Greens want Clinton emails on Keystone

An environmental activist group is filing a request for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private emails regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.

Following news that Clinton exclusively used a private email account during her tenure as secretary, Friends of the Earth said some of those communications might reveal important details about the State Department’s consideration of Keystone.

{mosads}The group had previously filed four requests with State under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but never received any emails from Clinton.

“Obviously, we now know why,” said Ben Schreiber, climate program director at Friends of the Earth.

“We are concerned that these records were not included as part of our prior FOIA requests surrounding the State Department’s environmental review of Keystone XL,” Schreiber said in a statement.

“Secretary Clinton’s willful circumvention of this accountability mechanism goes against the spirit of transparent governance.”

The records the group has received showed various conflicts of interest in State’s process for determining whether Keystone would be in the country’s national interest, Friends of the Earth said.

“It is clear that State Department staff had cozy relationships with lobbyists, the government of Canada and the contractors hired to conduct the supposedly independent review,” Schreiber said.

Since Clinton’s private emails were not part of State’s email system, they were not included in FOIA responses.

Clinton has since agreed to send all of her business emails to State, where they will be filed for requests.

The Associated Press has filed its own FOIA lawsuit against State over the Clinton emails, citing multiple unfulfilled requests for her communications.