Clinton campaign shaken, not stirred, by e-mailgate

FORMER secretary of state Hillary Clinton's incipient presidential campaign has hit its first bit of turbulence, with both Republicans and Democrats turning up the heat on her this week for a scandal involving the use of personal e-mail during her term in office.

The full extent of the fallout from the so-called "e-mailgate" won't be known for months to come. But no one, except the most optimistic Republicans, thinks it will remain a factor at a presidential election two years later.

By all accounts, the issue is not one that has seized the average American voter.

If anything, the biggest worry for the Clinton camp may be how it affects election dynamics within her own party.

Already, there is talk of growing unease about Mrs Clinton's silence on the issue.

Over the weekend, Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of the most senior Democrats in the Senate, told a Sunday morning news show that Mrs Clinton needs to come clean.

"Step up and come out and state exactly what the situation is," she said.

"She (Mrs Clinton) is the leading candidate, whether it be Republican or Democrat, for the next president... from this point on, the silence is going to hurt her."

The Wall Street Journal reported that White House aides have been privately expressing frustration over Mrs Clinton's reticence, effectively forcing the White House to defend her.

President Barack Obama has been less than vigorous in his defence, as he stressed that government communication needs to be transparent.

"The fact that she's going to be putting them forward will allow us to make sure that the people have the information they need," he said last Saturday.

Mrs Clinton's team had set up the domain clintonemail.com just over a week before she took office in 2009. She used personal e-mail on that domain name for her entire tenure at the State Department.

Was it wrong? Did she break any laws? Part of the complication is that rules on the use of personal e-mail at the time she was in office left a lot of wiggle room. Today, regulations are tighter.

Government employees are required to use official e-mail except in emergency situations - and in these, all e-mails must still be recorded according to agency practices.

Current Secretary of State John Kerry is said to use his official e-mail for all his official correspondence.

The rules were far less prescriptive during Mrs Clinton's tenure between 2009 and 2013.

As of 2009, e-mail rules in the Foreign Affairs Manual and the United States Code of Federal Regulations did not forbid the use of personal e-mail as a primary means of correspondence.

It simply required that all the e-mails be recorded. In the US, such e-mails are considered an important part of the historical record.

The regulations did not specify what an "appropriate system" might be. Nor does it say anything about the timeliness of such record-keeping.

Mrs Clinton turned in 55,000 pages of e-mail from her clintonemail.com domain late last year after a request from the State Department.

That request was reportedly linked to an ongoing congressional investigation into an attack on a US diplomatic compound in Libya in 2012.

The ambiguity in the rules has led many in the US to debate whether she complied with both the spirit and the letter of the law, or whether she simply exploited a loophole.

One concern is that there is not any way to verify if Mrs Clinton turns over all her e-mails.

For Republicans, e-mailgate is an opportunity to try to build up an image of Mrs Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, as secretive elitists who believe they are above the law.

But they also do not want to attack her too strongly lest they be accused of overreach - an accusation hurled their way over investigations of the Benghazi incident in Libya.

Dr Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution expects the issue to blow over by the time the presidential campaign really gets going.

"While Clinton has questions to answer and potential vulnerabilities, this 'crisis' like the others is likely to pass without any impact on the Democratic nomination or general election," he said.

But some argue that the narrative is already eroding the sense of inevitability that has surrounded her campaign in the Democratic Party thus far, and is making some members of the liberal base queasy.

The problem is that there is a sense of deja vu here.

A year before the 2008 presidential election, Mrs Clinton was similarly considered untouchable. Her polling numbers were 30 percentage points more than any of her rivals and she had a large fund-raising advantage.

A year later, she was at the wrong end of one of the biggest political upsets in the party's history, as rival contender Mr Obama tapped a desire within the party for change to win.

E-mailgate is reminding Democrats about her weaknesses and forcing them to start looking beyond her for other candidates.

Associate Professor Jesse Rhodes from the Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, said: "Democratic primary voters are likely to be very concerned that 'e-mailgate' is a window into Hillary's broader view of executive secrecy and authority.

This will leave Hillary open to charges by Democratic primary opponents that she would not run a transparent presidency."

The big worry, of course, is that there are no viable alternatives.

Former senator Jim Webb, former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley and Vice-President Joe Biden are all thought of as possible alternatives - but Democrats are not confident any one of them could beat the Republican front runner, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

Even if there was a challenger waiting in the wings, timing could be an issue. It will be months before the State Department reviews the 55,000 pages of e-mails in order to release them to the public.

If there is something incriminating in there, there may be insufficient time for another candidate to get up and running in time.

Hence, given all the concerns within the Democratic Party currently, they are unlikely to turn on Mrs Clinton right now.

But e-mailgate would no doubt have pointed out to her that, six years on, the support of Democrats for her candidacy cannot be taken for granted.

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 11, 2015.
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