via:TheHornNews
She’s one of Hillary Clinton’s most trusted insiders, so close that the Clintons’ consider her part of the family.
Wednesday, longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin made an admission that could cost her boss — big time.
Abedin admitted in a legal proceeding that Clinton did not want her emails accessible to “anybody,” according to transcripts.
Abedin’s comments provided new insight into the highly unusual
decision by the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate to operate
a private email server in her basement to conduct government business
when she served as secretary of state.
Such a candid admission could be serious damaging to Clinton’s
presidential campaign, which polls show is already struggling to
convince voters of her trustworthiness.
Abedin also said under oath that she was not aware whether Clinton personally deleted any emails during her tenure as secretary.
Abedin told lawyers for the conservative group Judicial Watch in a
deposition that she could not recall whether she or Clinton discussed
with any State Department officials Clinton’s use of her server
exclusively for government business. Abedin, who was Clinton’s deputy
chief of staff at the State Department, now works with Clinton’s
presidential campaign and often travels with the candidate. Abedin used
an email account on Clinton’s server occasionally for government
business, although Abedin also used a government address.
“I assumed it was OK to do,” she testified.
Abedin is one of several former State Department officials who are
being deposed by the conservative group in a civil lawsuit over the
agency’s failure to turn over files under the Freedom of Information
Act. A transcript of the proceeding was released by Judicial Watch on
Wednesday.
Judicial Watch lawyers repeatedly pressed Abedin to explain Clinton’s
concern expressed to her in a November 2010 message that her emails
might become public, but the longtime aide insisted that Clinton’s
interest in wanting to keep her correspondence from being reviewed was
similar to any private citizen’s right to privacy.
But Clinton’s private server contained tens of thousands of
work-related emails as well as private messages, and her decision to
conduct both private and government business on her system meant that
she kept control of both types of correspondence, effectively preventing
her State Department correspondence from being archived by the agency
and made available for public records requests. It was not until late
2014 – more than a year after Clinton left office – that the State
Department learned that she held all of her emails and requested that
she turn over all work-related records.
Clinton turned over nearly 33,000 business-related messages while
disposing of about the same number of personal messages. But Clinton
failed to turn over at least three dozen work-related emails, according
to the agency. Among those emails was a November 2010 email exchange
with Abedin discussing her concerns about the risk of the “personal
being accessible.”
The Clinton campaign Wednesday criticized Judicial Watch for its role
in filing several lawsuits against the State Department, among more
than 30 filed by conservative legal groups and media outlets, including
The Associated Press,
to obtain Clinton documents. Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill
said Judicial Watch’s lawsuits ended up “clogging up the courts at the
expense of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.”
Abedin’s deposition also raised questions about the State
Department’s practices responding to government records requests under
the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Abedin, a senior aide during
Clinton’s entire tenure there, testified under oath that she never
searched or was asked to search for documents in her State Department or
her private Clinton email accounts in response to requests or lawsuits
under the open records law.
But a review of all requests to the State Department during that
period found several asking specifically for copies of Abedin’s emails
on a variety of subjects, including her husband, one-time disgraced Rep.
Anthony Weiner.
“Did you ever search, were you ever asked to search your state.gov
e-mail account in response to a FOIA request or FOIA litigation?” lawyer
Ramona Cocta asked.
“I believe I said ‘no,'” Abedin answered.
“Were you ever asked to search your Clinton email.com account during
your tenure at the State Department in response to a FOIA request or
FOIA litigation?” Cocta asked.
“No, I was not,” Abedin said.
It was not immediately clear how the State Department could have
complied with such legal requests for Abedin’s emails without asking
Abedin to search her messages. Some federal agencies permit full-time
FOIA staffers to search the inboxes of senior government officials, but
many agencies expect officials to search their own accounts and no U.S.
employee presumably would have had access to Abedin’s personal account
on Clinton’s private server. Abedin said she was not aware that anyone
else searched her accounts, either.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
