AP sues State Dept. over Clinton emails

The Associated Press is filing a lawsuit to force the State Department to release emails and other documents from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The AP said the lawsuit to force the government to act came only after multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) went unfulfilled.

{mosads}”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,” AP General Counsel Karen Kaiser said in a statement shared with The Hill.

“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.”

The lawsuit comes a day after Clinton for the first time addressed the growing criticism over her exclusive use of a personal email account during her time as the United States’ top diplomat.

On Tuesday, Clinton said she used the single email account out of “convenience.” She also revealed that she deleted about half of the 60,000 emails that were contained on a personal server kept at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. The other roughly 30,000 emails that were believed to be work related were handed over to the State Department.

Since 2010, the AP has filed FOIA requests for copies of Clinton’s schedules, correspondence with multiple department officials and information about the State Department’s role in the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations, among other issues.

The department is notorious for slow responses to FOIA requests and averages about a year and a half to turn over many records.