A nonprofit Washington watchdog group is suing the State Department for access to records on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of an iPad and iPhone to conduct official business.
Judicial Watch has previously filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for Clinton’s communications at State and now is pressing the agency to divulge the process that allowed Clinton to use an unauthorized device for official business.
After the group submitted its FOIA for the records March 10, the State Department merely acknowledged receiving the request and failed to produce any documents within the required 20-day time frame.
There are roughly 18 pending lawsuits that pertain to Clinton’s use of a private email, Judicial Watch said. Ten of those are active in federal court.
Judicial Watch has filed 160 FOIA requests for documents related to the former secretary of state’s records and those of her staff. The group has filed more than 20 requests seeking records directly involved in the Clinton email scandal.
Other nonprofit and media organizations, including the Associated Press, Veterans for a Strong America and the Gawker blog have gone to the federal courts in their efforts to obtain State Department email records in the nearly two months since news of Clinton’s private email use became a major national issue.
A deluge of negative headlines about the Clinton Foundation’s activities have further complicated the launch of Hillary Clinton’s second campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. She lost in 2008 to then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Clinton has answered media questions about her use of a private email account and a personal server located in her New York residence only once during a March 10 news conference at the UN. She claimed she used the private account and server for “convenience,” denied that she violated federal and State Department laws and regulations in doing so and explained that she destroyed more than 30,000 of the 62,000-plus emails to and from her as secretary of state that concerned personal matters.
Clinton’s claim that she chose to forego using a government email account so she could carry one device for “convenience” was quickly debunked when numerous photographs of her using multiple hand-held devices surfaced in the media.
“The Obama State Department would rather violate federal transparency law than give the American people simple facts about Hillary Clinton’s iPad and iPhone,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “The Obama State Department is engaged in a cover-up and this is the first of several new federal lawsuits that Judicial Watch will file to hold this administration and Mrs. Clinton to account for their apparent criminal violations of federal records laws and other laws.”
