Gawker presses on Philippe Reines email

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, August 4, 2015

The website Gawker is asking a federal judge to order the State Department and former Hillary Clinton adviser Philippe Reines to produce sworn affidavits about his email practices and about why the agency asserted in response to a 2012 Freedom of Information Act request that it had no records of his correspondence with 34 news organizations.

"The appropriateness of the actions by Mr. Reines in particular – as well as the action or inaction by State – are legitimate subjects of concern in the context of this litigation," Gawker attorneys Brad Moss and Mark Zaid wrote in a court filing submitted Monday night. "The FOIA request serving as the basis for this litigation was filed almost three years ago....Throughout the entirety of that time, there is no indication that State had ever sought to recover any relevant e-mails from Mr. Reines, to say nothing of the fact that it is unclear on what legal basis Mr. Reines still retained exclusive control over those e-mails in the first place years after his departure from State."

Read more here.