Clinton's plans to defend Dodd-Frank may have just gotten a little less likely

Hillary Clinton has promised to thwart Republican attempts to repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank. But will a government watchdog’s new revelations about her State Department emails hurt her presidential hopes?

Hillary Clinton’s promises to clamp down on Wall Street and thwart Republican efforts to repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank may have just gotten harder to keep.

The State Department’s inspector general has rebuked Clinton for her used of a private email server and missing records from her tenure as secretary of state, according to the Wall Street Journal. The independent watchdog finally released its report to Congress Wednesday, criticizing Clinton – and four previous secretaries of state – for “long-standing” failures in cyber security and record-keeping, the Journal reported.

The inspector general’s office concluded that Clinton violated State Department policies and practices. Clinton was faulted for the security risks of using private email, as well as failing to immediately turn over thousands of pages of work email when she left office in 2013. State Department officials who handled security and information management “did not – and would not – approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business,” the inspector general’s report said.

The State Department will now make clear that employees could be penalized for using private email accounts for day-to-day operations – something that it had apparently not made clear before.

Clinton has always maintained that federal law did not bar her from using private email.  While that may be true, the inspector general’s report noted that it was against State Department policy, the Journal reported.

But the report did admit that enforcement had been lax – and that Clinton was hardly the only State Department official to ignore the rule.

“It is clear that the department could have done a better job preserving emails and records of secretaries of State and their senior staff going back several administrations. We also acknowledge the report’s finding that compliance with email and records-management guidance has been inconsistent across several administrations,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.