Do Ethics Matter in 2016?

Establishing a private email server to conduct business as America’s top diplomat. Top aides to the Secretary of State performing various tasks for a foundation whose top donors have active business with the State Department. Tens of thousands of emails sorted and 30,000 emails deleted from a server containing highly classified information by lawyers without the proper security clearances. This is what happened when the Secretary of State and now the Democrat’s nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, admits she “was not thinking a lot.”

Hillary Clinton and her top aides were not thinking when they blurred the lines between official duties at the State Department and duties at the Clinton Foundation. To Barack Obama’s credit, he must have known that the woman he picked to become his secretary of state really didn’t think things through, at least from an ethical standpoint. In a 2008 memorandum of understanding between representatives from Obama and Clinton’s respective staffs, the parties agreed to set up precautions, including that, “President Clinton intends to take to assist Senator Clinton to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with her duties as Secretary of State,” according to reporting by Politico. Yet, emails recently released by Judicial Watch show aides at the Clinton Foundation and the State Department were in contact to connect and assist donors at the foundation to resources at State. In one email, an aide asks staff at State to assist a Clinton donor in contacting a foreign ambassador. Keep in mind that while these new emails from Clinton’s server were indeed related to Secretary Clinton’s work, some 44 emails were not included in the original trove of “work-related emails” returned to the federal government by Clinton, according to the New York Times. As troubling as these emails are, what could possibly have been deemed not “work-related” by Hillary Clinton’s lawyers when they deleted around 30,000 “personal” emails?

Clinton and her aides were not thinking when they determined a private email server was the best way to be transparent and conduct the official business of the United States. Obama’s team had concerns about a conflict of interest between Hillary Clinton and her family foundation. Any evidence that could be seen as a quid pro quo would embarrass Barack Obama’s administration. Hillary no doubt had higher ambitions than Foggy Bottom. She aspired to win the Oval Office in 2016, after being defeated in 2008 by her new boss, President Obama. In a stroke of devious and unethical genius, that is if the scheme was never discovered by the Congress, Hillary Clinton decided to use a private email server for her own “convenance” while serving as Secretary of State. Though Hillary Clinton claims she “was not thinking a lot” when she chose to use her private email server, it was actually the perfect solution for her. Operate an email server you can control. Conduct whatever business you desire with your private email. Have your lawyers sift through emails to decide what is “work-related” and what is “personal.” Delete roughly 30,000 emails that were “personal,” or perhaps inconvenient because they expose illegal quid pro quo, but who cares — the Congress and the American people won’t get to know! If this act of “extremely careless” disregard for not only classified information (Hillary’s lawyers lacked the security clearance necessary to file through her emails which contained highly classified material, according to the Director of the FBI James Comey), but also the preservation of records doesn’t raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s ethics, I’m not sure what would.

The American government was established with a system of checks and balances to preserve democracy and promote transparency, Hillary Clinton violated the spirit of our democracy. Her careless disregard for classified material and the preservation of records, yet extreme concern for her own “convenance” may not have been deemed illegal, but it certainly exposes her as a dishonest, untrustworthy, and unethical candidate for president of the United States. In fact, Hillary Clinton should be disqualified from the presidential race. President Richard Nixon released the transcripts of the White House tapes even after his staff urged him to destroy the evidence because the President felt as though the tapes could be seen as exculpatory. As President Nixon would soon realize all to well, the release of the tapes only accelerated his own demise. In the end, an infamous 18 1/2 minutes of recorded conversation was somehow erased from the “Nixon Tapes,” but at least President Nixon had the decency to make a case to Congress and the American people, not simply delete or destroy all the tapes — which he considered to be “personal” — in order to avoid the prying eyes of the Justice Department, the Congress, and the American people. It should be asked of Hillary Clinton whether or not she regrets the fact 30,000 of her emails were deleted and not shown to the Congress or the American people as proof of the innocence she claims. Now, the American people will be left to wonder whether or not they can ever again trust Hillary Clinton at all.