![]() ![]() She said she did not want to carry around two mobile devices, though she acknowledged it "might have been smarter" to have done so.Īddressing the Federal Records Act, NPR's Scott Horsley reported last month on the question of whether Clinton's exclusive reliance on a private email account violated it. The server has been wiped clean, according to the Republican-led Benghazi committee.Īt a news conference last month, she cited "convenience" as the reason. Instead, she used a private email account and kept all of her emails on a private server in her home. "Knowingly" removing or housing classified information at an "unauthorized location" is subject to a fine or a year in prison.Ĭlinton did not use an official government email account while serving as the country's top diplomat. Section 1924 of Title 18 has to do with deletion and retention of classified documents.They stress that materials must be maintained "by the agency," that they should be "readily found" and that the records must "make possible a proper scrutiny by the Congress." The NARA regulations dictate how records should be created and maintained.FOIA is designed to "improve public access to agency records and information.".The Federal Records Act requires agencies hold onto official communications, including all work-related emails, and government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records.The charge of breaking the law, going around the law or being above it, is one Clinton is certain to face if she testifies before the House Select Committee on Benghazi led by South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy.īut what are the facts? And what are the laws?Īt issue are four sections of the law: the Federal Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) regulations and Section 1924 of Title 18 of the U.S. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the released emails “do not change in anyway anyone’s understanding” of the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks.AP Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, charged that Hillary Clinton "probably" broke the law with her exclusive use of a private email address while secretary of state. Republican Representative Trey Gowdy, who heads the House committee investigating the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attacks, said in a statement after the emails’ release, “To assume a self-selected public record is complete, when no one with a duty or responsibility to the public had the ability to take part in the selection, requires a leap in logic no impartial reviewer should be required to make and strains credibility.” Representative Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, spun the emails in the different direction. “Instead of the selective leaking that has happened so far,” he said, “the American people can now read all of these emails and see for themselves that they contain no evidence to back up … any other wild allegations Republicans have made for years.” Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.” On Tuesday, at an event in Iowa, Clinton said, “I have said repeatedly I want those emails out. Imagine if every "pls print" email you ever sent was newsworthy. Many of Hillary Clinton’s contributions to the email threads are limited to “Pls print” or “thx.” The batch of emails totals nearly 900 pages.īecause there are many people who would like to read these emails, the website hosting the documents is very slow right now. A third of the emails in the news dump, which many hope will provide a clearer picture of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State, have already been released the rest of the 55,000 pages’ worth of email being sorted by the State Department will be released on a “rolling basis,” as required by federal courts. The State Department released 296 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email account today, perhaps hoping that the holiday weekend would wipe them from everyone’s memory as quickly as the emails were wiped from her server. Photo: Kevin Lamarque//Pool via The New York Times/Redux ![]()
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