In a new twist that threatens to divide top Obama officials, a watchdog group has demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder open an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.
And if that doesn’t work, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust wants the Justice Department to sue to retrieve the emails that federal law requires be kept for historical and transparency purposes.
“The Federal Records Act does not create a private right of action under which citizens may directly enforce the law,” said the new group that goes by the acronym FACT.
“The Attorney General’s office, however, may bring suit to recover public records. Thus, it is in the public’s interest the Office of the Attorney General initiate an action to recover all of Secretary Clinton’s email correspondence from her private account during the time she served as Secretary of State,” they said in a letter sent to Holder and provided to Secrets.
FACT Executive Director Matthew G. Whitaker also delivered a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department demanding copies of “emails that Secretary Clinton sent or received on any email accounts she utilized for State Department business.”
Another watchdog group, Judicial Watch, is also considering legal action to recover Clinton’s emails.
In an interview, Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney general, said that the Justice Department has to make a move to protect the public. “The attorney general has a duty to file that lawsuit,” he said.
Emailgate is the latest scandal to hit Clinton as she prepares to run for the presidency. The Washington Post today noted that she has a history of hiding her actions from the public, most notably secret meetings she held as first lady when developing a healthcare reform plan that eventually failed.
Whitaker raised three concerns in his letter to Holder:
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
