The email controversy you haven't heard about - Donald Trump's VP Mike Pence

'The emails'. Oh the emails. Woe betide the emails.

Hillary Clinton's emails may have lost her the presidency, as it gave her opponents a short hand for calling her an untrustworthy, beltway insider, who was out for herself.

Despite the FBI announcing its investigation into the emails from Clinton on senior aide Huma Abedin's laptop had uncovered nothing that was worth pursuing, the campaign was still signficantly harmed.

The 'scandal' reinforced a narrative about Clinton and her husband, that has existed since they were in the Arkansas governors mansion.

State politics has a habit of hampering a figure when they reach the national stage.

There's been another political scandal involving emails that's been rumbling along in the background of the 2016 election.

Mike Pence, the current governor of Indiana, the vice presidential pick on Donald Trump's ticket, and the chair of Trump's transition team, is also facing the ghost of an old email.

The man who will soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency is fighting an 'open records request' from a Democratic labour lawyer based in his own state.

The lawyer William Groth asked to see an emailed document from a 'position paper' sent to Pence during his tenure as governor of Indiana.

It concerned an argument made by one of Pence's allies that the state government of Indiana join Texas and other states in a lawsuit against the Obama administration.

Texas was leading an attempt to sue the federal government over Obama's executive orders concerning immigration policy.

The paper was previously released in redacted form, but Groth is appealing a rule made in April by the trial court that the redactions were not a breach of Indiana's Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

The court said it was not for them to decide whether or not to release the emails.

Groth believes that Pence should not have been able to conceal the legal fees incurred from the lawsuit against the Obama administration.

Speaking to the Indianapolis StarGroth commented.

I think joining the lawsuit without the attorney general and hiring that firm was a waste of taxpayer dollars...And the people have the right to know how much of their money was spent.

In an interview with CNN following the original decision by the trial court which sided with Pence, Groth criticised them for failing to hold the executive in check:

If the court buys their separation of powers argument, the executive branch will be exempt from [Indiana's public records law].

According to the Indiana government's website, Groth also "asserts that the Governor abused his discretion when he withheld from disclosure a document relevant to the Texas litigation that had been created by a Texas deputy solicitor general and disseminated by that official to executive offices in Indiana and several other states".

Pence is also rejecting this claim.

William Groth v Mike Pence, as Governor of the State of Indiana, is scheduled to take place by the Indiana Court of Appeals 21 November.

HT Pink News

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