Hillary Clinton using her private email, not illegal but very suspicious

Junior biology major

A few weeks ago, the media reported that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had used a personal email with her own server during her time as secretary of state.

Though Clinton’s practice of not using an official government email to conduct government business is unconventional and perhaps even looked down upon, the investigation into this “scandal” did not reveal that Clinton had broken any laws.

Interestingly, previous secretaries of state have also used personal emails to conduct government business. According to CNN, “Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice both had personal email accounts during their time at the helm of the State Department.”

The issue, however, is not that Clinton had broken any laws by using her own email and personal server to conduct official government business but, by using a personal email, Clinton had the ability to delete and tamper with her emails.

Since this scandal has been brought to light, there have been numerous charges and potential lawsuits brought against the former secretary of state, including trading access to government officials for donations to the Clinton Foundation, according to political newspaper The Hill, and recently the Associated Press filed a lawsuit against the State Department to make all of the emails Clinton sent through her account public under the Freedom of Information Act.

Currently, with the investigation still in its nascent stages, any accusations brought against Clinton must be seen as speculation. This, however, does not absolve Clinton from having committed any crimes, such as sending classified information using her email, or from having engaged in any political correspondence that might have been questionable. The investigation at hand does not seem to have the potential to uncover much more information from this scandal; however, Clinton and her aides selected the 55,000 emails, which Clinton deemed “work related,” to submit to the State Department for inspection and deleted many emails she considered personal.

Though no one is denying Clinton a private life, what she has done certainly provides much fodder to the media to question what really went on during her tenure as secretary of state. With Clinton in control of which emails she submits to the State Department and which to delete, she has definitely incited substantial suspicion and one cannot blame the press, or others, for not taking her word that nothing illegal transpired.

The real issue at hand should be conducting a more thorough investigation into whether Clinton engaged in any illegal activity that might have involved incorporating classified information in her emails or conducting underhanded dealings. This should be the true concern of the American people, and not that Clinton did not readily make every one of her emails public. At the end of the day, the purpose of providing transparency is to make sure that eminent government officials do not engage in illegal activities unbeknownst to the public. It does not, however, mean that everyone has the right to know every detail about the lives of our government officials.

Patrick An is a junior biology major. He can be reached at patandbk@gmail.com.