The Daily 202: Takeaways from the latest Hillary Clinton e-mail dump

James Hohmann, Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2015

THE BIG IDEA:

The State Department posted 7,800 pages of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails yesterday afternoon, the latest batch of the 55,000 pages that she sent and received while in office.

In this installment, 328 of the e-mails were withheld from public consumption because they are now deemed classified — the State Department says that brings the total number of messages partially withheld on that basis to 999. “All the messages designated as classified Monday were at the lowest tier, ‘Confidential,’ which is usually used for sensitive diplomatic communications,” Politico’s Josh Gerstein notes.

A few of the most interesting nuggets:

— Superstorm Sandy apparently knocked out the Clinton private server for two weeks in 2012, delaying her responses to several messages, including birthday greetings. Karen Tumulty recalls that it was this episode that led the Clintons to seek more IT help.

— One 2012 exchange underscores the belief within Clinton’s high command that Hillary had erred in 2008 by not showing enough emotion on the campaign trail. Rosalind S. Helderman zeroes in on a note that Mark Penn, who was Clinton’s 2008 chief strategist, sent after the Secretary of State testified before the Senate about the Benghazi attacks and famously asked: “… what difference, at this point, does it make?”

While Hillary’s closest aides at Foggy Bottom were celebrating the hearing – they thought the boss crushed it – Penn warned that she had hurt herself. “I don’t think the emotion in the hearing works to your advantage,” he wrote. “Looks more like they rattled you on something no one outside the crazy right blamed you for anyway.” Penn had prodded Clinton to come across as Thatchersque in her 2008 battle with Barack Obama.

Read more here.