Tag: State Department

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Federal Court Orders Deposition of Hillary Clinton on Emails and Benghazi Attack Records

Hillary_Clinton_bbc

 

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, Judicial Watch today announced that U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted Judicial Watch’s request to depose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about her emails and Benghazi attack documents. The court also ordered the deposition of Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills and two other State Department officials.

Additionally, the court granted Judicial Watch’s request to subpoena Google for relevant documents and records associated with Clinton’s emails during her tenure at the State Department.

Continue reading Federal Court Orders Deposition of Hillary Clinton on Emails and Benghazi Attack Records

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Clinton in Paramus for Murphy ,Judicial Watch releases Conflict-of-Interest Rulings that led to $48 Million in Income for Clinton Entities

Bill Clinton

October 24,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Paramus NJ, Bill Clinton is coming to Paramus to campaign for Phil Murphy The Democratic front-runner in New Jersey’s governor’s race today . This coincides with the latest Judicial Watch announced of the release of more than 200 conflict-of-interest reviews by State Department ethics advisers of proposed Bill Clinton speaking and consulting engagements during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The documents were obtained as result of a federal court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department on May 28, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00772)). The lawsuit is ongoing.

June 2011 documents show that the State Department approved a consulting arrangement with a company, Teneo Strategy, led by controversial Clinton Foundation adviser Doug Band. The Clintons ended the deal after only eight months, as criticism mounted over Teneo’s ties to the failed investment firm, MF Global.

Mr. Clinton’s office proposed 215 speeches around the globe. And 215 times, the State Department stated that it had “no objection.”

Mr. Clinton’s speeches included appearances in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Central America, Europe, Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan, India and the Cayman Islands. Sponsors of the speeches included some of the world’s largest financial institutions—Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, American Express and others—as well as major players in technology, energy, health care and media. Other speech sponsors included a car dealership, casino groups, hotel operators, retailers, real estate brokers, a Panamanian air cargo company and a sushi restaurant.

“These documents are a bombshell and show how the Clintons turned the State Department into a racket to line their own pockets,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “How the Obama State Department waived hundreds of ethical conflicts that allowed the Clintons and their businesses to accept money from foreign entities and corporations seeking influence boggles the mind. That former President Clinton trotted the globe collecting huge speaking fees while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy is an outrage. No wonder it took a court order to get these documents. One can’t imagine what foreign policy issues were mishandled as top State Department officials spent so much time facilitating the Clinton money machine.”

Under established protocols of the State Department, and supplemented by a December 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between the Clinton Foundation and Obama Presidential Transition Team, a designated ethics official from the State Department’s legal office was assigned to review any “potential or actual conflict of interest” for Mrs. Clinton while she served as secretary of state. Copies of all decisions were sent to a top adviser to Secretary Clinton, Cheryl Mills, who served as counselor and chief of staff at the Department of State.

The Washington Examiner published a report today on the documents by Judicial Watch Chief Investigative Reporter Micah Morrison and Examiner Senior Watchdog Reporter Luke Rosiak. Morrison and Rosiak note that Mr. Clinton “earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.”

According to the State Department documents:

Mr. Clinton spoke before a UBS Wealth Management audience in Chicago in April, 2012. The State Department document notes that attendees would be “approximately 300-400 ultra-high net worth clients, prospective clients, and UBS Financial Advisers.”

Mr. Clinton spoke to an event hosted by Wells Fargo in San Francisco in October, 2011. The State Department document notes that the event is “being held for Wells Fargo Private Bank and Wells Fargo Family Wealth Group clients, which are clients that have at least $5 million and $50 million in assets respectively.”

At a “mutually agreeable date” in April 2010, Mr. Clinton was due to speak at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. “This would be a private speech of up to 350 friends and patrons on Mohegan Sun,” the State Department document noted. “The event will not be open to the public. The event will not be publicly advertised.”

For a speech in Moscow in June 2010 sponsored by the investment bank Renaissance Capital, Mr. Clinton would address the theme of “Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States: Going Global.” The document notes that “Renaissance Capital is an investment bank focused on the emerging markets of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

At the Ritz Carlton in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, Mr. Clinton spoke at a March 2011 ticketed event targeting “the business community in Grand Cayman.”

The potential for conflicts of interest between Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and Bill Clinton’s international ventures grew increasingly controversial in late 2008 when the former president released a list of donors to his library and foundation in what he termed “a deal between” Obama “and Hillary.” According to an AP wire story, “Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the foundation. Other government donors include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman …” CNN at the time warned that Clinton’s “complicated global business interests could present future conflicts of interest that result in unneeded headaches for the incoming commander-in-chief.”

The controversy deepened further when it was revealed that among those vetting Mrs. Clinton for the job of Secretary of State was Bill Clinton’s former deputy White House counsel Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton family confidant, who, the Washington Postwrote in 1999 “endeared herself to the Clintons with her never-back-down, share-nothing, don’t-give-an-inch approach …” After clearing Mrs. Clinton for the DOS job, Mills was named the incoming Secretary’s Chief of Staff. Ms. Mills was a featured speaker at Bill Clinton’s 2012 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.

In an April 28, 2008, ruling relating to Ms. Mills conduct as a White House official in responding to concerns about lost White House email records, Judge Royce C. Lamberth called Cheryl Mills’ participation in the matter “loathsome.” He further stated Mills was responsible for “the most critical error made in this entire fiasco… Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem.” Ms. Mills is currently on the Board of Directors of BlackRock, a leading investment firm. BlackRock is run by Larry Fink who reportedly wanted to be Treasury Secretary for Barack Obama and now, according to another report, is “angling for the job” in a Hillary Clinton administration.

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District Court Rules that State Department Must Make Public FBI Declaration on Clinton Email Retrieval Efforts

Hillary_Clinton_bbc

September 3,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington, DC, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding today’s ruling by United States District Judge James E. Boasberg that the Department of State must make public a FBI declaration detailing its efforts to retrieve Hillary Clinton’s government emails (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Rex Tillerson (No. 1:15-cv-00785)):

We’re happy with the ruling but it is unbelievable we’re being opposed by Trump appointees in the State and Justice Department’s on the Clinton email issue.  President Trump ought to be outraged his appointees are protecting Hillary Clinton. The State Department should initiate action with the Justice Department – and both agencies should finally take the necessary steps to recover all the government emails Hillary Clinton unlawfully removed.

On April 30, 2015, Judicial Watch sued former Secretary John Kerry after the State Department failed to take action on a letter sent to Kerry “notifying him of the unlawful removal of the Clinton emails and requesting that he initiate enforcement action pursuant to the [Federal Records Act],” including working through the Attorney General to recover the emails. After initially being dismissed by the district court, Judicial Watch’s lawsuit was revived on appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on December 27, 2016. The Federal Records Act states that an agency head “shall” initiate an action through the Attorney General when he becomes aware of any unlawful removal of agency records.

While at the State Department, Clinton conducted official government business using an unsecure email server and email accounts. Her top aides and advisors also used non-“state.gov” email accounts to conduct official business. Clinton left office February 1, 2013.

The Trump administration defended handling of the email matter by the Obama administration filed two declarations from the FBI trying to justify the State Department’s refusal to follow the law and refer to the Clinton email issue to the Justice Department.  As the decision notes, the second FBI declaration is non-public and was filed in camera and ex parte with the court.  Judge Boasburg today rejected the State Department’s arguments that the FBI declaration be withheld to protect grand jury secrecy:

After reviewing the document in camera, the Court concludes it largely rehashes information already made public, thus obviating any need for secrecy.

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Federal Court Orders State Department to Conduct a Search of Benghazi Emails of Hillary Clinton’s Closest Advisors

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AUGUST 10, 2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC in what can only be considered a major victory for Judicial Watch, Thursday they announced that on August 8, 2017, D.C. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ordered the State Department “to search the state.gov e-mail accounts of Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and Jacob Sullivan,” former aides of Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State. The State Department is ordered to search in those accounts “for records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] March 4, 2015, FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request.” (A separate Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit first broke open the Clinton email scandal.)

Judge Mehta described Judicial Watch’s Clinton Benghazi FOIA lawsuit as “a far cry from a typical FOIA case. Secretary Clinton used a private e-mail server, located in her home, to transmit and receive work-related communications during her tenure as Secretary of State.” Further:

[I]f an e-mail did not involve any state.gov user, the message would have passed through only the Secretary’s private server and, therefore, would be beyond the immediate reach of State. Because of this circumstance, unlike the ordinary case, State could not look solely to its own records systems to adequately respond to [Judicial Watch’s] demand.

***

[The State Department] has not, however, searched the one records system over which it has always had control and that is almost certain to contain some responsive records: the state.gov e-mail server. If Secretary Clinton sent an e-mail about Benghazi to Abedin, Mills, or Sullivan at his or her state.gov e-mail address, or if one of them sent an e-mail to Secretary Clinton using his or her state.gov account, then State’s server presumably would have captured and stored such an e-mail. Therefore, State has an obligation to search its own server for responsive records.

***

State has offered no assurance that the three record compilations it received [from Secretary Clinton and her aides], taken together, constitute the entirety of Secretary Clinton’s e-mails during the time period relevant to Plaintiff’s FOIA Request. Absent such assurance, the court is unconvinced “beyond material doubt” that a search of the state.gov accounts of Abedin, Mills and Sullivan is “unlikely to produce any marginal return.”

***

Accordingly, the court finds that State has not met its burden of establishing it performed an adequate search in response to Plaintiff’s FOIA Request and orders State to conduct a supplemental search of the state.gov e-mail accounts of Abedin, Mills, and Sullivan.

“This major court ruling may finally result in more answers about the Benghazi scandal – and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in it – as we approach the attack’s fifth anniversary,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is remarkable that we had to battle both the Obama and Trump administrations to break through the State Department’s Benghazi stonewall. Why are Secretary Tillerson and Attorney General Sessions wasting taxpayer dollars protecting Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration?”

Judicial Watch asked a federal court to compel the Trump State Department to undertake a thorough search of all emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the terrorist attack on Benghazi, including those of Clinton’s closest advisors. Judicial Watch also specifically asked the court to compel the agency to produce all records of communications between Clinton and top aide Jake Sullivan relating to Ambassador Susan Rice’s appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the Sunday following the 2012 Benghazi massacre.

The State Department has until September 22, 2017, to update the court on the status of the supplemental search and production of additional emails to Judicial Watch.

On May 6, 2015, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit when the State Department failed to respond to a March 4, 2015, FOIA request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00692)), seeking:

All emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton relating to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The timeframe for this request is September 11, 2012 to January 31, 2013.

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THE Smoking Gun Clinton Email ?

Clinton email scandal

New Hillary Clinton Email Confirms She Used Blackberry Against Security Advice    
June 11, 2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, What did the Russians know, and when did they know it? A question for today and President Trump? Actually we should be asking this about the years when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The illicit system she cobbled together to send and receive emails was essentially transparent to the Russians and, for that matter, anyone else with a smidgen of technical expertise.

As the latest example of this, we have submitted new evidence to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan showing that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly used an unsecure BlackBerry device despite being warned by “security hawks” against doing so.

Judicial Watch  obtained the email record in a response to a court order from our May 5, 2015, lawsuitagainst the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to our March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking: “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-‘state.gov’ email address.”

The new document brings the known total to date to at least 433 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department. These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.

The email was sent to Susan Kennedy, presumably former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff. Kennedy wrote Clinton on March 7 2009: “Just in case you are still allowed to carry your blackberry, your friends are watching with great pride.” Clinton responded on March 8, 2009:

Against the advice of the security hawks, I still do carry my berry but am prohibited from using it in my office, where I spend most of my time when I’m not on a plane or in a “no coverage” country.

The email, uncovered by Judicial Watch and written by Clinton, demonstrates that she reviewed or was at least informed about a March 6, 2009, Information Memo from Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell to Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills in which he wrote that he “cannot stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving email, and exploiting calendars.” [Emphasis added]

In a recent court filing pertaining to the pending motion to compel Clinton to answer interrogatory questions she refused to answer under oath, Judicial Watch argues that interrogatory 14 is particularly important:

Interrogatory 14 seeks to uncover why Secretary Clinton continued using a personal BlackBerry to conduct State Department business after being advised of the risks in doing so. This interrogatory is pertinent because Secretary Clinton’s personal BlackBerry was an integral part of the operation of the clintonemail.com system, a subject squarely within the scope of discovery. It was how she accessed her email. Without her personal BlackBerry, there likely would have been no clintonemail.com system because the Secretary did not use a desktop or laptop and a State Department BlackBerry would have linked to an official “state.gov” email account.

We submitted the questions to her under a court order on August 19, 2016, in a separate lawsuit.

Mrs. Clinton seemingly ignored the advice of “security hawks” and violated numerous laws related to the handling of classified material and government documents. The State Department sat on this document for 18 months. It is a smoking gun that shows why she must held accountable under criminal and civil law.

Clinton refused outright to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails.

In her responses sent to Judicial Watch and the court 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.

The Clinton responses to interrogatives were received in the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which was first filed in September 2013 seeking records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to Clinton (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)). The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about theclintonemail.com system.

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Court Rules State Department Must Release Clinton Emails Detailing Obama Response to Benghazi

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May 5,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washinton DC, Judicial Watch today announced that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered the U.S. Department of State to turn over to Judicial Watch “eight identical paragraphs” of previously redact material in two September 13, 2012, Hillary Clinton emails regarding phone calls made by President Barack Obama to Egyptian and Libyan leaders immediately following the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. Both emails had the subject line “Quick Summary of POTUS Calls to Presidents of Libya and Egypt” and were among the emails stored on Clinton’s unofficial email server. Judge Jackson reviewed the documents directly and rejected the government’s contention that the records had been properly withheld under the FOIA B(5) “deliberative process” exemption.

Judge Jackson ruled: “the two records, even if just barely predecisional, are not deliberative. [The State Department] has pointed to very little to support its characterization of these two records as deliberative, and the Court’s in camera review of the documents reveals that they do not fall within that category.”

The full emails may reveal what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama knew about the September 11, 2012, terror attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Following Judge Jackson’s March 20 ruling, the State Department asked the court to reconsider. The State Department argued that, due to an internal “mistake,” it failed to claim that the emails were classified and, therefore, exempt from production under FOIA Exemption B(1).

In response, Judicial Watch argues that the failure was not a mistake, but instead was part of a deliberate effort by the State Department to protect Clinton and the agency by avoiding identifying emails on Clinton’s unofficial, non-secure email server as classified.

Judicial Watch’s filing cites an interview of an FBI employee who told federal investigators that top State Department official Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to keep Clinton’s emails unclassified. The employee told the FBI he “believes STATE ha[d] an agenda which involves minimizing the classified nature of the CLINTON emails in order to protect STATE interests and those of CLINTON.” [Emphasis in original]

Judicial Watch’s filing also cites an interview of a State Department employee who told the FBI that the State Department’s Office of Legal Counsel interfered with the FOIA processing of email from Secretary Clinton’s server, instructing reviewers to use Exemption B(5) (deliberative process exemption) instead of Exemption B(1) (classified information exemption). According to the FBI interview:

STATE’s Near East Affairs Bureau upgraded several of CLINTON’s emails to a classified level with a B(1) release exemption . [Redacted], along with [Redacted] attorney, Office of Legal Counsel, called STATE’s Near East Affairs Bureau and told them they could use a B(5) exemption on a upgraded email to protect it instead of the B(1) exemption. However, the use of the B(5) exemption, which is usually used for executive privilege-related information, was incorrect as the information actually was classified and related to national security, which would be a B(1) exemption.

Judicial Watch argues:

An agency’s deliberate withholding of a FOIA claim, either to gain a tactical advantage or, as appears to be the case here, to protect the agency’s interests and those of its former head, is “a motive undoubtedly inconsistent with FOIA’s broad remedial purpose …” It “counsels denying the Government’s request.”

The emails in question were sent to then-top administration officials, including Clinton, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Jacob Sullivan, Special Assistant Robert Russo, and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough.

“Does President Trump know his State and Justice Departments are still trying to provide cover for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “An extraordinary court ruling that could result in key answers about the Benghazi outrage is being opposed by the Trump administration. This may well be an example of the ‘deep state’ trying to get away with a cover up – if so then the Trump administration must put a stop to it.”

Judicial Watch obtained the original documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)). The lawsuit was filed on September 4, 2014, after the State Department failed to respond to a June 13, 2014, FOIA request seeking:

All records related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.
The timeframe for this request is September 11-15, 2012.

Judicial Watch’s numerous FOIA lawsuits have forced the State Department to release hundreds of Benghazi-related documents.

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State Dept. carries out layoffs under Rex Tillerson

CEO of ExxonMobil Rex Tillerson

By MARGARET BRENNAN, KYLIE ATWOOD CBS NEWS February 17, 2017, 12:44 AM

While Rex Tillerson is on his first overseas trip as Secretary of State, his aides laid off staff at the State Department on Thursday.

Much of seventh-floor staff, who work for the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the Counselor offices, were told today that their services were no longer needed.

These staffers in particular are often the conduit between the secretary’s office to the country bureaus, where the regional expertise is centered. Inside the State Department, some officials fear that this is a politically-minded purge that cuts out much-needed expertise from the policy-making, rather than simply reorganizing the bureaucracy.

There are clear signals being sent that many key foreign policy portfolios will be controlled directly by the White House, rather than through the professional diplomats.

Not a single State Department official was included in the White House meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – who has  no regional expertise or diplomatic experience –  had a greater role in the meeting than the Senate-confirmed secretary of State.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-dept-layoffs-under-rex-tillerson-being-carried-out/

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Trump administration asks top State Department officials to leave

CEO of ExxonMobil Rex Tillerson

By Elise Labott, CNN

Updated 3:23 PM ET, Thu January 26,2017

Washington (CNN)Two senior administration officials said Thursday that the Trump administration told four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to “clean house” at Foggy Bottom.

Patrick Kennedy, who served for nine years as the undersecretary for management, Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs Joyce Anne Barr and Michele Bond, and Ambassador Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions, were sent letters by the White House that their service was no longer required, the sources told CNN.

All four, career officers serving in positions appointed by the President, submitted letters of resignation per tradition at the beginning of a new administration.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html

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State admits: Islamic State terrorists trying to pose as refugees

Chelsea bombing

By PETE KASPEROWICZ (@PETEKDCNEWS) • 9/21/16 8:41 AM

State Department spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Wednesday that Islamic State terrorists are trying to mingle with refugee populations overseas in the hopes of making it to the U.S. posing as a refugee.

“I wouldn’t debate the fact that there’s the potential for ISIS terrorists to try to insert themselves, and we see that in some of the refugee camps in Jordan and in Turkey, where they try to insert themselves into the population,” Kirby said on “Fox and Friends.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-isis-terrorists-try-to-pose-as-refugees/article/2602405

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Government For Sale :New Abedin Emails Reveal Hillary Clinton State Department Gave Special Access to Top Clinton Foundation Donors

hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make

August 23,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Crown Prince of Bahrain Forced to Go Through Foundation to See Clinton, after Pledging $32 Million to Clinton Global Initiative

Hollywood Executive Casey Wasserman, Slimfast Mogul Daniel Abraham, Controversial Appointee Rajiv Fernando also among Clinton Foundation Donors Granted Special Favors from Clinton State Department

Washington, DC,more news today on the never ending saga of Hillary Clinton email scandel . On top of the already know fact of Clinton mishandling classified information at the detriment to national security, now more evidence surfaces of “government for sale” by the Clinton State department throught the Clinton Foundation.

Judicial Watch released 725 pages of new State Department documents, including previously unreleased email exchanges in which former Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin provided influential Clinton Foundation donors special, expedited access to the secretary of state. In many instances, the preferential treatment provided to donors was at the specific request of Clinton Foundation executive Douglas Band.

The new documents included 20 Hillary Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to 191 of new Clinton emails (not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department).  These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.

The Abedin emails reveal that the longtime Clinton aide apparently served as a conduit between Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton while Clinton served as secretary of state. In more than a dozen email exchanges, Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances, Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin. In Abedin’s June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of her job at the State Department was taking care of “Clinton family matters.”

Included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange revealing that when Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain requested a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, he was forced to go through the Clinton Foundation for an appointment. Abedin advised Band that when she went through “normal channels” at State, Clinton declined to meet. After Band intervened, however, the meeting was set up within forty-eight hours. According to the Clinton Foundation website, in 2005, Salman committed to establishing the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Program (CPISP) for the Clinton Global Initiative. And by 2010, it had contributed $32 million to CGI. The Kingdom of Bahrain reportedly gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. And Bahrain Petroleum also gave an additional $25,000 to $50,000.

From: Doug Band

To: Huma Abedin

Sent: Tue Jun 23 1:29:42 2009

Subject:

Cp of Bahrain in tomorrow to Friday

Asking to see her

Good friend of ours

From: Huma Abedin

To: Doug Band

Sent: Tue Jun 23 4:12:46 2009

Subject: Re:

He asked to see hrc thurs and fri thru normal channels. I asked and she said she doesn’t want to commit to anything for thurs or fri until she knows how she will feel. Also she says that she may want to go to ny and doesn’t want to be committed to stuff in ny…

From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]

Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:35:15 AM

To: Doug Band

Subject:

Offering Bahrain cp 10 tomorrow for meeting woith [sic] hrc

If u see him, let him know

We have reached out thru official channels

Also included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange in which Band urged Abedin to get the Clinton State Department to intervene in order to obtain a visa for members of the Wolverhampton (UK) Football Club, one of whose members was apparently having difficulty because of a “criminal charge.” Band was acting at the behest of Casey Wasserman, a millionaire Hollywood sports entertainment executive and President of the Wasserman Foundation. Wasserman has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation through the Wasserman Foundation.

From: Tim Hoy [VP Wasserman Media Group]

Date: Tue. 5 May 2009 10:45:55 – 0700

To: Casey Wasserman

Subject: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

Casey: Paul Martin’s [popular English footballer] client [Redacted] needs to get an expedited appointment at the US Embassy in London this week and we have hit some road blocks. I am writing to ask for your help.

The Wolverhampton FC is coming to Las Vegas this Thursday for a “celebration break.” [Redacted] so he cannot get a visa to the US without first being “interviewed” in the visa section of the US Embassy in London …

I contacted Senator Boxer’s office in SF for help … They balked at the criminal charge and said they “couldn’t help.”

I’m now trying to get help from Sherrod Brown’s office but that’s not going well either. So do you have any ideas/contacts that could contact the US Embassy in London and ask that they see [Redacted] tomorrow?

From: Casey Wasserman

To: Doug Band; Trista Schroeder [Wasserman Media Group executive]

Sent: Tue May 05 2:23:50 2009 [PT]

Subject: FW [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

Can you help with the below [Hoy email], or maybe Huma??? I am copying trista as I am on the plane in case I lose connection … thx.

From: Doug Band

Sent: Tue May 05 7:08:21 2009 [ET]

To: Casey Wasserman; Trista Schroeder

Subject: Re: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

Will email her.

From: Doug Band

To: Huma Abedin

Sent: Tue May 5 7:26:49 2009

Subject: Fw: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

[As per subject line, Band apparently forwarded Abedin material sent to him by Casey.]

From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 7:39:38 PM

To: Doug Band

Subject: Re: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

I doubt we can do anything but maybe we can help with an interview. I’ll ask.

From: Huma Abedin

To: Doug Band

Sent: Tue May 05 5:50:09 2009

Subject: Re: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

I got this now, makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask.

From: Doug Band

To: Huma Abedin

Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 7:43:30 PM

Subject:  Re: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter

Then don’t

The Abedin emails also reveal that Slimfast tycoon S. Daniel Abraham was granted almost immediate access to then-Secretary of State Clinton, with Abedin serving as the facilitator. According to the Clinton Foundation website, Abraham, like the Wasserman Foundation, has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. The emails indicate that Abraham was granted almost immediate access to Clinton upon request:

From: Huma Abedin

To: H

Sent: Mon May 04 4:40:34 2009

Subject: Danny

Danny abraham called this morning. He is in dc today and tomorrow and asked for 15 min with you. Do u want me to try and fit him in tomorrow?

From: H

To Huma Abedin

Sent: Mon May 04 5:14:00 2009

Subject: Re: Danny

Will the plane wait if I can’t get there before 7-8?

From: Huma Abedin

Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 5:15:30 PM

Subject: Re: Danny

Yes of course

Additional Abedin emails in which the top Clinton aide intervenes with the State Department on behalf of Clinton Foundation donors include the following:

On Friday, June 26, 2009, Clinton confidant Kevin O’Keefe wrote to Clinton saying that “Kevin Conlon is trying to set up a meeting with you and a major client.” Clinton wrote to Abedin, “Can you help deliver these for Kevin?” Abedin responded, “I’ll look into it asap” Kevin O’Keefe donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Kevin Conlon is a Clinton presidential campaign “Hillblazer” who has raised more than $100,000 for the candidate.

On Tuesday, June 16, 2009, Ben Ringel wrote to Abedin, “I’m on shuttle w Avigdor Liberman. I called u back yesterday. I want to stop by to see hrc tonite for 10 mins.” Ringel donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

On Monday, July 6, 2009, Maureen White wrote to Abedin, “I am going to be in DC on Thursday. Would she have any time to spare?” Abedin responded, “Yes I’ll make it work.” White donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

In June 2009, prominent St. Louis political power broker Joyce Aboussie exchanged a series of insistent emails with Abedin concerning Aboussie’s efforts to set up a meeting between Clinton and Peabody Energy VP Cartan Sumner. Aboussie wrote, “Huma, I need your help now to intervene please. We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months. This is, by the way, my first request. I really would appreciate your help on this. It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick [Gephardt] and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s.” After further notes from Aboussie, Abedin responded, “We are working on it and I hope we can make something work… we have to work through the beauracracy [sic] here.” Aboussie donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

On Saturday, May 16, 2009, mobile communications executive and political activist Jill Iscol wrote to Clinton, “Please advise to whom I should forward Jacqueline Novogratz’s request [for a meeting with the secretary of state]. I know you know her, but honestly, she is so far ahead of the curve and brilliant I believe she could be enormously helpful to your work.” Clinton subsequently sent an email to Abedin saying, “Pls print.” Jill and husband Ken Iscol donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton subsequently appointed Novogratz to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

The newly obtained Abedin emails also contain a memorandum sent to Cheryl Mills from State Department White House liaison Laura Pena revealing that Rajiv Fernando was proposed for his controversial appointment to the sensitive International Security Advisory Board as early as June 2009. Fernando was not actually appointed until 2011, and his appointment raised a firestorm because, according to an ABC News report, “he had no obvious experience in the field.” Fernando donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The Abedin emails reveal that even U2’s Bono got into the act when former Bill Clinton aide Ben Schwerin, who helped set up the Clinton Foundation, urged Abedin to help the aging rock star broadcast from the international space station. In a May 27, 2009, email with the subject line “Bono/NASA,” Schwerin wrote, “Bono wants to do linkup with the international space station on every show during the tour this year.… Any ideas? Thks.” Bono has been a donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. And in 2011, he gathered top entertainers for “A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation.” According to USA Today, “Some tickets were sold to the public for $50 to $550, and premium seats went for $1,000 to $5,000 on the Foundation website.”

“These new emails confirm that Hillary Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “There needs to be a serious, independent investigation to determine whether Clinton and others broke the law.”

This is the tenth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin.  The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) requiring the agency to produce “all emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013, using a ‘non-state’.gov email address.”

In June, Judicial Watch uncovered two batches (here and here) of new Clinton email records through court-ordered discovery.  Twice in May, Judicial Watch uncovered new Clinton emails, including emails that show Clinton knew about the security risk of her BlackBerry (see here and here).

Recently, Judicial Watch released other State Department emails (one batch of 103 pages, the second of 138 pages), with newly discovered Clinton emails also going back as far as January 2009.

In March, Judicial Watch released Clinton State Department emails dating from February 2009 that also call into question her statements about her emails. Those emails contained more evidence of the battle between security officials in the State Department, National Security Agency, Clinton and her staff over attempts to obtain secure BlackBerrys.

On August 9, Judicial Watch produced a 2009 email in which Band directed 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 noted that Chagoury is “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us.” Chagoury has donated between $1 million to $5 million to the Foundation, according to foundation documents. He also pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Hillary Clinton has repeatedly stated that she believes that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails.  In response to a court order in other Judicial Watch litigation, 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.” This new email find is also at odds with her official campaign statement suggesting all “work or potentially work-related emails” were provided to the State Department.

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AIDE SAID CLINTON DIDN’T WANT EMAILS ACCESSIBLE TO ‘ANYBODY’

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BY STEPHEN BRAUN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin said in a legal proceeding that Clinton did not want the State Department emails that she sent and received on her private computer server to be accessible to “anybody,” according to transcripts released Wednesday. Her comments provided new insights into the highly unusual decision by the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate to operate a private email server in her basement to conduct government business as secretary of state.

Abedin also said under oath that she was not aware whether Clinton personally deleted any emails during her tenure as secretary.

Abedin told lawyers for the conservative group Judicial Watch in a deposition Monday that she could not recall whether she or Clinton discussed with any State Department officials Clinton’s use of her server exclusively for government business. Abedin was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department, now works with Clinton’s president campaign and often travels with the candidate. Abedin used an email account on Clinton’s server occasionally for government business, although Abedin also used a government address.

“I assumed it was OK to do,” she testified.

https://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CLINTON_EMAILS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-29-17-38-07

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U.S. Doesn’t Know How Many Foreign Visitors Overstay Visas

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By RON NIXONJAN. 1, 2016

WASHINGTON — The question from the congressman to the Obama administration official was straightforward enough: How many foreign visitors overstay their visas every year?

The reply was simple too, but not in a satisfying way. “We don’t know,” the official said.

The testy exchange during a recent congressional hearing between Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, and Alan Bersin, the assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, highlights what some law enforcement officials call a critical weakness in the United States foreign visa program.

The issue has taken on added urgency as part of a broader examination of immigration policy following the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded. Tashfeen Malik, one of the attackers, was granted entry to the United States under a K-1 visa, also known as a fiancé visa. Her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was an American-born citizen. Both died in a shootout with the police. While Ms. Malik did not overstay her visa, the attack added to fears that a terrorist could exploit gaps in the system.

Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed a law requiring the federal government to develop a system to track people who overstayed their visas. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an entry and exit tracking system was seen as a vital national security and counterterrorism tool, and the 9/11 Commission recommended that the Department of Homeland Security complete a system “as soon as possible.” Two of the 9/11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had overstayed their visas.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/02/us/politics/us-doesnt-know-how-many-foreign-visitors-overstay-visas.html?_r=0

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State Department did nothing to protect Clinton emails after hack

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BY ANITA KUMAR, MARISA TAYLOR AND GREG GORDON

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Despite a hack two years ago that publicly exposed Hillary Clinton’s emails, the State Department took no action to shore up the security of the former secretary of state’s private computer server.

A State Department official said the department could not do anything in response to the March 2013 hack of longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal because it occurred on a non-governmental computer system. The hacked emails, which included Blumenthal’s frequent correspondence with Clinton while she was in office in 2012, were sent by the Romanian hacker to media organizations, which later posted them online.

The disclosure renews questions of when State Department officials first learned that Clinton was doing department business on a private server and what steps they took to safeguard her sensitive diplomatic communications, some of which have been deemed classified.

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article31628900.html#storylink=cpy

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Top Clinton aide accused of receiving overpayments at State Department

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By Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman and Carol D. Leonnig July 31 at 8:59 PM

State Department investigators concluded this year that Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s closest aides, was overpaid by nearly $10,000 because of violations of rules governing vacation and sick leave during her tenure as an official in the department.

The finding — which Abedin has formally contested — emerged publicly Friday after Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters to Secretary of State John F. Kerry and others seeking more information about an investigation into possible “criminal” conduct by Abedin concerning her pay.

The letters also sought the status of an inquiry into whether Abedin had violated conflict-of-interest laws related to her special employment situation, which allowed her to work simultaneously for the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a private firm with close ties to the Clintons.

The finding that Abedin, a longtime Clinton confidante who now serves as vice chairwoman of her presidential campaign, had improperly collected taxpayer money could prove damaging to Clinton’s candidacy, as Republicans charge that government rules were routinely bent to benefit Clinton and her aides.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-clinton-aide-accused-of-receiving-overpayments-at-state-department/2015/07/31/978d622a-3794-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html

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State Department Agrees to Probe Missing Clinton Emails

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By Charles S. Clark
April 10, 2015

The State Department agreed back on April 2 to investigate department-wide email preservation policies in the wake of the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the National Archives and Records Administration announced on Thursday.

Archives’ release of State’s correspondence came hours after a former Archives litigator and other records management experts appearing on a panel expressed anguish at the slow pace at which the government is complying with email recordkeeping requirements.

Secretary of State John Kerry has asked State’s inspector general to review the agency’s recordkeeping and FOIA practices, said the letterfrom Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Information Services Margaret Grafeld. The letter was in response to a March 3 message from Archives Chief Records Officer Paul Wester Jr.

Grafeld’s letter stressed State’s “longstanding demonstrated commitment to managing our records” in partnership with the Archives. It described formation of a “working group” led by Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy last year that produced an August 2014 memo to senior State leaders reminding them of record keeping obligations and warning them not to use private email. “Secretaries Clinton and [Colin] Powell had used non-government accounts during their tenures, but the degree to which records were captured in the department’s systems was unknown,” it said. The 55,000 emails Clinton turned over to State in December, the letter noted, are being reviewed for responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Not included in the response was any information on Clinton’s original decision to set up a private email server.

“Where was everyone?” demanded Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation for the Archives, speaking at an open government panel at the National Press Club Thursday.

https://www.govexec.com/technology/2015/04/state-department-agrees-probe-missing-clinton-emails/109876/?oref=govexec_today_nl