State Department provided 'clearly false' statements to derail requests for Clinton docs, 'shocked' federal judge says

[Linaluo]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/state- ... judge-says

In a combative exchange at a hearing Friday in Washington, D.C., a federal judge unabashedly accused career State Department officials of lying and signing "clearly false" affidavits to derail a series of lawsuits seeking information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server and her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.





U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said he was "shocked" and "dumbfounded" when he learned that FBI had granted immunity to former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills during its investigation into the use of Clinton's server, according to a court transcript of his remarks.

[Billie.jeens]

“I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief, and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in — by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case,” he said Friday.

“So I did not know that until I read the IG report and learned that and that she had accompanied the Secretary to her interview.”

He didn’t know that because State Department officials never told him. Nor did they inform him at the time that Clinton had used a private email address on a personal server to handle department business. They also never let him know that when they searched for relevant documents to provide to Judicial Watch, they neglected to include Clinton’s emails.

[Billie.jeens]

What concerns him the most is the State Department’s continue refusal to be upfront and honest with Lamberth.

“President Trump should ask why his State Department is still refusing to answer basic questions about the Clinton email scandal. Hillary Clinton’s and the State Department’s email cover up abused the FOIA, the courts, and the American people’s right to know,” he said in a statement.

He seemed to be insinuating that, despite President Donald Trump being in office, Obama-era officials — or what the judge described as “career State Department officials” — still remain embedded within the agency and are doing their very best to stop groups like Judicial Watch from uncovering the truth.

As noted by Judicial Watch, it was its own lawsuit against the State Department that “led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.”

Yet even Trump’s Statement Department continues to stonewall, obfuscate and play what the judge termed “word games.”