NEW YORK — The Associated Press filed a lawsuit against the State Department on Wednesday to obtain email correspondence from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
The AP said it had been trying to pry the emails out of the government agency through Freedom of Information Act requests for several years. The requests “have gone unfulfilled,” the news wire service said.
The lawsuit — filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — said the State Department “should be compelled to abide by the law, perform reasonable searches and promptly release all of the requested records.”
The suit comes amid widespread media coverage of Clinton’s private email server, and one week after the news wire said it was considering legal action to force the release of her emails.
“After careful deliberation and exhausting our other options, The Associated Press is taking the necessary legal steps to gain access to these important documents,” Karen Kaiser, the general counsel for the Associated Press, said in a statement.
Kaiser said the suit is important because Clinton is a “presumptive 2016 presidential candidate” and because she was Secretary of State “during some of the most significant issues of our time.”
“The press is a proxy for the people, and AP will continue its pursuit of vital information that’s in the public interest through this action and future open records requests,” Kaiser said.
