The Independent View: Political Figures Who Use Private or Home Based Email Systems

This post comes from information contained in a CNN article.

The closest parallel among Clinton's likely 2016 challengers:

Jeb Bush - Jeb.org

Like Clinton, Bush had set up his own home server with a private address during his time in office. He still uses it, giving it out at events and asking supporters to email him comments and concerns. And, like Clinton, several of his top aides and family members had email addresses connected to Bush's server.

Bush has released 275,000 emails, from the personal account he used during his eight years as governor in the name of transparency and after public records requests for those emails. A Bush aide told NBC News that a number of his staffers and his general counsel's office decided which emails to release.

But a CNN review of those emails turned up evidence that the server was used to conduct both official and political business, raising questions about how transparent that email dump ultimately was.

According to NBC News, which first reported that Bush owns his email server, it was housed in a state-owned office building while Bush was governor, and there were "digital security" measures in place to protect sensitive information.

Private servers give public figures control.

The Clinton-aligned Democratic group American Bridge this week filed an open records request for the unreleased portion of Bush's emails as Florida governor and asked for a list of what's left out and specific explanations of why.

The conservative Judicial Watch, meanwhile, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department for its failure to respond to an August request for Clinton's emails, and seeking communications from her "newly discovered hidden email account", with the wife of former Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi. It's also asking for emails from a top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.

Other potential 2016 candidates have faced criticism for their use of personal emails and private cellphones that aren't subject to open records laws.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has shot to the top of the latest GOP 2016 polls, and his staff set up a private email system while he served as Milwaukee County executive, and commingled government and state business on it. A Walker spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie saw private texts and emails among his top staffers unearthed during investigations into the "Bridgegate" scandal.

BOBBY JINDAL

The Republican governor, who campaigned on a platform of providing more transparency in government, uses a private email account to communicate with immediate staff. Those conversations are exempt from public disclosure under a sweeping public records exemption granted to the governor's office under state law.

In 2012, top Jindal aides and some cabinet agency officials used private emails to craft a public relations strategy for imposing $523 million in Medicaid cuts, but the communications did not turn up in an Associated Press records request. Instead, an administration official revealed them anonymously.

It's not clear whether the documents would have been public, anyway. The Jindal administration has often interpreted the governor's "deliberative process" exception to extend beyond his inner circle to all documents generated by any agency for Jindal's office.

Louisiana also has no archiving requirement at all for the governor, making it an outlier nationally. That means records now sealed under that executive privilege may never become public, even after Jindal leaves office.

The 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, used a private email address while he was Governor of Massachusetts.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry faced accusations published by the Texas Tribune on Thursday that he conducted state business with lawmakers over a personal email account.

Several other Republican hopefuls, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, won't face legal questions over their use of email but won't have to turn anything over, either, because Congress exempts itself from open records laws.