Because the threat of perjury charges is so compelling . . . . riiiight.
"Secretary Clinton states that she does not recall being advised, cautioned, or warned, she does not recall that it was ever suggested to her, and she does not recall participating in any communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed that her use of a clintonemail.com e-mail account to conduct official State Department business conflicted with or violated federal recordkeeping laws," lawyers for Clinton wrote.
Comment: Horsehockey! Is Killary setting up her team for the blame? They certainly knew what was going on.
Circa sources: Hillary violated federal records laws, and the FBI knows it
Accounts from witnesses suggested the efforts to keep Mrs. Clinton's government email communications on a device and server outside the reach of public records laws or congressional oversight were "systemic and intentional" and began as soon as Mrs. Clinton took office in 2009, one source told Circa.
For instance, the sources said agents secured testimony and documents suggesting that Mrs. Clinton's team:
- Was informed in 2009 that she had an obligation under the records law to forward any government-related records contained in private email to a new record preservation system known as SMART but chose not to do so because her office wanted to keep control over "sensitive" messages.
- Was specifically questioned by a technical worker who was involved with her private email server in the Clinton family home in New York whether the arrangement was appropriate for a government official under the federal records law. The worker was assured there were no problems.
- Wanted to keep her private Blackerry email service because of fears a government email address would be subject to public scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act.
- Was aware that government officers complying with FOIA requests did not have access to search Mrs. Clinton's private email for responsive records.
- Persisted in allowing her to use private email to conduct State Department business even after a cable was sent under her name in 2011 to all diplomats worldwide urging them to stop using private email because of foreign hacking fears.
- Allowed Clinton to keep using the private email system after after she personally received a 2011 presentation warning of dangers of the private email for government business.
- Failed to preserve private emails from Clinton that clearly involved significant government business, including discussions with Army Gen. David Petraues, the Benghazi tragedy, meeting requests with foreign leaders and the State Department's quadrennial policy and performance review.
- Had prior reason from earlier legal cases involving their conduct to know that emails covering government business were legally required to be preserved and turned over to their agency and the National Archives.
Clinton also said she could not recall ever being warned about any hacking or attempted hacking of her private account or server.
Clinton signed the legal filing Monday "under penalty of perjury." The submission was ordered by a federal judge in connection with a Freedom of Information Action lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch.
Lawyers for the group asked for a live deposition where they could question Clinton in person, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan instead ordered Clinton to answer written questions.
Clinton's answers generally track with her public statements on the issue and with FBI reports about what she said during an interview conducted in July.
Clinton "decided to use a clintonemail.com account for the purpose of convenience," her lawyers said. Asked what other reasons she may have had for doing so, she gave no ground.
"Secretary Clinton states that she does not recall considering factors other than convenience in deciding to use a personal e-mail account to conduct official State Department business," the attorneys said.
Republicans have charged that Clinton used the private set-up in order to evade Freedom of Information Act requests, but the Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of state said she doesn't recall that issue ever coming up when she was at the State Department.
"Secretary Clinton does not recall whether she had a specific expectation that the State Department would receive FOIA requests for or concerning her e-mail. She understood that, because her practice was to e-mail State Department staff on their state.gov accounts, her email was being captured in the State Department's recordkeeping systems....Secretary Clinton understood that e-mail she sent or received in the course of conducting official State Department business was subject to FOIA," the lawyers wrote.
Whatever Clinton's expectations, the State Department was not automatically archiving all emails sent to official accounts. State's inspector general concluded that the method Clinton relied on was "not an appropriate method of preserving emails that constitute Federal records."
Asked about a November 2010 discussion of Clinton getting an official email account or State Department BlackBerry, Clinton said the issue at the time wasn't triggered by anything related to her email, but by problems getting informed about phone calls in a timely way. She acknowledged, however, that she did not want State Department officials seeing her personal messages.
"When Secretary Clinton wrote, 'This is not a good system,' she was referring to the way in which the State Department would notify her of telephone calls. Secretary Clinton does not recall what precisely she meant by the words 'address' or 'device,'" the attorneys wrote.
"To the best of her recollection, she meant that she was willing to use a State Department e-mail account or device if it would resolve the problems with receiving telephone calls, so long as her personal e-mails with family and friends would not be accessible to the State Department. Following this e-mail exchange, the State Department changed the way in which it notified Secretary Clinton of telephone calls, resolving the problem that triggered this e-mail," the lawyers added.
One of the questions put to Clinton sought to explore her public statement that "it was recommended" to her to use a private email account while she was secretary. Clinton's official answer indicated she was referring to comments former Secretary of State Colin Powell made to her as she was taking office.
"Secretary Clinton states that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her in 2009 about his use of a personal e-mail account to conduct official State Department business," Clinton's lawyers wrote.
Comment: Released emails reveal Colin Powell advised Killary to use private email to avoid "nonsense" State Dept. security rules
"What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers," Powell wrote.Meanwhile, Powell's been busy trying to walk it back:
"I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels."
In the next paragraphs, Powell described some of the security requirements set up by the Diplomatic Security Service as "nonsense," sarcastically asking why mobile phones are any more vulnerable for wiretapping than a TV remote control. He then said he ended up using an "ancient version" of PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
"In general, the suite was so sealed that it is hard to get signals in or out wirelessly," he claimed.
The former Secretary of State and retired US Army general then warned Clinton: "However, there is a real danger. If it is public that you have a Blackberry and [the] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law."
"Be very careful," he added. "I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."
Leaked emails reveal Colin Powell's scathing comments on Killary - She 'screws everything up,' 'can't believe or accept' that Obama beat her in '08
While Powell's denunciations of Trump made headlines on Thursday, his disdain for Clinton has attracted far less attention. Multiple emails have revealed Powell's frustration with Clinton over the claims that he had instructed her on the use of private emails, during a 2009 dinner with several former secretaries of state.
"She didn't need any advice or ok from me; she was already doing it," Powell wrote in August 2016. "I warned her staff three times over the past two years not to try to connect it to me."
Clinton declined to provide any answer to two of the 25 questions Judicial Watch asked. Her lawyers said she was declining to answer a question about the dangers of using a BlackBerry not approved for classified information because the query went beyond the topics approved by the judge.
The former secretary also passed on a question about why she testified that 90 to 95 percent of her emails were in State Department systems. Her lawyers said the answer called for information protected by attorney-client privilege.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said there were no new revelations in the answers and criticized Judicial Watch for pressing the FOIA lawsuit. "Secretary Clinton has answered these same questions in multiple settings for over a year, and her answers here are entirely consistent with what she has said many times before," Fallon said. "Judicial Watch is a right-wing organization that has been attacking the Clintons since the 1990s, and this frivolous lawsuit is just its latest failed attempt to hurt her campaign for the Presidency."
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