New Hillary Clinton Emails Explained
ABC News breaks down the new emails being released by Judicial Watch.
— -- As the seemingly endless drip of emails continues from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, the story of her email use has become increasingly muddled, leaving many a casual reader confused by new developments.
Here, ABC News puts the most recent emails into context.
What Are the New Emails, and Where Did They Come From?
A conservative anti-Clinton group, Judicial Watch, sued the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act for emails from Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, during her time at the State Department. Judicial Watch has been publishing them as the State Department turns them over. They are separate from the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton has already turned over.
What's in the New Emails?
The new emails aren't necessarily to or from Clinton. Three emails that have gained attention this week were to or from her aides, and they have caused critics to raise questions about impropriety between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation — something Clinton pledged would never take place when she was secretary of state.
Two of the emails were from a longtime aide to President Bill Clinton, Doug Band, who now works at the Clinton Foundation. In one email he asked Hillary Clinton's top aides to find a job for an associate, whose name was withheld from the document.
"It's important to take care of [redacted]," Band wrote to Abedin and Cheryl Mills, another top Hillary Clinton aide. Abedin replied, "Personnel has been sending him options."
When pressed today, the State Department would not name the person mentioned in the emails, citing privacy concerns. "We feel confident that all the rules were followed," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said today.
In another email, Band asked Abedin and Mills to connect a Clinton Foundation donor, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire, to officials in the State Department, saying the donor is a "key guy there [Lebanon] and to us." Band also suggested that Abedin introduce the donor to former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman.
A third email shows that Mills, who was keenly aware of Clinton's use of private email, received notice of a "significant" FOIA request seeking all email accounts attached to Clinton's name at the State Department. The department ended up falsely telling that requester that no such records were found. That inaccurate response, which was later noted in a State Department's Inspector General report, raises questions about why Mills didn't speak up, knowing what she did.
What Are the Presidential Campaigns Saying?
Donald Trump's campaign released a statement last night calling the emails from Band "more evidence that Hillary Clinton lacks the judgment, character, stability and temperament to be within 1,000 miles of public power." Clinton, it continued, "views public office as nothing more than a means to personal enrichment," calling her "corrupt."
The Clinton camp denied that any impropriety occurred.
"Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the foundation's work," the Clinton campaign said in a statement early today. "They are communications between her aides and the president's personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the secretary's former staffers who was not employed by the foundation."
Speaking at a rally today in Abingdon, Virginia, Trump incorrectly claimed that "a thousand ... or something" new emails were released Tuesday. In reality, Judicial Watch released closer to 500.
"A couple of very bad ones came out, and it's called pay for play," Trump said. "And some of these were really, really bad and illegal. If it's true, it's illegal. You're paying and you're getting things."
Despite this claim, there has been no concrete evidence linking State Department favors to foreign donors in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Neither campaign has commented on the Mills email, but Michael Short of the Republican National Committee said that email contradicts her statement in a deposition that she had no "specific recollection" about a FOIA request regarding Clinton's email accounts.
"The disconnect between these new revelations and her sworn testimony suggests Mills gave a misleading account under oath to hide an attempted cover-up of Clinton's reckless email arrangement," Short said in an email to ABC News.
Are There More Emails to Come?
Yes. The FBI says that it recovered thousands of emails Clinton did not turn over and that many of them are work related. That means the State Department will have to release them, and it says it will, though it hasn't said when that will happen. The State Department said this week that the FBI has turned over the emails and that it is determining which of them are fit for public release.
Is the FBI Investigating Inappropriate Links Between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation?
The FBI has not acknowledged any additional investigation into Clinton. Despite calling her actions "extremely careless," the bureau's Director James Comey announced in July it would not recommend criminal charges against her for her use of a private email server for official State Department business.
He later stated in public testimony that he wouldn't "comment on the existence or nonexistence of other investigations."
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