After 2.5 Years, A Lawsuit To Unseal Draft Whitewater Indictments Against Hillary Gets Its Day In Court

After 2.5 years since its original FOIA request was filed in March 2015, Judicial Watch will finally get its day in court tomorrow to argue for the release of draft indictments of Hillary Clinton from the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s. As McClatchy points out, since March 2015 Judicial Watch has been engaged in a back and forth battle with the National Archives which argues that "the documents should be kept secret [to preserve] grand jury secrecy and Clinton’s personal privacy.”

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that files Freedom of Information Act requests, wants copies of the documents that the National Archives and Records Administration has declined to release. It filed a FOIA request for the documents in March 2015 and in October 2015 the group sued for the 238 pages of responsive records.

According to Judicial Watch: “The National Archives argues that the documents should be kept secret, citing grand jury secrecy and Clinton’s personal privacy.”

But Judicial Watch says that because so much about the Whitewater case has already been made public, “there is no secrecy or privacy left to protect.”

The documents in question are alleged drafts of indictments written by Hickman Ewing, the chief deputy of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged involvement in fraudulent real estate dealings dating back to the 70's.

Ewing told investigators he drafted the indictments in April 1995. According to Judicial Watch, the documents pertain to allegations that Hillary Clinton provided false information and withheld information from those investigating the Whitewater scandal.

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