And This Is Your Next President?

The State Department’s inspector general has sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.

[...]

The review “found no evidence” that Mrs. Clinton had requested or received approval from anyone at the department to conduct her state business on a personal email.

  NYT

She's a Clinton, the Heir to the Throne. Why would she think she needed anyone's approval?

Mrs. Clinton and her aides have played down the inquiries, saying that she would cooperate with investigators to put the email issue behind her. Even so, through her lawyers, she declined to be interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general as part of his review. So did several of her senior aides.

So, how are they playing this?

“Contrary to the false theories advanced for some time now, the report notes that her use of personal email was known to officials within the Department during her tenure, and that there is no evidence of any successful breach of the Secretary’s server,” [Clinton’s campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon] said in the statement.

So, that makes it okay. Rich argument there.

The State Department issued numerous warnings dating back a decade about the cyber-security risks of using personal emails accounts for government business, the report said, and Mrs. Clinton was personally sent a memo in 2011 warnings of hackers trying to target unclassified, personal email accounts. She was also given a classified, in-person briefing on the dangers, the report said.

The report found that while dozens of State Department employees used personal email accounts periodically over the years, only three officials were found to have used it “exclusively” for day-to-day operations: Mrs. Clinton; Colin Powell, the secretary of state under President George W. Bush; and Scott Gration, the ambassador to Kenya from 2011 to 2012.

So....why aren't they under invesigation? This, as I recall, was one of her early justifications: it had been done by a previous Secretary of State. There'll be cries of sexism.

But while State Department officials never directly told Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Powell that they needed to end their use of personal email, the report found, they did do so with Mr. Gration, a lower-level diplomat who did not have their political clout.

What a surprise, eh?

----

When it comes to low-level government employees with no power, the Obama administration has purposely prosecuted them as harshly as possible to the point of vindictiveness: It has notoriously prosecuted more individuals under the Espionage Act of 1917 for improperly handling classified information than all previous administrations combined.

[...]

In the light of [...] new Clinton revelations, the very same people who spent years justifying this obsessive assault are now scampering for reasons why a huge exception should be made for the Democratic Party front-runner. Fascinatingly, one of the most vocal defenders of this Obama DOJ record of persecution has been Hillary Clinton herself.

[...]

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Manning’s alleged actions damaging and unfortunate in remarks to reporters at the State Department on Thursday. “I think that in an age where so much information is flying through cyberspace, we all have to be aware of the fact that some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary steps to do so,” Clinton said." [source]

Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

  Glenn Greenwald

State Department Report on Clinton's Emails

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.