During a contentious hearing on October 12, a federal judge said he was “shocked” and “dumbfounded” to find that the Department of Justice granted immunity to former Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills (shown on right) during the FBI investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth also accused former State Department officials of outright lying and signing “clearly false” affidavits in order to disrupt a series of lawsuits that attempted to garner information about Clinton’s handling of the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and her use of a private e-mail server.
“I had found myself that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief, and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in — by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case,” said Lamberth.
In an extreme breech of normal investigative procedure, the FBI also allowed Mills to accompany Clinton to its interview of her. “So, I did not know until I read the IG report and learned that she had accompanied the Secretary to her interview,” Lambert incredulously noted.
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The IG report, which was published in June, noted that it was, “inconsistent with typical investigative strategy” for the FBI to allow Mills to sit in on Clinton’s interview. “There are serious potential ramifications when one witness attends another witness’ interview,” the IG stated.
Transparency watchdog group Judicial Watch initially brought the lawsuit in 2014 after the government ignored a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents about the response to the Benghazi attack. The State Department initially moved to dismiss the case, claiming it had already provided all relevant e-mails regarding the situation.
Lamberth denied the State Department’s request to dismiss the case. “It was clear to me at the time that I ruled initially, that false statements were made to me by career State Department officials, and it became more clear through discovery that the information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the search and this — what we now know turned out to be the Secretary’s email system.”
Lamberth went on, “I don’t know the details of what kind of IG inquiry there was into why these career officials at the State Department would have filed false affidavits with me. I don’t know the details of why the Justice Department lawyers did not know false affidavits were being filed with me, but I was very relieved that I did not accept them and that I allowed limited discovery into what had happened.”
Lamberth later accused Justice Department attorney Robert Prince of using “doublespeak” in his defense and of “playing the same word games [Clinton] played.”
In an extremely tense exchange, Lamberth went after Prince’s defense.
Lamberth: The State Department told me that it had produced all records when it moved for summary judgment and you filed that motion. That was not true when the motion was filed.
Prince: At that time, we had produced all —
Lamberth: It was not true.
Prince: Yes it was — Well, Your Honor, it might be that our search could be found to be inadequate, but that declaration was absolutely true.
Lamberth: It was not true. It was a lie.
Prince: It was not a lie, Your Honor,
Lamberth: What — that’s doublespeak.
No kidding that’s doublespeak. It’s as if Prince took lessons from Hillary Clinton herself. It sounds as if Prince is saying that the State Department sent all the documents they knew about at the time of Lamberth’s original order but — maybe they found some more and weren’t exactly forthcoming with them. The evasion and equivocation of Prince is Clintonian in scope. The full transcript of the proceeding can be read here.
What all of this proves is that the State Department under President Barak Obama intentionally misled the court in an effort to hide facts and documents surrounding both the Benghazi attack and Clinton’s private e-mail server.
And still the Left wonders why crowds chant, “Lock her up!”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton has called upon President Trump to use the bully pulpit and call for answers from the State Department as to why they still balk at questions about the Clinton e-mail scandal.
“President Trump should ask why his State Department is still refusing to answer basic questions about the Clinton email scancal,” Fitton said in a statement. “Hillary Clinton’s and the State Department’s email cover-up abused the FOIA, the court’s and the American people’s right to know.”
Kudos to Judicial Watch for being so tenacious in investigating this issue. The Obama/Clinton cadre probably hoped that all of this would have disappeared by now.
Image of Cheryl Mills: Screenshot of YouTube video Wochit News
