Thursday afternoon, the governmental watchdog Judicial Watch released the deposition transcript of Hillary Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin.
Abedin, who served Clinton throughout her four years as secretary of state, was the focus of Judicial Watch’s original investigation after it was revealed she was working simultaneously for the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and as a consultant to Teneo Holdings, a global strategic-consulting and investment-banking firm co-founded by Douglas Band, who held a similar role with President Bill Clinton as she did with Hillary.
Abedin was one of three people, according to her sworn testimony, who had an email account on the private clintonemail.com system. When Judicial Watch requested copies of emails from the State Department and didn’t get any, they filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the department.
At the time, the private email server was unknown to most Americans, and the lawsuit was dismissed. But once its existence was exposed, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan re-opened the case and ordered discovery that included Abedin’s deposition earlier this week.
In releasing the deposition, Judicial Watch reported that Abedin testified it was Clinton’s decision to use the private email server. She also told Judicial Watch attorneys that, to her knowledge, only she, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton had accounts on the system.
But the biggest bombshell was her testimony that the clintonemail.com system may have interfered with the then-secretary of state’s ability to do her job. As Abedin put it, Clinton “couldn’t do her job right.”
The clearest example was a missed phone call with another nation’s foreign minister.
“She missed the call,” she said. “I never got the email giving us the sign-off to do it. So she wasn’t able to do her job, do what she needed to do.”
Click here to read the entire transcript of the five-and-a-half-hour deposition, which included a nearly one-hour lunch break. Judicial Watch also deposed Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy on Wednesday; his deposition will likely be released Friday.
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