A nonprofit group filed suit Tuesday seeking State Department ethics records from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
“A number of Secretary Clinton’s emails that have become publicly available since she left office raise questions about whether her conduct comported with the ethics agreement she signed in January 2009,” notes the suit, filed by Cause of Action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The group submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in August requesting records including “recusals or other ethics agreements” for Clinton and a number of key staffers, ethics waiver or exemptions, records of advice or briefings conducted by the ethics office, and communications produced by the office on the topic of financial disclosures, especially pertaining to the Clinton Foundation. Officials at State failed to produce responsive records.
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Emails obtained this month through a separate FOIA request suggested donors to the Clinton Foundation may have received special treatment from the State Department. “Need you to flag when people are friends of WJC [William Jefferson Clinton],” senior State Department official Caitlin Klevorick wrote in one message to Amitabh Desai, the director of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation.
“It appears that State Department officials during Secretary Clinton’s tenure did not take their ethics responsibilities seriously,” Cause of Action Vice President John Vecchione said. “Americans have a right to know whether Secretary Clinton and her aides at the State Department flouted ethics requirements in order to grant special treatment to Clinton Foundation supporters.”
