Of Course: State Department Missed Another Deadline To Turn Over Clinton Emails

The State Department said a review showed that the document, which was released late Thursday, never was sent to Clinton by email, and instead apparently by secure fax, after all.

At Friday’s briefing, State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to talk about Clinton’s email practices specifically but said the State Department searched the system and “could find no evidence and no indication that the talking points, the documents in question in that email was emailed to Secretary Clinton”.

The State Department unexpectedly dumped 2,900 more pages of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails late Thursday night – hours after a scathing inspector general’s report accused the agency of stonewalling requests for public data. At that time, officials told Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics they had no information or documentation of the former Secretary’s email accounts aside from her official, government one. A State Department official said many documents created or stored on secure systems aren’t classified.

In one document dated February 27, 2011 Clinton sends an email to her top adviser, Jake Sullivan, in which she expressed surprise that a State Department staffer was using a personal email account to discuss official business.

Arends and his veterans group have a vested interest in Clinton’s State Department records as well as the integrity of the security clearance process.

And even though Mrs. Clinton left office three years ago, some 177 requests relating to her are still pending, while just 63 have been closed.

Shortly later, Clinton replied, “If they can’t, turn it into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure”.

The report ultimately issued four recommendations to the State Department, including staffing increases and better oversight from leadership. The topic is unclear because of redactions, but Clinton is plainly anxious to get her hands on a set of talking points being developed for her.

But now an email sent by Clinton might prove to be a bombshell in that investigation.

The State Department under her successor, Secretary John F. Kerry, has insisted it’s cleaning up operations and trying to do a better job of responding to requests. But secure fax doesn’t necessarily imply the information would have been classified. Clinton responds by asking for whom Godfrey works.

While Hillary Clinton rallied Democrats out West this week, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, carried her campaign’s message through Iowa. “I was surprised that he used personal email account if he is at State”, she wrote. What she seems to be saying here is to relabel the talkers as a nonpaper so it can also be sent as unclassified (or SBU – Sensitive But Unclassified – which has no legal meaning but alerts the recipient that it is not to be shared casually) in an unclassified e-mail.

In fact, when the State Department’s FOIA office notified Mills of CREW’s request she had her staff pay special attention to quashing the inquiry.

Clinton used private email, which was once hosted on a server in her NY home, to send upward of 30,000 messages for government business.