# Hilary Clinton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Personal E-mail Account **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 3, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092 "2015-03-03T14:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/221 "2015-03-12T19:11:11Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > ISTM that Hillary is in something of a bind of her own making. She can’t turn over her entire email database because it probably contains a lot of personal and private stuff that she’s understandably not anxious to share with the press and public. OTOH, as long as she doesn’t there’s no way for anyone to know whether she turned over everything she was supposed to. To the extent that you assume she’s not hiding anything (not an unreasonable assumption) it’s going to be based on your assessment of her personally, and not based on any unbiased investigation. (post shortened) Yes, you’re right, Hillary created this situation by choosing to store her government emails on her own server. Now, it appears that she expects her supporters to stop any discussion of the incidents. Or maybe it’s just her supporters who want to stop any discussion of these incidents? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/222 "2015-03-12T19:26:53Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (post shortened) > > Yes, you’re right, Hillary created this situation by choosing to store her government emails on her own server. Now, it appears that she expects her supporters to stop any discussion of the incidents. Or maybe it’s just her supporters who want to stop any discussion of these incidents? I’m not one of her supporters. I suppose it’s possible the GOP will run someone I can’t stomch, and I’ll vote for her, but I regard it as highly unlikely. And I think this discussion is useless, and should stop. For all the pious condemnation, the simple fact is that _as the rules existed during her tenure_, she was not doing anything drastically off base. We, as a society, enforce our desired conduct by the passage of law. If we wanted to force agency heads to use government e-mail systems, we could have passed the 2011 law in 2008. We didn’t. Secretary Clinton used that fact to her advantage, as a rational actor would do. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/223 "2015-03-12T19:31:06Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It takes more time and money (paper isn’t free, ya know (unless the taxpayers are paying for it 😉 )) to print a paper copy of an electronic file. > > It takes a whole lot more time and money to search paper files than it does to search electronic files. … and? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/224 "2015-03-12T19:35:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m not one of her supporters. I suppose it’s possible the GOP will run someone I can’t stomch, and I’ll vote for her, but I regard it as highly unlikely. > > And I think this discussion is useless, and should stop. For all the pious condemnation, the simple fact is that _as the rules existed during her tenure_, she was not doing anything drastically off base. > > We, as a society, enforce our desired conduct by the passage of law. If we wanted to force agency heads to use government e-mail systems, we could have passed the 2011 law in 2008. We didn’t. Secretary Clinton used that fact to her advantage, as a rational actor would do. That’s not what’s being discussed at this time. Let’s grant that HRC did absolutely nothing wrong in using her personal email server for government business. Now on to the next step. Is it proper for an investigative body investigating activities that HRC was involved in to demand to review all emails on the private server, or do they need to rely on HRC’s assurances that she turned over all work-related emails? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/225 "2015-03-12T19:36:30Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > You admit that you can only look for “hints”… I think you missed the deeply ironic use of the word “hint”, as in the possibility of “hints of partisanship” in your post which reads like a Sean Hannity rant pulled directly out of Fox News! 😉 > [@doorhinge](#): > > It’s my position that there are STILL unanswered questions that Hillary has to answer regarding her emails, her actions to protect or to not provide her emails, and how they relate to her actions as Sec of State. Then you should have said that, instead of what you did say. That it would have been more proper for Hillary to have used a [state.gov](http://state.gov) email account is not much in dispute. That this is being blown up into an entirely synthetic issue manufactured by partisan hacks, out of all proportion to the facts, is also pretty clear – all of it underscored by a sort of jungle drumbeat that Hillary is Hiding Something™ – “we knew she couldn’t be trusted”! > [@doorhinge](#): > > I’m in favor of investigations. I’m not so sure about you. I’m in favor of investigations where there are things that need to be investigated. Not so much in favor of witch hunts. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/226 "2015-03-12T19:43:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > . . . We, as a society, enforce our desired conduct by the passage of law. If we wanted to force agency heads to use government e-mail systems, we could have passed the 2011 law in 2008. We didn’t. Secretary Clinton used that fact to her advantage, as a rational actor would do. Life isn’t lived in a court of law. And Americans can decide for themselves what conduct they feel is acceptable or not. The other Clinton enjoyed legalistically parsing what the definition of ‘is’ is. Might have played well in court, didn’t play as well with the American people. If people have the perception that you play fast and loose with the rules, or that you feel the rules don’t apply to you, finding a legalistic way to flaunt those rules when common sense says you shouldn’t isn’t the best political move. Rule or not, many or most Americans feel that emails written by you as a government official should be owned by the government, law or not. This isn’t a issue on par with genocide, but it’s an issue. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/227 "2015-03-12T19:51:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Why is it significant to you that Hillary released her e-mails in paper form? > [@doorhinge](#): > > It takes more time and money (paper isn’t free, ya know (unless the taxpayers are paying for it 😉 )) to print a paper copy of an electronic file. > > It takes a whole lot more time and money to search paper files than it does to search electronic files. > > But that should be obvious to almost everyone in today’s electronic age. Maybe not? > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > … and? “And” what? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/228 "2015-03-12T19:51:14Z")
She needs to have an impartial 3rd party go thru ALL her e-mails and redact the personal ones. It’s absurd for her to expect people to trust her doing the redacting. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/229 "2015-03-12T19:55:52Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > …I’m in favor of investigations where there are things that need to be investigated. Not so much in favor of witch hunts. I’m in favor of investigations that would have included Hillary’s emails. That has not occurred yet. ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/230 "2015-03-12T20:03:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > She needs to have an impartial 3rd party go thru ALL her e-mails and redact the personal ones. It’s absurd for her to expect people to trust her doing the redacting. And just who would this magical person be? If they find evidence or ‘hints’ of wrongdoing, the left will attack the person as not really being neutral. If they find no evidence of wrongdoing, the the right will make the same claim. Although the right will just say that the lack of evidence just proves how incredibly good she is at hiding evidence. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/231 "2015-03-12T20:10:23Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > And just who would this magical person be? If they find evidence or ‘hints’ of wrongdoing, the left will attack the person as not really being neutral. If they find no evidence of wrongdoing, the the right will make the same claim. Although the right will just say that the lack of evidence just proves how incredibly good she is at hiding evidence. You are making the perfect the enemy of the good. Nothing is perfect. But we can easily do better than what we have now. There are any number of trusted statesmen who will satisfy the vast majority of people, if they would be willing to do it. Or, employ an auditing firm. This is not rocket science. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/232 "2015-03-12T20:12:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > …And I think this discussion is useless, and should stop. For all the pious condemnation, the simple fact is that _as the rules existed during her tenure_, she was not doing anything drastically off base. > > We, as a society, enforce our desired conduct by the passage of law. If we wanted to force agency heads to use government e-mail systems, we could have passed the 2011 law in 2008. We didn’t. Secretary Clinton used that fact to her advantage, as a rational actor would do. There is a difference between “Did Hillary break the law”, your specialty, and "Did the 6 or 7 investigations include Hillary’s emails. That’s not pious condemnation but a reasonable expectation of honesty and transparency. _Without looking at all the facts, we can only conclude that there was no wrong doing_. Hillary is going to be the Democrat’s Presidential candidate. There is no one in their bullpen. The public still has unanswered questions about these issues and deserves to see how Hillary handles herself in this situation, so I believe further public discussion is warranted. Was it illegal for Hillary to store government emails on her personal server? That doesn’t appear to be the case. Is Hillary fully cooperating with any of the investigations? That doesn’t appear to be the case, either. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/233 "2015-03-12T20:14:45Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Life isn’t lived in a court of law. And Americans can decide for themselves what conduct they feel is acceptable or not. Retroactively? At the time in question, there was precedent for use of such private email systems and certainly no law prohibiting it. > [@spifflog](#): > > The other Clinton enjoyed legalistically parsing what the definition of ‘is’ is. Might have played well in court, didn’t play as well with the American people. So in the typical pendulum-swing, they then elected Bush. Who proceeded to reverse the stabilization of the national debt that Clinton had achieved and send it skyrocketing to unprecedented heights, proceeded to ignore warnings about pending terrorist attacks, to lie about WMDs, to send thousands of soldiers to their deaths and throw away a trillion dollars – whose only consequence was to destroy a stable country and enable the rise of ISIS, and who presided over the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Whatever may or may not play well with the American people, good political judgment doesn’t seem to be a consistent strong point. > [@spifflog](#): > > If people have the perception that you play fast and loose with the rules, or that you feel the rules don’t apply to you, finding a legalistic way to flaunt those rules when common sense says you shouldn’t isn’t the best political move. And yet the Clintons are accused of being consummate political animals. How could Hillary have violated such an obvious rule of political common sense? Did she think that no one could possibly ever find out? Despite the fact that clearly at least some of these emails would likely eventually have to be released under FOIA? Or is it more likely, given the first point above, that Hillary saw it as no big deal, something that many others had done before her? > [@spifflog](#): > > Rule or not, many or most Americans feel that emails written by you as a government official should be owned by the government, law or not. This isn’t a issue on par with genocide, but it’s an issue. “Owned”? Or “required to be preserved”, which is what the law actually stated? And which, as far as we know, Hillary did, and is now complying both with voluntary requests and with a subpoena. Using a [state.gov](http://state.gov) account would have been wise and certainly preferable and would have prevented the present political tempest raging in the proverbial teapot. But that’s about as far as it goes. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/234 "2015-03-12T20:26:04Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > …“Owned”? Or “required to be preserved”, which is what the law actually stated? And which, as far as we know, Hillary did, and is now complying both with voluntary requests and with a subpoena. (post shortened) Hillary’s emails were preserved on Hillary’s personal server. It doesn’t appear that the many Congressional investigations were aware that Hillary had her own server. Surprise! Neither did Obama, but that’s not a surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/235 "2015-03-12T20:48:14Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Is it proper for an investigative body investigating activities that HRC was involved in to demand to review all emails on the private server, or do they need to rely on HRC’s assurances that she turned over all work-related emails? Whether or not it’s proper for falling objects to accelerate towards the ground at 9.8 m/sec[sup]2[/sup], they do. It’s proper for an investigating body to now seek as complete a picture as they legally can demand. But if the state of the law in 2008 crippled the 2015 investigative body’s legal tools for doing so, then that’s 9.8 m/sec[sup]2[/sup]. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/236 "2015-03-12T20:48:20Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It doesn’t appear that the many Congressional investigations were aware that Hillary had her own server. Let’s look at the very first statement from the very first post that started all this off: “Hillary Clinton did not have a State Department email account while she served as America’s top diplomat, a senior state department official said Monday, and instead used a personal email account during her four years on the job.” So when these Congressional investigations were looking into Hillary’s communications as Secretary of State, did they just conclude that she had an extraordinarily quiet four years, and never sent email to anyone? Or maybe they went through all the [state.gov](http://state.gov) email records. Wouldn’t they have noticed that lots of folks were getting emails from Hillary, but she never seemed to be sending any? Just how dumb are these Congressional committees? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/237 "2015-03-12T20:52:55Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (post shortened) > > Hillary’s emails were preserved on Hillary’s personal server. It doesn’t appear that the many Congressional investigations were aware that Hillary had her own server. Surprise! Neither did Obama, but that’s not a surprise. So what? Perhaps Secretary Clinton feared that partisan investigators would fabricate reasons to investigate her, use those reasons to examine her e-mail, and use the contents of the e-mails to discredit her by careful mixing of fact, fiction, and out-of-context quotations, and sought to minimize this possibility by controlling her own e-mail storage. So what? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/238 "2015-03-12T20:54:15Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Just how dumb are these Congressional committees? Sigh … do you \*really \*want to know? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/239 "2015-03-12T21:05:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Whether or not it’s proper for falling objects to accelerate towards the ground at 9.8 m/sec[sup]2[/sup], they do. > > It’s proper for an investigating body to now seek as complete a picture as they legally can demand. But if the state of the law in 2008 crippled the 2015 investigative body’s legal tools for doing so, then that’s 9.8 m/sec[sup]2[/sup]. How would the state of the law in 2008 cripple the 2015 investigative body’s legal tools for doing so? Again, we’re not discussing an investigation of her for using her own email server. We’re discussing an investigation of the emails on her server in connection to some other matter. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092/240 "2015-03-12T21:06:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Perhaps Secretary Clinton feared that partisan investigators would fabricate reasons to investigate her, use those reasons to examine her e-mail, and use the contents of the e-mails to discredit her by careful mixing of fact, fiction, and out-of-context quotations And Lord knows where she would’ve gotten THAT idea… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hilary-clinton-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-personal-e-mail-account/714092.md?page=13)