Taxpayer Waster --- in Haiti.



[INSIDE JW]

Huge Stash of Joe Biden Papers Still Hidden at the University of
Delaware

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In all the news of classified documents at Joe Biden’s homes and
elsewhere, one huge pile of documents has been mostly overlooked by
everyone – but not us.

We’ve been fighting in court with the University of Delaware for
more than two years for access to Biden’s Senate papers housed
there.

Here’s the latest.

We filed a reply brief
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on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation in the Supreme Court of
Delaware in our appeal of a lower court decision blocking access to
Joe Biden’s senate papers. We’re asking for limited discovery,
including, at a minimum, deposing a university representative.

In July 2020 we filed
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a Delaware Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit after the university denied our
April 2020 requests for all of Biden’s Senate records and for
records about the preservation and any proposed release of the
records, including communications with Biden or his representatives
(_Judicial Watch, Inc. v. University of Delaware_
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(No. N20A-07-001)).

Earlier this month we filed an appeal brief
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with the Delaware
Supreme Court after the Superior Court sided with the university,
finding that the university had met its burden of performing an
adequate search for the requested records. That opinion came after the
university had submitted a second affidavit from the university’s
FOIA official stating that no state funds had been spent on
maintaining the documents.
In our Supreme Court filing, we argue
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> Despite FOIA’s acknowledgment that “public entities, as
> instruments of government, should not have the power to decide what
> is good for the public to know,” over the multi-year course of
> this FOIA proceeding, the University’s efforts to satisfy its
> statutory burden of proof have been parceled out piecemeal, in
> minuscule increments, and only in response to court orders, entered
> after briefing by Appellants. When the shortcomings of the
> University’s effort are noted in briefing, the University calls
> “foul.” The University’s umbrage at these proceedings is
> misplaced. To date, the FOIA Coordinator’s efforts (and her
> recollections of what steps she took) remain untested by cross
> examination. Appellants have every right to challenge what they
> believe has been a lackluster effort by the University to satisfy
> its statutory burden.
Separately, in a January 26, 2023, letter
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to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Delaware attorney Ted A.
Kittila, who serves as our local counsel, details:

> Based on what we have learned, there are 1,850 BOXES OF DOCUMENTS
> and 415 GIGABYTES OF ELECTRONIC RECORDS. [Emphasis in original] To
> place this in perspective, we have described the amount of boxes
> alone as filling approximately two tractor trailer trucks.

***

> [W]here are the funds coming from to house and archive the Biden
> Records? We have heard rumors that comments on a draft of the Gift
> Agreement may have been located on the Hunter Biden laptop, raising
> further questions: why would Hunter Biden be commenting on the
> donation of the Biden Records, and what was his role with respect to
> the donation?

> In our view, the United States House of Representatives would have
> the power to subpoena all of these documents. Unlike an effort to
> obtain public disclosure of documents under FOIA, a subpoena would
> have the power to compel the release of these documents. We believe
> that given President Biden’s alleged mishandling of documents, it
> is imperative for the House to review the Biden Records to determine
> that no classified materials are in the collection, especially given
> the fact that we do not even know if the person or persons reviewing
> these documents have security clearance. The House should also be
> interested in who has funded what is obviously a substantial
> donation. With the Gift Agreement out of reach, this remains an
> unanswered concern. Finally, the House should have particular
> interest in who has had access to the Biden Documents. Even if we
> were able to obtain access to the Biden Records, we have no idea if
> there have been documents removed during the course of the Delaware
> litigation.
“The University of Delaware’s conduct throughout this case
totally reeks," said DCNF Managing Editor Michael Bastasch. “The
American people have a right to know what’s in President Biden’s
Senate records and why the university is stonewalling our legitimate
records request.”

Congress should follow our lead and immediately move to subpoena,
secure, and examine the trove of secret Biden Senate records held at
the University of Delaware. We will continue fighting in court to
overcome the university’s desperate secrecy over its deal with Biden
to keep these records away from the American people.

U.S. GIVES HAITI ANOTHER $56.5 MILLION AFTER BILLIONS IN AID DISAPPEAR

While American taxpayers were watching billions of dollars flow into
Ukraine with little accountability, the same has been happening in
Haiti with far less attention. This desperate nation is an object
lesson in showering money with little result. Our _Corruption
Chronicles_ blog elaborates
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> Despite well-documented fraud and waste in the U.S. government’s
> costly and ineffective Haiti recovery campaign, American taxpayer
> dollars keep flowing to the poverty-stricken Caribbean island with
> no oversight. This month the Biden administration revealed it is
> dedicating an additional $56.5 million
>
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> to the failed initiative, explaining that the money is “for the
> people of Haiti in response to the country’s humanitarian crisis
> and cholera epidemic.” The announcement says Haiti’s alarming
> levels of gang violence have prevented people from accessing food,
> fuel water and other basic supplies but fails to reveal how this
> latest allocation will change that.
>
> This has been going on for many years and billions in U.S.
> assistance—with billions more from the international
> community—has made little difference. Since the 2010 earthquake
> Uncle Sam alone has provided Haiti with over $5.6 billion
>
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to help the nation
> bounce back but more than a decade later that has not materialized,
> and no one really knows what happened to the money. The funds were
> supposed to provide Haiti with “life-saving post-disaster relief
> as well as longer-term recovery, reconstruction, and development
> programs,” according to the State Department, which confirms that
> after the 2021 earthquake the U.S. “again mobilized a
> whole-of-government effort to provide immediate assistance at the
> Haitian government’s request.” Haiti’s reconstruction and
> development will continue for many years, the State Department
> predicts, adding that since 2021 it has doled out a whopping $278
> million in humanitarian and health assistance for Haiti.
>
> The money keeps flowing despite systemic lapses in the programs it
> funds. For instance, a costly initiative a to build housing failed
> miserably after the U.S. spent $90 million
>
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> and tens of thousands of Haitians remain homeless a decade later.
> The Clinton Foundation and Clinton Bush Haiti Fund also came up with
> some $88 million for earthquake recovery but Haiti remains a
> disaster, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
>
> Even before the tremor, a federal audit
>
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revealed that hundreds
> of millions of American taxpayer dollars were wasted on reckless
> Haitian projects with the single largest chunk—$170.3
> million—going to a failed port and power plant adventure heavily
> promoted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clinton-backed power and
> port venture is the biggest and most expensive failure mentioned in
> the probe, which was ordered by a Florida congresswoman who at the
> time confirmed a “troubling lack of progress and accountability”
> in Haiti reconstruction projects. All these years later many
> Haitians still live in deplorable, shanty town tent cities and a
> never-ending epidemic of cholera keeps claiming lives.
>
> American taxpayers have the right to ask where all that money went
> and why their government does not have a process in place to assure
> resources are properly used to actually help the Haitian people. One
> national_ _news report
>
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> _pointed out years ago the disconnect between the massive amount of
> private and public aid and the poverty, disease and homelessness
> that still plague the country. More recently, the nation’s biggest
> mainstream newspaper published an article
>
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> why Haiti still despairs after billions in foreign aid. “Since a
> powerful earthquake devastated the country in 2010, foreign aid
> seems only to have helped perpetuate some of the country’s biggest
> troubles,” the story reads, adding that Haiti’s institutions
> have become further hollowed after the international
> community—including the U.S., of course—pumped $13 billion of
> aid into the country. A researcher at a Washington D.C. think tank
> is quoted in the story saying that spending billions on so-called
> nation-building in Haiti has not worked and has contributed to the
> state’s erosion.
>
> Evidently, this will not stop the government from sending more
> money. Even the Trump administration requested $145.5 million
>
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aid to Haiti during its
> last year in office. Like many of the awards before it, the Biden
> administration claims that the most recent $56.5 million allocation
> will help “meet urgent humanitarian needs” of people across
> Haiti by providing food assistance, medical supplies, access to safe
> water and better healthcare. “The United States continues to stand
> with the people of Haiti during this challenging time,” the recent
> grant announcement says.

Until next week,



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