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AP Photo Feds, Judicial Watch strike deal on Clinton email depositions

The conservative group Judicial Watch and lawyers for the State Department have struck a deal to govern sworn depositions from three former aides to Hillary Clinton about the private email server and account she used during her tenure as secretary of state.

The joint proposal detailed in a Friday night court filing calls for the depositions of former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and information technology specialist Bryan Pagliano during a two-month discovery period that would follow approval of the agreement by a federal judge. The deal suggests the politically sensitive interviews could be videotaped.

Approval of the plan by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan could come as soon as next week. He ruled in February that Judicial Watch should be permitted to take depositions in the watchdog group's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for information about Abedin's employment arrangements.

Given Sullivan's ruling, the talks between the conservative group and Justice Department lawyers representing State focused on the scope of the discovery effort: how many people would be deposed, who would be deposed and what questions will be allowed.

According to the newly-filed agreement, "the scope of permissible discovery shall be as follows: the creation and operation of clintonemail.com for State Department business, as well as the State Department’s approach and practice for processing FOIA requests that potentially implicated former Secretary Clinton’s and Ms. Abedin’s emails and State’s processing of the FOIA request that is the subject of this action. Plaintiff is not entitled to discovery on matters unrelated to whether State conducted an adequate search in response to Plaintiff’s FOIA request, including without limitation: the substantive information sought by Plaintiff in its FOIA request in this case, which involves the employment status of a single employee; the storage, handling, transmission, or protection of classified information, including cybersecurity issues; and any pending FBI or law enforcement investigations."

One potential Achilles heel in the arrangement: there's no indication that lawyers for Mills, Abedin and Pagliano are on board. Any or all of them, who are now private citizens and not parties to Judicial Watch's FOIA suit, could try to fight subpoenas issued to them. They could also accept the subpoenas and take the Fifth Amendment, citing the ongoing FBI investigation into how classified information wound up on Clinton's server. Pagliano did that in the FBI inquiry and eventually obtained an immunity deal whose scope remains unclear.

Lawyers for the three did not immediately respond to messages Saturday morning seeking comment on the proposed discovery plan and how they plan to respond to any subpoenas.

In addition to the three ex-Clinton aides Judicial Watch had sought to interview four current State Department officials, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, former Executive Secretary Stephen Mull, former Executive Secretariat Executive Director Lewis Lukens, and Diplomatic Security official Donald Reid. In the deal filed Friday, Judicial Watch agreed to withdraw the request for Reid's testimony, at least for now.

Under the proposed order, State could restrict the release of transcripts or videos of the depositions for three days after they're produced. In that time, State could seek a court order to prevent disclosure of inadvertently discussed classified information or other information restricted by law, as well as cybersecurity and investigative details Judicial Watch is agreeing not to ask about.