APRIL 23, 2019
Also Confirms Over 49,000 Clinton Server Emails Found on Weiner Laptop
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that the
agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House,
specifically, the Executive Office of the President. The FBI also
admitted nearly 49,000 Clinton server emails were reviewed as result of a
search warrant for her material on the laptop of Anthony Weiner.
E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, made the disclosure to Judicial Watch as part of court-ordered discovery into the Clinton email issue.
U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Obama administration
senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well
as Priestap, to be deposed or answer writer questions under oath. The
court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
Priestap was asked by Judicial Watch to identify representatives of
Hillary Clinton, her former staff, and government agencies from which
“email repositories were obtained.” Priestap responded with the
following non-exhaustive list:
- Bryan Pagliano
- Cheryl Mills
- Executive Office of the President [Emphasis added]
- Heather Samuelson
- Jacob Sullivan
- Justin Cooper
- United States Department of State
- United States Secret Service
- Williams & Connolly LLP
of a warrant for Clinton email account information from the laptop of
Anthony Weiner, who had been married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
A complete copy of Priestap’s interrogatory responses is available here. Priestap, is serving as assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and helped oversee both the
Clinton email and the 2016 presidential campaign investigations.
Priestap testified in a separate lawsuit that Clinton was the subject of
a grand jury investigation related to her BlackBerry email accounts.
“This astonishing confirmation, made under oath by the FBI, shows
that the Obama FBI had to go to President Obama’s White House office to
find emails that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or hide from the
American people.” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “No wonder
Hillary Clinton has thus far skated – Barack Obama is implicated in her
email scheme.”
Priestap was ordered to answer the written questions by United States
District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth when he ruled in January that
Judicial Watch’s discovery could begin in Hillary Clinton’s email
scandal. This action came in Judicial Watch’s July 2014 FOIA lawsuit for:
Copies of any updates and/or talking
points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency
concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on
the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency
concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on
the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Any and all records or communications
concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the
Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any
federal agency.
Judicial Watch’s discovery seeks answers to:concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the
Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any
federal agency.
- Whether Clinton intentionally attempted to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a non-government email system;
- whether the State Department’s efforts to settle this case beginning in late 2014 amounted to bad faith; and
- whether the State Department adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request.
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