Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is causing major problems for the likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate. But the reporter of the original story denies reports that the Clinton camp is putting unusual pressure on him.
Following a Monday-night New York Times article revealing that Clinton used a personal email account to conduct official government business when she served as secretary of state, critics are accusing Clinton of high-handedness, stupidity, arrogance and even jeopardizing national security.
The Times’ Mike Schmidt reported late Monday that along with using a personal email account to handle business while serving as the first head of President Obama’s State Department, Clinton and her staff did not preserve copies of her emails — an apparent violation of the Federal Records Act.
Political pundits were quick to react.
“What is this Hillary Clinton scandal on a scale from 1-10? Feels like a solid 7,” saidMashable’s Jason Abbruzzese.
“Hillary Clinton has a problem,” said Politico’s Blake Hounshell.
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein added: “[R]eally absurd and disturbing absence of transparency from Hillary Clinton here.”
Meanwhile, Schmidt appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday to discuss his reporting. After the interview concluded, the show’s hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, noted that Schmidt appeared to be uncomfortable discussing his story, leading to the suggestion that the Times reporter may be fearing reprisal for his story.
But Schmidt denies this is the case.
“I have no idea why Mika and Joe would say what they did, only they can answer that. And, no I haven’t received any warnings. The reaction to the story has been significant – I now have a lot more followers on Twitter,” the Times reporter told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.
“There’s been some pushback, but that’s to be expected when you write about a topic like this,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt reported that Hillary Clinton at no point during her time with the State Department attempted to conduct business from a formal government account.
“Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act,” he wrote in a report titled, “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.”
“Regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration at the time required that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records,” the report added. “But Mrs. Clinton and her aides failed to do so.”
Journalists and pundits reacted negatively to this news.
“Hillary Clinton should not have done this,” said Mother Jones’ Nick Baumann.
“What is [Hillary Clinton] hiding?” asked National Journal’s Ron Fournier. “Sleazy, stupid and now suspicious. What’s next from [her]? Seedy? Sanctimonious? Self-important? Slick?”
Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic noted with distaste that the Times’ revelation exposes Clinton’s “willful, flagrant disregard for public records rules.”
Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin joked: “I look forward to reading the friends [and] family talking points on this one.”
“If it’s true that she never used a State Department email address,”MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said, “we have something that, at first read, has no conceivable rational explanation to it that is legitimate.”
Meanwhile, former White House press secretary and MSNBC contributor Robert Gibbs said Tuesday morning on NBC News that the Clinton email ordeal is “obviously highly unusual.”
“There are lots of briefings that you have, certainly when you go into the White House about preserving any email that you have, making sure it’s part of your official account,” Gibbs said. “I think it’s something that they’re going to have to explain in good measure today and probably figure out how to get a lot of those emails, or as many as they can, back to the archives.I think this is another one of those things the Clinton campaign, such as it is, is going to have to explain.”
“It just seems ridiculous that nobody in Hillary Clinton’s orbit would say, ‘ummm, this might be a bad idea,'” Washington Post’s Jose A. DelReal said.
“This is unreal,” said Yahoo! News’ Meredith Shiner.
“Oh dear, why?!” asked the Guardian’s Jonathan Haynes.
“How?” CNN’s Emanuella Grinberg wondered.
Vox’s Max Fisher said of the ordeal: “Yikes. The Bush admin got rightly torn apart for using this tactic. Hillary Clinton’s use of same = major red flags.”
Elsewhere, the Washington Post blared in a headline: “Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail address at State reinforces everything people don’t like about her.”
The Times report “reminds and reinforces for people many of the traits that they do not like in the Clintons while also suggesting a level of hubris that is very dangerous for someone who is the biggest non-incumbent frontrunner for a presidential nomination in modern political history,” the Post’s Chris Cillizza. Other traits he described are that the Clintons “never own up to anything,” that they’re “always hiding something” and that they “don’t think the rules apply to them.”
Jezebel added in a headline of its own: “Hillary Clinton’s got a lot of explaining to do about her emails.”
The Times also revealed Sunday that the entire time that Clinton served as secretary of state, she conducted likely classified business from an account that may or may not have been secure, raising further questions as to whether confidential information fell into the wrong hands.
“It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton’s private email account included encryption or other security measures, given the sensitivity of her diplomatic activity,” the Times reported.
This key detail raised flags for the London Times’ Louise Mensch, who noted that Clinton’s emails were likely compromised long ago by hackers affiliated with Russia.
“If Russia’s been two steps ahead of the Obama admin, not surprising. They had access to Sec Clinton’s unsecured email,” Mensch said.
“Don’t see how #Hilary survives long slow burn of realization of what [Russia today] hack meant US security,” she said, referring to the Kremlin-backed news agency.”Key detail in … story on [Hillary Clinton] illegal state dept private emails: they were published on [Russia Today] – so hacked by Russia.”
The New York Times and Hillary Clinton have in the past clashed over the newspaper’s coverage of her various political campaigns. The former senator actually said at one point before she ran against then-Sen. Barack Obama that the Grey Lady is “after us.”
