The Department of State was caught red-handed, and they are dragging Hillary Clinton to court with them. According to a report by Politico, the State Department delayed responses to Associated Press concerning information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s schedules and her top staffers for FOUR YEARS.
Naturally, this delay isn’t the State Department’s fault. As reported by Politico:
Justice Department lawyers representing State said a surge in FOIA requests caused large backlogs at the agency. They also said State is struggling with a wave of lawsuits since the disclosure in March that Clinton exclusively used a private email server during her service as secretary. In December, she returned 55,000 pages of emails at her former agency’s request.
DOJ lawyers Lisa Ann Olson and Marcia Berman said the agency was prioritizing the public release of the 55,000 pages of emails in response to another judge’s order requiring monthly releases of those records.
Not very convincing, considering they had four years to get the information to AP before Clinton’s emails even arrived in the office. As it turns out, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon wasn’t convinced either. The report continued:
However, Leon accused Olson of responding with “convoluted gobbledygook” when she insisted that the State Department’s processing of those emails would satisfy the AP’s request for records about Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin’s transition to a special part-time position at State.
“The State Department … can’t say it has done a thorough search until it reviews all 55,000 pages of documents,” Olson said.
“What you just said, Ms. Olson, made no sense,” the judge replied. “You’re failing to distinguish between documents created by the State Department independently of Hillary Clinton’s emails — with Hillary Clinton’s emails. And you’re giving me some kind of convoluted gobbledygook about how the emails contain within them the independently created documents relating to Huma Abedin’s appointment as a special government counsel. …That is nonsensical.”
It’s about time that someone stood up to the inefficiencies of bureaucratic agencies. It’s understandable if recent FOIA requests have been delayed, due to Clinton’s incompetence and fraudulence, but FOIA requests that have yet to be fulfilled from four years ago — that’s simply a bunch of gobbledygook.
