Clinton-Abedin Email Exchanges of Classified Information on Unsecure Server
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 323 pages of new Department of State documents, including previously unreleased email exchanges in which Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin sent classified information over Clinton’s clintonemail.com unsecure email system. According to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions cited in the documents obtained by Judicial Watch, three of the Clinton-Abedin email exchanges contained material “classified to protect national security.”
Also included in the newly obtained documents is an additional instance of the State Department doing special favors for a high-dollar Clinton Foundation donor. And the documents include instances of the distribution by State Department officials of Clinton’s government schedule to members of the Clinton Foundation staff.
The documents contain emails not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date of such emails uncovered by Judicial Watch to 238 new Clinton emails (not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department). These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.
The new records include three separate Clinton-Abedin email exchanges withheld in part from Judicial Watch under the State Department’s “B1” FOIA exemption, applying to “information that is classified to protect national security”:
From: sbwhoeop[Redacted]
To: H:
Sent: Thu Oct 08 [8:08:03] 2009
Subject: Fw: Memo on latest N.I. negotiations; yr trip; from Shaun W Sid
CONFIDENTIAL
October 8, 2009
For: Hillary
From: Sid
Re: Latest/N. Ireland
After five hours of talk at Downing Street tonight, Thursday, October 8, Shaun Woodward tells me that it seems Gordon Brown has brokered a financial package with Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness that may in turn break the deadlock of devolution of policing and justice. They have covered the major issues in stage two in their discussions. On Monday, Brown will formally set out the details in a letter to Robinson and McGuinness. Gordon will share these with you when you meet with him on Sunday at Chequers. Shaun says that both Robinson and McGuinness, subject to some minor details, should be in a position to recommend to Unionists and Nationalists that this is a strong deal. The letter will confirm the details. [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;” “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources”] I hope that’s right.
From: H
To: Huma Abedin
Sent: Thu Oct 08 [8:08:04] 2009
Subject: Fw: Memo on latest N.I. negotiations; yr trip; from Shaun W Sid
Pls print.
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 8:10:04 PM
To: Humamabedin[Redacted]
Subject: Fw: Memo on latest N.I. [Northern Ireland] negotiations; yr trip; from Shaun W Sid
Attachments: hrc memo n. ireland 100809.docx
***
From: sbwhoeop[Redacted]
To: H
Sent: Sun Oct 11 [8:46:43] 2009
Subject: Memo on your speech meeting on Monday, Sid
CONFIDENTIAL
October 11, 2009
For: Hillary
From: Sid
Re: Your speech and meeting on Monday
I have not seen your speech obviously that you will deliver Monday morning at Stormont. Shaun tells me that it’s a good speech, and you’re right not to instruct the parties what to do but to encourage them to address why completing devolution needs to be done [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;” “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources”] That’s it.
From: H
To: Huma Abedin
Sent: Monday Oct 12 02:06:15 2009
Subject: Fw: H: Memo on your speech meeting on Monday, Sid
Pls print
From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:11:38 AM
To: humamabedin[Redacted]
Subject: Fw: H: Memo on your speech meeting on Monday, Sid
Attachments: hrc memo ni [sic] meeting 101209 docx
***
From: H HDR22@clintonemail.com
To: Sullivan, Jacob J
Sent: Sun Oct 25 11:13:17 2009
Subject: Re: Honduras
First, Tom’s travel date hasn’t been set – will be Tuesday or Wednesday we think. He is coordinating with Don Restrepo to see if they can go together [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy”] So that’s where we are. We’ll have more to report tomorrow.
***
From Sullivan, Jacob J SullivanJJ@state.gov
To: H
Sent: Sun Oct 25 [11:49:45] 2009
Subject: Re: Honduras
Sounds good.
There will be those who take a hard line on the elections, but perhaps some fence-sitting countries could be persuaded on conditional recognition. I’ll flag it for Tom and Craig.
From: H
To: Huma Abedin
Sent: Mon Oct 26 07:27:12 2009
Subject: Fw: Honduras
All of this did not print last night, It stopped after Fourth! [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;” “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources”]
From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 8:06:12 AM
To: humaabedin [Redacted]
Subject: Fw: Honduras
The emails also include an exchange between Abedin, Clinton personal assistant Lauren Jiloty, and Iris Anaya, the assistant to sugar magnate and Clinton Foundation donor Alfonso Fanjul concerning a request for special access to Clinton. On October 13, 2009, Anaya emailed Abedin seeking to arrange a meeting between Fanjul, the CEO of Florida Crystals, and Clinton. Jiloty responded the next day, asking that Anaya talk with Clinton scheduler Lona Valmoro about “setting up a meeting.” Fanjul donated more than $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation and was a Bill Clinton co-chairman in Florida.
In an October 26, 2009, email exchange, power attorney and Hillary Clinton financial supporter, Charlie Ann Syprett, contacted Doug Band, apparently seeking help in getting around U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) restrictions on U.S. citizens’ ability to travel to Cuba. Syprett ostensibly wanted a waiver from the restrictions to enable people from her organization, SYC Charitable Foundation, to travel to Cuba, noting “we are not asking for something out of the ordinary.”
The emails also show that Valmoro sent Clinton’s government schedule to the unsecure email addresses of numerous members of the Clinton Foundation staff on October 16, 2009, again on October 18, 2009, and on October 25, 2009. The emails also include discussions of personnel matters and appointments on Clinton’s unsecure account, which may run afoul of federal privacy law.
This is the thirteenth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin. The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department requiring the agency to produce “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” (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)). Previous records releases documented special Clinton State Department consideration for Clinton Foundation supporters (see here, here, and here.)
“We’ve once again uncovered classified information in Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s emails,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is frankly remarkable that the FBI and Justice Department are only now investigating Abedin’s connection to Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.”
