The lack of public interest in Hillary Clinton's emails justifies withholding the documents, the FBI said this week, according to a report in The Washington Times.
The bureau rejected an open-records request by Texas attorney Ty Clevenger, with FBI records management section chief David M. Hardy stating in a letter Clevenger had not "sufficiently demonstrated that the public's interest in disclosure outweighs personal privacy interests of the subject."
"It is incumbent upon the requester to provide documentation regarding the public's interest in the operations and activities of the government before records can be processed pursuant to the FOIA," added Harvey.
Clinton was dogged with the email controversy throughout the presidential campaign last year, and to some extent cost her the election. The Democratic nominee set up a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state and was later the subject of an FBI investigation regarding the origin and handling of classified emails on the server.
The FBI concluded Clinton was "extremely careless" in handling her emails but recommended no charges be filed against her.
Clevenger is pushing to have Clinton and her attorneys disbarred over their mishandling of classified information.
"I'm just stunned," Clevenger told the Times of the FBI's response. "This is exactly what I would have expected had Mrs. Clinton won the election, but she didn't. It looks like the Obama administration is still running the FBI."
"How can a story receive national news coverage and not be a matter of public interest? If this is the new standard, then there's no such thing as a public interest exception," he added.
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