Two emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server concerning the U.S. response to the Benghazi attack will be withheld, following U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s decision to uphold the Trump administration’s right to not release the documents.
The messages were from Sept. 13, 2012, just two days following the attack of the U.S. embassy in Libya. Each had the subject line: “Quick Summary of POTUS Calls to Presidents of Libya and Egypt,” according to Politico.
Jackson had initially ordered the emails be disclosed to conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. But the State Department said it erred and did not categorize the information as classified and requested Jackson to reverse the order. As a result, the documents will be withheld.
Although the government is usually required to identify all Freedom of Information Act exemptions at once, Jackson said the threat to national security was an area of concern and allowed the exemption.
“In light of the substantiation of the important national security interests at stake, it does not appear that the agency’s failure to invoke Exemption 1 [for classified information] was part of an effort to gain tactical advantage, but rather, it stemmed from inefficiencies at and extraordinary burdens placed upon defendant’s FOIA unit,” Jackson wrote in a 12-page ruling.
Jackson said the emails concerned two calls former President Barack Obama made related to the attack that took the lives of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Clinton was forwarded the contents and requested an aide print it, according to redacted versions of the documents.
