2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Clinton Rationale For private Server... "Convenience!" Yes, A Poor Decision Hillary, Perhaps... [View all]MBS
(9,688 posts)was a breathtakingly bad idea - quite apart from the squishy ethics in terms of potential conflict of interest (no not illegal, but, sorry, not an ethical model either, as all federal employees are instructed on the absolute importance of separating government interest from personal interest as much as humanly possible -- and an absolute no-brainer for a politically/diplomatically sensitive position such as Sec of State), it was a shockingly stupid idea in terms of political strategy (the appearance of conflict of interest being at least as dangerous for her politically as actual conflict of interest). Surely at least one advisor could have pointed out how her use of a private server would fit squarely into the Clinton-entitlement-questionable-integrity meme, and how it could be used against her in a future presidential election.
To my dying day, I will never understand how/why she elected to conduct her email business this way.