NEW YORK – Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff during her four years as secretary of state, demonstrated a repeated inability to recall key information about her former boss’s private, unsecured email server in a deposition with Judicial Watch, according to a 270-page transcript released Tuesday.
In testimony Friday that lasted seven hours, three attorneys representing Mills and four from the Justice Department interrupted Judicial Watch attorneys approximately 250 times, shouting “objection” to argue why Mills should not answer the question posed.
When Mills finally did answer, she responded “I don’t recall” 40 times and “I don’t know” to another 182 questions. Her testimony was characterized by pleading she was too busy, too stressed or not sufficiently expert to have appreciated the legal implications of Hillary Clinton’s decision to use two BlackBerry phones to conduct her official State Department correspondence via a personal server in her Chappaqua, New York, residence.
Nevertheless, Mills confirmed that President Bill Clinton first established ClintonEmail.com on the private email server to communicate with his office staff, evidently while he was still president.
Rather than establish a separate private email server for Hillary Clinton after she became secretary of state, the Clintons decided simply to use ClintonEmail.com.
The testimony is part of a lawsuit by Judicial Watch related to Clinton’s use of a private server. Mills’ deposition is among seven of former Clinton top aides and State Department officials that the Washington watchdog has scheduled over the next four weeks
Consider the following exchange in which Judicial Watch attorneys asked Mills if she had any discussions with Secretary Clinton prior to Clinton leaving the State Department about leaving the emails stored on her ClintonEmail.com account with the State Department so they would be available to her successor, John Kerry.
Mills: I don’t recall having those discussions. And, you know, I can only speak to what I can recall.
Judicial Watch Attorney: Okay.
Mills: And I don’t recall having those discussions.