It’s taken a while for the Democratic establishment to figure out a good defense of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s seemingly inexcusable decision to use only a private email account as secretary of State.
But now they have it: the Republicans did it too!
“This week we have observed many Republicans become outraged over questions about e-mail,” said the Democratic National Committee. “It is surprising at the very least just how silent these same Republicans have been about members of their own party who have used their own private servers, conducted official business on private email accounts, have stonewalled open record requests, have routinely deleted official emails, and more.”
The DNC memo:
Date: March 5, 2015
Re: 2016 GOP Presidential Hopefuls’ E-Problems
This week we have observed many Republicans become outraged over questions about e-mail.
It is surprising at the very least just how silent these same Republicans have been about members of their own party who have used their own private servers, conducted official business on private email accounts, have stonewalled open record requests, have routinely deleted official emails, and more.
Here is just a sampling of the GOP field’s e-problems:
• Jeb Bush — Bush did not turn over emails from his private account (hosted on a server he owns) to the state that he deemed “not relevant to the public record.” And though he cites “the spirit of transparency” as the reason he released some of the emails, the truth is he was required by law to do so.
• Scott Walker — Emails linked Walker to a secret email system used in his office that would avoid public scrutiny when he was Milwaukee county executive, and Walker routinely used a campaign email account to email county staffers also using private email addresses.
• Chris Christie — A N.J. judge ruled that the Christie administration had violated open records laws for the office’s policy regarding staff use of personal emails in the wake of Bridgegate, and Christie told allies he preferred text messages to emails because they were harder to recover once deleted. Christie also spent $441,000 in taxpayer money fighting open records requests since 2012.
• Rick Perry — Perry’s office had a long-standing policy to delete emails after seven days, and Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas counsel said he believes Perry’s office was violating state law by automatically purging all staff members’ computers of emails.
• Bobby Jindal — Jindal and his top staffers used personal email to conduct state business, and avoided the use of public email accounts when they developed plans for dealing with the media response to Jindal’s decision to cut Medicaid funding.
• Mitt Romney — Romney used two private email addresses to communicate with aides, and develop policy and political strategy while Governor of Massachusetts. He then spent nearly $100,000 to replace the computers in the Governor’s office in order to keep the records secret.
• Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have yet to disclose whether they have private e-mail accounts that they use for official business. MSNBC reported that Hill veterans have noted most senators do use private e-mail accounts.
If Republicans want to claim their outrage is legitimate then they should be downright fuming about those in their own party. Why did Bush have a private server? Why did Walker’s staff mix official and campaign business on a secret email system? What more was Christie hiding? Why was Perry’s policy to delete emails after only seven days? What was Jindal’s administration trying to hide? And are Cruz, Paul, and Rubio using private emails for official business?
But having seen this “outrage” before, we won’t hold our breath.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
