New Email Action by Court As Obama Leave Office
It is likely when you receive this email, our nation will have a new
president, Donald Trump. Judicial Watch wishes the new president all
the best and hope he brings with him a respect for the rule of law and
the U.S. Constitution – a respect sorely lacking from the Oval Office’s
previous occupant. One of the Obama’s legacy of lawlessness are the
pending Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against
various executive agencies. Yesterday, all of these lawsuits, well over
60, were against the Obama administration. Today, they are against
agencies of the Trump administration. Ironically, the Trump
administration will have to grapple with all of Judicial Watch’s Clinton
email-related lawsuits against the State Department and other agencies!
President Trump should commit to a transparency revolution, especially
as Hillary Clinton’s war on transparency helped make his presidency
possible. The Trump administration and new Congress must focus on
restoring the rule of law and accountability after the eight years of a
lawless Obama administration. Corruption in government is an
overwhelming problem. We expect, but will not rely on, President Trump
or other DC politicians to do the right thing. Judicial Watch will
continue its independent investigations and lawsuits in order to hold
politicians of both political parties accountable to the rule of law.
Let’s hope the Trump administration takes a different approach to
transparency, one that respects the law and the people’s right to know.
His appointees will have to deal with the transparency issue
immediately, especially as the courts took actions this week to make
sure that the Obama administration wouldn’t destroy some public
documents on its way out the door.
This week U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted our
Motion to Preserve
emails of a U.S. Department of Justice assistant attorney general. Judge Sullivan issued a
Minute Order on
January 17, 2017, requiring the Justice Department to “preserve all
agency records and potential agency records between the dates of
December 1, 2014 and November 7, 2016 in any personal email account of
Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik.”
The court order came in response to the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) lawsuit we filed against the U.S. Department of Justice on
January 15, 2017, seeking access, in part, to email correspondence
between Peter Kadzik, the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative
Affairs, and John Podesta, then-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s
presidential campaign, regarding the Justice Department’s review of
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails (
Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:17-cv-00029)).
According to
Wikileaks,
on May 19, 2015, Kadzik sent Podesta an email appearing to tip off
Clintons’ 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.
On November 7, 2016, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request to the Justice Department seeking:
- All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account or peterkadzik@gmail.com and any non-government employee regarding 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 his official Justice Department email account or peterkadzik@gmail.com and any official, officer or employee of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.
- The timeframe for this request is December 1, 2014 to November 7, 2016.
Also on
November 7, we submitted another FOIA request to the Justice Department seeking:
- All emails sent to or received by Peter Kadzik using the email address peterkadzik@gmail.com in which he conducted official government business; and
- All emails copied and/or forwarded … to Peter Kadzik’s Justice Department email account from peterkadzik@gmail.com.
- The timeframe for this request is January 1, 2016 to the present.
After the Justice Department failed to respond to its FOIA requests,
we filed a FOIA lawsuit on January 5, 2017, and, the next day filed a
Motion for Preservation Order for the court to order the Justice Department to preserve the agency records “currently residing” in Kadzik’s Gmail account:
The
records at issue are in the physical possession of Assistant Attorney
General Kadzik. With the upcoming change in administrations on
January 20, 2017, it is likely that he will leave government service on or around that date.
***
[Judicial Watch] is concerned that after Assistant Attorney General
Kadzik leaves government employment, Defendant will no longer have
control over the actions of this official.
In the Justice Department’s January 17, 2017
Opposition to Judicial Watch’s Motion for Preservation Order, the Department contended that:
It is the government’s understanding that Mr. Kadzik has located no
agency records or potential agency records in his Gmail account and
that, therefore, there are no such documents to preserve … Because the
government has already taken the action that Judicial Watch’s motion
requests, and has informed the Court of that action, Judicial Watch’s
motion is moot and should be denied.
The court was not persuaded, did not find Judicial Watch’s motion moot, and issued the Preservation Order the same day.
It is astonishing that the Obama Justice Department played games with
its emails, especially Clinton-related emails. We hope this and our
other lawsuits -- and the court’s hard-hitting court order – sent a
signal to the entire Obama administration not to destroy government
records to spite the American people’s right to know. It will now be up
to the Trump administration to either finally vindicate the rule of law
or continue its obstruction.
Federal Court Orders Top Obama DHS Officials To Preserve Emails
Yet
another federal judge ordered the Obama administration to preserve
emails in yet another Obama email scandal – this one at the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS).
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss this week
ordered
Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and three other top DHS
officials to preserve “all emails regarding, concerning, or related to
official United States Government business” they sent through non-“gov”
emails from December 23, 2013, and December 29, 2015.”
The court order came in our Freedom of Information (FOIA)
lawsuit seeking agency records in the personal email accounts used by the four top Homeland Security officials (
Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(No.
1:16-cv-00967)(D.D.C.)).
Ruling
“out of an abundance of caution,” Judge Moss ordered the preservation
of records “to minimize the risk of any inadvertent loss of potentially
responsive emails.” The court ruling covers Johnson, Deputy Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas, Chief of Staff Christian Marrone, and General
Counsel Stevan Bunnell:
ORDERED that
Secretary Johnson preserve all emails sent or received between December
23, 2013, and December 29, 2015, that are stored in any of his private
email accounts that may contain responsive records, including any emails
in archived or deleted folders, on a portable thumb drive or hard drive
to be kept in his possession until this Court determines that the
emails must be provided to the Department for processing or that they
may be deleted;
FURTHER ORDERED that
Deputy Secretary Mayorkas, former Chief of Staff Marrone, and former
General Counsel Bunnell do the same with respect to their own private
email accounts that may contain responsive records…
On December 22, 2016, Judicial Watch filed a
Motion for Preservation Order in
which it asked the court to issue a “preservation order” for the
non-.gov emails of Johnson, Mayorkas and Bunnell because their departure
from government service was anticipated upon the installation of the
new administration, at which point, Homeland Security would no longer
have any control over the former officials:
With the upcoming change in administrations on
January 20, 2017,
it is likely that the three officials currently in office (Secretary
Jeh Johnson, Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and General Counsel
Stevan Bunnell) will leave government service.
Counsel for DHS has
informed [Judicial Watch’s] counsel that DHS has “asked” these
officials to preserve the agency records in their possession. DHS’
counsel declined to provide any evidence supporting this assertion.
Because [Judicial Watch] does not know specifically what DHS asked its
employees to do and what, if any, other steps DHS has taken to ensure
preservation, Plaintiff is concerned DHS’s mere requests to its
employees are insufficient. This will be particularly concerning once
the officials possessing the emails leave government employment, as the
agency will have no control over the actions of these officials…
A court order requiring preservation of these emails is particularly
necessary now as DHS has suggested that these officials may have been
acting without authorization by sending emails from these accounts…. As
such, there is no assurance that these officials will abide by a
“request” by the agency to preserve these emails, particularly after
their employment ends…
At a hearing on January 5, Obama Justice
Department lawyers confirmed that they had done nothing to retrieve
government records from Jeh Johnson or the other officials’ accounts. On
January 10, Judge Moss
ordered
DHS to produce any “preservation requests” for emails sent to Johnson,
Mayorkas, Marrone, and Bunnell. In today’s court ruling, Judge Moss
specifically ordered the DHS officials to preserve all of the contested
emails.
We have every reason to believe that there are government
records on Jeh Johnson’s and other top DHS officials’ personal email
accounts. The fact that the Obama administration has stonewalled their
production is yet another example of the lack of transparency that has
permeated this administration. Once again, it took persistent legal
action from Judicial Watch to preserve the public’s right to know.
In June, Judicial Watch in a
related case
obtained
693 pages of
Homeland Security records revealing that Secretary Jeh Johnson and 28
other agency officials used government computers to access personal
web-based email accounts despite an agency-wide ban due to heightened
security concerns. The documents also reveal that Homeland Security
officials misled Rep.
Scott Perry (R-PA) when Perry specifically asked whether personal
accounts were being used for official government business.
The waivers were granted to Johnson and other senior staffers after Homeland Security’s
Sensitive Systems Policy Directive 4300A was promulgated on April 30, 2014. The Directive was issued after
hackers breached
the Office of Personnel Management computer system. Directive 4300A
states, “The use of Internet Webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) or other
personal email accounts is not authorized over DHS furnished equipment
or network connections.” These national security concerns were thrown
out the window so top DHS officials evade the transparency laws. Let’s
hope the Trump administration has the political will to hold these Obama
officials to account to the law and the American public by disclosing
any government records from their “private” email accounts.
Clinton Email Benghazi Lawsuit Heats Up
The Clinton email and Benghazi scandals aren’t over. Not by a long shot.
Just last week, JW’s attorneys asked a federal court for additional discovery. In addition to document requests, the new
Revised Discovery Proposal asks
for depositions from Clinton, Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and eight other
State Department officials to explore “evidence of wrongdoing or bad
faith with respect to State Department’s response” to our Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request as well as some earlier FOIA requests.
The January 10 filing is the latest move in our July 2014 FOIA
lawsuit
seeking records related to the drafting and use of the Benghazi talking points (
Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No.
1:14-cv-01242)). This lawsuit forced the Clinton email issue into the public eye in early 2015.
In March 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth granted “
limited discovery
” to Judicial Watch, ruling that “where there is evidence of government
wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate,
even though it is exceedingly rare in FOIA cases.” In May 2016, we filed
an
initial Proposed Order for Discovery seeking written and oral information. (In December Judge Lamberth
requested both parties to file new proposed orders in light of information discovered in various venues since last May.)
You won’t be surprised to learn that the thoroughly corrupt Obama State Department opposed our proposal.
In
last week’s filing, we informed the court that despite repeated
conferences with the State Department, they had been “unable to reach
agreement on a discovery proposal” and that “Defendant [State
Department] is unwilling to agree to any discovery at all in this
action.” Judicial Watch’s new discovery proposal focuses on “two main
areas:”
These areas are: (i) evidence of wrongdoing or bad faith
with respect to State Department’s response to Plaintiff’s FOIA request
for records related to the talking points provided to U.S. Ambassador
Susan Rice following the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack and (ii)
potential remedies that may ensure a sufficient search for responsive
records is undertaken…
Our Revised Discovery Proposal seeks both documents and depositions. The documents requested include:
- All
documents that concern or relate to the processing of any and all
searches of the Office of the Secretary for emails relating to the
September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack and its aftermath…
- All
communications that concern or relate to the processing of all searches
referenced in Document Request No. 1 above, including directions or
guidance about how and where to conduct the searches…
- All
records that concern or relate to the State Department’s policies,
practices, procedures and/or actions (or lack thereof) to secure,
inventory, and/or account for all records…
- Plaintiff requests
copies of the attached records [previously obtained by Judicial Watch]
with the Exemption 5 redactions removed…
In addition to basic documents, we think testimony is essential, including a deposition of Hillary Clinton to learn:
[the]
identification of individuals (whether State Department officials,
other government officials, or third-parties, including but not limited
to Sidney Blumenthal) with whom Secretary Clinton may have communicated
by email.
We are asking to depose former Clinton aides, including
Cheryl Mills, chief of staff; Jacob Sullivan, Deputy Chief of Staff and
Director of Policy Planning; Heather Samuelson, head of the White House
Liaison Office; Lauren Jiloty, Special Assistant; and Monica Hanley,
confidential assistant. Also on the list is Clarence Finney, currently
Deputy Director of the State Department’s Executive Secretariat Staff;
Sheryl L. Walter, who was Director of the Office of Information Program
and Services; and Gene Smilansky, a department lawyer.
In one of their last gasps of obstruction of justice, Obama State
Department continues to oppose court-ordered efforts to gather the facts
from Secretary Hillary Clinton and her top aides about how their email
practices violated the American’s people right to know what really
happened in Benghazi.
The Trump administration must now decide whether to reverse course on this desperate, last minute obstruction.
Until next week...
Tom Fitton
President
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