Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch recently obtained 1,606 pages of documents from the U.S. State Department that showed transmission of classified data by Clinton aides – including Huma Abedin. Many emails showed acts of Clinton Foundation donors requesting – and obtaining – favors. A separate release (discussed further down) pertains to talking points developed by the Justice Department in relation to the Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch Tarmac Meeting. From Judicial Watch’s Huma Abedin email press release:
The documents were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Judicial Watch today released 1,606 pages of documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing repeated use of unsecured communications for classified information and numerous examples of Clinton Foundation donors receiving special favors from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff.
The documents, containing emails from the unsecure, non-government account of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s then-deputy chief of staff, also show Clinton or her staff expressing interest in visiting Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and North Korean dictator Kim Jung II.
The documents included 91 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 530 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department, and further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to the State Department.
If you have not already read the full release I recommend that you do so.
Points of note:
Judicial Watch had initially filed its FOIA request for the following:
Any and all emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-“state.gov” email address.
The State Department stonewalled Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information request. The initial request was made by JW on March 15, 2015 – over 2 years ago. After the State Department refused to respond, JW filed a lawsuit on May 8, 2015. On January 11, 2016, Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled in JW’s favor and required State to begin rolling releases of the documents requested. All documents were to have been released by March 15, 2017. Judicial Watch is only now receiving these documents.
91 of the emails received in this latest batch of State Department documents are emails that had not been previously turned over. As JW noted, this brings the number of emails NOT released by Clinton to 530 – and counting.
At least four of these emails were classified and contained classified information. One classified email was sent to Huma Abedin’s unsecure email account.
Many emails contain requests for favors and show direct flows of information between Clinton’s staff and outside donors. One such email shows Miguel Lausell, who donated $1 million to the Clinton Presidential Library and was a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, asking for the appointment of a specific individual as the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Another email is pushing for the appointment of an individual for a senior position at the State Department. There are numerous examples of pay-to-play behavior.
Tony Rodham – Clinton’s brother – made several special requests, including one in which he asks for Green Card for a friend. “Tony Rodham was seeking to help someone caught up in a criminal case involving Micheil Saakashvili, the then president of the Republic of Georgia. The Rodham friend was having difficulty getting a green card due to his arrest, which he said was political retribution by Saakashvili. Abedin told Hanley to tell him the request “has been passed to DHS”.”
This is simply the latest in a long series of slowly released – and hard fought – emails showing favoritism to Clinton Foundation donors and mishandling of classified documents. Here is a link to the complete listing and description of Huma Abedin email batches obtained by Judicial Watch.
In a separate incident, Judicial Watch had been working to obtain the talking points developed by the Obama Administration in regards to the Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton tarmac meeting. JW finally obtained them and issued a press release on the same day as the Huma email batch release I’ve been discussing. There’s just one problem.
Every single talking point in every single email has been entirely redacted and blacked out. You may find them here. The first pages are a response letter. The redactions begin a few pages down. To place this in proper perspective, note there are 317 pages in these email chains…
It all starts so simply:
- From: Levine, Mike – ABC News
- To: Melanie Newman – Justice Department – Director, Office of Public Affairs
- June 28, 2016 at 1:14:13 PM EDT
Hey guys, wanted to address something ASAP… Apparently our affiliate in Phoenix is hearing that the AG met with Bill Clinton on a plane last night for close to an hour. They seem to think it’s somehow connected to the Benghazi report released today (I’m not sure what the connection would be). But hoping I can provide them some guidance ASAP. Thanks.
45 seconds later:
- From: Newman, Melanie (OPA)
- Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 1:15 PM
- To: Pokorny, Carolyn (OAG); Lewis, Kevin S. (OPA)
- Subject: Fwd: Bill Clinton meeting?
We need to talk. I’m on cell…
A half-hour later and the initial talking points were already drafted. They would continue to be extensively edited and refined. You just can’t see them.
The mainstream press did not grasp the significance until the following day. If you scroll all the way down you can see the initial, muted press responses to what would become a full-blown scandal.
From: Newman, Melanie (OPA)
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 10:31 AM
To: Axelrod, Matthew (ODAG)
Cc: Pokorny, Carolyn (OAG); Lewis, Kevin S. (OPA); Franklin, Shirlethia (OAG); Kadzik, Peter J (OLA);
Amuluru, Uma (OAG); Herwig, Paige (OAG)
Subject: RE: DRAFT: Statement/Talking Points
I sent the transcript and link to the news clip to the FOX producer. He had already tracked down the video from the presser. He actually thinks they may not run anything on it today but will keep me posted. He doesn’t think it’s news. I also talked to the ABC producer, who noted that they aren’t interested, even if FOX runs with it.
Given this, we are still holding.
A couple emails later and the press began to realize the scope of the story:
From: Newman, Melanie (OPA)
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 4:03 PM
To: Axelrod, Matthew (ODAG)
Cc: Pokorny, Carolyn (OAG); Lewis, Kevin S. (OPA); Franklin, Shirlethia (OAG); Kadzik, Peter J (OLA);
Amuluru, Uma (OAG); Herwig, Paige (OAG)
Subject: RE: DRAFT: Statement/Talking Points
FOX just called to say that O’Reilly, Greta, and Special Report with Bret Baier will report on this tonight. Also, FOX will have a reporter at the LA presser and this will ask about it. Peter [Kadzik] – OLA is going to get questions about this and I think the talking points we drafted will be useful for your purposes.
Other than small conversations, every single meaningful comment – and all talking points – are blacked out. If there’s nothing to hide about the meeting – if everything occurred as we were told – why the near-complete redactions?
A few days back I wrote about a press release issued by the House Judiciary Committee calling for the appointment of a second Special Counsel. In that letter, the committee listed fourteen items they wanted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate. The first eight of these items all related directly to Hillary Clinton. They are:
- Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation;
- The shadow cast over our system of justice concerning Secretary Clinton and her involvement in mishandling classified information;
- FBI and DOJ’s investigative decisions related to former Secretary Clinton’s email investigation, including the propriety and consequence of immunity deals given to potential Clinton co-conspirators Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, John Bentel and possibly others;
- The apparent failure of DOJ to empanel a grand jury to investigate allegations of mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton and her associates;
- The Department of State and its employees’ involvement in determining which communications of Secretary Clinton’s and her associates to turn over for public scrutiny;
- WikiLeaks disclosures concerning the Clinton Foundation and its potentially unlawful international dealings;
- Connections between the Clinton campaign, or the Clinton Foundation, and foreign entities, including those from Russia and Ukraine;
- Mr. Comey’s knowledge of the purchase of Uranium One by the company Rosatom, whether the approval of the sale was connected to any donations made to the Clinton Foundation, and what role Secretary Clinton played in the approval of that sale that had national security ramifications;
These items absolutely deserve to be fully investigated. The idea that a losing candidate should somehow be immune from prosecution is ludicrous.
Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch:
“These shocking new Clinton emails show why the Justice Department should reevaluate, reopen, or reinvigorate Clinton, Inc. investigations. The casual violation of laws concerning classified material and noxious influence peddling show the Clinton State Department was ‘corruption central’ in the Obama administration.”
I sincerely hope Attorney General Jeff Sessions is listening. He should be.
newer post Trump, McMaster & Trust
older post Fusion GPS, the Trump Dossier, Russian Money & the Magnitsky Act