COULD Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency be undone by her unusual e-mail arrangements as secretary of state? A report by an internal watchdog of the State Department, the inspector-general, into her use of a private e-mail account for official business, suggests it could be. The report, which was released on May 25th, does not allege Mrs Clinton broke any law: that would have stoked fears of a campaign-ending indictment by the FBI, which is also investigating the matter. Yet it raises concerns about her conduct and uncandid response to the scandal—upon which Donald Trump, her unconscionable Republican rival, will now feast.
Ever since Mrs Clinton’s e-mail server became a matter of public debate last year, she has said she broke no rules. To the contrary, the State Department report says she was under an “obligation” to seek clearance for her e-mail system, did not, and it would have been denied if she had done, due to “security risks”.
Her e-mail rig was not a secret, exactly. The report notes “some awareness” of it among senior diplomats. It points instead to the impunity with which Mrs Clinton’s affairs were handled. When two IT whizzes expressed fears that her e-mails might not be preserved, their boss “instructed the staff never to speak of the secretary’s personal e-mail system again.”
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In Mrs Clinton’s defence, the report notes that the department has “longstanding, systemic weaknesses” in its record-keeping. Colin Powell, Mrs Clinton’s predecessor but one, also used a private e-mail account and broke record-keeping rules. Yet the report suggests he had more of an excuse; it was hard to send e-mails outside the State Department’s system in his time. He also sent fewer e-mails than Mrs Clinton, for whom secrecy—not mere “convenience”, as she has claimed—seems to have been a motivating factor. E-mails included in the report show her fear that, if she adopted an official e-mail account as an aide had advised her to, her personal e-mails could be published: “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible”.
On the evidence available, that says a lot about the origins of this scandal. Out of a neuralgic concern for confidentiality, Mrs Clinton overrode rules that her advisers considered to be less important than they were. She was no doubt motivated by years of political smears (which Mr Trump, who has already suggested she may be a murderer, is now dredging up); her staff was lulled by the State Department’s history of laxity and supplication to its boss.
Yet if it may be possible to take a tolerant view of how this started, there is no excusing the mess Mrs Clinton has made of it. A more agile politician would immediately have recognised the scandal’s potential to exacerbate the poor trust ratings that are her biggest weakness. She would then have taken urgent measures to confess her carelessness, express remorse and make a fulsome display of handing over whatever materials the investigators required. Instead Mrs Clinton obfuscated, denied and watched the scandal grow. The most significant indictment to arise from it may well concern her skills as a politician. But with the latest polls giving Mr Trump a narrow lead, that is not at all reassuring.