Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172
 
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch announced today that it recently obtained State Department records showing the agency asked Hillary Clinton to return emails in July 2014. This contradicts statements made in court that the agency only requested via a November 2014 letter, a version of which was sent to several former secretaries of state, that Mrs. Clinton return records to the State Department. Other new emails show the State Department has separate policies for handling the documents of State Department senior officials "and the rest of the department."

The emails are found in a batch of 189 pages of documents produced under court order in a FOIA lawsuit specifically seeking all of Clinton's emails and records about her email practices (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)).

An email from Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's former counselor and chief of staff, to David E. Wade, then-chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, shows that the State Department asked for the Clinton emails in July 2014.

From: Cheryl Mills
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2014 9:20 AM
To: Wade, David E
Cc: Visek, Richard C; Philippe Reines
Subject: Following Up

Dear David (and Rich)

I wanted to follow up on your request last month about getting hard copies of Secretary Clinton's emails to/from accounts ending in ".gov" for her tenure at the Department.

I will be able to get that to you, to the best of its availability. Given the volume, it will take some time to do but I wanted to let you know that I am working to get it to you.

Hope you are having a great end to your summer.

Best.
cdm
(Sorry for not copying Jen, I don't have her email).

Judicial Watch filed this new email with U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan, who is now considering whether to grant discovery in a lawsuit seeking information on the "special government employee" status of Abedin. The court specifically asked the State Department about how and when it requested that Mrs. Clinton return records. In today's filing, Judicial Watch states:

This [Mills] email indisputably shows that the State Department first asked Mrs. Clinton to return records as late as July 2014, not November 2014 as the State Department would have this Court and [Judicial Watch] believe.

Hillary Clinton also misled the American people, as she suggested during her infamous March 2015 United Nations press statement that she turned over the emails only after a request in October 2014 and responded "right away." In fact, it took at least five months for her to turn over only half of the emails in question.

Another email, from the day the Clinton email story broke in the New York Times, details how a top State Department official tried to allay the concerns of National Archivist Paul Wester about the Clinton email issue. Margaret Grafeld, deputy assistant secretary of global information systems, recounts to other top State Department officials a March 3, 2015, call with National Archives:

MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-records-reveal-state-department-asked-hillary-clinton-for-emails-in-july-2014