The conservative advocacy group Citizens United has filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking access to emails Chelsea Clinton exchanged with top State Department officials.
The Freedom of Information Act suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington seeks access to Chelsea Clinton's all emails and other correspondence with top aides to her mother, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including Cheryl Mills, Huma abedin and Jake Sullivan.
The lawsuit also seeks emails in State Department files from Clinton Foundation foreign policy chief Amitabh Desai, longtime aide to President Bill Clinton Justin Cooper, and the manager of the Clintons' Chappaqua, New York, home, Oscar Flores.
According to Politico, Citizens United President David Bossie said in an interview that the group wants access to Chelsea Clinton's emails as part of its investigation into links between the Clinton Foundation and activities of the State Department while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of the state.
Bossie said, referring to the lawsuit, that his group wants to see much more about what Chelsea Clinton was up to. Bossie said the request comes as Chelsea Clinton, who serves as vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, now has put herself on the campaign trail, along with Bill Clinton, as a lead surrogate.
Citizens United's lawsuit also requests emails between Chelsea Clinton and Kris Balderston, a State Department official who was tasked with increasing private investments for a diplomatic project that put the foundation's donor network at the center of a high-profile State Department event, Washington Examiner reported.
Some emails between Chelsea and Hillary Clinton, which were kept on a private server for state's secretary, have already emerged by both the State Department and a congressional committee during the investigation of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
One email uncovered by the Benghazi committee appeared to show that Hillary Clinton told her daughter, who used pseudonym "Diane Reynolds" when emailing the state, that "Al-Qaeda-like group" was responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attacks.
Committee Republicans said that the statement contradicted with what Hillary Clinton and other admministration officials were saying publicly at the time, namely that the attack sparked by a spontaneous demonstration.
According to the Wall Street Journal, there are dozens lawsuits in addition to the Thursday legal challenge against the State Department and the Justice Department requesting records from Hillary Clinton's tenure between 2009 and 2013.
The Freedom of Information Act allows public access to government files. Nearly all the former secretary of state's records can be requested through this law. However, the government is allowed to withhold some information on national security and other grounds.
