As Hillary Clinton’s slow-motion free fall in the 2016 presidential race continues, the candidate and her minions are growing increasingly desperate. Back when the story of her private email server first broke, the former secretary denied that her actions had compromised national security. Now several months and several dozen confidential emailed documents later, the narrative has taken an unpredictable turn. While Clinton herself is busy apologizing, mostly for mistakes she made in her handling of the scandal, the super PAC Correct the Record has come out with a grievance sheet that maintains that Clinton has nothing to apologize for. If anything, we the people should be thanking Mrs. Clinton.
Why? Because the federal government’s servers are even less secure than hers, and if anything Mrs. Clinton was doing the American people a favor. The PAC’s report, if it can be called that, begins with a claim that seeks support throughout in newspaper clippings. Here is the claim:
Among the news media’s obsessive coverage of Hillary Clinton’s email practices, a simple fact has been lost. There is no evidence that Hillary Clinton’s personal email was ever breached. On the other hand, the U.S. government has been hacked on numerous occasions, compromising even the most sensitive of information.
From Edward Snowden’s theft of millions of classified national security documents, to WikiLeaks, to a hack of OPM that compromised personal information of more than 22 million people, the scope of recent breaches into private and top secret government servers is sweeping and well documented. Even White House emails sent and received by President Obama were compromised. Anyone who attempts to argue that the contents of Hillary Clinton’s email would have been more secure on a government server must contend with these facts.
And here are some of those “facts”:
- State Department spokeswoman: “We have no indication that the email was compromised, the account was compromised or hacked in anyway.” “MS. HARF: Well, I don’t think we’re going to get into specifics of security on a former Secretary’s email, but I can say we have no indication that the email was compromised, the account was compromised or hacked in any way. But again, we’re not going to get into specifics.” [State Department press briefing, 3/3/15]
- AP: Since the Secret Service was guarding Clinton’s home, an email server there would have been well protected. “And since the Secret Service was guarding Clinton’s home, an email server there would have been well protected from theft or a physical hacking. But homemade email servers are generally not as reliable, secure from hackers or protected from fires or floods as those in commercial data centers. Those professional facilities provide monitoring for viruses or hacking attempts, regulated temperatures, off-site backups, generators in case of power outages, fire-suppression systems and redundant communications lines.” [AP, 3/5/15]
Some of the evidence provided later in the PDF does demonstrate that the federal government’s computers are vulnerable. There is for example the recent and well-documented claim that Chinese hackers “gained access to some of the databases of the Office of Personnel Management.”
While I, for one, don’t doubt for a minute that the government’s communication system is broken — so much else in government is — this is no way lets Hillary Clinton off the hook or proves that her private server was more secure.
In case you’re wondering, Correct the Record is run by David Brock, previous chief honcho Media Matters.
(h/t The Blaze)
Related Articles
