Justice Cover
Up!
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, 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 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.
The appeal concerns a May 2017 FOIA lawsuit
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 (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 (No. 20-5304)).
The lower court ruled that the Justice Department could withhold the
records under FOIA’s Exemption
5 “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
records in this case in 2017 that show strong support by Robert Mueller
Deputy Andrew
Weissmann 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
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 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 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.
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 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 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 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,
Tom Fitton
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