State Department comments on the response to the Issa letter on emails

[karynnj]

Here is what was said in the State Department briefing yesterday:

QUESTION: The New York Times had a report out today showing that Congress – or Chairman Issa sent a letter to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State asking about her use of personal email, and the State Department got back after she had left in March of 2013. Do you have any response to that or --

MR RATHKE: Response to what particular aspect of it?

QUESTION: The reason for the delay in response or why it was that the response didn’t occur in December of 2012 when the letter was first --

MR RATHKE: Well, I think as you’re probably aware but maybe it bears repeating, we receive thousands of requests from Congress every year. We responded to this request in – it was in December of 2012 that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to the State Department and other cabinet agencies, and it requested information on the department’s policies and practices regarding the use of personal email and other forms of electronic communications. And so in March 2013 the department responded to the inquiry. We described our policies in detail. We included also relevant attachments that governed the department’s policies. So that’s – that was the nature of the response, and we continue to work closely with Congress on various issues related to the policies and procedures of the State Department.

Yeah.

QUESTION: But the (inaudible) did not answer the questions from Issa’s letter, did you?

MR RATHKE: Well, again, the chairman’s letter asked about the department’s policies and practices, and we responded on those policies and practices.

QUESTION: But the first question from Chairman Issa’s letter was: Does any senior official at the State Department use a private email account? And I did not see that in the response.

MR RATHKE: Well, we responded to the committee in detail on our policy. I don’t have anything more to add.

QUESTION: But do you acknowledge you didn’t answer the question?

MR RATHKE: Well, again, the question was focused on on the policies and practices. I don’t have anything further to add.

QUESTION: But the first question is: Does – was very specific. It said: Does anybody, any senior official, have a private email account?

MR RATHKE: Yeah. I just don’t have anything more to add on that.

QUESTION: Well, in March ‘13 did any senior official have a private email account?

MR RATHKE: Did any of them have a private email account? How do you --

QUESTION: Well, when you answered the letter, did any of them have – first of all, why – is three months the normal timeframe that it takes to respond to a --

MR RATHKE: I don’t know if I have the statistics on the length of time to respond to congressional inquiries. I mean, sometimes the response takes some time. I don’t --

QUESTION: Three months? I mean, is that --

MR RATHKE: Again, we get --

QUESTION: You said you’re deluged with them, and I’m just wondering.

MR RATHKE: We get thousands of requests. I don’t have a timeline of the average response time.

QUESTION: Okay. But the question that Lucas raises – well, the question that Chairman Issa raised in the letter was not answered, correct? I mean, it may be that by the time that you got around to answering the letter the people who had private email accounts had already left and weren’t working for the State Department anymore and --

MR RATHKE: Yeah, I’m happy to look and see if there’s – if there’s more detail on that.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/04/240725.htm

Somethings that appear distorted:
1) This was a request sent to multiple departments.
2) It was answered in March -- at which point most Clinton people had left -- in fact, they were incredibly involved in staffing all those positions. So, at the point they answered the question, which appears NOT to have asked about HRC, the question would have related to John Kerry, who was using state.gov.

(This was posted earlier on GD, but I reposted it here in case people were concerned about the NYT story. It looks like their answer in March was easy - because Kerry was using state.gov! ) It also does sound like the question is what IS the Secretary of State using -- and in March - the answer and the policy were ... State.gov.

I had posted it on GD, because I thought that it was important that people know that the article distorted it to make it look like the State Department was hiding what Clinton was doing. But, I think the Obama supporters did not read it and the Clinton people just blasted that Issa would even question HRC.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Since we know Issa has always been honest and followed all rules (like hell he did)

Then he probably expects every one to follow the rules huh. Issa failed to deliver on Benghazi.

[karynnj]

2. Do you seriously think this is about defending Issa?

The point is that it is not a good defense to simply say that Issa is a crook. He is, but the point is that this story -- in the NYT -- made it look like Clinton and the State Department stonewalled on answering a question on email. Needless to say, the question was BEFORE there were any questions on HRC's email - and the question and the story that she evaded the question are different in the light of the controversy over the scandal.

This is a post in the John Kerry group -- and as such it is more concerned with the impact on the State Department and especially Secretary Kerry and President Obama than the impact on HRC. However, just as Obama doing better is good for Clinton, anything Clinton did while secretary reflects on Obama.

[Thinkingabout]

3. No, it is not about defending Issa, far from defending Issa, but to point out we can not rely on

Statements made by Issa who does not have any integrity. John Kerry speaks from a position of integrity.

[MBS]

4. thanks for posting this

I hadn't seen either your GD posting or the original State dept. briefing, so thanks for re-posting here.Your mention of the CONTEXT of that request is also helpful-- especially the facts that it was not originally an inquiry about HRC per se, and that it sent to more than one department!!