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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

No Shockers in State’s Clinton Email Release

(CN) - Despite the FBI's concluding there's nothing criminal about a cache of Hillary Clinton emails found on a key aides computer, a separate trove of heavily redacted emails released by the State Department last week provides yet another, sometimes tantalizing glimpse into the mind and campaign of the Democratic presidential candidate.

Among them more than 1,000 pages of emails released by the department on Thursday was a Dec. 2, 2010, email from aide Huma Abedin with suggestions on how it should deal with Julian Assange after WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of embarrassing State Department cables.

Along with the cables, WikiLeaks had also released the Iraq War logs that exposed the extent of civilian casualties during the war.

More than 66,000 civilians died in the fighting between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2009.

Abedin's 2010 email provides a small, behind-the-scenes glimpse of Clinton's efforts to clean up the mess as secretary of state.

"We view this not as a 'clever game' of wiki leaks but rather as a 'criminal act' against the United States of America. He might think this is a clever game today - but when he is prosecuted and if convicted - he will move from being a clever-cyber thief to a convicted criminal - and will find out that's a whole different kind of game."

Another email from Abedin on Nov. 27, 2010, provides a glimpse into how the State Department prepared for the publication of WikiLeaks material in The New York Times that contained cables from the Ottawa embassy with sensitive details about the U.S.-Canada relationship.

"Two cables set for release contain especially sensitive information on counterterrorism and intelligence sharing. The depth of bilateral cooperation detailed in the cables may be controversial for Canadians," the email said.

"Ambassador Jacobson saw Foreign Minister Cannon the evening of November 24 and reviewed the substance of the cables in The New York Times' cache; Cannon said he did not see any serious problems for the government, but Canadian press coverage of the issue may put additional pressure on the Harper government," the email continued.

Assange remains in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been hunkered down for four years. He has blamed Clinton for his having to seek asylum there. Meanwhile WikiLeaks continues to bombard the Clinton campaign with regular releases of hacked emails from the account of her campaign chairman, John Podesta.

The State Department released the latest batch of emails as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Vice News.

The emails largely consisted of exchanges between Clinton and Abedin.

On Friday the State Department released another 74 emails totaling 285 pages that showed Clinton forwarding to her daughter material that the department classified last year.

The focus of the release was a December 2009 email that President Barack Obama's trade adviser, Michael Froman, sent to senior White House and State Department staff members.

After it made its way up to Clinton, she sent it to "Diane Reynolds," an email pseudonym for Chelsea Clinton.

"See below," Clinton told her daughter.

The entire email chain has been blacked out on confidential grounds, the lowest level of classification.

The department also classified portions of two other emails released Friday.

They concerned phone calls Clinton had planned in November 2010 with the United Arab Emirates' crown prince and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

At the time, WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables was roiling U.S. relations with governments around the world.

The department designated portions of each email, both written by Abedin, "confidential." But neither document was marked classified when it was sent, the State Department confirmed.

The FBI provided the emails to the State Department after uncovering them as part of its investigation of Clinton's email practices.

Many of the emails released Thursday and Friday are near duplicates of documents the department released after receiving 55,000 pages from Clinton in 2014.

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