Investigators are combing through critical testimony by Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s top aide, during an April deposition by the Judicial Watch public-interest law firm.
The focus on Abedin come as FBI director James Comey announced Friday that the investigation over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal would continue despite his prior statements that it was completed. Comey revealed his decision in a letter to Congress after he’d gotten evidence that important emails were found on a laptop computer used by both Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.
The June deposition of Abedin was conducted by the watchdog group, Judicial Watch. During the questioning, their attorneys asked Abedin “How did you go about searching for what records you may have in your possession to be returned to the State Department?”
“I — I looked for all the devices that may have any of my State Department work on it and returned — returned — gave them to my attorneys for them to review for all relevant documents. And gave them devices and paper.”
Judicial Watch followed up with Abedin and the deposition transcript shows the following exchange, with Abedin answering under oath:
Q Okay. And what devices did you return for your attorneys to look through with respect to federal records you may have had in your possession to be returned to the State Department?
MS. WOLVERTON: Objection. Beyond the scope.
A My — if my memory serves me correctly, it was two laptops, a BlackBerry, and some files that I found in my apartment.
Q Okay. The BlackBerry that you returned, is that a BlackBerry that was associated with your Clintonemail.com account?
A Yes.
MS. WOLVERTON: Objection. Beyond the scope of discovery.
THE WITNESS: Sorry.
MR. BRILLE: That’s okay. Just take a second.
THE WITNESS: Sorry.
MR. BRILLE: That’s okay. You’re okay. You’re doing fine. Just take a little bit of a pause.
Q Was your answer yes, Ms. Abedin?
A The answer is yes.
Q Okay. Thank you. And the two laptops that you returned, or you gave to — provided to your attorneys to look through, did they have e-mails from the Clintonemail.com account?
MS. WOLVERTON: Objection. Beyond the scope of authorized discovery.
A: I was not involved in the process. I — I provided them with the devices and the materials an asked them to find whatever they thought was relevant and appropriate, whatever was their determination as to what was a federal record, and they did. They turned materials in, and I know they did so. I couldn’t tell you from what device.
In the deposition, Abedin also admitted to using her Clintonmail.com email for “State-related matters.”
The deposition also contained other examples of noteworthy conduct. As Breitbart News reported previously:
During the quizzing, Abedin was asked, “And during your tenure at the State Department, were you aware of your obligation not to delete federal records or destroy federal records?”
Her reply was astonishing.
“If there was a schedule that was created that was her Secretary of State daily schedule, and a copy of that was then put in the burn bag, that . . . that certainly happened on . . . on more than one occasion,” Abedin said during the meeting.
In August, the Daily Caller reported that an email showed Abedin once left one of these burn bags in the front seat of her car:
“Favor” is the subject of Abedin’s July 20, 2009 email to Lauren Jiloty, Clinton’s personal assistant. Judicial Watch obtained the records and hundreds more pages of Abedin emails as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department.
“I’m going to have ambassador ride on next drive,” wrote Abedin. “There’s a bunch of burn stuff in the pocket of my front seat.”
Other details beginning to emerge also raise concerns about whether Abedin’s apparent security lapses are indicative of a deeper problem.
As Breitbart News has reported, Abedin has never faced serious mainstream media scrutiny over her background such as Abedin’s myriad connections to the Muslim World League, a Saudi Arabian Islamist “charity.” In 2009, Hillary Clinton herself admitted the charity is one of the Saudi organizations that “continue to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas.”
Paul Sperry reported in the NY Post about an April 5th of interview of Abedin that was attended by the “chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section:”
On page 3 of their 11-page report, the agents detail how they showed Abedin a classified paper on Pakistan sent from a State Department source which she, in turn, inexplicably forwarded to her personal Yahoo email account — an obviously unclassified, unencrypted, unsecured and unauthorized system. The breach of security was not an isolated event but a common practice with Abedin.
“She routinely forwarded emails from her state.gov account to either her clintonemail.com or her yahoo.com account,” the agents wrote. Why? “So she could print them” at home and not at her State Department office.
Despite the growing web of concerns, in a statement given to DailyMail.com, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said that the campaign continued to support Abedin:
Huma completely and voluntarily complied with and cooperated with the investigation. She sat for a hours long interview. She turned over and went through with her lawyers all of the emails that might possibly be relevant and turned them over to the state department and investigators. There’s absolutely nothing she’s done that we think calls into question anything that she’s done. She’s been fully cooperative. We of course stand behind her.
Even the Daily Beast was forced to acknowledge how Huma Abedin’s unique position with Clinton might be protecting her from investigation:
In a normal election year, a normal candidate’s close aide who caused even minor embarrassment to a campaign so near to Election Day would be whisked away as quickly as possible to avoid becoming a distraction.
But Huma Abedin is not simply a close aide, she’s a critical member of Hillary Clinton’s tiny inner circle that protects and — at times — enables the deeply flawed and secretive Democratic nominee.
The new emails were discovered in the course of an investigation into whether Anthony Weiner allegedly exchanged sexually oriented texts and photos with a 15-year-old North Carolina girl, including one message where he said “I would bust that tight pussy so hard and so often that you would leak and limp for a week.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.