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State Department officials began allowing the Clinton Foundation to review emails the government planned to release to Congress and Freedom of Information Act requesters in January 2014, prompting a process that has delayed the publication of agency records for months, according to the group pursuing the records.

Many of the emails Clinton Foundation officials were permitted to review discussed the charity's work, as well as the hundreds of ethics reviews that former President Clinton faced as a result of his paid-speaking engagements around the world while his wife, Hillary Clinton, was secretary of state.

"On top of the obstruction that is in no small measure criminal in nature — with the hiding, removal and destruction of records by Mrs. Clinton — they are sending these records out to the foundation that are the very subject of these public controversies," said Tom Fitton.

Fitton is president of Judicial Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog that has been embroiled in a four-year court battle to obtain State Department records of Bill Clinton's speeches and interactions with foreign entities.

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