Emails from Hillary tech staffer go 'missing'
'Either destroyed or never turned over, adding yet another layer to the secrecy'
Published: 10 hours ago
Just days after a judge in Washington, D.C., confirmed that Hillary Clinton may have to be deposed in a legal fight over her emails as secretary of state, the emails from the man who ran her private email server during that period have gone missing.
ABC News reported the State Department has confirmed that none of the emails from Bryan Pagliano – during the time he was Clinton’s senior information tech staffer at the State Department – can be found.
WND had reported only days ago that the investigation of Clinton’s email – and specifically how she handled classified information on her private and unsecured server – moved to a higher level.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in a ruling in a Freedom of Information Act case brought by Judicial Watch, said based on information “learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary.”
He said that if Judicial Watch “believes Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is required, it will request permission from the court at the appropriate time.”
In another new twist revealed just on Monday, the State Department denied it could find any of Pagliano’s emails, even though he would have been required to turn over any official communications from his work account before he left his government position.
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The overall issue of the email – and their security – is important because Clinton would have agreed when she was appointed to the post to properly maintain security on information critical to the United States. If she mishandled or was careless with it, criminal charges could result.
In fact, her critics have been busy speculating in recent weeks what could happen to her, including one political pundit who noted her first act in office, should she win the 2016 election, could be to pardon herself.
State Department officials reveal Pagliano held an email account with the government, though.
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“The department has searched for Mr. Pagliano’s email pst file and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,”said Elizabeth Trudeau, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.
“To be clear, the department does have records related to Mr. Pagliano and we are working with Congress and [Freedom of Information Act] requesters to provide relevant material. The department has located a pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the Department.”
The emails and details about them have been the subject of many cases already, but this development came in a case responding to a FOIA lawsuit by the Republican National Committee.
Officials there want the State Department to turn over information.
ABC said Pagliano did the work to set up the server in Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York, while she was holding the position at the head of the State Department.
Now he’s an FBI witness in the investigation of how that information – the emails – were handled.
He’s been granted immunity by the Justice Department, ABC reported.
ABC reported Raj Shah, an RNC spokesman, said, “Such records might shed light on his role in setting up Clinton’s server, and why he was granted immunity by the FBI. But it seems that his emails were either destroyed or never turned over, adding yet another layer to the secrecy surrounding his role.”
In the Judicial Watch case, the judge said based on information “learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary.”
He said that if Judicial Watch “believes Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is required, it will request permission from the court at the appropriate time.”
The court already had approved Judicial Watch’s request to question State Department officials Stephen D. Mull, Lewis Lukens, Patrick Kennedy and Pagliano, and Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
“This is a significant victory for transparency and accountability,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Judicial Watch will use this discovery to get all of the facts behind Hillary Clinton’s and the Obama State Department’s thwarting of FOIA so that the public can be sure that all of the emails from her illicit email system are reviewed and released to the public as the law requires.”
Judicial Watch’s suit seeks records regarding the controversial employment status of Abedin.
Abedin is a former deputy chief of staff for Clinton. But she also was working in the private sector, for the Clinton Foundation as well as another organization run by a friend of former president Bill Clinton, while being paid by the government.
The lawsuit had been closed down but was revived when it was discovered that Clinton had had a private email server running out of her home for her official government business while she was secretary of state.
In response to the FOIA, the agency’s official records were searched regarding Abedin, but it turned out Clinton’s private server had not been searched.
“Judicial Watch raises significant questions in its Motion for Discovery about whether the State Department processed documents in good faith in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. Judicial Watch is therefore entitled to limited discovery,” the judge wrote.
In a separate FOIA lawsuit, regarding Clinton’s actions surrounding the Benghazi terror attack, federal Judge Royce Lamberth previously ruled Judicial Watch can conduct discovery of Clinton and her top aides regarding their email.
Sullivan found that the question remained: “Did the State Department, in good faith, conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.”
The ruling said: “The circumstances surrounding approval of Mrs. Clinton’s use of clintonemail.com for official government business, as well as the manner in which it was operated, are issues that need to be explored in discovery to enable the court to resolve, as a matter of law, the adequacy of the State Department’s search of relevant records in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request.”
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/emails-from-hillary-tech-staffer-go-missing/#OLlLqMZxOCUrd4Yp.99
