Email is a thorn in everyone's side and none more so than Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Since she began her campaign, Clinton's quest to become leader of the free world has been dogged by questions of whether she improperly used a personal server to receive sensitive emails while she was secretary of state. The issue has prompted an inquiry by the FBI as well as a review by the Department of State and has attracted congressional scrutiny. It remains one of the biggest vulnerabilities of Clinton's campaign.

This week, however, the Clinton campaign received some potential relief. The Department of State reportedly uncovered during its investigation classified emails that had been sent to the personal email addresses of former Secretary Colin Powell and staff of former Secretary Condoleezza Rice during their respective tenures in office. The findings seem like they should help neutralize the accusations against Clinton. After all, how can Republicans hold against her actions to which prominent members of the previous (Republican) administration were also party? The Clinton campaign has started to make just such an argument. According to The New York Times, "Mrs. Clinton's campaign team has cited the use of personal email by other secretaries of state to suggest that the controversy about her email server had been exaggerated for partisan reasons during the 2016 presidential campaign." Unfortunately for the Clinton campaign, the State Department's recent report is unlikely to quiet the issue.

There's a key difference between the Clinton emails and the ones involving the past secretaries, and that is the number of emails involved. The Times reports that between Powell and Rice's aides, a total of 12 emails were found that have since been classified as "secret" or "confidential." In Clinton's case, 18 emails have been classified as "secret" and 1,564 as "confidential," and an additional 22 emails have been classified as "top secret." The difference in numbers makes Clinton's violation look far more egregious, as does the presence of emails with the top secret designation, and mitigates any benefit Clinton might get from the State Department's finding.

Another factor working against Clinton here is that her Republican opponents probably care far more about attacking her than protecting Powell or Rice. Neither Powell nor Rice have been active in the current race, and I'm hard pressed to think of a single Republican candidate who would care all that much about keeping them out of the fray. On the other hand, ammunition against Clinton has great value. All of that ensures that the former secretaries' involvement is unlikely to be a deterrent in Republicans' continued discussion of the issue.