Hillary Clinton's Jokes About Emails Falling Flat in Congress

Hillary Clinton may be making a joke out of her use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state, but congressional Democrats aren’t laughing.

And it may be taking a toll on her presidential campaign.

The Associated Press reports:

Democratic lawmakers said Clinton’s campaign has not adequately explained the complicated nature of the email review and panned some of her attempts to use humor to talk about the probe. Clinton joked at a Democratic dinner in Iowa last week that she liked the social media platform Snapchat because the messages disappear by themselves. And she shrugged off questions about her server being wiped clean, asking facetiously in Nevada, “Like a cloth or something?”

“I don’t think the campaign has handled it very well,” Florida Sen. Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I think the advice to her of making a joke out of it — I think that was not good advice.”

Nelson said if Clinton had received information that should have been labeled classified or top secret, the person sending the email would bear the responsibility of making that clear on the email. “If she is receiving something on a private email account and it has no designation, then how would she know that it is classified?” he asked.

In Republican-leaning Kentucky, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth warned in an interview with WHAS-TV in Louisville: “I still think there is a chance that this could upend her campaign.”

“I just never feel like I have a grasp of what the facts are,” Yarmuth said Wednesday. “Clearly she has handled it poorly from the first day. And there’s the appearance of dishonesty, if it’s not dishonest.”