Ah, the Clinton signature, the audacious lie that absolutely no one believes:

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

No. No. No. That is not the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Here’s the rule:

Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.

They weren’t kept by the “appropriate agency,” i.e,, the U.S. State Department. Failure to meet that legal requirement would be the responsibility of . . . the secretary running the department.

With Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson getting in trouble for using a private e-mail, even using the fake name “Richard Windsor,” while Clinton was running the State Department, there is no way Hillary could claim she was oblivious to the record-keeping law.

Hey, it’s not like “texts from Hillary” had become a major Internet meme or anything.