The Associated Press is threatening to take legal action against the government for failure to hand over documents, as required by law, pertaining to Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.
In Freedom of Information Act requests dating back to March 2010, the news organization has asked for Clinton's full schedules and calendars during her term in the Obama administration, according to
The New York Times.
The AP would also like to see the documents covering the State Department's decision to grant a special position to a longtime Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, the wife of failed New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner who was notoriously caught up in a "sexting" scandal.
"We believe it's critically important that government officials and agencies be held accountable to the voters," said AP's general counsel, Karen Kaiser. "In this instance, we've exhausted our administrative remedies in pursuit of important documents and are considering legal action."
The threat follows the revelation this week that the former first lady used a personal email account to conduct classified government business, which the Times called "an unusual practice that some have suggested insulated her correspondence from the eyes of investigators and the public."
The newspaper reported that
Clinton's exclusive use of a personal email account from 2009 through 2013 and a lack of email preservation may have violated the Federal Records Act.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which first discovered that Clinton used her personal email account to conduct official business, plans to subpoena her personal emails regarding the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
According to
Gawker, a source says at least two other top Clinton aides also used her private email accounts to conduct government business, putting their official communications outside the control of federal record-keeping regulations.
"Her top staffers used those Clinton email addresses," said the source, who named Philippe Reines and Abedin as the employees who used private email addresses in the course of their agency duties.
Reines served as deputy assistant secretary of state, and Abedin as Clinton's deputy chief of staff. They are two of Clinton's most loyal confidantes in and out of the State Department, Gawker reported.
Clinton is seen as likely to seek the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination, and is the presumed front-runner in the party's race.
Meanwhile, the conservative group Citizens United is hoping to receive a ruling this week on a lawsuit it filed last year, after the State Department refused to reveal flight records showing who accompanied Clinton on overseas trips, the Times reported.