(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed amotion in federal court to compel former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to produce the December 2014 after action memorandum created by her personal attorney Heather Samuelson that memorializes the search for and processing of Clinton emails in 2014. Samuelson reviewed Clinton’s State Department emails and about half of them were deleted (Hillary Clinton is also resisting, through an emergency appeal, the court’s order that she testify to Judicial Watch about her emails.)
The filing comes in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). Judicial Watch famously uncovered in 2014 that the “talking points,” which provided the basis for false statements by then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice, were created by the Obama White House. This FOIA lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.
In December 2018, Judge Lamberth ordered discovery into whether Clinton’s use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. The court also authorized discovery into whether the Benghazi controversy motivated the cover-up of Clinton’s email. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
Clinton is resisting producing even a portion of the “after-action” memo, despite an August 22, 2019, ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth that Judicial Watch may ask for the memorandum in its discovery. Clinton refused to produce any part of the memo, alleging that it is fully exempt from disclosure under the “attorney work product doctrine.” In an earlier ruling on a similar issue in this litigation, the Court held that “any contemporaneous documents shedding light on the three narrow discovery topics – even documents evincing attorney impressions, conclusions, opinions, and theories – constitute fact work-product” and should be produced.
Judicial Watch explains to the court: “After repeated attempts to resolve this dispute have proven unsuccessful, [Judicial Watch] respectfully requests an order from the Court to compel Secretary Clinton to produce the document … within short order.”
read more here: https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/hrc-resists/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=press_release
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