U.S. judge orders discovery to go forward over Clinton’s private email system

Source: Washington Post

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that State Department officials and top Clinton aides should be questioned under oath about whether they intentionally thwarted federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure at State from 2009 to 2013.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington came in a lawsuit over public records brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, regarding its May 2013 request, for information about the employment arrangement of a longtime Clinton aide, Huma Abedin. While it was not immediately clear whether the goverment would appeal, Sullivan set an April deadline for parties to lay out a detailed investigative plan that would go extend well beyond the limited and carefully worded explanations of the use of the private server so far given by department and Clinton officials.

Sullivan also suggested from the bench that he might at some point order the department to subpoena Clinton and Abedin, to return all records related to Clinton’s private clintonemail.com, not just those their camps have previously deemed work-related and returned. “There has been a constant drip, drip, drip of declarations. When does it stop?” Sullivan said, saying that months of piecemeal revelations about Clinton and the State Department’s handling of the email controversy create “at least a ‘reasonable suspicion’?” that public access to official government records under the federal Freedom of Information Act was undermined.“This case is about the public’s right to know.”

In granting Judicial Watch’s request, Sullivan noted that there was no dispute that senior State Department officials were aware of the email set-up, citing a Jan. 2009 email exchange including Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills, Abedin about establishing an “off-network” email system. Sullivan’s decision came as Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination and three weeks after the State Department acknowledged for the first time that “top secret” information passed through the server.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-weighs-deeper-probe-into-clintons-private-email-system/2016/02/23/9c27412a-d997-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html

That is just so 1984.

Smith, Smith! If you do your exercises with more enthusiasm, you will go from this 98 pound weakling:



To this Hero of Airstrip 1: