This article should not be considered to be a testament of exoneration of the Hillary Clinton email situation. However, it should bring into the question why Republicans, who essentially did the same thing or worse were never questioned. I believe the consternation brought to bear on Hillary Clinton is simply because she is, who she is, and that Republicans ignore the same circumstances that exist within their own party. But more importantly, what astounded me as I conducted the research is the lack of press and media attention on all of the numerous other similar situations.
Let us begin with Jeb Bush, Florida Gov. from 1999 – 2007, who voluntarily from his own computer server posted thousands of emails online that were categorized by his own determination of what was relevant to government business. When questioned, the Bush campaign indicated that public records not related to government business were not turned over to the state. But again, similar to the Clinton situation, that was strictly based on the his discretion. Sources indicate that Bush did not include emails related to politics, his campaign, or donors asking for favors.
During the George W. Bush administration, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of staff, deleted 22 million emails dating from2003 to 2005. Further, the Bush administration improperly utilized email of the Republican National Committee (RNC) that somehow disappeared. It was believed the RNC email system was utilized specifically because they would be hidden from public purview.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a watchdog group, alleged that the missing emails were possible violations of the Federal Presidential Records Act
In 2006, seven Democratic US Attorneys were fired and replaced with political hacks with little or no experience. A congressional committee investigating the firing of the US attorneys requested the emails and learned they could not be found. At the time there was considerable outrage that the firings were simply a political act to protect VP Dick Cheney and his comrades for unmasking Valerie Palme, a CIA specialist. Palme was a covert CIA agent whose husband publicly criticized the Bush administration for invading Iraq without accurate information concerning weapons of mass destruction. As a result, of the unmasking Palme sued Cheney, Rove, and Scooter Libby, (Bush’s Chief of Staff) for conspiring to destroy her career. Scooter Libby was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison and pay a $250,000 fine. President Bush commuted his prison sentence, and therefore he is one no time.
A majority of the records regarding Palme scandal and the US attorney firings were deleted from the private political server located in the White House. Not a single Republican called for an investigation of this situation. The emails contained information regarding the firing of the eight attorneys who would’ve been involved with the prosecution in the Palme case. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to have those emails available? And where was the Republican outrage. It doesn’t exist because the name Hillary Clinton wasn’t involved.
In 2007, CREW and that National Security Archive sued the Bush administration, stating that he violated federal laws that required such records be maintained.
Links: