WASHINGTON--Judicial Watch announced today that United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that discovery can begin in Hillary Clinton's email scandal. Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides will now be deposed under oath. Senior officials, including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap, will now have to answer Judicial Watch's written questions under oath. The court rejected the DOJ and State Department's objections to Judicial Watch's court-ordered discovery plan. (The court, in ordering a discovery plan last month, ruled that the Clinton email system was "one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.")
Judicial Watch's discovery will seek answers to:
Whether Clinton intentionally attempted to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a non-government email system;
Whether the State Department's efforts to settle this case beginning in late 2014 amounted to bad faith; and
Whether the State Department adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request.
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach.
