Hillary Clinton

A State Department inspector general report found that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email practices were not handled in "an appropriate method" when she served as secretary of state.

(The Associated Press)

Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post

Hillary Clinton's campaign may have made a calculated decision, even a smart one, given the campaign atmosphere. Betting that the public is not hung up on the details of the inspector general's report and just assumes the email scandal is no big deal (unless and until the FBI finds otherwise), Hillaryland may think it can get through this by ignoring, minimizing or even misrepresenting the findings. Nevertheless, it is both painful and disturbing to see her surrogates peddle half-truths and insult our intelligence. On "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, fared poorly against an experienced interviewer like Chris Wallace:



Wallace: Two members of the State Department's record keeping division complained about this, expressed concerned, a superior instructed them this way. He "instructed the staff never to speak of the secretary's personal email again." That's a quote from the OIG report.

Congressman, Clinton never got approval.



Schiff, ranking member, Intelligence Committee: No, she was mistaken about that. She thought that it was approved, that the practice was allowed, and she was wrong. The report also makes clear that Secretary Powell also thought it was appropriate to use a personal server, private server --

Wallace: But that's not -- that's not true. That is not true. And I -- I had a feeling you were going (to) call me on that and that's discuss it right now.

Schiff: Yes. I am going to call you on that.



Wallace: Secretary Powell had two computers in his office. He used one, a government computer, for classified information. He had a second computer for private emails. Some of those included business, State Department business, but he did have a separate office of the State Department, secretary of the state, computer.



Schiff: He had a - a laptop, a State Department laptop, which the OIG report says he never used for email. Not for official business.

Wallace: That's now what -- that's not what Secretary Powell said.

Schiff: The -- the -- the -- the -- the OIG report says that he used personal email exclusively for all of his official email business. And the OIG also says that when the -- Secretary Powell was asked to provide --

Wallace: Did he use -- let me ask another question.

Schiff: No, no, -- let me -- this -- this is very important.

Wallace: Well, let me just ask you this, though, did he ever use a private server?



Schiff: He did use a private server. It wasn't his own private server. It was a server owned presumably by America Online. But he -- yes, he used exclusively a private server. And --

Wallace: And he had a laptop that goes to the State Department.

Schiff: But let me -- let me -- let me make one other point, which is -- is I think very critical, which is, the OIG also found that the retention by Secretary Clinton of her emails, the fact that she provided 55,000 pages of emails, mitigated the fact that she used a private server. In the case of Secretary Powell, there was no mitigation. None of those emails were turned over. So the -- the person who was secretary of the state during the decision to go to war in Iraq did not preserve any of his emails, one of the most consequential decisions in recent history. That, to me, is far more consequence than the fact that the secretary did preserve them and turn them over.

Wallace: When -- when did -- when did Secretary Clinton leave the State Department?

Schiff: I believe it was in 2012 or 2013.

Wallace: It as January of 2013. Do you know when she turned over the 55,000 pages?



Schiff: After she left office and she was --



Wallace: No. No, sir, and you -- and you know it was --

Schiff: And she was -- and she was requested by the State Department.



Wallace: Wait a minute, you know it was December of 2014. It was two years later.

Schiff: Yes. Yes, that's right. That's absolutely right.

In other words, every talking point Schiff is forced to present is wrong. She did not get approval. Her situation is not analogous to Powell's. She did not turn over the materials voluntarily. And she did not turn over everything.

One really cannot blame the surrogates, of course. It is the campaign and Hillary herself who are continuing down the path of denial and deflection. In doing so, she continues to cement the impression of a defiant, dishonest pol. Moreover, it reminds us, as Ron Brownstein remarked, that "there was no one around her who was willing to tell her that she was wrong. And when people tried to raise questions, they were told to be quiet.

That is a -- that was ominous traits for a president."

It is true that saying nonsense with great confidence often gets one through a scandal. And it is equally true that Donald Trump, who has been so dishonest and nontransparent himself, is in a poor position to exploit Clinton's weakness. That does not make it any more disturbing that arguably the better of the two presidential candidates is disingenuous even in the face of a government investigation, prone to secrecy and defiant of the rules that apply to the little people.