A new report says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke department rules by using private email to do government business.
Advertisement
The report concluded that the email server set up at Clinton’s NY home had violated federal rules for how government business is conducted.
He did not address the report’s criticism of Clinton’s use of a private server, something no other secretary of state has done.
Still, the appearance that Clinton may have fibbed about whether she had permission to have a private account plays into her biggest problem: trust.
Colin Powell was the only secretary of state who used personal email for work, but not to the extent she did, and he did not use a private server.
Most of Clinton’s emails have been made public by the State Department over the past year due to both a court order and Clinton’s willingness to turn them over. “There is no classified material” was long ago completely demolished. Officials told the inspector general’s office that they “did not – and would not – approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business”.
A November 2010 message in which she anxious that her personal messages could become accessible to outsiders, along with two other messages a year later that divulged possible security weaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state, have raised new questions, as well as fresh criticism from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
This information comes to light as the State Department Inspector General issued a report criticizing Clinton’s email practices.
Lukens is the first of at least six named witnesses being questioned about the use and setup of Clinton’s private server.
The emails appear to contain work-related passages, raising questions about why they were not turned over to the State Department past year. It also complicated federal archiving of her emails, in turn making it more hard to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Act.
But the report makes clear that Clinton was explicitly warned against handling sensitive information in such a fashion – on grounds that use of personal email might compromise secrets and violate public records rules.
She said it was “up to them” whether to conduct the interview before the fall campaign for the November 8 presidential election.
Trump noted that the report was a nonpartisan effort “done really by Democrats – if you think of it – appointed by Obama”.
An official statement from campaign spokesman Brian Fallon stopped just short of claiming that the inspector general’s report was actually a vindication.
The IG report also revealed that Clinton’s server was the subject of a possible hack attempt in early 2011.
He added, “They are now, many of them, with Secretary Clinton”. But the testimony shows the lengths to which State Department officials went to give Clinton options beyond using the department’s computer systems.
LUKENS: I don’t remember if we talked about issuing her a State Department BlackBerry. Looking at the government sector, shadow IT has constantly gotten people in trouble for a host of other reasons: federal records laws, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) violations, and privacy violations. But they also use shadow IT for personal convenience-especially the personal convenience of executives and managers who want what they want and will twist the arm of someone in IT to support it whether it’s within policy or not (or find someone else to do it for them and then tell IT they have to support it).
Advertisement
“It won’t affect either the campaign or my presidency”, said Clinton. But that does not excuse Clinton’s unprecedented decision to set up her own server, her failure to seek approval for her email chicanery, or her refusal to cooperate with the State Department’s investigation.
