An email communication involving Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's top aide and Clinton Foundation officials shows she was fully aware the private email server and address her boss was using was not secure, and also shows the close connection between the State Department and the charity, Citizens United Chairman David Bossie said Tuesday morning.
"We don't know where the State Department ended and the foundation began, and that's really what our investigation is truly uncovering here," Bossie told Fox News' "Fox & Friends," program, after sharing the communication his organization uncovered during its extensive investigation into Clinton's communications.
In the email, dated Oct. 12, 2009, Abedin explains to a long list of people, including Clinton's then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, that during a trip to Russia, the staff was to be required to leave all BlackBerry phones on the airplane and would be using locally-supplied cell phones because of security concerns.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that Mills had done some work for the Clinton Foundation, including interviewing job candidates for a top job within the foundation. Her attorney said the trip was voluntary and no government funds were used.
Justin Cooper, another person receiving the email, had been an aide to former President Bill Clinton, and advises and assists in operating the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Family Foundation.
He responded to Abedin's message that the email operated through Clinton's private server should still work.
"It's for security reasons," Abedin replied. "I don't want to use that one, either."
Bossie told Fox News Tuesday that his group is still doing analysis on the emails that have been released, but at the same time, it's been able to "systematically go through and look for the closeness of the foundation and the foundation staff and their donors to the State Department and the top staff of Hillary Clinton."
Citizens United is also looking into whether there were any policy changes of the use of quid pro quo resulting from the connections between the foundation and Clinton's State Department, he said.
"Clearly Hillary Clinton's staff understood proper security protocols," said Bossie. "They were being told by the State Department to leave your BlackBerry phone on the plane, clear, plain and simple because they knew that the Russians would be hacking them. They knew the Russians would be trying to read them."
The devices, though, could not be hacked if they were turned off and left on the plane, said Bossie.
"This is an email about their State Department travel on an official trip to Russia that Abedin is sending to the foundation, so they understood they would be off the grid," said Bossie. "'If you need anything, call us.' This is just part and parcel of what was going on."
Bossie said it's taken over two years for Citizens United to "uncover the State Department acting as an arm of the Clinton campaign," and part of the reason the work is going so slowly is because it's being stalled getting the materials.
"They don't want to put it out before Election Day," said Bossie. "That's why we're trying to force these issues."
The Clinton camp has accused Citizens United of being a
"right-wing group that's been attacking the Clintons since the
1990s and once again is trying to make something out of
nothing."
Bossie said he is proud of Citizens United's track records
against the Clintons, both back in the 1990s and again this
year.
"Trying to uncover what the Clintons do is a full-time job, I'll be honest with you," said Bossie. "We have full-time staff trying to keep up with them. Let me say this, the Clintons want to attack and it's their modus operandi to attack whoever is raising questions about them, whoever is shining the light on their activities, so it's not a surprise that they would do this."
Bossie himself goes back a long way investigating the Clintons.
"I was the chief investigators for the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in the '90s, and led all of the investigations from the Whitewater Committee through to when he [Bill Clinton] was impeached," said Bossie.
"We know each other all too well."