海角大神

The New York Times聽is reporting that, during the time that she served as secretary of State,聽Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private e-mail account with unknown security protocols聽to communicate with State Department employees, others in the federal government and, presumably, foreign government officials, in what appears to be a violation of both the letter and the spirit of federal record keeping laws:

This isn鈥檛 the first time that government officials using private e-mail accounts has become an issue, of course. Indeed, as the article notes further on, Colin Powell used a private e-mail account nearly exclusively during the time that he was secretary of State, although that was at time before current regulations regarding the use of e-mail by government officials and record retention were put in place. In addition, there have been issues similar to this that have arisen at both the federal and state levels many times over the years, regarding everyone from people in the Chris Christie administration involved in the so-called 鈥淏ridgegate鈥� investigation to Sarah Palin. Never before, though, have we seen a case like this where such a high-ranking government official didn鈥檛 just use private e-mail occasionally, but used it exclusively for all official correspondence to the point where they didn鈥檛 even bother to establish an official government e-mail account. Moreover, and perhaps even more damning,聽The Washington Post聽is reporting that the domain that Clinton used for her electronic correspondence while serving as secretary of State聽was established just one week before President Obama took office,聽and on the same day that Clinton鈥檚 confirmation hearings in the Senate began. That fact alone makes it seems as though Clinton had decided from the start that she would not comply with federal record-keeping laws while serving as secretary of State.

Admittedly, there has been some portion of Clinton鈥檚 private e-mail correspondence turned over to the State Department for record-keeping purposes. However, as the聽Times聽article notes, the determination regarding what would be turned over and what would be withheld was apparently made exclusively by Clinton and her personal aides without any participation or review by State Department or other government employees. That, quite honestly, is simply unacceptable. Obviously, if there are purely private communications in the correspondence that Clinton engaged in on the account(s) in question during the time she was secretary of State, that material should not have to be turned over for archiving. However, it is entirely inappropriate for the determination of what should and should not be turned over to be made solely by the government official in question or people working for him or her. Clinton鈥檚 actions here violated both the letter and the spirit of federal law, regardless of whether or not it was done for nefarious purposes.

Obviously, news like this is likely to fuel the passions of those who were likely to be opposed to Hillary Clinton to begin with, and one can see that in聽much of the reaction in the blogosphere.聽It is understandable, of course, given the history of the Clinton鈥檚 when it comes to disclosing information. During the Whitewater investigation, requests for the billing records for Hillary Clinton鈥檚 work while representing the company as an employee of the Rose Law Firm were stonewalled for years until the records suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere, for example. In this case, though, we鈥檙e talking about a government official and rather clearly written federal law that forbids what was being done in this case. Even leaving aside the issues regarding withholding documents from the government, there are some rather obvious security concerns involved in having a secretary of State using a private e-mail domain to communicate regarding official, and in some cases presumably classified, government business. At the very least, what Clinton did was irresponsible for that reason alone. As聽John Cole聽puts it, one has to wonder if Hillary Clinton can do anything without committing some kind of an unforced error.

In the end, this may have no impact on the 2016 race at all. In fact, it鈥檚 quite likely that it won鈥檛. In the short term, though, it reinforces all of the old doubts and questions about Hillary Clinton herself and the Clintons in general.

UPDATE (James Joyner):聽Vox鈥檚 Max Fisher, whose judgment I trust and who鈥檚 certainly no Republican, has an interesting take headlined 鈥淗illary Clinton鈥檚 personal email account looks bad now. But it was even worse at the time.鈥� The key bit:

So, yes, this is a big deal and probably more than a mere 鈥渦nforced error.鈥� But, no, it鈥檚 hardly unprecedented nor something uniquely Clintonesque. Will it have legs in the campaign? Only to the extent that it鈥檚 part of a pattern of behavior, reminding people what they don鈥檛 like about her.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.

James Joyner is editor of the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.