Judicial Watch, the organization that has stirred up a hornets’ nest with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about Hillary Clinton’s email, has submitted a list of questions to be answered in writing by Sec. Clinton. By court order the questions must be answered within 30 days and the answers will be considered to have been given under oath. The list of questions is here, straight from the horse’s mouth as it were. Here’s a sample question:
- Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned, was it ever suggested, or did you ever participate in any communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed that your use of a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business conflicted with or violated federal recordkeeping laws. For each instance in which you were so advised, cautioned or warned, in which such a suggestion was made, or in which such a discussion took place, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the advice, caution, warning, suggestion, or discussion.
That’s the sixth of twenty-five questions and far from the most exacting.
Is Sec. Clinton being unfairly harassed, should the way in which events are playing out have been anticipated under the circumstances, or something else? Will the answers Sec. Clinton gives redound to her credit?
At this point what difference does it make?
The actual questions are, AFAICT, fair. What is not fair is that they did not ask these of the other Sec. of State.
Steve
No other Secretary of State has used a private email server exclusively, both for private email and for conducting public business. Reacting differently to different behaviors is reasonable.
The lawsuit originates from JW’s FOIA requests directed towards learning whether Huma Abedin was working for private-sector clients while with the State Department. JW had to sue to get State to comply with the FOIAs, the lawsuit was settled when State gave all of the relevant FOIAs to JW. But it turns out the State Department had committed a fraud — there were tons of documents on Clinton’s server that had not been checked. (Fraud here being Clinton’s, attributable to the government) The lawsuit was reopened.
So now there is a cluster#### because nobody is sure what documents existed, were destroyed, were searched, can be located through alternative means, etc. And quite early on State Dept. complained that Clinton was not helping and the judge left open the possibility of discovery and depositions if that continued, and surprisingly, here we are. It looks to me like we’re at one last opportunity from having another Clinton deposition.
None of this has anything to do with what other Secretaries of State have done, the judge doesn’t understand yet what Clinton did, nor apparently do the people working for her that didn’t claim the Fifth Amendment.
The judge’s ruling focuses on John Bentel, Director of S/ES-IRM, under Clinton, who will now be deposed:
“The Court is persuaded that Mr. Bentel should be deposed
because the record in this case appears to contradict his sworn
testimony before the Benghazi Committee. . . . Specifically, Mr. Bentel testified that he was not aware that Secretary Clinton’s email account was housed on a private server until media reports in 2015. However, several emails indicate Mr. Bentel knew about the private server as early as 2009. . . . ”
“The Court relies on three other facts in authorizing the deposition of Mr. Bentel. First, Mr. Bentel declined to assist [his supervisor] in preparation for her deposition. Second, the OIG May 2016 report
found that Mr. Bentel told employees in his office that Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement had been approved by the State Department’s legal staff and also instructed his subordinates not to discuss the Secretary’s email again . . .. Finally in August 2011, Mr. Bentel informed a State Department staff person that anything sent to the Secretary on her state.gov Blackberry address “would be subject to FOIA searches.—
I would not be surprised if Bentel takes the Fifth now that the Judge is suggesting that he may have committed perjury.
I’m surprised that no one has pointed out the conspiracy aspect of this.
“Reacting differently to different behaviors is reasonable.”
In the past, a Sec of State just decided which emails to keep and which to delete. No questions asked, even if they had future political aspirations. So now, we don’t really have a baseline. I would bet a good case of beer that if we had the emails from earlier people, we would find discussion of classified material. We would also likely find they weren’t all personal. If you are going to do one, might as well do all.
Steve
steve,
The only secretaries to use email at the State Department in the past are Powell and Clinton – that’s not much of a baseline especially since the State Department’s current email system was created during Powell’s tenure.