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Thursday 11 August 2016 - 08:02

New batch of Clinton emails raises big questions

Story Code : 559704
A supporter snaps a photo of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a rally at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida, August 8, 2016.
A supporter snaps a photo of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a rally at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida, August 8, 2016.
Clinton has come under fire for using a private email account and server at her home in New York state for official emails when she was America's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013.
 
On Wednesday, conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch released 296 pages of those emails, including 44 pages that the former first lady had not handed to the State Department.
 
The emails, many of which are heavily redacted, point to a special relationship between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, which appears to have directly influenced some of the department’s decisions.
 
One of the emails shows top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band telling Clinton’s then aides-- Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin—“to take care of (redacted)” and give him/her a job at the department.
 
"Personnel has been sending him options," Abedin assures him in response.
 
Abedin and Mills are told by Band in another email to link a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor named Gilbert Chagoury with the state department's “substance person” on Lebanon.
 
Judicial Watch obtained the emails through a 2015 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the state department.
 
“No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress," Judicial Watch President Tom Filton said in a press release. “They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.”
 
Clinton’s campaign denied any connections between the emails and Clinton’s work at the Clinton Foundation.
 
"They are communications between her aides and the President's personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary's former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation," Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a statement.
 
Clinton’s critics, including her Republican rival Donald Trump, say the email fiasco shows that she has endangered government secrets and evaded transparency laws.
 
Trump’s campaign attacked Clinton following the new release and painted her as unfit for the top position.
 
"This is yet more evidence that Hillary Clinton lacks the judgment, character, stability and temperament to be within 1,000 miles of public power,"  Stephen Miller, the New York businessman's national policy director, said.
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