(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it uncovered 422 pages of FBI documents showing evidence of “cover up” discussions related to the Clinton email system within Platte River Networks, one of the vendors who managed the Clinton email system. The documents also show Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Charles McCullough forwarding “concerns” about classified information in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails.
The new documents uncovered by Judicial Watch also contain Clinton’s 2009 classified information Non-Disclosure Agreement bearing her signature.
An October 2016 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046)) forced the release of the new FBI documents. Judicial Watch lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request seeking:
- All FD-302 forms prepared pursuant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure.
- All records of communications between any agent, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding, concerning, or related to the aforementioned investigation. This request includes, but is not limited to, any related communications with any official, employee, or representative of the Department of Justice, the Executive Office of the President, the Democratic National Committee, and/or the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
- All records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016.
FBI notes of an interview with an unidentified Platte River Networks official in February 2016 (almost a year after the Clinton email network was first revealed) show that Platte River “gave someone access to live HRC archive mailbox at some point.” The same notes show that an email from December 11, 2014, exists that reads “Hillary cover up operation work ticket archive cleanup.” The interviewee said that the “cover up operation” email “probably related to change to 60 day [sic] email retention policy/backup.” The subject indicated that he didn’t “recall the prior policy.” The notes also indicated, “[Redacted] advised [redacted] not to answer questions related to conv [conversation] w/DK [David Kendall] document 49 – based on 5th amendment.”
The subject said that “everyone @ PRN has access to client portal.”
A December 11, 2014, Platte River Networks email between redacted parties says: “Its [sic] all part of the Hillary coverup operation <smile> I’ll have to tell you about it at the party”
An August 2015 email from Platte River Networks says: “So does this mean we don’t have offsite backups currently? That could be a problem if someone hacks this thing and jacks it up. We will have to be able to produce a copy of it somehow, or we’re in some deep shit. Also, what ever [sic] came from the guys at Datto about the old backups? Do they have anyway [sic] of getting those back after we were told to cut it to 30 days?”
In March 2015, Platte River Networks specifically discusses security of the email server.
[Redacted] is going to send over a list of recommendations for us to apply for additional security against hackers. He did say we should probably remove all Clinton files, folders, info off our servers etc. on an independent drive.
Handwritten notes that appear to be from Platte River Networks in February 2016 mention questions concerning the Clinton email system and state of back-ups
The documents show Platte River Networks’ use of BleachBit on the Clinton server. The BleachBit program was downloaded from a vendor called SourceForge at 11:42am on March 31, 2015, according to a computer event log, and over the next half hour, was used to delete the files on Hillary’s server.
The documents also contain emails and handwritten notes written in June and July 2015 from the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General discussing “concerns” over classified information. A redacted sender writes to State Department Official Margaret “Peggy” Grafeld that “inadvertent release of State Department’s equities when this collection is released in its entirety — the potential damage to the foreign relations of the United States could be significant. ICIG McCullough forwards the concern, saying: “Need you plugged in on this.”
From: [Redacted]
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 2:46 PM
To: Grafeld, Margaret P [Peggy]
Subject: Concerns about the HRC Review …
While working with this inspector, I have personally reviewed hundreds of documents in the HRC collection. I can now say, without reservation, that there are literally hundreds of classified emails in this collection; maybe more. For example, there are comments by Department staff in emails relating to the Wikileaks unauthorized disclosures; many of the emails relating to this actually confirm the information in the disclosures. This material is the subject of FOIA litigation, and the emails will now have to be found, reviewed and upgraded. Under the EO 13526, it would be in in our right to classify the entire HRC collection at the Secret level because of the “mosaic effect.” While there may be IC equities in the collection, I am very concerned about the inadvertent release of State Department’s equities when this collection is released in its entirety — the potential damage to the foreign relations of the United States could be significant.
***
From: Chuck Mccullough [sic]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 11:16 AM
To: [Redacted]
Subject: FW: SBU FW: Concerns about the HRC Review …
[Redacted]
Need you plugged in on this. Need to coordinate w/ State’s WB person.
In an August 2015 classified memo prepared by the FBI Counterintelligence Division regarding the findings of the ICIG with respect to Hillary’s email server, the FBI noted that the ICIG had found that in a sampling of only 40 of Hillary’s 30,000 emails, four classified emails were found. A subsequent letter sent by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) to ODNI Clapper regarding this sample of Clinton’s emails noted that they were all classified at the secret level.
In an August 2015 internal FBI memo, the FBI notes that Hillary Clinton had signed a June 28, 2011, official correspondence advising all State Department employees that, “due to ‘recent targeting of personal e-mail accounts by online adversaries,’ State employees should ‘avoid conducting official Department business from (their) personal e-mail accounts.” The same FBI memo noted that Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy had sent a memo to all senior State Department officials on August 28, 2014, in which Kennedy included excerpts from the Foreign Affairs Manual that said that “classified information must be sent via classified e-mail channels only…”
The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch also show infighting between State Department Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy and the ICIG over the processing of the potentially compromised Clinton email communications.
A June 15, 2015, memo for the record prepared by the ICIG regarding the State Department’s review of Hillary Clinton’s emails indicates among other things that the retired foreign service officers that State was using to review Hillary’s emails were not “not optimal.”
