Hillary Clinton heard about this Cabinet meeting on the radio that morning

Pictured above is an event that White House official schedule for June 8, 2009 billed as a meeting between President Obama and his Cabinet. Hillary Clinton is absent.

Six years later, the State Department has posted a batch of Hillary Clinton's emails from her tenure as Secretary, which shed some light on why she was missing. It turns out she was unaware the meeting was taking place at all, and only heard about it on the radio that morning:

Sounds serious — an important meeting of the president's Cabinet, and Clinton didn't even know about it? An email from one of her staffers sheds some light on what happened:

Indeed, the various Cabinet agencies have little in common, and when the Cabinet is convened as a body, it's usually for a meeting that's less important than it appears. When told what the meeting was about (stimulus implementation), Clinton decided it wasn't necessary for her to go — but she wanted a representative there:

Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary of State for Management, was confirmed to be the State Department's representative:

The official photos of this meeting posted to the White House Flickr feed do show some Cabinet Secretaries present — like Attorney General Eric Holder, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — but the White House conspicuously neglected to post a clear shot of the whole table. Perhaps because it would more clearly show who was missing.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via