Daily Caller | 7 June 2016
Newly released State Department emails show that in the days after Hillary Clinton’s exclusive personal email use made international news, officials with the agency’s legal department were urged by the former head of that division to make it clear that the bureau did not sign off on the former secretary of state’s arrangement.
But that advice, which came from John Bellinger, the State Department’s Legal Adviser during the George W. Bush administration, appears to have gone unheeded, at least publicly. The State Department never publicly clarified that Clinton self-approved her personal email system.
While the agency’s information technology, diplomatic security and legal adviser divisions were not made aware of the setup, those facts only came to light in an inspector general’s report that was published last month.
In delaying saying whether Clinton’s email system was approved by the State Department, the agency created the perception that the Democratic presidential candidate’s email system was allowed. Clinton herself has made the same claim. The IG report thoroughly debunked that notion, however.
