WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton’s email problem, long on the back-burner, boiled over again this week as two important and related developments turned up the heat.
Late Thursday, The New York Times reported that the inspectors general of the State Department and intelligence agencies are seeking a criminal investigation into the handling of “sensitive government information” on Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
The reason emerged in a Friday report by The Wall Street Journal. Despite denying earlier this year that she sent any “classified documents” over email, the inspectors general found that Clinton had sent at least four emails containing classified information derived from the intelligence community. She did not, obviously, attach “classified documents” to her electronic messages, but she did send messages containing information that remains classified even to this day.[…]
This calls Clinton’s honesty into question yet again, and threatens her political future. But those are the least of the nation’s problems. Far worse is that the foreign policy interests of the United States may have been harmed by her characteristic decision to put herself above the rules that apply to other people.
All government employees are required to preserve and turn over all emails in a timely fashion that are created or received through private channels. But national security concerns add hugely to the urgency of State Department pressure on employees not to use private email for work.
The transgression here is very serious — just as serious as the statement it makes about Clinton’s character. With no justification more compelling than her own convenience, Clinton thwarted two key goals of federal law. First, she undermined the freedom of information for the public, as evidenced by the fact that her withholding of her work emails for years after they were created (and long after she left office) caused both public and congressional document requests to be improperly and incompletely fulfilled. Second, she undermined the national security interests inherent in keeping classified material secret. (read more)
