Documents Undermine NY Times Report On Clinton Emails

[kpete]

A New York Times report suggested that the State Department's official reply to a congressional inquiry into personal email use by government employees showed malfeasance by Hillary Clinton and her former department. But according to documents obtained by Media Matters, other federal agencies responded in a similar manner, undermining the Times' report.

This additional context shows that rather than revealing a case of wrongdoing by Clinton, the Times has discovered that Cabinet agencies don't always respond to congressional inquiries quickly and in full.

The Times reported in an April 14 article that Clinton "was directly asked" in a December 13, 2012, letter from House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa "whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state" but that "Mrs. Clinton did not reply to the letter. And when the State Department answered in March 2013, nearly two months after she left office, it ignored the question and provided no response." According to the Times, State provided only a "description of the department's email policies" rather than a direct response to Issa's question.

The article has triggered a firestorm of news coverage, with several outlets reporting that Clinton "ignored" the congressional request.



more explaining:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/15/exclusive-documents-undermine-ny-times-report-o/203299

[leftofcool]

1. But, Hillary did it and that was enough to spark the outrage here on DU

[NYC_SKP]

2. Words matter, spin backfires.

They inserted the word "ignored" for dramatic effect.

That's not how to do journalism.

[Historic NY]

3. They would rather imply an illegality that didn't exist.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. The old 'but everybody else does it too' defense?

Hint. If you do something wrong, it doesn't matter how many other people also did the same thing. Guess some folks never got the old 'If all your friends jumped off a bridge' speech when they were kids.