WASHINGTON — The State Department says it can find only four e-mails sent between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff concerning drone strikes and certain U.S. surveillance programs, and those notes have little to do with either subject.
She asks for a phone call in one, a phone number in another. She seeks advice on how best to condemn information leaks and accidentally replies to one work e-mail with questions apparently about decorations.
The messages also reveal Clinton used an iPad to e-mail while secretary of state in addition to her BlackBerry, despite her explanation she set up a private e-mail account and homebrew server while she was the nation’s top diplomat so that she could carry a single device.
The four e-mails were obtained by The Associated Press under a 2013 Freedom of Information Act request and offer one of the first looks into Clinton’s correspondence at the State Department. It is the first time it has provided Clinton-related documents in response to several outstanding FOIA requests, the first of which AP filed in 2010.
The response also came about three weeks after AP filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department seeking to force the release of materials during Clinton’s tenure.
The 2013 request sought correspondence between Clinton and her advisers during a four-year period that contained keywords such as “drone,” “metadata” and “prism.” The latter was among several code words for controversial U.S. surveillance programs revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Although Clinton left office four months before the Snowden leaks were published in June 2013, AP’s request sought messages about those programs before they were publicly disclosed. The request also asked for certain e-mails about government programs to eavesdrop on terror suspects believed to be foreigners.
Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said the low number of e-mails could be the result of the State Department using different words to describe its operations — such as “UAV,” or unmanned aerial vehicle, instead of “drone.”
Also Tuesday, Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, said he wants to interview Clinton by May 1.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said Tuesday that Clinton told Gowdy’s committee months ago that she was ready to appear at a public hearing.
