What is the most disturbing thing about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal? It’s not her phony claims that the missing emails were about wedding plans, yoga schedules, or communications with Doug Band about hefty donors to the Clinton Foundation gaining special access to the Secretary of State. No, forget all that, writes William McGurn in the WSJ.
It isn’t so much that Mrs. Clinton set up a personal server so she would not be accountable the way normal political appointees are held accountable. It’s that no one in government stopped her. The inspector general’s report notes that when two IT officers expressed their concern in 2010 that her private email system meant federal records were not being preserved, they were told “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.”
As a result, when the American people finally learned about Mrs. Clinton’s use of private email for public business, it wasn’t because of a functioning civil service. It was because of a hacker.
Even today her former department is still resisting efforts to make public the emails she tried to hide. Groups such as Judicial Watch have done yeoman’s work in forcing the emails into the sunlight—but they have also had to get court orders to pry them out of an obstructionist State Department.
It’s a disturbing pattern, and unfortunately it’s not limited to State. There have been similar questions about the integrity and professionalism of the IRS ever since the American people learned in 2013 that it was unfairly targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
It’ s possible, writes Mr. McGurn, that the people who believe the whole system in Washington is rigged could be wrong. “But the most disquieting possibility is that it isn’t crazy to think they might be right.”
Debbie Young
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