Using a private e-mail server by Hillary Clinton pushes her respond in writing in a lawsuit, after a federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, has ruled on Friday for this in a two-page ruling.
Advertisement
Judicial Watch had requested to have Clinton submit to an in-person sworn deposition, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan instead ordered Clinton to respond to handwritten questions. The judge gave Clinton 30 days to respond – so if Judicial Watch procrastinates, it’s possible Clinton could delay answering the questions until after election day on November 8.
The Republican said he told Mrs Clinton his use of personal email “vastly improved” communications within the department, which at the time did not have an equivalent internal system.
Clinton must give testimony in e-mail case was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 21, 2016 and was last updated on August 21, 2016.
Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote that “Judicial Watch has failed to demonstrate that it can not obtain the discovery it seeks through other, less burdensome or intrusive means such as interrogatories”.
Another State Department employee, Clarence Finney, who managed open-records requests for Mrs. Clinton’s documents, was excused from testifying.
However, the judge did say Secretary Clinton has not answered yet why she set up the private server.
Clinton’s camp issued a terse response to the ruling Friday, blasting the plaintiff as an anti-Clinton group.
Mrs Clinton, who served as the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, has apologised for her decision to use the unorthodox email set-up, which had the effect of shielding her communications from public-records laws until the arrangement came to light a year ago.
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, was ordered to serve Hillary Clinton with a written interrogatory by October 14, according to court documents.
In turn, it gives Clinton 30 days to provide her answers.
The State Department is conducting its own review.
Republicans have pressed to keep the issue of Clinton’s email use alive after the FBI closed its investigation last month without recommending criminal charges, though the State Department has now reopened its investigation into the matter.
“Judicial Watch is a right-wing organization that has been attacking the Clintons since the 1990s”, Brian Fallon said, according to Fox News.
Sullivan said Bentel’s previous testimony before Congress that he was not aware of Clinton’s private email server until after 2015 media accounts about it appeared contradicted by emails showing he could have been notified as early as 2009.
“We will move quickly to get these answers”, Tom Fitton, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Advertisement
Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found thousands of other work-related emails Mrs. Clinton didn’t turn over to the State Department.
