What specifically about the emails should disqualify her in your opinion? That is to say, what law did she break?
> (a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
> (b) For purposes of this section, the provision of documents and materials to the Congress shall not constitute an offense under subsection (a).
> (c) In this section, the term “classified information of the United States” means information originated, owned, or possessed by the United States Government concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States that has been determined pursuant to law or Executive order to require protection against unauthorized disclosure in the interests of national security.
I'm not aware of whether she had stuff that was classified, but as Secretary of State I'd say most of her communications would be somewhat confidential.
If not black-letter illegal, it's still extremely dodgy, and dangerous. Remember when Palin got hacked?
If almost any federal employee (even ones with low-level clearance) was caught doing this, they'd likely have security assist them out of the premises immediately. Yes, some people do bend the rules, and get away with it, but only if there's nothing they handled that would cause any issues if it were posted on the internet.
>If almost any federal employee (even ones with low-level clearance) was caught doing this, they'd likely have security assist them out of the premises immediately.
Of course, but then they're not Secretary of State. It's not a stretch to imagine her position should come with some latitude on how they execute their job function.
Sounds like the Nixon defense. Though at least Clinton wasn't (apparently) acting out of malice. She might have just been a bit paranoid about security, incompetent (at IT security - and allowed yes-men to get her set up), or somehow needed a level of convenience that she couldn't get from the official system.
It's even possible the official system was suspected of being compromised (if it was, we might not know), and she could get a safer system.
I remember people of a certain bent celebrating the fact that she got hacked, completely oblivious to the concept that something malicious / illegal had taken place.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924
http://jonathanturley.org/2015/07/24/state-department-and-in...
Other possible violations here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/16/hilary-clin...