There has never been any question that the Republican-dominated House Benghazi Committee, in its investigation of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya has intended to embarrass, and politically damage, Democrat Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time of the incident and who was at the time of the committee’s investigation a probable presidential candidate.

But the recent public, proudly-declared, admission of the committee’s intent to use its function to damage her, made by Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), candidate for House Speaker, has severely embarrassed his party and has given substantial ammunition to those wishing to discredit the committee, which is preparing for another interview with Ms. Clinton.

However, the character of Republicans’ behavior toward the former Secretary – and current aspirant for Democratic Party presidential candidacy – should not obscure what is known as to her handling of private emails for work-related matters during and after her tenure in office, and what is known as to her explanation of these events..

In its initial investigation, the Benghazi committee asked the State Department for all communications, including emails, relating to the Benghazi attack. When the committee reviewed the thousands of emails sent it by the State Dep’t., it saw that only about eight were from Secretary Clinton – and some of those “used a private email account to communicate about official government business.”

“What’s going on here?” the committee said in effect to State. “Send us everything by her that’s relevant.”

State Dep’t. officials, on examination, realized, “We don’t have them. She kept them stored on a private server.”

In the summer of 2014, then, and in the need to comply with the committee’s demand, State asked Ms. Clinton to return copies of all work-related emails to the government. She did, withholding emails she said were private.

State then realized, “We’d better ask other former Secretaries to do the same if necessary,” and weeks later, in October, 2014 it sent out similar requests to four former Secretaries of State..

In public interviews characterizing these events, Ms. Clinton said, “I just responded to the same request sent at the same time to a group of former Secretaries. This was just to help with government record-keeping.” And, “I only did what other Secretaries of State did,” Both statements are false, and they are misleading as to the sequence and significance of her behavior.

“The fact is, … Clinton and her campaign — with the initial help of the State Department — provided an incomplete and misleading account when asked a fundamental question about the email controversy. Clinton described the request for her emails as a routine record-keeping request that was made to several former secretaries, just as she has inaccurately described her unusual email arrangement as common because previous’secretaries of state’ did the’“same thing.’ In fact only one, Colin Powell, used personal emails for government business, and he didn’t have a personal server.” (factcheck.com,  “Clinton’s Email Narrative, Interrupted” Sept. 25, 2015))

Government officials’ testimony has made it clear that for some time it has been government policy that all work-related communications should be under control of the government; digital forms of communication should be logged on government servers. And that any government official, on leaving office, should make sure the government has all work-related communication in its control. Ms. Clinton violated both policies. She used private email for public purposes and did not automatically return these to government control at the end of her tenure.

As one of her justifications, Ms.Clinton said, in effect, “All my emails were sent to government employees, so naturally they were all recorded by government servers.” This is false. During her tenure, there was no government program in place to record and save electronic communication to its employees.

Currently, the FBI is said to be investigating whether “confidential” communications are included in the mass of work-related emails Ms. Clinton had stored on a server “traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York” (Associated Press)

Especially given the misleading information the State Dep’t. at first gave regarding the timing of its request for return of her private storage of government  communication, I am skeptical as to how objective the FBI, under this Democratic Party’s administration, will be. (About the same as it’s predecessors under Richard Nixon?)

It is certainly legitimate to consider whether any communication useful to another government or foreign entity is more vulnerable to discovery via hack-attack, when housed in someone’s home rather than on systems using extensive government protections.

It is also legitimate to suggest that an independent party should decide whether communications made during public service are, or are not, “private.”

Many Americans, according to several polls, view Hillary Rodham Clinton as “tricky” or “untrustworthy.” Unfortunately, she seems frequently to give evidence for the opinion.

William Smithers
Santa Barbara