The Republican National Committee sued the State Department on Wednesday, seeking the release of more than two years worth of records and emails from Hillary Clinton‘s aides and associates.
The RNC asked a judge to order the department to respond to two Freedom of Information Act Requests it submitted in December seeking messages from 2013 through the end of last year. The lawsuit comes nine days after the department released the final batch of the more than 52,000 pages of messages stored on the former secretary of state’s private e-mail server.
“Clinton’s actions while Secretary of State — and the actions of those senior officials with whom she worked most closely and supervised — are manifestly relevant to whether she is fit to lead this country,” the RNC said in its complaint, filed in federal court in Washington.
The group said it filed another complaint, which couldn’t be immediately verified in court records.
The RNC’s FOIA requests seek messages both during and after Clinton’s tenure as the top U.S. diplomat. She left office in February 2013 and was succeeded by former Massachusetts senator and fellow Democrat John F. Kerry. One request covers communication between State Department officials and individuals using domain names associated with Clinton, including those of political action committees supporting her candidacy, and hillaryclinton.com, her campaign website and the domain her campaign staff uses to e-mail.
Also sought are messages sent to and from then-Secretary Clinton via text or Blackberry Messenger, as well as emails sent to and from several key senior aides: former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, top aide Huma Abedin, policy adviser Jake Sullivan, campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook, and former IT employee Bryan Pagliano, who was granted immunity for his cooperation with the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s server. Correspondence to and from the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Consulting, which employed Abedin while she worked at the State Department, was also included.
“Time is of the essence,” the RNC said in the complaint, which seeks to have the sought-after documents no later than July 1, “in time for the Democratic National Convention.”
The Clinton campaign, and State Department officials didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The Obama administration has failed to comply with records requests in a timely manner as required by law,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a e-mailed statement. “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.”
(c) 2016, Bloomberg ยท Andrew Harris, Ben Brody
