Washington D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) today filed a motion to strike from the record improper opinion testimony submitted by FBI Assistant Director E.W. Priestap. The declaration was filed in support of the government’s defense in a pending case against the State Department and National Archives and Records Administration regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unlawful removal of emails. The suit seeks to refer the matter to the Attorney General, which is what the law requires.
A federal judge in August ordered the government to publicly release the unredacted declaration that it had previously filed so that only the judge was able to review it. The FBI’s declaration includes several opinions that the government relies on to support its case. For example, Mr. Priestap states that “[i]t is my opinion that there are no further investigative actions that can be undertaken by the FBI to recover additional Clinton work-related e-mails which would be meaningful to the investigation, as described above.”
However, the investigation Mr. Priestap is referencing is “the potential unauthorized transmission and storage of classified information on the personal e-mail server of former Secretary Clinton.” He is not referencing a record-recovery effort pursuant to the Federal Records Act (“FRA”), which is the subject of this litigation.
Cause of Action Institute President and CEO John J. Vecchione: “The FBI’s declaration revealed grand jury subpoenas where there was probable cause to believe classified information may have been involved. This litigation is not merely about classified information, but about the government doing everything in its power to recover Secretary Clinton’s records, in accordance with the law. The opinions offered by Mr. Priestap are unfounded under the applicable standard of law and ignore that this suit seeks more than classified material, which was the FBI’s interest.”
The full Motion to Strike is available here.
CoA Institute also filed its reply brief available here.
For information regarding this press release, please contact Zachary Kurz, Director of Communications at CoA Institute: zachary.kurz@causeofaction.org
