Hillary Clinton has escaped a default judgment that was entered in a case over her liability for the deaths of Americans in Benghazi when an Obama-appointed judge adopted claims that she wasn’t properly served.
That excuse, however, now is over as the case moves forward.
“Whether or not the defendant was served with process in accordance with the applicable state law, defendant is now on notice of this lawsuit, and counsel entered an appearance on her behalf of Sept. 15, 2016,” wrote Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday.
Jackson was appointed to the bench by Obama in 2011.
WND reported in August the claims were brought by the parents of two of the Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in Benghazi.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by lawyer Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch USA on behalf of Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods. The parents cite the FBI’s determination that Clinton’s handling of classified information through the use of a nonsecure, private email server was “extremely careless.”
The plaintiffs alleged that Clinton lied about the cause of the terror attack, including in statements to them, telling them in a private meeting that the attack was caused by a little-known online video.
Jackson took almost no time to reach her decision, as the case earlier had been assigned to Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee who only late Tuesday asked that it be assigned to another judge.
Clinton’s lawyers had protested his presence in the case after a court clerk entered a default judgment against Clinton because she hadn’t responded.
That ruling, however, did not immediately establish liability, and Clinton then told the court there are several reasons she should be given a pass for missing the deadline.
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Smith and Woods were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, jihadist attack on the American compound in Benghazi. While Clinton and other Obama administration officials were publicly blaming the deaths on a response to an obscure YouTube video, internal communications show they knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack.
The wrongful death claim also alleges defamation and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
“Having used a secret private email server that we now know was used to communicate with Ambassador Christopher Stevens with confidential and classified government information, and which we also now know was likely hacked by hostile adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea aligning with terrorist groups, it is clear that Hillary Clinton allegedly negligently and recklessly gave up the classified location of the plaintiffs’ sons, resulting in a deadly terrorist attack that took their lives. It is no coincidence that covert State Department/CIA operations were being run out of Benghazi,” Klayman said.
“To add insult to deadly injury, Hillary Clinton told the plaintiffs that their sons were killed as the result of a video mocking the Islamic prophet Mohammed when she knew that they were murdered by Muslim terrorists. When the families exposed her lies, she called them liars to protect her reputation and to further her own presidential ambitions. She thus defamed the parents of fallen heroes Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith, and committed other wrongful acts, as alleged in the complaint.”
Clinton said in an email to her daughter immediately after the attack that it was an act of terrorism.
Deputy court clerk Reginald Johnson had signed a document in the case stating, “It appearing that the above-named defendant(s) failed to plead or otherwise defend this action though duly served with summons and copy of the complaint on 8/11/2016, and an affidavit on behalf of the plaintiff having been filed, it is this 9th day of September, 2016, declared that defendant(s) is/are in default.”
Klayman pointed out that there was evidence about the lawsuit being served on Clinton.
“Process server Jackson Johnson stated that, on August 11, 2016, he delivered a copy of the required documentation to defendant Clinton’s campaign headquarters. … This was done only after plaintiffs had attempted to serve defendant Clinton personally at her Washington, D.C., residence. There, defendant Clinton’s U.S. Secret Service contingent, at defendant Clinton’s obvious direction, advised the process serve to serve defendant Clinton at her campaign headquarters.”
He continued, “Only when defendant Clinton’s campaign staff, obviously at her direction, attempted to evade service of process were the documents left ‘in the possession of a security officer’ who ‘did not provide his name.'”
Further, her argument that she should be exempt from a 21-day time limit to respond because she is a federal employee is erroneous.
“Much of plaintiffs’ cause of action for defamation is based entirely on statements made by defendant Clinton after she had left the State Department. These statements at issue were made in either 2015 or 2016 during defendant Clinton’s campaign for president,” the motion argued.
Klayman told WND that Clinton’s lack of response to the claims was an indication of her level of concern for them: She “just doesn’t care.”
Patricia Smith said in a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.”
The lawsuit notes the FBI found Clinton, “at a minimum, was ‘extremely careless’ in handling confidential and classified government information and ‘there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.'”
The case alleges that Clinton’s unsecure personal email setup allowed “foreign powers including, but not limited to Russia, Iran, China and North Korea” to obtain information about the Americans.
“Immediately after the attack, defendant Clinton, in an effort to save the re-election chances of President Barack Obama, and in turn, her own chances at the 2016 presidency, lied to plaintiffs and the public at large that the Benghazi attacks were caused by Islamic reaction over an anti-Muslim YouTube video … these lies were perpetrated despite the fact that she knew immediately that this video was actually not the cause of the attack – information that she shared with the prime minister of Egypt and her own daughter, Chelsea Clinton, but hid from plaintiffs and the public at large.
“Clinton even promised plaintiffs that the person responsible for the video would be arrested. … Woods recorded the conversation with defendant Clinton contemporaneously in his diary.”
Now, the case explains, Clinton “has gone on a defamatory smear campaign to paint plaintiffs as liars in the public eye in order to discredit plaintiffs, who have been vocal about defendant Clinton’s pattern and practice of dishonesty regarding what caused the Benghazi attack, its aftermath, and the death of their sons.”
