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BY:Elizabeth Harrington
\nThe Washington Free Beacon<\/p>\n
Watchdog groups are suing the State Department and the National Archives for the unredacted grand jury subpoenas issued in the Clinton email investigation.<\/p>\n
Cause of Action and Judicial Watch filed a\u00a0reply brief<\/a><\/u>\u00a0in the United States District Court Friday seeking the full record of subpoenas that were issued in an attempt to recover former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails from her BlackBerry.<\/p>\n “The FBI’s revelation that grand jury subpoenas were issued during its investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails revealed a criminal component,” said John J. Vecchione, Cause of Action Institute president and CEO. “Details of these subpoenas could be critical to our case to recover those emails.”<\/p>\n E.W. Priestap, the assistant director for the FBI’s counterintelligence division,\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0for the first time in a filing in April that grand jury subpoenas were issued in the Clinton investigation. Priestap stated that grand jury subpoenas were obtained for Clinton’s BlackBerry e-mail accounts, but they “produced no responsive materials.”<\/p>\n Priestap’s declaration was filed in secret, with no Cause of Action or Judicial Watch lawyers present. The declaration is also heavily redacted, leaving out the targets of grand jury subpoenas.<\/p>\n “But the government has taken a step back behind the curtain and submitted a supplemental declaration,\u00a0in camera\u00a0and\u00a0ex parte, meaning only the judge and the government’s lawyers are allowed to see it,” Vecchione said. “We can only surmise the declaration shows that the FBI issued subpoenas to the service providers in search of Ms. Clinton’s BlackBerry emails.”<\/p>\n Cause of Action and Judicial Watch are seeking Priestap’s unredacted declaration that would shed light on the government’s attempt to recover Clinton’s emails.<\/p>\n “Without access to the un-redacted declaration, we cannot know the scope of those subpoenas, nor will we be able to contest the relevance of new facts,” Vecchione said. “The public interest in learning the extent of the government efforts to recover unlawfully removed records and basic notions of fair play outweigh the need to protect grand-jury secrecy, the existence of which the government has already revealed.”<\/p>\n “The government should not be permitted to use the grand jury information as a sword and also shield it from public view,” he added. “Anglo-American law frowns on litigation through secret filings. Accordingly, the Court should require the government to open the curtain, so we can properly respond to the new evidence.”<\/p>\n The civil case is one of several lawsuits filed\u00a0against<\/a>\u00a0the government for failing to properly preserve the emails stored on Clinton’s private server. In March, Judicial Watch revealed\u00a029 previously undisclosed emails<\/a>\u00a0from Clinton’s private server, including several that contained classified information.<\/p>\n A federal judge will now rule on the motion filed by Cause of Action and Judicial Watch, with no timeframe yet for the decision.<\/p>\n