Friday’s announcement that the FBI will examine new emails potentially connected to Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s past handling of classified material highlights one of military voters’ chief complaints about her candidacy: Most feel she is dishonest and untrustworthy.
In the most recent Military Times\/IVMF poll, conducted earlier in mid-October, nearly 85 percent of respondents rated Clinton’s honesty as “poor” or “very poor,” with many citing the email scandal as the reason for their opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The question she has to answer is why she, as commander in chief, gets to play by different rules than your average E-4,” said John Noonan, an Air Force veteran and national security adviser for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.\u00a0“If as a captain I did what she did, I’d be making little rocks out of big rocks at Leavenworth [penitentiary] right now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noonan was referring to the military’s E-4 enlisted pay grade, and its super-max prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan renewed his previous call for the director of national intelligence to suspend all classified briefings to Clinton as the FBI investigation continues.
Officials with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have been hammering a similar message for months, with the party standard bearer asserting during the presidential debates that Clinton should not legally be allowed to run for the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
On Friday, he told supporters that Clinton should be held to the same standard as two disgraced former generals, David Petraeus and James Cartwright.\u00a0Earlier this month, Cartwright pleaded guilty to making false statements during a federal investigation into the leak of classified information to reporters. He faces possible jail time and hefty fines for telling those lies.\u00a0Petraeus was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine in spring 2015 for mishandling classified information, including sharing top secret documents with his biographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump said that with the new FBI inquiry “perhaps finally justice will be done.” The crowd responded with chants of “lock her up,” a standard cheer at his events in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinton’s Republican critics often cite cases like of Petraeus and Cartwright as proof that the former secretary of State has avoided real punishment for her alleged misdeeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in testimony before Congress in July, FBI Director James Comey said Clinton\u2019s use of a private server to store sensitive State Department emails did not rise to the level of criminal prosecution, and did not show the same level of criminal intent as Petraeus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has, however, called Clinton\u2019s actions irresponsible and careless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n