State Department Admits It ‘Lost’ Clinton Foundation Email

The State Department has admitted it lost a 2012 email between Hillary Clinton aide Jake Sullivan and a Clinton Foundation employee, which may demonstrate a financial conflict of interest for the former secretary of state.

The Washington Examiner describes the message as follows:

The email contained an attachment memo about Greek bonds — a significant detail given the heavy investments Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, was making in the Greek economic recovery during that same period.

Chelsea Clinton, Mezvinsky’s wife, is a board member at the Clinton Foundation. The fact that one of Clinton’s closest aides shared insider information about the economic climate in Greece with the foundation — just one year after Mezvinsky and fellow Goldman Sachs alum founded a hedge fund that operated primarily by placing bets on international economic trends — raises questions about the many potential conflicts of interest that could have arisen from the Clintons’ web of connections.

The email in question was provided earlier this month to conservative-leaning Citizens United through the Freedom of Information Act. Sent in July 2012 from Sullivan to Amitabh Desai, a Clinton Foundation employee, and Justin Cooper, an aide to Bill Clinton, the message indicates a memo titled “Solidarity Bonds Greece Revised” was attached to the email.

But after a lawyer from Citizens United asked the State Department to provide a copy of the attachment, government attorneys said the agency “does not have” the original email authored by Sullivan.

Mezvinsky was touting a strategy for making money by “betting that the Greek bailout would raise the price of bonds” and had attracted some big investors who also happened to be major donors to the Clinton Foundation.

Mezvinsky’s former employer Goldman Sachs was also involved, bringing skills accumulated during what Fox News described as “a checkered history of manipulating the value of Greek debt, to the detriment of Greece.”

The Washington Examiner writes:

Investments in Mezvinsky’s fund came while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. While her discussion of the Greek economic crisis in emails is expected given the nature of her position, the fact that her team shared information about Greek bonds with outsiders raises questions.

This is not the first time questions about Clinton using government information, possibly including classified documents, to assist Mezvinski’s hedge fund have been raised. Privileged information about Greek bailout plans would obviously have been very useful to the fund Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law was managing.

As it turned out, he needed a lot of help because the $325 million fund went belly-up, after losing ninety percent of its value.

Citizens United wants to see the “Solidarity Bonds Greece Revised” document that was attached to Jake Sullivan’s email to find out what sort of information might have been flowing from the State Department through the Clinton Foundation, and ultimately to Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law, but now the State Department has evidently “lost” that email, along with its attachment.

“Hillary Clinton truly left her mark on the State Department – why do the most important emails always end up missing? The State Department should explain to the American people why this information is unavailable,” said an exasperated J.T. Mastranadi, spokesman for Citizens United.