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EXAMINING FOIA COMPLIANCE AT THE 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016 

Serial No. 114–162 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

ANDREW DOCKHAM, General Counsel 

KATY ROTHER, Senior Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on September 8, 2016 ....................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department 

of State, Accompanied by Janice Jacobs, Transparency Coordinator, U.S. 

Department of State, Karin Lang, Director, Executive Secretariat, U.S. 

Department of State, and Mr. Clarence N. Finney, Jr., Deputy Director 

for Correspondence, Records, and Staffing Division, Executive Secretariat, 

U.S. Department of State 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

APPENDIX 

Letter of November 12, 2014, from Mr. Kennedy submitted by Mr. Lynch ....... 80 

Letter of October 21, 2015, from Mr. Kennedy submitted by Mr. Lynch ........... 82 

Letter of November 6, 2015, from Mr. Kennedy submitted by Mr. Lynch ......... 83 

Letter of January 19, 2016, to Mr. Kerry submitted by Mr. Chaffetz ................ 87 

Letter of November 24, 2015, from Ms. Frifield submitted by Mr. Cummings .. 90 

Email of March 2, 2012, from H submitted by Ms. Maloney ............................... 94 


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EXAMINING FOIA COMPLIANCE AT THE 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Thursday, September 8, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan, 

Walberg, Amash, Gosar, Gowdy, Farenthold, Massie, Meadows, 

DeSantis, Buck, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, Carter, Grothman, 

Hurd, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Cooper, 

Cartwright, Lawrence, Lieu, Watson Coleman, Plaskett, 

DeSaulnier, and Lujan Grisham. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. And without objection, the chair 

is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

We have a very important hearing today. As you know, the committee has jurisdiction. We have jurisdiction on Federal records, jurisdiction on the Freedom of Information Act, have jurisdiction on 

the National Archives. It is a very important part of our process. 

We are unique in our nation. We are open. We are transparent. We 

do provide access to the American people for what they paid for. 

As you also know, Secretary Clinton served as the Secretary of 

State from early 2009 through early 2013, but here is the problem. 

Since 2009 there have been thousands of congressional inquiries, 

thousands of FOIA requests, subpoenas, media inquiries, and if 

any of those required Secretary Clinton’s Federal records, i.e., her 

emails, there was not a way for those requests to be fulfilled. 

This has created a mess and a disaster for the people in the front 

line who have to deal with this. And we are thankful for the four 

people that serve the United States. They serve in the State Department. We appreciate them being on this panel and having to 

deal with this mess that Hillary Clinton conveniently created for 

the State Department on her way out the door. 

Remember, when she left in early 2013, it wasn’t until December 

5 of 2014, closing in on 2 years later, that Secretary Clinton returned 55,000 pages in hard copy format to the State Department. 

Roughly 6 months later, this prompted Ambassador Kennedy to 

ask for the electronic copies of these records. 

But later, the FBI swooped in because they had been given by 

the inspector general—the inspector general had highlighted that 

there was classified information residing in a non-classified situaVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:13 Jul 25, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26121.TXT APRIL

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tion with people who do not have the proper security clearance. 

The inspector general found this. They did what they were supposed to do. They contacted the FBI. The FBI swoops in and they 

find thousands and thousands of additional emails, many of which 

were classified. Most were not. Most were unclassified, but they 

nevertheless found Federal records, not just her emails, Federal 

records. 

And it is important to note the severity of this because the classification ranges everything from confidential to secret, top secret. 

You even have special access programs that require a code word access. This information was found in there. I am sure there will be 

discussion about how few they were, but there is a reason in this 

nation why we go to such great lengths to classify this information 

and make sure that the adversaries do not have access to it. 

To address this nightmare, the State Department had allocated roughly 2008 $12.6 million to fulfill the FOIA requests. That has 

now soared to $33 million that the State Department is having to 

use. Unfortunately, they are using millions of dollars in lawsuits. 

Now, keep in mind what the State Department is doing. They are 

using this taxpayer money to make sure that this information ever 

gets out to the public. The public paid for this information, they 

have access to this information, and the Federal Government is 

suing to make sure that they don’t get that. Now, fortunately, the 

State Department keeps losing these lawsuits. That is why we 

start to get—and have this revealed. 

Congressional inquiries sometimes are feckless because State 

and others—and it is not just the State Department; I want to be 

fair—but State Department is one of the worst from my vantage 

point in terms of providing documentation that we ask for in congressional inquiries. It is very frustrating. 

And now, we are starting to realize why this information is so 

incomplete, because even the State Department themselves didn’t 

have Hillary Clinton’s Federal records during the 4 years that she 

served, and here we are in 2016 still trying to untangle this mess, 

and these people have to deal with this. 

You have people like the Judicial Watch and the Associated 

Press and others. You shouldn’t have to go to court and sue in 

order to get access to information that should be readily available. 

Under the Freedom of Information Act, you are supposed to have 

a response within 20 days, but look at the case of the Associated 

Press. The Associated Press—I believe it was 2010—just asked for 

a simple thing. Show us Hillary Clinton’s calendars, her calendars. 

They wait years for a response. They get a trickling of a little bit. 

They finally go to court, and even with the court, State Department 

is saying we can’t produce these. Are you kidding me? Her calendars? I would like to see Hillary Clinton’s calendars. You are 

telling me you can’t produce those? What is going on? 

So we have a duty, we have an obligation. Hillary Clinton created this mess. Hillary Clinton set up this convenient arrangement 

with herself. Hillary Clinton picked this timeline. I know people 

are going to say, oh, it is the political season. I just got this information from the FBI. We are days, legislative days after this has 

happened. I flew in to go see and read the documents downstairs, 

and I tell you, we are going to move in a rapid pace no matter the 


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political calendar, and we would be derelict in our duty if we didn’t 

do it. That is what we do in the Oversight Committee. It was 

founded in 1814. That is what we do. We oversee what happens in 

the executive branch. 

I do appreciate the four people that are here today. They have 

served this country and served honorably. We appreciate their 

service to their country. You have been left a mess. We are trying 

to untangle it. All we ask that you do is share with us the truth 

and perspective as you see it, and that is what we are seeking. No 

matter what it is, we just want to get to the truth. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So let’s recognize the ranking member, Mr. 

Cummings, for his opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to make sure, Mr. Kennedy and witnesses, that as we address this mess and as we address this disaster, as the chairman 

has described it, and as we enter this hearing entitled ‘‘Examining 

FOIA Compliance at the Department of State’’ that we make sure 

that we look at the entire problem. I want to know how far back 

it goes. And we are about the integrity of this committee and truly 

addressing FOIA compliance. We will take a look and see what 

happened even before Hillary Clinton and what happened afterwards. 

Integrity of the committee, integrity of what we are supposed to 

be about, integrity of using the taxpayers’ dollars wisely so that we 

might be effective and efficient in what we do. 

I wish I could say that I support today’s hearing, but I think everyone in this room knows what is really going on here. This hearing is not about an effort to improve FOIA or Federal record-keeping. This is an attack, an attack on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for 

President of the United States of America and just the latest in a 

series of attacks. 

The Republicans started with their discredited Benghazi investigation, accusing Secretary Clinton of all kinds of unsubstantiated 

conspiracies. When they turned up nothing, they just made up new 

accusations against her. Then, when the FBI director, Mr. Comey, 

sat in that very seat in that witness chair and debunked those allegations, the Republicans responded by attacking the FBI director 

and then making up more accusations against Secretary Clinton. 

When Mr. Comey came before us, I told him that unfortunately, 

while at one time he was the darling of the Republican Party, now 

he was being placed on trial. The chairman sent a perjury referral 

to the Justice Department that is ludicrous on its face. Then, he 

sent another referral accusing Secretary Clinton of obstructing justice. These actions had their desired effect. They kept repeating the 

headline that Hillary Clinton is under investigation. 

Over the next 5 days, this committee will hold three hearings focused directly on Hillary Clinton, one today, one Monday, and one 

Tuesday. This frantic pre-election fervor is an egregious abuse of 

taxpayer dollars for political purposes. Today, this hearing is supposed to be, supposed to be focused on a report issued by the State 

Department inspector general that highlighted long-standing challenges, long-standing challenges with FOIA across five different 

Secretaries of State. Yet the Republicans splash only one picture 


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across the advisory they sent to the press, a picture of Secretary 

Clinton. 

The IG identified FOIA challenges under Secretaries Albright, 

Powell, Rice, Clinton, and Kerry. The Republican memo for today 

focused only on one. You guessed it, Secretary Clinton. 

Last night, we obtained an email in which Secretary Powell back 

in 2009 provided advice to Secretary Clinton on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve Federal records. Although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on 

this advice, in this email Secretary Powell appears to admit that 

he did this himself. He also says that he disregarded security 

warnings and used his personal mobile device inside the State Department’s secure space. 

Now, let me make it very clear. Secretary Powell is a man I admire greatly, and I have tremendous respect for Secretary Powell 

and his decades of service to our nation despite the poor judgment 

shown in this email. 

However, rather than responding like Republicans have done by 

making a series of frivolous criminal referrals just to generate 

headlines to help Donald Trump, our goal as a committee should 

be to ensure that the historical record is complete, not limited to 

Secretary Clinton but the other Secretaries: Albright, Powell, 

Kerry, Rice. 

Secretary Powell used his personal email account and sent 

emails from nongovernmental servers at AOL and did not preserve 

these records, yet the Republican memo focused only on the period 

between 2009 and 2013 when Hillary Clinton was Secretary. This 

memo says the Department ‘‘lost an untold number of Federal 

records due to inappropriate record-keeping practices by Secretary 

Hillary Clinton and her senior staff.’’ Yet Secretary Clinton produced some 55,000 pages of emails while Secretary Powell has produced none. 

If we truly are concerned with preserving the entire historical 

record, why hasn’t the committee sent a letter asking AOL to see 

if any of Secretary Powell’s emails are recoverable? The IG also reported that Secretary Powell sent classified information from his 

AOL account, yet the committee has never asked AOL to scan its 

systems, sequester national security information, or identify employees who may have had access to that information. 

On this final issue, classification, I do believe our committee 

could play a constructive, a very constructive role, and I want you 

to shed light on this, Mr. Kennedy, but only if we do it in a bipartisan way, this whole idea of classification. 

As part of our review so far, we have seen all kinds of ridiculous 

outcomes. We have seen agencies disagree on classification decisions. We have seen one agency say a document is classified and 

another agency say a document is not classified. We have seen unclassified documents suddenly become retroactively classified. We 

have seen documents with classification markings that were completely wrong. And we have seen documents that are explicitly 

marked unclassified, become classified after the fact. 

I do not know how anyone can decipher this broken system, and 

there is no independent arbiter within the executive branch to handle these kinds of issues. This is exactly the type of cross-agency 


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issue that our committee was intended to address, and I hope we 

can do so together in a bipartisan way or we are going to find ourselves in these predicaments again and again and again where one 

agency says it is classified, another one says it is not, retroactive 

today, wasn’t before. In some kind of way we need to address that. 

Mr. Kennedy, you have been around long enough that hopefully 

you and the others here can shed some light as to how we as a government oversight committee—after all, we oversee State and intelligence and others—trying to figure out how we can make sure that 

we avoid those clashes in the future. With that, Mr. Chairman, I 

thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. 

I will now recognize our witnesses. We are pleased to welcome 

the Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management at the United States Department of State. It is proper to address him, I believe, as Ambassador, and my apologies that your 

nameplate doesn’t say that, but it should. 

The Honorable Janice Jacobs is the transparency coordinator at 

the United States Department of State. Ambassador, we thank you 

for being here as well. 

Ms. Karin Lang is the director of the Executive Secretariat at the 

United States Department of State. 

And Mr. Clarence Finney, Jr., deputy director for Correspondence, Records, and Staffing Division of the Executive Secretariat at 

the United States Department Of State. We welcome you here as 

well and thank you. I believe you have been in this role since 2006, 

correct? 

[Nonverbal response.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We welcome you all and thank you for 

being here. Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be 

sworn before they testify, so if you will please rise and raise your 

right hands. Thank you. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Let the record reflect that all 

witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

It is my understanding that you are all representatives from the 

Department of State, and that rather than giving individual statements that Ambassador Kennedy will give one statement. 

We are very generous with our time here, Ambassador, so please 

feel free. The time is yours. 

WITNESS STATEMENT 

STATEMENT OF PATRICK F. KENNEDY 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you very much. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, committee members, good morning. Thank 

you for your invitation and your interest in FOIA. I appreciate the 

opportunity to discuss the State Department’s ongoing efforts to 

improve our FOIA process. 

I am joined today by my colleagues, Ambassador Janice Jacobs, 

Director Karin Lang, and Deputy Director Clarence Finney. Ambassador Jacobs returned to the State Department in 2015 to serve 


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as the Secretary’s transparency coordinator. Karin Lang is the director of the Executive Secretariat staff, and among many responsibilities, she is responsible for coordinating the Executive Secretariat’s response to FOIA requests. And Clarence Finney is one 

of Ms. Lang’s deputies particularly responsible for FOIA matters. 

The State Department is committed to openness and to encouraging public interest in U.S. foreign policy. Two important efforts 

underscore our commitment to openness: first, our efforts to preserve a complete record of U.S. foreign policy under the Federal 

Records Act; and second, our efforts to ensure that the American 

public can gain access to that record using the Freedom of Information Act. 

It is clear to the committee, to us, and to anyone reading the 

news that the State Department struggles with the volume of FOIA 

materia. Since fiscal year 2008, our new FOIA requests have risen 

300 percent from 6,000 to over 24,000 requests per year. We face 

a FOIA backlog approximately of 30,000 requests, 17,000 direct requests to the State Department and about 13,000 referrals from 

other agencies to the State Department that need our response or 

contribution as well. I want to make clear that this backlog is not 

acceptable and we are working to reduce it. 

The rate of incoming cases is increasing, and many of these cases 

are increasingly complex. It is our experience that requesters come 

first to the State Department to request information on any and all 

national security issues. These requests are often a mixture of complex subject matters, including terrorism, arms conflict, foreign 

government relations, security, and diplomacy. These complex requests require multiple searches throughout the State Department 

and throughout often any of our 275 embassies, missions, and consulates around the globe, often involving the review of highly classified or highly sensitive material, as well as in-depth coordination 

with other Federal agencies. 

The most common complaint we receive from the public is delays 

in receiving timely responses. Our goal is to do everything we can 

to complete each request as quickly as possible with as much responsive information as we can, and our FOIA staff works diligently to make this happen. 

To address these challenges, the Department has undertaken a 

number of steps recently to improve records management, including our response to FOIA requests. We are working closely with the 

National Archives and Records Administration. Secretary Kerry 

has focused attention on FOIA and asked the inspector general to 

review these issues. And we have directed more resources towards 

FOIA processing. 

Working with NARA, we have ensured that we are capturing 

records appropriately. In 2014, the State Department adopted the 

NARA-approved approach to preserving emails, which captures all 

senior emails. And we started that in 2015. This program has been 

expanded to over 688 senior State Department officials, including 

Secretary Kerry, and we will deploy a tool to search these captured 

materials by the end of this calendar year. 

The increased use of email, however, strains our decades-old 

records management systems, but we are on schedule, with the additional resources we have deployed and through the assistance of 


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all the work Ambassador Jacobs has done, to meet NARA’s December 2016 deadline to be able to manage our email records electronically. 

Efforts by Secretary Kerry: Earlier this year, the Secretary sent 

a department-wide notice reminding employees about their FOIA 

responsibilities and the need for transparency. We are training in 

enhanced ways our employees on records preservation. 

In order to focus a dedicated, high-level review on these issues, 

last September the Secretary appointed Ambassador Janice Jacobs, 

as I have mentioned, as our transparency coordinator. She is focused solely on records management improvements, including 

FOIA processing, by moving from a 20th-century paper-based system to a modern electronic system. Ambassador Jacobs can, in response to any of your questions, describe her efforts to identify procedural, bureaucratic, and technological solutions. 

The Inspector General’s Review: Last year, Secretary Kerry 

asked the State Department’s inspector general to explore those 

issues. The State Department IG has issued four reports with recommendations for improved records management, including FOIA, 

and all of the OIG’s recommendations are resolved and we have implemented the majority of them. The others are still in process because of time and resource constraints. 

In January 2016 the OIG found weaknesses in the FOIA processing by the Executive Secretariat, which the Executive Secretariat has acknowledged. Improvements have been made so far, including establishing written procedures for FOIA searches, including emails; increased training; better oversight by senior staff; and 

the establishment of metrics. 

The inspector general’s May 2016 report concerned email practices of five Secretaries of State and shortcomings and how emails 

were preserved in the past. It is clear that the Department should 

have done a better job in preserving emails of Secretaries of State 

and their senior staff going back several administrations. 

The Department is much better situated today than during the 

historical periods reviewed by the OIG. By early 2015 we had already taken a number of important steps. For instance, as noted, 

NARA and IG both agree the past preservation problems of Secretary Clinton and her immediate staff were mitigated by the production of emails to the Department. We then worked diligently 

from May 2015 to February 2016 to release more than 52,000 

pages of former Secretary Clinton’s emails. These emails are now 

a part of the Department’s permanent records and are available on 

our FOIA website for the public to see. 

We recently reviewed—received additional Clinton emails from 

the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which we have begun processing. And as noted, State is automatically archiving Secretary 

Kerry’s emails through the NARA-approved Capstone program, 

along with 687 other senior officials. 

Increased Resources for the FOIA Office: The Department has reallocated and reprogrammed from $18 million in 2014 to $26.2 million in 2015 and $32.5 million this year. Over the past year, the 

FOIA office has added 25 additional full-time positions and converted another 25 positions from part-time to full-time. This comes 

at a time when the Department’s operation—operational funding 


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has increased 25 percent in constant dollar terms over the last 5 

years. 

While we have had a dedicated FOIA requester service team to 

answer questions about specific status requests, a new FOIA public 

liaison officer joined the State Department in May to enhance our 

abilities to be responsive to the American public. 

Have these steps made a difference? Yes. We are beginning to 

see results. In fiscal year 2014, we achieved a 23 percent reduction 

in our appeals backlogged by streamlining our case processing. In 

fiscal year 2015, the Department closed 9 out of 10 of its oldest 

FOIA requests. Later this year, we plan to start posting nearly all 

of the documents released through FOIA, no matter who the requester was, on our public website. This will result in more material on broader ranges of topics, potentially reducing the need for 

anyone to file a new request for information that has in fact already been reviewed. 

The Department is committed to finding more ways to streamline 

the FOIA process and to reduce our backlog. We look forward to 

exploring this issue with you today. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I have a written 

statement that I would ask to be included in the record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Absolutely. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:] 


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Statement of 

U.S. Department of State 

Hearing Before the 

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

on 

Examining FOIA Compliance at the Department of State 

September 8, 2016 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the 

Committee - Good Morning. 

Page 1 

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. As Under 

Secretary for Management, I oversee the Department's budget, facilities, security, 

information technology, consular affairs, and other management functions, 

including records management and Freedom oflnformation Act (FOIA) activities. 

Thank you for your interest in FOIA and advocacy for improving transparency to 

the public. We share that goal at the Department and work every day to achieve it. 

I appreciate the opportunity to provide an overview of the State Department's 

continuing efforts to improve our FOIA processing and administration. 

The State Department is committed to openness. Openness is critical to 

keeping the public informed of the activities of their government. We realize that 

many U.S. citizens will have little direct contact with the Department except when 

they apply for a passport. But many Americans have a strong interest in world 

affairs- from efforts to combat Da'esh, to trade deals with foreign countries, to 

climate change, and humanitarian efforts in the aftermath of natural disasters. As 

the lead foreign affairs agency, by sharing information on our programs and 

policies, we promote public participation in and collaboration with the U.S. 

Government. We are always seeking ways to improve our openness to the public 

and encourage the public to participate in the business of U.S. foreign policy. 
10 


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Page 2 

I look forward to discussing with the Committee two important efforts that 

undergird our commitment to openness. First, the Department's efforts to preserve 

a full and complete record of U.S. foreign policy-- the touchstone for preservation 

is the Federal Records Act. Second, our efforts to ensure that the American public 

can gain access to that record using the Freedom ofinformation Act or FOIA. 

I. PRESERVATION 

A. Capturing Email 

The Federal Records Act establishes broad rules for preserving records that 

reflect official business. The Department works closely with the National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to ensure that we are capturing 

records appropriately. 

In recent years, the Department has been engaged in an effort to modernize 

our records systems to reflect changes in technology, and in particular email. 

Email has fundamentally challenged the systems we have had in place for decades. 

In August 2012, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) mandated Federal agencies to 

manage all email records in an electronic format by December 3 I, 2016. I am 

pleased to say that we are on track to meet that mandate. 

In 2013, the Department formed the Electronic Records Management 

Working Group to address issues with the growth of electronic records and to seek 

solutions to manage this information. This group is specifically tasked with 

overseeing the Department's efforts to meet the OMB and NARA mandate for 

federal agencies to manage records electronically. I am pleased to note that we are 

on schedule to meet the December 20 16 deadline for managing email records 

electronically. In 2014, for example, the Department announced that it was 

adopting the NARA-approved Capstone approach to preserving emails. Under this 

approach, we began capturing the emails of senior leadership in early 2015 and 

have since expanded the program to over 688 senior officials. We anticipate 

deploying a tool to search these captured materials by the end of this year. 
11 


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Page 3 

Over the past two years, I have issued a number of Department-wide 

reminders related to records management. In August 2014, I reminded senior 

officials about their records management responsibilities. A similar reminder to all 

employees went out two months later reiterating and underscoring each 

employee's responsibilities for records management. In 2015, I reminded 

employees of policies regarding the use of non-official email accounts. Early this 

year, the Secretary sent a Department-wide notice reminding employees about their 

FOIA-related responsibilities and need for transparency. These reminders are in 

addition to the standing rules and regulations contained in our Foreign Affairs 

Manual and Handbook. We take these obligations seriously. 

Email remains a popular form of communication, I would like to note that it 

is not the only way the Department records its business -we have always had an 

extensive process to record senior Departmental decisions including memoranda 

and cables. For instance, all official policy memos are formally archived- these 

documents record the Department's formal decisions, recommendations, 

interagency policy discussions, and senior meetings with foreign leaders. They 

have been and will continue to be a critically important part of our FOIA searches. 

B. Training 

The Department is also taking additional steps to train our employees on 

how to preserve records properly. 

The Department has had an online records management training course since 

2009, and the Bureau of Administration website contains a significant amount of 

reference material including contact information for questions or briefing requests. 

We constantly reevaluate our training and guidance to incorporate evolving 

best practices and in light of revised Govermnent-wide laws, regulations, and 

guidance. For example, NARA has issued some of its most relevant guidance on 

email in just the last three years. The Department has worked to incorporate 

NARA guidance into our records management practices and to keep employees 

informed on their record-keeping responsibilities. 
12 


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Page4 

C. Transparency Coordinator 

Additionally, in order to focus a dedicated, high-level review on these 

issues, in September 2015, Secretary Kerry appointed Ambassador Janice Jacobs 

as State's Transparency Coordinator. The Secretary created the Transparency 

Coordinator position to examine and improve records preservation and 

transparency systems, including FOIA processing, within the Department. 

Specifically, the Transparency Coordinator was charged with leading the 

Department's efforts to meet deadlines set by OMB and NARA to manage records 

electronically, and to oversee implementation of the OIG recommendations issued 

earlier this year. 

Historically, information is managed by individuals, embassies and 

consulates, or bureaus in the Department. Individuals create, file, search, retrieve 

and archive the data they create. Ambassador Jacobs is helping the Department 

transition from a 20th century paper-based system to an electronic records 

management system where as many records management functions are automated 

as possible. 

To further improve our FOIA process, as recommended by the Inspector 

General, Ambassador Jacobs is preparing a Quality Assurance Plan that looks at 

enhancing staffing, performance standards, technology, and training issues. She 

has examined resource issues and advocated on behalf ofFOIA Office resource 

requests. The Ambassador is also looking at our FOIA litigation and the most 

efficient ways possible to handle this growing workload with the resources we 

have. The combination of an increased number ofFOIA requests and expanding 

number ofFOIA litigation cases requires the Department to address current 

demand while also planning for the future. 

The Ambassador is actively engaged with the Department's Electronic 

Records Management Working Group to make sure that we meet the December 

2016 deadline for managing emails electronically, and the December 2019 

deadline for managing all permanent records electronically. 
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She has worked to raise visibility of records management and FOIA 

Department-wide, including issuing Department-wide guidance. Ambassador 

Jacobs issued notices on Managing Information and Records in March, and 

Managing Email in July 2016. 

As Transparency Coordinator, her work has focused on four major areas--

governance, technology, training and best practices. I'd like to highlight that she is 

working with the Bureau of Administration to update our FOIA technology and 

leading a task force looking at modernizing the Department's information 

management system. She has contacted 19 federal agencies to discuss their 

Records Management best practices. 

D. Inspector General Reviews 

In 2015, Secretary Kerry asked our Inspector General to explore these issues 

to ensure we are doing everything we can to improve and to recommend concrete 

steps that we can take to do so. The OIG has completed its work, issuing four 

reports with recommendations to improve our records management and FOIA 

processes. 1 All of the OIG's recommendations are resolved and we have 

implemented the majority of them. We are committed to continuing efforts to 

improve. We look forward to discussing the steps we are taking to address these 

recommendations. 

E. Case Study: Former Secretaries' Emails 

As you know, in May 2016, the Inspector General released a report on the 

email practices of five Secretaries of State and, in particular, shortcomings in how 

emails were preserved in the past. It is clear that the Department could have done 

1 July 2015: Potentia/Issues Identified by the OIG of the IC Concerning the Department of State's Process for the 

Review of Former Secretary Clinton's Em ails under FOIA (ESP-I 5-04); 

January 2016: Evaluation of the Department ofState's FOIA Processes for Requests Involving the Office of the 

Secretary (ESP-16-01); 

March 2016: Classified Material Discovered in Unclassified Archival Material ESP-16-02; and 

May 20 16: Office of the Secretary: Evaluation of Email Record' Management Cybersecurity Requirements ESP16-03 
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a better job preserving emails of Secretaries of State and their senior staff going 

back several administrations. We also acknowledge the report's finding that 

compliance with email and records management guidance has been inconsistent 

across several administrations. As the report notes, the OIG considers all eight 

recommendations resolved- meaning that the OIG concurs with the Department's 

current activities and plans to address the recommendations. 

That being said, as a result of concerted efforts to improve, the Department is 

much better situated today than during the historical periods described in this OIG 

report. By early 2015, the Department had already taken a number of important 

steps. For instance: 

• As noted in the report, NARA and the State Inspector General agree that 

past preservation problems of former Secretary Clinton and her immediate 

staff were "mitigated" by the production of emails to the State Department. 

• The Department then worked diligently from May 2015 to February 2016 to 

release more than 52,000 pages of former Secretary Clinton's emails through 

monthly Freedom oflnformation Act (FOIA) releases. Those emails are now 

a part of the Department's permanent records and available online. We 

recently received additional Clinton emails from the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation which we have begun processing. 

• As noted above, the Department is automatically archiving Secretary 

Kerry's emails through Capstone, along with 688 other senior officials. 

• We are purchasing new technology for records management to meet the 

OMB/NARA directed deadline for U.S. Government agencies to manage 

email records electronically by the end of2016. We expect the technology 

will improve our ability to archive email consistent with the Federal Records 

Act and search email in response to FOIA requests. 
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II. Freedom oflnformation Act 

The Freedom oflnformation Act is a critical component of our commitment 

to openness. Although we have made great strides in recent years to improve our 

FOIA record, the State Department faces significant challenges in doing so. 

Since Fiscal Year 2008, the Department's FOIA annual caseload has 

increased by over 300 percent, with new requests rising from 6,000 to over 24,000 

per year. As a result, the Department faces a significant FOIA backlog of 

approximately 30,000 requests- about 17,000 direct requests to the Department 

and about 13,000 referrals from other agencies to the Department to provide direct 

responses. I want to be clear: the Department recognizes that this backlog is not 

acceptable. We do not accept it, and we are working to reduce it. 

A. Tangible Increases to FOIA Commitments 

We have increased resources for our FOIA office. The Department allotted 

$18 million for these activities in Fiscal Year 2014,$26.2 million in Fiscal Year 

2015, and $32.5 million was dedicated in Fiscal Year 2016. We are seeing results: 

In Fiscal Year 2014, we achieved a nearly 23 percent reduction in our appeals 

backlog by finding ways to streamline our case processing. In Fiscal Year 2015, 

the Department closed nine of its ten oldest FOIA requests, and the ten oldest 

FOIA consultations. Over the past year, the FOIA Office added 25 full-time 

positions and converted 25 part-time positions to full time. This comes at a time 

when the Department's operations funding has decreased 25% in constant dollar 

terms since FY-2012. 

We are also making a concerted effort to post online the results of many 

FOIA requests, potentially reducing the need to file new requests for information 

that is already available. To assist in addressing both current FOIA requests and 

questions about older and pending requests, the State Department has a dedicated 

FOIA Requester Service team working hard to answer questions and respond to 

queries about the status of specific requests. Additionally, a new FOIA public 

liaison jointed the Department in May; contact information for both the Requester 

Service Center and the Public Liaison is provided on our FOIA website. The most 

common complaint we receive from the public is related to delays in receiving 
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timely responses. Not surprisingly, as the number ofFOIA requests has increased, 

so has the number of public inquiries regarding the status of those requests, and we 

receive such inquiries on a daily basis. Our goal is to do everything we can to 

complete each request as quickly as possible, with as much responsive information 

as possible. 

Senior Leadership has also emphasized the importance ofFOIA. 

Ambassador Jacobs has worked closely with the Bureau of Administration, which 

handles FOIA, to identify procedural, bureaucratic, and technological solutions to 

the challenges we face. 

B. Inherent FOIA Challenges 

Notwithstanding our increased efforts, we expect it will take time for the 

Department to overcome its FOIA backlog. The rate of incoming cases shows no 

signs of decreasing. In addition, many ofthese cases are increasingly complex, in 

the scope of the request and volume of potentially responsive documents that need 

to be reviewed. The State Department is often the public's first stop for 

information and documents relating to national security interests. It is our 

experience that requesters first often come to the Department to request 

information on any and all national security issues. These requests are often a 

mixture of complex subject matters regarding terrorism, armed conflicts, foreign 

government relations, security, and diplomacy. 

The complexity is compounded by changes in how we communicate. Until 

relatively recently, the Department communicated overwhelmingly by official 

cable and memoranda all of which are organized and easily searchable. Today, the 

vast majority of Department communications are emails- with over I billion 

messages exchanged per year. Thus, a request for "all" communications on a 

given topic often captures exponentially more records than prior to the advent of 

email, and these records must be processed to ensure their release will not harm the 

many important interests protected by the exemptions to FOIA in 5 U.S.C. 

§ 552(b), including national security concerns. As I will describe, the Department 

is developing technologies to assist us with this reality. 
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Finally, the FOIA review process itself is complicated. Especially in light of 

our national security mission, the Department cannot simply print documents and 

provide them to the public. Documents must be reviewed and processed. While 

the overall FOIA process is managed by our FOIA office in the Bureau of 

Administration, responding to a FOIA request involves other offices. FOIA 

requests on complex subject matters require multiple searches throughout many of 

our 275 embassies and consulates across the globe, often involving the review of 

classified or highly sensitive materials, as well as coordination with other federal 

agencies. In many of these cases, searches locate voluminous amounts of paper 

and electronic materials that must be reviewed by State and interagency subject 

matter experts at various agencies in the U.S. Government. It is the Department's 

experience that many FOIA requesters of recent years are seeking documents that 

often relate to contemporary topics (unlike most FOIA requesters of years past 

who were more focused on historical materials); thus, our FOIA team must consult 

within State and with other interagency subject matter experts, as well as foreign 

governments at times, regarding current sensitivities and whether the release of the 

information would harm U.S. national security, potentially damage relations with a 

foreign country, or otherwise harm the other important interests protected by the 

exemptions to FOIA disclosure. 

C. Case Study: Efforts by the Executive Secretariat 

The Executive Secretariat is responsible for coordinating the work of the 

Department internally, communicating between the Department's bureaus and the 

offices of the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Under Secretaries. The Staff of the 

Executive Secretariat is responsible for records management, tracking and tasking 

correspondence for the Secretary and other Department of State Principals. Given 

its place in the Department, the Executive Secretariat provides a useful window 

into our FOIA challenges: the Executive Secretariat has experienced a significant 

increase in FOIA and other document requests. For example, the number of search 

requests it has received in 2016 to date is more than double the number it received 

in all of2015. Moreover, an increasing number ofFOIA litigation cases have 

involved extensive and complex searches, which take precedence over routine 

FOIA searches due to court ordered search and production deadlines. 
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The OIG's January 2016 report found weaknesses in FOIA processing by 

the Executive Secretariat; the Executive Secretariat has acknowledged these 

weaknesses, accepted all the IG's recommendations, and made changes to promote 

improved FOIA responsiveness. 

Steps taken so far include establishing written procedures for FOIA 

searches, including email searches, increased training of staff by the FOIA Office, 

and better oversight of the FOIA process including senior review of all FOIA 

searches, more intensive checking for accuracy, and establishment ofmetrics and 

best practices. 

Following the OIG's January report, the Executive Secretariat Staff created 

two new Government Information Specialist positions to manage FOIA and other 

document searches. Both positions were filled effective June 27, 2016. 

The Executive Secretariat has instituted email searches as a standard 

operating procedure (SOP) in all FOIA searches, with additional training, 

guidance, and oversight. 

• Training has been provided to staff of the Office of the Secretary and other 7th 

floor offices including information and instruction on conducting email 

searches. Six FOIA-specific training sessions have been held by the Executive 

Secretariat for the Office of the Secretary and other Department Principals in 

the past year, between November 2015 and August 2016. The Executive 

Secretariat also provides individual assistance as needed to staff conducting 

email searches. 

• Written policies and procedures - SOPs for FOIA searches have been 

developed for Executive Secretariat managers, government information 

specialists, and for offices conducting searches. These SOPs contain detailed 

instructions for searching email records. 

• Oversight- The Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff oversees all FOIA 

searches conducted by its staff and reviews and approves all responses to the A 

Bureau FOIA office. Each search is reviewed by Executive Secretariat 

managers; a minimum standard was established of 5% of completed searches to 
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be audited by managers, but in practice, managers spot check approximately 

25% of searches. 

III. OTHER DOCUMENT RELEASE PROGRAMS AND INITIATIVES 

I would like to also take this opportunity to share with the Committee some 

of the unique State Department activities, in addition to FOIA, that inform the 

public about foreign policy, diplomatic relations, and State operations through the 

release of literally millions of pages of documents. These efforts are also carried 

out by staff in the Bureau of Administration. 

A. Website 

We urge everyone to visit FOIA.state.gov. Over the past few years, we have 

posted over 140,000 documents including documents for which we have received 

more than one request for the same information. The site is searchable by key 

word, date, region, etc. 

We have continuously striven to enhance our FOIA website, working with 

constituency requester groups to continuously enhance our site to provide what 

they need and want. In fact, the National Security Archive has publicly noted that 

the State Department has one of the best FOIA websites of all federal 

agencies.2 Today, we have an interactive site that provides a wealth of information 

to the public, including the ability to search and access thousands of previously 

released documents. Later this year, we plan to start posting nearly all of the 

documents released through FOIA on the website. This will result in a larger 

volume of posted material on broader ranges of topics than in the past. 

B. Opening the Historical Record ofU.S. Foreign Policy 

Decades before the Executive Order 13526 mandate, the Department 

established a program for the declassification review of its most sensitive 

permanent historical records, transferring them to the National Archives where 

2 See http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5051 
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they are available to the public. During the past five years alone, we have 

declassified nearly 26 million pages, bringing the long term total to literally 

hundreds of millions of pages of declassified foreign policy records available to the 

public at the National Archives. More than 95 percent of the entire collection was 

declassified for public access, with the remaining percentage representing mostly 

the equities of other agencies. 

There are approximately 2.3 million permanent historical records available 

online from State's corporate electronic archive. It is the oldest (dating back to 

1973) and only enterprise-wide collection of substantive electronic records 

documenting a cabinet agency's mission and activities in the Federal 

government. Millions of cables, diplomatic notes, and other important foreign 

policy documentation are available online. These actions are consistent with the 

Department's commitment to openness, as well as its objective to make available 

to the American taxpayer, the maximum amount of documents related to our 

country's foreign policy activities. 

C. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 

The FRUS series is the official documentary historical story of major U.S. 

foreign policy events and significant diplomatic activities -and the decision 

making surrounding them. FRUS volumes contain documents compiled by the 

Office of the Historian not only from the State Department's archives, but from the 

Presidential Libraries, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, 

the intelligence community, and USAID. The series also provides insightful 

documentary editing. Since the inception of the FRUS in 1861 under Secretary 

Seward, the State Department has been informing citizens about formerly 

classified operations and events in our foreign relations - and doing so proactively 

long before any other entity in the Federal government was releasing such 

information. Since its inception, the Department has published 526 volumes; with 

40 volumes published in the last five years. 

D. Presidential Libraries 

There are 13 Presidential Libraries open to the public that not only provide 

unique insight into the personal lives of our presidents, but also serve as a 
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Page 13 

collection of the records related to an administration. The public can request access 

to these records. The State Department is one of the largest equity holders of 

records in the Presidential Library system. During the past five years we have 

processed over 3,600 requests from the Libraries, reviewing over 51,000 pages for 

release. 

E. Special Access under Executive Order 13526 and Pre-Publication Review 

Executive Order 13526 provides former presidential appointees access to 

records originated, reviewed, signed or received during their tenure in office. It 

also allows for them to designate research assistants for this purpose. Many of the 

Department's former principal officers, including former secretaries, request access 

to publish books covering their respective tenure in office, thus providing unique 

insights into events, decision making, people, and diplomacy. As a condition of 

this access, the State Department reviews manuscripts produced as the result of this 

access to ensure that there is no classified information in the published product. 

IV. CONCLUSION 

The Department steadfastly operates on the principle of releasing as much 

information as possible. With all FOIA requests, staff in the FOIA office work 

tirelessly to process these documents, reviewing them for sensitive information, 

making redactions as needed, and consulting with other agencies. 

The Department is committed to finding ways to streamline the FOIA 

process to help overcome these challenges. As I said, we are increasing resources 

and seeking solutions. We look forward to exploring this issue with you today. 
22 

Mr. KENNEDY. And I and my colleagues are open to your and the 

committee’s questions. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize myself. 

Let me address the Secretary Powell issue. There are some important differences. First of all, the inspector general, who we rely 

on heavily, was able to go back and speak with the former Secretaries of State except Hillary Clinton, who refused to be engaged 

with the Inspector General. 

In Secretary Clinton’s case, this is the only case that I am aware 

of where there has been an accusation of a destruction of documents that were under subpoena. 

Mr. Comey, the FBI director, came and testified before this committee that they didn’t look at any of the comments that Secretary 

Clinton gave under oath. And I would also point back to the January letter of this year where we asked the State Department to 

look back 15 years, not just picking on one, but 15 years, which is 

a long—I think exceptionally long time, but looking back. And certainly emails have changed. 

And finally, I would just suggest that I think there are legitimate 

concerns about retroactive classifications, over-redactions, those 

types of things. And I am pleased to report to the committee, because I think Mr. Cummings has some legitimate concerns, that we 

are going to get a chance to question those people on Monday. That 

is why we are doing the hearing. 

It is an embarrassment that the unclassified, unclassified documents that are residing in the skiff, unclassified, are only able to 

be reviewed by members of this committee, the Appropriations, and 

Judicial Committee. If you reside in another committee and are a 

Member of Congress, you are prohibited by this administration 

from looking at unclassified documents. I don’t know how to explain that, and I think it is absolutely wrong. 

Mr. Finney, you are on the front lines. I know the management 

team at the State Department didn’t want you to be here because 

we had to issue a subpoena to be here, and I don’t take that as 

you in your personal capacity making that decision. But nevertheless, we are glad that you are here. 

You have been in this position since 2006. You didn’t ask for this. 

I am very sympathetic to the—you haven’t testified before Congress. All I ask you to do is just be truthful. Tell us the way you 

saw it, what happened, and we will do everything we can to make 

sure that you get your story and your version of what happened out 

there. 

When did you first know that there was a problem? Just go 

ahead and move this microphone up close and—there you go. 

Mr. FINNEY. First of all, sir, I want to thank you for giving me 

the opportunity to come forward. I have always wanted to speak 

the truth. This particular situation and the comfort zone of this 

area is different —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sure. Sure. So go ahead. When did you 

first know there was a problem? 

Mr. FINNEY. I noticed a problem as far with records? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes, with Secretary Clinton, yes, and her 

records. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
23 

Mr. FINNEY. The first time I noticed a problem when you look at 

that is basically when we noted that we had received some documents. There was initially a letter that went out, and once we had 

started receiving documents from Secretary Clinton, that’s when 

we realized —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When was that? 

Mr. FINNEY. I couldn’t tell you the specific date. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes, I mean, I don’t expect to get the exact 

day of the week, but roughly when was that? 

Mr. FINNEY. I couldn’t tell you the exact time. I just know that 

when we had actually started receiving the actual documents —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Was that after she had left? 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you raise any concerns prior to that, 

any questions about did she have a .gov account? Ms. Lang evidently said in a deposition that you did. You raised concerns. 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. The concern was—and basically was—when 

she came on board, you know, they asked the question will she 

have a State.gov account? And I was told she would not. And also 

what—that was something that was not uncommon because the 

Secretary prior to her did not have a State.gov account and also the 

Secretary prior to that, previous Secretary, did not have a 

State.gov account. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So the fact that you weren’t getting records 

from Hillary Clinton, did you ever raise that question, that concern? Were you told to—what did they tell you to say or not say 

about that? 

Mr. FINNEY. No one told me anything to say or not say. Again 

because she did not have a State.gov account, that was something 

that was not abnormal because previous Secretaries did not have 

State.gov accounts. The records that we were receiving were placed 

into a repository, which is the Secretariat Tracking and Retrieval 

System. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But you got the Secretary Clinton dump of 

55,000 pages almost 2 years after she left, correct? 

Mr. FINNEY. Say that—not knowing the exact time frame, sir, I 

would just say, yes, we did receive them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. I believe that was December 5 of 

2014 when Mrs. Clinton—Secretary Clinton returned 55,000 pages 

of emails. 

Has the State Department—after December 5, 2014, has the Department received any additional Hillary Clinton work emails that 

were Federal records? 

Mr. FINNEY. After the 55,000, that’s what you’re saying specifically? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. FINNEY. Recently, my office was involved in some records 

they had just recently received, but in that particular case, the only 

purpose that I was involved with was really just looking at the 

records, seeing if they were personal or work-related, and that was 

the reason why we got involved in that process because the Department was receiving so many records and the staffing was lacking 

so —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
24 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So, Ms. Lang, how many records did the 

State Department receive after December 5, 2014? 

Ms. LANG. I’m sorry. Can you be more specific? Are you talking 

about from Secretary Clinton, from other former employees? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, I am talking specifically about Hillary 

Clinton work emails that were Federal records. How many did you 

get after December 5? 

Ms. LANG. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has transferred 

a number of documents to the State Department, which are still 

—— Chairman CHAFFETZ. And what is that number? Do you know 

the number? 

Ms. LANG. Those are still undergoing a records review. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Was it 17,448? 

Ms. LANG. My office in the Executive Secretariat staff is not leading that effort. I would —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So who is? Who knows this number? Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, to the—we received a number of 

disks from the FBI. We are in the process of inputting them into 

our classified analysis system and counting them. And we know of 

14,900-odd documents, and the FBI has mentioned that there could 

be tens of thousands of others in the string of disks that we’re processing now. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And all of those came after December 5, 

2014? 

Mr. KENNEDY. All of those, Mr. Chairman, were received within 

the last month. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ambassador Kennedy, on May 22, 2015, 

you asked, as the representative of the State Department, you 

asked Secretary Clinton’s attorney David Kendall for an electronic 

copy of the 55,000 pages of emails. When did Secretary Clinton provide the electronic copy to you? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Intervening in that thing, Mr. Chairman, the FBI 

then took possession of all the electronic material that Mr. Kendall 

had to the best of my knowledge. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So did Secretary Clinton fulfill your request to return the Federal records via electronic format? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The—Secretary Clinton’s attorney, to the best of 

my knowledge, provided that electronic material to the FBI. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Or it was seized, one of the two. But I am 

asking, it is kind of embarrassing that you had to ask them to return it in electronic format. They went and printed all this stuff 

out and gave you a hard copy. So did they ever give you an electronic copy per your request? 

Mr. KENNEDY. To the best of my understanding, Mr. Chairman, 

they do—they no longer have an electronic copy because it’s in the 

possession of the FBI. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Because it was seized, right? Yes. And you 

have since asked the FBI to turn over that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We have asked the FBI to provide us with any 

material that they have in their possession that may be Federal 

records. As I mentioned a moment ago, Mr. Chairman, they have 

provided us with a number of disks. We are loading that system— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
25 

those disks into our electronic system so then we—that we can, 

first of all, disaggregate the time periods because there are potentially records there prior to when she was Secretary of State and 

after when she was Secretary of State; secondly, because this is 

their recoveries from her servers, there could be material in there 

which are Federal records and material which are not Federal 

records so we have to disaggregate those. And then we will process 

all the Federal records, as we would do for any Federal record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So what number are you up to now? Do you 

know? 

Mr. KENNEDY. As I said, we are—with—right now, we’re up to 

14,900 documents that we are reviewing in both the two stages of 

disaggregation first. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. Last question—I have exceeded my 

time—but how do I get Hillary Clinton’s calendars? Why does that 

take so long? The original FOIA request came in 2010, and you are 

arguing in court that you still can’t get it done by the end of the 

year. A judge has had to intervene to force you to produce the calendars. How difficult is a calendar? Who is in charge of that, by 

the way? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, when we have 30,000 FOIA requests pending, we also have requirements under statute to do 

what is called historical declassification in which we have moved 

26 million pages in the last 5 years —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. Wait, wait. All I am trying to talk 

about is Hillary Clinton’s emails—or Hillary Clinton’s calendars. I 

would like to see—as chairman of the Oversight Committee, I 

would like to see Hillary Clinton’s calendars. When can you provide 

that to me? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I will find the time and get back—I will find when 

that is and get back to you. We have—we —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When will you get back to me by, by Tuesday? 

Mr. KENNEDY. By Tuesday I can give you an idea when that information might be available. If I might, sir, the AP request was— 

for the calendars was actually part of a larger swath of six FOIA 

requests that we’re engaged in —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—and if I might, one other thing, the point that I 

think is relevant here and also addresses a point that Ranking 

Member Cummings made is that the way the law is constructed 

now, we are required to produce in response to a FOIA request 

within 20 days. Given the volume of requests, given the complexity 

of requests, given the classified material, given our other statutory 

document requests for the foreign relations series, historical declassification, there is simply no way, Mr. Chairman, that I can deal 

with every government agency and 275 posts within 20 days. That 

is simply a physical impossibility. 

That is why we are being sued, because I cannot literally unless 

I turn the entire State Department off of every national security 

mission it had and put it exclusively on FOIA. Now, eventually, I 

would produce no new documents and I wouldn’t have a FOIA 

problem, but there is a true resource, time, and other issues that 

have to be dealt with here, sir. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. To be clear, I would like to know how many 

different versions of calendars Hillary Clinton has, and I would like 

to know when you can provide to this committee all calendars 

while she was serving as Secretary of State, and you will get back 

to me in roughly a week. Is that fair? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I can get back to you with a report on how our 

processing is coming, yes, sir, because what we were doing for all 

these FOIA requests that we were treating —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. My request is not a —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—them all equally. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—FOIA request, okay? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I don’t understand the FOIA part, but I am 

just asking you —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr.—I understand fully. I think this becomes the 

24th request that this committee has made of us in the last year, 

and we’ve already produced —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is not bad. We —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—like 108—we’ve already provided this committee 

with 185,000 pages of documents, and we will continue to work 

with this committee to provide more. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to point out 

that you went over a little bit on your time, and I just pray for 

equal time. Thank you. 

Mr. Kennedy—first of all, I want to thank the witnesses for cooperating with the committee and helping us with our work. I want 

to ask you about former Secretary Powell’s emails from his AOL account. And I want to point out that he served between 2001 and 

2005 as Secretary of State. And during his tenure, there were 92 

million data breaches at AOL. 

So as Secretary Powell laid out in his own book here—and, look, 

I have enormous respect and admiration for Secretary Powell, and 

we remain as a country thankful for his courageous service. But 

what I am trying to point out is the disparate nature of this inquiry and how we are completely ignoring what Secretary Rice did 

and Secretary Powell did, and instead, the committee, with nine 

separate investigations and counting, has targeted Hillary Clinton 

for her conduct under similar circumstances. 

So Secretary Powell on page 109 of his book—I might as well 

plug it, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership: Colin Powell— 

he says, ‘‘To complement the official State Department computer in 

my office, I installed a laptop computer on a private line with an 

AOL account. My personal email account on the laptop allowed me 

direct access to anyone online, so I started shooting emails to my 

principal assistants, to individual Ambassadors, and increasingly to 

my Foreign Minister colleagues who, like me, were trying to bring 

their ministries into the 186,000-mile-per-second world,’’ referring 

to the speed of light, I guess. 

So a lot of communications, Ambassadors, Foreign Ministers, arguably some classified information in there, but it is being done on 

a completely private line. And the problem is that unlike Secretary 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Clinton, Secretary Powell apparently did not save or print out any 

emails. 

I have a letter that you sent on November 12, 2014, I ask unanimous consent to submit in the record. 

Mr. LYNCH. In your letter you ask Secretary Powell’s representative to provide all of Secretary Powell’s records that were not in the 

State Department record-keeping system, is that correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. That would have included emails from his 

AOL account that were work-related, right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Did Secretary Powell—well, let me ask you. 

How many emails did he produce pursuant to your request? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Secretary Powell responded that he did not have 

access any more to any of those records, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. He didn’t have access to them? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. So the number would be zero? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. I have another letter from you dated October 

21, 2015. 

Mr. LYNCH. In this letter you ask Secretary Powell’s representative to contact AOL to determine whether any of his emails were 

still on their system, is that correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. To the best of your knowledge, did Secretary 

Powell follow up to do this? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We never received a response to that request, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. I got another letter from you, Ambassador 

Kennedy, dated November 6, 2015. 

Mr. LYNCH. And in this letter you inform the National Archives 

that Secretary Powell never contacted AOL. Isn’t that right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. And again, Ambassador Kennedy, in July 

2015 the Chief Records Officer for the National Archives asked the 

State Department to contact AOL directly to determine ‘‘whether 

it is still possible to retrieve the email records that may still be 

present.’’ Mr. Kennedy, did you ever contact AOL? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Our lawyers advised, sir, that we are not a party 

to —— 

Mr. LYNCH. Would that answer be a no? Did you contact AOL? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, we did not contact AOL. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. So you got the Chief Records Officer asking 

you to contact AOL and you are saying no and your attorneys are 

telling you no? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Telling—that we cannot make a request for someone else’s records from their provider. That request has to be made 

by them, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Now, at some point the inspector general informed 

you that Secretary Powell sent classified information from his AOL 

account. Did you contact AOL then? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Again, it’s the same answer, sir. We asked that —— Mr. LYNCH. Let me —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. KENNEDY. We asked that Secretary Powell contact AOL. 

Mr. LYNCH. So that answer would be no? I mean, but you have 

a responsibility here, though—you admit that—by virtue of your 

position? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We—I—yes. We contacted Secretary Powell —— 

Mr. LYNCH. Let me ask you. How many documents have you 

given to this committee pursuant to investigation of Secretary Clinton? What is the number there? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I know that it is somewhere probably in the 

neighborhood of 50,000. 

Mr. LYNCH. Just 50,000? 

Mr. KENNEDY. So far. 

Mr. LYNCH. Given to this committee pursuant to an investigation 

of Secretary Clinton? I thought we said earlier there were about 

168,000? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That—those were—that’s not—those—we have 23 

different requests from this committee —— 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Let me ask you. How many documents have 

you provided to this committee pursuant to our investigation of 

Colin Powell? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I believe that—we provided this committee the 

three documents that the —— 

Mr. LYNCH. Great. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—FBI —— 

Mr. LYNCH. All right, 50,000 to 3. I think it shows you the lopsided focus here. 

To your knowledge, has anybody in State Department ever 

picked up the phone and called AOL about these questions? 

Mr. KENNEDY. As I said in response to your earlier question, sir, 

it is—we cannot get records of another individual from a—their 

provider. They have to do it. 

Mr. LYNCH. I don’t get this. This is ridiculous. This is the National Archives asking you to contact AOL, but you didn’t do that. 

You ask Secretary Powell to contact AOL; he didn’t do that. 

Now, you remember Secretary Powell served at a very critical 

time. There was dubious information provided about weapons of 

mass destruction in Iraq that led this country to war. There were 

some very important decisions of enormous consequence in this 

country at that time. And yet we are totally silent on that inquiry. 

Meanwhile, we have got nine investigations and counting on Secretary Clinton. This is not how this is supposed to work. This committee is supposed to be pursuing the truth, and I have to say that 

your noncooperation here—even though it is at the advice of counsel—is I think putting the country at a particular point of vulnerability with respect to this investigation. 

I just think if we are going to do this and we are going to put 

our Secretaries of State and our national leaders under the microscope, it shouldn’t be just, you know, half—it shouldn’t be just the 

Democrats under investigation. And that is what I feel is going on 

right here. That is what I feel is going on right here and that we 

have got tens of thousands of documents produced as a result of an 

investigation of Secretary Clinton and we have got zero—well, 

three, three, three documents that you say you have provided with 

respect to Secretary Powell. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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This is a sham. This is a sham. And I think the comments of the 

Republican leader earlier indicated that this whole attempt was to 

rip down Hillary Clinton and ruin her reputation. That is what this 

is all about. And we are spending—look, I didn’t have to spend any 

taxpayer money to get Colin Powell’s admission that he used a private email, an unclassified system to go on AOL that was hacked 

92 million times during his tenure. I didn’t have to spend taxpayer 

money to find out what he did. All I had to do was read his book 

in his own words. 

And here we are, like I said, the ninth investigation. Now, we are 

going to have another one, I expect, just to rip down Hillary Clinton. And the only reason that we are doing it is because she is running for President of the United States. That is the plain and Godawful truth. That is what this is about, and it is a shame. It is a 

shame. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. I would highlight 

that the letter that we sent in January of this year asked the State 

Department for the current and past four Secretaries of State, and 

I would ask unanimous consent to enter this record dated January 

19, 2015—I am sorry; I said this year—2015 into the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. LYNCH. Would that be ’16 or ’15? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Does the chairman yield? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am wondering, what was the follow up on that 

from these folks? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It is incomplete. We don’t have all the information yet. We have some but we don’t have —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. On Colin Powell and Rice and —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We asked for the current and past four 

Secretaries of State. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just want to know what we have got. I mean 

—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, let me get that from the staff. It is 

a very appropriate question, and we will follow up, but it is incomplete. We did ask for it not just of this current one, not of the past 

one, but the past four so —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about AOL? Can we ask them to get us 

that information? I mean, the fervor of which we are going after 

Hillary Clinton just seems like we have so much power over the 

subpoena, it seems like we would want to get those records. Is the 

chairman willing to go to AOL and try to get —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. First order of business, I ask unanimous 

consent to enter this into the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And I will work with you to recover those 

emails. I just want the Federal records. I just —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All of them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. All —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All of them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. All of them. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. If we have to use the power of the committee to extract them and using subpoenas, I am willing to do 

that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You hear that, Mr. Kennedy? We are going to be 

working with you to get that done. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir, Mr. Ranking Member. Could I add one 

thing? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

Mr. KENNEDY. In consultations with representatives of the four 

prior Secretaries of State, neither Secretary Albright nor Secretary 

Rice used email, not—they have certified that to us. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. And that is my understanding. I 

would also note that we rely heavily on the inspectors general, and 

there is an inspector general report on this. And it is very frustrating that the inspector general, impartial, in there to do their 

job, the only person that refuses to interact is Hillary Clinton. And 

that is just a fact. That is not political. That is not—it is just a fact. 

She won’t cooperate with the inspector general. Even the State Department asks for an electronic copy that was never provided. 

There is but one investigation, one investigation that we are conducting relating to what is happening here and these Federal 

records and the potential destruction. We have other inquiries of 

the State Department, Art in Embassies, embassy security, things 

that we are doing in very much a bipartisan way. But let’s be careful on how we represent this. There is one investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And that is of Hillary Clinton. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If we were quiet until the FBI—and when 

the FBI testified they didn’t ask these questions, it begs the question and we have a job to do and we are going to do it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes? 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—just—I know we want to move on —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—I am looking forward to working with you to get 

all the records. I think the American people deserve that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I agree. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I don’t want it to be a one-sided single investigation of Hillary Clinton because I do think it goes against the 

integrity of the committee. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I hear you. I hear you. 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Chairman —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Mr. Lynch, yes? 

Mr. LYNCH.—just in terms of Ambassador Kennedy’s last comment that he reached out to Secretary Albright and Secretary Rice. 

Secretary Rice served between 2005 and 2009. That was well into 

the era of email. Have you checked, did she have a personal account or any—I mean, they certify they didn’t use email. I find that 

very hard to believe. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have spoken personally with Secretary Rice’s attorney, and he—that was his response, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But I believe he was asking about Secretary Albright, too. 

Mr. LYNCH. No, I was asking about Secretary Rice —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. But both, yes. 

Mr. LYNCH.—2005 to 2009. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Right. I will now recognize the gentleman 

from Florida, Mr. Mica, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MICA. Well, again, for the record, Ambassador Kennedy, you 

did say that they did not use—the two previous did not use email, 

is that correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is what their—we have—we have no records —— Mr. MICA. Okay. Well —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—and we have talked to their representatives, Mr. 

Mica, and—to confirm that. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. So, again, the way we got into this, folks, is we 

had a legitimate investigation into what took place in Benghazi, 

and actually all of this was discovered sort of by accident. But the 

fact is, Mr. Finney, how long have you been in your position with 

State over Correspondence and Records? 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. I came to the State Department. 

Mr. MICA. I can’t hear you. Real loud. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Real close. There you go. 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. I —— 

Mr. MICA. What year? 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. I came to the State Department in July of 

2006. 

Mr. MICA. And the fact is in 2011 actually you were first alerted 

to the use of the Secretary—here is a picture of the Secretary. This 

is an article from a publication that said you identified in 2011 or 

raised questions about how the Secretary was operating. And I 

guess did you go to Lang and Lang made you aware that she was 

using a private server? How did you find out she was using a private server? You asked the question was she using a government 

account, and the response came back no. Who told you that? 

Mr. FINNEY. That was told to me by individuals within S/ES– 

IRM. A specific person, I couldn’t remember. 

Mr. MICA. But that goes back some time ago. 

Now, you have an important responsibility. You are supposed to 

keep the records and correspondence when they leave office, and 

then you meet with folks. I mean, these are Members of Congress. 

We all have the same obligation. We are custodians or trustees of 

information, and some of that we cannot take with us. You are not 

supposed to. In fact, I think it is against the law. Isn’t there a statute prohibiting taking that with you? Is that —— 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. I am not an attorney. Okay. Yes. 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. You met with Secretary Clinton’s staff, did you not? 

Did you meet with the Secretary or just her staff? 

Mr. FINNEY. I met with her staff, sir. 

Mr. MICA. And is it Abedin? Was she there and you told them 

the obligations of what they had to turn over? Did you provide 

them with that information? 

Mr. FINNEY. First of all, exactly who was in that meeting, I’ll 

have to go back and —— 

Mr. MICA. Okay. But Abedin, was she there? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. FINNEY. Again —— 

Mr. MICA. Yes. Okay. But you told them what the obligation 

under the law and requirements of the State Department are returning information? 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir, myself and the agency records officer. 

Mr. MICA. At the time did you mention anything about what was 

on a private server of business that may have been conducted in 

an official capacity? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, had no idea of —— 

Mr. MICA. But you told them anything dealing with public information that should be part of State Department documents that 

you are the custodian for should be turned over to you, correct? 

Mr. FINNEY. We briefed them about what their responsibilities 

are, sir, but —— 

Mr. MICA. And then how long did it take—we heard—again, this 

request within—as they left. I am told it took 2–1/2 years for the 

first so-called data dump. Is that correct, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Could you —— 

Mr. MICA. How long before—when did you get the first dump of 

information from the Clintons? 

Mr. KENNEDY. In December, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Of last year? 

Mr. KENNEDY. December 14. 

Mr. MICA. Fourteen? But was sometime after they left? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Two years after they left. I had 2–1/2 years. 

Ms. LANG. Sir, if I may? 

Mr. MICA. No, I have a limited amount of time. 

And were told at the time that that was all the information? Did 

anyone tell you that that is all the information they had in data 

and emails? 

Mr. KENNEDY. If we’re talking about the delivery in December 

—— Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—of 2014 of the 55,000 pages —— 

Mr. MICA. Was there a transmittal document? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We—we —— 

Mr. MICA. Did the transmittal document say this is all we have 

or this is everything we found? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The—I believe something —— 

Mr. MICA. I would like to see that transmittal document, too. 

But then, you tell me the FBI has been dumping additional data 

to you all, records that they found that they did not provide, right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. What the FBI essentially did to the best of my understanding, sir, is use forensics to go —— 

Mr. MICA. I know, but my point is that there is a requirement 

under law to turn over the documents, and this gentleman is responsible—he told them what to do —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Mr. MICA.—and the terms of the law or the regulations, and they 

were to comply. They did not. 

Mr. KENNEDY. They—according to their attorney —— 

Mr. MICA. I want to see the documents. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—they provided —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MICA. They obviously didn’t, and we have gotten dumps of 

additional information according to the testimony you gave here 

today. 

I want to know about the destruction of the—the hammering of 

the BlackBerrys. Those were personal BlackBerrys that the Secretary owned, is that what I am told? That was not Federal property? Do you know? You are the custodian of the properties or the 

data. Should they have turned the BlackBerrys over if they were 

government BlackBerrys? 

Mr. FINNEY. First of all, sir, I’m responsible for the records of the 

individual who are —— 

Mr. MICA. But they also have to give over property. You don’t 

know anything about the hammering of the —— 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. MICA.—BlackBerrys or whether they were personal. And I 

also want to—I would like to know for the record, too, the staff 

BlackBerrys that were turned over, if any of those were not turned 

over, if they were destroyed, too, Mr. Chairman. I request that information. 

Mr. MICA. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I would now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Kennedy, I am extremely concerned, as I have said 

before, about this whole issue of classification. You got people being 

accused of crimes and a lot of it and it has become very significant 

what is classified and what is not classified. I think you—would 

you agree with that? It is significant? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Classification is always significant —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—yes, sir, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, Mr. Kennedy, I want to ask you about the 

instances when experts from different agencies disagree about 

whether information is classified. I have an email here dated April 

10, 2011. It was written by someone from the State Department operations center based on a phone call with Christopher Stevens, 

who was a special envoy to Libya. It is up on the screen. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. CUMMINGS. In the first line of the email it says ‘‘SBU per 

Special Envoy Stevens.’’ What does SBU mean? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It means sensitive but unclassified, sir, unclassified. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So this email was explicitly marked unclassified, 

is that right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And it appears that the Special Envoy Stevens 

considered this information unclassified, is that correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So anyone reading this email would assume that 

it was not classified, is that correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The problem is that at some point after the 

email was sent, the intelligence community came in and claimed 

that it was classified. On September 15, 2015, the State DepartVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:13 Jul 25, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26121.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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ment sent a letter to Senator Corker explaining that the intelligence community was wrong. The letter stated, ‘‘Someone within 

the intelligence community later, subsequent to his posting, 

claimed should have been redacted as secret.’’ The letter from the 

State Department goes on to say that the suggestion that the email 

should have been treated as classified was ‘‘surprising and, in the 

Department’s judgment, incorrect.’’ Ambassador, why was it surprising that someone in the intelligence community claimed that 

this email was classified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman—sorry, Mr. Ranking Member, 

there is a common discussion, a common thread that runs between 

the State Department and the intelligence community constantly, 

and it’s called in our parlance parallel reporting. The State Department officer, in the course of his or her responsibility, goes out and 

talks to people, receives information. 

The—there was no classification attached to that information. In 

other words, the foreign government did not provide us classified 

information, so it was an unclassified discussion between a State 

Department officer and a private citizen, a foreign government official, or whatsoever. We file that report unclassified, sensitive but 

unclassified at times. We do not classify it. 

As this is going on, the intelligence community, through either 

human intelligence or national technical means, in effect steals the 

same information or something very close to it, and they classify 

it. And they’re classifying it because of the sources and methods involved in maintaining it. 

So we often see parallel reporting, State Department unclassified 

reporting and intelligence community reporting talking to the same 

matter. And therefore, you can have a document that is very close. 

We looked at this very carefully and we were surprised—which is 

why we used that term in that letter—is because a number of the 

data points in this letter—excuse me, in this email reporting Ambassador Stevens’ conversation are different, and therefore, these 

are separate. 

And so we—but the problem, Mr. Ranking Member, of parallel 

reporting is something we see all the time but is actually a good 

thing because no government wants to operate on a single thread. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. It is a bad thing, though, when the FBI could 

possibly bring charges against somebody for disclosing documents 

that they claim to be classified when, in fact, they weren’t classified. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, I mean, you could call it healthy all you 

want. 

Mr. KENNEDY. But, Mr. Ranking Member, what I’m saying is we 

did not classify it. This is our information in this email that you 

are referencing, Mr. Ranking Member. This is also information that 

parallels public press briefings from the NATO press office in Brussels. And so this is unclassified. If the FBI came to us and said we 

want to take this as a court action, we would say this information 

is unclassified. We would so certify it, as we have. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So just the last question, unfortunately, this gets 

even more confusing because when the FBI issued its report to 

Congress, they told us that this email was classified at the time 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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that it was sent. Did the FBI ask the State Department whether 

you consider this specific email to be classified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I can’t give you a particular answer. I know we 

provided information to the FBI, and this was one of the documents we certified as unclassified. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, sir, do you have any suggestions as to how 

we go forward with regard to trying to clear up these kind—because there is no arbiter, is that right? Is there an arbiter? In other 

words, if you got intelligence saying it is classified, you have got 

State saying it is unclassified, I mean, who arbitrates this? I mean, 

how do we come up to a conclusion? 

Mr. KENNEDY. As I understand the rules, Mr. Ranking Member, 

that each agency is the authority over the documents that it produced. The State Department produced this document, the State 

Department has said it’s unclassified, and therefore de facto, de 

jure, it is unclassified. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Ranking Member, could I ask, since you made 

reference to the letter to Senator Corker, could I ask that that letter be entered into the record? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I certainly—I thank you. I meant to do that. And 

I ask that the letter dated November 24, 2015, to Senator Corker 

be made a part of the record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ambassador Kennedy, how long have you worked at 

the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. A little over 42 years, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. And you are the guy at State Department currently 

responsible for record retention, maintaining the records, and complying with all appropriate records laws and archive laws, is that 

right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am the senior agency official. I have a number 

of people who assist me in that responsibility. 

Mr. JORDAN. You sent a letter to four former Secretaries of State 

about records and getting information from those previous Secretaries of State. Is that accurate? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Actually, you sent it to their designees if I remember correctly? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. They were designees —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Their lawyer, their —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Attorneys or their —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—senior staff representative. 

Mr. JORDAN. When did you send that letter? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I believe it was sent in July, August of ’14 —— 

Mr. JORDAN. I thought it was —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—October ’14. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. That is what I thought. I had October 28, 

2014. And why did you send that letter? What prompted you to deVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:13 Jul 25, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26121.TXT APRIL

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cide that you needed to send that letter to the four previous Secretaries of State? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Basically, we had been reviewing thousands of 

pages of documents in response to a number of requests, including 

requests from this committee regarding the Benghazi temporary 

special mission attacks. And as we worked through all the documents, all the volume of material involved in that process, we noticed that there was the use of a non-State email address that apparently may have come from Secretary Clinton. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that is not what you told us when we deposed 

you in February this year. You said you did it because of NARA 

concerns. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, because—yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Is that the same difference? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It’s the same difference. 

Mr. JORDAN. All right. 

Mr. KENNEDY. We saw a potential Federal record, and therefore, 

that —— 

Mr. JORDAN. So what prompted you was the Benghazi Committee 

request and requests from this committee and FOIA requests, and 

you weren’t complying with the NARA law, is that right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We—no, we were—we—we were looking through 

documents in response to a committee request. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY. We saw evidence that there might be a Federal 

record from a non-Federal source —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Got it. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—and that then trips our requirements to provide —— Mr. JORDAN. Between the time you knew —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—the Federal Records Act. 

Mr. JORDAN. When all this prompted you, the request and the 

NARA law and everything else, when all this prompted you, between the time you knew you had to do something different and 

when you actually sent the letter, did you talk to any of the former 

Secretaries of State, any of those four or any of their four designees? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Not to the best of my recollection. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you communicate with any of them? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Not to the best of my recollection. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you meet with any of them or talk to any of 

them about any subject? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I regularly am in communication with former— 

one of the responsibilities of the position of the Under Secretary for 

Management is to be in contact with former Secretaries of State on 

managerial, administrative, support —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—issues so —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—the answer to that is yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, let me just get specific. Did you talk to Cheryl 

Mills between the time you knew you had to do something different 

with record retention and when you sent the letter? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I don’t remember doing so, sir. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
37 

Mr. JORDAN. You don’t remember talking to her at all? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, I don’t remember talking to her about the 

records. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you meet with her at all in that time frame? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Cheryl Mills was and remained beyond the departure of Secretary Clinton as the special representative for Haiti, 

and I had a number —because of the importance of Haitian issues 

—— Mr. JORDAN. So you told us in February you had lunch with her 

in this time frame —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN.—and you met with her on numerous occasions. Is 

that accurate? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is—that is what I’m saying, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. You also said when we asked you, I asked 

you—I said between the time you learned that you needed to do 

something different as far as record retention goes and when you 

actually sent the letter, you had numerous conversations with 

Cheryl Mills, but you are saying none of them dealt with this 

issue? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct because —— 

Mr. JORDAN. In fact, you answered me and you said this: ‘‘I never 

tipped her off.’’ Is that accurate? 

Mr. KENNEDY. If I—could I —— 

Mr. JORDAN. I am just quoting —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—answer —— 

Mr. JORDAN.—back what you said to us in that deposition. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Oh. I am not changing my deposition one iota, but 

two things, sir. One is I was not brought up to date immediately 

on the fact that my colleagues and staff had come across this one 

email thing and then were researching through the material. That 

was not brought to my attention —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Here is —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—until much later. 

Mr. JORDAN. Here is what I want to get to. The FBI released 

their report last Friday. They say on page 15, ‘‘During the summer 

of 2014, State Department indicated to Cheryl Mills a request for 

Clinton’s work-related emails would be forthcoming. And in October of 2014 the State Department followed up by sending an official 

request to Clinton asking for her work-related emails.’’ 

Now, you just said in February when you were under oath and 

you were deposed in front of the Benghazi Committee that you 

never tipped her off, but somebody tipped her off because during 

the summer of 2014 she got a heads up that this letter was coming. 

Do you know who tipped her off? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, I do not. 

Mr. JORDAN. And it wasn’t you, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Not—not to the best of my knowledge, no, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ambassador Kennedy, were you interviewed by the 

FBI? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ambassador Jacobs, did you tip Hillary Clinton off 

in the summer of 2014 before this letter —— 

Ms. JACOBS. No, sir, I did not. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. JORDAN. Were you interviewed by the FBI? 

Ms. JACOBS. No, I was not. 

Mr. JORDAN. Ms. Lang, did you tip Hillary Clinton off or Cheryl 

Mills off in the summer of 2014? 

Ms. LANG. No, I did not, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Were you interviewed by the FBI? 

Ms. LANG. No, I was not, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Finney, did you tip Cheryl Mills off? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you tip Hillary Clinton off? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Were you interviewed by the FBI? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. So somebody who was interviewed by the FBI told 

the FBI we tipped her off. Have you done an investigation, Ambassador Kennedy, on who might have tipped off—I mean, here is 

what this gets to. Once again, Hillary Clinton gets treated different 

than anybody else. She got tipped off. I don’t think Ambassador 

Powell got tipped off—have you started an investigation, Ambassador Kennedy, on who might have tipped Hillary Clinton off before she got the letter requesting —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, I did not. 

Mr. JORDAN.—these documents? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have not. 

Mr. JORDAN. Any idea who did tip her off? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Kennedy, I want to ask you some questions about 

the three emails out of the 30,000 that FBI Director Comey referenced that supposedly had some kind of classification markings 

on them. And of course if anyone is scoring along at home, that 

means 29,997 emails produced with no markings whatsoever, not 

even defective or incorrect classification markings. 

I want to talk about the manual on how you properly mark a 

classified document. Executive Order 13526 and the directive implementing it require classified documents to be marked in a certain way. The document must identify the original classifier, correct, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. There is, in effect, a four-line 

marking that must go —— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It must identify —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—on all classified documents. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—the agency of the office of origin, correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It must identify the reason for classification, 

correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It must identify the date for declassification, 

right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And classified documents typically have to 

have a banner or a header at the top and bottom that say classified 

along with the level of classification, am I correct in that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. So five different requirements in the 

manual, and the three emails that Director Comey testified about 

had none of these indicators. Am I correct in that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Not one of the five required marking requirements, am I correct in that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. The three emails had none of them. As 

a result, Director Comey, sitting where you are sitting right now, 

testified that it would be reasonable for somebody looking at a document with none of these required markings immediately to infer 

that they were not classified. Are you aware of that testimony? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am aware of it, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And do you agree with Director Comey that 

someone who was familiar with properly marking classified documents would reasonably consider such documents without any of 

these five requirements not classified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I fully agree with the director. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Now, State Department spokesman John Kirby 

said that the parentheses ‘‘C’’ markings, the one that referred to 

confidential, the lowest level of classifications, on those three 

emails John Kirby said those markings themselves were in error 

and they were not ‘‘necessary or appropriate at the time they were 

sent as an actual email.’’ Is that your understanding as well? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, I want to show you one of these emails, 

and it is dated August 2, 2012. The marking—and we have that 

up on the screen for you as well. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Do you have that, Ambassador? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I do, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. The marking that Director Comey referred to is the C in parentheses at the beginning of the email, and 

that is the marking that the State Department said was a mistake. 

Do you see that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And then four paragraphs follow. Do you see 

them? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Each of the paragraphs says SBU and we have 

covered that in today’s hearing. SBU means sensitive but unclassified, right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That means—yes, sir, and that means it does not 

have to be moved in classified channels. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. So every one of these four paragraphs in the 

bulk of this email are sensitive but unclassified, right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. So this email is, in fact unclassified and 

it always has been, hasn’t it? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Now, did the FBI consult with you about the 

classification status of this email? 

Mr. KENNEDY. They did not consult with me personally. I know 

the State Department did provide some input to the FBI, but their 

decisions are their decisions—their writings are their writings. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. When you say ‘‘their,’’ who do you mean? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The FBI, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. Do you know why the FBI did not 

consult with you about the classification status of this email? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I would have to check, Congressman, to see if they 

consulted with someone else at the State Department. I know they 

did not consult with me. But the—but as you correctly point out, 

the subject line there is—does not have any classified material in 

it, nor does the text of the—of that. And even the redactions that 

are there, the redaction B–5 is a redaction for deliberative process, 

not for classification. So this document is unclassified. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. I thank you, Ambassador, and I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the 

panel for being here. 

Mr. Finney, when did you first become aware of the extent to 

which Secretary Clinton relied on private server emails to address 

her conduct, her responsibilities in State Department business? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, I couldn’t give you the actual date and time 

frame, but I do know that when we had started receiving the actual documents at the State Department, that’s when I came to realize that she was using another device other than —— 

Mr. WALBERG. Do you recall a January 2009 FOIA request for 

correspondence related to Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, without looking at the case, I couldn’t specifically know. 

Mr. WALBERG. But you would identify the fact that you have 

logs, so if you can’t recall it right here, there is a January 9 of ’09 

request for information and correspondence from Secretary Clinton. 

So you would be able to go back, whether you recall it right now. 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir. If we’ve received it in the Executive Secretariat, then we could go back. 

Mr. WALBERG. On the basis of that, did you review email correspondence from the Secretary in putting together the response to 

this January 2009 request? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir, because we did not have emails—she did not 

have a State.gov account, so all we could search was our records 

that we had, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. So you then, as I understand it, did not realize 

the extent to which the Secretary was using her private email server, and on the basis of that, you couldn’t do anything about it? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, did not know that she had a server or 

other email accounts that she was using until we received it in the 

Department. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, if this request was made in 2009, how was 

the Department able to close a request for correspondence covering 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Secretary Clinton when the Department did not have access to all 

of the email correspondence from the Secretary? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, I would have to see the specific request 

and see what they’re asking and see if it, in fact —— 

Mr. WALBERG. But they did ask. You have got a log of that. 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, I would have to see if we in the Executive Secretariat received it because when FOIAs come in, they do 

not come directly to the Executive Secretariat. They come to a bureau —— 

Mr. WALBERG. Now that you know, is the Department reopening 

requests that would encompass the Secretary’s emails that were 

closed prior to disclosure that she was using her private server, private emails for conducting official business? 

Mr. FINNEY. I’m not able to answer that question, sir, because 

I’m only responsible for the Executive Secretariat —— 

Mr. WALBERG. Who would be responsible for that? Mr. Kennedy, 

now that you know it? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Now—that is why, Congressman, that we have 

posted all of the 52,000 emails we received on the State Department’s public Web site so that if there was an email that we now 

have but we did not have then, and therefore, since we did not 

have it, we were telling the truth in response at that moment. If 

anyone thinks that one of their inquiries did not get a full response, we have posted all that material, all the 52,000-odd documents to our public FOIA Web site in a searchable form so that 

we can be, in effect, retroactively responsive to any earlier inquiries 

that we did not have records of then. 

Mr. WALBERG. Wow. 

Mr. KENNEDY. So we are at—anyone who had made a request, 

they can now go to the—our Web site and they—all the 52,000 —— 

Mr. WALBERG. So we got the requests? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Pardon me, sir? 

Mr. WALBERG. We have the requests, then, on the Web site? That 

is what you are saying? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, we have the documents on the Web site. 

Mr. WALBERG. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY. All 52,000 documents are on the Web site, and 

therefore, if we did not respond before because we did not have the 

record then and we have the record now, the 52,000, we put all 

52,000 of them up on the State Department public Web site, accessible to every member of the public. 

Mr. WALBERG. Again, Mr. Chairman, I think this the reason for 

this hearing, isn’t it? The sloppiness, the messiness, and the ability 

for a Secretary of State to do something that shouldn’t have been 

done. 

Mr. Finney, do you recall a FOIA request from August 27, 2010, 

that specifically requested emails sent to Hillary Clinton? 

Mr. FINNEY. Not right offhand, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. As of January 25, 2011, this request had been 

marked pending. Given that this FOIA request specifically asked 

for records related to email sent to the Secretary, your processing 

should have, as I understand it, included review of the Secretary’s 

inbox. Did that processing take place? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, I’ll have to see if in fact the Executive 

Secretariat actually received the request. 

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Before he does that, if he would yield for a second. 

There was a choice. The Secretary had a choice. She chose to not 

abide by the rules of the State Department, and she went off and 

for her own convenience created her own account, her own server, 

and her own mess. 

Mr. WALBERG. Federal records. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Federal records. There was a choice. This 

was not a mistake. A mistake is when you accidentally put the letter E at the end of potato. This is a conscious decision to go a different route. And if you want to protect yourself and make sure 

that there is not a reclassification problem or something else, then 

use the .gov account. That is why it is there. It is safe and secure. 

And by the way, there are two systems at the State Department. 

You can’t just take classified information and hit forward. That 

doesn’t work like that. So we have got to get into the depths of this. 

It is in part why we have the hearings next week. But this was 

a very conscious choice and she chose not to use the safety, the security, the expertise of the State Department. She put the country 

and her Federal records in jeopardy and created this mess that 

these poor people are going to have to clean up for years to come. 

I will now recognize Mr. Lieu of California. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Ambassador Kennedy, it is true, isn’t it, that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to Members of Congress? 

Mr. KENNEDY. To the best of my knowledge, sir, that is true. 

Mr. LIEU. So let me just let that sink in for a moment. We in 

Congress have passed this law asking other Federal agencies to 

meet these standards that we ourselves are unwilling to meet. It 

is pure hypocrisy. It is a double standard. 

But it gets worse in this case. Did you know, Ambassador, that 

all Members of Congress get security clearances? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I believe so, yes, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. And we get it not because we go through a background 

check but because we happen to win the most number of votes in 

our district. And as Members with security clearances, we get to 

have private email servers. We can have one private email server. 

We can have five. We can have 27. We could have private email 

accounts. We can conduct official business on our private email 

server on our private email account. 

So I am not going to continue to participate in the hypocrisy of 

today’s hearing. Instead, I would like to use the remainder of my 

time to talk about an issue that actually matters, and that is the 

slaughter of children and civilians in the country of Yemen being 

enabled by the U.S. Department of State. 

And, Ambassador, as a principal advisor to John Kerry and as 

Under Secretary, I am sure that you know that last year the State 

Department started providing material assistance to a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition in the country of Yemen. Are you aware 

that numerous human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, as well as reporters on the ground 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
43 

have documented numerous war crimes being committed by this 

Saudi Arabia-led military coalition? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Congressman, I have seen references to that in 

the press, but if I might, not an attempt to avoid your question because I would be glad to arrange for someone to—there are six 

Under Secretaries at the State Department. I am the Under Secretary for Management. 

Mr. LIEU. Right. 

Mr. KENNEDY. My writ is rather large but it does not encompass 

political military —— 

Mr. LIEU. I —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—activities —— 

Mr. LIEU. I —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—foreign military assistance, or others. 

Mr. LIEU. I understand and —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I will be glad to work with you, though. 

Mr. LIEU. I understand. And as a member in the minority party, 

I do not get to set the agenda, but I have four State Department 

officials here so I am going to ask these questions. 

Are you aware that Amnesty International published a report 

documenting at least 33 cases where the Saudi Arabia coalition, 

with assistance of the United States, targeted and killed civilians, 

many of them nowhere near military targets? And you can just answer yes or no. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have not seen that report, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. Okay. All right. Are you aware that just last month, 

this Saudi Arabia-led coalition targeted and killed children at a 

school? There were 28 kids, 18 were injured, 10 were killed. Some 

were as young as 6, 7, 8 years old. Are you aware of that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, I am not. 

Mr. LIEU. Are you aware that this Saudi Arabia-led military coalition struck a fourth hospital facility last month, this time a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing numerous patients, doctors, 

and hospital staff? Are you aware of that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think I may have seen that in the newspapers, 

sir. 

Mr. LIEU. You would agree with me, wouldn’t you, that it is a 

war crime if you target and kill civilians nowhere near military targets? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am not a lawyer, sir, but obviously the direct 

and—the direct and—targeting of civilians without any other justification is certainly not —— 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—not acceptable. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. And you are aware that the United States 

is providing refueling of Saudi Arabia jets, logistical support, intelligence, and other assistance, correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am aware that we are assisting the Saudi Arabians to—forces to combat terrorist activities in Yemen, yes, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. And the State Department has now proposed yet another sale of billions of dollars of arms and munitions to Saudi Arabia that the State Department noticed when Congress was in recess so that we would have very little time to act on it. Is that correct? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. KENNEDY. I am not aware of that congressional notification, 

sir, but I do—aware that the work with the government of Saudi 

Arabia to help combat terrorism in the Middle East. 

Mr. LIEU. Combating terrorism is fine. Using war crimes to do 

it is not fine. 

Are you aware that a person who aids and abets someone who 

is committing war crimes can also be guilty of war crimes? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I—no, sir, I am not a lawyer. 

Mr. LIEU. Okay. So my recommendation is that you check with 

the lawyers of the State Department and you ask them the question why is the State Department looking like it is aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes in Yemen. 

And with that, I yield back. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I promise you, sir, that I will arrange for the appropriate senior official of the State Department to be in touch 

with you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And to Mr. Lieu, I would also —— 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. To Mr. Lieu, I would also add that we 

have, for a couple months, been trying to get Secretary Kerry to 

come appear before this committee, sensitive to his schedule, but 

we are at the point where we may have to step it up a notch. But 

it is the intention of the committee to have the Secretary come to 

answer. So hone those questions, and hopefully, that will happen 

in the next week or two. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I will now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Finney, I had a series of questions for you that I will submit 

to you in writing. I am going to have to deviate from what I had 

planned to do because of the ranking member’s opening statement, 

which I found instructive, if not predictable. 

So I want us to summarize for just a second. Secretary Clinton 

said she followed all State Department rules and regulations, but 

the truth is she did not. Secretary Clinton said her unique email 

arrangement was approved by the State Department, but it was 

not. Secretary Clinton said she used one device for convenience, but 

she did not. Secretary Clinton said she did not send or receive classified material, but she did. She said she turned over all of her 

work-related emails, but she did not. She said her attorneys personally reviewed each email, but they did not. 

So when faced with a series of demonstrably false statements, utterly impeached by both fact and logic, the ranking member did 

what lots of criminal defense attorneys do, which is blame the investigator. And when that didn’t work, they throw the Hail Mary 

pass of all criminal defense attorneys. Other people did it, too. 

Which brings me to General Colin Powell, one of the most respected people in our country’s history, you know, Secretary Clinton told the FBI—and I will concede she says different things to 

the public than she says to the FBI—but she told the FBI that 

Colin Powell’s advice had nothing to do with her decision to set up 

her unique email arrangement with herself. Now, I am going to say 

that again in case anybody missed it. Secretary Clinton told the 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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FBI under penalty of not telling the truth, that Colin Powell’s advice, email, had nothing to do with her decision to set up that 

unique email arrangement with herself. 

Now, I will say this in defense of Mr. Cummings. I understand 

why he may not believe her. I understand that. I understand why 

he may have credibility issues with anything that the Secretary 

said. I get that. But I think it would have been fair when you are 

using your opening to criticize Colin Powell to at least point out the 

person you are trying to defend doesn’t even say Colin Powell was 

the impetus behind her decision to have that unique email arrangement with herself. 

So let me ask you this. Secretary Clinton was asked—because 

she frequently says 90 to 95 percent of her emails were in the State 

Department’s system. Have you heard her say that? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, I can’t recall. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, it won’t take you long to find it. She says it 

a lot. Or she said it a lot and then she was asked, who told you 

that? Who told you that 90 to 95 percent of your emails were in 

the State Department’s system? And you may find her answer interesting. We learned that from the State Department and their 

analysis of the emails that were already on the system. We were 

trying to help them close some gaps. I like the word gaps. I guess 

if you consider the Grand Canyon to be a gap, then yes, there were 

some gaps in her email. 

Did you have 90 or 95 percent of her emails on your system? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, the only emails we would have is what 

has been provided recently, which was that 55,000 that we got —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, no, I am going back before that, Mr. Finney. 

She said you already had them before she gave them to you. You 

already had 90 to 95 percent. Was that true? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, the emails that we’re looking at, talking 

about the State.gov emails, she did not have a State.gov account, 

and as far as the emails that we received from her came at that 

time frame when it was turned to the Department and it was processed by a bureau. 

Mr. GOWDY. But she made this contention before she ever returned them. She said you already had 90 to 95 percent. She was 

just helping you fill in some gaps. If you had 90 to 95 percent, why 

weren’t you complying with FOIA? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, what I have in our system is what—received by a bureau —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, let me see if —— 

Mr. FINNEY.—and not just the —— 

Mr. GOWDY.—I can put that in South Carolina terms that I can 

understand. If she said that you already had 90 to 95 percent of 

her emails before she ever returned them, that ain’t true. 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, if I may say this, unless she’s talking about the 

files that were sent to other individuals within the State Department, sent to their State.gov account. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, how does that capture personal-to-personal 

emails? And how about the 14,000 that she didn’t turn over. Did 

you have those? 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, what you’re talking about here —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. GOWDY. Oh, I understand her position. The fact that I didn’t 

keep them doesn’t mean that whoever I sent it to didn’t keep it. 

I get that. What if it is private to private? How are you supposed 

to have Sidney Blumenthal’s emails if it is private account to private account? How do you have that? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, if you look at what we’re doing today in accordance to the Federal Records Act of 2014 that was amended, it requires that if an employee uses their Gmail account or privateissued account, they are required by law to send that email to their 

State.gov account. That was amended in 2014, and that is what I’m 

briefing and the State Department briefs today. 

Mr. GOWDY. It sounds like it was a couple years too late, but I 

am out of time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I now recognize the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. 

Plaskett, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And good 

morning to you all. Thank you for being here. 

I believe that the ranking member—and I don’t want to get into 

his head—was pointing out the disparity between the two Secretaries not to absolve Secretary Clinton of her responsibility because 

as we have all seen in testimony that she has given that she has 

taken full responsibility for her own emails—but to point out the 

disparity and the bias in this own committee in how it treats different Secretaries of State. 

I want to ask you about some emails that I hope you have received from other Secretaries. Ambassador Kennedy, do you have 

any emails from the Secretary of State who was the Secretary of 

State in December 2002 or January of 2003? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No. No, I do not. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And that would be Secretary Colin Powell, would 

that not? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Those are very interesting emails, I would think, 

because that would be the 2 months before he gave testimony on 

February 5, 2003, before the United Nations saying that there were 

weapons of mass destruction, which has resulted in the death of almost tens of thousands of Americans with the Iraq war. But this 

committee, which says that it is investigating these breaches and 

these emails because they are concerned with the lives of Americans, don’t seem to be concerned with the email traffic that went 

on that precipitated that testimony, which led us to war. They are 

not concerned at all with those emails, but they are concerned with 

Secretary Clinton’s emails. 

How many emails have you received from Secretary Colin Powell? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The only ones that I’m aware of that are in our 

possession are the documents that you just handed out that we received via the FBI in an interchange between Secretary Clinton 

and then-former Secretary Powell. 

Ms. PLASKETT. I have got a great one from that exchange, which 

is an email exchange between Secretary Clinton and former Secretary Colin Powell from January 23, 2009. And we can put that 

up there. And I would ask unanimous consent to submit that into 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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the record. This is 2 days after Secretary Clinton was sworn in 

when she asked Secretary Powell for advice on how he used his 

personal mobile device in his office at the State Department, which 

is a secure space for classified information called a SCIF. 

So, Ambassador Kennedy, can you explain why Diplomatic Security does not permit anyone to bring a Blackberry or cell phone, an 

iPhone into a Secretary’s office at the Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We operate under the—under rules laid out by 

the—by the former director of the CIA, now the director of the Office of National Intelligence, in that you do not ingest certain documents into a secure compartment information facility because they 

may pick up signals and transmit them out. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Now, Secretary Powell, who everyone I believe in 

the House would admit is an amazing American, a patriot to this 

country, describes in this email with Secretary Clinton that he 

used a personal phone line to set up ‘‘to communicate with a wide 

range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers.’’ He said he also used that account to do business 

with foreign leaders and other State Department officials who were 

using their personal email accounts. 

Now, this is not to say that Secretary Clinton should have done 

this. What I am pointing this out to say is that Secretary Powell, 

by his own admission in this email, says that he did this as well. 

And we know that some very, very serious matters were discussed 

during his time frame, which this committee does not seem to be 

interested in at all. 

And Secretary Powell has given how much of his AOL email accounts to you all during your FOIA requests? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We have received no documents from Secretary 

Powell. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And I heard Mr. Finney say that there is a directive that if an email is sent from a personal email that is related 

to State Department matters, it should be sent then to a State Department email account? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is something that was put into effect in 2014 

prior to the—after the amendments to the Federal Records Act. 

The earlier requirement was that if you sent an email from your 

personal account, you could either copy it to yourself or provide a 

paper copy. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And was a paper copy provided from Secretary 

Powell? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am aware of no paper copies. 

Ms. PLASKETT. No paper copy? And when is this committee going 

to receive that? And where is the urgency that we seem to have 

for Secretary Clinton, giving us this - going to, in fact be given 

across the board to the other Secretary? Secretary Powell explained 

that he disregarded Diplomatic Security, the NSA, and the CIA 

and used his personal mobile device in secure State Department 

spaces. He says, ‘‘And the issue was DS would not allow them into 

the secure space especially up your way. When I asked why not, 

they gave me all kinds of nonsense about how they gave out signals 

and could be read by spies, et cetera, same reason they tried to 

keep mobile phones out of the suite. They never satisfied me and 

NSA/CIA wouldn’t back off. So we just went about our business 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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and stopped asking. I had an ancient version of a PDA and used 

it.’’ 

Mr. Kennedy, were you aware that Secretary Powell used his 

PDA in the SCIF? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, I was not. I was not in this position at that 

time. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Are you aware of that now? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am aware of it from having read —— 

Ms. PLASKETT. Would the —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—the email. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Would the Secretary who was in your position at 

that time have allowed that to have occurred? 

Mr. KENNEDY. He would not have. 

Mr. AMASH. [Presiding] The gentlewoman’s time has expired. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you. 

Mr. AMASH. I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank each of you for 

your testimony. 

I think part of what my colleague opposite is talking about is a 

double standard, and so certainly if Colin Powell has emails that 

belong and should belong to the Federal Government and the people of this great country, they need to go—you need to go after 

them, you need to request them official, and you need to get them. 

I am with her on that. Whether it is Colin Powell or Hillary Clinton, they do not belong to those individuals. They belong to the 

American people. 

But let’s talk about a double standard because the very email 

that my colleague opposite just put up actually is an email that she 

obtained from the State Department in the last couple of days, isn’t 

that, correct, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We received a request from the ranking member 

signed by —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Seven members, right? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The seven-member rule, yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes. So let me ask you how this happens because 

the double standard that I am seeing here is an incredibly quick 

response by the State Department when it is responded to the 

ranking member in defense of this particular hearing and a slow 

walk when it comes from the chairman. 

And let me give you some examples because in January of this 

year the chairman requested information as it related to Hillary 

Clinton’s FOIA requests and so forth, and it took 40 days to get a 

performance evaluation on Ms. Lang. That was the only response 

in 40 days, all right? Do you find that troubling, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Oh, you don’t find that troubling? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir. If I could explain —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, just—that is good enough. You have responded. So you don’t find it troubling. So let me ask, the ranking 

member Mr. Cummings asked for information on Condoleezza Rice 

and Colin Powell on February the 4th. You got a full response to 

him in less than 30 days, isn’t that correct? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. KENNEDY. The difference is you asked for one —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I didn’t ask for the difference. Did you —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. You asked for one—you asked for one document —— Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Well, we will go there. 

Mr. KENNEDY. It is very easy to find one document —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. But —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—it produced 186,000 documents —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Fair enough, Ambassador Kennedy. So let’s go to 

the specifics. On September 2 you get a letter from the ranking 

member asking for Colin Powell’s emails between he and Hillary 

Clinton—I mean, between Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell, the 

supposedly seven-member request, on September 2, and 5 days 

later he gets the emails. Do you find that extraordinarily fast in 

that there was a FOIA request for that same information that has 

been outstanding since 2014? So the public asked for it in 2014, the 

ranking member asked for it 5 days ago, and you got it to him before this hearing. Do you not see a double standard there? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I see two things, Mr. Congressman. One is we— 

in—we did—this is part of the material we just received from the 

FBI, so we did not have it until —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So the —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—in the past month. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The FOIA request—you sent this information to 

the person who requested the FOIA as well? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That FOIA—I don’t—I would have to find out 

where —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, because here is the interesting other aspect. You made a caution, ‘‘The Department has concerns about the 

public release of these documents. FOIA markings and redactions 

reflect the fact that the documents are currently being processed 

for FOIA and have undergone an initial review. However, the preparation of these documents for the public release has not yet been 

completed.’’ But yet they released them. Di you not see a problem 

with that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Meadows, we try, to the best of our ability, 

to respond to committees of Congress. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is a priority—there is —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But it is with unbelievable —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. You’re —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—speed when it fits the narrative that you want 

to do. So here is my request of you, Ambassador. I have got two. 

The chairman asked for a very simple request that has been outstanding from the AP about a calendar. It shouldn’t be a hard request. It is not 137,000 pages. Can you respond in the same length 

of time that you responded to the ranking member in 5 days? 

Mr. KENNEDY. The answer that—to that, sir, is whether or not 

there is any information that we have to call out on those calendars —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You have been looking at it since the 2010 for the 

AP. I would think that eventually you would be able to do it, 5 

days. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sir —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MEADOWS. All right, here is the last one —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—we can get —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—because I am running out of time. Two years 

ago I asked you a question in Foreign Affairs under sworn testimony, was it you or Hillary Rodham Clinton who decided to not 

publish the bonuses for State Department? Because it has to be one 

or the other, either you or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Two years 

later, I am still waiting for a response. I want a direct response. 

Was it your decision to make sure that bonuses are not public and 

not transparent or was it hers? 

I will yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We would like you to answer the question. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sorry. The time—the answer is, sir, that I—I do 

not recall the question from you, and therefore, I humbly apologize. 

I will get you an answer. My general recollection is that it was a 

decision made government-wide not to publish documents—not to 

publish bonuses, but I will —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I will research that. 

Mr. MEADOWS.—to clarify, there is only one of two people who 

could have made that decision, either you or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Who was it? That is what I want to know. 

Mr. KENNEDY. It definitely wasn’t Secretary Clinton. That kind 

of decision did not go up to her. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Wait a second. You just said you didn’t —— Mr. MEADOWS. So you said you don’t know but yet you know it 

wasn’t her? That is the answer —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, because I would never send an issue of that 

nature to the Secretary of State because the Secretary of State, no 

matter whether it’s George Shultz, Colin Powell, or Hillary 

Rodham Clinton or John Kerry does not need to deal with an issue 

of that stature. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. All right, thank you. I will now recognize 

the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, the words 

‘‘government reform’’ are in the title to this committee, so I grow 

weary when we play gotcha all the time and no reform comes out 

of the system. I am very interested in what happened here because 

I think it does illustrate probably the kind of confusion one might 

expect in a system that has classified and unclassified. So I am 

really looking for what the reform we can get out of this system 

and asking you, Ambassador Kennedy, to help me out. 

Director Comey, for example, testified that there were 30,000 

emails that the Secretary provided to the State Department. Two 

thousands were later determined to be classified. Now, let me tell 

you the danger I see in that. This is after-the-fact classification. 

Now, you know, we always complain about over-classification. This 

isn’t that. It is after the fact. This is something that should be secret so it shouldn’t be shared, but by that time, who knows how 

many people have had it shared with them. 

So I am trying to come to grips with after-the-fact classification. 

Do you see a systemic problem when so many members—2,000; it 

is a larger number there, so they would be senior foreign service 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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members—could have been writing information they believe to be 

unclassified just to be overturned, God knows when, by FOIA in 

which case everybody would say whoops, I just didn’t know? 

And apparently, for those 2,000, at least 1,000 people were on 

these emails. Could I ask you what advice does the State Department give its employees about the possibility of retroactive classification? Does it warn them that these emails are not classified 

now but don’t share them because they are subject to being reclassified as classified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Congressman, you’ve posed a very, very salient 

question, and if I could address it two ways. First of all, there is 

a large amount of information that the State Department receives 

in the course of its business that we call foreign government information. This is information we get from a foreign government in 

the course of our diplomatic activities around the world. 

Ms. NORTON. You mean all of that wouldn’t be classified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Not all of it would be classified. Much of it is not 

given to us in confidence and there is not a risk of loss of life if 

the information came out that is given to us and we treat it as unclassified foreign —— 

Ms. NORTON. Loss of life, I’m not familiar with that standard. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well —— 

Ms. NORTON. What about loss of face? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I mean, that’s what I’m getting to, ma’am. This 

information is given to us and we treat it as sensitive but unclassified. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, as sensitive, does that mean —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sensitive —— 

Ms. NORTON.—don’t share this information —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Don’t share this information —— 

Ms. NORTON.—it could be classified later? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, it’s just sensitive information because it was 

received often from a foreign source. 

Ms. NORTON. And we are only talking about —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. There are two —— 

Ms. NORTON. Are we only talking about foreign source? Were all 

2,000 foreign source? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No. To the best—we did a little calculation and 

it’s rough. Two thousand of the 2,100 emails were—are confidential. We believe it’s 70 percent of those 2,000, some more or less 

1,400 information were classified because they contained foreign 

government information. 

If you went to the Department of Defense or to the Department 

of Energy, they have by statute—and the State Department has 

been asking for a change in the law for several years—that we 

have asked for the ability to declare that material restricted so we 

can—do not have to release it to the public because as you rightly 

pointed out, ma’am, it can be an embarrassment. A foreign government gives us an —— 

Ms. NORTON. So sensitive versus restricted, what is the difference? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It—the restricted means we would have the authority under the FOIA to not provide that information to the public. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Ms. NORTON. Does that mean subject to possible classification? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, it just means that it would be exempt from 

FOIA. And the reason why we have to retroactively —— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, I am worried about there being —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. The reason we have to —— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—retroactively classify it is we do not have the 

same abilities and authorities that the Department of Defense and 

the Department of Energy can do. They have an ability to say this 

is exempt from FOIA. We don’t have that—if we had that, my ballpark back-of-the-envelope guess is 1,400 of the 2,100 classifications 

would have disappeared and they would have been available to the 

Congress because they—because of the sensitive nature of foreign 

government exchange, they would not have been available to anyone who reads it. And you obviously all realize that a FOIA request 

doesn’t only go to American citizens. Anybody can make a FOIA request. 

Ms. NORTON. So this is very important as far as I am concerned. 

So the reform here I would take it would be that—what you are 

doing—you are being forced to use the classification label —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Exactly. We need the authority to have a foreign 

government information exemption, and we have asked for that 

from the Congress —— 

Ms. NORTON. Would this require a statutory change? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It does require a statutory change. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, please note that because I do think 

that is important to know. I am not sure the committee knew that. 

That testimony is important for me, and I think it comes out, I 

think, at a good time when we are trying to find out not only what 

happened but what to do about it. 

Let me ask you finally, have you directed these thousand people 

to do anything about like, for example, deleting this classified information? Remember —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. We’re —— 

Ms. NORTON.—retroactively classified from their systems. Have 

you asked them, since it is now classified, to make sure it is gone 

from your system? And indeed, what can you do about it if it is retroactive? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We take certain steps with the highly classified, 

but from the—for the FGI material we have not taken that step 

—— Ms. NORTON. Don’t you think you should? 

Mr. KENNEDY.—because those are within our system and we —— 

Ms. NORTON. You mean those cannot be shared anyway? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We have now marked them so they were not going 

to be released to —— 

Ms. NORTON. Could I just ask one—should they be deleted or 

not? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We would not delete them. We would transfer 

them to another system because we do not delete Federal records. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. And it is a good takeaway. I 

appreciate, Ambassador, your sharing that perspective and driving 

that home with us, so thank you again. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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I will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Jacobs, when responding to a FOIA request, who in 

the State Department is responsible for determining what is redacted? 

Ms. JACOBS. Thank you for the question. It is the responsibility 

of the people who work in our FOIA office, which is in our Bureau 

of Administration, to determine what is redacted. 

Mr. HICE. Who is the lead person? Where does the buck stop? 

Ms. JACOBS. It’s a number of people who are trained and skilled 

in the FOIA law who do this. There’s not one particular person. 

Mr. HICE. Could you provide the names of those individuals for 

us? 

Ms. JACOBS. I can. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Is there a specific criteria that they use to determine what is redacted and what is not? 

Ms. JACOBS. Yes, sir. It’s basically the FOIA law, the exemptions 

that exist under the FOIA law. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. When responding to a request from Congress, 

who is responsible for determine what is redacted? 

Ms. JACOBS. There are different standards that are used for Congress, sir. I think that you get more information than we would release to the public ordinarily. 

Mr. HICE. I am not so sure that we do. How is the process different between a FOIA request and a congressional request when 

it comes to what is redacted and what is not? 

Ms. JACOBS. I think we are guided by the different agreements, 

arrangements that we have with Congress. Certainly for releases 

to the general public, we follow the FOIA law, and I think with 

Congress perhaps there are different procedures that we follow. 

Mr. HICE. Do you know what those different procedures are? 

That is my question. 

Ms. JACOBS. I’m not exactly sure of all of them. I’d have to get 

back to you, sir? 

Mr. HICE. Well, would you get back with me and clarify that 

issue? 

Ms. JACOBS. I will do that. 

Mr. HICE. You have been really in charge, your role as transparency coordinator in the State Department. Do you believe the 

State Department is being transparent? 

Ms. JACOBS. Yes, sir, I do. I think to the best of our ability we 

are committed to openness and to—especially under FOIA to releasing whatever we can. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. But the question goes beyond FOIA. It goes to 

congressional requests as well, and it is extremely frustrating. You 

know, just for example I noticed with the FBI but they just released a 58-page summary to the public, publically released the 

other day. I was scanning through it. In fact, I have a copy of it 

right here. 

And listen, I understand—Mr. Chairman, I understand fully 

when there are potential compromises in our national security, I 

understand the need for redacted material. That is not even in 

question, I don’t believe, with anyone. But the current process 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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seems so arbitrary and just all over the map where and how 

redactions take place. And frankly, this is an issue that goes across 

the entire executive branch. And the questions out there are multiple. 

I am looking right now with the summary that came out the 

other day, Ms. Clinton’s birthday is redacted. I mean, what is the 

potential national security threat of that? You can go in Wikipedia 

and find it. In fact, I did. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Congressman, if I —— 

Mr. HICE. That is—no, sir. If I —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. If I could just ask just —— 

Mr. HICE. No, I am not asking you a question right now. I am 

expressing frustration in the whole process. You know, the very 

next sentence it mentions Ms. Clinton’s five attorneys, four of them 

by name but one of them is redacted. We seem to be all over the 

map, and quite frankly, the end result appearance at least—and I 

am not making an accusation—but the absolute appearance is that 

obstruction is involved many times when it comes to what is redacted and what is not. 

And how in the world can we do our job of oversight when we 

are not given the requested information that we need to do our job 

or when what is received is so redacted it is difficult to determine 

what has been really given us and what has not been given. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I think any reasonable person would frequently look at the material, whether it is through a FOIA request 

or a congressional request, and have great concerns that information that is needed for whatever requested purpose is not being 

provided accurately. And this, Ambassador Jacobs, raises a question as to transparency at State, as well as other departments. 

And so, Mr. Chairman, I would just hope that we can not only 

get the material that we have requested, all of it, but I hope also 

that transparency can occur. It is America that is suffering when 

we are not allowed to do the job that we have been tasked to do 

here in Oversight. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Before he yields if the gentleman would 

yield to me. 

Mr. HICE. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ambassador Jacobs, you are heading up 

the transparency—or you are the transparency coordinator. What 

is it that you believe Congress should not be able to see? 

Ms. JACOBS. Sir, thank you for the question. I am not completely 

familiar with all of the agreements and arrangements that we 

have. I do know that in general —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But why should there be any agreements 

and arrangements? 

Ms. JACOBS. Well —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What could Congress not see? You were 

brought in by Secretary Kerry, right —— 

Ms. JACOBS. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—to be the transparency person. 

Ms. JACOBS. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you are champion of transparency. 

What is it that Congress should not be able to see? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
55 

Ms. JACOBS. I think that Congress should have access to all of 

the information that they are entitled to. I believe that there are 

certain restrictions that—to privacy —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Give me an example. You have been in foreign service for 33 years, so give me an example of something that 

I as the chairman of the Oversight Committee or Mr. Hice should 

not be able to see. 

Ms. JACOBS. Highly classified compartmented information perhaps if you don’t have —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Like —— 

Ms. JACOBS.—the proper clearance. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. SAP information? 

Ms. JACOBS. I assume so, unless you have the proper clearance. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What else? 

Ms. JACOBS. Information related to privacy—you know, personally identifiable —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, sorry —— 

Ms. JACOBS.—information. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—got that one wrong. Sorry. Congress is exempt from the Privacy Act. So try again. What else? 

Ms. JACOBS. Sir, I really believe that you should have access to 

whatever information —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But when you get this thing, it is sent to 

us and it is chock full of redactions. Why? 

Ms. JACOBS. Is this—are you referring to —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, we don’t —— 

Ms. JACOBS.—information that we sent or the FBI? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—the whispering. We will allow you all to 

do it. You don’t need to kind of whisper in her ear and tell her —— 

Ms. JACOBS. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—what the right answer it. 

Ms. JACOBS. The question was whether this was information 

from the FBI or from the State Department? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am asking from the State Department. 

Ms. JACOBS. Okay. I—what I can do is offer to come up and —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are here right now. 

Ms. JACOBS. I understand, sir, but this is —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ambassador Kennedy, come on, you have 

got probably the most experience here. Give me an example. What 

is it that Congress should not see? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think that not every member of the congressional staff should be entitled to —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I didn’t ask about staff. I said Members of 

Congress. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Okay. Then, Mr. Chairman, the only thing that I 

believe is valid is executive—internal executive branch deliberations leading to a decision. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And that has —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think that is a prerogative of the Congress to 

have its deliberations secret, and it’s a prerogative of the executive 

branch to arrive at a position and then come up and defend that 

position wholly and fully before the Congress but not necessarily 

all the internal puts and takes that went into it —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And —— 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. KENNEDY.—before an executive branch decision was made, 

sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And there is—the President can claim executive privilege. There is a process to do that where the President 

actually has to sign a document invoking that executive privilege. 

Mr. Cummings, if —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, just real quick. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Ambassador Kennedy, I am just curious about 

something Mr. Hice just asked. Why would a birthday be redacted? 

I am just curious. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Privacy —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You were trying to answer it and I was just —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—wondering what you were going to say? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We think that names of spouses, names of children, birth dates, Social Security numbers, that information is not 

necessary for the conduct of any business, and there is always the 

possibility of spillage. I am not accusing any Member of Congress 

or any staff member, but we desperately try to make sure that information that is protected under the Privacy Act is used only on 

an absolute need-to-know. And —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Privacy Act does not apply to Congress, and what you are doing is you are conflating FOIA with congressional requests. We have a SCIF. We deal with classified information. 

We have exhausted this for right now. Let’s now recognize the 

gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking 

Member. 

I would say that what this hearing shows very clearly is that the 

classification system is broken, and it needs to be reformed. This 

is something we could work together on in a bipartisan way, and 

in fact, I will introduce this week a sense of Congress that the classification system needs to be reviewed and needs to be reformed. 

I have here an email that the State Department marks as sensitive but unclassified, clearly calls is unclassified, calls it unclassified at the top and at the bottom, and yet the FBI called it classified. Now, there is clearly something wrong here. 

Now, this memo was a memo written by a senior diplomat, a Jeffrey Feltman, and he was the assistant secretary for the Bureau 

of Near Eastern Affairs, a senior diplomat. It is his personal email. 

And he calls each paragraph that he wrote SBU, which stands for 

sensitive but unclassified. Now, if you look at the State Department’s foreign affairs manual, it clearly says sensitive but unclassified information is ‘‘not classified.’’ 

So I would like to ask you, Mr. Kennedy, if you received this 

from a senior diplomat whose judgment you trust and he marks 

unclassified at the top, and the bottom, and four other times in the 

body of the document, would you think the document is unclassified? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think the document is unclassified, but, Congresswoman, if I received a FOIA request and the text contained 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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foreign government information that had been shared with us in 

confidence, I would not wish it releasable to the —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. We heard that. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—to the world. So that’s —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. We heard that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is the underpinning of our discussion, 

ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. We hear that. The chairman hears that. We are 

going to work on it. But my point is there is something clearly 

wrong with the system where an individual is charged with criminal activity because they have received a document that is marked 

unclassified, unclassified, unclassified and then the FBI comes in 

and says, oh, it is classified. So the whole system of classification 

in my opinion needs desperately to be reformed. 

And I would say that every member of this panel on the Republican and Democratic side, if we received this memo, we would 

think it is unclassified because that is what it is stamped. But this 

was part of what the FBI called classified at the time, and I see 

this as something that needs to be corrected and it needs to be reformed —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I—if I could, I fully, fully and absolutely agree 

with you, and that is why we have been for years seeking the ability for a FOIA exemption that would permit us to make foreign 

government information exempted —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. We heard what you have said, but my point that 

I am making right now, although that is an important one, is that 

this system is fundamentally flawed when an individual—in this 

case, Secretary Clinton—received an email like this one and is accused of criminal activity for relying on the judgment of an experienced diplomat that is trusted by the State Department. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I fully agree with you on that. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I feel that that is really outrageous. I would 

say it is an abuse of power, it is wrong, and it needs to be changed. 

And we are the Government Reform Committee. We should start 

working on it right now. Is it explicitly designated in, let’s see, one, 

two, three, four, five, six places as unclassified, and now the FBI 

is saying that is classified. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to place this document 

in the record. I think it is a strong example of a system that is broken, is not working, is hurting our government, misleading people, 

inappropriate, and just plain wrong. My question is why haven’t 

you reformed this before? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Because we have been seeking—we’ve been seeking for multiple years a statutory change that would give us the 

same authorities that the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy have so this would not have been classified. It 

would have been marked exempt from public release under a new 

legal —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. But clearly, right now, it is marked as classified 

by the FBI. The —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. No —— 

Mrs. MALONEY.—State Department is marking it unclassified. 


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Mr. KENNEDY. No, no, we—the State Department was forced, 

was forced to mark this classified in order to preclude public release to the —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. But, sir —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—entire world. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Sir, my point is it is marked one, two, three, 

four, five, six times as unclassified. 

Mr. KENNEDY. It’s marked —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. If I was working for Secretary Clinton, I would 

have handed her this document and said, Madam Secretary, it is 

marked unclassified. See, it is unclassified, unclassified, unclassified. And now, because of this court, which needs to be corrected, 

it is now ‘‘criminal activity.’’ 

Mr. KENNEDY. The State Department —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. There is something terribly wrong with this system, and I believe that you should have worked in the most earnest 

way to have changed this and stopped—I consider this abuse —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I fully agree with you —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. It is a flawed —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—and that is why —— 

Mrs. MALONEY.—system that —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentlewoman’s —— 

Mrs. MALONEY.—that claims that this is —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentlewoman’s time —— 

Mrs. MALONEY.—a criminal activity. It is wrong. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentlewoman’s time is expired. 

Mr. KENNEDY. May I finish my —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Let’s move on. You asked for unanimous 

consent. Without objection, so ordered. That will be entered into 

the record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Let’s now recognize the gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Ambassador Kennedy, Secretary Clinton said she had only had 

convenience in mind when choosing to use a personal email account. Has this been convenient for State to respond to the FBI? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand the question. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Okay. Was it convenient—because of Secretary 

Clinton’s use of a private email account for her email, she said she 

used it for convenience. It may have been her convenience. Was it 

convenient for the State Department to comply with the FBI inquiries because she did this? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, we would have had to review her documents 

for public release under FOIA whether or not she had used one 

server or another server. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So how did Secretary Clinton’s emails from her 

private server get delivered to the State Department? Did she send 

you a copy of the PDF file? Did she send you—or the PST files from 

Outlook? How did they come to the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We received approximately 55,000 pages in hard 

copy, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So the fact that she didn’t—they weren’t on 

any of your servers, they came on hard copy, so you had to scan 

them, I guess? 


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Mr. KENNEDY. We have a system that we use for processing documents. It uploads some —— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So it certainly would have been a whole lot 

more convenient and less expensive for the taxpayer had she been 

on the State Department server. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. If they had been available to us electronically, we 

would not have had to scan, yes, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And the State Department uses something 

called SMART. Can you tell me about the State Messaging Archive 

and Retrieval Toolset? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. SMART is a tool that we had developed. 

It was a—it’s—was an early attempt to come up with a system that 

would make archiving and retrieval easier. It had—it was something that was never fully adopted because it has significant flaws 

to it. That is one of the things that Ambassador Jacobs and a team 

that works for me have been working on to put into place a new 

system that would replace SMART because it didn’t—it was good 

but it was not successful. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But now because Secretary Clinton’s emails 

were not on SMART, it ended up taking more time, being less convenient, and was more expensive, is that not —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. That —— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD.—correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No—no, sir. The Executive Secretariat did not 

adopt SMART and did not adopt it before Secretary Clinton’s tenure so that the decision of not having her emails—her emails would 

not have been on SMART even if they were on our system because 

of the —— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So what —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—inadequacies of the SMART system. And that 

was not her choice. It was the previous Executive Secretariat. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. So let’s go to Ambassador Jacobs. We 

have heard lots of testimony today about how much time and 

money responding to all these requests have taken. It seems like 

coming up with a system to do that efficiently would be a priority. 

Where are we in that? I mean, it sounds like you all’s budget has 

gone up, your production has gone down. I mean, it seems like we 

are in a lose-lose position right now. 

Ms. JACOBS. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the question. Thank 

you for giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit about some of 

the changes that we are making that I think are going to make us 

much more efficient and effective. 

One is the whole email. The use of email is something that not 

just the State Department but I think other Federal agencies have 

struggled with as to the amount of emails and how to capture them 

and store them. We are—we, the State Department, all Federal 

agencies are under a mandate issued by the National Archives and 

OMB to capture and manage all of our email traffic by the end of 

this year, December 31, 2016. To do that we are—first of all, you 

heard earlier about the Capstone approach, which was approved by 

NARA for capturing all of the emails —— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Okay. So, again, I have limited time. Where 

are you all in implementing it? 

Ms. JACOBS. Okay. So we —— 


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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Are you going to get there and —— 

Ms. JACOBS. We are, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD.—when is this going to get better? 

Ms. JACOBS. We are, sir. We are going to meet the December 

2016 deadline, I’m happy to say. We are capturing all those emails. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Okay. 

Ms. JACOBS. We’re going to capture the emails of other people, 

and we’re acquiring new technology that will allow us to search 

said email. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. And finally, have we learned the lesson that we are not going to let future Secretaries of State or highranking officials use private email servers? Are we going to keep 

them on a government server where we can manage them? 

Ms. JACOBS. Sir, we have taken several measures to make sure 

that that happens. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And do you agree with that, Ambassador Kennedy? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. And I will yield back the remainder 

of my time. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Could I answer one other point that—you are absolutely correct, sir, that we have managed to squeeze additional 

funds and place them in FOIA, including for the—some of the 

equipment that Ambassador Jacobs is talking about. However, as 

we have been increasing the budget, the demand is up over 200 

percent. We are now receiving 30,000 FOIA—we have 30,000 FOIA 

requests pending, and just—the number of people asking for material keeps going up. So we—that’s why—that is another reason why 

we are very committed to getting this done. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And it is actually reassuring that that number 

is going up. It makes me glad more people are concerned about how 

their government operates and the increased transparency 

throughout our nation’s capital and our government is a good 

thing. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. As the gentleman yields back, I would 

point out, though, that in 2008 the State Department was spending 

about $400,000 in lawsuits. Now, they are spending about $4 million in lawsuits. So it is duplicitous to say we are trying to save— 

hey, we are trying to open up the openness and transparency. At 

the same time, you are in Federal court fighting, arguing not to release information that is owned by the public. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, we are going to recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell, now for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all four of 

you for being here today. We do appreciate your long service to our 

country. 

Ambassador Kennedy, do you believe that Congress has a responsibility to hold the government accountable? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Absolutely. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Okay. Do you believe that government agencies 

should withhold information from Congress, either classified or 

handled secretly in our classified vaults, or unclassified information 

that would be handled by our committees? 


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Mr. KENNEDY. I am not in control of special —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. But it is important that someone with your dedicated decades of service, ambassadorial level, you have handled a 

lot of classified information so —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am always prepared to share classified information with Congress, but —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. And we appreciate that. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—I know that under the rules of the House and 

Senate, it is House and Senate rules that give the Senate Select 

Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence privileges that are not available to others. And so I —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. Sure. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—cannot jump over House and Senate rules. 

Mr. RUSSELL. And I think we are all in violent agreement on 

that, but it is important that those Select Committees have information. 

If what I have read in the vaults regarding Mrs. Clinton’s mishandling of classified information were known to the American people, as I have been in the vaults to peruse them, the American public would be absolutely appalled. But we can’t talk about that. Instead of focusing on this mishandling and its subsequent obfuscation by Mrs. Clinton by members of her personal staff, the Department of State, and by her attorneys, we are now seeing a typical 

play: admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusation. 

Take the case of Secretary Powell. Listening today, one would 

think that he was somehow doing what was just normal for Secretaries of State in the State Department by not securing things or 

not being in a proper closed loop with State Department communication when reality is General Powell said the truth is—and I am 

quoting—‘‘she was using the private email server a year before I 

even sent her a memo.’’ He also states in statements that he had 

no recollection of a dinner conversation advising her to take such 

actions to circumvent anything. 

But it does bring up some questions, so let me ask them. Ambassador Kennedy, did Secretary Powell use a dozen-and-a-half devices 

and make nearly all of them disappear and destroy some with 

hammers? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am—I do not—I’m not aware, sir —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—of Secretary Powell’s—what Secretary Powell did 

or did not do with his private —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. Okay. Did Secretary Powell or his proxies use 

bleaching software to eliminate any trace of Federal records on separate servers after they had been requested? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am aware—I’m not aware of Secretary Powell’s 

practices —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. I’m not either. As to classified information, well, 

did Secretary Powell keep or provide private servers for any email 

communication? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I do—I know that Secretary Powell —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. Not a private email account like Yahoo or AOL. We 

are talking private servers. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I do not see a difference and —— 

Mr. RUSSELL. Okay. I don’t —— 


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Mr. KENNEDY.—distinction there, sir. 

Mr. RUSSELL.—either. I think we are in the same conclusions. 

As to classified information, how is it that the Department of 

State’s staff, which are very able, and the FBI, which are also very 

able, were able to determine what top secret special access program 

information was enough so to withhold it from Congress and yet 

somehow we are to believe that Mrs. Clinton was somehow not intelligent enough to discern the difference between special access 

program information or not? How is it that the State Department 

with all of their experience and the FBI with all of theirs were 

somehow better qualified than someone who had been a United 

States Senator, someone who had been, say, a Secretary of State? 

How is that possible? 

Mr. KENNEDY. To answer that question, sir, we would have to be 

in another forum. 

Mr. RUSSELL. And we will, and so we will get to ask it again. 

And let me ask you, in your experience, which I greatly admire, 

by the way, sir, administration to administration—I served decades 

in the military. I held a top-secret special compartmentalized classification in the military. I know how to handle sensitive information. I know you do, too. 

Did you ever in your career or experience think it was appropriate to cut and paste from a classified setting whether it was 

marked anything, but to cut and paste from a classified setting and 

to paste that information to an unclassified setting? Would that be 

a practice that the State Department under any set of rules would 

be appropriate? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It is not, sir, but I have seen in all the material 

that I reviewed, no evidence, nor did the inspector general or the 

FBI find that the Secretary of State—former Secretary Clinton did 

so. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, then we will have in the classified setting 

maybe some further questions to ask. 

This is what is exasperating. Since 1814, we the people empower 

the government, which we draw our power from the consent of the 

governed, to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I have 

been doing this since I was 18, now in a different capacity. We 

have a responsibility for oversight, and we must not exasperate the 

American people. They can see what is clearly understood, and yet 

we play these delay games: admit nothing, deny everything, make 

counter accusations, put hurdle after hurdle so that the clock will 

somehow run out, and we must provide that information. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And may I respond, sir? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No. We have got to keep the pace going 

here. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Kennedy, a FOIA requires—and this is according to 

the Office of Inspector General—a FOIA requires a response within 

20 days, but the Secretary of State’s office on multiple occasions 

has taken more than 500 days to respond. While the average response for Federal agencies across the government for a simple request is 20.5 days, the State Department’s average is 91 days. For 


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a complex request, the government-wide average was 119 days. 

The State Department average is 535 days. What do you believe is 

a reasonable amount of time to respond to these FOIA requests? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sir, obviously, we want to go faster, but 

Mr. PALMER. Well, what —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—there is a significant problem here. We have—we 

used to get maybe 10,000 FOIA requests a year. We are—now this 

year will have a backlog of 30,000. I have poured additional resources into it. I—we have gone from some 64 people to 93, and depending on the budget for fiscal year 2017, I’ll push it under—to 

118. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you prioritize requests? For instance, when you 

received a request for producing a calendar, is that a simple or a 

complex case? I mean —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. No—we—in order —— 

Mr. PALMER.—how —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—to be responsive to the Freedom of Information 

Act as we interpret it, we use FIFO, first in, first out. 

Mr. PALMER. So—but —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. And so —— 

Mr. PALMER.—this wouldn’t have been—would this have been a 

Freedom of Information request for the calendars? If we request 

the calendars, would that —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. No. There —— 

Mr. PALMER.—how long would it take you to produce —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. There are two —— 

Mr. PALMER.—the calendar? 

Mr. KENNEDY. There are two separate strains. There is congressional document requests and the requests under the Freedom of 

Information Act or the Privacy Act. One are public requests, one 

are for—from the—from the Congress. And as I responded earlier 

to the chairman, we will engage as soon as I get back this afternoon —— 

Mr. PALMER. So —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—on the subject. We have —— 

Mr. PALMER. How long do you think that will take? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have to—I do not—I know we are partially 

through the Associated Press request —— 

Mr. PALMER. I just asked a —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—and —— 

Mr. PALMER.—request. If the chairman asks for the calendars, 

how long will it take to get the calendars? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have to find out how many more have to be processed. 

Mr. PALMER. How many more what? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Because we at least as a courtesy as part of the 

agreement, we mark documents to the Congress about whether or 

not their public release would be detrimental to —— 

Mr. PALMER. This is just a calendar. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—national security. If the Secretary of State was 

having a meeting—a sensitive meeting with a foreign government 

—— 

Mr. PALMER. She is not there anymore. 


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Mr. KENNEDY. The existence of that meeting, sir, could be dispositive of—along the lines of activities that Secretary Kerry is carrying on. I’m not talking about, sir, to be clear, withholding information from you, but we have to process it so that you know what 

we consider sensitive as opposed to —— 

Mr. PALMER. Let me —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—classified. 

Mr. PALMER.—move to something else. According to the Inspector 

General’s Office, the State Department has previously reported 

that certain records did not exist only to later report that they actually do. Mr. Finney, it is your responsibility to ensure that the 

historical record is complete. Is that an accurate assessment? 

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir, for the Office of the Secretary. 

Mr. PALMER. And I believe that you do a good job at that. I believe that you make a professional and honest effort to do that. 

Does it concern you that you don’t have all of Secretary Clinton’s 

records? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, it always concerns me as far as making sure 

that we’re taking care of getting the records for the Archives for 

the State Department. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you think you have all of her records? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, I have all that has been given to us, and that’s 

what we’re processing. 

Mr. PALMER. Are you aware that records have not been given to 

you? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, all I have is what we have been given. 

Mr. PALMER. I am asking, though, are you aware that there are 

records that have not been given to you? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. All I have is what we’ve been given. 

Mr. PALMER. Are you aware that there is a missing laptop and 

an external storage device? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, there is, and the response that I believe—that 

came from the Secretary’s office—is this correct, Mr. Chairman? If 

this is incorrect, you can correct me. But they said it was lost in 

the mail. Now, I would assume that this laptop contains information that should be in the record. It was a State Department 

laptop, State Department external drive. What I would like to 

know is if it was lost in the mail, did anyone make any attempt 

to file a lost parcel claim with the post office? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, I don’t have any information on that at all. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, I would like to find out if—Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. If I might, Mr. Palmer, to the best of my recollection, piecing your question to my knowledge, is the laptop in question was not a State Department laptop. It was not State Department property, and therefore, we don’t know—we don’t know what 

was personal information on it or not. And —— 

Mr. PALMER. But that —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. But also in response to —— 

Mr. PALMER. But here is the reason we are here is because she 

was using non-State Department software, non-State Department 

servers, non-State Department communications devices, many of 

which was destroyed. Some of the electronic documents were 

bleached so that they are not recoverable. And you have got a 


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laptop and an external storage device that is missing they claim is 

lost in the mail, and I would just like to know if there was any effort made to recover it because it fits a pattern. And I can’t help 

but be a little bit skeptical about what is coming from the State 

Department and from former Secretary Clinton about their willingness to provide the information that has been requested. 

Mr. KENNEDY. If I might, sir, the FBI has been turning over additional information that we—they have recovered from servers, 

from duplicates. We are in the process now of going through that 

material. We are now in the process of the first disk, which we understand contained about 14,900 pages. So we are going through 

that. We are committed to making sure that the Federal archives 

are whole, and we will process the 14,900 and then the FBI has 

given us additional disk material that they have recovered from 

backups, and we will do those as well and then make the records 

available. 

Mr. PALMER. My time is expired, but the last thing that I want 

to ask you to do is I would like for you—even though it was not 

a State Department laptop and not a State Department external 

storage device, I would like for you to do the due diligence necessary and this—Mr. Finney, if you have a role in this as well— 

to try to find out what happened to that laptop and whether or not 

there was an effort to recover it from the post office if, in fact it 

was actually lost in the mail. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize Mr. Carter of Georgia. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for 

being here today. 

Mr. Finney, I want to start with you, and I just want to make 

sure I understand exactly your title and your role. Your title is deputy director for Correspondence, Records, and Staffing Division? Is 

that correct? 

Mr. FINNEY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. And you have the responsibility of conducting and 

coordinating FOIA searches in response to FOIA requests? 

Mr. FINNEY. That is correct, for the Office of the Secretary, yes, 

sir. 

Mr. CARTER. For the office for the Secretary of State. Mr. Finney, 

according to a deposition that was given by Karin Lang by Judicial 

Watch, your office was under the belief that then-Secretary Hillary 

Clinton didn’t use email for work-related purposes, and your office 

was not aware of this email use until, according to sworn testimony, 2013. Is that pretty much right? 

Mr. FINNEY. I don’t know the specific dates, but if that is what 

my director said, that is correct, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. During Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, did you know if she was using private email for 

work-related purposes? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. You did not know that? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. According to the State Department IG report, there 

were dozens of people who knew about it. They knew that SecVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:13 Jul 25, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26121.TXT APRIL

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retary Clinton was using a personal email account and they knew 

that she was using a personal server for work, but you didn’t 

know? And according to your title, it would appear to me that you 

should have known. Why do you think they didn’t tell you? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, I couldn’t give you any information on the reason why, sir. I just don’t have that information. 

Mr. CARTER. Did you ever ask if Secretary Clinton was using a 

personal email? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. The question I asked was when she came 

on board and even after we saw the picture on the news was does 

she have a State.gov account? And when they told me she did not, 

that’s where it stopped, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. So what does it mean that she doesn’t have a 

State.gov account? 

Mr. FINNEY. When she doesn’t have a State.gov account, basically we’re just looking at as far as the accounts that’ll be able to 

do emails that are assigned to the actual S/ES–IRM, which is our 

information resource management shop who creates those accounts. 

Mr. CARTER. Did that concern you, the fact that she didn’t have 

one? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir, and the reason why is because when I asked 

a question and I said—and I was told that not only that she did 

not have a State.gov account but her prior Secretary did not have 

a State.gov account as well as the previous one as well. So you’re 

looking at Secretary Rice, Secretary Powell, and Secretary Clinton 

did not have a State.gov account. So when they told me —— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. 

Mr. FINNEY.—that, that’s when I said okay. I understand. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. It has been established that obviously Secretary Clinton was using a personal email account to conduct official business. Did you know this? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Did anyone else know it? 

Mr. FINNEY. I can’t answer that question, sir. I only know what 

I know and I didn’t know. 

Mr. CARTER. The fact that she was using that personal email, 

should you have known it? Should you have been made aware by 

your superiors? 

Mr. FINNEY. Can I refer that to our director? 

Mr. CARTER. No. 

Mr. FINNEY. Okay. 

Mr. CARTER. I want to know from you. I want to know in your 

position that you accepted, did you feel like you should have 

known? 

Mr. FINNEY. If she’s using a State.gov account or a Gmail account? 

Mr. CARTER. A Gmail account. 

Mr. FINNEY. Okay. I would say what we do today and is standard 

is basically as we brief folks as we do today based on the Federal 

Records Act of 2014, if you’re using your personal device, you’re required by law to make sure that it’s sent to your State.gov account, 

and that’s what we would share. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CARTER. So you do believe that you should have known. And 

you are the deputy director for Correspondence, Records, and Staffing Division. When FOIA requests come in, it is your responsibility. 

You should have known that, correct? 

Mr. FINNEY. What I’m supposed to be known is making sure that 

I’ve captured all the records for the Secretary. So again, when I 

conduct our briefing with the agency records officer, we’re making 

sure that we get all the records. So that’s where we stand. 

Mr. CARTER. So you—and in order to fulfill your responsibilities, 

you would have had to have known, isn’t that correct? 

Now, Ms. Lang, I am asking Mr. Finney. Isn’t that the way you 

understand your responsibility? 

Mr. FINNEY. To fulfill my responsibilities, I’m responsible for 

making sure that I get the records for the Office of the Secretary, 

and so that’s one of the things when we brief we’re making sure 

that we get those records, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Mr. Finney, it is obvious to me that you take 

great pride in your work, and I think you are an exemplary public 

servant, but it has got to concern you that you weren’t given all 

the tools to perform your responsibility. It would me if I weren’t 

given all my tools that I needed to perform my responsibility. Does 

that concern you at all? Do you feel like they were hiding something from you? 

Mr. FINNEY. Sir, all I can say is this, is that what my job is to 

make sure I collect all those records, and so when I was going to 

process —— 

Mr. CARTER. But in order to do that job, you have got to know 

and you didn’t know because they didn’t tell you even though they 

did know. 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, I can state what other folks know. I can only 

tell you what I knew, and I didn’t know that. So again, it’s me 

going forth doing my job. My job —— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. And one last question, okay, Mr. Finney. Do 

you think that they purposefully didn’t tell you? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. You don’t? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. You know, it is just bothersome to me that you in 

this responsibility as being deputy director for Correspondence, 

Records, and Staffing and having the responsibility of filling FOIA 

requests, yet you didn’t know. How can you perform your responsibility? And yet others did know, and they knew that that was your 

responsibility. 

Mr. FINNEY. Again, sir, I can’t tell you what they knew. I only 

can tell you what I knew, and when they knew about that, I 

couldn’t —— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I have run out of time. Thank 

you again, Mr. Finney for your service. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 

Grothman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Sure, a couple questions for Mr. Kennedy there. 

Did you ever have a chance to talk —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Your mic —— 


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Mr. GROTHMAN. Did you ever have a chance to talk to Secretary 

Clinton about Freedom of Information requests regarding other 

things? Did this ever come up at all during your tenure? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, nor did it come up under Secretary Rice’s 

tenure or when I was executive director of the Secretariat for Secretaries Baker and Shultz. This is handled by a special office who 

is led by very competent people. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Never talked about? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Did you ever meet Ms. Clinton? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Every morning, sir, when she was in town. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. So all those times and there was never some 

other Freedom of Information request that you felt was interesting 

enough that it should even be mentioned? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sir, I did not handle daily Freedom of Information 

Act requests. We have very, very professional staffs who do that. 

I responded—I received Freedom of Information Act requests that 

were brought to me about records I might have. I responded to 

them. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Any one of the other three of you, be it 

Secretary Clinton or Secretary Kerry, have any discussion at all 

with regard to Freedom of Information requests? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I—we certainly have had a number of them of 

general subjects —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Not you, I mean the other three. You said you 

have never talked about it. 

Mr. KENNEDY. You added Secretary Kerry, and I so I was —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. The other three of you? 

Ms. JACOBS. Sir, I did have a conversation with Secretary Kerry 

about records preservation and FOIA processing when I was asked 

to do this job and certainly can tell you that he has a great interest 

in looking into our procedures and practices to try to improve them 

—— Mr. GROTHMAN. Any of the other—and I am not sure. How long 

were the others of you in your current office when Ms. Clinton was 

Secretary of State or in the Department? 

Ms. LANG. I was in the Department, sir, but I was not in my current position when Secretary Clinton was in office. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Did you ever have any interactions with her 

about Freedom of Information requests? 

Ms. LANG. No, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Mr. Finney? 

Mr. FINNEY. No, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. In Ms. Lang’s—this is for Mr. Kennedy 

again. In Ms. Lang’s deposition, she states ‘‘The only way that 

State would have known if Secretary Clinton turned over her 

emails in response to their request would be their statements on 

the topic.’’ Is that true? You are kind of just at the mercy of her 

own statements as to whether everything was turned over? 

Mr. KENNEDY. For—currently, sir, there’s three kinds of records 

in the State Department. There are what we call paper records, 

memorandums. There are telegraphic records and there are email 

records. The telegraphic records and the paper records are maintained centrally, and that is what we are doing now, as AmbasVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:13 Jul 25, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26121.TXT APRIL

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sador Jacobs has outlined, both with the Capstone program and the 

other new program we’re going to have in place by December 31. 

We will have all records captured. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Well, obviously, you don’t know if you 

have all records captured because a lot of these records were destroyed, correct? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I’m talking about—I thought your question was 

about the present time. By putting this system in, you will not be 

—— Mr. GROTHMAN. The question —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. You will not be able to destroy an email record because the—it goes to your machine and it goes to a central repository and it’s—and you cannot —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. It was —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—extract it. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. There was nothing at the time, though, nothing 

in place to make sure that these records were maintained at the 

time Secretary Clinton was Secretary? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Prior to 2014 and the change of the Federal 

Records Act and the new NARA standards, that was not a requirement then. But we—as I said, if I might quickly, sir, I know your 

time is —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Sure. 

Mr. KENNEDY. The—there—we have not ever talked in this hearing today about there are really two major sources of records in the 

State Department. That —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Well —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—the memorandum records and the telegraphic 

records, those are centrally archived and they are always locked in 

—— Mr. GROTHMAN. Well —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—locked down. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I think given, you know, our concerns, our special concerns with regard to Secretary Clinton, I think the most important records are the records that show correspondence with her 

and people outside the building or outside the Department, right? 

And —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Many of those, sir, are in our telegraphic and our 

paper archives. And I say paper archives —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—they’re electronically maintained. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I mean the emails that —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Oh. 

Mr. GROTHMAN.—she would have had going back and forth with 

people outside the building. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. There is no question, sir, that we needed to improve our records maintenance. We’re now up to 1 billion, 1 billion 

—— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—emails per year, and that is a huge challenge 

and we are meeting it. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I will give you one more question, and—it would 

seem to me that some FOIA requests are more important than others. I don’t mean to say that but it is just true. And obviously when 


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it deals with the Secretary themselves and particularly a Secretary 

who, it turns out, had such huge financial dealings or financial 

dealings that concern her and her immediately family, don’t you 

feel that maybe in responding to these requests you ought to make 

sure that requests directly affecting the Secretary should bubble to 

the top? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That is very hard to do, sir, when, per statute, I 

have to respond to every single FOIA request within 20 days. And 

so in order to avoid more lawsuits, we treat these things as first 

in and first out, and then we’re at least able to assert to the courts 

that we are trying to move through this in a logical and measured 

progression. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We are almost done, so I have 

just a few more questions. 

Ambassador Kennedy, when was the first time you knew that 

Secretary Clinton used a personal email address? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think that —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Your microphone, please. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That came very, very late in the process, Mr. 

Chairman. I think it came to me probably in 2014. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The State Department inspector general report says that in August of 2011 you discussed in an email with 

Cheryl Mills and others that the Secretary’s BlackBerry wasn’t 

functioning ‘‘possibly because her personal email server is down.’’ 

Does that raise any red flags for you? 

Mr. KENNEDY. None whatsoever. I knew that Secretary Clinton 

had a BlackBerry. In fact, I had been asked. She - they had asked 

about personal BlackBerrys and she—I was told that she had a 

personal BlackBerry for keeping in touch with her family. So I was 

aware she had a personal BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What about a personal email server? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I—that—if I remember the exact email you’re referring to, Mr. Chairman, that was a—that was in there but the 

main reason I was on that was regarding a failure of the—her telephone system. I had been working on the telephone system, and 

this email came back talking about the telephone system and something about the server. And I admittedly never focused on that because I was desperately working to make sure that her classified 

and unclassified phone systems were restored. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You received emails from her personal account. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sure. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You never noticed that during her entire 

tenure that she was in the State? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I received over a 4-year period, you know, a few— 

a few—there were a few dozen exchanges with Secretary. That was 

a very, very small number. And since I had never received an email 

from Secretary Albright, Secretary —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am not talking about anybody but Secretary Clinton —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—at this moment. 


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Mr. KENNEDY. But for context, Mr. Chairman, receiving a few 

emails, many of them related to things that she was asked at a 

cocktail party or asked on a weekend, including how to—who can 

I put someone in contact with —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. So let’s go —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—for consular services, it did not strike me as abnormal to get an email from the Secretary of State in the evening 

or on a weekend from her personal BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. From her personal email or personal BlackBerry? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I knew she had a BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I asked about her email. 

Mr. KENNEDY. The BlackBerry, she would—that’s how she sent 

emails —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I understand that’s —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—on her BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—the device. I am talking about the email 

and the email address. This is a .com. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That’s—that comes on a BlackBerry, sir, too. You 

can get —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, but you are —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—.com on a BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I want to be precise here. You can have a 

BlackBerry that had a .gov account. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And you can have a BlackBerry that has a .com 

or a .org or a .edu, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. And so the question I am asking you 

isn’t about the BlackBerry, even though that was problematic. I am 

asking you about her—you sending and receiving emails, interacting with the Secretary of State on official business—I have one 

here, for instance, from December 22 from 

HDR22@clintonemail.com to you and a couple others. I mean, I 

have got chock full of examples where you are going back and forth 

on official business, her using a .com and you never noticed that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, I didn’t say that, Mr. Chairman, at all. I said —— Chairman CHAFFETZ. You said you were first aware —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—over the —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—in 2014. She had already left office. 

Mr. KENNEDY. When she had a personal email server. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. There are servers, there are devices and 

there is email. I am talking about her email address. 

Mr. KENNEDY. As I said —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Don’t conflate them. 

Mr. KENNEDY. As I said a minute ago, Mr. Chairman, I said that 

I had probably three dozen exchanges with the Secretary over 48 

months that were with a personal. I have admitted to that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Her personal what? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Her personal email address, her personal BlackBerry. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And that didn’t raise any flags? You never 

noticed that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I admitted I noticed it, but I did not find it consequential, the small number of emails over 48 months when I 


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never received any emails—if I had gotten hundreds and hundreds 

of emails from her, I would have taken notice —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So what is the threshold where you raise 

the flag? Don’t you know that on official business you are not supposed to be using a .com address? 

Mr. KENNEDY. That—the rules in place during Secretary’s tenure 

is that you could either print off a copy of it or you could send it 

to your personal storage device somewhere. And so she was—I had 

no reason to know that these were not being recorded somewhere. 

I had no reason to know. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I think you did. I think this is one of the 

big errors in all this is because nobody spoke up and said anything. 

In fact, let me go back. There were some people that spoke up and 

said this. There were some people that questioned it and they were 

told not to question it again. And that is in the record. 

My time is short here. Let me ask you, Ambassador. Monica 

Hanley, explain to me the role that—Monica Hanley’s role played 

with Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Monica Hanley was part of—sort of a cross between scheduling and advance, worked on the Secretary’s travel 

and moved with her when she went to events outside the building. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. She was a personal assistant to the Secretary? 

Mr. KENNEDY. A variety of responsibilities. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Does she still work at the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, she does not. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you recall when she left the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. When Secretary Clinton left. She was a non-career 

employee. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And let me ask you, switching gears here, 

is it legal or illegal to share classified information with somebody 

who does not have a security clearance? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It is inappropriate, I believe. It may be illegal as 

well. I am not a lawyer. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Would it concern you that if somebody had 

access to classified information who did not have a proper security 

clearance? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did Monica Hanley lose her security clearance when she left the employment of the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Is that the regular routine? When people 

leave the employment of the State Department, they should lose 

their security clearances? 

Mr. KENNEDY. They don’t—if I could say, sir, the security clearances are not lost. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They don’t have them anymore? 

Mr. KENNEDY. They no longer have one. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Fair enough. Fair enough. 

Mr. KENNEDY. A loss is —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—an administrative action. 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Agreed. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Termination of your employment terminates your 

access to classified information with some exceptions. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you recall what level of clearance 

Monica Hanley had while she was at the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Top secret, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Could you provide to this committee the 

time that she had the security clearance and when she—her security clearance was taken away? Is that fair? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Her security clearance was never taken away. It 

ended with her employment. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sorry, security—and the time that her security clearance ended. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I can—we can provide that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I would just like to know what level of security clearance that she had along the way. 

Did the State Department have any official relationship with the 

Clinton Foundation? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Official—I don’t believe it—I would have to check, 

and I would have to—I don’t think it had an official relationship. 

We don’t usually have official relationships with foundations. We 

deal extensively with huge numbers of charitable foundations, 

though —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But there —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—extensively. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. There is no relationship in your understanding between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department to provide services or products or personnel for the Secretary 

to do her official business while at the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I am not aware of any. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. Let me now yield and—or recognize 

the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What would be the—just following up on the 

chairman’s questions. You said that there are exceptions when a 

person is no longer employed at State that they would maintain, 

I guess, their —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. We —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What kind of exemptions are there? 

Mr. KENNEDY. There is a Presidential Executive order that permits former Presidential appointees to retain a security clearance 

for the purposes of reviewing materials that they saw, generated, 

or handled during the—only during their tenure. So I was trying 

to be very precise —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, well, thank you. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—in response to the chairman’s question. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, one of the things that is interesting 

about all of this is that there seems to be a belief by many on this 

committee that there has been intentional stalling, if not obstruction with regard to providing documents. Can you talk about that, 

Mr. Kennedy? 

Because, you know, I listened to you carefully and you talk 

about—I am not accusing you of that, but you talk about all the 

documents, all the emails you have to deal with. You ratcheted up 

your budget, transferred money so you could deal with more. You 


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talked about the priorities. You talked about the FOIA 20-day rule. 

Talk about that, too, because I don’t want the American people— 

I want you to have an opportunity to say how you feel about your 

office, your employees, and what you are trying to do. I don’t want 

that just hanging out there. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Certainly. Thank you very much, sir. Look, we 

take our FOIA responsibilities very seriously. We’re very, very 

pleased in 2013, for example, where we managed to close more 

cases than we received. In 2014, then we almost did the same 

thing. We got in 20,000 cases and closed 18,000. In 2015, though, 

the curve just started to take off. We got 24,837 requests, which 

was up 5,000 from the year before, 6,000 from the year before that, 

up 10,000 from 3 years before that. 

The volume of FOIA requests they’re receiving are growing exponentially. We have put additional resources into it, but the—it 

keeps growing. The State Department’s operating budget during 

that same period—and we get great support from the Committees 

of Appropriations, but they operate under caps. So the State Department’s operating budget is down 25 percent in constant dollar 

terms from 5 years ago. The workload is up maybe 300 percent. 

And so we keep putting resources into it, but I cannot yet find 

a way to keep up. That’s why I have teams working with Ambassador Jacobs, new technologies, more personnel. We have an obligation under the law and I believe to the American people, as I believe was Mr. Russell talked about. We believe that this is our responsibility. We are carrying it out to the maximum extent possible. But with these many documents under request—and then 

one last thing if I might say, Mr. Ranking Member, is that a request to a government agency that does not handle classified information, does not operate in 275 locations around the world with 

multiple bureaus and responsibilities, that’s an easy, easy push. 

I believe it was Mr. Grothman’s question about, you know—I’m 

sorry, it was Mr. Palmer’s question about timing. They can churn 

those out very quickly. We get very, very complex national security 

document requests, and that—those materials contain our material, references to other agencies. We have to coordinate with the 

intelligence community, with the Defense Department, potentially 

the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Department 

of Homeland Security. It simply takes a long time to do those. And 

then we breach the 20-day rule, and then we get sued, which, as 

the chairman points out, causes us even more—I can—I will never, 

I don’t think—and I hate to admit that because I don’t like to 

admit failure—ever be—think we’ll be able to admit that we’re 

going to be able to turn out complex documents —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. It’s not because you don’t want to —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—in 20 days. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—or you’re trying to obstruct or —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, sir, absolutely not. We have put more and 

more people, as I mentioned. We were working with 64 people, 

pushed it to 81, then to 93. Depending on the budget for fiscal year 

2017, we pushed up to 118. And we’re deploying new technologies 

and additional, better training for our personnel. When we can 

automate this process better, especially on the emails, as I mentioned to the chairman a few minutes ago, our telegraphic records 


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and our memorandum records are much more easily searchable because they are already—they’re in a searchable format. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m almost —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. The emails need a lot of work, and that is what 

Ambassador Jacobs is directing. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, I was sitting here listening to you and 

I was trying to figure out what makes you guys happy. In other 

words, when do you say, boy, we really did a great thing, let’s go 

out and have a beer and celebrate —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I’ll —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—because it doesn’t sound like sexy work, by the 

way. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I take incredible pride in the competence 

and the dedication. In order to get those 55—53,000 pages of Secretary Clinton’s records out, we had people working, you know, 10, 

12 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know, impinging on holidays. 

We have an obligation to the American people. We will do everything we can to meet it, but there are certain structural, mechanical, software limitations that we’re facing. 

There’s also the colloquy that I had with Congresswoman Norton 

about our requirement to protect foreign government information, 

but yet I don’t have the exemption that the Department of Defense, 

the Department of Energy has. That means we have to classify 

every one of those documents. That is a specific and time-consuming action, yet if you just marked it with the correct B designation for foreign government information, I think that would take a 

huge burden off the State Department in terms of responding to 

routine requests because we have to deal with them as they come 

in. But it would also take away the misimpression that, oh my God, 

there were 2,000 emails that were classified confidential, and it’s 

really about somewhere between 60, 70 percent of them were classified confidential only because that was the only way that I have 

under current statute to protect foreign government information, 

unlike the Departments of Energy and Department of Defense. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me just close up. First of all, thank you for 

your response. And although I said it jokingly about sexy work, I 

really—I said it to emphasize that we are grateful for what you all 

do. I know sometimes you think it is thankless and you hear a lot 

of complaints, but we do appreciate it. 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, it’s an honor, sir, to serve. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to close by pointing 

out that we have heard today about a broken and a flawed classification system, and I think if we don’t do anything else, we can 

try to help with the system of classification because it is so serious 

and can create all kinds of problems. And I am looking forward to 

working with you in an effort to try to address these issues as best 

we can. 

And with that, I want to thank you all. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the ranking member. 

I do think we need to work collaboratively on not only the classification process but also security clearances because, my goodness, 

you have millions of people with security clearances. And I still 

hearken back to what Senator Patrick Moynihan spearheaded some 

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cally issued a report, a good bipartisan report that said ‘‘When everything is classified, nothing is classified. When everybody has a 

security clearance, nobody has a security clearance.’’ So I do think 

that is a long-term project that I would love this committee to engage in. 

I need to ask one last thing because it does impact the four of 

you that are sitting here. You have this trove; it is by the tens of 

thousands. You look at these Federal records that are now suddenly dumped on your lap that you didn’t know were there, and 

then you also look at all the requests, congressional requests, subpoenas, FOIA requests. Media requests sometimes come in as 

FOIA, sometimes don’t. 

How do you take those four sets of requests and cross reference 

it with probably information from Secretary Clinton’s Federal 

records that should have been included? Is the idea that you are 

just going to throw them all up on the Internet and everybody is 

going to have to go hunt and peck through the 55,000, or are you 

going to go back to a subpoena and say, all right, that was actually 

not as responsive as it probably could have been? This FOIA request was incomplete because it should have included this particular email or her calendar, whatever it might be. How do you 

take this set of the 55,000—or the pages and now it is tens of thousands more than that. How do you do that and cross reference it 

with the thousands of requests that had been peppered into the 

State Department over the last—you know, since 2009? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think there are two ways to do that, Mr. Chairman. We could go back and go through every single previous FOIA 

request, and that I think would grind to a halt the requests and 

the efforts we’re making now. 

I believe the right solution is what we are doing. We are putting 

all of the emails up on our searchable Web site. So if you ask about 

Xanadu and we told you we didn’t have any records, you could go 

to this—a special portion of our Web site which has all of the 

53,000 Clinton records and you could put in Xanadu and it would 

find Xanadu for you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are not talking about the album from 

back in the ’70s, are you? I am just teasing. Keep going, yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Xanadu is my favorite country —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—because it’s not a country and I can use it as an 

example without ever offending anyone. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thought you were a big music fan of a 

particular artist from the ’70s. 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, I get —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It is okay. Keep going. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—Shangri La. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I think that that is the way for us to best be good 

stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars but also be most and quickest responders to the American people. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So why not just do that all the time? Forget about FOIA. Forget about subpoenas. If you get stuff, oh, we 

will just put it on the Internet. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Because —— 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good luck. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Because there is foreign government information, 

Privacy Act information, National Security Act information in the 

material, and —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you have no plans to go back and redo— 

what about subpoenas? 

Mr. KENNEDY. If someone—we respond to subpoenas. We work 

very, very closely —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, but if you responded to a subpoena, 

and I don’t have an exact one case and it came across in 2011 and 

you just got the record here in 2016, are you going to go back and 

look at that subpoena? 

Mr. KENNEDY. We would—for subpoenas, which we would consult 

with the Department of Justice about what we needed to do —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—to be in compliance with the court —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I think I can —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—or the Congress. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. So that is what I am saying. There 

is this universe of sort of four areas —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—four buckets, and I hope I am not missing 

one, but you have FOIA requests, you have subpoenas, you have 

congressional inquiries, and you finally have media requests, which 

come in a variety of different formats. So I would appreciate—what 

is your game plan to deal with this—you didn’t ask for this, but 

this is the consequence of Hillary Clinton’s convenience was is you 

have to deal with it. 

So what are you going to do? How are you going to prioritize it? 

And what is the expectation? If somebody has a subpoena—if a 

company or an individual or an attorney or whatever it is, there 

is a subpoena out there, will you be going back and cross referencing that —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Let me take —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—for each of those four? And I am not expecting you to do it off the cuff. 

Mr. KENNEDY. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I would just appreciate if the State Department would say this is how we are going to deal with it. And if 

it is not those four buckets, tell me what it is, but at least off the 

top of my head, that is what —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. All I am asking for here is a game plan to 

deal with that. I don’t think it is good enough to just say we are 

throwing everything up on the Internet and everybody, good luck. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That was in response, Mr. Chairman —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And the FOIAs —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—to your —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—is so—yes. 

Mr. KENNEDY. We will review congressional document requests 

as we continually review them. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we 

have sent you 186,000 pages, and if it has to be 187,000 or 197,000, 

we are—we will work with you, as we talked about when I met in 

your office. For subpoenas, we will talk with the Department of 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
78 

Justice to see what steps we may have to take and have our lawyers work on that. For the media, I leave the media to take care 

of themselves. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They will be so glad to hear that. But if 

there was a media request —— 

Mr. KENNEDY. The media request would be a FOIA request, and 

therefore, we would—we have —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—made it very clear to the media —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. At least for those four just what is a reasonable time that you are going to get the committee a game plan 

on how you are going to deal with this? 

Mr. KENNEDY. It will—given the—that the legal question about 

subpoenas is a complex one, I think it’ll have to be a couple of 

weeks because we have to —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. End of the month, is that fair, today’s date? 

Mr. KENNEDY. I can certainly try, but I have to talk to my legal 

advisor and I have to talk to —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. We are going to start —— 

Mr. KENNEDY.—the Department of Justice —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—waving the red flag saying, hey, you are 

not being responsive if I don’t hear from you by the end of the 

month. Fair enough? 

Mr. KENNEDY. When I have to go outside the State Department, 

I make no guarantees, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What do you mean outside the State Department? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Talk to the Department of Justice, that’s outside 

the State Department. They’re not under my control. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I just need a good-faith effort because I 

think you have thousands of people waiting and wondering how 

this affects these four categories from subpoenas, congressional, 

Members of Congress, all that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. But —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is all I am asking. 

Mr. KENNEDY.—on FOIA —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I think you get it, okay? I just need you responsive and I need a game plan, and I understand the need to 

interact at the Department of Justice. 

I appreciate the work that you and so many people do at the 

State Department. We appreciate your attendance here today. And 

the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
(79) 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 14 here 26121.014

UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE 

FOR MANAGEMENT 

WASHINGTON 

12 JJ 

Th~ Department of State has a longstanding and continuing commitment to 

preserving the history of U.S. diplomacy, established in authorities under the 

federal Records Act of 1950. I am writing to you, the representative of Secretary 

of State Colin Powell, as well as to representatives of other fonner Secretaries 

(principals), to request your assistance in further meeting this requirement. 

The Federal Records Act of 1950, as amended, 44 U.S.C. chapters 29, 31 

and 33, seeks to ensure the preser\'ation of an authoritrnive record of official 

correspondem:e, communications, and documentation. Last year. in Bulletin 2013-

()3. the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) clarified records 

management responsibilities regarding the usc of personal email accounts for 

otlidal government business. NAIV\ recommended that agencies refer to its 

guidance when advising incoming and dl:'parting agency employees about their 

records management responsibilities. This bulletin was followed by additional 

l\ARA guidance on managing email issued on September 15, 2014. Sec endost'd. 

\V(• recognize that some period of time has pa~sed since your principal 

served as Secretary of State and that the NARA guidam:e post-dates that servke. 

'\.:,·crthdess. we bring the:! NARA guidanC(' to your attention in order to ensure 

th:ll the Department's records arc as complete as possible. Accordingly. we ask 

that should your principal or his or her authorized representative be aware or 

become aware in the future of a federal record, such as an email sent or received on 

a pcr:::m,al email account while serving as Secretary of State. that a copy Qfthis 

record be made available to the Department ln this regard, please note that 

dive!'$C Department records are subject to various disposition schedules, with most 

l:ndosurcs - 3 

\h. Peggy C'ifrino, 

Principal Assistant to General Colin Powell, 

909 North Washington Street, Suite 700. 

Alexandria. Virginia 213 I .:I. 
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-2-

Secretary of State records retained pennanently. We ask that a record he provided 

to the Department ifthere is reason to believe that it may not otherwise be 

preserved in the Department's recordkeeping system. 

The Department is willing to provide assistance to you in this effort. In the 

meantime, should you have any questions regarding this request, please do not 

hesitate to contact William Fischer, A/GIS/IPS/RA, Agency Records Officer, at 

(202) 261-8369. 

We greatly appreciate your consideration of and assistance with this matter. 

Sincerely, 

~~ Patrick F. Kennedy 
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Peggy Cifrino 

UNDEH SECRETARY OF STATE 

FOR MANAGEMENT 

WASHINGTON 

? • • i ~\ 

Principal Assistant to General Colin Powell 

Ollice of General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret) 

909 North Washington Street, Suite 700 

Alexandria, Virginia 22314 

Dear Ms. Cifrino: 

[am writing regarding the Department's November 12, 2014 request that former 

Secretary of State Colin Powell provide it with any federal records in his 

possession, such as an email sent or received on a personal email account while 

serving as Secretary of State, if there is reason to believe that it may not otherwise 

be preserved in the Department's recordkceping system. 

You previously advised, with respect to ollicial emails Sl!nt on Secretary Powell's 

private account during his time in onice, that the account he used has been closed 

for a number of years. Based on advice we have received from the National 

Archives and Records Administrution, the Department would nevertheless 

encourage you- if you have not already done so-- to check with the internet 

service or email provider lor the former account to sec if it is still possible to 

retrieve any official cmails from Secretary Powell's tenure at the Department. If 

you do recover any such emails. we would appreciate your forwarding them to the 

Dcparuncm. 

Thank you for considering this request. 

Sincerely, 

----- } _..., !./. i• ( l ~---~ f'":- ~-·- ...._ \ I , \ 

Patrick F. Kennedy j 
83 


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Laurence Brewer 

UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE 

FOR MANAGEMENT 

WASHINGTON 

Nowmher 6, 20 15 

Acting Chief Records Officer 

National Archives and Records Administration 

700 Pennsylvania Avem1e, NW 

Washington, DC 20408 

Dear ivh·. Brewer, 

The Department of State has been working these past months with the 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) regarding the emails of 

tormcr Secretary of State I lillary Clinton. I am writing to provide Nt\RA 

additional int(mnation regarding the Department's eft(ll1s, including information 

relenmt to Paul M. Wester, Jr.'s July 2 letter to Margaret P. Grafeld, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary lor Globallnl(mnation Services. 

Mr. Westt!r inquired as to steps the Department is taking to implement 

records management directives it issued in :w 14 with respect to senior Department 

officials. :\s you know. in l\·larch of this year. Secretary Kc1Ty asked the 

Department's Ol'lice of Inspector (ienerai( .. OIG") to revicw and make 

recommendations 1()1' impro\·ing the Department's rccordkccping practices. 

Although OIG has not yet issued recommendations, Secretary Kerry appointed a 

Tmnsparency Coordinator in Septembl.!r to work with Department bureaus und 

offices on imprm ing D~panment records systems. II is ~xp~cted that the 

Transparency Coordinator will be able to build on th~ work of the OIG as well as 

on the ongoing efforts of the Department"s rt!cords management program. which 

has been instrumental in reminding all Department emplo)ces. including senior 

oflicials, of their records 111anagemo.:nt responsibilities. including those ro.:garding 

email. 

The D~partmcnt is rc\ i~?wing em:1ilmanagem1?nt optitlllS lor the Departm~nt 

through an Electronic R~cords Management Working Group (ERI\1\\'G) that was 

established in order to mel?t the r~quiro.:ments for emuilmanagement by December 

31. ~0 16. as mandated by the President's !VIanaging Gm·ernment Records 

Directive. Although a long-1\.'nn solution \\ill be in plm:e by the end ot'2016. the 
84 


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Department is working on several short-term steps to preserve senior officials' 

email. In February 2015, the Department's Executive Secretariat beganjoumaling 

the email of 85 senior officials; as of October, the Executive Secretariat was 

joumaling 112 senior officials. This includes the Deputy Secretaries, Under 

Secretaries, several senior advisers, as well as the Secretary's staff ranging from 

his chief of staff to staff assistants. The Department is also automatically 

joumaling Secretary Kerry's email. Any email sent or received on Secretary 

Kerry's state.gov account is automatically copied and remotely saved 

electronically. In addition to the above listed officials, the Department began 

joumaling the email accounts of Assistant Secretaries, Principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretaries, and a limited number of other senior officials in October 2015. 

The Department updated its email policy in the Foreign Affairs Manual in 

October reminding employees that personal email accounts should only be used for 

official work in very limited circumstances and that under the Presidential and 

Federal Records Act Amendments of20 14, employees are prohibited from creating 

or sending a record using a non-official email account unless the employee ( 1) 

copies the employee's official email account in the original creation or 

transmission, or (2) forwards a complete copy of the record (including any 

attachments) to the employee's official email account not later than 20 days after 

the original creation or transmission. In addition, the Department's Foreign 

Service Institute (FSI) provides a variety of training courses, both classroom and 

online, that include records management. These courses include records 

management training for Office Management Specialists, Information 

Management Officers, and orientation courses for new employees. FSI also offers 

a specialized records management course for all levels of employees and training 

for State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART) users. 

The Secretary's Executive Secretariat regularly hosts record-keeping 

workshops for all Seventh Floor Department Principals' offices and employees, 

including five sessions in 2015. Representatives from the Office oflnformation 

Programs and Services (NGISIIPS) and the Correspondence, Records and Staffing 

Division of the Executive Secretariat Staff review senior officials' responsibilities 

for creating records necessary to document their activities and for the proper 

management and preservation of their records regardless of physical format or 

media. They also discuss departing senior officials' responsibility to identity their 

records prior to departure and to take with them only personal papers and nonrecord materials, subject to review by records officers to ensure compliance with 

federal records laws and regulations. Adherence to Department email 

2 
85 


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requirements in accordance with the Presidential and Federal Records Act 

Amendments of2014 is also emphasized at these workshops. 

The Executive Secretariat also requires a briefing for all incoming and 

departing employees assigned to Seventh Floor Department Principals' offices on 

their record keeping requirements and responsibilities. Upon notification of a 

senior official's departure, the Executive Secretariat Staff briefs and assists each 

departing Principal's office with the proper preservation of official records. 

In his letter, Mr. Wester also requested that the Department contact former 

Secretary Clinton's representatives to request the native electronic version with the 

associated metadata of the approximately 55,000 pages of emails provided to the 

Department. As set forth in the Department's and NARA's September 17 motion 

to dismiss in the consolidated cases of Judicial Watch v. Kerry, No. 1:15-cv00785-JEB and Cause of Action Institute v. Kerry, No. 1: 15-cv-0 I 068-JEB, the 

Department requested on May 22 that former Secretary Clinton provide an 

electronic copy of the approximately 55,000 pages of emails, and Secretary 

Clinton's attorney responded that they would do so. The electronic copy was not, 

however, provided; Secretary Clinton's counsel advised on August 12 that the 

email server that was used to store Secretary Clinton's emails while she was 

Secretary of State and the thumb drives that included electronic copies of the 

documents she had provided to the Department had been turned over to the Federal 

Bureau oflnvestigation (FBI}. On September 14,2015, the Department sent a 

letter to the FBI requesting an electronic copy of the approximately 55,000 pages. 

We have not yet received such a copy. 

Mr. Wester also advised that the Department may want to reach out to both 

former Secretary Clinton and former Secretary Colin Powell to see if Department 

emails could be recovered from any internet service and email providers that they 

used. On October 2, 2015, the Department requested Secretary Clinton's counsel 

to confirm that "with regard to her tenure as Secretary of State, former Secretary 

Clinton has provided the Department with all federal records in her possession, 

regardless of their format or the domain on which they were stored or created, that 

may not otherwise be preserved in the Department's recordkeeping system. To the 

extent her emails might be found on any internet service and email providers, we 

encourage you to contact them." (Attachment A). On October 8, former Secretary 

Clinton's counsel wrote to: 

confirm that, with regard to her tenure as Secretary of State, former 

Secretary Clinton has provided the Department on December 5, 2014, with 

3 
86 


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all fedeml e-mail records in her custody, rl.!gardless of thl!ir format or the 

domain on which they were stored or created, that may not otherwise be 

preserved, to our knowledge, in the Department's recordkeeping system. 

She does not have custody of c-mails sent or received in the tirsl few weeks 

of her tenure, as she was transitioning to a new address, and we have been 

unable to obtain these. In the event we do. we will immediately provide the 

Department with federal record e-mails in this collection. (Attachment Bl. 

On October 21, the Department sent a letter to Secretary Powell's principal 

assistant similarly encouraging them to check with the internet service or email 

provider for Secretary Powell's former account to see if it is still possible to 

retrieve any official emails from his tenure at the Department. (Attachment C). 

The Depm1ment has not as yet received a response. 

Finally. please be advised that in letters of March II, 2015. the Department 

also requested of former aides to former Secretary Clinton-- Cheryl l'v1ills, Huma 

Abedin, Jacob Sullivan, and Philippe Reines-- that should any of them be aware or 

become aware of a federal record in his or her possession. such us an email sent or 

received on a personal email account while serving in an oflicial capacity at the 

Department, thut such record be made available to the Department. We also 

advised them ofNAR/\'s records management guidance Bulletin :!0/3-03 and the 

additional NARA guidance on managing email issued on September 15. 2014. 

some OJ' all of which post-dated their service to the Dep:u1ment. The Depat1ment 

has J'eceived o\'er one hundred thousand pages of documents li·01n i\·ls. l'vlills, Ms. 

Abedin, Mr. Sullivan, und Mr. Reines collectively, through their representatives in 

response to the Department's request. 

We hope that this information assists in NARA's understanding of this 

matter. As always. thank you for our continued close collaboration. 

. ' ----.',) 1 Sincerdv. 1 

i !(~ j·,'i \ ': j( //~ .. irvf- g · 

( ,1. atnck F. Ken net~' 

Enclosures 

4 
87 


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,JASON CHAfFETt. UTAH 

CII•\IRMAN ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

cteongrcS'S' of tbc mtnttcb ~tatcS' 

~oust of l\epresentatibes 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

2157 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6143 

The Honorable John F. Kerry 

Secretary 

U.S. Department of State 

2201 C Street NW 

Washington, D.C. 20520 

Dear Mr. Secretary: 

MNoi1Wf ~202)225..SOl.t 

M.M'f1•T'> ~f225-S!J51 

lllfD•IfovtrslqhiJtou,..gov 

January 19, 2016 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS. MAR'I'lANO 

RJ\NII:fNG MINORITY MEMBER 

The volume of high profile Freedom oflnformation Act (FOIA) litigation involving the 

Department of State has increased sharply in recent years. In fiscal year 20 I 0, the Department 

experienced a seventy percent increase in litigation costs over the prior year. 1 In 2012, FOIArelated litigation drained the Department's resources to such an extent that the number of 

requests that were processed decreased by more than I 0,000 compared to the prior year. 2 In 

fiscal year 2014, the Department spent more than two million dollars on FOIA litigation (more 

than double what the Department spent in 2013), and experienced a sixty percent increase in 

lawsuits for failing to meet statutory obligations with respect to FOIA.3 

On January 7, 2016, the Department of State Office of Inspector General (010) released 

a report that may explain why more and more FOIA requesters are turning to an expensive 

litigation process to get responses to their FOIA requests. The report, titled "Evaluation of the 

Department of State's FOIA Processes for Requests Involving the Office of the Secretary," 

described a blatant disregard for FOIA compliance within the Office of the Secretary's Executive 

Secretariat (S/ES).4 

The 010 found that searches conducted by S/ES do not meet statutory and regulatory 

requirements for completeness because ''S/ES eunently searches Department email accounts 

only if a FOIA request mention~ emails or asks for 'all records,' or ifS/ES is requested to do so 

during the course of litigation."' Despite Department-wide policy that requires email searches, 

the FOIA analyst responsible for S/ES record searches "described the decision to search email 

accounts to be a discretionary one that is only exercised periodically. "6 

1 U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom of Information Act Annual Report Fiscal Year 2009; U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom of 

Information Act Annual Report Fiscal Year 1010. 1 U.S. Dep't of State. Freedom oflnformmion Act Annual Report Fiscal Year 2012. 3 U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom of ltiformalionllct Annual Report Fiscal Year 2013; U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom of 

Information Act Annual Report Fiscal Year 20/.J. 4 Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Dcp't of State, Evalumion of the Departmem ofState 's F0/11 f'rocessesjor 

Requests Involving the Office of the Secretm}', ESP- I 6-0 I (Jan. 20 I 6 ). 5 /d. at i; see also id at 9. 

• ld at 9. 
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The Honorable John F. Kerry 

January 19,2015 

Page2 

Attorneys who represent the Department in FOIA litigation stated that FOIA requesters 

have indeed produced evidence that S/ES falsely attested that no responsive records existed in 

cases where such records did in fact exist.7 The OIG report ft1rther details multiple other failures 

at S/ES that directly resulted in litigation, including providing nonresponsive records and 

withholding responsive records until the Department is forced to litigate. 8 

The Department's repeated failure to comply with the FOIA statute-as detailed in the 

OIG report-demonstrates either incompetence or purposeful obstruction of the requesters' right 

to access agency records, or both.9 The Department's ~ostnre with respect to FOIA compliance 

has resulted in a dramatic increase in costly litigation, 1 and it directly contributes to the 

Department's inability to meet statutory deadlines, as well as increased backlogs. 11 Further, 

S/ES's inadequate FOIA operation drains the resources of the Department's entire FOIA 

program by causing staff to run repeated searches, respond to unnecessary appeals requests, and 

handle increased inquiries from the requesters. 12 

The Committee's jurisdiction includes FOIA and it is a long-standing Committee priority 

to ensure that it is implemented effectively. Towards that end, please assist the Committee by 

producing the following documents and information as soon as possible, but by no later than 

February !, 2016: 

1. The performance standards for the current Director of Secretariat Staff; 

2. A list of names, titles, and dates of employment of all employees with FOIA 

responsibilities at the Office oflnformation Programs and Services and at S/ES; 

3. For each employee with S/ES FOIA responsibilities within the last ten years: 

a. All performance evaluations, and 

b. A list of all training received and a description of the training; 

4. State Department policies and guidance on FOIA search and response procednres; 

5. For each of the 417 FOIA requests tasked to S/ES that involved the current and past four 

Secretaries of State: 

7 /d.at 13. 

• !cl at 13-16 . 

• /d. 

10 /d.; see also U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom of Information Act Anm1al Report Fiscal Year 2014, at 37. 

" Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Dep't of State, Evaluation of the Department of State's FOIA Processes for 

Requests Involving the Office of the Secretary, ESP-16-0 I (Jan. 20 16), at 6·8; see also U.S. Dep't of State, Freedom 

o[!nformation Act Annual Report Fiscal Year 2014, at 43. 

' Office of Inspector Gen., U.S. Dep't of State, Evaluation of the Department of State's FOIA Processes for 

Requests Involving the Office of the Secretary, ESP-16-01 (Jan. 2016), at 13-16. 
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The Honorable John F. KetTy 

January 19,2015 

Page 3 

b. The documents produced. or a link to the documents in the FOIA reading room; 

and 

c. All records and communications related to each request; 

6. A list of all lawsuits tiled against the State Department involving FOIA requests in the 

past fifteen years; 

7. A list of all lawsuits filed against the State Department involving FOIA requests tasked to 

S/ES in the past fifteen years and costs attributable to each lawsuit; and 

8. The Department's procedures for certifying to requesters when a request is closed. 

In addition, please make the Department's Transparency Coordinator available for a briefing no 

later than Tuesday, January 26,2016. 

Please deliver your responses to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

Majority Staff in Room 2157 of the Rayburn House Office Building and the Minority Staff in 

Room 2471 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The Committee prefers, if possible, to 

receive all documents in electronic format. 

The Committee on Oversight and Government Refmm is the principal oversight 

committee of the House of Representatives and may at "any time" investigate "any matter" as set 

forth in House Rule X. 

Should you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Katy Rother or 

Tristan Leavitt of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff at (202) 225-

5074. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. 

Enclosure 

/7 s7\t. ~~(/ Jason Chaffetz 

~ 

Chairman 

cc: The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member 

The Honorable Steve A. Linick, Inspector General, U.S. Department of State 
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The Honorable 

Bob Corker, Chairman 

Committee on Foreign Relations 

United States Senate 

Washington, DC 20510 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

United States Department of State 

Washington, D. C. 20520 

NOV 2 42015 

Thank you for your letter of October 6 concerning former Secretary 

Clinton's email practices and the handling of classified information. We hope the 

information below is helpful. 

The primary focus of your letter is an AprillO, 2011, email involving 

Secretary Clinton. In May, the Department posted the email to our FOlA 

website. Subsequently, through a process not entirely clear to us, the Inspector 

General for the Intelligence Community (ICIG) apparently was advised by an 

element of the IC that a portion of the email contained unredacted classified IC. 

information drawn from specific IC intelligence products. The ICIG adopted this 

conclusion without consultation with the Department. After carefully reviewing 

the email and the apparent basis for the IC claim, however, we !lfC satisfied that the 

conclusion was wrong and that the email was properly made public. 

The alleged IC source for some information in the email in fact includes 

information different from the information in the email. Moreover, as we have 

explained, information contained in classified intelligence products often is also 

available from unclassified sources. With respect to the email in question, during 

our July briefing with your staff and in our September 21 letter to you, we 

described several contemporaneous open source reports that contained the same or 

similar information as the intelligence product fro~ which the email's content 

allegedly was drawn. There are other sources, as weu.r•J There are also clear 

examples of U.S. officials publicly briefing similar information that was even more 

detailed than the information in the email. Thus we cannot agree that the 

1

'

1 For example, as reponed on CNN.com on Aprll9, 2011, opposition spokesman Sblllll.tlddin Abdulmolah told 

CNN "There were some 50 reaime pickup trucks with machino guns and rocket launchers that attempted to enter 

AJdabiya ••• •. http://www.cnn.com/20 ll/WORLD/aftica/0410911ibya. war/ 
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-2-

infonnation in the email necessarily came from the claimed IC source or that the 

email released sensitive IC information, including about sources and methods. 

To be clear, the Department is not in a position to say that any of these open 

source reports were, in fact, the basis on which the email was drafted. However, 

they do conftnn the infonnation in the email was discussed and reported publicly 

at the time. Given the broad availability of these facts at the time (as well as 

differences between the email and the claimed IC source), one cannot conclude 

that the infonnation in the email could only have come from a particular classified 

intelligence product that also contained similar facts. 

Unfortunately, the only person who could have clarified the exact 

provenance of the infonnation in question was Ambassador Chris Stevens, who 

lost his life in 2012. He may have teamed the infonnation through. conversations 

with Department of Defense counterparts, from classified or unclassified briefings, 

or from unclassified or classified reporting. For example, while posted to 

Benghazi in April 2011, Ambassador Stevens had regular telephone contact with 

AFRICOM in addition to access to intelligence products. Given these facts, we 

cannot conclude that the infonnation came from a specific classified intelligence 

product; however, given the nature of the widely-reported infonnation itself, we 

can conclude that the email does not reveal any classified sources and methods. 

We also understand that you continue to have questions about what 

assessments have been made about the April I 0, 2011, email. The email originally 

was provided to the House Select Committee on Berighazi (Benghazi Committee) 

on February 13,2015. Pursuant to the terms of an agreement designed to protect 

sensitive infonnation, the Benghazi Committee committed to considering any 

redactions requested by the Department prior to publicly releasing the email. The 

production process for the Benghazi Committee included an interagency review, 

which included the CIA. During that process, no one from the Department or the 

interagency identified the AprillO, 2011, email as having an IC equity or 

containing classified infonnation. To be clear, nor did anyone at the Department 

or in the interagency conclude the email did nQ! contain classified 

infonnation. The review did not call for that detennination, especially since the 

document would be subject to a thorough review prior to any public release. 

In your letters of August 21 and October 6, you refer to this process as a 

"contradictory classification determination," i.e., a determination that, contrary to 

the ICIG's later conclusion, the email was nQ! classified. As we have explained, 

this email was not referred to the interagency for a fonnal classification 
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-3-

determination prior to its production to Congress. As with our references to open 

source reporting, we referenced the original interagency process to convey that the 

information in question is not clearly classified on its face. 

Your October 6 letter also references a second "classification determination" 

regarding the April I 0, 20 11, email that occurred after the email was released on 

our FOIA website in May. On August 13,2015, Mark Ewing in the Office of the 

Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) informed the State Department that ''the 

email has been declassified and publicly released in its entirety as part of the FOIA 

process in the spring of 201 S." ODNI also stated that the intelligence product on 

which the IC believes the email was based remains classified. Again, the 

conclusion that the information in the email was drawn from that intelligence 

product is unsubstantiated and on its face wrong, given the differences between the 

information in the email and the information in the product. In any event, 

however, we are satisfied that its release could not have compromised IC sources 

and methods and that it was properly made public, and are not taking further action 

or review with respect to the email. 

As you know, we have taken several steps to address concerns raised by you 

and the ICIG. Under our normal FOIA process, Department FOIA staff identify 

interagency equities for referral to their respective agencies, including the IC. Our 

approach mirrors other agencies' practices under the FOIA with respect to 

potentially classified material: the Department engages in an interagency process 

detailed within Executive Order 13526. In recent months, for purposes of the 

Clinton FOIA review, the Department has added another layer, by incorporating 

representatives from the IC into our ongoing review of the fonner Secretary's 

emails; These individuals screen documents and identify potential equities for 

further consideration by their respective agencies. 

Finally, with respect to your questions regarding other emails involving 

former Secretary Clinton, as you know, the FOIA review of fonner Secretary 

Clinton's emails is ongoing. We have made clear publicly and otherwise that it is 

not uncommon for potentially classified infonnation to be identified, and for 

upgrades to occur during the Department's FOIA review process. At this time, all 

of the upgrade decisions regarding the documents that have been made public have 

been made by Department officials pursuant to our classification authorities. We 

will of course consider IC upgrade proposals as they are made during the ongoing 

FOIA review and interagency process. We will continue to discuss any 

interagency equities, including IC equities, with the responsible agencies 

throughout this FOIA review process. These discussions will include a subset of 
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-4-

two emails, initially notified to Congress by the ICIG as potentially containing 

classified information, which are now in the appropriate interagency FOIA 

process. 

I hope that this response has been helpful to you. Please let us know if we 

can provide the Committee with additional information about the ongoing review 

process. 

Cc: The Honorable Benjamin L. Cardin 

Sincerely, 

Julia Frifield 

Assistant Secretary 

Legislative Affairs 
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UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05793961 Date: 01/29/2016 

From: 

Sent: 

To: 

Subject: 

Wow-not good. 

H <hrod17@clintonemail.com> 

Friday, March 2. 2012 7:4 7 PM 

'sullivanjj@~sta=te~.g~ov':__ _________ , 

Re:(SBU) j I 

:Classified by DAS, A/GIS, OoS on 05/05/2014- Class: SECRET -

1

1 

Reason: 1.4(8), 1.4(0)- Declassify on: 03/02/2022 

From: Sullivan, Jaoo.b J [mallto:SulllvanJJ@state.gov] 

Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 06:15PM 

RELEASE IN PART 

1.4(8),81,85, 1.4(0),86 

1.4(8) 

1.4(0) 

81 

To:H 

Subject: FW: 

FYI 

1.4(8) 

1.4(0) 

81 

-··-·-----------------------------

From: Feltman, Jeffrey D 

Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 6:14 PM To: Rice, SUsan E (USUN); Ryu, Rexon Y; DiCarlO, Rosemary A (USUN); Brimmer, Esther D; Dibble, Elizabeth L; Walles, 

Jacob; Hof, FrederiC C; Conlon, Steven M; carte, LISa M; Irwin, Matthew T; DjeraSSI, Alexander M; Seche. ~hen A; 

Bondy, Steven C; Ford, RobertS; Sullivan, Jacob J; Zeya, Uzra 5; Sherman, Wendy R; 'SSimonl I: 

'Samantha..;J._powerl I; 'PTalwa~ I: Zladeh, Susan L; Rled, Curtis R (USUN); Grant, William K 

(USUN) 

Subject: (SBU)L_ __________ ..........J 

86 

1.4(8) 

1.4(0) 

r-----------------------------~!1 

(SBU)r---·· ----

fSBUl 

UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of state Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05793961 Date: 01/29/2016 

1.4(0) 

81 

85 
95 

Æ 


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UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05793961 Date: 01/29/2016 

Jeffrey Feltman 

Assistant Secretaty 

Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs 

Department of State 

202-647-7209 

SBU 

This email is UNCLASSIFIED. 

UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05793961 Date: 01/29/2016