A former State Department watchdog told Fox News that previous secretaries of state did not use a personal email address for official business.
Leading Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claims over and over she did nothing wrong because her predecessors used personal email addresses. Howard Krongard, who served as inspector general of the State Department from April 2005 to January 2008, strongly disagrees:
“Certainly to my knowledge at least, Secretary [Condoleezza] Rice did not have a personal server. I certainly never either sent an email to one or received an email from one,” said Krongard, who served during Rice’s tenure.Further, he said, “I would have been stunned had I been asked to send an email to her at a personal server, private address. I would have declined to do so on security grounds and if she had sent one to me, I probably would have started an investigation.”
The IG report, issued on May 25, found that Rice never once used a personal email address to conduct state business. Colin Powell used his personal email address “on a limited basis to connect with people outside the department.” He also informed and “worked with the State Department to secure the system.”
Clinton never asked for approval from senior State Department officials. The IG showed confidence that no one would have given approval.
Last Thursday, Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she thought she could use her personal email address since former secretaries did the same thing:
“I thought it was allowed. I knew past secretaries of state used personal email,” she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room, saying the rules were only recently improved.”They were not a model of clarity and it seems like there is still more work to do on that,” she said.
Krongard also pointed out that Clinton did not have a “Senate-confirmed inspector general” at the state department during her four year term, which meant no oversight:
“I would’ve been the most unpopular person in that building [had I been there],” Krongard said, emphasizing that the inspector general has broad powers and the ability to rein in even the most senior political appointees. “They are the people who enforce the rules, and there was no one enforcing the rules during that time.”
The May 25 report found numerous violations during Clinton’s term:
“At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department issues before leaving government service,” says an audit by the State Department Inspector General, obtained by NBC News.“Because she did not do so, she did not comply with the [State] Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”
The inspector general also lashed out at the State Department:
The report broadly criticized the State Department as well, saying that officials had been “slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks” that emerged in the era of emails, particularly those of senior officials like Mrs. Clinton.It said that “longstanding systemic weaknesses” in handling electronic records went “well beyond the tenure of any one secretary of state” but the body of the report focused on the 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton sent and received on her private server.
Federal law says everyone must preserve all government records. Clinton claims she did this because the majority of the “emails were sent to people the State Department system.” But the inspector general countered her claim by saying “sending emails from a personal account to other employees at their Department accounts is not an appropriate method of preserving any such emails that would constitute a federal record.”
In March, the Justice Department granted Bryan Pagliano, the man who established her private email server, immunity for his cooperation.
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