The Daily Caller reported a short time ago that a federal judge has sided with the Daily Caller and has ordered the Department of State to produce for The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), the security training records of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin within two weeks, or face direct deposition of multiple government officials.
The Department of State has been resistant in releasing documents and other information about Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State under the Obama Administration and now, the Daily Caller News Foundation decided it was time to act to see what kind, if any, security training was completed.
“I’m sure you can appreciate Mr. Lee, there is a certain time sensitivity on this issue,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon told Department of Justice Attorney Jason Lee, representing the State Department. “We’re looking down the barrel of a presidential election from now in two months.”
Leon said the DCNF is, “trying to get to the bottom of this, to what extent Secretary Clinton and probably her immediate staff received training. They’re trying to figure out was the training in writing or orally, (and) how was it done.”
“Let me put it to you this way: You need to discuss with your client whether it would be better to give them the answers to these questions or to have depositions to depose those at the State Department,” Leon said.
The Daily Caller stated:
The DCNF filed the lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act last November, after the State Department refused to turn over all records of the security training for Clinton and her top aides.
In a July 29 State Department filing before Leon, attorneys for the State and Justice departments claimed they failed to locate any security briefing documents for Clinton or Abedin.
They further stated the absence of any documents meant that the “courses were not completed” by the secretary or her aides. It is unclear if Clinton explicitly refused to attend the security briefings.
The lack of training may help explain why Clinton saw no problem with setting up a private server in her New York home to process her private email account.
Clinton deliberately skipped a cyber-security briefing in 2011, and defied national security officials by continuing to bring her unsecured BlackBerry cellphone into the confines of her secure office at the State Department.
Read more at the Daily Caller…