Subject: RE: Nice job
From: "Miranda, Luis" <[email-masked]>
To: "Geoff Burgan" <[email-masked]>, Debbie Wasserman Schultz <[email-masked]>, "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>, Ryan Banfill <[email-masked]>
Cc: Kate Houghton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2016 07:09:50 -0700

Oh, and as I said on the phone, great job pivoting to the broader contrast and squeezing in the economy, jobs and 73 months of growth.

________________________________
From: Miranda, Luis
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 9:59 AM
To: Geoff Burgan; Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Paustenbach, Mark; Ryan Banfill
Cc: Kate Houghton
Subject: Nice job

I thought you did well and stayed calm and poised despite Wallace's hammering. Just a few thoughts:

  *   Going forward I think you can start with the "I've cautioned on tone..." and then give the explanation about the context of the broader race and how substantive it has been.
  *   On the email server. Clinton isn't the subject of the investigation, so that should be something we say up front. It's also not fair to compare her to past Secretaries of State who frankly didn't live in the digital age in the same way... The Bush Administration's use of email generally was lower, so was the Clinton Administration, because the Internet is actually a relatively new thing.
  *   And the only missed opportunity I saw was reminding Wallace that this email server came about as a result of what the Republican leadership in the House acknowledged was a politically driven investigation meant to lower her poll numbers. The Benghazi committee cost taxpayers millions for Republicans to try to affect this presidential election.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/14/jeb-bush/heres-whats-wrong-jeb-bush-saying-hillary-clinton-/

Here's what's wrong with Jeb Bush saying Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation

By Lauren Carroll<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/staff/lauren-carroll/> on Thursday, January 14th, 2016 at 11:04 p.m.

If Hillary Clinton becomes president, she might find herself preoccupied with an FBI investigation, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said at a Republican presidential debate in South Carolina.

"She’s under investigation with the FBI right now," Bush said Jan. 14. "If she gets elected, her first 100 days — instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the court house."

Actually, Clinton is not under FBI investigation. The inquiry to which Bush refers revolves around the private email server Clinton used while serving as secretary of state.  And it is not a criminal investigation.

Here are the facts.

In July 2015, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community sent what is called a security referral to members of the executive branch. A security referral is essentially a notification that classified information might exist in a location outside of the government’s possession. In this case, the location was Clinton’s private email server.

Soon after, the New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/us/politics/inquiry-is-sought-in-hillary-clinton-email-account.html> incorrectly<http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/a-clinton-story-fraught-with-inaccuracies-how-it-happened-and-what-next/?smid=tw-share&_r=1> reported that the inspectors general requested a criminal investigation into Clinton’s email use — as opposed to a security referral. But the newspaper later issued two corrections. The referral was in connection with Clinton’s account, not whether Clinton herself mishandled information, and did not allege criminal activity.

Officials told reporters<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-looks-into-security-of-clintons-private-e-mail-setup/2015/08/04/2bdd85ec-3aae-11e5-8e98-115a3cf7d7ae_story.html> at the time that the FBI was not targeting Clinton specifically.

As part of its inquiry<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-looks-into-security-of-clintons-private-e-mail-setup/2015/08/04/2bdd85ec-3aae-11e5-8e98-115a3cf7d7ae_story.html>, the FBI has looked into the security setup for Clinton’s home server and a thumb drive that has copies of Clinton’s work emails. But most details of the investigation have remained secret. It’s even unclear at this point whether the FBI probe is just a preliminary inquiry or if it has evolved into a true investigation, according to Politico<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-probe-215630>.

Describing the inquiry, FBI Director James Comey told Congress in October 2015, "The FBI is working on a referral given to us by inspectors general in connection with former Sec. Clinton’s use of a private email server."

He declined to give any more specifics.

Earlier this month, Fox News<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html> reported that the FBI was broadening its investigation to look into whether any connection between the State Department under Clinton and the nonprofit Clinton Foundation violated public corruption laws. Clinton denied that FBI was pursuing this line of inquiry.

However, Fox bases its report on unnamed sources, so we cannot independently verify it, nor have any major media outlets.

Bush’s campaign and the FBI did not respond to our requests for comment in time for publication.

Our ruling

Bush said Clinton is "under investigation with the FBI right now."

Not quite. The FBI is conducting a general inquiry into the security of Clinton’s private email server. But law enforcement officials have said Clinton herself is not the target of the inquiry, and it is not a full-blown criminal investigation.

Clinton’s actions are clearly front-and-center in an FBI investigation. But Bush goes too far to claim Clinton herself is under investigation. We rate his statement Half True.