Thinking they're on to an aha moment -- supposedly catching Louisiana's Republican governor in gross hypocrisy -- MSNBC.com today hits Bobby Jindal for refusing to release some work emails. "Jindal refuses to release emails" blares a teaser headline on the site main page. Clicking the article takes readers to a story by writer Jane Timm headlined, "Jindal refuses to release emails after slamming Clinton."
But as Timm herself reports in her April 14 piece, Jindal is abiding by the relevant state laws on producing official documents:
Through his lawyers, the Republican declined to provide a local newspaper with copies of his work emails requested in mid-March, citing the very public record exemptions he helped rewrite in 2009.
“Aside from the obvious reason for excluding security information, these content-based exemptions support the environment of open discussion and full analysis necessary for staff to make recommendations to assist the governor in the usual course of the duties and business of his office,” the governor’s chief lawyer, Thomas Enright, told the Advocate in his denial on Friday.
In 2009, the governor’s office backed a reform of the way public records laws applied to the state’s executive office – opening up the option of releasing more records – but shielding “deliberative” records from ever being released, something his office has routinely used to reject public records requests ever since.
“We are fully following Louisiana law regarding the disclosure of emails that are public records. The Governor uses email sparingly for a very small circle of friends and family, including his wife and kids, and a few of his closest aides. He prefers to conduct most business in meetings or on the phone,” a spokesman for the governor told msnbc by email. “The issue with Hillary Clinton is that she may have broken federal public records law and she risked a breach of national security by conducting state department business on an email server based in her home. We are following our public records law.”
Likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush released his professional emails from his time as the governor of Florida as he began to weigh a presidential bid.
So at issue is going through the email records to exempt emails that Jindal sent to folks on his personal staff, quarantining those from release but green-lighting everything else. The federal-government equivalent would be the President of the United States invoking executive privilege to protect intra-White House communications between him and his staff.
Executive privilege applies to the president and his staff, but not to U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretaries. It's the same reason why the U.S. Secretary of State can be compelled to testify before a congressional hearing but NOT the president -- as the head of a coequal branch of government -- nor staff members in whom he must be able to confide, like the president's chief of staff or White House counsel.
It arguably makes sense to have similar executive-privilege protections on the state level.
At any rate, this is vastly different from what transpired with Hillary's emails.
Unlike Mrs. Clinton, Gov. Jindal's emails are accounted for. They remain on a Louisiana government server and questions regarding their custody are being hashed out by attorneys working for the taxpayers of Louisiana. In Mrs. Clinton's case, we are asked to take her word and the word of her personal attorneys that she has abided by all the relevant federal laws.
What's more, contrary to federal law and Obama administration guidelines, Mrs. Clinton NEVER operated an official .gov email address for the sending and receiving of correspondence, instead using a private server which retains in her custody and which was wiped of data in a manner that could arguably be obstructive of justice and/or contemptuous of Congress.
As a Cabinet secretary, Mrs. Clinton had every expectation to have her correspondence readily scrutinized by Congress, which has every right to oversee the executive branch, including and especially Senate-confirmed Cabinet officers therein. .
