Hillary Clinton email scandal: five burning questions that need answers

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/05/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-five-burning-questions

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Hillary Clinton has been on the defensive this week over the revelation that she exclusively used a private email account while serving as secretary of state. The presumptive 2016 presidential candidate has tried to douse the flames, but key questions about the controversy remain unaddressed.

Where are the missing emails?

Two months ago, a team of Clinton people combed through a vast stack of her emails – from the period covering 2009 to 2013, when she served as America’s top diplomat. Having reviewed the emails, they handed over 55,000 pages to the State Department.

Related: Hillary Clinton is learning another hard lesson in presidential campaigning

That begs the question: how many pages did she not hand over? More importantly, what did they contain?

A State Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday that she was not sure if the department had been given every document for the process of having formal government records, saying only that “it sounds to me like that has been completed”.

On Wednesday, Clinton tweeted “I want the public to see my email”. But: does Clinton want the public to see material she is still retaining as her private property?

Who decided which emails made the cut?

As the New York Times revealed when it broke the email story, a group of “Mrs Clinton’s advisers” reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails before handing over the 55,000 to the State Department.

But we still don’t know who those advisers were, and whether they had any training in the art of preserving official records.

So: who vetted the Clinton emails? Why should they be trusted to preserve something as precious to the nation as its historic records? Will they be on Clinton’s presidential campaign team?

Related: Why the Hillary Clinton email revelations are a significant problem

Why was email vetting even permitted?

The question of who vetted Clinton’s emails before their transfer to the State Department raises another question: why was this allowed in the first place?

Since 2009, US government rules have been very clear on this subject. The National Archives and Records Administration stated categorically in that year – the first of Clinton’s term as secretary – that “agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.”

Alas: why did senior State Department officials allow Clinton to override clear official rules? What role did Clinton herself play in circumventing the regulations?

Was the secret server secure?

We now know that Team Clinton set up its own domain name, ClintonEmail.com, shortly before Hillary Clinton took up the job as secretary of state. It was linked to a “homebrew” server at her home in Chappaqua, New York.

Given that Clinton was dealing with highly sensitive diplomatic issues, and that President Obama has declared cybersecurity a top priority for the nation, one might have expected additional protection.

But simple tests conducted by experts suggest that the server’s security shield was not particularly sophisticated – though neither was that of the State Department.

What was done to protect Clinton’s private server from hacking attacks? Were any vulnerable loopholes cut off? Were state secrets at risk?

Related: Republicans accuse Clinton of 'scheme to conceal' emails from public view

Why did she do it?

Perhaps the most intriguing question that still hangs in the air – and one that the public may never have satisfactorily answered, much to the chagrin of Benghaziphiles – is the simplest: why would Hillary Clinton decide, in effect, to privatise her own official emails? Was it an innocent move made for the sake of convenience – one which Clinton supporters have emphasised was made by her predecessors and by leading Republican politicians?

Or: were the private emails a conscious manoeuvre? As watchdogs at the Sunlight Foundation put it: “There is shock at what Secretary Clinton did because the most likely explanation of her intent seems clear – she created a system designed to avoid accountability, potentially in violation of the law.”