RIVERSIDE – A Riverside County lawmaker weighed in today on the email-gate scandal swirling around Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying she believed it was “long past the time for indictment” of the former secretary of state.
“Everything about my job in the U.S. Navy was classified,” said Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore. “I’d be facing a court martial if I’d handled it like Hillary.”
Melendez, who served as a Russian translator in the Navy, took to Twitter to share her opinion about the ongoing FBI probe into Clinton’s alleged use of a personal email account to send and receive classified information.
The State Department announced today that it would not be releasing 22 emails covering 37 pages for public scrutiny because they contain highly sensitive information.
The U.S. Inspector General for the Intelligence Community recently stated in a letter to Congress that some of the government documents kept on Clinton’s personal server fell into the “Special Access Program” category — a level above top secret.
On her Facebook account last fall, Clinton told readers that her failure to separate personal and official emails “was a mistake.”
“My use of a personal email account was aboveboard and allowed under the State Department’s rules,” she wrote. “Everyone I communicated with in government was aware of it. And nothing I ever sent or received was marked classified at the time.”
Critics, including former federal judge and Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey, have suggested that Clinton could be indicted for mishandling classified data or gross negligence by a public official.
“I would argue we have long passed the time for indictment,” Melendez tweeted.
Asked whether she believed the current federal investigation had been hindered for political reasons, the legislator replied, “Sure seems that way.
Anyone else would be out of a job if they’d done the same.”
Freedom of Information Act lawsuits pressed by public integrity watchdog Judicial Watch have led to the release of thousands of documents, some of which have been produced under court order.
The suits, which prompted the formation of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Benghazi Committee, were initiated to get a clearer picture of Clinton’s actions during the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans, including the ambassador, were killed.
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