Judicial Watch: State Department Finds New Records in Clinton FOIA Litigation

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Obama State Department recently found “thousands” of new records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.  According to information provided to Judicial Watch by various Justice Department attorneys, the new documents appear be “working” records in electronic format located on both “shared” and “individual” drives accessible to or used by persons identified as being relevant to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits on the Benghazi scandal and controversies from Clinton’s term at State.  The State Department confirmed the new find in a court filing late this past Friday in a FOIA lawsuit concerning records about Clinton aide Huma Abedin:

After State filed its motion for summary judgment in this case [on November 11, 2015], State located additional sources of documents that originated within the Office of the Secretary that are reasonably likely to contain records responsive to Plaintiff’s request.  State has informed Plaintiff that it intends to search these locations, produce non-exempt portions of any responsive records, and file a supplemental declaration in support of its motion for summary judgment (which is presently stayed).

The State Department seeks at least until February 1 to provide additional information about these new records.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement in response to the new disclosures:

This latest find of Clinton records, at this late date, is astonishing.  The State Department waited to last possible moment, as it did with the Clinton emails, to tell Judicial Watch and the federal courts about thousands of records that haven’t been searched, as the law requires.  Who knew what – and when did they know it – about these new Clinton documents?

These newly recovered Clinton records are a potential game changer – and will be of interest to the courts, Congress, and the FBI’s criminal investigation.  It sure looks like more of the same in terms of Obama administration officials’ obstructing our FOIA requests, obstructing the courts, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice.

Judicial Watch exposed this new cover up on the heels of a finding by State Department’s Inspector General that Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department thwarted specific Judicial Watch FOIA requests by lying about her email system with “inaccurate” and “incomplete” responses.

The developments come in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that seeks records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton.  The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about Clinton’s separate email records (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).