A Republic Under Assault Page 14
Schiff, with the full support of the Pelosi-run House, responded to our lawsuit with incredible assertions of privilege.
In just one fourteen-page motion opposing our suit, Schiff and the committee claim “sovereign immunity”; “Speech or Debate Clause” privilege; immunity from FOIA and transparency law; that the records are secret; and that Judicial Watch and the public do not need to see them.
Schiff’s filing to try to avoid disclosing his abusive subpoenas of confidential phone records suggests he and Congress can secretly subpoena and publish the phone records of any American with zero accountability under law to the people. Speaker Pelosi and every House member should be asked if they agree that they are above the law and can spy on any American.
This case raises very serious questions about your constitutional rights and the power of Congress to violate them. One might think this abuse is about President Trump, but it is broader than that—it is about whether Congress has the right to spy on any American without a warrant approved by a court.
The “coup” isn’t just against President Trump, fellow American, the coup is against you.
SECTION THREE OUR REPUBLIC (STILL) UNDER ASSAULT… FROM HILLARY CLINTON
Hillary Clinton did it.
When it comes to pursuing the origins of the spying abuse and seditious conspiracy against President Trump, all roads lead to Hillary.
The abusive Mueller investigation in particular had the side-benefit of freezing the Justice Department from doing the necessary audit and review of the corrupted pretend investigation of the Clinton email and other scandals by the Obama administration. Surely, Mueller and the DOJ Deep State weren’t going to investigate its partner in crime in the targeting of Trump. Clinton world was a central source of the smears that were ginned up to help create the Mueller special counsel operation—an operation run by Hillary Clinton’s political supporters.
Confucius supposedly said: “Study the past if you would define the future.”
Judicial Watch studies the past to protect our future.
We must never forget one of the most shameful episodes in our recent past: that being former president of the United States Barack Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with mourning family members present, staring into TV cameras and lying to the American people about the slaughter at Benghazi.
Because of those lies, because of that past, and because of the subject of this section, is timely to remember the role Judicial Watch played in uncovering the truth about Benghazi. It was our lawsuit on Clinton’s handling of Benghazi that directly led to the discovery of her illicit email system.
That illicit email system and the attempts to deny its existence and then delete the emails and destroy the servers and hard drives holding them precipitated—and activated—successive scandals. Scandals involving highly corrupt elements of the FBI and Department of Justice that not only refused to investigate Clinton and her illicit emails, but were part of the cover-up.
It is for that reason and more why the Hillary Clinton email scandal and its subsequent cover-up is still so incredibly relevant today. The Obama/Clinton machine’s desperate concern about the legal and political consequences of the Clinton email corruption issue, as I’ve suggested, helps explain their motive for the distraction of the Russiagate smears against President Trump. The fact is—and always will be—that some operatives associated with Barack Obama were desperate to protect Hillary Clinton’s 2016 candidacy—and cover up for her—for a variety of self-serving and nefarious reasons.
These Obama operatives—as well as Hillary loyalists—knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hillary Clinton’s email scandal was pure kryptonite to her and her presidential campaign. So, in order to stave off any further investigations and distract from that scandal, a number of these operatives jumped at the chance to smear candidate Donald J. Trump with false allegations regarding his campaign and Russia.
They did so knowing full well they had the mainstream media and the Deep State in the bag.
They just didn’t count on Judicial Watch and its millions of supporters working as one to drag the scandal and its many participants into the light of day.
HILLARY CLINTON—CORRUPTION MATTERS
Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump in 2016 in part as a consequence of the nonstop, diligent work of Judicial Watch. It is fair to say she could be sitting in the Oval Office if we hadn’t caught her in her email cover-up. We had begun our investigations years earlier not because she was a candidate but because we knew she was corrupt, and our long experience with her and her husband’s corruption taught us that they would continue their scheming at the State Department.
In 2015, Judicial Watch broke the Clinton email scandal wide open. For years previous, we had been pushing the Clinton (and the Kerry) State Department for material tied to the infamous Benghazi terrorist attack and Hillary Clinton’s conflicts of interest that resulted from her husband’s well-paying “speaker” racket and the infamous Clinton Foundation. Thanks to Judicial Watch’s relentless pressure, the Obama administration fessed up to the Clinton emails and had to begin an accounting to the courts and the American people.
It quickly became apparent that Mrs. Clinton set up and used a private server to hide her emails from Judicial Watch and other investigators. This meant that classified information was improperly stored and transferred. When she left office, she took tens of thousands of government emails, including classified information, and attempted to destroy or hide half of the emails (33,000) even after they were all subpoenaed by Congress (and subject to review under FOIA for Judicial Watch!).
Her unprecedented subversion of the Freedom of Information Act led to two courts reopening Judicial Watch FOIA cases. I am aware of no precedent for this—that’s how extraordinary Hillary Clinton’s email misconduct was. One of these courts was led by none other than Judge Emmet Sullivan, the same judge who would later be assigned the General Flynn prosecution, which we all now know to be a frame job set in motion by the Obama administration and pursued by a corrupt FBI and Justice Department. In 2016, Judge Sullivan granted Judicial Watch discovery on the Clinton email issue. Discovery is the ability to gather evidence (including testimony under oath, either in writing [by “interrogatories”] or in-person testimony, known as “depositions”). This resulted in senior Clinton-era State Department officials having to answer, under oath, questions from attorneys about the Clinton email scheme.
The Comey-run FBI seemed to be in a conundrum. Senior Obama administration officials, including President Obama, corresponded with Hillary Clinton via her nongovernmental emails. In fact, we confirmed at least nineteen email communications between Hillary Clinton and then-president Obama, all of which are being withheld, ironically, by the Trump State Department.
Barack Obama signaled where the “investigation” was going early on. As the DOJ inspector general June 2018 report states about its investigation of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation documents:
On Sunday, October 11, 2015, an interview of then President Barack Obama was aired on the CBS show 60 Minutes. During this interview, Obama characterized former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server as a “mistake,” but stated that it did not “pose a national security problem” and was “not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” Obama also stated that the issue had been “ginned up” because of the presidential race. Two days later, on October 13, 2015, Obama’s Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, was asked whether Obama’s comments “should be read as an attempt to steer the direction of the FBI investigation.” Earnest replied that Obama made his comments based on public information, and they were not intended to influence an independent investigation.
Former President Obama’s comments caused concern among FBI officials about the potential impact on the investigation. Former EAD John Giacalone told the OIG, “[W]e open up criminal investigations. And you have the President of the United States saying this is
just a mistake.… That’s a problem, right?” Former AD Randy Coleman expressed the same concern, stating, “[The FBI had] a group of guys in here, professionals, that are conducting an investigation. And the… President of the United States just came out and said there’s no there there.”
President Obama’s involvement in the campaign for his successor was also unusual and must have added to the pressure (to not only put the Clinton email aside but to target then-candidate Trump). One would have to go back nearly a century to find an incumbent president involve himself as directly in the campaign for his successor as President Obama did in 2016. When you consider the direct partnership we uncovered between Clinton campaign operatives (and lawyers) and the Obama FBI/DOJ/State Department in the effort to get Trump, it would be fair to conclude that the Obama administration had effectively become an arm of the Clinton presidential campaign.
And then there was the secret tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and then attorney general Loretta Lynch. On June 27, 2016, Lynch met with former president Bill Clinton on board a parked plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. The private meeting only became public thanks to the reporting of local Phoenix reporter Christopher Sign. The meeting occurred during the then-ongoing investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and only a few days before she was interviewed by the Justice Department and FBI.
The tarmac meeting also came just days before Comey held the July 5, 2016, press conference in which he announced that no charges would be filed against Mrs. Clinton. Judicial Watch launched an immediate investigation and lawsuit that exposed and ended a FBI cover-up of key Clinton tarmac meeting records.
The FBI originally informed Judicial Watch they could not locate any records related to the tarmac meeting. However, in a related FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department located emails in which DOJ officials communicated with the FBI and wrote that they had communicated with the FBI. As a result, by letter dated August 10, 2017, the FBI stated, “Upon further review, we subsequently determined potentially responsive documents may exist. As a result, your [FOIA] request has been reopened.…”
Cover-up exposed.
The FBI then gave us two batches of documents they originally said they never had.
The new FBI documents show FBI officials were concerned about a leak that Bill Clinton delayed his aircraft taking off in order to “maneuver” a meeting with the attorney general. A resulting story in the Observer causes a flurry of emails about the source of the article. FBI official(s) write “we need to find that guy” and that the Phoenix FBI office was contacted “in an attempt to stem any further damage.” Another FBI official, working on Lynch’s security detail, suggests instituting nondisclosure agreements. The names of the emails authors are redacted. There are zero documents showing concern about the propriety of the meeting itself.1
Another batch of FBI docs we were told never existed included emails by notorious FBI official Peter Strzok. In a previously unseen email, on July 1, 2016, Strzok forwarded to Bill Priestap, assistant director of FBI counterintelligence, and other FBI officials an article in the New York Times titled “Lynch to Remove Herself from Decision Over Clinton Emails, Official Says.” Priestap comments on it, saying: “The meeting in PX is all over CNN TV news this morning…” Strzok replies: “Timing’s not ideal in that it falsely adds to those seeking the ‘this is all choreographed’ narrative. But I don’t think it’s worth changing… later won’t be better.” Priestap responds, “Agreed.”
What were they discussing “changing”? The context suggests Comey’s pending announcement a few days later that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be recommended for prosecution by the FBI.
When was the decision made to let her off? Long before July. Incredibly, our lawsuit for tarmac documents backed into an email from Strzok that suggests the decision on how to end the Clinton email matter has been under discussion since April 2016—three months before then–FBI director James Comey announced he would recommend no prosecution.
Another July 1, 2016, email from an unidentified official in the FBI Security Division sent to his colleagues bears the subject line “Media Reports***Not for Dissemination***.” It was sent in the wake of the tarmac meeting. An FBI official warns his colleagues, “Our job is to protect the boss from harm and embarrassment” (emphasis in original). He emphasizes that FBI officials should ask themselves “What issues are currently being reported in the media? And what actions/interactions/situations that the Director may be in could impact them.” The official then cites an example of a public relations disaster near-miss when Comey’s plane “literally just missed Clinton’s plane” when they flew into White Plains [New York] Airport a few months earlier, and saying, “Imagine the optics and the awkward situation we would have put the Director in [if] we would have been at the FBO at the same time as Secretary Clinton.”
This is all incredible.
These emails are astonishing, and it’s no wonder the FBI hid them from Judicial Watch and the court. They suggest anti-Trump, pro-Clinton FBI agent Peter Strzok admitting the decision not to prosecute the Clinton email issue was made back in April 2016—long before even Hillary Clinton was interviewed. And the emails show that the FBI security had the political objective of protecting then-director Comey from “embarrassment”—which is, frankly, disturbing.
Also disturbing was the Justice Department’s decision to withhold from us the details of the “talking points” used by the Lynch Justice Department to respond to inquiries about the Bill Clinton–Lynch meeting. I found it jaw-dropping that the Trump administration blacked out key information about how the Obama Justice Department tried to spin Loretta Lynch’s scandalous meeting with Bill Clinton.
In subsequent, May 3, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey stated that the Lynch-Clinton tarmac meeting was the “capper” among “a number of things” that had caused him to determine that Department of Justice leadership “could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.” So because he couldn’t trust Lynch, Comey decided to be FBI director, attorney general, and public scold all at once!
The IG concluded this was inappropriate. I think Hillary Clinton “got away” with serious crimes. But she also is an American citizen who has rights to be treated fairly under law. So for Comey to hold a press conference attacking her, based on a FBI investigation that recommended no prosecutions, was an absolute abuse. Comey wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. Protect his and the FBI’s reputation by attacking Clinton while dishonestly advocating to let her skate on rather obvious violations of law. As the IG concluded in a mild reprimand:
We concluded that Comey’s unilateral announcement was inconsistent with Department policy and violated long-standing Department practice and protocol by, among other things, criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct. We also found that Comey usurped the authority of the Attorney General, and inadequately and incompletely described the legal position of Department prosecutors.
The Clinton email investigation was also irredeemably compromised by two FBI officials who will surely be known as among the most notorious couples in modern American history: Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.
PAGE-STRZOK: THE FBI’S COMPROMISED LOVEBIRDS
Lisa Page was a senior attorney in the FBI who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Peter Strzok was a senior FBI agent who had risen to be the lead counterintelligence agent who ran both the Clinton email and Trump Russiagate investigations.
They were reportedly having an affair while running these investigations and exchanging text messages that detailed anti-Trump and pro–Hillary Clinton sentiments.
The anti-Trump animus in the text messages is overwhelming:
August 16, 2015, Strzok: “[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out.”
February 12, 2016, Strzok: “Oh, [Trump’s] abysmal. I keep hoping the charade will end
and people will just dump him. The problem, then, is Rubio will likely lose to Cruz. The Republican party is in utter shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered?”
March 3, 2016, Page: “God trump is a loathsome human.”
March 3, 2016, Strzok: “Omg [Trump’s] an idiot.”
March 3, 2016, Page: “He’s awful.”
March 3, 2016, Strzok: “God Hillary should win 100,000,000–0.”
August 26, 2016, Strzok: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.…”
They go on and on like this. When it came to Hillary Clinton, who was then under criminal investigation, they were much more sensitive. As the DOJ inspector general recounts:
February 24, 2016: In connection with a discussion about how many people from the FBI and Department should be present during a potential interview of former Secretary Clinton, Page stated in a February 24, 2016 text message to Strzok, “One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more doj than fbi?” Strzok replied, “Agreed.…”
But when it came to investigating Trump, the duo was loaded for bear. Again, from the IG:
July 31, 2016: In connection with formal opening of the FBI’s Russia investigation, Strzok texted Page: “And damn this feels momentous. Because this matters. The other one did, too, but that was to ensure we didn’t F something up. This matters because this MATTERS. So super glad to be on this voyage with you.”
August 8, 2016: In a text message on August 8, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”