Background Materials/TPs - FOIA, Email & SGE

From:hsamuelson@cdmillsGroup.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com, jpalmieri@hillaryclinton.com, huma@hrcoffice.com, tcarrk@hillaryclinton.com CC: cheryl.mills@gmail.com Date: 2015-05-04 22:04 Subject: Background Materials/TPs - FOIA, Email & SGE

As Cheryl mentioned earlier today, attached and below are the materials we put together re FOIA, email, and SGE’s. These were shared with Miguel. Let me know if you have any questions or if there is any other information that may be useful. I will be attending the hearing on Wed so can keep you all posted in real-time and/or brief afterwards if anything interesting comes up. Thx FOIA 1. Department’s annual reports to Congress on FOIA -- http://foia.state.gov/Learn/Reports.aspx 2. Summary sheet on FOIA data from 2005 to 2014. Points * The State Department is often the agency of first resort for requests for foreign policy and national security information. * The Department takes FOIA requests very seriously, and has a rigorous process in place for handling the tens of thousands of requests that come in. Secretary Clinton's State Department made doing so a priority. * The total number of FOIA requests the Department receives annually has drastically increased over the last 10 years -- with the largest increases occurring when Secretary Clinton took office. From 2008 to 2009, the number of FOIA requests nearly doubled from 5,864 to 10,675 per year and continued to increase during her time in office and beyond. By 2014, the Department received 19,625 requests. * During her tenure, from 2009 to 2012, the number of requests went from 10,675 to 18,478 per year (73% increase), while the median number of days to respond to complex requests only increased at rate of 46% (307 days to 450 days). Also the number of FOIA requests processed each year went from 5,974 in 2009 to 15,304 in 2012 -- a 150% increase. * The review of Keystone and other high profile FOIA requests was no different than any other FOIA review. Appropriate, senior level Department personnel were engaged or apprised when documents might be released under FOIA. Irrespective of who handles or is made aware of the request, the Department follows the FOIA law, and only omits materials that are statutorily excluded under the Act for national security and other reasons. EMAIL 1. Q&A released by Secretary Clinton’s office on March 10th after her press conference 2. Secretary Powell on “This Week" stating he also used a personal account while Secretary, and did not provide the Department with printed copies of those email when he left nor does he still retain those emails to provide copies now. (LINK<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-state-department-115870.html>) “I don’t have any to turn over. I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files,” Powell said. “A lot of the emails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and state.gov<http://state.gov/> domain, but I don’t know if the servers in the State Department captured those or not. “ “When I entered the State Department I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly,” he said. “I started using [email] in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st-century institution and not a 19th-century [one]. But I retained none of those emails, and we are working with the State Department to see if there’s anything else they want to discuss with me about those emails.” Points * Like Secretaries before her, Secretary Clinton used her own email account for work related email. She opted to use her own account solely as a matter of convenience. * When she and other former Secretaries were asked by the Department to provide copies of their work related email to assist the Department in meeting its requirements under the Federal Records Act, she was the first and only former Secretary to do so -- providing the Department with over 30,000 work or potentially work related emails. * While the Department is now working to better its own policies, she followed the practices in place at the time -- the same practices followed by her predecessors. * Since November, Secretary Clinton has made clear that she will voluntarily testify before the Benghazi Select Committee on the tragic events of September 2012, and to continue to answer any questions at that time the Committee may have regarding her email use. Special Government Employees (SGE’s) 1. Letter from the Department to Senator Grassley in July 2013, including letter from Huma Abedin to the Department in response to Senator Grassley’s questions. 2. List of SGE's at the Department dating back to Secretary Rice provided by the Department to Propublica. 3. Lists of SGE’s at other executive branch agencies who provided data to Propublica (LINK<http://www.propublica.org/special/special-government-employees-lists>) Points: * As the Department states in its letter to Senator Grassley, the U.S. government utilizes SGEs across the government to provide services and expertise that executive agencies require, recognizing that such employees may serve other clients or entities. * SGE’s are appointed throughout executive agencies for a variety of purposes, including to serve on federal advisory committees, provide outside expertise not available in the agency for specific projects, and as a means for agencies to retain expertise of former employees to provide continuing advice and guidance on matters, as needed, after they depart. * The appointment of SGE's was not unique to Secretary Clinton or the State Department. SGE's were appointed under Secretary Rice during the Bush Administration and at many other executive branch agencies.