FBI “Finds” News Clinton Emails Include
Classified Info and Official Business in Texts
Remember when Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages
she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of
her work-related emails?
In response to a court order in a Judicial Watch case,
she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my
emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially
federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information
and belief, this has been done.”
We’ve known for a while that this was not the case.
Now there’s more proof. We have released 37
pages of new Clinton emails recently “found” by the FBI that
show the former secretary of state using her unsecure, non-government email
to transmit classified information. The new emails also show Clinton used
text messages for government business. The documents, which we received
after a review by the State Department, include 13 new Clinton
emails.
Here’s how poorly these emails were handled. The State Department did not
provide information about where they were found; why they were not
previously produced, or if additional records are anticipated. Last month,
a Justice Department attorney could
not tell a federal court judge how and where the FBI discovered the new
cache of Clinton emails.
The State Department previously claimed it had produced all responsive
Clinton emails, including emails recovered by the FBI that Hillary Clinton
tried to destroy or withhold. The State Department initially claimed all
responsive emails had been produced in 2018, but then found more emails,
which were produced, for the first time, early last year. Then in November
2019, the State Department first
disclosed to the court that the FBI had found this latest batch of
emails.
The emails were produced thanks to our Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) lawsuit for
all of Clinton’s government emails sent or received on her secret server
system ( Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)). We
sought:
All emails sent and received by former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State, as well as all
emails by other State Department employees to Secretary Clinton regarding
her non-“state.gov” email address.
Here’s what we found.
In an
email Clinton’s personal email, dated January 23, 2012,
former-British Prime Minister Tony Blair sends details that were redacted
as classified.
In a email containing classified information
dated August 30, 2011, Jeffrey Feltman, then-Assistant Secretary for the
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs suggested Clinton meet Lebanese Prime
Minister Najib Mikati in Paris to talk about Syria and other
issues.
In an
email exchange on August 31, 2011, Clinton top aide Huma
Abedin says she sent Clinton “a couple text messages,” and offers
to “send Monica [Hanley] to hamptons to help you get
organized.”
In an
email sent on April 10, 2012, Clinton forwards to her then-Deputy
Chief of Staff Jacob Sullivan a memo on the Egyptian election campaign that
includes information on the Muslim Brotherhood that she received
from Sidney
Blumenthal. In this memo, Blumenthal claims to have “Sources with
access to the highest levels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and Western intelligence and security
services.”
On November 7, 2012, Mills forwards a classified email
chain with the subject “global health doc” to Clinton’s personal
email. The initial email, which included a draft of this document was
labeled and highlighted “Confidential fyi – not for larger
dissemination to ANY others.”
In an
email dated August 30, 2011, Clinton forwards to Sullivan, her top
foreign policy advisor, an intelligence memo on Libya that was sent to
her earlier by Blumenthal with the subject line, “H: Very good intel re:
inside NTC. Sid” NTC is the acronym for the Libyan National Transitional
Council. The State Department redacted Hillary Clinton’s comments about
the Blumenthal Libya memo.
In a heavily redacted email
chain between January 25-26, 2009, Clinton CCs her BlackBerry in a
discussion about an envoy to North Korea with her then-Chief of Staff,
Cheryl Mills, and former State Department Special Advisor for
Nonproliferation and Arms Control Robert Einhorn. Einhorn sends Clinton,
“several names for [Clinton’s] consideration.” Clinton replies from
her personal email account.
After Einhorn responds, Clinton asks Mills privately to put Einhorn and
someone only identified as “Rose” “into transition space.” She also
asks that then-Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar be on call lists to
“schedule the two of them.”
On February 18, 2009, Mills sends an
email to Clinton, Clinton’s BlackBerry and Abedin containing a
message “For HRC from [former Ambassador] Frank Wisner” about
Clinton’s request for his thoughts on her upcoming trip to
Egypt.
On August 2, 2009, in an
email with the subject line “Feingold,” Huma Abedin sends to
Clinton’s personal email a memo from Russ Feingold about issues
concerning Somalia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and
Nigeria. The memo also includes information on the Islamist militant group,
Boko Haram in Nigeria.
In an
email dated January 8, 2012, which included Clinton’s schedule,
Abedin emails Clinton’s main scheduler Lona Valmoro to check to see if
Clinton will have enough time to prep for her Elle
Magazine interview. She also had an interview with Lisa DePaolo
of More magazine. That same day, Clinton took five
questions during her phone call with 200 personnel from the US Embassy in
Kabul.
In an
email dated October 31, 2012, then-former-State Department
Director of Policy Planning, Anne-Marie Slaughter emailed Clinton’s
personal email, as well as Sullivan, Abedin, Mills, and Clinton innovation
advisor Alec J. Ross a document asking for State Department support for a
satellite channel that would “allow Syrians to talk to Syrians in a
citizen-controlled format.” Slaughter adds that she’s “made contact
with the Swedes” on this issue.
On November 4, 2012, Valmoro again sends Clinton’s sensitive daily
schedule to Clinton and Abedin on the unsecure server.
What does all this mean? Magically, after years, the FBI finds more Clinton
emails that show Clinton used text messages for government work, not to
mention the continuing flow of classified information transmitted over her
unsecure email system. These documents further underscore the need for a
fresh, unbiased and thorough criminal investigation into Clinton’s
blatant malfeasance – and the related DOJ, FBI, and State Department
cover-up.
The production of documents in this
case was to have been concluded with the FBI’s recovery of
approximately 5,000 of the 33,000 government emails Clinton took and tried
to destroy, but, as you see, this case is still in progress.
New Strzok-Page Emails Reveal DOJ Special Treatment of Clinton
Lawyers
It’s one thing to say that the FBI pretended to investigate Hillary
Clinton’s scandalous use of unsecure email. It is quite another to see
that even blatantly
anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were disturbed by
the special treatment her lawyers received.
We just received 211
pages of emails between former FBI officials Strzok and Page that
detail special accommodations given to the lawyers of Hillary Clinton and
her aides during the FBI investigation of the Clinton email controversy.
The new emails include a discussion about negotiations with Beth Wilkinson
over the destruction of laptops provided to the FBI. Wilson was a lawyer
for the Clinton aides who gathered and then deleted 33,000 emails for
Hillary Clinton.
We received the records in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to our December 4,
2017, FOIA request seeking communications, including but not limited to,
emails, text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strzok
and FBI attorney Lisa Page ( Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice) No. 1:18-cv-00154)). We
are seeking:
- All records of communications, including but not limited to, emails,
text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI
attorney Lisa Page;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and
expense reports of Peter Strzok;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and
expense reports of Lisa Page.
The FBI is processing the records at a rate of only 500 pages per
month and has refused to process text messages. At this speed, the
production of these communications won’t be completed for almost another
two more years – in late 2021.
In an April 25, 2016, email
from Strzok to FBI Agent Jonathan Moffa and other FBI officials, Strzok
indicated that Wilkinson and Hillary Clinton lawyer David Kendall were set
to meet the following day with FBI/DOJ in the Counterespionage Section of
the FBI. Strzok tells his colleagues, “If you have strong objection (I do
not other than finding out after the DD [Deputy Director]), we should raise
it now.” Moffa replies, “It’s weird the DD [Andrew McCabe] is the
first to know though. When did that become the norm?” Strzok replies,
“Since the butthurt. I think there’s some passive aggressive stuff
going on. Whatever.”
On May 11, 2016, Strzok submitted a
“Wilkinson negotiation timeline” to Assistant Director for the
Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap wherein he laid out unspecified
“negotiations” that had taken place between FBI/DOJ and Wilkinson.
Strzok noted that “We will have spent 34 days waiting for opposing
counsel to make the initial step of any tangible offer, about which we have
no idea of if it will be anywhere close to what we have been specific about
(at least since the Mills interview, if not earlier by DoJ) wanting.”
Mills refers to Cheryl Mills, a top Clinton State Department official who
then served as Clinton’s private lawyer and led the Clinton email review
and destruction.
In an April 8, 2016, email to
FBI officials, Strzok outlines questions for the FBI’s upcoming
interviews of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson
“concerning their post-State employment.” Strzok then forwards the
email on to Page, Moffa and other unidentified persons, indicating that the
questions were prepared “in anticipation of potential need for further
discussion between the FBI and DOJ on the analysis of attorney-client and
attorney work product privileges and protections.”
Heather
Samuelson was the Clinton lawyer who deleted the 33,000 Clinton emails
and was one of several Obama-era State Department officials, lawyers, and
Clinton aides who were ordered by Judge Lamberth to provide
answers under oath to our questions about the Benghazi and Clinton
email scandals. Ms. Samuelson testified last year that the Justice
Department also gave her immunity.
On March 22, 2016, Strzok writes in
an email to Priestap, “[Redacted] indicated he feels a need (and I
agreed) to respond to Beth [Wilkinson] quickly about taking possession of
the laptops. She is fine to provide them to be destroyed, but not to store
them.”
On April 13, 2016, Strzok emailed Priestap and expressed
concern about “the content of that Baker-Wilkinson contact,”
apparently referring to a phone call between FBI General Counsel James
Baker and Wilkinson. Strzok told Priestap, “To the extent you can ask
what Jim’s contact was and ask that the investigative team be kept
abreast of contact with our DOJ counterparts, I would greatly appreciate
it.” Strzok forwarded the note to Page, saying, “You still think I
don’t have reason to be angry?”
On April 1, 2016, Strzok forwards to
Priestap, FBI Counterintelligence Division official Robert Jones, Moffa and
some unidentified FBI officials a Politico report discussing
the highly unusual legal strategy of Wilkinson simultaneously representing
four of Hillary Clinton’s top aides in the email scandal.
On March 23, 2016, Page emails Strzok
at 8:39 p.m. with the subject line “God, I’m in such a bad mood” and
said, “I really just hate everyone. Especially DOJ. ??????”
Strzok replies: “God me too! I’m trying to figure out why I’m in a
foul mood, I think it’s DoJ plus prospect of packing and travel and late
night all for bullsh*t meeting postponed and [redacted] and wondering how
Bill’s feeling. Got a weird too many people to coordinate I’m punting
to [redacted] message earlier this morning. Why are you cranky? This stuff?
The UC media provisions? Why did you end up staying up so late? And hi. The
only saving grace is the glorious moon tonight.”
Page responds: “Just everything. Fighting with doj and internally on uc
policy (it’s back up to DD - I don’t want to hear about it). [Redacted]
I need an office closer to Andy, I need to clean my office, I need to write
my PAR. [Redacted]. Just proposed to Andy [McCabe] that we have a pre-meet
on Friday. Think we need it plus it will give us an opportunity to skinny
down the room if he thinks it’s too big.”
Strzok replies: “Babe, that stinks across the board. I don’t have an
easy answer for you on the hours. If you can’t get out before 7 on a day
he isn’t there, well, you’re going to have to give somewhere. You
definitely do need an office closer. Andy needs to do that. There are at
least 5 people I can think of who easily can go. … Going to bed soon
[redacted] United managed to f*ck up seat assignments when they split the
locator record, so that’s nice [redacted].”
In her reply, Page discusses a meeting that would take place between DOJ
and FBI officials concerning the Hillary Clinton investigation, writing,
“I texted Andy pre-meet, he agreed, I called [redacted] to ensure it gets
on the calendar. I don’t care what Mike and Bill think, you’re going to
be there. I also talked to [redacted] about skinnying up the room - right
now we’ll have ELEVEN, which is retarded.”
Strzok responds: “If it’s any consolation, I think doj will have 5 plus
one on speaker phone.”
In a March 28, 2016, email from
Page to Strzok with the subject line “god, I’m frustrated,” Page
appears to refer back to the large FBI/DOJ meeting at which Beth Wilkinson
asserted a privilege over the Clinton’s lawyers sorting and deleting of
Clinton’s emails. Page writes Strzok, “And I’m sorry, it is not
obvious to me that the sort is opinion work product. It should have been
conducted by State department records managers, and you wouldn’t even be
in this position to be talking about privilege. And to be clear, some
opinion work product materials ‘do not warrant heightened protection
because, despite revelations they contain as attorney’s though processes,
lawyer has no justifiable expectation that mental impressions revealed by
materials will remain private.’” Page ends the email saying, I AM
IRRITATED.”
Strzok responds: “Hi. I am irritated too, but mostly exhausted; I’m
sure you’re more so after the morning you had. I’m glad you made it to
the meeting – was worried you might not. Obviously want to talk about
your impressions of the whole thing.”
On March 29, 2016, Strzok forwarded to
officials in the FBI General Counsel’s office as well as to Deputy
Assistant Director in the Counterintelligence Division Jonathan Moffa
an article from The
Hill headlined “Second judge opens door to depositions in
Clinton email case” discussing Judge Royce Lamberth opening the door us
to take depositions from
government officials in our Benghazi talking points lawsuit. Strzok’s
comment in his cover email is redacted, as is the response from the General
Counsel’s office, under deliberative process.
On May 19, 2016, Strzok forwarded to
Priestap a New York Times article discussing
a deposition we took of State Department official Lewis
Lukens regarding Clinton’s email case, and Strzok cut-and-pasted
in particular comments I made concerning the impact of Lukens’s
testimony.
A paragraph from the article which Strzok pasted in the email read: “But
Mr. Fitton predicted that once the testimony is publicly released —
perhaps as early as next week — it would show ‘why the State Department
and Mrs. Clinton have slow-rolled this and withheld a complete explanation
of what went on with her email system...’” Strzok acknowledges Lukens
“plays a minor role but appears in an email discussing setting up a
computer on Mahogany row where she could access private email which was
seized upon by some outside.” Strzok writes: “we have interviewed his
boss Stephen Mull and REDACTED both of which had greater involvement.”
(We have also deposed Amb.
Mull.)
It is quite apparent why the FBI is slow-rolling the release of these
Strzok-Page emails – as they dramatically show how senior officials at
the Obama DOJ and FBI gave special and favorable treatment to Clinton and
her lawyers. As the Obama Justice Department and FBI bent over backwards to
protect Hillary Clinton, these agencies broke every law under the sun to
spy on her political opponent, Donald J. Trump.
In November 2019, we made public records
of communications between Strzok and Page showing that Wilkinson
was given a meeting with Baker and McCabe. Also, we uncovered records revealing
that, after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement denying
the transmission of classified information over her unsecure email system,
former FBI official Peter Strzok sent an email to FBI officials citing
“three [Clinton email] chains” containing (C) [classified] portion
marks in front of paragraphs.”
In June 2019, we received records from
the Department of Justice that show FBI top officials scrambling to write a
letter to Congress to supplement then-Director James Comey’s Senate
testimony in an apparent attempt to muddle his message.
In a related case, we uncovered 277
pages of redacted records that show the FBI failed to produce
information from an August 2015 meeting with the Intelligence Community
Inspector General about Hillary Clinton’s email server. The FBI claimed
that notes are “missing” and the CD containing notes from the meeting
is likely “damaged” irreparably.
Also in June 2019, we released emails of
Strzok and Page that show then-FBI General Counsel James Baker instructing
FBI officials to expedite the release of FBI investigative material to
Kendall, in August 2016. Kendall and the FBI’s top lawyer discussed
specifically quickly obtaining the “302” report of the FBI/DOJ
interview of Clinton.
In February 2019, we uncovered records from
the Department of Justice that include emails documenting an evident
cover-up of a chart of potential violations of law by former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton. We also received records from
the U.S. Department of Justice revealing former FBI General Counsel James
Baker discussed the investigation of Clinton-related emails on Anthony
Weiner’s laptop with Kendall. Baker then forwarded the conversation to
his FBI colleagues. The documents also further describe a previously
reported quid pro quo from the Obama State Department offering the FBI more
legal attaché positions if it would downgrade a redaction in an email
found during the Hillary Clinton email investigation “from classified to
something else.”
There is a mountain of evidence, uncovered by Judicial Watch, that show AG
Barr and FBI Director Wray have every reason to reopen the Clinton email
investigation.
State Department Handler for Clinton Spy Steele Used Personal Email
to Push Reports
It seems that people in Obama’s State Department other than Hillary
Clinton were oblivious, to put it charitably, to the fact that using
personal email for government business is a security risk and can also
thwart federal recordkeeping laws.
This week we uncovered the use of personal email by a State Department
official involved with the notorious British spy whose fictional dossier
became the centerpiece of the coup against Donald Trump.
In our lawsuit filed together with The Daily Caller News Foundation we
uncovered 11
pages of State Department documents revealing a discussion about the
use of private email to transmit potentially sensitive information from
Christopher Steele, the author of the Clinton-funded, anti-Trump
dossier.
We obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed
on April 25, 2018, on behalf the Daily Caller News Foundation against the
State Department after it failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests
( Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv- 00968)). The
lawsuit seeks:
- All records of communications between State Department officials,
including former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on the
one hand, and British National Christopher Steele and/or employees or
contractors of Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, on the
other hand.
- All records and/or memoranda provided by Christopher Steele and/or his
firm Orbis Business Intelligence or by others acting on
Steele’s/Orbis’s behalf to State Department officials.
- Any and all records in the custody of the State Department related to
the provision of documents to British national Christopher Steele and/or
his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, or the receipt of documents from
Steele or his firm. Time period is January 20, 2009 through the
present.
- All records created in 2016 by Jonathan M. Winer relating to research
compiled by Christopher Steele.
Here’s the story.
On December 8, 2014, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European
Affairs Paul Jones suggests to Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer
that he “flip” reports from Steele’s firm, Orbis Business
Intelligence, to a more
secure email system, “given our ongoing concerns about security
of opennet …”
Jones added, “We just want to be sure we don’t inadvertently undermine
a very good source of info or worse.” Winer responds, “Flipping to the
high side will result in delays whenever the reporting takes place and I am
out of the office, which includes weekends plus when I am overseas…”
Then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland replies, “Let’s do
high side.”
Winer replies that he would, “have [his assistant] Nina Miller send them
to you on my behalf high side … I will send them to her from my non-State
email account, not copying myself. She will then send them to us. You know
who they are coming from, so even high side from here I will just refer to
them as ‘O Reports,’ and strip out any other identifying information as
to sourcing.”
On February 9, 2016, a heavily redacted email exchange with the subject,
“Urgent -- [redacted]” begins with an
email from Justin Siberell, former-Principal Deputy Coordinator of
the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau to multiple senior State
Department officials including Winer. In this exchange, Siberell mentions
that they are “meeting later today with OSD/SOLIC
[redacted].” OSD/SOLIC is the office run by the Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict.
Siberell notes that the “DOD will work on press guidance and a strategic
messaging plan that will be cleared with/through State,” which implies
that it is a matter of public relations concern.
Later in the redacted discussion, Winer changes the distribution list and
writes, “For this group only – [redacted]”. Secretary John Kerry’s
Chief of Staff Jonathan Finer responds, “As Jonathan predicted
[redacted].”
One of the other recipients, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe, John
Heffern, then forwards the entire exchange to two colleagues, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Europe, Conrad Tribble and
then-Office Director for Western European Affairs, Robin Quinville saying,
“Do not circulate widely.”
Tribble replies the next day asking Heffern and Quinville, “Anything
further on this? No real action for EUR [State Department’s Bureau of
Europe and Eurasian Affairs] yet, but obviously of some concern.”
Said Neil Patel, publisher and CEO of the Daily Caller News Foundation:
“The Obama State Department's handling of the Steele dossier remains one
of the great mysteries of the Russia probe. We still do not have all the
answers about how the State Department used opposition research collected
by a foreign spy regarding President Trump and his campaign. These
documents, obtained through our lawsuit filed together with Judicial Watch,
raises further questions about what exactly went on at Foggy Bottom.”
No wonder Jonathan Winer, Steele’s ally at the State Department, refused
to talk to the DOJ IG. He seems to have circumvented the rules in
pushing Steele’s unreliable reports to his Obama State Department
colleagues. Our lawsuits have documented that the Obama-Kerry State
Department was a hotbed of anti-Trump activity. AG Barr and US
Attorney Durham would do well to focus like a laser on the State
Department.
Here is some background.
We recently released 146
pages of documents revealing that Steele had an extensive and
close working relationship dating back to May of 2014 with high-ranking
Obama State Department officials including Winer and Nuland. We also
uncovered documents
showing that less than a month before the presidential inauguration Winer
had a 10-minute phone call with Alexey Vladimirovich Skosyrev, the
“political chief” at the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC.
In July 2019, we released 84
pages of documents revealing an email exchange between Nuland and
Winer, discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter” in
New York in September 2016.
In June 2019 we released 41
pages of documents from the State Department revealing that Winer
played a key role in facilitating Steele’s access to other top government
officials and prominent international business executives. Winer was even
approached by a movie producer about making a movie about the Russiagate
targeting of President Trump.
In May 2019, our FOIA lawsuit produced information
from the DOJ showing a conversation between former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Kathleen
Kavalec and Bruce Ohr, discussing the targeting of Donald Trump with Steele
dossier material. In discussing a meeting with the potential source for
a Mother Jones article accusing the Trump campaign of taking
money from a Russian-American oil magnate, as well as Steele’s connection
to that source, Kavalec emails Ohr citing the accusatory Mother
Jones article. Ohr says, “I really hope we can get something going
here.”
Also, we obtained an
email revealing that Nellie Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, informed him
that she was deleting emails sent from his DOJ email account. The
full email
exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan
Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339
pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of
Justice.
In March 2019, we uncovered
emails from Bruce Ohr showing that he remained in regular contact
with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Steele after
Steele was
terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media
his position as an FBI confidential informant. The records show that Ohr
served as a go-between for Steele by passing along information to “his
colleagues” on matters relating to Steele’s activities. Ohr also set up
meetings with Steele, regularly talked to him on the telephone and provided
him assistance in dealing with situations Steele was confronting with the
media.
We broke this story and, as you can see, we aren’t letting it go.
Nearly All Arrested Illegal Aliens Had Criminal Convictions or
Charges
Although President Trump is trying to improve security at the border, in
its currently porous state there isn’t a good filter for keeping out the
bad guys. Countries south of us aren’t always sending us their best and
brightest. Sometimes not their most law-abiding either. We’re at the
point at which it’s fair to question the motives of those who favor
throwing open our borders and setting up sanctuaries for those who
cross.
Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports
how those coming in are threats to our safety.
More than 90% of illegal immigrants arrested by federal agents in the
United States last year had criminal convictions or pending criminal
charges, including 56,000 assaults and thousands of sex crimes, robberies,
homicides and kidnappings. Many had “extensive criminal histories with
multiple convictions,” according to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s (ICE) year-end report.
The 123,128 illegal aliens arrested by the agency’s Enforcement and
Removal Operations (ERO) in 2019 had 489,063 criminal convictions and
pending charges, representing an average of four crimes per alien,
highlighting the “recidivist nature” of the arrested aliens, the agency
writes, noting that sanctuary cities nationwide greatly impeded its public
safety efforts.
The Dallas ICE field office, which covers north Texas and Oklahoma, led
the way with 16,900
arrests in fiscal year 2019. The overwhelming majority,12,578, were
convicted of crimes and 3,499 had pending criminal charges. The Atlanta
field office, which is responsible for enforcing immigration law in Georgia
as well as South and North Carolina, ranked second with 13,247 arrests,
8,009 of them convicted for state crimes. Another 3,943 illegal aliens had
pending criminal charges. Atlanta field office leadership has repeatedly
blasted local law enforcement officials within its jurisdiction for
releasing droves of illegal immigrant criminals back onto the streets after
being jailed for serious state crimes, accusing the sanctuary jurisdictions
of creating a “serious
public safety threat.”
In North Carolina alone, hundreds of violent criminals were released
by local authorities last year to honor measures that offer illegal
immigrants sanctuary. Among them were illegal aliens charged with serious
violations such as homicide, kidnapping, arson and sex offenses.
Mecklenburg County, the state’s largest, was among the biggest offenders,
releasing numerous violent criminals rather than turn them over to federal
authorities for removal. Among them was a previously deported Honduran
charged with rape and child sex crimes. The perpetrator, 33-year-old Oscar
Pacheco-Leonardo, was freed by the county sheriff, who has kept his
campaign promise to
protect illegal immigrants from the feds. In Buncombe County, North
Carolina the elected sheriff recently freed
a child sex offender to keep with his county’s sanctuary policy. The
Salvadoran national, a registered sex offender charged with four felony
counts of statutory sex with an 11-year-old girl, had been in ICE’s radar
for years.
The Tar Heel State is hardly alone in making ICE’s enforcement
duties more difficult by protecting the most violent of illegal immigrants.
Police nationwide are contributing to the crisis, refusing to participate
in a local-federal partnership known as 287(g)
that notifies ICE of jail inmates in the country illegally so they can be
deported after serving time for state crimes. Instead, a growing number of
law enforcement agencies are releasing the illegal aliens——many with
serious convictions such as child sex offenses, rape and murder—rather
than turn them over to federal authorities for removal. In California
various police departments released
16 illegal immigrants with criminal records during a three-month period,
some arrested and released multiple times by the same agency. Offenders
include Mexican, Honduran and Salvadoran nationals charged with murder,
rape, assault with a deadly weapon, spousal abuse, driving under the
influence of alcohol, possession of illegal drugs and other serious
crimes.
ICE still managed to deport some after scooping them up in targeted
operations. Last year ICE removed 5,497 known or suspected gang members and
58 known or suspected terrorists. Just this month, ICE arrested
a previously deported illegal immigrant released by local authorities
in a fatal hit and run that killed a 35-year-old woman on Christmas eve.
The Mexican national, 27-year-old Jorge Flores-Villalba, was arrested and
released by Stony Point Town Police in New York. ICE’s New York Field
Office Director, Thomas Decker, blasted Stony Point officials in a statement.
“Creating laws and policies that prevent cooperation between law
enforcement agencies just to promote their political agenda, places the
safety of the public in danger,” he said. “Due to the hard work of our
officers, we were able to find and arrest this accused criminal, but there
are countless others who are released without ICE even knowing, or whom it
may take a great amount of resources to find for arrest.”
Until next week …
|