A reporter with the Associated Press, Matt Lee, took State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki to task over perceived delays in the release of Hillary Clinton's exit forms from her four years of secretarial service, outright asking: How difficult is it to find these documents?
Specifically, Lee was referencing Clinton's separation form – the one that could give more evidence of whether she broke federal laws by using her personal email account and privately operated email server for government business. Employees who leave the State Department are required to sign the form, the OF-109, saying they provided authorities all official records related to their government duties.
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The big question of the day: Did Clinton sign this form?
Members of the press have been asking State Department officials to provide Clinton's form. But the State Department, so far, hasn't produced it and Lee, at a recent press briefing, expressed his frustration with the delays, Mediaite reported.
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In response to Psaki's claim that she didn't have new knowledge about the whereabouts of the form, Lee said: "The Human Resources Department presumably has a file on every employee. It can't be that difficult to ... how hard can it be to find?"
Psaki, however, explained that secretaries of state aren't "standard employees" and their paperwork is therefore more complicated to locate and produce. At the same time, she vowed that if the separation form had been signed, she would "endeavor" to find it.
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The Associated Press, meanwhile, announced last week that it was suing the State Department over various Freedom of Information Act requests related to Clinton's records that have gone unfulfilled – some, for five years.