MSNBC’s Morning Joe blasted Hillary Clinton’s entire email response of bad jokes, delayed cooperation, and partisan blame games on Monday morning.
Over the weekend in Iowa, Clinton responded to the Justice Department’s investigation into her private server, including joking that she enjoyed Snapchat because the messages deleted themselves immediately.
Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty wrote that two dynamics have crystallized for the Clinton campaign.
"Two dynamics have crystallized this month suggesting the new Hillary is hobbled by old weaknesses. Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her email server and other controversies and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger."
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said it appears Hillary Clinton has adopted a bunker mentality.
"We were at an event where Hillary’s people were introducing the team to a lot of the press in a sort of small casual setting, and a lot of really good people. And the word was, more access. We’re not going to be paranoid. We’re not going into a bunker," Scarborough said. "But that appears to be exactly where Hillary is right now."
Tumulty said the email controversy has brought back Clinton’s old instincts.
"We have seen two things happen. One, this email controversy has brought back all of her old instincts towards secrecy, towards closing things down," Tumulty said.
Tumulty said it was impossible to say the investigation in Clinton’s private serve as a political witch-hunt.
"It’s impossible to say this is just a partisan witch hunt," Tumulty said. "You know, she was saying that about the Benghazi investigation on the hill. You cannot say that when the F.B.I. is involved and when the department of justice, as we reported on Friday, has assigned the same prosecutor who prosecuted David Petraeus to this case."
Tumulty said the Clinton campaign first learned about the Justice Department investigation into her private server when the New York Times asked about it.
"The fact is that the Justice Department was involved in this for nearly a month before the Clinton campaign got their first inkling that this was going on," Tumulty said. "In fact, their first inkling came on the night of July 23 when the New York Times called them up and said, hey, we've got this story about a Justice Department referral. I’m told by people in the campaign, that was the very first moment they even knew this was going on and it had been out there for weeks."
Clinton has stated that none of her emails were marked classified.
"She does keep saying, well, none of the stuff in my server was marked classified. That, we're told, is not the legal standard," Tumulty said.
Scarborough said people in the intelligence community always presume these types of emails are classified.
"According to our reporting, a number of the emails that are being looked at for classified material here are emails that she received in some cases emails she didn't reply to," Tumulty said. "So there are a number of people in her orbit who are also going to be questioned over this."