As I wrote in a column today for Fox News: "Lawyers for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, seeking to avoid her deposition testimony, repeatedly informed U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan that her use of the clintonemail.com system was nothing more than a continuation of her standard ‘practice.’
"Judicial Watch attorneys only seek to question Mrs. Clinton for no more than three hours as part of a discovery process that already saw the testimony of several witnesses, including her top State aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
"But her legal team claimed in a court hearing before Judge Sullivan last week that questioning Secretary Clinton about her motivation for the use of the system would not yield any additional information other than that it was simply for her own ‘convenience.’ But it seems that Mrs. Clinton’s email claims change every time she’s asked about the issue."
Last week we went back to Judge Sullivan after Clinton seemed to change her story about the email system housed at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. We cited a recent interview with Scott Pelley, of CBS News “60 Minutes”: Pelley: "All right. Do you think you blew it on the emails?” Clinton: "Oh, I’ve said I did. Absolutely. I made a mistake. I should have had two accounts; one for personal and one for office. And I didn’t, and I take responsibility for that.” Pelley: "Why did you do that, have the private email servers?” Clinton: "You know, Scott, other people did have — other secretaries of state, other high-ranking members of administrations, plural.
"And it was recommended that it would be convenient, and I thought it would be. It’s turned out to be anything but."
Our legal team explained to Judge Sullivan: "Based on her testimony to the Benghazi Select Committee, the statement on her campaign website, and her purported answers to the FBI’s questions, it is nowhere even suggested that Secretary Clinton’s decision to use the clintonemail.com system for official government business was based on someone else’s recommendation.
"Because of the evolving explanation, Secretary Clinton’s deposition is necessary to effectively and efficiently understand how the decision was made and the motivation behind it."
Just a few hours ago, Hillary Clinton’s attorneys filed her response. Incredibly, Hillary Clinton doesn’t dispute the revelation that someone else recommended that the non-State.gov email would be convenient to Mrs. Clinton, but only that we shouldn’t be able to satisfy our “curiosity” about the new information!
But as I also wrote today at Fox News, "If a State Department official, such as the executive secretary or the legal advisor, recommended that Secretary Clinton use a non-state.gov system for State Department business, such evidence could demonstrate the State Department’s role in the decision.
"Similarly, if someone who understood the secretary’s FOIA obligations recommended Secretary Clinton’s use of the system, such evidence could suggest that the motivation was more than just convenience."
Hillary Clinton’s slippery and changing stories on her email scandal show the value of taking a few hours to ask direct and follow up questions about her email practices.
Tom Fitton is the president of Judicial Watch. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in Time, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most every other major newspaper in the country. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.