Republicans step up attacks tied to emails
Republicans point to newly released messages to allege that foreign donors to Hillary Clinton’s family charity got preferential treatment from her State Department.
WASHINGTON — Republicans stepped up their attacks Monday on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and pointed to newly released messages to allege that foreign donors to the Democratic presidential nominee’s family charity got preferential treatment from her department.
Congressional Republicans issued subpoenas to three technology companies that either made or serviced the server located in the basement of Clinton’s New York home. The subpoenas were issued Monday by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas with the support of Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
In a joint statement, Smith and Johnson said the move was necessary after the three companies — Platte River Networks, Datto Inc. and SECNAP Network Security Corp. — declined to voluntarily answer questions to determine whether Clinton’s private server met government standards for recordkeeping and security.
The subpoenas were among several developments Monday that showed a new GOP emphasis on Clinton’s emails after the FBI recently closed its yearlong probe into whether she and her aides mishandled sensitive government information that flowed through her server, without recommending criminal charges.
The State Department is now reviewing nearly 15,000 previously undisclosed emails recovered as part of the FBI investigation. Lawyers for the department told U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg on Monday that they anticipate processing and releasing the first batch of these new emails in mid-October, raising the prospect that new messages sent or received by Clinton could become public just before the election.
Boasberg is overseeing production of the emails as part of a federal publicrecords lawsuit filed by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch. Representing the State Department, Justice Department lawyer Lisa Olson told the judge that officials do not yet know what portion of the emails is workrelated, rather than personal.
Clinton, who was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, had claimed that she deleted only personal emails prior to returning more than 55,000 pages of her work-related messages to the State Department last year. The department has publicly released most of those emails, although some have been withheld because they contain information considered sensitive to national security.