CNN anchor Jake Tapper teamed up with FactCheck.org to examine Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s claims about her private email server — and the results weren’t pretty.
Tapper first checked on the validity of Clinton’s claim that she was “absolutely permitted” to use a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
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“Was Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for official business while she was secretary of state ‘absolutely permitted?’” Tapper asked. “No — that’s not true.”
According to Tapper, Clinton only says that because she permitted herself to use the personal server “and there was no one absolutely prohibiting her,” but no one actually signed off on her using it.
Federal regulations did allow Clinton to send and receive emails outside the government system, but, as the CNN host noted, it was mandatory that those emails were preserved when she left office.
“Clinton did not provide the State Department with the emails from her private server until 21 months after she left office,” Tapper said, adding that a federal judge said the former secretary of state “failed to follow government policy on preserving federal records.”
Another expert described the fact that Clinton used her private server to store sensitive information exclusively as “inconsistent with long-established policies and practices … governing all federal agencies.”
“In the end,” Tapper said, “Clinton’s exclusive use of her private email server for the people’s business was definitely unusual, it was definitely discouraged and she did not comply with government regulations when it came to preserving government records.”
Tapper concluded the report with a simple instruction “to all politicians out there,” saying, “You’re perfectly entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.”
