Read the full story: Washington Examiner
Records from the State Department’s office of inspector general reveal the agency watchdog has taken early steps toward investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and server during her time as secretary of state. Steven Linick, State’s inspector general since June 2013, signaled his office is making “preliminary” preparations for a larger probe of the policies that allowed Clinton to determine which of her official communications she wanted to withhold from the public, according to documents obtained by the nonpartisan watchdog group Cause of Action. “In the past, when faced with employees who were using non-governmental email accounts for government business, the OIG questioned such activities,” Linick wrote in response to a letter from Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Iowa Republican had written to Linick in March seeking answers about the communications and business activities of Clinton and her top aides that were then emerging in the media. Cause of Action filed a Freedom of Information Act request to State’s inspector general and to the National Archives and Records Administration seeking records related to the Clinton email controversy. A letter from the State Department inspector general dated May 15 claimed there were just 18 documents that ever mentioned Clinton’s emails, the national archives or the Clinton Foundation. Just six of those were given to Cause of Action in their entirety, with the others being redacted or punted to the State Department for further review. But the few records that the agency did release had nothing to do with the information requested, and were not even produced during Clinton’s time in office.
