Long-time trusted Clinton confidant James Carville inadvertently admitted over the weekend on ABC's This Week that Hillary Clinton probably used a private email address and server in order to avoid Congressional oversight or scrutiny.
"I suspect she didn’t want Louie Gohmert rifling through her emails," Carville said.
Carville attempts to defend Clinton by claiming she followed the law and slammed investigative Republicans like Congressman Louie Gohmert, while at the same time admitted the very problem with Clinton's email secrecy: a lack of transparency and avoidance of accountability during her time as Secretary of State.
But not everyone on the left is defending Clinton. Liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published a brutal op-ed yesterday, Open Letter to hdr22@clintonemail.com, on Hillary Clinton's latest email debacle. Dowd is calling Hillary's private server the "Clinton Republic of Chappaqua." Here are some of the juicy pieces, but it's worth reading in full (emphasis is mine).
It has come to our attention while observing your machinations during your attempted restoration that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our democracy: The importance of preserving historical records and the ill-advised gluttony of an American feminist icon wallowing in regressive Middle Eastern states’ payola.
If you, Hillary Rodham Clinton, are willing to cite your mother’s funeral to get sympathy for ill-advisedly deleting 30,000 emails, it just makes us want to sigh: O.K., just take it. If you want it that bad, go ahead and be president and leave us in peace. (Or war, if you have your hawkish way.) You’re still idling on the runway, but we’re already jet-lagged.
When the Rogue State of Bill began demonizing Monica Lewinsky as a troubled stalker, you knew you could count on the complicity of feminists and Democratic women in Congress. Bill’s female cabinet members and feminist supporters had no choice but to accept the unappetizing quid pro quo: The Clintons would give women progressive public policies as long as the women didn’t assail Bill for his regressive private behavior with women.
Keeping a single account mingling business and personal with your own server wasn’t about “convenience.” It was about expedience. You became judge and jury on what’s relevant because you didn’t want to leave digital fingerprints for others to retrace. You could have had Huma carry two devices if you really couldn’t hoist an extra few ounces. You insisted on piggybacking on Bill’s server, even though his aides were worried about hackers, because you were gaming the system for 2016. (Or even 2012.)
It depends upon what the meaning of @ is.
Ouch.
Although Hillary Clinton has been pounded by the press for her latest email secrecy and potential violation of many federal laws, including the possibility she committed a felony, other potential 2016 Democratic nominees have remained relatively quiet about this scandal, even saying they're already tired of it as former Maryland Governor and potential 2016 nominee Martin O'Malley said last week.
Team Clinton is hoping this all blows over, but according polling, government corruption is a top concern of voters. If that position holds, Clinton and Democrats who support her will have a problem on their hands moving in the presidential election.
Three House Committees are investigating Clinton's private email use. The State Department is being sued by the Associated Press over Freedom of Information Act requests that have gone unanswered for years and Judicial Watch has issued new FOIA requests for Clinton's emails, threatening lawsuits if they aren't fulfilled.