AP Doesn’t Ask WH Officials if They Successfully Emailed Hillary on Private Account

The Associated Press may have never even asked White House officials if they successfully emailed Hillary Clinton on her private email account while reporting that only after Congress’s Benghazi investigation did the White House discover that Clinton solely used her private account for all government-related communications.

On Thursday, the Associated Press reported, citing “a person familiar with the matter,” that the “White House counsel’s office was not aware at the time Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state that she relied solely on personal email and only found out as part of the congressional investigation into the Benghazi attack.” The outlet did not note whether anyone outside of the White House counsel’s office knew about Clinton’s private email account.

The Associated Press noted that the person familiar with the matter “said Clinton’s exclusive reliance on personal email as the nation’s top diplomat was inconsistent with the guidance given to agencies that official business should be conducted on official email accounts.”

White House officials–or those in the counsel’s office–could have successfully emailed Clinton’s private account while she was Secretary of State and just believed she had another government account. They may, as the Associated Press’s source noted, just not have been “aware that was her sole method of email and that she wasn’t keeping a record of her emails at the State Department.” But the outlet did not bother to inquire or let readers know if any officials actually did successfully email the then-Secretary of State on her private account.

Apparently without having pressed the White House on its story, the Associated Press only noted that White House Press Secretary Josh earnest “acknowledged Wednesday that Clinton would have emailed officials on a non-governmenet account.”

White House officials surely knew such an account existed after Gawker’s John Cook inquired about it two years ago. Cook revealed that in 2013, when working on a story about Sidney Blumenthal’s email hacks, he asked the White House whether Clinton’s personal email account, which screenshots that were provided to him revealed, was in compliance with federal laws.

When covering scandals on the left, the mainstream press often omit important facts, do not ask pertinent questions that can poke holes in  timelines and versions of events that are offered, and work as palace guards to discredit non-legacy outlets and reporters who try to unearth the truth. And nobody takes advantage of that more than Clinton.