A federal judge ordered discovery to proceed in a court case concerning records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, paving the way for the presumptive Democratic nominee to face questioning under oath about her private email server.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of U.S. District Court noted that discovery is “rare” in lawsuits over the Freedom of Information Act, but said in an order issued Wednesday that the State Department has not made a “good faith” effort to hand over documents from Clinton’s office.
Sullivan said he was “unpersuaded” by the State Department’s legal argument against discovery, which would permit attorneys from Judicial Watch, a conservative group that sued the agency over a stonewalled FOIA request, to question Clinton aides about the nature of the server under a set of legal guidelines,
The guidelines handed down Wednesday will allow Judicial Watch to ask questions about how Clinton’s server was operated and how the State Department handled requests for Clinton’s private emails in the years before knowledge of her private email use was public.
Sullivan also listed the aides who Judicial Watch could depose, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Bryan Pagliano, the State Department aide who set up the server in Clinton’s private residence.
Pagliano has been granted immunity by the Justice Department as part of a separate law enforcement inquiry.
Judicial Watch filed the original FOIA request in search of personnel records for Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Abedin was granted a “special government employee” status in 2012 that allowed her to collect simultaneous paychecks from the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies.
“Based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary,” Sullivan wrote.
The order came as former President Bill Clinton characterized lingering inquiries into his wife’s emails as a “game,” likening her misdeeds to a speed limit infraction while stumping for her on the campaign trail.
But discovery in the high-profile FOIA case could force Clinton’s notoriously reticent staff to open up about the reasoning behind the secret server, as well as the individuals involved in keeping its existence under wraps until nearly three years after she left the State Department.
