Why Has Only Hillary Clinton Turned Over All Her Emails?

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I have a dumb question. Hillary Clinton has been forced, via FOIA request, to release all of her work-related emails from her term as Secretary of State. Today we learned there may be more to come. By the time it’s all over, we’ll have something like 30-40,000 emails that have been made public.

So here’s my dumb question: why has this happened only to Hillary Clinton? If FOIA can be used to force the release of every email sent or received by a cabinet member, why haven’t FOIA requests been submitted for all of them? It would certainly be interesting and newsworthy to see all of Leon Panetta’s emails. Or all of Condi Rice’s. Or all of Henry Paulson’s.

So what’s the deal? Why has this happened only to Hillary Clinton?

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Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

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