It's not according to the parent that she couldn't get an email account, but rather that she couldn't get a "secure smartphone"

To extrapolate, the assertion is that she could get the secure .gov email account but it would only have been accessible from secured computers. They wouldn't give her a mobile device to access it, so she improvised.

They wouldn't give her the fancy mobile device that she wanted. They offered alternatives. She just wanted a Blackberry.

If this were, say, some poor low level government worker saying they stored classified info on a private server because they just wanted to use a blackberry and anything else was too inconvenient, no doubt Hillary would call for their head on a spike. The hypocrisy of her record contrasted with this situation is strong.

Either you believe in the rule of law, or you don't. Clinton's actions have shown that she does not.

J. Scott Gration, the U.S. emissary to Kenya from 2011 to 2012 (during Clinton's tenure as SoS) was in the middle of being disciplined for improper use of email (among other things) when he resigned.

What she could not get was a Blackberry. So rather than use the approved device, she decided the simpler solution was to host her own email and just use a off the shelf device? Nothing about this makes any sense.