Rules? What rules?

“Rules are made to be broken” is a saying that has many variations, but perhaps no one has summed up Hillary Clinton’s attitude (and Bill’s, too) about rules more than the late science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. In one of his novels, a character says, “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

In a report on how Hillary Clinton handled her “private” emails while serving as secretary of state, the State Department’s inspector general found that Hillary Clinton disregarded cybersecurity guidelines when she used a private computer server. She continues to deny she did anything wrong and falsely claims she turned over “all” of her emails to the State Department after she left office. But in fact, Clinton herself conceded last year, she or members of her team had deleted about 30,000 emails before an investigation of her practices began.

The inspector general’s report chides her, saying she should have “preserved any federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary. At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”

The inspector general's report also says she stonewalled requests by the government for access to her server, which was in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. Further, as was reported last summer by Britain’s Daily Mail, another server, used for emails Clinton sent and received in mid-2013, was discovered at an unsecured location in a Denver bathroom closet.

Marcel Lazar, the Romanian computer hacker calling himself “Guccifer,” claims to have hacked into Clinton’s servers. He pled guilty to the charge before a Virginia judge last week. Might there also be Chinese and Russian hackers out there who’ve also had a look at Clinton’s emails?

High-ranking government officials are aware of the regulations governing their tenure while in office and their responsibilities for the handling of records once they leave it. Will Hillary Clinton’s failure to comply with the State Department’s policies on records necessarily lead to an indictment? That is what an FBI investigation is attempting to determine.

For years the Clintons have skirted laws and practiced disinformation, rhetorical gymnastics, obfuscation, changing the subject, non sequiturs, and anything else that might block their enrichment or achievement of political goals.

This time, Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to get away with it, nor should she have her incidents of malfeasance rewarded by being elected president of the United States.

© 2016 Tribune Content Agency LLC.

Listen to Cal Thomas’ commentary on The World and Everything in It.