Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Chuck Grassley pressed the State Department on its handling of Freedom of Information Act requests Friday in a letter that questioned Hillary Clinton’s conflicting statements about her private emails.
The Iowa Republican asked Secretary of State John Kerry to review the influence Clinton’s political appointees, most notably Cheryl Mills, may have had over which documents were withheld from the public.
“The FOIA management dynamics at the State Department during Secretary Clinton’s tenure is troubling,” said Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Grassley also questioned Clinton’s use of at least two private email addresses despite asserting to the House Select Committee on Benghazi that she only used one while at the State Department.
Emails published by the New York Times Monday showed Clinton received informal intelligence reports on an account that had not been previously disclosed.
“Secretary Clinton, via her attorney, stated to the House Select Committee on Benghazi that the ‘[email protected]‘ is not an address that existed during Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State,” Grassley wrote.
He said Clinton had told the committee through her lawyer that the [email protected] address was not created until March 2013, after she had stepped down from her post.
“Clearly these statements are inconsistent with the emails obtained by the New York Times,” Grassley said.
The letter came days after the Wall Street Journal reported Mills and other top staffers may have interfered with the State Department’s FOIA process to shield from release documents that may have proven politically inconvenient for the secretary.
Grassley sent his letter to Kerry within hours of the State Department’s release of nearly 300 Benghazi-related emails that had been produced to the select committee in February.
Clinton handed over 55,000 pages of emails she personally deemed acceptable for release before reportedly erasing the rest of her records last year.
The presidential candidate’s decision to screen her own emails for potentially embarrassing messages has sparked public controversy, leading many to question what she might have held back from the State Department.
