Were the emails sensitive, confidential, secret or top secret? Should they have been considered “classified at birth” or only in retrospect? Did Clinton violate rules or laws governing the handling of classified information? Very quickly, it all gets pretty arcane. No wonder Bernie Sanders said he was sick and tired of hearing about it.
But the original sin is neither complicated nor open to partisan misinterpretation. It involves compliance with the federal open-records law known as the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
President Obama explained the principle himself on his first day in office in the first line of a presidential order on FOIA: “A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.” The same day, Clinton was confirmed as secretary of State. Disregarding the spirit of Obama’s directive, she created a highly unusual private email system that had the effect of shielding her official communications from the public, nosy reporters and her political enemies in Congress.
Clinton argues that was not her intent, that she merely acted out of convenience. But if she had read just two paragraphs into her boss’ memo, she'd have known that her motive was irrelevant: “Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.” In other words, convenience does not trump openness.
