A watchdog group is suing Secretary of State John Kerry in an attempt to force him to crack down on his predecessor’s use of a private email account and server to skirt the Federal Records Act.
Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit, filed its suit in district court Thursday due to “the failure of defendant Kerry to take any action to recover emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” the group said.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Kerry has been in “cover-up mode” for Clinton in the months since the public learned of her reliance on a private server to shield her official communications.
“Secretary Kerry is in a position to provide the transparency and accountability his predecessor so casually dismissed. However, those in the Obama administration will do whatever they can, including ignoring the law, to protect Clinton, her ‘legacy’ and her 2016 presidential prospects,” Fitton said.
The group had sent a letter to Kerry late last month warning of its intention to pursue legal action against the agency if top officials did not probe Clinton’s potential violation of transparency laws.
“Upon learning that records have been unlawfully removed from State Department, you then are required [to] initiate action through the attorney general for the recovery of records,” Fitton wrote in the April 30 letter to Kerry, citing the Federal Records Act.
That law “imposes a direct responsibility on an agency head to take steps to recover any records unlawfully removed,” Judicial Watch said.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s undersecretary for management, assured the watchdog group his agency was “committed” to archiving future records while handling the emails it had received from Clinton’s camp last year.
Kennedy also worked in the Clinton State Department, and his name surfaced in a selection of Benghazi-related emails the agency published Friday.
Judicial Watch has filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests for the correspondence of Clinton and key members of her staff.
Last month, the group sued the State Department over its FOIA request for Clinton’s use of an iPad and iPhone to conduct her government affairs. That suit came weeks after the presidential candidate claimed she refused to use her official email account as a matter of convenience, arguing that a private address allowed her to carry just one electronic device.
The State Department is presently defending itself in 86 FOIA lawsuits, which is more than twice the number of cases it faced during all of 2014.
“What a sad state of affairs it is when we must petition the courts to remind our leaders what the law is and that they are obligated to follow it,” Fitton said Thursday.
