ANALYSIS: Clinton’s Shaky Email Defenses
After Hillary Clinton provided her much-discussed private server to the proper authorities last week, her campaign sent out an email blast to supporters and posted on its website a fascinating briefing to bring all the “facts” about the email “nonsense” together. Yet, the links the briefing provided to clear Clinton’s good name are a bit curious.
If you follow them, you’ll find that when Clinton is given every benefit of the doubt, she is innocent of specific deliberate falsehoods. At the same time, the links indict her for a campaign of deliberately misleading statements, dating to a news conference in March. Consider some of the key questions, and the answers provided by the fact-checking websites cited by the Clinton campaign (emphasis added in boldface italics):
Was using a private email account allowed?
“Yes,” the campaign said, citing a PolitiFact post. Here’s what Politifact found:
- “We interviewed several experts on government transparency and records preservation. While Clinton might be able to put together a case that she ‘complied’ with the rules, experts said her actions are nevertheless hard to defend.”
- “It seems she didn’t break a rule simply by using a personal email to conduct business. Rather, by using personal emails exclusively, she skirted the rules governing federal records management.”
- “(Former Justice Department official Daniel) Metcalfe pointed to Clinton’s use of the word ‘allowed’ and ‘opted’ throughout her press conference, when referring to her decision to use private email. He said both words give the false impression that the law and its proper implementation presented her with a choice. She might have been ‘allowed’ to use only a private email account in that no one stopped her, Metcalfe said, but that’s not the same thing as lawfully complying with rules.”
Read the article “ANALYSIS: Clinton’s Shaky Email Defenses” on usatoday.com.
