Media Matters Founder and Chairman David Brock praised Hillary Clinton for being “totally forthcoming” during her press conference and maintained that “the vast majority of these e-mails were being turned over and recorded contemporaneously in the State Department” on Tuesday’s “Ed Show” on MSNBC.
Brock praised Clinton’s press conference performance saying “I think she handled it really well today. She was real. She was candid. she was totally forthcoming. …I wouldn’t have thought they’d [Republicans] come up with this caper to make such a huge issue out of personal e-mail, most of which was recorded in real-time, which went beyond what the law required.”
Earlier, he stated “I think Americans who were tuning in saw the Hillary Clinton that they like, the Hillary Clinton they trust, and one who they believe has been an incredibly effective public servant over many years. And nothing in this last week, Ed, is going to change that. I think as you observed there was a common sense simple answer to why the system was set up for the Secretary. It was the easiest way for her to work, she was quite candid in saying that, ‘you know, if i had to do it over again, i probably would have juggled two phones and worked in a more difficult way,’ but who would have thought, Ed, that the Republicans would turn the use of personal e-mail into such a huge scandal and the media is also implicated in that. And it’s not a scandal, Ed. We learned over the last week that no laws were broken, no guidelines were broken. The secretary said today that the system was safe, the system was secure, so there is no issue around that. The really important point I think she made is that the vast majority of these e-mails were being turned over and recorded contemporaneously in the State Department.”
Brock added, “I don’t think there’s any legal opening. This started a week ago with a story that said she may have broken federal rules, I’ve been watching the news the past couple days, everybody has seemed to be — to given up on that…there’s no wrongdoing here. So, this is just an effort to keep it going. I think they want to get into the personal e-mail. They want to embarrass. They want to harass. They’re calling for the server to be turned over or for some independent arbiter to look through these e-mails. What do they want to do? let’s get KenStarr to sniff through all these e-mails and see how she can be embarrassed. Every American has a right to some privacy, they don’t give that up just when they go into the government.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett