August 12, 2016
In granting Judicial Watch discovery, the US. District Court ruled that Judicial Watch may seek permission for Clinton’s testimony, if necessary. Judicial Watch announced on July 8, 2016 that it submitted a request for permission to depose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Today they announced again: Judicial Watch is currently seeking permission for the deposition of Clinton.
The request was sent over a month ago. This fact raises questions in my mind as to why this would take so long. It is unclear why this process is stalling. I feel the need to clarify what has transpired because most of this happened very fast.
On May 4, 2016 the court authorized Judicial Watch to seek the testimony of the following witnesses:
- Stephen D. Mull (Executive Secretary of the State Department from June 2009 to October 2012 and suggested that Mrs. Clinton be issued a State Department BlackBerry, which would protect her identity and would also be subject to FOIA requests);
- Lewis A. Lukens (Executive Director of the Executive Secretariat from 2008 to 2011 and emailed with Patrick Kennedy and Cheryl Mills about setting up a computer for Mrs. Clinton to check her clintonemail.com email account);
- Patrick F. Kennedy (Under Secretary for Management since 2007 and the Secretary of State’s principal advisor on management issues, including technology and information services);
- 30(b)(6) deposition(s) of Defendant regarding the processing of FOIA requests, including Plaintiff’s FOIA request, for emails of Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Abedin both during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and after;
- Cheryl D. Mills (Mrs. Clinton’s Chief of Staff throughout her four years as Secretary of State);
- Huma Abedin (Mrs. Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and a senior advisor to Mrs. Clinton throughout her four years as Secretary of State and also had an email account on clintonemail.com);
- Bryan Pagliano (State Department Schedule C employee who has been reported to have serviced and maintained the server that hosted the “clintonemail.com” system during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State);
The first 4 on that list didn’t give way to anything solid.
Cheryl Mills’ attorneys filed a motion on May 25 saying they fear that the group that seeks Mills’ deposition in a FOIA lawsuit, Judicial Watch, will use any recording to distort her testimony and advance the group’s anti-Clinton agenda. More like ANTI-CORRUPTION.
On May 27, 2016 former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills refused to answer questions in a deposition with Judicial Watch due to privilege assertions resulting from her legal representation of Hillary Clinton.
During her testimony, Ms. Mills declined to answer multiple questions purportedly based upon privilege assertions resulting from her legal representation of Hillary Clinton. Rather than face a motion to compel answers in federal court, Ms. Mills answered the questions, posed again as interrogatories, in writing under oath.
On June 19, 2016 Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the decision by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to reopen a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that sought records about Huma Abedin, the former Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).
Hillary Clinton’s massive email cover-up is unraveling. We welcome Judge Sullivan’s decision to reopen this lawsuit. Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration concealed records and lied to obstruct federal courts and Judicial Watch from finding out about the secret emails.
The court battle to get to the truth about Huma Abedin’s “special government employee” (SGE) privileges at State is underway. The reopening of this case brings Judicial Watch one step closer to forcing the State Department to ensure that the government records in Hillary Clinton’s “secret” email system are properly preserved, protected and recovered as federal law requires. Ms. Abedin is part of the Clinton cash raising operation and was even involved in the Benghazi scandal, so this lawsuit could not be more timely.
On June 22, 2016 former State Department IT official Bryan Paliano’s 95 page deposition with Judicial Watch was riddled with 120+ 5th Amendment avoidance’s, many of them not necessarily qualifying as questions one could even plead the 5th on and in my memory, there was no follow up report on any of those that would force Pagliano to answer them.
My own in depth report from August 9 and 10 in one piece revealed that Cheryl Mills had in fact lied. When asked during her deposition by Judicial Watch about the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) FOIA request, Mills spent several minutes testifying repeatedly that she could not recall much of anything about the controversy.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “This is evidence that Cheryl Mills covered up Hillary Clinton’s email system. She was aware of the FOIA request about Clinton’s email accounts and allowed a response to go out that was a plain lie. And you can bet if Cheryl Mills knew about this inquiry, then Hillary Clinton did, too.” He continued with,
“This is all the more reason for Mrs. Clinton to finally testify under oath about the key details of her email practices.”
This came 1 day after JW released 177 new State Department emails from 2009 dealing with a curious email chain involving Huma Abedin that later ended in a Cheryl Mills visit “while on vacation” to the Clinton Foundation headquarters to interview unknown persons 2 as “a favor” where she purportedly received no payment.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement, accusing the two of violating ethics rules, “No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress. They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.”
Have a look for yourself: THE Abedin EMAIL CHAIN
Finally, today (August 12), Judicial watch released Ms. Mills’ under oath responses to their interrogatories.
“I recall having conversations with Bryan Pagliano, which I believe were by telephone, in three time periods following February 2013:
- In or around March 2013, when the email account of Sidney Blumenthal was compromised by a hacker known as Guccifer. As I recall, these discussions involved whether this event might affect Secretary Clinton’s email;
- In or around Spring 2013, during the transition to Platte River Networks. As I recall, these discussions were in the context of contract negotiations with Platte River Networks and involved how the needs of the clintonemail.com system would be met by the services proposed by Platte River Networks;
- In and or around Summer or Fall 2014, when we were seeking to gather Secretary Clinton’s emails to provide those that were work-related to the Department of State. As I recall, these discussions involved whether Platte River Networks would have the technical capacity and be the appropriate source from which to gather Secretary Clinton’s email from the clintonemail.com system.”
Platte River Networks was considered as the private company to take over servicing the Clinton email system.
Moreover, Mills revealed that the Clinton Email System was built in 2009 from “excess equipment available from Secretary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential Campaign”
Mills also denied ever “discussing [with Pagliano] in any of the above conversations the initial set up of the clintonemail.com system, including who set up the system, when it was set up, where the system was located, the reason for which it had been established, or anything related to Huma Abedin’s email account.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton’s response to this:
“Cheryl Mills’ conversation with Bryan Pagliano expressing concern that the impact of Guccifer’s hack of Sidney Blumenthal’s email account confirms that there was high anxiety among Clinton’s inner circle about the vulnerabilities of Clinton’s non-state.gov email system. It is notable that Hillary Clinton and her lawyers, rather than face a motion to compel in federal court, backed away from their obstructionist privilege claims to finally provide more answers from Cheryl Mills about Clinton’s email scheme under oath.”
K. Timothy Lippert
Editor/Columnist
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