Obama Administration Seeks to Delay Release of Clinton Aides’ Emails Until Late 2018

The Obama administration filed a motion in federal court on Thursday seeking a 27-month delay in producing emails between Hillary Clinton and her former State Department aides.

If granted, the documents would not be due until October 2018, over a year-and-half into a potential first term of a Clinton presidency.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras had ordered the State Department to produce the emails sought in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Citizens United by July 21.

“The group Citizens United sued the State Department last year, seeking access to emails sent by four former Clinton aides: Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Melanee Verveer and Michael Fuchs. The suit seeks access to emails regarding the Clinton Foundation and a firm with close ties to the Clintons, Teneo Consulting,” United Press International reported.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state, is reportedly under investigation by the FBI for “public corruption” in relation to allegedly using her office to financially benefit the Clinton Foundation.

Citing “errors” in its reviewing process, the State Department told the court in its filing that it originally estimated the number of emails responsive to Citizens United’s request at 6,000, but later discovered there are more than 34,000 documents it must review. The department claims that with its current resources, it can review only 500 documents per month, the Daily Caller reported.

Despite the spike in FOIA requests at the State Department in recent years, the Obama administration had not requested an increase in the budget for the office that reviews documents for public release.

“This is totally unacceptable; the State Department is using taxpayer dollars to protect their candidate Hillary Clinton,” Citizens United President David Bossie told Politico. “The American people have a right to see these emails before the election. If transparency is truly important to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they will order the production of all of these records as ordered by the court by July 21, 2016. The conflicts of interest that were made possible by the activities of Hillary Clinton’s State Department in tandem with the Clinton Foundation are of significant importance to the public and the law enforcement community.” (For more from the author of “Obama Administration Seeks to Delay Release of Clinton Aides’ Emails Until Late 2018” please click HERE)

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