COLUMN: Clinton should have been disqualified over emails a long time ago
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 110 of out of 3,000 emails sent on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s homebrew email server were marked confidential after they were sent. Then, the FBI found another 2,000 emails marked as confidential after being sent.
This means that 7 percent of those messages were mishandled by people at the very top of government. It is an alarming amount of mishandled information, and still Clinton, walked away from those accusations without repercussion.
One of the highlights of the 2016 presidential race was watching Clinton and the scandal revolving around her deleted emails. At the expense of beating a dead horse, I’d like to say that this position is not pro-Donald Trump.
This is the opinion of an unbiased journalist and a concerned American.
These concerns may or may not disqualify Clinton from holding the highest political office, but the FBI missed an opportunity to hold her accountable with a warranted indictment.
“Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both,” reads Section 2071 of U.S. Code Title 18. “(A public official) shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
When Clinton turned over the 30,000 emails from time as secretary of state, she also admitted that she and her aides deleted around 32,000 others.
On one level, this is concerning because there are parts of her tenure that she does not want us to know about. These could be blemishes that would affect an otherwise well-established career, but it makes you wonder if there is anything against this by law.
Under Section 2071, there is.
The most alarming revelation was that she sent 22 emails that were deemed “Top Secret” and that the State Department will not release them. Sending that many high-priority messages over a personal email server is what worries me about Clinton as a liability to national security.
Admitting to deleting those emails should have ended her bid for the presidency. Many of Clinton’s supporters claim that since the U.S. Constitution does not say anything about classified information, the statute cannot eliminate her from running. While this is true, this circumstance could serve as a reason to amend to our Constitution.
