Wonder what a country without secrets looks like? Take a look at the State Department, home of Hillary Clinton's illegal private email operation, which had a lot more than just that doozy as a security violation. Turns out there were nearly two dozen violations, suggesting that maybe there was a problem of tone at the top. Apparently, no one kept national security secrets at Hillary Clinton's State Department, judging by the widespread number of violations now getting out.

In a letter to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the State Department revealed that it has identified "multiple security incidents" involving current or former employees' handling of Hillary Clinton's emails, and that 23 "violations" and seven "infractions" have been issued as part of the department's ongoing investigation.

"To this point, the Department has assessed culpability to 15 individuals, some of whom were culpable in multiple security incidents," Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the State Department's Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, wrote to Grassley. "DS has issued 23 violations and 7 infractions incidents. … This number will likely change as the review progresses."

"In every instance in which the Department found an individual to be culpable of a valid security violation or three or more infractions, the Department forwarded the outcome to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Office of Personnel Security and Suitability (DS/PSS), to be placed in the individuals' official security file," Taylor wrote. "All valid security incidents are reviewed by DS and taken into account every time an individual's eligibility for access to classified information is considered.

Obviously, none of these people considered national security secrets terribly important. And if Putin, or China, could get his hands on them, well, so what?

Secrets and security clearances, see, were status symbols, not a burden of responsibility linked to protecting America. And if Ben Rhodes could get a security clearance, who the heck couldn't, and why would it matter what one does to determine one's merit for security clearances?

A slew of violations this widespread signals a slovenly security atmosphere, one where anyone could be as sloppy as he liked, and never mind about protecting the country. So many of Clinton's minions at State were her political partisans, of course, meaning they took their cues from the top. Well, we now see what cues they took.

Maybe Hillary Clinton's inability to keep a secret — or, more specifically, her prioritization of her own political good over the disciplined process required to have a national security system worth anything — stretched much farther than just the famous bathroom server she kept on the sly.

Image credit: Montage by Monica Showalter from Pixabay public domain images.