Even though Hillary Clinton provided some kind of certification as directed by the court, her top aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills seem to want more time before they finish providing material and before they make any “certification” about the completeness of what they have provided
JUDGE EMMET SULLIVAN DOESN’T SEEM REALLY PLEASED WITH ALL THE GOINGS-ON IN THIS CIVIL FOIA CASE AGAINST THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT — AND LAST NIGHT HE ISSUED A NEW FEDERAL COURT ORDER: INSTRUCTING THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT TO TELL HILLARY CLINTON, HUMA ABEDIN AND CHERYL MILLS NOT TO DESTROY ANY FEDERAL DOCUMENTS IN THEIR POSSESSION
According to a report in Politico on Saturday, “Acting in response to a request from a federal judge, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday submitted her first official, formal certification under penalty of perjury that she had all her work-related email turned over to the State Department.... However, two aides to Clinton appear to have rebuffed parallel requests from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan that they similarly certify that they'd turned over certain emails and other records in their possession relating to their work at State.... Last week, Sullivan ordered the State Department to ask Clinton, former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to personally vouch that they'd turned over all records responsive to a Freedom of Information Act request the conservative group Judicial Watch filed seeking information on Abedin's employment arrangements.... While Sullivan's order sought personal confirmation from all three former officials that they'd turned over all related records as well as details of any use Mills and Abedin made of Clinton's email server, neither of the two aides sent a personal declaration to the court. Instead, lawyers for each of the staffers submitted letters providing some details on the situation....” ( See “Hillary Clinton certifies email handover, but aides demur” by Josh Gerstein, 8/8/15, Politico [http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/08/hillary-clinton-certifies-email-handover-but-aides-212074.html]).
Josh Gerstein and Politico made particular note of the following shortcoming of Hillary Clinton’s “certification”: “.... Clinton's formal declaration may not satisfy her critics because while she has said she directed that all potential federal records in her private email account be turned over to her former agency, she can't personally certify that the handover was complete because she left the actual sorting process to her attorneys....”
THE CHERYL MILLS DISCLOSURES – SO FAR
Clinton aide Cheryl Mills' attorney, Beth Wilkinson, said in letter to the State Department that Mills turned over some work-related records to State on June 25 and plans to provide the remainder on Monday. Also notable was this statement by Wilkinson: "Ms. Mills did not have an account on Secretary Clinton's email server."
RESPONSES MADE ON BEHALF OF HUMA ABEDIN – SO FAR
According to Politico, “.... Abedin's lawyers, Karen Dunn and Miguel Rodriguez, said their client produced some records to State on July 9, they are planning another production Saturday and expect to complete turning over all work-related records by August 28. Abedin's attorney's also noted that the State Department sent its first request for her records to "an incorrect address" and also sent follow-up emails to dated email addresses.... ‘Ms. Abedin’s initial ability to respond was impeded by the Department’s failure to ensure that the request timely reached Ms. Abedin,’ Dunn and Rodriguez wrote. Their letter did not address Sullivan's question about use of ‘Mrs. Clinton's email server to conduct official government business.’...”
NEW ORDER TO GOVERNMENT INTENDED FOR HILLARY CLINTON & HER AIDES ISSUED OVER NIGHT BY JUDGE SULLIVAN
Politico also reported that “.... [Federal District Judge Emmet] Sullivan did not appear completely satisfied with the assurances in the latest round of letters, as he issued an order Friday night instructing [the U.S. State Department] to ask Clinton, Mills and Abedin not to destroy any official records.... ‘The Court hereby directs the Government to request that Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Ms. Huma Abedin, and Ms. Cheryl Mills i) not delete any federal documents, electronic or otherwise, in their possession or control, and ii) provide appropriate assurances to the Government that the above-named individuals will not delete any such documents,’ wrote Sullivan, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. ‘The Government shall inform the Court of the status of its compliance with this Order no later than August 12, 2015, including a copy of any assurances provided by Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Abedin and Ms. Mills that they will not delete any federal documents in their possession or control.’... So far, Sullivan has refrained from issuing any orders directly to Clinton or her former aides in connection with the Judicial Watch suit, apparently because they are neither parties to the case nor current employees of the sole defendant in the suit: the State Department. Wilkinson's letter notes both those facts and adds that Mills was never asked to search for any records related to the suit until the judge issued his order last week. The FOIA request at issue was filed in 2013....”
POLITICO GIVES SOME CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND TO THIS LITIGATION INVOLVING THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
The current Gerstein-Politico article about the turnover of material by Hillary Clinton and/or her aides ended with this: "....
The disclosure in March that Clinton exclusively used a private server and account for her email as secretary of state has led to a flurry of litigation challenging the sufficiency of State's searches for records sought in Freedom of Information Act requests or seeking searches of records Clinton and her aides have returned to State since she produced about 54,000 pages of emails last December. State said recently that it is facing about 40 FOIA lawsuits to which the Clinton emails may be responsive."
UPDATE: THE “HILLARY CLINTON E-MAILS ARE A FRONT PAGE STORY IN THE SUNDAY NY TIMES – AGAIN” EDITION
ReplyDeleteAMERICA’S “PAPER OF RECORD” IS FEATURING A “PAGE 1” STORY IN IT’S SUNDAY EDITIONS THAT CONFIRMS MANY OF THE ITEMS THAT APPEARED ON THIS BLOG OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS
THE FRONT PAGE FEATURE IS A COMPILATION OF HILLARY CLINTON E-MAIL STORIES TO BRING THE TIMES’ READERS UP TO DATE --- FOR SEVERAL DAYS THE TIMES DIDN'T DO ITEMS ABOUT THE HILLARY CLINTON E-MAIL SCANDAL --- SUPPOSEDLY BECAUSE OF PRESSURE FROM TEAM CLINTON THAT FOLLOWED THE TIMES’ BREAKING A STORY ABOUT A DOJ REFERRAL CONCERNING HILLARY CLINTON’S E-MAILS THAT NEEDED POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTION, CLARIFICATION AND EXPLANATION
The cumulative report by Timesmen Michael S. Schmidt and Scott Shane opens by saying, “Earlier this summer, the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence agencies contacted the longtime lawyer for Hillary and Bill Clinton with a pointed question. Classified information had been found in a small sample of 30,000 messages from the former secretary of state’s private email account. The inspector general, I. Charles McCullough III, wanted to know from the lawyer, David E. Kendall, where copies of the message collection might still be stored..... Mr. Kendall’s answer, like so much in the story of the Clinton emails, pointed in an unexpected direction. The official communications of the nation’s 67th secretary of state, it turned out, were handled by a little Colorado I.T. company, Platte River Networks... Last week, F.B.I. agents showed up at Platte River’s modest brick building, opposite a candy factory. Now that government secrets had been found in Mrs. Clinton’s email, the agents wanted to know about the company’s security measures....” (See “Hillary Clinton Emails Take Long Path to Controversy” by Scott Shane & Michael S. Schmidt, 8/8/15 [this article appears in print in the 8/9/15 editions of the NY Times , on page A1], NY Times/ Politics [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/us/hillary-clinton-emails-take-long-path-to-controvers]).
This article in the Times breaks no new ground, but it is rich in detail confirming much of this week’s reporting by other sources about Hillary Clinton’s E-mails, and giving important insight into technical matters and the actors responsible for the installation, operation and maintenance of HRC’s server and the E-mail system as a whole. Furthermore, this article gives the looking glass treatment to the series of justifications given by the Clinton camp for operating and using this kind of system by Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State; along with what should have been done vis a vis proper classification and government record keeping, as well as the competing public interest in openness and document availability under FOIA.
After a discussion of the possible comparative outcomes if the Hillary E-mail controversy is handle as a criminal matter, the NY Times writers ultimately decided that the final judgment will be that of the American voter.