Clinton email flap creates awkward GOP silence

If it seems like the GOP presidential field has been unusually silent this week as scrutiny mounts over Hillary Clinton’s email practices, there’s a logical explanation: Many of them are tormented by their own email demons.

At least a half-dozen 2016 Republican prospects have felt the sting of sustained negative press coverage over their email practices, with the common denominator being an attempt to sidestep public scrutiny attached to official government accounts. While the scope and scale of the controversies range widely — and they’re not comparable to the Clinton circumstances — their histories with electronic communications have left them with their own unique vulnerabilities on the issue.


In part, it’s a reflection of the governor-heavy nature of the field of Republican 2016 prospects: Gubernatorial offices tend to be subject to rigorous open records requirements, making email standards and practices a politically combustible part of their portfolio. Senators, by contrast, don’t face similarly demanding transparency standards.

“My approach as chief of staff was to try to minimize [email], period, and certainly minimize email exchanges with the governor,” said Ray Sullivan, who worked for former Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Asked whether that was out of concerns about how the emails would look to the public, he laughed and replied, “Yes. Look, when you’re in the heat of decision-making, in the heat of crisis communications or natural or manmade disaster situations, it is easy to be really blunt, or use shorthand, or use language that can be misconstrued, or could offend people.”

But the email troubles that have dogged the GOP presidential hopefuls are also the hallmark of an upwardly mobile class of politicians whose ambitions led to sometimes elaborate attempts — often by aides — to avoid leaving a public, electronic trail.

In Wisconsin, as a result of a three-year probe of Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure as Milwaukee County executive — an investigation that ended in 2013 — prosecutors asserted that some of Walker’s aides set up a separate, private Internet network. Through that, staffers could send emails, via Gmail and Yahoo accounts, about both political and official business, and the use of private accounts took place even beyond that server. While Walker never faced charges, the private emails and the mixing of county and political work proved central to charges levied against two former staffers. Both pleaded guilty, though one is appealing.

Walker currently uses a state email address, spokeswoman Laurel Patrick noted. She said that all state business conducted over email, whether on state or “on another” account, was subject to Wisconsin’s Public Records Law. (It’s standard practice for politicians and campaign staffers to use an official email for business and a personal or campaign email account for political activities.)

In New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s case, texts and emails between his aides revealed the now infamous plot to cause traffic problems, apparently out of political retribution.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” one former Christie aide wrote to an ally ahead of lane closures that hit that town.

The story resulted in subpoenas for the governor’s office and lingering questions about Christie’s communications with staffers, including by texts, as the scandal unfolded. One year later, Christie hasn’t been found guilty of wrongdoing, but politically, the onetime GOP front-runner has never returned to the status he enjoyed before “Bridgegate” hit.

A spokesman for Christie declined to answer questions about the governor’s current email practices.

“It’s very distracting,” said Ryan Williams, who worked for Mitt Romney when the 2012 GOP nominee came under fire for wiping emails from the server as he left the governors’ office, recalling that their camp was barraged with bad headlines. “The media becomes very interested in this type of story, given reporters’ focus on transparency.”

The one top-tier candidate who hasn’t pulled his punches is Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who hails from a state with tough transparency laws. He has already released some of his email correspondence. As early as Monday, Bush called for the release of Clinton’s unclassified emails. He quickly received a comeuppance: Democratic opposition research shop American Bridge circulated a story Wednesday suggesting that, like Clinton, Bush also operated his own email server to give him a greater ability to keep some of his emails private.

Yet other than Bush and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Carly Fiorina — a long-shot candidate who took to Twitter to blast Clinton — the bulk of the other likely contenders haven’t been aggressive in playing up the development. In their place, the Republican National Committee and other GOP organizations have spearheaded the attack on Clinton, framing the story as further evidence that the presumptive Democratic front-runner is secretive and acts as though she’s entitled to a different set of rules.

Hoping to divert attention from the Clinton controversy — and draw attention to Republican vulnerabilities — the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday circulated talking points to their surrogates, highlighting email flaps involving those two candidates as well as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Perry and Romney.