Trial court ruling striking down Nebraska’s marriage ban is on hold during the state’s appeal.

WASHINGTON — Marriages will not begin on Monday for same-sex couples in Nebraska, under a ruling this evening from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A federal district court judge struck down the state's ban on same-sex couples' marriages on March 2. The injunction requiring marriage equality, however, was not going to go into effect until March 9.

The state filed a request for a stay from the 8th Circuit on March 3, and a three-judge panel of the court on Thursday granted the stay "pending the disposition of this appeal."

Judges Roger Wollman, a Reagan appointee, and William Benton and Lavenski Smith, George W. Bush appointees, granted the request.

The court also announced that it will include the Nebraska appeal in its previously announced upcoming hearing set for the week of May 11 on appeals of decisions striking down marriage bans in Arkansas, Missouri, and South Dakota.

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An aide said former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood used both personal and professional email on his Blackberry — with both going into the archives. People around him were briefed about not using personal email and the White House reminded staffers constantly on the same.

Jason DeCrow / AP

When Ray LaHood took the job as President Obama's first secretary of Transportation, email poured into his personal email account. As often as he could, an aide to the former secretary said Thursday, the secretary would reply with his government-issued email address and get the conversation onto his government account.

LaHood, too, navigated the issue on his Blackberry, where he had both his personal and government email. Those emails were all archived for public record — from both accounts, according to the aide, who said that erring on the side of disclosure was their office's understanding of the expectations for email.

LaHood's experience, related in detail to BuzzFeed News, was similar to that of other senior administration officials, officials and staff said. And it was also the way most people who worked in the administration from the early days of President Obama's term understood things to work when it came to email, according to several former White House aides reached by BuzzFeed News this week.

As is now apparent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not navigate this line between the official and personal email accounts during her four-year tenure — she did not use a government-issued email account. The revelation this week of her personal account has raised questions about whether her email was secure, why her emails were not prepared for archival during her tenure, and the process for delivering the 55,000 pages of email to the State Department last year.

The personal email account has also raised questions about whether Clinton or her most senior aides were counseled against the secretary using personal email.

LaHood, who also entered the administration in 2009 like Clinton, offers insight into a contemporary counterpart's approach to email.

According to a top aide to LaHood that BuzzFeed News spoke with Thursday, there was a broad understanding at the Department of Transportation — handed down from the White House — that personal email was not supposed to be used for professional correspondence. Though the aide did not know if the former secretary had personally been briefed on the use of government-issued email and personal email, the aide said the people around the secretary were.

At Transportation, the rules surrounding issues like personal email were governed and enforced by an in-house ethics lawyer — a career employee, rather than a political employee — who policed Transportation officials' ethics compliance, and interacted with the inspector general's office for the department. Making sure the right email addresses were being used was part of that job, the aide said.

It was sometimes a problem for LaHood, who was very accessible via email, the aide said. LaHood, a former Republican Congressman from Illinois, shared his personal email address with a lot of people, an aide told BuzzFeed News Thursday, from local reporters back in Peoria to constituents from years before he joined the Obama administration. His government BlackBerry, issued shortly after he became head of the DOT, linked to both his personal email account and his government-issued .gov account.

According to the aide, the expectation was always that both LaHood's personal and government email would be prepared for public record. In recent days, aides have been in touch with the Department of Transportation's IT department to ensure that the process is actually happening as planned. The aide estimated around 30,000 emails in total will be in the public record, including all sent from LaHood's personal account while he was a member of the Obama administration.

The issues surrounding personal email drew attention in other agencies and departments, as well. In 2013, the EPA Inspector General criticized the political leadership at the agency for not properly making clear that personal email was not to be used. The investigation came in response to an incident where then EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used a separate government email address to communicate with EPA staffers under a pseudonym separate from her publicly-available government account. Jackson was cleared of wrongdoing, but the Inspector General reprimanded the EPA because it "had not provided guidance on preserving records from private email accounts."

A somewhat clearer picture of the rules around email inside the administration and State Department has developed since Clinton's email usage was revealed earlier this week.

On Thursday, the Associated Press reported the White House Counsel's office didn't know that Clinton hosted all her email on a private server, and that the move went against guidelines sent down by the White House to agenices.

The Inspector General's office at State while Clinton was there strongly criticized an ambassador for using "commercial email for official government business," according to a 2012 report.

In a statement, a State Department official downplayed the email part of the IG report when asked about it.

"In the summer of 2012, Ambassador Scott Gration offered his resignation as Ambassador to Kenya," the official said. "Shortly after, the State Department's independent Inspector General issued an August 2012 inspection report citing several concerns with management and leadership at our embassy in Nairobi."

State Department rules had warned against the routine use of personal email for business since 2005, Politico reported on Thursday.

The White House has been steadfast in its insistence that administration officials were told to use their government email accounts whenever possible. At the daily press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest faced a second day of questions about administration email. Personal email isn't off-limits, he said, but keeping government communications out of the public archive required by law is. For that reason, officials are told to forward private emails to their public accounts so the messages are legal.

"The guidance that we have given to administration staffers is that they should just save themselves the extra step and do their official government business on their official government email account," Earnest said. "That is the path that the vast majority of administration staffers use."

But according to those that worked there, and public statements by Earnest, the administration atmosphere at least emphasized enforcement of the rules surrounding email usage. Inside the White House, the repeated warnings weren't so much about using personal email accounts but about keeping any private emails they sent about their jobs out of the archived public record. Former staffers said they rarely if ever used personal email for government work, but if they did it was usually only when they were off-site and government email was down.

"They were pretty consistent about reminding us the rules," one former White House official recalled. "Every once in a while there would be an email outage or something and you'd get a reminder that you shouldn't be using your personal email for government business and that, if you had, you needed to immediately forward any emails to your .gov account so they'd be preserved."

“And I think it’s important to say that in that training, it’s stressed that there’s no assumption of confidentiality in any kind of personal email account and that you should obviously act accordingly.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

In at least one press briefing during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department, a spokesman made clear that at annual trainings it's stressed there's no assumption of privacy in personal email accounts.

"I think the general rule – first of all, you're right; on the first account that State Department employees are not prohibited from having private email accounts," State spokesman Mark Toner said at a June 2011 press briefing during a discussion related to the hacking of Gmail accounts by Chinese hackers .

"We all do it. That said – or many of us do it. That said, we all undergo, I think, annual cyber awareness security reviews, programs. And in fact, that even extends into when we log on, in fact, we get constantly quizzed on our cyber security awareness. And I think it's important to say that in that training, it's stressed that there's no assumption of confidentiality in any kind of personal email account and that you should obviously act accordingly."

When asked if then-Secretary Clinton had a gmail account, Toner said he did not know.

Clinton has come under fire in recent days for her exclusive use of a personal email account to conduct official business while serving as the nation's top diplomat.

The revelation has had open government advocates, Republicans, editorial boards, and some Democrats questioning the security and legality of her personal account, which was registered to a "clintonemail.com" domain for her government work.

The video and full transcript is below:

View Video ›

QUESTION: Just to put some stuff sort of on the record in black and white --

MR. TONER: Yeah. Sure.

QUESTION: -- is there any prohibition against U.S. Government officials using private email services such as Gmail for their personal, non-classified, non-official --

MR. TONER: No.

QUESTION: Okay. Is there any – there are certain agencies – the SEC, to cite an independent agency in the U.S. Government – which bars its employees from accessing private accounts like Gmail while they’re at work. Is there anything that bars U.S. Government – State Department officials from accessing Gmail at work?

MR. TONER: There is not. I think the general rule – first of all, you’re right; on the first account that State Department employees are not prohibited from having private email accounts. We all do it. That said – or many of us do it. That said, we all undergo, I think, annual cyber awareness security reviews, programs. And in fact, that even extends into when we log on, in fact, we get constantly quizzed on our cyber security awareness. And I think it’s important to say that in that training, it’s stressed that there’s no assumption of confidentiality in any kind of personal email account and that you should obviously act accordingly.

I’m sorry, your last – what was your – oh, are we prohibited during the workday? As far as I’m aware, we are not. Obviously, though, that use should be limited. But I’m not aware that we’re prohibited from using it in the workplace.

QUESTION: Does Secretary Clinton have a Gmail account?

MR. TONER: I do not know.

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

The likely presidential candidate and his aides say they’re swearing off “process stories” for the 2016 cycle. Can he skip the Playbook primary, but win the actual primaries?

Marco Rubio

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

As Florida Sen. Marco Rubio prepares to launch a presidential bid next month, his circle of campaign consultants and political aides has linked arms in a high-minded 2016 resolution that they will not talk to reporters for "process stories" like this one.

For those not fluent in the language of the Washington green room, the "process story" is a genre of political journalism that focuses on the mechanics of campaigning and policymaking, rather than the specifics of the issues involved. As a rule, professional politicos tend to feign aversion to such coverage — complaining that it distracts from substantive debate — even as their obvious appetite for it continues to support a thriving news ecosystem of outlets competing for insider scooplets. It is not uncommon for a campaign operative to publicly lament the cheapening effect of process journalism, while simultaneously feeding journalists news tips and anonymous quotes designed to tout his own savvy, or tarnish that of a rival.

But Rubio's team — led by top political adviser Terry Sullivan — has been boasting to reporters in advance of the campaign's kickoff that they won't take part in inside baseball stories this cycle at all. No self-serving strategy spin, no indulgent shop talk, no jockeying for position on Politico's homepage. They plan to keep the focus on their candidate and his agenda, and skip what some of them refer to as the "Playbook primary," in which campaigns hustle to get stories written about their successful fundraisers, or their superior grassroots networks. Coverage like that might give consultants a temporary sugar-high, they argue, but in the long-term they do nothing to win votes, and they carry the constant risk of becoming a distraction.

True to their word, Rubio's advisers declined to answer questions about their process story boycott.

"I'd call you to discuss," Sullivan told BuzzFeed News in an email, "but it would ruin the entire premise of your story. So, 'no comment.'"

But several political reporters have heard the spiel from the senator's aides in recent months, typically by way of explaining their decision not to answer questions that often seem relatively benign. Among the stories the Rubio camp has recently skipped: an examination of his campaign hiring strategy; a report on his outreach to Tea Party groups; any number of articles about his recent fundraising blitz; and an article looking into his potential prospects in Iowa.

The evasiveness isn't likely rooted in any sort animus for the political press: Rubio has been one of the most accessible, and media-savvy, senators on Capitol Hill, and his longtime press secretary Alex Conant is widely known for being chummy with reporters, and hyper-responsive to their queries.

But Conant, who recently left Rubio's Senate office to join the campaign-in-waiting, has also seen firsthand the fruitlessness of a candidate courting the chattering classes with fancy political footwork. In 2012, Conant worked for Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's campaign, helping to build buzz with splashy hires and favorable early coverage — only to see the candidate run out of money months before the Iowa caucuses and drop out of the race.

And, of course, Rubio and his inner-circle continue to be haunted by one of the biggest political process stories of the past few years: the sausage-making that produced the Senate's 2013 immigration bill. Rubio took a central role in drafting the legislation and getting it passed, appearing regularly on conservative talk radio to defend the policy — and his strategy for shaping it — against a growing right-wing backlash. His office, meanwhile, plunged itself into the contentious frenzy of the daily news cycle — aggressively taking the fight to websites like Breitbart News that were spreading misinformation about the legislation, and conservative pundits who were churning out sharply critical columns of Rubio.

The hand-to-hand combat in the political press only served to further alienate Rubio from the Right, and by the time the bill passed, any sense of victory he might have enjoyed had been poisoned by the toxic runoff from the all those dreadful process stories. It's no wonder his team would rather skip all that in 2016.

Or would they? On Thursday afternoon, the Washington Post and National Review published a pair of stories reporting that Rubio had won the support of a Miami billionaire auto dealer who was pledging to spend as much at $10 million to get him elected. The stories went on to cite anonymous Rubio advisers pointing to the inroads he's successfully made to the donor class, and confidently predicting that his campaign would raise at least $40 million before the Iowa caucuses.

It was the quintessential process story — meaningless to the average Iowa voter, but pitch-perfect Playbook-bait that offered a compelling response to some of Rubio's naysayers in the political class.

BuzzFeed News asked an adviser to Rubio whether the articles constituted a violation of the team's rule against process stories, but received no response.

Sen. Robert Menendez is expected to be indicted on corruption charges stemming from his relationship with a major Democratic donor and Florida ophthalmologist, CNN reports.

Lauren Victoria Burke / AP

The Justice Department is expected to soon charge Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez with corruption, CNN reported Friday afternoon.

Attorney General Eric Holder has approved the charges moving forward, the network reports, but it is unclear when they will be announced.

The charges stem from Menendez's relationship with a donor to his campaign and other Democratic campaigns, a south Florida ophthalmologist named Salomon Melgen. Menendez has denied wrongdoing.

The senator took a series of flights on Melgen's private jet without proper disclosure, which he later admitted. But it's Melgen's business interests — his ophthalmologist practice in Florida and a port contract in the Dominican Republican that would have helped a company Melgen controls — that have drawn more scrutiny.

Menendez twice met with Medicare officials privately, advocating on behalf of Melgen's interests. The ophthalmologist had been accused of overbilling the program.

Menendez also advocated on behalf a port-security company owned by Melgen in the Dominican Republic. Without disclosing the name of Melgen's company or his relationship with him, Menendez argued the U.S. should press for enforcement of a contract worth as much as $500 million over 20 years.

Melgen donated more than $12,000 to Menendez's campaigns; he and his wife donated $60,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee when Menendez was the chair. His medical practice also gave $700,000 to Majority PAC, which supports Democratic Senate candidates, in 2012.

“There is the question of whether or not if she has those emails on a personal email and they’re talking about secure subjects, whether that’s actually compromised.”

Carolyn Kaster / AP

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton should be asked whether she put information that was not properly secured in emails sent from her personal account during her tenure at the State Department, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said on Friday.

In a brief interview at Reagan National Airport, likely 2016 candidate Paul drew a possible comparison between Clinton and David Petraeus, who pled guilty this week to sharing classified information with his biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell.

"Well, apparently it's illegal for the executive branch to do it that way," Paul said when asked about Clinton's email issue. "And apparently she chastised her employees for doing that."

"There's a question also if she was talking about things — remember what happened with Petraeus, he was bringing home stuff that was not secured properly? He actually pled guilty not of giving it to anybody, but having it unsecured," Paul said.

"There is the question of whether or not if she has those emails on a personal email and they're talking about secure subjects, whether that's actually compromised," Paul said. "And that's what he pled guilty to, what Petraeus pled guilty to, having secure information unsecured."

"So I think somebody ought to ask the question, whether or not she has anything on the email that should have been on a secure server," Paul said.

Asked if he ever uses his personal email for official business, Paul said, "We have a different set of rules."

"Congress isn't under the executive branch," Paul said. "So we don't have any rules on our email that I'm aware of."

Paul said that he thought the issue of the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign government donations last year without announcing the policy change, another scandal afflicting the Clinton operation this winter, is more important than the issue of her email usage as secretary of state.

"There's a constitutional provision that says you can't take gifts from foreign countries," Paul said. "Also it just doesn't look very good even if you say it's a foundation and it wasn't personally."

Asked if the Clinton Foundation taking of foreign donations could compromise Clinton as a potential head of state, Paul said, "Taking a million dollars from Saudi Arabia, I don't know how much she got from them, but taking a significant amount of money from foreign countries in the middle east, it would definitely bring up the question."

Groups seek order forcing officials across the state “to issue marriage licenses without regard to the sexual orientation or gender of the applicants.”

Shanté Wolfe, left, and Tori Sisson wait for their marriage license to be processed before becoming the first couple to file their marriage license in Montgomery, Ala.

Brynn Anderson / AP

WASHINGTON — Several LGBT legal groups have gone back to federal court in Alabama, asking the judge to make her ruling apply statewide by seeking class action status in one of the pending federal cases against the state's ban on same-sex couples' marriages.

The move from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, and others comes in the wake of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that ordered probate judges across the state to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

U.S. District Court Callie Granade has on multiple occasions struck down the state's bans on same-sex couples' marriages and on recognition of same-sex couples' marriages performed elsewhere.

Now, the judge is going to hear the legal groups' request that she expand the scope of one of those cases, beyond the initial parties who brought the case to a class action that would cover everyone in the state seeking to marry a person of the same sex or have their marriage to a person of the same sex recognized.

In addition to the plaintiff class, the motion also seeks the creation of a "defendant class," which they ask to have as: "All Alabama county probate judges who are enforcing or in the future may enforce Alabama's laws barring the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and refusing to recognize their marriages."

Read the plaintiffs' motion for an amended complaint:

Read the proposed amended complaint:

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Discharges based on a soldier being transgender must now be approved by the assistant secretary of the Army.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

WASHINGTON — The assistant secretary of the Army now has to approve the discharge of any soldier for being transgender, under a change implemented on Friday.

Prior to Friday, commanders in the field were authorized to initiate and finalize discharges of service members who are transgender.

In the All-Army Activity, or ALARACT, notice to commanders in the field that was distributed on Friday, however, the authority to discharge trans service members in the Army has been raised to the assistant secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs).

Currently, all service branches have regulations and policies that ban transgender people from serving openly. Under current Army policies — not federal law, as was the case with out lesbian, gay, and bisexual service — transgender people are considered "administratively unfit" for service.

"Today's action by the Army helps over 6,000 transgender soldiers serving in silence. It also helps their commanders, who are increasingly stymied trying to apply 1970's medical policy to today's Army," Allyson Robinson, SPARTA director of policy, told BuzzFeed News in a statement. "While transgender service members welcome this step, they recognize it is only a stopgap measure aimed at making a failing policy fail less. What they and their commanders need is a comprehensive, Department-level policy review."

The change comes within the first month of the tenure of the new defense secretary, Ash Carter, although those familiar with the process tell BuzzFeed News the change has been in the works since before Carter took the helm at the Pentagon.

The step only affects the Army, however, and does not, technically, change the fact that a transgender person is to be discharged from the military — including the Army.

Pentagon spokesperson Nate Christensen confirmed to BuzzFeed News in February that the Defense Department has undertaken a "routine, periodic review of the Department's medical accession policy," the medical standards for joining the military, "earlier this month." The news was first noted in a USA Today article published Feb. 16 that initially reported erroneously that the change enacted on Friday had happened on Feb. 16.

Even regarding the "routine" review, however, Christiansen explained to BuzzFeed News at the time, "There is no specific review of the Department's transgender policy on-going" — saying that this is a review of the medical policy more broadly. "We routinely review our policies to make sure they are accurate, up-to-date and reflect any necessary changes since the Department's last policy review. The last review of this [medical policy] was conducted in 2011. The current periodic review is expected to take between 12-18 months; it is not a specific review of the Department's transgender policy."

Personnel and Readiness officials at the Pentagon are conducting the review, Christensen said.

Read the ALARACT:

“There is no adequate justification for such a discriminatory and injurious exercise of state power,” the Obama administration urges the Supreme Court. More than 200 congressional Democrats also weigh in to support marriage equality.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

WASHINGTON — The United States government on Friday urged the Supreme Court to strike down state bans on same-sex couples' marriages across the country, concluding, "There is no adequate justification for such a discriminatory and injurious exercise of state power."

The filing in the cases challenging bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee represented nearly the end of a long path for the Obama administration on the issue, which began with President Obama opposing marriage rights for same-sex couples and his administration defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

In May 2012, though, Obama announced his support for same-sex couples' marriage rights — helping to change the national landscape on the issue in the months before voters in three states voted for marriage equality measures at the polls.

On Friday, the Justice Department — which stopped defending the constitutionality of DOMA in February 2011 — told the Supreme Court, "The marriage bans challenged in these cases impermissibly exclude lesbian and gay couples from the rights, responsibilities, and status of civil marriage. These facially discriminatory laws impose concrete harms on same-sex couples and send the inescapable message that same-sex couples and their children are second-class families, unworthy of the recognition and benefits that opposite-sex couples take for granted."

Showing how far the law has traveled in a few short years, the brief goes on, "The bans cannot be reconciled with the fundamental constitutional guarantee of 'equal protection of the laws.'"

Specifically, the administration noted, "The President and Attorney General have determined that classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to heightened scrutiny." That decision, made when the administration shifted gears on DOMA in 2011, would — if adopted by the Supreme Court — mean that laws and governmental policies that classify people based on sexual orientation should be viewed by courts with additional skepticism.

For example, laws that classify people based on race only survive court review if they are narrowly tailored to advance a compelling governmental interest. Laws that classify based on sex, for the example most advocates expect also would be applied to sexual orientation claims, must be advance an important governmental interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest. Without any such heightened scrutiny, laws must only be rationally related to a legitimate government interest.

"Heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause is particularly appropriate in the context of legal barriers to marriage," the administration argued on Friday. "A State should be required to present an especially strong justification for a law that excludes a long-disadvantaged class of persons from an institution of such paramount personal, societal, and practical importance."

Because, the administration argues, none of the claimed reasons supporting the bans meet that heightened scrutiny, they should fail.

In 2013, when California's Proposition 8 was before the justices, the administration took a similar position — but offered the court a limited ruling that only would necessarily result in striking down marriage bans where the state otherwise offered same-sex couples all of the benefits of marriage — but not the name itself. That argument held little water during oral arguments, with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. facing tough question on the middle-ground position from both ideological sides of the bench.

This time, the administration placed no such limit on its argument, stating that all such bans are "incompatible with the Constitution."

It went even further than that, though, arguing that "heightened scrutiny" isn't even necessary for the court to strike down the bans because the "reasoning and result" of the Supreme Court's decision striking down DOMA in United States v. Windsor "strongly support the conclusion that the bans at issue here are likewise unconstitutional." The administration notes that the justice found DOMA unconstitutional after reviewing "that law with 'careful consideration."

Looking at the Supreme Court's history since the mid-1990s in cases addressing gay rights, the administration lawyers write, "The marriage bans at issue here, like the [Colorado] law invalidated [in 1996] in Romer v. Evans," should be fund to be unconstitutional because they "'impose[] a broad and undifferentiated disability' on lesbian and gay people with a 'sheer breadth ... so discontinuous with the reasons offered' that they violate equal protection."

In addition to the Obama administration's brief, more than 200 congressional Democrats, led by each chamber's Democratic leader, filed an amici curiae brief supporting a marriage equality ruling from the court.

Other briefs supporting marriage equality have been coming in over the course of the past week. The states' briefs defending the bans are due March 27, supportive amicus briefs due by the next Friday, and the oral arguments in the case are set for April 28.

The conclusion of the Obama administration's brief:

Read the Obama administration's brief:

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“What you have to keep reminding people is that these Dixiecrats who have just as big a tradition out of hating slaves and black folks—they just changed their party and became Republicans. They come for the same communities. They fight the same liberal ways of allowing people to vote. They have the same way. They have the same Confederate heroes on their wall. And it’s all changing Joe but it has not changed. It has not changed.”

w.soundcloud.com

Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York says Republican opposition to Loretta Lynch's nomination as attorney general to replace Eric Holder is racially motivated. Rangel added that current Republicans have a "big a tradition out of hating slaves and black folks" because southern Dixiecrats changed parties and became Republicans.

"Well first of all we only have one black over there, a Republican, so I don't have to tell him what the country is all about," Rangel said of the Senate, referring to Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey is also black.

"My real concern is that, how close it's been where we couldn't even vote in the local—you know the Civil Rights Act, we are talking about 50-60 years but we are just talking about the ability to give black folks to be able to vote. We've got so far to go," added Rangel to the Joe Madison Show

Rangel said Republicans come from the same communities as the former southern Dixiecrats and "have just as big a tradition out of hating slaves and black folks" and have "Confederate heroes on their wall."

"Joe what we are doing now is feeling that having a black president—why do we have to go through all of these things today? What you have to keep reminding people is that these Dixiecrats who have just as big a tradition out of hating slaves and black folks—they just changed their party and became Republicans. They come for the same communities. They fight the same liberal ways of allowing people to vote. They have the same way. They have the same Confederate heroes on their wall. And it's all changing Joe but it has not changed. It has not changed."

Rangel then added, "you know if this woman was white we wouldn't be going through this. As a matter of fact it has nothing to do with her." The New York Democrat said the opposition is focused on current Attorney General Eric Holder.

"As a matter of fact it has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with Eric Holder and everything to do with the president."

Rangel said the Republicans are "holding her hostage" because "they want a piece" of President Obama and Holder.

JM - Let me ask you about Loretta Lynch. You know her. You've obviously known her for a while. I understand there is one Republican vote short and then I found out historically that only two presidents have had their attorney generals rejected for confirmation. One was Andrew Johnson and that was before an impeachment trial, the other was Calvin Coolidge. Your message to those senators?

CR - Well first of all we only have one black over there, a Republican- so I don't have to tell him what the country is all about.

JM-Now this is the Judiciary Committee. They need one vote from the the committee, republican.

CR- My real concern is that, how close it's been where we couldn't even vote in the local—you know the Civil Rights Act, we are talking about 50-60 years but we are just talking about the ability to give black folks to be able to vote. We've got so far to go. Joe what we are doing now is feeling that having a black president—why do we have to go through all of these things today? What you have to keep reminding people is that these Dixiecrats who have just as big a tradition out of hating slaves and black folks—they just changed their party and became Republicans. They come for the same communities. They fight the same liberal ways of allowing people to vote. They have the same way. They have the same Confederate heroes on their wall. And it's all changing Joe but it has not changed. It has not changed.

JM - It's changing, but it has not changed?

CR - But you know if this woman was white we wouldn't be going through this. As a matter of fact it has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with Eric Holder and everything to do with the president.

JM - You know I've said on Politics Nation they've probably mentioned Eric Holder's name in the Judiciary Committee hearing than they mention her name.

CR - And no one said anything derogatory about her . I mean they are openly showing that they are holding her hostage because they want a piece of Obama, they want a piece of Eric Holder and they can't get over it—they can't get over it. And its going to take a generation of change—it's going to take a generation of change. This tea party thing, I'm telling you. When I was Chair of the Ways and means we were reporting out the President's Medicaid health bill. Those people holding those picket signs with the president out there looking like Adolf Hitler. The calls they were calling with John Lewis and me outside. Is the same type of voices—the same type of southern accents the same states when I was marching with Doctor Martin Luther King. I mean the hatred is still there. And what you are doing is saying I love the country we are thinking about going nowhere. We made our investment. We've got to make this country better. Everyone knows we are on the right track. People having respect for each other. Improving the quality our schools. Making our workforce more efficient. Making America more competitive with other nations. Fighting every damn war there . And we still have to fight to get recognize when we've got a damn African-American as president of the United States. And some people just can't take it.

The president refrains from criticizing Clinton’s personal email usage, but tells CBS News he’s “glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Obama said Saturday that he's "glad" Hillary Clinton has asked the State Department to publicly release emails she sent during her time as secretary of state.

In the interview with CBS News, the president said he first learned about Clinton's use of a personal email address to conduct official business the "same time everybody else learned it through news reports."

Asked if he was "disappointed" by Clinton's decision, Obama responded, "Let me just say that Hillary Clinton is and has been an outstanding public servant. She was a great Secretary of State for me."

"The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency," he continued, "which is why my emails — the Blackberry I carry around – all those records are available and archived, and I'm glad that Hillary's instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed."

Obama has said in the past that, for security reasons, only 10 people have his personal email address.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that Clinton never used a State-issued email address during her time as secretary, instead using a personal email address. Last year, some State officials became aware of the lack of a State Department email address during a review of Benghazi-related documents, the Times reported later in the week.

Clinton's aides sent approximately 55,000 pages of email from her personal account to the State Department in December; those pages were the product of a review process conducted by Clinton staff, and an undisclosed amount of emails from Clinton's personal account remain private.

Following Clinton's request that those 55,000 pages of email be publicly released, State Department officials have said they will conduct an official review of those emails to determine which can be released.

LINK: As Clinton Asks For Release Of Emails, An Undisclosed Number Remain Private

“I don’t know what that makes me,” Graham said on Meet the Press.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he will never face a scandal like the one plaguing Hillary Clinton because he has never sent an email.

"You can have every email I've ever sent. I've never sent one," Graham said.

After a befuddled laugh from Todd, Graham added, "I don't know what that makes me..."

Graham was appearing on the show to discuss the controversy surrounding Clinton's use of a private email server while she was serving as secretary of state.

Graham said that he wants Clinton's emails to be checked for references to her foundation. He also wants to see what Clinton was saying privately about Benghazi in the hours and days after the terror attack.

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The White House says the president did email with Clinton during her time in office, but he was unaware of that she used the personal account exclusively and housed it on a private server.

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White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama exchanged email with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her time in office and therefore through her personal email account.

"The president was referring specifically to the arrangement associated with Secretary Clinton's email," Earnest said. "Yes, the president was aware of her email address; he traded emails with her. That shouldn't be a surprise, that the president of the United States is going to trade emails with the secretary of state."

"But the president was not aware of the fact that this was a personal email server, and that this was the email address she was using exclusively for all her business," Earnest said. "The president was not aware of that until that had been more widely reported."

President Obama said Saturday in an interview with CBS News that he first learned that Clinton had used a personal email system for professional business through news reports. Whether Obama meant the existence of Clinton's personal email account or her exclusive use was not specified in the answer.

During the press briefing, ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked whether the White House would oppose an independent third-party examining Clinton's email server. "That's ultimate a decision for them to make," Earnest said.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen turns down Justice Department request to issue ruling by “close of business” on Monday.

Cliff Owen / AP

WASHINGTON — The federal judge in Texas who last month ruled that Obama's recent immigration executive actions are unconstitutional has delayed a decision on the Justice Department's request to keep the new actions in effect during the appeal.

The court logistics are somewhat complicated. On Feb. 23, the Justice Department asked U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen to stay his Feb. 16 ruling that put President Obama's immigration on hold while the court decides whether the actions are constitutional.

Instead of deciding on that issue, Hanen on Monday wrote that he would first consider a request from the states challenging the Obama administration's actions — and won't make any other rulings in the meantime. In other words: He won't be making a ruling on the Justice Department's request to lift his ruling that stops the actions.

Hanen's order on Monday came in the wake of a notice by the Justice Department stating that if Hanen did not rule on its stay request by March 9, 2015, the Justice Department might go to the 5th Circuit of Appeals — asking the appeals court to step in and issue a stay of Hanen's ruling.

It was not immediately clear that Hanen's order would put off an attempt by Justice Department lawyers to take their stay request to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the order — particularly given Hanen's reference to "other pending motions" — would make it difficult for the Justice Department to make a case to the appeals court that their action is the only option for the federal government lawyers.

The Justice Department was reviewing the order on Monday evening.

The states' March 5 request that Hanen is considering is for discovery — or, exchange of potential evidence — related to a Justice Department advisory made in the case this month. The advisory dealt with treatment of people eligible for Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals, originally implemented in 2012.

Obama's announcement in November about the new executive actions changed the "deferred action" periods (how long deportation is delayed) from two years to three years. In the March 3 advisory, the Justice Department noted that 100,000 people received three-year grants under the new executive actions. No new three-year deferrals, Justice Department lawyers noted, were granted after Hanen's ruling.

Although Justice Department lawyers described the two-year to three-year deferral change as not being one of the "substantive eligibility guidelines" changed in November 2014, the states responded on March 5 by stating that they found themselves "hard-pressed to reconcile Defendants' past representations with Defendants' actions as reported in their advisory."

The states' lawyers wrote, "Defendants had represented on several prior occasions that USCIS would not consider requests for deferred action under that memorandum until at least February 18, 2015." The Justice Department's advisory, however, suggests that it viewed the Feb. 18 date as marking only when it would begin implementing what it called the "substantive eligibility guidelines" changes.

Hanen took this new dispute — over the 100,000 people who received three-year deferrals since November — to push off a decision on the Justice Department's stay request "until it is clear that these matters, if true, do not impact the pending matters or any rulings previously made by this Court." Hanen set a hearing for March 19 on the states' request.

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In an open letter to Iran, 47 Republican senators warned that any nuclear deal brokered without their approval could be undone “with the stroke of a pen.” Biden called the move “dangerous.”

Vice President Joe Biden.

Larry French / AP

The letter, sent Monday, warned Iran to think twice about entering into a deal regarding its nuclear program with President Obama, who as the senators noted, will be termed out of office in January 2017.

They, on the other hand, could "remain in office well beyond then — perhaps even decades."

With that in mind, the senators warned Iran that they will consider any nuclear deal not approved by the Congress "as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei."

"The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stoke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," the letter warned.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with a group of environmental officials and activists at his residence in Tehran.

Str / AP

"This letter, in the guise of a constitutional lesson, ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American president, whether Democrat or Republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States," Biden wrote.

He continued:

In thirty-six years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country—much less a longtime foreign adversary— that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.

This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America's commitments—a message that is as false as it is dangerous."

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“They never trusted anybody” at State, one former State Department official said of the former secretary. Clinton’s spokesman dismisses the idea that she and her staff were insular.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — State Department staffers viewed Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account as a symptom of a deeper divide — and distrust — between her tight inner circle and the professional bureaucracy she led, two former staffers told BuzzFeed News.

Clinton, who used her own "clintonemail.com" domain and never had a government email address during her time at State, has not answered questions this week about the account's security — or a more fundamental question: why she never used a State Department email in the first place. Some think the fact that she used the personal account, and went to extra lengths like setting up her own email server, is a symbol of mistrust between her and the career State Department officials.

"They never trusted anybody" at State, one former State Department official said of Clinton and her coterie. The former official said that everyone in the State Department press office at the time was familiar with the practice and found it "strange."

"There definitely was a small circle of insiders whose names you know, who played a ferocious sort of gatekeeper role, much more so than with the current guy and with the predecessor," said a current State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Even the most powerful FSOs in high positions had to go through less than a handful of gatekeepers."

But the officials also didn't quite agree on the specific concern behind Clinton's insular operation. A second former official suggested her circle circle was less worried about the staffers she worked with than with the technical staff who might have access to her email. The current State Department official, cast the divide between Clinton's inner circle and the rest of the department in less personal terms.

"There was a distrust of the inevitability of leaks, a distrust of people being loose with email, a distrust of FOIAs," the current official said, adding that that mistrust seemed misplaced because at the State Department "even people who were deeply disappointed with Syria and Ukraine policy are pretty sympathetic to the Democrats and have a lot of loyalty."

The current official said the email flap had left a "very unpleasant aftertaste" in the mouths of many diplomats, who "absolutely have to use work email both for transparency reasons and for internet security reasons and also because it's the professional thing to do in any professional setting."

In a statement, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill dismissed the idea that the former secretary was insular or did not trust others in the department.

"Our relationships weren't based on domains, they were based on our intense respect for the work and those dedicating their lives to doing so," Merrill said. "This was a very inclusive secretary of state. It was something she worked hard at because she viewed it as critical. From building-wide town halls to breaking with protocol to hear from junior staff, she placed a high premium inclusivity, and was grateful for support from all levels of the department."

Virtually all federal agencies navigate a cultural divide between the politicians appointed to lead them and the career civil servants who make up the vast bulk of their staff. In Clinton's case, she imported an unusually large staff, battling the White House tooth and nail over mid-level appointments. Some of the aides Clinton brought to the department — notably Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff, as well as Philippe Reines and Huma Abedin — were longtime Clinton associates known for their loyalty to the family, rather than for foreign policy expertise. Some of them were even accorded a "special government employee" status in which they were allowed to both work for the State Department and have jobs in the private sector. This arrangement is under renewed scrutiny on Capitol Hill as a result of the emails revelation.

Some former aides downplayed the notion of an unusual rift between Clinton's inner circle and the rest of the agency.

"There's always some tension between political appointees and career officers, just like there is in any workplace where a bunch of new people showed up," said Alon Sachar, who served during Clinton's tenure as an adviser to the special envoy on Middle East peace and to the ambassador to Israel. "It's natural and it happened under Republicans and Democrats that I worked for. But in my experience, Secretary Clinton and those she appointed held career officials in the highest regard. They relied on us, were integrated with us, and considered us equals in the foreign policy team."

Jonathan Prince, who worked under Clinton at the State Department from 2009 to fall 2010 and was on the list of special government employees, dismissed as "garbage" the idea that Clinton's use of private email was intended to shut out career State Department officials in favor of political aides.

"Hillary emailed with senior [career] people," he said. "I was on the email chains with her sometimes, and two-thirds of the people on the email chains were career people. She probably emailed with a hundred people at the State Department."

One of the former career State Department officials also estimated that Clinton emailed with roughly 100 people within the department, because she would email directly with assistant secretaries of state and up. Last week in statements to reporters, a Clinton aide also used the figure, noting that "if [Clinton] emailed one of the 100 State Department officials she regularly corresponded with, State had it in their servers already and HRC's office replicated that to ensure it was all there."

"I had the email address," Prince said. "It wasn't like only Philippe and Huma and Cheryl emailing with her. All kinds of foreign service people had her email address. It never even occurred to me that it was weird."

Two of the former State Department officials said that use of personal email is fairly common in the State Department because employees can have trouble accessing government systems while on the road. "Sometimes when you're trying to work with certain documents or move things around it's easier on your personal laptop," one said.

But rank-and-file State employees also have an official address to conduct government business; Clinton did not. Clinton has not publicly said why she chose to set up her own email system, instead floating through allies that she may hold a press conference on the issue this week as the story mushrooms around her.

Regardless, if it was an attempt to seal off Clinton from unknowns at State, it was may have been a pointless one. One former administration official said that the distrust between Clinton might have been real, but that using a personal email wouldn't have insulated Clinton.

"That (distrust) may be true but I don't quite see how they're connected," the former official said. "Obviously within any agency there are people with political agendas that don't match yours, but I don't get how the email would protect Hillary or her inner circle from them. If she used a State.gov account, it's not like anyone in the Department would have access to it in any event."

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and Justice in Aging filed suit against the Social Security Administration Tuesday on behalf of same-sex spouses being told to repay SSA’s overpayments.

Hugh Held (left) and his husband Orion Masters.

Two legal nonprofit groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration Tuesday for its treatment of married same-sex couples after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prevented the federal government from recognizing their marriages.

For almost a year after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in June 2013, the SSA continued to treat Hugh Held and Orion Masters as unmarried.

Despite Held asking the local Social Security branch office in Los Angeles whether the court's ruling, in light of his 2008 marriage to Masters, would mean a change to his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, he continued to receive his benefits of $877.40 a month.

Then, in June 2014, Held's benefit was reduced to $308.10 a month on account of his marriage to Masters.

Held and Masters were fine with that change, but they are not OK with the $6,205 bill that the Social Security Administration (SSA) also sent Held, the amount, SSA asserts, that Held was overpaid in benefits since the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor.

On Tuesday, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and Justice in Aging filed a class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration on behalf of Held and Kelley Richardson-Wright, another married person with a same-sex spouse being told to repay SSA's overpayments, and all other people similarly affected. The lawsuit asks for the Social Security Administration to be barred from asking people to repay benefits.

"Unfortunately for married same-sex couples in marriage recognition states, SSA was completely unprepared to implement policies required of it by law after DOMA was struck down," Gerald McIntyre, directing attorney for Justice in Aging, said in a statement. "The victims of that discrimination should not be the ones to pay for the agency's mistake."

The lawsuit claims that "SSA should have recognized Plaintiffs' marriages immediately" after the Windsor decision. "Yet it failed to do so." Then, once SSA finally did begin treating married same-sex couples as married, it asked for overpayments that resulted from not recognizing the marriages.

As GLAD and Justice in Aging's lawyers write, "SSI recipients are now being targeted by SSA for recoupment of overpayments caused by the government's own unlawful actions."

The Social Security Act itself, however, makes it illegal for SSA to seek repayment in this circumstance, the lawyers argue.

"The Social Security Act provisions authorizing overpayment recoupment expressly require SSA to waive recovery of SSI overpayments if (1) the overpaid SSI recipients were not at fault for the overpayment and (2) recoupment would either a) be against equity and good conscience or b) defeat the purposes of the statute," the lawsuit claims.

In other words, the lawyers argue that the overpayments are not the same-sex couples' fault because the Social Security Administration failed to implement the constitutional ruling in Windsor, meeting the first part, and it would be "against equity and good conscience" — basically, unfair — to order repayment.

Specifically, they write, "[I]t is unfair, inequitable, and unconscionable for SSA to demand overpayment from a group of individuals who not only are destitute, but who have been discriminated against by SSA, and then were overpaid by the government's unjustified perpetuation of that very discrimination long after it was held unlawful by the Supreme Court."

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Central District of California.

Read the complaint:

No answer to the hardest email question. And nobody’s having any fun.

Richard Drew / AP

The United Nations Security Council Stakeout has played host to world-historic events. It's where Iranian negotiators meet the press, where heads of state talk war and peace. Picasso's "Guernica," looming to the left of the podium, is meant to push them toward peace.

The U.N. is also, always, kind of a shitshow. It's inaccessible, incomprehensible, disempowered, roiling with frustration. And so it was probably the right place for the effective kickoff of the 2016 general election campaign Tuesday.

Clinton events — the 2008 campaign, the 1976 race for attorney general of Arkansas, certainly the 1992 campaign, large stretches of the presidency — often have the feeling that the wheels are about to fall off, and Tuesday's press conference was a masterpiece in that genre. The scene was a mess. The 15 flags of the member nations to the Security Council were shoved in front of the mural, while Clinton spoke in front of the council's bilingual U.N. backdrop, which appeared to be attached to the wall. Across some 10 feet of brown carpet, some 200 reporters and more than 25 cameras gathered — the biggest crowd assembled here since, one veteran correspondent wagered, the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003.

Reporters turned up starting before 9:00 a.m. at the entrance on 45th Street and First Avenue, where a single U.N. staffer named Mark, working on an aging computer, brushed his hair from his eyes and did his best to accommodate the unreasonable and unanticipated ("Why are you all here?" the receptionist asked) flood of journalists seeking accreditation. High-tone television correspondents sent producers to wait and strode up past the grumbling press; other old TV faces, like David Shuster — now at Al Jazeera — had to wait for themselves. On email, a Clinton aide did his best, reassuring reporters that they were trying to help people get in. A 11:27 a.m. email urged people to reply by 11:45 to be sure they'd have a spot. We did, and we got in.

And indeed Clinton events — the campaigns, the presidency, the secretariat — have a way of coming off all right in the end. On the technical merits, Clinton's press conference went without major disaster. She began with the reason she was at the U.N. — the cause of women's rights — and then made some real news, going hard at Republicans who wrote a letter to Tehran trying to disrupt the White House's nuclear talks with Iran. She nailed the jab of a transition — "I would be pleased to talk more about this important matter, but I know there have been questions about my emails" — gave the ceremonial first question to the Turkish dean of the U.N. press corps — and then, given the substance, it could have gone worse.

The substance is bad: Clinton selected the emails she deemed public, and then made an active choice to delete the others, or to instruct her lawyers to delete them. Presumably there was a meeting; she made a choice. She said that was because the emails were about flower arrangements and yoga; but why delete that? This is a hard question that she avoided on the first take, saying she "chose not to keep them" — as though emails evaporate if not retained. Then, asked directly, she avoided it again: She deleted them "because they were personal and private," she said. "I didn't see any reason to keep them."

The real answer is guessable: The Clintons have lived, for 25 years, surrounded by lawyers who tell them that anything put on paper can be subpoenaed by their enemies. Their enemies, indeed, would certainly have sought some sort of review of these emails, if they've been deleted. (Is anything really deleted, by the way? Craig Silverman suggested that we end this rigamarole by asking the NSA for copies.)

But would giving Republicans emails she says were about yoga be all that bad? The space opened by the deleted emails will now be filled by the imaginings of her worst enemies, if not the emails themselves, should they surface from the people she was emailing with.

Still, Clinton, delivering a bad message and taking her political medicine, delivered it serviceably. She was confident. She took eight or nine questions. She didn't make it any worse than it, in fact, is.

And we got a feel for what kind of a campaign this will be: one that barrels forward with the wheels nearly off at all times. That is, a Clinton campaign. Full of mistakes and tactics and drama and risk — the sort of thing that reporters love to cover, and that Bill Clinton always seemed to feed off. Hillary Clinton, though, draws no energy from the chaos, and the difference between Bill Clinton in a corner and Hillary Clinton in a corner seems to be that she is really having no fun at all, except, perhaps, in the late days of her 2008 run. She is a stoic, and she soldiered through Tuesday, looking at the press pack with undisguised dislike and occasionally seeming to look right through us and onto a couple more — 10 more? — awful years of this, every day.

If there was a difference from the old ones, it is that this won't be a Clinton campaign where the Clinton in question seems to be having a perverse kind of fun feeding on the chaos. Tuesday, Hillary Clinton projected the stoicism of a person who really, truly hates what she's doing, and does it anyway.

“She’s going to have a lot to answer for,” the Louisiana governor tells BuzzFeed News.

Bobby Jindal

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

Immediately following a press conference Tuesday where reporters grilled Hillary Clinton on her use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state, likely Republican presidential contender Bobby Jindal offered an unsolicited tip to Democrats.

"Not that the Democratic Party wants my advice, but I think it's a mistake to automatically assume she's going to be their nominee," Jindal told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview from Iowa. "She's going to have a lot to answer for."

He added, "I think American voters want someone who's going to earn the job... she doesn't seem to be doing that."

Jindal criticized Clinton's defense during the press conference, during which she said her email practices were simply a matter of "convenience."

"I was almost waiting for her to say, 'What difference does it make?' I was actually waiting for her to say those words," Jindal said, referring to a remark Clinton made during a Congressional hearing focused on the 2012 murders of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi.

"I think there's a bigger issue here," Jindal continued. "From Benghazi, to this, to the Russia reset, there seems to be a lack of accountability.... There's just a pattern here where bad things happen on her watch and she doesn't take responsibility for it."

Data shared by Facebook exclusively with BuzzFeed News shows more people talking about Hillary Clinton after the email scandal hit. But even before the news broke, the tone had changed.

Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

Facebook's analysis of the sentiment of users talking about Hillary Clinton shows a gradual but marked downturn in the tone of conversation about the presumptive Democratic candidate as the 2016 campaign approaches.

The share of conversation about Clinton that was positive dipped from 57% during one period in the fall to 52% in January and then a 50% average in February. By Feb. 28, that sentiment turned negative, and has stayed largely more negative than positive as conversations multiplied amid debate over her use of a personal email account.

The sentiment data is drawn from a Facebook project that analyzes the language and symbols used by the massive social networks users. (You can read more about the project here.) The data has been shared with BuzzFeed News in a partnership with Facebook.

The sentiment data may not mirror polling data, though it has so far roughly tracked public polls. Her favorability rating has gradually declined, from peak over 60% in 2010, to below 50%, according to a recent New York Times average of public polls.

And the sentiment data also offers a glimpse at how the under-the-surface conversation about Clinton may shift, despite the challenge — for both Clinton and her Republican foes — of changing public opinion about so well-known a person.

Last week, the news of her family's foundation quietly accepting foreign donations was followed by news that Clinton exclusively used personal email while at the State Department on Monday. Reports that Clinton used a private server located in her own home followed. Questions remain about how Clinton's staff selected email to be sent to the State Department, whether her email was sufficiently secured during her tenure there, and whether Obama administration officials ever told Clinton or her senior aides to stop using the account.

Those stories caused a huge, sustained spike in the number of Facebook interactions about Clinton.

But even before the story broke, the sentiment around her had dipped from earlier this year — and was in the upper 40s in terms of positive sentiment.

Since news broke that Clinton used a personal email account while at State on the night of March 2, interactions on Facebook have spiked — and stayed that way — in a mostly negative fashion.

Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed