The State Department says about 30 emails that may be related to the 2012 attack on US compounds in Benghazi, Libya, are among the thousands of Hillary Clinton emails recovered during the FBI’s recently closed investigation into her use of a private server.
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Besides the cache of 30,000 emails Clinton voluntarily turned over to the State Department in 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has uncovered these previously undisclosed documents to or from Clinton when she served as the U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta was told.
Lawmakers who have reviewed classified summaries of the investigation have said the FBI’s notes raise more questions than they answer.
The Justice Department closed its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server without filing any criminal charges, but the issue is being kept alive, in part, by Judicial Watch lawsuits that seek to make more government records public.
Clinton was ordered earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to answer the group’s questions under oath.
Judge Mehta spoke after Ramona Cotca, an attorney for the conservative group Judicial Watch, asked to negotiate the timing of potential releases, saying she hoped it would not take long for a review.
Clinton has also said her team only deleted emails from her server that were personal in nature and not related to her duties as secretary of state. President Obama trusted her to know what she could, or could not, say to anyone who had donated to the foundation.
In public and in private, FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly defended his recommendation that Clinton not be charged in the matter, insisting the FBI found no evidence that she knowingly sent or received classified information over the private server. He’s promised to step down from the board if Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November, a commitment made amid swirling questions pushed along by Donald Trump about her ability to separate herself from the foundation’s wealthy contributors at home and overseas. No wonder federal courts in Florida and DC are ordering the State Department to stop stalling and begin releasing the 14,900 new Clinton emails.
In a separate case, Judicial Watch has been seeking Clinton’s communications about the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, during which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith were killed.
The law enforcement agency will release the report publicly in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by CNN, which first reported the planned release, and other groups.
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Mrs. Clinton has said she thought her messages were being captured because she regularly emails fellow employees on their official State Department accounts.
