State Dept IG probing Clinton email setup

A State Department watchdog has begun an inquiry into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email setup, following calls from Republicans about the private email address and server used exclusively by the former secretary during her tenure at Foggy Bottom, The Hill has confirmed.

The State Department’s inspector general received a letter from the Republican National Committee only a few days after a New York Times report detailed Clinton’s exclusive use of a private server at her home.

John Phillippe, the RNC’s general counsel, urged the watchdog “to conduct an investigation into whether Secretary Clinton violated Department of State policies concerning the use of personal email addresses to conduct government business.”

He added that the inspector general should also check into whether the use of a personal email to conduct government work violates the Federal Records Act and corresponding recordkeeping regulations.

“We’re reviewing it and will respond,” a spokesman for the State Department inspector general told The Hill. “Everything is thoroughly reviewed.”

Clinton acknowledged earlier this month that she used a single device and email address for both personal correspondence and government work while at the State Department’s helm, saying the practice was a matter of convenience.

After leaving office, Clinton went through and separated all her work emails from personal ones and turned over the records — 55,000 printed pages — to federal administrators.

The State Department’s IG has received other requests to look into Clinton’s operations, stemming from before the revelations about her personal email setup.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters of his own beginning in June 2013, raising questions about the special government employee (SGE) designation given to Clinton adviser Huma Abedin.

Abedin also worked for Teneo, a corporate advisory and business intelligence firm, while serving at the State Department.

“Recent revelations about the record keeping practices at the State Department under Secretary Clinton raise questions as to whether any email communications from Secretary Clinton and Ms. Abedin to Teneo, or Teneo’s clients, were properly preserved,” Grassley wrote in a second follow-up dated March 19.

“Use of the personal account prevented regular government records retention processes from preserving her work-related emails. Moreover, according to press reports, Ms. Abedin also had an email account on Secretary Clinton’s private server,” he continued in the letters, sent to both Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.

“We will respond back to both,” the inspector general spokesman added when pressed about both letters.

During Clinton’s four-year stint, the State Department did not have a permanent inspector general and only confirmed Linick eight months after her departure. Congressional Republicans are now charging that Clinton has wiped her server clean.

Amid questions about the State Department’s record-keeping practices, Kerry has asked that the inspector general conduct an investigation of the department’s ability to archive official documents. A spokesman for Kerry said the request does not come as a result of Clinton’s email practices, according to the Washington Examiner.

Kerry “recognizes the importance of information preservation, the need for the department to be responsive to Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests for such information and the challenges presented by advances in information technology,” Linick said on Friday, according to the report.

“We are now conducting preliminary work to determine the proper scope and methodology for a review of the department’s ability to preserve information and respond to information requests, among other things,” he continued.

The National Archives and Records Administration has also asked the State Department to explain how it has ensured that all of Clinton’s official communications were properly collected and stored.