Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) on Thursday said Republicans are treating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unfairly by calling for her personal email server.

Her GOP predecessors at State never turned over their private electronic correspondences despite calls for greater transparency, Lynch added.

 “I haven’t heard a word about Colin Powell, I haven’t heard a word about Condoleezza Rice.” 

“Colin Powell did not have a goddamn email available for us,” Lynch said. “Zero, zero.” “It was the same thing with Condoleezza Rice,” he added.

“There was not a goddamn email that was useful to the committee.” 

Lynch argued the GOP-led Congress is hounding Clinton because she is a prominent Democrat and presidential candidate. 

“So why is it OK that Colin Powell, you know, in launching a war in Iraq, to not have a single available email, it’s OK for that, but Hillary Clinton, you know, she turns over 30,000 of them and you know that’s not enough, we want more information?” he asked. “It’s just a double standard,” he added. “It’s very glaring.” 

Lynch also dismissed criticisms that Clinton’s use of a personal storage device jeopardized sensitive national intelligence while she was at State. 

“She’s about the only person who hasn’t been hacked yet,” he said. “She’s the smartest one of them all.”

“We have clandestine information that is now in the hands of the Chinese,” he said, citing a recent data breach at the Office of Personnel Management. “Her information now is the only information that hasn’t been hacked.” 

 “It’s hard to argue that if she had put it on a government server, it would have been safer.”

Last edited by DollyLongstaff (2/04/2016 1:31 pm)

With all due respect, just because others violated a law doesn't make it right. This isn't the same as Hilary's secret server scandal. NBC's report does contain a distinction............"None of the messages were marked classified when originally sent, and none were determined to include information from the intelligence community, Linick said in the document." I think that statement right there shows that Hilary's situation is not analogous to Powell or Rice.

The IG only found 2 instances involving Powell's private e-mail account and one involving Rice......all ten involved her aides. Hilary didn't bother getting an official State Dept. account, instead hid her communications form Congress and the courts for more than 5 years. 

I'd have no objection to throwing them all in jail.

Campbell85255 wrote:

With all due respect, just because others violated a law doesn't make it right. This isn't the same as Hilary's secret server scandal. NBC's report does contain a distinction............"None of the messages were marked classified when originally sent, and none were determined to include information from the intelligence community, Linick said in the document." I think that statement right there shows that Hilary's situation is not analogous to Powell or Rice.

The IG only found 2 instances involving Powell's private e-mail account and one involving Rice......all ten involved her aides. Hilary didn't bother getting an official State Dept. account, instead hid her communications form Congress and the courts for more than 5 years. 

I'd have no objection to throwing them all in jail.

This is probably the best assessment of the whole situation:

Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement accusing Republicans of running a “multimillion-dollar political sideshow aimed at derailing Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

“The truth couldn’t be plainer: The private-email problem is not a Hillary Clinton problem. It’s a governmentwide problem that’s existed since the advent of email itself,” the statement read.

As Powell explained, communication via computer and the internet was in it's infancy when he severed as SOS.

If we've learned anything from the investigation into Hillary's e-mails, one thing is clear. Her familiarity with and use of modern technology (including cell phones) is very limited.

So in both these cases, it was the government's responsibility to make sure they were following protocol concerning the sending, receiving and storing of sensitive material.

Last edited by DollyLongstaff (2/05/2016 7:04 am)