Readers React: Hillary Clinton’s emails caused no real harm, so why the fuss?

To the editor: Security consultant John R. Schindler’s petty attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton is beneath the dignity of The Times. Schindler sums up the weakness of the far right’s attack in one sentence: “Even if Clinton was the only recipient of top-secret information, she should’ve reported the problem.” Huh? (“Why Clinton’s email problem won’t go away,” Op-Ed, Aug. 25)

With Islamist terrorists hellbent on our destruction, the stock market collapsing, China and North Korea rattling their swords, illegal immigration out of control and race relations strained, the witch hunters are wasting valuable resources investigating something that many of them admit had almost no tangible negative consequence.

To put it into perspective, Clinton’s use of a personal email account to conduct official government business is akin to a driver running a “yield” sign without causing harm. Sure, she probably shouldn’t have done it, but why not focus our limited resources on more important issues?

Coming from Fox News, this witch hunt is laughable. But when The Times allocates valuable Op-Ed space to the attacks, something is wrong.

Michael Sanchez, Newport Beach

..

To the editor: I just don’t get it. Clinton keeps saying that she would not use her private outgoing or incoming email for classified (at that time) information.

How does that make any sense? How could she possibly control the information on her incoming emails? I am just not buying it.

Guy DeMarco, Temple City

..

To the editor: If Clinton “was exclusively using a personal email address” for all communications while secretary of State, within weeks of her taking office virtually hundreds of government officials were fully aware that her email extension was not the iconic “.gov.”

Yet not a shred of evidence exists that, in the entire four years of her tenure during which Clinton sent and received hundreds of thousands of emails, a single person at Schindler’s own National Security Agency or at any other intelligence agency contacted Clinton to inquire about the security of her personal email address or whether it was associated with a separate server, much less propose immediate remedial steps.

Schindler’s Monday morning quarterbacking aside, the overriding failure here was that of a federal bureaucracy, whose sheer neglect for four years remains stunning.

Mark E. Kalmansohn, Santa Monica

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook