The Republican National Committee took the extraordinary step of filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on Wednesday over violations of the federal Freedom of Information Act.
“The Obama administration has failed to comply with records requests in a timely manner as required by law,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “For too long the State Department has undermined the public and the media’s legitimate right to records under the Freedom of Information Act, and it’s time it complies with the law. If this administration claims to be the ‘most transparent in history,’ and Clinton the ‘most transparent person in public life,’ then they should prove it, release these records, and allow the American people to hold her accountable.”
The RNC filed two lawsuits in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia under FOIA to compel the State Department to produce records related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The records were previously requested from the State Department under FOIA in October and December of last year.
No documents or information have been provided.
The first lawsuit seeks electronic communications sent to and from Clinton via text or BlackBerry Messenger, as well as emails sent to and from several key senior aides: former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, former Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and former IT Staffer Bryan Pagliano. The second lawsuit seeks communications between senior officials at the State Department and the Clinton campaign and other allied entities, including former President Bill Clinton’s foundation, ClintonFoundation.org, and MediaMatters.org, a liberal nonprofit group that is helping to defend Clinton from “misleading conservative information” in the media.
Both suits focus on communications sent and received during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
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