The State Department has no record of former Secretary Hillary Clinton or her two top aides receiving IT security training while Clinton led the department, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
In response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the nonprofit Competitive Enterprise Institute in March, State said it could not locate any record of Clinton, chief of staff Cheryl Mills, or deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin undergoing any sort of IT security training.
“One former, senior executive branch personnel official contacted me to point out the requirement that appointees take this training, and that if Mses. Clinton, Abedin or Mills had deigned to follow the law, a record of this would exist,” explained CEI senior fellow Chris Horner, who filed the FOIA request.
“He also noted, however, that if anyone was to turn up their noses and refuse the training—and be permitted to—these are the folks. We now know this to be the case,” Horner said in an email.
The request also asked for “all separation documents … completed or submitted” by Clinton, Mills, or Abedin. State returned no responsive documents to that request.
The department previously stated that it had no record of Clinton signing such separation documents, designed to ensure that former employees do not retain confidential information after their departure. State’s reply appears to confirm that neither Clinton nor her top aides submitted those documents.
Cybersecurity experts say Clinton, Mills, and Abedin should have undergone IT security training at State, and that their apparent failure to do so is part of a systemic problem.
“She should have done it, but the data point that she did not is sadly unsurprising,” said Steve Bucci, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy.
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