Federal judge orders Hillary Clinton deposition to address private emails

A federal judge Monday granted a request from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch to have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sit for a sworn deposition to answer questions about her use of a private email server to conduct government business.

Clinton has argued that she has already answered questions about this and should not have to do so again, but D.C. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in his ruling that her past responses left much to be desired.

“As extensive as the existing record is, it does not sufficiently explain Secretary Clinton’s state of mind when she decided it would be an acceptable practice to set up and use a private server to conduct State Department business,” Lamberth said.

The judge went on to recognize that while Clinton responded to written questions in a separate case, “those responses were either incomplete, unhelpful, or cursory at best. Simply put her responses left many more questions than answers.” Lamberth said that using written questions this time “will only muddle any understanding of Secretary Clinton’s state of mind and fail to capture the full picture, this delaying the final disposition of this case even further.”

The ruling comes after Judicial Watch revealed at a December 2019 status conference that the FBI released “approximately thirty previously undisclosed Clinton emails,” and that the State Department “failed to fully explain” where they came from.

The State Department has been pushing for the discovery phase of the case to come to a close, but Lamberth said he is not ready to do so, saying that “there is still more to learn.”