Confirmed: Hillary Declaration under oath in Judicial Watch case was deceptive
But numerous wording ambiguities and loopholes may let Hillary avoid perjury prosecution.
On August 10, 2015, I asked Did Hillary just walk into a perjury trap over her emails?.
The document in question was a very curiously worded Declaration under oath signed by Hillary in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit:
“1) While I do not know what information may be “responsive” for purposes of this law suit, I have directed that all my e-mails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were, or potentially were, federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done….”
The Declaration was a response to a court Order that Hillary and certain others “confirm, under penalty of perjury, that they have produced all responsive information that was or is in their possession as a result of their employment at the State Department.”
The wording was so Clintonian. First, the Declaration only addressed documents “in my custody,” whereas the Order addressed also what “was” in her possession previously. She doesn’t say in the Declaration that there are documents that once existed but no longer were in her custody. I’m not sure anyone picked up on that linguistic sleight of hand at the time.
Second, the Declaration was written with concern not about telling the truth but drafted in a way to hide the truth while providing Hillary with multiple avenues to avoid prosecution. Here were some of the outs provided in the wording I noted at the time:
Let’s take a look as the many potential loopholes and outs Hillary has in the wording:
- “While I do not know what information may be “responsive”” — In other words, everything that follows is qualified by Hillary not knowing what she’s supposed to be producing.
- “I have directed” — so if it doesn’t get done, it’s not Hillary’s fault.
- “on clintonemail.com” — special emphasis on “on” — what does that mean to be “on” an email account?
- ” in my custody” — usually I’ve seen wording much broader, “in my custody or under my control” or similar language.
- “were or potentially were federal records to be provided to the Department of State” — so only records that were to be provided by her to DoS are covered, but that’s not necessarily the universe of all federal or potentially federal records.
Any declaration under oath holds great risk. But Hillary’s lawyers have carefully worded her Declaration to admit to nothing, provide multiple ambiguities, and numerous “outs” should she be challenged.
Judicial Watch is continuing to press for answers and documents.
But Judicial Watch is up against the world’s expert on dodging — someone who learned from the Master. Or maybe the Master learned from her.
And sure enough, documents from the Podesta email account released by Wikileaks show that Hillary’s lawyers worried at the time as to a public statement to be issued by the campaign to make it appear that everything had been produced.
John Solomon and Raphael Wlliams examine the latest Wikileaks release of emails, A leaked email raises questions about Hillary Clinton’s veracity in sworn court document (emphasis added):
On the same day Hillary Clinton swore to a judge that she believed all of her State Department emails had been turned over in a federal lawsuit, her private attorney wrote to the presidential candidate’s inner circle acknowledging the possible existence of additional messages that had not yet been produced, according to a leaked email message.
The Aug. 8, 2015 late-night email message from attorney David Kendall could have implications in a federal open records lawsuit that is still pending….
The Kendall email was written just hours after Clinton sought to convince a federal judge in a carefully worded sworn declaration that the thousands of State Department-related emails she turned over in late 2014 from her personal email account covering the period March 18, 2009 through Feb. 1, 2013 were all she could produce to the court overseeing a FOIA case brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch….
It wasn’t until 2016 when a State Department inspector general report and an FBI investigative report were released that the public formally learned there were emails on her private account prior to March 18, 2009 that had been recovered and relevant to her work as the country’s top diplomat.
But at 10:24 p.m. on Aug. 8,2015, Kendall sent an email to her campaign chairman John Podesta, as well as close aides Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, Jen Palmieri and Brian Fallon.
Kendall warned the campaign leadership that using the March 18, 2009 date in a public statement about Clinton’s compliance with the lawsuit was a potential “gotcha” because they were aware of emails that existed prior to the date on her private email server accounts.
“I would prefer not to use the ‘March 18, 2009’ date, because we know there were other emails using the her clintonemail.com address prior to that date,” Kendall wrote.
“Could we make this more vague, like ‘early in her term as SOS’? Or would this change provide a ‘gotcha’ target–if so, not worth it, since this is the date of the earliest email in the PST of her emails, as I understand it,” he added….
But the documents could also cause repercussions in the federal case, congressional investigations and the FBI probe focused on Clinton’s handling of emails.
For instance, the FBI reported in June that Clinton and her legal team never turned over any emails prior to March 18 2009.
(Full email chain here.)
The Declaration under oath was a clear deception, as it didn’t reveal the concern Kendall had expressed about documents prior to March 18, 2009 that had not been produced. Whether it was perjury will depend on whether a prosecutor or court would accept the numerous Clintonian loopholes built into the wording.
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Comments
I was reading with the expectation I would see “That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is…”
Like yesterday it was all about your definition of “Dump”.
Well they have already argued what the definiton of “reopen” is.
Well, since part of the ambiguity is over what the definition of “on” is, for the purposes of an e-mail account, you got something pretty close.
The story on the street is that the DoJ was actively impeding the FBI’s investigation.
One agency of the executive branch impeding an FBI investigation…
where have I heard that before?
I suspect that the expected harm from DOJ’s interference is less than the harm that would result from the investigation.
If there is true justice then…………………….
Hillary will go to heaven because Satan won’t want the competition.
This may have been answered already, I haven’t read all of the posts here.
Are any of the wikileaks emails admissible in court or of any use whatsoever in prosecuting these criminals?
IAFarmBoy
I think you may have problems with chain of custody and claims they were tampered with , although I think they would be able to supoena the original records from Gmail ect for those using a provider . Of course with the Hillary server ,no such luck
I am perplexed why it’s not considered that she waived her attorney-client privilege if she agreed her attorney could discuss this with her staff. Her staff weren’t her attorneys. It’s one thing if he explains it, but it would seem very different when he’s telling them she didn’t sign truthfully or completely. You don’t tell 3rd parties your client is lying by omission.
Other lawyers? Your take?
Consider “agency theory”. Those people are her agents, and she’s waived nothing.
Depends of what your definition of “lie” is.
I hear the train a comin’
It’s rollin’ ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine
Since, I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom Prison
And time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’
On down to San Antone
When I was just a baby
My Mama told me, son
Always be a good boy
Don’t ever play with guns
But I shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowin’
I hang my head and cry
I bet there’s rich folks eatin’
In a fancy dining car
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee
And smokin’ big cigars
But I know I had it comin’
I know I can’t be free
But those people keep a-movin’
And that’s what tortures me
Well, if they freed me from this prison
If that railroad train was mine
I bet I’d move out over a little
Farther down the line
Far from Folsom Prison
That’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lonesome whistle
Blow my blues away
i bet mills did have an account there just under some whacky name.
[email protected]
Of course she lied.
She lies whenever she talks.
She lies whenever she talks about previous times she talked.
She lies when she writes things down.
She lies when confronted with her lies and blames others who may or may not have had anything to do with the lies.
She lies when she talks about other people, herself, and her family.
She lies when she emails somebody, and lies about emailing them, where it came from, what it was about, and if the email existed in the first place.
She will lie every single day until the end, and even then, it will take two doctors signing off before I believe it.
My wife, who gets upset when I utter anything bad about Obama, ran the idea that Huma was a foreign spy by me the other night.
You have to admit that 650,000 emails is a lot for anybody.
Just how many accounts was Huma tied into anyway ?
Good point. The courts asked for just under 4 years worth of e-mails.
If they are all to/from one person:
650,000 / 4 == 162,500 e-mails per year; so,
162,500 / 365 == ~445 e-mails per day.
Or put another way, about one e-mail per minute of a normal work day (8 hours, minus breaks), with no days off (not even weekends or holidays) for four years.
And that’s assuming that poor soul spends 8 hours per day doing NOTHING but reading and answering e-mails.
Even if that 650,000 is spread among 5 people, that still averages an e-mail received or sent every 5 minutes, 8 hours/day, 365 days/year (again, no weekends or holidays), for four years.
NOBODY does that much e-mail. Ergo, the mere volume should be raising suspicions.
Lots of yoga classes
This is why this process is a complete charade! This SHOULD have been done in person so that she could be grilled in front of a Judge under oath and for the first time her her life the truth be got at!
Instead we have exactly what was intended to happen. A meaningless statement, which although deceptive, will result in exactly zero action being taken against her.
Mailman
Bill parsed the meaning of ‘is’. Now we are parsing the meaning of ‘on’. Do we have to parse all of Websters or just the prepositions before we can get a straight answer.