The report on Hillary Clinton’s email by the State Department’s inspector general this week was devastating — not because of how she handled email but because of how she handled investigators.
The report’s revelations weren’t particularly revelatory: Clinton violated department policies and went further than predecessors in her use of private email, but she wasn’t the first to take this path. Beyond that, as my colleagues Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger reported, officials say the FBI has “found little evidence that Clinton maliciously flouted classification rules.”
But what’s damning in the new report is her obsessive and counterproductive secrecy:
The Office of the Inspector General said it “interviewed Secretary Kerry and former Secretaries Albright, Powell, and Rice. Through her counsel, Secretary Clinton declined OIG’s request for an interview.”
“In addition to Secretary Clinton, eight former Department employees [most of them Clinton aides] declined OIG requests for interviews.”
“Two additional individuals did not respond to OIG interview requests.”
“OIG sent 26 questionnaires to Secretary Clinton’s staff and received 5 responses.”
The stonewalling creates a firm impression, well captured by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week when he interviewed Clinton’s spokesman, Brian Fallon: “If she didn’t do anything wrong and she had nothing to hide, why didn’t she cooperate with the inspector general?”
There is no good answer to this. And that’s why the IG report was just another of Clinton’s self-inflicted wounds, stretching back a quarter century, caused by her tendency toward secrecy and debilitating caution.
Donald Trump has decided to dub her “Crooked Hillary.” This isn’t quite true: Though investigations into her activities have occupied much of the past 25 years, her accusers, from Whitewater to Benghazi, never really get the goods. But what Clinton has been is nearly as problematic as being crooked: Hunkered Hillary. At the first sign of conflict or accusation, Clinton circles the wagons, shuts her mouth and instructs those around her to do the same. This generates a whole lot of smoke, even if there’s no fire. Her secrecy elevates the accusations — whatever the accusations are.
Fifteen months ago, when the email scandal broke, I viewed her use of a private server as an extension of the “same flaws that have caused Clinton trouble in the past — terminal caution and its cousin, obsessive secrecy. In trying so hard to avoid mistakes — in this case, trying to make sure an embarrassing e-mail or two didn’t become public — Clinton made a whopper of an error.”
She resisted releasing records on the Whitewater land deal (causing the scandal to drag on, leading to the independent-counsel investigation that exposed the Monica Lewinsky scandal) and about her 1993 health-care task force (giving her opponents ammunition to defeat the plan). This time, she again hunkered down.
Clinton’s response is emblematic of her caution. While Trump and Bernie Sanders drive the narrative of the 2016 campaign with their freewheeling styles, Clinton is missing: She puts herself into the debate less often than the others, and, when she does, she says little to merit headlines. Her hiring of a full slate of advisers to Obama — himself a cautious leader — reinforces the risk aversion. But caution won’t win this year, and it’s unclear whether Hunkered Hillary will, or even can, liberate herself from the bunker.
The inspector general’s bottom line wasn’t good: “She did not comply with the department’s policies.” But the description of Clinton’s secrecy was worse. When one State staffer raised concern about Clinton’s private email, this person was told “that the secretary’s personal system had been reviewed and approved by department legal staff and that the matter was not to be discussed any further.” Investigators found no evidence of such a review.
What they found was stonewalling by Clinton and her aides — and this, not mishandled email, is what tripped up Fallon as he tried to defend the candidate to Blitzer this week.
“It looks as if she’s got something to hide which she doesn’t even want to answer questions from the inspector general of the State Department,” the veteran anchor argued.
Fallon, a skilled flack, tried to argue that Clinton and her aides prioritized the similar Justice Department investigation and were cooperating with that one. Then he insinuated that “there were hints of an anti-Clinton bias” in the IG’s office.
The vast right-wing conspiracy had infiltrated the State Department! Asked Blitzer: “Are you accusing the inspector general of the State Department” — a Democratic appointee — “of having an anti-Clinton bias?”
The spokesman retreated, noting that the report documented “that the use of personal e-mail was widespread and done by her predecessors, including Secretary Powell.”
And that might have been the take-away — if Hunkered Hillary hadn’t let her instinctive caution again get the best of her.
JUST BECAUSE SISSY SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO...BUT HE THINKS IT DOES!!!!! JUST BECAUSE MC1 SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO!!!!!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Chuck Todd was just put on Boxy's list of people that are part of the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRICY!!!!!!
"Convenience isn’t it because it’s not a convenient thing to have a server in your house. No, it’s making it so that it’s outside the reach of the federal records law. You cannot look at it any other way. That’s the only logical reason to do it.”---- Chuck Todd
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
Chuck Todd was just put on Boxy's list of people that are part of the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRICY!!!!!!
"Convenience isn’t it because it’s not a convenient thing to have a server in your house. No, it’s making it so that it’s outside the reach of the federal records law. You cannot look at it any other way. That’s the only logical reason to do it.”---- Chuck Todd
Everybody keeps a private server in their bathroom.
On another note...Does anyone know how having a private server in your home affects your carbon footprint score?
Chuck Todd was just put on Boxy's list of people that are part of the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRICY!!!!!!
Do you mean like the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy from Donald Trump who accused the Clintons of MURDERING VINCE FOSTER??? THAT VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY???
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Do you mean like the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy from Donald Trump who accused the Clintons of MURDERING VINCE FOSTER??? THAT VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY???
No...I think Chuck Todd was talking about the conspiracy of Clinton having a private email server in the shithouse.
No...I think Chuck Todd was talking about the conspiracy of Clinton having a private email server in the shithouse.
Yes... the Vince Foster Bogus Scandal The Benghazi fake scandal The criminal email fake scandal... It's all the same Right Wing Hype.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Sanders: Americans, superdelegates must 'take a hard look' at IG report on Clinton emails
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that American voters, superdelegates and others must “take a hard look” at the recent federal report that found primary rival Hillary Clinton’s email setup while running the State Department broke agency rules.
“It was not a good report for Secretary Clinton. That is something that the American people, Democrats and delegates are going to have to take a hard look at," Sanders told CBS' "Face the Nation," during one of two TV network interviews Sunday.
The inspector general’s report last week concluded Clinton broke agency rules by using a private email server and that she would have been denied permission to have one had she first sought permission.
Also Bill Maher, because he even asked the question, has become part of the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY!!!
Sanders says Clinton’s email situation has changed
Months after telling Hillary Clinton that Americans were “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Bernie Sanders may be changing his mind.
Interviewed Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, Sanders was asked if the furor over Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state had become large enough for the Vermont senator to reconsider his refusal to engage Clinton on the issue.
“It has,” he said. “But this is what I also think: There is an enormous frustration on the part of the American people.”
The State Department’s inspector general found in a report released this past week that the email setup violated department rules, that Clinton never sought permission for it, and that the proposal would have been rejected if she had. The report handed Clinton’s Republican opponents a fresh line of attack — and Sanders, too, if he chose to take it. Clinton’s competitor for the Democratic presidential nomination won praise at a candidates’ debate on October when he said, “Enough of the emails. Let’s talk about the real issues facing America.” At the time, his campaign used the comments in a fund-raising email.
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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