The State Department’s inspector general released its report on the email practices of Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State. The report “badly complicates Clinton’s past explanations about the server and whether she complied fully with the laws in place governing electronic communication.” The Washington Post:
Clinton used an inappropriate method of preserving her documents. Her approach would not have been approved if it had been requested by a more junior member of the State Department staff. The report also suggests that despite a Clinton aide’s insistence that the method of preserving her emails had been submitted to a legal review back in 2010, there is no evidence that such a review took place. And, here’s the kicker: Clinton refused to sit for a formal interview.
Oomph. Double oomph. Heck, that might merit a triple oomph.
The Clinton campaign will push back hard on this report — as it has against anything that suggests she was at all in the wrong in the creation and protection of her email server. Here’s how her press secretary, Brian Fallon, put it on Twitter: Clinton’s team has spent months casting the State Department Inspector General’s Office as overly aggressive and working hand in hand with congressional Republicans to cast the former secretary of state in the worst possible light.
That’s a very hard story to sell given that the current inspector general was appointed by President Obama. It is, by the way, the same problem Clinton faces when she tries to cast skepticism on the ongoing FBI investigation. This is an FBI that is overseen by an attorney general — Loretta E. Lynch — who was also appointed by Obama. It’s tough to make the case that a Democratic administration filled with Democratic appointees are all somehow out to get the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
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