Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Department of Justice for records related to the meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton while his wife was under an FBI investigation in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The watchdog filed the suit after the Justice Department failed to respond to a June 29, 2016, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking transcripts of the June 2016 meeting, communications regarding the encounter, and any references to the meeting in Lynch’s calendar.
“The infamous tarmac meeting between President Clinton and AG Lynch is a vivid example of why many Americans believe the Obama administration’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton was rigged,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
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“Now it will be up to Attorney General Sessions at the Trump Justice Department to finally shed some light on this subversion of justice,” Fitton said.
Clinton and Lynch met privately on a plane parked at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport on June 27, 2016. The FBI was investigating a private email server Clinton’s wife and then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton used during her time as secretary of state. The FBI interviewed her just days after her husband met with Lynch.
Lynch admitted that the meeting “cast a cloud” over the investigation. Clinton was not punished for what FBI Director James Comey called “extremely careless” actions surrounding her server.
Judicial Watch also requested that the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate the meeting. The watchdog group also filed a lawsuit in October seeking FBI interviews into Clinton’s email practices, related communications, and records regarding the tarmac meeting.
This report, by Ethan Barton, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
