WND EXCLUSIVE

HILLARY CLINTON UNDER OATH? DOOR OPENS IN EMAIL CASE

Judge puts Judicial Watch investigation of private server in high gear

Bob Unruh

The investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of classified information while she was secretary of state has reached a new level, with a judge’s determination that it may be necessary to depose her under oath.

The order by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch.

The judge said that based on information “learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary.”

He said that if Judicial Watch “believes Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is required, it will request permission from the court at the appropriate time.”

The court already had approved Judicial Watch’s request to question State Department officials Stephen D. Mull, Lewis Lukens, Patrick Kennedy and Bryan Pagliano, and Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.

“This is a significant victory for transparency and accountability,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Judicial Watch will use this discovery to get all of the facts behind Hillary Clinton’s and the Obama State Department’s thwarting of FOIA so that the public can be sure that all of the emails from her illicit email system are reviewed and released to the public as the law requires.”

Judicial Watch’s suit seeks records regarding the controversial employment status of Abedin.

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Abedin is a former deputy chief of staff for Clinton. But she also was working in the private sector, for the Clinton Foundation as well as another organization run by a friend of former president Bill Clinton, while being paid by the government.

The lawsuit had been closed down but was revived when it was discovered that Clinton had had a private email server running out of her home for her official government business while she was secretary of state.

In response to the FOIA, the agency’s official records were searched regarding Abedin, but it turned out Clinton’s private server had not been searched.

“Judicial Watch raises significant questions in its Motion for Discovery about whether the State Department processed documents in good faith in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. Judicial Watch is therefore entitled to limited discovery,” the judge wrote.

He also questioned whether the State Department and Clinton “purposefully routed … document[s] out of agency possession in order to circumvent a FOIA request.”

The judge noted the two sides in the case had agreed on the limited discovery plan.

In a separate FOIA lawsuit, regarding Clinton’s actions surrounding the Benghazi terror attack, federal Judge Royce Lamberth previously ruled Judicial Watch can conduct discovery of Clinton and her top aides regarding their email.

Sullivan found that the question remained: “Did the State Department, in good faith, conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.”

The ruling said: “The circumstances surrounding approval of Mrs. Clinton’s use of clintonemail.com for official government business, as well as the manner in which it was operated, are issues that need to be explored in discovery to enable the court to resolve, as a matter of law, the adequacy of the State Department’s search of relevant records in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request.”

WND reported an inspector general found Clinton “exploited a loophole” in the Freedom of Information Act process.

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General weeks ago found, according to Fox News, that the FOIA law “neither authorizes nor requires agencies to search for federal records in personal email accounts maintained on private servers or through commercial providers.”

“Furthermore, the FOIA analyst has no way to independently locate federal records from such accounts unless employees take steps to preserve official emails in department record keeping systems.”

Most of the emails from Clinton’s private server never made it into official government records. She has claimed she turned over copies of all the emails that she thought belonged to the government.

But Judicial Watch has been fighting several legal cases involving emails on the private server that may not have been searched under FOIA.

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Judicial Watch has filed three separate cases seeking information regarding Clinton’s emails.

There’s a lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry to force action on Clinton emails, another seeking records of talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice regarding the Benghazi attack and another seeking records on the State Department’s “Special Government Employment” status for Abedin.

Many of the Clinton emails channeled through her private server, which for a time was not even encrypted, were secret or classified.

Separately, an FBI investigation is under way into Clinton’s handling of classified information that could result in a referral of felony charges to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/hillary-clinton-under-oath-door-opens-in-email-case/#sjM4soPFloqM1kxF.99