A PR machine, Judicial Watch issues a daily stream of dramatic news releases and makes Fitton and other officials fixtures on Fox News and in conservative publications. It encourages followers to amplify messages on social media, write guest editorials for local newspapers or call into radio talk shows.

The group's history is riddled with misses, rejected by many as a well of conspiracy theories, a cog in what Clinton once deemed the "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Critics say the ongoing Clinton investigations, which include a focus on access Clinton Foundation donors had to the State Department, are more flash than substance and that Judicial Watch selectively releases information.

"They have their agenda and their information comes out in a way to pursue that agenda," said Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "I give them credit because they've figured out how to use the legal system to accomplish a lot of political ends. And they have a very good understanding to how the press reacts to all this."