Weekly Update: Another Clinton Cover-Up
Judicial Watch Sues for Coup Documents
Hillary Clinton has Russia Collusion Problem
DC Mayor Gives Open Borders Group 100,000 Tax Dollars
Judicial Watch Stands Up for the Cross in the Supreme Court
Judicial Watch Sues for Coup Documents
Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, fired after being accused of lying by the DOJ Inspector General, is having his day, boasting of what is effectively a coup attempt against President Trump.
We’d like to know more about that, and we have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communications of McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussing the 25th Amendment or presidential fitness.
Additionally, we are seeking all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President.
We sued after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). Our lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.
On February 14, 2019, McCabe stated in an interview with CBS that “there were conversations about the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th Amendment and confirming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire around the president.”
After President Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, top DOJ officials reportedly discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
President Trump recently tweeted: “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.”
It was reported in September 2018 that Rosenstein suggested that he secretly record President Trump in the White House in an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and have President Trump removed. Our immediate follow-up FOIA requests were ignored.
It is no surprise that we are facing an immense cover-up of senior FBI and DOJ leadership discussions to pursue a seditious coup against President Trump. This effort to overthrow President Trump is a fundamental threat to our constitutional republic. For that reason we will do everything we can in the courts to expose this lawlessness.
Hillary Clinton has Russia Collusion Problem
All of the huffing and puffing about President Trump and Russia these past two years effectively took the spotlight off Hillary Clinton and her foundation’s activities. That, I suspect, is the purpose of the Mueller/Comey/Rosenstein/McCabe farce. Our chief investigative reporter, Micah Morrison, updates us in his latest Investigative Bulletin.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump presidential campaign dominates the news, but behind the scenes another bombshell story is coming together piece by piece. Was the Clinton network knee-deep in Russians, and did the FBI shut down an investigation that would have provided answers about Clinton collusion?
Judicial Watch is one of the few organizations in pursuit of the story. We filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department after it failed to respond to our request for “all communications” related to “the closure or possible closure of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation” in 2016. Last week, in a separate lawsuit, we uncovered evidence pointing to undisclosed documents related to controversial FBI official Andrew McCabe and potential charges against Mrs. Clinton.
We sued for records of a meeting between a top FBI official and an attorney for a Clinton-connected law firm related to then-candidate Trump and Russia, a story first reported by Fox News. And we’ve taken a skeptical look at the appointment by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions of U.S. Attorney John Huber to “evaluate certain issues” rising from the 2016 election.
One of those issues is the Uranium One controversy. Russia’s Rosatom atomic energy corporation in 2010 received U.S. permission, including a sign-off from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, to buy Uranium One, a Canadian company that owned significant American uranium assets. Was the Russian purchase of Uranium One connected to payments to the Clinton network and improper actions by Secretary of State Clinton?
Judicial Watch is lonely on the story but not alone. The Hill’s indefatigable John Solomon a year ago broke the news that the Clinton Foundation was under FBI investigation. “The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state,” Solomon reported.
Earlier this month, Solomon was at it again. Revisiting an episode that has “escaped significant attention,” Solomon reports that there is “clear evidence now that shows Hillary Clinton’s family and charity profited from Moscow and simultaneously facilitated official government actions benefitting Russia.”
The episode centers around the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a high-tech business center launched in Moscow in 2009. Five years later, as Skolkovo entities expanded in the U.S., the FBI issued an extraordinary public warning, saying that the Skolkovo connection “may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies.”
Solomon notes that Secretary of State Clinton’s “handprint was everywhere” on the Skolkovo project, part of an attempt by the U.S. to reboot Russia relations. Leading the Russian side of the project was oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a Putin-connected billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor. Firms connected to the oligarch donated at least $75,000 to the foundation. As the Skolkovo collaboration got underway, Solomon reminds us, Bill Clinton made his way to Moscow and was paid a jaw-dropping $500,000 for a speech to a Russian investment bank, Renaissance Capital.
Solomon reports that Bill Clinton sought permission from the State Department to meet with Vekselberg and “Arkady Dvorkovich, a senior official of Rosatom,” during the Moscow trip. This was at the time Rostom was “seeking State’s permission to buy Uranium One.” The Washington Examiner notes that the Clintons’ “relationship to Vekselberg continued throughout Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department.”
Solomon adds additional details on possible Clinton collusion with the Russians—read his full report here. And Viktor Vekselberg certainly is a busy man, making a cameo in the Mueller probe and turning up in various other sketchy endeavors. Not everything in the Russia story comes up as collusion, cover-up or crime, but Solomon correctly notes that evidence related to Skolkovo, Rosatom and Uranium One “shows that the Clintons financially benefitted from Russia—personally and inside their charity—at the same time they were involved in U.S. government actions that rewarded Moscow and increased U.S. security risks.”
DC Mayor Gives Open Borders Group 100,000 Tax Dollars
Your nation’s capital is doing its best to compete with sanctuary states and cities around the country. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports:
Months after spending $900,000 to supply immigrants and their families with “targeted services and resources,” the mayor of Washington DC is giving an open borders group $100,000 to provide English classes, legal consultants and workshops to help them become American citizens. The mayor, Muriel Bowser, proudly announced this month that the taxpayer allocation “represents the largest such government fund in the nation.” The money will help pay for projects that collaborate with employers to assist immigrant workers with the citizenship process by also hosting seminars, and individual legal consults. “Together, we’re giving more immigrants in our community a fair shot at citizenship,” Mayor Bowser said, bragging about similar programs funded with DC taxpayer dollars. “This grant builds on the work we have done through our Immigrant Justice Legal Services grant program and through the monthly citizenship workshops; it’s an example of how we can work together as a community and use local resources to break down barriers to citizenship.”
Last summer the mayor launched the $900,000 Immigrant Justice Legal Services (IJLS) Grant Program to provide legal services for illegal aliens at risk of being deported under the Trump administration’s stricter immigration policies. The money goes to leftist groups that provide “know your rights” workshops, legal briefings, trainings, mentorships and legal assistance. The program is the first of its kind in Washington DC. The goal, according to Bowser, is to help illegal aliens “navigate a challenging political climate and thrive in our community.” The mayor claims it has “helped bring our DC values to life and has made us a safer stronger DC” by providing immigrants with the knowledge and resources they need to understand their rights. Under the plan, leftist “community-based organizations” receive grants of up to $150,000 to help immigrants.
The recent $100,000 allocation is going to a group called National Immigration Forum that advocates “lawful permanent residence” for the nation’s estimated 11.4 million illegal immigrants. The nonprofit supports “commonsense immigration, citizenship and integration policies” and helps businesses assist immigrant employees with the citizenship process by focusing on “English language learning” to help immigrants become full participants in the workplace, community and economy. “Statistics show a direct correlation between immigrant integration and happier, more effective workers — which directly impacts business profitability,” National Immigration Forum claims. The group’s executive director, Ali Noorani, says the DC taxpayer dollars will help new Americans reach their full potential. “We are proud to partner with Mayor Bowser on this initiative that’s a win-win for Washington, DC, businesses and employees alike,” Noorani said.
DC has long protected illegal immigrants from federal authorities by offering them sanctuary and banning local law enforcement officers from inquiring about suspects’ immigration status. In 2011 DC,’s scandal-plagued mayor, Vincent Gray, signed an executive order making it official by forbidding police and other city agencies from asking about immigration status. The order also guarantees that local law enforcement officials will not detain illegal aliens, report them to federal agencies or even make them available for federal immigration interviews without a court order. As mayor Gray, who still serves on DC’s council despite being embroiled in a multitude of corruption scandals, also introduced a bill give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.
A few years ago, DC tried to pass a measure that would allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in elections. One of the DC councilmen behind the bill, Tommy Wells, said the law was necessary because area residents know all too well what it means to be denied equal voting rights in the United States. “It goes without question that every resident of DC deserves a vote and a voice in our local government,” said Wells, who currently works in the Bowser administration as DC department of Energy and Environment Director.
Judicial Watch Stands Up for the Cross in the Supreme Court
Those on a crusade against public displays of religion are clever in discovering imagined offenses and insisting in the courts that their wild theories be given legal protection.
Such is the case in the use of a cross to honor those who gave their lives in war. In a recent such case the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that government recognition and upkeep of a World War I memorial cross is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Well, it’s not, and we’ve filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court asking the court to reverse the decision (The American Legion, et al. v. American Humanist Association, et al.; Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association, et al. (Nos. 17-1717, 18-18)). The court will hear arguments on the case next week, on February 27, 2019.
Here’s some background. The First Amendment provides: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These two clauses comprise the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise clause.”
We argue that the Supreme Court in this case can “clarify the role of the Establishment Clause in relation to the States and set out an unambiguous legal standard by which Establishment Clause violations can be measured.” Additionally, we seek “to highlight the dangerous path this case plays in overt hostility toward religion by the courts.”
We argue that, “applying any of the possible Establishment Clause tests brings about the same conclusion: the Memorial is constitutional.”
We point out that both the plain meaning of the language and the historical context of the Establishment Clause clearly demonstrate “that the Framers intended the Clause to be a restriction on federal interference with and establishment of religion…”
Our brief details the use of the cross through American history to honor our nation’s war dead and notes that “the cross has become synonymous with veteran sacrifice.” Our brief presents the Supreme Court with actual photos of such memorial crosses across the country.
The time-honored cross monuments to America’s honored dead should especially be defended by courts, both because military sacrifice made possible the guarantee of our constitutional rights and because it is the duty of the courts to honor the Constitution as written by the Framers.
This is an opportunity for the court to protect the free expression of religion against the predations of activist judges who seek to remove religion from the public square.
Until next week …
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton
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