The conservative organization Judicial Watch is suing the National Archives and Records Administration in an effort to obtain draft indictments of Hillary Clinton over the 1990s-era Whitewater scandal.
The group says it believes the drafts exist — but the National Archives has refused to release them in order to protect Clinton’s privacy.
Judicial Watch is seeking draft indictments in the files of Hickman Ewing Jr., who in 1999 said he wrote several draft indictments of Clinton in 1996 that were circulated but abandoned.
In March, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for those records, and got a response back 10 days later in which the National Archives said it found 38 pages of records in a folder titled “Draft Indictment,” and another 200 pages in a folder titled “Hilary Rodham Clinton/Webster L. Hubbell Draft Indictment.”
But the National Archives refused to release those records, citing an exemption to protect Clinton’s personal privacy.
“Judicial Watch has confirmed the existence of draft indictments of Hillary Clinton for her lies and obstruction in the Whitewater bank fraud investigation,” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s president, said in a statement.
“The Obama administration is refusing to release these records out of concern for Hillary Clinton’s privacy,” Fitton added. “Hillary Clinton’s privacy cannot be allowed to trump the public’s interest in knowing more about whether she obstructed justice and lied to a federal grand jury.”
Clinton’s presidential campaign did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.