Thursday, March 12, 2015

Unsolicited Public Relations Advice for Hillary Clinton

A friend, who knows that I was a Clinton delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, asked me what public relations advice I would give the former Secretary of State concerning her emails.

I think that Mrs. Clinton's recent press conference, and her request that the State Department release all of the emails she submitted, were good steps in the right direction, but have failed to completely staunch the bleeding. Recognizing that some of her critics will never be satisfied, my advice at this point would be that she needs to go further. She should make her email server available, and allow an image to be made of the hard drive. She should do this in conjunction with a request that Secretary of State Kerry appoint an individual to direct a review of the hard drive for emails related to Mrs. Clinton's service as Secretary of State. In order of preference, these would be the individuals that Secretary Kerry should solicit: Former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta, Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Robert Gates, and Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. If this were to happen, Mrs. Clinton could respond to further inquiries thusly: "My staff delivered 55,000 pages of emails to the Department of State. I asked that they err on the side of including anything that might be relevant, and I am confident that they did so. Recognizing that it is important that there be confidence in the process, I have made an image of the server hard drive available to Secretary of State Kerry, who has asked (Mitchell, Panetta, Albright, or Gates) to direct a review of the hard drive to double-check that all relevant emails have been provided to the State Department. At the end of this process, all of the emails related to my service as Secretary of State will be made available."

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