Judicial Watch Files New Lawsuit for Clinton’s Benghazi Emails on behalf of Dr. Larry Kawa

Private Citizen Seeks One Week of Emails

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of State seeking all records of communications between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama White House from the day of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and throughout the following week.  The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dr. Larry Kawa of Boca Raton, Florida, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division (Larry Kawa v. U.S. Department of State (No. 9:15-cv-81560)).

The lawsuit was filed after the State Department failed to comply with Dr. Kawa’s FOIA request filed nearly a year earlier seeking “access to all communications between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House from and including September 11, 2012 through and including September 18, 2012.”

“Dr. Kawa, like every American citizen, has a right under federal law to receive documents about what the government is up to – and that includes the Benghazi attack,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Dr. Kawa’s FOIA request for Clinton-White House Benghazi records came just as the State Department obtained some of Hillary Clinton’s emails.  The Obama administration, rather than follow the law and expose the Clinton email scandal last year, went into cover-up mode.  Even now, the State Department is still hiding documents.”

Judicial Watch has now filed more than 40 FOIA requests, a Mandatory Declassification Review, and 12 lawsuits against the Obama administration relating to the Benghazi terrorist attack. Judicial Watch is the only non-governmental organization in the nation currently litigating in federal court to uncover information withheld by the Obama administration about the events that transpired before, during, and following the Benghazi massacre.

In April 2014, Judicial Watch forced the release of documents showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.” Other documents showed that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and a possible kidnap attempt. Judicial Watch’s release of the Rhodes email, which had been withheld by the Obama administration from Congress, caused the House of Representatives to approve the Select Committee on Benghazi, which is now led by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC).  (Those documents were obtained by Judicial Watch in a June 21, 2013, FOIA lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)).

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