John Solomon and Raffi Williams of Circa News found something interesting regarding Hillary Clinton’s sworn declaration that she had turned over all of her State Department emails during a Judicial Watch lawsuit over her private email arrangement. Her lawyer, David Kendall, felt that more documents could be out there, carefully crafted the language of her declaration to avoid legal blowback, and this was all thanks to the 650,000 emails that were discovered on Anthony Wiener’s laptop, which was also used by top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Abedin is now estranged from Weiner over his illicit online interactions with an underage girl. The investigation into that house of horrors led to the discovery of the emails, which the FBI needed to wait until Sunday to get a new warrant to start reviewing them; the Weiner investigation has a different mandate.
Williams and Solomon wrote the following:
On the same day Hillary Clinton swore to a judge that she believed all of her State Department emails had been turned over in a federal lawsuit, her private attorney wrote to the presidential candidate's inner circle acknowledging the possible existence of additional messages that had not yet been produced, according to a leaked email message.[…]
The Kendall email in question was contained inside one of the same email accounts discovered this month by the FBI on top Clinton aide Huma Abedin's personal computer as well as among thousands of campaign emails leaked on the government transparency group WikiLeak's Web site.
[…]
Kendall warned the campaign leadership that using the March 18, 2009 date in a public statement about Clinton's compliance with the lawsuit was a potential "gotcha" because they were aware of emails that existed prior to the date on her private email server accounts.
"I would prefer not to use the 'March 18, 2009' date, because we know there were other emails using the her clintonemail.com address prior to that date," Kendall wrote.
"Could we make this more vague, like 'early in her term as SOS'? Or would this change provide a 'gotcha' target--if so, not worth it, since this is the date of the earliest email in the PST of her emails, as I understand it," he added.
[…]
…The documents could also cause repercussions in the federal case, congressional investigations and the FBI probe focused on Clinton's handling of emails.
For instance, the FBI reported in June that Clinton and her legal team never turned over any emails prior to March 18 2009. But agents used forensic techniques to recover many emails from that period.
While Clinton's sworn statement to the court was narrowly worded to declare she turned over emails in her possession -- meaning those found in her email inbox -- the judge could raise concerns that the Clinton team had an obligation to alert the court to the existence of other related emails even if they didn't technically possess them, the top lawyer for Judicial Watch told Circa.
So, it’s going to be hard for anyone to point to any evidence where Clinton intentionally meant to mislead the judge. Her lawyer is a different story. Regardless, it feeds into the ongoing history of Clinton being downright opaque, evasive, and plain wrong about the facts and events surrounding her own email fiasco. The Inspector General report did find that she never sought approval for her email arrangement and if she hadn’t wouldn’t have been approved, despite saying it was “absolutely permitted.” Second, there were scores of emails that weren’t turned over or discovered; 15,000 more found by the FBI, including 30 that might be related to Benghazi. In the end, there was only one new piece of evidence in the Benghazi document dump, but another email Clinton failed to turn over torpedoed her other talking point, which was that she had set up this email system out of convenience. No, the intention was to keep things to being accessible and she wanted to save herself from FOIA requests. A history of dishonesty and prevarication over email disclosures only confirms what we think about the Clinton, but I doubt this constitutes perjury. Still, the damage from this Clinton email fiasco has taken its toll on her character questions. So, don’t count on this being a harbinger to events the will lead to the former first lady being locked up, but it does further discredit her candidacy.
Abedin is said to have found out about the new FBI probe in the media. Some 650,000 emails weren’t turned over, despite a June deposition that she had turned over all of her devices containing State Department emails to her lawyers for review. In February of 2013, she swore on a routine form that all State documents were turned over upon leaving government work. Both legal exercises were carried out under penalty of perjury.
The emails were found on a laptop used by her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, in a separate investigation concerning his illicit online interaction with an underage girl led to the discovery of this trove of emails. Both Abedin and Weiner shared the laptop. A new warrant had to be obtained by the FBI in order to move forward with a search; the Weiner mandate did not cover any State Department materials. Like Clinton, the Right could tangle Huma up in the legal crosshairs over charges of perjury, though prosecutors would have to prove intent as well. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it would certainly land another punch to the gut of this campaign, as Clinton has been debunked or caught being less than truthful concerning this entire investigation. These character attacks have worked in destroying Clinton’s favorable numbers, but is it enough for Donald Trump to ride to victory on Election Day?
One thing is for sure, which is that there’s a method to the madness the Clintons abide by and it has (so far this election) only gotten them into trouble.
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