Re: NYT | Email Content

There's a lot to respond to here, but first and foremost the premise is wrong. There is nothing wrong with anyone having personal email addresses or her emailing someone's private account or vice versa. Maybe she was wishing Jake a happy birthday. Or I was sending her a note about her mom. Or she asking Monica about Oscar disappearing. We're allowed to have personal lives. 

Second, it was her practice, as well as ours, to conduct work on the .gov system. In those cases we didn't, which could have been for any reason, including State.gov being down.  In those cases the onus is on us to make sure that anything that should have ended up in the right place did. 

Now, depending on what they are looking at, you can't easily determine if that happened. They are looking at HER email, not ours. They don't know what next step we took.  

The most important thing to ascertain from State is whether they are looking at specific email from the "300" - because in those cases Heather and I went one by one to determine if a) it needed to end up on .gov, and b) it did indeed end up there. 

Since there are less than a dozen instances of this in the 300 it was easy. One is me sending her a clip, no commentary. Another is her emailing me & Huma about something that I subsequently followed up on my .gov account. We did that for each and could share that if need be.

If they've somehow seen some of the other 55k, we'd need to see each to determine what they were.

Lastly, we should warn Monica. Huma, unless you want to Nick or I can.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 3:13 PM To: Jennifer Palmieri; Cheryl Mills; Philippe Reines; Heather Samuelson; Huma Abedin; Jacob Sullivan Subject: NYT | Email Content

Here is the story that I mentioned hearing from State about over the weekend.  Specific questions are below.  

Jen when we talked over the weekend you noted that it was fairly irresponsible for them to cherry pick leaked emails and write it up as representative.  And some of the questions below are a little ridiculous to say the least.  

I’ll call State now and see what they know and report back.  I also asked what their deadline was.

Nick

From: <Schmidt>, Mike Schmidt <schmidtm@nytimes.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 2:53 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Subject: emails

Nick,

We’re preparing a story on how Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers at the State Department used their private email accounts for some of their email correspondences with her. 

We’ve learned that Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan and Monica Hanley, used personal email accounts to correspond with her on her personal account. She also corresponded with Sidney Blumenthal about inside information he had about Libya.

We have the following questions for our article:

Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

I will be on

 

From: Nick Merrill
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 4:46 PM
To: Marissa Astor; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; Huma Abedin; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; Joanne Laszczych; Eryn Sepp; jake.sullivan@gmail.com

Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

 

OK with me.

 

From: Marissa Astor <marissa.astor@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 4:39 PM
To: Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Joanne Laszczych <jlaszczych@cdmillsgroup.com>, Eryn Sepp <eryn.sepp@gmail.com>, NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: NYT | Email Content

 

Responding from my gmail as I'm having iCloud email issues. Can folks get on the phone at 5:15pm today?

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 4:31 PM
Subject: Fwd: NYT | Email Content
To: Marissa Astor <marissa.astor@gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content
To: Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, Marissa Astor <marissa.astor@icloud.com>

Praise Jesus.  Please do, Marissa.

 

On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com> wrote:

Agree

Marissa can sched if you need 

On Mar 17, 2015, at 4:03 PM, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com> wrote:

+ Robby and John

 

Strikes me as a big problem that the NYT is having selected emails leaked to them and I I think we should do a call to discuss the proper way to handle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

There's a lot to respond to here, but first and foremost the premise is wrong. There is nothing wrong with anyone having personal email addresses or her emailing someone's private account or vice versa. Maybe she was wishing Jake a happy birthday. Or I was sending her a note about her mom. Or she asking Monica about Oscar disappearing. We're allowed to have personal lives. 

 

Second, it was her practice, as well as ours, to conduct work on the .gov system. In those cases we didn't, which could have been for any reason, including State.gov being down.  In those cases the onus is on us to make sure that anything that should have ended up in the right place did. 

 

Now, depending on what they are looking at, you can't easily determine if that happened. They are looking at HER email, not ours. They don't know what next step we took.  

 

The most important thing to ascertain from State is whether they are looking at specific email from the "300" - because in those cases Heather and I went one by one to determine if a) it needed to end up on .gov, and b) it did indeed end up there. 

 

Since there are less than a dozen instances of this in the 300 it was easy. One is me sending her a clip, no commentary. Another is her emailing me & Huma about something that I subsequently followed up on my .gov account. We did that for each and could share that if need be.

 

If they've somehow seen some of the other 55k, we'd need to see each to determine what they were.

 

Lastly, we should warn Monica. Huma, unless you want to Nick or I can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 3:13 PM To: Jennifer Palmieri; Cheryl Mills; Philippe Reines; Heather Samuelson; Huma Abedin; Jacob Sullivan Subject: NYT | Email Content

 

Here is the story that I mentioned hearing from State about over the weekend.  Specific questions are below.  

 

Jen when we talked over the weekend you noted that it was fairly irresponsible for them to cherry pick leaked emails and write it up as representative.  And some of the questions below are a little ridiculous to say the least.  

 

I’ll call State now and see what they know and report back.  I also asked what their deadline was.

 

Nick

 

From: <Schmidt>, Mike Schmidt <schmidtm@nytimes.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 2:53 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Subject: emails

 

Nick,

We’re preparing a story on how Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers at the State Department used their private email accounts for some of their email correspondences with her. 

 

We’ve learned that Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan and Monica Hanley, used personal email accounts to correspond with her on her personal account. She also corresponded with Sidney Blumenthal about inside information he had about Libya.

We have the following questions for our article:

Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

 

 

 

 

--

Marissa E. Astor
marissa.astor@gmail.com
(301) 613–3675

OK with me.

From: Marissa Astor <marissa.astor@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 4:39 PM
To: Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Joanne Laszczych <jlaszczych@cdmillsgroup.com>, Eryn Sepp <eryn.sepp@gmail.com>, NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: NYT | Email Content

We have asking state to do that 

cdm

On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:24 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

What do people think about releasing all the emails that went to Gowdy?

On Mar 19, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick

We should push for this tonight if possible. NYT may have an incoherent story, but they seem to be fixing to call her a liar on the front page.

On Mar 19, 2015 2:36 PM, "Jake Sullivan" <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

This would seem to give a new imperative.  The committee is leaking particular bits of information.  Would be worth someone convincing State to just launch.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

We have asking state to do that 

cdm

On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:24 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

What do people think about releasing all the emails that went to Gowdy?

On Mar 19, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick

who are we pushing - State?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 3:58 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

We should push for this tonight if possible. NYT may have an incoherent story, but they seem to be fixing to call her a liar on the front page.

On Mar 19, 2015 2:36 PM, "Jake Sullivan" <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

This would seem to give a new imperative.  The committee is leaking particular bits of information.  Would be worth someone convincing State to just launch.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

We have asking state to do that 

cdm

On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:24 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

What do people think about releasing all the emails that went to Gowdy?

On Mar 19, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick

That's the idea -- someone call State and ask them to release these emails given that they are being selectively released to the NYT.

CDM, could you do that?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 4:05 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

who are we pushing - State?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 3:58 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

We should push for this tonight if possible. NYT may have an incoherent story, but they seem to be fixing to call her a liar on the front page.

On Mar 19, 2015 2:36 PM, "Jake Sullivan" <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

This would seem to give a new imperative.  The committee is leaking particular bits of information.  Would be worth someone convincing State to just launch.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

We have asking state to do that 

cdm

On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:24 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

What do people think about releasing all the emails that went to Gowdy?

On Mar 19, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick

The NYT is now telling us noon tomorrow is now the deadline. My vote would be to hit back again challenging their premise, since I don’t think anything they’ve provided has really been sufficient.  And I think he knows he’s on weak ground.  I can draft something.

From: Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 5:04 PM
To: Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>
Cc: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>

Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Narrowing the list

Just spoke to the COS to inquire as to their timeline for release if that was information they were able to share, particularly given the selective leaking of these documents by Congress to the NYT.

He will revert as he is traveling overseas; it does not appear that they are on a trajectory for today though based upon my conversation.

cdm

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

That's the idea -- someone call State and ask them to release these emails given that they are being selectively released to the NYT.

CDM, could you do that?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 4:05 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

who are we pushing - State?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 3:58 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

We should push for this tonight if possible. NYT may have an incoherent story, but they seem to be fixing to call her a liar on the front page.

On Mar 19, 2015 2:36 PM, "Jake Sullivan" <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

This would seem to give a new imperative.  The committee is leaking particular bits of information.  Would be worth someone convincing State to just launch.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote:

We have asking state to do that 

cdm

On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:24 PM, Jake Sullivan <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote:

What do people think about releasing all the emails that went to Gowdy?

On Mar 19, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Alright, just heard back.  See below.  He is trying to save face and being helped by his source trying to save face.

nick, 

i have read your email. 

we're not saying that her advisers exclusively used their personal accounts. we're just saying that they used their personal accounts at times to communicate with mrs. clinton on her personal account. 

for example, many emails jake sent or received from the secretary were from his state.gov account. but he did send mrs. clinton an email in april 2012 from his personal account that outlined her leadership in bringing down the qaddafi regime.

so what we're seeking an answer to -- along with the other questions i sent you -- is why did her advisers at times use personal addresses to communicate with her?

meanwhile, below is some new information i have about the emails that i want to flag you on to see if you want to respond to them. we're running out of time and need a response by 4 p.m.

thnx.

new information:

A month after the Benghazi attacks, the Republican controlled House Oversight Committee held a hearing about the security at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya testified that the State Department had thwarted his request to extend the deployment of an American military team in Libya. The State Department’s under secretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, testified that the extended deployment would have altered the outcome. "Did we survive the day?" Mrs. Clinton wrote in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Survive, yes,” Mr. Sullivan said in response. “Pat helped level set things tonight and we’ll see where we are in the morning.”

we now have a direct quote on the sullivan email to mrs. clinton that included a transcript of susan rice's appearance on one of the sunday talk shows: "She did make clear our view that this started spontaneously then evolved," Mr. Sullivan said.

From: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 12:46 PM
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Cc: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>, Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Not a peep from the Times since I sent this.

On Mar 19, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:

Where does this stand?

JP

--Sent from my iPad--

john.podesta@gmail.com

For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com

On Mar 18, 2015, at 11:52 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com> wrote:

Heather, Philippe and I spent a couple of hours on the phone just now talking through the specifics trying to piece together what Schmidt is being led to believe, and we concluded that from the below he may have a glaring hole in his fact set, which is that he thinks the two Jake emails, the only two he cites as examples of HRC “working completely outside of the system” as he put it to me last night, are emails sent from Jake’s personal account.  The trouble with that is, they were not.  They were both sent from his state.gov accounts, which means that if this is what he’s hanging it hat on, he has wrong information, and not much of a story.

I sent him a note to that effect, telling him that from what he’s sent us, which is these two examples and nothing else, his premise is deeply flawed due to misinformation he seems to have been provided.  

We’ll see what he comes back with.  I’ll keep everybody posted.

From: Philippe Reines <pir@hrcoffice.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:19 PM
To: NSM <nmerrill@hrcoffice.com>
Cc: Huma Abedin <huma@hrcoffice.com>, Jennifer Palmieri <jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com>, Robby Mook <robbymook2015@gmail.com>, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>, "hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com" <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com>, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com>, Jacob Sullivan <Jake.sullivan@gmail.com>, David Kendall <DKendall@wc.com>, Kristina Schake <kristinakschake@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

Let's get HRC squared away first since he is challenging the pemise that it was her practice to use state.gov. 

So Heather, set aside how many we iniated from our personal email, how many of the 19 in the batch of 300 are HER initiating an email to one of the four of us us on our private accounts. Only us, not Sid. There were two more, right?

The one to me & Huma was about getting a DVD and hardly the basis for calling her a liar.

From: Nick Merrill Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:28 PM To: Marissa Astor Cc: Huma Abedin; jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com; Robby Mook; Philippe Reines; John Podesta; hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com; cheryl.mills@gmail.com; jake.sullivan@gmail.com; David Kendall; Kristina Schake Subject: Re: NYT | Email Content

After some civil but unproductive conversations with Mike Schmidt last night, we followed up with a note to him this afternoon.  He just replied with the below.  Our original note pasted below that.

Curious what peoples' reactions are.  This response doesn't seem to address the core question, and further proves that this is just cherry-picked BS.  

Heather one immediate question for you is whether you can give us any details about the emails he's referring to.

Related, HRC reiterated to me today a desire to call for the release of the emails.  I didn't engage because I don't know all of the details here, so I told her I would convey.

------

Nick, 

I read your email. 

Below is a run down of the latest we know about the emails the committee has been given from the State Department. Below that are the questions we have. 

We would like a response from you by 10 amThursday morning. 

Thank you.

//

HRC received an email from Jake Sullivan shortly after Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks. In the email was a transcript from one of the shows and a note from Sullivan saying that Rice had made the administration’s view clear that the attacks started spontaneously and then evolved. Two weeks later, Sullivan sent HRC an email outlining what she had said publicly about the matter, assuring her that she had never described the attacks as spontaneous and she had never characterized the attackers’ motives.
HRC did not send many long emails. Many of them were to Sullivan and included news stories and the message: “Please print.” The emails show that four of HRC’s closest advisers at the State Department used private email accounts for some of their correspondences with her when she was Secretary of State. The documents show messages between HRC’s personal account and the private ones of her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide Huma Abedin; and Mr. Sullivan.

 

The questions I have for you are the same ones I sent before:


Why did the advisers use private email accounts – instead of government ones – to correspond with Mrs. Clinton?

Was this the normal practice?

Why did Mrs. Clinton suggest that her emails were being captured in the State Department system when she was corresponding at times with her aides on their personal accounts?

Were Mrs. Clinton’s advisers given legal advice about whether it was appropriate for them to correspond with her using their personal accounts?

Why did Mrs. Clinton rely on the advice of Sidney Blumenthal?

---------

Hi Michael,

Given the nature of the below involving facts that are under review by both the State Department and the select committee, I’m asking that this all be considered off the record.  I say this because I want to share some of these details in an effort to better convey why we still find ourselves not clear on the core elements of this story, making it difficult to respond to your questions.  

Here’s what I know.  I know that you have emails or information about emails that were sent between Secretary Clinton and a personal account of one of her staff.  You described that the majority of them came from the 300 turned over to the select committee by the State Department, but that based on your reporting you weren't certain.  I would note that by definition if the emails involved personal addresses and were not forwarded to the State system, they had to come from the 300 grouping, because otherwise State would not have had them until they received the latest batch (the 300 earlier this year).  So either they are part of a group that came from a batch that the State Department already had in their possession, which would seem to contradict your premise, or they came from the 300.

Based on this, assuming they came from the 300, we’re familiar with the 300.  One of the things we know is that there is a handful of emails as part of that 300 that did not eventually go to the state.govsystem, as I told you last night.  This was more often than not because they were personal in nature but handed over in an abundance of caution, came from outsiders but had some of the keywords (like Libya) in them, or because they were news articles simply sent to or from a personal account.  The thing we are having trouble figuring out is that based on what you have told us, and the names provided below, the two don’t match up.  

And I’d remind you that there is no prohibition on the use of personal email accounts, as you noted on the phone last night, as long as they are preserved, and of course, by virtue of you having these emails, they were not only preserved but disclosed.

So while we want to address your questions, without any sense of the frequency, volume and any characterization of the interactions that were had, nor any verifiable sense of whether these emails did or did not get forwarded to the state.gov system, it’s difficult to do so, particularly since you are asking questions below that seem to characterize these interactions as frequent, but it’s unclear whether that’s substantiated.

So, in short, can we ask you to provide more information about what you intend to write and the facts that will support it so we can more accurately address your questions.

Thanks very much.

Nick