State Department delays turning over files on Hillary Clinton requested by media outlets  

The State Department has failed to turn over government documents covering Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state that The Associated Press and others requested under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act ahead of her presumptive presidential campaign. They include one request AP made four years ago and others pending for more than one year.

The agency already has missed deadlines it set for itself to turn over the material.

The State Department denied the AP’s requests, and rejected the AP’s subsequent appeals, to release the records sought quickly under a provision in the law reserved for journalists requesting federal records about especially newsworthy topics.

In its requests, the AP cited the likely prospect of Clinton entering the 2016 race. The former first lady is widely considered the leading Democratic contender hoping to succeed President Barack Obama. She has made scores of recent high-profile speeches and public appearances.

On Wednesday, the conservative political advocacy group Citizens United sued the State Department for failing to disclose flight records showing who accompanied Clinton on overseas trips.

Citizens United, which in 2009 mounted a legal battle that led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning campaign finance limits, said the department unlawfully was withholding the records it sought nearly five months ago.

The State Department is among the U.S. government’s worst-performing federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act. There is no direct evidence that political considerations in a Democratic presidential administration have delayed the release of files about the party’s leading contender for 2016. But the agency’s delays, unusual even by government standards, have stoked perceptions about what could be taking so long.

“There may not necessarily be political interference, but if the department went out of its way to speed these documents there would be no way for people to accuse them of it,” said Thomas Blanton, who has previously sued the State Department for access to records as director of George Washington University’s National Security Archive, a research organization.

The department “is stonewalling us,” said Citizen United’s president, David Bossie. He asserted that “these decisions are being made with Hillary Clinton’s intentions at heart,” but acknowledged he could provide no evidence of political interference.

Bossie, a former Republican congressional investigator who researched figures in the Clinton administration, said his group’s film unit wants the records for a sequel to its documentary about Clinton, which spurred the Citizens United court decision.

The group first asked Air Force officials for passenger lists from Clinton’s overseas trips but was told all flight records were under the State Department’s control. “These were Air Force flights and crews but State has the records?” he said, adding that his group has submitted 15 Clinton-related requests in the past six months.

The AP’s requests go further back.

The AP requested copies of Clinton’s full schedules and calendars from her four years as secretary of state; her department’s decision to grant a special position for longtime aide Huma Abedin; Clinton’s and the agency’s roles in the Osama bin Laden raid and National Security Agency surveillance practices; and her role overseeing a major Defense Department contractor. The AP made most of its requests last summer, although one was filed in March 2010.

State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach cited the department’s heavy annual load of FOIA requests _ 19,000 last year _ in saying that the department “does its best to meet its FOIA responsibilities.” He said the department takes requests “first in, first out,” but noted that timing depends on “the complexity of the request.” He declined to comment on Citizen United’s suit.

In a previous communication, a State Department official apologized for its own delays responding to AP’s records requests without offering any explanation for the delays.

“We sincerely regret the delay,” said Lela H. Ross of the Office of Information Programs and Services, which administers the agency’s requests. The official did not explain the delays but cited the agency’s “complex and lengthy administrative FOIA process.”

Last May, the State Department told the AP that its search for records pertaining to Clinton and the defense contractor would be completed by August. The agency said it now expects the files to be available later this month. Similarly, the agency said the Clinton and Abedin records would likely be completed in September. Now it says it will not finish until next April. The 4-year-old FOIA request still has no estimated completion date.

The agency’s pace responding to requests for Clinton-related files has frustrated news organizations, archivists and political groups trying to research her role at the State Department in the months before Clinton decides whether to formally enter the 2016 race.

At stake is the public’s access to thousands of documents that could help understand and define her activities as the nation’s chief diplomat under Obama.

Other major document repositories have released thousands of pages of files about Clinton’s private and public life.

Since February, lots of previously restricted records from her years as first lady to President Bill Clinton have been made public by the Clinton Presidential Library. Last month, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center presidential oral history collection unveiled dozens of interviews with key players from the Clinton White House.

The State Department generally takes about 450 days to turn over records it considers to be part of complex requests under the Freedom of Information Act. That is seven times longer than the Justice Department and CIA, and 30 times longer than the Treasury Department.

An inspector general’s report in 2012 criticized the State Department’s practices as “inefficient and ineffective,” citing a heavy workload, small staff and interagency problems. A study in March by the nonpartisan Center for Effective Government said the State Department was the worst-performing agency because of its delays and frequent failure to deliver the full number of files that people requested.

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Meanwhile another Benghazi hearing occurred today 12/10/14.

Of particular note, the February 17 Brigade hired for supplemental security at the mission post were not only fully vetted, some members were on strike over pay disputes and even worse, the organization did not have a license to operate in Libya.

When asked by Congressman Jim Jordan why we were in Libya in the first place, he was told that the single point of contact for that question and decision to be in Libya was between Hillary Clinton and Ann Patterson. Not only was Patterson a major part of the failure during the Arab Spring in Egypt, but she was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

The witnesses included Greg Starr, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, left, and Steve Linick, State Department Inspector General and the questioning was narrowed to pre-attack security violations. The Inspector General delivered oral and written testimony stating that the Accountability Review Board recommendations have yet to be fully implemented after two years and waiver are often signed for non-compliance.

Recent Significant OIG Findings Concerning Security Issues
In addition to the ARB process review, OIG has issued a variety of reports covering significant security matters. I take this opportunity to highlight four areas of concern: (1) physical security deficiencies; (2) exceptions and waivers; (3) “stovepiping” of security issues within the Department; and (4) vetting of local guard forces protecting overseas facilities and personnel. P hysical S ecurity D eficiencies
Making Department personnel and facilities safe depends in large part on understanding and closing the gaps between established physical security requirements and the real world situations found at each post around the world. Recent OIG reports demonstrate that the Department is at increased risk because it lacks sufficient processes, planning, and procedures to ensure that the Department understands the security needs at posts around the world. For example, in March 2014, OIG reported, in its audit on requesting and prioritizing physical-security activities, that the Department lacked a comprehensive list of physical security deficiencies and funding requests at overseas posts.8 As a result, the Department could not ensure that the highest priority physical security needs at overseas posts were addressed and that the posts’ vulnerabilities to threats had therefore been reduced sufficiently.9 If the Department cannot identify security vulnerabilities, it cannot adequately implement or fund solutions.  In 2012, OIG conducted a series of audits and reviews of posts located in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, which identified physical security deficiencies at nine embassies and one consulate that required immediate attention.10 OIG auditors found that the posts were generally not in compliance with the Department’s physical and procedural security standards. Security deficiencies common among the posts included the failure to meet minimum compound perimeter requirements; to properly conduct inspections of vehicles before entering posts; to maintain functioning anti-ram barriers, as required; and to install and/or maintain functioning forced-entry/ballistic-resistant doors, as required. Some regional security officers (RSOs) at the audited posts stated that they were not aware of the security requirements, and one RSO explained that the deficiency in question was in place prior to the RSO’s arrival at post; however, no action had been initiated to remedy the security deficiency.  Exceptions and Waivers
Exceptions and waivers granted from compliance requirements of the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act11 (SECCA) or the security standards established by the Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB) also contribute to increased security risks at posts.
8 Audit of the Process To Request and Prioritize Physical Security – Related Activities at Overseas Posts (AUD-FM-14-17, March 2014). 9 Ibid. 10 AUD-SI-13-32, June 2013, and AUD-HCI-13-40, September 2013. 11 Sec. 606(a) of H.R. 3427 of the 106th Congress (113 Stat. 1501A-454-255) (22 U.S.C. § 4865), incorporated by reference pursuant to sec. 1000(a)(7) of Pub. L. 106-113 as Appendix G (1999).
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OIG has found conditions of non-compliance with security standards for which posts had not sought exceptions or waivers.12 A common example is the use of warehouse space for offices. Under the Department’s security rules, office space must meet more stringent physical security standards than warehouse space; Department employees who work in warehouse spaces, which do not meet required physical security standards for offices, are at risk.  OIG also found that a number of overseas posts had not maintained accurate exception and waiver records.13 In some cases, OIG inspectors found that RSOs were unable to locate an exception or waiver approval or denial that was on file with DS. When a new RSO, chief of mission, or deputy chief of mission arrives at post, accurate, up-to-date records can help ensure that the RSO and senior management have current knowledge of outstanding exception and waiver requests. Only in this manner can the RSO ensure that mitigating steps are understood and completed and that restrictions, such as building use, are enforced. To address these issues, OIG recommended that DS require overseas posts to: (1) submit an annual written certification that exceptions and waivers have been requested for all circumstances where standards cannot be met and (2) provide a statement of assurance signed by the chief of mission certifying that post is adhering to all stipulations in existing waivers and exceptions. To date, this recommendation remains unresolved.

But the U.S. State Department was much worse under Hillary Clinton than is reported.

CBS News’ John Miller reports that according to an internal State Department Inspector General’s memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off. The memo obtained by CBS News cited eight specific examples. Among them: allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and the charge and that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries” — a problem the report says was “endemic.”

The memo also reveals details about an “underground drug ring” was operating near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and supplied State Department security contractors with drugs.