INTERROGATORIES judicialwatch.org
1. Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to
create the system, the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up,
and when it became operational.
2. Describe the creation of your clintonemail.com email account, including who
decided to create it, when it was created, why it was created, and, if you did not set up the
account yourself, who set it up for you.
3. When did you decide to use a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official
State Department business and whom did you consult in making this decision?
4. Identify all communications in which you participated concerning or relating to
your decision to use a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department
business and, for each communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in
writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and
content of the communication.
5. In a 60 Minutes interview aired on July 24, 2016, you stated that it was
“recommended” you use a personal email account to conduct official State Department business.
What recommendations were you given about using or not using a personal email account to
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conduct official State Department business, who made any such recommendations, and when
were any such recommendations made?
6. Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned, was it ever suggested, or did you
ever participate in any communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed that
your use of a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business
conflicted with or violated federal recordkeeping laws. For each instance in which you were so
advised, cautioned or warned, in which such a suggestion was made, or in which such a
discussion took place, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by
telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the
advice, caution, warning, suggestion, or discussion.
7. Your campaign website states, “When Clinton got to the Department, she opted to
use her personal email account as a matter of convenience.” What factors other than
convenience did you consider in deciding to use a personal email account to conduct official
State Department business? Include in your answer whether you considered federal records
management and preservation requirements and how email you used to conduct official State
Department business would be searched in response to FOIA requests.
8. After President Obama nominated you to be Secretary of State and during your
tenure as secretary, did you expect the State Department to receive FOIA requests for or
concerning your email?
9. During your tenure as Secretary of State, did you understand that email you sent
or received in the course of conducting official State Department business was subject to FOIA?
10. During your tenure as Secretary of State, how did you manage and preserve
emails in your clintonemail.com email account sent or received in the course of conducting
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official State Department business, and what, if anything, did you do to make those emails
available to the Department for conducting searches in response to FOIA requests?
11. During your tenure as Secretary of State, what, if any, effort did you make to
inform the State Department’s records management personnel (e.g., Clarence Finney or the
Executive Secretariat’s Office of Correspondence and Records) about your use of a
clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business?
12. During your tenure as Secretary of State, did State Department personnel ever
request access to your clintonemail.com email account to search for email responsive to a FOIA
request? If so, identify the date access to your account was requested, the person or persons
requesting access, and whether access was granted or denied.
13. At the time you decided to use your clintonemail.com email account to conduct
official State Department business, or at any time thereafter during your tenure as Secretary of
State, did you consider how emails you sent to or received from persons who did not have State
Department email accounts (i.e., “state.gov” accounts) would be maintained and preserved by the
Department or searched by the Department in response to FOIA requests? If so, what was your
understanding about how such emails would be maintained, preserved, or searched by the
Department in response to FOIA requests?
14. On March 6, 2009, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J.
Boswell wrote in an Information Memo to your Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, that he “cannot
stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable in any setting
to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving email, and exploiting calendars.”
A March 11, 2009 email states that, in a management meeting with the assistant secretaries, you
approached Assistant Secretary Boswell and mentioned that you had read the “IM” and that you
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“get it.” Did you review the March 6, 2009 Information Memo, and, if so, why did you continue
using an unclassified BlackBerry to access your clintonemail.com email account to conduct
official State Department business? Copies of the March 6, 2009 Information Memo and March
11, 2009 email are attached as Exhibit A for your review.
15. In a November 13, 2010 email exchange with Huma Abedin about problems with
your clintonemail.com email account, you wrote to Ms. Abedin, in response to her suggestion
that you use a State Department email account or release your email address to the Department,
“Let’s get a separate address or device.” Why did you continue using your clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business after agreeing on November 13,
2010 to “get a separate address or device?” Include in your answer whether by “address” you
meant an official State Department email account (i.e., a “state.gov” account) and by “device”
you meant a State Department-issued BlackBerry. A copy of the November 13, 2010 email
exchange with Ms. Abedin is attached as Exhibit B for your review.
16. Email exchanges among your top aides and assistants in August 30, 2011 discuss
providing you with a State Department-issued BlackBerry or State Department email address. In
the course of these discussions, State Department Executive Secretary Stephen Mull wrote,
“[W]e are working to provide the Secretary per her request a Department issued BlackBerry to
replace her personal unit which is malfunctioning (possibly because of her personal email server
is down). We will prepare two versions for her to use – one with an operating State Department
email account (which would mask her identity, but which would also be subject to FOIA
requests).” Similarly, John Bentel, the Director of Information and Records Management in the
Executive Secretariat, wrote, “You should be aware that any email would go through the
Department’s infrastructure and [be] subject to FOIA searches.” Did you request a State7
Department issued Blackberry or a State Department email account in or around August 2011,
and, if so, why did you continue using your personal device and clintonemail.com email account
to conduct official State Department business instead of replacing your device and account with
a State Department-issued BlackBerry or a State Department email account? Include in your
answer whether the fact that a State Department-issued BlackBerry or a State Department email
address would be subject to FOIA affected your decision. Copies of the email exchanges are
attached as Exhibit C for your review.
17. In February 2011, Assistant Secretary Boswell sent you an Information Memo
noting “a dramatic increase since January 2011 in attempts . . . to compromise the private home
email accounts of senior Department officials.” Assistant Secretary Boswell “urge[d]
Department users to minimize the use of personal web-email for business.” Did you review
Assistant Secretary Boswell’s Information Memo in or after February 2011, and, if so, why did
you continue using your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department
business? Include in your answer any steps you took to minimize use of your clintonemail.com
email account after reviewing the memo. A copy of Assistant Secretary Boswell’s February
2011 Information Memo is attached as Exhibit D for your review.
18. On June 28, 2011, you sent a message to all State Department personnel about
securing personal email accounts. In the message, you noted “recent targeting of personal email
accounts by online adversaries” and directed all personnel to “[a]void conducting official
Department business from your personal email accounts.” Why did you continue using your
clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business after June 28,
2011, when you were advising all State Department Personnel to avoid doing so? A copy of the
June 28, 2011 message is attached as Exhibit E for your review.
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19. Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned about hacking or attempted hacking
of your clintonemail.com email account or the server that hosted your clintonemail.com account
and, if so, what did you do in response to the advice, caution, or warning?
20. When you were preparing to leave office, did you consider allowing the State
Department access to your clintonemail.com email account to manage and preserve the official
emails in your account and to search those emails in response to FOIA requests? If you
considered allowing access to your email account, why did you decide against it? If you did not
consider allowing access to your email account, why not?
21. After you left office, did you believe you could alter, destroy, disclose, or use
email you sent or received concerning official State Department business as you saw fit? If not,
why not?
22. In late 2014, the State Department asked that you make available to the
Department copies of any federal records of which you were aware, “such as an email sent or
received on a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State.” After you left office
but before your attorneys reviewed the email in your clintonemail.com email account in response
to the State Department’s request, did you alter, destroy, disclose, or use any of the email in the
account or authorize or instruct that any email in the account be altered, destroyed, disclosed, or
used? If so, describe any email that was altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used, when the
alteration, destruction, disclosure, or use took place, and the circumstances under which the
email was altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used? A copy of a November 12, 2014 letter from
Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy regarding the State Department’s
request is attached as Exhibit F for your review.
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23. After your lawyers completed their review of the emails in your clintonemail.com
email account in late 2014, were the electronic versions of your emails preserved, deleted, or
destroyed? If they were deleted or destroyed, what tool or software was used to delete or destroy
them, who deleted or destroyed them, and was the deletion or destruction done at your direction?
24. During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of
Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails
“were in the State’s system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been
able to do so.” Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in
support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made
aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of
these facts.
25. Identify all communications between you and Brian Pagliano concerning or
relating to the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of any emails in your
clintonemail.com email account, including any instruction or direction to Mr. Pagliano about the
management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of emails in your account when transferring
the clintonemail.com email system to any alternate or replacement server. For each
communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone,
or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the
communication. |
