State Dept. to
Hillary lawyer: Destroy classified Benghazi email
'Evident contempt and obstruction of justice by Clinton and
Obama administration'
Garth Kant
WASHINGTON – Another jolting disclosure in the Hillary Clinton email scandal: The State Department asked her
lawyer to destroy all electronic copies of an email with classified information
on the Benghazi
terrorist attack.
Clinton attorney David Kendall refused
the request from Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, citing
requests by Congress and other investigators to preserve her records, but he
suggested the email might be deleted at some point.
This latest revelation was uncovered by the government
watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of its lawsuit asking a federal court to
protect any emails Clinton has not yet provided, including the ones she and her
staff declared were personal.
On Monday, as WND reported,
Judicial Watch learned there are gaps totaling five months in the emails sent
and received by Clinton on her private server, beginning when she took office
as secretary of state in 2009.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the gaps indicate
Clinton lied under oath when she said all her emails had been turned over.
In response to a court order prompted by a Judicial Watch
lawsuit, Clinton declared in August, under penalty of perjury, “I have directed
that all of my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or
potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State.”
“Judicial Watch exposed a cover-up with criminal
implications. Why on Earth would John Kerry’s State Department tell Mrs.
Clinton to delete classified Benghazi records before finding out where and how
this material had been disclosed?” asked Fitton.
He added: “That the State Department asked Clinton’s lawyer
to destroy federal records shows a level of disdain for the rule of law that
goes beyond the pale. These letters should have been disclosed to more than one
federal judge. The evident contempt and obstruction of justice by both Mrs.
Clinton and the Obama administration will be brought to the attention the
courts.”
Fitton’s group announced Thursday it had also obtained
documents showing Clinton has ignored an order to provide electronic copies of
the 55,000 pages of emails she previously provided only on paper.
A July 2 letter on from the chief records officer at
National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, Paul M. Wester Jr., to
Margaret P. Grafeld, deputy assistant secretary for global information services
at the State Department, shows the records were not turned over, as the
department made a second request:
I would like to reiterate our request that the Department
contact the representatives of former Secretary Clinton to secure the native
electronic versions with associated metadata of the approximately 55,000 hard
copy pages of emails.
Judicial Watch reported the State Department apparently
didn’t ask again, as a letter Sept. 16 showed it tried to obtain the records
from the FBI, which had obtained electronic copies of the 55,000 Clinton
emails.
The FBI is investigating Clinton’s use of her private email
server for government business and is trying to retrieve 30,000 emails she
deleted after her own staff deemed them personal correspondence. Judicial Watch
is also trying to obtain the emails.
Also revealed Thursday, the watchdog group said a May 22
letter from Kennedy to Kendall showed the State Department knew Clinton had
classified material in her emails two months before the public learned of it
July 23, when the intelligence community’s inspector general informed Congress.
That letter reads in part:
I am writing in reference to the following e-mail that is
among the approximately 55,000 pages that were identified as potential federal
records and produced on behalf of former Secretary Clinton to the Depa1tment of
State on December 5, 2014: E-mail forwarded by Jacob Sullivan to Secretary
Clinton on November 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm (Subject: Fw: FYI- Report of arrests
-possible Benghazi connection).
Please be advised that today the above referenced e-mail,
which previously was unclassified, has been classified as “Secret” pursuant to
Section 1.7(d) of Executive Order 13526 in connection with a review and release
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In order to safeguard and protect
the classified information, I ask – consistent with my letter to you dated
March 23 2015 – that you, Secretary Clinton and others assisting her in
responding to congressional and related inquiries coordinate in taking the
steps set forth below. A copy of the document as redacted under the FOIA is
attached to assist you in your search.
Once you have made the electronic copy of the documents for the
Department, please locate any electronic copies of the above-referenced
classified document in your possession. If you locate any electronic copies,
please delete them. Additionally, once you have done that, please empty your
“Deleted Items” folder.
Several weeks later, on June 15, Kendall replied that would
not be prudent:
This will also confirm that, pursuant to your request, we
have deleted all electronic copies of this document, with the following
exception. I have received document preservation requests pertaining to the
55,000 pages of e-mails from the House of Representatives Select Committee on
Benghazi, the Inspector General of the State Department, and the Inspector
General of the Intelligence Community (DNI). I have responded to each preservation
request by confirming to the requestor that I would take reasonable steps to
preserve these 55,000 pages of former Secretary Clinton’s e-mails in their
present electronic form. I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to
delete, as you request, the above-referenced e-mail from the master copies or
the PST file that we are preserving.
But Kendall also suggested the information might still be
deleted at some point:
Once the document preservation requests referenced above
expire, we will proceed to make the requested deletions. This present
arrangement would cover the single document recently classified “Secret”.
Should there be further reclassifications during the Department’s FOIA [Freedom
of Information Act] review of former Secretary Clinton’s e-mails, it also would
cover any such additional documents.
Kendall is a longtime Clinton confidant who represented
President Bill
Clinton in his impeachment trial
during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Benghazi
Thomas R. Pickering
was the chairman of the review board that investigated the 2012 attack on U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2013, a lifetime
trustee at the Aspen Institute (think
tank), an undersecretary for the U.S.
Department of State, and is a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Note: Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think tank), the Brookings Institution (think
tank), and the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society,
is the founder & chairman for the Open
Society Foundations, and a co-chair, national finance council for the Ready PAC (Ready For Hillary).
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
John
Brademas was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar.
Giulio
Tremonti is a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and a fellow at Oxford University.
Walter
Isaacson is the president & CEO of the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was an Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
James
M. Manyika is a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and was a research fellow at Oxford University.
E.J.
Dionne is a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and was an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar.
Teresa Heinz
Kerry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and married to John F. Kerry.
John
F. Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz
Kerry, and the secretary at the U.S.
Department of State for the Barack
Obama administration.
Michael S. Barr
is a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), was an assistant Treasury secretary for the Barack Obama administration, a special
adviser to the president for the William
J. Clinton administration, a special adviser for the U.S. Department of State, and an Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
Richard
N. Haass was a VP for the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, and an Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
Jane
Nelson was a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar.
Strobe
Talbott is the president of the Brookings
Institution (think tank), was a deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of State, William J. Clinton’s roommate at Oxford University, and an Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
Nicholas
deB. Katzenbach was a director emeritus at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, an undersecretary for
the U.S. Department of State, and an
Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
David E. Kendall
is a director at the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund, William J.
Clinton & Hillary Rodham Clinton’s
attorney, a trustee at the Sidwell
Friends School, and an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar.
Chelsea V. Clinton
was a graduate of the Sidwell Friends
School, and is the vice chair for the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
William J. Clinton
is the founder of the Bill, Hillary
& Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Strobe
Talbott’s roommate at Oxford University, and an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton was a director at the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the secretary at the U.S. Department of State for the Barack Obama administration, Ronan Farrow was her special adviser
for global youth issues, and Jake
Sullivan was her deputy chief of staff.
Ira C. Magaziner
is the CEO & vice chairman, Clinton Health Access Initiative for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton
Foundation, the CEO & vice chairman for the Clinton Health Access
Initiative, was a senior assistant to the president for the William J. Clinton administration, and an
Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
Ronan
Farrow was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s
special adviser for global youth issues, and an Oxford University Rhodes scholar.
Jake
Sullivan was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s
deputy chief of staff, a policy planning director for the U.S. Department of State, an Oxford
University Rhodes scholar, and is a senior policy adviser for the 2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential
campaign.
Patrick F.
Kennedy is the undersecretary management for the U.S. Department of State.
John
F. Kerry is the secretary at the U.S.
Department of State for the Barack
Obama administration, married to Teresa
Heinz Kerry, and a friend of David
H. Thorne.
David H. Thorne
is a friend of John F. Kerry, was a U.S.
ambassador for Italy.
Giulio
Tremonti was the minister of economy & finance for Italy, is a fellow at Oxford
University, and a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Madeleine K.
Albright is a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), an advisory board member for the Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands,
and was the secretary at the U.S.
Department of State for the William
J. Clinton administration.
Thomas R.
Pickering was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), the chairman of the review board that
investigated the 2012 attack on U.S.
consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2013, an undersecretary for the U.S. Department of State, is an advisory
board member for the Annenberg-Dreier
Commission at Sunnylands, and a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Jared
Cohen is an advisory board member for the Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands, was a policy planning
staffer for the U.S. Department of State,
and an Oxford University Rhodes
scholar.
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