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Re: NYT: In Clinton Emails on Benghazi, a Rare Glimpse at Her Concerns

From:cheryl.mills@gmail.com To: jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com CC: john.podesta@gmail.com, nmerrill@hrcoffice.com, pir@hrcoffice.com, jake.sullivan@gmail.com, hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com Date: 2015-03-23 11:50 Subject: Re: NYT: In Clinton Emails on Benghazi, a Rare Glimpse at Her Concerns

so what are next steps then? On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Jennifer Palmieri < jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com> wrote: > That is a good idea - the level set with NYT. Pretty strong hand we have > to start discussions with. > > Sent from my iPad > > On Mar 23, 2015, at 9:01 AM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote: > > Nick, > Great job in fighting this to more or less of a draw. Even with spoon > feeding from Gowdy's staff, this story is smoke without even the warmth of > a fire. We might want to think about how we use this to try to level set > with the Times hierarchy. > > JP > --Sent from my iPad-- > john.podesta@gmail.com > For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com > > On Mar 23, 2015, at 6:21 AM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote: > > > > http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/us/politics/in-clinton-emails-on-benghazi-a-rare-glimpse-at-her-concerns.html?referrer= > > In Clinton Emails on Benghazi, a Rare Glimpse at Her Concerns > By Michael S. Schmidt > > WASHINGTON -- It was a grueling hearing. A month after the September 2012 > attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, House > Republicans grilled a top State Department official about security lapses > at the outpost. > > Later that day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton > <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hillary_rodham_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per> tapped > out an email to a close adviser: "Did we survive the day?" she wrote. > > "Survive, yes," the adviser emailed back, adding that he would continue to > gauge reaction the next morning. > > The roughly 300 emails from Mrs. Clinton's private account that were > turned over last month to a House committee investigating the attack showed > the secretary and her aides closely monitoring the fallout from the > tragedy, which threatened to damage her image and reflect poorly on the > State Department. > > They provided no evidence that Mrs. Clinton, as the most incendiary > Republican attacks have suggested, issued a "stand down" order to halt > American forces responding to the violence in Benghazi, or took part in a > broad cover-up of the administration's response, according to senior > American officials. > > But they did show that Mrs. Clinton's top aides at times corresponded with > her about State Department matters from their personal email accounts, > raising questions about her recent assertions that she made it her practice > to email aides at their government addresses so the messages would be > preserved, in compliance with federal record-keeping regulations. > > The emails have not been made public, and The New York Times was not > permitted to review them. But four senior government officials offered > descriptions of some of the key messages, on the condition of anonymity > because they did not want to jeopardize their access to secret information. > > A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said she and her aides had used their email > accounts appropriately, while a spokesman for the Republican-controlled > House committee declined to comment. > > The correspondence offered a glimpse inside the secretary of state's inbox > -- and her elusive email personality -- including during those dark days just > after the attack. Mrs. Clinton exclusively used a private email account > that was housed on a server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., while she was > secretary of state, which kept many of the messages secret. > > Strikingly, given that she has set off an uproar over her emails, Mrs. > Clinton is not a verbose correspondent. At times, she sends her highly > regarded foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, an email containing a news > article, with a simple instruction: Please print. (Mrs. Clinton, though she > has taken to Twitter and embraced other forms of modern technology, appears > to like to read articles on paper.) > > There were also the more mundane messages that crowd many government > workers' inboxes: scheduling, logistics, even a news alert about a breaking > story from Politico, forwarded to the secretary by a senior aide. > > The emails showed Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle reacting as the > administration's view of what happened in Benghazi changed, and the > messages shed some light on a pivotal moment in the attack's aftermath > involving Susan E. Rice, then the ambassador to the United Nations. > > On Sept. 16, five days after the attack, Ms. Rice appeared on several > Sunday news programs, including ABC's "This Week," to offer the > administration's view on the attack. Some conservatives suggested that Ms. > Rice took on the role of public spokeswoman in those first few days after > the attacks so that Mrs. Clinton could duck the controversy. (Ms. Rice has > said that Mrs. Clinton declined to appear because she was tired after a > grueling week.) > > The emails do not settle that question, the senior officials said. But > they do suggest that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were ultimately relieved > that she had not gone as far as Ms. Rice had in her description of the > attacks. > > The day that Ms. Rice appeared on the shows, Mr. Sullivan, who served as > Mrs. Clinton's deputy chief of staff and is one of her most trusted > advisers, emailed Mrs. Clinton a transcript of Ms. Rice's remarks on ABC's > "This Week." Mr. Sullivan's message was brief, but he appeared pleased by > how it had gone. Ms. Rice, on the show, described it as a spontaneous > eruption of violence, triggered by an offensive anti-Muslim video. > > "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then > evolved," Mr. Sullivan wrote to Mrs. Clinton. > > But in the days that followed, the administration's view of what occurred > grew more complicated. Amid intense criticism from Republicans, who accused > the White House of playing down the attack in an election year, > administration officials began to call it "a terrorist attack." Ms. Rice's > initial description of the attack as spontaneous came under intense > scrutiny. > > Two weeks after that first email assessing Ms. Rice's appearance, Mr. > Sullivan sent Mrs. Clinton a very different email. This time, he appeared > to reassure the secretary of state that she had avoided the problems Ms. > Rice was confronting. He told Mrs. Clinton that he had reviewed her public > remarks since the attack and that she had avoided the language that had > landed Ms. Rice in trouble. > > "You never said 'spontaneous' or characterized their motivations," Mr. > Sullivan wrote. > > The 300 emails are a small fraction of those Mrs. Clinton has handed over > to the State Department. > > Last summer, State Department lawyers responding to document requests from > the House committee investigating Benghazi found correspondence showing > Mrs. Clinton used a private email account. The lawyers determined that they > needed all of Mrs. Clinton's emails to respond to the committee requests. > > In December, Mrs. Clinton turned over 30,000 of her emails to the State > Department, and the department sent the House committee the 300 related to > Benghazi or Libya. > > The scrutiny of how she used email has created the first test of her > all-but-announced presidential campaign. At the time she was secretary of > state, federal regulations said agencies that allow employees to use > private email addresses, "must ensure that federal records sent or received > on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping > system." > > Nick Merrill, the spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, defended the aides' use of > personal email, saying that it was "their practice to primarily use their > work email when conducting state business, with only the tiniest fraction > of the more than one million emails they sent or received involving their > personal accounts." > > Some may not be satisfied with that explanation or the records Mrs. > Clinton has provided. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who chairs > the House Select Committee on Benghazi, has said he suspected Mrs. Clinton > has not turned over all the Benghazi-related emails, and has asked Mrs. > Clinton to turn over her server to a neutral party to examine all of her > emails, including ones she deleted, to determine if others should be > provided to his panel. > > Mr. Gowdy's committee is also likely to press Mrs. Clinton on why her > advisers occasionally used personal email accounts to communicate with her. > At least four of Mrs. Clinton's closest advisers at the State Department > did so, including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, > Philippe Reines; personal aide, Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan. > > Elijah E. Cummings, the Maryland Democrat and ranking member on the > committee, said in a statement that "instead of having emails leaked > piecemeal -- and mischaracterized," the committee's chairman, Mr. Gowdy, > "should release all of them -- as Secretary Clinton has asked -- so the > American people can read them for themselves." > > > > > > On Mar 22, 2015, at 10:08 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote: > > K - no additions > > On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com> > wrote: > >> Ours. >> >> >> From: CDM >> Date: Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 10:07 PM >> To: Nick Merrill >> Cc: PIR, Jake Sullivan, Heather Samuelson, Jennifer Palmieri, John >> Podesta >> Subject: Re: NYT Latest >> >> i can't figure out given the subject ambiguity if we are seeking to >> have this graph speak to her behavior or others? >> >> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> >> wrote: >> >>> Philippe, Heather, Jake and I spoke earlier and made a few tweaks. >>> Specifically, we added some straight-forward language in the third >>> paragraph that aims to do two things: give this guy some simple context for >>> the emails he references, and nudge this ever-closer to putting it in the >>> Benghazi box. >>> >>> See below. >>> >>> ------ >>> >>> Mike, please treat this reply as my on the record response to your >>> questions. >>> >>> There are any number of reasons why people emailed from their non-work >>> accounts, and every one of them are perfectly understandable and allowable >>> - evidenced by the simple fact that the State Department tells every >>> employee they're allowed to and how to properly do so. >>> >>