Editorial: Clinton and her emails

As some have suspected, it looks as if the biggest obstacle in Hillary Clinton’s path to the presidency isn’t Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. It’s the FBI.

If the former secretary of state was hoping that an inspector general’s review of her controversial email setup would exonerate her, she was sadly mistaken. The report, released Wednesday, instead indicates she could indeed be vulnerable to legal consequences.

Not only did the audit conclude that Mrs. Clinton violated federal standards regarding the use of email, it also found that her approach left sensitive material susceptible to hackers. Furthermore, on at least two occasions State Department officials raised concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s email preferences but were rebuffed by her handlers.

Significantly, the audit “found no evidence of legal staff review or approval” of her practices, the Associated Press reported.

Consistent with Mrs. Clinton’s well-established pattern of half-truths and obfuscations, she had previously declared she would be happy to “talk to anybody, anytime” about the issue and would encourage her associates to cooperate. But, the AP pointed out, “Clinton and several of her senior staff declined to be interviewed” for the investigation.

Shocker!

Apologists for the former first lady rushed to trot out the everybody-does-it defense. Again, not quite accurate. Not only is Mrs. Clinton the only secretary of state to conduct her business exclusively on a private server, “the failings of Clinton were singled out in the audit as being more serious than her predecessor,” the AP noted.

Like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts comic strip dragging around a cloud of grime and dust wherever he goes, Mrs. Clinton remains enveloped in an aura of dirt and scandal. The odds remain high that she’ll survive, given the Justice Department’s obvious political proclivities. But voters shouldn’t expect her “the rules don’t apply to me” attitude to change if she and Bill make it back to the White House.