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| July 1, 2016: This Week's
Headlines
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New Emails Show Clinton Was Concerned About Records
Even in Her Earliest Months as
Secretary
Politicians count on long summer weekends to distract the
American public from recalling the scandals and revelations of the day. The
Fourth of July could not have come sooner for Hillary Clinton and her
enablers.
At Judicial Watch, it’s our job to ensure that the media and
the public remain focused on illegality in our public sector, ethical
transgressions, and efforts to block citizen access and transparency in
government and politics.
To that end, we released 165 pages of new State
Department records that include a previously unreleased March 22, 2009,
email of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealing that she was
concerned about how her records were being handled and had “no idea how my
papers are treated at State. Who manages both my personal and official files?”
Clinton top aide Huma Abedin responds: “We’ve discussed this” and promises to
explain it again. This is the fifth set of records produced to
Judicial Watch by the State Department (from the non-“state.gov” email accounts
of Huma Abedin) that contain Hillary Clinton emails that Clinton did not give to
the State Department as part of the 55,000 pages of emails turned over to the
State Department.
These records further appear to contradict statements by
Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned
over to the State Department even though she turned over no emails dated prior
to March 18, 2009. The new records release contains 34 new Hillary Clinton
emails that she evidently did not turn over to the State Department. (The grand
total is now 127 Clinton emails that we found through our independent
litigation. The Washington Post’s number is over 160 because it
includes emails found by the Inspector General and those turned in by Sidney
Blumenthal.)
The documents were produced under court order in a May
5, 2015, Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit against the
State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc.
v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) for “all emails of
official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of
Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a
non-“state.gov” email address.”
In the March 2009 Clinton
email exchange with Abedin and Lauren Jiloty, former special assistant to
Clinton, concerning “how my papers are being treated at State,” Clinton urges
that they “design a system” and “get on this asap.” Clinton writes:
Dear Lauren and Huma—
I have just realized I have no idea how my papers are treated
at State. Who manages both my personal and official files?
I am sending out material the way I did w Lauren in the Senate,
but I don’t know what’s happening w it all. For instance, I’ve sent a few things
to Cheryl but she says she hasn’t read them. Does Claire manage this or does it
all go to Joe? Are there personal files as well as official ones set up? If I
don’t write anything on paper – as I mostly don’t – Lauren knew how to file it
all in the Senate. I’m sending out a mix which sometimes Claire and other times
Lauren picks up from the out box. What happens then is a mystery to
me!
So, I think we need to get on this asap to be sure we know and
design the system we want. Let me know what you both think.
Thx.
Abedin responds, “We’ve discussed this. I can explain it to you
when I see u today.”
The new documents also include a March 23, 2009, email
exchange between then-State Department Official Corley Kenna and former Clinton
Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, containing the political contribution history of
Judith Heumann. The contribution history contains five separate contributions to
the presidential campaigns of Clinton and Barack Obama. According to the
documents, Mills forwarded the email exchange directly to Clinton. In 2010, Heumann was appointed as the State
Department Special Advisor on Disability Rights.
The new emails also show new
communications between Clinton Foundation advisers (including Douglas Band),
Abedin, and Clinton about the Middle East, and a Haiti
“donors” conference. The emails show that Clinton wanted to collect
positive comments about her tenure to give to the press reporting on her first 100 days in
office. The emails also show that Clinton tried to obtain a job at State for the
son of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
And a March 21, 2009,
email from a sender whose name seems to have been kept secret contains explicit
instructions to Clinton and Mills on how to handle a State Department “team
meeting” that is to occur the following day. Clinton is advised to create the
“perception” that “you are interested and engaged … that you are listening and
that you are watching.” [Emphasis in original]
The documents also include a previously released March 21,
2009, classified email document created by then-Clinton Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Strategic Communications and Senior Communications
Advisor Phillipe Reines. Reines sent the email from his non-state.gov account
with the subject line “Kharzai” to Clinton and Abedin. Reines writes “I think
you know my close friend Jeremy Bash is now Panetta’s Chief of Staff at CIA.”
The rest of the message is redacted under the National Security Act of 1947,
which protects intelligence sources and methods from public
disclosure.
These new emails show Hillary Clinton was more than concerned
about the handling of her records – both personal and official. What other
damaging emails have Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department withheld
from the public?
House
Select Committee on Benghazi Report Confirms Judicial Watch
Revelations
The official report of the House Select Committee on Benghazi
has been released, with the damning conclusion that the Obama administration
never attempted to deploy military assets or troops during the entire 13-hour
terrorist assault on the U.S. Special Mission Compound.
The Select Committee report further confirms what Judicial
Watch already uncovered through its independent investigations. Our
investigation continues. As with the Clinton email obstruction, our Benghazi
FOIA lawsuit is the subject of court-ordered discovery. This report proves
beyond all doubt that after four Americans died in Benghazi, the Obama
administration lied. While we appreciate the Select Committee’s efforts,
Judicial Watch’s Benghazi effort has been one of the most significant
non-government investigations in modern American history
The upshot of this report is that high-ranking appointees of
the Obama administration lied in the aftermath of the murders of an ambassador
and three other Americans. Sadly, most in the mainstream media could barely
suppress their yawns at the new information provided by the House Select
Committee, previously uncovered by Judicial Watch’s investigators.
As Reps. Mike Pompeo and Jim Jordan said in a supplement to
the official report:
“We are now convinced, contrary to the administration’s public
claim that the military did not have time to get to Benghazi, that the
administration never launched men or machines to help directly in the fight.
That is very different from what we have been told to date. And the evidence is
compelling.”
On December 8, 2015, Judicial Watch issued a news
release providing proof positive that what the House Select Committee is now
reporting is accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt:
A new Benghazi email from
then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department
leadership immediately offering “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the
terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya, on
September 11, 2012. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at
7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have
identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we
speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces
available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that
allows the withholding of “deliberative process”
information.
An in-depth analysis of the Obama administration “spinning up”
deception can be found in the December 2015 Weekly Update
story.
Recall that JW got the ball rolling on the Select Committee
back in 2014. On April 29, 2014, uncovered a then-newly declassified
email showing former White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser
Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials
orchestrating a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the
Benghazi terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a
failure of policy.” Other documents show that State Department officials
initially described the incident as an “attack” and a possible kidnap attempt.
The release of these documents directly led to the formationof
the Benghazi Special Select Committee.
Again, our investigation continues. Even the Select Committee
is still conducting
interviews, despite having released a report!
A
Supreme Court Victory Over Backdoor Executive
Amnesty
Last week, the Supreme Court handed the Obama administration a
major setback with its 4-4 decision to leave in place the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals decision upholding a lower court ruling that halted the administration’s
backdoor amnesty program known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans
and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). Thankfully, enough members of the Supreme
Court would not endorse Barack Obama’s lawless power grab that would allow him
to grant legal status and, potentially, citizenship to millions of illegal
aliens.
But, even as we applaud the High Court’s decision to protect
America’s borders, I have to warn you that this action is not enough. Not by a
long shot. The Obama administration has stopped deporting most illegal aliens,
releases criminal illegal aliens, and, as we recently reported, uses
tax money to transport illegal aliens from the border in order to release
them.
Obama’s unilateral executive amnesty plan, first announced in
November 2014 in a bald attempt to end-run Congress, would have allowed as many
as five million illegal immigrants who are the parents of citizens or of lawful
permanent residents to apply for a program that would prevent them from being
deported. It was quickly challenged in court by Republican-governed Texas and 25
other states that argued that Obama overstepped the powers granted to him by the
U.S. Constitution by infringing upon the authority of Congress.
Judicial Watch filed three amicus curiae briefs
in State of Texas, et al. v. United States of America, et
al.:
- In February 2015, we filed an amicus curiae brief in
opposition to the Obama administration’s request for an emergency, expedited
stay of a federal court order of a key component of President Obama’s executive
amnesty. Specifically, it asked that the administration be allowed to implement
the President’s Deferred Action for Parents of American and Lawful Permanent
Residents (DAPA) program, which purportedly authorizes work permits and other
benefits to deportable illegal aliens.
- In March 2015, we filed an amicus brief in the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit opposing the
Department of (DOJ) “emergency” motion to allow President Obama’s unilateral
“executive actions” on illegal immigration to go forward. In that brief we
argued:
If this Court
were to grant Appellants’ motion, it would cast aside decades-old immigration
laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. These laws have been in
place for almost 30 years. In seeking a stay pending appeal, Appellants fail to
demonstrate why destroying 30 years of status quo and undermining duly enacted
laws is necessary at this immediate date. None of the reasons cited by
Appellants in their motion answer the question: why
today?
- And in May 2015, we filed an amicus brief on behalf of State
Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) in support of Texas and 20 other states
that sued the federal government to prevent the Obama administration’s
implementation of DAPA. In that brief, we stated:
The Executive
Branch simply seeks to replace Congress’ policy choice about whether unlawfully
present aliens may remain in the United States with its own preference. The
plain language and express purposes of federal immigration law make clear
Congress’ policy choices. The Constitutional authority of Congress – as well as
the respect that the Executive and Judicial Branches owe to Congress – demands
that Congress’ policy choice prevails. “When the legislative and executive
powers are united in the same person or body . . . there can be no liberty . . .
.” (THE FEDERALIST, James Madison)
Your JW has filed dozens of lawsuits to both expose and halt
government policies that undermine immigration law. The failure to control our
borders, is an existential threat to our nation, so all Americans should be
thankful that Obama’s backdoor amnesty lost this week at the Supreme
Court.
Judicial Watch Completes Depositions of Key Clinton
Email
Figures
This week, we
took the final depositions from two additional key figures familiar with former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a non-government “private” email
system and BlackBerry. On Tuesday, we deposed Clinton longtime top aide Huma
Abedin. Her testimony is available here. And on
Wednesday, we deposed State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick F.
Kennedy. His testimony is available here.
Abedin testified it was Clinton’s decision to use her
non-state.gov email; to her knowledge that only Hillary Clinton, Abedin and
Chelsea Clinton had accounts on the clintonemail.com system; and that the
clintonemail.com system may have interfered with Mrs. Clinton’s ability to do
her job.
In Abedin’s testimony, she claimed that she had no recollection
about any discussions with State Department officials about the use of
clintonemail.com email accounts.
Perhaps Abedin’s most interesting testimony came when she
revealed that Clinton’s use of private email caused her to miss messages,
including one about a phone call that was scheduled to take place with a foreign
minister:
Her initial e-mail was about a phone call with a foreign — a
foreign … minister, which she missed and missed the call because she never got
the — I never got her e-mail suggests — giving us the signoff to do it. So she
wasn’t able to do her job, do what she needed to do… And, you know, she clearly
missed the window in this exchange.
For his part, Kennedy testified that the significance did not
“register” with him that Clinton was using a non-state.gov email account even
though he communicated with her by email – and even though he is under secretary
for management of three of the four offices charged with ensuring State
Department policies practices and procedures are followed. Kennedy also said he
had no opinion as to whether policies were violated except to say that State
Department records-management policy encourages employees to use state.gov
addresses for official business.
This discovery arises in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that seeks
records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former deputy
chief of staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because
of revelations about the clintonemail.com system. (Judicial Watch v. U.S.
Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)). Judge Sullivan ordered that all
deposition transcripts be made publicly available.
Abedin and Kennedy were among seven depositions of former
Clinton top aides and State Department officials that Judicial Watch now has
questioned under oath. My attorney colleagues here are Judicial Watch are
considering what, if any, additional discovery to seek from Judge
Sullivan.
Happy
Independence
Day!
I like to think JW vindicates the sacrifices of the Founding
Fathers in some small way with our efforts to hold this government to the rule
of law. One of my favorite George Washington quotes is prominently displayed in
Judicial Watch DC headquarters:
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to
bring it to light.
On behalf of all us here at Judicial Watch, I wish you and
yours a safe, pleasant, and blessed Independence Day weekend. God Bless
America!
Until next week...
 Tom FittonPresident
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