We have repeatedly challenged the Department of Justice and the FBI
over their fraudulent handling of “investigations” into Hillary
Clinton’s illegal activities when she was secretary of state.

[INSIDE JW]

NEW OHR DOCS DOCUMENT ANTI-TRUMP COUP

[[link removed]]


JUDICIAL WATCH INVESTIGATING EPSTEIN DEATH

We have repeatedly challenged the Department of Justice and the FBI
over their fraudulent handling of “investigations” into Hillary
Clinton’s illegal activities when she was secretary of state.

Now the very same Justice Department is sitting on another scandal in
its role as manager of federal prisons. The conspiracy theories about
how Jeffrey Epstein died are well founded, and Justice has a lot to
answer for. We’ve already sent out Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests, as I note in this interview
[[link removed]].
At this
point the Justice Department can’t be trusted to fully investigate
itself. (The latest report is that the medical examiner concluded he
committed suicide.)

In his Investigative Bulletin, our chief investigative reporter, Micah
Morrison, provides some of the questions
[[link removed]
be asking:



The death of financier and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a
high-security federal jail cell in Manhattan has lit up social media
with conspiracy theories. Was it murder? Suicide? The wealthy Epstein
for decades cultivated the rich and powerful: heads of state, barons
of commerce, royalty. He skated on earlier Florida sex charges, a
controversy that eventually brought down Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.
According to conspiracy theories cresting on the Internet, Epstein’s
recent federal indictment
[[link removed]]
on
sex trafficking charges threatened too many prominent people—so
somebody, somehow, bumped him off.



There’s no evidence that Epstein was murdered in his cell at the
Metropolitan Correctional Center. Officials at the lockup say he was
alone Saturday morning and hanged himself. But it’s fair to say that
at present there’s not much evidence, aside from a few official
statements, that Epstein committed suicide. Huge challenges and high
stakes loom in the Epstein case and the window on some key
opportunities is closing fast.



Here are the questions that will decide the fate of the case:



IS THE UNIT WHERE EPSTEIN DIED A CRIME SCENE? Preservation of
evidence is critical. Fingerprints, hair samples, body fluids,
location of body, method of death. Many investigations have been
ruined at the outset from a failure to preserve the scene. Sound an
alarm bell if the Epstein death location was not processed as a crime
scene.



ARE RECORDS PRESERVED? A source at the Bureau of Prisons tells us
there would be a “huge paper trail” on Epstein—documents, logs,
interviews with prison psychologists and others related to an alleged
July 23 suicide attempt, recordings of phone calls, text messages.
Some of us with long memories remember the suicide of Deputy White
House Counsel Vincent Foster. The Foster case dragged on for years and
gave birth to numerous conspiracy theories in part because the crime
scene was mishandled and documents disappeared from his White House
office.



CAN THE MONEY BE FOLLOWED? Epstein’s finances were carefully
concealed, but he was known for spreading money around to ease his
problems. Prosecutors alleged he tried to buy off witnesses
[[link removed]].
And serving time at a Palm Beach county jail in 2008 and 2009 on a
Florida prostitution charge—negotiated to keep him out of federal
prison—Epstein managed to steer $128,000
[[link removed]]
to
officials running the jail. Investigators should search for similar
arrangements in New York.



ARE BUREAU OF PRISON INSIDERS CORRUPT? Most Bureau of Prisons
employees are honest, but the organization has been repeatedly
buffeted by corruption cases
[[link removed]].
Investigators will take a close look at everyone connected to Epstein
at the facility.



ARE THE EPSTEIN LAWYERS COMPLICIT? How far can a lawyer go for a
client? Did any of Epstein’s lawyers facilitate illegal acts?
Getting information from Epstein’s lawyers is central to the case.
Epstein met repeatedly with his legal team while in jail. The New York
Times reports
[[link removed]]
that
two lawyers closely involved in Epstein’s finances have hired
lawyers of their own—criminal defense specialists. The Times
elsewhere reports that Epstein’s lawyers brought in their own
pathologist—famed forensic examiner Michael Baden—to observe the
Epstein autopsy. According to the Wall Street Journal, Epstein was
taken off suicide watch, after the July 23 incident, “at the request
of his attorneys.” Expect a big legal battle if investigators move
on Epstein’s lawyers.



IS THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE INCOMPETENT? The Epstein case is a major
challenge for Attorney General William Barr. He says both the FBI and
the Justice Department inspector general will open investigations into
the Epstein death, but that may not be enough. Years of controversy
and mismanagement related to the Clinton emails, the Clinton
foundation and other matters morphed into turmoil over the 2016
election, FBI leadership, the Russia case and President Trump. The
Justice Department is now an institution in crisis.



Judicial Watch has launched its own investigation into the Epstein
case. We’ve been hearing from sources connected to the incident and
we’ve brought a series of Freedom of Information actions to make
sure key documents don’t get buried. But that’s no substitute for
a properly functioning Justice Department.

DOCUMENTS DETAIL EFFORT TO SMEAR TRUMP WITH “DOSSIER” THROUGH
BRUCE OHR

If you can get the Department of Justice to attack the person who beat
you in a presidential race, you are fairly clever. Or maybe not – as
nefarious characters in the DOJ were more than willing to help Hillary
Clinton.

Here’s the latest.

We just released 330 pages
[[link removed]]
of
Justice Department documents showing Bruce Ohr, who was demoted from
his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December
2017, discussing information obtained through his wife Nellie Ohr.
This information included anti-Trump dossier materials, including a
spreadsheet that tries to link President Trump to dozens of Russians.

Remember: Nellie Ohr worked for Hillary Clinton through Fusion GPS.

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet,
seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled “WhosWho19Sept2016
[[link removed]
The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and
“linkages” between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures,
many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly
“linked to Trump” include: a Russian involved in a “gangland
killing;” an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the
murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly “buys up banks and
pumps them dry”; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a
Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to
the Trump Institute, promoting its “get-rich-quick schemes”; a man
who poured him a drink; and others.

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself a document titled
“Manafort Chronology
[[link removed]
another Nellie Ohr-Fusion GPS document, which details Paul
Manafort’s travel and interactions with Russians and other
officials.

FBI interview reports
[[link removed]]
from
December 5 and December 12, and December 20, 2017, show that Bruce Ohr
“voluntarily” gave these anti-Trump and Manafort materials,
created for the Clinton campaign by Fusion GPS, to the FBI. (The FBI
interview notes were just declassified and released to us last week.)

On January 25, 2017, Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, forwarded text
messages
[[link removed]]
to
him that she’d sent to her “colleagues,” where she refers to the
Steele dossier as the “yellow rain dossier” and the “yellow
showers dossier.”

In the same set of forwarded texts
[[link removed]],
Nellie speculates that Department K of the Russian intelligence
service FSB “would be a pretty good candidate for listening in on
Hillary.”

On February 14, 2017, former-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Kathleen
Kavalec, forwarded
[[link removed]
a Huffington Post article touting the Steele Dossier’s claim that an
alleged deal between Russian oil company Rosneft and Trump supporter
Steve Schwarzman constituted a “high crime of treason worthy of
impeachment.” Ohr forwarded the article to the FBI’s Washington
Field Office the same day.

Four months prior to this exchange, Kavalec had found Christopher
Steele not credible because of factual inaccuracies that he had
relayed to her in October 2016, as uncovered by Judicial Watch
[[link removed]].

On May 23, 2016, DOJ prosecutor Lisa Holtyn emails
[[link removed]]
Bruce
Ohr to see if he could connect her as well as prosecutors Joe Wheatley
and Ivana Nizich with his wife, Nellie Ohr, as she could be a “great
resource” for them. He replies, “I’m sure Nellie would be
delighted to speak with them. I’m pretty sure there is no conflict
of interest since they aren’t paying her or anything like that.”
Congressman Mark Meadows suggested this email shows that Nellie Ohr
“knowingly provided false testimony
[[link removed]
to Congress she had no role in DOJ investigations.

These documents show a crazed DOJ-FBI effort to use the Clinton spy
ring at Fusion GPS, namely Nellie Ohr, to smear President Trump –
even before he was sworn in as president. Clinton campaign operative
Nellie Ohr may as well as have had a desk at the Justice Department.

We obtained the records through our August 2018 Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) lawsuit
[[link removed]]
filed
against the Justice Department after it failed to respond to a May
29, 2018, FOIA request (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of
Justice_
[[link removed]
_(No.
1:18-cv-01854)). Judicial Watch seeks:

* All records from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General
relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or British national Christopher
Steele, including but not limited to all records of communications
about and with Fusion GPS officials, Nellie Ohr and Christopher
Steele.
* All records from the office of former Associate Deputy Attorney
General Bruce G. Ohr relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or British
national Christopher Steele, including but not limited to all records
of communications (including those of former Associate Deputy Attorney
General Ohr) about and with Fusion GPS officials, Nellie Ohr and
Christopher Steele.
* All records from the office of the Director of the Organized Crime
Drug Enforcement Task Force relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or
British national Christopher Steele, including but not limited to all
records of communications (including those of former Organized Crime
Task Force Director Bruce Ohr) about and with Fusion GPS officials,
Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele.

Here is some recent history on our discoveries about the Ohrs.

In April, we received documents
[[link removed]]
showing
that Bruce Ohr in his January 2018 preparation to testify to the
Senate and House intelligence committees wrote to a lawyer about
“possible ethics concerns.” Bruce Ohr forwarded the email to
Nellie Ohr, who had been hired by Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton
campaign-Democratic National Committee vendor who compiled the
anti-Trump dossier.

We also uncovered emails
[[link removed]]
from
Bruce Ohr showing that former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce
Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS
contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated
[[link removed]]
by
the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an
FBI confidential informant.

In June, we uncovered
[[link removed]]
that
Ohr received a total of $42,520 in performance bonuses during the
Trump/Russia investigation. Ohr’s bonus nearly doubled from $14,520
(received in November 2015) to $28,000 in November 2016.

We had previously uncovered
[[link removed]]
an
email revealing that Nellie Ohr informed Bruce that she was deleting
emails sent from his DOJ email account.

As you can see, we’re still uncovering the sordid details of this
attempted coup d’état.

NELLIE OHR PROVIDED RUSSIAN INFORMATION TO DOJ TOP OFFICIAL LISA
HOLTYN

As discussed above, Bruce and Nellie Ohr trafficked in salacious
gossip of the worst kind in their fit to topple a U.S. president.

We have yet another batch of details in the form of 72 pages
[[link removed]]
of
documents from the U.S. Department of Justice containing
Russia-related emails sent from Nellie Ohr to high-ranking DOJ
official Lisa Holtyn at the time Ohr worked with anti-Trump dossier
firm Fusion GPS. Holtyn at the time was a top aide to former Associate
Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, Nellie’s husband.

In an email
[[link removed]]
to
Holtyn dated November 22, 2016, revealing her anti-Trump sentiments,
Nellie poses a question in the subject line: “Who stands behind the
Russian ‘friends of Trump;’” which she answers enthusiastically
in the first line of the email:
“Pornographer-turned-pro-Kremlin-media-impresario Konstantin
Rykov!!!”

The documents show that Nellie Ohr was providing the Justice
Department significant amounts of information on Russia via email from
January 2016 – November 2016. She testified to Congress she worked
as a contractor for Fusion GPS
[[link removed]]
“October
of 2015, give or take a couple weeks, and into the end of September
2016.” Much of the material Ohr sent to the DOJ is untranslated
Russia-language reports.

Fusion GPS is the firm paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee to create the anti-Trump dossier.

The documents show Nellie Ohr’s providing Justice Department
officials much the same kind of open-source research and investigative
services she was paid to provide Fusion GPS.

Nellie Ohr told Congress
[[link removed]]
that
she worked at Fusion GPS on “a project looking into the relationship
of Donald Trump with [Russian] organized crime,” for which she would
“write occasional reports based on the open source research that I
described about Donald Trump’s relationships with various people in
Russia” She also testified she gathered information during the 2016
campaign about Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, President
Trump, his wife Melania Trump and his children for Fusion GPS.

We obtained the records through our August 2018 Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) lawsuit
[[link removed]
the Justice Department after it failed to respond to a May 29, 2018,
FOIA request (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice_
[[link removed]
_(No.
1:18-cv-01854)). We are seeking:

* All records from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General
relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or British national Christopher
Steele, including but not limited to all records of communications
about and with Fusion GPS officials, Nellie Ohr and Christopher
Steele.
* All records from the office of former Associate Deputy Attorney
General Bruce G. Ohr relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or British
national Christopher Steele, including but not limited to all records
of communications (including those of former Associate Deputy Attorney
General Ohr) about and with Fusion GPS officials, Nellie Ohr and
Christopher Steele.
* All records from the office of the Director of the Organized Crime
Drug Enforcement Task Force relating to Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr and/or
British national Christopher Steele, including but not limited to all
records of communications (including those of former Organized Crime
Task Force Director Bruce Ohr) about and with Fusion GPS officials,
Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele.

Nellie Ohr funneled anti-Trump smears to her husband’s underlings in
the DOJ, who were running an illicit spy operation against President
Trump. Nellie Ohr is obviously a key figure in the Clinton-DNC-Fusion
GPS spy ring.

COURT ORDERS OBSTRUCTIONIST MARYLAND TO TURN OVER VOTER LIST DATA

We are the national leader in enforcing the provisions of the National
Voter Registration Act, and we continue to rack up wins.

I’m pleased to inform you that a federal court has ordered
[[link removed]]
the
State of Maryland to produce voter list data for Montgomery County,
the state’s biggest county. The court ruling comes in our lawsuit
filed July 18, 2017, against Montgomery County and the Maryland State
Boards of Elections under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993
(NVRA
[[link removed]]).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland,
Baltimore Division _(__Judicial Watch vs. Linda H. Lamone, et al._
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:17-cv-02006)).

The decision follows our NVRA-related successes in California
[[link removed]]
and Kentucky
[[link removed]]
that
could lead to removal of up to 1.85 million inactive voters from voter
registration lists. The NVRA requires states to take reasonable steps
to clean up its voting rolls and to make documents about its voter
list maintenance practices available to anyone who asks.

We had sought the Maryland voter list data after discovering that
there were more registered voters in Montgomery County than citizens
over the age of 18 who _could_ register. U.S. District Court Judge
Ellen Lipton Hollander rejected Maryland’s objections to providing
the voter list information under Section 8(i) of the National Voter
Registration Act:



If Judicial Watch had submitted requests for voter registration data,
corresponding to the thousands of Montgomery County voters, the State
would have been required to produce each record, pursuant to Section
8(i). Instead, Judicial Watch merely submitted a single request for a
voter list containing and compiling the same information about the
thousands of voters in Montgomery County. Although both scenarios seek
the same information, defendants believe that the NVRA would require
compliance with only one of them. Rejecting Judicial Watch’s request
based on semantics would be tantamount to requiring Judicial Watch to
make thousands of separate requests. Neither the NVRA, the Court, nor
common sense can abide such a purposeless obstruction.



****



Organizations such as Judicial Watch have the resources and expertise
that few individuals can marshal. By excluding these organizations
from access to voter registration lists, the State law undermines
Section 8(i)’s efficacy. Accordingly, [Maryland election law] is an
obstacle to the accomplishment of the NVRA’s purposes. It follows
that the State law is preempted in so far as it allows only Maryland
registered voters to access voter registration lists.

The dispute over the voter registration list arose from an April 11,
2017, notice letter
[[link removed]]
sent
to Maryland election officials, in which we explained Montgomery
County had an impossibly high registration rate. The letter threatened
a lawsuit if the problems with Montgomery County’s voter rolls were
not fixed. The letter also requested access to Montgomery County voter
registration lists in order to evaluate the efficacy of any
“programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the
accuracy and currency of Maryland’s official eligible voter lists
during the past 2 years.”

Democrat Maryland officials, in response, attacked and smeared us
by suggesting
[[link removed]]
we
are an agent of Russia.

Now that the court has cleared the way for us to obtain the Montgomery
voter data, our efforts to force the State of Maryland to comply with
the NVRA and clean up its voter rolls may proceed.

After our successful efforts
[[link removed]]
to
bring Kentucky, California, Ohio and Indiana into compliance with the
National Voter Registration Act, it’s time for Maryland politicians
to stop the politics, see the light, get right with the law and clean
up the State’s voter rolls. If they don’t, we’ll see them in
court again.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES CALIFORNIA OVER ITS GENDER QUOTA FOR CORPORATE
BOARDS

California is always on the leading edge of left-wing policy – often
implemented unlawfully. The latest is its effort to ignore its own
concerns about the constitution and throw a blanket of political
correctness over private businesses.

We just filed a lawsuit
[[link removed]]
in
Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of three California
taxpayers to prevent the State from implementing Senate Bill 826. This
2018 law requires publicly-held corporations headquartered in
California to have at least one director “who self-identifies her
gender as a woman” on their boards by December 31, 2019 (_Robin
Crest et al. v. Alex Padilla_
[[link removed]]
(No.19ST-CV-27561)).
Up to three such persons are required by December 31, 2021, depending
on the size of the board. The lawsuit alleges that the mandate is an
unconstitutional gender-based quota.

There are currently 761 publicly-traded corporations headquartered in
California, the vast majority of which are subject to the
legislation’s provisions. In a July 1, 2019, report, the secretary
of state identified 537 corporations that fall short of the mandate.

Before the bill passed, a California Assembly floor analysis
identified a “significant risk of legal challenges” to SB 826. It
characterized the legislation as creating a “quota-like system”
and noted, “[T]his bill, if enacted into law, would likely be
challenged on equal protection grounds … The use of a quota-like
system, as proposed by this bill, to remedy past discrimination and
differences in opportunity may be difficult to defend.”

In signing SB 826 in September 2018, then-Governor Brown wrote that,
“serious legal concerns have been raised” to the legislation. “I
don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to
its ultimate implementation.” He signed the bill anyway, noting
“Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. – and beyond –
make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.”

In our complaint, we argue:



SB 826 is illegal under the California Constitution. The
legislation’s quota system for female representation on corporate
boards employs express gender classifications. As a result, SB 826 is
immediately suspect and presumptively invalid and triggers strict
scrutiny review.

California has followed a trend set in many European countries and the
EU mandating gender quotas for corporate boards of directors. As
a _Boston Globe_
[[link removed]]
opinion
piece notes, however, the outcome of Europe’s experiment was not
what advocates of gender quotas predicted:



Progressives often support diversity mandates as a path to equality
and a way to level the proverbial playing field. But all too often
such policies are a disingenuous form of virtue signaling that
benefits only the most privileged and does little to help average
people.



***



Requiring companies to make gender the primary qualification for board
membership will inevitably lead to less qualified private sector
boards…exactly what happened when Norway adopted a nationwide
corporate gender quota. According to a 2012 paper by USC professor
Kenneth R. Ahern and University of Michigan professor Amy K. Dittmar,
Norway’s gender quota “led to younger and less experienced boards
… and deterioration in operating performance, consistent with less
capable boards.”



***



[Norway’s] gender quotas have not had significant effect on
corporate culture or led to the promotion of more women throughout the
ranks. In fact, the only thing Norway’s gender quotas have done is
benefit the individual women actually selected to serve on the
corporate boards.



Writing in _The New Republic_
[[link removed]],
Alice Lee notes that increasing the number of opportunities for board
membership without increasing the pool of qualified women to serve on
such boards has led to a “golden skirt” phenomenon, where the same
elite women scoop up multiple seats on a variety of boards.

California’s gender quota law is brazenly unconstitutional. Even
Gov. Brown, in signing the law, worried that it is unconstitutional.
Our California taxpayer clients are stepping up to make sure that
California’s Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination, is
upheld.



Until next week …

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton


Daywatch Updates

[Article-Image]
[[link removed]]

Judicial Watch: New DOJ Docs Show Nellie Ohr Sent DOJ/FBI
Anti-Trump Russia Dossier Materials Through Her Husband Bruce Ohr
[[link removed]]

Judicial Watch today released 330 pages of Justice Department
documents showing Bruce Ohr, who was demoted from his position as U.S.
Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017, discussing
information obtained through his wife Nellie Ohr. This information
included anti-Trump dossier materials, including a spreadsheet that
tries to link President Trump to dozens of Russians.

[13x13x1]
[[link removed]]
READ MORE
[[link removed]]

[Article-Image]
[[link removed]]

Check us out on YouTube!
[[link removed]]

Check out JWTV on our Youtube Page!

[13x13x1]
[[link removed]]
READ MORE
[[link removed]]

[Article-Image]
[[link removed]]

Sign up For Judicial Watch on Amazon Smile!
[[link removed]]

Support us with your Holiday purchases! You sign up for Amazon
Smile, Amazon gives to Judicial Watch!

[13x13x1]
[[link removed]]
READ MORE
[[link removed]]



[Contribute]
[[link removed]]


<a
href="[link removed]"
target="_blank"><img alt="WU02"
src="[link removed]"
style="width:100%; height:auto;" /></a>

[32x32x1]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x2]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

Judicial Watch, Inc.
425 3rd St Sw Ste 800
Washington, DC 20024

202.646.5172



©2017-2019, All Rights Reserved
Manage Email Subscriptions
[[link removed]]
|
Unsubscribe
[[link removed]]

View in browser
[[link removed]]