A federal judge in Florida ordered the State Department turn over any emails between Hillary Clinton and the White House that were sent or received during the week of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by September 13, only three days after a federal judge in DC gave officials a September 23 deadline.
Judicial Watch has been investigating Clinton’s emails for months, discovering that she did not use a secure private email server and that Clinton Foundation donors asked her for special favors when she served as Secretary of State.
The State Department claimed they needed until October 14 to filter through the emails, but Judge James Boasberg told the State Department to release the documents to Judicial Watch by September 23. Judge William Dimitrouleas, who is overseeing another Judicial Watch complaint, demanded the department release the emails 10 days earlier:
“It is astonishing that Hillary Clinton tried to delete and hide Benghazi emails and documents. No wonder federal courts in Florida and DC are ordering the State Department to stop stalling and begin releasing the 14,900 new Clinton emails,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
The State Department is only required to give Judicial Watch emails that fit with its Freedom of Information Act request:
The first batch of new emails comes in response to a court order issued today in a November 13, 2015, Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit filed against the Department of State seeking all communications between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama White House from the day of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and throughout the following week.—In a separate case, Judicial Watch has been seeking Clinton’s communications about the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, during which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith were killed. A second assault targeted a nearby compound, killing two government contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00692)).—Judicial Watch is also scheduled to receive documents from the State Department in a case arising out of FOIA lawsuit before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan that seeks records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system.
Last week, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court in Washington put Judicial Watch a step closer by telling Hillary she must provide written testimony under oath, also known as interrogatories, concerning her private email server in connection to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.
The watchdog group asked “permission to depose Clinton; the Director of Office of Correspondence and Records of the Executive Secretariat (“S/ES-CRM”) Clarence Finney; and [former Director of Informatio Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat (“S/ES-IRM”) John] Bentel.”
Judicial Watch kept its investigation going after FBI James Comey said he would not recommend the Department of Justice press charges against Hillary, even though Comey admitted Hillary and her staff were “extremely careless” using a private email server.
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