How 'The New York Times' Bungled the Hillary Clinton Emails Story
In March, the newspaper published a highly touted article about Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account that, as I wrote in an earlier column, was wrong in its major points. The Times’s public editor defended that piece, linking to a lengthy series of regulations that, in fact, proved
the allegations contained in the article were false.
Then, on Thursday night, the
Times dropped a bombshell: Two government inspectors general had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Clinton and her handling of the emails.
The story was largely impenetrable, because
at no point did it offer even a suggestion of what might constitute a crime. By Friday morning, the
Times did what is known in the media trade as a “skin back”—the article now said
the criminal referral wasn’t about Clinton but about the department’s handling of emails. Still, it conveyed no indication of what possible crime might be involved.
...
The story seemed to further fall apart on Friday morning when Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) issued a statement saying that he had spoken to the inspector general of the State Department and that there had been
no criminal referral regarding Clinton’s email usage. Rather, Cummings said, the inspectors general for State and the intelligence community had simply notified the Justice Department—which issues the regulations on Freedom of Information Act requests—
that some emails subject to FOIA review had been identified as classified when they had not previously been designated that way.
...
Indeed, if the
Times article is based on the same documents I read, then the piece is wrong in all of its implications and in almost every particular related to the inspector generals’ conclusions. These are errors that go far beyond whether there was a criminal referral of Clinton's emails or a criminal referral at all.
Sources can mislead; documents do not.
...
Here are the words that were left out: Freedom of Information Act. At no point in the story does the
Times mention what this memo—and the other it cited—was really all about: that the officials at the Freedom of Information office in the State Department and intelligence agencies, which were reviewing emails for release, had
discovered emails that may not have been designated with the correct classification. For anyone who has dealt with the FOIA and government agencies, this is something that happens all the time in every administration.
...
All of this is bad enough, but then there is the ultimate disaster, paragraph seven: “At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.”
...
Wow. The first time that the story—which readers cannot possibly know is about FOIA requests—finally mentions FOIA requests, it just manufactures a reality out of thin air.
Using a private account would not, in any way, shield Clinton’s correspondence from congressional or FOIA requests.
...
Second, contrary to the implication from the
first Times story,
Clinton’s emails sent in her role as secretary of state were automatically saved into a secure data system under the control of the department. In fact, where does the
Times think the FOIA offices for the State Department and the intelligence community are finding the 55,000 emails now under review that it cites in its new story? Are officials breaking into Clinton’s house in the middle of the night to examine them by flashlight? Nope. They are pulling them off of the system under the department’s control.
In our hyper-partisan world, many people will not care about the truth here.
That the Times story is false in almost every particular—down to the level of who wrote what memo—will only lead to accusations that people trying to set the record straight are pro-Hillary. I am not pro-Hillary. I am, however, pro-journalism. And
this display of incompetence or malice cannot stand without correction.
