http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-30/trump-seizes-on-disclosure-of-30-new-clinton-emails-that-discussed-Benghazi
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump pounced on revelations Tuesday that the State Department had identified up to 30 emails relating to the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, among a cache of previously undisclosed documents from Hillary Clinton's private server.
The emails were among nearly 15,000 previously undisclosed documents recovered during the FBI's investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee's use of the server during her time as secretary of state. It remains unclear how many of those documents – recovered from the accounts of people with whom Clinton had exchanged messages or deleted off Clinton's server – are new, rather than duplicates of 343 emails already made public by the State Department.
Nor does the State Department yet know how many of the emails are work-related, rather than personal, or if they contain only stray references to the events of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left four Americans dead.
Nevertheless, Trump, who has been
pressing for the appointment of a special investigator to look into whether Clinton violated ethics laws as secretary of state by granting favors to Clinton Foundation donors, wasted little time seizing on the revelation.
"Today's disclosure that 30 additional emails about Benghazi were discovered on Hillary Clinton's private server raises additional questions about the more than 30,000 emails she deleted," said Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to the Trump campaign. "Hillary Clinton swore before a federal court and told the American people she handed over all of her work-related emails. If Clinton did not consider emails about something as important as Benghazi to be work related, one has to wonder what is contained in the other emails she attempted to wipe from her server."
Testifying before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Tuesday, a lawyer for the State Department said the agency would need until the end of September to review and redact potentially sensitive information before releasing the documents to the public.
"At this point there are 30 potentially responsive documents" to the Benghazi matter, meaning potentially work-related emails, Justice Department attorney Robert Prince
told Mehta Tuesday. Mehta told Prince he was "confident" the initial review to determine how many of the emails were new could be completed by Sept. 6.
The appearance of new emails adds fuel to accusations Clinton lied when she told FBI investigators and, separately, a congressional panel, she had turned over all work-related emails in 2014. Republicans have
called for Clinton to be prosecuted for perjury, claiming
she gave disparate accounts about her email setup to the FBI and while under oath before Congress.
The Justice Department closed its year-long investigation into Clinton's email practices last month, after determining that Clinton had been "extremely careless" with sensitive material but not criminally liable for mishandling classified information.