Kerry Appoints New Transparency Officer to Handle FOIA Request Backlog

Kirby acknowledged that the department was unaware of Jacobs’ donation to Clinton before Kerry selected her. “The secretary is committed and focused to leading on these issues”.

“But the fact State was unable to find someone who is not a maxed-out donor to Secretary Clinton to review her record is pretty hard to believe”, Ware continued in a statement to CBS News.

Those requests from federal judges and members of Congress come amid a federal probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as secretary of State, from 2009 to 2013.

A spokesman for Gowdy’s committee, Jamal Ware, said the appointment reflected an admission by the State Department that it had not been complying with the group’s information requests. The State Department has since published about 25 percent of these emails online through a series of court-mandated releases.

Also on Tuesday, Kerry named retired Ambassador Janice Jacobs to the post of transparency coordinator to improve the preservation and release times of documents requested by Congress and the public under the Freedom of Information Act.

This is, again, standard “czar” protocol.

She would later become Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs in 2008, until she retired past year.

None of the problems John Kirby alluded to will be solved by creating a new ceremonial management position.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at…

Trump has alleged that Abedin has shared secret information from Clinton’s emails with her husband, disgraced Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner. In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, she said an apology wasn’t necessary because what she did was “allowed” by the State Department.

No one cares if it’s her “main function”. Under pressure, the State Department sheepishly admitted that didn’t start happening until after Clinton left office. Kirby said in an earlier briefing that the task of releasing than 55,000 pages of emails “certainly is a factor in [Kerry’s] decision to stand up this new position”.

There is nothing complicated about what Hillary Clinton did, why she did it, or what the law says should happen next.

As I have repeatedly made clear, we have a fundamental obligation to document the conduct of USA foreign policy and to produce our records in response to requests from the public and Congress. Our records, and our ability to share them, serve as testament to our commitment to transparency and open government.

It’s not complicated at all. She put her political hunger to evade oversight above her duty to the nation, without a second thought. “Clinton’s private email server has led to potential breaches of our national security and the stifling of government transparency practices”.

But the appointment sparked further criticism from Republicans, as the new czar recently made a large donation to the Clinton presidential campaign.