Kudos to The New York Times for recently raising questions about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of private email while in office. At the very least, it's a practice that ought not be continued by any such high-ranking government official — if only because these communications, presumably including diplomatic discussions with foreign leaders, need to be preserved for posterity.
But it's also exceedingly difficult to know exactly what to make of this revelation, primarily because Ms. Clinton has yet to offer much explanation herself. Why did she use a private email account exclusively? Was security compromised? Did she consult with others at the State Department or White House about this? Do the 50,000 pages of emails — whatever that means — turned over to the agency represent the entirety of Ms. Clinton's communications?
What information has come out so far has mostly muddied the waters. Secretary of State Colin Powell used private email (although not to the same extent, apparently). Ms. Clinton may not have broken any rules regarding work emails sent from a private account, according to a State Department spokeswoman. And there's been no claim, at least not yet, that any sensitive information was at risk of falling into the wrong hands.
As Washington scandals go, this one might seem a bit tepid and inside the Beltway — at least until some more serious impact on national security is determined — except that it hit on a sensitive area for Ms. Clinton and her husband, and that is the secretiveness and perennial legal woes surrounding them from Whitewater to the finances of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which has come under scrutiny for taking multi-million-dollar donations from foreign leaders.
Whether this is because the Clintons have been near-perpetual victims of legal attacks (a product of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that Ms. Clinton first observed in 1998) or because of some moral failing in the couple seems to be in the eye of the beholder. The usual critics of the Clintons have weighed in with Republicans offering some of the harshest criticism (even as it's come out that as Florida governor and as Milwaukee County executive, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker reportedly used private email accounts for official business, too).
This much is clear: When you're a front runner to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016 — even though you haven't declared your candidacy yet — your actions are going to be closely scrutinized. And this isn't just a conservative cabal hoping to embarrass Ms. Clinton. There are legitimate issues at stake here, and Ms. Clinton is ill-served by isolating herself and not being more forthcoming about what should be a fairly straightforward matter.
One can sympathize with her to at least this extent — some people on the right assume the absolute worst about her. This was certainly true in the case of the House Intelligence committee's investigation into Benghazi which, despite considerable efforts, last year released a report revealing precious little to criticize in Ms. Clinton's response to the tragedy — just as five previous government reports concluded. Naturally, a House special committee investigating the same thing has now requested any documents Ms. Clinton had not previously turned over to the State Department. And the witch hunt goes on.
Clinton supporters may view this as part of the usual pattern of conservatives to keep poking and prodding her on a myriad of issues to weaken her standing in the public eye. Throw enough accusations around and eventually something sticks, as political operatives like to say. But such a strategy only becomes more effective when Ms. Clinton chooses to stay mum — particularly when it's not some right-wing conspirator, real or imagined, asking the questions but a wide variety of mainstream news organizations, starting with the New York Times.
Absent any better explanation, it sounds like Ms. Clinton's use of a personal email account was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to keep information out of the press and away from Congressional oversight committees. That kind of secrecy is wrong when it's practiced by anyone in government, federal, state or local, where transparency is almost always the best policy. As for what non-political damage might have been done by this, we don't know. We're waiting for answers, and Ms. Clinton would be best served by providing them as soon as possible.