Clinton opponents vow to continue their pursuit

Hillary Clinton’s biggest adversaries are continuing their pursuit of the Democratic presidential nominee, even after her defeat in the election.

President-elect Donald Trump has said that he does not plan to push a prosecution of Clinton, but others haven’t given up the chase.

{mosads}House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) argues its his “duty” to see his panel’s investigations through to their conclusion.

“A political election does not extinguish the need for transparency, truth and justice,” he told Fox News this week.

The conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, a longtime Clinton foe, is also promising to continue its work.

It has a swath of ongoing open records cases against the State Department over emails sent on Clinton’s personal email server during her tenure at Foggy Bottom.

Judicial Watch has repeatedly sought to depose Clinton herself and, in one case, is seeking the release of the thousands of emails found on disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop found to be relevant to the FBI’s original probe into Clinton’s server.

And Larry Klayman, another longtime anti-Clinton agitator who founded Judicial Watch and now presides over Freedom Watch, has brought a wrongful death suit against Clinton on behalf of the parents of two men killed during the 2012 attacks on the American outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

“Somebody’s gotta do it to make the point,” Klayman said.

“She’s not going away, and these recounts will tell you that,” he added, referring to vote recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that were spearheaded by the Green Party.

Trump’s signal that he isn’t interested in pursuing action against Clinton was widely interpreted as a sign of his desire to be seen as bringing the country back together after a divisive election.

He initially said that prosecuting Clinton would not be a priority, and later told New York Times reporters that a prosecution of the Clintons would be “very, very divisive” for the country.

Citing a need for unity, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said that the president-elect would not push for any charges against Clinton over either her use of a private email server or allegations surrounding the Clinton Foundation.

The actions have disappointed some of Clinton’s pursuers, and may have done little to soften the desire among Trump supporters to punish the former secretary of State.

At a victory rally Thursday in Cincinnati, after Trump talked about how fun it was to fight with Clinton, his crowd started the campaign chant of “lock her up.”

Klayman said he’s happy to play the role for Trump with regards to the lawsuit he is backing.

Patricia Smith and Charles Woods claim in the suit against Clinton that the attacks that killed their sons, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, as well as two other Americans, were “directly and proximately caused, at a minimum” by Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office.

“We’ll be the special prosecutor [Trump] would have appointed to the extent we can,” Klayman said. “We’re going to pursue her with Benghazi, we’re going to pursue her with follow-through with the FOIA cases we have, [and] she’s a defendant in the Black Lives Matter case for inciting violence.”

In the latter case, Klayman is representing a black Dallas police officer who has accused 17 defendants, including Black Lives Matter, President Obama and Clinton, of inciting “threats and attacks … against police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities including but not limited to Jews, Christians and Caucasians.”

After Conway signaled Trump would not pursue a Clinton prosecution, the leader of Judicial Watch called for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

“President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals,” said Tom Fitton, the Judicial Watch president.

“In the meantime, Judicial Watch will vigorously pursue its independent litigation and investigation of the Clinton email, national security and other corruption scandals,” Fitton said.

Meanwhile, Chaffetz and other Oversight Committee Republicans have vowed to continue their investigations into the State Department’s retention of Clinton’s emails, alleged perjury by Clinton and the pay-for-play allegations against the Clinton Foundation.

Prior to the election, the panel had held numerous hearings based on information revealed by FBI Director James B. Comey at the close of the agency’s investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information.

The hearings were widely panned by Democrats as political theater designed to damage Clinton’s chances of winning the White House.

Prior to the election, when Clinton was widely expected to win, Chaffetz vowed at least two more years of Clinton-related investigations.

Oversight Republicans are apparently undeterred by Clinton’s return to private life.

“Congress has an obligation to do oversight. I think you’ll see that continue,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in late November.

“The records law looks like it was violated in this situation with regards to her emails and keeping records at the State Department. And then of course there’s the whole Clinton Foundation information that came out.

“This is some pretty serious things going on here. And I think the American people want to know the truth. We can do it in the right way, in the constitutional way that we’re supposed to, but I think it’s something that needs to happen,” Jordan said.