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"After conferring with Defendant as well as the attorneys for the former State Department employees, Plaintiff served subpoenas on the former State Department employees," Judicial Watch's lawyers said. | Getty Conservative group sets depositions for Clinton aides

A conservative group pressing lawsuits relating to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email set-up said Tuesday that it has set sworn depositions for a half dozen ex-aides to the Democratic presidential candidate, including former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and current Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy.

The court filing from Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act case against the State Department said the former State officials sought for depositions — Mills, Abedin and computer specialist Bryan Pagliano — were served with subpoenas in recent days.

While the submission appears to confirm that current State officials like Kennedy will appear, the watchdog group was somewhat less definitive about the staffers who no longer work at State.

"After conferring with Defendant as well as the attorneys for the former State Department employees, Plaintiff served subpoenas on the former State Department employees," Judicial Watch's lawyers said, adding that the group "intends" to take those depositions on dates in May and June.

In theory, the former employees could move to quash their depositions or could seek a protective order putting further limits on the questions they can be asked. However, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan already approved the list of witnesses, so trying to get scratched from the list could be an uphill battle. The witnesses could also assert their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify, in light of the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's email arrangement.

An attorney for Abedin declined to comment Tuesday. Lawyers for Mills and Pagliano did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

In the case before Sullivan, Judicial Watch is seeking records about Abedin's employment arrangements at State. The conservative group has not sought Clinton's testimony in that case at this point, but on Monday it did file a request seeking to force Clinton into a deposition in another FOIA case seeking records about talking points produced after the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

A Clinton campaign spokesman did not respond to a request Tuesday for comment on the depositions set for Mills, Abedin and Pagliano. However, on Monday night the campaign dismissed as ideologically motivated the request for a Clinton deposition in the parallel case.

"Judicial Watch continues to clog the courts with its partisan lawsuits intended only to hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. This suit's original purpose was to chase bogus allegations about Benghazi talking points, but with that conspiracy theory debunked, it is now being repurposed to continue to attack Hillary Clinton," campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said.