Lance Dutson: The Republican presidential candidates may be in the process of self-immolation, but Democrats should be even more terrified about the looming prospect of Hillary Clinton being indicted for her likely illegal and definitely irresponsible do-it-yourself home email server.
Steven Biel: The controversy around Hillary Clinton’s emails is one the most absurdly overblown political stories I’ve ever seen. Not only will she not be indicted, but she should be given a prize for keeping her emails out of the State.gov server, which is notorious for leaking like a sieve.
Lance: A prize? Hillary Clinton illegally routed U.S. government correspondence to a secret server in her house. It’s an unprecedented and illegal maneuver that showed she cared more about disposing of documentation that may hurt her political career than protecting information that may hurt our nation’s interests overall.
Steven: It was not illegal, and it certainly wasn’t unprecedented. May I remind you that Colin Powell used personal email, as well as top aides to Condoleezza Rice?
Lance: I’ll remind you that neither had a server set up in their homes. And neither deleted massive amounts of records, which was another potentially illegal maneuver.
Steven: The Clinton email server may have been the only truly secure server in the entire U.S. government. In 2013 alone, there were 61,000 cyberattacks and security breaches of federal government computers. But there hasn’t been a single breach discovered of Clinton’s server. Not one.
Lance: Anyone who’s been in government knows why these things happen. Politicians simply don’t want the voters to know what they’re up to behind the scenes. We see it in Maine as well. It’s common knowledge Gov. Paul LePage uses text messaging to circumvent public record laws. It’s unacceptable, regardless of political affiliation, but the email scandal is especially damaging because it has reminded everyone that Hillary Clinton will do and lie about anything to further her political ambitions.
Steven: I’m going to say something controversial. I don’t actually think politicians should have to reveal every single email and text message to the public. These are human beings who need to be able to vent in private and ask dumb questions such as “how do I use a fax machine” without being subjected to public humiliation.
Lance: Maybe so, but that doesn’t remotely justify creating an entire homebrew email system that risks exposing our most sensitive national security secrets.
Steven: Again, the idea that Secretary Clinton endangered national security by not using State.gov email is just ludicrous. Russian hackers have been inside the State Department’s server for months, if not years. The Chinese have hacked into the federal government’s computers. Remember WikiLeaks? Frankly, my biggest criticism is that instead of apologizing, Clinton should be bragging she ran the only server in the entire federal government that Edward Snowden couldn’t get into.
Lance: You have a lot of faith in a random tech guy setting up routers at the Clinton compound, especially since the FBI hasn’t finished its investigation to determine whether her email was or wasn’t compromised. But the key issue here is that she autonomously created a new public records practice outside the scope of the law. You don’t do that in America. This just reinforces the perception that the Clintons think they’re above the law.
Steven: Here’s my question: Can you name any harm that was caused by Clinton’s use of a private server? And can you name any public benefit from the release of her emails? Did we really need to know that she watches “The Good Wife?”
Lance: The harm is that she got to decide unilaterally that 40,000 of her emails should be destroyed. It’s no different than the erased 18½ minutes that forced Richard Nixon out of office. And the benefit of pursuing this is to re-establish the rule of law, showing that no one can make up their own rules without paying a price.
Steven: The erased Watergate tapes were under subpoena. That’s called obstruction of justice. This is just a fishing expedition. But I will agree with you on one thing: The relentless attacks on Hillary Clinton from the right over the last 25 years have eroded public trust. That may be good for the Republican Party, but it’s awful for democracy.
Steven Biel is a former campaign director for MoveOn.org and president of the Portland-based political consulting firm Steven Biel Strategies. Lance Dutson, a principal of Red Hill Strategies, is a Republican communications consultant. He has served on the campaign teams of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Kelly Ayotte, as well as the Maine Republican Party.