An attorney who worked for the same firm representing Hillary Clinton in the legal battle over her private emails now oversees the State Department’s handling of those same emails.
Catherine Duval, formerly of Williams & Connolly, departed the Internal Revenue Service last year for the State Department, where she assumed responsibility for the release of Clinton’s emails and for the agency’s production of documents to the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of both the select committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he sees similarities between the IRS investigation and the Benghazi investigation.
“It’s interesting that Kate Duval was at Williams & Connolly, and then went to the IRS, and when she was at the IRS, she was the chief counsel when the 422 backup tapes were destroyed,” Jordan told the Washington Examiner, referring to Duval’s involvement in an investigation into IRS targeting of conservatives.
IRS employees magnetically erased the tapes that contained thousands of emails belonging to Lois Lerner, the former head of the tax-exempt unit and subject of a congressional probe.
At the time, Duval was in charge of the tax agency’s production of records, including Lerner’s emails, to Congress.
“This Kate Duval angle is important for taxpayers and Americans to understand,” Jordan said.
The Ohio Republican highlighted recent problems that have surfaced in the State Department’s handling of 30,000 Clinton emails.
Whistleblowers from the intelligence community have suggested State officials are using exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act to hide the extent of classified information that circulated on Clinton’s private network.
The investigation into Clinton’s State Department communications heated up last week after the intelligence community inspector general identified information that should have been marked “top secret” — the highest level of classification in government — among Clinton’s emails.
The watchdog’s finding prompted the Justice Department to take custody of both the server Clinton used while secretary of state and a thumb drive containing copies of her emails that was being held at the Williams & Connolly office by her attorney, David Kendall.
Duval’s ties to Williams & Connolly have raised questions about whether a conflict of interest exists as her former employer struggles to shield Clinton from scrutiny from the State Department, Duval’s present employer, from Congress and from the FBI.
For example, Kendall was permitted to retain copies of emails known to contain classified intelligence until last week, while the intelligence community inspector general was denied access to the same documents.
While the State Department first identified the classified information in May, the agency did not deliver a safe to Williams & Connolly until July, leaving an unexplained gap of two months during which the thumb drive was unprotected.
