There are 18 lawsuits, ten of which are active in federal court, as well as about 160 Judicial Watch FOIA requests that could be affected by Mrs. Clinton and her staff’s use of secret email accounts to conduct official government business.

◼ To be clear, there is potential criminal liability for Mrs. Clinton and others for concealing these government records, stealing these government records, and mishandling any classified information. - BREITBART

Clinton apologists from within and outside of the State Department have made the point that by turning over 55,000 pages of emails to department officials, critics should be placated. So then in order to diffuse the controversy, why doesn’t Clinton simply release the records she already turned over? To do so “would highlight the fact that Clinton’s own aides and lawyers determined which records were work-related,” Politico surmises. That is putting it charitably.

There seems to be an assumption that the account(s) at issue are her “personal” accounts. On the contrary, these accounts, which were set up by the Secretary of State to conduct government business, are alias government accounts and should be treated as such. No third party reviews, as some are suggesting, are necessary if State follows the law and treats the account(s) as it would any other State.gov account. The State Department is obligated to secure the accounts as soon as possible to protect classified materials, retrieve any lost data, protect other federal records, and search records as required by court orders in our various FOIA lawsuits, and in response to congressional subpoenas, etc.

Rather than her private lawyers/campaign advisers reviewing the accounts and releasing material to the government, the agency should assert its ownership, secure the material, and prohibit private parties from illicitly reviewing potentially classified and other sensitive material.