Investigative Reporter Calls Clinton Email Story "Nothing Burger"

Echoing Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall, investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Kurt Eichenwald, who now writes for Newsweek, in his May 27 piece labels the hub-bub over Clinton's emails a "nothing burger."

The recent report released by the inspector general of the State Department shows that, on the topics it analyzes, there is no Clinton email scandal.

According to Eichenwald, the report does confirm that Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and senior staff for former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice all used personal email accounts "for daily work." But one of the reasons Clinton and her predecessors used private email servers, Eichenwald suggests, is that they were more secure.

The one thing that seems clear from the report is that Clinton’s email system was more secure than the one at the State Department.

Arguably the Republican congress's obsession with cost-cutting is the real culprit here. State Department laptops were "lousy," and the office for ensuring federal compliance re communications "has been a horrifically underfunded, understaffed and ineffective group for many years, starting long before Clinton arrived at the State Department."

As the report says, "Longstanding systemic weaknesses related to electronic messages and communications have existed within the Office of the Secretary that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State.… The Department generally and the Office of the Secretary in particular have been slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications."

Read the full article at Newsweek.

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