State Department misses court-ordered goal on Clinton email release

[ViseGrip]

State Department misses court-ordered goal on Clinton email release
• New York Times
Thursday, December 31, 2015 10:35am

5,500 pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails were released.

WASHINGTON — The State Department fell short of a court order requiring the release of the vast bulk of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails by the end of 2015 but promised Thursday to catch up early in the new year.

Just hours before the year ended, the department disclosed another 5,500 pages of Clinton's messages in its latest monthly release. But it acknowledged that it would not meet the target set by a federal judge of producing 82 percent of her emails by the end of December.

"We have worked diligently to come as close to the goal as possible, but with the large number of documents involved and the holiday schedule, we have not met the goal this month," the department said in a statement. "To narrow that gap, the State Department will make another production of former Secretary Clinton's email sometime next week."

Last May, Judge Rudolph Contreras of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the State Department to release Clinton's emails on a rolling basis each month in response to a lawsuit filed by Vice News under the Freedom of Information Act. He specified no penalties for any violations.

The department has released thousands of pages of the emails — which were housed on a private server in Clinton's home — on the last day of each month and is supposed to complete the disclosure by Jan. 29.

The emails posted Thursday provided a further glimpse into the cloistered and sometimes caustic world of Clinton's entourage during her four-year stint as the nation's top diplomat. On display once again were the rivalries and insecurities in her circle as she represented to the outside world the man who beat her for the presidency.

One ally confided to her that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany did not care for "the Obama phenomenon," while another urged immediate aid to Libya if Moammar Gadhafi were to fall, as he later did. Some of her advisers did little to hide their disdain for President Barack Obama's aides, while Clinton herself fretted about reports that she did not exercise enough influence in the White House. "Pls go through my schedules and count my visits to refute this and correct record," Clinton wrote an aide in response to a "ridiculous column" on the number of times she had visited the White House.

Subordinates and outsiders lavished praise on her. Henry A. Kissinger, perhaps her most famous living predecessor, wrote in 2012 seeking help to declassify some of his papers, ending with this handwritten note: "I greatly admire the skill and aplomb with which you conduct our foreign policy."

The sometimes Byzantine nature of Clinton's orbit was summed up in one email from Philippe Reines, who designed an irreverent flow chart to determine who should ride in her limousine while she traveled abroad. "Ambassador Tolerable?" one entry asked. If yes, he or she got to ride in the car. If not, Clinton would ride without the intolerable envoy.

Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime friend who regularly provided advice, scorned "Gibbs' and Axelrod's rock bottom performances exposing utter political vacuity on the Sunday shows," referring to Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod, two close Obama aides.

Blumenthal was the one who passed along advice about Merkel in 2009 from John Kornblum, who was Bill Clinton's ambassador to Germany. "He says she dislikes the atmospherics surrounding the Obama phenomenon, that it's contrary to her whole idea of politics and how to conduct oneself in general," Blumenthal wrote.

As for Clinton, she continued to struggle with technology. "I've had big problems w my blackberry, which has been having a nervous breakdown on my dime!" she wrote one day.
With the latest releases, more than 1,200 messages have been found to contain classified information. But even some of those released Thursday were redacted heavily under a privacy exemption.

State Department misses court-ordered goal on Clinton email release 12/31/15 [Last modified: Thursday, December 31, 2015 10:23pm]
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/qa-what-to-expect-in-the-latest-batch-of-hillary-clintons-emails-today/2259595

[ViseGrip]

1. Ahhh, they'll have it the night before the Iowa caucuses.....how timely. EOM

[bigtree]

2. the emails are mostly gossipy bullshit

...the contents makes Vice News looks like a pack of tabloid hounds.

[ViseGrip]

3. How do you know that when they have not been seen. This is a woman who caters to defense.

[bigtree]

4. blah blah blah

...what if the moon was really made of cheese?