GOP officials sue seeking emails of Hillary Clinton, top aides, state department and campaign staff
Hillary Clinton. Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com
In two lawsuits filed Wednesday in federal court in the District of Columbia, the Republican National Committee is seeking a broad swath of emails related to Hillary Clinton and her use of personal electronic devices to send and receive email during her time as secretary of state.
Alleging that the Obama administration has not timely responded to Freedom of Information Act requests made in December, the RNC is seeking a court order requiring production of materials including texts and emails between Clinton and top aides via BlackBerry. The Republicans also are seeking communications between the Democratic presidential candidate, Clinton aides and allies and State Department officials after she left her job there.
Bloomberg, CNN, Politico, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) have stories.
The litigation follows a series of court cases over Clinton’s email practices and clearly has a political component: “Clinton’s actions while Secretary of State—and the actions of those senior officials with whom she worked most closely and supervised—are manifestly relevant to whether she is fit to lead this country,” says the RNC’s complaint.
A campaign spokesman for Clinton told CNN that the “frivolous” RNC filings are “just the latest attempt by the Republicans to politicize this email issue to try to get maximum advantage to derail Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” but “it’s not going to work.”
Clinton has previously stated that she made a mistake by utilizing personal email devices for State Department email but nonetheless said what she did was not illegal or unusual at the time.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Hillary Clinton’s lawyer had ‘top secret’ clearance, but that wasn’t good enough, top lawmaker says”
Washington Post (reg. req.): “Fact checking the Hillary Clinton email controversy”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Justice Department reportedly grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton’s email server”
