MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell continued railing against Hillary Clinton Friday morning, telling “Morning Joe” her email system was “set up, obviously, to defy” Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department.
O’Donnell, who has been outspoken against Clinton’s email practices, added that the former secretary of state’s home email server “circumvented” such FOIA requests from news agencies such as the Associated Press, which is threatening legal action.
“The concern, the deep especially concern here is, in fact, a liberal concern because the liberal principle that is being undermined by this kind of practice and was undermined by the same practice in the Bush administration is the freedom of information,” O’Donnell said. The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 over, the master of the Senate, LBJ’s objection. There was the powerful — he couldn’t stop it because the Vietnam was raging.”
“There were all sorts of reasons why people wanted to know what’s really going on in this government. There were amendments to it, improved in 1974. This has been decades. It has been a decades long crusade and it’s a great piece of liberal architecture,” O’Donnell said, setting up his point. “This e-mail system was set up obviously to defy the Freedom of Information act. E-mails were completely immune from every single Freedom of Information Act request.”
O’Donnell was critical of Clinton’s email practices the moment the news broke Monday night, when he said there was “no conceivable rational explanation” to not having a State Department email.
“Can you imagine if this was Dick Cheney and he had a server in McLean, Virginia?” co-host Mika Brzezinski added.
“Oh my Lord,” Scarborough chimed in.
“I’m going to be transparent, I would be going crazy. I would be completely off the hook,” Brzezinski said. “And I’m trying to be — because I do think sometimes there’s a little bit of biased that sneaks into this but this is wrong.”
“Every Freedom of Information Act to the State Department was circumvented by this email system,” O’Donnell added.