FBI: We’ve got 15,000 new emails to look at
Judge pushes for quick release Note ties Clinton, Arab prince
NEARLY 15,000 emails previously not disclosed by Hillary Clinton were unearthed by the FBI as part of its investigation into the Democratic nominee’s private server, lawyers for the State Department told a federal judge Monday.
The State Department said it is in the process of reviewing the 14,900 emails — nearly 50% more than the 30,000 that Clinton’s lawyers had previously provided to the agency.
The emails reportedly came from the accounts of other people Clinton communicated with via email or were recovered through the FBI’s forensic examination of her old server.
State Department lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg on Monday that they expected to release the first batch of the new emails in mid-October, raising the prospect new messages sent or received by Clinton could become public just before November’s presidential election.
But Boasberg, who is overseeing the case as part of a federal public-records lawsuit filed by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, said he wants the department to release the emails sooner, ordering it to report back to him on its progress in processing the emails by Sept. 22.
Lisa Olson, the attorney representing the State Department, said officials don’t know yet which portion of the new emails are work-related and which are of a personal nature, and said it would be “extremely ambitious” for the department to release the first batch of emails to Judicial Watch by Oct. 14.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement that his group was “pleased” with Boasberg’s order to check in in September.
Judicial Watch’s request stems from Clinton’s use of a private server during her time as secretary of state.
The conservative watchdog group has gradually released the emails it has obtained, with at least a handful signaling a possible link between Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation.
On Monday, the group released 20 more, including a June 2009 message from Huma Abedin, then a deputy chief of staff to Clinton, to Doug Band, a longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton who then was an official at the Clinton family’s charitable foundation. The email shows Band trying to arrange a meeting between Clinton and the Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, who in 2005 made a $32 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. “Good friend of ours,” Band wrote to Abedin. In later emails Abedin confirmed that Clinton would meet with the prince. Meanwhile, Republicans, who have pressed to keep the issue of Clinton’s email use alive after the FBI closed its investigation last month without recommending criminal charges, weighed in on the latest development Monday.
“Hillary Clinton seems incapable of telling the truth,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “Clinton’s pattern of serial dishonesty is completely unacceptable for a candidate seeking the nation’s highest office.”
Donald Trump said he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into the foundation if he becomes President.
“I’ve become increasingly shocked by the vast scope of Hillary Clinton’s criminality,” Donald Trump said Monday at a rally in Akron, Ohio, claiming also that the Justice Department and the FBI can’t be trusted to probe Clinton.