Bcon

Federal Judge Orders Discovery Pertaining to Clinton Email Scandal – Benghazi Cover
Up.



On January 15th, 2019, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch announced that United States District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, originally appointed by Ronald Reagan, made a sweeping ruling in favor of transparency, something that was rarely in play during the Obama administration. Depositions Ordered From Senior Obama Officials.



Judge Lamberth ordered that senior Obama administration officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap — will have to answer Judicial Watch’s written questions under oath.

Americans, who have been waiting for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and high level Obama administration officials to be held accountable for their crimes, and the lies they told to cover their misfeasance, may finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.



It’s long been suspected that the inflow of “donations” to the Clinton Foundation, that coincided with decisions by Secretary of State Clinton, were evidence of a pay-to-play scheme.



The Uranium One investigation squashed by then-FBI director Robert Mueller stands as just one example.

This New York Times headline is unmistakable”:

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal

In a statement posted to its website, Judicial Watch says it will seek answers to:

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.
Discovery is scheduled to be completed within 120 days.

Even more promising is that following this initial discovery period, Judge Lamberth ordered a hearing to decide whether additional depositions of would be merited.


Additional deponents could include Hillary Clinton and her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.

According to Lamberth’s order, regarding whether Clinton’s private email use while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA, Lamberth ruled that Judicial Watch may depose:

Eric Boswell, the former Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security.… Boswell’s March 2009 memo to Mills … discusses security risks Clinton’s Blackberry use posed more generally. And Boswell personally discussed the memo with Clinton. So, he plainly has relevant information about that conversation and about his general knowledge of Clinton’s email use. Judicial Watch may depose Boswell.
Justin Cooper. the Clinton Foundation employee who created the clintonemail.com server. In its proposal, Judicial Watch noted Cooper’s prior congressional testimony “appears to contradict portions of the testimony provided by Huma Abedin in the case before Judge Sullivan.” … Cooper repeatedly told Congress that Abedin helped set-up the Clintons’ private server, e.g., Examining Preservation of State Department Federal Records: [before a Congressional hearing] Abedin testified under oath she did not know about the server until six years later.… Judicial Watch may depose Cooper.
Clarence Finney, the former deputy director of State’s Executive Secretariat staff…. [T]his case’s questions hinge on what specific State employees knew and when they knew it. As the principal advisor and records management expert responsible for controlling Clinton’s official correspondence and records, Finney’s knowledge is particularly relevant. And especially given the concerns about government misconduct that prompted this discovery, Judicial Watch’s ability to take his direct testimony and ask follow-up questions is critical.


Judicial Watch seeks to go beyond cursory, second-hand testimony and directly ask Finney what he knew about Clinton’s email use. This includes asking about emails suggesting he knew about her private email use in 2014, and emails he received concerning a December 2012 FOIA request from Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) regarding senior officials’ personal email use-topics State’s 30(b)(6) deposition in Judge Sullivan’s case never addressed. Judicial Watch may depose Finney.

Heather Samuelson. the former State Department senior advisor who helped facilitate State’s receipt of Hillary Clinton’s emails.… [T]his case turns on what specific government employees knew and when they knew it. Judicial Watch must be able to take their direct testimony and ask them follow-up questions. Judicial Watch may depose Samuelson.
Jacob Sullivan. Secretary Clinton’s former senior advisor and deputy Chief of Staff. The government does not oppose Sullivan’s deposition.
The statement from JW notes that incredibly, Justice Department attorneys admit in a filing opposing Judicial Watch’s limited discovery that “Counsel for State contacted the counsel of some third parties that Plaintiff originally included in its draft discovery proposal to obtain their client’s position on being deposed.”

This collusion occurred despite criticism from the Court that the DOJ engaged in “chicanery” to cover up misconduct and that career employees in the State and Justice Departments may have “colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA, and hoodwink this Court.”

It took a long time for JW to get us to this point. Hopefully, we finally learn the truth about why U.S. personnel in Libya were left to die.

And, for those who are really optimistic, with former FBI counterintelligence director Bill Priestap among the deponents, we can hold out hope that the Russia-Wikileaks-Trump narrative will finally be debunked.



At the very least, when it comes to the hacked servers, we may get answers to why the FBI allowed third-party contractors and Clinton’s lawyers to perform the forensic analysis on them and not the most advanced cyber forensics lab in the world.

The process of discovery, is by its very nature, a tedious one. Answers to initial questions often lead to additional questions and additional deponents as insight into the depth of the corruption begins to be uncovered.

Noraa Loc: Kansas

All those people better get body guards before their bodies disappear!

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

In 1983 debacle, Reagan escaped the blame game

https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/article/20121104/LIFESTYLE/311049866

"The Reagan administration immediately attempted to deflect blame for the attack with a deluge of false statements and misrepresentations. In a televised speech four days after the bombing, the president insisted the attack was unstoppable, erroneously declaring that the truck crashed through a series of barriers, including a chain-link fence and barbed-wire entanglements, and argued that the U.S. mission was succeeding."

Originally posted Nov 4, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Next Saturday, Nov. 10, is a major milestone for the U.S. Marine Corps, America’s elite military force.
Throughout the world, Marines and former Marines will be celebrating the Corps’ 237th birthday. They’ll happily gather in pubs and banquet halls to listen to a message from the Commandant and raise their glasses in toasts to their spouses, their sweethearts and their Corps.

By contrast, these same Marines were recently commemorating another anniversary -- this time, a tragic one.

Tuesday, Oct. 23, a little less than two weeks ago, was the 29th anniversary of one of the greatest catastrophes not only in Marine Corps history but in American history.

At 6:39 a.m. on that autumn day in 1983, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three American civilians were killed and another 60 were injured as a result of a horrific explosion detonated by a terrorist suicide truck bomb that destroyed the Marine barracks at the airport in Beirut, Lebanon.

It was the largest one-day death toll for Marines since the Battle for Iwo Jima in 1945.

With a force of six tons of TNT, it was described as the largest explosion since the end of World War II.
Those Marines had been ordered into Lebanon by President Ronald Reagan as a part of an international peacekeeping force following the June 1982 Israeli invasion of that country and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s withdrawal.

Making an already-dangerous situation even more hazardous, the Marines were under strict presidential orders not to load their weapons -- this, so that they would appear as peacekeepers and not as armed belligerents in the conflict and despite the fact that they were moving into a war zone.

Realistically, they had become “sitting ducks” from the moment they entered Beirut. And as a result of their absurd orders, when the explosives-laden truck sped toward their doomed barracks, the two unarmed guards had no way of stopping it.

According to Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the Marines in Beirut: “It didn’t take a military expert to realize that our troops had been placed in an indefensible situation. Anyone following the situation in Lebanon in ordinary news reports could realize a tragedy was in the making.

“There was a growing feeling of frustration inside the Muslim and Druse community in Lebanon due to the United States’ direct backing of Israel in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon and other pro-Israel factions within Lebanon. These factions had been responsible for multiple attacks committed against the Muslim and Druse Lebanese population.”

While the blast led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, in retrospect, neither the invasion nor the Marine intervention should ever have occurred.

Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon insisted the invasion was justified in retaliation for PLO attacks on Israelis. Yet there had only been one Israeli death from such attacks in the previous 12 months.

From the outset, the American embassy in Beirut had sent numerous cables warning Washington that the invasion would provoke terrorism and undermine America’s standing in the Mideast. But there was no response.

On April 18, 1983, a delivery van exploded at the front door of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 46 people, including 16 Americans, and wounding more than 100 others.

Against the vigorous opposition of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Reagan then ordered Marine commanders to call in air strikes and other attacks against the Muslims and initiated a two-week-long bombardment by American warships, including the battleship USS New Jersey.

In his autobiography, then Maj. Gen. Colin Powell observed: “Since (the Muslims) could not reach the battleship, they found a more vulnerable target -- the exposed Marines at the airport.”

The Reagan administration immediately attempted to deflect blame for the attack with a deluge of false statements and misrepresentations. In a televised speech four days after the bombing, the president insisted the attack was unstoppable, erroneously declaring that the truck crashed through a series of barriers, including a chain-link fence and barbed-wire entanglements, and argued that the U.S. mission was succeeding.

Despite the fact that Reagan had dispatched the Marines into an impossible situation and then had issued orders that led to their inability to defend themselves, he suffered relatively little criticism from the press or partisan opponents, and after months of vigorous campaigning was overwhelmingly re-elected the following year.

Contrast this with the controversy over the recent attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where on Sept. 11, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were assassinated.

Within hours of that attack, and with no evidence as to how or why it had occurred or how it could have been prevented, presidential candidate Mitt Romney broke from what has long been traditional political protocol in situations of this type and attacked President Barack Obama, accusing him of sympathizing with anti-American interests in the Muslim world.

This, despite the initial assessment from U.S. intelligence sources that the attack had begun spontaneously following earlier protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, over the showing of an anti-Islamic motion picture.

Two weeks later, the intelligence assessment was revised and stated that “new information” revealed the Benghazi attack was “a deliberate and organized attack carried out by terrorists.”

Now, in the closing weeks of the 2012 presidential campaign, conservative talk show hosts and columnists have been constantly accusing the Obama administration of covering up what actually occurred. Beyond that, they insist he failed to provide the adequate security to the consulate that had been requested by the Ambassador and his staff.

While the Benghazi attack was certainly a tragedy, and the possibility of a cover-up of what was initially known by the administration is still open to question, it pales in comparison with the errors in judgment by the Reagan administration that led to the Beirut bombing of 29 years ago and blatant cover-up that followed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
P.S. On a personal note, shortly prior to the '83 tragedy, a 'Nam buddy of mine, Capt. Dale Dye (Retired)...due to his retiring from the Corps after twenty years of service...avoided the bombing of the Beirut USMC barracks. His personal thoughts/memories of the situation prior to his leaving can be read in the following link: http://daledye.com/?p=185

rumitoid

You do not keep up with the news. The GOP Congress that held hearings on Uranium One found nothing. Read this: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/14/hillary-clinton-uranium-one-deal-russia-explainer-244895

cSc61 Loc: Austin

I am always amazed when Americans, on either side of the aisle, are willing to overlook government malfeasance and possible weaponization of government agencies just because they support the ideologies of the perpetrators. Is the advancement of political ideology so damn important that you are willing to surrender liberty, sovereignty, and the rule of law to these bad actors? Slatten49 felt the need to go all the way back to 1983 to try and justify the actions of Clinton and the Obama Administration. Really?! Your guy is worse than my guy so there? And then there's rumitoid ... who obviously gets all his news from the most left leaning news sources in existence. No political agendas there ... just honest news reporting, right?

Geez people. If there is even a whiff of corruption anywhere in the halls of power, we should all want to root it out wherever it's found. No matter who's in power -- Republican or Democrat -- we should all want honest and truthful governance. And we don't get that, we will never get that, if we keep overlooking the rule of law because heaven forbid it might ensnare someone we voted for.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Good post, cSc61, and I agree with the premise behind it. But, as a Marine 'Nam Vet who had friends in Beirut, I took/take umbrage with the fact that the loss of about 300 lives was investigated, dealt with and put behind us rather quickly. Meanwhile, the tragic loss of four Americans at Benghazi...even after nine investigations, is still pursued relentlessly by many for primarily partisan reasons. If Judicial Watch fails in its latest attempt for satisfactory results, I doubt those efforts will die.

I want neither to condemn nor justify mistakes that lead to Beirut or Benghazi, but I didn't put forth the thread topic. I believe that those in favor of seeking justice for any administration's mistakes, should remember that 4 lives are significantly less than 300. And most, if not all, administrations made/make bad decisions that often lead to tragedy. Both Reagan's (with Beirut) and Obama's (with Benghazi), were guilty of (at least) bad decisions in those two particular cases. But, I don't believe either president or their administrations made those decisions with malicious aforethought or intent.

BTW, I do hope you read the link I offered at the bottom of my previous post. To this day, Dale Dye is a friend of mine. Though we rarely see each other, we speak by phone. Also, I voted write-in for Jim Webb.
One last thing, cSc61: I lived in Austin for 40 years prior to retiring in 2012.

rumitoid

Very well put and wise. You are the best voice of this site. Thank you.

cSc61 Loc: Austin

Yes, the Beirut incident was tragic. I was serving stateside when it happened (Air Force) and I think I remember the guards at the gate were not allowed to carry ammunition in their rifles. What lunacy! Who's policy was that?! Either way, it was Reagan's administration and someone should have been hung out for it. Just like someone should be hung out for Benghazi. No matter what happened, the video narrative that was pushed afterward was an obvious deception from a guy who desperately wanted to be re-elected. And the fact that Clinton herself lied to family members of the dead is just unconscionable. I will definitely read the link you posted.

cSc61 Loc: Austin

Wow, Khe Sanh! Major respect for your friend -- and for you! Everything I've read and seen about that siege stuns me to this day. I can't imagine being at that fire point during those 2 1/2 months!

Thanks for your service!

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

You're welcome, Sir, and thank you for yours

You may have noticed my note to him on the responses below his story, as I am Lon Slatten.

Google Dale Dye and find out more about the man.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Thank you, Rumi. 'Nam Vets remain Brothers, 'til the end.

"All gave some...some gave all."

jim_shipley

Waste of time and money. Hillary has so much dirt on everybody in Washington that she could shoot Trump on national TV and walk away clean.

kemmer

Zzzzzzzzzzzz........


Judge Lamberth ordered that senior Obama administration officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap — will have to answer Judicial Watch’s written questions under oath.

Americans, who have been waiting for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and high level Obama administration officials to be held accountable for their crimes, and the lies they told to cover their misfeasance, may finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.



It’s long been suspected that the inflow of “donations” to the Clinton Foundation, that coincided with decisions by Secretary of State Clinton, were evidence of a pay-to-play scheme.



The Uranium One investigation squashed by then-FBI director Robert Mueller stands as just one example.

This New York Times headline is unmistakable”:

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal

In a statement posted to its website, Judicial Watch says it will seek answers to:

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.
Discovery is scheduled to be completed within 120 days.

Even more promising is that following this initial discovery period, Judge Lamberth ordered a hearing to decide whether additional depositions of would be merited.


Additional deponents could include Hillary Clinton and her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.

According to Lamberth’s order, regarding whether Clinton’s private email use while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA, Lamberth ruled that Judicial Watch may depose:

Eric Boswell, the former Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security.… Boswell’s March 2009 memo to Mills … discusses security risks Clinton’s Blackberry use posed more generally. And Boswell personally discussed the memo with Clinton. So, he plainly has relevant information about that conversation and about his general knowledge of Clinton’s email use. Judicial Watch may depose Boswell.
Justin Cooper. the Clinton Foundation employee who created the clintonemail.com server. In its proposal, Judicial Watch noted Cooper’s prior congressional testimony “appears to contradict portions of the testimony provided by Huma Abedin in the case before Judge Sullivan.” … Cooper repeatedly told Congress that Abedin helped set-up the Clintons’ private server, e.g., Examining Preservation of State Department Federal Records: [before a Congressional hearing] Abedin testified under oath she did not know about the server until six years later.… Judicial Watch may depose Cooper.
Clarence Finney, the former deputy director of State’s Executive Secretariat staff…. [T]his case’s questions hinge on what specific State employees knew and when they knew it. As the principal advisor and records management expert responsible for controlling Clinton’s official correspondence and records, Finney’s knowledge is particularly relevant. And especially given the concerns about government misconduct that prompted this discovery, Judicial Watch’s ability to take his direct testimony and ask follow-up questions is critical.


Judicial Watch seeks to go beyond cursory, second-hand testimony and directly ask Finney what he knew about Clinton’s email use. This includes asking about emails suggesting he knew about her private email use in 2014, and emails he received concerning a December 2012 FOIA request from Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) regarding senior officials’ personal email use-topics State’s 30(b)(6) deposition in Judge Sullivan’s case never addressed. Judicial Watch may depose Finney.

Heather Samuelson. the former State Department senior advisor who helped facilitate State’s receipt of Hillary Clinton’s emails.… [T]his case turns on what specific government employees knew and when they knew it. Judicial Watch must be able to take their direct testimony and ask them follow-up questions. Judicial Watch may depose Samuelson.
Jacob Sullivan. Secretary Clinton’s former senior advisor and deputy Chief of Staff. The government does not oppose Sullivan’s deposition.
The statement from JW notes that incredibly, Justice Department attorneys admit in a filing opposing Judicial Watch’s limited discovery that “Counsel for State contacted the counsel of some third parties that Plaintiff originally included in its draft discovery proposal to obtain their client’s position on being deposed.”

This collusion occurred despite criticism from the Court that the DOJ engaged in “chicanery” to cover up misconduct and that career employees in the State and Justice Departments may have “colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA, and hoodwink this Court.”

It took a long time for JW to get us to this point. Hopefully, we finally learn the truth about why U.S. personnel in Libya were left to die.

And, for those who are really optimistic, with former FBI counterintelligence director Bill Priestap among the deponents, we can hold out hope that the Russia-Wikileaks-Trump narrative will finally be debunked.



At the very least, when it comes to the hacked servers, we may get answers to why the FBI allowed third-party contractors and Clinton’s lawyers to perform the forensic analysis on them and not the most advanced cyber forensics lab in the world.

The process of discovery, is by its very nature, a tedious one. Answers to initial questions often lead to additional questions and additional deponents as insight into the depth of the corruption begins to be uncovered.[/quote]
Zzzzzzzzzz...........