AUDIT SLAMS CLINTON’S EMAIL USE
WASHINGTON • A damning audit was released Wednesday into Hillary Clinton’s use of email while she was secretary of state, an issue being reviewed separately by the FBI as part of a criminal investigation.
The audit by the State Department’s inspector general examined the habits of the last five secretaries of state. It found:
Clinton refused to be interviewed. Four other secretaries of state agreed: John Kerry, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright.
She didn’t tell the truth about handing over all her emails. She said last year that she’d given the government all her work-related messages — 55,000 pages of them. But there are big gaps. Entire months are missing from early 2009. There’s evidence she was using email for work at the time.
This wasn’t permitted. When stories surfaced that she’d set up a home system with the email address hdr22, “(We) found no evidence that staff in the Office of the Legal Adviser reviewed or approved secretary Clinton’s personal system.”
At least two staffers raised concerns with the director of the department’s IT unit. One said the reply was: “The matter was not to be discussed any further.”
She skirted legal requirements. At a minimum, Clinton should have handed everything over before leaving government. She instead waited and picked what she sent.
Her setup caused communication problems. Her senior staff informed Clinton that her emails were not being received. One says Clinton was told: “We should talk about putting you on State email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.”
Clinton feared for her privacy. She expressed concern about people combing through her personal messages — because government emails are to be preserved.
People tried hacking her server. A non-government employee assisting Clinton had to shut down her server in 2011 and wrote: “Someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt (sic) want to let them have the chance.” The same day, he wrote: “We were attacked again.” That question is relevant. The FBI investigation includes whether state secrets were compromised. A convicted Romanian hacker now reportedly co-operating with U.S. investigators says he managed to get in — although there’s no evidence yet.
Clinton’s defence is that she never mishandled classified information “knowingly.” That last word is key. David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, was charged under a law that specifically states the crime must be committed knowingly.