Former Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, second from right, Trey Gowdy, second from left, and Elijah Cummings, left, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. (Credit: Susan Walsh/The Associated Press)
“Hillary Clinton’s No. 2 at the State Department twice forwarded information to the Clinton Foundation that was later deemed classified, the latest instance of former Clinton staff transmitting now-classified information.
According to a new email chain shared with POLITICO by Citizens United, Cheryl Mills — Clinton’s former chief of state at State — forwarded State Department background information about Rwanda and the Congo to the Clintons’ philanthropic organization. Citizens United, a conservative activist group, obtained the messages via a Freedom of Information act lawsuit.
Former President Bill Clinton was visiting Africa, including Rwanda, around the time that Mills sent the email, which was mostly redacted. Former president Clinton was also considering giving Rwandan President Paul Kagame a plenary role at the Clinton Global Initiative, according to the emails.
“Fyi for [Bill] since he is in contact w/Kagame,” Mills wrote in an email chain dated July 28, 2012, forwarding to the foundation a message originally written to State employees under the subject “Developments in the Eastern Congo.”
“Thanks,” Ami Desai, the foundation’s director of foreign policy, wrote back. “He has been talking about giving Kagame a plenary role at CGI.”
The information in the 2012 emails was classified by the State Department in July of this year because of national security and foreign policy reasons, according to the documents. The classification specifically related to foreign government information and intelligence activities, sources or methods, according to the redaction labels.” (Read more: Politico, 10/06/15)