A major public-interest group that investigate and exposes government and political corruption — even criminality — released documents that included an official correspondence from Obama’s Under Secretary of State for Management, Patrick F. Kennedy, advising Hillary Clinton‘s legal counsel to literally destroy all copies of a classified email. The email in question was discovered in records Clinton turned over to the State Department six months before, according to Judicial Watch on Thursday.
Clinton’s attorney, Bill Clinton’s “Monicagate” mouthpiece David Kendall, had rejected the request for the email’s destruction as Congress and other investigators had demanded electronic records be preserved. The message also provides additional proof that Hillary Clinton ignored lawmakers who demanded she or her representatives turn over all electronic copies of the approximately 55,000 pages of emails she previously gave the State Department in paper form. That transaction allowed her and her sycophants in the media to claim she cooperated fully with the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The documents were disclosed by the State and Justice Departments as a result of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in which the group’s legal team asked a federal judge to issue from the bench an order to preserve and protect any emails Clinton has yet to turn over to either the State Department or to any congressional committee. The judge’s order included those emails in which Mrs. Clinton and her legal and political representatives unilaterally determined to be personal.
Secretary Kennedy is in-charge of 13 Department of State bureaus, including the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Office of White House Liaison. His letter to Clinton’s longtime attorney David Kendall stated in part: “I am writing in reference to the following e-mail that is among the approximately 55,000 pages that were identified as potential federal records and produced on behalf of former Secretary Clinton to the Depa1tment of State on December 5, 2014: E-mail forwarded by Jacob Sullivan to Secretary Clinton on November 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm (Subject: Fw: FYI- Report of arrests -possible Benghazi connection).”
Kennedy also wrote: “Please be advised that today the above referenced e-mail, which previously was unclassified, has been classified as ‘Secret’ pursuant to Section 1.7(d) of Executive Order 13526 in connection with a review and release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In order to safeguard and protect the classified information, I ask – consistent with my letter to you dated March 23 2015 – that you, Secretary Clinton and others assisting her in responding to congressional and related inquiries coordinate in taking the steps set forth below.”
The letter shows that Clinton was actually advised to delete electronic copies of her State Department correspondence. “Once you have made the electronic copy of the documents for the Department, please locate any electronic copies of the above-referenced classified document in your possession. If you locate any electronic copies, please delete them. Additionally, once you have done that, please empty your ‘Deleted Items’ folder,” Patrick wrote.
Patrick Kennedy’s correspondence is evidence of the State Department knowing that Clinton had classified material on her email system two months before it was revealed by the news media on July 23. At that time, Congress had been told about this issue by Charles McCullough, the inspector general of the intelligence community under the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper..
Victoria Toensing, a respected national security litigator and former deputy attorney general, told the Daily Caller that the State Department’s actions regarding Hillary Clinton “is a double standard. I’ve never been given that treatment.” Toensing while working for President Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980’s is responsible for creating the U.S. Department of State’s first counterterrorism terrorism unit, pointed to the government’s requirement that classified materials be held in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. “You have to trot yourself out to a government agency that holds classified material and enter a SCIF. You’re like in a prison cell,” she said.
“Judicial Watch exposed a cover-up with criminal implications. Why on Earth would John Kerry’s State Department tell Mrs. Clinton to delete classified Benghazi records before finding out where and how this material had been disclosed?” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That the State Department asked Clinton’s lawyer to destroy federal records shows a level of distain for the rule of law that goes beyond the pale. These letters should have been disclosed to more than one federal judge. The evident contempt and obstruction of justice by both Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration will be brought to the attention the courts,” Fitton noted.