Washington (CNN) The State
Department released the very last of Hillary Clinton's work-related emails
Monday, capping off a nearly year-long process that began when The New York
Times revealed that Clinton had been exclusively using a private server to
conduct official business as secretary of state.
For the State Department, the
Clinton campaign and journalists covering the story, the releases have been at
various times tedious, contentious, frustrating, revealing and opaque.
Here's what we've learned so
far, and what remains unanswered.
Monday's final release marks
the end of a major effort by the State Department's Freedom of Information Act
office, which had to review more than 52,000 pages of the former secretary of
state's emails in the past year before releasing them to the public.
Clinton called for the emails
to be released when news of her unusual communications set-up was first
revealed. The State Department was then ordered to provide them to the public
on a rolling basis by a federal judge in a FOIA lawsuit.
But it would be premature for
those staffers to celebrate, since the department is still in the midst of
processing dozens of related requests.
The State Department is
furthermore being sued for the emails of top aides, and for the tens of
thousands of emails Clinton deemed personal and didn't turn over for review.
At a hearing last week in one
such lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he's considering asking
the State Department to subpoena Clinton, and aide Huma Abedin, in an effort to
learn more about those emails.
And Clinton's emails continue
to get scrutiny beyond the State Department. On Monday, State Department Spokesman
John Kirby told reporters one email is being withheld from the public in full
at the request of law enforcement.
Kirby would not comment on the
content of the email, but he emphasized it is not classified.
Clinton's server is also the
subject of an FBI investigation, which has allowed her Republican opponents on
the presidential campaign trail to raise the specter of possible indictment.
In an interview Monday with
Fox News, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the investigation is "being
handled like any other review that we do into how any agency has handled
classified information," but she had no updates on the time frame for its
completion.
"What's most important is
to follow the facts, follow the law, and come to an independent conclusion as
to what may or may not have happened," she said.
Much of the conversation
surrounding Clinton's use of a private server for State Department business has
revolved around the question of whether she took adequate measures to safeguard
sensitive information.
Clinton and her aides insist
none of the emails she sent or received were marked as classified at the time
they were sent, but more than 2,101 have been retroactively classified during
the State Department-led, pre-release review process.
This includes 22 emails
upgraded to Top Secret -- the highest level -- and withheld by the State
Department in full.
Those emails in particular are
the subject of intense scrutiny, sometimes leaving the State Department and
intelligence community at odds.
Last month, a leaked letter
from intelligence community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III
revealed the existence of "several dozen" cases of classified
information originating from intelligence agencies, some of which, they said,
should have been considered classified during Clinton's tenure.
Those documents included
information on so-called "Special Access Programs," a highly
sensitive subset of information off limits even to most Top Secret clearance
holders.
Clinton's campaign has waded
into the fray, suggesting the upgrades and intelligence agency disparities are
the result of "over-classification run amok." Clinton campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon has also blamed political operatives in the inspector
general's office and on Capitol Hill for leaking information about the normally
secretive review process.
Little is known about the
content of the most sensitive emails beyond what's been outlined in
McCullough's letter, but Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member
of the Senate intelligence committee who has seen the now-Top Secret
communications, recently said in a statement that "none of those email
chains originated with Secretary Clinton."
"It has never made sense
to me that Secretary Clinton can be held responsible for email exchanges that
originated with someone else," she added.
As a sign that the
inter-agency debate continued until the very last days of the review, State
Department Spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that one email flagged by
the intelligence community as potentially containing Top Secret information was
deemed not to have and will be released Monday with limited redactions and
upgrades.
That email, released in in
Monday's batch, involved information about a conference call on North Korea,
convened after the country conducted a missile test in July 2009. The
now-classified information was sent by a career diplomat and forwarded to
Clinton by Abedin.
The ongoing debate over
classification has led the State Department to announce a separate review, led
by the Bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research, into
whether any of the information retroactively upgraded should have been marked
as classified when sent.
Cabinet posts are
theoretically outside of the political sphere, but Clinton was kept keenly
aware of the political climate throughout her tenure.
Aides often forwarded Clinton
information on her favorability ratings, even as she told the public she was
undecided on making another run for the White House.
In March 2009. Mills forwarded
her a CNN poll showing "Clinton has high job approval."
Reines sent her a similar poll
two years later, adding, "This is why we cooperate with so many profiles -
and just wait until 19 million Americans to read PEOPLE next week."
Blumenthal frequently offered
his thoughts on politics, writing enthusiastically in 2010, "can you call
me now? eureka idea for midterms!! want to run by you, think it can work."
Clinton's core staff at the
State Department was both loyal and adoring, as evidenced by the dozens of
praise emails she received on a regular basis.
Aides frequently forwarded
positive articles about Clinton, including a Drudge Report piece titled
"Clinton Popularity Prompts Buyer's Remorse."
When a photo of Clinton on her
Blackberry turned into a viral Internet meme, Cheryl Mills wrote simply,
"You look cute."
And the praise didn't just
come from her staff.
On January 23, 2013, after
Clinton testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Benghazi
consulate attack, top White House economic adviser Gene Sperling wrote to Mills
that Clinton "was a great combo of patient, emotional and fighting-back
tough. Made me proud." That email was forwarded to Clinton.
Another Obama administration
official, Liz Sherwood-Randall, wrote to Sullivan: "If you get a chance —
please tell HRC that she was a ROCK STAR yesterday. Everything about her
'performance' was what makes her unique, beloved, and destined for even more
greatness."
"She sets a standard that
lesser mortals can only dream of emulating," Sherwood-Randall added.
Among the emails retroactively
classified at the lower tiers of Confidential and Secret are communications
between top State Department officials, foreign dignitaries and advisers
outside of the U.S. government, who weighed in on a number of policy
discussions.
Many of those emails were not
sent to Clinton directly but rather were forwarded to her by key aides,
including Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and
Jake Sullivan, who served as both director of policy planning and deputy chief
of staff.
Abedin and Sullivan currently
hold top positions on Clinton's presidential campaign.
Clinton's core team at the
State Department was, in some ways, insular.
Senior officials who didn't
know her email address often emailed Abedin, Mills or Sullivan when they needed
to convey messages to the secretary, showing how access to her was carefully
managed.
In a July 2012 email forwarded
to Clinton, staffer Philippe Reines humorously alluded to the closed nature of
the former secretary's inner circle by creating a flow chart to determine who
would ride with her on the road.
The chart asked a series of
yes or no questions starting with, "Huma there?," and ending with
scenarios in which Reines himself might be allowed to join in the vehicle.
Aside from her inner circle,
Clinton also received emails from some of her department's top officials,
including now-classified emails from then-Deputy Secretary William Burns and
former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman.
She also heard regularly from
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who served as a Middle East peace
envoy for the United Nations at the time, and on occasion from Ashraf Ghani, a
prominent Afghani politician who has since become president of that country.
Clinton also received emails
from her eventual successor at the State Department, John Kerry, who chaired
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her years in office and himself
sometimes emailed from a personal email account.
Not immune from the
controversy, several emails sent by Kerry have now been upgraded to classified,
including a few in Monday's batch.
Perhaps the most controversial
member of her kitchen cabinet was Sidney Blumenthal, a friend and confidant who
sent her hundreds of emails on both policy and politics, even though he was
blocked by the Obama administration from joining her official team at the State
Department.
Critics have wondered why
Blumenthal had such direct access to, and perhaps influence over, Clinton, when
many officials in her own department didn't have her personal email address.
Clinton has dismissed the
extent of Blumenthal's influence, calling the emails "unsolicited,"
even as she thanked him repeatedly at the time for offering his perspective.
"I'm going to keep
talking to my old friends, whoever they are," Clinton said during a May
press conference in Iowa. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time. He
sent me unsolicited emails, which I passed on in some instances, and that's
just part of the give-and-take."
Unsurprisingly, Clinton
emailed family members as well. And it was an email to daughter Chelsea Clinton
on the night of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that brought
Clinton pointed questions when she testified before the House Select Committee
on Benghazi in November, as some lawmakers wondered why she attributed the
attack to "an Al Queda-like group" in the email while publicly
suggesting protesters played a role.
Despite her unusual decision
to set up a private email server at her home, Clinton's communications often
display a lack of savvy when it comes to technology.
In a June 2010 email to
Reines, Clinton is excited to learn that her new iPad (called the
"hPad" by her loyal staffers) has arrived, and asks, "do you
think you can teach me to use it on the flight to Kyev next week."
And even as she elected not to
use a state.gov account, Clinton expressed surprise when other staffers did the
same.
At one point in 2011, Sullivan
passed along insights from a State Department employee using a personal
account, prompting Clinton to ask, "Who does he work for now?"
When Sullivan said the man
worked for the State Department, Clinton responded, "I was surprised that
he used personal email account if he is at State."
Other emails reflect Clinton's
frustration with the State Departments communications systems, and the limits
presented by the very systems meant to protect classified information.
In one such email, Sullivan
tells Clinton a statement by Blair was put on the classified system "for
reasons that elude me," prompting Clinton to reply: "It's a public
statement! Just email it."
"Trust me, I share your
exasperation," Sullivan replied. "But until ops converts it to the unclassified
email system, there is no physical way for me to email it. I can't even access
it."
On a separate occasion,
Clinton and Sullivan exchange emails on a set of "tps" -- presumably
talking points, which he's trying to send to her on a secure fax line.
"If they can't,"
Clinton replies, "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send
nonsecure."
There's no indication whether
the talking point were classified, but the exchange led to criticism from
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a frequent Clinton critic, who called the
chain "disturbing" and asked the former secretary to "come
clean."
Additional emails, on which
Clinton was not copied, also shed light on how her email set-up was viewed at
the State Department.
A set of emails released to
the website The Daily Caller last month, for instance, show that some officials
suggested providing Clinton with a State Department Blackberry, which Huma
Abedin resisted.
"Let's discuss the state
blackberry, doesn't make a whole lot of sense," she replied.
There were also discussions
about setting up a "stand-alone PC" for Clinton that would allow her
to access her personal emails at the State Department.
In an email exchange later
obtained by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, Under
Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy tells Mills the computer "is a
great idea."
Ultimately, State Department
officials say the computer was not set up. It's unclear why the idea was
ultimately nixed, but it might relate to Clinton's lack of computer knowledge,
as relayed in a later email.
"I talked to Cheryl about
this," Lewis Lukens, then a deputy assistant secretary of state, writes.
"She says a problem is hrc does not know how to use a computer to do email
-- only [Blackberry]. But, I said would not take much training to get her up to
speed."
