Saturday, May 23, 2015

FBI reminds us why Hillary's emails matter









The highly selective trove of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department Friday revealed both the seemingly strong influence Sidney Blumenthal wielded over the secretary of state and the preoccupation with media coverage exhibited by her closest aides.

If the 296 published emails are to be considered a complete collection, they would suggest Clinton relied almost exclusively on an aide that had been banned from the State Department, Blumenthal, to provide her intelligence on a country at war.

The emails show that Clinton's staffers often circulated and debated press clippings amongst themselves and occasionally discussed how to respond to certain media criticisms.

They also provide a narrow glimpse of how the State Department's top ranks operated in the weeks before and after the greatest crisis of Clinton's tenure.





A batch of 296 emails from Hillary Clinton's private server provide a narrow glimpse of the internal deliberations that took place within the State Department's top ranks in the wake of a 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

Key aides, including Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan, Caroline Adler, Thomas Nides and Patrick Kennedy, discussed at length strategies for dealing with the fallout from the death of four Americans in the media firestorm that followed.

One email shows Sullivan and Clinton discussed a Clinton Global Initiative speech just 11 days after the Benghazi terror attack.

Some information was redacted from the records the State Department released Friday that had appeared in the emails the New York Times produced just one day earlier.

◼ State Dept. releases Clinton Benghazi emails: Not only are these Hillary emails dropping on Friday before Memorial Day weekend, but the format makes it incredibly slow to read them. - earlier post.









Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had a rotten day with the press Friday, and that was true even before reporters erupted in a feeding frenzy after the State Department released about 300 of her emails from when she served as secretary of state.

When it comes to the ongoing negative coverage for Clinton, it all starts with her unwillingness to speak with reporters. This Friday, it was particularly brutal.

Campaign events with Clinton are "staged" and her staffers will only admit supporters who are "pre-selected" and "pre-screened," Associated Press reporter Julie Pace said Friday, reiterating a media complaint that is growing louder by the week.

Unsurprisingly, being tightlipped with reporters has not gone over well with newsrooms, but there are other issues that are starting to rub the press the wrong way.

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