The Washington Examiner’s Claim That Clinton Lied In Sworn Testimony Falls Flat

The Washington Examiner claimed that new Hillary Clinton emails released by Judicial Watch “appear to contradict her sworn testimony” that she did not recall discussing her private email server with former State Department IT specialist Bryan Pagliano. But the email chain merely showed that four years ago, Clinton asked Pagliano for help receiving emails, not discussing an email server.

The Examiner’s claim comes in the wake of the latest batch of emails released by the conservative and anti-Clinton Judicial Watch on October 19. Singling out two innocuous email chains where Clinton discussed email issues with Pagliano, the Examiner claimed that Clinton lied to the FBI about not recalling her conversations about her email server with Pagliano:

“Secretary Clinton states that she does not recall having communications with Bryan Pagliano concerning or relating to the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of any emails in her clintonemail.com email account,” Clinton testified through her lawyer, David Kendall, after raising objections to the question.

But emails provided to conservative-leaning Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act show Clinton included Pagliano in discussions about her Blackberry, iPad and server when her network experienced problems in 2012.

The two email chains included among 15 pages of documents published by Judicial Watch on Wednesday, show Pagliano wrote directly to Clinton and copied Justin Cooper, a former Clinton Foundation aide who also provided assistance for the email system, in March 2012.

“Let me take a look at the server to see if it offers any insight,” Pagliano wrote in an email to Clinton after she complained to him and Cooper of the “troubles” plaguing her Blackberry.

Clinton’s failure to remember a handful of email conversations four years prior discussing a technical issue with an IT specialist does not contradict her sworn testimony to the FBI. The email chain similarly does not show Clinton discussing anything “concerning or relating to the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of any emails” with Pagliano, but simply discussing her attempting to receive emails to her mobile device. In the email chain, Clinton explained she’s having trouble receiving emails on her BlackBerry and that she took out the battery in an attempt to fix the problem. In replies, Justin Cooper suggested the problem could be with AT&T’s wireless network and suggested she use an iPhone instead. Nowhere in the chain does Clinton say anything that contradicts her sworn testimony.

The Washington Examiner’s race to scandalize seemingly banal email conversations follows the media’s obsession with false Clinton controversies.