The Associated Press is suing the State Department to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails while she was Secretary of State for President Obama.
On Wednesday, Clinton attempted to stop the bleeding in what is becoming another scandal surrounding her . Both, supporters and critics are questioning the reasoning behind the former First Lady not using official channels in her email communications.
The AP filed the lawsuit in Federal Court to force the release of all emails from the years Clinton served as State Secretary for the Obama administration. The news agency claims several U.S. Freedom of Information Act requests on their part went unfulfilled. The suit includes one request AP made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013, according to Fox News .
Karen Kaiser, the Associated Press general counsel, explained in a statement on Wednesday why the agency is suing the State Department in the Hillary Clinton email case.
“After careful deliberation and exhausting our other options, the Associated Press is taking the necessary legal steps to gain access to these important documents, which will shed light on actions by the State Department and former Secretary Clinton, a presumptive 2016 presidential candidate, during some of the most significant issues of our time.”
“The press is a proxy for the people, and AP will continue its pursuit of vital information that’s in the public interest through this action and future open records requests.”
During the press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Wednesday, in which Hillary Clinton publicly discussed the controversy for the first time, she claimed that she was allowed to use her personal email for work. Clinton also stated that the reason behind her decision was “convenience” because she wanted to use one device for all her online activities.
Hillary Clinton has been under fire ever since it was discovered she used her personal server to store official emails during her time as Secretary of State. On Wednesday, Clinton stated she has turned over thousands of emails that will be released by the State Department, which is working to produce those to the public.
Critics on both sides of the aisle question the wisdom of having potentially classified information in a personal server and the fact that Clinton did not follow protocol when it came to her email correspondence, specifically the gaps which span months, as reported by the Inquisitr .
In her capacity as a public servant, all of Hillary Clinton’s non-classified communications belong to the public record and should have been preserved in the State Department archives, which would make them accessible to the media and others.
The Associated Press is specifically “seeking copies of Clinton’s full schedules and calendars from her four years as Secretary of State; documents related to her department’s decision to grant a special position to longtime aide Huma Abedin; related correspondence from longtime advisers Philippe Reines and Cheryl Mills, who, like Abedin, are likely to play central roles in a Clinton presidential campaign; documents related to Clinton’s and the agency’s roles in the Osama bin Laden raid and National Security Agency surveillance practices; and documents related to her role overseeing a major Defense Department contractor,” Fox News reports.
Hillary Clinton’s attempts to quiet down the onslaught of criticism for not using her work email address while working for the State Department, has left the media with more questions than answers . During the presser, Clinton said that dozens of her emails are between herself and her husband, Bill Clinton. However, he told the Wall Street Journal that has only used email twice in his life and Hillary Clinton herself admitted, “I don’t throw anything away, I’m like two steps short of a hoarder,” according to the Guardian .
Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, predicts the AP lawsuit will expedite the State Department disclosure of Hillary Clinton’s lost emails.
“When the government is under a court deadline, or really wants to review, they can whip through thousands of pages in a matter of weeks, which they should do here.”
Do you think the AP lawsuit will shed any light on what happened in the Hillary Clinton emailgate scandal?
[Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images News]