Rod Rosenstein, who was once a deputy attorney general, is a key
figure in enabling, at a minimum, the Deep State’s seditious
attacks on President Trump.

[INSIDE JW]

TOM FITTON: JW UNCOVERS ROSENSTEIN'S SECRET COMMUNICATIONS; STATE
DEPT. FORCED TO RELEASE SMOKING GUN; JW CA ELECTION LAW VICTORY!

[[link removed]]



JUDICIAL WATCH
UNCOVERS ROSENSTEIN EMAIL TO MUELLER: ‘THE BOSS’ DOESN’T
KNOW WE’RE TALKING

Rod Rosenstein, who was once a deputy attorney general, is a key
figure in enabling, at a minimum, the Deep State’s seditious
attacks on President Trump.

More proof is in new documents uncovered by a Judicial Watch lawsuit.
Specifically, we forced the release of 145 pages
[[link removed]]
of
Rosenstein’s communications that include a one-line email
[[link removed]]
from
Rosenstein to Mueller stating, “The boss and his staff do not know
about our discussions.” They also include “off the record”
emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s
appointment.

We filed a lawsuit
[[link removed]]
to
get these documents after the Department of Justice failed to
respond to our September 21, 2018, Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice _
[[link removed].
1:19-cv-00481)). We were seeking:

Any and all e-mails, text messages, or other records of communication
addressed to or received by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
between May 8, 2017, and May 22, 2017. 

The time period referred to in this suit is critical. On May 9,
2017, Rosenstein wrote a  memo
[[link removed]]
 to President
Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. That day,
President Trump fired Comey. Just three days later, on May 12,
Rosenstein sent an email
[[link removed]]
assuring
Robert Mueller that, “The boss and his staff do not know about our
discussions.” (It is not clear if the “boss” is then-AG
Sessions or President Trump.)

In a May 16, 2017, email
[[link removed]],
sent the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein emailed
former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current
Kirkland & Ellis Partner Mark Filip stating, “I am with
Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls. Sometimes the moment
chooses us.”

The next day, May 17, Rosenstein appointed
[[link removed]]
former
FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the
2016 presidential election.  

During the same period, between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met
with
[[link removed]
FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI
officials to discuss wearing a wire
[[link removed]]
and invoking
the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump.

The documents also show that, again during the same time
period, Rod Rosenstein was in direct communication with reporters
from 60 Minutes, The New York Times and The Washington
Post. In an email
[[link removed]]
exchange
dated May 2017, Rosenstein communicated with New York
Times reporter Rebecca Ruiz to provide background for this article
[[link removed].]
about
himself. Ruiz emailed Rosenstein a draft of the article, and he
responded with off-the-record comments and clarifications.

* In an email
[[link removed]]
exchange
on May 17, 2017, the day of Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein
exchanged emails with 60 Minutes producer Katherine Davis in which
he answered off-the-record questions about Mueller’s scope of
authority and chain of command:

Rosenstein: “Off the record: This special counsel is a DOJ employee.
His status is similar to a US Attorney.”

Davis: “Good call on Mueller. Although I obviously thought you’d
be great at leading the investigation too.”

* On May 17, 2017, in an email
[[link removed]]
exchange
with Washington Post journalist Sari Horwitz with the subject
line “Special Counsel,” Rosenstein and Horwitz exchanged:

Rosenstein “At some point, I owe you a long story. But this is not
the right time for me to talk to anybody.”
 
Horwitz: “Now, I see why you couldn’t talk
today! Obviously, we’re writing a big story about this Is there
any chance I could talk to you on background about your
decision?”

These astonishing emails further confirm the corruption behind
Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller. They also show a
shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump
media reporters.

Here’s some more background on the incredible finds from this one
Judicial Watch lawsuit.

On September 11, we released 14 pages
[[link removed]
records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts
in responding to media inquiries about DOJ/FBI talks allegedly
invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump
from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering
to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

On September 23, we released a two-page memo
[[link removed]],
dated May 16, 2017, by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe
detailing how then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed
wearing a wire into the Oval Office “to collect additional evidence
on the president’s true intentions.” McCabe writes that Rosenstein
said he thought it was possible because “he was not searched when he
entered the White House.”
 
As the “coup” targeting President Trump continues through the
House impeachment abuse, it is important to remember that its origins
are in the Deep State agencies – especially the FBI and DOJ.


COURT FORCES STATE DEPT TO RELEASE SMOKING GUN CLINTON EMAIL

The Clinton email scandal is far from over. A federal court ordered
discovery in a major Judicial Watch lawsuit that will ultimately
result in nearly 20 witnesses having to testify under oath to our
attorneys. And, and thanks to the court’s orders, we’re also
getting new documents proving the Clinton email cover-up.
Specifically, the State Department released a previously
hidden email
[[link removed]]
showing that
top State Department officials used and were aware of Hillary
Clinton’s email account.

On December 24, 2010, Daniel Baer, an Obama State Department deputy
assistant secretary of state, writes to Michael Posner, a
then-assistant secretary of state about Clinton’s private email
address:

Baer: “Be careful, you just gave the secretary's personal email
address to a bunch of folks ...”

Posner answers: “Should I say don't forward? Did not notice”

Baer responds: “Yeah-I just know that she guards it pretty
closely”

Posner had forwarded Clinton’s email address, which was contained
in an email sent to State Department senior leadership, about
WikiLeaks.

It appears that the State Department produced this email in 2016
in redacted form
[[link removed]],
blacking out Clinton’s personal email address and the discussion
about Clinton’s wanting to keep her email address closely guarded.

We sought the email after a former top Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) State Department official testified
[[link removed]]
to us about
reviewing it between late 2013 and early 2014.

The testimony and the email production come in discovery granted
to us on the Clinton email issue in a FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]]
(_Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State_
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:14-cv-01242)). Clinton also faces potential questioning under oath
in this lawsuit.

Despite a recent court order
[[link removed]]
requiring
production of the email, the DOJ and State Departments only produced
it 10 days ago after we threatened to seek a court order to compel
its production.

In other words, we just caught the State Department and DOJ
red-handed in another email cover-up. They all knew about the Clinton
email account but covered up the smoking-gun email showing this guilty
knowledge for years.

The scope of court-ordered discovery that produced this email find
includes: whether Secretary Clinton used private email in an effort to
evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); whether the State
Department’s attempt to settle this FOIA case in 2014 and 2015
amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately
searched for records responsive to our FOIA request.

During a recent hearing
[[link removed]],
Judge Lamberth specifically raised concerns about a Clinton email
cache
[[link removed]],
[email protected],
discussed in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and wants
Judicial Watch to “shake this tree
[[link removed]
on this issue.

Judge Lamberth also criticized
[[link removed]]
the
State Department’s handling and production of Clinton’s emails in
this case stating, “There is no FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]
exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic
incompetence.”

The court rejected DOJ and State efforts to derail further Judicial
Watch discovery. Judge Lamberth called their arguments
“preposterous” and cited a prior Judicial Watch FOIA case in which
he ordered U.S. Marshals to seize records
[[link removed]]
from
a Clinton administration official.

Judge Lamberth detailed how the State Department “spent three months
from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear,” and that
after discovering the State Department’s actions and omissions,
“Now we know more, but we have even more questions
[[link removed]]
than
answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding
their initial discovery request now.”

Judge Lamberth stated his goal was to restore the public’s faith
[[link removed]]
in
their government, which may have been damaged because of the Clinton
email investigation.

The court granted
[[link removed]]
us seven
additional depositions, three interrogatories and four document
requests related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use
of a private email server. Hillary Clinton and her former top aide and
current lawyer Cheryl Mills were given 30 days to oppose our
depositions of them.

On December 6, 2018, Judge Lamberth ordered
[[link removed]]
Obama
administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton
aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The
court ruled
[[link removed]]
that
the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to
government transparency.”

Our FOIA lawsuit led directly
[[link removed]]
to
the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

Our discovery over the last several months found many more details
about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

* John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services
(IPS), testified
[[link removed]
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
[[link removed]
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
[[link removed]
worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create
the non-government email system.
* In the interrogatory responses
[[link removed]]
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, testified
[[link removed]
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
[[link removed]]
that
Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and
personal emails to transmit classified material.

The court will next decide will whether Judicial Watch attorneys can
question Mrs. Clinton directly under oath – so stay tuned….


A JUDICIAL WATCH ELECTION LAW VICTORY IN CALIFORNIA

We thwarted Leftist Californians’ efforts to keep President Trump
off the 2020 ballot.

A federal judge enjoined a California law requiring presidential
candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns. The
injunction was requested by Judicial Watch, President Trump, and
other challengers to the law.

California’s Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability
Act (“SB 27”) requires presidential candidates to disclose
their tax returns for the past five years for public posting on the
internet. Candidates who refuse to do so are barred from having
their names printed on California’s March 2020 primary ballot.

Judicial Watch’s lawsuit
[[link removed]]
challenged the
law on behalf of four California voters, including two Republicans, a
Democrat, and an Independent. The lawsuit alleged that SB 27
imposes candidate qualifications beyond those allowed by the U.S.
Constitution’s Presidential Qualifications Clause and that it
violates voters First and Fourteenth Amendment rights
to associate with like-minded voters and to express their
preferences by means of their votes (_Jerry Griffin et al. v. Alex
Padilla_
[[link removed].
2:19-cv-01477)). President Trump, the Republican National Committee,
and other candidates and private
litigants also filed legal challenges.

In his decision
[[link removed]],
Judge Morrison
C. England of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
California observed that “there has never been a legal requirement
that any candidate for federal office disclose their tax
returns.” While he noted that SB 27 “was primarily intended to
force President Trump to disclose his tax returns,” Judge England
agreed with Judicial Watch that the
law particularly harmed California voters by diminishing
their ability “to cast an effective vote” and to select
the “presidential candidate of their choice.”

Judge England ruled that Judicial Watch was likely to succeed on every
one of its claims. He stated that California’s scheme “tramples
the Framers’ vision of having uniform standards” for candidate
qualifications. He also found that the public had an
“extraordinary” interest in “ensuring that individual voters
may associate for the advancement of political beliefs and cast a vote
for their preferred candidate for President.” And he agreed with
President Trump that SB 27 was preempted by the federal Ethics in
Government Act.

As Judge England noted, nonpartisan counsel for the California
legislature had issued a written opinion stating that a prior version
of SB 27 was unconstitutional. Then-Governor Jerry Brown had vetoed
that prior version, also citing constitutional concerns.

Leftist California politicians, in their zeal to attack President
Trump, passed a law that also unconstitutionally victimizes California
voters and the U.S. Constitution. The court found this anti-Trump
scheme to game the 2020 elections to be obviously
unconstitutional.

Outrageously, California’s political leadership will continue to
abuse and waste taxpayer money by trying to appeal this sensible
decision. They should give up and stop trying to prevent voters from
being able to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice next
year.

Until next week …



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