A top State
Department official instructed Hillary Clinton to permanently delete a
classified e-mail related to the Benghazi terrorist attack, but her lawyer
refused because a congressional investigation into her use of a private e-mail
server was already underway.
In a May 22
letter to Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, Undersecretary of State Patrick
Kennedy notified the Clinton team that a November 8, 2012 e-mail about a
“report of arrests — possible Benghazi connection” was deemed classified and
should be deleted. “Once you have made the electronic copy of the documents for
the Department, please locate any electronic copies of the above-referenced
classified document in your possession,” wrote Kennedy, who served under
Clinton at the State Department. “If you locate any electronic copies, please
delete them. Additionally, once you have done that, please empty your ‘Deleted
Items’ folder.”
Judicial Watch,
the conservative watchdog group that released the correspondence, said that the
order to delete the e-mail smacks of a cover-up. “Why on Earth would John
Kerry’s State Department tell Mrs. Clinton to delete classified Benghazi
records before finding out where and how this material had been disclosed?”
said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That the State Department asked
Clinton’s lawyer to destroy federal records shows a level of disdain for the
rule of law that goes beyond the pale.” In any event, Kendall declined
Kennedy’s entreaty, citing requests from two inspectors general and the House
panel investigating the Benghazi attacks that he preserve the records. “I
therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete, as you request, the
above-referenced e-mail from the master copies or the PST file that we are
preserving,” he wrote to Kennedy. “Once the document preservation requests
referenced above expire, we will proceed to make the requested deletions.”
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