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Clinton Aides: ‘Definitely’ Not Releasing Some HRC Emails

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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A senior adviser to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign told top aides there were “definitely” emails not being released as part of the 55,000 pages initially handed over to the Department of State.

“If there is a release of the 55K, are there others that are not being released?” Clinton adviser Jim Margolis wrote to top aides on March 4, 2015, to which Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson replied, “Definitely.”

The email chain came two days after The New York Times broke news the House panel investigating Clinton’s handling of Benghazi discovered she was using a personal email server to conduct government business.

“Team – wanted to let you know that [Cheryl Mills] is working with State to get agreement on release of the 55k pages of emails she [gave] to State,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri wrote in the email chain that was published online by WikiLeaks.

Clinton staff handed over 55,000 pages of emails to the Department of State just two months before NYT broke news of the former secretary of state’s private email server. Staff members were in talks with the State Department on a timeline to publicly release Clinton’s emails.

“The hope would be that we are able to say tonight to the press that we are working with State to get emails released soon. Not sure where those discussions will land, but hope is either State agrees to release on timely basis or we pledge to release them ourselves in ten days/week,” Palmieri wrote.

Clinton said she kept and deleted 30,000 pages of emails “because they were personal and private about matters that I believed were within the scope of my personal privacy,” she told reporters in March of 2015.

“They had nothing to do with work,” Clinton said. “I didn’t see any reason to keep them … no one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy.”

The FBI, however, found Clinton had not turned over more than 17,000 emails to the State Department. Many of those emails were work-related.

While FBI Director James Comey did not recommend prosecution, he said classified materials were found on Clinton’s private, unsecure server. Comey said Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling classified materials.

Comey, however, reopened the investigation into Clinton’s email server after FBI agents found more than 650,000 pages of emails on a laptop shared by aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner.

Weiner, a disgraced former New York congressman, was under FBI investigation for allegedly sending sexual text messages with a 15-year-old girl.

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