Politics & Government

Emoticons And Monkey-Butts: The Latest From Hillary Clinton's Emails

By Jessica Taylor,

Ally Mutnick

Published October 31, 2015 at 7:09 AM CDT

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to guests at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on October 24, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa.

It's becoming a monthly tradition — on the last day of the month, the State Department unloads thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails.

While Clinton maintains she never used her personal server to send or receive classified information, between 600 and 700 emails have been classified retroactively since the monthly releases began in May, according to Politico. The latest batch this month includes over 7,000 pages of new documents.

Emails that won't be released are ones between Clinton and President Obama. The White House said they will not allow the release of their correspondence, citing executive privilege.

When she testified before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last week, Clinton faced several questions about emails she had received from Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime political adviser to her and her husband. Several more Blumenthal emails appear in the latest batch too.

Here are some of the emails that jumped out.

Blumenthal's missives

This month's release again features several emails from Blumenthal, usually passing along a political story or a thought he thought Clinton should know.

He frequently weighed in with his thoughts about the 2012 election, and made it very, very clear in this email that he thought President Obama's team was focusing on the wrong opponent. Here's some background.

As Republicans on the Benghazi committee will be sure to note though, there are emails like this one, where Blumenthal made observations about Libya and other foreign policy matters.

Libya and wall lamps

Another email Republicans may seize on is when aide Huma Abedin forwarded Clinton an article in December 2011, about gunmen trying to assassinate the head of the Libyan army, she replied with something completely different.

Clinton is :-( about her Blackberry

When the secretary updated her phone, she lost a crucial ability. "I am quite bereft that I've lost the emoticons from my latest new old berry. Is there anyway I can add them?" Aide Philippe Reines writes her back, with what even admits is far too long of an answer for such a short question. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-( :-) :-)

Kim Jong Un probably likes this better than The Interview

Reines strikes again, with a diplomatic suggestion on how to reach out to the new North Korean leader. I mean, who doesn't love a good romantic comedy?

This isn't even Matthew McConaughey's finest work.

Tardiness will not be tolerated

Reines again, with a heartfelt apology.

Out of the loop on LinkedIn

Really, there's no way to make the messages stop. We're sorry.

Keeping tabs on 2016

Aides forwarded along this email about one would-be rival who ended up not as one.

Pls print

A lot of Clinton's emails were asking aides to print out emails and articles for her (let's hope she recycled). So naturally, she needs a way to keep them all together.