The State Department said Tuesday it has no record of Hillary Clinton signing a separation agreement to turn over official documents upon leaving her post as Secretary of State.
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that she is "fairly certain" that Clinton never signed the agreement form, known as OF-109.
"We have reviewed Secretary Clinton's official personnel file and administrative files and do not have any record of her signing the OF-109," Psaki said, reported The Washington Examiner. When asked specifically if she means that Clinton didn't sign the agreement, Psaki said, "I think we are fairly certain she did not."
Departing government officials are asked to sign the OF-109 form to verify that they have "surrendered to responsible officials all unclassified documents, and papers relating to the official business of the Government acquired by me while in the employ of the Department."
It's a lose-lose for Clinton in the ongoing Emailgate saga that has potentially spoiled her expected run for the White House. Clinton can either admit that she failed to follow protocol by not signing the statement, or admit that she signed it and then broke the agreement by not promptly turning over he emails.
If she signed that document, Clinton's work-related emails, the emails that she finally turned over in December after unilaterally deleting the ones she deemed "personal," should have been turned over at the time of her departure. As TownHall notes, if Clinton falsely certified that she handed over all work-related documents, she could be charged with a federal crime.
Psaki told reporters that Clinton's predecessors, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, also did not sign the agreement.
"In addition, after looking into their official personnel files, we did not locate any record of either of her immediate predecessors signing this form. It's not clear that this form is used as part of a standard part of checkout across the federal government or even at the State Department so we're certainly looking into that," Psaki said, adding that she wasn't sure if the form was a routine part of the State Department's processing of departing employees.
"It's not clear that this form is used as a part of a standard part of checkout across the federal government or even at the State Department," she said. "We're looking into how standard this is across the federal government and certainly at the State Department. ... I don't want to characterize how common practice it is."
Psaki said that she's not aware of any penalty for not signing it.
