Report: Clinton aide misled reporters on private email use

Seven months after Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton aide, fiercely disputed a March Gawker story that alleged, using an anonymous source, that he had conducted official correspondence over a private account, the media outlet obtained dozens of emails that proved Reines regularly spoke with reporters using a personal address.

“You’d be surprised how many reporters deliberately email government officials to their personal accounts,” Reines wrote to a handful of reporters in March after the original Gawker story was published. “You’d be equally surprised to know that when they did, I moved the exchange to my state.gov account because, between you and me, my personal account is about the last place I want to be emailing reporters or conducting work.”

Gawker had filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2012 that sought Reines’ correspondence with reporters. But the State Department rejected the request on the grounds that it couldn’t locate any record of Reines communicating with journalists, a response that fueled speculation of Reines’ private email use.

Reines acknowledged frustration with the State Department’s inability to find his records in an exchange with a Washington Free Beacon reporter, which Gawker published. However, Reines argued the agency’s failing did not mean he had broken the rules.

The media outlet published dozens of emails from both Reines’ State Department account and a private Gmail account Monday after the agency produced documents responsive to Gawker’s FOIA request.

The new emails raise questions about whether Reines misrepresented his use of a private email account in his March statements.

Reines’ attorney told Gawker in a statement Monday that the former Clinton spokesman had “very much hoped you would end up with his email and is very glad your request was finally fulfilled so that people can come to their own conclusions about his email habits.”