To Sonya Gilliam, a recent account of improper sorting of
Benghazi-related documents at the State Department brought back vivid
memories of her own encounters with high-level government officials who
withheld, deleted or destroyed public records.
And one name stood out for its familiarity: Cheryl Mills.
A former deputy assistant secretary of state had told The Daily Signal that Mills was present during an
after-hours document operation
in a basement room of the State Department in October 2012. Mills was
chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Cheryl
Mills, left, was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff and former White
House counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment
trial. (Photo: Newscom)
The purpose of the session, former State Department official Raymond
Maxwell said, was to “separate” documents damaging to Clinton before
records were turned over to an independent review board probing the
Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Mills declined to comment on
Maxwell’s account to The Daily Signal.
The
account of Cheryl Mills told by Raymond Maxwell, former assistant
deputy secretary of state, sounds familiar to Sonya Gilliam. (Photo:
Sharyl Attkisson)
“My stomach dropped,” Gilliam says about hearing the allegation last month that Mills was involved in Benghazi document sorting:
I said to myself, oh my gosh, here we are, 14 or 15 years
later, [and] Cheryl Mills is still in charge of document
‘production’—I’ll use that term loosely.
Gilliam, now retired, was responsible for Commerce
Department responses to Freedom of Information Act requests during the
Clinton administration.
Back then, Mills was deputy White House counsel to President Clinton.
At the time, multiple probes sought to determine whether the
administration was fundraising illegally by selling seats on Commerce
Department trade missions.
‘Cheryl Says No’
Gilliam says she sat through countless task force meetings convened
to respond to demands that began in 1994 for relevant records under FOIA
requests and, later, from Congress, grand juries and news media.
Prying key documents from the Clinton administration’s political grip proved an often-impossible task, she says.
“Meantime, the clock is ticking and it’s illegal to not respond
according to the law within the time frame,” Gilliam told The Daily
Signal in an interview.
Gilliam says that supervising attorneys at the Commerce Department told her, “We’re waiting on Cheryl Mills.”
“I said, ‘Who is Cheryl Mills?’ ‘Oh, she is the deputy counsel to the president.’
“I about dropped my jaw. I said, ‘What are documents doing over with Cheryl Mills?’ ”
Gilliam says the answer was that the document release by Commerce had to be “coordinated” with the White House.
I found many, many references that I have highlighted in
those meetings that we had that said ‘waiting on White House,’ ‘call
Cheryl Mills,’ ‘Cheryl Mills has not responded yet,’ ‘Cheryl says no.’
Gilliam logged more than 30 years as an award-winning public servant
working for Democratic and Republican administrations. Before the
Clinton administration, Gilliam says, it had not been common practice to
send non-White House documents to the White House for approval of their
release.
“I was amazed and just really gobsmacked when I saw the White House involved to the extent it was,” Gilliam says.
‘Con Artists’ and ‘Hooligans’ at Commerce
Two years into the investigations, on April 3, 1996, Commerce
Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others were killed in a plane crash while on
an official trade mission in Croatia. Brown recently had been served
with a deposition notice regarding the alleged sale of trade mission
seats.
Evidence revealed a “flurry of document shredding in the [Commerce]
secretary’s office” following his death. The document obstruction, which
continued for years, is detailed in a 1998
federal court ruling.
District Judge Royce C. Lamberth likened the behavior of Commerce Department officials to “con artists” and “hooligans.” He
found
that they “wrongfully withheld documents, destroyed documents, and
removed or allowed the removal of others, all with the apparent
intention of thwarting the FOIA and [court] orders.”
Gilliam says she was so disturbed by what she saw that she blew the
whistle in 2000 on behalf of the conservative watchdog group Judicial
Watch, which was suing Commerce for the documents.
In her affidavit dated July 7, 2000, Gilliam stated, in part:
I know that Ms. Mills, in her position as deputy counsel
to the president, advised Commerce officials to withhold certain
documents … these interactions with Ms. Mills, as well as other
practices, delayed and corrupted the Commerce Department’s response to
Judicial Watch’s FOIA requests.
>>> 19 Times the Government Withheld Documents It Didn’t Want You to See
Mills, now on the board of directors at the global investment firm BlackRock, declined comment for this report.
Lamberth’s opinion faulting the Commerce Department for obstruction
did not name Mills as personally responsible for any misdeeds.
Judge Calls Mills’ Behavior ‘Loathsome’ in Other Case
In a separate case involving missing documents that was brought
against the FBI in 1997, Lamberth found no obstruction or conspiracy but
referred to Mills’ conduct as a White House official as “loathsome.”
Lamberth faulted Mills for making “the most critical error in this
entire fiasco”: learning of missing White House emails but not taking
proper steps to resolve the situation.
“Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem,” Lamberth concluded.
Cheryl Mills (Undated Photo: Newscom)
Judging by the frequency of cases over the years, up to and including
the IRS scandal, lost and missing federal records amount to an epidemic
— one not isolated to one administration or party.
Typically, even when obstruction is discovered, the remedy is that an
agency turns over any recovered documents. The agency may be ordered to
pay a successful plaintiff’s litigation costs. The process provides
little disincentive to repeating incompetent or willful behavior.
‘I Am Ray Maxwell’
In the case where Gilliam blew the whistle, the Commerce Department ultimately acknowledged wrongdoing and
taxpayers paid the bill: The agency was ordered to pay Judicial Watch $897,000 in legal fees. Some documents never were recovered.
The outcome was little consolation, Gilliam says. She says she
suffered recrimination and health issues as a result of stepping forward
in 2000.
‘I lived Ray Maxwell’s story,’ Gilliam tells The Daily Signal. (Photo: The Daily Signal)
And she gives Maxwell a great deal of credit for speaking up about what he saw in the State Department basement in October 2012.
“I never met Ray Maxwell,” Gilliam told The Daily Signal. “I don’t
know Ray Maxwell. But I am Ray Maxwell because I lived Ray Maxwell’s
story. And I felt compelled to say something.”
A Medley of Missing Documents Through the Years:
Missing: Hillary Clinton S&L Records. In 1988,
according to congressional investigators, Hillary Clinton “ordered the
destruction of records relating to her [legal] representation of [Jim]
McDougal’s Madison S&L” when federal regulators were investigating
the insolvency of the Arkansas savings and loan. Bill Clinton was
Arkansas governor at the time.
The Clintons and McDougal were business partners in the failed
Whitewater real estate venture. McDougal later was convicted of fraud
for attempting to use S&L funds to cover Whitewater losses. His
wife, Susan, served prison time for refusing to answer grand jury
questions about whether Bill Clinton lied in his testimony during her
Whitewater trial.
Missing: Clinton Counsel’s Foster Records. In 1993,
according to a Secret Service official, first lady Hillary Clinton’s
chief of staff, Maggie Williams, removed records from the office of
White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster the night of his suicide.
Other Clinton officials, including White House Counsel Bernard
Nussbaum, later testified that they conducted an improper search of
Foster’s office. At least one file was marked “Whitewater” and another
was marked “taxes.”
Another White House counsel, Bob Barnett, later picked up a box of
Foster’s documents. Associate counsel Clifford Sloan’s contemporaneous
notes cite the Clintons’ initials: “get Maggie—go through office—get
HRC, WJC stuff.”
Missing: Clinton Counsel’s Foster Suicide Note. Also
in 1993, the White House released an official statement incorrectly
saying that no Foster suicide note had been found. However, more than 24
hours after a note had been found, White House counsel Nussbaum turned
it over to Attorney General Janet Reno.
Missing: Hillary Clinton Law Firm Records. In 1996,
after nearly two years of searches and subpoenas, the White House
reported it found copies of missing documents from Hillary Rodham
Clinton’s law firm that described her work for Madison S&L in the
1980s. The White House previously said it did not have the records. The
originals have not turned up.
Missing: Bush Administration Energy Emails. In 2002,
the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch said more than 25,000
documents were missing from records released regarding deliberations
between Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force and industry
executives, possibly including documents related to the Enron scandal.
Missing: Clinton Terrorism Documents. In 2003,
former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger smuggled
classified documents related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the
National Archives. Berger said he removed handwritten notes by hiding
them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies
of classified documents.
Missing: Bush Administration ‘Torture’ Documents. In
2004, critics of the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation
techniques” for suspected terrorists, which they regarded as torture,
said key documents were missing from newly declassified White House
materials regarding torture and other mistreatment of prisoners. These
included memos to and from the FBI and CIA, and documents dated after
April 2003.
Missing: Millions of Bush Administration Emails. In
2005, the White House discovered some emails were not properly archived.
It later was revealed that missing emails from Jan. 3, 2003 to July 28,
2005 might total 5 million.
Lost and Found: Katrina Conference Call Transcript. Also
in 2005, Bush administration officials told Congress that they could
not locate a transcript of an Aug. 29 videoconference call about
Hurricane Katrina. Officials produced a transcript in 2006.
Missing: Bush Administration’s Abramoff Emails. In
2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald found that missing emails from
the 2003 period could be relevant to the criminal probe into influence
peddling by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who later was convicted of bribery
and corruption.
Missing: Bush Administration Political Emails. In
2007, it was revealed that 88 White House officials used Republican
National Committee email accounts — but that the RNC preserved no emails
for 51 of the officials.
Missing: Bush Administration Interrogation Video. Also
in 2007, it was discovered that the Pentagon had lost a crucial
recording of an al-Qaeda operative being interrogated in a U.S. military
brig.
Withheld: Obama Administration ‘Fast and Furious’ Documents. In
2012, Attorney General Eric Holder withheld emails regarding the “Fast
and Furious “scandal. President Obama invoked executive privilege to
prevent some emails from being turned over to Congress under subpoena.
Missing: Obama State Department Records. This year,
it was revealed that the State Department may have lost some $6 billion
because of incomplete or missing contract records over six years, mainly
during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
Missing: Obama Administration IRS Emails. Also this
year, the Internal Revenue Service said it had lost key emails of Lois
Lerner and other officials regarding improper IRS targeting of
conservative nonprofit groups.
Missing: Obama HealthCare.gov Records. Also this
year, the Obama administration revealed that records Congress is seeks
in its investigation of the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, are
missing.
Missing: Obama EPA Records. Also this year, the
Environmental Protection Agency told Congress it was having trouble
finding emails relevant to a probe into the environmental impact of a
proposed gold and copper mine in the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska. In
a separate case, a federal judge found that the EPA willfully failed to
keep emails and other records relevant to a Freedom of Information Act
request regarding the delay of unpopular regulations until after the
2012 election.
Missing?: Hillary Clinton Benghazi Documents. Also
this year, former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell said he
witnessed a Benghazi document-sorting session in October 2012 in the
State Department basement. He said then-Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and her deputy, Jake Sullivan,
were present.
Missing: Obama EPA Text Messages. Last week, the
Environmental Protection Agency said it didn’t save text messages at
issue in a Freedom of Information case seeking records about the
agency’s plans to crack down on coal power plants. An EPA spokesman
contends that federal law doesn’t require the messages to be retained.
This is a Daily Signal special feature.
