Clinton Legal Liability Small In Email Mess - Natl Law Journal

[Panich52]

Clinton Legal Liability Small In Email Mess

She may pay political price, but technically obeyed law.
Jenna Greene, The National Law Journal

For Hillary Clinton, the public reaction to revelations that she exclusively used a personal email account while serving as secretary of state has been scathing. But any legal consequences are likely to prove negligible, legal experts said.
Some of her emails will almost certainly make it into the public domain — already, a House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack has subpoenaed records from Clinton's personal account, according to The Washington Post. And Judicial Watch promptly filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the State Department seeking select emails from the account. The Associated Press is threatening a FOIA suit as well.

But Clinton herself is unlikely to face any sanctions for using personal email rather than a "state.gov" address.

"I don't know of any statute under which a person can be indicted or charged for not saving something on a federal computer. It doesn't mean [Clinton] wasn't supposed to … but I don't know of any remedy available" to punish a former government official, said Alan Morrison (left), a public interest professor at George Washington University Law School. He co-founded Public Citizen Litigation Group and has advocated for open government.

The Federal Records Act requires agency heads to "preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures and essential transactions of the agency." But the law doesn't spell out any consequences for violations — nor is it apparent Clinton violated the letter (if not the spirit) of the law.

"There's not any blanket prohibition on any federal employee from using a personal email account to conduct government business," said Potomac Law Group partner Neil Koslowe, a former Justice Department special litigation counsel who has worked on cases involving the Federal Records Act.

READ MORE »
http://link.nationallawjournal.com/54b6ae9e92721943738b547c2d1ph.byg/VP0oosPoT2Gu8FvZAd768

[Gothmog]

1. This is a non-issue

The GOP is wasting a lot of time on this issue

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. I was thinking about this ...

the political price she might pay ... and concluded, for two reasons, the political price will also be small. First, those grasping onto this, were unlikely HRC voters, and clearly not HRC supporters. In fact, the price (arguably) is in a direct inverse relationship to being a Democratic supporter.

And secondly, beyond the activist base (on the Left) ... no one will remember this "scandal", 18 months from now! In which case, Point 1, applies.