– BREAKING Analysis, Speculation and Opinion Of Our Elder Pat – Late this afternoon, United States District Court Judge Royce Lamberth delivered a blockbuster ruling to conservative watchdog, Judicial Watch:
BREAKING: Court gives @JudicialWatch additional discovery and witnesses on Clinton emails — wants Judicial Watch to "shake the tree" on newly uncovered potential Clinton email trove. Gives Mrs. Clinton 30 days to oppose our request to question her under oath. https://t.co/X7RvbjqI8H
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 22, 2019
In early February of this year, Judge Lamberth had ordered that senior Obama administration officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap — would have to answer Judicial Watch’s written questions under oath.
In rendering that order, the court rejected the DOJ and State Department’s objections to Judicial Watch’s court-ordered discovery plan.
The court, in ordering a discovery plan earlier this year, ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
Since February’s ruling:
(Judicial Watch) …discovery over the last several months found many more details about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:
-John Hackett, the former director for Information Programs and Services (IPS), which handles records management at the State Department, testified under oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.
-Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in June 2016.
-Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create the non-government email system.
-In the interrogatory responses of E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.
-Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testified that both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business.
-Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified that Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerrys and personal emails to transmit classified material.
Now, Judge Lamberth, the same judge who has presided over the information release from the beginning, has seen enough. He’s told Judicial Watch to “shake the tree.”
BIG: Court allows additional @JudicialWatch discovery into the many questions on Clinton email scandal! pic.twitter.com/atSuinbxF4
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 22, 2019
In initially granting Judicial Watch discovery, Judge Lamberth criticized the State and Justice Department for possible “bad faith” and “chicanery.”
Ponder what this tells us.
Judge Lamberth has ordered Judicial Watch to broaden its investigation because… well… because the Justice Department has refused to do its job more than two-and-a-half years into the Trump presidency.
The same DOJ is responsible for/while investigating the #Epstein death, was in court today unsuccessfully trying to protect Hillary Clinton (and the State Dept, and the DOJ, etc.) from any further questions on the email scandal from @JudicialWatch. https://t.co/QqQALKrVV9 pic.twitter.com/NRSGiKvCV4
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 23, 2019
This is a breaking story. We’ll update our report as more information becomes available.
