Last week, the State Department's independent watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, issued a report on Clinton's "email records management." The report includes information that shows that practically everything Clinton has said about her use of a private server is false.
Last year, Clinton said that she used the private server "for convenience." She talked as if she had not given the matter much thought. That claim was unbelievable at the time. Given the family's extensive history of being under investigation, she of all lawyers had to know that government correspondence belongs to the people, not the place holders. As the Washington Post editorialized, the new report shows that Clinton's decision "was not a casual oversight." The Secretary of State was so busy trying to protect her self-interest that she repeatedly ignored warnings about cybersecurity risks.
Even after the inspector general's report was released, Clinton continued to spin lies. She told ABC News and CNN that her use of a private server was "allowed." It was not. Indeed, the report found that her modus operandi presented "significant security risks." State Department officials warned of hacking attempts, which she did not heed. In an email she explained, "I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible." So she risked national security. According to the report, when staff spoke up about those risks, a staffer was told "never to speak of the Secretary's personal email system again."
Last week, the Associated Press reported that Clinton claimed, "I have provided all my work-related email." Wrong again. Clinton handed over some 30,00 emails -- the rest she said were personal. But the IG report found that she handed over no emails received in her first two months in office and no "sent" messages for the first three months. In addition, investigators discovered no copies of 19 emails, provided by the Department of Defense, exchanged between Clinton and then-Gen. David Petraeus. What else is missing? It is impossible to fathom.
Clinton misled the public when she said that she would cooperate fully with investigators. "I'm more than ready to talk to anybody anytime," she said in May. But through her lawyers, Clinton declined to be interviewed by Inspector General Steve Linick or his staff. Thus Californians probably will vote in the June 7 primary without the benefit of knowing what Clinton has to say for herself on the legal record -- and with an FBI criminal investigation pending. That's how little regard she has for Democratic primary voters.
Hillary Clinton roots for herself. She clearly saw the State Department as a private fiefdom, hence her use of a private server. She put national security at risk. She lies even when there is abundant evidence that she is not telling the truth. Confront her with contradictory evidence, and she continues to make fantastic assertions. She relies on her supporters' willful gullibility. In many ways, Hillary Clinton is not all that different from Donald Trump.
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