S- Some Guy ?! ... !!!!! :
http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons-lawyer-under-oath-1464907109" Clinton’s Lawyer, Under Oath
Hillary’s aide is so evasive that she can’t even clearly vouch for her own honesty "
By
Kimberley A. Strassel
" The news out of last week’s Cheryl Mills deposition was that the Clinton confidante didn’t say much about Hillary’s email server. Which only goes to show that Mrs. Clinton has a serious problem—and she knows it.
This is, after all, Cheryl Mills. For more than 20 years, she has served as the Clintons’ very own Winston Wolf ( Harvey Keitel in “Pulp Fiction”)—their fixer, their problem-solver. From impeachment right up through Benghazi and the server, Ms. Mills is the one constant in the behind-the-scenes obstruction. The less she talks, the more alarm bells ought to ring.
This was the measure to watch when Ms. Mills arrived last Friday to sit for an interview with attorneys for Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over missing federal records.
In early May the oversight group convinced a federal judge to order discovery into the creation and operation of Mrs. Clinton’s private server. Judicial Watch was granted permission to depose seven central figures, including Ms. Mills, who served as Hillary’s aide at the State Department and later as her private lawyer.
Mrs. Clinton claims she set up the home-brew server in an innocent act aimed at convenience, so it was notable that Ms. Mills marched into her deposition accompanied by no fewer than seven lawyers—three representing Ms. Mills herself, and two each from the Justice and State departments. Two of the government lawyers made clear that they were not only representing their departments but also guarding Ms. Mills in her capacity as a former federal employee. This is President Obama’s assist for Mrs. Clinton.
The lawyers earned their pay. The entire 270-page transcript of the deposition, which Judicial Watch released Tuesday, has an almost eye-glazing repetition about it.
A persistent Judicial Watch attorney attempts to ask Ms. Mills a straightforward question. Before she even finishes, Ms. Mills’s army of attorneys falls all over itself to object, to insist that the query is outside the “scope” of the inquiry or too vague, and to instruct the witness not to answer.
On the rare occasions that they do allow Ms. Mills to open her mouth, it is only after coaching her on what is a permissible response. Not that they need to worry, as Ms. Mills appears to have lived on a distant planet the past several decades.
She doesn’t “know” or can’t “recall” even basic facts or conversations. “I don’t recall having such discussions.” “I can’t speak” to that. “I don’t have a recollection of doing so.” “I don’t know the answer to that question.”
She can’t, or won’t, make a direct statement even about her own honesty. “Are there any reasons why you would not be able to answer truthfully here today?” asks the Judicial Watch attorney. “Not that I know of,” Ms. Mills responds, suggesting that there may be reasons she’s lying, but that she probably won’t recall them until later.
In the spirit of looking cooperative, Ms. Mills did on occasion natter away, filling time with utterly irrelevant factoids about State Department org charts and her interest in Haiti and food security. In this way, she managed to spend most of a day evading and stonewalling every relevant question.
Ms. Mills can barely recall any conversation with anyone while at the State Department about a server, or email, or anything. She is clueless or mum on why the server came to be or who knew about it, or how it worked.
Notably, the Mills team spends much of the interview suggesting she had no real knowledge of the system while on the federal payroll. Why does the timing matter? Because Ms. Mills began working as a private lawyer for Mrs. Clinton after they left government. Anything she learned at that point is therefore protected by attorney-client privilege. Which is convenient.
Frustrating as this surely was for Judicial Watch and the nation, it can’t have been surprising. The Clintons haven’t survived all these years without the support of talented people, and Ms. Mills—give her credit—is unrivaled when it comes to protecting her bosses. Her deposition was something approaching performance art, a perfectly crafted mix of polite ignorance, purposeful misdirection and clever defense.
Yet the presence of all those lawyers proves that Ms. Mills knows she, and her boss, could have a major problem.
What is Bryan Pagliano, the former Clinton IT specialist, telling the FBI under his reported immunity deal? Will it conflict with the Mills deposition? (Interestingly, Mr. Pagliano recently announced he intends to plead the Fifth at his upcoming Judicial Watch deposition.) And what does federal Judge Emmet Sullivan think when he reads the transcript of the Mills runaround? He ordered this discovery to get answers, and it’s eminently clear that Ms. Mills is deliberately not giving them.
Her performance is all anyone needs to know about Mrs. Clinton’s guilt in the server scandal. Someone who set up a home-brew email system for “convenience” wouldn’t need people like Cheryl Mills. "