Mitchell: ‘Nobody’ Can Explain Why Hillary Clinton Had a Private Server
BRZEZINSKI: “I want to ask Andrea Mitchell. If it's fair to assume that Donald Trump has been underestimated, in terms of his impact on the race, it is possible, Andrea, that the media analysts and others have underestimated the impact of this e-mail situation on Hillary Clinton's campaign?”
MITCHELL: “I think so. Look, you have two inspectors general, and they are referring to this to the Justice Department. Now, you can try to confuse it, and there’s been a lot of misdirection. There’s been inaccurate reporting significantly, on Thursday night by the New York Times; it’s not a criminal referral, not at this stage. It could become, and it could become nothing. But, what they are suggesting is that there were classified -- four out of the 40 randomly selected, had classified information, and it was not information that was later upgraded to be classified. It was information that was classified as ‘secret,’ which is a level of classification, at the time. This gets very confusing. And it can be confused further by statements on all sides. That said, the original sin, if you will, is having a private email system.”
BRZEZINSKI: “That’s -- It's just unfixable.
MITCHELL: “You know, I was at a security conference speaking to intelligence officials on all sides, and the attorney general, we’ll talk about that later. But nobody can give an explanation for why a cabinet secretary would have a private email system other than to thwart inquiries, FOIAs, and had someone who had spent 20 years fighting off many investigations, many of which were unwarranted and which led nowhere. And so, you understand the defensive crouch that a lot of Clinton people were in. But it still doesn’t explain why, going from the Senate, into a cabinet level position, there was a private email system.”
BRZEZINSKI: “All right. Joe?”
SCARBOROUGH: “And, Ron – Ron Fournier, the Clinton camp is in an offensive crouch. They're furiously fighting back also with allies in the press, attacking The New York Times. What they can't -- what they can't brush away is the fact that the words of the inspector generals themselves from the State Department and the Intel committees that these e-mails should have never been sent out on a private server. That it was a security breach and it does need to be investigated.”
FOURNIER: “Well, they can’t brush away the fact that the secretary said, when this first was revealed, that there was no confidential information that was given out. We now know that’s true, she’s parsing it now by saying ‘at this time.’ But we know it happens when the Clintons parse, and it’s happening again. Let's go back like Andrea said to the original sin here. It was unprecedented to have a home cooked server, in your house, if you’re a cabinet secretary. It was against White House policy to have a home cooked server in your basement of your house when you’re a cabinet secretary. It was to thwart Congressional subpoenas, Congressional requests for information, and public requests for information. And the only explanation she’s given, frankly, isn’t very credible. So, I think the American – let me just finish, real quick. The American public has the right now, has every reason, and the press has a responsibility to ask her again and again and again, ‘What were you hiding, Mrs. Clinton? What were you hiding?'”
