Judicial
Watch was one of the first organizations to discover the hidden use of
Hillary Clinton’s private email account to keep activity hidden from
public review.
As
a consequence of a long standing Judicial Watch FIOA court battle over
State Department documents relating to the private email and private
server, Judicial Watch requested to depose Secretary Clinton to answer
questions.
The
request for direct deposition was denied by the court, choosing instead
to first order questions be asked/answered in writing. Whereby: on
August 19, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial
Watch further discovery on the Clinton email matter and ordered Secretary Hillary Clinton to answer the questions “by no later than thirty days thereafter....”
Under
federal court rules, Judicial Watch was limited to twenty-five
questions. Today Judicial Watch submitted the questions, starting the
30 day clock for responses.
Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced it submitted questions to
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning her email
practices. Clinton’s answers, under oath, are due on September 29. On
August 19, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial
Watch further discovery on the Clinton email matter and ordered Clinton
to answer the questions “by no later than thirty days thereafter....”
Under federal court rules, Judicial Watch is limited to twenty-five
questions.
The questions are:
- Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com
system, including who decided to create the system, the date it was
decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and
when it became operational.
- Describe the creation of your clintonemail.com
email account, including who decided to create it, when it was created,
why it was created, and, if you did not set up the account yourself,
who set it up for you.
- When did you decide to use a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business and whom did you consult in making this decision?
- Identify all communications in which you participated concerning or relating to your decision to use a clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business and, for
each communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in
person, in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means),
persons present or participating, and content of the communication.
- In a 60 Minutes interview
aired on July 24, 2016, you stated that it was “recommended” you use a
personal email account to conduct official State Department business.
What recommendations were you given about using or not using a personal
email account to conduct official State Department business, who made
any such recommendations, and when were any such recommendations made?
- Were you ever advised, cautioned, or
warned, was it ever suggested, or did you ever participate in any
communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed that
your use of a clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business conflicted
with or violated federal recordkeeping laws. For each instance in which
you were so advised, cautioned or warned, in which such a suggestion was
made, or in which such a discussion took place, identify the time,
date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone, or by
electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and
content of the advice, caution, warning, suggestion, or discussion.
- Your campaign website states, “When
Clinton got to the Department, she opted to use her personal email
account as a matter of convenience.” What factors other than convenience
did you consider in deciding to use a personal email account to conduct
official State Department business? Include in your answer whether you
considered federal records management and preservation requirements and
how email you used to conduct official State Department business would
be searched in response to FOIA requests.
- After President Obama nominated you to
be Secretary of State and during your tenure as secretary, did you
expect the State Department to receive FOIA requests for or concerning
your email?
- During your tenure as Secretary of
State, did you understand that email you sent or received in the course
of conducting official State Department business was subject to FOIA?
- During your tenure as Secretary of State, how did you manage and preserve emails in your clintonemail.com
email account sent or received in the course of conducting official
State Department business, and what, if anything, did you do to make
those emails available to the Department for conducting searches in
response to FOIA requests?
- During your tenure as Secretary of
State, what, if any, effort did you make to inform the State
Department’s records management personnel (e.g., Clarence Finney or the
Executive Secretariat’s Office of Correspondence and Records) about your
use of a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business?
- During your tenure as Secretary of State, did State Department personnel ever request access to your clintonemail.com
email account to search for email responsive to a FOIA request? If so,
identify the date access to your account was requested, the person or
persons requesting access, and whether access was granted or denied.
- At the time you decided to use your clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business, or at any
time thereafter during your tenure as Secretary of State, did you
consider how emails you sent to or received from persons who did not
have State Department email accounts (i.e., “state.gov”
accounts) would be maintained and preserved by the Department or
searched by the Department in response to FOIA requests? If so, what was
your understanding about how such emails would be maintained,
preserved, or searched by the Department in response to FOIA requests?
- On March 6, 2009, Assistant Secretary
of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell wrote in an Information
Memo to your Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, that he “cannot stress too
strongly, however, that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable
in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations,
retrieving email, and exploiting calendars.” A March 11, 2009 email
states that, in a management meeting with the assistant secretaries, you
approached Assistant Secretary Boswell and mentioned that you had read
the “IM” and that you “get it.” Did you review the March 6, 2009
Information Memo, and, if so, why did you continue using an unclassified
BlackBerry to access your clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business? Copies of
the March 6, 2009 Information Memo and March 11, 2009 email are attached
as Exhibit A for your review.
- In a November 13, 2010 email exchange with Huma Abedin about problems with your clintonemail.com
email account, you wrote to Ms. Abedin, in response to her suggestion
that you use a State Department email account or release your email
address to the Department, “Let’s get a separate address or device.” Why
did you continue using your clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business after
agreeing on November 13, 2010 to “get a separate address or device?”
Include in your answer whether by “address” you meant an official State
Department email account (i.e., a “state.gov”
account) and by “device” you meant a State Department-issued
BlackBerry. A copy of the November 13, 2010 email exchange with Ms.
Abedin is attached as Exhibit B for your review.
- Email exchanges among your top aides
and assistants in August 30, 2011 discuss providing you with a State
Department-issued BlackBerry or State Department email address. In the
course of these discussions, State Department Executive Secretary
Stephen Mull wrote, “[W]e are working to provide the Secretary per her
request a Department issued BlackBerry to replace her personal unit
which is malfunctioning (possibly because of her personal email server
is down). We will prepare two versions for her to use – one with an
operating State Department email account (which would mask her identity,
but which would also be subject to FOIA requests).” Similarly, John
Bentel, the Director of Information and Records Management in the
Executive Secretariat, wrote, “You should be aware that any email would
go through the Department’s infrastructure and [be] subject to FOIA
searches.” Did you request a State Department issued Blackberry or a
State Department email account in or around August 2011, and, if so, why
did you continue using your personal device and clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business instead of
replacing your device and account with a State Department-issued
BlackBerry or a State Department email account? Include in your answer
whether the fact that a State Department-issued BlackBerry or a State
Department email address would be subject to FOIA affected your
decision. Copies of the email exchanges are attached as Exhibit C for
your review.
- In February 2011, Assistant Secretary
Boswell sent you an Information Memo noting “a dramatic increase since
January 2011 in attempts . . . to compromise the private home email
accounts of senior Department officials.” Assistant Secretary Boswell
“urge[d] Department users to minimize the use of personal web-email for
business.” Did you review Assistant Secretary Boswell’s Information Memo
in or after February 2011, and, if so, why did you continue using your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business? Include in your answer any steps you took to minimize use of your clintonemail.com
email account after reviewing the memo. A copy of Assistant Secretary
Boswell’s February 2011 Information Memo is attached as Exhibit D for
your review.
- On June 28, 2011, you sent a message to
all State Department personnel about securing personal email accounts.
In the message, you noted “recent targeting of personal email accounts
by online adversaries” and directed all personnel to “[a]void conducting
official Department business from your personal email accounts.” Why
did you continue using your clintonemail.com
email account to conduct official State Department business after June
28, 2011, when you were advising all State Department Personnel to avoid
doing so? A copy of the June 28, 2011 message is attached as Exhibit E
for your review.
- Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned about hacking or attempted hacking of your clintonemail.com email account or the server that hosted your clintonemail.com account and, if so, what did you do in response to the advice, caution, or warning?
- When you were preparing to leave office, did you consider allowing the State Department access to your clintonemail.com
email account to manage and preserve the official emails in your
account and to search those emails in response to FOIA requests? If you
considered allowing access to your email account, why did you decide
against it? If you did not consider allowing access to your email
account, why not?
- After you left office, did you believe
you could alter, destroy, disclose, or use email you sent or received
concerning official State Department business as you saw fit? If not,
why not?
- In late 2014, the State Department
asked that you make available to the Department copies of any federal
records of which you were aware, “such as an email sent or received on a
personal email account while serving as Secretary of State.” After you
left office but before your attorneys reviewed the email in your clintonemail.com
email account in response to the State Department’s request, did you
alter, destroy, disclose, or use any of the email in the account or
authorize or instruct that any email in the account be altered,
destroyed, disclosed, or used? If so, describe any email that was
altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used, when the alteration,
destruction, disclosure, or use took place, and the circumstances under
which the email was altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used? A copy of a
November 12, 2014 letter from Under Secretary of State for Management
Patrick F. Kennedy regarding the State Department’s request is attached
as Exhibit F for your review.
- After your lawyers completed their review of the emails in your clintonemail.com
email account in late 2014, were the electronic versions of your emails
preserved, deleted, or destroyed? If they were deleted or destroyed,
what tool or software was used to delete or destroy them, who deleted or
destroyed them, and was the deletion or destruction done at your
direction?
- During your October 22, 2015 appearance
before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi,
you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails “were in the State’s
system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been
able to do so.” Identify the basis for this statement, including all
facts on which you relied in support of the statement, how and when you
became aware of these facts, and, if you were made aware of these facts
by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of
these facts.
- Identify all communications between you
and Brian Pagliano concerning or relating to the management,
preservation, deletion, or destruction of any emails in your clintonemail.com
email account, including any instruction or direction to Mr. Pagliano
about the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of emails
in your account when transferring the clintonemail.com
email system to any alternate or replacement server. For each
communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person,
in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons
present or participating, and content of the communication.
“These
are simple questions about her email system that we hope will finally
result in straight-forward answers, under oath, from Hillary Clinton,”
stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
In his opinion ordering Clinton to answer written questions under oath Judge Sullivan wrote:
The
Court is persuaded that Secretary Clinton’s testimony is necessary to
enable her to explain on the record the purpose for the creation and
operation of the clintonemail.com system for State Department business.
In its July 2016 request to depose Hillary Clinton, Judicial Watch argued:
Secretary
Clinton’s deposition is necessary to complete the record. Although
certain information has become available through investigations by the
Benghazi Select Committee, the FBI, and the State Department Inspector
General, as well as through Plaintiff’s narrowly tailored discovery to
date, significant gaps in the evidence remain. Only Secretary Clinton
can fill these gaps, and she does not argue otherwise.
***
To [Judicial Watch’s] knowledge, Secretary Clinton has never testified under oath why she created and used the clintonemail.com system to conduct official government business. Her only public statements on the issue are unsworn.
Judge Sullivan also ordered that
Judicial Watch may depose the former Director of Information Resource
Management of the Executive Secretariat (“S/ES-IRM”) John Bentel by October 31.
The questions and deposition arise in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before
Judge Sullivan first filed in September 2013 seeking records about the
controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of
Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).
Judicial Watch has already taken the deposition testimony of seven Clinton aides and State Department officials.
For further information on this case, click here.
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