The Reckless Secretary

Former Secretary of State and current Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is facing serious legal questions.

It’s unavoidable; you turn on the television, open a newspaper, log on to social media, or listen to the radio, and it’s all about Hillary’s self-made email investigation. She is drowning in her excuses du jour and changing story lines that reek of corruption.  It’s undeniable that she has a lot of questions to answer for the American public as well as the law enforcement community.

Many, including all of us at Citizens United, are dedicated to getting those answers.  Some call her deceitful, while others say she’s just paranoid in setting up a secret email system. I, on the other hand, have one word that describes Hillary Clinton in this matter of national security: Reckless.

When we think of a great American leader, we think of words such as strong, principled, and optimistic. Reckless is probably the last trait a potential President of the United States should be associated with. Unfortunately for Hillary, she has rightfully earned this description. From the conflicts of interest surrounding Clinton Foundation donations, to holding top secret U.S. government information on an insecure and previously undisclosed email system; these problems are all her doing.

This week, we learned that Hillary’s private email firm, Platte River Services, ran its company out of a loft apartment and stored its servers in a bathroom closet. This raises serious questions regarding the protection of the data on this seemingly exposed server and what that means for U.S. national security interests. Why in Colorado? Why such a virtually unknown firm? Why take no precautions at all? No security clearances for the staff handling the server? This is simply reckless behavior.

Federal authorities are busy trying to find out what emails still exist and which emails are gone forever and whether any criminal activity took place. Platte River Services believes that it is “highly likely” that backups of Clinton’s emails exist. This raises a tremendous amount of questions about whether or not thousands of deleted Hillary emails can be restored and reviewed by the Feds. Reckless.

Now that we know there are top secret emails, and hundreds of more emails flagged for classification review in accordance with this ongoing investigation, we run into the bizarre subplot involving Clinton’s longtime attorney, David Kendall, and the thumb drive. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley brought the matter up to Kendall in a letter stating: “The transmission of classified material to an individual unauthorized to possess it is a serious national security risk.” Any top government official, especially the former Secretary of State and potential POTUS should know this. Reckless.

As new information comes out on a daily basis, we see that Hillary made some breathtakingly irresponsible decisions. But while our national security is potentially threatened due to her negligence, Hillary’s trying to laugh it off on the campaign trail: “I recently launched a Snap Chat account. I love it, I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves!” Mrs. Clinton, we aren’t laughing.

Recklessness and apathy are not traits we look for in a President. We must ask ourselves, “Is this the leader we want answering the call at 3am when a major national security crisis threatens American lives?” Decidedly not.