Hillary Knew State Department Was Under Constant Cyberattack, Built Her Own Email Server Anyway

The Boston Globe reports an astounding admission from Hillary Clinton during an interview with WMUR radio in Boston: the former Secretary of State was well aware that her department was under constant cyberattack, but she broke the law to build a dangerously insecure email server for herself and top aides anyway.

It is not exactly surprising to learn Clinton was far more interested in secrecy and evading lawful oversight than she was with national security, but to hear it come from her own mouth — in an admission she did not quite realize she was making — is something else, especially since Clinton is posturing as a leader deeply concerned about America’s vulnerability to computer espionage in the wake of the monstrous OPM hack.

Boston Globe writer Hillary Chabot characterizes Clinton’s remarks as “shooting herself in the foot” and “opening herself up to fresh attacks from Republicans,” some of which she provides after quoting Clinton from her radio appearance.

Clinton thought she was using personal anecdote to stress how much she understands the threat of electronic espionage, presumably under the mistaken belief that her loyal crew of former employees and Clinton Foundation donors in the media have buried her email scandal: “The State Department was attacked at least every day, if not several times a day while I was there. Many of those were repelled by the security protections that were in the system, but we know there have been increasingly sophisticated attacks that are penetrating,”

“In fact, I mean, the president’s personal email was gone after in a cyberattack on the White House system,” Clinton continued, reloading before shooting herself in the foot again. “We have to give this the highest priority. We have to do everything we can to work not only to protect government information, because obviously that is important, especially top-secret information, intelligence information.”

She knew the State Department system was repelling several attacks a day… so she rushed, on the very day of her confirmation as Secretary of State, to set up a private mail server completely outside of her department’s electronic defenses. She proceeded to pass sensitive information through this server, and we still don’t know how much, because congressional subcommittees are still discovering subpoena-responsive correspondence she did not bother to hand over.

“Those in the government are constantly working to make sure the State Department network is secure,” the Globe quotes consultant Ron Kaufman, who worked for the Bush White House, pointing out. “I don’t know how any individual can maintain their personal security under that kind of attack every day. This brings into focus again the problem of having a private server with confidential information.”

Besides the sheer absurdity of Clinton posing as a responsible authority on cybersecurity, there is also the rather delicate point that the Administration she worked for was a historic disaster on that front.

“We have to give this the highest priority” and “do everything we can to work to protect government information?”  Well, the last Democratic president did not make it a high priority. His entire team fell asleep at the wheel, and some of them still act like they are half-asleep after a Chinese attack on American intelligence woke them from a long nap.

As is typical under Democrats, billions were frittered away on big government programs, but we had little to show for it when a crisis erupted. ObamaCare proved Democrats can’t launch a website with nine figures in funding; the OPM hack shows they can’t secure a database; and Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State stands as timeless testimony that they put essential duties, from national security to respect for the rule of law, beneath their personal ambitions.  

American voters would have to be flat-out insane to buy Hillary Clinton as the solution to our shameful electronic security failures. We still do not know how much the Chinese, and other bad actors, got from her black-box server, but we know for a fact it was less well-protected than the system she was supposed to be using, and she still hasn’t come clean about why she didn’t use it, after lying through her teeth about not wanting to bear the burden of carrying two smartphones.