New Email Questions, Different Politician

Merriam-Webster defines irony as an "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result." For example, let's say a hypothetical political party campaigned on the notion that their opponent's use of a private email system was dangerous to public safety. The expected result of such a campaign would be that the hypothetical political party would be extremely concerned with ensuring that its own emails were also kept openly on public and government databases. The actual, incongruous result was that when push came to shove, Mike Pence wants his own emails kept private. See? Irony!

According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is trying to conceal an email from his tenure as governor of Indiana that was sent to him by a political ally and reportedly relates to Indiana's attempt to block an immigration executive action by President Obama. Specifically, Pence hired an outside firm to sue Obama for the order using taxpayer money, and Indiana Democratic labor lawyer William Groth requested documents related to that decision. When Groth received the documents, they were reportedly heavily redacted and an attached white paper was missing.

A lawsuit seeking to make the heavily-redacted contents of the email public has traveled through the Indiana court system for months. The Indiana Court of Appeals will hear the case on Nov. 21. The Indianapolis Star reported that the case has traveled through the Indiana state court system as lawyers argue over whether the court has the ability to review redactions made to public records. Bustle has reached out to Governor Pence's Indiana office for comment. Politico reported that Pence had not yet responded to comment on the story.

Pence has been a longtime critic of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, which he has repeatedly alleged as criminal behavior. While the Pence email likely doesn't contain information that pertains to international affairs, it likely does contain information about the promises he made or strategies he reviewed as governor — information that, I believe, the people of Indiana would be within their rights to request.

Moreover, Pence also criticized Clinton for the fact that emails deemed "personal" were not disclosed to the FBI — but if keeping that information private is, as he told Fox News' Chris Wallace, "troubling to the American people," then it is hard to see how Pence could justify withholding his own information.

Pence, it seems, is in favor of email privacy when it suits him, and opposed when it does not.