'Am I not speaking English?' State Department dodges questions about pay-for-play scheme [video]

Brett T. | 8:29 PM on August 10, 2016

As Twitchy reported, Judicial Watch on Tuesday received a batch of 44 previously unreleased State Department emails though the Freedom of Information Act, and these “new” emails had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton’s yoga routines or Chelsea’s wedding plans.

Among other things, the emails provided evidence that “a longtime confidante with deep ties to the Clinton Foundation pressed [Hillary Clinton’s] senior aides” to give a job to a male associate; in short, the dictionary definition of quid pro quo.

The State Department’s Elizabeth Trudeau hosted today’s daily briefing, and to no one’s surprise, reporters had questions about these damning emails, and the room even broke into nervous laughter when a reporter broached the subject.

ICYMI @StateDept fields questions on @HillaryClinton emails showing contact w/ @ClintonFdn https://t.co/4ffHvOPN1h pic.twitter.com/qppuai7PiD

— Emmanuel Touhey (@netouhey) August 10, 2016

The video below shows the back and forth between the press and Trudeau, who couldn’t speak to, well, anything. At one point, a reporter even asks if he’s speaking English:

I’m sorry, are you – am I not speaking English? Is this – I mean, is it coming across as a foreign – I’m not asking you if – no one is saying it’s not okay or it’s bad for the department to get a broad variety of input from different people. Asking – the question is whether or not you have determined that there was nothing improper here.

Trudeau’s answer? “We feel confident that all the rules were followed.”

Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner adds that Trudeau “also dismissed inquiries about whether Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, lied under oath when she denied involvement in the botched handling of a 2012 Freedom of Information Act request for documentation of the email accounts Clinton used for official communication.”

Asked why Mills didn’t respond correctly to the FOIA request in the first place, Trudeau answered, “Yeah. It’s a good question. I don’t have an answer for you.”