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Getty FBI sued for files on election-era probes

A journalist and a university researcher are suing the FBI for a slew of records relating to the law enforcement agency's activities in the months leading up to the presidential election.

The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, demands a wide range of FBI files and emails pertaining to the agency's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server and its inquiries into the Clinton Foundation. The lawsuit also demands information on a variety of people, entities and topics associated with the presidential campaign such as Breitbart News, Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon (who has been picked to serve as a top White House adviser to President-elect Donald Trump) and the "alt-right."

The suit also seeks all FBI emails mentioning Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, former Clinton campaign vice chair Huma Abedin, Abedin's estranged husband Anthony Weiner, Trump, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump advisers Corey Lewandowski, Roger Stone and Kellyanne Conway, CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord, Fox News host Sean Hannity, or Fox News anchor Bret Baier, among others.

Vice News reporter Jason Leopold and Harvard/MIT researcher Ryan Shapiro submitted the request on December 2. Normally, agencies are entitled to at least 20 business days to respond to a FOIA request before a suit is filed. However, the case filed Tuesday claims the FBI failed to respond to a demand for expedited processing of their request, apparently on grounds of the public and media interest in the FBI's pre-election actions.

Some in both the Clinton and Trump camps have claimed that FBI Director James Comey's late October disclosure that his agency was reviewing new emails relevant to the Clinton probe and a follow-up letter attempting to put the matter to rest swung the election to Trump by generating more rounds of media coverage about the email probe, one of Clinton's major liabilities in the campaign.

"Current FBI Director James Comey also insists, notwithstanding the FBI’s previous transgressions, today’s Bureau truly is outside and above politics. However, numerous leading political and news media figures from across the political spectrum explicitly assert the FBI repeatedly and with significant impact affected the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election," Leopold and Shapiro's attorney, Jeffrey Light, wrote in the complaint.

The suit was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss, an appointee of President Barack Obama.