Judicial Watch: Federal Court Hearing on Official DHS Emails in Private, Unsecure Email Accounts of Former Secretary Johnson and Other Top Officials

Hearing set for Friday, February 17

(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch today announced a hearing will be held on Friday, February 17, 2017, regarding Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking emails “relating to official United States Government business sent to or from” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and three other top Homeland Security officials that used “non-‘.gov’” email addresses (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. United States Department of Homeland Security (No. l:l6-cv-00967)).

The hearing will focus on whether the Department of Homeland Security has made any efforts to recover the official government emails still residing in the private email accounts of former Secretary Johnson and other officials.

The hearing was ordered subsequent to a May 23, 2016, FOIA lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch after Homeland Security failed to respond to a December 29, 2015, FOIA request.

The court hearing is scheduled for Friday afternoon:

Date:               Friday, February 17, 2017

Time:               2 p.m. ET

Location:        Courtroom 21

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

333 Constitution Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

Judicial Watch already has obtained 215 pages of documents containing official emails sent through the private, unsecure email accounts of Johnson and three other top Homeland Security officials. The documents include emails discussing high-level meetings Johnson was to have with the Kuwaiti ambassador and Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry officials, as well as a West African $4.5 million online consumer fraud scam.

Prior to the Obama administration’s leaving office, Judge Moss ordered the Department of Homeland Security to preserve email records sought by Judicial Watch “to minimize the risk of an inadvertent loss of potentially responsive emails.” In petitioning the court for the preservation order, Judicial Watch argued:

A court order requiring preservation of these emails is particularly necessary now as DHS has suggested that these officials may have been acting without authorization by sending emails from these accounts … As such, there is no assurance that these officials will abide by a “request” by the agency to preserve these emails, particularly after their employment ends. …

Judicial Watch previously uncovered documents revealing that Secretary Jeh Johnson and 28 other agency officials used government computers to access personal web-based email accounts despite an agency-wide ban due to heightened security concerns.  The documents also reveal that Homeland Security officials misled Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) when Perry specifically asked whether personal accounts were being used for official government business.

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