http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/10/judge-denies-request-halt-clinton-email-cases/ By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Updated: 12:21 p.m. on Thursday, September 10, 2015
A federal judge Thursday rejected the Obama administration’s efforts to halt all of the open-records lawsuits seeking access to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails.
Judge Richard J. Leon, without comment, rejected the Justice Department’s request for a stay in a short order posted online.
He’s the first judge to rule on the request, which the department filed last week as it tries to get a single judge to oversee the more than 30 open-records cases seeking Clinton emails. Judge Leon’s rejection probably puts the nail in that idea, since it would take universal buy-in from the more than a dozen judges hearing the cases in order to force coordination.
“It is hereby ordered that defendant’s motion is denied,” Judge Leon wrote.
The State Department says it’s been overwhelmed by the situation Mrs. Clinton left when she exited more than two years ago, taking all of her government-related emails with her. The department admitted it hadn’t been able to properly conduct records-searches because of the missing documents, and has agreed in many cases to go back and do so.
But federal judges have taken control of the proceedings, ordering all of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to be made public on a rolling basis through January.
One judge has demanded the State Department talk with the FBI to see what other documents might be retrieved from Mrs. Clinton’s email server, while others are hearing cases over retrieving documents from her top aides, who also used personal email addresses or accounts tied to Mrs. Clinton’s server when they were serving with her in the State Department.
The State Department fell behind in July as it faced a controversy over classified information in Mrs. Clinton’s emails. But the department caught up in August, and has now released 25 percent of her emails.
That earned a rare victory in court this week when a judge said the department didn’t need to detail its email review process, since it was caught up with the release schedule.
