JUDICIAL WATCH: New Records Reveal Obama White House Paranoid, Tracking FOIA Request For Hillary Clinton Emails


Tom Fitton, Hillary Clinton; graphic courtesy of Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch strikes again!

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Friday announced it obtained 44 pages of State Department records through a court-ordered discovery that revealed the Obama White House was paranoid and tracking a December 2012 FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request seeking documents on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server system (shortly after the Benghazi terror attack).

A few months after the Obama White House intercepted and got involved, the State Department responded to the FOIA requestor, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and falsely claimed that no such records existed.

Not a smidgen…

Thanks to Judicial Watch, in January a federal court ordered discovery on Hillary Clinton’s emails and Benghazi scandal.

Judge Royce Lamberth ordered top Obama and Hillary officials such as Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes and other State and FBI officials to answer Judicial Watch’s questions under oath.

Judge Lamberth said Hillary Clinton’s private email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

Via Judicial Watch:

In a December 20, 2012, email with the subject line “Need to track down a FOIA request from CREW”, Sheryl L. Walter, director of the State Department’s Office of Information Programs and Services (A/GIS/IPS), writes to IPS officials Rosemary D. Reid and Patrick D. Scholl and their assistants:

WH called – have we received a FOIA request from CREW (Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington) on the topic of personal use of email by senior officials? Apparently other agencies have. If we have it, can you give me the details so I can call the WH back? I think they’d like it on quick turnaround. Thanks! Sheryl

In the same email chain, Walter on December 20, 2012 also emailed Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison, describing the CREW FOIA request:

Hi Heather – Copy attached, it was in our significant weekly FOIA report that we send to L and S/ES also. Do you want us to add you to that list? It’s a subset of things like this that we think likely to be of broader Department interest. More detail below re this request. As a practical matter given our workload, it won’t be processed for some months. Let me know if there are any particular sensitivities. If we don’t talk later, happy holidays! All the best, Sheryl

Sheryl: The request is assigned Case #F-2012-40981. It was received on 12/6/2012 and acknowledged on 12/10/2012. The request is assigned for processing.

On January 10, 2013, Walter writes to Samuelson that she is not including “personal” accounts in the FOIA request search:

Hi Heather – did you ever get any intell re what other agencies are doing re this FOIA request that seeks records about the number of email accounts associated with the Secretary (but isn’t specifying “personal” email accounts so we are interpreting as official accounts only). We are considering contacting the requester to find out exactly what it is they are looking for. Do you have any-concerns about that approach?

Soon afterward, Samuelson responds, “White House Counsel was looking into this for me. I will circle back with them now to see if they have further guidance.”

On May 10, 2013, [Information Programs and Services replied to CREW and falsely claimed, “no records responsive to your request were located.”

Recall, Heather Samuelson then became Hillary Clinton’s personal lawyer and was tasked with sifting through Hillary’s emails to determine which ones were ‘personal’ and which ones were ‘work-related.’ — She was also one of the 5 Clinton aides who was granted immunity by Obama’s DOJ in the Hillary email investigation.

“These documents suggest the Obama White House knew about the Clinton email lies being told to the public at least as early as December 2012,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “A federal court granted Judicial Watch discovery into the Clinton emails because the court wanted answers about a government cover-up of the Clinton emails. And now we have answers because it looks like the Obama White House orchestrated the Clinton email cover-up.”

You can support Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch by clicking here.

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Cristina began writing for The Gateway Pundit in 2016 and she is now the Associate Editor.

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Thanks for sharing!