The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has uncovered almost 15,000 new emails to or from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton when she served as Secretary of State and sought their speedy release.
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It remained unclear if there were any newly discovered emails that related to the September 2012 attack on a US facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans, including US Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed. Lawyers for the department told U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg on Monday that they anticipate processing and releasing the first batch of these new emails in mid-October, raising the prospect that new messages sent or received by Clinton could become public just before November’s election.
Some of the new documents will contain information that is deemed private under open-records laws, but Judicial Watch, the group that forced Monday’s hearing, said numerous documents will have information that should have been public all along.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said, “As we have always said, Hillary Clinton provided the State Department with all the work-related emails she had in her possession in 2014”.
The House Oversight Committee is increasing the pressure on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to hand over additional details related to Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonDems bash Trump with Breitbart headlines Eric Trump wants his father to focus on Clinton In shock poll, Libertarian Johnson beats Trump among economists MORE’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State. Though the exchange is far from a smoking gun, it and a number of other e-mails involving Abedin are a bad look for the Clinton Foundation as it combats accusations of pay-to-play.
More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money either personally or through companies or groups to the Clinton Foundation.
Trump’s running mate and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence also weighed in on Monday, telling Breitbart, “Frankly today in Iowa I reiterated Donald Trump’s call that Hillary Clinton should shut down the Clinton Foundation immediately”.
Numerous email exchanges are between Abedin and then top Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band.
Foundation donors’ access to her state department has been known for a while, based on multiple news reports, and the AP report highlights how frequent that was. Weingarten had two private meetings with Clinton in 2009 and 2012 and also joined her at a photo shoot in 2010.
In a June 2009 exchange, Band told Abedin that Bahraini Crown Prince Salman wished to meet with the secretary, adding, “good friend of ours”.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, failed to turn over the documents and messages to the government.
While Mrs. Clinton is no longer involved with the foundation, her husband and daughter, Chelsea, continue to attend the organization’s events. Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000. According to the Clinton campaign, no action was taken on the request.
Does this mean the blurry lines between the Clinton Foundation and the secretary of State’s office constituted corruption?
These emails are separate from the 55,000-plus pages of documentation Clinton campaign previously, and voluntarily, turned over to investigators earlier this year.
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