Jump to content

Hillary Clinton email controversy: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
intro
Copyedit (minor)
Line 1: Line 1:
The '''Hillary Clinton email controversy''' is an American political series of reactions surrounding [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]]'s use of a private email server during her tenure as the [[United States Secretary of State]].
The '''Hillary Clinton email controversy''' is an American political series of reactions surrounding the use of a private email server by [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]] during her tenure as the [[United States Secretary of State]].


==Initial controversy==
==Initial controversy==

Revision as of 17:37, 23 May 2015

The Hillary Clinton email controversy is an American political series of reactions surrounding the use of a private email server by Hillary Rodham Clinton during her tenure as the United States Secretary of State.

Initial controversy

In early March 2015, a New York Times report reported that throughout her time as Secretary of State, Clinton used her own private e-mail address and server, rather than government-issued departmental ones.[1]

On the day of the first Senate Confirmation hearing for Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State nomination, someone going by the name Eric Hoteham purchased server space to host the URLs "clintonemail.com", "wjcoffice.com" and "presidentclinton.com"[2] and listed Hillary Clinton's Chappaqua, New York home as the address for the domains.[3] Eric Hoteham may be a garbled version of Eric Hothem, a former Clinton aide.[4] The sites were operated out of Clinton's home.[5]

Clinton used the private email server rather than her government issued email during her term as Secretary of State.[6] According to several security experts, this may have exposed her communications as Secretary of State to hacking and foreign surveillance.[7]

The existence of the server was reported by the New York Times in early March, 2015.[1] The use of the private email server may have violated State Department transparency protocols, although this has been disputed.[8] On March 27, 2015, Trey Gowdy, Republican chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, asserted that some time after October 2014 Clinton "unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean" and that "she also summarily decided to delete all emails," although no evidence was provided that Clinton herself had actually done so.[9][10] That same day Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, asserted that after Clinton had provided over 30,000 pages of emails to the government, the server's retention settings had been changed to retain emails from only the prior 60 days, which does not necessarily mean that the server has been wiped "clean," as there are techniques available to recover deleted files.[11][12]

Blumenthal memos

A portion of the emails on Clinton's private server were emails sent in 2011 and 2012 by Sidney Blumenthal, a political supporter and former campaign staffer who was then working for the Clinton Foundation. In 2009, the Obama White House had disallowed Clinton's attempt to hire Blumenthal as an adviser to her at the State Department. In the 2011 and 2012 emails, however, Blumenthal prepared, from public and other sources, about 25 memos which he sent to Clinton, which she then shared through her aide, Jake Sullivan, with senior State Department personnel, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.[13] In the form of intelligence briefings, the memos sometimes touted his business associates and, at times, contained inaccurate information.[14]

According to journalist John Tabin, Blumenthal's "intel was shoddy, with basic errors like mixing up Libyan politicians with similar names. In a particularly sleazy instance, Blumenthal asserted that a businessman named Najib Obeida was among 'the most influential' of the Libyan prime minister's new economic advisers — without mentioning that Blumenthal was advising a group contractors courting Obeida as a potential business partner."[15]

The House Select Committee on Benghazi served a subpoena on Blumenthal on May 19, 2015 for a deposition regarding this matter to be held on June 3, according to Reuters.[16]

UN press conference

Clinton addressing e-mail controversy with the media at the United Nations Headquarters

On March 10, 2015, after attending a conference on the status on women at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Clinton addressed reporters for 20 minutes at Turtle Bay.[17] Clinton said that she had used a private email out of convenience because she did not want to carry two phones.[18] She said that her staff would be turning over copies of 30,000 emails from her time at State that she believed belonged in the public domain, but that they had deleted 32,000 emails from her time at State that she regarded as private.[19]

Release

The State Department released hundreds of Clinton's emails on May 22, 2015, many of which pertained to the 2012 Benghazi attack.[20]

Popular culture

The controversy was the subject of the "cold open" on Saturday Night Live.[21] where Kate McKinnon portrayed an overbearing Clinton attempting to fit into the role of "a relatable woman on a couch to clear up questions about her emails."[22]

NBC's "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, shortly after the email story broke, commented: "if Clinton fatigue, which is already a disease in the press corps, actually becomes a problem with the voting public . . . that is doom for her."[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Hillary Clinton's Use of Private Email at State Department Raises Flags". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  2. ^ Meghan Keneally (March 5, 2015). "Hillary Clinton Email Mystery Man: What We Know About Eric Hoteham". ABC News. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  3. ^ "Who Is Eric Hoteham? Clinton Private Server Listed Under Mysterious, Untraceable Name « CBS DC". Washington.cbslocal.com. 2015-03-04. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  4. ^ Sick, Gary (2015-03-09). "5 questions: The Clinton email - Tarini Parti". Politico.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  5. ^ Makarechi, Kia (2015-03-05). "Hillary Clinton Breaks Her Silence on E-mail Scandal". Vanityfair.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  6. ^ "Using Private Email Hillary Clinton Thwarted Record Requests". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  7. ^ Greenberg, Andy (3 March 2015). "Why Clinton's Private Email Server Was Such a Security Fail". Wired. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  8. ^ Gluck, Abbe R. (2015-03-06). "Clinton private email violated 'clear-cut' State Dept. rules - Josh Gerstein". Politico.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  9. ^ "Statement Regarding Subpoena Compliance and Server Determination by Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton | Select Committee on Benghazi". Benghazi.house.gov. 2014-10-28. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  10. ^ Perry, Mark. "Trey Gowdy: Hillary Clinton wiped email server clean". Politico.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  11. ^ "No Copies of Hillary Clinton Emails on Server Lawyer Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  12. ^ "How to recover deleted files". PCWorld.com. 2014-05-05. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  13. ^ Nicholas Confessore and Michael S. Schmidt (May 18, 2015). "Clinton Friend's Memos on Libya Draw Scrutiny to Politics and Business". The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2015. Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, took Mr. Blumenthal's advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal's assessments were often unreliable.
  14. ^ Michael S. Schmidt (May 18, 2015). "What Sidney Blumenthal's Memos to Hillary Clinton Said, and How They Were Handled". The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2015. In 2011 and 2012, Hillary Rodham Clinton received at least 25 memos about Libya from Sidney Blumenthal, a friend and confidant who at the time was employed by the Clinton Foundation.
  15. ^ Tabin, John, "Hillary's Private Spy - And their shady foreign policy", New York Post, p. 27, May 21, 2015.
  16. ^ "Trey Gowdy slaps Sidney Blumenthal with a subpoena", dailycaller.com, May 20, 2015.
  17. ^ "Clinton: It 'might have been smarter' to use a State Dept. e-mail account". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  18. ^ "First Take: Clinton's even tone edges into exasperation". Usatoday.com. 2015-03-11. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  19. ^ "Hillary Clinton tries to end controversy over private email account". Latimes.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  20. ^ "First set of Hillary Clinton emails published online". BBC News. 22 May 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  21. ^ "Hillary Clinton's email controversy gets mocked - CNN Video". Cnn.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  22. ^ "Kate McKinnon's Hillary Clinton Addresses Email Controversy In 'SNL' Cold Open". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  23. ^ Tapscott, Mark - Washington Examiner, April 12, 2015.[1]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy&oldid=663694604"