PrintJudge orders State Department to turn over new Benghazi emails by September 13.
A federal judge has ordered the State Department to turn over any and all emails and documents found by the FBI from Hillary Clinton's private server relating to the Benghazi terrorist attack of September 11, 2012.
The judge was responding to this August 23 revelation from the State Department.
"Using broad search terms, we have identified a number of documents potentially responsive to a Benghazi-related request," Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. "At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive. We also have not determined if they involve Secretary Clinton."
The case involves an FOIA suit by Judicial Watch seeking all documents from Secretary Clinton relating to the Benghazi attack. The batch of 14,900 work related emails were apparently deleted by Clinton in violation of the law and the FBI recovered them. Another judge ordered the release of the rest of the emails and documents over the next few months.
The first batch of new emails comes in response to a court order issued today in a November 13, 2015, Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit filed against the Department of State seeking all communications between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama White House from the day of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and throughout the following week. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dr. Larry Kawa of Boca Raton, Florida, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division (Larry Kawa v. U.S. Department of State (No. 9:15-cv-81560)). Today’s order requiring the production of the emails from the 14,900 new Clinton emails as well as any other communications or emails from the other materials recently delivered to the State Department by the FBI was issued by U.S. District Court Judge William P. Dimitrouleas. The courtruled:
The State Department shall search the material, determine whether any responsive records exist, and complete its first production of non-exempt records, to the extent any exist, by September 13, 2016.
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. A second assault targeted a nearby compound, killing two government contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00692)).
After admitting in an August 23 court filing that it found documents that “satisfied the [Benghazi related] search terms” of the new Clinton emails, the State Department proposed a rolling production schedule, “under which State would make its first production of any non-exempt responsive records subject to FOIA on September 30, 2016, and complete production no later than October 31, 2016.” Judicial Watch then asked the court that State make known the volume of documents remaining to be reviewed before it accepts whether the production schedule is reasonable. Today, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta informed the attorneys the Court wants to schedule a hearing on this issue for Tuesday, August 30.
The State Department wants to slow walk the issue hoping to prevent any bombshells from derailing the Clinton candidacy. In this case, the federal judge is pushing State to get off its butt and get at least some of the requested emails into the hands of JW attorneys.
The revelation that the FBI found 15,000 work-related emails that were supposed to be turned over to the government - and after Clinton's lawyers assured Congress and the courts that all such emails had, indeed, been turned over - was a story for about 12 hours on most of the nets. The email issue is stale and even bombshell revelations aren't enough to generate much interest in the mainstream press.
It's surreal. It won't matter what's in the Benghazi emails. It won't matter what the content is in the other 15,000 documents. This is the non-story of the year and nothing will get by the firewall the press has set up to protect her.
