Today's State Department daily briefing was, obviously, focused almost entirely on the release of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails, previously subpoenaed by Congress, that show that she was in fact, and contrary to her previous statements, sending and receiving sensitive information on her private, insecure email server.

Spokeswoman Harf has the unenviable task of playing Obi Wan, trying to convince reporters that there is nothing to see here and that these are not the emails they are looking for. The only way to do so, though, was with an epic dodge.

First, the reporter's question:

"Despite the fact that this information was not, as you say, classified at the time it was sent to her, uh, is it at all troubling or problematic for the department that this kind of information, which is clearly sensitive even if it wasn't classified at the time, was being passed around on a private server?"

There is no ambiguity in that question and no reason for me to sum it up. It was perfectly clear. Now to Harf's response:

"I think we've spoken more broadly to this issue in the past, in terms of the fact that there was no prohibition from using private email as a public official."

Many straw men died to bring us this information. Harf was not asked if, nor has anyone implied at any time or in any capacity throughout the history of Hillary's time at State, that public officials are prohibited from having or using private email. What an absolutely absurd thing to answer.

Yes, Hillary can send a private email. No, Hillary shouldn't forward the nuclear codes to her "Obama is from Kenya" email chain list. They are two different things.

Harf goes on to say again that the information was not classified at the time. Which is also, as we pointed out earlier, not an answer.

I guess you could say "these are not the answers we were looking for."

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