Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only one trying to hide things at the State Department; her staff was pretty shady too.
According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Clinton’s staffers during her stint as secretary of state attempted to limit and even block the release of documents asked for under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
One of those staffers, sources allege, was longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, who also currently sits on the board of the Clinton Foundation.
From the Journal:
In another case, Ms. Mills’s staff negotiated with the records specialists over the release of documents about former President Bill Clinton’s speaking engagements — also holding some back.
With regard to the Keystone documents, Mills allegedly threatened to refuse to comply with further records requests if the specialist in question did not redact or prevent the release of certain pieces of information. The documents were, as a result, either redacted or not released.
Moreover, Mills attempted to limit and block documents having to do with the paid speeches Bill Clinton delivered when Hillary was secretary of state, proposals for which were required to be reviewed by the State Department. She was, at least in part, successful.
Unsurprisingly, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill defended Mills and shrugged off the accusations in addition to emphasizing the State Department’s appropriate handling of public-records requests.
“The State Department takes FOIA requests very seriously, and has a rigorous process in place for handling the thousands of requests that come in,” Merrill alleged. “Secretary Clinton’s State Department took that process seriously and made it a priority, and to suggest otherwise would be wrong.”
Coupled with her exclusive use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state, the revelations about Hillary’s staff only succeed in adding to the assessment of the Democratic presidential candidate as dishonest, untrustworthy and averse to transparency.
