The FACTS of the Hillary Email Scandal

The Clinton email scandal may have broken just this past March but the facts surrounding the scandal date back to Hillary’s confirmation as Secretary of State.  Since that time a slow but steady drip of facts, which build a telling case in regards to the inappropriate use of Mrs. Clinton’s private email account and handling of the public record, has amassed.  Here are those facts!

FACT:    Facing certain confirmation as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had a private email server set up in her home to which her private email account would reside on, an email account which she used exclusively to conduct official State Department business throughout her tenure at the State Department.  This meant that no agency within the Federal Government, or anywhere else for that matter, had access to her record and her record was not being archived.

 

FACT:    Hillary Clinton was sworn in as Secretary of State on January 21, 2009.

 

FACT:    In December of 2009 the National Archives and Records Administration issue regulations requiring agencies which allowed employees to conduct official business on nonofficial email accounts to ensure those records were preserved “in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.”

 

FACT:    On the evening of September 11, 2012, the US consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya was attacked.  4 Americans lost their lives in the 8 hour attack and many more were injured.

 

FACT:    On September 20, 2012 chairman of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, Rep. Jason Chaffetz sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Clinton asking for "all information … related to the attack on the consulate {in Benghazi}."

 

FACT:    Just prior to Hillary’s departure as Secretary of State, officials at the National Archives and Records Administration were in communications with the State Department regarding plans on how they were going to go about preserving Hillary’s record during her tenure as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    In a letter dated December 13, 2012, to Hillary Clinton, from Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he asks “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?”  In the letter he also asked, “If so, please identify the account used.”  Hillary Clinton never responded to Issa’s letter.

 

FACT:    Hillary Clinton’s final day as Secretary of State was February 1, 2013

 

FACT:    Upon Hillary’s departure from the State Department, she willfully and consciously did NOT turn over any form of her record to the department or the National Archive, which is required by all senior officials in government.

 

FACT:    On March 27, 2013 the State Department responded to Darrell Issa’s December 13, 2012 letter to Hillary Clinton, which asked several questions pertaining to whether Hillary Clinton had a private email account and Department policies on the subject.  The State Department did not respond to any questions pertaining to private email accounts and gave only general answers to policy related questions.

 

FACT:    On March 29, 2013, in a letter addressed to Darrell Issa {then Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee}, from State official Thomas Gibbons, Gibbons addressed the Chairman’s frustration with the State Department’s failure to provide access to requested documents.  Gibbons wrote that the Stated Department had "provided Congress with access to documents, comprising over 25,000 pages to date, including communications of senior Department officials regarding the security situation in Benghazi,".  The documents Gibbons was referring to where those that oversight was provided only “camera review” access to in a supervised environment.

 

FACT:    On August 1, 2013 congressional oversight committee investigating the attack on Benghazi issued a subpoena to the State Department {addressed to Sec of State John Kerry} demanding that all documents that had previously been made available to oversight only in “camera review” as well as others relating to Benghazi be turned over to oversight so that they could be properly reviewed.

 

FACT:    On September 29, 2013 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs releases its report on Benghazi in which it stated:

“The State Department has refused to provide copies of critical documents to the Committee, including emails and memoranda between key officials. For over a year, it has permitted Committee staff to review them only in camera, which means that the Committee cannot maintain possession of the documents and is not allowed to make photocopies. The Department has further insisted that one of its own employees be present during limited review periods, which constrains the ability of staff to speak openly about the information. These circumstances are unique to the Benghazi investigation, and the Department has refused to offer a legal justification for its behavior.”

 

FACT:    On January 15, 2014 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence releases its report on Benghazi in which it stated:

                “Disturbing Lack of Cooperation by the State Department  -  As the Committee attempted to piece together key events before, during, and after the attacks, we faced the most significant and sustained resistance from the State Department in obtaining documents, access to witnesses, and responses to questions.”

and

“While the Committee has completed its report, important questions remain unanswered as a direct result of the Obama Administration's failure to provide the Committee with access to necessary documents and witnesses. We believe the Administration's lack of cooperation is directly contrary to its statutory obligation to keep the congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed and has effectively obstructed the Committee's efforts to get to the ground truth with respect to these remaining questions. Too often, providing timely and complete information to Congress is viewed by the Administration as optional or an accommodation, rather than compliance with a statutory requirement.”

 

FACT:    On October 28, 2014, the State Department, for the first time, asked Hillary Clinton to return her public record to the State Department.

 

FACT:    Sometime after October 2014, but not before scrutinizing and printing out what she and her lawyer(s) determent to be the public record, Hillary Clinton made the decision to have the hard drive of her email server wiped clean thus deleting the only known and complete public record of her time served at the State Department.

 

FACT:    On December 5, 2014, attorneys of Hillary Clinton delivered dozens of boxes containing 50,000 pages of printed emails to the State Department, roughly 900 pages {about 300 emails} of which the State Department later claimed were related to Benghazi.

 

FACT:    On February 13, 2015, from the 50,000 pages provided to the department on December 5, 2014, the State Department turned over approximately 300 of Hillary Clinton’s emails {roughly 900 pages} the department deemed related to Benghazi.

 

FACT:    Sometime in mid-February, while reviewing a group of about 300 emails the State Department turned over to the Select Committee on Benghazi, investigators discovered the private email address that Hillary Clinton had been using while serving as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    On March 2, 2015 New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt broke the story of Hillary Clinton’s home brewed email server.

 

FACT:    On March 10, 2015, while attending a UN Conference, Hillary held a press brief where she for the first time spoke publically on the matter of her private email account and private server arrangement.  Hillary stated “I feel like I've taken unprecedented steps for these emails to be in the public domain", "I went above and beyond what I was requested to do."  Hillary also stated that she did not use the server to send any classified information, and only emailed one foreign leader {from the United Kingdom} during her time at State.  Hillary also stated that her email server would remain private.

 

FACT:    In a letter from Hillary’s lawyer David Kendall to Chairman Trey Gowdy, dated March 27, 2015, in response to Gowdy’s earlier request that the Clinton email server be turned over to an independent 3^rd party, Kendall informed Gowdy that the hard drive had been erased of all emails “Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com emails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized,”

 

FACT:    On June 22, 2015, the Select Committee on Benghazi released emails to/from Hillary, it had obtained during the course of its investigation, that should have but were not included in the documents turned over to the committee from the State Department thus discrediting any claim that the State Department obtains or has turned over the complete record of Benghazi related documents to the committee.

 

FACT:    On July 24, 2015 government investigators release the news that they found classified information on the private email account Hillary Clinton used during her tenure as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    On August 11, 2015 it was revealed, by investigators, identified two emails, from Hillary’s private email account, which contained “Top Secret” information.

 
These are the facts and nothing but the facts.  What do they tell us?  We’ll that all depends on what a particular person’s interpretation of the fact are and/or, how much fiction is injected in between the facts and how politically motivated one might be to alter the facts to best suit their agenda and how many of the facts are simply ignored.