NRA Ad Labels Clinton A Liar

NRA Spending $5 Million On Ad Claiming “Hillary Will Lie About Anything To Get Elected.” A new NRA juxtaposes multiple statements by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on both the Second Amendment and the investigation into her private email server, citing them as evidence that Clinton has lied about those topics. [Politico, 10/19/16]

NRA Baselessly Claims Clinton “Lied” About Respecting The Second Amendment Because She Said “The Supreme Court Is Wrong On The Second Amendment”

NRA Calls Clinton A Liar For Saying “I Respect The Second Amendment.” The ad juxtaposes Clinton saying during the second presidential debate that she respects the Second Amendment with a comment from a fundraiser where Clinton said that the Supreme Court is “wrong on the Second Amendment” regarding its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a landmark 2008 Second Amendment case that struck down two D.C. gun laws. [NRA, 10/19/16, via YouTube]

Disagreeing With The Heller Ruling Does Not Indicate Disrespect For The Second Amendment. Throughout her political career, Clinton has spoken about both the right of law-abiding people to own a gun and the need to enact regulations that prevent dangerous people from obtaining firearms. PolitiFact rated the claim that Clinton wants to “abolish” the Second Amendment “false,” noting, “In both her 2008 and 2016 White House bids, Clinton has called for stronger background check requirements all the while affirming her support for the right to bear arms,” before providing several examples of Clinton’s remarks. PolitiFact also noted that Clinton’s view that Second Amendment rights should be balanced with laws to protect the public is similar to the view held by the George W. Bush administration. [PolitiFact, 5/11/16]

Regarding Heller, Clinton Disagrees With Part Of The Decision That Struck Down, On Second Amendment Grounds, D.C.’s Trigger Lock Law. In May, a Clinton policy adviser explained that Clinton “believes Heller was wrongly decided in that cities and states should have the power to craft common sense laws to keep their residents safe, like safe storage laws to prevent toddlers from accessing guns.” The adviser added: “In overturning Washington D.C.'s safe storage law, Clinton worries that Heller may open the door to overturning thoughtful, common sense safety measures in the future.” [Bloomberg, 5/20/16]

Clinton Explained That She Believes In An “Individual Right” To Own A Gun While Disagreeing With Heller’s Striking Down Of The D.C. Safe Storage Law. During the final presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Clinton about Heller and she said, “You mentioned the Heller decision and what I was saying that you referenced, Chris, was that I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case. Because what the District of Columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns. And so they wanted people with guns to safely store them. And the court did not accept that reasonable regulation but they've accepted many others.” Clinton later added, “I also believe there is an individual right to bear arms. That is not in conflict with sensible, common sense regulation.” [Politico, 10/20/16]

To read more about the NRA pretending that D.C. v. Heller did not involve a ruling that struck down a law concerning the safe storage of firearms, click here.

NRA Misleads In Claiming Clinton Lied About Sending Classified Information Over Her Private Server

NRA Claims Clinton Lied By Saying “I Did Not Email Any Classified Material.” The ad juxtaposes Clinton’s March 2015 statement that she “did not email any classified material” with a moment in the October second presidential debate when moderator Martha Raddatz said to Clinton that the “FBI said that there were 110 classified emails that were exchanged.” [NRA, 10/19/16, via YouTube]

Ad Omits FBI Director James Comey’s Explanation That The Emails “Have Been Determined By The Owning Agency To Contain Classified Information.” The NRA suggests that Clinton would have known that those 110 emails contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. But the statement issued by FBI Director James Comey at the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s private server indicated that “from the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 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. ... Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were 'up-classified' to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.” [FBI.gov, 7/5/16]

Vox: “The Fact That Agencies Are Fighting Over What State Should Release Is Prima Facie Evidence That The Question Of What Should Be Classified Doesn't Have A Cut-And-Dried Answer.” In a July 2015 article on sloppy reporting on Clinton’s emails, Vox’s Jonathan Allen explained that the “intelligence community tends to have a pretty broad definition of what should be withheld from the public,” leading to interagency disputes about what should and shouldn’t be classified:

This has caused a bureaucratic turf war between the department and the intelligence community, which believes at least one email that's already been released contains classified information and that hundreds of others in the full set may also have material that's not ready for public consumption. For a couple of months, the inspectors general of the State Department and the combined intelligence community agencies have been battling Patrick Kennedy, the lead State Department official, over who has access to the documents and the authority to release or withhold them.

Now, according to the Times and other publications, the IG team is asking the Justice Department to get involved in reviewing whether State has mishandled the emails. If Clinton was sending information that was, or should have been, classified — and knew that it was, or should have been, classified — that's a problem. But no one has accused her of that so far. Given the anodyne nature of what she sent in the emails we've already seen, it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that any sensitive information was sent to Clinton, not by her (though it's not clear whether forwarding such emails would constitute a legal issue for her).

The intelligence community tends to have a pretty broad definition of what should be withheld from the public, and the fact that agencies are fighting over what State should release is prima facie evidence that the question of what should be classified doesn't have a cut-and-dried answer. [Vox,7/28/15]

Comey Later Explained That The Small Number Of Emails That Contained Classified Markings Were Mislabeled. Called before Congress to testify about the investigation into Clinton’s emails, Comey explained that three emails received by Clinton bore a “c” marking, which stands for “confidential” information. However, Comey said that those emails were mislabeled, lacking proper headers that would clearly indicate classified material, and that it would be “reasonable” for someone who was an expert in what constitutes classified information not to immediately realize the information was classified:

REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT (D-PA): All right, you were asked about markings on a few documents. I have the manual here, Marking Classified National Security Information, and I don't think you were given a full chance to talk about those three documents with the little c's on them. Were they properly documented? Were they properly marked according to the manual?

JAMES COMEY: No.

CARTWRIGHT: According to the manual -- and I ask unanimous consent to enter this into the record, Mr. Chairman -- according to the manual, if you're going to classify something, there has to be a header on the document, right?

COMEY: Correct.

CARTWRIGHT: Was there a header on the three documents that we've discussed today that had the little c in the text someplace?

COMEY: No, there were three emails, the c was in the body, in the text, but there was no header on the email or in the text.

CARTWRIGHT: So, if Secretary Clinton really were an expert at what's classified and what's not classified, and were following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that?

COMEY: That would be a reasonable inference. [House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 7/7/16, via Media Matters]

FactCheck.org: "State Department Believes That At Least Two Of The Emails Were Mistakenly Marked As Confidential." After FBI Director Comey announced three of the emails had indications they were confidential but did not have the proper -- and recognizable -- classification markings, the State Department argued that two of those emails were not confidential at all:  

At his July 5 press conference, FBI Director James Comey said a “very small number” of emails sent and received by Hillary Clinton over her private server “bore markings indicating the presence of classified information” — contradicting Clinton’s claims that she “never received nor sent any material that was marked classified.”

But now we are learning more about those emails from Comey, who testified before the House Oversight Committee on July 7, and State Department spokesman John Kirby, who addressed these emails at press briefings on July 6 and 7:

• Comey said three emails had “portion markings” on them indicating that they were classified, but they were not properly marked and therefore could have been missed by Clinton. He said the emails were marked as classified with the letter “C” in the body of the email.
• Kirby said the State Department believes that at least two of the emails were mistakenly marked as confidential. He could not speak to the third email, saying ​the department didn’t have​ “all of the records and documents that the FBI used in their investigation.”
• Comey told the committee he is “highly confident” that FBI investigators consulted with the State Department about the marked emails. But he said he did not know that the department believes that any of them were marked in error.

The issue is a bit complicated, but important, because it provides Clinton with a stronger defense against claims that she sent and received material that was marked as classified over her private server when she was secretary of state. [FactCheck.org 7/7/16]