I appreciate the diary by NCJan on records management.
However, this and other diaries seem to be trying to defend what Clinton did when in fact no defense is necessary.
Why? Clinton's use of a private email account has been known by Congress, including the Benghazi Committee, for TWO YEARS.
Remember the leaked Benghazi emails to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal by the hacker 'Guccifer'? You can Google it, as I am not going to add traffic to The Smoking Gun or TeaParty.org by providing direct links.
In those news items, it was widely reported that these emails were to her private email account, not her official DoS account. This was 'news' in March 2013.
In addition, the Benghazi investigators have reviewed likely hundreds of emails to or from Clinton. How did they have these emails if Clinton used a private email?
The thing about email is that there is always a SENDER and a RECIPIENT. If Clinton sent an email to anyone at whitehouse.gov, that email is on the White House email server. If Clinton sent an email to anyone at state.gov, that email is on the Dept of State email server. The same is for any emails sent from government employees to Clinton. So much for secrecy.
And no one on the Benghazi Committee noticed that the emails to/from Clinton were not to Hillary.Clinton@state.gov before this week? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
I agree with David Brock's opinion piece. Unfortunately this was likely a purposeful leak by a Congressional staffer to a 'journalist' who either does not understand how email works, or didn't bother to research prior reporting on her use of private email. That happens when you are going for headlines.
Why leak this to a reporter? Because the Benghazi investigation was going nowhere and they needed a fresh manufactured scandal to keep the fire burning.
Which is ironic, as Ambassador Stevens died of smoke inhalation, and no one has ever asked why DoS security personnel never made recommendations that the safe room in the consulate be smoke proof - the one thing that would have saved Stevens.
So rather than go on a 'Clinton did nothing wrong' defense, let's go on offense. This is Republicans grasping at straws because their Benghazi investigation has been nothing short of a political attack on Clinton and not at all about protecting our DoS personnel overseas.