Federal Court Hearing on Clinton Emails – Judicial Watch Asking for Deposition of Hillary Clinton

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court ordered a hearing for Thursday, August 22, 2019, on the Clinton email issue. On December 6, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”  

The court ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton’s email use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. Judicial Watch deposed nearly a dozen witnesses and will seek addition witnesses and documents from the court, including the deposition of Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at State and personal lawyer who directed the destruction of 33,000 State Department Clinton emails. Lawyers for Clinton and Mills are expected at the hearing Thursday.

The hearing and report were ordered in accordance with a July 2014 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which was filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)).

In initially granting Judicial Watch discovery, Judge Lamberth criticized the State and Justice Department for possible “bad faith” and “chicanery.”

“Judicial Watch’s has recently gathered troubling, new evidence about the Clinton email scandal and we hope the court will grant us additional discovery to get more facts,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And it is outrageous that the Justice Department continues to try to shield Hillary Clinton on her email misconduct.”

Judicial Watch’s discovery over the last several months found many more details about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

• John Hackett, the former director for Information Programs and Services (IPS), which handles records management at the State Department, testified under oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.

• Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in June 2016.

• Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create the non-government email system.

• In the interrogatory responses of E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.

• Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testified that both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business.

• Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified that Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerrys and personal emails to transmit classified material.

The court hearing details are below:

Date: Thursday, August 22, 2019

Time: 2:00 p.m. ET

Location: Courtroom 15
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001

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