New emails show the White House and State Department quickly coordinated in 2015 to dodge the “swirl of crap” caused by Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal.
A successful Freedom of Information Act request by the Republican National Committee sheds new light on the Obama administration’s efforts to avoid discussing its former secretary of state’s email scandal in March 2015, just days after The New York Times broke the story.
Exchanges between White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri — who joined Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign — and then-State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki show the two trying to find a Sunday talk show amenable to their plans.
“Between us on the shows…think we can get this done so [Secretary of State John Kerry] is not asked about email,” Ms. Palmieri asked Mrs. Psaki, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“Agree completely and working to crush on my end,” Ms. Psaki responded.
Days later, Ms. Psaki continued her correspondence on the subject with, “Good to go on killing CBS idea. And we are going to hold on any other TV options just given the swirl of crap out there.”
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Mr. Kerry was interviewed on CBS’s “Face the Nation” March 12 and was not asked about Mrs. Clinton’s private email server.
“No subject was off-limits when this interview was arranged, as is the CBS News standard,” CBS spokeswoman Caitlin Conant told the Journal in response to it story. “CBS News’ State Department correspondent was in Egypt with Secretary John Kerry in the home stretch of the Iran nuclear deal negotiations and discussed policy issues of the day with him on this official trip.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby also defended the exchange, telling the newspaper that “it is common practice for State Department and White House staffers to be in touch when agency officials are potentially conducting television interviews.”
An investigation by the FBI into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of government documents found her “extremely careless” with highly classified information, but the agency ultimately did not recommend prosecution by the Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch officially closed the case July 7.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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