Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept.

[TimothyC]

Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules

MARCH 2, 2015

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.

Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.

“It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional committees, historians and members of the news media can find them. There are exceptions to the law for certain classified and sensitive materials.

Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business. But her exclusive use of her private email, for all of her work, appears unusual, Mr. Baron said. The use of private email accounts is supposed to be limited to emergencies, experts said, such as when an agency’s computer server is not working.

“I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business,” said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013.

Regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration at the time required that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records.

But Mrs. Clinton and her aides failed to do so.

How many emails were in Mrs. Clinton’s account is not clear, and neither is the process her advisers used to determine which ones related to her work at the State Department before turning them over.

“It’s a shame it didn’t take place automatically when she was secretary of state as it should have,” said Thomas S. Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a group based at George Washington University that advocates government transparency. “Someone in the State Department deserves credit for taking the initiative to ask for the records back. Most of the time it takes the threat of litigation and embarrassment.”

Mr. Blanton said high-level officials should operate as President Obama does, emailing from a secure government account, with every record preserved for historical purposes.

“Personal emails are not secure,” he said. “Senior officials should not be using them.”

Penalties for not complying with federal record-keeping requirements are rare, because the National Archives has few enforcement abilities.

Mr. Merrill, the spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, declined to detail why she had chosen to conduct State Department business from her personal account. He said that because Mrs. Clinton had been sending emails to other State Department officials at their government accounts, she had “every expectation they would be retained.” He did not address emails that Mrs. Clinton may have sent to foreign leaders, people in the private sector or government officials outside the State Department.

The revelation about the private email account echoes longstanding criticisms directed at both the former secretary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for a lack of transparency and inclination toward secrecy.

And others who, like Mrs. Clinton, are eyeing a candidacy for the White House are stressing a very different approach. Jeb Bush, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, released a trove of emails in December from his eight years as governor of Florida.

It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton’s private email account included encryption or other security measures, given the sensitivity of her diplomatic activity.

Mrs. Clinton’s successor, Secretary of State John Kerry, has used a government email account since taking over the role, and his correspondence is being preserved contemporaneously as part of State Department records, according to his aides.

Before the current regulations went into effect, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who served from 2001 to 2005, used personal email to communicate with American officials and ambassadors and foreign leaders.

Last October, the State Department, as part of the effort to improve its record keeping, asked all previous secretaries of state dating back to Madeleine K. Albright to provide it with any records, like emails, from their time in office for preservation.

“These steps include regularly archiving all of Secretary Kerry’s emails to ensure that we are capturing all federal records,” said a department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki.

The existence of Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account was discovered by a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi as it sought correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and her aides about the attack.

Two weeks ago, the State Department, after reviewing Mrs. Clinton’s emails, provided the committee with about 300 emails — amounting to roughly 900 pages — about the Benghazi attacks.

Mrs. Clinton and the committee declined to comment on the contents of the emails or whether they will be made public.

The State Department, Ms. Psaki said, “has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the committee’s many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the committee’s hearings.”

Oops. Well, I'm sure there are no gaps in the record at all. None. Zero. Nada.

[Mr Bean]

Oops. Well, I'm sure there are no gaps in the record at all. None. Zero. Nada.

I'm also sure Secretary Clinton never once received a single confidential or classified email to her personal email account. And I'm sure her personal email account was as highly secured as government accounts can be including geo location of where emails are sent and mandatory password changes every thirty days not to mention automatic account auditing.

Now I'm pretty sure Secretary Clinton was probably not having all those state department emails sent to a yahoo address but still. There's an excellent chance the Chinese and Russian governments miss having easy access to the American Secretary of state's emails. So if we have an open records request for Secretary Clinton's emails best send that request to Putin, I'm sure he had them archived for easy review.

[Edi]

So, it's not just Republican governors and their staff in various different states who are doing this. What a shock. No doubt Republicans will try to make a huge issue out of this, but they should be really careful about throwing stones from glass houses.

[Nephtys]

This may just be a torpedo to her possible presidential run. 'Uses home email for state secrets' is a simple enough and clear enough gotcha to resonate with the public against her.

[Thanas]

This may just be a torpedo to her possible presidential run. 'Uses home email for state secrets' is a simple enough and clear enough gotcha to resonate with the public against her.

It didn't torpedo Palin in the slightest when her personal email account was used by her to not only run state business, but also do completely illegal shit.

[Nephtys]

That's probably because that's one of the less 'batshit crazy' things she's had happen during her attempt. Like talk about alaskan succession, or have to crib-note on her hand amazing speach notes like 'America = Good, and 'Tax Down'. Or just open her outh

[Mr Bean]

This may just be a torpedo to her possible presidential run. 'Uses home email for state secrets' is a simple enough and clear enough gotcha to resonate with the public against her.

It didn't torpedo Palin in the slightest when her personal email account was used by her to not only run state business, but also do completely illegal shit.

What are you talking about? She completely failed to become President of America, and she never had to run for office after the full collection of WTF hit the street. She literally gave up and left office early before all the 100+ oh shit did you see that came out.

[Thanas]

What are you talking about? She completely failed to become President of America, and she never had to run for office after the full collection of WTF hit the street. She literally gave up and left office early before all the 100+ oh shit did you see that came out.

You have a better grasp on that, conceded. But did it really impact her standing at the polls? So far I've heard that she left office early because it was quite clear she couldn't handle anything stronger than being a part-time mayor.

[Mr Bean]

What are you talking about? She completely failed to become President of America, and she never had to run for office after the full collection of WTF hit the street. She literally gave up and left office early before all the 100+ oh shit did you see that came out.

You have a better grasp on that, conceded. But did it really impact her standing at the polls? So far I've heard that she left office early because it was quite clear she couldn't handle anything stronger than being a part-time mayor.

Her popularity went from 80%+ to under 40% I'd call that an impact Polling report has all the relevent details but from one Alaska paper she went from 7% unfavorable (86% favorable) all the way down to 56% unfavorable on the day of her departure from office.

[Xisiqomelir]

What a beast.

I was staunchly opposed:



to her in 2k8 because of the videogame regulation talk, but it's good to see that a trace of the sassy girl who kicked ass at school, work and love remains. Plus now that I'm over 30 I can accept that the videogame talk was just pandering.

[Broomstick]

So, it's not just Republican governors and their staff in various different states who are doing this. What a shock. No doubt Republicans will try to make a huge issue out of this, but they should be really careful about throwing stones from glass houses.

In this case let them throw - I do not want Hilary Clinton as PotUS.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of acceptable candidates. :::sigh::::

[Broomstick]

What are you talking about? She completely failed to become President of America, and she never had to run for office after the full collection of WTF hit the street. She literally gave up and left office early before all the 100+ oh shit did you see that came out.

You have a better grasp on that, conceded. But did it really impact her standing at the polls? So far I've heard that she left office early because it was quite clear she couldn't handle anything stronger than being a part-time mayor.

Well, the population of the entire state of Alaska is less than many cities so yeah, sort of part time mayor in a sense.

I always thought she resigned to try to make more money on the "motivational speaker" circuit. At this point she's a joke.

[Zaune]

Maybe Bill should have another go? He's certainly got enough redneck credentials to sway some of the moderate Republicans.

[White Haven]

Literally the first text in the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution: 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice'

That ship has sailed.

[Mr Bean]

Maybe Bill should have another go? He's certainly got enough redneck credentials to sway some of the moderate Republicans.

Dang term limits

[Elheru Aran]

It's not even worth mocking Palin at this point, she does the job all too well by herself. Bill could do the job, but a.) illegal and b.) really? I think he's enjoying his retirement well enough.

As for Clinton: We don't know enough about the content of these emails. And as the spouse of a former head of state and a high-level executive official, we can easily assume she wasn't using Hotmail or some such. And when you note that other members of the Department of State, including Colin Powell when he was SoS, have done the same thing, before regulations kicked in... it doesn't note *which* regulations... which would be H.R. 1233... which took effect in November 2014. Hillary left office in early 2013. John Kerry, in fact, is the very first SoS to use an official government email.

So, the fact of the matter is that she didn't break the law. Is it sketchy? Sure. But the article does NOT note whether or not essential documents were encrypted, or whether she sent any sensitive material at all. Hillary isn't an idiot, and note that while Wikileaks pulled down a shitload of State Department files, they didn't pull down any of her email transactions. Of course that doesn't prove much, just absence of evidence, but it's still an indication that whatever she uses may be better than day-to-day encryption at the State Department.

Finally, she's the only SoS to turn over their email records to the State Department. The Federal Records Act, at the time Clinton was in office, only required State Department employees to keep a record of their communications, and obviously she did, as her office turned over a massive quantity of records.

What it comes down to is this: She was following precedent and not breaking any regulations at the time. She kept records as she was required to. Should she have used a secured government email? Perhaps. Were her transactions encrypted and did she communicate sensitive material in her personal email? We don't know. Apart from those points-- it's a non-story.

Edit to include a helpful link: http://thedailybanter.com/2015/03/story ... ful-seems/

[Broomstick]

Maybe Bill should have another go? He's certainly got enough redneck credentials to sway some of the moderate Republicans.

Bill has had his two terms, another go would require a constitutional amendment. I wish this country was doing as well as it did under Clinton. If all it takes for the US to do better would be to have the PotUS get a blowjob in the Oval Office I'm sure we could find a few 18-20 year old volunteers to perform the deed for the good of the nation.

[Zaune]

Oh, drat. I thought that was for consecutive terms.

[White Haven]

That'd be Russia you're thinking of, I believe, what with Putin's Revolving Offices technique.

[Patroklos]

So, the fact of the matter is that she didn't break the law. Is it sketchy? Sure. But the article does NOT note whether or not essential documents were encrypted, or whether she sent any sensitive material at all. Hillary isn't an idiot, and note that while Wikileaks pulled down a shitload of State Department files, they didn't pull down any of her email transactions. Of course that doesn't prove much, just absence of evidence, but it's still an indication that whatever she uses may be better than day-to-day encryption at the State Department.

Of course WikiLeaks didn't have her emails, because that leak was from a government source. The whole point is that she wasn't using a government source. That doesn't mean Russia, China, or ButtPlay2094 hasn't hacked whatever service she is using. We might be able to know or defend against such attempts as a matter of national security if she were using a .gov account. Now we have to just trust whatever private provider she was using did so, and that if they didn't they would tell us. Would you trust any to do either?

We also have to trust that the 55,000 pages of whatever she turned in is the sum total of her communications. But I can bet you if there was anything shaddy in here account that was not included. Which is the other problem regarding the transparency. We can be reasonably assured that the .gov address would not be manipulated or otherwise redacted and thus in compliance with the records retainment stipulations required by law. Not 100% confident mind you, but pretty close. Now? Even if you think Hillary is as clean as the wind driven snow you have to at least recognize that she can never use her disclosure as proof she didn't do anything wrong. It just looks really bad.

[Elheru Aran]

Does it look bad that she used her personal email? Yes. But, you do have to remember that she was following precedent (see Kerry being the *first* Secretary of State to use a .gov email) and, at the time, what she did was entirely within the law. It's not her fault that the pertinent regulations have changed since, and she certainly kept plenty of records if 55K pages is anything to go by.

No, we don't know if anything serious was left out of those 55K pages... but we don't really know what's in the 55K, either. For all we know, her staff decided to leave out the political equivalent of forwarded chain-mail, recipes, Pinterest links, and general chit-chat, focusing instead on the important stuff. We do not have enough information to go on in that regard.

It's like George Washington keeping slaves. Horribly illegal now. But not illegal at the time.

[Jaepheth]

I think the obvious solution is to not let her aides decide what's what and just subpoena all the e-mails attached to that account for the dates in question and have them archived with the state department.

In the future, everyone will be much more careful to keep their personal email account separate from their government work.

[Edi]

I think the obvious solution is to not let her aides decide what's what and just subpoena all the e-mails attached to that account for the dates in question and have them archived with the state department.

In the future, everyone will be much more careful to keep their personal email account separate from their government work.

Past history of conduct in contravention of state laws requiring transparency (among others in Texas, but certainly not only there) has already shown that this is not the case. Those who don't want their shady shit to be on record will continue to use private emails to conduct state business and then bluster and deny it in public.

This article tries to make a big issue out of conduct that has been the order of the day since a long time ago and as noted, it was not even legally required previously.

[Flagg]

I don't like Hillary, but this does nothing to make me dislike her more because it's just, you know, bullshit.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The explicit rule appears to have not even been promulgated for state department officials until sometime in 2013 when she was leaving office.