Summary
We’re going to close out our rolling coverage of the emails’ release with a quick summary of what’s in the cache. A full report of the tranche should soon be published from DC bureau chief Dan Roberts.
- Senior White House officials knew of Hillary Clinton’s unorthodox system of using a private email server for government business, including then chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and strategist David Axelrod. Officials, including Axelrod, had previously denied knowing of the email system.
- Controversial advisor Sidney Blumenthal is a persistent voice in the emails, reporting to Clinton on international affairs, particularly relations with Britain. In one email Blumenthal tells Clinton that the “special relationship” is “shattered”.
- Cherie Blair and Bill Clinton’s former roommate tried to broker meetings between Clinton and Qatari and Israeli representatives, respectively, in prominent examples of people trying to lobby the secretary of state on behalf of various interests.
- The emails are chock full of administrative banalities, from the operation of a fax machine to fetching iced tea to birthday cake and rescheduling phone calls, with many missives sent at all hours of the day and night.
- The emails also provide an unusually candid glimpse into Clinton day to day. She writes in brisk, chipper sentences and had an inspirational line from Proverbs printed out in big font. She trades affectionate emails with Senator Barbara Mikulski, and garnered support at times from Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. She relies enormously on aide Huma Abedin for all manner of business and favors, and asks another aide not to laugh before describing her admiration for Chinese carpets. “I loved their designs and the way they appeared carved. Any chance we can get this?”
ABC Moscow correspondent Kirit Radia is noting the oddities of the emails as he trawls through them.
Clinton really likes Proverbs 31:8-9, for one. Blumenthal was often trying to get in touch for two.
Lots of Sidney Blumenthal emails to Hillary Clinton again. "If you're up, give me a call. Sid" http://t.co/w4VGymoV2D
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) July 1, 2015
Colin Powell titled an email “aw shucks”.
Read Colin Powell's email to Hillary Clinton after she broke her elbow. "Is it true that Holbrooke tripped you?" http://t.co/hZkYkQsshp
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) July 1, 2015
“Just kidding. Get better fast, we need you running around. Good being with you the other evening,” the email goes on.
And the redactions continue to mystify at times.
The @StateDept decided to redact the name of the person whose birthday @HillaryClinton was celebrating #smokinggun http://t.co/l3LGhmtmjE
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) July 1, 2015
The Guardian makes a cameo in the emails: controversial, “unsolicited” advisor Sid Blumenthal sent Clinton an Observer article on the Chilcot inquiry and a Guardian article on fallout from the Iraq war.
Blumenthal reports to her on the state of relations between the US and Britain, saying the fabled “special relationship” is “shattered” (according to the people he talks to).
“Consensus across the board in Britain—center, right, left—is that the Atlantic alliance—the special relationship— the historic bond since World War II—is shattered. There is no dissenting voice, not one, and there are no illusions. Opinion is unanimous. The bottom line is that the Obama administration’s denigration of the UK is seen as the summation of the Bush era.”
He also uses the “oleaginous” as a dysphemism, so points for vocab anyway.
Senator Barbara Mikulski apparently keeps up a healthy and jovial correspondence with Clinton. April 2009:
Mikulski: “Best wishes to you and all of the clintons. [Redacted] All of us say a. Hearty. Hello and so proud of what you are doing----you are missed in the senate and by me.
“But you sure are needed where you are. I will be @ your. Foreign. Ops. Hearing. Let me know any questions you want me to askto help get your needs/message across. Loved picture of you+obama on. The. Lawn. Time for. Spring and the resurrection. As always. Your Pal”
Clinton: Happy Easter, my friend. [Redacted] I will let you know about questions for my testimony closer to the date. [Redacted]
Mikulski: “S000 good the old. E mail is working----great to connect. Super news re rescue of our [a marine merchant captain]. I am very close to the unions of which crew are memebers. VERY proud to do it( let’s. Salute. Them the. Navy and the. Mission”
Clinton: “Not only salute, but mark the fact that the rescue/miracle/resurrection took place on Easter! See you soon, I hope. As ever, H”
Mikulski: “You betcha”
In another email Clinton worries about her access to the president compared to her predecessors – and casts a little derision toward Richard Nixon.
“In thinking about the Kissinger interview, the only issue I think that might be raised is that I see POTUS at least once a week while K saw Nixon everyday. Of course, if I were dealing with that POTUS I’d probably camp in his office to prevent him from doing something problematic.”
Clinton frets that Kissinger saw Nixon every day when Sec of State while she sees Obama only weekly "Do you see this as a problem?" she asks
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
The Guardian’s DC bureau chief Dan Roberts has spotted another instance of attempted brokering/lobbying on behalf of a foreign nation by someone in the Clintons’ social circle.
Brian Greenspun, college roommate of Bill Clinton, lobbies Hillary hard: "Israeli ambassador has been trying to meet with you to no avail."
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
Here’s the full quote:
I trust I am not violating a protocol, but word has it that the israeli ambassador has been trying to meet with you to no avail. I wanted to make sure you knew that was a belief being shared.
I can’t imagine why your folks would want to keep you two apart. I hear he is solid. So, that’s the heads up. I am always available if there is a problem with which I can be helpful.”
In an April email, Clinton cracks wise about European officials’ preferred terminology.
Aide Jake Sullivan: “I’m being told -- and still trying to verify -- that as of last week, we’ve succumbed to the Europeans’ preferred term. That there was interagency discussion of this, and that going forward, we will join the rest of the world in calling the P5+1 the E3+3. “
Clinton: “What does it mean? What is the E and who are the three?”
Sullivan: “E is Europe. E3 is UK, France, and Germany. +3 is US, China, Russia So it’s the same 6 as the P5+1, just a different name.”
Clinton: “I already feel safer.”
Sullivan: And I feel ashamed that I had to subject you to this.
The emails might reveal nothing so much as clear a look at Clinton’s personality as Americans have had. Clinton has struggled to live down a reputation for secrecy and awkwardness despite her decades in the public eye, and her current presidential campaign is trying hard to humanize her.
Curiously, the emails may further that end for them. She has fond and lighthearted correspondence with senators Barbara Mikulski and Dianne Feinstein (whom she calls “DiFi”), and she seems to let her guard down most with Huma Abedin, whom she evidently relies on enormously.
She also relied on Sidney Blumenthal, but the emails don’t paint a clear picture of with what exactly. She’s terse at times, but mostly business.
How diplomacy works HRC-style: "Saud asked if we objected to their making a grant to Cuba for development in health. [please] run the traps"
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
The few revelations about Blumenthal include that he was in contact with someone in the British parliament and that the State Department had heard concerns about him.
In which State was concerned by Sid Blumenthal's role getting out pic.twitter.com/gjXjE1Eba9
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 1, 2015
But most of the business emails themselves pertain to just that: questions about what’s happening in the news, about how to frame policy, about meeting with representatives from Saudi Arabia, India, Russia (foreign minister Sergei Lavrov almost gets dragged back from vacation for a call at one point).
More mystifying are the seemingly haphazard State Department redactions. One 2 May 2009 email from Clinton to Abedin has no subject line and is totally redacted except for two words from the secretary of state: “That’s great!”
Clinton not only asked to learn more about the aesthetics of Chinese carpetry, she knows her Afghan coats.
Very dry. #ClintonEmails pic.twitter.com/IyWMuIJFfa
— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) July 1, 2015
So far the emails have revealed not much beyond the toll of being and working for the sitting secretary of state.
And oddities, eg “Subject: Don’t laugh!!”
Can you contact your protocol friend in China and ask him if I could get photos of the carpets of the rooms I met in w[ith] POTUS during the recent trip? I loved their designs and the way they appeared carved. Any chance we can get this?
Reading Clinton emails exhausting in more ways than one: endless travel, calls to assistants at midnight to ask if they're awake. brutal job
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
In other trivia, on 14 July 2009, DC consultant Burns Strider addresses Clinton in an email with “Hey Bosslady…”
Updated
Some panic about activity on the interwebs.
OKAY HOLD THE PHONE -- Who's been twittering? pic.twitter.com/ahHGEYwbvh
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 1, 2015
Clinton took an interest in details of US history – eg the presence of imprisoned Nazis on US soil – and various other more current events around the world that seem slightly more pertinent to her job.
From 25 July 2009 to several aides:
Is the 50k figure State and AID?
Kurdistan election results?
Can you find out for me how many Nazi prison camps we had in US during WW2 and what we did w the detainees--did we ever try any? Did we deport them after war ended?
Re Sudan: how do you pronounce Abyei?
What is % and dollar increase in 2010 budget for ops and aid?
I don’t understand the answer to the prostitution policy question. What’s the simplest way to say it?
Dan and the Examiner’s T Becket Adams note that a fair number of emails appear to contain codes for various people.
HRC email exchange with Cherie Blair in 2009 had code letters for people they had met. I guess they all knew emails would come out one day.
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
I may be wrong, but looks like a lot of code is used in the Clinton emails. Seeing "Santa"?
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 1, 2015
More emails about buildings and food, from 16 September 2009.
Clinton: Where are we lunching?
Abedin: The cafeteria, sitting in the outside courtyard Hes excited about that
Clinton: Help guide me where to get something good to eat!
Clinton and her staff took an active hand in a number of journalist’s stories about the administration, the emails show.
In one June 2009 email, the editor of Buzzfeed, Ben Smith, writes: “I’ve been successfully, mostly, talked out of that thesis”, referring to an unknown premise of an unknown story.
Staffer Thomas Vietor forwards Smith’s email to his colleagues with only one word added in explanation: “VICTORY!”
In another, from 17 September 2009, Clinton personally offers to help her staffers respond to the questions of a New Yorker fact-checker for a George Packer magazine piece. “I know more about this if you wish to discuss,” Clinton tells Cheryl Mills.
The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker has found an email from Senator Barbara Mikulski, who complains to her friend in the State Department that “some days [the Senate] feels like we are doing the public option off back of envelope”.
As amazing as fax machine is, this might be my fave: Sen. Barb to Hillary. #typos pic.twitter.com/4Z1XWxzxhG
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) July 1, 2015
A rather odd redaction considering the context of “Jimmy”, “JC” and “The Carter Center”, notes Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray.
presumably Jimmy Carter here on Euna Lee and Laura Ling: pic.twitter.com/sqGNFXtmqS
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) July 1, 2015
The fax machine versus Hillary Clinton, 23 December 2009.
Huma Abedin: “can you hang up the fax line, they will call again and try fax”
Clinton: “I thought it was supposed to be off hook to work?”
Abedin: “Yes but hang up one more time. So they can reestablish the line.”
Clinton: “I did.”
Abedin: “Just pick up the phone and hang it up. And leave it hung up.”
Clinton: “I’ve done it twice now.”
Clinton’s style of writing is itself a curious mix of brisk intensity and a business-like optimism that wouldn’t be out of place at a unrelentingly chipper corporate office.
“I’m finding this latest memo draft confusing in the way it is laid out. Pls call me.”
“I like the idea of it being issued by someone else but I still want to see it. Let’s close this out. “
“I heard on the radio that there is a Cabinet mtg this am. Is there? Can I go? If not, who are we sending?”
Many Hillary Clinton emails end with the fabulously curt instruction "let's close it out". Do I sense a new campaign slogan in the making?
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
A fair number of the emails have sizable redactions. One from Cherie Blair, wife of former UK prime minister Tony, apparently tries to broker a meeting with the secretary of state and someone in Qatar. (Page 53, “Confidential”.)
Hilary [sic],
You may know but for the last four years I have been working with the Qatari’s and in particular with [redacted] on [redacted] issues in Qatar and I have built up a good relationship with them.
Redacted has approached me privately saying they are keen to get their relationship with the USA onto a more postitive footing and she was hoping for a “women to women” one to ene private meeting with you. She is happy to come to Washington if you could make some time available.
Is this something you would be prepared o [sic] do. [Redacted] is someone who has real influence and she has made a lot of difference already with her [redacted] and with the [redacted] in which I am involved as the [redacted]. I am sure the conversation would not be confined to these issues but would be about the US/Qatar relationship generally.
Cherie Blair
One on page 55, not one but two emails entitled “Steinberg” had had their entire texts redacted.
Updated
More intriguingly, it turns out that then White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was aware of Clinton’s private email server, as was John Podesta (a sometime Obama aide and current chairman of her presidential campaign) and David Axelrod, a former strategist for Obama.
Time’s Zeke Miller is chasing down those who knew about the controversial private email setup.
.@HillaryClinton also consented to WH Chief of Staff @RahmEmanuel having her private email pic.twitter.com/LlZ7L1zAiy
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 1, 2015
Clinton was concerned about celebrating Cinco de Mayo in 2009, turns out. She emailed an aide to ask whatever happened to their plans (Page 54, “Cinco de Mayo”).
Aide Huma Abedin explains: “Ann Manes team brainstormed on ideas for a day long session and celebration but didn’t materialize. We looked into doing something else last week but given the swine flu outbreak, most people were either canceling or toning down things.”
Dan meanwhile finds iced tea.
5 emails in, favourite so far just has this in subject line and nothing else: "Pls call Sarah and ask her if she can get me some iced tea"
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 1, 2015
The emails appear to span 2009, and an early look of them suggests that many are correspondence with aides, such as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, about setting up correspondence with other people: then UN ambassador Susan Rice “says she needs to talk to you” , Tony Blair a few days later, David Axelrod “wants your email - remind me to discuss with you if i forget.”
Updated
Emails released
The State Department has released the cache of emails, 97 pages of 1,900 pages of emails, which you can read here.
DC bureau chief Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) and I will be looking through the emails, and we’ll file in reports of what’s found in the tranche.
Updated
In what is surely, undoubtedly a coincidence, Clinton’s Republican rival Jeb bush has released 33 years of tax returns, revealing $20m in income in the past three years.
You can check out the returns over at Bush’s website, or save yourself a few minutes of scrolling through PDFs and campaign fluff and read a report of what’s in the returns by my colleague Tom McCarthy.
NPR even made a graph.
Bush's $ skyrocketed after governorship adj for inflation by @titonka story by @JessicaTaylor http://t.co/q0fDYKTYzb pic.twitter.com/kVQzTt7xvV
— Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) June 30, 2015
And Bush even says he’ll personally field your questions, so let your curiosity fly.
If you have questions about my tax returns, email me directly – Jeb@Jeb2016.com http://t.co/rh81Nh8m0s
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) June 30, 2015
What might lie within the 3,000-some emails about to be released? No one quite knows, although Republicans will be searching for any hint of activity related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks or any whiff of wrongdoing with regard to the Clinton Foundation.
Investigations into the Benghazi attacks, which killed four people in two assaults in the Libyan city, have dragged on for years and brought Clinton before Congress to answer questions. Republicans have sought to use the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis to undermine the president and Clinton’s credibility, despite conclusions by the Republican-led House intelligence committee, which cleared officials of any misdeeds.
In the chaotic aftermath of the attack, then ambassador to the UN Susan Rice incorrectly said that the assault had spun out violently from a protest, but the committee determined that mistaken intelligence was responsible for the story, and that Rice had not intentionally misled anyone.
Republicans have accused Clinton of possible incompetence and obfuscation during her tenure, but lost impetus in the absence of evidence. After the State Department released its first cache of emails, they seized on her ties to Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to Clinton’s husband who sent her intelligence reports about Libya. Clinton has said the emails were “unsolicited”.
Blumenthal gave one of the investigatory committees his own emails about Libya, which alerted its members to the discrepancy between his records versus those now in the State Department database.
Republicans will also be keen to find emails about the Clinton Foundation, which promised to clear its foreign donations with the Obama administration while Clinton served. But the charity’s health program has not disclosed its complete list of donors since 2010, and the foundation was found to have violated its ethics agreement by accepting $500,000 from Algeria without approval.
Updated
Hello and welcome to our coverage of the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state, a tenure marked by her controversial handling of the 2012 Benghazi attacks, the administration’s wavering response to war in Syria, and Clinton’s exclusive use of a private server for government duties.
Clinton gave more than 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department when it requested them earlier this year, but also deleted almost 32,000 pages that her lawyers deemed ‘private’ and unrelated to government work. Last week the State Department said that it could not find an additional 15 Libya-related emails.
Republicans have hounded Clinton and the State Department for release of the emails, particularly any that might pertain to the Benghazi attack, which killed four. Members of an investigative committee have accused Clinton of endangering national security by her use of a private server, and have asked her about possible conflict of interests regarding her family’s philanthropic foundation.
In May, the State Department released a first tranche of 847 emails, which revealed Clinton’s ties to an independent advisor, Sidney Blumenthal, who had been specifically barred from working for the department by the Obama administration.
Clinton has said “I want those emails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.” She has declined to delve into emails were vetted, describing them only as “private, personal messages” regarding such things as her daughter’s wedding, her mother’s funeral, “vacations, yoga routines, and other items one would typically find in their own email account”.
