On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was interviewed by NPR’s Ari Shapiro during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas. She was asked about a number of topics including recent allegations that her email server contained classified information, her campaign with Bernie Sanders, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and her plans if elected president. A full transcript of the interview can be read HERE.
Today, Clinton was in Iowa where she attended several events. Full coverage will be posted later this evening. For all the latest, follow our revamped Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gestures as she addresses the summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Friday, Aug. 28, 2015, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Tonight, the State Department released another batch of emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. The department reports that this batch contains roughly 7,000 pages of emails and that what they have released so far constitutes about 25% of emails that Clinton turned over. To date, 188 of the emails have been marked as classified, but a State Department spokesman said that the emails were not marked as classified at the time they were sent or received.
Clinton has said on several occasions that she wants the emails available to the public in the interest of transparency. News organizations release quotes from a few of her emails, but many average Americans have asked how they can access the emails. Since the release of the emails is part of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), all the emails are being posted to the State Department’s FOIA website. To access the emails that have been released so far, follow the steps below:
You will get results with a mix of emails and other documents
Click on the arrow next to the “Posted Date” column header and select “Sort Descending” so that the recently released documents show first
Click the title of the document in the “Subject” field to open a PDF copy
As of this posting, the search yields 4,172 emails and documents, and this number is going to continue to grow. The State Department will release batches of Clinton’s emails at the end of each month through the end of 2015.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives at the high school in Exeter, N.H., Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, where she announced her college affordability plan. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
Today, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign released a fact sheet about her use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. The release came as it was announced that Clinton would turn over her private email server to the Department of Justice following allegations that she received classified emails on an insecure channel. The Clinton campaign’s release includes a number of key points and a link to a Q&A on their website. The full text of the release is below:
Here are the basics: Like other Secretaries of State who served before her, Hillary used a personal email address, and the rules of the State Department permitted it. She’s already acknowledged that, in hindsight, it would have been better just to use separate work and personal email accounts. No one disputes that.
The State Department’s request: Last year, as part of a review of its records, the State Department asked the last four former Secretaries of State to provide any work-related emails they had. Hillary was the only former Secretary of State to provide any materials — more than 30,000 emails. In fact, she handed over too many — the Department said it will be returning over 1,200 messages to her because, in their and the National Archives’ judgment, these messages were completely personal in nature.
Hillary didn’t send any classified materials over email: Hillary only used her personal account for unclassified email. No information in her emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them. She viewed classified materials in hard copy in her office or via other secure means while traveling, not on email.
What makes it complicated: It’s common for information previously considered unclassified to be upgraded to classified before being publicly released. Some emails that weren’t secret at the time she sent or received them might be secret now. And sometimes government agencies disagree about what should be classified, so it isn’t surprising that another agency might want to conduct its own review, even though the State Department has repeatedly confirmed that Hillary’s emails contained no classified information at the time she sent or received them.
To be clear, there is absolutely no criminal inquiry into Hillary’s email or email server. Any and all reports to that effect have been widely debunked. Hillary directed her team to provide her email server and a thumb drive in order to cooperate with the review process and to ensure these materials were stored in a safe and secure manner.
What about the Benghazi committee? While you may hear from the Republican-led Benghazi committee about Hillary’s emails, it is important to remember that the committee was formed to focus on learning lessons from Benghazi to help prevent future tragedies at our embassies and consulates around the globe. Instead, the committee, led by Republican Representative Trey Gowdy, is spending nearly $6 million in taxpayer money to conduct a partisan witch-hunt designed to do political damage to Hillary in the run-up to the election.
Hillary has remained absolutely committed to cooperating. That’s why, just as she gave her email server to the government, she’s also testifying before the Benghazi committee in October and is actively working with the Justice Department to make sure they have what they need. She hopes that her emails will continue to be released in a timely fashion.
It’s worth noting: Many of the Republican candidates for president have done the same things for which they’re now criticizing Hillary. As governor, Jeb Bush owned his own private server and his staff decided which emails he turned over as work-related from his private account. Bobby Jindal went a step further, using private email to communicate with his immediate staff but refusing to release his work-related emails. Scott Walker and Rick Perry had email issues themselves.
Yesterday, Clinton kicked off a three-day visit to Iowa by attending a campaign event in Winterset, Iowa where she spoke with supporters then answered questions from reporters. A number of questions were about allegations that Clinton sent and received classified information on her private email server as Secretary of State and a possible investigation by the Department of Justice. She denies the claims saying, “I am confident I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received. What I think you’re seeing is a very typical kind of discussion to some extent, disagreement among various parts of the government over what should or what should not be publicly released.”
On Saturday, Clinton also gave a speech and answered questions at an event at Beaverdale. A video from this event is posted above.
Today, Clinton gave a speech in Ames at an organizing event where she previewed her plans to combat climate change and her commitment to clean energy. Tomorrow, Clinton will provide full details of her plan in a speech in Des Moines. In her preview, Clinton took the opportunity to criticize the Republican presidential candidates who deny climate change is a reality saying, “Those people on the other side, they will answer any question about climate change by saying I’m not a scientist. I’m not a scientist either—I’m just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain…I know that if we start addressing it, we’re going to actually be creating jobs and new businesses.”
A video from today’s speech will be posted when/if it becomes available. Until then, watch the video released by the Clinton campaign about climate change.
Tomorrow, Clinton concluded her three-day trip to Iowa in Des Moines. Follow along on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for all the latest updates.
Updated (8/5/2015): Added video from the event in Beaverdale.
Hillary Clinton Speeches 