One of the more interesting phenomena of the past few weeks in the American political scene was the brief period of time that FBI Director James Comey spent in the public eye, as the FBI and Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clinton spun to an end. When Director Comey appeared before the press to explain his findings on July 5, he went on at length about the different ways that Secretary Clinton had mishandled classified information during her time at the State Department. He detailed the number of emails that she had sent or received that had had classified information, at one of its various levels of secrecy, inside it. He detailed the multiple private servers that she used to store that information, and that her lawyers had had the devices scrubbed before submitting them to the FBI. He talked about the thousands and thousands of emails that her attorneys had deleted before turning what was left over to the FBI, even though those attorneys did not read the body of the emails (despite the fact that Secretary Clinton had said that her attorneys had read through them). After all of this, he indicated that the FBI would not recommend criminal charges to the Attorney General, because he did not feel like Secretary Clinton’s actions had shown the sort of criminal intent that would warrant criminal prosecution.
The American public reacted strongly to this information, but the reaction took two widely different forms. Those who support Secretary Clinton argued that this was yet another vindication of their candidate who, obviously, was the subject of a conservative vendetta that has followed her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, through investigation after investigation, never finding enough for criminal charges. Those who do not support Secretary Clinton found that this was yet another sign that she and Bill are simply figures who float above the law, never having to face the consequences that others who break the same rules would have to deal with. If you read what both sides have to say about this situation, and if you do not know the context, you might well think that the responses are to two distinct and separate investigations, rather than being about the same situation. This reminded me of Roland Barthes’ claim, made in “The Death of the Author,” that “[w]riting is that natural, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (Barthes, p. 142).
Look at the events that took place: a sitting Secretary of State refuses to use the official government e-mail address that she is offered. Instead, she decides to use her personal one for all of her correspondence, and then to keep that information on a private server. At some point the protection for that server is compromised, which means that hackers had access to it. She never told anyone what she was doing; the existence of the server did not come to light until she was being investigated for something else. When the emails were demanded for public scrutiny, she had her lawyers toss a ton of them and then clean off the place that was storing them, just in case.
If you look at the two different reactions to this last paragraph, to the actual series of events, you see that there is almost nothing in the response that has to do with the events themselves. Very few people are talking about the risk of hackers from other countries having access to this information. Instead, from the corner of her supporters, there is the bleating that the Republicans did something similar, that other Secretaries of State have had private email systems, and that this is just another way the sexist, awful Republicans are just trying to keep Hillary Clinton from getting what she deserves. After all, she put up with decades of philandering and lying from her husband and just kept fighting. She rode that narrative into the Senate and then into office as Secretary of State. If you are criticizing her record, her ethics, her anything, you are just a sexist tool of the Republicans.
Then there’s the other side. Hillary Clinton is lying about the emails. She lies about everything. She never tells the truth. You just can’t trust her. This has very little to do with what might be done with the information that these hackers allegedly have, and that (in my mind) very real risk receives almost no attention. On the one hand you get the accusation that she’s “crooked,” on the other hand you get the response that she is the victim. The actual “writing” of the events, when done by these two groups of people, has vanished; the events have become the interpretation, the truth has become the spin. In other words, there are no events, there are just interpretations. If Vladimir Putin actually has the secrets he needs now to wreak his havoc, I guess we’ll find out. But wait – isn’t it time for Wolf Blitzer?
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Course reading.
