News Did Hillary Clinton break the rules by using personal email account?

[Second Summer]

Even if she didn't break the rules, though it seems likely that she did, surely this practice shows a despicable attitude to the ideal of transparency in government, and in itself should disqualify her in the eyes of the electorate?

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/u...e-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html (March 2, 2015)

Conducting government business with their private email account seems like the kind of thing leaders of "banana republics" would do.

 

[ledboots]

Unbelievable.

 

[Blobbenstein]

it was a bit foolish of her not to get a government email address even if she was going to use a personal one.

 

[Mischief]

Before everyone jumps on the bandwagon, perhaps it would be best to be informed.

Hillary Email ‘Scandal’? Not So Fast - The Daily Beast

 

[Second Summer]

Before everyone jumps on the bandwagon, perhaps it would be best to be informed.

Hillary Email ‘Scandal’? Not So Fast - The Daily Beast

Some good points there, if that turns out to be the case. I've not seen this assertion (that the regulations didn't come into effect until after Clinton had left her post) reported elsewhere though, so far.

Still, she may well have broken other rules, and/or put her nation in danger (!!!) if her emails contained sensitive or classified information, since her email server is unlikely to offer the kind of protection such sensitive information requires. And since she exclusively used her private email account, this remains a distinct possibility, and one that she won't be able to disprove, because only the account owner (and potential hackers) knows exactly which emails were sent and received. (If she did send/receive anything sensitive or classified, she could easily have deleted it, and the public will never know.)

 

[rainforests1]

For me her supporting the illegal Iraq war should have disqualified her from becoming President. This is minor compared to the Iraq war. True or not, the Republicans may spend a lot of time focusing on this.

 

[Second Summer]

Of course, other officials who used private email accounts to send / receive classified or sensitive documents would likely be guilty of breaking the same rules. I guess it's a question of how widespread this practice really was. It should be noted that Condoleezza Rice, who served as Secretary of State before Hillary Clinton took over, allegedly did not use her private email account in this manner.

 

[Calliegirl]

Jon Stewart's comedic take on Emailgate.