The State Department agreed to reopen at least one open-records court case that involved former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails, a conservative watchdog group told a federal court Thursday as the scandal over her personal email server continued to develop.
Judicial Watch, which had earlier sued to try to get a look at emails from Mrs. Clinton and top aide, Huma Abedin, said the revelation earlier this month that Mrs. Clinton exclusively used a private email address suggests the State Department may not have been doing a full search of its records when it responded to requests.
In a motion filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Judicial Watch said it had conferred with the State Department, which “does not oppose reopening the case in this particular circumstance.”
The department had no comment Thursday evening, though in the court papers Judicial Watch said the department, while agreeing to reopen the case, opposed some of the proposed remedies.
Still, State’s willingness to reopen the case could signal an acknowledgment that the department’s previous searches for documents were incomplete because they lacked Mrs. Clinton’s emails.
Late last year, or 18 months after she left office, Mrs. Clinton turned over 55,000 printed pages she said contained about 30,000 emails she believed were work-related that she sent during her time in office.
SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton could face jail time as email scandal sparks legal challenges
Judicial Watch asked that the State Department be compelled to search those emails for records responsive to its request, as well as repeat its search on other records to make sure nothing else was missed.
The group said top officials in the State Department must have known they were emailing Mrs. Clinton on a personal account that was not part of the “state.gov” domain. But despite numerous open-records requests, the State employees never informed any of the parties that there were emails missing from their search.
“At no point did the State Department inform Judicial Watch that the Secretary’s emails and the emails of Ms. Abedin and other high level officials could not be searched. These were misrepresentations,” Michael Bekesha, a lawyer for Judicial Watch, told District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
Mrs. Clinton earlier this week held a brief press conference to say she set up her own email account separate from the State Department on a server she ran herself out of “convenience.” She said in hindsight that might have been a bad choice.
She also said she believed that sending most of her emails to fellow colleagues in government at their official addresses meant her communications were being properly stored, and said she believed she followed the law in belatedly forwarding the 55,000 pages of emails she hand-picked back to the department last year.
Speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said they are still going over the emails to decide what they can release to the public.
Ms. Psaki also defended Mrs. Clinton’s process of deciding on her own what emails she deemed public business and which she deemed private, and deleted.
“It has been standard policy for individuals, whether they’re secretaries, whether they’re senior officials, to make those determinations,” Ms. Psaki said. “She turned in and turned over the range of documents we’ve discussed. I would refer you to her for further questions.”
Ms. Psaki did say that Mrs. Clinton kept her own Blackberry for email, rather than using a State Department-issued device.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.