[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 84 (Thursday, May 26, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3257-S3258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT ON SECRETARY CLINTON'S NONGOVERNMENT SERVER 
                         AND EMAIL ARRANGEMENT

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the State Department inspector general 
has released findings regarding the State Department's email practices 
for

[[Page S3258]]

the last five Secretaries of State. This report makes clear that 
Secretary Clinton has not told the truth to the American people about 
her nongovernment server and email arrangement.

  As I have noted many times before, Secretary Clinton's nongovernment 
server arrangement prevented the State Department from complying with 
the Freedom of Information Act. She used the private server to avoid 
the law that requires archiving Federal records. It was designed to 
wall her email off from the normal treatment of a government official's 
email communications.
  The inspector general found that Secretary Clinton failed to 
surrender all official emails to the Department prior to leaving 
government service.
  The inspector general found that Secretary Clinton's email practices 
``did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented 
in accordance with the Federal Records Act.'' In other words, she 
violated the law. The inspector general has made clear that Secretary 
Clinton neither sought nor received any permission to maintain her 
nongovernment server arrangement. Moreover, the report says that if she 
had, that permission would have been denied.
  These findings directly conflict with her many misleading public 
statements.
  Secretary Clinton said on July 7, 2015, ``Everything I did was 
permitted. There was no law. There was no regulation. There was nothing 
that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to 
communicate.''
  That statement is false.
  Her staff also failed to comply with Department policy and records 
laws. They routinely conducted State Department business on personal 
email accounts.
  After the controversy broke, they eventually turned over 72,000 pages 
of work related emails from those private accounts. These emails were 
not preserved in Department recordkeeping systems as required by 
Department policies and Federal records laws. In other words, her staff 
also violated the law.
  Documents in those 72,000 pages were systematically withheld from 
Freedom of Information Act requestors and congressional oversight 
committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair. 
Based on the inspector general report, it appears that the Department 
failed to produce key documents to Congress from these personal email 
accounts.
  For example, according to emails cited by the inspector general, we 
learned that Secretary Clinton's nongovernment server was attacked by 
hackers. One email the Department failed to turn over said that ``we 
were attacked again so I shut the server down for a few minutes.''
  It is disturbing that the State Department knew it had emails like 
this and turned them over to the inspector general but not to Congress.
  In another email the Department failed to turn over, the director of 
Secretary Clinton's IT unit warned her that ``you should be aware that 
any email would go through the Department's infrastructure and subject 
to FOIA searches.'' Clearly, Secretary Clinton wanted to avoid the 
Freedom of Information Act at all costs.
  That IT director who warned her about the transparency laws for State 
Department emails is named John Bentel. He has since retired from the 
State Department, and thus, the inspector general could not require him 
to testify.
  He refused to speak with the inspector general. In fact, Former 
Secretary Clinton and several of her aides also refused to speak to the 
inspector general.
   Mr. Bentel also refused to speak with the Judiciary Committee. 
According to his attorney, Randall Turk, Mr. Bentel knew nothing about 
the server at the time. In refusing to participate in a voluntary 
witness interview with the committee, Mr. Bentel's attorney claimed 
that his client only learned of the controversial email arrangement 
after it was reported in the press.
  He said another congressional committee ``spent its entire interview 
. . . focusing on what the Committees' letter says you want to ask him 
about.''
  In a January 14, 2016, email to my staff, Mr. Turk noted that Mr. 
Bentel had ``no memory or knowledge of the matters he was questioned 
about.''
  The inspector general report says otherwise. According to the report, 
two of Mr. Bentel's subordinates separately raised concerns back in 
2010 about Secretary Clinton's private email usage, including concerns 
that it was interfering with Federal recordkeeping laws. That is 5 
years before the news broke publicly.
  Both of these State Department staff independently told the inspector 
general about similar conversations they had with Mr. Bentel about 
their concerns. According to these new witnesses, Mr. Bentel told them 
never to speak of Secretary Clinton's personal email system again.
  It seems unlikely that two witnesses who told such similar stories 
independent of one another would be making it up. Plus, they knew they 
were under a legal obligation to tell the truth to the inspector 
general.
  Without having spoken to these witnesses directly, the circumstances 
make their statement seem credible. And although Mr. Bentel has been 
given the opportunity to provide his side of the story, he has refused 
to cooperate.
  But if what these two witnesses said is true, it is an outrage, and 
it raises lots of serious questions. Good and honest employees just 
trying to do their job were told to shut up and sit down. Concerns 
about the Secretary's email system being out of compliance with Federal 
recordkeeping laws were swept under the rug.
  If those State Department employees had not been muzzled 5 years 
earlier, perhaps Secretary Clinton could have avoided this entire 
controversy.
  Are these statements evidence of an intent to cover up Federal 
Records Act violations? Were the representations to the committee by 
Mr. Bentel's attorney that he didn't know about the private server 
false?
  It seems from the inspector general report that Mr. Bentel in fact 
did have knowledge of Secretary Clinton's email arrangement, contrary 
to his attorney's assertions.
  Not only that, he also was reportedly warned that it raised legal 
concerns about compliance with Federal records laws.
  Secretary Clinton and her associates have refused to cooperate with 
the inquiries into this controversy. But it is becoming more apparent 
why she is not. The inspector general report makes clear that Secretary 
Clinton and a number of other former Department officials have not been 
truthful with the American people.
  And in pursuit of constitutional oversight on these very important 
issues, the Department of State is continuing to fail to provide 
relevant documents to Congress.
  I will follow up to get to the bottom of these discrepancies because 
misrepresenting the facts to Congress is unacceptable. Simply said, the 
American people deserve better.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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