Hillary Clinton’s “Inappropriate” Appeal to Avoid Judicial Watch Testimony

“The DOJ and State have said that Hillary Clinton has gone too far for their liking,” Tom Fitton states in last week’s Weekly Update.

Hillary Clinton’s “desperate motion to the appellate court” has done little to stop Judicial Watch’s unrelenting effort to uncover the full extent of the Clinton email scandal. Filing a writ of mandamus, “essentially suing the court for… abusing her ‘indisputable right’ not to testify,” Clinton and Mills claim a protected status as ex-high government officials. However, their appeal “doesn’t offer a single case from this court or any other suggesting that high level government officials should not be required to follow regular appellate channels,” Fitton continues. 

Judicial Watch has also challenged Clinton’s argument that she “held the server under a claim of right,” despite containing thousands of federal records. Contrary to legal precedent,“Clinton did not obtain an opinion from State’s legal advisor as to whether she could take the federal records prior to her departure from State.”

In recent statements, the State Department and Justice Department have also openly clashed with Clinton’s claim, describing it as “inappropriate” according to Fitton. However, despite the fact that “many questions remain unanswered, the Justice Department inexplicably still takes the position that the court should close discovery and end the case.” In response, the District Court followed by stating the following: 

“To argue that the court has now enough information to determine whether State conducted an adequate search is preposterous, especially when considering State’s deficient representations regarding the existence of additional Clinton emails. Instead, the court will now authorize a new round of discovery.” 

Having “reasonably concluded that Clinton’s previous explanations for using a private server are cursory, incomplete and seemingly at odds with what discovery has yielded to date,” it would indeed be “preposterous” to end the case here. With her original deposition scheduled for May 16th, “I expect the appellate court should move pretty quickly,” Fitton states. “My guess is that they’ll have a phone hearing, which may be live-streamed.”

Even though Hillary Clinton considers a new round of discovery in the District Court to be “an abuse of discretion, the court agrees with Judicial Watch. It’s time to hear more from secretary Clinton,” Fitton concludes.