Self-created wounds dog Clinton campaign
As stated in a prior editorial, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed poor judgment in using her private email server for official communications. Her unwillingness to admit to the error and her continued resistance to full disclosure are troubling. The scandal may yet expand.
However, the latest brouhaha about the emails is overwrought and was based on New York Times reporting that, according to the newspaper's own assessment Monday, "was fraught with inaccuracies" that produced "a mess."
An Office of Inspector General report cited by The Times is focused on, “Potential Issues Identified … for the Review of Former Secretary Clinton’s Emails under the Freedom of Act. (FOIA)”
In other words, the focus of the inspector general’s report is not Ms. Clinton, but the process the State Department is using to decide whether to release her emails to the public. It is a sensitive topic since, unsurprisingly, the “Clinton emails are the subject of numerous FOIA requests and multiple FOIA lawsuits.”
In reviewing the material, the inspectors general contend that federal authorities may be releasing email information that should be considered classified. The inspectors general reviewing a sampling of Clinton emails found “several of these emails contained classified IC (Intelligence Community) information, though they were not marked as classified. In addition, at least one of these emails has been released to the public …” states a July 17 memorandum by Steve A. Linick, inspector general for the Department of State, and I. Charles McCullough III, inspector general for the Intelligence Community.
That account is consistent with Ms. Clinton’s statement that, “The facts are pretty clear: I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time.”
The focus of the inspectors general memo is not whether Ms. Clinton, intentionally or otherwise, communicated classified information on her private email server, but what federal authorities are doing now to make sure no classified information is released among “the 33,000 emails acquired from former-Secretary Clinton." Conversely, the inspectors want to make sure the government is prepared to defend the refusal to release some information.
They recommend that the State Department use Intelligence Community FOIA officers to assist in the email review, rather than depending on “retired senior Foreign Service Officers.” The inspectors general also urge State “to integrate the Department of Justice into the FOIA process review to ensure redactions can withstand potential legal challenges.”
None of this exonerates Ms. Clinton from the terrible decision to use her private email server for State Department business, but it does back her story — so far — that she never knowingly communicated classified information on an unsecure network, where it could be hacked by enemies of the country.
The story and the investigations are not over. And while the media focus is on Ms. Clinton because of her presidential candidacy, the inspectors general note that their probe is much broader.
“The Office of Evaluations and Special Projects within the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is reviewing the use of personal communications hardware and software by five Secretaries of State and their immediate staffs,” wrote Mr. Linick and Mr. McCullough in their July 17 memo to Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management at the Department of State.
Ms. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, informed a congressional committee that his client turned over all State Department-related emails and that none of the remaining private emails were retained on her server.
That doesn’t look good. It amounts to Ms. Clinton asking Congress and the public to trust her without providing evidence. While it is understandable Ms. Clinton would want private communications to remain so, she created this situation by mingling public and private business.
Since little information is ever fully destroyed in the digital world — short of physical destruction of hardware — a third-party review of the server could determine whether Ms. Clinton did indeed turn over all relevant information. If she continues to refuse to provide access to the server, the issue could well dog her campaign, leaving her to hope that the relative disinterest voters have had about the topic will continue.
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