Weekly Update: The IG Report

Inspector General Destroys DOJ and FBI Credibility 
Hearing Set on Motion to Compel Email Testimony from Hillary Clinton
Major Judicial Watch Victory!  The Supreme Court Decides for Clean Elections in Ohio
DOJ Must Provide More Details on Podesta-Clinton Communications

Inspector General Destroys DOJ and FBI Credibility

The Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s scandalous email practices is out, and as I predicted, it has destroyed the credibility of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

It confirms what we have investigated and revealed for nearly two years. The Obama DOJ/FBI investigation of Clinton was rushed, half-baked, rigged, and irredeemably compromised by anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias and actions. It is outrageous to see a politicized FBI and DOJ then so obviously refuse to uphold the rule of law.

The IG report details repeated DOJ/FBI deference to Hillary Clinton, her aides and their lawyers. Americans should examine the report and judge for themselves whether the over-the-top deference to Hillary Clinton can be explained as anything other than political, especially from agencies that at the same time were actively collaborating with the Clinton campaign’s Fusion GPS to spy on and target then-candidate Trump. The IG report details how at least five top FBI agents and lawyers exchanged pro-Clinton and anti-Trump communications. The IG shares the concerns of Judicial Watch and millions of Americans that this bias cast a cloud over the credibility of the Clinton email and Russia investigations.

An incredible example of this bias was found in a text message of FBI official Peter Strzok, who promised to “stop Trump” from becoming President. Strzok was both the lead FBI agent on the sham Clinton investigation and on the anti-Trump Russia investigation!

As we have demonstrated through independent investigations and lawsuits, there is more than enough evidence that Clinton knowingly and intentionally mishandled classified information while using a non-government email system to conduct government business.

Will the Sessions Justice Department now do the right thing and conduct a Clinton email investigation properly? Or will it let James Comey and Loretta Lynch have the last word on Hillary Clinton’s evident email crimes?

In the meantime, we will continue our FOIA lawsuits and investigations into the Clinton email scandal and the related Obama administration cover-up.

We have numerous lawsuits and document productions regarding the issues raised by the IG, including the conduct of Andrew McCabe, the Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting, the Strzok-Page communications, the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton, and DOJ collusion with the Clinton campaign.

The IG report is just the beginning. And Judicial Watch will take it from here!

Hearing Set on Motion to Compel Email Testimony from Hillary Clinton

Judicial Watch doesn’t wait for IG reports or Congress – we are an independent organization that does its own investigations and lawsuits. So, for all the noise about the Clinton email investigation, Judicial Watch is the only entity still in court that may get additional testimony from Mrs. Clinton about her email practices.

A federal court just ordered a hearing for Thursday, October 11, 2018, on a motion to compel testimony about the email practices of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued the order.

This major development comes in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit, which seeks records regarding the authorization for Abedin to engage in outside employment while employed by the Department of State, was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was required to submit, under oath, written answers to our questions. Clinton objected to and refused to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department cybersecurity officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails. Judge Sullivan is considering our motion to compel answers to these questions.

In her responses sent to the court and us on October 13, 2016, Clinton refused to answer three questions and responded that she “does not recall” 20 times concerning her non-government clintonemail.com email system. She preceded her responses by eight “general objections” and two “objections to definitions.” The words “object” or “objection” appear 84 times throughout the 23-page document submitted to the court and Judicial Watch.

Judge Sullivan will also hear arguments on our motion to compel testimony from former State Department Director of Information Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat John Bentel (who asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer 87 questions at his deposition) and our motion to unseal the audiovisual recordings of all depositions. We took the testimony of key Clinton aides and State Department senior officials, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, but the videotapes of the depositions are currently under seal.

It is not surprising that Mrs. Clinton refused to answer key questions about her conduct. Perhaps she thought that we, like Obama’s FBI and Justice Department, would just let it go. We haven’t – and neither have the courts.

Major Judicial Watch Victory!  The Supreme Court Decides for Clean Elections in Ohio

The Supreme Court issued important decision to uphold efforts by Ohio to maintain accurate voting rolls. It was a big victory for clean elections and, as you’ll see below, Judicial Watch!

It is also a clear victory for the citizens of Ohio and America who want clean and fair elections. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. The Supreme Court decision should send a signal to other states to take reasonable steps to make sure that voters who died or moved away no longer remain on their voter rolls.

Leftists opposed to election integrity suffered a big defeat with this decision. Frankly, this and their other assaults on clean election measures suggest the organized left and their politician allies want to be able to steal elections if necessary. This is also a big institutional win for Judicial Watch, because it means that our current settlement agreement with Ohio is valid and enforceable.

The Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law providing that the State had to send address confirmation notices to all registered voters who had not voted in the previous two years. This ruling has the effect of also upholding a 2014 settlement agreement between us and Ohio, which required Ohio to use that same procedure as part of a regular Supplemental Mailing designed to identify whether registered Ohio voters had moved away – one of many steps intended to fulfill Ohio’s obligations under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to maintain the integrity of its voter list.

We filed several amicus briefs supporting Ohio’s efforts at every level of the federal court system as the case progressed from the trial court all the way up to the Supreme Court. The case was on appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which held Ohio’s process was in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) (Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State v. Philip Randolph Institute, et al. (No. 16-980)).

Our amicus brief argued that the Sixth Circuit ruling would adversely affect its settlement agreement with Ohio were it allowed to stand. We also pointed out that failing to respond to an address confirmation notice does not mean that a registration is removed from the voter rolls. It merely triggers another waiting period, which can last up to four more years, during which the registrant still has the right to vote. In all, it can take up to six years before a registration is cancelled under the process.

Attorney Robert Popper, the director of our Election Integrity Project, joined with five other former attorneys of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in filing an amici curiae brief in the Husted case.

We previously filed a lawsuit under the NVRA against Indiana, which resulted in the state taking several actions to clean up its voter rolls. Our lawsuits against Ohio and Indiana were the first private lawsuits under the NVRA. We are currently suing Kentucky, California and Los Angeles over their failures to remove ineligible voters as required by the NVRA, and we are suing the State of Maryland and Montgomery County over their failure to release voting-related records.

We won this latest Supreme Court battle, but the Judicial Watch fight for election integrity continues across the nation.

DOJ Must Provide More Details on Podesta-Clinton Communications

The bureaucrats in The Deep State Swamp know every trick in the book for blocking inquiries into their actions. It is a good thing when the courts see through these sleights of hand. Here’s a good example.

In an unusual Saturday ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ordered the U.S. Justice Department to provide more information about its search of former top Obama DOJ Official Peter Kadzik’s communications with then-Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, Clinton campaign officials, and others.

The court order, issued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requires the Justice Department to provide additional details by June 15, 2018.

According to WikiLeaks, on May 19, 2015, Kadzik, using a Gmail account, sent Podesta an email appearing to tip-off Clinton’s 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.

Saturday’s order follows a June 6 hearing in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department on January 15, 2017, for:

All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account [email protected] and any non-government employee concerning, regarding, or relating to 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 [email protected] and John Podesta; and

All email correspondence between Peter Kadzik on either his official Justice Department email account or [email protected] and any official, officer, or employee of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

We argue that the Justice Department has refused to provide sufficient details about the search of Kadzik’s personal email account.

Judge Friedrich found that the Justice Department’s sworn representations about Kadzik’s search of his records were “incomplete”:

Although the [Justice Department] states that “Mr. Kadzik confirmed that he did not recall ever using his personal Gmail account to send any other similar e-mails to John Podesta, or to anyone else associated with the Clinton campaign,” … this statement does not cover the full scope of Judicial Watch’s specific FOIA requests.

The court ordered the DOJ to submit a supplemental declaration by June 15, 2018, that provides any additional details regarding Kadzik’s representations regarding whether his Gmail account contained agency records or potential agency records.

The DOJ is to provide details regarding two manual searches that Mr. Kadzik reportedly conducted. Also, the DOJ is to indicate, whether Kadzik opened and reviewed individual e-mails or just reviewed the titles, and which folders Kadzik reviewed when conducting his manual searches.

We are obviously pleased that the court ordered the Justice Department to provide more details about its search for documents about Obama DOJ-Clinton campaign collusion. Yet it is disappointing that we must continually battle the Sessions Justice Department for basic information on corruption in the Obama Justice Department.

Unsurprisingly, Kadzik’s conduct related to his communications with the Clinton campaign are criticized in this week’s big IG report. And it is once again up to Judicial Watch to continue the accountability efforts on this scandal.

Until next week …