A Republic Under Assault Read online

  Asked how Walter responded, Hackett said, “My recollection is, she agreed with me.”

  “The other thing that we did, or I did at that time, was, we wanted to find out what this BlackBerry meant,” Hackett testified. “So we tasked—my recollection is, we verbally tasked Tasha Thian, the department’s Records Manager at that time, to look into the BlackBerry. And I believe Tasha contacted Clarence Finney in the Secretary’s office to ask him what he knew about the former Secretary’s emailing habits.”

  Asked what Thian found out, Hackett responded: “I don’t recall exactly what she found out, but she didn’t find out much. Tasha also contacted the part of the State Department that’s part of the intelligence community, and Intelligence and Research Bureau, to ask to see if there were any classified emails on—in the classified systems that the Secretary might have produced. And I do recall that I think Tasha came back with the answer that they did not have any.”

  Hackett went on to say, “There was a lot of confusion about exactly what that BlackBerry, you know, meant at that time. You had a concern as to how the department was responding to FOIA requests that related to Secretary Clinton’s emails after you saw the photograph of the Secretary holding a BlackBerry.… My recollection is—and I had only been there two months—that someone had told me that—and I can’t remember—that she did not have an email account, a government email account. So there was obviously a contradiction here when, you know, there’s that photograph. So we were just trying to find out what was the ground truth. So that’s why I had a concern about issuing responses that said no records had been located.”

  Hackett also said he knew of other employees in the State Department who were using their personal email accounts for government business and that “some were senior officials, too.”

  Asked who the senior officials were, Hackett responded: “I can’t remember the time frame, but the IG did a couple of studies, reviews. I think the ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, was cited as using her personal email account. That’s one that comes to my mind.”

  Hackett said: “We knew that some employees at times had a personal email address for Hillary Clinton, and that they might forward something to her at times. That’s the only thing that we knew. At that time I did not know who those employees were. I mean, the—the gist of that email I remember was one person saying to the other person, don’t use that—remember, you’re not supposed to use that email. But I don’t remember who those people were. I think one of them might have been in Public Affairs.”

  Here’s my take on his testimony: It’s disturbing. It points to an Obama administration conspiracy to hide and destroy Hillary Clinton emails. Even worse, the testimony suggests Clinton’s Benghazi emails were underclassified in order to protect Hillary Clinton (and mislead Congress). Attorney General Barr needs to prioritize reopening the Clinton email investigation. We’ve heard much about “whistleblowers” these days. Most of the anti-Trump whistleblowers were nothing of the sort—they were government employees who simply had policy disagreements or thinly disguised hatred for President Trump. In Hackett’s case, he described actual government misconduct. Remember, his testimony happened over the objections of the Justice and State Departments!

  OUR DIGGING PAYS OFF: COURT GRANTS SIGNIFICANT NEW DISCOVERY IN CLINTON EMAIL CASE

  All of that investigative work with State Department official John Hackett and many others ultimately only had one goal in mind: to get to the truth and paint Hillary Clinton into a corner and force her to directly answer questions from Judicial Watch.

  Precisely because of the work of Judicial Watch, Judge Lamberth granted us the right to question more witnesses and gather some more documents about the Clinton email abuses. The judge held a hearing on the issue about a year ago and again spanked the government over its gamesmanship.

  “There is no FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence,” noted Judge Lamberth, after reviewing the evidence Judicial Watch had already gathered that shot down the Justice/State attempts to argue we had no “Good cause” for more discovery. He stated: “Today the good cause continues from whether or not State was acting in good faith, and I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.”

  Judge Lamberth went to call the government’s arguments “preposterous” and cited a prior Judicial Watch FOIA case in which he ordered U.S. marshals to seize records from a Clinton administration official:

  I’ll tell you another thing I didn’t like in your brief. I’ll tell you right now upfront. You put in your brief the most preposterous thing, I thought, in your brief was the very idea that—let me read you the line. “Competitive Enterprise Institute was a case of first impression.”… Now, that wasn’t a case of first impression at all. The first impression with me was a case I had involving Ron Brown and the travel records of whether or not, in the Commerce Department—and it was a Judicial Watch case—whether or not the Commerce Department was selling seats on trade missions, and I had a Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce who took a box of records home and then they gave a no-records response and, in the course of that, I found out he had taken the records home and they said they had no records. I sent marshals over and they got the box at his house, and I ordered them—the marshals—to seize the records. That was the first case.

  The court also stated that the government has mishandled this case and the discovery of information including former Secretary Clinton’s emails so poorly that Judicial Watch may have the ability to prove the they acted in “bad faith,” which would entitle us to attorney’s fees.

  Judge Lamberth detailed how the State Department “spent three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear,” and that after discovering the State Department’s actions and omissions, “Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.”

  Judge Lamberth stated his goal was to restore the public’s faith in their government, which may have been damaged because of the Clinton email investigation.

  Below is the court’s ruling from the bench granting Judicial Watch’s significant new discovery. It is worth your close reading:

  First, let me clarify the Government’s misunderstanding. We’re not reopening discovery here. Discovery never closed. Back in January, I said, quote, The Government will—the Court will hold a post-discovery hearing to ascertain the adequacy of State’s searches; to determine if Judicial Watch needs to depose additional witnesses, including Hillary Clinton or her former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills; and to schedule dispositive motions, unquote. So June 19th was a checkpoint, not a finish line. And whether Judicial Watch previously knew about some of the other individuals it now wants to depose is beside the point. They tailored their initial discovery request to the facts and questions then before the Court.

  Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.

  Remember what got us started down this path in the first place. In late 2014 and early 2015, at least some State Department officials knew Secretary Clinton’s emails were missing; they knew Judicial Watch didn’t know that; they knew the Court didn’t know that, but the Department pressed forward trying to settle this case. So I authorized discovery into whether these settlement efforts amounted to bad faith.

  Now, the Government says, quote, there is simply no factual basis to justify any further discovery on that subject, unquote, but Judicial Watch’s most recent submission lays out the following:

  It appears that in the middle of 2013, State’s Office of Information and Program Services launched an inquiry into Clinton’s email practices.

  It appears that in August 2013, that office directed FOIA responders to stop issuing, quote, no record loca
ted, unquote, responses to FOIA requests for Clinton’s emails.

  It appears that by the summer of 2014, State knew a large volume of Clinton’s emails had never been searched, potentially violating FOIA and record management obligations. It turns out State had a standing meeting every Wednesday afternoon during the summer of 2014 to discuss Clinton-related FOIA inquiries. Attendees included Secretary Kerry’s Chief of Staff; his Deputy Chief of Staff; the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources; the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs; several attorneys; and Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary for Management. That’s every Wednesday afternoon.

  It appears that in August 2014, State began planning for media investigations into Clinton’s emails.

  It appears that in November 2014, State told Judicial Watch it performed a legally adequate search and tried to settle. In fact, I think, in my original opinion on authorizing discovery, I noted that State had given a draft Vaughn index to Judicial Watch at that time. I don’t think I have ever seen that, but I think it was given to I think, in my opinion, I said that it had been given to Judicial Watch. Indeed, State spent the next three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear. They kept doing it even after they came into the possession of Clinton’s emails.

  Judicial Watch wants to follow up with the State attorney assigned to this FOIA request to participate in settlement discussions and negotiations. That seems reasonable to me.

  [Judicial Watch] wants to ask the Department official responsible for overseeing FOIA requests more about why he directed his office to stop using “no record located” responses to FOIA requests relating to Clinton’s emails if that, in fact, is what happened. I’m curious, too.

  They want to ask the current Department FOIA overseer more about what went on in those weekly 2014 meetings. I look forward to hearing what he says.

  They want to ask the Justice Department attorney who led the settlement negotiations to divulge when he learned Clinton’s emails were missing. He must answer.

  Another reason we had this initial discovery was to see if Secretary Clinton intentionally attempted to evade FOIA by using a private email. When Judicial Watch deposed the Deputy Director who oversaw State’s FOIA responses, he recalled an instance when in—his office found an email from Clinton’s private account and the Public Affairs team said, Remember, you’re not supposed to use that email. How can you spin that?

  I agree with Judicial Watch that it’s worth deposing the State Department records officer who personally reviewed archiving procedures with Secretary Clinton and her departing staff to see what they discussed.

  I also think Judicial Watch is justified to seek more information about how Secretary Clinton ultimately determined which emails were public records and which were private.

  The final reason I authorized discovery was to determine whether State adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. Now the Government seeks to duck behind an unpublished D.C. Circuit opinion from 2018 holding the Government has already taken every reasonable action under the Federal Records Act to retrieve Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails and no imaginable enforcement action could recover any more.

  But just last week, the Senate’s—Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The Court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

  And the Court agrees with Judicial Watch that it should talk to three never-before-deposed State officials who raised concerns about Clinton’s private email use all the way back to 2009.

  There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.

  The Government also tries to say this Court is—no longer—or no longer presents a live controversy. This is wrong. Judicial Watch can still obtain fees if they prove agency bad faith.

  I’ll close with this. When I authorized discovery back in December, I described my goal: to rule out egregious government misconduct and vindicate the public’s faith in the State and Justice Departments. That’s still my goal today. This isn’t a case I relish, but it’s the case before me now, and it’s a case of the government’s making.

  The Court authorizes Judicial Watch to take the additional discovery described in its status report, except for deposing Secretary Clinton and her Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills. I will give their attorneys 30 days to file any additional opposition to their depositions and 10 days thereafter for Judicial Watch to file any reply.…

  JUDICIAL WATCH “SEARCHES” GOOGLE FOR CLINTON EMAILS

  As referenced above, Judge Lamberth raised concerns about a potential Clinton “Gmail” cache and ordered Judicial Watch to “shake this tree” on the issue. Judge Lamberth noted that Senator Grassley released

  a report in which he had some very troubling information about a guy named Combetta who had been one of the contract employees on the Clinton emails, and he and the Senator who Chairs the Homeland Security Committee released in the Senate this report Friday, and the gist of it was that Combetta had said, I guess, that he had created a dummy email account with all of the Hillary Clinton emails in it in a different name, and the FBI had investigated that to see whether or not the Chinese had ever hacked into it. They have determined that the Chinese hadn’t, but that the FBI never told the State Department about that account and that the emails that were not given over to State could have been obtained from that account, but the FBI never told State about it. So it leaves out in the open whether there are these other emails that State could have obtained but nobody ever bothered to tell State about them. I don’t know the status of that and I’m sure you don’t either, but that did occur to me that would be a problem for me as to whether an adequate examination of that circumstance occurred and, assuming that Combetta deleted them, as he said he did before he took the Fifth, I guess, whether or not the server that they were on or the—or whoever maintained the server, whether they can be reconstructed from—by that…

  * * *

  [J]ust last week, the Senate’s—Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing that Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

  Shaking the tree meant, for the Court, allowing us to issue a subpoena to Google for the Clinton emails:

  Judicial Watch seeks to subpoena Google for relevant documents and records associated with Secretary Clinton’s emails during her tenure at State.… The subpoena seeks to discover new emails, so it certainly relates to whether State conducted an adequate search.

  * * *

  The Court is not confident that State currently possesses every Clinton email recovered by the FBI; even years after the FBI investigation, the slow trickle of new emails has yet to be explained. For this reason, the Court believes the subpoena would be worthwhile and may even uncover additional previously undisclosed emails. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS this request.

  Once again, a federal court, tired of the government’s stonewalling and games, authorized Judicial Watch to do the basic legwork on the Clinton email issue. DOJ and State are AWOL and covering up for Hillary Clinton, so it again is up to Judicial Watch to do the basic investigative heavy lifting to get at the truth.

  Google did pony up illuminating evidence about never-before-seen Clinton emails. After a painstaking review of the data, our preliminary analysis suggests there seems to be 260 Clinton emails that appear to be work-related and appear to not have been previously identified either in the emails that Secretary Clinton provided to State in 2014 or among the emails that the FBI recovered and turned over to the State Department. So what is in these emails? We don’t have that data yet. But this whole episode shows that Judicial Watch is able to uncover leads and basic inf
ormation missed by the vaunted FBI!

  FBI MAGICALLY “FINDS” CLINTON EMAILS

  Remember when Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails?

  As the joke goes: “How do you know a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.”

  Well… Hillary’s lips were surely moving then.

  In response to a court order in a Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.”

  We’ve known for a while that this was not the case.

  Now there’s more proof. The State Department turned over to us thirty-seven pages of new Clinton emails recently “found” by the FBI that provide more evidence of how the former secretary of state used her unsecure, nongovernment email to transmit classified information. The new emails also show Clinton used text messages for government business.

  Here’s how poorly these emails were handled. The State Department did not provide information about where they were found, why they were not previously produced, or if additional records are anticipated. In fact, the Justice Department attorney could not tell Judge Lamberth how and where the FBI discovered the new cache of Clinton emails.

  The State Department previously claimed it had produced all responsive Clinton emails, including emails recovered by the FBI that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or withhold. The State Department initially claimed all responsive emails had been produced in 2018, but then found more emails, which were produced, for the first time, early last year. Then in November 2019, the State Department first disclosed to the court that the FBI had found this latest batch of emails.