The State Department said Tuesday that another 30 or so emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server have been uncovered that could potentially be Benghazi-related. Clinton, who used her private server for email correspondence while serving as Secretary of State claimed she turned over every work-related document to Government officials in 2014.
The latest documents were found in a batch of 15,000 emails that the FBI forensically uncovered after Clinton and her attorneys took it upon themselves to delete every file they deemed to be “personal”. While Clinton claimed that her personal correspondence only included talk about yoga, Chelsea’s wedding planning, etc., the personal emails that the FBI was able to forensically uncover proved to include some State Department communications, including some between top aides at the Clinton Foundation and State Department that many claim contain evidence that allude to engagement in pay-for-play tactics for Clinton Donors.
It was revealed last week that Hillary Clinton and her lawyers not only deleted the emails, but used a program called “Bleachbit” which, if used correctly, essentially annihilates them into oblivion. As Rep. Trey Gowdy said last week, Hillary Clinton made it so that “even god can’t read them.”
On Tuesday during a hearing for a lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, Government lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta that there were in fact a number of emails in the 30 that were not released in Clinton’s original 55,000 pages that she previously turned over, although the exact number is currently undetermined.
A lawyer at the State Department said they would need until the end of September to thoroughly sort through the newest batch and redact any classified or personal information before being released. Mehta requested that the State Department speed up the process and follow up with the information in one week pertaining to why sorting through the documents will take at least a month.
Following the latest developments State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “Using broad search terms, we have identified approximately 30 documents potentially responsive to a Benghazi-related request. At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive, or whether they are duplicates of materials already provided to the Department by former Secretary Clinton in December 2014.”
With the Presidential election just weeks away, Republicans are urging the State Department to release the documents as soon as possible to avoid the potential of her getting elected to the highest office in the country.
The fallout from the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 is among the most controversial of the scandal that have surrounded Clinton during her time as Secretary of State. Clinton has been criticized for not taking proper action to defend the U.S. consulate during the hours long terrorist attack that left 4 Americans dead. Many questions surrounding Clinton’s actions that night remain unanswered which leave many hopeful some answers may be revealed in these emails.
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