dailycaller.com
>The Obama White House kept tabs on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email accounts that the State Department improperly denied, according to newly released emails.
>The emails, which were provided to Judicial Watch, show for the first time that the Obama White House was aware of the Clinton-related FOIA request, which the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) submitted to the State Department in December 2012.
>The State Department denied the request in May 2013, claiming that no responsive records existed. That despite officials at the State Department, the White House and even President Obama himself knowing that Clinton used a personal email account for government business.
>The State Department’s inspector general determined in a report released on Jan. 7, 2016 that the State Department’s denial of the CREW request was “inaccurate and incomplete.”
>It is not clear from the emails why the White House was interested in the request. But Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton has a theory.
>“These documents suggest the Obama White House knew about the Clinton email lies being told to the public at least as early as December 2012,” he said in a statement.
>“The Obama White House orchestrated the Clinton email cover-up,” he added.
>Several FOIA requests were filed for information on Clinton’s email accounts during her tenure at the State Department, which ended Feb. 1, 2013. The most specific request was the one from CREW, which was submitted on Dec. 6, 2012.
>The group filed a FOIA request for information on the personal email accounts of several cabinet officials, including Clinton.
