RNC requests probe of Clinton emails

The Republican National Committee is asking a federal watchdog to open an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of personal emails accounts as secretary of State.

“The American public deserves to know whether one of its top-ranking public official’s actions violated federal law,” RNC chief counsel John Phillippe wrote in a letter to State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.

{mosads}“With transparency and openness in government being one of President Obama’s guiding principles, it is incumbent upon your office to determine the facts surrounding this issue. I urge you to launch immediately an investigation into Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email address and the Department of State’s policies regarding such use,” Phillippe wrote.

The RNC attorney laid out a series of eight questions he said Linick should pursue to determine whether Clinton violated federal rules on archiving emails, including whether anyone at State knew she was using her own personal server, which was reportedly registered to her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

The Republican campaign committee is seizing on the controversy over the personal emails to try to damage Clinton ahead of her expected run for the White House in 2016.

With questions mounting, Clinton tweeted late Wednesday that she wants messages from her private accounts to be made public.

A spokesman for the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which subpoenaed for Clinton’s emails Wednesday afternoon, said the tweet “does not answer questions about why this was not done when she left office, the integrity of the emails while she controlled them, the scheme to conceal them, or the failure to provide them in logical course.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the leader of the Benghazi panel, argues Clinton “has left herself in the unique position of being the only one to determine what records the American people are entitled to. This has significant negative implications for transparency and government oversight, as well as for media and others who have a legitimate interest in understanding the Secretary’s time in office,” according to communications director Jamal Ware.

“The chairman has said the former secretary is welcome to and should release all of her emails, but legitimate investigations do not consider partial records,” Ware added. “And that is the point of the subpoena issued yesterday by the Benghazi Committee.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the select committee have come to Clinton’s defense.

“As far as I am aware, no other Cabinet secretary in history has ever called for the release of his or her emails — in their entirety and throughout his or her tenure,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the panel’s ranking member, said in a statement. “I commend Secretary Clinton’s decision.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) applauded Clinton’s decision and urged the select committee to “quickly act on this request.”

He pointed to the State Department accountability review board’s investigation into the deadly assault on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that found “there is no evidence that the Secretary called for a ‘stand down’ order, interfered with requests for additional security or took any other action suggested by the conspiracy theorists.”

“The quicker these emails can be made public, the sooner we can put these myths to rest once and for all,” said Schiff, who also serves as the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.