Self-Serving and Illegal

Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell discussed newly-released documents showing proof that Hillary Clinton sent classified emails over her private server on today’s Secure Freedom Radio. The full audio can be listened to here.

Frank Gaffney: What do you make of the latest trove that you managed to extricate from the administration–I guess through court order at the moment, is that right?

Chris Farrell: That’s correct; by court order because we’ve had to file lawsuits to compel the State Department and the administration generally to produce the records to us they’ve been hiding now for years. And they know they have been hiding them, because there is evidence documented now of Hillary’s email and her separate, unlawful account that she established two days after she was actually confirmed as Secretary of State. They knew going into office that she was going to lie and try to obscure and withhold these records from public accountability. So now, years later, a federal judge is ordering them to be produced.

What this shows is an orchestrated White House political operation aimed at not only protecting Hillary and her objective, but also the administration’s failure in Benghazi. This is all documented in an additional 3,000 pages of emails, and it shows them synchronizing their strategy; it’s not one of trying to preserve national security, it’s one of trying to preserve political legacy. It’s very clear.

FG: This requires not only some intrepid investigative work on your part to get access to this particular batch of emails and the others that you’re also trying to secure, but Chris Farrell, you’re forced to make sense of what has been redacted from these documents as well, is that right?

CF: Yeah, and what’s most interesting is that there are redactions now claiming that it is classified information, which runs 180 degrees opposite of what Hillary Clinton claimed when she released some pages of her emails, saying that she never—the use of the word ‘never’ is important here—that she never sent any classified information via the email that we’re now examining which is in fact classified, or at least the administration claims that it is. Now the question there is, is it legitimately classified? Or is it classified for political purposes to continue to perpetuate the cover-up they’re involved in?

FG: Let me just digress for a second; by training you were a military intelligence officer, Chris, in a previous life. We’ve discussed this before, but in light of what you just said, the administration is now on record in front of a federal judge, indicating that Hillary Clinton had on her private server in her home unsecured, classified information. Am I getting that right?

CF: That is correct. In fact there is a National Security Agency, NSA, directive on what they refer to as spillage, which has to do with ‘Gee, oops, I didn’t mean to send that classified email on my unclassified network. What do I do now?’ It happens. It legitimately legitimately happens. People make errors. And so there is an NSA directive from a committee at the NSA which deals with national security systems which says that if there is any doubt that there is some mistake, some error, that all—all—of the email from that particular address through your server should be treated as classified and should be reviewed. Not what Hillary has done, which is this sort of self-serving, self-selective, ‘Oh we’re going to release some. Oh my attorney said we’re not going to release these.’ She does not enjoy that privilege. She’s operating outside the law and has been for years.

FG: Well this is really the crux of the matter and at Judicial Watch, you are all about the law. You are working closely with federal courts to try to ensure compliance with the law. Not just the Freedom of Information Act law, but others that you uncover wrongdoing concerning in the course of your FOIA efforts. And Chris Farrell, let me just again put this to you: We’re told that Huma Abedin—a rather colorful character to say the least, a woman who has been associated by among others, our own organization Center for Security Policy, Andy McCarthy, National Review Online, and so on, with the Muslim Brotherhood—was evidently among those responsible for selecting which of these emails Hillary Clinton gave over to the federal government, some of which you’re now getting access to, and some of which were simply destroyed. Again, Chris, does this constitute in your estimation illegal activity?

CF: It does. Huma Abedin has major, major unresolved counterintelligence issues pertaining to her familial connections, [and] her work arrangements, where she was essentially crescent lighting, or moonlighting, in a very particular special employee arrangement where she left government service as a straight-up employee and became what they call a ‘special’ government employee where there are outside consulting arrangements—while serving as deputy chief of staff for the Secretary of State. This is mindboggling that you would have anybody with these family connections and these outside business interests in the inner circle of the Secretary’s office. I can’t imagine a more conflicted counterintelligence issue with respect to her personally and professionally. It’s a nightmare.

FG: And again, this is an area in which you’ve specialized in the United States military, so your professional assessment of this I think has considerable weight. Huma Abedin features in the email traffic that you have just uncovered in connection with the Benghazi damage control operation. There seems to be two pieces to this as best I can tell. One is in cahoots with Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor to the President, trying to conceal the policy failures–you said earlier in connection with Benghazi, but it’s actually policy failures with respect to Libya, and for that matter the Muslim Brotherhood and a lot more besides.

But Chris, there’s also this meme that the Huma Abedins and the Rashad Hussains, the President’s Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, were engaged in as well that seems to have as its core focus trying to suppress our freedom of expression. Talk about that if you would please.