What Hillary Clinton's e-mails hide about Washington

[Commentary] There looks to be little doubt that Hillary Clinton violated the spirit of the Federal Records Act, if not the letter of it, by forgoing an official e-mail address and exclusively using her "homebrewed" address. But Clinton's real sin here might be clumsiness: that legislation, and similar efforts to ensure transparency, are violated all day, every day. Clinton simply dispensed with the illusion of compliance.

The case of Jeb Bush is a helpful counterpoint here: he turned over tons of e-mails from his time as governor of Florida. But he also, through that period, used Jeb@Jeb.org for personal, political, and fundraising matters -- and he didn't turn over all of those e-mails. Who knows what lurks among them? Clinton's case is unusual, but Bush's is not -- and it speaks to the gaping holes in our transparency laws. This isn't to excuse Clinton. She should have used an official e-mail address, and she didn't. But if she had used an official e-mail address for her banal communications while carefully hiding her more impolitic missives, few would know to fault her, but the cause of transparency would not be much better served. Clinton deserves the opporbrium she's getting. But she's just an extreme example of a widespread problem.