Judicial Watch Sues Rep. Schiff for Phone Subpoenas Targeting Trump.
Judicial Watch Back in Court on Clinton Emails and Benghazi

[INSIDE JW]

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It’s Not an Impeachment — It’s a Coup

There has been nothing in American history that compares to the coup
attack against President Trump. It has been nothing but a wild abuse
of the Constitution. Frankly, the word _impeachment_ should be
replaced with the word _coup_, because the president was illicitly
targeted for removal from office for doing his job in asking questions
about Ukraine corruption and its ties to Joe Biden, his son Hunter
Biden and Burisma. To be clear, the president was also attacked for
objecting to the House Democrats’ abuse of his office.

And Pelosi’s game of withholding the articles of impeachment in
order to deny President Trump’s justice in the Senate is another
unconstitutional violation of his God-given due process rights!
Incredibly, Pelosi has expanded her coup from the presidency to
include the United States Senate.

The U.S. Senate should reject these acts of tyranny by the House of
Representatives. In the meantime, you can be sure that we will
investigate the Biden-Ukraine scandal, as well as the Deep State
scandals and the illegal spying on the President of the United States.
Our republic is at stake.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES REP. SCHIFF FOR PHONE SUBPOENAS TARGETING TRUMP

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), in potential violation of law, abused his
power to secretly subpoena and then publish the private phone records
of innocent Americans.

In response, we have filed a lawsuit against Schiff and the House
Intelligence Committee for the controversial subpoenas issued for
phone records, including those of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s
lawyer. The phone records led to the publication
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of the private phone records of Giuliani, Congressman Devon Nunes,
journalist John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria
Toensing, and other American citizens.

We sued under the public’s common-law right of public access to
examine government records after we received no response to a December
6, 2019, records request (_Judicial Watch v Adam Schiff and U.S. House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence_
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(No.
1:19-cv-03790)):


1. All subpoenas issued by the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence on or about September 30, 2019 to any telecommunications
provider including, but not limited to AT&T, Inc., for records of
telephone calls of any individuals;

2. All responses received to the above-referenced subpoenas.

Schiff is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, currently
serving as Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence. We’re suing Schiff in his capacity as
Chairman of that committee. This lawsuit states:

> The records are of critical public importance as the subpoenas were
> issued without any lawful basis and violated the rights of numerous
> private citizens.
>
> Disclosure of the requested records would serve the public interest
> by providing information about the unlawful issuance of the
> subpoenas.
>
> The requested records fall within the scope of the public’s right
> of access to governmental records as a matter of federal common
> law.

What else is Mr. Schiff hiding? He and his committee ran roughshod
over the rule of law in pursuit of the abusive impeachment of
President Trump. This lawsuit serves as reminder that Congressman
Schiff and Congress are not above the law.

JUDICIAL WATCH BACK IN COURT ON CLINTON EMAILS AND BENGHAZI

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth is considering
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whether
to allow us to question Hillary Clinton and her top aide in person and
under oath about her scandalous misuse of personal email and her
despicable behavior during the Benghazi slaughter.

At a hearing this week, our attorneys also requested permission to
depose Paul Combetta
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who was the IT specialist working on the Clinton server at Platte
River Networks. Judge Lamberth specifically raised concerns regarding
Combetta’s transfer of Clinton’s emails into a Gmail account
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[email protected] [/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection]

We asked the court for permission to subpoena Google for information
from that account. Hillary Clinton is also fighting the court’s
previously ordered release of an “after action memo” created by
Clinton lawyer Heather Samuelson
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in December 2014 that memorializes the Clinton team’s review and
processing of Clinton’s emails.

Our lawsuit
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seeks
records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi
attack” (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State_
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1:14-cv-01242)). In 2014 we famously uncovered that the Obama White
House created
[/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#e78f93939794c2d5d2d4a6c8c8909090c98d92838e848e868b908693848fc9889580c89795829494ca95828b8286948294c88d92838e848e868bca908693848fca858289808f869d8eca838884928a82899394ca97888e8993ca908f8e9382ca8f88929482ca8a8e948b8286838e8980ca93868b8c8e8980ca97888e899394c8]
the “talking points” that provided the basis for Susan Rice’s
false statements. This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit led
directly
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to
the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

In December 2018, we announced court-ordered discovery
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into
whether Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server was
intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to
settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith;
and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records
responsive to our request. The court also authorized discovery into
whether the Benghazi controversy motivated the cover-up of Clinton’s
email. The court ruled
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that
the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to
government transparency.” The State and Justice Departments continue
to defend Mrs. Clinton’s and the agencies’ email conduct.

The Clinton email scandal and the related Benghazi scandal are not
going away. Here is some background to put this all in perspective.

As recently as October of this year, we forced the release of
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new
Clinton emails on the Benghazi controversy that had been covered up
for years and would have exposed Hillary Clinton’s email account in
2014 if the emails had been released when the State Department first
uncovered them. The Clinton email was first identified
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by
the State Department in September 2014, but was withheld from us
despite its specific reference to Benghazi talking points. After it
was described in an Office of the Inspector General report
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the court ordered its production. It was only after we informed the
State Department we were prepared to file a motion with the court to
compel production of the records that the Department relented and
produced the email in question.

In September 2019, the State Department provided
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us
a previously hidden email
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which shows top State Department officials used and were aware of
Hillary Clinton’s email account, and that “she guards it pretty
closely.” Despite a court order
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requiring
production of the email, the DOJ and State Departments only produced
it after we threatened to seek a court order to compel its production.

In an August 2019, hearing
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Judge Lamberth ordered production of the record in granting us
significant new discovery in the case. Judge Lamberth said
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“There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there
one for bureaucratic incompetence.” The judge also stated that the
government has mishandled this case and the discovery of information
including former Secretary Clinton’s emails so poorly that we may
have the ability to prove they acted in “bad faith.”

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

* Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton
Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the
unsecure clintonemail.com
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server that
Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified
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he
worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create
the non-government email system.
* In the interrogatory responses
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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
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that
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
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that
Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and
personal emails to transmit classified material.
* Lauren Jiloty, former special assistant to then-Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton admitted in written responses
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under
oath to loading contacts on Clinton’s unsecure BlackBerry. Jiloty
also said that she conducted official State Department business from
her own personal email account.
* Obama National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations, Susan Rice, admitted in written responses
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given
under oath that she emailed with former Clinton on Clinton’s
non-government email account and that she received emails related to
government business on her own personal email account.
* We received written responses
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under
oath from Clinton’s assistant Monica Hanley, asking whether the
State Department adequately searched for records responsive to our
request.
* John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services
(IPS) testified
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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.
* We deposed
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State
Department official Monica Tillery, asking whether the State
Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015
amounted to bad faith.
* We deposed
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Clarence
Finney, the deputy director of the Executive Secretariat staff who was
the principal advisor
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and
records management expert in the Office of the Secretary responsible
for control of all correspondence and records for Clinton and other
State Department officials.
* Jonathon Wasser, the State Department employee who conducted
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) searches during part of Hillary
Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State testified
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that
he did not clearly recollect whether he had any knowledge of potential
email addresses for Secretary Clinton.
* Ben Rhodes, former Obama White House deputy strategic
communications adviser, continued to blame an online video
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for
the Benghazi attacks, claims he doesn’t remember using personal
email for official business and that he wasn’t aware of Hillary
Clinton using her non-government email for official State Department
business before press reports made the fact public.
* We deposed
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State
Department lawyer Gene Smilansky regarding whether the State
Department’s intent to settle the case in 2014 and 2015 amounted to
bad faith.
* Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State
Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted
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under
oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in
June 2016.
* Former State Department Director of the Office of Information
Programs and Services Sheryl Walter stated
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that
she did not recall a call from the Obama White House asking for
“quick turnaround” of information concerning a FOIA request on
former Secretary Clinton’s use of personal email to conduct official
business.
* We deposed
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Elissa
Pitterle, the corporate representative assigned by the State
Department to address questions concerning the processing of FOIA
requests.
* We deposed
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Tasha
Marie Thian, former records officer of the Records and Archives
Management Division in the State Department, who testified: “I had
been told repeatedly that [Clinton] did not use email for work” and
therefore the records-management office “operated as if she did not
use [email].” She said that Finney informed her Clinton used her
personal email about Benghazi when she told him she was leaving in
April 2014.
* We deposed
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Patrick
Scholl, a FOIA public liaison at the State Department.
* We deposed
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Jamie
Bair, an attorney in the Office of the Legal Adviser who was assigned
to our FOIA request and lawsuit. Bair testified that he first learned
about Clinton’s email address shortly after joining the State
Department in April 2014 and that he saw it while reviewing documents
for Congressional requests regarding Benghazi. Bair said he informed
his supervisor, Matt Burton. Bair testified that he told DOJ attorney
Rob Prince about Clinton’s email address but would not provide a
timeframe. He also testified that his normal practice was to be in
close touch with DOJ attorneys on any given case.

The judge told us to “shake this tree
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And we are. Just imagine if we had not been so relentless!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas 2019 finds the foundations of our republic under attack.

So, at a time like this, it may be best to step back and try to focus
our hearts and minds on things that unite us.

As we do, I am reminded of one of my favorite stories from Christmas
past. It’s a story that proves anew that the essential message of
Christmas – “Hail the newborn Prince of Peace.” This is as
powerful today as it is poignant, as timely as it is timeless. It’s
the tale of a truce … a brief, fleeting truce … that turned a
World War I field of fire into a pageant of peace. As _Time _magazine
reported it several years ago:

> On a crisp, clear morning 100 years ago, thousands of British,
> Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of
> their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German
> enemies along the Western front.
>
> ***
>
> Most accounts suggest the truce began with carol singing from the
> trenches on Christmas Eve, “a beautiful moonlit night, frost on
> the ground, white almost everywhere”, as Pvt. Albert Moren of the
> Second Queens Regiment recalled
>
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> in a document later rounded up by the _New York_ _Times_. Graham
> Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described it in even
> greater detail
>
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>
> “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we
> would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye
> Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn
> to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is
> really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the
> same carol in the middle of a war.”
>
> The next morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their
> trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied
> soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up
> signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of
> the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and
> hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury
> their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no
> man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches.

I believe you will agree that there is a lesson to be learned there
– an enduring lesson that transcends the temporal and, especially at
this time of year, elevates us above the trials and traumas that beset
us. It is the Christmas message of “Peace on earth,” which caused
the bloodied and battered Allied and German soldiers to lay aside
their enmity and arms and “sing in exultation … joyful and
triumphant.”

Truly, as rifleman Graham Williams wrote, the spirit of Christmas
“is really a most extraordinary thing.” There is one particularly
extraordinary Christmas message that should give us indomitable
courage even in these troubling times. It’s from Isaiah 9:6, and it
defines the hope that lies within us all: “For unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given – _and the government shall be upon
his shoulders_.”

Ultimately, man’s power is limited on this Earth, contrary to what
some politicians and their antecedents might try to tell you. Even in
the most dire of times, we rest secure in the words of one of my
favorite Christmas carols, “the wrong shall fail, the right
prevail.”

Merry Christmas (and Happy Chanukah!) to you and yours from all of
us here at Judicial Watch.



Until next week …



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