GOP battles to gain access to McGinty's emails.

McGinty's endorsed Hillary Clinton and now she has her own email hot mess on her hands. It does sound as if the GOP submitted overly broad FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) requests. Nevertheless, this would be hanging over her head if she survived the primary and became the candidate in the general election. One of the few items produced has been her calendar. Why on earth would there have to be any redactions on her official state appointments calendar ? I wonder who are the other groups who've filed FOIA requests for her records. "When Ms. McGinty stepped down to launch her campaign last summer, he said, Republican groups were among those making 35 requests for her records."


GOP battles to gain access to McGinty emails
March 10, 2016 12:20 AM

Katie McGinty served as Gov. Tom Wolf's chief of staff.Ms. McGinty stepped down last summer to launch her campaign for the U.S. Senate.
By Chris Potter/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For a while last summer, it looked as if the state Republican Party might get almost everything it wanted — or at least a chance to find ammunition to use against the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Katie McGinty. That prospect prompted GOP staffer Paul Engelkemier to file a request under Pennsylvania’s Right to Know law, seeking months of emails Ms. McGinty compiled as Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff.

Mr. Engelkemier made two right-to-know filings last year: a July 7 request for Ms. McGinty’s calendar and email from Jan. 20 through that date, and a July 22 request asking for emails and calendar entries logged since the earlier request. To obtain the emails, Mr. Engelkemier submitted more than 100 search terms, including phrases like “pension reform” and the names of state officials.

That produced over 15,000 pages of emails, the governor’s office says, each of which would have to be scanned for material deemed confidential under the law. But the attorney handling the request, Jessica Diaz, emailed Mr. Engelkemier that the process could begin on Aug. 24. After that, she wrote, “[a]ll records for one month (based on your order of preference) can be reviewed for exemption, redaction, and/​or release … every two weeks.”

Seven months later, the state GOP is still waiting. State law “has been completely abused … with an unconscionable seven-month delay,” Republicans said in a statement. “[T]he public deserves answers.”
The state GOP, though, has obtained only 71 pages of emails, 25 of which reproduced a marketing brochure.

Republicans suspect the Wolf administration is running out the clock: A court decision is unlikely until well after the Democratic primary. “We and the Office of Open Records have been in agreement,” said state GOP spokeswoman Megan Sweeney. “It raises questions about why this request has taken seven months.”