The scandal at issue is simple. Federal law requires that federal employees use federal e-mail services when they are on the job. Hillary did not. She used a commercial service.
Why does this matter? Well, Federal law requires this to allow the government to control the content of all e-mails these employees send. In other words, the government wants to be able to monitor their communications and take the appropriate action in the event of some violation of personnel policy. Moreover, the government wants to be able to archive these communications so they can be produced in response to things like FIOA requests or Congressional subpoenas. Hillary's use of a private e-mail even for official communications and communications with other employees violated this law and frustrated these purposes. In fact, it now turns out that she destroyed a great many e-mails that should have been available for Congressional investigation and would have been if she had followed the law.
At this point, that is the only issue people are discussing regarding this scandal. Unfortunately, this makes the issue seem technical and nitpicky, meaning the scandal should have no legs.
But there is a more important reason the federal government requires employees to use government systems, and that reason actually does make this a genuine scandal... if anyone figures it out: security. Every single e-mail Hillary sent over the commercial site she used was likely monitored in some form by the provider, e.g. Google, and could very, very easily have been hacked by anyone from terrorists to enemy governments to journalists. Think about that!
Hillary has admitted that she used this commercial account exclusively and that she used it for any and all internal discussions with State Department and Obama Administration people. That means that e-mails about the movement of ambassadors, changes in security policies, the sending in of military units to defend embassies, the identities of intelligence personnel, and even things like Hillary's opinions on military actions all likely went through this easily hacked, commercially-monitored site.
Still don't see the scandal? Imagine if a group of special ops guys got killed because ISIS read about the upcoming attack in Hillary's hacked e-mail, or if Google shared some data on trade negotiations with Japan to buy a few favors from China for their operations in China. See the problem now?
What I find interesting about this scandal is that the MSM seems interested in pounding Hillary on the first issue, but won't mention the second issue at all. It's like they want to wound her, but not destroy her. Generally, scandals have no legs unless they are very visceral for the public or the powers that be have decided to eliminate the person and then use the scandal as their weapon. The first part of this alone should have no legs. Yet, the MSM seems to be jumping all over that. The second part would be visceral if it got out, but the MSM has completely refused to discuss it. I'm wondering if the plan isn't to encourage her to drop out now with the threat of finally starting to take her down for her propensity to engage in scandalous behavior, but not actually wounder her... just in case. Not sure.
Thoughts?
23 comments:
Didn't Sarah Palin get into trouble over this a few years back?
Briefly. And they attacked her on the same point (the first) about her trying to avoid FIOA and things like that.
And apparently, Hillary "Barack" Clinton is trying to blame Bush by having her people claim that Bush did it too.
Is there anything they will not try to blame Bush for?
I haven't seen a limit on that yet... so no.
It was a dangerous move but I doubt it will matter. It is very early in the process so this will be old news by the time the campaign is in full swing.
Andrew....Don't know if it matters, but I just read that the "Clintons" set up their own server for these emails and had some of their aides use this server. So, if they went through this "secure" personal server, and not Google, then sent to @statedept servers, would they still be as vulnerable to outside hacking or theft of information?
Just askin.....
Bob
Bob, It would be the same thing because they would still be going through a commercial provider to get online. In other words, they may have their own name and they may even run the local server, but they still would need an ISP to provide the gateway to the internet. And actually, that would most likely be Google through their commercial services.
Anthony, I doubt it will matter too because no one seems to be talking about the security risk, and certainly not in language that would capture the public's imagination.
Still, this is another chance for the left to unseat her before her coronation... if they truly want to.
I think that this can potentially blow up to be a much bigger scandal than anyone can imagine if you factor in that during Sec't Clinton's tenure, the Clinton Foundation (a/k/a Bill, HIll, Chels Retirement Fund) may have been soliticing funds for their "good works" from foreign countries/entities and other foreigners coincidentally shortly after the Madame Sec't would pay them a visit. I understand may actually be illegal...imagine.
Btw, I love the whole shadow of the blue dress symbol on Bill's portrait. That's a hoot!
Bev, I absolutely laughed my rear end off when I heard about the dress. LOLOLOL!
It's too bad this country doesn't have any investigative reporters who could investigate the Bill/Hill connection.
UPDATE: Clinton's team now says that the law requiring the use of a private email didn't come along until later, though I'm not sure that's true.
FURTHER UPDATE: Obama has washed his hands of this, basically refusing to defend Hillary and instead basically saying "we assumed she was doing it right." Sounds like he's preparing to throw her under the bus there.
Perhaps I'm a little more cynical, but I think the MSM is jumping all over the weaker, technocratic point in order to mute the stronger, visceral point. This way they can claim due diligence and dismiss it as "old news" if/when online outlets or conservative pols unearth more. It also seeds the phrase "Hillary's e-mail" as boring should more disturbing info comes to light. People will have been encouraged to ignore anything short of a national tragedy linked back to Hillary's unsecured email.
The liberal media will talk big to make it seem they are all concerned but they will never do anything past that....
tryanmax, That's what I'm leaning toward too. I think that they are either (1) trying to warn her off without destroying her... "Look, you don't have immunity from us, so bow out" or (2) they are trying to defuse this by playing up the part no one will care about. And with the talking head right not smart enough to attack the visceral parts instead, they probably can defuse this rather easily.
Critch, Good point! They always do this during the primaries or when a leftist politician is finished -- attack them so they can claim they are impartial. Then they go back to sweeping more important scandals under the rug.
I am almost resigned to the fact she is going to be the next President. It is her turn, the media will not hound her out. Her history is impeccable when it comes to getting off the mat. Whether the issue was Chicago Board of Trade windfall, Rose Law Firm,Whitewater, Sandy Berger destroying damaging documents, finding requested files in a White House closet, Benghazi, foreign donations, stolen valor. The list goes on and on and on. But when you are as good as the Clintons, you employ the very best bull shitters in the business who can spin gold from whole cloth. Taken together, the above is an impressive list of deception. But the result is always just short of a smoking gun. So, the media will wait patiently until the next big story. If there is to be any hope, it requires the right to think she could cost them the presidency. There is just a whiff of truth to that because I don't think any candidate will heat up the right quite like Miss Piggy.
something did not quite print in the above. I meant the only hope of the right is to convince the left she is so toxic she could cost them the presidency. Actually, the Republican nominee can benefit from a campaign that keeps hammering the theme that the track record I listed points to a career long pattern of opacity and deception. Ultimately, with all that smoke, how can one not believe there is a hint of fire. Throw in mocking her for "I ain't in no ways tahered" and she SHOULD be a joke. But, they always slither out of it.
Campaign contributions for foreign countries actually matters since when? My memory could be off, but seem to recall candidate Obama snagging millions via credit card donations from all over the world. Went nicely with those domestic votes he got from the folks registered as Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Jed-
The only problem with your theory, and I agree with most of it, is most people just don't like her.
Andrew- I agree that the press is missing the bigger picture but frankly I doubt they understand most of it anyway. Don't worry about the missing emails. The NSA has them recorded.
Jed, I'm worried that Clinton will win too, but she is a weak candidate. So we'll have to wait and see. I do think this is the MSM trying to protect her at the moment, but the actions of the Democrats has been interesting. They've refused to come defend her.
Eric, You know the left will always overlook the scandals of their heroes.
Koshcat, Sad, but true... the NSA knows all. :(
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