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A federal judge has handed Hillary Clinton and her Deep State allies still burrowed in the Department of State and the Department of Justice a significant smackdown. On Monday, March 2, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted a Judicial Watch request to have Hillary Clinton sit for a deposition regarding her e-mail/national security scandal and the Benghazi attack while she was President Obama’s secretary of state. The court also ordered the deposition of Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and two other State Department officials who were involved in handling her illegal, private e-mail operation.
The ruling is a huge breakthrough in the six-year-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by the public watchdog group. It is also a troubling reminder of the ongoing problem of Obama-administration holdovers in high-level DOJ-DOS-FBI posts who continue to stymie and sabotage the policies and programs of President Donald Trump. Judge Lamberth, who has overseen the case Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State, is not buying DOJ and DOS arguments that the case should be closed. Judge Lamberth stated that he is “especially troubled” that “the Justice Department inexplicably still takes the position that the Court should close discovery” when “there is still more to learn.” The judge used strong language, calling the State Department’s claims it had produced all of Clinton’s e-mails “unacceptable,” “inexplicable,” and “preposterous.”
Judge Lamberth further granted Judicial Watch’s request to subpoena Google for relevant documents and records associated with Clinton’s e-mails during her tenure at the State Department. He dismissed State Department claims that “it is highly unlikely that Judicial Watch would receive any relevant information or emails that the FBI or DOJ Inspector General failed to uncover,” noting that new Clinton e-mails have continued to dribble out years after DOS, DOJ, and FBI have argued that all recoverable e-mails had been found and released.
The Judicial Watch lawsuit, launched in 2014, famously uncovered the Obama White House “talking points” that were the basis for the false statements by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of media appearances regarding the deadly attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The group’s FOIA lawsuit led directly to the discovery of the secret Clinton e-mail system that violated federal law and jeopardized national security.
Court “Shocked” and “Dumbfounded”
During a combative hearing on October 12, 2018, Judge Lamberth said he was “shocked” and “dumbfounded” to learn that the DOJ had granted immunity to former Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills during the FBI investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server. Judge Lamberth accused DOS and DOJ officials of lying, employing Orwellian “doublespeak,” and filing false affidavits regarding the Benghazi controversies and the Clinton e-mails.
In his December 6, 2018 ruling, Judge Lamberth described Clinton’s use of her private e-mail system as “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency,” and suggested the DOS/DOJ responses to the court amounted to bad-faith efforts to conceal evidence and cover up Clinton’s actions.
Judge Lamberth’s decision this week overrules objections to additional discovery by lawyers for Hillary Clinton and the State and Justice Departments. “Discovery up until this point has brought to light a noteworthy amount of relevant information, but Judicial Watch requests an additional round of discovery, and understandably so,” the judge stated. “With each passing round of discovery, the Court is left with more questions than answers. What’s more, during the December 19, 2019, status conference, Judicial Watch disclosed that the FBI recently produced approximately thirty previously undisclosed Clinton emails. State failed to fully explain the new emails’ origins when the Court directly questioned where they came from.”
“Furthermore,” said Lamberth, “State has not represented to the Court that the private emails of State’s former employees who corresponded with Secretary Clinton have been searched for additional Clinton emails. State has thus failed to persuade the Court that all of Secretary Clinton’s recoverable emails have been located. This is unacceptable.”
Judge Lamberth’s ruling continues:
State asks the Court to close discovery and to move this case towards dispositive motions and an eventual resolution. But there is still more to learn. Even though many important questions remain unanswered, the Justice Department inexplicably still takes the position that the Court should close discovery and rule on dispositive motions. The Court is especially troubled by this. To argue that the Court now has enough information to determine whether State conducted an adequate search is preposterous, especially when considering State’s deficient representations regarding the existence of additional Clinton emails. Instead, the Court will authorize a new round of discovery.
Hillary’s Memory Problem and Previous Testimony
Lawyers for Hillary Clinton and the State Department have argued that Clinton has already been investigated and interrogated multiple times, and that any additional discovery would be duplicative. Clinton’s media defenders have been reliable echo chambers for this defense. CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, for instance, writing on the latest Lamberth ruling, reported that “Clinton’s emails were already investigated by Congress, the State Department inspector general and the FBI, and she previously gave written answers in another lawsuit.” Much of the rest of the Fake News industrial complex reported similarly, giving the impression that “We’ve been there, done that, nothing more to see.” This, despite the fact that the Obama/Lynn/Comey DOJ and FBI clearly acted in bad faith, giving Hillary Clinton and her staff inexplicable breaks. Former FBI Director James Comey later admitted he had let Clinton off the hook because he was expecting (and hoping) that she would be the next president of the United States.
Judge Lamberth was not persuaded by the Clinton been-there-done-that defense. He ruled:
The Court has considered the numerous times in which Secretary Clinton said she could not recall or remember certain details in her prior interrogatory answers. In a deposition, it is more likely that plaintiff’s counsel could use documents and other testimony to attempt to refresh her recollection. And so, to avoid the unsatisfying and inefficient outcome of multiple rounds of fruitless interrogatories and move this almost six-year-old case closer to its conclusion, Judicial Watch will be permitted to clarify and further explore Secretary Clinton’s answers in person and immediately after she gives them. The Court agrees with Judicial Watch — it is time to hear directly from Secretary Clinton.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton was understandably elated by the ruling, a significant vindication of his claims and the removal of a longstanding impediment to a direct deposition of Hillary Clinton. “Judicial Watch uncovered the Clinton email scandal and we’re pleased that the court authorized us to depose Mrs. Clinton directly on her email conduct and how it impacted the people’s ‘right to know’ under FOIA,” Fitton stated.
Judge Lamberth’s ruling, which puts a 75-day timeline on the collection of evidence and depositions, underscores the disturbing degree to which veterans of the Deep State swamp remain in place.
Photo: AP Images
William F. Jasper has a well-earned reputation as one of America’s top investigative reporters and has attended several international conferences hosted by the United Nations. He is most known for his work on the Oklahoma City bombing and its aftermath.
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