Weekly Update: JW Sues Over Clinton Foundation Cover-Up

A major scandal, largely uninvestigated, is the Obama Justice Department’s protection of Hillary Clinton.

As per usual, Judicial Watch is taking the lead on this issue. We just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communications involving any investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) into the Clinton Foundation ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02536).

We sued after the agency failed to respond to our May 4, 2018, FOIA request for:

Remember that it was our FOIA lawsuit that led directly to the disclosure of the illicit Clinton email system in 2015.

Then in August 2016, a related Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit broke open the email story and began making conflict of interest documents public, revealing Clinton’s shadowy pay-to-play schemes.

This lawsuit showed the sleazy details. For example, in April 2009 controversial Clinton Foundation official Doug Band pushed for a job for an associate. In the email Band tells Hillary Clinton’s former aides at the State Department Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin that it is “important to take care of [Redacted]. Band is reassured by Abedin that “Personnel has been sending him options.” Band was co-founder of Teneo Strategy with Bill Clinton and a top official of the Clinton Foundation, including its Clinton Global Initiative.

Included in the documents we received as a result of the lawsuit was a 2009 email in which Band, directs Abedin and Mills to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon. Band notes that Chagoury is “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us,” and insists that Abedin call Amb. Jeffrey Feltman to connect him to Chagoury.

In January 2016, the FBI reportedly began investigating the Clinton Foundation, as it expanded from the email probe. In October 2016, FBI agents were told they did not have “ enough evidence to move forward” with their investigation of the Foundation.

Earlier this year, a DOJ Inspector General report detailed evidence that the Obama DOJ sought to shut down the FBI investigation of Clinton Foundation:

Reportedly , senior DOJ officials refused FBI requests to issue subpoenas on Clinton Foundation issues in 2016.

In October 18, 2018, Representative Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced the release of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s disciplinary file , which “reminds us how the Obama Justice Department sought to shut down the Clinton Foundation investigation during the 2016 presidential election.” [Emphasis added]

The record shows the Obama Justice Department suppressed a public corruption investigation. It’s time to stop shielding the Clintons and produce records on this miscarriage of justice.

(This is only part of our investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play politics, which involves multiple FOIA lawsuits seeking documents from Hillary Clinton’s illicit email system, as well as records related to the intersection of the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. Our work served as a basis for the breakthrough book “ Clinton Cash.”)

Judicial Watch Files Supreme Court Brief against Government Abuse

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is essential in curbing government abuse:

We have joined with Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in filing an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting petitioner Tyson Timbs against the State of Indiana, which we contend abused its power in a civil asset forfeiture case ( Tyson Timbs, et. al. v. State of Indiana (No. 17-1091)) The case was heard by the Supreme Court this week.

Here’s the background. In May of 2013, Tyson Timbs was arrested and pled guilty to a charge of drug dealing and conspiracy. He received a six-year sentence (with five years suspended) and a $1,200 fine.

Earlier in the year, Timbs had received a $70,000 life-insurance payment after his father passed away. He used $42,000 of it to purchase a Land Rover car. Timbs used the Land Rover to deliver $225 worth of drugs, the report said. The state seized the car under a state policy that allows private lawyers to sue for a forfeiture in order to receive a cut.

The car was worth four times the amount of the maximum possible fine ($10,000) in the Timbs case. Lower courts in Indiana ruled the penalty was grossly disproportional under the Eighth Amendment. The Indiana State Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ ruling.

In our brief, we express concern that “the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling, if allowed to stand, will allow state and local government abuses of forfeiture laws to continue,” adding that “freedom from unlawful conversion of property is an inherent individual liberty right which the Constitution must secure for all citizens.”

We also noted that, “The Eighth Amendment ‘excessive fines’ clause must serve as a check against state forfeiture laws. Many state and local governments abuse their powers to seize citizens’ property on the barest of pretense to raise revenue without having to raise taxes. When the amount the government can take is limited only by the size of a citizen’s bank account, the Courts must apply special scrutiny to prevent corrupt practices. The Eighth Amendment was designed to limit these kinds of easily-abused punitive laws, and it applies to the states via the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

National Review reported an abundance of “abusive seizures justified under civil forfeiture. One family had its home taken because the son was caught with $40 of drugs. In Texas, a family that drove for too long in the left lane of the highway was told by a county district attorney that their children would be put in foster care, the parents would be put in jail, and their car would be seized unless they handed over all of their cash, in which case they would be free to go. The town where that occurred, Tenaha, prides itself on this tactic, which ensures a steady flow of cash and goods from out-of-town drivers.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has long spoken out on the practice of civil forfeiture. In a case last year, Leonard v. Texas , which the Supreme Court refused to hear, Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion: “This system – where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use – has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses…. These forfeiture operations frequently target the poor and other groups least able to defend their interests in forfeiture proceedings. Perversely, these same groups are often the most burdened by forfeiture. They are more likely to use cash than alternative forms of payment, like credit cards, which may be less susceptible to forfeiture. And they are more likely to suffer in their daily lives while they litigate for the return of a critical item of property, such as a car or a home.”

As we and AEF contend, “Occasionally, the abuse takes the form of governments using forfeiture laws to fill their coffers instead of raising taxes.”

We also cited Lee v. Minner (2006): “The inherent right of U.S. citizens to be free from excessive financial penalties is not one held exclusively against the federal government. It is therefore proper that the Eighth Amendment be applied to state and local governments, because the ability to live free or unjust government financial penalties both ‘plays an important role in furthering a vital national economy’ as well as ‘vindicates individual and societal rights.’”

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education. It has engaged in a number of projects, which include educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with us to fight government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the nation’s public life. We’re always pleased to have them join us in major amicus filings.

This is major. The Supreme Court should stop an egregious abuse of civil forfeiture laws in which state and local governments fill their coffers by seizing the property of citizens.

Judicial Watch Fights for Rule of Law in Battle with Anti-Trump Politicians

Since we cant seem to nail the Clintons on the obvious fraud connected to the Clinton Foundation, we should try another route.

The Clintons ruthlessly used government positions and privileged government information designed to protect the safety and security of Americans to benefit themselves:

SOURCE: https://www.justice.gov/jmd/misuse-position-and-government-resources

MISUSE OF POSITION AND GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

An employee may not use his official position, including information learned by virtue of his position, for his personal benefit or for the benefit of others.

MISUSE OF POSITION
An employee may not use his public office for his own private gain or for that of persons or organizations with which he is associated personally. An employee’s position or title should not be used to coerce; to endorse any product, service or enterprise; or to give the appearance of governmental sanction. An employee may use his official title and stationery only in response to a request for a reference or recommendation for someone he has dealt with in Federal employment or someone he is recommending for Federal employment.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.702 (see Subpart G - Misuse of Position; Use of Public Office for Private Gain)

USE OF OFFICIAL TITLE
Generally, an employee engaging in teaching, speaking or writing in his personal capacity may not use his official title or position to identify himself in connection with the activity or to promote any book, seminar, course, program, etc. The two exceptions to this rule are as follows:

1. An employee may allow the use of his title if it is included as part of several other biographical details and the title is given no more prominence than other information; and

2. An employee may allow the use of his title in connection with an article published in a scientific or professional journal provided there is an appropriate disclaimer.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.807(b) (see Subpart H - Outside Activities; Teaching, Speaking and Writing)

An employee engaging in fundraising in his personal capacity is also prohibited from using his official title, position or authority. In addition, he cannot solicit funds or other support from a subordinate or from any person that has business with his component.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.808(c) (see Subpart H - Outside Activities; Fundraising activities)

PERSONAL USE OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
An employee should recognize her responsibility to protect and conserve government property and resources, and to make an honest effort to use official time and government property only for official business. 5 C.F.R. § 2635.704 through .705 Use of Government property, and Use of official time.

An employee may not use the official time of another employee for anything other than official business. The use of any government property, including computers and the Internet, for any partisan political activities is always prohibited.

Department of Justice employees are generally authorized to make minimal personal use of most office equipment and library facilities where the cost to the Government is negligible and on an employee’s own time. 28 C.F.R. § 45.4. This is the Department’s de minimis use policy, and would permit an employee to send a short, personal electronic message to another individual. However, personal messages sent to large groups of people and messages sent to disseminate information on non-Governmental activities, such as charitable events and causes, commercial activities such as personal businesses, and religious observances, are prohibited.

If an employee of the Department of Justice has questions about the Department’s rules covering the limitations on personal use of government equipment and resources, or questions about whether planned personal use of office equipment is permitted, she should consult with her supervisor, or her ethics official.

USE OF NON-PUBLIC INFORMATION
An employee may not engage in a financial transaction using nonpublic information nor allow the use of such information to further his private interests or those of another. Nonpublic information is information an employee gains on the job which has not been made available to the general public and is not authorized to be made available upon request.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.703 (see Subpart G - Misuse of Position; Use of Non-public Information)

USE OF OFFICIAL TIME
An employee shall use official time in an honest effort to perform official duties. Generally, personal activities should not be conducted during duty hours.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.705 (see Subpart G - Misuse of Position; Use of official time)

DISCLOSING PROCUREMENT INFORMATION
An employee is prohibited from disclosing contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information to any person other than one authorized to receive such information.

48 C.F.R. § 3.104-4-5

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION ON OFFICIAL STATIONERY
An employee may sign a letter of recommendation using his official title and office letterhead in response to a request for an employment recommendation or character reference for someone provided it is based on his personal knowledge of the ability or character of the person. In addition, the individual must be someone with whom the employee has dealt with in the course of his Federal employment or someone he is recommending for Federal employment.

5 C.F.R. § 2635.702(b) (see Subpart G - Misuse of Position; Use of public office for private gain).

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Judicial Watch Sues for Documents on Obama DOJ Effort to Shut Down Clinton Foundation Investigation

Judicial Watch Files Supreme Court Brief against Government Abuse

Judicial Watch Fights for Rule of Law in Battle with Anti-Trump Politicians