It's not like the State Department needed another email fiasco on its hands, what with the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private server to send emails as secretary of state. And yet, another one years in the making may have just arrived.
Gawker published a report chronicling the outlet's request for records from the State Department in 2013. Under a Freedom of Information Act request, Gawker wanted copies of emails exchanged between reporters at 33 news organizations and Philippe Reines, a former Clinton adviser. The department claimed "no records responsive to your request were located," a curious assertion given the fact that such emails have been made public.
When Gawker couldn't get ahold of the email records, it filed a lawsuit against the department. Lo and behold, when the lawyers for the attorney general had to submit a court-ordered status report to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Aug. 13, some potentially relevant emails turned up — 17,855 of them, to be exact. The State Department is set to hand over the first batch of emails Sept. 30.