Updated

For Hillary Clinton, the hits just keep on coming. Each day brings more evidence that she used her position as Secretary of State to recruit donors for the Clinton Foundation and rewarded them with government favors. The most recent batch of e-mails released under court order show that, in some cases, a hefty foundation “gift” was required just to get an audience with Madame Secretary.

Then there’s the Associated Press report that half of her meetings involved foundation donors, and the separate 15,000 additional e-mails from her tenure that were discovered by the FBI. The developments mean there will be a drip, drip, drip of damning evidence all the way to November.

Yet the more we know about Hillary’s dirty deeds, the less sense it all makes. Even as the slimy details pile up, the central mystery remains unresolved: Why?

Why did she set up a private e-mail server she had to know would be revealed? Why did she continue to do favors for foundation donors when she had promised the Obama White House she would not mix foundation work with official duties?

Yet the more we know about Hillary’s dirty deeds, the less sense it all makes. Even as the slimy details pile up, the central mystery remains unresolved: Why?

Most important, why would she risk a likely sure thing — her election as president — by committing clear ethical transgressions and setting herself up for allegations of criminal behavior?

Remember, all the things dogging her now, and giving Donald Trump ammunition, were things she did after losing to Barack Obama in 2008. She knew then she would run in 2016, so why was she so reckless?

To continue reading Michael Goodwin's column in the New York Times, click here.