A recent report from the State Department has found that Hilary Clinton clearly broke federal rules with her private email use by ignoring State Department guidance and leaving her information vulnerable.
An official general review and inspection from the State Department revealed that her personal server was breached due to hacking attempts in 2011, something Clinton has denied. Although Clinton has repeatedly stated that she is willing to be open and talk about the email scandal, new evidence seems to be coming to light all the time regarding the details, and this is still being used as a major point of contention against her in the presidential election.
While Clinton has been outwardly open about her controversy, she has also been deceptively vague, avoiding questions and trying not to talk at length about the issue while she was campaigning.
According to the National Post, the Associated Press got their hands on a copy of the State Department’s official report, which totaled 78 pages. According to the report, Clinton ignored specific directions, used her private email for doing government business, and used a Blackberry for emails that did not meet security requirements for dealing with official federal business.
What’s more, the State Department brought up these issues while they were happening, back in 2010. At the time, when faced with remarks that Clinton’s email practices were not up to par, her staff director simply replied that the matter had already been reviewed by her legal team, and that it was “not to be discusses any further.”
However, shockingly, the report also found that the past five secretaries of state had similar email practices and engaged in activity that was questionable and possibly unethical. In fact, Colin Powell only used a private account while in office. According to the report, all of these secretaries of state have been “slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership.”
Brian Fallon, who is the spokesman for Clinton while on the campaign trail, tried hard to play up this point in order to underscore the severity of the charges.
“The inspector general documents show just how consistent her email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email,” he claimed.
However, despite this truth, the report still found that Clinton was the most at fault when it comes to bad email practices.
“By Secretary Clinton’s tenure, the department’s guidance was considerably more detailed and more sophisticated,” the report explained. “Secretary Clinton’s cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives.” In other words, she had more specific instructions not to violate these rules, and still did.
So far, the State Department has released 52,000 of Clinton’s emails. Opponents of Hilary’s campaign are claiming that this recent report certainly points to her guilt. The FBI is also expected to investigate Clinton’s email use to see if she was in violation of endangering state secrets.
It is not yet clear how this will turn out, but Clinton and her top aides are being interviewed regarding the emails in question. While this may not be enough to drive a nail into the coffin of Hilary’s campaign, it will certainly force an issue she has been trying to gloss over into the light
Source: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e9cf125b8af1417a8cdd0b3526a1ce9e/apnewsbreak-state-dept-audit-faults-clinton-emails, http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/hillary-clinton-broke-federal-rules-with-email-use-state-department-audit-finds
