The State Department’s proposal to delay the release the last of Hillary Clinton’s official emails until February 29 — after the initial presidential primaries — would “cause grave, incurable harm,” attorneys for VICE News and journalist Jason Leopold told a federal judge Monday.
Should Judge Rudolph Contreras accept the State Department’s new proposed timetable, they write, voters wouldn’t have all the information they need to make an informed decision about Clinton’s qualifications. “A substantial portion of the electorate will be forced to vote without the benefit of important information to which it is entitled about the performance of one of the candidates for U.S. President while serving as Secretary of State.”
The extension would “deprive the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, of the ability to participate in the democratic process as fully informed as they would otherwise,” they add, also noting that 11 states would be voting the day after the release on what’s called “Super Tuesday.”
Leopold is suing the State Department in what has become an important Freedom of Information case, setting the monthly production schedule for the emails’ release last spring after it was revealed that Clinton exclusively used a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
On Friday, the State Department submitted a request with the court to extend those productions through February after they discovered that 7,254 pages of emails had not been sent to other government agencies for review as planned.
Efforts to review those pages were then further hindered by this weekend’s snowstorm, the department argued.