An environmental group whose request for records related to the Keystone Pipeline was reportedly hampered while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state is considering taking the case to court for the second time.
Ben Schreiber, climate and energy program director at Friends of the Earth, said his group has weighed the option of relitigation in the weeks since learning that Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, had interfered in the agency’s handling of Freedom of Information Act requests for Keystone documents.
While Schreiber said Friends of the Earth received a number of emails involving Clinton’s top aides when the original case settled during Clinton’s tenure, he noted the State Department did not then have any of the secretary’s emails to produce.
“For us, this is very much a good governance thing,” Schreiber said. “It’s pretty clear that at the highest levels of the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the agency did everything in their power to undermine the integrity of the Freedom of Information Act, and that for us is troubling.”
The discovery that Clinton has now submitted thousands of emails to the agency that could prove responsive to Friends of the Earth’s 2010 request means the group could potentially force a different outcome if it sued the State Department a second time.
The request sought any communications between State Department staff and Paul Elliott, a lobbyist for TransCanada and former Clinton campaign aide. TransCanada is the company that would build the Keystone Pipeline if the project received the necessary government approval.
Schreiber pointed to a Wall Street Journal article published in May that suggested Mills began screening documents set for release under FOIA after Friends of the Earth obtained an email that illustrated the cozy relationship between Elliott and State staffers.
“The Keystone documents Ms. Mills objected to were all either held back or redacted,” the Journal report said. “After Ms. Mills began scrutinizing documents, the State Department’s disclosure of records related to Keystone fell off sharply, documents that include a court filing show.”
Friends of the Earth did obtain hundreds of emails sent between top State Department officials and Elliott in 2011 through the lawsuit, however.
Those emails reveal Clinton’s staff was indeed concerned about how the agency responded to FOIA requests.
For example Alexander Yuan, a State Department official, forwarded a news article to staff that reported the agency’s decision to comply with the Friends of the Earth FOIA request for records concerning Elliott.
“Interesting how we at State learn about these decisions,” Yuan wrote of the Feb. 18, 2011 article. Yuan also suggested sending a state official to speak with the FOIA office in person.
The exchange suggests State Department staff may have felt they had sway over how the agency responded to FOIA requests.
In another email exchange from May 2011, a different State official raised concerns that the agency had received more inquiries about “the Secretary’s relationship with TransCanada lobbyist Paul Elliott and the FOIA.”
Aides circulated “press guidance” about how to deal with questions about Elliott’s ties to Clinton and the high-profile project he was advocating.
Schreiber noted the decision to revisit the lawsuit was still a matter of discussion, citing the cost of litigation as a concern, but said the new information about Mills’ meddling with FOIA requests prompted Friends of the Earth to begin considering reopening the case.
