A search conducted by the National Archives and Records Administration turned up nearly 5,400 records containing one of three pseudonymous email accounts President Joe Biden had used during his vice presidency. Those email addresses include: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
NARA was responding to a June 2022 Freedom of Information Act request from the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a nonprofit constitutional legal group.
In a June 28, 2022 letter to SLF, NARA wrote: “We have performed a search of our collection for Vice Presidential records related to your request and have identified approximately 5,138 email messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive records that must be processed in order to respond to your request.”
Since that letter was written 14 months ago, SLF has heard nothing from NARA. This prompted the group to file a lawsuit against the agency on Monday to obtain the records alluded to in NARA’s initial response.
According to a website announcement of this legal action, SLF noted they filed their first request for Biden’s emails in 2021:
NARA responded that because it did not take custody of then-vice president’s records until January 20, 2017, the emails could not be made public until January 20, 2022.
In 2022, SLF renewed its request with a second FOIA request that is at the heart of SLF’s lawsuit. NARA has failed to produce a single one of these emails.
SLF also mentions that earlier this month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer “demanded NARA turn over unredacted copies of these emails, among others.”
The statement quotes Kimberly Hermann, the group’s general counsel:
All too often, public officials abuse their power by using it for their personal or political benefit. When they do, many seek to hide it. The only way to preserve governmental integrity is for NARA to release Biden’s nearly 5,400 emails to SLF and thus the public. The American public deserves to know what is in them.
Hunter Biden’s laptop has certainly been the gift that keeps on giving, hasn’t it? I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Joe Biden learned that his son’s abandoned laptop had been handed over to the New York Post!
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