Inspector General Steve Linick is launching a new investigation of the State Department’s ability to archive official documents, including employee emails.
Responding late Friday to a request from Secretary of State John Kerry, Linick said 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.
“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,” Linick said.
A spokesman for Kerry said his request was not a response to the continuing controversy over his predecessor’s use of a private email and server to conduct official business. Hillary Clinton acknowledged in a March 10 news conference at the U.N. that she used the account and server, which is located at her private residence in New York, as a matter of “convenience.”
The former secretary of state also said she reviewed the 62,320 emails sent to and from her account, deleted those that dealt with non-official business and gave the State Department 55,000 pages of hard copies of the approximately 30,000 that covered official business during her four-year tenure as secretary of state.
Linick is under pressure from Congress to open a new investigation of Clinton’s emails, particularly Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley. The Iowa Republican wants to see all of the emails and related documents generated by Huma Abedin, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, concerning the Clinton Foundation and the Teneo Strategies corporate consulting firm.
Abedin was classified while serving under Clinton as a Special Government Employee, a rarely used designation that allowed her to work simultaneously at the State Department and for Teneo. Grassley has made repeated requests for Abedin’s emails and related documents, but the State Department has produced only a trickle of materials in response.
Abedin’s husband is former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress after his sexting activities as “Carlos Danger” became public. Weiner failed in a New York mayorality bid after leaving Congress.
Linick told Grassley in a letter Friday that the new review he has launched is in response to the senator’s concerns. “Once we have completed our preliminary work, we would like to provide a briefing to you or to committee staff to discuss our plans,” Linick told Grassley.
Teneo was founded by Douglas Band, who worked for President Clinton in the White House and for a decade thereafter as his special adviser, a position that afforded him great influence on the former chief executive and his wife, and unusually close access to foreign heads of state and corporate leaders. Teneo is a “political intelligence and corporate advisory firm,” according to Grassley.
President Clinton was a partner in the firm after June 2011 when the State Department approved the relationship. It had been reviewed to determine whether it posed a conflict of interest for Hillary Clinton as the nation’s chief diplomat. The former president withdrew from the firm eight months later.
The firm was also linked as a consultant to the Clinton foundation and Brand was instrumental in forming the Clinton Global Initiative, which is associated with the charitable organization.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
