MSNBC host and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell stated that when she spoke to intelligence officials at a security conference, “nobody can give an explanation for why a cabinet secretary would have a private email system other than to thwart inquiries, FOIAs” on Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Mitchell said that it’s possible that the impact of Clinton’s emails on her campaign has been underestimated. She continued, “Look, you have two inspectors general, and they are referring to this to the Justice Department. Now, you can try to confuse it, and there’s been a lot of misdirection. There’s been inaccurate reporting significantly, on Thursday night by the New York Times, it’s not a criminal referral, not at this stage. It could become, and it could become nothing. But, what they are suggesting is that there were classified — four out of the 40 randomly selected, had classified information, and it was not information that was later upgraded to be classified. It was information that was classified as ‘secret,’ which is a level of classification, at the time. This gets very confusing. And it can be confused further by statements on all sides. That said, the original sin, if you will, is having a private email system.”
Mitchell added, “I was at a security conference speaking to intelligence officials on all sides, and the attorney general, we’ll talk about that later. But nobody can give an explanation for why a cabinet secretary would have a private email system other than to thwart inquiries, FOIAs, and had someone who spent 20 years fighting off many investigations, many of which were unwarranted and which led nowhere. And so, you understand the defensive crouch that a lot of Clinton people were in. But it still doesn’t explain why, going from the Senate, into a cabinet level position, there was a private email system.”
National Journal Senior Political Columnist Ron Fournier stated, “they can’t brush away the fact that the secretary said, when this first was revealed, that there was no confidential information that was given out. We now know that’s true, she’s parsing it now by saying ‘at this time.’ But we know it happens when the Clintons parse, and it’s happening again.”
He continued, “it was unprecedented to have a home cooked server, in your house, if you’re a cabinet secretary. It was against White House policy to have a home cooked server in your basement of your house when you’re a cabinet secretary. It was to thwart Congressional subpoenas, Congressional requests for information, and public requests for information. And the only explanation she’s given, frankly, isn’t very credible. … The American public has the right now, has every reason, and the press has a responsibility to ask her again and again and again, ‘What were you hiding, Mrs. Clinton? what were you hiding?'”
He also said, “Are there any emails that were deleted, that may still be on the server, if the server still exists, that had a connection to the foundation. Would she have considered any emails she had about donors and the foundation personal? I don’t know. And the problem is, we may never know, and now there’s going to be this pernicious lack of trust. It may not show up in the polls…but people want to be able to trust their leaders. And she’s lost that with the public.” And that while he supports Clinton on “a lot of the policies,” it’s hard to look at those positions “credibly” given her lack of trustworthiness.
(h/t Washington Free Beacon)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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