A new report from the State
Department’s inspector general reportedly blasts Clinton’s use of private
email—the latest headache for the Democratic front-runner.
David
A. Graham, May 25, 2016
A State Department inspector
general’s report will reportedly blast Hillary Clinton for her handling of her
email while secretary of state.
Rather than use the State
Department’s system, Clinton set up her own email system, for herself and top
aides, using a server at her home in New York. The revelation of that system
has prompted several inquiries. An investigation by the FBI and the Justice
Department has received the most attention, in large part because it could
theoretically result in Clinton being indicted. The IG’s report does not carry
the same threat of sanction. The report has not been published, but several
outlets—beginning
with Politico—have obtained copies, and those reports paint a damning
picture.
The IG finds that Clinton did
not seek appropriate approval for her email workaround at the start of her
tenure, and that had she done so, she would have been denied because
of security concerns. Later, in 2010, Clinton’s team was warned about misgivings
about whether the system would preserve public records. That warning was
dismissed by a Clinton aide who cited a legal review that had cleared its use,
but the IG could not find any evidence of that review, according
to The Washington Post.
Clinton’s failures did not end
with her departure from Foggy Bottom. In order to comply with public-records
laws, Clinton should have either saved and printed all of her emails or else
turned them all over when she left the department in 2013. Instead, she only
handed them nearly two years later. Politico quotes
the report:
Therefore, Secretary Clinton
should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her
personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in
the Office of the Secretary. At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have
surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving
government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the
Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal
Records Act.
In
one exchange captured by the IG, Clinton’s right-hand woman Huma Abedin
pointed out that the private email system was causing problems with the State
Department’s own email system, which was apparently sending the secretary’s
messages to spam. Abedin suggested moving Clinton to the official system, but
Clinton objected citing concerns about the privacy of her personal emails—a
problem that she, of course, had created by establishing the private system in
the first place.
Clinton was hardly the only
offender, the IG noted: Colin Powell was also delinquent in his compliance with
public-records laws, using a personal laptop to send messages. Other
secretaries, both at State and in other Cabinet-level positions, have also
reportedly used private email. That points to a broader problem in the
government, but it’s hardly exculpatory for Clinton, who also happens to be the
only former secretary who is running for president.
Clinton and her aides did not
cooperate with the IG’s inquiry, though she has said they will cooperate with
the FBI and Department of Justice, and some aides have already spoken with
investigators. It’s unclear when that inquiry might conclude. Clinton and her
team insist she did not break any laws, and the most recent reports suggest
that so far the investigation has not turned up any evidence of malicious
wrongdoing that might lead to an indictment. The prospect of Clinton facing
prosecution as the general election ramps up is a nightmare scenario for
Democrats, who are already rattled by Donald Trump’s prowess in polling against
her.
The emails have become a
classic Clinton scandal. Even though investigations have found no wrongdoing on
her part with respect to the Benghazi attacks themselves, Clinton’s
private-email use and concerns about whether she sent classified information
have become huge stories unto themselves. This is a pattern with the Clinton
family, which has been in the public spotlight since Bill Clinton’s first run
for office, in 1974: Something that appears potentially scandalous on its face
turns out to be innocuous, but an investigation into it reveals different
questionable behavior. The canonical case is Whitewater,
a failed real-estate investment Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1978. Although
no inquiry ever produced evidence of wrongdoing, investigations ultimately led
to President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice.
With Hillary Clinton leading
the field for the Democratic nomination for president, every Clinton scandal—from
Whitewater to the State Department emails—will be under the microscope. (No
other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated
by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation
of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.)
Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is,
is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information
emerges.
What? Setting aside the
question of the
Clintons’ private email server, what’s actually in the emails that Clinton did
turn over to State? While some of the emails related to Benghazi
have been released, there are plenty of others covered by public-records laws
that haven’t.
When? 2009-2013
How serious is it? Serious.
Initially, it seemed that the interest in the emails would stem from damaging
things that Clinton or other aides had said: cover-ups, misrepresentations, who
knows? But so far, other than some cringeworthy moments of sucking up and some
eye-rolly emails from contacts like Sidney
Blumenthal, the emails have been remarkably boring. The main focus now is
on classification. Sixty-five emails contain information that is now
classified. The question is whether any of it, and how much of it, was
classified at the time it was sent. Clinton has said she didn’t knowingly send
or receive classified material on the account. The State Department and
Intelligence Community have disagreed about that. In addition, the Intelligence
Community’s inspector general wrote
in a January letter that Clinton’s server contained information marked
“special access program,” a
further restricted type of information. Some emails that Clinton didn’t
turn over have also since surfaced.
A May report from the State Department inspector general is harshly
critical of Clinton’s email approach.
What? On September 11, 2012,
attackers overran a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris
Stevens and three other Americans. Since then, Republicans have charged that
Hillary Clinton failed to adequately protect U.S. installations or that she
attempted to spin the attacks as spontaneous when she knew they were planned
terrorist operations. She testifies for the first time on October 22.
When? September 11,
2012-present
How serious is it? Benghazi has
gradually turned into a classic “it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup”
scenario. Only the fringes argue, at this point, that Clinton deliberately
withheld aid. A House committee continues to investigate the killings and
aftermath, but Clinton’s marathon
appearance before the committee in October was widely
considered a win for her. However, it was through the Benghazi
investigations that Hillary Clinton’s use
of a private email server became public—a controversy that remains potent.
What? Before becoming
Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills worked for Clinton on an unpaid basis
for four month while also working for New York University, in which capacity
she negotiated on the school’s behalf with the government of Abu Dhabi, where
it was building a campus. In June 2012, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin’s status
at State changed to “special government employee,” allowing her to also
work for Teneo, a consulting firm run by Bill Clinton’s former right-hand man.
She also earned money from the Clinton Foundation and was paid directly by
Hillary Clinton.
Who? Both Cheryl Mills and
Huma Abedin are among Clinton’s longest-serving and closest aides. Abedin
remains involved in her campaign (and she’s also married to Anthony Weiner).
When? January 2009-February
2013
How serious is it? This is
arcane stuff, to be sure. There are questions about conflict of interest—such
as whether
Teneo clients might have benefited from special treatment by the State
Department while Abedin worked for both. To a great extent, this is just an
extension of the tangle of conflicts presented by the Clinton
Foundation and the many
overlapping roles of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
What? During
the course of the Benghazi
investigation, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt learned Clinton had used
a personal email account while secretary of state. It turned out she had
also been using a private server, located at a house in New York. The result
was that Clinton and her staff decided which emails to turn over to the State
Department as public records and which to withhold; they say they then
destroyed the ones they had designated as personal.
When? 2009-2013, during
Clinton’s term as secretary.
Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill
Clinton; top aides including Huma
Abedin
How serious is it? The biggest
question right now appears to be whether the server was hacked, which could
have exposed classified or otherwise sensitive information. Even if not,
there’s the question of whether using the serve was appropriate. The rules
governing use of personal emails are murky, and Clinton aides insist she
followed the rules. There’s no dispositive evidence otherwise so far.
Politically, there are questions about how she selected the emails she turned
over and what was in the ones she deleted. The FBI has reportedly
managed to recover some of the deleted correspondence.
What? A former journalist,
Blumenthal was a top aide in the second term of the Bill Clinton administration
and helped on messaging during the bad
old days. He served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential
campaign, and when she took over the State Department, she sought to hire
Blumenthal. Obama aides, apparently still smarting over his role in attacks on
candidate Obama, refused the request, so Clinton just sought out his counsel
informally. At the same time, Blumenthal was drawing a check from the Clinton
Foundation.
When? 2009-2013
How serious is it? Some of the
damage is already done. Blumenthal was apparently the source of the idea that
the Benghazi
attacks were spontaneous, a notion that proved incorrect and provided a
political bludgeon against Clinton and Obama. He also advised the secretary on
a wide range of other issues, from Northern Ireland to China, and passed along
analysis from his son Max, a staunch critic of the Israeli government (and
conservative bête noire). But emails released so far show even Clinton’s top
foreign-policy guru, Jake Sullivan, rejecting Blumenthal’s analysis, raising
questions about her judgment in trusting him.
What? Since Bill Clinton left
the White House in 2001, both Clintons have made millions of dollars for giving
speeches.
When? 2001-present
Who? Hillary Clinton; Bill
Clinton; Chelsea Clinton
How serious is it? Intermittently
dangerous. It has a tendency to flare up, then die down. Senator Bernie Sanders
made it a useful attack against her in early 2016, suggesting that by speaking
to banks like Goldman Sachs, she was compromised. There have been calls for
Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches, which she was declined to
do, saying if every other candidate does, she will too. For the Clintons, who
left the White House up to their ears in legal debt, lucrative speeches—mostly
by the former president—proved to be an effective way of rebuilding wealth.
They have also been an effective magnet for prying questions. Where did Bill,
Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton speak? How did they decide how much to charge?
What did they say? How did they decide which speeches would be given on behalf
of the Clinton
Foundation, with fees going to the charity, and which
would be treated as personal income? Are there cases of conflicts of
interest or quid pro quos—for example, speaking
gigs for Bill Clinton on behalf of clients who had business before the
State Department?
What? Bill Clinton’s
foundation was actually established in 1997, but after leaving the White House
it became his primary vehicle for … well, everything.
With projects ranging from public health to elephant-poaching protection and
small-business assistance to child development, the foundation is a huge global
player with several prominent offshoots. In 2013, following Hillary Clinton’s
departure as secretary of State, it was renamed the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea
Clinton Foundation.
When? 1997-present
Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary
Clinton; Chelsea Clinton, etc.
How serious is it? If the
Clinton Foundation’s strength is President Clinton’s endless intellectual
omnivorousness, its weakness is the distractibility and lack of interest in
detail that sometimes come with it. On a philanthropic level, the foundation
gets decent ratings from outside review groups, though critics charge that it’s
too diffuse to do much good, that the money has not always achieved what it was
intended to, and that in some cases the money doesn’t
seem to have achieved its intended purpose. The foundation made
errors in its tax returns it has to correct. Overall, however, the
essential questions about the Clinton Foundation come down to two, related
issues. The first is the seemingly
unavoidable conflicts of interest: How did the Clintons’ charitable work
intersect with their for-profit speeches? How did their speeches
intersect with Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department? Were
there quid-pro-quos involving U.S. policy? Did the foundation steer
money improperly to for-profit companies owned by friends? The second,
connected question is about disclosure. When Clinton became secretary, she
agreed that the foundation would make certain disclosures, which it’s now clear
it didn’t always do. And the looming questions about Clinton’s
State Department emails make it harder to answer those questions.
What is it? Since the Clintons
have a long history of controversies, there are any number of past scandals
that continue to float around, especially in conservative media: Whitewater.
Troopergate. Paula Jones. Monica Lewinsky. Travelgate.
Vince
Foster’s suicide. Juanita Broaddrick.
When? 1975-2001
Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary
Clinton; a brigade of supporting characters
How serious is it? The
conventional wisdom is that they’re not terribly dangerous. Some are wholly
spurious (Foster). Others (Lewinsky, Whitewater) have been so exhaustively
investigated it’s hard to imagine them doing much further damage to Hillary
Clinton’s standing. In fact, the Lewinsky scandal famously boosted her public
approval ratings. But the January 2016 resurfacing of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape
allegations offers a test case to see whether the conventional wisdom is truly
wise—or just conventional. On May 23, Donald Trump released
a video prominently highlighting Broaddrick’s accusation.
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