Clinton circle talks Arkansas in emails

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of pages of emails from 2009 and 2010 show insights into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle, including notes about Arkansas acquaintances, gossip about American politics and occasional mentions of her husband's nonprofit foundation.

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http://www.arkansas…">Clinton emails note vulnerability

The State Department released 7,121 pages online Monday night. For months, critics have questioned whether the emails contain information that Clinton, now a Democratic candidate for president, knew was classified.

In total, the State Department has now released 13,269 pages of Clinton's emails that were stored on an unsecured, private server rather than internally at the State Department. Clinton provided the department about 30,000 pages of emails she classified as work-related late last year, while deleting a similar amount because she said they were personal.

The department initially said Monday that it had redacted information from roughly 150 emails containing sensitive information, then reduced that estimate to 125. The information was deleted because "confidential" materials had been discovered in the correspondence, though none of the documents were marked classified at the time they were sent.

Emails released Monday detail Clinton's interest in staying up to date on politics, keeping an eye particularly on President Barack Obama's White House. Aides sent her multiple articles detailing rumors about staff changes or the president's popularity.

A Sept. 19, 2010, memo about how the outcome of the midterm congressional election would affect executive branch agencies included a list of likely winners, including John Boozman, a Republican who ousted Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat, from an Arkansas U.S. Senate seat in November of that year.

Old friends and colleagues from Arkansas pop up repeatedly.

On Feb. 15, 2010, longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal forwarded Clinton a copy of an Arkansas Times article about the death of state Supreme Court Justice Jim Johnson, a segregationist who had clashed repeatedly with former President Bill Clinton.

"What a sad ending to the tale," Clinton responded.

Blumenthal replied, "Unfortunately, the evil Justice Jim did lives on -- in the wild bigotry against Obama and even through the Supreme Court decision in the case of Citizens United, a group he helped galvanize to circulate the Whitewater hoax."

A March 24, 2010, email requesting that a phone call be set up between the secretary and former White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty starts with a hat tip to Clinton's work on health care in the mid-1990s.

"Good morning on a consequential and indeed historic week in the life of our country given the passage of health care reform. President Obama was courageous, persevering and skilled in his leadership and efforts. Having said that, in my humble opinion, he would not have been successful had it not been for President Clinton's, Hillary's and our efforts in 1994. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, and I believe it's true," McLarty wrote.

On May 7, 2010, a PHays of North Little Rock, who appears to be North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays, thanked Clinton through Cheryl Mills for appointing Reta Jo Lewis as Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs, a position created by Clinton to coordinate between U.S. international efforts and local governments.

"ps. Local Government, WORLDWIDE, was a big winner with Reta Jo today, and didn't even realize it, thanks. pss. But a few of us did!!!!" the email states.

Among the emails is a March 15, 2010, letter from State Department Senior Historian John Carland about an Arkansan with a terminal illness, whose name has been redacted. Carland said in the email that he is from Little Rock.

Some of the emails touch on Clinton's ongoing ties with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation, particularly the recovery work the foundation did in Haiti after the Caribbean island nation was struck by an earthquake in January 2010.

Responding to emails in the days after the earthquake about rebuilding schools, Clinton wrote, "Great ideas (no surprise). Let's work toward solid proposal maybe to Red Cross and Clinton Foundation since they have unencumbered [money]."

Later, when Bill Clinton was leading relief efforts in Haiti, their daughter Chelsea Clinton wrote a memo to "Dad, Mom," warning that relief efforts weren't going far enough.

"To say I was profoundly disturbed by what I saw -- and didn't see -- would be an understatement," she wrote in the undated memo. "The incompetence is mind numbing."

Many of the emails are mundane, arranging phone calls and meetings or forwarding news articles. A Dec. 15, 2009, email with the subject line "Don't Laugh!!" from Clinton to U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall, a longtime friend and aide, asks about getting photos of the carpets in a room Clinton saw on a trip to China.

"I loved their designs and the way they appeared carved. Any chance we can get this?" Clinton wrote.

In a series of Dec. 29, 2010, emails, Clinton and several aides discuss an article about a bank robber who wore a Hillary Clinton mask while committing the crime.

"She does, uh, have an alibi, I presume?" Clinton's lawyer David Kendall asks longtime aide Cheryl Mills, who replies "One never knows...."

Clinton responded to both the next day, saying:

"Should I be flattered? Even a little bit? And, as for my alibi, well, let's just say it depends on the snow and the secret service. So, subject to cross for sure. Do you think there could be copycats? Do you think the guy chose that mask or just picked up the nearest one? Please keep me informed as the case unfolds--"

Metro on 09/02/2015

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