State Department Gives Fictitious Date For The Release Of Hillary Clinton Emails

Just days after the Republican candidate for the White House, Donald Trump, lashed out against Hillary Clinton, calling for his rival to the presidency to be jailed over her email scandal, International Business Times senior editor David Sirota reported that the State Department has now blocked the release of Hillary Clinton-era TPP emails until after the November election.

Lawnewz wrote that Sirota, a senior IBT editor for investigations, filed a request for Clinton’s State Department correspondence regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He made the open records request back in July of 2015, and he initially got a response that the Clinton emails would be ready by April, 2016. However, this was not the case, so he followed up, and he recently received an email from the State Department saying the completion of the request would be delayed until late November, 2016.

A U.S. State Department representative issued the below statement to Sirota via email last week.

Dear David Sirota,

This is in reference to your e-mail dated May 23, 2016, inquiring about the status of your Freedom of Information Act request. A copy of your e-mail has been forwarded to the office that is processing your request. Our office was recently informed that the search process has been completed and that the information located from that search is currently being prepared for the review process. The new estimated completion date for your request is November 31, 2016.

We appreciate your continued patience during this process.

Sincerely,

Charlotte W. Duckett
U.S. Department of State

As some readers may have already noticed, November 31, 2016, is a fictitious date as the month only has 30 days. As of the time of this report, it is unclear when the State Department will fulfill Sirota’s request. Furthermore, Sirota pointed out that the delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a court motion to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to more quickly comply with open records requests for Clinton-era State Department documents.

Hillary Clinton, who just secured the Democratic presidential nomination, turned over to the State Department 55,000 emails from her private server that were sent or received when she was secretary of state, Breitbart reports. Some contained information that has since been deemed classified, and those were redacted for public release with notations for the reason of the censorship.

“It’s a simple but powerful idea: We believe that we are stronger together.” —Hillary https://t.co/BpXIJZNcDy

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016

An expected report of the Inspector General of the State Department reveals that Hillary Clinton violated the regulations on use and registration of communications during her tenure as secretary of state. The document harshly criticizes Clinton, saying she did not ask permission to use a personal email for official communications and that if she had, she would have been denied permission due to “security risks.” It concluded that Clinton failed to comply with the agency’s policies on records while using a personal email server that was not approved by agency officials.

The inspector general says the use of personal email is not an “appropriate method” to retain records of communications. In addition, Clinton and her team refused to be interviewed by the inspector for the preparation of the document, which also criticizes the malpractices of former secretaries of state.

“Secretary Clinton should have preserved any federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary,” an excerpt from the report reads. “At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”

The report is independent of the FBI investigation on misuse of classified material from their personal email and it’s also a further blow to the credibility of Clinton.

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