Free Republic

The controversy over Hillary Clinton's email usage while she was secretary of state has been largely driven by the media, and for good reason. The New York Times broke the news that she used a private email address and homebrew server for official business, and the rest of the media—with mixed motives—ensured that it became a controversy. Some outlets are concerned that Clinton used her personal account to skirt open-records laws; the Associated Press sued the State Department on Wednesday "after repeated requests filed under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act have gone unfulfilled." Others are fascinated about the political...

The EPA is poised to “do an IRS” — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that’s suing to get text messages under an open-records request. Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that’s shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as “official” records. In this case, researcher Chris...

Apparently this wasn’t just an isolated innocent: a second federal agency is also having trouble finding emails that a congressional committee is demanding in order to fulfill its oversight responsibilities: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the IRS share a problem: officials say they cannot provide the emails a congressional committee has requested because an employee’s hard drive crashed. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that her staff is unable to provide lawmakers all of the documents they have requested on the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, because of a 2010 computer crash. “We’re having...

It’s hard to hear about this week’s Environmental Protection Agency contempt case and not think about the controversies surrounding the IRS “loss” of Lois Lerner’s email–and hard drive–and crash of the relevant server. According to an Associated Press report, a federal judge has held the EPA in contempt for destroying computer files sought after by a conservative group: Landmark Legal Foundation. It’s taken more than 13 years. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ordered the EPA on Jan. 19, 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, to preserve all documents relevant to a Freedom of Information Act request by...