Judicial Watch announced recently that it received 7 pages of heavily redacted emails from the Department of Justice relating to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alana Robinson and Emily W. Allen’s attendance at an August 2015 fundraiser in California for then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The two San Diego’s-based prosecutors played a leading role in prosecuting former Congressman Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) and Hunter’s wife on sixty separate criminal charges relating to the misuse of campaign funds. Hunter pled guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy on December 3, 2019 and resigned from Congress on January 7, 2020. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 17, 2020.

In June 2019, Hunter filed a motion seeking to dismiss the charges against him or, in the alternative, recuse the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego on the grounds that Robinson and Allen had a political conflict of interest due to their attendance at the Clinton fundraiser.

In response, the prosecutors represented to the San Diego federal court where the criminal case is pending that Robinson and Allen were asked to attend the Clinton fundraiser “in the event of a protective security related incident where immediate prosecutorial guidance would be necessary.” The statement did not elaborate on what kind of incident might require prosecutorial guidance. An earlier letter from Executive Office for United States Attorneys General Counsel Jay Macklin represented that the prosecutors were at the event “in their official capacity assisting law enforcement.”