Abubakar Shekau, centre, the leader of Boko Haram, Nigeria's Islamic extremist group. Boko Haram fighters have shot or burned to death about 90 civilians and wounded 500 in ongoing fighting in a Cameroonian border town near Nigeria, officials in Cameroon said. (AP Photo/Boko Haram
)A conservative group is suing the State Department in an effort to find out whether the agency's refusal to place Boko Haram on the terrorist watch list while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state had anything to do with the fact that a high-level Nigerian official was a major Clinton Foundation donor and close friend of the former president.
Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit, brought the case to court after the State Department ignored its request for records about the Chagoury Group, a sprawling Nigerian company headed by a Clinton friend and financial supporter of Clinton causes, Gilbert Chagoury.
Chagoury donated between $1 million and 5 million to the Clinton Foundation, donor recordsshow.
More than 30 days have passed since Citizens United first filed the lawsuit without a response of any kind from the State Department.
David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said it was the first time he'd seen the State Department completely ignore a case against it in federal court.
"These proceedings are important that both sides take them seriously," Bossie said. "I have no idea what the judge will do, but I believe the judge will order a hearing to find out why the government did not respond."
"Federal judges, I don't think, look kindly on people who ignore the court's workings," he added.
In January 2010, Chagoury was removed from a private jet and questioned by federal agents for hours because his name had been added to the no-fly list, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Although he was removed from the list before the U.S. government issued a formal, written apology, it is still unclear why he received that designation in the first place and how he was able to get his name off the no-fly list.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wrote a letter to Kerry in March raising concerns that Chagoury may haveattempted to influence Clinton's decision about whether to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group.
