The State Department dumped a new batch of thousands of Hillary Clinton emails today. Here are a few that jumped out:
1. She really wanted to respond to Ben Affleck
And, as we see, Ben Affleck was able to contact Hillary directly (as we learned in the recent Benghazi hearing, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens did not have her contact info). In the later email chain, Clinton gets persistent with her staff about seeing a draft of a response by the close of business, because she really wanted to respond to Affleck about the Congo that day.
2. She was really happy to get Sid’s advice
In the recent Benghazi hearing, Clinton was grilled extensively about her adviser relationship with longtime confidante Sid Blumenthal, but brushed off his advice memos marked “confidential” as just another piece of counsel that she could take or leave.
“I think it’s important that we separate out the fact that Mr. Blumenthal was not my adviser. He was not an official of the United States government. He was not passing on official information. He, like a number of my friends who would hand me a newspaper article, would buttonhole me at a reception and say ‘what about this’ or ‘what about that’ — were trying to be helpful. Some of it was. A lot of it wasn’t,” Clinton said.
3. She jokes about ‘neocon monitoring’ when email screws up
Because the worst thing of all is when you can’t get in touch with Sid Blumenthal, the guys whose advice you can take or leave.
In another April 2012 email exchange with senior adviser Philippe Reines, Clinton had another important tech question about her new BlackBerry: “Here’s my question: on this new berry can I get smiley faces?”
“For email, no, I don’t think so – you need to type them out manually like : ) for happy, or :-I I if you want to express anger at my tardiness,” Reines replied. “For text messaging, the chart might be there in the lower right, next to where you type the message. If it’s not, I THINK thatif you type : ) it MIGHT automatically convert it into a symbol. Try it.”
4. Libyan assassination stories make her think of home decorating
5. Her Netanyahu smack-talking gets redacted
It may just be sensitive information, but based on other correspondence in the Hillary trove it could also be unflattering or manipulative. In this cache of emails is more advice from Blumenthal, this in June 2009: “The shortcomings of Bibi’s poison pill proposal should be pointed out as soon as it’s possible without complicating the Iranian crisis. Option: Pretend his statement in favor of two states is a new position (it’s in fact a reiteration of his detailed position before in more or less the same terms) but point out that his terms (his substance) would make impossible what he now says he favors. In other words, catch his transparently false and hypocritical ploy not as false and hypocritical but as a contradiction in its own terms.”
An email released by the State Department in August included scathing opinions about the Israeli prime minister from Blumenthal — and an agreement in internet slang from Hillary.
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