The Clinton scandals are making a comeback. On March 3, The New York Times ran a story claiming that Hillary Clinton, the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee for president, used a personal email address as her official account during her tenure as Secretary of State, “possibly breaking rules.” This revelation, which closely followed another unfavorable story about the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign donations during Hillary’s stint at the State Department, sparked an immediate media frenzy. As the facts began to crystallize, it became clear that Clinton had in fact used a private email server while at the State Department, jeopardizing the security of not only her own emails, but also those of everyone with whom she communicated via email, including President Obama. Conservatives and liberals alike were left scratching their heads as to why a seasoned politician like Clinton would do such a thing, which both violated State Department guidelines and compromised the confidentiality of American diplomatic strategy. Almost as troubling was Clinton’s unwillingness- or inability- to provide an explanation. For more than a week, nary a whisper was heard from the Clinton camp on the topic.

In the meantime, media attention and public interest surrounding the story only intensified. Conservatives demanded to know what was in the emails and whether Clinton’s server had any cybersecurity in place at all. Although Hillary asserted that she had handed over all her work-related emails- a whopping 55,000 pages- to the State Department, the fact that there was no way to verify that claim only added to the buzz. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R- South Carolina), the conservative chairman of the House’s Benghazi committee, soon linked the email scandal to his Benghazi investigation. According to Gowdy, there were suspiciously large gaps of time between some of the Clinton emails pertaining to the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. With questions abounding and pressure mounting, the former Secretary of State finally realized that she would have to face the media to address the controversy.

Mrs. Clinton met the press on Wednesday, March 11 on the sidelines of a UN conference in New York. One obnoxious press conference later, reporters were left with at least as many questions as they had before. Clinton had employed a private server for the sake of “convenience.” According to Hillary, it was somehow more convenient for her to use a personal address for government business, since with one email account for everything she would not have to carry two phones at all times. I guess Secretary Clinton is unaware that it is quite easy to access multiple email accounts from the same cellphone. In an annoyed tone of voice and with a condescending half-smile, Clinton maintained that she had not broken any rules, in effect arguing with virtually every independent legal source who publicly commented on the scandal. She also admitted to deleting some emails- supposedly only those that had nothing to do with her work at the State Department- before submitting her emails to the department for review and release, which she said she did “even though I knew that the State Department already had the vast majority of them.” This claim that most of Clinton’s emails were automatically archived by the State Department when they were sent was later rebutted by Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. In other words, the State Department now has only the emails which Hillary and her staff chose to share with them. Democrats would love to make this whole story go away, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s decision on Sunday to form a committee to investigate the email mess makes it clear that the controversy will not quickly disappear. The question is, what kind of impact will the scandal have on Clinton’s presidential aspirations?

Barring a major, unexpected occurrence (like a Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren entrance into the race), Hillary still seems to be in total control of the Democratic primary. While during the 2008 race Clinton’s Democratic primary opponents exploited every error the then-senator made, this time around she has no opposition so far from within her own party. Even her most likely Democratic adversaries- former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders- are not at all eager to exploit the unfolding scandal as an opportunity to attack the former Secretary of State. If O’Malley, for instance, had chosen to get into the race when the story first broke, he would have received a lot of bonus media attention because his decision to run would be taken as a sign that Hillary has become vulnerable. But O’Malley did not take advantage of this state of affairs, and surprisingly, nor did any other prominent Democrat who is likely to run next year. So it doesn’t seem likely that Hillary’ email issues will plague her in her quest for the nomination.

A more interesting question is how this will play out in the general election, assuming that Hillary makes it there. Of course, the GOP nominee- be it Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or anyone else- will have plenty of good questions about why Clinton disregarded State Department rules, the Federal Records Act and cybersecurity concerns. These questions have no good answers. However, there seems to be a certain feeling among the Washington DC press corps that no matter how much the Republicans hammer away at the assumed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, she will emerge stronger than ever, just as her husband did as he weathered one scandal after another during the nineties. Additionally, Americans will eventually grow bored of the email controversy and Republicans are likely to overplay their hand, much like they’ve done with the Benghazi scandal.

On the other hand, there is reason for conservatives to be optimistic about the prospects of effectively sabotaging Hillary in the general election. Republican leaders in Congress became aware of Clinton’s private server as early as August, when the State Department was forced to release fifteen thousand pages of Benghazi-related documents to Gowdy’s committee, among them papers which included the former Secretary’s personal email address. Admirably, Republican leadership chose to sit on this information and save it for when it could be more effective rather than to “waste” the scandal by breaking it too early. Eventually the Times caught wind of the story on its own, but who knows what other damaging dirt the Republicans have on Clinton that they may be saving for another day? Obviously this is just speculation, but one thing is certain: Gowdy’s decision- presumably made in conjunction with GOP leadership- not to make the email story known back in August demonstrated that the Republicans are collectively on top of their game heading into 2016.

Will the email story severely damage Clinton? Or will it just slide off her to be forgotten in a few weeks or months? Probably somewhere in between. For now, though, what we can draw from the email mess and the Clinton camp’s sloppy response in the aftermath is that Hillary is in fact more vulnerable than it has been thought until now. She is far from the dream candidate many liberals have been making her out to be, and the Democrats would be well advised to consider alternative candidates with fresher perspectives and less baggage.