July 20, 2007

 

From the Desk of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton:

 

 

JW Files Lawsuit to Obtain Hillary Clinton Documents from Clinton Presidential Library

 

As Hillary Clinton moves forward in her goal to become President of the United States (according to latest Zogby poll  she’s got a comfortable 12 point lead over Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination), Judicial Watch continues to investigate the corrupt record Hillary compiled while last in the White House, serving as “co-president” in the first Clinton administration. 

 

On July 16, we filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to obtain access to documents from the Clinton Presidential Library related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as First Lady.  Specifically, Judicial Watch seeks, “First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s calendar, to include but not limited to her daily office diary, schedule, day planner, telephone log book, and chronological file.”  (Judicial Watch is seeking Mrs. Clinton’s records from January 1, 1993 to January 20, 2001, the time period during which she served as First Lady.)

 

The Archives, which operates and maintains Clinton Presidential Library records, failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s April 5, 2006, Freedom of Information Act request, forcing JW to file a lawsuit.

 

Why are we interested in Hillary’s calendar and other records from the 1990s?  Here’s how we put it in our complaint:

 

“Given Mrs. Clinton’s current status as a presidential candidate, if not the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination, the public interest in her tenure as First Lady is undeniable.  Because Mrs. Clinton seeks our nation’s highest office and may well be the next President of the United States, the public interest weighs heavily in favor of enjoining the Library from continuing to withhold the records at issue.”

 

As proof of the “public interest” in these records, Judicial Watch’s press release announcing the Clinton Library lawsuit was published verbatim on the popular news website The Drudge Report, which registers more than 15 million readers per day, and received coverage from the Associated Press, which is syndicated to 1,700 newspapers around the world.

 

Overall, the Clinton Presidential Library contains more than 80 million pages of documents and 20 million e-mails from the Clinton administration that were supposed to be made available to the public on January 20, 2006.  At the time of their “release,” US News and World Report speculated Judicial Watch would be “first in line” to file open records requests to obtain them.  If we weren’t first in line, we were close to it, immediately filing a series of open records requests with the library concerning a number of Clinton administration scandals.  Unfortunately, more than a year later, only a portion of the records has been released.  (Click here to see some of the records we’ve already uncovered.)

 

There is no question that uncovering the truth about Hillary Clinton’s activities in the White House is just as relevant today as it was during the Clinton era.  The law is clear.  The Clinton White House documents must be released.  We hope the federal court compels the Archives to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.

 

I’ll have more on this in the coming weeks, for sure.

 

Federal Government Agrees to Pay Judicial Watch $842,500 to Settle Lawsuit Related to Clinton Scandal

Speaking of Clinton corruption from the 1990s…

On July 6, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved an agreement by the federal government to compensate Judicial Watch $842,500 in attorney’s fees and costs from a lengthy and contentious Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that sought access to records concerning an infamous Clinton Administration fundraising scandal.  (An appellate court upheld the award on December 1, 2006, after a more-than twelve year court battle between Judicial Watch and the U.S. Department of Commerce.)

 

In short, our lawsuit involved a scheme by Clinton administration officials to sell seats on taxpayer-funded trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.  When Judicial Watch began investigating the scandal, Clinton administration officials deliberately concealed and destroyed records regarding the trade missions to avoid releasing them to Judicial Watch. 

 

In fact, Ms. Nolanda Hill, a business partner and confidante of then-Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, testified at a dramatic court hearing during the litigation that the Clinton White House “instructed” Brown "to delay the [Judicial Watch] case by withholding the production of documents prior to the 1996 elections, and to devise a way not to comply with the court’s orders." 

 

Ms. Hill also testified that Brown, who was killed in a plane crash during a trade mission to Bosnia, admitted to her that Hillary Clinton conceived of the scheme to sell trade mission seats.  Specifically, the court heard testimony on how Brown allegedly complained about being “Hillary’s [expletive] tour guide.”

 

Our lawyers deserve a tremendous amount of credit for their work on this lawsuit.  As was noted by the lower court, “…disclosures made as a result of this litigation spurred two Congressional committee investigations and a Federal Election Commission investigation into [the Commerce Department’s] alleged sale of foreign mission trade seats. Further, the DOC revised its trade mission participant selection policy to explicitly exclude consideration of past political contributions and activities.”  In addition, a criminal inquiry was launched by the Justice Department and FBI. 

 

Judicial Watch’s efforts in this case provided an important measure of accountability for the Clintons in one of the most damaging corruption scandals in recent history.  However, at the same time, Bill and Hillary Clinton still have much to answer for in this scandal.  Let’s hope the media begin to ask the right questions.

 

Judge Orders Hearing in JW Lawsuit on Behalf of Jailed Border Patrol Agents

 

On Monday, July 23, Judicial Watch attorneys will be in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia trying to compel the Department of Homeland Security to release documents related to the federal prosecution of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were sent to jail for shooting and wounding an illegal alien drug smuggler in the buttocks.  (For this “crime,” the agents were given 11 and 12 year jail sentences respectively.)

 

In January, Judicial Watch filed a series of FOIA requests with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the State Department.  All three agencies failed to respond to these requests or turn over documents, forcing us to file a lawsuit in March.  Judge Richard J. Leon, who is presiding over the case, ordered the hearing, which is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

 

Here’s what we want to know: What kind of “deals,” if any, were made between the U.S. and Mexican government related to how the incident was handled (or, more likely, mishandled).  It just seems odd to us that the federal government would choose to so aggressively prosecute two agents following the shooting incident, which took place in February 2005, while providing the illegal alien drug smuggler free medical care for his wounds and full immunity for his testimony.

 

Of course, the case of Ramos and Compean received more media attention this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee held its own hearing to investigate the matter.  Following the hearing, even liberal Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is usually on the side of the illegals, called on President Bush to commute the jail sentences. 

 

(In fact, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2006 from the Department of Homeland Security that describe incidents along the nation’s southern border involving shots fired on both sides, unmarked Mexican helicopters invading U.S. airspace, drug smuggling, and confrontations between U.S. Border Patrol agents and armed members of the Mexican military.)

 

Let’s hope that the Court orders the various government agencies to begin releasing documents to us so we can help the public learn more about these highly controversial prosecutions. 

 

 

Until Next Week 

 

Tom Fitton

President

  

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