A liberal ethics watchdog called for an investigation after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the State Department will release all of Hillary Clinton’s emails before Election Day.
“American Oversight asked the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and the State Department’s acting inspector general to immediately investigate whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s rush to release the emails of former Secretary Hillary Clinton before the upcoming November election violates the Hatch Act. The letter urges OSC and the inspector general to stop Pompeo from ordering any State Department employees to release information in an unlawful attempt to influence the outcome of the election,” an American Oversight statement on Friday reads.
American Oversight was founded in 2017 by Austin Evers, who is a former Clinton and State Department lawyer who oversaw the Freedom of Information Act process concerning Clinton’s emails, Breitbart News reported.
Pompeo said earlier this month that Clinton’s emails will be released before Election Day.
“We’ve got the emails. We’re getting them out,” Pompeo told Fox News on Oct. 9. “We’re going to get all of this information out so the American people can see it. You’ll remember there was classified information on a private server. It should have never been there. Hillary Clinton should never have done that. It was unacceptable behavior.”
President Trump has assailed Clinton for using an unauthorized private email server while she was secretary of state during the Obama administration, making it a staple of many campaign rallies in 2016.
Pompeo has since defended the plan to release the emails and slammed claims it would violate the Hatch Act, which forbids the use of the government for political campaigning.
“Releasing emails for the sake of transparency can’t possibly be a violation of the Hatch Act. That’s a ridiculous question,” he told one reporter this month.
“I actually have been involved in these emails for a long time. You’ll recall, I previously served as a member of Congress, where Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal server containing classified information became a very important issue,” he added.
Evers disagrees, saying Pompeo intends to use his position in office to influence the election and should thus be held accountable.
“Secretary Pompeo has made it clear he intends to use the powers of his office to influence the 2020 election,” he said. “That is quintessentially illegal under the Hatch Act. He should be investigated and held accountable.”
“In the meantime, it is critically important for every State Department employee dragged into Pompeo’s plans to know that the secretary is asking them to break the law, too,” Evers added. “It’s imperative that OSC and the IG intervene to protect career employees from being forced to choose between following orders and following the law.”
