Judicial Watch Settles Lawsuit that Uncovered Hillary’s Unsecure Emails

Judicial Watch Settles Lawsuit that Uncovered Hillary’s Unsecure Emails

We settled our historic 2014 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that sought the emails of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. This suit led directly to the disclosure of Clinton’s use of a nongovernment email server to conduct government business (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242). The settlement commits the State Department to a payment to us of $97,000.

This lawsuit, about the Benghazi scandal, forced the Obama administration to admit to Hillary Clinton’s hidden classified and other government emails in 2015. We uncovered “talking points” created by the Obama White House and other documents showing that statements about the attack made on the eve of the 2012 elections by then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice were false.

On December 6, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides, as well as Susan Rice, to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. Judge Lamberth called the Clinton email system “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

On March 2, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth authorized us to depose Clinton about her emails and the existence of relevant Benghazi attack documents. The court also ordered the deposition of Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, and two other State Department officials. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in an extraordinary intervention, exempted Clinton and Mills from testifying under oath.

The Clinton email scandal uncovered by our simple FOIA lawsuit changed the course of American history and led to Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016.

Our historic lawsuit is now officially over and settled through a remarkable payment of $97,000 by the corrupt State Department. Hillary Clinton ignored the law but received special protection from both the courts and law enforcement. For countless Americans, this double standard of justice destroyed their confidence in the fair administration of justice. Americans would never have known about Hillary Clinton’s classified email and related pay-for-play criminality but for our diligence.

Our lawsuit exposed several key aspects about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

• John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services (IPS) testified under oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.
• Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in June 2016.
• Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create the non-government email system.
• In the interrogatory responses of E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.
• Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testifiedthat both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business.
• Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified that Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and personal emails to transmit classified material.

To read more about this case, click here.

Records Reveal at Least 23 Biting Incidents by Biden’s Dog Commander

There is a special sort of craziness and corruption when a president and first lady allow their dog to repeatedly attack Secret Service and White House personnel.

We’ve uncovered more incident in 269 pages of records from the U.S. Secret Service related to aggression by President Biden’s dog Commander, including at least 23 biting incidents. After one incident, East Wing public tours were stopped for approximately 20 minutes due to the blood on the floor from the attack in the area of the “Booksellers.”

We obtained the records through an October 2023 FOIA lawsuit after the Secret Service (a component of the Department of Homeland Security) failed to respond to a July 31, 2023, request for all records involving the “Biden family dog, ‘Commander,’ including but not limited to communications sent to and from [Secret Service] officials in the Uniformed and Non-Uniformed Divisions involved in White House operations and the Presidential Protection Division” (Judicial Watch Inc, v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-02960).

Additionally, we filed a February 13 complaint for Biden dog records dating from August and September 2023 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-00429)).

Our FOIA requests and lawsuits exposed initial White House falsehoods about the severity and number of attacks by the Bidens’ previous dog, Major. We then received a tip that Commander was also attacking Secret Service personnel and uncovered documents last July showing 10 biting incidents.

According to a Judicial Watch source, President Biden mistreated his dogs. The source disclosed that Biden punched and kicked his dogs.

The latest records we forced out include a spreadsheet of 22 incident reports between October 2022 and June 2023, 10 of which required medical treatment.

On June 15, 2023, Dep. Asst. Dir. Darryl Volpicelli sent a report via email regarding an agent who received a “deep bite” by Commander while “inside the Kennedy Garden.” The incident shut down East Wing tours for 20 minutes:

Video of the incident shows SA [redacted] enter the Kennedy Garden while Commander, who was off the leash and on the opposite side of the garden at the time, run at a high rate of speed towards SA [redacted] jump towards [redacted] and take [redacted] to the ground. [Redacted] (grounds keeper), who was also in the garden at this time, put Commander on a leash after the bite occurred.

SA [redacted] said that [redacted] looked around the garden before entering it and did not see the family pet.

SA [redacted] sustained an injury to [redacted] left arm (‘deep bite’) that reportedly needed stitches. SA [redacted] was treated by [White House Medical Unit] at the Residence Clinic.

East Wing Tours were stopped for approximately 20 minutes due to blood from the incident being on the floors in the area of the Booksellers.

A January 28, 2023, email chain discusses three biting incidents, “2 incidents today and one yesterday.” Later that day, a Presidential Protection Division official whose name is redacted emails Senior White House Advisor Anthony Bernal that “Commander bit one of the Navy Staff” who worked at Camp David.

A photo is attached to a June 11, 2023, email from the Presidential Protection Division to Volpicelli with the subject line “Dog Bite.” The photo shows the torn clothing of an agent who was bitten in the chest by Commander while the agent was attempting to open the door for Jill Biden to the Oval Dining Patio area of the White House. The agent required medical attention.

A June 29, 2023, email written by an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in the Presidential Protection Division whose name is redacted with the subject line “Message to Team FLD [First Lady Detail]” states:

The recent dog bites have challenged us to adjust our operational tactics when Commander is present – please give lots of room (staying a terrain feature away if possible). We will continue to keep [redacted] in our sight but must be creative to ensure our own personal safety. The senior leaders of the detail and agency continue to address the issue at higher levels with staff and First Family – working to have a better solution soon. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

On July 29, 2023, nearly six weeks after agents had compiled the list of 22 bite incidents, another attack of an agentoccurred at Biden’s Rehoboth, DE, home. The July 30 incident report indicates:

Commander ran towards the direction of post [redacted] booth and bit SA [redacted] in the left forearm. Causing a severe, deep open wound. As a result of the attack SA [redacted] started to loose [sic] a significant amount of blood from [redacted] arm. SA [redacted] remained calm and walked away from the area looking for help.

These Biden dog attack documents again raise fundamental questions about President Biden and the Secret Service. And rather than protect its agents, the Secret Service tried to illegally hide documents about the abuse of its agents and officers by the Biden family.

That it took federal lawsuits to force the release of this information speaks volumes. The Bidens are lucky no one has been killed as a result of their reckless disregard for the safety of Secret Service and White House employees.

In July 2023, we uncovered records from DHS in a related lawsuit revealing 10 attacks by Biden’s German Shepherd, Commander, on officers of the Secret Service between October 2022 and January 2023. In several cases the agents required medical care, including at a hospital.

In April 2022, we released records including incident reports detailing multiple attacks and damages caused to United States Secret Service members by President Joe Biden’s dog Major at both the White House and Biden’s lake home in Wilmington, DE. The documents also reveal that a member of the Secret Service who was attacked by the dog was displeased that White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki misled the press about the incident.

Ghastly 7,300% Surge in Illegals from Same Nation as Student’s Murderer

Thanks to Biden throwing the border wide open, and sanctuary city policies, our children are no longer safe on our streets. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has chilling details about the criminals from one nation in particular.

While most mainstream media coverage flagrantly omits that the man charged in the murder of a Georgia nursing student is an illegal immigrant who entered the United States through the famously porous southern border, other important nuggets are also being left out of most reports. The 26-year-old suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, comes from a country—Venezuela—run by a dictator with close ties to terrorists who refuses to accept deportees. This is especially disturbing because the U.S. has seen a shocking 7,300% spike in migrants from Venezuela under the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies and now we are stuck with all of them. There is no telling how many other violent criminals or terrorists are among the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have been released inside the country by our government in the last few years.

Ibarra and his brother, another delinquent recently charged with possessing a fake green card, crossed into El Paso, Texas in September 2022 and was released in the country like millions of other migrants under the Biden administration’s policies. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed in an Atlanta news report that Ibarra “was paroled and released for further processing.” Federal authorities say the brother, 29-year-old Diego Ibarra “claimed a credible fear” of being returned to his native Venezuela when he got arrested, which is a scandal-plagued tactic used by millions of illegal immigrants to avoid getting deported. Before the most recent arrest for murder the younger Ibarra had been arrested several times, for driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a license, shoplifting and failure to appear for an offense. One of the arrests occurred in New York City, which offers illegal immigrants sanctuary and does not report criminals to the feds for removal.

A few days ago, Ibarra got charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, and concealing the death of another. Police say he killed 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley, whose body was found in the woods behind a lake on the University of Georgia campus. “On February 22, 2024 at approximately 12:07 p.m., the UGA Police Department received a call from a friend of Laken’s who was concerned that she had gone to run at the Intramural Fields earlier in the morning and had not returned as expected,” according to a statement issued by the University of Georgia Police. “Officers responded to the area and immediately began a search at approximately 12:20 p.m. and located her shortly afterward. She was unconscious and not breathing, and had received visible injuries. Officers immediately began rendering medical aid. Emergency medical responders determined that she was deceased upon their arrival.”

Evidence shows that Ibarra acted alone. Only conservative media has bothered to report the highly relevant details surrounding the Venezuelan’s immigration status and that he moved to Athens, Georgia because it offers illegal aliens sanctuary. The mainstream media mostly sugar coated or avoided the subject altogether. One national news outlet shamefully wrote that Riley’s violent murder has once again put the spotlight on the dangers female runners face. While failing completely to mention pertinent information about the illegal immigrant suspect, the article delves into a survey by athletic wear company Adidas that reveals 92% of women reported feeling concerned for their safety while running with half afraid of being physically attacked. More than a third of women experienced physical or verbal harassment, including sexist comments, and being followed, according to the athletic wear survey.

It is distressing enough that a young woman lost her life to a suspect who should not have been in the country and could have been deported after previous arrests. We must also grapple with the fact that there has been an inconceivable surge in illegal immigrants from Venezuela since Biden became president. This is especially alarming because the South American nation operates under a Marxist regime that encourages international terrorist groups to run free. Venezuela’s government issues travel documents to individuals linked to terrorism and allows terrorists to operate with relative impunity. The country also has close ties with Iran and other notorious state sponsors of terrorism. A State Department report reveals that Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro and his associates “use criminal activities to help maintain their illegitimate hold on power, fostering a permissive environment for known terrorist groups.” That includes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-D), the Colombian-origin National Liberation Army (ELN), and Hizballah sympathizers. In a separate assessment the State Department writes that Maduro has defined himself through his opposition to the United States, regularly criticizing the U.S. government, its policies, and its relations with Latin America.

Until next week,