EDITORIAL: Sifting through Clinton’s junk mail
Hillary Clinton testified for 11 hours on the Benghazi committee and was interrogated about her use of a private email server, but for many people that still wasn’t enough. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the State Department has intermittently released Clinton’s emails that were exchanged during the time she was U.S. Secretary of State. Now in a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, a federal judge ruled that State Department officials and top aides to Clinton should be questioned under oath about whether they intentionally acted against federal open record laws by allowing Clinton to use a private email server. Because of how hackneyed and drawn-out this issue has become, in retrospect, Clinton should’ve released her emails at the start of the commotion erupted and they should’ve been released all at once instead of slowly dragging it out. Now four years after the Benghazi attack, politicians and the media are still harping on this issue.
The Benghazi attack — an attack on 2012 by Islamic militants who scaled the wall of a U.S. diplomatic outpost and killed four Americans — is at the crux of this email scandal, but it’s doubtful that Clinton really wanted four Americans to die. Since the event occurred during her time as Secretary of State, she stepped up to take responsibility for the situation, especially since the U.S. outpost was weakly guarded. But the responsibility for Benghazi doesn’t just rest on her shoulders, it’s dispersed through many public officials who should have also ensured the area was safe and was prepared for unexpectedly dire situations like this. There are numerous U.S. outposts, and she would have had to delegate oversight tasks to other officials. The event needed attention, but when there have been 32 Benghazi congressional hearings in contrast to 22 Sept. 11 congressional hearings, there must be something wrong with the priorities of the politicians in Congress.
This scandal has been an excuse to besmirch her reputation and obliterate her image as a viable candidate for the presidency — and it’s working. About 59 percent of Americans believe that Clinton is untrustworthy, and it’s unequivocally due to the lack of transparency she’s had with her emails. Even if she wasn’t doing anything illegal — and at this point people who are looking for something aren’t going to find anything — using a private server for work and personal correspondences instead of using a government email made her susceptible to these attacks. She shouldn’t have created her own personal server (that wasn’t very wise), but other politicians have done the same without the backlash and bad rap she received. Take for example Jeb Bush. He used his own personal email server during his tenure as governor of Florida. Where is the riff-raff toward him? Where is the anger over his lack of transparency?
Scrutiny over Clinton has reached an apex, and maybe it's because she’s a Democratic woman in politics trying to become the next president with a Republican-led Congress. Clinton’s personal life has been under a microscope for many years since she’s been a public figure, but the continuous effort by others to probe into her emails has reached a new low in terms of scrutinizing an individual, and so the inspection over Clinton’s emails needs to stop. There’s been more noise than evidence. Benghazi was four years ago, and nothing’s been found after endless congressional hearings and disclosed emails. Attention needs to be shifted from her emails and toward her policy goals and platforms, because if she’s going to contend for the position of president, then that’s what needs to be challenged.
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