Top Aide Admits Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email for Official Business
Clinton’s senior advisor admits he had used his personal Gmail account
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Judicial Watch has released the transcript of a court-ordered deposition in which Hillary Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff, Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, admitted that they both used her unsecured non-government email system for official State Department business.
The full deposition is available here.
The discovery was based on whether Clinton deliberately attempted to avoid the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a non-government email system and whether the State Department appropriately explored records responding to their FOIA request.
Sullivan also admitted that he had used his personal Gmail account for State Department business, but dismissed the notion that he had sent classified information to Secretary Clinton’s unsecured private system.
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Following Judicial Watch notes that Sullivan sent a classified email with the subject heading “call sheet,” Sullivan testified:
“When I sent this email, my best judgment was that none of the material in it was classified, and I felt comfortable sending the email on an unclassified system. The material has subsequently been upclassified, but at the time that I sent it, I did not believe that it was classified.”
Sullivan said in the deposition that he had not been concerned about Clinton’s use of a non-government email account because it was not part of his job:
Like Secretary Clinton has said herself, I wish she had used a State Department account. It wasn’t really part of my job to be thinking about Secretary Clinton’s emails, so I don’t think I sort of fell down directly in my job, but do I wish I had thought of it during the time we were at State. Of course. I mean, what human being at this point wouldn’t have thought of that?
According to Breitbart: Sullivan’s deposition is part of United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s order for senior officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap – to answer under oath to Judicial Watch’s questions.
A video of the Sullivan deposition exists but is under seal after the Justice Department and State Department, which denied any discovery, objected to their public release.
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The court refused the release of the video depositions for now and left the door open for reconsideration.
[T]he Court does not foreclose future releases of audiovisual recordings – in this or other cases. Judicial Watch may move to unseal portions of these recordings relied upon in future court filings. So too may it use the video recordings at trial, consistent with the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Judge Lamberth made the ruling in Judicial Watch’s July 2014 FOIA lawsuit filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). They are seeking:
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.
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.
What this means is that a federal court requires answers on the Clinton email scandal, and Sullivan is just one of the multiple witnesses we will question under oath.
It is shameful that the Justice and State Departments continue to try to protect Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration on the email scandal.
You will recall that U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well as E.W.
Priestap, to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
Previously, Judicial Watch released interrogatory responses given under oath by E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, in which he stated that agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, explicitly, the Executive Office of the President.
