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State Department’s Comments On FOIA Process Could Have Implications For Hillary Email Scandal

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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In a press conference held Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that agency employees — including staffers in the office of the secretary of state — are often made aware of Freedom of Information Act requests, an admission that could have implications for the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

“It’s not inappropriate for senior staff members to be made aware of FOIA requests and participate in discussions about them,” Harf told reporters.

That statement is significant because one of the unanswered questions in the Clinton email scandal is whether Hillary Clinton or her State Department staff were ever made aware of FOIA requests for her records.

While Clinton was in office, the State Department received FOIA requests for her emails from various organizations, including the website Gawker, the Associated Press and the nonprofit Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Gawker filed two separate FOIA requests for emails between Clinton and her top aide, Huma Abedin, and Sidney Blumenthal — the longtime Clinton insider who routinely emailed intelligence reports to Clinton while she was in office.

But Gawker’s requests were denied by the agency, which claimed that the records being sought did not exist. Gawker filed suit in March, after it was revealed that Clinton used only a private email address and private email server during her time in office. (RELATED: How Did The State Department Respond To Open Records Requests For Hillary’s Emails?)

Since Clinton’s emails were public federal records even if sent from a private account, federal regulations require them to be made available to FOIA requests.

So, the State Department’s denial raises the questions: who at the State Department was made aware of FOIA requests for Clinton’s emails? Was Clinton or her staff aware of the FOIA request? If so, did they lie by telling the FOIA office that Clinton did not use email for official government business?

By stating that it is entirely appropriate that a secretary of state’s staff could be brought in the loop on specific FOIA requests, Harf leaves open the strong possibility that either Clinton or her staff were aware of FOIA requests for her emails but that they improperly denied that the records existed.

Reached for comment about whether Clinton or her staff could have been made aware of specific FOIA requests for her emails, a State Department spokesman referred The Daily Caller to Clinton’s team. Clinton’s team did not respond.

Reporters at Wednesday’s press conference did not press Harf on this particular line of inquiry. Instead, Harf was asked about a Wall Street Journal article published Tuesday which revealed that Clinton’s then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and other staffers scrutinized State Department FOIA requests and sometimes blocked records from being released.

Harf declined to answer questions about Mills’ involvement. She also said that she would not weigh in on hypotheticals or on the Journal article, since it cited unnamed sources.

But she maintained that “no matter who provides guidance and who’s in [the FOIA] process, the department only withholds materials that are exempt or excluded from public release under terms spelled out under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Asked specifically by a reporter whether a secretary of state’s staff could be involved in the FOIA process, Harf reiterated that “it’s entirely appropriate for various department personnel to be made aware of documents that could potentially respond to FOIA requests received by the department.”

“In theory, there’s a lot of people who can be involved quite appropriately in this process.”

She said that since FOIA officers aren’t “subject-matter experts” on the information being requested, others with the State Department are consulted on specific requests.

“It’s not unthinkable that [senior staffers] could be made aware of a discussion about an ongoing FOIA request,” Harf said.

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