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Lawsuit asks how Clinton lawyer got OK to store classified emails

A new lawsuit is demanding that the State Department explain how Hillary Clinton's private attorney, David Kendall, got permission from the State Department to retain copies of Clinton's emails after the agency determined some of them were classified.

The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington by freelance journalist David Brown, who sent State a Freedom of Information Act request last month asking for all records about the decision to allow Kendall to retain a thumb drive containing copies of about 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to State in December.

Kendall said in a letter to Congress recently that on July 8, the State Department provided him and his law partner Katherine Turner with a safe to hold the drive. He said both he and Turner have "TOP SECRET" clearances.

After a request from the FBI to return all copies of the emails, Clinton instructed Kendall to give up the thumb drive, which he did in early August.

Lawyers who represent clients in national security cases say it's highly unusual for a private attorney to be given permission to hold classified records.

"If one of us tried to do this, we’d have our clearance yanked that very day and have a search warrant served on us and something different happened here," said Brown's attorney Kel McClanahan. "Not only agree did [State] allow him to maintain these records, but it's unclear if they even pushed back. ... We decided somebody needs to get to the bottom of what exactly happened here. What is it: favoritism or did David Kendall somehow satisify some requirement that others of us never even knew to aim for?"

Kendall and the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.

State agreed to "expedite" Brown's FOIA request, but has not released any records about the agency's decisionmaking on the issue, according to Brown's complaint (posted here).

A State spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy of not commenting on ongoing litigation.

Brown's work has appeared previously in the Atlantic and just Tuesday on the New York Times op-ed page. The former Army paratrooper is--under the pseudonym D.B. Grady--also the co-author with Marc Ambinder of a 2013 book on government secrecy, "Deep State."

