State Department Says 30-Odd Hillary Clinton Emails Could Be Linked to Benghazi Messages were among the 15,000 emails turned over by the FBIBy Byron Tau
http://www.wsj.com/articles/state-department-says-30-odd-hillary-clinton-emails-could-be-linked-to-benghazi-1472594844
WASHINGTON—The State Department said Tuesday it has found approximately 30 emails from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s account that could be related to the 2012 attacks on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya.
The new documents were found among the roughly 15,000 emails forensically recovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Mrs. Clinton’s personal email server as part of its investigation into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information.
Those emails were turned over to the State Department in the wake of the FBI probe, which resulted in no charges against Mrs. Clinton earlier this year. The messages are expected to be made public in the coming months.
The State Department couldn’t say how many of the 30-odd emails previously have been made public, raising the possibility that some were among the 55,000 pages of emails already provided to the State Department by Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys and released to the public. The department also couldn’t say with any certainty that the identified messages were related to the Benghazi attacks.
“Using broad search terms, we have identified approximately 30 documents potentially responsive to a Benghazi-related request. At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive, or whether they are duplicates of materials already provided to the Department by former Secretary Clinton in December 2014,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby.
The release of previously unseen emails concerning the 2012 attacks could revive a controversy that has shadowed Mrs. Clinton’s quest for the White House.
The September 11, 2012, attacks resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department information officer Sean Smith, as well as two Central Intelligence Agency contractors, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The attacks and their aftermath have become the subject of intense political debate, with Mrs. Clinton’s Republican critics accusing her of failing to recognize the volatile security situation in Libya and of misleading the public about terrorists’ complicity in the assault.
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