Rand Paul: ‘I don’t think convenience should trump national security’

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is calling for an independent investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email use as the country’s top diplomat, saying convenience should not trump national security.

“I don’t think the Clintons should be above the law,” Mr. Paul said Tuesday evening on Fox News’ “The Kelly File.” “She said part of the reason why she didn’t obey the law was convenience, but I don’t think convenience should trump national security.”

Mr. Paul called for an independent investigation, asking: “Can we trust Hillary Clinton to produce all of her email when we couldn’t trust her to obey the law that she had to use a State Department email?”

Addressing the situation Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton said the law did in fact allow her to keep a private email account and that she believed most of the emails were captured in official systems because recipients of the emails were typically on government accounts.

Her office said it was her practice to email State Department officials on their government accounts with the expectation that they’d be preserved in the department’s system and that her usage of a personal account was “widely known” to the more than 100 Department and U.S. government workers she emailed.

“The only way we get to the truth is by an independent investigation, and I do believe that public opinion can provoke that, so I’m not giving up,” Mr. Paul said. “She was doing it in a secret fashion to keep them secret from the American public — I don’t think the American public should tolerate it.”

Mr. Paul, a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016 and frequent critic of Mrs. Clinton, the frontrunner on the Democratic side, also alluded to the recent controversy over the Clinton Foundation’s accepting donations from foreign countries.

“I think there’s a little bit of arrogance that some of these laws apply to some lower people but not to me; I’m Hillary Clinton,” he said. “And I think the law — nobody should be above the law in our land, and it doesn’t look right that the Clintons were taking money from foreign governments. It doesn’t look right that she has her emails on a server that is against the law, not a government server.”

“And there is a question: Can we now trust her, since she has shown maybe that she’s not to be trusted, that she’s going to let us know if she talked about anything that was classified?” he continued. “I think there’s a whole host of possible conversations, from talking about her schedule to talking about any kind of worldwide events that I guarantee that the American public, if we tried to get that information, we’d be told [it’s] classified.”

Mrs. Clinton said there “were no security breaches,” and her office said classified material was not sent or received by her on the email address.

The Democratic National Committee responded by pointing to Mr. Paul’s own national security record that includes, most recently, signing onto a letter along with 46 other Republican senators warning Iranian leaders that any deal on the country’s nuclear program could simply be undone by the next president.

The White House and congressional Democrats have blasted the letter and said the Republicans’ move was meant to undermine the president and ongoing negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

“Rand Paul’s agenda would shrink America’s influence in the world, promote instability and invite aggression from our enemies,” said DNC spokesman Ian Sams. “Under a President Paul, we wouldn’t have to wonder if our nation would be less secure — he’s already telegraphed how it would be.”