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On September 15, 2014, an article in The Daily Signal reported that Raymond Maxwell, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Maghreb Affairs, had come forward with “a startling allegation.” Specifically, the report claimed that “Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to ‘separate’ damaging documents before they were turned over to the

Accountability Review Board.” The article identified the confidants as Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Deputy Chief of Staff Jacob Sullivan.160

According to this account, employees were instructed to review documents and “pull out anything” that might put senior officials “in a bad light.” The article also stated that Mr.

Maxwell said that he “couldn’t help but wonder if the ARB—perhaps unknowingly—had received from his bureau a scrubbed set of documents with the most damaging material missing.”161

The report also described an incident in which Ms. Mills and Mr. Sullivan allegedly checked in on the operation and came into contact with Mr. Maxwell:

“When Cheryl saw me, she snapped, ‘Who are you?’” Maxwell says. “Jake explained, ‘That’s Ray Maxwell, an NEA [Near Eastern Affairs Bureau] deputy assistant secretary.’ She conceded, ‘Well, OK.’”162

Several conservative press outlets immediately seized on The Daily Signal’s report to claim that former aides to Secretary Clinton ordered the destruction of documents to prevent Congress and the ARB from ever seeing them.163

On October 17, 2014, Chairman Gowdy was interviewed on Fox News by Greta Van Susteren, who asked if he believed Mr. Maxwell’s allegation that “documents were tossed out.” In response, the Chairman stated:

What you would do is what I’m going to do Greta, and that is, give Mr. Maxwell an opportunity to say what he perceived to happen and he’s going to have to give us the names of the other people who were involved and then we’re going to give them an opportunity to say whether or not they have a different perspective. It’s going to be an investigation. And if there is a dispute as to what happened then we’ll let your audience decide who has more credibility.164

By the time Chairman Gowdy made this statement, however, his staff had already

interviewed Mr. Maxwell without including, inviting, or even notifying Democratic Members or staff. Mr. Maxwell apparently identified for Republican staff a second witness that he claimed was present during this document review at the State Department. Mr. Maxwell identified this person as someone who could corroborate his allegations and someone he believes is credible.

Then, on October 16—one day before Chairman Gowdy appeared on Fox News—his staff interviewed this second witness, again without including Democrats. However, this second witness did not substantiate Mr. Maxwell’s claims. To the contrary, he did not recall ever having been in the document review session Mr. Maxwell described, he said he was never instructed to flag information in documents that might be unfavorable to the Department, and he reported that he never engaged in or was aware of any destruction of documents.165

On March 8, 2016, almost a year-and-a-half later, the Select Committee conducted a bipartisan transcribed interview with Mr. Maxwell. During his interview, when confronted with the fact that the individual he recalled being in the room had not substantiated his claims, Mr. Maxwell explained that he must have been mistaken about the individual who was there:

Q: Do you recall anybody else who was in the room that day?

A: You know, I don’t recall. Earlier I said that there was an intern there. And you guys called the intern. The intern got all frazzled. He called me. And he said: Ray, I really don’t remember blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said: Look, if you don’t remember, you don’t remember. I’m not going to, you know, bother you about that. I thought an intern was there. It’s possible that I had the wrong intern. We had lots of different interns, so I didn’t make a big deal about it. So for the purposes of our

conversation today I won’t say that there was an intern there since he claims that he wasn’t there. Or he didn’t say he wasn’t there, he said he didn’t remember.166

Then, Mr. Maxwell stated that he thought an intern was present, but he did not recall if it was a man, as he originally recalled, or a woman:

A: I thought it was [the original individual he named], but it may have been that woman who was also an intern. I remember—I recall an intern being there with [the Deputy Office Director]. And over time, memory fades.

Q: So you’re not sure as you sit here today whether it was a male or female who was the intern?

A: If it wasn’t [the original individual he named], it would’ve been a female. And I don’t remember her name.167

During his interview, Mr. Maxwell stated that he had no firsthand evidence that anybody had actually removed, scrubbed, or destroyed any documents before their production to the ARB:

Q: Do you have any evidence that anyone at the State Department removed or scrubbed any damaging documents from materials that were provided to the ARB?

A: No.168

Instead, Mr. Maxwell repeated his claim that he had been informed by the Deputy Office Director in the Office of Maghreb Affairs that she had been ordered to remove or scrub

damaging documents. He said that he had an ethical concern with what she had described to him, but that he never reported it or mentioned it to his superiors or the ARB.

The Deputy Office Director in the Office of Maghreb Affairs denied Mr. Maxwell’s allegations directly in the following exchange with the Select Committee:

Q: And there’s a direct quote from Mr. Maxwell that’s included in here where he states that you told him that the purpose of the document review was to, quote, again, quote, “go through these stacks and pull out

anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office of the seventh floor in a bad light,” close quote. Is that accurate? A: No, it is not accurate.

Q: And do you know what may have given him this impression that you said these words to him?

A: I don’t know.

Q: Okay. Did anyone ever order you to pull out any information that might put the NEA front office or the seventh floor in a, quote, “bad light,” close quote?

A: No.169

She stated that there was nothing unethical about the document review sessions: Q: My colleague touched on it, but there is, on that front page, a direct

quote wherein Mr. Maxwell indicates, quote, “I asked her,” meaning you, “but isn’t that unethical? She responded ‘Ray, those are our orders.’” You indicated earlier that certainly nothing like what is implied here happened?

A: Yes, ma’am.

Q: That goes beyond an implication. It actually indicates that you may have engaged in something unethical. What is your response to that potential charge?

A: My response to that is it’s completely nonsensical and inaccurate. Q: And you would—

A: And I would embellish that if there wasn’t a court reporter in the room, but this article made me extremely angry.170

She explained that in all of her document reviews, she applied the standard review process:

Q: And was this review process part of any effort to withhold or conceal information from the Accountability Review Board, to your

understanding?

A: That was not my understanding.

Q: Okay. And we discussed in the last round your understanding of what the purpose of this document review was. You indicated that you were somewhat unclear, but you applied some standards that I think you had

through your experience in performing FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] reviews. Is that accurate?

A: That’s right, sir.

Q: So you had performed document reviews in the past? A: A few limited ones with regard to FOIA requests.

Q: Okay. And in those types of document reviews, what sorts of information were you asked to review and flag?

A: In the FOIA reviews, you’re referring to? Q: Yes.

A: We were looking for, as subject-matter experts, information of sensitivity that would be damaging if it was released publicly.

Q: So that would include information like the names of Libyans that might be working with the U.S. Government?

A: Exactly, or pre-decisional information. If it was information about something that was, the deliberations between government officials before a decision was made.171

Secretary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills also denied Mr. Maxwell’s charges. During her transcribed interview with the Committee, Ms. Mills had the following exchange:

Q: A concern has been raised by one individual that in the course of producing documents to the Accountability Review Board damaging documents may have been removed or scrubbed out of that production. Do you have any evidence that anyone at the State Department removed or scrubbed damaging documents from the materials that were provided to the ARB?

A: I don’t.

Q: Do you have any evidence that anyone at the State Department directed anyone else at the State Department to remove or scrub damaging documents from the materials that were provided to the ARB? A: I don’t.

Q: Let me ask you this question for documents provided to Congress: Do you have any evidence that anyone at the State Department removed or scrubbed damaging documents from the materials that were provided to Congress?

A: I do not.172

Ms. Mills explained that she had not had any interaction with Mr. Maxwell about documents:

Q: And, you know, setting aside this particular instance and whether there was a basement review process going on, did you ever give anyone any instruction that they should pull out anything that might put anybody in the NEA front office or the seventh floor in a bad light?

A: I did not.

Q: Did you ever instruct anyone to pull out documents that might put Secretary Clinton—paint her in a bad light?

A: I did not.

Q: Did you instruct anyone to in any way kind of remove or destroy or scrub documents that might not reveal the full and complete story about what happened in Benghazi?

A: I did not.

Q: Did anyone ever come to you—you were kind of the point person for the Department on making a lot of these wheels go around. Did anyone come to you at the time or any time after and express concern to you internally that there had been efforts, that there had been orders to flag, remove, scrub, destroy documents that might look damaging to the State Department?

A: No, they did not. And the A Bureau keeps a copy of everything, so they are the repository that holds everything. So there are only then copies made for review. So, no, that didn’t happen, and the complete repository always stayed with the A Bureau. It never left.

Q: So if anyone were going to propose or think about doing this, it’s a pretty high-risk gambit, because ultimately the A Bureau is going to have the master copy—

A: That’s exactly right.

Q: —and if documents are scrubbed, there’s going to be an evidentiary trail. Is that accurate?

A: Correct.173

Mr. Sullivan also denied Mr. Maxwell’s claims. He had this exchange with Chairman Gowdy:

Q: Raymond Maxwell, I saw an article yesterday … that has made

allegations with respect to the security of documents as part of the ARB process. Are you familiar with these allegations?

A: I certainly am familiar with them, yes. Q: All right.

A: Because it’s hard not to be familiar when someone accuses of you something that is totally outlandish.

Q: Now, when you say “outlandish,” what do you mean by that? A: I mean, the allegation he made, as I understand it, is that I somehow

destroyed or burned or ripped up documents; and nothing of the sort ever happened, period.

Q: Those may have been some of his allegations. He also had more nuanced allegations, and I want to go through them just get your perspective. Were you ever in a room with Ms. Mills where Raymond Maxwell was also present?

A: I don’t think so, no. I don’t think I’ve ever met Raymond Maxwell. Q: All right. Were you part of any team that was assembling documents for

the ARB?

A: No. I was not part of assembling documents for the ARB.

Q: Did you recall any weekend document parties where you and Ms. Mills would have both been working on the ARB on a weekend at the State Department?

A: I wasn’t working on the ARB, and I don’t remember working there during the week or on the weekend on the ARB.

Q: Were there any documents that you reviewed that you thought would not be appropriate for the ARB to have access to?

A: No.174