It should surprise no one that on Joe Biden’s short list for
attorney general was former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an
Obama holdover “who shot to national prominence after President
Donald Trump fired her, making her one of the first heroes of the
#Resistance.”

[INSIDE JW]

JUSTICE COVER UP!

[JW]
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Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Sally Yates Records on Her Refusal to
Defend President Trump’s Travel Ban

It should surprise no one that on Joe Biden’s short list for
attorney general was former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates
[[link removed]],
an Obama holdover “who shot to national prominence after President
Donald Trump fired her, making her one of the first heroes of the
#Resistance.”

President Trump fired her after she refused in early 2017 to enforce
his travel ban executive order. We filed an appeal
[[link removed]]
with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in order to gain the
release of Department of Justice records about Yates’ gross
insubordination. We argue that the documents are not shielded from
disclosure, as they are evidence of government misconduct by Yates.

At issue are four records described as “working drafts” of a
January 30, 2017 statement by Yates instructing DOJ officials not to
defend the executive order issued by then-President Trump. Trump fired
Yates after she issued the one-page statement
[[link removed]].

The appeal concerns a May 2017 FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]]
we filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to a February
FOIA request seeking Yates’ emails from her government account
(Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice
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(No. 1:17-cv-00832)) for the time period she served as Acting Attorney
General for President Trump. We recently filed the brief in the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch
vs. U.S. Department of Justice
[[link removed]]
(No. 20-5304)).

The lower court ruled that the Justice Department could withhold the
records under FOIA’s Exemption 5
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“deliberative process privilege,” which is used to keep secret
“pre-decisional” agency records.

We argue that the court has recognized “that government misconduct
may overcome the deliberative process privilege.”

“[W]here there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed
light on government misconduct, the privilege is routinely denied, on
the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this
context does not serve the public’s interest in honest, effective
government.”

***

Insubordination, especially by an acting attorney general seeking to
defy an executive order issued by the President, is a “serious
breach of the responsibilities of representative government.” The
records at issue relate directly to Yates’ defiance of the President
and breach of the duties she owed the President, which resulted in her
being fired. The records reflect, or at least are purported to
reflect, the thought process by which Yates chose to direct her
subordinates to defy the President by not defending the President’s
executive order. They are, in effect, deliberations on Yates’
decision to commit insubordination. They do not warrant protection
under the deliberative process privilege and should be made public.

The “working drafts” were sent as attachments in a chain of emails
sent without messages between Yates and her deputy Matthew Axelrod.

We also highlight how the Justice Department is undermining the FOIA
reforms the Congress passed into law under the FOIA Improvements Act
(FIA) in 2016 that “established a new, heightened standard of proof
that agencies must meet when making discretionary withholdings of
records requested under FOIA. Congress intended the FIA to shore up
FOIA, not preserve a years-long, unsatisfactory status quo of
‘withhold-it-because-you-want-to’ exemptions and ‘knee-jerk
secrecy.’”

In an act of seditious and unethical conduct, Obama holdover Sally
Yates sought to subvert then-President Trump by interfering with his
lawful travel ban. That the Justice Department would try to cover up
the details of this lawlessness is yet another scandal.

As an indication of the pandemic of lawlessness in the Justice
Department, we obtained
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records in this case in 2017 that show strong support by Robert
Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissmann
[[link removed]]
and other top DOJ officials for Yates’ refusal to enforce President
Trump’s travel ban. In one email Weissmann writes: “I am so proud.
And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects.”

PROFESSOR CHARGED WITH STEALING $1.75 MILLION IN RESEARCH FOR CHINA

We are closely watching the growing threat China poses to the United
States, not the least of which is its wholesale, systematic theft of
scientific and medical research. A recent criminal indictment,
reported
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in our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog, illustrates how this theft is too
often enabled with your tax dollars:

Communist China has long benefitted from American-funded research
stolen by Chinese academics who infiltrate colleges throughout the
United States. This month a criminal indictment
[[link removed]]
sheds light on a recent scheme allegedly masterminded by a Chinese
professor at one of the nation’s top-ranked public universities. His
name is Lin Yang, a 43-year-old member of the Thousand Talents Program
(TTP) operated by the Chinese government to transfer original ideas,
technology and intellectual property from foreign institutions,
especially American colleges. TTP rewards Chinese scientists for
stealing propriety information, usually funded by Uncle Sam.

In this case Yang, an associate professor in the Department of
Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida (UF), fraudulently
obtained a $1.75 million federal grant to conduct research that he
stole for China, according to a federal indictment. The money came
from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. government’s
handsomely funded medical research agency, which has an immense $41.7
BILLION
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annual budget. The research involved developing an imaging informatics
tool for muscles known as “MuscleMiner.” Federal prosecutors say
that between 2014 and 2019 Yang served as the principal investigator
for the NIH grant at UF, a top-ranked public research institution in
Gainesville. That means he was responsible for conducting and
administering the money in compliance with applicable federal law and
institutional policies. “Among other things, Yang was required to
disclose his foreign research support and financial conflicts of
interest, including his ownership of, or interest in, a foreign
company,” according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement
[[link removed]].

Instead, Yang established a business in China known as “Deep
Informatics” that he promoted by disclosing that its products were
the result of years of research supported by millions of dollars of
U.S. government funding. To maintain employment at UF and continue
receiving NIH grant money, Yang intentionally concealed his conflicts
of interest, including his Chinese business, participation in the TTP
and affiliation with a Chinese research university. “On multiple
occasions, Yang submitted disclosures to NIH containing false
statements and material omissions concerning his affiliations and
research endeavors with a foreign government and company,” the DOJ
reveals. Additionally, in January 2019, UF’s College of Engineering
required all faculty to provide, in writing, updated disclosures
concerning activities with foreign entities in China and two other
countries. Yang provided UF with a written response falsely stating he
had no affiliation with any business, entity, or university in China,
the indictment states. Yang fled to China in August 2019. He has been
charged with six counts of wire fraud and four counts of making false
statements to an agency of the United States.

This is hardly an isolated case. The U.S. government has long
permitted communists working in the U.S. to steal billions of dollars
in taxpayer-funded research. Many of them work at public universities
throughout the country or at government agencies such as the NIH,
National Science Foundation (NSF) or national laboratories affiliated
with the Department of Energy (DOE). For decades many of the
institutions have been deeply impacted by Chinese infiltrators
stealing highly valuable intellectual property. A U.S. Senate
INVESTIGATION determined that not only has American-funded research
long been stolen by China, but that the work is helping the communist
nation meet its goal of becoming a world leader in science and
technology. China uses hundreds of government-funded talent
recruitment plans, such as TTP, to incentivize individuals engaged in
research and development in the U.S to transmit information in
exchange for salaries, research funding, lab space and other perks.
The communists then use the American research for their own economic
and military gain.

The Trump administration addressed the problem by having the NIH FIRE
DOZENS
[[link removed]]
of scientists last summer over their secret financial ties to
communist China. It is not clear how long they went undetected or how
much taxpayer-funded research they stole, but at the time some 54
scientists got booted for failing to disclose a troubling financial
arrangement with a foreign government. In the overwhelming majority of
cases—93%—the cash came from China, according to an NIH
INVESTIGATION
[[link removed]]
that started more than two years ago. Also, in most of the probes the
targets were Asian men in their 50s. The bulk of the ousted
researchers received generous grants from the NIH, which annually
invests TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
[[link removed]]
in medical research
by giving around 50,000 grants to more than 300,000 researchers at
more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other institutions
throughout the country. Only 10% of the agency’s budget supports
projects conducted by scientists in its own lab in Bethesda, Maryland.

Until next week,

[Signature]

Tom Fitton



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