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Federal dollars going to California could or should be considered foreign aid. Why? Read on…
The federal government spends some $367.8 billion a year on California. That’s an average of about $9,500 for every woman, man and child in the state.
In truth, the money isn’t spread out evenly. About 56 cents of every federal dollar spent in California, according to the analysis, goes to health or retirement benefits — Social Security, Medicare and money for low-income residents’ health care through the Medi-Cal program.
Defense contracts are the next biggest slice of the pie, followed by paychecks to military and civilian government employees. From there, federal spending gets sprinkled among a number of programs run by the state government. Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent budget plan pegged those funds at a total of $105 billion, equivalent to about 58% of state taxpayer dollars to be spent in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.
So, now that California is officially a sanctuary state under SB54, effective January1, 2018, those illegals, felons and those plotting threats with regard to national security can freely travel anywhere, this is not just a California problem.
Last year, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order to cut funding from counties that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, Santa Clara County stood to lose $1.7 billion in federal funding. After fighting the order, a federal judge ruled in favor of the county. Now that the entire state is following the same guidelines, some leaders argue it could strengthen their position in future legal battles.
Not everyone is onboard, however. Some California sheriff’s departments have criticized the new sanctuary state law, saying it will lead to broad roundups that could lead to collateral arrests. More here.
Prohibits state and local law enforcement from holding illegal aliens on the basis of federal immigration detainers, or transferring them into federal custody, unless they’ve been convicted in the last 15 years for one of a list of 31 crimes, or are a registered sex offender: if not, they may only be held with a warrant from a federal judge.
Prohibits state and local law enforcement from asking anyone about their immigration status.
Prohibits state and local law enforcement from sharing any information with federal immigration authorities that is not available to the general public.
Prohibits state and local law enforcement from using any of their money or personnel to “investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes”.
Prohibits state and local law enforcement from allowing federal immigration authorities to use space in their facilities.
Limits how and when state and local law enforcement can contract with federal immigration authorities.
Grants discretion to state and local law enforcement to cooperate even less with federal immigration authorities than the bill authorizes them to, but not more
Is near-universally recognized and described by both its supporters and opponents as a sanctuary state bill: protects illegal aliens at the expense of citizens, will increase illegal immigration to California, and sends the message that illegal aliens are welcome everywhere in the state.
***
State Senate Leader Kevin de Leon, the author of the bill, has argued that public safety will be undermined if the law isn’t passed. It is estimated that more than 2 million undocumented people live in California — with hundreds of thousands from Asia as well as Latin America — and advocates say many will be scared to interact with official institutions if they fear that will put them on federal immigration agents’ radar. They say individuals might not report violent crimes to police, might not send their kids to school or might not seek medical care at the local hospital. And there is some evidence to back that up: Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Police Department said that Latino communities were reporting fewer instances of sexual assault and domestic violence because of concerns about deportation under Trump. More here.
***
California Democratic state Senate president Kevin de León intends to enter California’s 2018 Senate race against Sen. Dianne Feinstein, three sources with knowledge of his plans say.
De León has begun calling labor leaders and elected officials to inform them of his plans, the sources said, and is expected to soon announce his campaign against Feinstein, a giant of California Democratic politics who has held the office since 1992.
The 50-year-old de León, who represents Los Angeles and is seen as a leading Latino voice in Democratic politics, is likely to campaign aggressively against President Donald Trump. He began signaling he could oppose Feinstein in late August, after she said Trump could “be a good president” and that he “can learn and change.” Feinstein later clarified that she is “under no illusion that it’s likely to happen and will continue to oppose his policies.” More here.
So who is this de Leon character? That is a challenge to determine and he has not been fully forthcoming on his own history. Check it out here.
De León was the first and only person in his family to graduate from high school and attend college. He started out at the University of California Santa Barbara, but it was a challenge. He had moxie but no organizational skills, no practice at taking notes or studying for a test. He didn’t last long.
He couldn’t go back home and tell his mother of his failure. Instead, he went to work for One Stop Immigration Center, a nonprofit in Los Angeles that helps undocumented immigrants fill out paperwork and teaches them English, history and organizing.
Then, the Attorney General for California is Javier Beccera. He is a loyal and dedicated supported of the Dream Act and will defend all cases against California becoming a sanctuary state. Meanwhile, remember that whole Pakistani IT case in Congress under Debbie Wasserman Schultz?
Enter again Javier Beccera.
Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation.
The secret server was connected to the House Democratic Caucus, an organization chaired by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra. Police informed Becerra that the server was the subject of an investigation and requested a copy of it. Authorities considered the false image they received to be interference in a criminal investigation, the senior official said.
On Jan. 24, 2017, Becerra vacated his congressional seat to become California’s attorney general. “He wanted to wipe his server, and we brought to his attention it was under investigation. The light-off was we asked for an image of the server, and they deliberately turned over a fake server,” the senior official said.
“They were using the House Democratic Caucus as their central service warehouse … It was a breach. The data was completely out of [the members’] possession. Does it mean it was sold to the Russians? I don’t know,” the senior official said.
Capitol Police considered the image a sign that the Awans knew exactly what they were doing and were going to great lengths to try to cover it up, the senior official said. The House Sergeant-at-Arms banned them from the network as a result.
The senior official said the data was also funneled offsite via a Dropbox account, from which copies could easily be downloaded. Authorities could not immediately shut down the account when the Awans were banned from the network because it was not an official account. More here.
One last item…don’t forget to keep Eric Holder in the whole mix regarding California.
The California Senate is throwing its support behind Chicago in a lawsuit against the Justice Department over its plan to withhold federal money from “sanctuary cities,” which limit collaboration between state and local authorities with federal immigration agents.
Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and his firm, Covington & Burling, on Thursday filed a friend-of the-court brief on behalf of the state Senate in the federal case, saying sanctuary jurisdictions have policies consistent with federal law.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, Holder says, does not have the constitutional authority to mandate that cities, counties or states participate in federal immigration efforts as a condition to receive their federal public safety awards.
The lawsuit, filed last month by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city officials, asks a judge to block the Trump administration from enforcing three new conditions it included in petitions for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant money. The city uses the grant to buy police cars and other equipment, and to fund an anti-violence program.
Holder, who was said to have filed the brief pro-bono, was temporarily hired by the Senate and Assembly to serve as outside counsel to offer advice on the state’s legal strategy against the incoming administration. On Friday, a Covington & Burling spokeswoman said the firm remains “engaged with the California Senate on an ongoing basis.”
In the brief, Holder said the California Legislature has a particular interest in the Chicago case as it weighs Senate Bill 54, which seeks to limit state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to question, detain and provide information on immigrants illegally in the country.
Covington & Burling analyzed the legislation this year and concluded that “states have the power over the health and safety of their residents and allocation of state resources.”
Politico: Attorneys for former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court accusing special counsel Robert Mueller and the Justice Department of overreaching with criminal charges brought last fall including money laundering and tax evasion.
Manafort pleaded not guilty. His 17-page complaint contends the Russia special counsel exceeded the authority DOJ gave him in May to investigate any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
Mueller’s office declined comment on the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A Justice Department spokeswoman pushed back in a statement: “The lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants.”
***
BI: A top ethics watchdog said Wednesday it is suing the Justice Department for all communications concerning the DOJ’s decision to share with the press text messages exchanged between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, during the 2016 election.
Many of the texts were overtly critical of President Donald Trump, and Strzok and Page mocked him at various points throughout the campaign, calling him an “idiot.”
Strzok and Page also disparaged other political leaders, like the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and former Attorney General Eric Holder. The texts concerning Trump, however, were quickly weaponized by the most vehement critics of special counsel Robert Mueller following the DOJ’s decision to release them to Congress and the press. That release came just one day before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 13.
The department has failed to answer a significant lingering question stemming from that release: how it chose which texts, of the more than 10,000 the department obtained over the summer, to unveil publicly. Nor has it released additional messages that could provide context to the ones that were shared with lawmakers and reporters. DOJ has also not disclosed who authorized the release.
The lawsuit, filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the “DOJ’s senior leadership offices for all communications concerning the decision” to give the texts to a small group of reporters the day before Rosenstein’s testimony. CREW filed the expedited request Wednesday after the DOJ failed to respond to their initial inquiry within 20 working days.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said on Wednesday that career DOJ employees hadn’t denied CREW’s FOIA request, but were examining the expedited review request based on “a two prong standard.”
CREW specified that the Freedom of Information Act request should include “communications with reporters regarding this meeting, communications with DOJ about whether, when, and how to share the text messages with reporters, communications with any member of Congress and/or their staff regarding this matter,” and information about who made the decision to release the texts to the media on December 12.
The DOJ’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Democrats in December that, absent any legal or ethical issues, he gave the DOJ a green light one month earlier to release the texts to Congress.
Horowitz said his office was not consulted before the DOJ shared the same texts with the press, but the DOJ has insisted it followed proper protocol before doing so.
“Senior career ethics advisers determined that there were no legal or ethical concerns, including under the Privacy Act, that prohibited the release of the information to the public either by members of Congress or by the Department,” Flores said in a statement last month.
But “cutting out the middle person and giving the texts directly to the press is an unusual step that is inconsistent with law enforcement norms and raises concerns that the purpose was political,” said William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that a release of raw evidence during an ongoing investigation breaches important norms and is a very bad idea.”
CREW said in its lawsuit that the OIG has indicated it will “continue to review records responsive to CREW’s request” and process it “as expeditiously as possible.” The OIG declined to comment on Wednesday.
The U.S. will hold a reception for countries that did not vote last month to approve a United Nations (U.N.) resolution condemning the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Tuesday.
“As I said in December, we won’t forget the Jerusalem vote,” Haley said at a news conference. “To that end, tomorrow night, we are having a reception for the countries who chose not to oppose the U.S. position [on Jerusalem].”
The resolution, while not legally binding, amounted to an international effort to pressure the Trump administration to reconsider its Jerusalem decision, which reversed decades of U.S. policy in the region.
Among the countries to vote in favor of the resolution were key U.S. allies, like the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Other allies, like Canada, Australia and Mexico, abstained from the vote.
Among the nine countries to vote against the resolution were the U.S., Israel, Honduras, Guatemala and Palau, among others.
The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Jerusalem is considered sacred by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and Israel considers the city its eternal capital. But the Palestinians have long desired to establish east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. More here.
*** So, beyond this…what about money to opposition countries?
Nikki Haley said that the United States would be “taking note” of the countries that “disrespected” America by voting in favor of the resolution, and President Trump said bluntly that the countries who don’t vote with the U.S. will have their funding cut.
So what if Trump actually gutted funding for those 128 countries? Well, The Daily Caller did the math.
According to USAid.gov, which catalogs all country-by-country financial obligations the U.S. holds with the rest of the world, Trump’s threat would save the United States more than $24 billion — in just one year.
The numbers below are based on what the U.S. was obligated to pay in 2016 to each of the countries that voted against us in the UN vote last week. Obligations are defined as the amount the United States is legally bound to pony up either in that year or the future.
The obligations may differ from the actual cash disbursements given in any given year, but they best reflect our financial obligations to the country in question.
Here are the countries that voted against the U.S., listed alphabetically, along with America’s 2016 financial obligation to each country:
Afghanistan — $5,060,306,050
Albania — $27,479,989
Algeria — $17,807,222
Andorra — $0
Angola — $64,489,547
Armenia — $22,239,896
Austria — $310,536
Azerbaijan — $15,312,389
Bahrain — $6,573,352
Bangladesh — $263,396,621
Barbados — $5,442,370
Belarus — $11,166,107
Belgium — $3,101,636
Belize — $8,613,838
Bolivia — $1,378,654
Botswana — $57,252,922
Brazil — $14,899,949
Brunei — $354,829
Bulgaria — $20,066,715
Burkina Faso — $74,469,144
Burundi — $70,507,528
Cabo Verde — $5,044,716
Cambodia — $103,194,295
Chad — $117,425,683
Chile — $2,266,071
China — $42,263,025
Comoros — $1,057,063
Congo — $8,439,457
Costa Rica — $14,650,552
Cote d’Ivoire — $161,860,737
Cuba — $15,776,924
Cyprus — $0
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) — $2,142,161
Denmark — $3,455
Djibouti — $24,299,878
Dominica — $616,000
Ecuador — $26,014,579
Egypt — $1,239,291,240
Eritrea — $119,364
Estonia — $15,937,295
Ethiopia — $1,111,152,703
Finland — $33,492
France — $4,660,356
Gabon — $31,442,404
Gambia — $3,197,858
Germany — $5,484,317
Ghana — $724,133,065
Greece — $8,508,639
Grenada — $690,300
Guinea — $87,630,410
Guyana — $9,691,030
Iceland — $0
India — $179,688,851
Indonesia — $222,431,738
Iran — $3,350,327
Iraq — $5,280,379,380
Ireland — $0
Italy — $454,613
Japan — $20,804,795
Jordan — $1,214,093,785
Kazakhstan — $80,418,203
Kuwait — $112,000
Kyrgyzstan — $41,262,984
Laos — $57,174,076
Lebanon — $416,553,311
Liberia — $473,677,614
Libya — $26,612,087
Liechtenstein — $0
Lithuania — $15,709,304
Luxembourg — $0
Madagascar — $102,823,791
Malaysia — $10,439,368
Maldives — $1,511,931
Mali — $257,152,020
Malta — $137,945
Mauritania — $12,743,363
Mauritius — $791,133
Monaco — $0
Montenegro — $2,118,108
Morocco — $82,023,514
Mozambique — $514,007,619
Namibia — $53,691,093
Nepal — $194,286,218
Netherlands — $0
New Zealand — $0
Nicaragua — $31,318,397
Niger — $144,122,239
Nigeria — $718,236,917
Norway — $100,000
Oman — $5,753,829
Pakistan — $777,504,870
Papua New Guinea — $14,836,598
Peru — $95,803,112
Portugal — $207,600
Qatar — $95,097
Republic of Korea (South Korea) — $3,032,086
Russia — $17,195,004
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — $612,000
Saudi Arabia — $732,875
Senegal — $99,599,642
Serbia — $33,062,589
Seychelles — $223,002
Singapore — $468,118
Slovakia — $2,585,685
Slovenia — $715,716
Somalia — $274,784,535
South Africa — $597,218,298
Spain — $81,231
Sri Lanka — $27,192,841
Sudan — $137,878,835
Suriname — $232,672
Sweden — $1,269
Switzerland — $1,168,960
Syria — $916,426,147
Tajikistan — $47,789,686
Thailand — $68,182,970
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia — $31,755,240
Yet another deadly and financial scandal both Barack Obama and John Kerry ignored for the sake of the consummation of the Iran nuclear deal.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is launching a review of a law enforcement initiative called Project Cassandra after an investigative report was published this week claiming the Obama administration gave a free pass to Hezbollah’s drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations to help ensure the Iran nuclear deal would stay on track.
The Justice Department said in a statement to Fox News that Sessions on Friday directed a review of prior Drug Enforcement Administration investigations “to evaluate allegations that certain matters were not properly prosecuted and to ensure all matters are appropriately handled.”
“While I am hopeful that there were no barriers constructed by the last administration to allowing DEA agents to fully bring all appropriate cases under Project Cassandra, this is a significant issue for the protection of Americans,” Sessions said in a written statement. “We will review these matters and give full support to investigations of violent drug trafficking organizations.” More here.
Three days before a first-of-its-kind damages trial was supposed to start, a Middle Eastern bank has reached a settlement with hundreds of American plaintiffs, including victims of terrorist attacks around Israel, who had filed a lawsuit against the bank accusing it of supporting terrorism.
A spokesman for the bank, Arab Bank, and a spokeswoman for one of the law firms representing the plaintiffs confirmed on Friday that an agreement had been reached but declined to offer additional details, including the amount of the settlement.
BEIRUT: Jordan’s largest lender, the Arab Bank, announced this week that a New York federal court dismissed more than 90 percent of the claims in a long-running lawsuit accusing it of providing banking services to charities and individuals allegedly affiliated with Palestinian militants. The ruling is the most significant victory yet for the Arab Bank yet in its nine-year legal battle with 6,596 relatives of victims killed or injured in two dozen Palestinian attacks in Israel during the Second Intifada. More here.
***
LINDE v. ARAB BANK, PLC
In July 2004, Osen LLC sued Arab Bank, Plc on behalf of American terror victims in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The lawsuit, captioned Linde v. Arab Bank,Plc and brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), was the first civil lawsuit brought against Arab Bank. The Plaintiffs sought to hold Arab Bank liable for deaths and severe injuries resulting from acts of international terrorism that Palestinian terrorist groups perpetrated between 2000 and 2004, during the Second Intifada. After 10 years of litigation that included multiple appeals, American victims of terrorism were finally able to present their case to a Brooklyn jury in August and September 2014. The first trial centered around 24 terrorist attacks that the Plaintiffs alleged were perpetrated by Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization that the United States first designated a terrorist entity in 1995. On September 22, 2014, an 11-person jury found Arab Bank liable for knowingly providing financial services for Hamas. This finding represented the first, and still only, time a financial institution has been held civilly liable for aiding terrorism.
The Liability Trial (August-September 2014)
During the course of the trial, which centered around 24 Hamas terrorist attacks between March 2001 and September 2004, the Plaintiffs proved that Arab Bank knowingly provided material support to Hamas by illegally maintaining accounts for: Hamas (via an account held in the name of senior Hamas leader and spokesman Osama Hamdan that accepted multiple checks explicitly made out to beneficiary “Hamas“); Hamas’s founder and supreme leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Yassin was first designated a Specially Designated Terrorist in 1995); and dozens of other Hamas leaders and senior operatives, including Salah Shehadeh – founder and former head of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and current Hamas leader in Gaza. The Plaintiffs also proved that Arab Bank knowingly provided material support to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that facilitated millions of dollars in direct transfers to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorist operatives through the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Intifada al Quds and the Al-Shahid Foundation. Lastly, the Plaintiffs proved that Arab Bank knowingly provided material support to Hamas by maintaining accounts for eleven Hamas-controlled organizations in the Palestinian Territories.
One of Arab Bank’s chief contentions, voiced by defense expert Beverley Milton-Edwards, was that the identities of Hamas leaders were not well known between 2000-2004. The jury, however, was shown a video of the funeral of the infamous Hamas bomb-maker, Muhanad al-Taher, in the town square of Nablus. Hamed Beitawi, vice-Chairman of the Nablus Zakat Committee and Chairman of the Islamic Solidarity Al-Tadhamun Charitable Society – Nablus (two of the eleven relevant Hamas-controlled organizations, both of which maintained accounts at Arab Bank) spoke at this very public event. Dr. Milton-Edwards was also impeached by video showing Salah Shehadeh – founder and former head of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza – giving a speech to a massive audience, thus undercutting the Bank’s claim that Hamas leaders “lived in the shadows.”
Post-Trial Proceedings
After the jury rendered its unanimous verdict, Arab Bank filed 3 motions, arguing: (1) notwithstanding the jury’s verdict, Arab Bank was entitled to victory on the merits and dismissal of the case; (2) if the Court would not grant that relief, Arab Bank was entitled to a new trial because of purported mistakes the Court made in managing the trial; and (3) in any event, the Bank was entitled to immediate review of the verdict by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Court denied the Bank’s motions for a new trial and for Second Circuit review of the verdict. In its decision, the Court noted that the Bank’s liability was established “on volumes of damning circumstantial evidence that defendant knew its customers were terrorists.”
The Court further noted the testimony of the Bank’s own former head compliance officer in London who was presented with the Saudi Committee wire transfer payable to “the family of martyr Ibrahim Karim Beni Awda” and responded: “[w]e would never in a million years have dealt with a payment order such as this.”
The Court’s decision also took note of the testimony of Arab Bank’s primary expert witness, Dr. Milton-Edwards, who testified that the organizations in the Palestinian Territories at issue in the case were neither controlled by Hamas nor perceived as Hamas affiliates during the relevant period based in part of her review of “paraphernalia” she observed during her visits to these organizations. The Court observed that her testimony “backfired in spectacular fashion” when “it came out on cross-examination that she could not read Arabic.”
Furthermore, the Court noted Dr. Milton-Edwards’ impeachment by her own book: She had testified that the Islamic Society of Gaza was neither affiliated with Hamas nor perceived as such by the Palestinian public. Her book told a different story, however:
[t]he work of the Islamic Society and the rest of Hamas’s network in the decades up to, during and after the second intifada, when families needed it most, represented not so much a donation as an investment by Hamas, one that reached a lucrative political dividend in the 2006 election.
Ultimately, the Court concluded, “[t]he effect of cross-examination on Dr. Milton-Edwards’ testimony, and its potential spillover effect on the credibility of defendant’s entire case, is … hard to overstate.”
Arab Bank’s Appeal
Following the Court’s denial of the Bank’s motions for a new trial the parties prepared for the first damages trial, which the parties agreed to postpone once they reached a framework for settlement of all of the Plaintiffs’ Anti-Terrorism Act-related claims.
As part of the settlement, the Bank reserved the right to take a one-time appeal of the liability verdict, the outcome of which would determine the settlement’s precise contours. The briefing is complete and the Second Circuit heard extensive oral argument on May 16, 2017.
A grand jury in the Northern District of California has indicted four defendants, including two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses in connection with a conspiracy, beginning in January 2014, to access Yahoo’s network and the contents of webmail accounts. The defendants are Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33, a Russian national and resident; Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43, a Russian national and resident; Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan, aka “Magg,” 29, a Russian national and resident; and Karim Baratov, aka “Kay,” “Karim Taloverov” and “Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov,” 22, a Canadian national and a resident of Canada.
The defendants used unauthorized access to Yahoo’s systems to steal information from about at least 500 million Yahoo accounts and then used some of that stolen information to obtain unauthorized access to the contents of accounts at Yahoo, Google and other webmail providers, including accounts of Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and private-sector employees of financial, transportation and other companies. One of the defendants also exploited his access to Yahoo’s network for his personal financial gain, by searching Yahoo user communications for credit card and gift card account numbers, redirecting a subset of Yahoo search engine web traffic so he could make commissions and enabling the theft of the contacts of at least 30 million Yahoo accounts to facilitate a spam campaign.
Huma Abedin forwarded sensitive State Department emails, including passwords to government systems, to her personal Yahoo email account before every single Yahoo account was hacked, a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of emails released as part of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch shows.
Abedin, the top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, used her insecure personal email provider to conduct sensitive work. This guarantees that an account with high-level correspondence in Clinton’s State Department was impacted by one or more of a series of breaches — at least one of which was perpetrated by a “state-sponsored actor.”
The U.S. later charged Russian intelligence agent Igor Sushchin with hacking 500 million Yahoo email accounts. The initial hack occurred in 2014 and allowed his associates to access accounts into 2015 and 2016 by using forged cookies. Sushchin also worked for the Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital, which paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 for a June 2010 speech in Moscow.
A separate hack in 2013 compromised three billion accounts across multiple Yahoo properties, and the culprit is still unclear. “All Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft,” the company said in a statement.
Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, regularly forwarded work emails to her personal [email protected] address. “She would use these accounts if her (State) account was down or if she needed to print an email or document. Abedin further explained that it was difficult to print from the DoS system so she routinely forwarded emails to her non-DoS accounts so she could more easily print,” an FBI report says.
Abedin sent passwords for her government laptop to her Yahoo account on Aug. 24, 2009, an email released by the State Department in September 2017 shows.
Long-time Clinton confidante Sid Blumenthal sent Clinton an email in July 2009 with the subject line: “Important. Not for circulation. You only. Sid.” The message began “CONFIDENTIAL… Re: Moscow Summit.” Abedin forwarded the email to her Yahoo address, potentially making it visible to hackers.
The email was deemed too sensitive to release to the public and was redacted before being published pursuant to the Judicial Watch lawsuit. The released copy says “Classified by DAS/ A/GIS, DoS on 10/30/2015 Class: Confidential.” The unredacted portion reads: “I have heard authoritatively from Bill Drozdiak, who is in Berlin…. We should expect that the Germans and Russians will now cut their own separate deals on energy, regional security, etc.”
The three email accounts Abedin used were [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Though the emails released by the State Department partially redact personal email addresses, the Yahoo emails are displayed as humamabedin[redacted].
Clinton forwarded Abedin an email titled “Ambassadors” in March 2009 from Denis McDonough, who served as foreign policy adviser to former President Barack Obama’s campaign and later as White House chief of staff. The email was heavily redacted before being released to the public.
Stuart Delery, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, sent a draft memo titled “PA/PLO Memo” in May 2009, seemingly referring to two Palestinian groups. The content was withheld from the public with large letters spelling “Page Denied.” Abedin forwarded it to her Yahoo account.
Abedin routed sensitive information through Yahoo multiple times, such as notes on a call with the U.N. secretary-general, according to messages released under the lawsuit.
Contemporaneous news reports documented the security weaknesses of Yahoo while Abedin continued to use it. Credentials to 450,000 Yahoo accounts had been posted online, a July 2012 CNN article reported. Five days later, Abedin forwarded sensitive information to her personal Yahoo email.
Abedin received an email “with the subject ‘Re: your yahoo acct.’ Abedin did not recall the email and provided that despite the content of the email she was not sure that her email account had ever been compromised,” on Aug. 16, 2010, an FBI report says.
The FBI also asked her about sending other sensitive information to Yahoo. “Abedin was shown an email dated October 4, 2009 with the subject ‘Fwd: US interest in Pak Paper 10-04’ which Abedin received from [redacted] and then forwarded to her Yahoo email account…. At the time of the email, [redacted] worked for Richard Holbrooke who was the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP). Abedin was unaware of the classification of the document and stated that she did not make judgments on the classification of materials that she received,” the report said.
The U.S. charged Sushchin with hacking half a billion Yahoo accounts in March 2017, in one of the largest cyber-breaches in history, the Associated Press reported. Sushchin was an intelligence agent with Russia’s Federal Security Service — the successor to the KGB — and was also working as security director for Renaissance Capital, Russian media said.
“It is unknown to the grand jury whether [Renaissance] knew of his FSB affiliation,” the indictment says.
Renaissance Capital paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in 2010 that was attended by Russian officials and corporate leaders. The speech received a thank-you note from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Renaissance Capital is owned by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who also owned the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. He unsuccessfully ran for Russian president against Putin in 2012.
Sushchin’s indictment says “the conspirators sought access to the Yahoo, Inc. email accounts of Russian journalists; Russian and U.S. government officials,” and others. Information about the accounts such as usernames and password challenge questions and answers were stolen for 500 million accounts, the indictment says. The indictment does not mention Abedin’s account.
A hacker called “Peace” claimed to be selling data from 200 million Yahoo users.
The user data also included people’s alternate email addresses, that were often work accounts tying a Yahoo user to an organization of interest. The hackers were able to generate “nonces” that allowed them to read emails “via external cookie minting” for some accounts.
The New York Times reported that in the 2013 hack, which affected all Yahoo accounts, “Digital thieves made off with names, birth dates, phone numbers and passwords of users that were encrypted with security that was easy to crack. The intruders also obtained the security questions and backup email addressed used to reset lost passwords — valuable information for someone trying to break into other accounts owned by the same user, and particularly useful to a hacker seeking to break into government computers around the world.”
Yahoo published a notification on Sept. 22, 2016, saying: “Yahoo has confirmed that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor.”
Clinton downplayed the risks of her email use days later, saying it was simply a matter of convenience.
“After a year-long investigation, there is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using and there is no evidence that anyone can point to at all, anyone who says otherwise has no basis, that any classified materials ended up in the wrong hands. I take classified materials very seriously and always have,” Clinton said on Oct. 9, 2016, at the second presidential debate,
Abedin’s use of Yahoo email is consistent with the determination by the FBI that Clinton associates’ emails were, in fact, compromised. “We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private email accounts of individuals with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her private account,” then-FBI director Jim Comey said in 2016.
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