A Clinton-appointed federal judge has ordered Hillary’s aides to testify about her use of the private server and end run around the FOIA. The “nothingburger” (one of several) will likely be downplayed by the corporate media, but it remains a serious case if you accept the idea that our government officials don’t get to evade scrutiny or destroy evidence with impunity. I am very sure if Condi Rice had done this we would all agree it needed to be discussed. Around here though, discussing an ongoing FBI investigation of a candidate is nearly verboten because freedom and all that. But the news is what it is, and another glimmer of reality peeks through the shroud of denial:
...top State Department official, Lewis A. Lukens, executive director of Clinton’s executive secretariat from 2008 to 2011, is set to appear Wednesday for sworn testimony...
The ongoing depositions will be as follows:
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May 18 – Lewis A. Lukens, deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director of the State Department’s Executive Secretariat from 2008 to 2011, who emailed with Patrick Kennedy and Cheryl Mills about setting up a computer for Clinton to check her clintonemail.com email account.
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May 27 – Cheryl D. Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff throughout her four years as secretary of state.
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June 3 – Stephen D. Mull, executive secretary of the State Department from June 2009 to October 2012, who suggested that Clinton be issued a State Department BlackBerry, which would protect her identity and would also be subject to FOIA requests.
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June 6 – Bryan Pagliano, State Department Schedule C employee who has been reported to have serviced and maintained the server that hosted the “clintonemail.com” system during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
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June 8 – 30(b)(6) deposition(s) of the State Department regarding the processing of FOIA requests, including Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, for emails of Clinton and Abedin both during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and after.
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June 28 – Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and a senior advisor to Clinton throughout her four years as secretary of state and also had an email account on clintonemail.com.
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June 29 – Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management since 2007 and the secretary of state’s principal advisor on management issues, including technology and information services.
The WaPo article makes it clear that the judge believes the State Department has been running interference for Hillary:
The State Department initially closed Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and dozens of others before the existence of the Clinton server was disclosed in March 2015. Subsequently, the government has argued that it did not have to search Clinton’s server for records in the Abedin case because it did not possess or control the server at the time.
Sullivan rejected that argument, saying the server arrangement allowed Clinton and other former employees to decide after the fact what government records to disclose, apparently without ensuring that State records were secured within the department’s systems.
Obviously this case could have a negative impact on Clinton’s viability in the general election. Whether this affects her standing in the primary depends on how many super delegates think running a candidate who is under investigation is a winning strategy.
This could have been avoided. If she had told the Des Moines Register News the truth in January she would have had a very good chance of losing. That plus New Hampshire would likely have affected the close race in Nevada. Winning Iowa gave her a much needed boost early on.
And of course if Sanders had mentioned any of this the public would not be as unaware as they are of the serious issues she faces.
Failing to bring them up leaves the public with a false perception which Hillary and the corporate media seem happy to live with.