured on state servers.

The emails were obtained after a series of public records requests that the Pence administration did not fulfill for nearly four months before Pence left office.

The administration of Pence’s successor, Gov. Eric Holcomb, released 29 pages of emails late this past week. But it withheld others, saying they are deliberative or advisory, confidential under rules adopted by the Indiana Supreme Court or the work product of an attorney.

Holcomb’s office declined to disclose how many emails were withheld.

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To be sure, Pence is by no means the only governor or government official to use a personal e-mail account to discuss official government business. What sets him apart, however, was his fierce criticism of Clinton for her use of a private e-mail server to conduct official State Department business. In late October, for instance, shortly after FBI Director James Comey reopened an investigation into Clinton's e-mail practices, Pence issued a tweet praising the move "because no one is above the law":

Mike Pence ✔@mike_pence
.@realDonaldTrump and I commend the FBI for reopening an investigation into Clinton's personal email server because no one is above the law.​

Indiana law, according to Thursday's report, doesn't bar public officials from having private e-mail accounts, but it's generally interpreted as requiring any official business conducted through private e-mail to be retained for public record purposes. Pence's office said his campaign hired outside counsel as he was departing as governor to review his AOL emails and transfer any involving public business to the state. There's no indication he took any such steps to preserve his AOL emails prior to his departure.

 

"Pence's office said his campaign hired outside counsel as he was departing as governor to review his AOL emails and transfer any involving public business to the state. There's no indication he took any such steps to preserve his AOL emails prior to his departure."

Typical Marxist Democrat cognitive dissonance. He transferred his emails to the state but he didn't take any steps to do so before his departure. It can be one or the other but not both!

Killary did *NOT* transfer her emails to the government when she left the government. Killary had TOP SECRET information on her server, Pence did not.

There is a *VAST* difference between the two situations!

 

I believe Mike Pence should be given every bit of leeway for using private email that the media gave to Mrs. Clinton. Who's with me on this?

 

Now you might be tempted to imagine that at some point the monstrous hypocrisy of these people

• the Veep attacking Hillary Clinton for doing exactly what he himself was doing at that moment
• the Attorney General lying to Congress during his confirmation hearings about something far less important than consensual sex (like almost got Bill Clinton impeached way back when)
• a zillion Trump quotes, mis-quotes, lies, whatever

... will at some point cause the Trump True Believers to puke. To abandon the "leaders" who are making fools of them.

I doubt it.

Trump True Believers do not hear/read what you and I hear/read. Words do not go straight from their ears/eyes to the thought-processing centers in their brains. In Trump True Believers, words first go through filters that remove all that might be harmful to Trump.

Words harmful to Trump are replaced, as they transit these cognitive filters, by criticism of whoever emitted the words harmful to Trump. In this case, Trump True Believers will not see Mike Pence's blatant hypocrisy. They will not be hypocrites themselves, because they truly do not see what Pence has done. Reality does not reach their brains.

Along the way, Pence's reality will be replaced by, "Well after all, Hillary did it, too!!" and they will not stop to think that they considered Hillary's using a private email account (that was never hacked) to be a heinous crime.

Along the way, Pence's reality will be replaced by, "Well, the IndyStar is just another left-wing rag, spreading false news!" with no attempt to verify the news through other sources.

This is what makes conversation with a Trump True Believer so frustrating: They are honest! They Truly Believe! In their cognitively dissonant brains, Trump literally can do no wrong.

 

So? GOP Hypocrisy is news?
I love how the Trump chumps are saying "we need to give him a chance" - yeah, like Obama was given a chance...

All one has to do to see the prime example of hypocrisy is the GOP vendetta against "ObamaCare". We all know it is the same as "RomneyCare" - and that was straight from the GOP Heritage Fund. As Soon as Obama got behind it, it had to go. For the GOP, it is all about party. Above country.

Republican traits are total ignorance and denial of science, no morals, a strong chicken-hawk gene, greed, no ties to reality, a lack of knowledge about basic arithmetic (as shown by their budgets), a hatred of government by the people (should be by rich Caucasians only), winning elections by any means possible (voter suppression, Supreme court, Jerrymandering districts)...

Did Pence meet with the Russians? It seems easier to compile a list of Trump chumps who did NOT meet with the Russians - it would be a shorter list.

 

well it seems like he made it out of the phillipines ok.

Too late to contribute to the gofundme ?

 

Wel Hell. ! LOCK HIM UP, LOCK HIM UP, .......LOCK HIM UP,,,,, LOCK HIM UP,!, LOCK HIM UP! Lock HimUp!


LOCK HIM UP,

 

Why not give him as much leeway as the President and his zealous devotees have given Mrs. Clinton?

Lock him up.

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It's blind, stupid partisanship, the stuff of the lunatic fringes. If both parties are to continue, they need to get away from their lunatic fringes. We can't have extremist parties controlling the country, or they will tear it apart eventually.

 

I bet he still uses AltaVista as a search engine also.

 

I continue to ask which documents mailed by Governor Pence had the sensitivity of an SAP document. As yet, I haven't received any information about those...

Nope. If either Secretary Clinton or Governor Pence is shown to have emailed classified information from a private email account, they should be imprisoned. Period. End of story.

 

The scarier possibility here is that Pence genuinely did not notice any hypocrisy. There are people who do not consider that the rules they apply to others should also apply to themselves. They are of the rule-maker caste. You and I are of the rule-obeyer caste.

 

There's a rather significant difference between a Governor using private email, where no secrets important enough for a foreign hacker to hack are present, as opposed to a highly-ranked National Security Council member using it for EVERYTHING official. Certainly that email account would be a very interesting for foreign intelligence hacking!

A Governor from Indiana's account? Corn Futures and Road Salt Stockpiles ...

 

You're calling the GOP hypocrites? So you're saying the left wing should not care about this, and it's not news, and everyone should move on?

Cool

 

Destroy the emails. Ask Hillary if you don't how.

 

At this point, what difference does it make?

 

Ummm.... Clinton was not hacked. Pence was hacked. So I really do not see what you are trying to prove.

In any case, the gravity of using a private account is not the question, here. The topic of the OP is Pence condemning Clinton, while doing the same thing. If you think that Pence's usage was "kinda sorta less wrong", then his doing the same thing is kinda sorta less hypocritical... but still... hypocritical. No?

Or are both Pence's private account and his condemnation of Clinton's "very similar" behavior ok for you? That would appear to be a double standard, to me.

 

Actually there was classified information in the emails hence for the reason that the new Indiana governor has released 30 pages of email after a public record request, but withheld others. Pence contacted advisers on terrorism and homeland security

 

Pence used AOL not a private server. Pence and AOL can provide every email the government might want. Hillary destroyed her private server so no one could ever see them. And the GLARING difference is that Hillary sent classified information in usecured emails, Pence did not.

 

I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Hillary having her own private email account. What's wrong with VP Pence using AOL to communicate with his kids and make family plans? Let the FBI scan them all and see if there were any classified docs being transferred to the Russians.

 

Pence's action was clearly a violation of the law. Is that ok for you?

 

What law did he violate?

 

Please read the OP before posting. Thanks.

 

I didn't say Hillary had been hacked ... though
many experts believe she probably was hacked.
I do not see the hypocrisy in recognizing there's a difference in the importance of intel - and protecting it - depending on your position, especially as it relates to National Security. Maybe Pence had some version of "classified material". It certainly wouldn't be the stature of intel a Secretary of State is always handling.

The double standard is believing a Governor approximates a SecState when it comes to handling National Security comms.

 

Any "classified information" Pence might have as Governor is not going to be anywhere near as sensitive than that a SecState would handle.

 

So... You're ok with Governor Pence breaking his own state's law. That's ok?