Maria Cardona defended Hillary Clinton's private server by stating that other Secretaries of State have done this same practice before and was corrected by Jon Karl on ABC's This Week on Sunday.
"Well, certainly having that IG report was not fun and that's why I think she came out smartly to emphasize her apology to emphasize that she knew that it had been a mistake, had she the opportunity to do it again, she wouldn't do it," Cardona said. "But, I also think it's good to have context. What she did was something that others had done. The rules were nebulous at best."
ABC's Jon Karl corrected her, citing the IG report.
"No other Secretary of State had their own server at home–" he said.
Cardona immediately backtracked her comments, saying that what Karl said is correct. She then tried to change the conversation, stating that she gave 55,000 emails over to the State Department, which is also something other Secretaries of State did not have to do.
Other Secretaries of State have not been under investigation by both the State Department and the FBI.
"That's correct," Cardona said. "That's correct and that's why she apologized. But the bottom line is, she turned over 55,000 e-mails, other secretaries did not, and at the end of the day, what she needs to continue to talk to the American people."
Republican strategist Kevin Madden noted that the IG report is extremely clear and completely discredits the Clinton camp's main arguments. First, Clinton said it was allowed, which it was not. Second, she said it was no risk to national security, which the report states it was.
"Look, the OIG report was crystal clear," he said. "It demolishes the two main talking points that Hillary Clinton has been promoting since this controversy was uncovered. The first was that it was allowed. the report clearly says it was against– it was a violation of policy. And the second was that there was no risk to national security. This report clearly says that there was a risk to national security because of the procedures that–"
There were 22 emails that were classified as "top secret."
Madden cites that the Clinton campaign tries to deflect these questions and demonize the people that bring them up.
"Yet, the Clinton campaign continues to try and deflect, and then they, probably smartly as far as a strategy, try to demonize everybody else," he said. "But, the American public still has this problem with Hillary Clinton on the issue of trustworthiness and honesty because here she is trying to refute exact points that were laid out in the report."