During Wednesday’s State Department press briefing, spokesman John Kirby called attacks on the Department’s selection of Janice Jacobs as the department’s “e-mail czar” an attack on American democracy itself.

Ambassador Jacobs, whom George W. Bush named as U.S. ambassador to Senegal, is a maxed out Hillary Clinton donor.

“There’s nothing wrong with a federal employee, or any other U.S. citizen making donations to campaigns,” Kirby said. “This is the United States of America; it’s a democracy.”

#related#“I think that’s a very bad place for us to be,” Kirby continued. “If we’re going to start criticizing people for campaign contributions they make in their private time — in retirement no less – I just don’t think that’s where we want to be as a country.”

“I just got done talking about our concerns in Turkey, and media freedoms, and civil society, and how we expect the Turks to live up to their core values and their democratic institutions,” he said. ”I think we need to do that here, too.”

Kirby later acknowledged that as part of Jacobs’ new position, she will have some role in overseeing which Hillary Clinton e-mails are released to the public.