State Department Inspector General Implored To Launch Probe Of Hillary Clinton Emails
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There was more fallout Thursday from the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
Republicans were demanding a full-scale State Department investigation and, in the face of subpoenas, the possible 2016 presidential hopeful relented, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported.
Clinton has already turned over 55,000 documents to the State Department, including 300 that deal with the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks, but the questions continue about her use of a private email account to conduct government business and who else had accounts on her private server.
The trash cans seen this week outside Clinton's Chappaqua, N.Y. home, the location of her so-called "secret server" home computer system, may be emblematic. Republicans are now using the email scandal to "trash" the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, demanding a special probe of her actions.
"The American public deserves to know whether one of its top-ranking public official's actions violated federal law," wrote Republican National Committee chief counsel John Phillippe, to demand that the State Department's inspector general launch an investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email address to conduct government business.
On Tuesday night, Clinton avoided any mention of the scandal, but late Wednesday night, after her State Department emails were subpoenaed by the House committee investigating Benghazi, she broke her silence.
"I want the public to see my email," Clinton tweeted. "I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible."
This happened as more details surfaced about her secretive private email set-up. Her email address is hdr22@clintonemail.com, and clintonemail.com addresses were highly coveted plums for members of her inner circle. Top aide Huma Abedin, the wife of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, had one, and so did Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, who used the name "Diane Reynolds."
And there are questions about the scandal's impact on Clinton's political ambitions.
"This is the big problem for them politically, or her politically, is that this has been the long-running narrative -- that they're very secretive, very political, very controlling," Iona College political science professor Jeanne Zaino said.
And while the Republicans see this as an opening, some Democrats are worried that the flap is the latest example of Clinton's so-called "bunker mentality."
With Clinton expected to officially declare her candidacy for the presidency, the worry is that it could embolden other Democrats, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren perhaps, or maybe Vice President Joe Biden, to run, Kramer reported.