A federal judge has ordered Hillary Clinton and two of her top aides at the State Department, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, to attest, under penalty of perjury, that they have turned over all official government records in their possession.
U.S. District Court judge Emmett Sullivan issued the bombshell ruling late Friday, hours after the State Department released its second batch of Clinton emails.
The ruling was issued in the matter of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department.
Sullivan issued three orders that will likely produce answers to looming questions about Clinton’s private email server arrangement. Clinton has repeatedly stated that she turned over all work-related emails she maintained on her private email account — hdr22@clintonemail.com. She gave the State Department 55,000 pages of emails in December but deleted a large batch that she said were personal in nature. But Clinton has not allowed anyone to check that claim as she has so far refused to turn the server over to a third-party for inspection.
In his ruling, Sullivan ordered the State Department to “identify any and all servers, accounts, hard drives, or other devices currently in the possession or control of the State Department or otherwise that may contain responsive information.”
The State Department must also request that Clinton, Abedin and Mills “confirm, under penalty of perjury, that they have produced all responsive information that was or is in their possession as a result of their employment at the State Department.”
“If all such information has not yet been produced, the Government shall request the above named individuals produce the information forthwith,” Sullivan ruled.
The State Department must also require the trio “describe, under penalty of perjury, the extent to which Ms. Abedin and Ms. Mills used Mrs. Clinton’s email server to conduct official government business.”
Sullivan is giving the government until next Friday to comply while also providing any response from Clinton or her aides.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton celebrated the ruling in a statement.
“This blockbuster ruling is the most significant legal development to date in the ongoing Clinton email scandal,” Fitton said.
“Hillary Clinton will now have to answer, under penalty of perjury, to a federal court about the separate email server she and her aides used to avoid accountability to the American people.”
