A federal judge has ordered the State Department to search for any additional Benghazi-related emails then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have sent or received from aides Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills or Jake Sullivan at their state.gov addresses.
Judge Amit Mehta, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the State Department should search the state.gov emails as well, noting “this matter is a far cry from a typical FOIA case. Secretary Clinton used a private email server, located in her home, to transmit and receive work-related communications during her tenure as secretary of state.”
The judge has ordered a status report by September 22.
The order, signed Tuesday, came after conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch’s lawsuit for Benghazi emails.
The group argued that the State Department’s search of her emails wasn’t good enough, saying only external sources were searched — including the 30,000 emails turned over to the State Department by Clinton, FBI’s search of Clinton’s private email server and emails turned over by Mills, Abedin, and Sullivan.
The State Department argued that a search of the state.gov emails is unlikely to turn up anything additional.
Politico first reported the judge’s order Wednesday.
Clinton’s emails were a subject of controversy during her 2016 presidential campaign after it was revealed that she used a private email server during her tenure at the State Department.
Clinton has cited the controversy, particularly former FBI Director James Comey’s decision in late October to tell Congress the bureau was looking at emails thought to be potentially related to the investigation into her use of the server, as a key reason for why she lost.
