As many editorials are published about Hillary Clinton getting away with high crimes and misdemeanors, it is important to put this in some historical context.
Many don’t remember, back in 2005, when there was an inquiry into possible illegal firing of Federal Attorneys that the Bush White House also reported it had lost 22 million emails from White house servers and emails from at least 51 senior administrators from a private server at the Republican National Committee (RNC) over more than 2 years Jan 2003 — July 2005).
In 2009 after the Bush presidency, IT people recovered some, but not all, of the White House emails. At the same time, at least 88 senior Bush administrators, including Karl Rove, used servers at the Republican National Committee (including 95% of Rove’s email). Here is the National Security Archive for the timeline for the White House (not the RNC) email issue: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20080417/chron.htm
It later became clear that the investigation of other potential criminal offenses would require this email documentation, including the leaking of identity of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, and communications with Jack Abramoff, a person who, in 2006, was sentenced to six years in federal prison for mail fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials, and tax evasion, and the lead up to the war in Iraq. The Valerie Plame issue activated the CREW request. http://www.citizensforethics.org/pages/untold-story-of-the-bush-white-house-emails
It should be noted that during the time of the loss of emails from the White House and extensive use by key administrative staff of the RNC server, that Republicans controlled the House and, thus, decided what was worthy of investigation. The loss of emails over critical periods and the extensive use of private servers by people who were, without doubt, handling classified information was not worthy of investigation. At the time the White House emails were “lost”, this was considered a violation of the Presidential Records Act, but not followed up on.
The Freedom of Information Act request for the “lost” Bush email was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a progressive group, wanting to discover who “outed” Valerie Plame and put other CIA operatives in danger. However, emails given to them were incomplete and those marked “sensitive” were not released. Ultimately, is apprears that only 48 days of the “years of email” were restored and the conclusion was that a significant number of emails was not restored and may be lost forever. http://www.citizensforethics.org/pages/untold-story-of-the-bush-white-house-emails
Important emails on another private server at the Republican National Committee were also “lost”. Eighty-eight top Bush administrators used this server and records from 51 were not recovered, including those of Karl Rove (kr@georgewbush.com), who sent approximately 95% of his email to a server at the Republican National Committee, including emails to people like Jack Abramoff.
The NY Times editorial about other issues, included: “Last week, the Republican National Committee threw up another roadblock, claiming it had lost four years’ worth of e-mail messages by Karl Rove that were sent on a Republican Party account. Those messages, officials admitted, could include some about the United States attorneys. It is virtually impossible to erase e-mail messages fully, and the claims that they are gone are not credible.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/opinion/15sun1.html?_r=0Very little was mentioned of this email disappearance in the national media, including Fox News.
While I do understand the issue about private servers and classified information, I would suggest that second guessing the FBI, when the tens of millions of dollars in the investigation of Clinton have not been spent to figure out what Condeleza Rice and Colin Powell had on their private email accounts and with years of Bush era emails still not public, that we do our best not let our thinking about issues be guided by individuals who clearly have partisan agendas.
Here are recent follow ups on the issue:
Other background information: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/10/flashback-when-millions-of-lost-bush-white-hous/202820 http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/web-video/missing-white-house-emails