Judicial Watch formally asks US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth for permission to depose Clinton as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

This is actually one of two similar cases involving Judicial Watch and Clinton. In the other case, handled by federal judge Emmet Sullivan, Judicial Watch has not asked for Clinton’s deposition yet, but they may do so in the future, and they are deposing some of her former aides. In this case, Clinton could be forced to testify under oath about her use of a private email account for government work as well as the State Department’s response to FOIA requests for information related to the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. (Politico, 05/16/2016)

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan is allowing Judicial Watch to depose six US officials under oath, mostly Clinton’s former aides, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, on the following dates:

• May 18: Former deputy assistant secretary of state Lewis Lukens will be interviewed on May 18.
• May 27: Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills.
• June 3: Stephen Mull, former State Department executive secretary.
• June 6: Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s former computer technician who managed her private server.
• June 28: Huma Abedin, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff.
• June 29: Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s under secretary for management since 2007 until current.

Judicial Watch can interview each witness for up to seven hours, and the video of the interviews can be made public several days later. The questioning will be limited, but includes the issue of how Clinton’s private server was set up and managed, and why the State Department didn’t properly fulfill FOIA requests for Clinton’s emails. (The Wall Street Journal, 5/17/2016) (Judicial Watch, 5/17/2015)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (Credit: ABC News)

Clapper publicly comments, “We’ve already had some indications” of hacking on the computer networks of the two frontrunners in the presidential race. He warns, “We’ll probably have more.” He suggests the hackers could be working for foreign governments.

V. Miller Newton, who advises federal agencies on data security, says foreign spying on campaign sites is inevitable. “These campaigns are not working on encrypted platforms. It’s a matter of when, and how serious of an impact it is going to have on this election.” (The Associated Press, 5/18/2016) 

It will later emerge that a hacking attack on the DNC [Democratic National Committee] was already discovered, in late April 2016, after staffers noticed unusual activity on the DNC’s computer network. (McClatchy Newspapers, 6/14/2016)

Lewis Lukens (Credit: Harry Hamburg / The Associated Press)

Lukens has been deposed as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by Judicial Watch. He is the first of six to be deposed as part of that lawsuit, which is presided over by federal judge Emmet Sullivan. (The New York Times, 5/18/2016) (Judicial Watch v. State Lukens Testimony 01363 5/26/2016)

Robert Gates (Credit: public domain)

In an interview, he says, “There’s the whole email thing, which I think is really a concern in terms of judgment. I don’t know what originally prompted her to think that was a good idea. […] Using an offline server I think was an error.”

Gates was defense secretary under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has declined to endorse anyone in the 2016 presidential race so far. (USA Today, 5/19/2016)

In an interview, Clinton says, “I will be the nominee for my party… That is already done in effect. There is no way I won’t be.” Clinton calls her delegate lead over candidate Bernie Sanders “insurmountable.” (The Hill, 5/19/2016)

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump indicates he’s planning to emphasize Clinton’s email scandal if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination battle against Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump says that Sanders “didn’t pick up on the emails, which I think was a big mistake. I’m going to pick up bigly. Because frankly she shouldn’t even be allowed to run for president.” (Politico, 5/25/2016)

Samuelson is one of three Clinton lawyers who sorted Clinton’s emails to decide which ones were work-related and which ones were personal. She did most of the sorting, but she was supervised by Clinton lawyers Cheryl Mills and David Kendall. The FBI mostly asks her about this sorting process. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

Three members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: former CIA analyst Ray McGovern (left), former NSA Technical Director William Binney (center), former NSA Senior Executive Thomas Drake (right). (Credit for all photos: public domain)

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of veterans of US intelligence agencies, publishes a letter that is highly critical of Clinton’s behavior in her email scandal. It concludes, “[T]he question is not whether Secretary Clinton broke the law. She did. If the laws are to be equally applied, she should face the same kind of consequences as others who have been found, often on the basis of much less convincing evidence, guilty of similar behavior.”

The letter is signed by seventeen intelligence veterans. Many of them are government whistleblowers. Some of them, such as Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou, were punished for security violations that seem far less serious than what Clinton has been accused of. For instance, Drake was convicted of possessing one classified document that was not actually marked as such. (Common Dreams, 5/24/2016)

Cover of the Office of Inspector General’s Report, May 25, 2016. (Credit: OIG)

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General releases a report with the title “Evaluation of Email Records Management and Cybersecurity Requirements.” The 83-page report is the main headline at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere, because it sheds new light on Clinton’s email scandal. The Post calls it “a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that Clinton failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private server and that agency staff members would not have given their blessing if it had been sought because of ‘security risks.’”

The report did not cover the classified content of some of Clinton’s emails due to the on-going FBI investigation and instead focuses mainly on record management issues for Clinton as well as the four previous secretaries of state. The office’s inquiry was initiated by a request from Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015, and was led by Inspector General Steve Linick, who was appointed by President Obama in 2013. The report reveals:

• There were “long-standing systemic weaknesses” in the State Department’s recordkeeping. Department officials were “slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks” of widespread email use. This problem went “well beyond the tenure of any one secretary of state,” but most of the report focuses on Clinton’s tenure.
• Former secretary Colin Powell is singled out for violating department policy by using a personal email account while in office, as Clinton did. But the report notes that in the four years between the end of Powell’s tenure and the start of Clinton’s, the department’s warnings about the “obligation” to mainly use government email accounts for work matters had become more detailed and frequent.
• Dozens of department employees sometimes used personal email accounts for work matters. But only three were discovered who used such accounts exclusively: Clinton, Powell, and Scott Gration, who was US ambassador to Kenya in 2011 and 2012. Gration faced an internal rebuke for doing so and was forced to resign. Clinton was the only one to use a private server as well.
• Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with security and records management officials, but investigators “found no evidence” that she had requested or received approval from anyone to conduct work matters mainly by personal emails. Furthermore, department officials “did not—and would not—approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business.”
• Similarly, Clinton had not sought permission to use a private email server, and would not have received it if she had.
• Clinton was required to demonstrate to security and records management officials that both her server and her mobile devices “met minimum information security requirements,” but she never did so.
• Clinton should have handed over copies of her work emails immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. Failure to do so violated department policies and the Federal Records Act. Instead, she provided only some work emails, and those only in December 2014, nearly two years later, after the Republican-led House Benghazi Committee began asking for some of her emails.
• 

  A video image from MSNBC’s coverage of the inspector general’s report, on May 25, 2016. (Credit: MSNBC)

  Clinton has claimed she effectively left copies of her emails with the State Department because she mainly emailed other department officials. However, the report says that was an inappropriate form of preservation. Additionally, four of her closest aides, whom she exchanged emails with most often, also made “extensive” use of personal email accounts, so none of those emails would have been preserved in State Department records just by being received by those aides.

• There was “some awareness” of Clinton’s email account among senior department officials. But there also appear to have been efforts to keep her use of a private server a secret. For instance, in 2010, when two department computer technicians raised concerns that her server might not properly preserve records, a higher official told them her setup had been reviewed by lawyers and warned them “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.” Furthermore, no evidence of such a legal review has been found.

• Clinton has claimed she exclusively used a private email account for “convenience.” However, this claim is belied by Clinton’s response to an email from Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, in November 2010. When Abedin prodded Clinton about “putting you on State email or releasing your email address to the department […] ,” Clinton replied that she would consider a |separate address or device, “but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”
• Clinton turned over 30,000 work-related emails in December 2014, while deleting another 31,000 emails she said were personal in nature. However, the report claims her email handover was “incomplete,” and there are gaps and missing emails. For instance, the above-mentioned November 2010 email was not handed over by Clinton but was found through other means.
• Several incidents were uncovered in which Clinton or some of her aides worried that Clinton’s private server had been hacked. For instance, a January 2011 email to a Clinton aide said Clinton’s server was shut down because “someone was trying to hack us.” It is unknown if the server actually was broken into at that time. However, Clinton and her aides failed to alert department computer security personnel to the hacking attempts, as required by department policy.
• Clinton, as well as nine of her former top aides, refused to be interviewed for the report. By contrast, the four previous secretaries of state, as well as current Secretary of State John Kerry, were interviewed.

(The Washington Post, 5/25/2016) (The New York Times, 5/25/2016) (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

The nine former Clinton aides who were not interviewed by the Office of Inspector General (in order as listed).

The report released on this day notes that it interviewed “dozens” of present and former State Department officials, including current Secretary of State John Kerry and the three secretaries prior to Clinton: Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice. However, Clinton refused to be interviewed. Furthermore, nine of Clinton’s former top aides were singled out in the report for not being interviewed:

• Cheryl Mills, chief of staff;
• Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for operations;
• Jake Sullivan, deputy chief of staff for policy, and then director of policy planning;
• Philippe Reines, deputy assistant secretary for strategic communication;
• John Bentel, director of the Information Resources Management (IRM) office;
• Bryan Pagliano, special advisor to the deputy chief information officer (who also privately managed Clinton’s private server);
• Heather Samuelson, senior advisor to the department (who determined which of Clinton’s emails to delete in late 2014);
• Thomas Nides, deputy secretary of state for management and resources; and
• Justin Cooper, whom the report calls “an individual based in New York who provided technical support for Secretary Clinton’s personal email system but who was never employed by the Department.”

The only other person singled out by the report for refusing to be interviewed is Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016) 

The report was many months in the making. But on May 8, 2016, only two weeks before the report’s release, Clinton claimed in an interview that when it came to her emails, “I’m more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime. And I’ve encouraged all of… my assistants to be very forthcoming.” (CNN, 5/8/2016) 

Later in the day, Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon defends Clinton’s decision not to cooperate with the report by saying, “To our mind, it made sense to prioritize the [FBI investigation] and so, accordingly, Hillary Clinton has said since last August that she’ll be happy to sit with them at whatever point they approach her, which has not happened yet.” However, he didn’t clarify why Clinton couldn’t have cooperated with both investigations, especially since the FBI hasn’t even contacted her yet. (Politico, 5/25/2016)

According to the Washington Post, “[State Department] officials didn’t have a ‘complete understanding’ of Clinton’s email practices, the official said. The official added that, in retrospect, the agency ‘wouldn’t have recommended the approach.’”

The comments come shortly after the release of a State Department inspector general report that is sharply critical of Clinton’s email practices. But the official also says the department has no plans to take disciplinary action based on the report. It is not clear how the department could punish Clinton since she no longer works in government. (The Washington Post, 5/25/2016)

Brian Fallon (Credit: Bloomberg Politics)

Clinton’s spokesperson, Brian Fallon, responds to the State Department inspector general’s report critiquing Clinton’s email practices.

He attempts to justify why Clinton and her top aides did not get interviewed for the inspector general’s report by saying, “To our mind, it made sense to prioritize the review being conducted by the Justice Department and so, accordingly, Hillary Clinton has said since last August that she’ll be happy to sit with them at whatever point they approach her, which has not happened yet. And she has similarly encouraged all of her aides to cooperate in every way with that Justice Department review.”

By “Justice Department review,” he is referring to the FBI’s Clinton investigation, even though the FBI director recently said they are conducting an “investigation” and not any kind of “review.”

Fallon argues that by the time the FBI investigation is done, “it will be impossible for anybody to suggest that she didn’t answer every question that anybody had.”

According to Politico, “He also said that there were questions raised about whether the inspector general—an independent position appointed by President Barack Obama—has an anti-Clinton bias, though he said there was no indication of any bias in the [inspector general’s report].” (Politico, 5/25/2016)

Jeff Weaver (Credit: Jack Gruber / USA Today)

Politico reports that despite a new State Department inspector general report that is sharply critical of Clinton’s email practices, “Bernie Sanders’ [presidential] campaign is showing no signs that it will seize upon the latest revelations in her email scandal.”

Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, says, “Well, I think the report speaks for itself. This is obviously an area where the senator has chosen not to go. He’s tried to keep this campaign on the issues. […] And that’s why he’s doing so well in this campaign is because he’s talking about these substantive issues and people can make their own judgments about what is reported about the other issues.” (Politico, 5/25/2016)

Judge James Cacheris (Credit: public domain)

The Romanian hacker nicknamed Guccifer pleads guilty in a US court to charges of identity theft and unauthorized access to protected computers. At a plea hearing before US District Court Judge James Cacheris in Alexandria, VA, he admits that he broke into email and social media accounts of about 100 US citizens between 2012 and 2014.

Guccifer is best known for breaking into the email account of Clinton confidant Sid Blumenthal in March 2013 and thus publicly revealing Clinton’s private email address. He could face up to seven years in prison in the US, on top of the seven years he is already serving in Romania.

He is due to be sentenced on September 1, 2016. However, it is alleged that his guilty plea is part of a deal to cooperate with the US government, possibly including the FBI’s Clinton investigation. It has been reported that he will cooperate with the government in other investigations and be “reasonably available for debriefing and pre-trial conferences as the US may require.” He also has agreed to turn over any documents or other materials “that may be relevant to investigations or inquires.” (LawNewz, 5/25/2016)

Hours after a report is released by the State Department’s inspector general that is highly critical of Clinton’s email practices, the Clinton campaign releases a statement that largely dismisses the report’s critique. The New York Times analyzes and disputes every claim made in the 203-word Clinton rebuttal:

• “The inspector general documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email.” The Times points out that only former Secretary of State Colin Powell exclusively used a personal email account for work matters, and nobody else used a private email server.

• “The report shows that problems with the State Department’s electronic record-keeping systems were longstanding and that there was no precedent of someone in her position having a State Department email account until after the arrival of her successor.” The Times notes the department did have long-standing recordkeeping issues. However, the rules became more stringent by the time Clinton became secretary of state. Most of Clinton’s predecessors simply didn’t use email at all.

• “Contrary to the false theories advanced for some time now, the report notes that her use of personal email was known to officials within the department during her tenure…” The Times notes that many in the State Department did know of Clinton’s private email address, due to exchanging emails with her. “It is equally clear, however, that senior department officials were sensitive about people raising red flags about it. When two junior staff members expressed concerns to their boss in the Information Records Management office, he ‘instructed the staff never to speak of the secretary’s personal email system again.’”

• “There is no evidence of any successful breach of the secretary’s server.” While it is true the report contains no proof the server was breached, the server was shut down twice due to hacker attacks. Prior to the report, Clinton claimed there was no evidence it was even attacked.

• “We agree that steps ought to be taken to ensure the government can better maintain official records, and if she were still at the State Department, Secretary Clinton would embrace and implement any recommendations, including those in this report, to help do that.” The Times notes, “many of these regulations [pointed out in the report] existed, in one form or another, when she was in office.”

• “As this report makes clear, Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email was not unique, and she took steps that went much further than others to appropriately preserve and release her records.” The Times counters, “Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email and server stored in her home was, in fact, unique. She left the State Department without turning over any emails, and only did so after she was contacted by the department’s lawyers, who were under pressure to produce documents from the House Select Committee on Benghazi.” Furthermore, the emails she turned over now appear to be incomplete.

• The Times concludes by noting that the Clinton campaign statement “does not repeat an assertion Mrs. Clinton has made before: that her arrangement, while unwise, was permitted. Last September, she told the Associated Press: ‘What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that.’” (The New York Times, 5/25/2016)

The article reports that “Clinton has gone from having a 69 percent approval rating and being one of the most popular public figures in the country when she left the State Department in 2013 to having one of the highest disapproval ratings of any likely presidential nominee of a major party.”

According to one recent poll, 53 percent of likely voters said they have an unfavorable opinion of her, and according to another recent poll, 64 percent of registered voters said they do not consider her honest or trustworthy.

The article notes, “Ask voters why they don’t trust Mrs. Clinton, and again and again they will answer with a single word: Emails.” (The New York Times, 5/25/2016)

This editorial is due to the critical State Department inspector general’s report on Clinton’s email practices made public earlier in the day. The editorial board says the report makes clear that Clinton’s use of a private server “was not a casual oversight,” because she “had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods…”

The editorial concludes that “there is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications. While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules.” (The Washington Post, 5/25/2016)

Wanted Poster for terrorist Umbra Jumdail a.k.a. Dr. Abu (Credit: NBC News)

Bill Johnson was the department’s political adviser to the special operations section of the US Pacific Command (PACOM) from 2010 to 2011, after a long military career. He says secret plans targeting Umbra Jumdail, the leader of a Filipino Islamist separatist group, as well as plans to intercept Chinese-made weapons components being smuggled into Iraq, were both repeatedly foiled.

He claims that he and his team determined unprotected phone calls of Clinton and her aides were the likely problem, after eliminating other possibilities. Johnson says, “I had several missions that went inexplicably wrong, with the targets one step ahead of us.” For instance, his target Jumdail in the Philippines was repeatedly tipped off. He traced the problem to unsecure communications between Washington, DC, and the US embassy in Manila. “Anyone can just sit outside the embassy and listen” with off-the-shelf eavesdropping devices, he claims.

He argues that the leaks stopped after Special Operations Command stopped giving advance warning to senior State Department officials about the raids. Jumdail was killed in a US-based airstrike not long thereafter.

Johnson says such problems “could’ve been avoided if the CIA gave her a secure phone. She requested one, but they turned it down.”

A Clinton spokesperson calls the allegations “patently false.” (Newsweek, 5/25/2016)

Brad Woodhouse (Credit: CNN)

Brad Woodhouse, of the pro-Clinton group Correct the Record, says, “Let the FBI finish its investigation. Let the FBI do its job. We trust that process. We’d like to see that process through.”

Correct the Record calls itself “a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks.” It was founded by David Brock, who also runs Clinton’s main super PAC. (Politico, 5/25/2016) (Correct the Record, 5/7/2016)

Left: Gregory Starr Right: Steven C. Taylor (Credit: public domain)

A new State Department inspector general report determines that department rules required Clinton to get official approval to conduct official business using a personal email account on her private server, but she did not do so. 

In the words of the report, Steven C. Taylor, current head of Information Resources Management (IRM) and Gregory Starr, current head of Diplomatic Security (DS), jointly claim that Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices, who in turn would have attempted to provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs. However, according to these officials, DS and IRM did not—and would not—approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct department business, because of the restrictions in the FAM [Foreign Affairs Manual] and the security risks in doing so.” (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

Cheryl Mills speaks to reporters in Washington, DC, on September 3, 2015. (Credit: Fox News)

When former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills testified to the House Benghazi Committee in a private session on September 3, 2015, her comments remained secret.

However, on this day, a State Department inspector general’s report makes one portion of her testimony public. Mills was asked by the committee, “Was anyone consulted about Secretary Clinton exclusively using a personal email address for her work?”

Mills replied, “I don’t recall that. If it did happen, I wasn’t part of that process. But I don’t believe there was a consultation around it, or at least there’s not one that I’m aware of…”

Mills then was asked if Clinton consulted with “private counsel,” or “the general counsel for the State Department,” or “anybody from the National Archives [and Records Administation (NARA)],” or “anyone from the White House.”

Mills replied she wasn’t aware of any consultation from any of those people either.

The inspector general’s report also included comments from many other senior department officials about this, and “These officials all stated that they were not asked to approve or otherwise review the use of Secretary Clinton’s server and that they had no knowledge of approval or review by other Department staff. These officials also stated that they were unaware of the scope or extent of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email account, though many of them sent emails to [her] on this account.” (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

Obama talks with Chief of Staff Jack Lew, former President Bill Clinton, Justin Cooper (standing in the doorway), David Axelrod, and Senior Advisor David Plouffe on board Air Force One on November 4, 2012. (Credit: Pete Souza / White House)

It had been previously believed that Bryan Pagliano was the one who managed Clinton’s private server. But the State Department inspector general’s report released on this day reveals that there actually were “two individuals who provided technical support to Secretary Clinton.”

The report rarely names names, but the individual other than Pagliano is described as someone who “was at one time an advisor to former President [Bill] Clinton but was never a [State] Department employee, [and] registered the clintonemail.com domain name on January 13, 2009.” Previous media reports made clear the person who registered the domain on that day and was an aide to Bill Clinton is Justin Cooper. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016) (The Washington Post, 03/10/2015) 

In 2015, the Washington Post reported that Cooper had “no security clearance and no particular expertise in safeguarding computers, according to three people briefed on the server setup.” (The Washington Post, 8/4/2015) 

However, the inspector general’s report describes a January 2011 incident in which Cooper turned Clinton’s server off and on in response to a hacker attack, showing he had direct access to the server and thus all the classified information contained inside it. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016) 

In April 2016, the Washington Times alleged that Bill and Hillary Clinton “have paid [Cooper’s] legal fees associated with the FBI investigation, amounting to ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars.’” (The Washington Times, 4/27/2016)

John Bentel (Credit: Facebook)

According to a 2016 State Department inspector general’s report, department officials alleged that John Bentel, the director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat for Information Resource Management, discouraged them from raising concerns about Clinton’s use of personal email. The report also alleges that Bentel falsely claimed that Clinton had legal approval for the use of her computer system.

At some point between the release of this report on May 25, 2016 and the conclusion of the FBI’s Clinton investigation by July 5, 2016, Bentel is interviewed by the FBI. According to an FBI summary, “Bentel denied that State [Department] employees raised concerns about Clinton’s email to him, that he discouraged employees from discussing it, or that he was aware during Clinton’s tenure that she was using a personal email account or server to conduct official State business.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

Clinton defends her email use with ABC News on May 26, 2016. (Credit: ABC News)

Clinton is interviewed by ABC News one day after the release of the State Department inspector general’s report criticizing her email practices. The ABC News headline about the interview says she “doubles down” on defending her past behavior. “This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. It was allowed. And the rules have been clarified since I left.”

But, as ABC News points out, the report showed “that Clinton shouldn’t have used a private email server to conduct official business and would have not been allowed to do so had she asked. It also found that she should have turned over emails after her tenure and violated department policy.”

When asked why she did not agree to be interviewed for the report, “despite repeatedly saying she would talk to anyone, anytime about her emails,” Clinton replies, “I have talked about this for many, many months. I testified for eleven hours before the Benghazi Committee. I have answered numerous questions. We have posted information on our website and the information that we had is out there.” (ABC News, 5/26/2016)

The Associated Press reports that the State Department inspector general’s report on Clinton’s emails released one day earlier refer to some Clinton work-related emails that were not included in the 30,000 work emails Clinton turned over in December 2014. The report stated that Clinton gave an “incomplete” account of her work emails, with obvious gaps, including failing to turn over any emails from her first two months as secretary of state.

According to the Associated Press, “The existence of these previously unreleased messages—which appear to have been found among electronic files of four former top Clinton State Department aides—renews concerns that Clinton was not completely forthcoming when she turned over [her 30,000 emails].”

Nevertheless, after the inspector general’s report was released, Clinton continues to maintain, “I have provided all of my work-related emails, and I’ve asked that they be made public, and I think that demonstrates that I wanted to make sure that this information was part of the official records.” (The Associated Press, 5/26/2016)

The State Department inspector general’s report on Clinton’s emails released one day earlier referred to some Clinton work-related emails that were not included in the 30,000 work emails Clinton turned over in December 2014. Senate investigators had asked the State Department for all of Clinton’s emails months ago.

Furthermore, in the summer of 2015, the department got 72,000 pages of work emails from four of Clinton’s top aides—Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, and Philippe Reines—and yet the department didn’t share those with Congressional investigators either.

Senator Charles Grassley (R), who has been leading a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server, says, “Documents in those 72,000 pages were systematically withheld from Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requestors and Congressional oversight committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair. […] It is disturbing that the State Department knew it had emails like this and turned them over to the inspector general, but not to Congress.” (The Associated Press, 5/26/2016) 

Even after the inspector general’s report was released, there still has been no sign the Department has shared those emails.

Carl Bernstein’s “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” published January, 2008. (Credit: Amazon)

Journalist Carl Bernstein says that Clinton “set up a home brew server for purposes of evading the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA], evading subpoenas from Congress, that’s its real purpose, to not have accountability, to not have transparency.”

He alleges, “if you talk to people around the Clinton campaign very quietly, they will acknowledge to you, if you are a reporter who knows some of the background, that this is the purpose of it. Is so she would not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. So that—because the e-mails aren’t there, that nobody knew about this server.”

He also calls the recently released State Department inspector general report “a devastating event for Hillary Clinton. It is a time bomb that has been ticking and it’s starting to explode around her and there’s more to come because the FBI’s investigation is ongoing.”

In addition to his famous role exposing the Watergate scandal, Bernstein wrote a 2008 book about Clinton. (CNN, 5/27/2016)

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican frontrunner in the presidential election, comments in a Tweet, “The Inspector General’s report on Crooked Hillary Clinton is a disaster. Such bad judgment and temperament cannot be allowed in the WH [White House].”

The New Yorker Magazine opines, “Trump is himself a repository of bad judgment and character flaws, of course, but, on this occasion, he has been presented with an early Christmas present.” (The New Yorker, 5/26/2016)

The Times publishes an editorial written by its editorial board entitled: “Hillary Clinton, Drowning in Email.”

It says that Clinton’s “campaign for the presidency just got harder” due to the State Department inspector general’s report criticizing her email practices. “Donald Trump, her Republican rival, will be merciless in swinging the inspector general’s report like a cudgel. […] Mrs. Clinton has to answer questions about the report thoroughly and candidly. That is her best path back to the larger task of campaigning for the presidency.” (The New York Times, 5/26/2016)

President Obama speaks during a news conference in Shima, Japan, on May 26, 2016. (Credit: Carolyn Kaster / The Associated Press)

One day after a State Department inspector general’s report was released criticizing Clinton’s email practices, President Obama is asked what he thinks of the report and if it “undermines her trustworthiness with the people.”

Obama replies, “Look, I’ve already said a lot about these issues. I think those are better directed to the campaign.” Obama has publicly commented on Clinton’s email scandal twice before, in October 2015 and April 2016. (The Hill, 5/26/2016)

US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan grants a recent request from Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills to keep audio and video recordings of her upcoming deposition from being made public, at least for now. Mills, who is due to be deposed one day later, argued that such recordings could be used for political purposes against Clinton in the presidential election.

Sullivan writes, “The public has a right to know details related to the creation, purpose and use of the clintonemail.com system. Thus, the transcripts of all depositions taken in this case will be publicly available. It is therefore unnecessary to also make the audiovisual recording of Ms. Mills’ deposition public.” On his own initiative, Sullivan blocks the release of all audio and video recordings of the five other former Clinton aides due to be deposed in the suit he is presiding over.

Politico reports, “Sullivan did not signal what his concern was about improper use of the videos, nor did he explain whether he agreed with Mills’ attorneys that the videos were more susceptible to misuse or distortion than the written transcripts that will be released.” Sullivan orders that the audio and video should be filed with the court, raising the possibility they could be released later. (Politico, 5/26/2016)

Justice Department lawyers oppose Judicial Watch’s request that Clinton give a sworn deposition. There are two closely related civil suits in which Judicial Watch has been granted the right of discovery, allowing them to depose witnesses. Six of Clinton’s former aides are already being deposed in the suit presided over by federal judge Emmet Sullivan.

Judicial Watch recently requested that Clinton be deposed in the other suit, presided over by federal judge Royce Lamberth. However, department lawyers argue that Lamberth should let the depositions in the other case play out before allowing Clinton to be deposed in his case. They call the request “wholly inappropriate,” adding, “Judicial Watch makes no attempt here to justify why the witnesses it names would provide any relevant information that is not redundant and cumulative of the discovery that has already been ordered and initiated.”

However, while they oppose Clinton being deposed, they do not oppose Judicial Watch’s request to depose former Clinton aide Jake Sullivan. So far, Judicial Watch has not asked for Clinton or Sullivan to be deposed in the other suit. (Politico, 5/27/2016)

Cynthia McFadden interviews Guccifer in Romania in April 2016. (Credit: NBC News)

Guccifer, whose real name Marcel-Lehel Lazar, is interviewed by the FBI as part of the FBI’s Clinton email investigation. He appears to have spoken to the FBI previously, but these may have been about other matters, since he hacked dozens of US citizens.

Around the end of April 2016, Guccifer had high-profile interviews with Fox News and NBC News. It was already known that he broke into the email account of Clinton confidant Sid Blumenthal in March 2013 and learned Clinton’s private email address. In both media interviews, Guccifer claimed that he then gained access to Clinton’s private server. But the FBI will later say that Guccifer admitted in his FBI interview that he lied about this.

Additionally, “FBI forensic analysis of the Clinton server during the timeframe [Guccifer] claimed to have compromised the server did not identify evidence that [he] hacked the server.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

Factcheck.org publishes an analysis of Clinton’s past statements regarding her email scandal with the information in the newly released State Department inspector general’s report, and concludes that the report “contradicts several of Clinton’s long-standing talking points.”

Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon concedes that there are such contradictions, but that “doesn’t make her statements untruthful.” He explains: “It did not occur to her that having it on a personal server could be so distinct that it would be unapproved. We’re not intending to say post the IG [inspector general] report that her server was allowed. We don’t contest that. We’re saying—the use of personal email was widespread.”

Since the report has been released, Fallon and Clinton have continued to insist that Clinton’s use of a personal email account was allowed. But Factcheck.org points out that the department’s rules clearly prohibited using such an account for day-to-day business. The report discovered that Clinton was one of only three employees ever found to do so, and one of those (Scott Gration) resigned just before he was to be punished for it during Clinton’s term.

Fallon also says that “we agree in retrospect” with the report’s finding that “her practice of copying aides on her emails did not end up producing a full record since State’s IT [information technology] systems didn’t save everything. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t take steps to comply.”

However, Factcheck.org notes those steps only came 21 months later, due to pressure from the House Benghazi Committee, and even then, the emails she handed over don’t appear to have included all her work emails. (Factcheck.org, 5/27/2016)

Vice-President Joe Biden (Credit: public domain)

In an interview, Bernie Sanders is asked his opinion of a hypothetical situation in which the FBI recommends Clinton’s indictment and then Clinton’s delegates switch their support to Vice President Joe Biden or some other person who didn’t run in the primaries.

Sanders replies, “I think that would be a terrible, terrible idea. […] That would say to the millions of people who have supported us, that have worked with us, that would say all of your energy, all of your votes, all of your beliefs are irrelevant. We’re going to bring in someone else. I happen to like Joe a lot, but I think that would be a very, very serious blunder for the Democratic Party.” (The Hill, 5/28/2016)

Douglas Cox (Credit: Cuny School of Law)

Yahoo News reports that “Senate investigators and a conservative group [Judicial Watch] are zeroing in on newly revealed evidence about the activities of a now retired State Department computer specialist in orchestrating what they charge was a ‘cover-up’ of the former secretary of state’s email practices.” That person is John Bentel, who was director of the department’s Information Resource Management (IRM) office until December 2012.

According to a newly released State Department inspector general’s report, in late 2010, two IRM staffers separately raised issues with Bentel that some of Clinton’s private emails might need to be preserved to comply with the law and regulations. But according to the report, Bentel told one of the staffers that Clinton’s email practices had been “reviewed and approved by Department legal staff”—which was not true—and “that the matter was not to be discussed any further.” Bentel told the other staffer that the mission of the IRM “is to support the Secretary and instructed the staff never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.”

In response to this report, Senator Chuck Grassley (R) says, “If what these two witnesses said is true, it is an outrage, and it raises a lot of serious questions. Good and honest employees just trying to do their job were told to shut up and sit down. Concerns about the secretary’s email system being out of compliance with federal record-keeping laws were swept under the rug.”

Additionally, in June 2015, Bentel told the House Benghazi Committee that he had “no memory or knowledge” of Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state.

But in August 2011, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, emailed the idea of giving Clinton a new email address because “her personal email server is down.” Bentel suggested giving Clinton a government email account, but warned, “you should be aware that any email would go through the department’s infrastructure and [be] subject to FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] searches.”

Grassley says he intends to learn more about Bentel’s role in a possible cover-up. And Judicial Watch plans to question former Clinton aides like Abedin and Cheryl Mills about Bentel’s role when they are deposed under oath in the coming weeks.

Law professor Douglas Cox say that Bentel’s role was “the most shocking part of the [inspector general’s] report. It shows there was dissent within the State Department precisely by the people responsible for insuring compliance with record-keeping and cyber-security issues—and they were told something that appears not to be true.” (Yahoo News, 5/27/2016) (The New York Times, 5/26/2016)

Supporters at a rally for Bernie Sanders in National City, California, on May 21, 2016. (Credit: Mike Blake / Reuters)

The Times reports that a growing number of supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sanders are “holding out for an 11th-hour miracle: divine deliverance at the hands of the FBI.”

Sanders is down by over 250 pledged delegates in the Democratic primaries with not many states left before the primaries are over, so the hopes of many Sanders supporters are turning to the FBI’s Clinton investigation, which could transform the presidential race. (The New York Times, 5/27/2016)

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, interviews Bernie Sanders on May 27, 2016. (Credit: The Young Turks)

Bernie Sanders is asked if the new State Department inspector general’s report has caused him to rethink his refusal to engage on the issue of Clinton’s email scandal. “It has,” he replies. (Bloomberg News, 5/28/2016) 

Two days later, he adds, “The inspector general just came out with a report, it was not a good report for Secretary Clinton. That is something that the American people, Democrats, and delegates are going to have to take a hard look at.”

He also says that when it comes to superdelegates and the report, “They will be keeping it in mind. I don’t have to tell them that. I mean, everybody in America is keeping it in mind, and certainly the superdelegates are.” (CBS News, 5/29/2016)

Cheryl Mills speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting 2012. (Credit: Clinton Global Initiative)

Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills is deposed by Judicial Watch as part of civil lawsuit presided over by US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. She is questioned for seven hours, with eleven other lawyers present, including four Justice Department lawyers assisting Mills.

The deposition is contentious, with Judicial Watch lawyers frequently arguing with Mills’ lawyer Beth Wilkinson and State Department lawyers. Mills has also worked as one of Clinton’s lawyers at times (though not while Clinton was secretary of state), and Wilkinson often objects to questions on the grounds of attorney-client privilege between Mills and Clinton. For instance, Mills fails to answer any questions about the sorting and deleting of Clinton’s emails in late 2014, when Mills was one of Clinton’s lawyers who performed that task. Mills also doesn’t answer many questions about Clinton’s former computer technician Bryan Pagliano. (LawNewz, 5/31/2016) (Politico, 5/31/2016) (Judicial Watch, 5/31/2016)

Mills is frequently forgetful or uncertain with her answers. The New York Post calculates she says “I can’t recall” 40 times and “I don’t know” 182 times. (The New York Post, 6/11/2016)

John Podesta, the chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign, sends a letter to Clinton’s top supporters responding to the recent State Department inspector general’s report criticizing Clinton’s email practices. It repeatedly emphasizes that Clinton made a “mistake,” and “she has taken responsibility for that mistake.”

This approach contrasts with Clinton’s actual interview comments since the report came out in which she has generally struck an unrepentant tone. For instance, in one such interview, she said, “There may be reports that come out, but nothing has changed. It’s the same story.” (BuzzFeed, 5/30/2016)

Vernon Jordan (Credit: Akin Gump)

Many of Powell’s emails indicate he’s angry about being tied to Clinton’s emails and his disdain is not just reserved for Trump. The Washington Post suggests, “Clinton’s decision to cite his use of private email as secretary of state to justify her private email server has clearly proven a sore spot — both in these emails and in previous Powell comments.”

On May 29, 2016, Powell writes to former top Bill Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan, “I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,”  “The media isn’t fooled and she is getting crucified. The differences are profound and they know it.” (Washington Post, 09/14/16)

The hacker website DCLeaks.com will publish Colin Powell’s hacked emails on September 13, 2016.

The newspaper’s editorial board reacts to the State Department inspector general’s report criticizing Clinton’s email practices. “Clinton’s bad decision had turned into something far worse: a threat to national security, one that she repeatedly ignored despite multiple warnings.”

The editorial cites four warnings Clinton faced in a six-month period in 2011 that all pointed to the security danger of using a private email account. But despite these warnings, and others, “Clinton and several of her top aides continued to use personal email for sensitive State Department business thousands of times.”

It concludes, “It’s already clear that, in using the private email server, Clinton broke the rules. Now it remains to be seen whether she also broke the law.” (USA Today, 5/30/2016)

State Department chief of information resource management, John Bentel (left), Hillary Clinton (right) (Credit: Yahoo News)

The recently released State Department inspector general’s report mentions that two State Department employees expressed concerns about Clinton’s email usage but were told by their boss that her usage had been approved by the department’s lawyers when it had not, and “that the matter was not to be discussed any further.” Media reports have identified that boss as John Bentel. (Yahoo News, 5/27/2016) 

Clinton is asked about this in an interview, and says, “I do not know who that person is or, you know, what that person might have said because it’s not anything that I am aware of. […] I certainly never instructed anyone to hide the fact I was using a personal email. It was obvious to hundreds of people, visible to the many people that I was emailing throughout the State Department and the rest of the federal government.”

However, Clinton fails to mention that the problem was not her using a private email account, which was allowed. It was using a private email account for the majority of day-to-day business, which was not. (Politico, 5/31/2016)

Howard Krongard (Credit: Fox News)

Howard Krongard, who was the State Department’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008, says he “would have been stunned had I been asked to send an email to [Clinton] at a personal server, private address. I would have declined to do so on security grounds and if she had sent one to me, I probably would have started an investigation.”

Krongard also suggests that Clinton benefited from the lack of a permanent inspector general for the entire duration of her tenure as secretary of state. “They are the people who enforce the rules, and there was no one enforcing the rules during that time.” (Fox News, 5/31/2016)

Chris Hayes (Credit: Showtime)

Journalist Chris Hayes asks Clinton, “I need to ask you if you have been contacted by the FBI about an interview regarding the email situation.” Clinton replies, “No, we do not have an interview scheduled.”

This marks a change from Clinton’s previous answers to such questions, in which she said she hadn’t had any contact with the FBI over the matter. (MSNBC, 5/31/2016)

A Rasmussen Reports poll reveals that 43% of likely US voters think Clinton should stop her presidential campaign if she is charged with a felony as part of her email scandal. But 50% think she should continue her campaign until a court decides on her guilt or innocence. Some 65% consider it likely she broke the law and 30% consider it unlikely; 40% say the scandal makes them less likely to vote for her and 48% say it will have no impact on them. (Rasmussen Reports, 5/31/2016)