Clinton 'Surprised' Other Staffer Used Private Email, New Docs Show




The State Department released 3,007 pages of Hillary Clinton's email this morning at around 1:30 a.m. ET, bringing the total public production so far to 82 percent of the documents, a court-mandated goal the department failed to reach at the end of last month.


In one document dated Feb. 27, 2011, Clinton sends an email to her top adviser, Jake Sullivan, in which she expressed surprise that a State Department staffer was using a personal email account to discuss official business.

The email chain shows that a State Department employee named John Godfrey wrote a detailed summary of information about Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi that was soon forwarded to Clinton. Jake Sullivan writes to Clinton that it’s “Worth a read. This guy is very thoughtful.”

Clinton responds by asking for whom Godfrey works. “Us,” Sullivan writes back. Clinton replies: “Is he in NEA [Near Eastern Affairs] currently? Or was he in Embassy? I was surprised that he used personal email account if he is at State.”

At best, her critics may find it ironic that she is calling out staffers for using private email. At worst, her rivals may use it against her and suggest she was pointing out some level of impropriety, in which she was also engaged.

State Dept. Failing to Respond to Records Requests, Report FindsState Department Falls Short on New Batch of Clinton Emails

The new email dump also shows that Clinton took an interest in the Gen. David Petraeus scandal that eventually ended his career. Her longtime friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal passed along breaking updates written like high school gossip.

In November of 2012, he sends her an email with a message from Jane Mayer, the wife of a New York Times editor in charge of the Petraeus story. "Omigod- there's a new twist," Mayer writes. "You wont believe who tipped off the FBI... you're going to like this."

That person, it turns out, was Tampa socialite Jill Kelley. Her involvement in the scandal soon implicated another top military official, Gen. John Allen, who was then commanding international forces in Afghanistan.

The next and final set of Clinton email is scheduled to be released at the end of the month. If fulfilled altogether, it will be the largest document release to date.



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