State: No record Clinton signed exit form

The State Department has no record that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a standard form declaring that she surrendered all official records before leaving her post in 2013, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Critics of Clinton, including the Republican National Committee, said she might have committed a crime by signing the form despite having tens of thousands of work-related emails in a personal account. She provided copies of those emails to her former agency in December.


“We have reviewed Secretary Clinton’s official personnel file and administrative files and do not have any record of her signing the” form, State spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at a regular briefing.

Psaki said there also is no record of the form being completed by Clinton’s two most recent predecessors, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.

While Clinton critics have described the form as a routine part of the State Department’s processing of departing employees, Psaki said that the document — found in State’s policy manual — may not have been filled out so widely.

“It’s not clear that this form is used as a part of a standard part of checkout across the federal government or even at the State Department,” she said. “We’re looking into how standard this is across the federal government and certainly at the State Department. … I don’t want to characterize how common practice it is.”

Psaki stopped short of declaring flatly that Clinton never completed the form but said that is the conclusion of state officials.

“I think we’re fairly certain she did not. We do not have record of it,” the spokeswoman said.

While the department’s Foreign Affairs Manual declares that “a separation statement will be completed whenever an employee is terminating employment,” Psaki insisted that Clinton’s departure without signing the form didn’t run afoul of any directive.

“We’re not aware of any penalty for not signing it,” Psaki said. “It’s not a violation of any rule.”

State’s answers about the form came after journalists asked for more than a week about whether Clinton completed the document, known officially as an OF-109.

The RNC submitted a Freedom of Information Act request Tuesday, demanding a copy of any such forms completed by Clinton or three of her top aides: Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Philippe Reines.

Psaki said Tuesday she had not seen the RNC request and had no information about whether the Clinton aides had filled out the form.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office also jumped on the issue Tuesday.

“Clinton’s team and the White House are scrambling to answer a simple question about whether or not she signed form OF-109, as all State Department employees must do when they leave their jobs,” Boehner aide Matt Wolking wrote in a Web post, prior to Psaki’s briefing. “That’s a big problem if she signed that form like she was supposed to.”

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill declined to comment on the matter Tuesday.