Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20161004

Going to get a chance to question them on monday. Its an embarrassment that the unclose cla unclassified documents that are in the gift are only able to be reviewed by the members of this committee. As you reside in another committee and a member of congress, youre prohibited from looking at unclassified documents. I know the Management Team at the state department did not want you to be here. We had the issue to be here. Were glad that youre here. All i want you to do is be truthful and tell us what happened and we will do everything that we can to make sure that you get your story and version of what happened out there. First of all i want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to come forward. I have always wanted to speak the truth at this particular situation and the comfort zone in the areas. Go ahead. When did you know there was a problem . As far as the records . Yes, with secretary clinton. The first time that i noticed a problem is when we noted and received documents. When was that . I dont have a specific date. I dont expect you to know the exact date but a time. I dont know the time. When we started to erie receive the documents was that after she had left . Yes. Did you raise any concerns prior to that and did she have a a. Gov account and they say that you raised concerns. Yes, sir, when she came on board and i was told that she would not. Also that was not uncommon because the secretary before her did not have a state. Gov account. So the fact that you were not getting any records from clinton, did you ever raise that question or concern. Were you told to what did they tell you to say or not say about that . Well, no one told me what to say or not say. Again because she did not have a state. Gov account and that was not abnormal because previous secretaries did not have a state. Gov accounts. But you got the dump of the 55,000 pages almost two years after she left, correct . Not knowing the exact time frame, yes, we did receive them. I believe that was december 5 of 2014 when mrs. Secretary clinton returned 55,000 pages of emails. Has the state department after december 5, 2014 have they received any work emails that were federal records . After the 55,000 . Yes. Recently my office was involve in the records that we just received, but in that particular case on the purpose that i was involved with and looking at the records and seeing if they were personal and work related. That was the reason that we got involved with that because the department was receiving so many records and the staffing was that. So mrs. Lang, how many records did the state department receive . Can you be more specific from secretary clinton or other former employees . No, im talking specifically Hillary Clinton that were work emails. How many did you get after december 5th . The federal bureau of investigation that transferred what is that number . Theyre under review. Was it 17,000 . Were not leading the effort. Who is . Who knows the number . Mr. Chairman we have received a number of disk from the fbi and were counting them and we know of 14,900 and the fbi mentioned that there could be tens of thousands of others that were processing right now. And all of those came after december 5th. They were received on may 22, 2015 you asked as representatives of the state department, you asked secretary clintons kendall for an electronic copy. When did she provide that copy to you . Well, intervening in that mr. Chairman, the fbi then took possession of all of the electronic material that mr. Kendall had to the best of my knowledge. So did clinton fulfill the requests . To attorney for secretary clinton provided that material to the fbi. Or it was seized. One of the two. Im asking and its embarrassing that you had the ask them to return it in electronic format. They printed it out in hard copy, did they ever give you an electronic copy for your request . To the best of my understanding mr. Chairman, they no longer have an electronic copy because its in the possession of the fbi. Because it was seized, yep. You have asked the state department to turn that over . We have asked them to turnover anything that maybe federal records. As i mentioned a moment ago they have provided us with a number of disks. Were loading that system and those disks into the Electronic System so then we can first of all have the time periods because there are potential records there prior to when she was sec tory of the state and so we have to. So what number are you up to now . Right now were up to 14,900 dojts that were reviewing in both of the two sames first. Last question and i have exceeded my time. How do i get clintons calendar. Youre arguing that court that cannot get it done. The judge has intervened to force you to get the calendars. How difficult is a calendar . Who is in charge of that by the way. When i know we have 30,000 foia request pending we have a requirement under statue to do what is called historical classification and thats 26 million cases in the last five years im talking about Hillary Clinton calendar. I would like to see as the chairman over the over site committee, i want to see clintons calendars. When can you provide that to me . I will see when will you get back to me by . By tuesday i can giver you an idea of when that information might be available if i might sir, the ap requests was part of a request that were engaged in and another thing is that its a point is that and given the other requests for the foreign relation sir seres, theres simply no way mr. Char man that i can deal with the Government Agency and 275 posts within 30 days. Thats impossible. Eventually i would produce no new documents and not have a foia problem. Theres a few resource time and other issues have to be dealt with here. What were doing is for all of these foia requests my request is not a foia request. We have produced and provided yall with 185,000 pages of documents and we will continue to work with this to provide more. Thank you. I do want to point out that you went over on the time and i pray for equal time, thank you. I want to ask you of the former secretary emails on the aol aaccount. I want to point out that he served between 2001 and 2005 of secretary of the state. During that they were 92 million data breaches at aol. So as secretary powell laid out in his own book here and i have enormous respect for secretary powell, and we remain as a country thankful for his service. I want to point out how were ignoring what rice and powell did and instead the committee has targeted clinton. This worked for me and leadership in Collin Powell. My personal email account on a laptop allowed me direct access to anyone online, so i started to shoot emails to my principal assistants and ambassadors and to my foreign minister colleagues who like me were trying to bring the ministry into the 186,000 mile world and referring to the speed of light i guess this is being done on a completely different private line. Unlike clinton, powell did not print or save out emails. I have a letter that you sent youre wanted all of powells that were not in the record system, is that correct . Yes, sir. That was include the emails on the aol account . Yes, sir. Did secretary powell how many emails did he produce pursuant to the request . Well, he responded that he did not have access anymore to any of those records. He did not have access to them. I have another one and you contacted aol to see if they were on the system, is that correct . Yes, sir. To your knowledge, did powell do that . We never received a response. Okay. I got another letter from you ambassador kennedy dated november 6, 2015 aand you informed the National Archives that secretary powell never contacted aol, isnt that right . Thats correct, sir. Again ambassador kennedy in july of 2015 athey asked the state department to contact aol directly to determine and i quote whether its possible to retrie retrieve the email records that are present. Mr. Kennedy, did you ever contact aol . Our lawyers advised were not a party. Okay. So thats a no. So you have the chief officer asking you to contact aol and youre saying no and the attorneys are saying no. Telling us that we can not make a request for someone elses record. That request has to be made by them. They they told you that there was classified information from the acoucount, did you contactol then. We asked secretary powell to contact aol. You have a responsibility here by virtue of the position. Yeah, we contacted secretary powell. I know this is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000. Just 50,000. So far. Given to this committee to the investigation of secretary clinton. I thought that we said there were about 168,000. Those were thats not we have 23 different requests from this committee. We provided three documents. Great. That the fbi. 50,000 to 3. I they shows you the sided here. Has anyone picked up the phone and called aol . As i said in response to your earlier question, sir. We can not get records of another individual from their provider. I dont get this. This has the archives asking you to contact. You asked secretary powell to contact aol and he did not do that. Now, you remember that secretary powell serve in a critical time. There was information provided about weapons of mass destruction that lead this country to war. There were huge consequences at that time and yet were silent on that and we have thing in the investigation on clinton and this is not how this is supposed to work. I think if were going to do the this and put the secretary of the state and National Leader under the scoop, it should not be just, you know, half and we have this going over here and we have tens of thousands of investigation of secretary of clinton and we have zero. Three documents that you say that you have provided with respect to secretary powell. And i think the leader earlier indicated that this whole attempt was to rip downhill hill and ruin here reputation. Thats what this is about. Were spending look, i did not have to spend any taxpayer money to show that he used a private email system and unclassified system to go on aol that was hacked 92 million times. I did not have to spend taxpayer money to find that. I had to read his book in his own words. Here we are and the only reason that were doing it is because she is running for president of the United States. Thats the plan and god awful truth. Thats what it is about. Its a shame. Its a shame. I yield back. I think that the gentlemen and the letter that we sent in january of this year asked the state department for the current and past four secretary of state and i asked the consent to enter this record dated january 9th into the record. This is the document and i am wond wondering what was the follow up from the folks . Its in complete. We dont have the information yet. On Collin Powell and rice . We asked for the current and past sec torys of the state. I want to know what we have gotten. Let me get that from the staff. Its an appropriate question. Its in complete. We asked for it not of just this current one and of the past one, but the past four. What about aol . I mean what were going after Hillary Clinton its like we have so much power that we would want to get the records to go to aol. First order of business i ask to enter this into the record and without obstructijection, i enter. I want the federal records . All of them. All of them. If we have to use the power of committee, im willing to do that. Do you hear that mr. Kennedy, were going to work with you to get that done. Thank you mr. Ranking member. Can i asked one thing . Sure. In consultation with the four prior secretaries of the state, neither secretary al bright or rice used email. They have certified that to us. And thats my understanding. I would also note that we rely on the Inspector General and theres a report on this and its very frustrating that the Inspector General and in partial and in there to do their job and the only person that refuses to interact is Hillary Clinton. Thats not the fact. She will not cooperate with the Inspector General. Theres one investigation that were conducting relating to whats happening here we have other things that booer doing in a bipartisan way. Theres one investigation. And thats of Hillary Clinton. We were quiet until the fb skpirks when they testified and did not ask the questions, it makes it that theres a job to do. I look forward to working with you to get the records. Yeah, i agree. I dont want it to be a one sided investigation. I hear you. Just of the last comments that he reached out to secretary al bright and secretary rice, secretary rice sir between 2005 and 2009 was into the era of email. Have you checked did she have a personal account . They certify that had they did not use email. I find that hard to believe. I spoke with rice and that was his response. I they he was asking about secretary albright. Now, i recognize the gentlemen from florida. For the record ambassador kennedy, you said that they did not use the two previous did not use email; is that correct . We have no record and have talked to them and to confirm that. Again the way that we got into this folks was that we had legitment investigation and the fact is mr. Finey how long have you been with the position with the state and records zm. Yes, sir, i came to the state department. Real close. What year . Yes, sir, i came to the state department of july 2006. And the fact is that in 2011 actu actually did you go to lang and lang made you aware that she was using a private server . How did you find out that she was using a private server . You asked if she was using a government account and the response came back no. Who told you that . That was told to within the serm and specific person, i cant remember. That goes back some time ago a. Now, you meet with folks and these are the members of congress. We have the same obligation and we have the information and some of that we can not take with us. Youre not supposed to and in fact its against the law. Okay. You met with the secretary staff and did you met with them or the staff . Met with the staff. And what they had the turnover. Did you provide them with that information . Well, first of all who was in the meeting i will have to go back. Okay. Was she there . Again yes. But you told them what the obligation under the law and requirements under the state department are returning information . Yes, sir, myself and the abc records officer. At the time did you mention anything about what was on the private server of business that may have been conducted from and in an official capacity . Again, i had no idea but you told them anything dealing with a Public Information should be part of the state department and documents that you are the cu custodian of and should be turned over to you . We told and we heard the request within when they left. Im told that it took two and a half years before the data dump, is that correct ambassador kennedy . Can you when did you get the first dump of information from the clintons . In december, sir. Of last year. December 2014. But it was some time after they left . Thats correct, sir. Two years after they left. I had two and a half years. Sir, if i may . No, i have a limited amount of time. Were you told that was all of the information. Did anyone say that was all the information that they had in the emails . We were talking of the delivery of 2014 and the 55,000. Was there a transmittal document . Did the document say this is all that we have or everything that we have found . Blooif that its something i would like to see that transmittal document to you. What the fb i can did to the best of my understanding, sir is use forensics my point is that theres a requirement under the law to turnover the documents and this gentlemen is responsible and told them what to do and the terms of if law and the regulations and they were to comply, and they did not. They according to their i want to see the documents and they did not. We have the dumps of information on the testimony that you gave her today. I want to know about the destruction of the hammering of the blackberries. Those were personal blackberries that the secretary owned. That was not federal property. Do you know . Youre the custodian of the property . Sir, im responsible for the records but they have to give over the property. You dont know anything about the hammering of the blackberries and whether theyre personal . I want to know for the record too the staff blackberries that were turned over, and if any of them were not turned over, if they were destroyed too. Mr. Chairman, i request that information. Were reck fliognizing mr. Cummins. I am extremely concerned as i said before because of the classification. We have been being accused of crimes and a lot of it is very significant on what is classified and not classified. I think do you agree with that . I want to ask you on the instances when the experts from different agencies disagree on whether the information is classified. I have an email here dated april 10th 2011 and it was written by someone by the state department and op rageration ce and based on the phone call by Christopher Stephens to libya. Its on the screen. In the first line it says and i get sbu for a special on voi zechbs and what does sbu mean . It means sensitive and unclassified. So this email was specifically marked unclassified, is is that right . Yes, sir. It appears that they considered this information unclassified, is that correct . Thats correct, sir. So anyone reading this is going to assume that it was not classified, is that correct . Thats correct, sir. The problem is that at some point after the email was sent the Intelligence Committee came in and claimed that was classified. The state department sent a letter to the senator corker explain that the Intelligence Committee was wrong. It said someone with intelligence claimed and should have been redacted in secrete. The let er from the state department goes on to say that just as of yesterday the email should have been treated as classified and was surprising and in correct. Ambassador, why was it surprising that someone in the Intelligence Committee claimed that this email was classified . Mr. Ranking member, theres a common discussion and a Common Thread that runs between the state department and the Intelligence Community constantly. Thats called parallel reporting. The state Department Officer in the course of his or he responsibility goes out and talks to people. Receives information, theres no classification attach today that and the Foreign Government did not provide us classified information. It was unclassified information between a state officer and a private citizen and whatsoever. We file that unclassified, sensitive and put it in classified at times. We do not classify it. As this is going on, the Intelligence Community through human intelligence or National Means in affect steals the same information or something close to it and they classify it and theyre classifying it because of the sources and methods involved. So we often see parallel reporting. State department and classified reporting and Intelligence Community reporting talking to the same matter, and therefore you can have the document thats very close. We looked at this carefully and we were surprise and thats why we used that term in the letter because a number of the data point in this email reporting reported ambassador stephens conversation and are different and theyre separate. The problem of the Ranking Member of the parallel reporting is something that we see all of the time. Its a good thing. No government wants to operate on a single thread. Its a bad thing when the fbi can bring the charges against somebody for the exposing documents theyre saying classified that are not. What im saying is that we did not classify them. This is our information in the email that youre referencing mr. Ranking member. This is also information that parallels public press briefings from the nato office in brussels. This is unclassified. If the fbi came to us and said that we want to take this, we would say that this is unclassified and we would certify it as we have. So this gets more confusing because when the fbi issued the report to congress, they told us that this email was classified at the time that it was sent. Did the fbi ask the state department whether they considered this to be classified . I cant give you an answer. I know that awe provided information to the fb skpirks this was one of the documents that we certified as unclassified. Do you have any suggestions on how to go forward with clearing up theres no a i you have people saying its classified and the state saying that its unclassified, what arbitrates it . As i understand it, each agency is the authority over the documents that it produced. The state department produced the department and said that its unclassified and therefore its unclassified. Thank you very much. Mr. Ranking member, since you asked and made reference to the senator, can i ask that be entered . Yeah, i thank you and i forgot to do that. I ask that the letter dated november 24th, 2015 to senator corker be entered into the order. Thank you. Now the gentlemen from ohio mr. Jordan for five minutes . How long have you worked at the state department . A little over 42 years. And youre the guy at the state Department Responsible for the record retention and maintaining the records and all of the records, is that right . I am the senior official, and i have a number of people that assist me in that. You sent a letter to the four former secretaries of the state about records and getting information from those previous secretary of the states, is that accurate . Yes, sir. You sent that yes, sir, they were when did you send that letter . I believe it was sent in july, august 2014. October 2014. Okay. I had october 28, 2014. Why did you send that letter and what prompted you to send that letter to the four previous secretaries of the state . Basically we have been reviewing thousands of pages of documents in response to a number of requests from this Committee Regarding the benghazi temporary semp tear mission attacks, and as we worked through all of the documents and all of the volume of material involved in that process, we noticed that there was a use of a nonstate email address that apparently may have come from secretary clinton. Thats not what we said because of clinton. You said because of the nara concerns. Is that the same difference . Yeah, its the same difference. We saw a potential federal record. So what prompted you was the benghazi request and you were not complying with the nara law, is that right . No, we were looking for documents in response to a request. We saw erred that there might be a federal record from a nonfederal source. Got it. And that trips the requirement between the time of the record act and all of this prompted the request, between the time that you knew that you had the do Something Different and when you sent the letter, did you talk to any of the former secretaries of the state or any of the four . Not to my recollection. Did you communicate with any of them . Not to my recollection. Did you talk to any of them on the subject . I regularly am in the communication one of the responsibilities of the approximaposition is to be in contact with the former secretaries of the state on support issues, so the answer so that is yes. And let me just get specific. So did you talk to cheryl mills from the time that you had to do Something Different and when you sent the letter . I dont remember doing so, sir. You dont remember talking to her at all . I dont remember talking to her about the records . Did you meet with her at all in the time frame . Cheryl mills was and remained beyond the departure of secretary clinton as the representative for haiti and i had you told us in february that you had lunch with her in the time frame and met with her on numerous occasions. Is that accurate . Thats what im saying. You also said between the time that you learned that you needed to do something difference on the record retention you said that you had numerous conversations but youre saying that none of them dealt with the issue . Thats correct. You answered me and said i never tipped her off; is that accurate . Can i im quoting back im not changing my deposition. 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 in the material. That was not brought to my attention much later. This is what i want to get to. The fbi released their report last friday and say on page 15 during the summer of 2014 state indicated and the state department indicated a request for clintons work related emails would be forthcoming and in october of 2014 the state department followed up with the request asking for the work related emails. Now you just said in february when you were under oath and deposed in the committee that you never tipped it off. Somebody tipped her off. During the summer of 2014, she got a heads up that this letter was coming. Do you know who tipped her off . No, i dont. Was it you . Not to the best of my knowledge. Were you interviewed by the fbi . Yes, sir. Were you interview bid the fbi . No, i was not. Mrs. Lang, did you tip Hillary Clinton off . No, sir. Were you interviewed by the fbi . No, sir. Did you tip Hillary Clinton off . No, sir. Were you interview bid the fbi . No, sir. Have you done an investigation kennedy on who tipped her off. This is what this gets to once again Hillary Clinton gets treated differently than anybody else. She got tipped off. I dont think that powell got tipped off. Have you started an investigation on Hillary Clinton . No, i have did not. Any idea who tipped her off . No. Ambassador kennedy, i want to ask you questions on the three emails of that cummings said. If anyone is scoring at home that means that 29,000 produced with no markings whatsoever and are corrected and i want to talk about the manual on how you properly mark a classified document. Executive order 13526 and the order implementing it and to be marked in a certain way. The document must identify the original classify er, correct ambassador kennedy . Yeah, theres an affect for the four line marking. It must identify the agency of the office of origin. Yes, sir. And the reason for the classification . Yes, sir. And it must identify the date for declassification. Yes, sir. And they have to have a banner or header at the top or bottom that say classified along with the level of classification, am i correct with that . Yes, sir. So five different requirements in the manual and then in the three emails that they were testified to had none of the indicators, am i correct with that . Thats correct. Not one of the marking requirements. Thats correct, sir. Okay. The three emails had none of them as a result director sitting where you are testified that it would be reasonable for someone looking at a document with none of those required markings immediately to infer that they were not classified. Are you aware of that testimony . Im aware of it. Do you agree that someone who marks them would reasonably consider such a document without any of these five requirements not classified . I fully agree with the director. Now, state Department Spokesperson john kirby said that the c markings and the one with the lowest level of classification and on the three emails john kirby says that those were in error and not necessary or appropriate at the time that they were sent as an actual email. Is that your understanding as well . Yes, sir. Well, i want to show you one of the emails and its dated august 2, 2012 and the marking and we have that up on the screen for you as well and do you have that ambassador . I do, sir. All right. What they referred to is the c in parentheses and thats the marking that the state Department Said is a mistake. Do you see that . Yes, sir. And then the four to follow. Do you see them . Yes, sir. Each of them say s approximate p skpurks spu and we covered that today. Yes, sir, that mean that is it does not have to be moved in classified channels. So every one of these four paragraphs in the bulk of the email are sensitives but unclassified . Yes, sir. So this email is unclassified and it always has been, hasnt it . Yes, sir. Now, did the fbi consult with you about the classification status of this email . They did not consult with me personally. I know that the state department did provide some in put to the fbi but their desessicisions ar their theyre writings are their writings. When you say who . The fbi. Do you know why the fbi did not consult with you on the classification of this email . I would have to check to see if they consulted with someone nels the state department. I know that they did not consult with me. As you correctly point out the subject line there does classif material in it, nor does the text of the of that. And even the redactions that are there, redaction b5 is a redaction for deliberative process, not for classification. So this document is unclassified. I thank you, ambassador. And i yield back. Thank the gentleman. We now recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. Walberg, for five minutes. Mr. Feeney, 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 . Sir, i couldnt give you the actual date time frame. But i know when we started receiving the actual documents at the state department, thats when i came to realize that she was using another device other than do you recall a january 2009 request for response from secretary clinton . Without looking at the case, i couldnt specifically know. You would identify the fact that you have logs. So if you cant recall it, right here, theres a january 9th of 09 request for information, or correspondence from secretary clinton. So you would be able to go back, whether you recall it right now . Yes, sir, if we received it in the executive secretary, with ecould go back. On the basis of that, did you review email corpse from the secretary in putting together the response to this january 2009 request . No, sir. Because we did not have emails she did not have a state. Gov account so all we could search is our records that we had, sir. So you then as i understand it, you did not realize the extent to which the secretary was using her private email server, and on the basis of that, youre saying you couldnt do anything about it . Again, sir, did not know that she had a server, or the email account that she was using until we received it in the department. Well, how was if this request was made in 2009, how was the department able to close a request for correspondence covering secretary clinton when the department did not have access to all of the email correspondence from the secretary . Again, sir, i would have to see the specific request, see what theyre asking, and see if in fact they were but they did ask, youve got a log of that . Again, sir, i would have to see if we and the executive secretary received it. Because when they come in, they do not come directly to the executive secretary. Now that you know, is the Department Reopening requests that would encompass the secretarys emails that were closed prior to disclosure, that she was using her private server, private emails for conducting official business . Im not able to answer that question, sir, because im only responsible to the executive secretary. Who would be responsible for that . Mr. Kennedy, now that you know it . That is why, congressman, that we have posted all of the 52,000 emails we received on the state departments public website, 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 documents to our public website 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. Wow. So we are at anyone who had made a request, they can now go to our website, and all the 52,000 so we got the requests. Pardon me, sir . We have the request then on the website, thats what youre saying . No, we have the documents on the website. All 52,000 documents are on the website. 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 website, accessible to every member of the public. Mr. Chairman, i think this is the reason for this hearing, isnt it . The sloppiness, the messiness and the ability for the secretary of state to do something that shouldnt have been done. Mr. Feeney, do you recall a request from 2010 that specifically requested emails sent to Hillary Clinton . Not right offhand, sir. As of january 25th, 2011, this request had been marked pending. Given that this request was simply asking for records for emails sent to the secretary, your processing should have, as i understand it, included review of the secretarys inbox. Did that processing take place . Again, sir, ill have to see if in fact the executive secretary actually received the request. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank the gentleman. If you 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. Federal records. Federal records. There was a choice this was not a mistake. A mistake is when you accidently put the letter e at the end of potato. This is a conscious decision to go a different route. If you want to protect yourself and make sure theres not a reclassification problem or something else, then use the dot gov account. Thats why its there. There are two systems at the state department. You cant just take classified information and hit forward. That doesnt work like that. So weve got to get into the depths of this. Thats in part why we have the hearings next week. There 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 federal records in jeopardy and created this mess that these poor people are going to have to clean up for years to come. Ill now recognize mr. Lieu of california. Thank you, mr. Chair. Ambassador kennedy, its true, isnt it that, that the freedom of information act does not apply to members of congress . To the best of my knowledge, sir, thats true. Let me 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 . I believe so, yes, sir. 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 can conduct private business on our private email servers on our private email account. Im not going to say you participated in the hypocrisy of the system. But i want to use the remainder of my time to talk about an issue that actually matters, and that is the slaughter of women and children in yemen. Ambassador, as a principal as adviser of john kerry, the state department started giving assistance to yemen. Are you aware that numerous human rights groups, have documented numerous war crimes being committed by this saudi arabialed military coalition . Congressman, i have seen references to that in the press. But if i might, not in an attempt to avoid your question because i would be glad to arrange for someone to there are six undersecretaries at the state department. Im the undersecretary for management. My rit is rather large. It does not encompass political military activities, Foreign Military assistance i understand. Ill be glad to work with you and as a member of a minority party, i do not get to set the agenda. But i have four state Department Officials here so im going to ask these questions. Are you aware that a report documented at least 33 cases where the Saudi Arabia Coalition with the assistance of the United States targeted and killed civilians, many of them nowhere near military targets . You can answer yes or no. I have not seen that report, sir. Are you aware that just last month this saudi arabialed coalition targeted a school, 18 were injured, some were killed. Are you aware of that . No, sir. Are you aware that this 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 . I think i may have seen that in the newspaper, sir. You would agree with me, wouldnt you, that it is a war crime if you target and kill civilians nowhere near military targets . I am not a lawyer, sir, but obviously the direct and the direct in targeting of civilians without any other justification is certainly not acceptable. Thank you. Youre aware that the United States providing refueling of saudi arabia jets, with support and intelligence and other assistance, correct . I am aware that we are assisting the saudi arab ian forces. And yet theres another sale of billions of dollars to saudi arabia, that the state department noticed when congress was in recess, so we would have very little time to act on it, is that correct . I am not aware of that congressional notification, sir. But i am aware we work with the government of saudi arabia to help combat terrorism in the middle east. 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 . No, sir, i am not a lawyer. Okay. So my recommendation is that you check with the lawyers with the state department and ask them the question, why is the state department looking like it is aiding, abetting the commission of war crimes in yemen. And with that, i yield back. I promise you, sir, that i will arrange for the appropriate senior official of the state department to be in touch with you. 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 were at the point where we may have to step it up a notch. It is the intention of the committee to have the secretary come to answer. Hone those questions and hopefully well have them in the next week or two. Thank you, chair. I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, mr. Gowdy. I had a series of questions for you that i also submitted in writing. I will have to deviate from what i planned to do because of the opening statement. I want to summarize for a secretary. 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 didnt 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 countrys history. You know, secretary clinton told the fbi, and ill concede she says Different Things to the public than she says to the fbi, but she told the fbi that Colin Powells advice had nothing to do with her decision to set up her unique email arrangement with herself. Now, ill say that again in case anybody missed it. Secretary clinton told the fbi under penalty of not telling the truth, that Colin Powells 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 were using your opening to criticize colin powell, to at least point out the person youre trying to defend doesnt 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 of her emails were in the state Department System. Have you heard her say that . Sir, i cant recall. Well, it wont 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 of your emails were in the state Department System . 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 of her emails on your system . Again, sir, the only emails we would have is what has been provided recently, which was the 55,000 that we got. Well, no, im going back before that, mr. Finney. She said you already had them before she gave them to you. You already had 90 to 95 . Was that true . Again, sir, the emails that were looking at, the state. Gov emails, she did not have a state. Gov account. As far as the emails we received from her, it was in the time frame that it was received in that process. She gave this information before she returned them. She said you already had some 90 to 95 of them. Then why werent you complying before . Again, sir, what i have in our system is what was received by a bureau. Let me see if i can put that in South Carolina terms that i can understand. If she said that you already had 90 to 95 of her emails, before she ever returned them, that aint true. Sir, if i may say this. Unless shes talking about the files that were sent to other individuals within the state department, sent to their state. Gov account. How does that capture personaltopersonal emails . And how about the 14,000 that she didnt turn over . Did you have those . Again, sir, what youre talking about here oh, i understand her position. The fact that i didnt keep them doesnt mean that whoever i didnt send them to didnt keep them. I get that. What if its privatetoprivate . How are you supposed to have cindy bloomenthals emails if its privatetoprivate . If you look at what were doing today, in accordance with the federal records act of 2014 that was amended, it requires that if an employee uses their gmail account, or private issued account, theyre required by law to send that email to their state. Gov account. That was a minute in 2014. And that is what im briefing in the state department briefs today. It sounds like it was a couple years too late. But im out of time. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the gentle woman from the virgin islands, miss plaskett. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Good morning to you all. Thank you for being here. I believe that the Ranking Member, and i dont want to get into his head, was pointing out the disparity between the two sergean secretaries, not to absolve secretary clinton from her responsibility. As weve all seen in testimony that shes given, that she has taken full responsibility for her own emails. But to point out the disparity and the bias in this own committee and 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 . No, i do not. And that would be secretary colin powell, would that not . Yes, maam. Those are very interesting emails, i would think, because that would be the two months before he gave testimony on february 5th, 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 its investigating these breaches and these emails because theyre concerned with the lives of americans dont seem to be concerned with the email traffic that went on that precipitated that testimony which led us to war. Theyre not concerned at all with those emails. But theyre concerned with secretary clintons emails. How many emails have you received from secretary colin powell . The only ones that im aware of that are in our possession are the documents that you just handed out. That we received via the fbi and an interchange between secretary clinton and then former secretary powell. Ive got a great one from that exchange which is an email exchange between secretary clinton and former secretary colin powell from january 23rd, 2009. If we can put that up there. And i would ask unanimous consent to submit that into the record. This is two 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 skiff. Ambassador kennedy, can you explain why Diplomatic Security does not permit anyone to bring a blackberry or cell phone, an iphone into a secretarys office of the department . We operate under rules laid out by the then former director of the cia, now the director of the office of national intelligence, and you do not ingest certain documents into a secure compartment information facility, because they may pick up signals and transmit them out. 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 the personal that he used a personal phone line to set up, quote, 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 im 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 foyer requests . We have received no documents from secretary powell. I heard mr. Finney say that theres a directive that if an email is sent from a personal email, thats related to state department matters, it should be sent then to a state Department Email account. 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. Was a paper copy provided from secretary powell . Im aware of no paper copy. No paper copy. And when is this Committee Going to receive that . And when 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 cia in using his mobile device in secure state department spaces. They would not allow them in the secure space, especially up your way. When asked why not, they gave me all kinds of nonsense how they gave out signals and could be read by spies, et cetera. The same reason they tried to keep mobile phones out of the suite. They never satisfied me and nsa, and the cia wouldnt back off. We went about our business and stopped asking. I had an ancient version of the pda, and used it. Mr. Kennedy, were you aware secretary powell used his pda in the skiff . No, i was not. I was not in this position at that time. Are you aware of that now . Im aware of it from having read the email. Would the secretary who was in your position at that time have allowed that to have occurred . He would not have. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to each of you for your testimony. I think part of what my colleague is talking about is a double standard. Certainly if colin powell has emails that belong and should belong to the federal government, the people of this great country, they need to go you need to go after them. You need to request them officially. And you need to get them. Im with her on that. Whether its colin powell or Hillary Clinton, they do not belong to those individuals. They belong to the american people. But lets 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. Isnt that correct, ambassador kennedy. We received a request from the Ranking Member signed by seven members, right . Seven member rule, yeah. So let me ask you how this happens. Because the double standard that im 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. Let me give you some examples. Because in january of this year, the chairman requested information as it related to Hillary Clintons fouryear request and so forth. And it took 40 days to get a performance evaluation on this lane. That was the only response, in 40 days. All right . Do you find that troubling, ambassador kennedy . No. You dont find that troubling . No, sir. If i could no, just thats good enough. Youve responded. So you dont 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. Youve got a full response to him. In less than 30 days. Isnt that correct . The difference is, you asked i didnt ask for the difference. You asked for one document. All right. Well go there. Its easy to find one document. Theres 186,000 documents fair enough, ambassador kennedy. Lets go to the specifics. On september 2nd, you get a letter from the Ranking Member asking for Colin Powells emails between he and Hillary Clinton i mean, between Hillary Clinton and colin powell, the supposedly sevenmember requests on september the 2nd, and five days later he gets the emails. Do you find that extraordinarily fast in that there was a fouryear request for that same information thats been outstanding since 2014 . So the public asked for it in 2014. The rarnking member asked for i five days ago, and you got it to him before this hearing, do you not see a double standard there . I see two things, congressman. One is, we did this is part of the material we just received from the fbi. So we did not have it until so there were the fouryear request, you sent this information to the person who requested the foia as well . I would have to find out heres the interesting other aspect. You made a caution, and i quote, the department has concerns about the public release of these documents. Foia markings and re dak shons reflected the fact that the documents are still being processed for foia and have undergone an initial re vie, however, the preparation of these documents for the public release has not yet been completed, but yet they released them. Do you not see a problem with that . Mr. Meadows, we try to the best of our ability to respond to committees of congress. There is a priority but it is with unbelievable speed when it fits the narrative that you want heres my request of you, ambassador. Ive got two. The chairman asked for a very simple request thats been outstanding for the a. P. About a calendar. Can you respond in the same length of time that you responded to the Ranking Member in five days . The answer to that, sir, is whether or not there is any information that we have to call on those calendars. Youve been looking at it since 2010 for the a. P. I would think eventually you would be able to do it in five days. Sir heres the last one because im 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 the state department . It has to be one or the other, either you or Hillary Rodham clinton. Two years later im 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 . Ill yield back. Wed like you to answer the question. The answer is, sir, that i do not recall the question from you, and therefore, i humbly apologize. I will get you an answer. My general recollection is there was a decision made governmentwide not to public documents. Not to public bonuses. Mr. Chairman, to clarify, there is only one of two people who could have made that decision, either you or Hillary Rodham clinton. Who was it . Thats what i want to know. It definitely wasnt secretary clinton. That kind of decision wait a second, you said you said you dont know, but you know it wasnt her. Because i would never send an issue of that nature to the secretary of state, because the secretary of state, no matter whether its george schultz, colin powell or Hillary Rodham clinton or john kerry, does not need to deal with an issue of that stature. All right. Thank you. I now recognize the gentle woman from the district of columbia, mr. Norton. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The words government reform are in the title of this committee. So i grow weary when we play gotcha all the time. 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. Im 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. 2,000 were later determined to be classified. Heres the danger i see in that. This is after the fact after the fact classification. We always complain about overclassification. But this isnt that, its after the fact, this is something that should be secret, so it shouldnt be shared. But by that time, who knows how many people have had it shared with them. So im trying to come to grips with after the fact classification. Do you see a systemic problem when so many members, 2,000, thats a large number there, they would be Senior Foreign Service members, could have been writing information they believed to be unclassified, just to be overturned, god knows when, by foia, in which case everybody would say, oops, i just didnt know. Now 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 dont share them, because theyre subject to be i being reclassified as classified . Congresswoman, youve posed a very, very salient question. If i could address it in 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. F. You mean all of that wouldnt be classified . Not all of it would be classified. Many 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 loss of life, im not familiar with that standard. What about loss of face . Thats what im getting to. Maam, this information is given to us, and we treat it as sensitive, but unclassified. Sensitive, does that mean dont share this information. It could be classified later . Its Sensitive Information because it was received often from a foreign source. And were only talking about are we only talking about foreign source, where all 2,000 foreign source . To the best we did a little calculation. And its rough. 2,000 of the 2,100 emails are confidential. We believe that 70 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 we have asked for the ability to declare that material restricted, so we do not have to release it to the public. Because as you rightly pointed out, maam, it can be an embarrassment. A Foreign Government gives us so sensitive versus restricted, whats the difference . The restricted means we would have the authority under the foia to not provide that information to the public. Does that mean subject to possible classification . No, it just means that it would be exempt from foia. And the reason why we have to retroactively yeah, im worried about there being we have to retroactively classify it. 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 dont 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 available to congress, but because of the sensitive nature of the Foreign Government exchange you all realize that a foia request doesnt only go to american citizens. Anybody can make this is very important as far as im concerned. So the reform here i would take it that what youre doing, youre being forced to use the classification label. Exactly. We need the authority to have a Foreign Government information exemption, and we have asked for that would this require a statutory change . It does require a statutory change. Mr. Chairman, please note that. Because i do think thats important. Im not sure the committee knew that. The testimony is important for me. And i think it comes out, i think at a good time, when were trying to find out not only what happened, but what to do about it. Let me ask you finally, have you directed these 1,000 people to do anything about, like for example, deleting this classified information . Remember, retroactively classified from their systems . Have you asked them since its now classified, to make sure its gone from your system . And indeed, what can you do about it if its retroactive . We take certain steps with the highly classified. But for the fgi material we have not taken that step. Dont you think you should . Because those are within our system. And we you mean those cannot be shared anyway. We have now marked them so that were not going to be releasing could they be deleted or not . We would not delete them. We would transfer them to another system. Because we do not delete federal records. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thats a good takeaway. I appreciate ambassador your sharing that perspective and driving that home with us. Thank you again. Well now recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. Hice, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador jacobs, when responding to a foia request, who in the state department is responsible for determining what is redacted . 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. Who is the lead person . Where does the buck stop . Its a number of people who are trained and skilled in the foia law who do this. Theres not one particular person. Could you provide the names of those individuals for us . I can. Okay. Is there a specific criteria that they use to determine what is redacted and whats not . Yes, sir, its basically the foia law, the exemptions that exist under the foia law. When responding to a request from congress, who is responsible for determining what is redacted . 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. Im 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 . 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. Do you know what those different procedures are . Thats my question. Im not exactly sure of all of them. Id have to get back to you, sir. Would you get back with me and clarify that issue . I will do that. You have been really in charge in your role as transparency coordinator of the state department, do you believe the state department is being transparent . Yes, i do. I think to the best of our ability, we are committed to openness especially under foia to releasing whatever we can. Okay. But the question goes beyond foia. It goes to congressional requests as well. Its extremely frustrating you know, just for example, i notice with the fbi they just released a 58page summary to the public, publicly released the other day. Scanning through it, in fact, i have a copy of it right here. 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 dont believe, with anyone. But the current process seems so arbitrary, and just all over the map, where and how redactions take place. And frankly, this is a an issue that goes across the entire executive branch. And the questions out there are multiple. Im looking right now with the summary that came out the other day, mrs. Clintons birthday is redacted. What is the potential National Security threat in that . You can go on wikipedia and find it. In fact, i did. Congressman no, sir if i could just im not asking you a question right now. Im expressing frustration in the whole process. You know, the very next sentence, it mentions ms. Clintons 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 im 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 were not given the requested information that we need to do our job, or when what is received is so redacted, its difficult to determine what has been really given us and whats not being given. So mr. Chairman, i think any reasonable person would frequently look at the material, whether its 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. Ambassador jacobs, this raises a question of transparency of state, as well as other departments. And so mr. Chairman, i would just i hope that we cannot only get the material that weve requested, all of it, but i hope also that transparency can occur. It is america that is suffering when were not allowed to do the job that weve been tasked to do here in oversight. And with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Before i yield to the gentleman, ambassador jacobs, youre heading up the transparency youre the transparency coordinator. What do you believe congress should not be able to see . Sir, thank you for the question. I am not completely familiar with all of the agreements and arrangements that we have. Why should there be any agreements and arrangements . What could congress not see . You were brought in by secretary kerry, right, to be the transparency person, right . Yes. Youre a champion of transparency. What is it that congress should not be able to see . 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 give me an example. Youve been in Foreign Service for 33 years. Give me an example of something that i as the chairman of the oversight committee, or mr. Hice, should not be able to see . Highly classified compartmented information perhaps, if you dont have the proper clearance. S. A. P. Information . I assume so. Unless you have the proper clearance. What else . Information related to privacy, you know, personally identifiable information no, got that one wrong. Sorry. Were not congress is exempt from the privacy act. So try again. What else . Sir, i really believe that you should have access to whatever information but when you get this thing, its sent to us and its chockfull of redactions, why . Are you referring to no, we dont need the whispering here. You dont need to whisper in her ear and tell her what the right answer wa. The question was whether this was information from the fbi or from the state department. From the state department. What i can do is offer to come up and youre here right now. I understand, sir. But this is ambassador kennedy, youve probably got the most experience here. Give me an example, what is it that congress should not see . I think that not every member of the Congressional Staff should be entitled to i didnt ask about the staff, i said members of congress. Then, mr. Chairman, the only thing that i believe is valid is executive internal executive branch deliberations leading to a decision. And that that is a prerogative of the congress to have its deliberations secret. And its 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 before an executive Branch Decision was made, sir. The president can claim executive privilege. Theres a process to do that where the president actually has to sign a document invoking that executive privilege. Mr. Cummings . Just real quick. Im just curious about something mr. Hice just asked. Why would a birthday be redacted . Im just curious. You were trying to answer it. I was just i wonder what you would say. 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. Im 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. The privacy act does not apply to congress. What youre doing is youre conflating foia with congressional requests. We have a skiff. We deal with classified information. Weve exhausted this for right now. Lets now recognize the jegentl woman from new york, miss malone. 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 it unclassified, calls it unclassified at the top, and at the bottom, and yet the fbi called it classified. Now, theres 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. Its 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 departments Foreign Affairs manual, it clearly says sensitive but unclassified information is, and i quote, 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, at the obama, and four other times in the body of the document, would you think the document is unclassified . I think the document is unclassified, but, congresswoman, if i received a foia request and the text contained Foreign Government information that had been shared with us in confidence, i would not wish it releasable we heard that. We heard that. That is the underpinning of our discussion, maam. We heard that. The chairman hears it. Were 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 received a document thats marked unclassified, unclassified, unclassified, and then the fbi comes in and says, oh, its 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 receive this memo, we would think its unclassified. Because thats what its 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. If i could, i 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 exempt. We heard what you said. But my point that i am making right now, although thats 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. I fully agree with you. I feel that that is really outrageous. I would say its an abuse of power, its wrong, and it needs to be changed. And we are the government reform committee. We should start working on it right now. It is explicitly designated lets see, one, two, three, four, five, six places as unclassified. And now the fbi is saying that its 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 havent you reformed this before . Because we have 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 all right. But clearly, right now, it is marked as classified by the fbi, the state department is marking it unclassified. No, no, we the state department was forced was forced to mark this classified in order to preclude public release. But sir, my point is, it is marked one, two, three, four, five, six times as unclassified. If i was working for secretary clinton, i would have handed her this document and said, madam secretary, it is marked unclassified. See, its unclassified, unclassified, unclassified. And now because of this quirk which needs to be corrected, its now a, quote, criminal activity. 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 an abuse. I fully agree with you, and that is why it is a flawed system that claims this is gentle woman its wrong. Gentle womans time is expired. May i finish . Lets move on. You asked for unanimous consent. Without objection, so ordered, that will be entered into the record. Lets recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much. Secretary clinton said she only had convenience in mind when choosing to use a personal email account. Has this been convenient for state to respond to the fbi . Im sorry, i dont quite understand the question. Was it convenient because of secretary clintons 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 quirly because she did this . We would have had to review her documents for public release under foia, whether or not she had used one server or another server. So how did secretary clintons 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 file from outlook . How did they come to the state department . We received approximately 55,000 pages in hard copy, sir. So the fact that she didnt they werent on any of your servers, they came on hard copies, so you had to scan them, i guess . We have a system that we use for processing documents. But 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 . If they had been if they had been available to us electronically, we would not have had to scan them, yes, sir. And the state department uses something called smartt. Can you tell me about the state messaging archive and retrieval tool set . Yes, smartt is a tool that we had developed. It was an early attempt to come up with a system that would make archiving and retrieval easier. 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 smartt, because it didnt it was good, but it was not successful. Now, because secretary clintons emails were not on smartt, it ended up taking more time, being less convenient, and was more expensive, is that not correct . No, sir. The executive secretary did not adopt smartt and did not adopt it before secretary clintons tenure. So the decision of not having her emails her emails would not have been on smartt, even if they were in our system because of the inadequacies of the smartt system. And that was not her choice, it was the previous executive secretaryiat. Lets go to ambassador jacobs. We 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 . It sounds like yalls budget has gone up, your production has gone down. It seems like were in a loselose position right now. 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, the end of this year, december 31st, 2016. To do that, we are first of all you heard earlier about the capstone approach, which was approved for capturing i get it. Im out of time. Where are you all in implementing . When is this going to get better . We are, sir, we are going to meet the december 2016 deadline, im happy to say. We are capturing all those emails, were going to capture the emails of other people, and were acquiring new technology that will allow us to search such email. Finally, have we learned a lesson that we wont let future secretaries of state or high ranking officials use private servers . Sir, we have taken several measures to make sure that that happens. Do you agree with that, ambassador kennedy . Absolutely, sir. I yield back the remainder of my time. Could i make one other point, youre absolutely correct, sir, weave managed to squeeze additional funds and place them in foia, including for some of the equipment that ambassador jacobs is talking about. However, as we have been increasing the budget, the demand is up over 200 . We are now receiving 30,000 foia we have 30,000 foia requests pending. The number of people asking for material keeps going up. That is another reason why we are very committed to getting this done. Its 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 Nations Capital and our government is a good thing. If the gentleman yields back, ill point out, though, in 2008 the state department was spending 400,000 in lawsuits. Now theyre spending about 4 million in lawsuits. So it is duplicitous to say were trying to save hey, were trying to open up the openness and transparency in the same time youre in federal court arguing not to release information thats open to the public. Mr. Chairman no, were going to recognize mr. Russell for five minutes. Thank you, all four of you, for being here today. We appreciate your long service to our country. Ambassador kennedy, do you believe that congress has a responsibility to hold the government accountable . Absolutely. Okay. Do you believe that Government Agencies should withhold information from gross, either classified or handled secretly in our classified vaults or unclassified information that would be handled by our committees . I am not in control of special but its important that someone with your dedicated decades of service, ambassadorial level, you have handled a lot of classified information. I am always prepared to share classified information with congress. We appreciate that. I note that under the rules of house and senate, its 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. So i cannot jump over house and senate rules. And i think were all in violent agreement on that. But it is important that those select committees have information. If what ive read in the vaults regarding mrs. Clintons mishandling of classified information were known to the american people, as ive been in the vaults to peruse them, the American Public would be absolutely appalled. But we cant 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 her attorneys, were now seeing a typical play, admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations. 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 im 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 . I am not aware, sir. Okay. Of secretary powells what secretary powell or did not do with his private is secretary powell or his proxies use bleaching software to erase any trace of federal records on separate servers after they had been requested . I am not aware of secretary powells practice im not either. As to classified information, well, did secretary powell keep or provide private servers for any email communication . I know that secretary powell not a private email account like yahoo . Were talking about private servers. I do not see a i dont either. I think were in the same conclusions. As to classified information. How is it that the department of states 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 a secretary of state . How is that possible . To answer that question, sir, we would have to be in another forum. And we will, so well get to ask it again. 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 . It is not, sir. But i have seen in all the material that i have reviewed, no evidence, nor did the Inspector General or the find that the secretary of state did so. We will have in the classified setting further questions to ask. This is what is exasperating. Since 1814, we the people empowered the government, which we draw our power from the consent of the governed, to uphold the constitution of the United States. Ive been doing it 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. Yet we play these delay games, admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations, so that the clock will run out. Oversight is infinitely important and we must provide information. With that, mr. Chairman, i will yield back. May i respond, sir . No. Weve got to keep the pace going here. Well now recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. Palmer. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador kennedy, a foia requires, according to the office of the inspector, a foia requires a response within 20 days. The secretary of States Office on multiple occasions has taken more than 500 days to respond. While the response of federal agencies across the government is 20. 5 days, the state departments average is 91 days. For a complex request, the governmentwide 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 . Sir, obviously we want to go faster. 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. We have gone from some 64 people to 93, and depending on the budget for fy 17, ill do you prioritize requests . For instance, when you received a request for producing a calendar, is that a simple or a complex case . We in order to in order to be responsive to the freedom of information act as we interpret it, we use fifo. First in, first out. Would this have benefitted the information request for the calendars . If we request the calendars, how along will it take to produce the calendars . There are two separate strains. There is congressional document requests and requests under the freedom of information act or privacy act. One are public requests, one from the congress. And as i responded earlier to the chairman, we will engage as soon as i get back this afternoon on the