The FBI has recovered additional emails former Secretary of State and Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton deleted and by default, refused to turn over to the State Department.
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That exchange was included in the State Department Inspector General’s report on Clinton’s email use but it was absent from the files turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and released to the public-a sign that was “raising questions about the thoroughness of her disclosures to the government and her record-keeping practices as secretary of state”, the paper said.
Justice and State Department attorneys have asked for a month to review these 30 emails “for possible classified information which also may require reviews by agencies outside the State Department”, The Washington Post reported.
Mehta asked Justice and State department attorneys to speed their review and come back by September 6 with an answer on how many duplicates are in the batch and how many records may need added review.
In a separate development Tuesday, Judicial Watch submitted 25 questions to Clinton about her 2009 decision to rely on a private server in the basement of her NY home rather than a government email account. The State Department’s need to release the emails comes from a petition by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Critics say recent email dumps show donors who gave significant amounts to the Clinton Foundation calling in favors and being given preferential treatment by the State Department, with Abedin frequently acting as point person. She had not. Clinton also deleted 30,000 emails she deemed “personal”.
Judicial Watch has pressed for responsive documents to be made public before the presidential election, but it is still unclear whether all of them will be released by November 8.
Although Clinton has claimed there was “no connection” between the foundation and her work at the department, Republican critics have jumped on the recent revelations, with Donald Trump accusing Clinton of having engaged in “pay for play” activities.
Newly released emails “suggest Mr. Trump has reason to say that while Mrs. Clinton was secretary, it was hard to tell where the [Clinton] foundation ended and the State Department began”, according to the editorial.
The FBI, which has already released a portion of its findings to Congress, is expected to release further information about its investigation into Hillary’s emails in a report later this week.
The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond for comment.
It’s unclear exactly which documents will be released.
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In July, FBI Director James Comey described Clinton as “extremely careless” in her handling of sensitive material, but did not recommend charges against her. Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, who led Congressional investigation into the Beghazi terror attacks, said last week that Clinton deployed a software tool called BleachBit created to delete files “where even God can’t read them”.
