Judicial Watch Sues for Docs on
Obama DOJ Effort to Shut Down Clinton Foundation Investigation
Michael
Loccisano/Getty Images
By
Tom Fitton
3
Dec 2018, Washington, DC932
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. They 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).
All
records of communication, including but not limited to e-mails (whether sent or
received on .gov or non-.gov e-mail accounts), text messages, or instant chats,
sent between officials in the offices of the FBI Director, Deputy Director and
General Counsel on the one hand, and officials in the offices of the Attorney
General, Deputy Attorney General and or Principal Associate Deputy Attorney
General on the other hand, regarding the closure or possible closure of an
investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
Remember
that it was their 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.
Judicial
Watch have since uncovered many other instances of seeming pay-to-play and
favoritism for the Clinton Foundation at the Clinton State Department.
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:
McCabe
[who was fired as deputy director of the FBI] told the OIG that on August 12,
2016, he received a telephone call from PADAG [Principal Associate Deputy
Attorney General, likely Matthew Axelrod] regarding the FBI’s handling of the
CF [Clinton Foundation] Investigation (the “PADAG call”). McCabe said that
PADAG expressed concerns about FBI agents taking overt steps in the CF
Investigation during the presidential campaign. According to McCabe, he pushed
back, asking “are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated
investigation?” McCabe told us that the conversation was “very dramatic” and he
never had a similar confrontation like the PADAG call with a high-level
Department official in his entire FBI career.
Reportedly,
senior DOJ officials refused FBI requests to issue subpoenas on Clinton
Foundation issues in 2016.
In
January 2018, information surfaced that the FBI reportedly launched a new
investigation into potential Clinton Foundation pay-to-play, but there has been
no indication it is proceeding.
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.
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At the time, we looked in this blog at the topic from our perspective, in detail:
Jerzy Chojnowski
Chairman-GTVRG e.V.
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