Thread: Did Hillary’s Top Aide Help Cover Up Her Private Server?

Did Hillary’s Top Aide Help Cover Up Her Private Server?

Hillary Clinton’s State Department claimed they knew nothing about her personal email system.

Newly released records show a very different picture.

The top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was told in late 2012 that a non-profit watchdog group had requested information about Clinton’s email, including the number of accounts she used, according to documents released Wednesday.


The aide, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and other Clinton advisers knew at the time that the secretary was using a private email system to conduct official business. But despite the information request, the State Department told the group that it had found no “responsive” records.


“This is evidence that Cheryl Mills covered up Hillary Clinton’s email system,” Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that sued for information about that original 2012 request, said in a statement. “She was aware of the [Freedom of Information Act] request about Clinton’s email accounts and allowed a response to go out that was a plain lie. And you can bet if Cheryl Mills knew about this inquiry, then Hillary Clinton did, too.”


A Clinton campaign spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.


Mills was alerted to the request, from the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), via an email from a State Department spokesman, Brock Johnson, on Dec. 11, 2012. Mills was told that the group had filed a “significant” request seeking “records sufficient to show the number of email accounts of or associated with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton…”


More than two years later, the fact that Clinton had been using a private account during her tenure finally came to light. House investigators looking into the terrorist attacks on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, discovered Clinton emails using a .com account. The existence of the private email setup was first reported by The New York Times.


CREW had looked into Clinton’s email setup after revelations that Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, had been using a private email account.


The State Department inspector general had previously reported on CREW’s request and the department’s failure to find any records, which the IG called an “inaccurate and incomplete” response. But the email to Mills, whom the IG did not identify by name, is the first public documentation on the matter and will provide Clinton’s critics with more evidence that she and her aides were not forthcoming.


The IG criticized officials for coming up with little or no response to CREW’s requests and those from other outside groups even though the information they sought was clearly available.


Judicial Watch has already deposed Mills and other top Clinton aides under oath in a lawsuit seeking information about how and why Clinton’s email system was set up. Now, Judicial Watch wants the judge in that case to force Clinton to give a deposition, as well.




“This is all the more reason for Mrs. Clinton to finally testify under oath about the key details of her email practices,” Fitton said, pointing to the evidence that Mills was aware of inquiries on the subject while Clinton was still in office.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...te-server.html

What may be far more troublesome than the e-mails themselves is the bias of the free press. Let's just say if this problem fell upon the GOP candidate for president, the entire weight of the media and press corps would trounce on this problem day after day until every rock was overturned. Clear implication of the press and how unfair phonies like Mika Bre.....whatever is, as they attack one candidate based on fairness and turn their backs on their own when the acts of the one they protect we are talking about clearly need more scrutiny because of the appearance of illegalities and cover ups. It diminishes the roles of all the news hosts that abandon this issue so they can focus the majority of their time attacking the opponent, fairly or unfairly.

Feds debate releasing Clinton's FBI interview

Congress wants documents from email probe, but some insist it's wrong to make interrogations and deliberations public.

By Josh Gerstein 08/13/16 07:46 AM EDT

The Obama administration is urgently debating how to respond to congressional demands for the official report on Hillary Clinton's three-and-a-half-hour interview at FBI headquarters, as some inside and outside government raise concerns about giving lawmakers access to politically sensitive records of the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email system.

During congressional testimony last month, FBI Director James Comey promised to respond promptly to lawmakers' requests for the interview summaries known as "302s" for Clinton and other witnesses, as well as other information gathered in the course of the year-long FBI probe.

"I'll commit to giving you everything I can possibly give you under the law and to doing it as quickly as possible," Comey told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee July 7.

Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent Comey a letter the same day requesting the entire "investigative file" on the Clinton email issue. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also asked Comey for all 302 reports related to the case, requesting that they be turned over by the end of last month.

Comey and the FBI are pressing to send at least some of the requested information to the Hill soon, but others in government have stepped in to question such a move, officials tracking the debate said.

Among those involved in the discussions are State Department officials, since many of those interviewed in the FBI probe are current or former State employees.

A State spokeswoman denied her agency has objected to any disclosure of interview transcripts to Congress, but acknowledged that State has asked to be informed about what FBI plans to send to the Hill.

"The State Department has cooperated — and will continue to cooperate — with the FBI every step of the way. We support and understand the FBI’s desire to provide information to Congress. Any suggestion to the contrary is false," State Department Director of Press Relations Elizabeth Trudeau said in a statement.

"The State Department has asked the FBI that we be kept apprised of information to be provided to Congress that contains sensitive information related to State Department equities and for an opportunity to review it.

Such an opportunity for review is in keeping with the standard interagency review process when dealing with another agency’s documents or equities," Trudeau added. She noted that in relevant cases State checks in with the FBI before sending information to Congress or making it public under the Freedom of Information Act.

Comey has already faced criticism both for the unusual public statement he made about the conclusion of the Clinton email probe and for the decision not to recommend prosecution in the case. Whatever the FBI turns over, or chooses not to turn over, seems certain to trigger another round of political recriminations.

Some former Justice Department officials said the FBI should not be opening its files to members of Congress.

"The Justice Department would be right to be concerned about the effect that disclosure will have in the future on people being candid with investigators," said former Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ron Weich, now dean at the University of Baltimore Law School. "It's important that the FBI and Justice Department be able to gather evidence and deliberate about potential culpability without fearing that material will be viewed by the public ... Congress needs to stay out of law enforcement. Their job is to pass laws and the executive branch's job is to carry them out. For me, this is very straightforward."

Justice Department prosecutors' statements and thoughts about the Clinton probe could be among the requested FBI materials, since prosecutors were present at the interview with Clinton and asked questions, and court records indicate prosecutors interacted with Justice's National Security Division as the probe progressed.

"Really, the Hill wants to second-guess the investigation. Congress wants to put on their Sherlock Holmes hats and decide whether Hillary Clinton should've been indicted," Weich added.

At the moment, it's unclear what role the Justice Department is playing in the disclosure debate.

"I'm sure this is causing a lot of consternation at main Justice," said Anne Weismann, a former Justice Department official now with the non-profit Campaign for Accountability.

The FBI is part of the Justice Department but has traditionally operated with more autonomy than other agencies. When Comey made his unusual, 15-minute press statement last month announcing that he was recommending no prosecution over the Clinton emails, he proudly said he had not sought approval for his decision to speak out about the FBI's findings.

"I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say," Comey said.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Attorney General Loretta Lynch repeatedly noted that Comey's statement departed from the way Justice usually handles cases that result in no charges.

However, she never clearly said if she agreed with his decision to speak out or not and she declined to add any detail beyond what Comey stated.

"I believe the FBI has provided extraordinary clarity and insight," Lynch said.

However, some former officials said Lynch is unlikely to seek to block disclosure in the email saga—in part because of the uproar over her meeting with President Bill Clinton just days before his wife's FBI interview.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this story.

A House Oversight Committee spokesperson said discussions with the FBI are ongoing, but declined to elaborate.

Release of the interviews Clinton and others gave during the investigation could be also complicated by classification issues. During his testimony last month, Comey indicated Clinton's interview got into some of the classified matters investigators determined were discussed in her email, making the interview itself classified as Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information.

"For example, the 302 of Secretary Clinton, it's classified at the TS/SCI level. We got to sort through all that. But we’ll do it, we’ll do it quickly," Comey said.

The FBI could send a redacted copy to the Hill in unclassified form, but that would surely generate charges that the most damaging or exculpatory portions of the interview were being kept from the public. Sending it to Congress in classified form would be sure to prompt leaks, as well as claims and counter-claims about whether Clinton contradicted her prior public statements.

One former Justice Department official warned against rushing the process for political reasons.

"Justice should go through its usual process, taking into account interagency equities, the fact that much of the file would be classified, and the relevant precedents for dealing with these requests," said former Justice spokesman Matthew Miller. "What they absolutely should not do is short circuit that process just because of political pressure from the Hill. Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be treated any worse than any other American just because Republicans want to keep politicizing this case.”

Each side in the debate can point to precedents for keeping investigative records in high-profile cases secret or for making them public.

Republican lawmakers have noted that the House was provided with 302s and other records from the FBI's now-closed investigation into the political targeting of non-profit groups at the IRS. And in 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder provided Congress with records about internal Justice Department deliberations related to the aftermath of the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation.

However, Justice has dug in its heels on other matters similar in some respects to the Clinton email probe

When Congress demanded access to interviews with senior George W. Bush White House officials interviewed in connection with the leak of a CIA operative's identity, the Justice Department resisted many of the requests, with Attorney General Michael Mukasey eventually persuading Bush to invoke executive privilege. Mukasey warned that granting the request "would chill deliberations among future White House officials and impede future Department of Justice criminal investigations involving official White House conduct."

FBI 302 reports are routinely turned over to criminal defendants and often discussed or shown at trials. However, in certain cases, the Justice Department has fought making them public, even in closed investigations.

Justice has argued that when FBI agents are working closely with prosecutors, the agents should be considered part of the prosecutors' deliberative process and their 302 reports should be protected as attorney "work product" even though those interviewed know what they were asked and how they answered. Such an argument was successfully used to shield records of the investigation into the deaths of detainees in CIA custody, although a court case on the issue is still pending.

But some of Justice's more theoretical arguments against disclosure may have already been mooted by Comey's detailed press statement and his marathon, four-and-a-half hour House testimony last month.

The FBI director may have laid bare so much of the process and of Clinton's testimony that—for better or worse—he doomed efforts to limit disclosure about the probe.

As Comey said during the session: "I'm a big fan of transparency."

Feds debate releasing Clinton's FBI interview - POLITICO

Let's go transparent, if you did nothing wrong, then there should be nothing to be afraid of, right?

Clear implication of the press and how unfair phonies like Mika Bre.....whatever is, as they attack one candidate based ....

Mike Brzezinski if the co-host with Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe.

She is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzesinski, former Counselor to Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War Escalation, 1966 to 1968 and was National Security Advisor for Jimmy Carter, 1977 to 1981.

Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan); the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II); the brokering of the Camp David Accords; the transition of Iran from an important U.S. ally to an anti-Western Islamic Republic; encouraging dissidents in Eastern Europe and emphasizing human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union;[4] the arming of the mujahideen in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.

Mika does not have the best interest of the United States at heart. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

We should have never abandoned Taiwan, never relinquished control of the Panama Canal, never armed the "mujahideen" which founded the Taliban, never made Iran an enemy, never done anything that would have caused an assassination of an Egyptian President destabilizing Egypt for decades, which is all the Camp David Accords accomplished, never undermined the Russians, and etc., etc.

MIKA is all wrong about everything, she's a first generation American whose background hasn't prepared her in any way at all to be some type of MEDIA SPOKESMAN for American Politics. In fact, she is so UN-AMERICAN that she actually believes "leaders" in the Republican Party can "do something" to dump a duly elected, fairly nominated Presidential candidate, and harps on it every single day. How Joe Scarborough can associate with someone like that just to have a "show" he rarely shows up for any more, too busy off playing his guitar in bars somewhere, just shows how unfit he is to be some MEDIA SPOKESMAN for the Republican Party.

Shame on them both. They're both frauds. Big-Time.

I think for US the best foreign policy would for Europe to seek friends who has not be anti Trump they might be coming into power like Front National in France

Judy wrote:

MIKA is all wrong about everything, she's a first generation American whose background hasn't prepared her in any way at all to be some type of MEDIA SPOKESMAN for American Politics. In fact, she is so UN-AMERICAN that she actually believes "leaders" in the Republican Party can "do something" to dump a duly elected, fairly nominated Presidential candidate, and harps on it every single day. How Joe Scarborough can associate with someone like that just to have a "show" he rarely shows up for any more, too busy off playing his guitar in bars somewhere, just shows how unfit he is to be some MEDIA SPOKESMAN for the Republican Party.

Shame on them both. They're both frauds. Big-Time.

Very well said Judy. I couldn't agree with you more.

Thank you, joe s!