JUDICIAL WATCH - Inspector General Destroys DOJ and FBI Credibility

Inspector General Destroys DOJ and FBI Credibility  The Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s scandalous email practices is out, and as I predicted, it has destroyed the credibility of the Department of Justice and the FBI. It confirms what we have investigated and revealed for nearly two years. The Obama DOJ/FBI investigation of Clinton was rushed, half-baked, rigged, and irredeemably compromised by anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias and actions. It is outrageous to see a politicized FBI and DOJ then so obviously refuse to uphold the rule of law. The IG report details repeated DOJ/FBI deference to Hillary Clinton, her aides and their lawyers. Americans should examine the report and judge for themselves whether the over-the-top deference to Hillary Clinton can be explained as anything other than political, especially from agencies that at the same time were actively collaborating with the Clinton campaign’s Fusion GPS to spy on and target then-candidate Trump. The IG report details how at least five top FBI agents and lawyers exchanged pro-Clinton and anti-Trump communications. The IG shares the concerns of Judicial Watch and millions of Americans that this bias cast a cloud over the credibility of the Clinton email and Russia investigations. An incredible example of this bias was found in a text message of FBI official Peter Strzok, who promised to “stop Trump” from becoming President. Strzok was both the lead FBI agent on the sham Clinton investigation and on the anti-Trump Russia investigation!  As we have demonstrated through independent investigations and lawsuits, there is more than enough evidence that Clinton knowingly and intentionally mishandled classified information while using a non-government email system to conduct government business. Will the Sessions Justice Department now do the right thing and conduct a Clinton email investigation properly? Or will it let James Comey and Loretta Lynch have the last word on Hillary Clinton’s evident email crimes? In the meantime, we will continue our FOIA lawsuits and investigations into the Clinton email scandal and the related Obama administration cover-up.  We have numerous lawsuits and document productions regarding the issues raised by the IG, including the conduct of Andrew McCabe, the Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting, the Strzok-Page communications, the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton, and DOJ collusion with the Clinton campaign. The IG report is just the beginning. And Judicial Watch will take it from here! Hearing Set on Motion to Compel Email Testimony from Hillary Clinton  Judicial Watch doesn’t wait for IG reports or Congress – we are an independent organization that does its own investigations and lawsuits. So, for all the noise about the Clinton email investigation, Judicial Watch is the only entity still in court that may get additional testimony from Mrs. Clinton about her email practices. A federal court just ordered a hearing for Thursday, October 11, 2018, on a motion to compel testimony about the email practices of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued the order. This major development comes in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuitabout the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit, which seeks records regarding the authorization for Abedin to engage in outside employment while employed by the Department of State, was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)). In 2016, Hillary Clinton was required to submit, under oath, written answers to our questions. Clinton objected to and refused to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department cybersecurity officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails. Judge Sullivan is considering our motion to compel answers to these questions. In her responses sent to the court and us on October 13, 2016, Clinton refused to answer three questions and responded that she “does not recall” 20 times concerning her non-government clintonemail.com email system. She preceded her responses by eight “general objections” and two “objections to definitions.” The words “object” or “objection” appear 84 times throughout the 23-page document submitted to the court and Judicial Watch. Judge Sullivan will also hear arguments on our motion to compel testimony from former State Department Director of Information Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat John Bentel (who asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer 87 questions at his deposition) and our motion to unseal the audiovisual recordings of all depositions. We took the testimony of key Clinton aidesand State Department senior officials, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, but the videotapes of the depositions are currently under seal. It is not surprising that Mrs. Clinton refused to answer key questions about her conduct. Perhaps she thought that we, like Obama’s FBI and Justice Department, would just let it go. We haven’t – and neither have the courts. Major Judicial Watch Victory!  The Supreme Court Decides for Clean Elections in Ohio  The Supreme Court issued important decision to uphold efforts by Ohio to maintain accurate voting rolls. It was a big victory for clean elections and, as you’ll see below, Judicial Watch! It is also a clear victory for the citizens of Ohio and America who want clean and fair elections. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. The Supreme Court decision should send a signal to other states to take reasonable steps to make sure that voters who died or moved away no longer remain on their voter rolls. Leftists opposed to election integrity suffered a big defeat with this decision. Frankly, this and their other assaults on clean election measures suggest the organized left and their politician allies want to be able to steal elections if necessary. This is also a big institutional win for Judicial Watch, because it means that our current settlement agreement with Ohio is valid and enforceable. The Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law providing that the State had to send address confirmation notices to all registered voters who had not voted in the previous two years. This ruling has the effect of also upholding a 2014 settlement agreement between us and Ohio, which required Ohio to use that same procedure as part of a regular Supplemental Mailing designed to identify whether registered Ohio voters had moved away – one of many steps intended to fulfill Ohio’s obligations under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to maintain the integrity of its voter list. We filed several amicus briefs supporting Ohio’s efforts at every level of the federal court system as the case progressed from the trial court all the way up to the Supreme Court. The case was on appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which held Ohio’s process was in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) (Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State v. Philip Randolph Institute, et al. (No. 16-980)). Our amicus brief argued that the Sixth Circuit ruling would adversely affect its settlement agreement with Ohio were it allowed to stand. We also pointed out that failing to respond to an address confirmation notice does not mean that a registration is removed from the voter rolls. It merely triggers another waiting period, which can last up to four more years, during which the registrant still has the right to vote. In all, it can take up to six years before a registration is cancelled under the process. Attorney Robert Popper, the director of our Election Integrity Project, joined with five other former attorneys of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in filing an amici curiae brief in the Husted case. We previously filed a lawsuit under the NVRA against Indiana, which resulted in the state taking several actions to clean up its voter rolls. Our lawsuits against Ohio and Indiana were the first private lawsuits under the NVRA. We are currently suing Kentucky, California and Los Angeles over their failures to remove ineligible voters as required by the NVRA, and we are suing the State of Maryland and Montgomery County over their failure to release voting-related records. We won this latest Supreme Court battle, but the Judicial Watch fight for election integrity continues across the nation. DOJ Must Provide More Details on Podesta-Clinton Communications  The bureaucrats in The Deep State Swamp know every trick in the book for blocking inquiries into their actions. It is a good thing when the courts see through these sleights of hand. Here’s a good example. In an unusual Saturday ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ordered the U.S. Justice Department to provide more information about its search of former top Obama DOJ Official Peter Kadzik’s communications with then-Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, Clinton campaign officials, and others. The court order, issued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requires the Justice Department to provide additional details by June 15, 2018. According to WikiLeaks, on May 19, 2015, Kadzik, using a Gmail account, sent Podesta an email appearing to tip-off Clinton’s campaign about the Justice Department’s review of Clinton’s emails: There is a HJC oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify. Likely to get questions on State Department emails. Another filing in the FOIA case went in last night or will go in this am that indicates it will be awhile (2016) before the State Department posts the emails. Saturday’s order follows a June 6 hearing in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department on January 15, 2017, for: All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account peterkadzik@gmail.com and any non-government employee concerning, regarding, or relating to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of non-state.gov email to conduct official government business; All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account or peterkadzik@gmail.com and John Podesta; and All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account or peterkadzik@gmail.com and any official, officer, or employee of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. We argue that the Justice Department has refused to provide sufficient details about the search of Kadzik’s personal email account. Judge Friedrich found that the Justice Department’s sworn representations about Kadzik’s search of his records were “incomplete”: Although the [Justice Department] states that “Mr. Kadzik confirmed that he did not recall ever using his personal Gmail account to send any other similar e-mails to John Podesta, or to anyone else associated with the Clinton campaign,” … this statement does not cover the full scope of Judicial Watch’s specific FOIA requests. The court ordered the DOJ to submit a supplemental declaration by June 15, 2018, that provides any additional details regarding Kadzik’s representations regarding whether his Gmail account contained agency records or potential agency records. The DOJ is to provide details regarding two manual searches that Mr. Kadzik reportedly conducted. Also, the DOJ is to indicate, whether Kadzik opened and reviewed individual e-mails or just reviewed the titles, and which folders Kadzik reviewed when conducting his manual searches. We are obviously pleased that the court ordered the Justice Department to provide more details about its search for documents about Obama DOJ-Clinton campaign collusion. Yet it is disappointing that we must continually battle the Sessions Justice Department for basic information on corruption in the Obama Justice Department. Unsurprisingly, Kadzik’s conduct related to his communications with the Clinton campaign are criticized in this week’s big IG report. And it is once again up to Judicial Watch to continue the accountability efforts on this scandal. Until next week … Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton Conflict escalates over FBI role in 2016 elections By Patrick Martin 18 June 2018 In the wake of the 568-page Justice Department inspector general’s report issued Thursday, the political warfare in Washington over the role of the FBI in the 2016 elections continues to intensify. While the report provided damning information on the pro-Clinton faction in the leadership of the FBI, a television interview Thursday night shed light on the pro-Trump faction within the same agency, centered in the New York field office, the FBI’s largest and most influential office outside the agency’s headquarters in Washington. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, speaking on the Laura Ingraham program on Fox News, revealed that dissident agents in the New York office contacted him in late September 2016 and told him that the FBI had obtained a new batch of Clinton emails that could lead to the reopening of the investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, which the FBI had closed two months earlier. Nunes described these “good FBI agents” as “whistle blowers,” but they clearly were acting as partisans of Trump and the Republican Party, contacting a leading congressional Republican who had an interest in anti-Clinton information. Moreover, Nunes did not inform his Democratic counterpart on the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, underscoring the factional warfare raging through official Washington. A month later, FBI Director James Comey sent letters to congressional leaders informing them that the Clinton email probe was being reopened. This extraordinary action, only 11 days before Election Day, was in flagrant violation of a longstanding Justice Department rule against taking any public investigative action in relation to a political candidate within 90 days of an election. The emails came to light in the course of a separate investigation into disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, then the husband of Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, who was to face charges for exchanging inappropriate sexual messages with an underaged girl. When examining a laptop belonging to Weiner, FBI agents found copies of emails from Clinton, apparently sent by Abedin to her husband’s laptop for the purpose of printing them out. According to other accounts, the FBI first found these Clinton emails on September 26, meaning that agents in the New York office contacted the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee even before top officials in the FBI’s Washington headquarters knew of them. It is likely they also contacted former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had close ties with the New York FBI office from his years as US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Giuliani sparked numerous press reports about an impending FBI “bombshell” against the Clinton campaign in the weeks leading up to Comey’s letter to Congress. At the time, in the midst of the uproar provoked by Comey’s letter, the World Socialist Web Site wrote, “One former Justice Department official suggested that Comey was under intense pressure from within the FBI over his previous declaration that no competent prosecutor would bring charges against Clinton over her use of the private server. If true, this means that sections of the federal police agency are in open revolt against the candidate who may shortly become their nominal ‘commander-in-chief’” (see: “The FBI intervenes in the 2016 election”). It is evident that this was precisely the case. The FBI, the political police force of the American ruling elite, became a battleground during the 2016 elections between pro-Clinton and pro-Trump factions, each seeking to make use of the agency’s ability to conduct surveillance and carry out provocations and frame-ups against the rival candidate. Peter Strzok, the assistant director of the FBI who headed the Clinton email investigation and the initial stages of the Russia-Trump investigation, was an ardent advocate of a Clinton presidency, like the bulk of the leadership of the national security apparatus. In a text message in August 2016 to his girlfriend Lisa Page, who was counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok’s boss, Strzok reassured Page that there would be no Trump presidency, because “We’ll stop it.” This message, damning in its directness, especially given Strzok’s position as the head of both investigations, has been concealed for nearly two years despite endless reports and leaks about the FBI’s intervention into the 2016 campaign. It was first made public in the inspector general’s report. The prolonged concealment by itself demonstrates how critical Strzok’s role was in preparing the way for the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into supposed Russian interference in the elections. It is widely expected that Strzok will be fired as a consequence of the inspector general’s report, and both Trump and congressional Republicans have called for the FBI official’s prosecution and jailing. Strzok’s attorney Aitan Goelman sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte Saturday offering Strzok’s voluntary testimony before the committee. “Special agent Strzok, who has been fully cooperative with the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, intends to voluntarily appear and testify before your committee and any other Congressional committee that invites him,” Goelman wrote. On Sunday, Representative Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, threatened to hold top FBI and Justice Department officials in contempt if they continued to block access to documents subpoenaed by his and other congressional committees. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Gowdy said that he met with FBI and Justice officials Friday, along with Goodlatte, Devin Nunes and House Speaker Paul Ryan, to go over “item by item” the material subject to outstanding subpoenas. Gowdy said that Ryan “made it very clear.” He continued, “There’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if the FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request.” The House would use “its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance,” including contempt of Congress. This raises the prospect of congressional Republicans holding in contempt officials appointed by a Republican president—including FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—because they refuse to share documents related to the investigations into that president and his Democratic opponent during the 2016 campaign.