HuffPo’s Stein: If Clinton Was ‘Underling’ At State, ‘There Would Have Been Different Standards Applied to Her’

Huffington Post Senior Politics Editor Sam Stein said that there is a “frustration” among “Clinton critics” that “had she been some sort of underling at the State Department, certainly there would have been different standards applied to her” regarding her emails on Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

After National Journal Senior Political Columnist Ron Fournier stated there is a “higher bar” for charging someone who is running for president with a crime, host Joe Scarborough said, “There are a lot of people that would say we’re all equal under the law.”

Stein then said, “[I]t’s not codified, right, but we all recognize, and this is sort of the frustration for Clinton critics, which is that, exactly what you’re talking about, which is that, had you — had she been some sort of underling at the State Department, certainly there would have been different standards applied to her, as opposed to her being the secretary of state.”

Scarborough then argued that if Clinton was “an underling, she would already have charges against her.”

Stein responded, “Now, and granted, all that’s granted, now, the Clinton people turn around and say, listen, there’s been reports that show that Colin Powell did almost identically the same thing, which is a forwarding of information that was later deemed classified, on his private email account, and there was not an uproar over him. Now the magnitude of what Colin Powell did is probably different.”

After others on the panel argued that what Powell did was different because regulations against it weren’t implemented until 2009, Stein stated, “Yeah, but if the standard is that you’re leaving classified information around, and that it could be taken by –.”

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