Clinton Needs to Learn from Her Mistakes

These self-destructive instincts were on display at the outset of the email mess. Clinton wanted to keep emails on one device; her staff complied and accommodated when it should have pushed back -- hard.

Burned by the serial scandals and non-scandals of her husband's administration, Clinton prioritized maintaining what she once mournfully described as a "zone of privacy" over ordinary rules regarding doing government business on government devices. Once again, that instinct for self-protection backfired. "I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible," she told aide Huma Abedin in one email.

These self-destructive instincts continued when the email issue first arose. Thinking like a lawyer advised by other lawyers, Clinton chose to delete emails that she deemed personal. She had the legal right to do so, and it wouldn't have been a big deal, before she left office, to expunge personal emails written from a government account.

But the mass deletion of emails that Clinton's team alone deemed personal, conducted after the State Department asked for its official archives back, was guaranteed to create a firestorm when that became public. As anyone who has spent as much time in Washington, under as much of a microscope as Clinton had, should have known it inevitably would.

"Why didn't they get this stuff out like 18 months ago? So crazy," exasperated former Clinton adviser Neera Tanden asked in an email when Clinton's private server and mass deletion became public. "I guess I know the answer. They wanted to get away with it."

After the email story broke, Clinton had to be pressured to choke out an apology. Tanden, again, nailed it: "Apologies are like her Achilles' heel." Once more, the details dribbled out, grudgingly and, as a result, inflicting even more damage.

Even before the unfortunate letter from FBI Director James Comey fanned the email flames, a President Clinton was certain to face incessant, multiple investigations from congressional Republicans seizing on what Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah described as a "target rich environment."

All of this is unfortunate, outrageous -- and unavoidable. If Clinton continues to be her own worst enemy, if she were to behave in office as she has too often before, she will make it all that much worse. She needs to guard against this by learning, finally, from the mistakes of the past.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.