Clinton e-mail scandal demands answers: Opinionline

• What people are saying about the her private email account for State Department use.

Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review : "When Hillary Clinton became secretary of State, she was required by law to obtain a government e-mail address and to conduct her official business through it at all times. She didn't. ... Clinton repeatedly broke that law. The strongest argument in favor of this behavior — legally, at least — is that Clinton is a clueless, confused and out-of-touch old woman who struggles to grasp basic technological concepts. … Nobody who is familiar with the Clinton family can possibly be expected to believe this line."

Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast: "(New regulations) weren't fully implemented by State until a year and half after Clinton left. ... Clinton left the State Department on Feb. 1, 2013. Back in 2011, (President Obama) signed a memorandum directing the update of federal records management. But ... e-mail records of senior government officials (weren't declared) federal records until August 2013. ... What rule did she violate, exactly?"

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Frank Bruni, The New York Times : "Does she have a political death wish? Until a month ago, one of the arguments I frequently heard in favor of her presumed candidacy for the presidency was that she'd been vetted like nobody's ever been vetted, with no surprises left. ... But that assessment shortchanged (the Clintons') ability to make new messes. It ignored the 'Groundhog Day' in which they star. ... It also demonstrates how much ammunition she's needlessly giving a future Republican rival."

Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg: "The only reason anyone would run their own e-mail servers in an era of highly functional and free mail systems is to avoid all government surveillance. ... In the case of a major public figure, it will raise questions about the content of those e-mails. ... If privacy was Clinton's goal, she should not have used e-mail at all for anything but official communication. ... Condoleezza Rice did exactly that."

Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post: "(Clinton's) allies have maintained that she turned over more than 55,000 pages of e-mails from her time as secretary of State. But, the decisions over which e-mails to turn over were made by Clinton and/or her staff. That's not exactly the height of transparency. ... At one level that's entirely defensible. This is not your average family. (Yet) any attempt to (withhold) e-mails — or ... make it harder for people to access them — is politically problematic."

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