The State Department released 7,800 more pages of Hillary Clinton's emails from her private unsecured server on Monday, and while most of them are mundane in nature, several communications related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks seemingly contradict testimony Clinton gave in October before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Clinton argued during the Benghazi hearing that she did not use her private email system for the majority of her work, and that she had been receiving live updates about the terrorist attack via secure phones and through the sensitive compartmented information facility in her home, rather than on her private server, according to The Washington Examiner.
However, new emails released Monday contradict that claim, showing Clinton did indeed receive updates about "fresh attacks on Benghazi" on her unsecured, private email system.
During her testimony, Clinton also told the select committee that she did not know that former intelligence official Tyler Drumheller was actually writing the intelligence memos about Libya that were sent to her from long-time confidant Sidney Blumenthal, as Bloomberg reported.
But another email released Monday indicates that Clinton received emails about Libya that were written and sent by Drumheller, including a lengthy one on the day after the Benghazi attack, reports the Examiner.
A couple emails also suggest that Clinton may have violated an agreement with the White House that, to avoid conflicts of interest, prohibited her from participating in Clinton Foundation events during her tenure as secretary of state. Ahead of an annual event in September 2012 for the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the foundation, Clinton appears to have attempted to integrate her State Department work with her family charity.
"This may be the opportunity to explain what we've tried to do in development and global partnerships," Clinton wrote to her State Department aides on Sept. 22, less than two weeks after the Benghazi attack.
Two days later, Clinton's friend Sandy Berger praised the CGI, saying: "At CGI, particularly the end, was a clear, eloquent and, concise statement of the choice we and the region face. Blew away the audience here. If not already in the works, would suggests you find other outlets for dissemination."
The latest batch of emails included 328 messages now deemed to contain classified information, which brings the total number with classified information to 999. The Republican National Committee said the sheer volume of emails with classified information "underscores the degree to which Hillary Clinton jeopardized our national security and has tried to mislead the American people," reported Fox News.
Earlier on Monday before the emails were released, Clinton was hit with renewed scrutiny for opening her State Department office to dozens of influential Democratic party fundraisers, former Clinton administration and campaign loyalists, and corporate donors to the Clinton Foundation, reported The Associated Press. The news outlet obtained copies of her official schedule through a Freedom of Information Act request.
During her four years at the State Department between 2009 to 2013, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner met with or spoke with almost 100 corporate executives and donors. The AP found no evidence of legal or ethical conflicts in Clinton's meetings, which were not unique among recent secretaries of state, however it said the following:
"The difference with Clinton's meetings was that she was a 2008 presidential contender who was widely expected to run again in 2016. Her availability to luminaries from politics, business and charity shows the extent to which her office became a sounding board for their interests. And her ties with so many familiar faces from those intersecting worlds were complicated by their lucrative financial largess and political support over the years - even during her State Department tenure - to her campaigns, her husband's and to her family's foundation."
The official schedule also shows discrepancies between Clinton's private planner and meetings that were posted on the formal calender. Further, some of the planning schedules were redacted by the State Department on the grounds that disclosing them would reveal "internal deliberations," according to the Examiner.
