ANALYSIS/OPINION:
It looks like the “convenient to have one device” explanation Hillary Rodham Clinton used to deflect inquiries as to why she used her private email account to conduct official business while serving as secretary of state is a bunch of pure hogwash. It has become evident that, in addition to her personal phone, she also used an iPad connected to her personal email account to send and receive information related to her official duties.
The story emerging from this strange and unprecedented breach of protocol, if not law and regulation, is that Mrs. Clinton’s email shenanigans appear to be part of a deliberate attempt to withhold her communications from public — and, thus, partisan — scrutiny.
While the Clinton machine is ever so skilled at deflecting the core issues and focusing the media discussion on the irrelevant matter of personal convenience, she may have just been caught in her own web of deception. Not only do recently disclosed email communications indicate that Mrs. Clinton used multiple devices, but they also show that on at least one occasion, she replied to an official email with personal information. The implication here couldn’t be clearer. What is the likelihood that she also replied to personal communications with “official” and possibly classified and sensitive information?
But this situation goes way beyond merely one of convenience and miscommunication. Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to withhold the emails were part of a deliberate attempt to keep her communications off of the official State Department email servers and, therefore, away from prying eyes in the Congress and even the Obama administration in which she served. Her obstructionist behavior on the Benghazi affair — in which State Department staff made a big show of presenting documents for Congress to review “in camera” while severely restricting the Congressional committee’s ability to retain and analyze her communications — now seems much more deliberate and cynical than it did at the time. After all, part of her rationale for restricting congressional access was to protect sensitive national security information. The fact that Mrs. Clinton so brazenly and consistently violated security protocols in the normal course of business seems to belie the national security rationale and reveal it as merely a pretext to forestall what she viewed as a political investigation.
Also, Mrs. Clinton used a private server stored in her home to store the communications. It would therefore be impossible for a third party Internet provider — Google or Microsoft or Apple, for example — to turn over records if it were subpoenaed by the government. Mrs. Clinton and her minions have claimed that the private server was later destroyed (again implying that national security was a primary concern), and that no record of sensitive emails remains. That assertion cannot be independently proven, unfortunately.
But what is undisputably true is that her private server could easily be hacked without her knowledge, and sensitive information vacuumed up by some Russian or Chinese or Iranian (or whoever else) intelligence agency. And even if she became aware that her server had been compromised, one wonders whether or not she would have disclosed such a colossal breach of security in light of her obvious political ambitions. The likelihood is that all of Mrs. Clinton’s email and text traffic through that server has been recorded, examined and disseminated by foreign powers.
Mrs. Clinton was, and remains, a high-level intelligence target because she is so arrogant, careless and ignorant of the value of things she did, said and received “in the clear” while working as secretary of state. Her use of that server, and how her electronic traffic was handled, was a flagrant security violation that provided valuable intelligence information to the enemies of the U.S. Any other federal employee who held clearances that gave her access to the president’s daily brief would have been fired and federally prosecuted for doing the same thing. Instead, Mrs. Clinton seems to revel in obstinacy and obstruction without so much of a hint of reflection about the damage she has done to the trust of the American people.
Mrs. Clinton clearly knew the stakes involved when she decided to conduct official business from her personal email account. Namely, she intentionally commingled her personal interests and causes with America’s national interest.
To wit, a story first published in Gawker points out that longtime Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal used his own private email to back-channel communications between Mrs. Clinton and Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The communication was notable because it showed Mrs. Clinton’s reliance on her private network of intelligence and diplomatic contacts in a way that clearly sought to circumvent official channels and congressional scrutiny.
While Mrs. Clinton’s political and philanthropic efforts are ostensibly separate endeavors, one wonders to what extent they are really independent of each other. As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton seemed to be subordinating her public service to convenience in her private life.
• Armstrong Williams is sole owner/manager of Howard Stirk Holdings and executive editor of American CurrentSee online magazine.
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