By using her private email account, she violated the security rules of the Department of State for years.
The latest chapter of a saga that has been attracting a lot of attention for the last three days from American political commentators tells the story of Hillary Clinton — who has just promised to make public every email she has exchanged all these years — trying to get out of this storm without too much damage to her image.
However, the same chapter also tells of huge sectors of the Democratic Party that are getting worried about the “Emailgate” controversy, starting with donors to the next electoral campaign, who, until yesterday, were excited to help Hillary on her way to the White House and are now feeling embarrassed, reconsidering the candidate they chose.
The Private Email Account and the Rules of the Government
Could this scandal be the one to prevent the former senator and first lady from becoming the first female president in American history? Some people think it could: for the love of the controversy, as with the Republicans, or for other media reasons; indeed, since the news broke, the political coverage has been all about it.
How has something so major happened? It looks like Hillary Clinton — when she was secretary of state (during Barack Obama’s first term) — was exclusively using a personal email account and not the one of the government. But there’s more. To do so, she was using a server registered in her Chappaqua home, in New York state.
By using the following email address, hdr22@clintonemail.com, Hillary Clinton has violated the security rules of the government for at least six years, according to some newspapers — i.e., the first four years when she was at the head of diplomacy and the two following years.
But what is at stake is not only security, but also, and maybe more than anything, transparency. For their work communications, all members of the cabinet and all government employees must use their government accounts because all these emails are considered official documents and therefore can be used by congressional commissions and also journalists.
Something to Hide?
It’s obvious that the emails written by Hillary Clinton from her email account and via an elusive server are neither listed nor available for whoever wants them. As a matter of principle, whoever wants to have a look at them, should ask her, not the government. And if she decided to refuse to make them public, the only way [to get them] would be the legal route, along with a long battle in front of a judge.
The scandal is actually in the question itself: Why did Hillary Clinton want to use a personal and confidential channel for her communications during the years she worked at the Department of State? Because she felt she didn’t have to comply with the government’s rules? Or because she was aware of how it could end, and she took measures to make sure no one could read her emails and use them against her.
The most malicious people went with the second alternative. They think it could have been masterminded. Already, as the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was thinking of the White House. In order to avoid any interference into her running for president, she took all the necessary precautions, among them, to keep her emails confidential.
In those four years, the former first lady had to deal with many delicate cases. One in particular could be very embarrassing for her: the assault by jihadis on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2012, during which the U.S. ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three Americans from his staff. According to some versions [of the story], the Department of State had been informed of the possibility of an attack, but it allegedly didn’t move to thwart it.
It has been a long time that Republicans point at this scandal to undermine Clinton’s presidential candidacy, but they never could find anything conclusive. Maybe, it could be in the former secretary of state’s emails. We don’t know.
55,000 Emails
What we know for now is that “Emailgate” could be more than a spring storm. If the controversies were to progress, some even hypothesize that Clinton would leave the race for the presidency (without having ever announced her candidacy officially).
This story is about 55,000 emails. Last year, the Department of State asked for them, but Clinton’s team made a selection beforehand: another signal of little transparency. Americans are not very fond of all the mysteries surrounding her email account, especially since they got to know that their privacy had been violated by the National Security Agency surveillance program.
So, Hillary will need to be very convincing to explain why she used a private email account while in the government. If not, she will be facing a major problem.
Even as a democratic Socialist I must confess I voted for THE CLINTONS twice. Back in 1992 they still had a little of the fresh idealism of the late 60s. And THEIR health care plan did come dangerously close to -horror of horrors- SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. A few decades later Hillary is as power hungry as ever -but with lost innocence. It shows in her face: she has the look of a power mad and rather unprincipled Harpie. In general , sad to say, my generation-too many of us -are now a corrupt and spent generation.
A Hillary presidency might seem the dream of bourgeois feminism. But like Hillary, bourgeois feminism is also morally and intellectually bankrupt. Are bitches really preferable to bastards in the halls of the rich and powerful ? How do you FEMINIZE the rotten capitalist profit system ? Perhaps Hillary will send ME an e-mail(rlnruggieri@gmail.com ).
( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ )