Judge OKs deposition plan in Hillary Clinton email case

A federal judge has approved a plan to take sworn testimony from former aides to Hillary Clinton about her use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an order Wednesday approving the discovery plan, which was agreed to by the State Department and a conservative group that demanded Clinton's emails under the Freedom of Information Act, Judicial Watch.

"The circumstances surrounding approval of Mrs. Clinton’s use of clintonemail.com for official government business, as well as the manner in which it was operated, are issues that need to be explored in discovery to enable the Court to resolve, as a matter of law, the adequacy of the State Department’s search of relevant records in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request," Sullivan wrote in his 15-page order.

Sullivan's order explicitly left open the question of whether Clinton should be subject to a deposition about the private email arrangement. The order calls for depositions over the next eight weeks of former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and information technology specialist Bryan Pagliano. Also slated to be deposed under the plan are Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, former Executive Secretary Stephen Mull, former Executive Secretariat Executive Director Lewis Lukens.

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