Hillary Clinton Not Yet In The Clear Over Email Scandal, US Appeals Court Reopens Case
The US Court of Appeals has recently resuscitated two lawsuits against Hillary Clinton over her recent email scandal, which were earlier junked by the lower court.
The ruling by Judge Stephen Williams from the appeals court of the District of Columbia said the lower court erred in throwing away the cases that questioned the former secretary of state’s use of a private server for government conversations and transactions.
The ruling said the state department and the National Archives should have done more in recovering the emails in question, or finding new ones that might implicate or clear Hillary Clinton.
Appeals court revives suits over @HillaryClinton emails https://t.co/YBZL8YqGnD pic.twitter.com/wMYjsrM1Jg
— POLITICO (@politico) December 27, 2016
“The Department has not explained why shaking the tree harder – e.g., by following the statutory mandate to seek action by the Attorney General – might not bear more still,” the ruling stated, as posted on Newsweek. “Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot.”
It added, “Because the complaints sought recovery of emails from all of the former Secretary’s accounts, the FBI’s recovery of a server that hosted only one account does not moot the suits.”
In 2015, the Judicial Watch and Cause of Action filed separate lawsuits against Hillary Clinton, according to NDTV. Both cases were dismissed in January this year by Judge James Boasberg as he ruled them moot.
Hillary Clinton reportedly failed to release over 30,000 emails to investigators as part of the probe into her handling official correspondence on two private non-secured accounts, as well as on the Blackberry account that she had when she was still a senator.
The Democratic presidential bet also claimed that she has no more emails to turn over as the majority of her messages are private in nature and didn’t involve government transactions.
During that time, Judge Boasberg said that the former state secretary already turned over 50,000 emails for investigation, which he said is not the action of a “recalcitrant agency head.”
“Rather, they reflect a sustained effort on the part of State and NARA, after the agencies had learned of the potential removal of federal records from the government’s possession, to recover and preserve all of those records,” he said. “Taken together, all of the recovery efforts initiated by both agencies up to the present day cannot in any way be described as a dereliction of duty. In light of this, Plaintiffs cannot establish an ongoing injury actionable under the [Federal Records Act]; as such, their cases are moot.”
However, the ruling set by the appeals court may have been influenced, as posted on the Politico. This was surmised after FBI director James Comey allegedly found more emails from Hillary Clinton, after unearthing them from Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Weiner is the estranged husband of Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin.
Unsealed search warrant in Hillary Clinton email probe reveals little new https://t.co/3VAyw2u4kK
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 20, 2016
Comey’s revelation seems to imply that there are more emails in Clinton’s possession that have not been submitted to the authorities by her or her team.
Judge Williams said that the state department failed to outline the process it took to try to recover the messages. He wrote, “While the case might well… be moot if a referral were pointless (e.g., because no imaginable enforcement action by the Attorney General could lead to recovery of the missing emails), the record here provides no factual support for finding mootness on that basis.”
The Department of State and the National Archives did not release a statement as they cite a policy against commenting on cases under litigation. Representatives for Hillary Clinton also did not comment on the latest ruling.
Hillary Clinton has also criticized the Obama administration for failing to control the whole brouhaha surrounding the email scandal, which she claimed contributed to her loss to Donald Trump.
[Featured Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
