“This does confirm how much of a lie it was when she said I chose to have the two iPhones or the two devices because it was convenient”.
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The newly disclosed gaps in Clinton’s correspondence raise questions about the process used by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and her lawyers to determine which emails she turned over to the department.
“I would imagine anybody who has personal e-mail doesn’t want that personal e-mail to be read by anybody else”, she noted in the transcript.
Abedin, who was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department, now works with Clinton’s presidential campaign and often travels with the candidate. Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Clinton did “not know how to use a computer to do email. That’s what she used when she was in the Senate”. They sued the State Department under FOIA in 2013 to obtain access to records regarding Abedin’s employment. On Tuesday, Abedin said to her knowledge only she, Clinton and Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, had accounts on the system. State Department personnel would communicate with her at clintonemail.com when there were problems with the State.gov system.
On Monday, Judicial Watch released a cache of emails between Abedin and Clinton, which the group’s president, Tom Fitton, said showed that Clinton “did not turn over all” records in her possession and raised questions about what other records should have been produced. Though Clinton’s work-related emails were government records, she didn’t turn over copies until more than 30 lawsuits were filed, including one by The Associated Press.
An additional 165 pages of emails from Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department surfaced Monday, including almost three dozen that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee failed to hand over past year that were sent through her private server.
Abedin also said in testimony that she didn’t remember getting any training on FOIA and said she was never asked to search her records pursuant to a request under the law.
The Clinton campaign’s reaction to these revelations has been to tweak her claim about providing over all her work-related emails. “I have just realized I have no idea how my papers are treated at State”. Who manages both my personal and official files?.
“Let’s get [a] separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible”, Clinton wrote, according to Bloomberg. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
“We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam”, Abedin wrote.
Asked about theexchange, Abedin said in the deposition that she could not recall why she recommended changing Clinton’s email setup or any discussions with Clinton about her response.
“She missed the call because”. “I seem frustrated back because I’m not [able to do my job]”. “I seem frustrated back”, Abedin said.
Asked what she meant about releasing Clinton’s closely-guarded personal email address – guarded by staff but denied to some senior government officials – Abedin responded, ‘I’m not sure I would know how to define that then or define that now.
‘I couldn’t tell you, ‘ Abedin responded.
As Hillary Clinton tries to put to rest the controversy over her private email server that has dogged her presidential campaign, she has repeatedly cited her willingness to make her work correspondence public as evidence that she has nothing to hide.
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Abedin, who has become ensnared in ongoing Clinton email probes, explained in the deposition – a transcript of which was released Wednesday afternoon – that Clinton had missed an important call with a foreign minister because emails from her personal account were being filtered out. For the last six months of Clinton’s tenure, Abedin was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s personal office and a private consulting firm connected to the Clintons. Agents recently interviewed several of Clinton’s top aides, including Abedin. He added, “We’re considering what next steps to take and what additional discovery we need”. Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said Judicial Watch’s lawsuits ended up “clogging up the courts at the expense of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars”.
