Hillary Clinton has kept mum on the subject of her server of late. She’s been ducking and dodging questions on whether a State Department Inspector General’s report, which claimed her use of a private bathroom email server was a violation of State Department rules, would impact her run for president.
But despite talking about it a lot over the last week, Clinton’s team hasn’t really grasped how to deflect the report’s accusations.
Right out of the gate, Team Hillary tried to play off the report as having “vindicated” their embattled candidate. According to her national press secretary Brian Fallon, it proved that her use of private email “was known to State Department officials.” He neglected to mention that officials became aware of her server use mostly because hackers tried several times to invade it.
On Fox News Sunday, California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff tried to face off with Chris Wallace in a tete-a-tete over the IG report. Although Schiff claimed that Clinton was “mistaken” about the legitimacy of a server no one, according to the report, was fully aware was processing confidential and often classified email, Wallace was quick to point out that Clinton’s private server use had never been authorized. Wallace also had to step in to clarify when Schiff noted that Gen. Colin Powell had also used a private server. (Clinton is the only Secretary of State who used the server exclusively.)
Schiff finished off his vain attempt to defend his boss by telling Wallace that Clinton had been fully compliant in turning over 55,000 pertinent emails, and that her email retention “mitigated” concerns over federal preservation laws. Wallace pointed out that Clinton turned the emails over, but two years after she’d left the State Department, after she’d had plenty of time to weed out all the ones about yoga, wedding planning and cocktail hours with Barbara Mikulski.
And while Clinton’s top adviser, John Podesta, has been playing off the scandal to Clinton’s top supporters as a “mistake,” it seems even he is less enthusiastic about defending his longtime political companion. In the 600-word letter Podesta reminds Clinton’s biggest backers that the former Secretary has apologized at least three times for her subversive technology, and says that “If she could go back, she’d do it differently.”
He admits that Clinton’s use of the server was unauthorized, though he claims that Clinton had no idea that no other head of the State Department had ever routed their email through a private server hundreds of miles from DC until the Benghazi Select Committee pointed it out. It’s a claim that doesn’t address why, even when asked to turn over her emails, she still saw fit to leave out around 50,000 of them, according to the IG’s report, or why the Clintons’ trouble with saving email goes all the way back to their first term in office.
Hillary Clinton’s team claims that the Inspector General’s report reveals nothing new, so it will have very limited impact on voters. But polls taken since last week’s revelations show Donald Trump gaining ground, not losing it, on Clinton even in traditionally liberal Oregon. Before they lose too much sway, the campaign may want to make the same pivot from their well-worn email talking points that Clinton did from State Department rules and regulations.
