“Hillary Clinton’s E-mail Scandal” are you tired of hearing those words? The scandal was brought up in the Democratic debate but Clinton quickly shut down the question. Bernie Sanders remarked that “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails!” I’m an American and I am definitely not sick of hearing about the e-mails! So excuse me Bernie, but can the American people have a chance to hear Clinton respond to this issue? Because I–and a lot of other Americans–are sick of hearing Clinton’s excuses to the American people.
The storyline of this scandal has been changed dozens of times… Why? The American people deserve to know EXACTLY what happened in our former Secretary of States email. Clinton having a position so high up in government and getting paid such a high salary should make this issue extremely important to the American people. Not only does Clinton expect the American people to just let this scandal slip by but she also wants them to vote her into office. How can we do this if we don’t know the whole story of what really happened and why it’s important? After researching so much of this scandal it almost seems like Clinton was hoping enough false information would flood the media that Americans would just get overwhelmed and stop caring about it.
Okay, so let’s start from the beginning. Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State under Barack Obama in 2009 and served until 2013. During this time she chose to use a personal e-mail account under a private server because it was “easier” than using both a private and government e-mail stating that she didn’t want to carry two devices at once. As insignificant as this may seem we’ve already found lie #1: The Wall Street Journal confirmed that in July Clinton’s team admitted that she carried around both an iPad and a Blackberry. Both of which she used to access her e-mail. Doesn’t seem like a big deal? Read on because it is.
Perhaps the biggest component in this scandal is Clinton’s use of her personal e-mail to send classified material. Clinton originally said in a March news conference that “There is no classified material,” and she is “certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.” She later changed her statement when asked again by news outlets and stated that she “did not email or receive any material that was classified at the time it was sent or received”. At this point, Clinton knew there was classified material found on her server and she responded by basically saying she didn’t know at the time she sent it that it was classified. Here we have lie #2: A sampling of 40 of Clintons Emails went under review by Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the intelligence community, he found that two of these e-mails contained Top Secret material at the time they were received by Clinton. Although Clinton’s campaign disputed this, The New York Times says that the Central Intelligence Agency confirmed that classified information was found on her e-mail.
Clinton admitted to deleting around 30,000 out of 60,000 e-mails on her server claiming they were “personal”. As Secretary of State she understood that ALL e-mails would need to be turned over if she was caught sending material that was at any point classified on her personal e-mail and server. Having the title of Secretary of State doesn’t mean she can change the rules and pick and choose which e-mails to turn over. Clinton said in a news conference that “I . . . provided all my emails that could possibly be work-related.” There we go with yet another lie and that makes #3! Clinton’s confidant Sidney Blumenthal turned over correspondence between the two that included several emails which were work-related and never turned over by Clinton herself. That’s a big deal and it does matter. It means she lied about providing ALL of her work related e-mails for the investigation.
Clinton has tried to refute this entire scandal by insisting that it’s a partisan movement by the Republicans against her and her run for presidency. But it’s important to know that the justice department are the ones looking into this scandal and that department is under the democratic administration, so, unless her own party is trying to start a movement against her, this definitely is not the case. It also became a matter of much more than just politics when the Federal Bureau of Investigation got involved. She’s laughed it off several times but it’s no joking matter. If it’s important to the American people why should she be laughing?
Now, whether or not Clinton did anything illegal is still under the investigation of the FBI. If it turns out that Clinton did wipe her server this could be a felony. Although it wasn’t against the law for Clinton to use a private e-mail server, how she handled her private e-mail on that server could have been. The FBI is now doing an investigation which means they have reason to suspect she did break the law somewhere along the line. Hopefully, the FBI will be able to release this information before any election for President of the United States because this information is crucial to the election.
The question from the whole scandal is should this effect Clinton’s run for president? The answer is a resounding yes! There are two outcomes from this scandal; the first is that she knew there was classified material on her e-mail or she wiped the server, which is illegal. The second is that she really didn’t know she was sending around born-classified material. If this is the case, she’s not responsibly handling material that could be dangerous to the security of the country. There is no way someone who is openly lying to the American people or who is incapable of responsibly handling our top secret information should be elected for President of the United States. Neither of these outcomes prove to be positive for Clinton and collegiettes need to educate themselves on this matter before heading to the polls!
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