New Clinton Emails
https://foia.state.gov/Search/results.aspx?searchText=*&beginDate=&endDate=&publishedBeginDate=20181001&publishedEndDate=&caseNumber=
They are STUPID
SCIF
From: PIR <preines on behalf of PIR
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 8:11 AM
To: CDM; Huma Abedin
Cc: Jake Sullivan
Subject: House
RELEASE IN PART
B6
Here's a summary I sent to my friends last night, who after working on the Hill
themselves find the House has absurd as I do…
Speaking of the Hill, we did classified briefings today. Senate & House. Senate was the
usual, long winded but dignified affair. House Foreign Affairs was a closed/classified
briefing and it was an SNL skit of a House hearing:
• Though it's the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the walls of the scif are plastered
with "Drug Enforcement Administration" and "Department of Justice" logos.
• Was a conference room in the basement, off the garage of Rayburn. Large enough for a
big table, and can comfortably seat about 12 people in large leather exec chairs.
they have jammed in 19 large leather chairs. So it's one of those settings that
you move anywhere without your hip rubbing up against a chair which then swivels
with your body as you go by - even when someone is sitting in it. Even when that someone
is a member of Congress.
Except,
• There is no attempt to whisper whatsoever. None. Not even staff. Was like a
restaurant with the long tables that they sit multiple parties together, where you are
sitting right next to someone not with you. So there are parallel conversations and the
groups are only divided by subtle shifts in body language. There must have been five
conversation pockets going on at once. Like when you walk into a meeting before the
meeting comes to order. But this WAS the meeting.
• Throughout the whole thing, I kept looking around, thinking of movies or Tv shows where
there's an old age home, or people with psychological problems. They're dressed in
shoddy bathrobes. Someone's got gauze around their head. Two people are playing
backgammon - but doing so on a Twister board and instead of dice then are rolling
zucchini. That's what the House is.
• Because all House Rs are obsessed with the President denying help to those in need that
night, one of them, didn't catch his name, starts going on an on at Mullen about what the
investigation found about why the USS Mesa Verde wasn't used. The Mesa Verde had this.
The Mesa Verde had that. Could have saved them. It was off the coast of Libya on 9/9,
where was it on 9/11? What did the investigation learn about the Mesa Verde?! Mullen
said We took a very hard look at what assets were available, and that day and found no
blah blah blah. What about the Mesa Verde? Congressman, I don't know but I will take
that. on board. When we left and got in the vans, Mullen asked someone to check. Turns
out the Congressman was right. The USS Mesa Verde was off the shore of Libya on
September 9th. Of 2011. On September 9th 2012 it was moored in Virginia.
• Along the side of the room there's a folding table, with a coffee maker and styrofoam
cups. Like it's an AA meeting. Hi, I'm Eliot Engel, and I've been a loser Congressman
for 43 years. Hi Eliot.
• Why are you hiding the Mesa Verdew?!?!
1
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2016-07895 Doc No. C06160730 Date: 09/26/2018
UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2016-07895 Doc No. C06160730 Date: 09/26/2018
• I stayed at at one point for a call. Staffer who needs to let me in is wearing a
purple shirt. Guy shows me the phone then points to a door and says when I'm done just
knock and he'll come out and let me back into the scif'd conference room. I'm on the
phone for about ten minutes, staring at the white door T'm supposed to knock on when I'm
ready to be escorted back in. Hang up the phone, walk over to the door, knock on it.
Door opens, revealing it's a bathroom. One of those single room bathroom, unisex, toilet
& sink. He's been in the bathroom. I remain confused how his time in the bathroom
correlated to my phone call. He didn't say, I'll be right out so if you're done with
your call just sit tight. "When you're ready to go back in just knock and I'll come out"
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/Litigation_F-2016-07895_48/F-2016-07895/DOC_0C06160730/C06160730.pdf
Photo of E Room
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/Litigation_F-2016-07895_48/F-2016-07895/DOC_0C06157860/C06157860.pdf
Alice to the Mad Hatter
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/Litigation_F-2016-07895_48/F-2016-07895/DOC_0C06154257/C06154257.pdf
Xiaoqing Lu
is a research associate with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies. She graduated with an M.A. in sustainable international development from Brandeis University in 2005. She previously interned with the Kenan Institute Washington Center and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars during her graduate studies. Ms. Lu is from China and worked as a program assistant for the American Bar Association-Asia Law Initiative in Beijing. She received her B.A. in international economics and trade from Beijing International Studies University in 2002.