The selection of the 14,900 emails now being released were not part of the close to 30,000 emails – over 52,000 pages – turned over by Clinton’s lawyers in 2014 and released by the State Department in weekly and monthly installments for nearly a year.
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The State Department committed last week to publicly releasing the Clinton emails uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of an existing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The announcement by U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing a group of lawsuits seeking to make Clinton’s emails public, came the same day a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, made public a batch of Clinton’s emails obtained through a lawsuit.
The emails released Monday by Judicial Watch also offer more detail about Clinton’s meetings with Daniel Abraham – the SlimFast billionaire, founder of the Center for Middle East Peace and another Clinton Foundation donor.
Fitton accused the State Department of “stonewalling” the release of the records. But they “illustrate the way the Clintons’ global network of friends and donors was able to get access to Hillary Clinton and her inner circle during her tenure running the State Department”.
A spokesmen for Clinton did not respond to requests for comment. If you were a foreign national or a foreign head of state it was your connections to the foundation that got you special consideration at the State Department.
The cache of emails were not among the emails turned over by Clinton’s lawyers to the State Department after it was learned Clinton had been using a private server for her State Department duties.
The billionaire businessman, whose hard-line approach to immigration and fierce rhetoric propelled him to the GOP presidential nomination, insisted that he’s not “flip-flopping” on the divisive issue as he works to broaden his support two and half months to the general election.
The order is limited to documents related to the Benghazi attacks and the State Department notes that it’s possible that it may not find any relevant documents.
Judicial Watch also said the emails revealed how donors to the Clinton family’s charitable foundation seeked access to her even while she was Secretary of State.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit has continued to keep the Clinton email controversy alive after an FBI investigation was closed last month with a decision not to bring criminal charges against the Democratic nominee.
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Critics, including Republican presidential election rival Donald Trump, say she endangered government secrets and evaded transparency laws. “These companies have failed to comply with our committee’s request for documents and interviews that would provide information crucial to understanding Secretary Clinton’s private server and informing policy changes in how to prevent similar email arrangements in the future”.
