Following Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s criticism of Hillary Clinton’s controversial use of a private email server and personal email account while Secretary of State, America Rising PAC filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for any state-related emails Gov. McAuliffe sent or received from a personal email account since taking office.
The FOIA request was filed on Thursday and first reported by Kevin Cirilli in The Hill:
America Rising PAC executive editor Colin Reed filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday with Virginia officials, calling on McAuliffe to hand over “copies of all communications pertaining to government business sent to or from the personal email accounts of Gov. McAuliffe.”…
…McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said in a statement that “the Governor uses separate accounts for official and personal business and believes that is the right approach for all public officials.”
“We’re processing the request but don’t otherwise devote much taxpayer time to responding to right-wing super PAC attacks,” Coy said. “We’re in receipt of the request and will be responding in accordance with our FOIA law.”
America Rising spokeswoman Amelia Chassé said that McAuliffe should be more transparent about his own email use.
“As their long-time money man, the Clintons taught Governor McAuliffe everything he knows about politics,” Chassé said. “So it is worth examining whether he has imitated the controversial email practices of his mentor, Secretary Clinton.”
Gov. McAuliffe himself told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he had separate personal and state accounts and carries two devices:
“I think you should always have separate accounts. I have separate accounts. I carry two phones — one has my state information on it, then I have a phone for my personal,” he added. “I think it’s important that you do that. You’ve got to keep them both separated.”
Thus the FOIA request should not yield any results if Gov. McAuliffe’s statement about keeping his email accounts completely separate is accurate.
America Rising PAC previously filed FOIA requests for Gov. McAuliffe’s travel records and official calendar following reports that he took a state-owned aircraft to attend a U2 concert with President and Secretary Clinton in New York City in late July.
View the FOIA request letter from America Rising PAC executive director Colin Reed: