Hillary Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon, told CNN Tuesday that Clinton always errs on the side of transparency in regards to her State Department emails, an interesting comment given Clinton's infamous private email server.
International Business Times requested Hillary Clinton’s TPP emails from the State Department in a Freedom of Information Act request. The State Department originally said the emails would be available in April 2016 but have since delayed the request until November 2016, weeks after the election.
Host John Berman inquired about the emails during an interview with Fallon.
"The State Department says it will not release emails that Hillary Clinton exchanged between the State Department staff and the trade office over the issue of TPP, the Trade Authority, while she was secretary of state. It’s been FOIA-ed, the average release time would have clearly put it right about now. Now the State Department says they won't release those emails until after the election," Berman said.
"In the interest of transparency and we know how you feel about transparency, Brian Fallon, would you like to see these emails released now?" Berman asked. "So people can see what the correspondence was between the State Department and Trade Authority?"
Fallon dodged the question and informed the CNN co-hosts about the decision-making process that went into determining the decision to delay the release.
"I'm not sure what went into the decision-making but that is not anything we have input on. That's a decision that's made by the current administration. It wouldn't have anything to do, I don't think, with any of the ongoing emails that are still being looked at," Fallon said.
Berman cut off Fallon to restate his question, "But if someone asked you, would you like to see them out? Would you say yes? "
"Obviously, our preference would always be to err on the side of transparency," he said. "That's allowing for whatever certain sensitivities may still exist that are only known to the administration officials that are still in government service. For Hillary Clinton's part, I think she would always want to err on the side of transparency but I don't know what particular considerations are in the minds of those officials."
Clinton, whose campaign has been plagued by her private email server scandal, has been less than transparent. The former secretary of sate only handed over her printed pages of her private email, which she used for official government business, after the State Department sent a formal request.