SECRETARY
CLINTON EMAIL
ANALYSIS
www.g-a-i.org | Secretary Clinton Email Analysis 1
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...... 3 Email Yearly Totals ...... 4 Event Driven Email Patterns ...... 7 The Rosatom Question ...... 12 Email Word Searches ...... 14 Conclusion ...... 16
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Executive Summary
Research by the Government Accountability Institute shows that Secretary Clinton’s email record contains anomalous patterns in her email history. Among the findings are: • The term “Rosatom,” the term for the Russian State Nuclear Agency, only appears once. This is particularly interesting given that Rosatom acquired 20% of US uranium production during the tenure of Secretary Clinton.1 • Secretary Clinton’s email often seems to be event-driven and can be mapped to similar events seen in State Department cables. However, there are notable exceptions to this, particularly around Rosatom’s acquisition of uranium. • Clinton’s email records contain a notable gap during which Clinton was negotiating a nuclear deal with the state of India. • In two other instances, Clinton sent nor received no emails as a result of her server going down during a natural disaster. • The name “Max Blumenthal” appears 37 times. • The name “Bill Clinton” appears 311 times. • The phrase “Islamic Extremism” appears 19 times. • The word “yoga” appears 7 times. • The name “Giustra” appears 0 times.
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Email Yearly Totals
Clinton often points to the fact that as America’s chief diplomat for four years, she travelled 956,733 miles. Being on the road so much meant that email must have been a lifeline for communication. Based on the emails released, Hillary sent or received an average of 21 emails per day during her tenure. Daily email traffic is graphed below by year.
2009
100
80
60
40
20
0 3/18/09 4/18/09 5/18/09 6/18/09 7/18/09 8/18/09 9/18/09 10/18/09 11/18/09 12/18/09
2010
100
80
60
40
20
0 1/1/10 2/1/10 3/1/10 4/1/10 5/1/10 6/1/10 7/1/10 8/1/10 9/1/10 10/1/10 11/1/10 12/1/10
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2011
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1/1/11 2/1/11 3/1/11 4/1/11 5/1/11 6/1/11 7/1/11 8/1/11 9/1/11 10/1/11 11/1/11 12/1/11
2012
100
80
60
40
20
0 1/1/12 2/1/12 3/1/12 4/1/12 5/1/12 6/1/12 7/1/12 8/1/12 9/1/12 10/1/12 11/1/12 12/1/12
On numerous foreign trips she received or sent dozens of work emails. But there are large and odd gaps in the email record. For example, from July 17-23, 2009, Clinton had a high profile visit to India and Thailand.2 She not only issued a pivotal joint statement with the Indian government on nuclear technology, she also met with Indian billionaires at the start of her visit. On July 22, she met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Thailand to discuss arms control.3 And yet, according to what she claims is her complete email record released by
www.g-a-i.org | Secretary Clinton Email Analysis 5 the State Department, on July 18th, 20th, and 23rd of this trip she did not send or receive a single email that was deemed work-related.
July 17-23, 2009 Travel
80
60
40
20
0 7/7/09 7/8/09 7/9/09 7/10/09 7/11/09 7/12/09 7/13/09 7/14/09 7/15/09 7/16/09 7/17/09 7/18/09 7/19/09 7/20/09 7/21/09 7/22/09 7/23/09 7/24/09 7/25/09 7/26/09 7/27/09 7/28/09 7/29/09 7/30/09 7/31/09
Could it be that Team Clinton avoided emails while she was traveling as a security precaution? Her pattern during other travels does not support that explanation. During her 2010 visit to Ukraine on July 1-2, for example, she sent and received 38 emails. During her June 27-29, 2012, visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, she sent and received 40 emails.
Could it be that her Blackberry didn’t work in certain countries? No. The server back in Chappaqua, New York would still receive emails whether the Blackberry was connected or not. Short of the server going down—for which there is no evidence---there is no plausible explanation for this gap.
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Event-Driven Email Patterns
There are other curious anomalies. The email traffic for the secretary of state seems for the most part to be event-driven. For example, during Muammar al- Qaddafi’s removal from power in Libya, on August 22, 2011, Clinton received 133 work-related emails, way more than average. However, there are some important events with virtually no corresponding email traffic. One useful approach in determining what emails might be missing is to overlay the Clinton emails with State Department cables that were released via WikiLeaks.4 As one might expect, the volume of cables and emails about specific events tend to rise and fall together. (Obviously we cannot account for those emails that were redacted prior to their public release.) Consider these examples: the earthquake and rebuilding of Haiti, the Copenhagen climate treaty, the military coup in Honduras, and diplomatic matters concerning the Lisbon Treaty. As we demonstrate below, the number of State Department cables and Clinton emails either sent or received that mention these matters rise and fall together.
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Haiti Analysis
Cables Email
600
500
400
300
200
100
0 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2010 ------01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02
5
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Copenhagen Climate Analysis
Cables Email
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2010 ------01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02
6
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Zelaya Analysis
Cables Email
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2010 ------01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02
7
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Lisbon Treaty Analysis
Cables Email
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2010 ------01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02
8
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The Rosatom Question
But then there are instances where the State Department cable traffic rises and there are few if any Clinton emails released for that time period. Consider the case of Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Agency, where an interesting gap emerges. Clinton and senior officials at the State Department received dozens of cables on the subject of Rosatom’s activities around the world, including an alarming cable about Russian efforts to dominate the uranium market. As Secretary of State, Clinton was a central player in a variety of diplomatic initiatives involving Rosatom officials.9 But strangely, there is a glaring discrepancy between the volume of cables and the volume of emails on the matter. Indeed, there is but one email that mentions Rosatom in Clinton’s entire collection. And it’s an innocuous email about Rosatom’s activities in Ecuador.10 To put that into perspective, there are more mentions of LeBron James, yoga, and NBC’s Saturday Night Live than the Russian Nuclear Agency in Clinton’s emails deemed “official.”
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Rosatom-Armz
Cables Email
25
20
15
10
5
0 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2010 ------01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02
11
What explains this lack of emails on the Russian Nuclear Agency? Were her aides negligent in passing along unimportant information while ignoring the far more troubling matters concerning Rosatom? Possibly. Or, were emails on this subject deleted? It certainly raises questions. Remember that a major deal involving Rosatom that was of vital concern to Clinton Foundation donors took place in 2009 and 2010. Rosatom bought a small Canadian uranium company
www.g-a-i.org | Secretary Clinton Email Analysis 13 owned by nine investors who were to become major Clinton Foundation donors, sending $145 million in contributions. The Rosatom deal required approval from several departments, including the State Department.12
Email Word Searches
Using a word search, scanning through the Clinton released emails shows a wide variety of subjects discussed. But some terms or words one might expect to appear widely in correspondence involving the Secretary of State occur infrequently.
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Search Terms Search Results Libya 1620 Afghanistan 1540 Iran 1378 Israel 1362 China 1288 Iraq 1099 Haiti 1033 POTUS 809 Japan 468 Al Qaeda 381 Bill Clinton 311 Burma 262 polls 226 polling 222 Bangladesh 169 South Korea 146 vacation 142 Congo 132 Leon Panetta 128 sick 126 Robert Gates 121 restaurant 120 Joe Biden 115 Putin 113 Ukraine 112 CGI 111 Aung San Suu Kyi 89 Clinton Global Initiative 42 Max Blumenthal 37 Clinton Foundation 27 pollution 27 wine 23 Shanghai Expo 21 Islamic Extremism 19 Lewinsky 16 FLOTUS 14 hip hop 9 Marc Mezvinsky 7 yoga 6 OMF 6 LeBron James 5 Tony Rodham 4 Donald Trump 4 Saturday Night Live 3 weight loss 2 James Taylor 2 Grateful Dead 2 Beyonce 1 Rosatom 1 Giustra 0
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Conclusion
Hillary Clinton and her team claim the only emails that were deleted pertained to personal matters, or as she put it, “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.”13 But the system by which this sorting took place seems arbitrary, and was undertaken by Clinton lawyers. Keep in mind that Clinton’s lawyers have used a more expansive term to describe what was deleted. They called them “private, personal records.”14 By this definition, “private, personal records” could involve communications related to the Clinton Foundation or Bill’s commercial activities. In short, Team Clinton got to define what “private” means.
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1 Becker, Jo, and Mike Mcintire. "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal." New York Times. April 23, 2015. Accessed June 30, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed- for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0.
2 "Hillary Rodham Clinton." - Travels of the President. Accessed June 29, 2016. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/secretary/clinton-hillary-rodham.
3 "Lavrov, Clinton to Meet Wednesday in Thailand." Lavrov, Clinton to Meet Wednesday in Thailand. July 21, 2009. Accessed June 29, 2016. http://sputniknews.com/russia/20090721/155575371.html.
4 "Public Library of US Diplomacy." Full-text Search. Accessed June 30, 2016. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/?qproject%5B%5D=cg&q=#result.
5 The results reproduced in the graph were obtained by performing a partial word search of “Haiti” on both the Clinton emails released by the State Department and cables released by Wikileaks. The total number of documents obtained by the search were counted by month and used to make the graph.
6 The results reproduced in the graph were obtained by performing a partial word search of “Copenhagen” and “Climate” on both the Clinton emails released by the State Department and cables released by Wikileaks. Both words were required to be in the documents counted. The total number of documents obtained by the search were counted by month and used to make the graph.
7 The results reproduced in the graph were obtained by performing a partial word search of “Zelaya” on both the Clinton emails released by the State Department and cables released by Wikileaks. The total number of documents obtained by the search were counted by month and used to make the graph.
8 The results reproduced in the graph were obtained by performing a partial word search of “Lisbon Treaty” on both the Clinton emails released by the State Department and cables released by Wikileaks. The full phrase was required to be in the documents counted. The total number of documents obtained by the search were counted by month and used to make the graph.
9 "FACT SHEET: U.S. - Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission." The White House. July 06, 2009. Accessed June 29, 2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-us- russia-bilateral-presidential-commission.
"U.S., Russia Reaffirm Commitment to Dispose of Enough Plutonium for 17,000 Nuclear Weapons | National Nuclear Security Administration." NNSA. July 13, 2011. Accessed June 29, 2016. https://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/pressreleases/pmda.
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10 "Russia to Help Ecuardor Develop Nuclear Energy." WikiLeaks. Accessed June 29, 2016. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/14497.
11 The results reproduced in the graph were obtained by performing a partial word search of “Rosatom” on both the Clinton emails released by the State Department and cables released by Wikileaks. The total number of documents obtained by the search were counted by month and used to make the graph.
12 Becker, Jo, and Mike Mcintire. "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal." New York Times. April 23, 2015. Accessed May 22, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed- for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0.
13 Schmidt, Michael S. "Questions Regarding Hillary Clinton's Personal Email Use." New York Times. March 09, 2015. Accessed June 29, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/10/us/politics/11hillary-clinton- questions.html?_r=0.
14 Walshe, Shushannah, and Liz Kreutz. "Hillary Clinton's Deleted Emails Were Individually Reviewed After All, Spokesman Says." ABC News. March 15, 2015. Accessed June 29, 2016. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clintons-deleted-emails-individually-reviewed- spokesman/story?id=29654638.
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