Tag Archives: Private Email

Featured, Government Accountability, Politics

Ash Carter Used Private Email for Months After Clinton’s Email Scandal Was Revealed

Mar 28, 2016 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

Defense Secretary Ash Carter reportedly used his own personal email to conduct government business, even after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email was revealed.

Clinton’s email use was revealed in March 2015, and it eventually resulted in an FBI investigation into whether Clinton compromised national security by sending and receiving classified information on an unsecured network.

After filing a Freedom of Information Act request, CNN reported that it received 1,336 pages of emails sent and received from Carter’s personal address through Sept. 2015, and that “many of the emails had redacted information.”

The New York Times first revealed Carter’s use of private email for government business in December, noting that the extent of his use was not known, and that at the time it was believed that he continued it only two months after Clinton’s email use was revealed.

[SCANDAL: Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Fired Ambassador for Using Private Email]

While the reality was that Carter continued to use his personal email account for at least six months after the revelations regarding Clinton’s email were publicly scrutinized, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook insisted that Carter’s emails “show that he did not email anything classified and all of his work-related emails are preserved within the federal records system.”

“In December, when this issue first came up, the secretary took responsibility for his actions and publicly acknowledged that his previous use of personal email for work-related business was a mistake,” Cook said in a statement. “As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether.”

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Department of Defense on Friday questioning why the DoD has yet to respond to his committee’s inquiries, and threatening to subpoena Carter for answers.

[pull_quote_center]Now, three months after my initial request, it is difficult to understand why the department has not been willing to provide detailed answers, and the department has not asserted a valid reason to withhold that information from the committee. Please provide the information I requested as soon as possible, but no later than March 25, 2016 Otherwise, the committee may use compulsory process to obtain documents and communications that will answer the questions that were initially raised on December 18, 2015.[/pull_quote_center]

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Featured, Government Accountability, Technology

DoJ Grants Immunity to Clinton Staffer Behind Private Email Setup

Mar 3, 2016 Rachel Blevins Leave a comment

A Hillary Clinton staffer, who set up the private email account Clinton used for government business during her tenure as Secretary of State, has reportedly been granted immunity by the United States Department of Justice in exchange for his testimony.

Bryan Pagliano, a staff member of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who set up the private email server at Clinton’s home in New York in 2009, agreed to testify after months of reported negotiations with the FBI.

When asked to testify in front of the Benghazi committee, Pagliano initially said in September that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right due to the fact that what he said could incriminate him in the ongoing federal investigation into Clinton’s email setup.

Following the announcement about Pagliano’s testimony, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the campaign is “pleased” Pagliano has agreed to testify before prosecutors.

FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee that while he can’t provide specific details about the investigation, he can confirm that he is “very close personally to that investigation to ensure that we have the resources we need.”

“As you know we don’t talk about our investigations,” Comey said. “What I can assure you is that I am very close personally to that investigation to ensure that we have the resources we need, including people and technology, and that it’s done the way the FBI tries to do all of it’s work: independently, competently and promptly.”

The Washington Post noted that there is “no indication that prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the email investigation to subpoena testimony or documents, which would require the participation of a U.S. attorney’s office.”

It was not until February that the FBI acknowledged the fact that it was conducting a criminal investigation into Clinton’s email setup to determine if she compromised national security by sending and receiving classified information on an unsecured network.

Government Accountability, Government Corruption, Politics, Technology, US

Will Hillary Clinton Face Legal Trouble For Deleting Subpoenaed Emails?

Apr 1, 2015 Rachel Blevins 18 Comments

On Tuesday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, formally requested that Hillary Clinton appear before the Committee for a transcribed interview regarding her use of private email on a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State, and her decision to delete the emails and wipe her server clean, after she was aware that the emails had been subpoenaed by the Committee.

“On March 19, 2015, the Committee asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide her personal email server to the Inspector General for the State Department to ensure the full record of her tenure as Secretary was preserved,” wrote Gowdy.

Gowdy explained that Clinton’s refusal to allow the Inspector General to ensure that the public record was complete is “not only disappointing but portends to delay the ability of our Committee to complete its work as expeditiously as possible.”

“Toward that end and because of the Secretary’s unique arrangement with herself as it relates to public records during and after her tenure as Secretary of State, this Committee is left with no alternative but to request Secretary Clinton appear before this Committee for a transcribed interview to better understand decisions the Secretary made relevant to the creation, maintenance, retention, and ultimately deletion of public records,” wrote Gowdy. “The Committee is willing to schedule the interview at a time convenient for Secretary Clinton, but no later than May 1, 2015.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News, said that Clinton will only be in legal trouble for deleting the emails, if there is a federal prosecutor who has the courage to pursue a case against her.

Napolitano pointed out that not only has Clinton admitted she diverted government records from the government, she has also admitted that she put classified information in a non-classified venue, which is the same crime General David Petraeus committed.

“She was so good at this, she could have taught Richard Nixon some lessons,” Napolitano said. “First, she diverted all of her emails to her husband’s server, and then when she found out they all were subpoenaed, she destroyed the ones, by cleaning the server, that she didn’t want everyone else to see.”

Looking at whether or not, Clinton will be prosecuted for “obstruction of justice,” Napolitano said that it all depends on whether there is a prosecutor with the courage to pursue a case against her.

“She now has admitted to destroying subpoenaed evidence after she was on notice of the existence of the subpoena,” Napolitano said. “That’s known as obstruction of justice as well of the destruction of the documents, but none of her crimes will get to first base in terms of prosecution, without a prosecutor to pursue them.”

Napolitano said that if the Republicans continue to emphasize the now “20-year-long perception that the Clintons believe they’re above the law,” it could become a serious problems for Clinton if she runs for President in 2016.

Posing the question to President Obama, Napolitano said, “Why aren’t you having your prosecutors prosecute her? You went after General Petraeus for having some documents in a desk drawer. She destroyed evidence after it was subpoenaed!”

In his letter requesting a transcribed interview with Clinton, Gowdy said that while she has provided some answers for why she did what she did, there are still many questions that remain unanswered, such as why she decided to bypass an official government email account, why she chose to retain email records upon separation from the Department of State, and why she decided to delete the emails.

“We continue to believe Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement with herself is highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” Gowdy wrote. “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.”

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Fact Check: Holes in Hillary’s Email Story

Mar 12, 2015 Rachel Blevins 4 Comments

Hillary Clinton addressed her use of private email to conduct government business during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, from 2009 to 2013, at a press conference at the United Nations on Tuesday.

“When I got to work as secretary of state, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two,” Clinton said.

While Clinton said that she used her private email for “convenience,” in order to carry just one device, she made a comment about using two different devices in an interview two weeks before.

At the Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women on Feb. 24, Clinton was asked if she preferred an iPhone or an Android. “iPhone,” Clinton responded. She then added, “Okay – in full disclosure – and a Blackberry.”

“There are reasons when you start out in Washington on a Blackberry you stay on it in many instances,” Clinton said. “I don’t know, I don’t throw anything away. I’m like two steps short of a hoarder. So I have an iPad, a mini iPad, an iPhone and a Blackberry.”

While Clinton claimed at her press conference that she did not want to deal with the hassle of carrying two devices to keep up with her emails, she also revealed that she did go through the hassle of deleting about half, or 30,000 of her emails, which she categorized as personal and “chose not to keep.”

“In going through the emails, there were over 60,000 in total, sent and received. About half were work-related and went to State Department, and about half were personal that were not in any way related to my work,” Clinton said.

Clinton also made a comment about her the fact that while she did not use proper protocol, and her own emails were not saved onto the government system, the government employees she corresponded with were using the correct addresses, and their overall correspondence was recorded.

“The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department,” Clinton said.

During the question-and-answer portion of the press conference, Clinton made a comment about deciphering between which emails were “work-related” and which ones were personal.

“The process produced over 30,000 you know, work emails, and I think that we have more than met the requests from the State Department,” Clinton said. “The server contains personal communications from my husband and me, and I believe I have met all of my responsibilities and the server will remain private and I think that the State Department will be able, over time, to release all of the records that were provided.“

Clinton claimed that the server contains “personal communications” between her and her husband, and she added that the private server, which has been traced back to her home in Chappaqua, New York, was “set up for President Clinton’s office.”

However, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Bill Clinton “still doesn’t use email,” and “has sent a grand total of two emails during his entire life,” both while he was president.

Featured, Government Corruption, Politics, US

SCANDAL: Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Fired Ambassador for Using Private Email

Mar 9, 2015 Rachel Blevins 8 Comments

Following the revelation last week that rumored 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insisted on using her private email to conduct government business during her tenure as Secretary of State from 2009-2013, a former U.S. ambassador, who was fired in 2012 for similar practices, spoke out about his experience.

On Friday, former U.S. ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration told The Daily Caller that in 2012, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills fired him “based on an inspector general’s report which found, among other things, that he routinely used an unauthorized email account to conduct official government business.”

Gration told CNN that Mills “obviously knew Secretary Clinton was using commercial email,” and said that he was “very surprised to learn of the double standard.”

“I make no apology for ‘rocking the boat’ in the State Department to improve physical security, to enhance cyber policy, and to conduct several other initiatives that the State Department Inspector General misrepresented to build the case that Secretary Clinton’s Chief of Staff used to terminate my tenure as the US Ambassador in 2012,” Gration said.

The August 2012 report from the Office of the Inspector General stated that Gration had been found conducting official business on non-Department automated information systems, which is a practice that should be “limited to only maintaining communications during emergencies.”

Gration’s “requirements for use of commercial email in the office” and his “flouting of direct instructions to adhere to Department policy have placed the information management staff in a conundrum,” according to the Inspector General.

The report went on to say that Gration’s use of private email to conduct government business left the State Department balancing the “desire to be responsive to their mission leader” with the “need to adhere to Department regulations and government information security standards.”

“The use of unauthorized information systems increases the risk for data loss, phishing, and spoofing of email accounts, as well as inadequate protections for personally identifiable information,” the report stated. “The use of unauthorized information systems can also result in the loss of official public records as these systems do not have approved record preservation or backup functions.”

The State Department told CNN that in addition to the private emails, there were “several concerns with management and leadership” regarding Gration’s position. According to CNN, the State Department’s “continued referencing of the other allegations against Gration came amidst fruitless attempts by CNN to ask the department spokespeople to explain why it was acceptable for Secretary Clinton to use private email to conduct official business given that the 2012 Inspector General’s report against Gration repeatedly hammered him for the use of ‘commercial email for official government business.'”

In April 2014, the Washington Times reported that the Office of the Inspector General released a report which revealed that between 2008 and 2014, the State Department “misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts,” mainly during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

The report stated that State Department contracts worth “more than $6 billion in which contract files were incomplete or could not be located at all,” and that these unaccounted funds posed a “significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions.”

March 9, 2015, 3:30 p.m. Eastern: UPDATE: In a statement to us from Scott Gration, he maintained that he was fired for the “use of Gmail in the US Embassy,” and claimed that the Inspector General’s report, “Contains many egregious lies, falsehoods, and distortions on a variety of subjects.”

“I hope the following details help to set the record straight on my use of a commercial email account during my tenure as the US Ambassador to Kenya,” Gration said. “My experience was somewhat different than Secretary Clinton’s use of her commercial account, yet I was ‘fired’ for the use of Gmail in the US Embassy, my insistence on improving our physical security posture, and other twisted and false allegations.”

While the report from the Office of the Inspector General claimed that Gration ignored State Department instructions and “willfully disregarded regulations concerning the use of commercial email for official government business,” he tells us that he made an effort to have his “unclassified State Department emails” and his “Gmail messages displayed as separate accounts on the same State Department Blackberry.”

March 10, 2015: UPDATE: Benghazi Chairman: There are “Huge Gaps” in Hillary Clinton’s Email Records

March 12, 2015: UPDATE: Fact Check: Holes in Hillary’s Email Story

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