Hillary Clinton allies and donors are wringing their hands about the email scandal enveloping the former secretary of state and the way the presumed Democratic nominee’s campaign is handling the controversy,
according to Politico.
Instead of getting ahead of the story by putting all of the information in the public arena and preemptively turning over any and all related materials to the government when the investigation began, Clinton is "falling back on her tendency to mount a legalistic defense that only encourages perceptions that she has something to hide," the website reports, revealing that some Democratic strategists have said they would have advised Clinton to "'get it out there, get it done with, get it behind you,’ by turning over everything — emails, server, thumb drives — to the Justice Department months ago to move on. Instead, it was not until last week that Clinton agreed to turn over her server to DOJ."
The recent disclosure that during her tenure as secretary of state Clinton conducted all of her official government business on a private server, housed in her New York home, and a personal email account, instead of government-secured accounts and servers, has sparked an investigation into whether she violated federal laws and State Department protocols.
There is also concern that highly classified information may not have been adequately protected.
Last week, Clinton turned over her server and thumb drives containing work-related emails to the Justice Department after the FBI opened an investigation.
In a Monday court filing, State Department lawyers advised a federal judge that 305 documents from Clinton’s private server have been referred to intelligence agencies for further review,
according to NBC News.
Intelligence officials have reviewed just 20 percent of the 30,000 emails Clinton and her advisers turned over to the State Department.
An unnamed Democratic operative with ties to Clinton’s presidential campaign told Politico that the developments are cause for concern.
"I get nervous about seeing stories with these words together — FBI, Clinton, criminal investigation," the operative said. "If there’s anything to be nervous about, it’s that the average voter will remember those words."
There’s also trepidation, multiple sources told the website, about the content of more than 62,000 other emails.
David Brock, Clinton’s "staunch ally" and founder of the rapid response organization Correct the Record, tells Politico that he’s fielding complaints from the left about how the situation is being managed.
Her campaign surrogates are doing an ineffective job of getting their side out there, he said, and Democratic pundits and strategists have fallen short defending Clinton during television appearances "because they’re more interested in looking reasonable to their colleagues in the media than winning the fight."
Correct the Record will be conducting "state-specific trainings for surrogates defending Clinton, with a focus on early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada," Brock said.
"For now, the campaign’s strategy is to emphasize the controversy as a partisan overreach by congressional Republicans; underscore that Clinton did not break the law; and reiterate that Clinton has done everything in her power to cooperate with government inquiries," according to Politico.
Clinton has ineptly tried to made light of the scandal, according to CNN, which reports that "she can't get out of her own way, even as her campaign flashes public signs of nervousness about the damage the issue is inflicting," referring to her recent attempt at humor to an Iowa audience when asked about her thoughts on Snapchat, a social media picture and video app that automatically deletes messages after they are viewed.
"I love it,"
Clinton said. "Those messages disappear all by themselves."
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