Hillary Clinton Emails Called ‘Moot,’ Blocked By Donald Trump Justice Department
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to continue pressing an investigation of the Hillary Clinton email affair, even appointing a special prosecutor to look into the email “scandal” that, in the estimation of many political experts, ended up costing Clinton the presidency. The emails were troubling for Clinton, especially after FBI Director James Comey sent an extraordinary letter to congress just two weeks before the election announcing that a new trove of Clinton emails had been discovered on a computer owned by scandal-ridden former New York congressional representative, Anthony Weiner.
Those supposed emails turned out to contain no new revelations or anything incriminating, but the tidal wave of negative publicity for Clinton may have turned the election against her, causing her to fall short in the Electoral College, despite winning the popular vote over Trump by nearly 3 million.
In the final two weeks of the election, the Clinton email story received between two and three times as much coverage in major newspapers as any story about Trump, according to one study.
But even before the Comey letter, Trump promised that if he were elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton emails.
“I didn’t think I’d say this and I’m going to say it and I hate to say it. … If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception,” Trump told Clinton in their second presidential debate in October of 2016.
Therefore, it came as a surprise to conservative groups on Monday when they went to court seeking further disclosures of Clinton emails and they found themselves opposed by the Trump Justice Department.
The right-wing group Judicial Watch, along with a similar group known as Cause For Action, sent lawyers to argue in United States District Court in Washington D.C. on Monday, pressing a judge to force the State Department — now presided over by Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was previously CEO of oil company giant Exxon Mobil — to release more of the Clinton emails that the conservative lawyers said have not yet seen the light of day.
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But a lawyer for the Justice Department — now run by another Trump appointee, former Senator Jeff Sessions — called the case “moot,” according to a report in the Washington Post.
“Our principle argument is going to be mootness based on all the developments that have happened since the case was filed,” said Trump administration attorney Carol Federighi.
Lawyers for the Trump State Department said they would ask for the email lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch to be dismissed.
“What’s surprising is the Trump Administration is continuing the Obama Administration’s legal strategy to obstruct and defend Hillary Clinton’s email practices,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said on Monday.
But the right-wing groups pursuing the Clinton email case say they plan to keep going, especially after an appeals court ruled in December that the case was not “moot” and might yet “bear more fruit.”
[Featured Image By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
