Posted on 06/02/2016 6:43:47 AM PDT by maggief
The Obama administration is trying to kill a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee (RNC) seeking communications from Hillary Clinton and emails from her former top aides.
Complying with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request at the heart of the lawsuit would require going through 1.5 million pages of files, Justice Department lawyers argued in a filing late on Wednesday. The excessively broad nature of the demands, they added, should prompt a federal court to toss out the suit.
“Compiling, reviewing, and redacting documents responsive to these requests would take the State Department decades,” the lawyers claimed. “This burden is unreasonable.”
The RNC has asked the State Department to hand over all text messages and BlackBerry Messenger communications to or from Clinton during her time in office, as well as all emails to or from four State Department officials throughout her tenure: ex-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, senior adviser Jacob Sullivan, undersecretary for management Patrick Kennedy and IT expert Bryan Pagliano.
After discussions with the State Department, the RNC agreed to limit the subject matter and dates for the aides’ emails, but officials would still need to page through hundreds of thousands of pages of messages .
Those emails contain classified material and information from other agencies, the State Department said on Thursday, prolonging the process of reviewing them for release.
The department has said that it has not been able to find any of Clinton’s text or BlackBerry messages. She never had a State Department-issued BlackBerry, government lawyers said in their filing, and did not hand over any text or Blackberry messages in the tranche of files given to the State Department for record-keeping in 2015.
The lawsuit is one of two separate open records cases filed by the RNC in March, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
All coordinated.
The assault is on.
Time for the FBI to look into why the Obamas are trying so hard to hide all of this. Time to really look into Cheryl Mills. They are all guilty of something and desparate.
Really The government cares little about the excessive paperwork they require my business to waste money on.
I wonder if the FBI has obtained the text messages to/from Clinton’s phone from her cell provider? If they found evidence of crime in the emaime, that would be a logical next step.
They have the power to obtain them, but I don’t know how long those are archived.
Very good point.
It would be physically impossible to text 1 1/2 million pages of documents.
Why is the RNC doing this and not Congress? Don’t we have a Republican-controlled Congress?
The FBI has been waiting for an opening and now they have one.
“Those emails contain classified material”
Oh really...
So the dodge is that it’s too hard to comply with the law?
Isn’t one of the great tenets of Alinsky to overload the system?
Isn’t another to make your enemy live up to their own ideals?
Forever.
The FBI has the power to look into the Obama Administration but WILL they? Mr. Hoover is no longer at the helm of the FBI and they’ve been a weak sister ever since his passing.
Well, if you can’t get it from our own government
Ask the Russians.
RNC FOIA...... fantastic
The very absence of communications = guilt
so was the blackberry for yoga and marriage texts only?
otherwise hillary seems guilty of violating FOIA at a minimum.
And presuming the answer given is bogus (sounds bogus to me), the State Department seems subject to court sanctions.
Then, the RNC can keep this going against the State Department seemingly for as long as they want...
EOUSA Resource Manual Section 137 (note: FOIA Section 3.17-150 refers to EOUSA Section 137 for violations)
https://www.justice.gov/usam/eousa-resource-manual-137-sanctions-violating-foia
Judicial Proceedings Against an Agency: The Act provides for federal district court jurisdiction in proceedings brought against an agency to enjoin its withholding of records. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(B). Previously this was subsection (a)(4)(D) of the FOIA, not (c), and it has now been repealed- see Pub.L. No. 98-620, 98 Stat. 3335 (1984).
In addition, amendments to the Act require the government to answer or otherwise plead within 30 days after service, unless an extension is obtained; this halves the 60-day period normally permitted in a federal case. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(C).
In a case brought under FOIA the court determines the matter de novo and may examine the specific agency records in camera to determine whether they should be withheld under any exemption. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(B). The burden is on the government to sustain its action. Id. The court may award reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs against the government when the complainant substantially prevails. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(E).
Action Against Individual Employees: Sanctions may be taken against individual agency employees who are found to have acted arbitrarily or capriciously in improperly withholding records. Additionally, the court must award attorney fees and other litigation costs against the government.
When the statutory requirements are found by the Court to have been met, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) must promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the office or employee who is primarily responsible for the withholding. The MSPB, after investigating and considering the evidence, submits its findings and recommendations to the agency concerned which then is required to take the corrective action recommended by the Board. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(F). Additionally, there now exists independent jurisdiction for such MSPB investigations under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 1206(e)(1) (1982).
Failure to comply with a court order to produce the records in question may also result in punishment for contempt for the responsible employee. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(G).
How about Congress zeroes out funding for the State Department until the information is turned over?
The latest excuse for not looking into illegal activity on the part of libtards, IT’S TOO HARD.
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