WASHINGTON—A top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined last week to answer questions from private lawyers about the setup of her email server, citing her subsequent role as Mrs. Clinton’s attorney, according to a transcript released Tuesday.
In a deposition conducted Friday with lawyers from the conservative group Judicial Watch, a lawyer for Cheryl Mills repeatedly invoked attorney-client privilege as a reason to withhold some information from the group’s attorneys.
Ms. Mills served as Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department before going on to serve as her personal attorney after both women left government in 2013.
Ms. Mills’s attorney objected to dozens of questions during the nearly seven-hour deposition, arguing that many of them were outside the scope of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and that others sought information that could be withheld under attorney-client privilege.
Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Ms. Mills are defendants in the Judicial Watch lawsuit, which targets the State Department in seeking documents from Mrs. Clinton’s time in office.
“I began representing the Secretary, when she departed from the department, on a number of matters,” Ms. Mills said about her legal work for the former secretary of state. Ms. Mills represented Mrs. Clinton on the matter of what emails got ultimately turned over to the government after Mrs. Clinton left office—a key issue in the Judicial Watch lawsuit.
Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides at the State Department have increasingly become drawn into the investigations around Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server for government business. Last week, an independent government watchdog said Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement while in office ran contrary to department rules.
In her testimony, Ms. Mills declined to elaborate on how and why the server was set up, saying that was information she learned while representing Mrs. Clinton as her attorney. Legal ethics rules forbid attorneys from disclosing certain information about their clients, a privilege often protected in state and federal law.
“The knowledge that I have has come through my representation of her as counsel,” Ms. Mills said.
In addition to Ms. Mills, another top aide, Huma Abedin, is scheduled to be deposed in the Judicial Watch lawsuit. Bryan Pagliano, the IT staffer who helped set up Mrs. Clinton’s email server, is also due to answer questions.
An attorney for Ms. Mills didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The Clinton campaign also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mrs. Clinton has maintained that she thought she was following the precedent of other secretaries of state, including Colin Powell, who used personal email.
“It was still a mistake, and if I could go back I would do it differently,” Mrs. Clinton said on CNN Tuesday. “I understand people may have concerns about this, but I hope voters look at the full picture of everything I’ve done in my career and the full threat posed by aDonald Trump presidency.”
Mrs. Clinton’s email setup is also being probed for the possible loss or mishandling of classified information. As part of the public release of her emails, the government ultimately deemed that more than 2,000 emails in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox contained information that is now considered classified, including emails from aides and other State Department staffers.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign notes that those emails contain no marking showing they were classified and has argued that the government often over-classifies information.
As part of another Freedom of Information Act request, the Republican National Committee obtained copies of nondisclosure agreements signed by Mrs. Clinton’s top aides, including Mr. Pagliano and top policy staffer Jake Sullivan. Those documents, provided to The Wall Street Journal this week, show that all State Department employees were warned against unauthorized disclosure of information and cautioned that such information can be “marked or unmarked.”
Mr. Sullivan was the author of more than 200 of the now-classified emails found in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox, while Mrs. Clinton herself wrote about 100. The rest came from dozens of others inside and outside government.
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