Hillary Clinton Dismisses Controversy Over Private Email Server

The whole kerfuffle over her emails is driven not by her actions, she declares, but by opponents trying to bring her down.

Republicans have their controversies, but with the attention-drawing magic of businessman Donald Trump driving the media coverage, the GOP candidates are tackling serious, important issues such as education, immigration reform, and replacing Obamacare. The Inspector Generals backed up the claim that their referral was administrative rather than criminal.

This wound is entirely self-inflicted.

In a Newsmax TV interview airing Thursday on “Newsmax Prime”, Morris tells host J.D. Hayworth that Clinton has no excuse for exchanging classified government information on her private email account and server when she was secretary of state.

State Department officials did nothing to protect Hillary Clinton’s emails after a high-profile breach that exposed her personal email address in 2013. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation is hopeful that some material maybe recovered – or a backup server located. “We think that furthermore this matter is mostly just shining a spotlight on a culture of classification that exists within certain corners of the government, especially the intelligence community”. Even if no classified information were shared in her email traffic – and it is hard to imagine how State Department employees could have avoided referring to classified information when emailing her about pending decisions – foreign governments would have found her emails a valuable source of intelligence if they were able to hack them. She did this through a personal account. Which reminds us of questions about what the definition of “is” is.

“Not only was it the case that the email was not marked classified, it was affirmatively marked as unclassified”, Fallon said on the conference call.

Clinton remains the frontrunner in polls for the Democratic nomination, although her sizable lead has weakened since March.

Last week, Clinton handed the server and thumb drives containing copies of 55,000 pages of her work-related emails over to the FBI, after news broke that classified information may have inappropriately passed through her inbox.

That’s preposterous. The emails are not hers to begin with. She failed to follow the classic advice offered by all crisis public relations managers: Get the information out early so the story goes away. Critics say this may have put national security secrets at risk.

The FBI began investigating the matter as early as May, according to U.S. officials familiar with the probe. And she of all people should have foreseen how eagerly her opponents would seize on this political vulnerability.

But gaffes and scandals stick the most when they speak to a concern that the public already had about a politician.

Winning the Clinton contract in 2013 was initially perceived as a victory for the company, which until then had mostly served clients in and around Denver.

It’s not just the e-mail system that didn’t meet State Department spec. According to CBS News’ Jan Crawford, the computers and other devices used by Hillary Clinton did not come from their IT department.