A conservative legal group filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging it illegally deleted the emails of federal employees in violation of federal law.
America First Legal, led by former senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, is suing Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan, and the National Archives and Records Administration. The lawsuit, shared on Wednesday, alleges that the agencies illegally destroyed federal records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in violation of the Federal Records Act.
“If the National Archives decides not to use the legal authorities it has regarding federal records, it certainly shouldn’t make up legal authority that it doesn’t have when it comes to presidential records,” America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein told Fox News Digital.
“We expect our government to act in a transparent and accountable way and exercise equanimity when it decides to investigate certain allegations,” he added. “We clearly haven’t seen that in this case.”
AFL quoted federal law as requiring that agencies “make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency and designed to furnish the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the Government and of persons directly affected by the agency’s activities.”
The CDC’s policy of routinely deleting former employees’ emails 30 days after they leave the agency is in direct violation of this law, AFL argued. The agency confirmed the policy to the group, saying only the emails of high-ranking officials were kept.
AFL pointed to the contradiction between this policy and the National Archives’s approach to Trump, referencing special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence after his presidency.
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“You have maybe tens of thousands of government records every year that are destroyed without authority,” Epstein told Fox News Digital. “But when it comes to Donald Trump, he gets prosecuted. Everyone else who doesn’t have to stand for election gets a free pass.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the National Archives and HHS for comment.
