Clinton email reveals: Google sought overthrow of Syria's Assad

Washington Examiner | By RUDY TAKALA | March 19, 2016

Google in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week.

Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's team and one of the company's executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region.

"Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool ... that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from," Jared Cohen, the head of what was then the company's "Google Ideas" division, wrote in a July 2012 email to several top Clinton officials.

"Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition," Cohen said, adding that the plan was for Google to surreptitiously give the tool to Middle Eastern media.

"Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria," he said.

"Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything [else] you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact," Cohen concluded.

The message was addressed to deputy secretary of state Bill Burns; Alec Ross, a senior Clinton advisor; and Clinton's deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan. Sullivan subsequently forwarded Cohen's proposal to Clinton, describing it as "a pretty cool idea."

Cohen worked as a low-level staffer at the State Department until 2010, when he was hired to lead Google Ideas, but was tied to the use of social media to incite social uprisings even before he left the department. He once reportedly asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to hold off of conducting system maintenance that officials believed could have impeded a brief 2009 uprising in Iran.

The unusual involvement by Google in foreign affairs highlights the difficulty of involvement in the internal politics of foreign states. While Cohen seemed to consider his company's effort as helpful to American interests, the effort to overthrow Assad helped spur the rise of the Islamic State, which eventually filled a vacuum resulting from Assad's loss of control over of Syria.

The exchange on Syria was highlighted by Wikileaks on Saturday. Earlier in the week, the secret-leaking website posted more than 30,000 emails that Clinton sent or received during her tenure leading the State Department.

State Dept to release 550 Clinton emails over Presidents' Day weekend

The Hill | By Julian Hattem - 02/10/16 11:22 PM EST

The State Department will release 550 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private sever this weekend, under pressure from a federal judge who earlier this week appeared visibly annoyed at its delayed efforts.

In a court filing late on Wednesday night, State Department official Eric Stein told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that department staffers have made “significant progress” on preparing the emails for release.

As a result, the department will now be able to release the roughly 550 emails — which represent roughly 14 percent of the 3,700 remaining Clinton emails — on Saturday, in the middle of the three-day Presidents' Day weekend. The department had previously said that it could not release the emails until late next week.

Releasing the emails on Saturday “provides time to address any additional problems that may arise,” Stein wrote, “as have occurred in the past at this final stage in the process.”

The Obama administration is already more than a week behind schedule on the emails, which were all supposed to have been released by Jan. 29.

But last month, in a surprise announcement shortly ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the State Department said that the last of Clinton’s emails would not be made public until the end of February.

Before Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday, the administration said that it could not even release a fraction of those emails until at least next Thursday. In Stein’s filing late on Wednesday, however, he claimed that the State Department had brought on “additional resources” that have helped it speed up the process.

The State Department has been releasing the roughly 30,000 allegedly work-related emails from Clinton’s “homebrew” server on a monthly basis since last year, as result of a lawsuit filed by Vice News reporter Jason Leopold. The monthly tranches have steadily added to the fire surrounding the former secretary of State's bespoke email setup, which has been highly criticized from Republicans on the presidential campaign trail.

In court on Tuesday, the administration said that it had approximately 570 emails ready to be posted to the Internet, but that it would take days for officials to do so.

Posting the documents to the Internet “could be upwards of 16 hours,” Stein wrote on Wednesday — or two 8-hour work days.

“Posting documents on State’s FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] website involves several steps, and State’s ability to efficiently carry out these steps is sometimes limited by the available technology and by the availability of personnel who are sufficiently familiar with the technology,” Stein wrote. “The FOIA system where the documents reside … can be extremely rigid and slow, making the necessary steps in the process more time-consuming than one might otherwise expect.”

Clinton’s server is currently in the hands of the FBI, which confirmed to the State Department this week that it has an ongoing investigation related to the machine. The bureau is exploring the possibility that classified information was mishandled, and some of Clinton’s critics have hoped for a criminal indictment.

More than 1,500 emails released by the State Department from Clinton’s inbox have been classified at some level. Twenty-two emails, which the department did not release, even in a redacted form, were classified at the highest level of “top secret.”

The emails were not marked as classified when they were sent, officials have noted, and Clinton’s presidential campaign has brushed off the government actions as “over-classification run amok.”

Judicial Watch: New Emails Show Hillary Clinton and Aides Had Classified Information on Non-Government Email Accounts

Judicial Watch | FEBRUARY 09, 2016

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released nearly 70 pages of State Department records that show that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides, Deputy Chiefs of Staff Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, received and sent classified information on their non-state.gov email accounts. 

 The documents, also available on the State Department website, were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015,lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking:

• All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-“state.gov” email address.

The new documents show that Hillary Clinton used the clintonemail.com system to ask Huma Abedin (also on a non-state.gov email account) to print two March 2011 emails, which were sent from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (using the moniker “aclb”) to Jake Sullivan on Sullivan’s non-state.gov email account. The Obama State Department redacted the Blair emails under Exemption (b)(1) which allows the withholding of classified material. The material is marked as being classified as “Foreign government information” and “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources.”

Another email shows that Clinton wanted to know how meetings in Washington, including a four-hour meeting concerning America’s war on Libya, would impact her Hampton vacation. Responding to an email that details the sensitive meetings in DC, Clinton emails Abedin on August 26, 2011, “Ok. What time would I get back to Hamptons?” Again, this email discussion takes place on non-state.gov email accounts.

The documents also include advice to Clinton on Libya from Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton Foundation employee who, according to a Judicial Watch investigative report, also had business interests in Libya. Clinton wanted Blumenthal’s March 9, 2011, Libya memo to be printed “without any identifiers.”

The newly released Abedin emails include a lengthy exchange giving precise details of Clinton’s schedule using unsecured government emails. The email from Lona J. Valmoro, former Special Assistant to Secretary of State Clinton, to Abedin and Clinton reveals exact times (including driving times) and locations of all appointments throughout the day. Another itinerary email provides details about a meeting at the United Nations in New York at 3:00 on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, with the precise disclosure, “that would mean wheels up from Andrews at approximately 12:00pm/12:15pm.”

“These emails show that Hillary Clinton isn’t the only Obama official who should be worried about being prosecuted for mishandling classified information. Her former top State aides (and current campaign advisers) Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan should be in the dock, as well,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Obama State Department has now confirmed that Clinton, Abedin, and Sullivan used unsecured, non-government email accounts to communicate information that should now be withheld from the American people ‘in the interest of national defense or foreign policy, and properly classified.’ When can we expect the indictments?”

Official: Some Clinton emails 'too damaging' to release

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne | Published January 29, 2016 | FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding. 

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton's personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from "special access programs," or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that "several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels."

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full -- which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold "operational files." Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as "HCS-O," which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation."

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server -- and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.



Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Reporter fights Hillary Clinton email delay

Politico | By JOSH GERSTEIN | 01/25/16 12:30 PM EST

Lawyers for a journalist seeking release of Hillary Clinton's email trove are objecting to the State Department's request for a month-long delay to complete disclosure of the final set of the former secretary of state's messages, warning that allowing the process to drag out until the end of February could deprive voters in early caucus and primary states of information on the Democratic presidential candidate.

State asked for an extension last week, telling U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras that State officials overlooked more than 7,000 pages of emails that were in need of interagency consultation and that the weekend's winter storm was complicating efforts to process the records.

"Unless and until State explains how over 7,000 pages that were already reviewed and identified as needing review by at least one other agency were lost for up to six months, and then suddenly found again just weeks before the deadline to produce them, the Court should view skeptically State’s assertion that this constitutes a legitimate 'unexpected' event," lawyers Ryan James and Jeffrey Light wrote in a court filing Monday morning on behalf of Vice News reporter Jason Leopold.

"Allowing State to delay the release of thousands of pages of a presidential candidate's work emails, especially when they have already garnered so much media and public attention, until after four states have voted and until just hours before another 11 states and American Samoa will vote, would deny Mr. Leopold of the opportunity to realize the fruits of his year-long pursuit of these records which he and the public have a legal right under [the Freedom of Information Act] to obtain," James and Light wrote.

Contreras issued an order in May requiring monthly release of batches of the 54,000 pages of emails Clinton kept on a private server and turned over to her former agency in December 2014. The judge set monthly goals for the percentage of pages released, but he ordered that the process be completed by Friday, Jan. 29.

State missed the monthly goals on two occasions, but subsequently made up the shortfalls. Now, it wants the final deadline extended to Feb. 29.

Leopold's attorneys said State hasn't provided enough detail about how the 7,254 pages were overlooked and whether the foul-up was due to "agency negligence or malfeasance." They said that if Contreras is inclined to grant State more time, a hearing should be held on what time is necessary.

It's unclear when Contreras will act on State's extension motion, which was filed Friday afternoon as the federal government shut down for the approaching storm. The court remains closed Monday as Washington digs out.

Former Defense Secretary Gates: ‘Odds Are Pretty High’ Iran and Russia Accessed Hillary’s Email

Mediaite | by Alex Griswold | 7:50 am, January 22nd, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: R. D. WARD, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

Former Bush and Obama Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday that “the odds were pretty high” that governments hostile to the United States accessed Hillary Clinton‘s private server.

Gates said on The Hugh Hewitt Show that the Clinton email controversy was “a concern for me. I never used email when I was head of CIA or head of the Department of Defense… I preferred dealing with people face to face and putting a signature on a piece of paper on matters of real national security and importance.”

“One of your colleagues, Mike Morell, said on this program, or actually agreed with my assertion that almost certainly, Russians, Chinese and Iranians had compromised the home brew server of the former Secretary of State…” Hugh Hewitt noted. “Do you agree with his assessment of my assessment?”

Gates said he did. “Well, given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high.”



He wasn’t willing to say that those hacks undermined national security, however. “It would depend entirely on what she put on there. And I just, I haven’t read any of these emails, so I don’t know what was on those servers.

Listen above, via The Hugh Hewitt Show.