Five months worth of messages are missing from the emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton returned to the government, according to documents newly obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
“A five month email gap,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said at the non-profit group’s inaugural Leadership Summit Monday. “I want an explanation about that.”
Some of the gaps were as long as a month or more, Fitton said.
Clinton submitted a statement to a federal court Aug. 10 under the penalty of perjury that she submitted all of the required emails.
“These emails raise questions whether Clinton told the truth last month,” Fitton said.
Also, Department of State rules show that presidential appointees departing the department may not take federal records with them as they leave, according to Fitton.
Clinton claimed the emails she didn’t turn over were of a personal matter.
“It’s malarky that the emails Clinton withheld were of a personal nature,” Fitton said. He said her personal emails were “intertwined and indistinguishable” from work-related emails and federal records.
“I suspect that federal courts will want more information about these documents,” Fitton said. “We’ll be getting more info on these requests, so who knows what else is in there.”
UPDATE:
There was a gap in emails received by Clinton’s account from Jan. 21, 2009 – her first day as Secretary of State – to March 17, 2009. There was a gap in emails sent from the account from Jan. 21, 2009 to April 12, 2009 and again from Dec. 30, 2012 to Feb. 1, 2013 – the last day Clinton was secretary.
The gaps are “comparable to the Nixon 18-minute gap” in the Watergate tapes, Fitton said. “She didn’t have the right to determine what’s personal and what’s work.”
The documents also revealed that Clinton aide Cheryl Mills used a personal email account called “cherylmills@gmail.com.”
Documents also show that one key State Department official did not want a record about issues.
“Fyi. I’d prefer to discuss, rather than email. Thx,” State Department Freedom of Information Act officer Peggy Garfield wrote in an Oct. 20, 2014 email to other officials. Further details were redacted from the record.
Thirty-two documents were produced as a result of a lawsuit Judicial Watch filed after the State Department declined to respond to two FOIA requests.
Spokesman Alex Gerlach said in response to this post that the State Department is “not aware of any gaps in the Clinton email set, with the exception of the first few months of her tenure when Secretary Clinton used a different email account that she advised she no longer has access to.
“There is no ‘gap’ in Secretary Clinton’s sent messages from the December 2012 through the end of January 2013. Upon review, the department has many messages sent by Secretary Clinton during that period, including messages that appear to have been produced directly from her ‘sent’ mailbox. Future document releases will include emails from this time period. Also, that she didn’t use this email in early 2009 has been previously acknowledged/confirmed.”
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