MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is letting Hillary Clinton have it this week.
The host of the Lean Forward network’s “Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” has been using his 10 p.m. weekday slot to excoriate the former secretary of state over her exclusive use of a personal email account to conduct official government business when she worked at the State Department
“This is a stunning breach of security,” O’Donnell said Monday of the potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate’s questionable behavior at the State Department, shortly after the New York Times revealed that Clinton created a nondescript email address before taking the top job at Foggy Bottom. “If this is true that she never used a State Department email address, we have something that at first read has no conceivable rational explanation to it that is legitimate.”
Clinton’s defenders are scrambling to address reports she relied on a “homebrew” email system, including a server registered to a fictitious person, for official correspondence during her tenure at the State Department — conduct that seems to have been in violation of federal record-keeping laws and raises concerns about the likelihood she may have compromised the security of state secrets.
But the scandal has unleashed anti-Clinton feelings on the Left as well as the right. O’Donnell, who in the past has described himself as a “socialist” on the “extreme Left,” is just one of many harsh critics of the former first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state.
On Tuesday, O’Donnell emphasized the seriousness of Clinton’s former role at State and the sensitivity of her work.
“The security risk, to me, is absolutely stunning in this situation,” O’Donnell said Tuesday.
O’Donnell said there’s “only one reason” why Clinton would want to use a secretive personal account to conduct State business: “Everybody I know in government today — there’s one reason: So you can control it and destroy some. That’s the only reason.”
“There are tradeoffs,” he continued in response to Jonathan Atler’s suggestion Clinton may have set up her own account because a government account would have been too difficult and “cumbersome.” “Does she find it difficult to have her own plane as secretary of state? … I used the Senate’s very first email system. It worked. It was okay.”
Later O’Donnell criticized Clinton, who is viewed as the all-but-certain 2016 Democratic nominee, for reportedly dodging reporters’ questions on her secretive email habits, a claim that former Michigan governor and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Granholm tried to dispute.
“I don’t think she has refused to answer the question,” Granholm said on Wednesday’s show. “I think her spokespeople have been out there —”
O’Donnell cut her off with a laugh: “No, she has. Reporters are getting refusal to answer.”
News organizations, including the Times, reported this week they have had no luck prying comment from Clinton, who has so far touched on the issue only lightly, saying in a 26-word tweet: “I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.”
Lastly, on Thursday, O’Donnell kept up the steady pressure on Clinton, criticizing Democrats who have attempted to divert attention from the former senator by pointing to the fact that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also used a personal email account.
“You know what’s funny to me about this is that a lot of people in liberal world today are using the Bush standard. Something they normally find to be evil on everything including what you order for dinner. They’re using the Bush standard as the defense of Hillary Clinton. Bush’s emails were legally available to everyone,” O’Donnell said in response to MSNBC’s Alex Wagner’s attempt to draw comparisons between Bush and Clinton. “Hillary Clinton’s system was designed to defy Freedom of Information Act requests, which is designed to defy the law.”
He continued, adding that Clinton’s reported skirting of federal regulations goes against a “decades-long liberal crusade” to enact transparency laws, including the Freedom of Information Act.
“The regulation that Hillary Clinton was defying is a liberal regulation,” O’Donnell said. “It is of a liberal spirit.”
O’Donnell remarks on the Clinton email scandal are just a small part of the network’s nearly wall-to-wall coverage of an issue that doesn’t appear to be going away for the potential 2016 presidential candidate.
