The new ruling from U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg could irritate President Donald Trump, who is said to have been fuming in recent weeks over reports that the State Department is still processing a backlog of tens of thousands of Clinton emails the FBI came across during its investigation into whether Clinton or her aides broke the law by exchanging information deemed classified. Trump has also complained publicly that the Justice Department has failed to to dig into Clinton's email use.
Late last year, an appeals court overturned Boasberg's initial dismissal of the cases filed by conservative watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Cause of Action Institute. The appeals court panel said State had not done enough to demonstrate that it had exhausted all potential avenues to find federal records Clinton maintained in her private email accounts.
As a result of that ruling, the FBI came forward with more details on the steps it took to track down Clinton's messages during the bureau's probe, which did not lead to any charges.
Among the new disclosures was that the FBI's use of grand jury subpoenas to try to obtain information on emails Clinton sent or received included not only her provider and accounts but ones used by people she corresponded with.
In a 26-page ruling Thursday, Boasberg concluded that the FBI's detailed account of its probe satisfied State's obligation to take all reasonable steps to find Clinton's emails.
"The Attorney General’s investigative arm joins Defendants’ conclusion that there are no remaining emails for State to recover. The FBI so concluded as part of an investigation related to national security, in which it had every incentive to 'shake the tree' with all its might. It strains credulity that the Attorney General would implement a more exhaustive search in response to a federal-records request," Boasberg wrote.
"The Court of Appeals may have asked the Government to 'shak[e] the tree harder' for more emails, but it never suggested that the FBI must shake every tree in every forest, without knowing whether they are fruit trees," the Obama-appointed judge added. "The FBI pursued every imaginable avenue to recover the missing emails."
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Thursday the State Department is still not doing all it could to track down Clinton's emails, particularly about 33,000 messages her lawyers ordered deleted after deeming them to be personal in nature and after turning over about 30,000 largely work-related messages to State at its request.
"When President Trump finds out about this, I would think he'll be outraged," Fitton said, adding that an appeal was under consideration. "I think most significant aspect of the whole situation is—and the court highlighted this—although the administrations have changed, the stance has remained the same. It is shocking and upsetting that the Trump Justice and Trump State Departments are refusing to do anything about getting Hillary Clinton's deleted emails."
Cause of Action Institute President John Vecchione issued a statement that did not criticize the ruling or the Trump administration.
“The fact that this case was dismissed does not absolve Secretary Clinton or show that all of her unlawfully removed email records have been recovered." he said. "Unfortunately, the Court concluded that efforts by the FBI in its investigation of Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified material, which resulted in the recovery of numerous emails that Clinton had not previously turned over, left nothing further for the Attorney General to do.”
While the revelation that Clinton exclusively used private email accounts during her tenure as secretary prompted dozens of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the two cases ruled on Thursday took a different legal tack by seeking to force the attorney general and the State Department to take legal action under the Federal Records Act to recover federal records in private hands.
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