Watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia against Secretary of State John Kerry to bring him and his department into compliance with the Federal Records Act and seek to obtain the emails of Hillary Clinton in the possession of the State Department, including those they might be able to recover from her illegal email server.

The watchdog organization cited the Federal Records Act in its lawsuit saying that it stipulates, “Agencies may only dispose of records on terms approved by the Archivist of the United States, who is head of the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”). … This process is the exclusive procedure by which all federal records may be disposed of or destroyed. …The FRA imposes a direct responsibility on an agency head to take steps to recover any records unlawfully removed.”

Judicial Watch argues in its lawsuit, “The Clinton emails are agency records subject to the [Federal Records Act (FRA)] and the State Department’s failure to retain, manage, and search these agency records has compromised the Department’s retention of records that concern or relate to Secretary Clinton and other high level State Department officials who used non-“state.gov” email addresses.”

“Secretary Kerry is in cover-up mode for Hillary Clinton. While John Kerry may have replaced Hillary Clinton at the State Department, he has proven that when it comes to complying with federal records and disclosure laws, he and Clinton are cut from the same corrupted cloth,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“Secretary Kerry is in a position to provide the transparency and accountability his predecessor so casually dismissed,” he added. “However, those in the Obama administration will do whatever they can, including ignoring the law, to protect Clinton, her ‘legacy’ and her 2016 presidential prospects. What a sad state of affairs it is when we must petition the courts to remind our leaders what the law is and that they are obligated to follow it.”

Judicial Watch sent Kerry a letter back in April “notifying him of the unlawful removal of the Clinton emails and requesting that he initiate enforcement action pursuant to the FRA.”

A letter was sent in response by Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, which failed to address Judicial Watch’s demands.

On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing 30,000 of Clinton’s emails. The first batch of emails are to be released on June 30 and will continue to be released every 30 days until January 29, 2016. The State Department wanted to dump the entire amount next year, in an obvious attempt to overwhelm the people with the information, rather than let it be seriously investigated.

Already the State Department has turned over 1,200 emails from Hillary Clinton’s staff to Trey Gowdy’s Select Committee on Benghazi.

Clinton’s Muslim Brotherhood-tied advisor, Huma Abedin, is still facing a lawsuit to retrieve her emails during her time at the State Department.

Gowdy has said that he wants every single document related to Benghazi and that would include many of the voluminous emails sent by Clinton. He has also called on her to testify before his committee under oath. I’m guessing at this point, it’s going to take a subpoena.