You may recall Hillary claiming she only used one device during her tenure as Secretary of State for “convenience.” You may also recall how her once device claim was instantly proven questionable when a video surfaced of her stating otherwise.
The day following Hillary’s press conference, the Associated Press filed suit against the State Department over the embattled former Secretary’s emails after repeated attempts to access records were fruitless.
Fast forward several weeks into EmailGate. Today, the AP reports Clinton was using an iPad while serving as Secretary of State, placing Clinton’s initial one device claim squarely in the Big Fat Lie category.
But it gets better. Evidently, Clinton managed to serve as the Secretary of State and only send four emails containing the word ‘drone.’ Ever. Or at least that’s what the State Department is saying:
The State Department says it can find only four emails sent between former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff concerning drone strikes and certain U.S. surveillance programs, and those notes have little to do with either subject.She asks for a phone call in one, a phone number in another. She seeks advice on how best to condemn information leaks, and accidentally replies to one work email with questions apparently about decorations.
“Accidentally replies to one work email with questions apparently about decorations…” Again, I’ll ask — What the hell was this woman doing with her time?
The AP continues:
Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said the low number of emails provided to AP could be because the State Department uses different words to describe its operations — such as “UAV,” or unmanned aerial vehicle, instead of “drone.”It’s also possible that Clinton and her advisers’ emails are not in the department’s archives, he said.”If there are four, one would expect there to be quite a few more than that,” Aftergood said. “And it looks like another indication of faulty records management and retrieval at the State Department.”
As we reported, a damning report released by the Officer of the Inspector General shortly after EmailGate broke, revealed subpar document retention practices within the Department of State.
“It was my practice to communicate with State Department and other government officials on their .gov accounts, so those emails would be automatically saved in the State Department system to meet record keeping requirements and that is indeed what happened,” said former Secretary Clinton in her press conference. We now know this to be false as well.
The report also concluded that State Department employees were intentionally avoiding creating official email records, “because they do not want to make the email available in searches or fear that this availability would inhibit debate about pending decisions.”
On March 20, Trey Gowdy extended the subpoena deadline and formally requested surrender of Clinton’s private server to a mutually agreed upon third party. Clinton’s attorney declined the request.
Today, Gowdy sent another letter to Hillary’s counsel requesting a “transcribed interview” before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Gowdy cites numerous unanswered questions surrounding Clinton’s use of a private email account and a private server.
He reiterated the intent was not to dig into Hillary’s personal business, but to ascertain what transpired during the time gaps not documented in emails provided to the Committee. Adding, “the decision to delete these records during the pendency of a congressional investigation only exacerbates our need to better understand what the Secretary did, when she did it, and why she did it. While she has cited a variety of justifications for this arrangement, many questions and details about the arrangement remain unanswered.”
And to the matter of the server who’s contents were allegedly purged? Gowdy addressed that, too:
As you should be well aware, it is technically possible in many instances to recover electronic information notwithstanding whether it has been “deleted” or overwritten. It is precisely for this reason a neutral and objective party must have access to the server and related equipment to identify information potentially responsive to relevant laws and investigative requests.
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