Oops. State Department withheld Clinton email which revealed private server for almost 2 years

Update: (9:15) The State Department is disputing the timeline of events as given by Judicial Watch in this story. See the Free Beacon for details. Judicial Watch maintains that their clarification is still inadequate. (Original article follows)

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Hillary Clinton enjoyed a huge win in the primary battle last night and she should probably hope that it dominates the news cycle for a while because I doubt her team wants this particular nugget drawing too much attention. Judicial Watch has been pounding the pavement for more than two years now in search of information about her communications during her time as Secretary of State and this week they found out that there was a rather serious “oversight” on the part of State in that process. When their original request for Clinton’s emails from July of 2014 was answered, one document was mysteriously left out of the delivery, and just by happenstance (I’m sure) it happened to be the one which would have revealed the existence of her private email server. (Fox News)

The State Department withheld a vital Hillary Clinton email for two years that would have exposed the existence of her private email server before she wiped it, a conservative watchdog claimed Tuesday.

Judicial Watch, the group that successfully sued in federal court for Clinton’s emails, claims the Sept. 29, 2012 email was withheld from them in 2014 by the State Department because it showed she was not using a government account for State Department business. They received the document last week from the State Department.

“Upon further review, the Department has determined that one document previously withheld in full in our letter dated November 12, 2014 may now be released in part,” the letter, dated April 18, said.

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So what made this email so difficult to release? Was it highly classified, containing information which could put American security or personnel at risk? No… it was a memo from Jake Sullivan laying out some talking points on Benghazi for an upcoming conference call. But the key factor here is that it was sent to the then unknown private email account which Clinton maintained on a server in her home. So how did it slip through the cracks? It was an “oversight.”

Oops. Damn the bad luck.

I first caught wind of this story from Jeff Dunetz, who pinpoints why this “oversight” is so critical in the timeline.

In a letter to Judicial Watch dated the department released documents that it admitted they had previously withheld. If the State Department disclosed the email when first supposedly found, Clinton’s email server and her hidden emails would have been disclosed nearly two years ago, before Clinton authorized the alleged deletion of tens of thousands of emails.

The September 29, 2012, email to Clinton from then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan concerns talking points for Clinton calls with senators about the Benghazi attack and is almost totally redacted. But it does contain Hillary Clinton’s private server email address. Which would have raised questions if it had been released when first discovered.

You can call this an oversight if you like, but some things are simply too convenient to be written off to mere coincidence. If this email had been released along with the initial trove the public would have been made aware of the existence of the private server before Clinton had the chance to delete tens of thousands of documents which she deemed “personal” in nature and most likely have the drive wiped clean and overwritten. But the delay meant that Clinton’s team had months of time to sort through everything and destroy any documents which she didn’t want the public to see.

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Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton went so far as to call it a “cover-up” on the part of the State Department. If that sounds like strong language to you I’m guessing you have a vested interest in seeing Clinton elected because there’s really no other word for it. If this story doesn’t catch fire in the mainstream media (don’t hold your breath, folks) then it may be the most under-reported piece of evidence in the entire scandal.

Hillary shrugs

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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