Why Hillary’s Email Saga Hurts

[Agschmid]

It is giving Republicans the perfect opportunity to highlight her least appealing qualities.

[center][/center]

Barring an indictment for criminal behavior, Hillary Clinton, if she’s the Democratic nominee, will not lose the 2016 presidential election because of her emails. To think so, or to think they’ll change the race, is to say that scandal will override partisanship; that an otherwise liberal voter will walk into the ballot booth and mark the box for Jeb Bush or Gov. Scott Walker or Sen. Marco Rubio because of digital mismanagement. I liked what Clinton said about early childcare, thinks our hypothetical voter, but sending government email on a private server makes her unfit for the White House.

At the same time, Clinton’s email isn’t irrelevant. For journalists and other observers, it offers an important look at how she operates. That Clinton used private email at all shows her flexible approach to rules and regulations and a secretive reflex for conducting official business. “Using a personal email account exclusively is a potent prescription for flouting the Federal Records Act and circumventing the Freedom of Information Act,” explained Daniel Metcalfe, former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy, to PolitiFact. “And there can be little doubt that Clinton knew this full well.” It may not matter to voters, but it’s important to know if Clinton plans to carry this secrecy—and public evasiveness—to the Oval Office, if she’s elected president. (Here, it’s worth noting that, as Florida governor, Jeb Bush also conducted business from a personal account, and didn’t release his correspondence for seven years.)

To that point, there’s a new plot point in the ongoing drama of Clinton’s email account. On Tuesday, reported the New York Times, Clinton “directed her aides to give the Justice Department an email server that housed the personal account that she used exclusively while secretary of state, along with a thumb drive that contained copies of the emails.”

This follows testimony from I. Charles McCullough, inspector general for the intelligence community, who told Congress that Clinton had “top secret” information in two emails among the 40 private messages received from the State Department, which has access to a full trove of 30,000 messages.

Worth the read here.

[questionseverything]

1. preserving her sos e mails should of been the simplest thing

"her flexible approach to rules and regs"

that is the problem as i see it, the appearance that she is above rules and regs

[tularetom]

2. We already had a president with a paranoid obsession with secrecy

He resigned just over 41 years ago. It was ugly.


We don't need a replay.

[Agschmid]

4. Unfortunately his secrets, weren't all that secret in the end.

[Vinca]

3. What I don't understand is if her server was scrubbed, why didn't she hand it over earlier?

She seems to do things that make the whole brouhaha drag on and on and on and on.

[murielm99]

5. The repubs are the ones doing things

to make it drag on and on. Just like Benghazi.

They can't get any criminal charges out of this, so now it shows, "the way she operates?" LOL LOL LOL

Clinton rules.

[delrem]

6. "that an otherwise liberal voter will walk into the ballot booth and mark the box for Jeb Bush"

misses the point. The point is, how do Dems GOTV in the first place? That means getting independents out to vote for the Dem as well - that well-rounded enthusiasm being required to win.

Another OP on this subject applauds Hillary's argument or rejoiner that (paraphrased) "Republicans do it too". But that won't enthuse any Dem or independent. In fact, it'll be chalked up as adding to the "distrust" and "disapprove" stats, which are already terrible.

In fact, it all but throws the election to the Republicans.

[Agschmid]

7. I'm curious, and serious question...

Let's say she did what she did, used the server, etc...

What could she have done from day one after she left the SOS office which would have made none of this an issue.

I don't think much, I think the real problem lies in her choice to do it, not so much how she handled it after. I don't think there was a "right" way to handle it after...

[delrem]

8. I agree with you 100%

Except: she DID do what she did, that's the baseline fact of the matter - it isn't a hypothetical as in "if she did".

I think both Hillary and Bill are very smart politicians - and the proof is the power that they've attained. They both know how the system works and could run rings around just about any other politician out there, in using the system to advantage.

1. She knew exactly what she was doing when she set up a private server when setting up her office as SoS, and why. As she has pointed out, since, it has also been done by some Republicans and for the same reasons: personal control of the message, personal control over what the public and gov't institutions know. And there can be only one reason, whether D or R: so as to get away with stuff, in secret.
2. She also knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, that barring e.g. a health emergency or other unforseen tragedy, she would be running for the Dem nomination in 2016.
3. She knew that she'd be put under extraordinary scrutiny, not only over her past actions but over *this* action, that she undertook anyway - knowing beforehand with near certainty that it would be a "scandal".
It was her choice.
4. So it seems to me that she *chose* this route leading to this current "scandal", knowing full well the fallout would eat up the oxygen, because the alternative was worse: the alternative being some transparency w.r.t. her dealings as SoS.

That doesn't look good. Not good "optics".

But I also think the excessive focus on these "scandals" - "private server" and "Benghazi" - to the point of ignoring all else, is too bad because all that attention is like a red-herring focusing attention away from a reasonable discussion of her actual policy, of consequences of her policy, on several very important issues. These are made to order "scandals" for the Republicans, who however you look at it don't stack up well regarding important issues either.

[Agschmid]

12. Good post.

[AtomicKitten]

13. She may consider that a better outcome.

Hillary did exactly what she wanted to do regardless of the risk of genuine consequences. This is the Bill and Hillary Clinton Show, and it never ever ends

[TwilightGardener]

9. She could have given the entirety of her email communications, private stuff and all, to the

State Dept, as she was supposed to do per policy, on the day she left--and let THEM decide what was federal records and what was throwaway personal stuff. She made the deliberate decision to mix the business with the personal, knowing that she could then claim "privacy" if anyone ever came after her emails and her server. As it is, she ignored the FOIA's and archiving requirements for years, and then she scrubbed the server rather than let anyone access the true contents. Why would anyone trust her as President?

[HereSince1628]

10. There are questions about the security of the server...that could have been addressed

after she left office.

There are similar questions about the thumb drive and whether it's control was really secure... I think that includes when it was in possession of her 'legal adviser' on this issue.

[Agschmid]

11. The security issue is not a problem for me.

I think it's really rediculous to think that we aren't being spied on and that every government document classified or not has the potential to leak, or be intercepted, regardless of the location of the physical server.

I'm not sure Internet security is really all that secure anymore.

[HereSince1628]

14. The IG concluded there were questions, that's how this round flared up

If you dismiss the issue of security I think you dismiss whatever legitimate basis there might be for the current squeeze that resulted in the server being handed over.

But it seems the Inspector General didn't share your opinion.

I didn't state that as my position, that's what has been reported.


To be clear I think early cooperation in turning over the server might have ended this in the spring. Now the server is going to be examined probably for months, reports will be written taking more months, and then there will be some sort of dumb-ass hearing to publicly question Clinton's character. A.G.A.I.N.

Want to bet that will be in late February or March, so that it maximally screws with the Dem primary?