Rep. Trey Gowdy’s announcement late Friday that Hillary Clinton’s private server was wiped completely clean after the 62,320 messages sent to and from her private email account during her four-year tenure as secretary of state were reviewed is raising multiple questions.
“We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server,” said Gowdy. The South Caroline Republican is chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
With the emails destroyed, transparency advocates are focusing on the specifics of how Clinton’s review of each of the messages to determine which were personal and which were official was conducted.
The controversy erupted following Clinton’s March 10 news conference at the U.N. when she first commented on revelations that she had used a private email account instead of an official State Department address for official business.
“I chose not to keep my private personal emails,” Clinton told reporters during the news conference. “Emails about planning Chelsea’s wedding or my mother’s funeral arrangements. Condolence notes to friends, as well as yoga routines, family vacations — the other things you typically find in inboxes.”
She estimated that half of the 62,320 messages concerned personal topics and the remaining half focused on official government business. She and her lawyers reviewed each of them to determine which were which. Those that were official business were turned over the State Department when they were first requested Oct. 28, 2014.
Allowing one minute per email, Clinton’s review process would have required one person working 24 hours a day 43.28 days to be completed. The time required would double to 86 days if the reviewer worked only 12 hours per day while devoting one minute to review each individual message.
“That would appear to be at least three months of fairly continuous review. Since October 28, three months out takes her to the end of January or early February. If multiple aides were reviewing the documents — it’s conceivable,” said Daniel Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a nonprofit government watchdog that has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for Clinton emails and documents related to them.
“But they would have to be experienced lawyers who are trained to determine what’s appropriate for preservation in compliance with federal record-keeping requirements,” Epstein said.
In a nine-page “explainer” issued by Clinton following the U.N. news conference, she described how the review included multiple searches for individuals and topics among the emails, but does not say how long the process required to complete, when it was completed or who other than her “attorneys” were involved.
Another nonprofit government transparency watchdog doubted Saturday that the emails are gone.
“I doubt we are hearing anything close to the truth. I do not believe they have been deleted. Think Lois Lerner,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.
Gowdy’s panel is investigating events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were murdered by the attackers.
Within hours of the attack, Clinton and others in President Obama’s administration claimed the attack began as a spontaneous protest against a satirical Internet video about Muslims produced by an obscure American movie producer.
The State Department has provided Gowdy’s panel only about 300 Benghazi related emails. He said Friday that “after seeking and receiving a two-week extension from the committee, Secretary Clinton failed to provide a single new document to the subpoena issued by the committee and refused to provide her private server to the Inspector General for the State Department or any other independent arbiter for analysis.”
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
