Hillary Clinton’s email troubles may get worse

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email troubles may get even worse, as the FBI, a federal courthouse and Congress continue their scrutiny of her private email server.

A blistering US State Department inspector general’s report this week was just the first in what is likely to be a series of official actions related to Clinton’s private email server kept in her New York state home.

Just as the likely Democratic presidential nominee hopes to shift towards a general election campaign against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, it will face its toughest inquiry in the next few weeks.

“All of that feeds into this overarching problem of public distrust of her,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

The State Department’s watchdog report was especially damaging, given the official nature of its source.

The report claimed that Clinton never sought approval for her personal email setup, that her use of the system violated the department’s record-keeping rules and that it would have been rejected had she asked department officials.

For months, Clinton and her campaign aides have failed to provide a compelling explanation for the use of the private server, and she has consistently refused to apologize.

“I thought it was allowed,” she said in an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room” this week, after the watchdog’s report became public. “I knew past secretaries of state used personal email. “It was still a mistake. If I could go back, I'd do it differently,” she said.

What is potentially more damaging for Clinton is the ongoing FBI investigation, exploring the possibility that she or her aides mishandled classified information.

A federal judge recently said that Clinton herself may be forced to answer questions under oath, which would dramatically escalate the uproar surrounding the case.

More than 2,000 emails sent and received by Clinton while working as the top US diplomat between 2009 and 2013 include classified information, which the government bans from being handled outside secure, government-controlled channels.

Republican lawmakers in Congress appear ready to protest strongly if the FBI closes its investigation without delivering indictments or offering a public explanation.

Senior lawmakers have already excoriated the Justice Department for failing to appoint a special prosecutor. “It’s clear that the attorney general, who serves at the pleasure of President Obama, is going to have very little incentive or intention to pursue the appropriate investigation,” Texas Senator John Cornyn said this week.

And although Clinton leads Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in the delegate count, Sanders argues that he still has a path to the Democratic nomination.

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