U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth is the second federal judge in two months to rule in favor of conservative group Judicial Watch, which is pursuing legal discovery for information on Hillary Clinton’s email server.
Judicial Watch’s pursuit of discovery comes with questions regarding why Clinton’s email server was integrated into the State Department recordkeeping system, and why it was left out of a search requested under the Freedom of Information Act targeting information about the deadly attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi in September 2012.
Lamberth gave the Judicial Watch ten days after the ruling to come forward with follow-up or further discovery requests.
This is the second time in two months that a judge has ruled in favor of Judicial Watch. Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan allowed the group to pursue depositions of Clinton aides in a lawsuit for records about former Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin.
“The government argues that this does not show a lack of good faith, but that is what remains to be seen, and the factual record must be developed appropriately for the Court to make that determination,” Lamberth wrote.
The decision also allows for depositions and testimonies of relevant individuals.
These suits are separate from the FBI investigation, which focuses more on the presence of classified information on Clinton’s email server. However, the allowance of discovery hopes to remove the mystery surrounding Clinton’s private email server.
According to Politico, Judicial Watch “calls for depositions of eight individuals, including Abedin, former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and information technology specialist Bryan Pagliano, who was involved in setting up Clinton’s home server.”
It’s unclear if the group will call Former Secretary Clinton to give a deposition for this ruling, but it’s expected that she will give a deposition for the FBI investigation.
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