Category Archives: Legislation

Do You Know Gilbert Chagoury or Rajiv Fernando? Hillary Does

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Rajiv Fernando and  Gilbert Chagoury are very good friends of Hillary and known to Barack Obama as well. Yikes, more emails? This is a story, scandal that seems to have no end. Perhaps it is time to start prosecuting people at the State Department for non compliance, obstruction of a federal investigation and falsification of government documents.

Primer:

ABC: For one of President Obama’s top fundraisers, the appointment last year to an elite group of State Department security advisors appeared to be an odd fit.

Rajiv Fernando, a Chicago securities trader, has never touted any international security credentials, yet he was appointed alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on crucial security matters.

PBS: Chagoury is a diplomat representing the tiny island nation of St. Lucia. He is also a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.)

Release of Clinton Documents Delayed After State Department Discovers ‘Thousands’ of Unsearched Records

Citizens United, Judicial Watch lawsuits affected by development

FreeBeacon: The State Department’s recent discovery of thousands of unsearched records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure has delayed several public records lawsuits and could keep many of the documents out of the public sphere until next fall.

The watchdog groups Citizens United and Judicial Watch, which are suing the State Department for Clinton-related records, are two plaintiffs that have been affected by the discovery. The State Department said the new documents could take months to process, a time period that extends well beyond its court-ordered deadlines.

Citizens United said the State Department has yet to explain how the electronic files were overlooked for the past two years, raising questions about whether this was a stonewalling effort. The group is seeking records related to Clinton donors Gilbert Chagoury and Rajiv Fernando.

“With this 11th hour revelation, the State Department has missed its court-ordered deadline to finish the production of documents in this case,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United. “These newly discovered records could impact document production in other Citizens United FOIA lawsuits as well as cases involving other plaintiffs.”

On Jan. 14, the State Department disclosed in a Judicial Watch case that officials had recently found shared and individual electronic files in the executive secretary’s office that were not previously searched in response to the lawsuit. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last May.

Although the court had ordered the State Department to turn over all relevant records by last October, attorneys said they would need until this spring to process the new documents.

State filed a nearly identical status report in the Citizens United lawsuit on Feb. 29, the same day as its court-ordered deadline to turn over all requested documents.

Attorneys for the department told Citizens United the discovery of unsearched records could set back the processing schedule until next fall. The State Department said it had not informed Citizens United earlier because its attorneys did not know about the new sources of records until Feb. 11—even though they had been disclosed to Judicial Watch in early January.

“Neither State’s agency counsel nor undersigned counsel for State was aware of this issue until February 11, 2016,” said the State Department in a Feb. 29 court filing.

According to court statements, the new sources of information come from the executive secretary’s office, which acted as the liaison between Secretary Clinton’s office and the rest of the State Department, the White House, and national security agencies.

One of the new sources is a series of “shared office folders,” computer folders that were used by multiple staff members. State Department public records officials said they first discovered this source in November. They said the files had previously been overlooked because they had been “retired” and removed from the executive secretary’s office last year.

The second new source is “individual folders,” which contain word documents, PDF documents, and the emails of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan. These emails had already been processed, but officials said they did not realize until last December that there were other types of documents in these folders.

The late findings have impacted at least two additional Judicial Watch lawsuits, according to court documents. The House Benghazi Committee last week received over 1,600 pages of documents related to Libya from the new files, which the committee said it had requested nearly a year ago.

The State Department said it could not comment on whether other public records lawsuits could be impacted, or why Citizens United wasn’t informed about the new files at the same time as Judicial Watch.

“The State Department does not comment on matters in litigation,” a State Department official said. “We can confirm that State recently located documents from electronic sources not previously searched that are potentially responsive to certain FOIA cases involving records originating from the Office of the Secretary during Secretary Clinton’s tenure. As a result, the Department is undertaking additional searches of those files.”

“These unsearched materials include a variety of file types, but do not include the email accounts of former Secretary Clinton’s senior staff, which we have been searching for some time,” the official said.

The State Department noted that it has been taking steps to improve records management and hired a transparency coordinator last fall.

Sources also pointed to another recent personnel change at the State Department—the departure of attorney Catherine Duval, who had been involved in processing Clinton’s emails for release last year. Duval was previously in charge of document production at the IRS when many of the agency’s emails were destroyed. Congressional Republicans have accused Duval of obstructing their efforts to obtain Clinton documents.

Duval left the State Department last September. A few weeks later, the Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee released a statement praising increased transparency at the State Department.

“It’s curious the Department is suddenly able to be more productive after recent staff changes involving those responsible for document production,” committee spokesman Jamal Ware said in a Sept. 25, 2015 press release.

But the latest disclosure of unsearched records will still have an impact on groups like Citizens United, which first filed its public records request in 2014 and could be waiting until after the presidential election before it receives all its documents.

In light of the new discovery, the court pushed back the State Department’s production deadline until next August. Citizens United said it would not be surprised by additional delays.

“The public has a right to inspect records that are in the possession of their government,” Bossie said. “These delay tactics by the Obama Administration look like nothing more than an assist to former Secretary Clinton.”

“This latest declaration is more of the constant ‘drip, drip, drip’ that [D.C. District Court] Judge Sullivan spoke of last week,” he added. “Unfortunately, when dealing with the State Department, it’s not a matter if this will happen again, it’s a matter of when.”

WH Conference Calls on SCOTUS Nominations

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White House Reaches Out to Asian-American Leaders About Supreme Court Seat

NationalLawJournal: A White House official held a conference call Thursday evening with Asian-American and Pacific Islander leaders to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court. Several Asian-American judges have been discussed as leading candidates for the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.

Judges considered possible nominees include Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Jacqueline Nguyen of the Ninth Circuit and Judge Denny Chin of the Second Circuit.

(l-r) Denny Chin, Sri Srinivasan, and Jacqueline Nguyen.

Invitations to join the call—which was off the record, according to a copy of the invitation email obtained by The National Law Journal—were disseminated by email and on social media. The Asian American Bar Association of New York posted a notice about it on its Facebook page.

Tina Tchen, an assistant to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, led the Thursday call, according to the email invitation.

The email invitation about the call from the White House did not include details about what would be discussed. A lawyer who was on the call said that Tchen did not identify possible nominees. The call was focused generally on motivating and organizing the Asian American community to support the president’s nominee.

Tina Matsuoka, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in Washington, said the call signaled the White House’s acknowledgement of excitement in the Asian-American community that the next Supreme Court justice could become the first Asian-American to sit on the high court.

“This meeting is consistent with this administration’s engagement with various constituent groups,” Matsuoka said. “I think it’s consistent with their efforts to focus on diversity inclusion on the federal bench.”

At a press briefing earlier this week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that officials were “going to engage with outside groups as the President makes a decision about who to put forward for a nomination to the Supreme Court” and would continue to engage those groups after a nominee was announced “in terms of making the case that the Senate should fulfill its constitutional obligations.”

“The truth is the engagement on the part of the White House with outside organizations that are interested in being involved in the political process is something that happens every day on a wide variety of issues,” Earnest said. “Obviously the Supreme Court is different and unique because it’s not something that comes up every year, it only comes up every once in a blue moon. And sometimes, like this year, it can come up unpredictably, without any advance warning.”

The White House has not said when President Obama will announce a nominee for Scalia’s seat. Obama was traveling in Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon. A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, told reporters on Thursday that “this is something the president is spending a lot of time on … reviewing potential candidates, meeting with his team, and really looking for the best person for the job.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Jane Kelly, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, was being considered. The NLJ reported last week that the White House was also reviewing Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Matsuoka said she and other members of the Asian-American community were looking for assurance from the White House that Asian-American candidates are “seriously considered for the vacancy.”

“We’ve been really excited that there’s a number of Asian-Americans who have been talked about in the mainstream press, and it’s really galvanized the community,” Matsuoka said.

The White House has met with constituent and advocacy groups in the leadup to Supreme Court nominations in the past. As Obama considered candidates for the seat that would eventually go to Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2010, the White House met with liberal advocacy groups, including Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary Coalition, CNN reported at the time.

Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202751291108/White-House-Reaches-Out-to-AsianAmerican-Leaders-About-Supreme-Court-Seat#ixzz41tBs0TR6

 

When Sharia/ISIS Goes Capitalist and Trading

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Islamic State ‘earning millions by playing the stock market’

Group using cash looted from banks in Mosul to speculate on international currency markets

Telegraph: Isil is making millions of dollars for its war chest by playing foreign currency markets under the noses of bank chiefs, it was revealed today.

The terror group is earning up to $20m (£14.29m) a month by funnelling dollars looted from banks during its takeover of the Iraqi city of Mosul into legitimate currency markets in the Middle East.

It then makes huge returns on currency speculation, which are then wired back via unsuspecting financial authorities in Iraq and Jordan, a parliamentary committee was told on Wednesday.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (Isil) extraordinary venture into white collar crime is now a major source of income, along with oil smuggling and extortion from people living in Isil-controlled areas.

Details of the scam emerged during a hearing of a specially-convened Foreign Affairs sub-committee set up to examine Britain’s role in Isil financing.

The hearing was told that Isil finance chiefs would play the international stock markets using cash looted during their 2014 take over of Mosul, in which the group got its hands on an estimated $429m from the city’s central bank.

They also used money “siphoned off” from pension payments that are still being made by the Iraqi government to civil servants living in the city.

The details were revealed to the hearing by John Baron, the sub-committee’s chair, who demanded to know whether the British government – which has pledged to help cut off Isil’s finance networks – was taking proper action against it.

“The cash that Isil has looted, along with siphoned off pension payments, is routed into Jordanian banks and brought back into the system via Baghdad,” he said. “That allows the system to be exploited by Isil, in that they take a turn (profit) on the foreign currency actions and siphon that cash back.”

The profits were channeled back into Isil coffers by “hawala” transfers, an unregulated system of money transfer whereby cash payments are made via agents in one country after a similar amount is presented as collateral in another.

Infographic: How Does ISIS Fund Itself? | Statista

Tobias Ellwood, a junior Foreign Office minister, admitted to the committee that there was a “porousness” in the local financial system but said that work was now underway to shut it down. It had been done without the active connivance of bank staff, he added.

In December, the Central Bank of Iraq named 142 currency-exchange houses in Iraq that the US suspected of moving funds for Islamic State. It banned them from its twice-monthly dollar auctions in a bid to stop the terror group getting its hands on the cash – a main source of exchange in war-torn Iraq.

But Mr Ellwood conceded: “Iraq could have moved faster on this”. Asked if the similar moves had been made in Jordan, he said he was unable to give an answer.

“Jordan plays an important role in the (anti-Isis) coalition,” he added. “Work is being done to close it down, I don’t think there is anything near as much from that source of revenue as before.”

The committee heard claims that Isil’s “rake off” from foreign currency speculation was a “significant part of their income stream”, although Mr Ellwood said he thought that estimates of $20m were excessive.

**** 

Spiegel: Some members of the intelligence community even view spying in the global financial system with a certain amount of concern, as revealed by a document from the NSA’s British counterpart — the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) — that deals with “financial data” from a legal perspective and examines the organization’s own collaboration with the NSA. According to the document, the collection, storage and sharing of “politically sensitive” data is a highly invasive measure since it includes “bulk data — rich personal information. A lot of it is not about our targets.”

Indeed, secret documents reveal that the main NSA financial database Tracfin, which collects the “Follow the Money” surveillance results on bank transfers, credit card transactions and money transfers, already had 180 million datasets by 2011. The corresponding figure in 2008 was merely 20 million. According to these documents, most Tracfin data is stored for five years.

Monitoring SWIFT

The classified documents show that the intelligence agency has several means of accessing the internal data traffic of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a cooperative used by more than 8,000 banks worldwide for their international transactions. The NSA specifically targets other institutes on an individual basis. Furthermore, the agency apparently has in-depth knowledge of the internal processes of credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard. What’s more, even new, alternative currencies, as well as presumably anonymous means of payment like the Internet currency Bitcoin, rank among the targets of the American spies.

The collected information often provides a complete picture of individuals, including their movements, contacts and communication behavior. The success stories mentioned by the intelligence agency include operations that resulted in banks in the Arab world being placed on the US Treasury’s blacklist.

In one case, the NSA provided proof that a bank was involved in illegal arms trading — in another case, a financial institution was providing support to an authoritarian African regime. Full article here.

Freed Dealer, Obama Released, Kills 3

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Crack Dealer Freed Early Under Obama Plan Murders Woman, 2 Kids

JW: A convicted crack dealer who left prison early as part of the Obama administration’s mass release of federal inmates has been indicted by a grand jury for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend and her two kids in Columbus, Ohio. The gory crime drew national attention because the children, ages 7 and 10, were murdered to eliminate them as witnesses in the brutal massacre of their 32-year-old mother.

This week a grand jury in Franklin County returned a 10-count, death-penalty indictment against the ex-con, 35-year-old Wendell Callahan, for the triple murders. Callahan broke into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and stabbed the three victims, according to a statement issued by Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announcing the indictment. The bloody crime scene was discovered by the woman’s current boyfriend, who subsequently engaged in a fight with Callahan before he fled. The indictment includes charges of aggravated murder with prior calculation and design and aggravated murder of victims under the age of 13. “There are multiple charges regarding the three victim deaths because there are different methods to commit the crime of murder and the Prosecutor’s Office typically charges all methods”, O’Brien stated. Callahan is in jail on $3 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned later this week.

Callahan should have been in jail when the crimes occurred, but he was released four years early because federal sentencing guidelines for crack dealers got reduced. The change is part of President Obama’s effort to reform the nation’s justice system as a way of ending racial discrimination. The initiative was technically launched back in 2010 when the president signed a measure that for the first time in decades relaxed drug-crime sentences he claimed discriminated against poor and minority offenders. This severely weakened a decades-old law enacted during the infamous crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged urban communities nationwide in the 1980s. As part of the movement the U.S. Sentencing Commission lowered maximum sentences for drug offenders and made it retroactive, leading to the early release of thousands of violent thugs like Callahan.

In November the administration began releasing 6,000 drug convicts coined “non-violent” offenders whose sentences were too long under the old guidelines. News reports quickly surfaced contradicting the administration’s assessment that the newly released convicts were not violent. Among them was the leader of a multi-million dollar operation that smuggled drugs from Canada to Maine. Prosecutors refer to the 29-year-old con as a “drug kingpin” who was one of “America’s Most Wanted.” Shortly before the administration’s mass release of drug convicts, federal prosecutors warned that drug trafficking is inherently violent and therefore the phrase “non-violent drug offenders” is a misnomer. The nation’s prosecutors also cautioned that reducing prison sentences for drug offenders will weaken their ability to bring dangerous drug traffickers to justice.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the administration is rewarding thousands of criminals with get-out-of-jail cards, huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are being spent on programs to help them find housing and jobs. In the aftermath of the mass release of federal prisoners Judicial Watch reported on two “re-entry” programs to ease the transition from jail. One received $1.7 million and ordered public housing facilities not to reject tenants with criminal records. The other allocated $20 million to the Department of Labor (DOL) to help ex-cons find work and thus end the “cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration.”

More here including photos.

Hillary calls for sentencing reform too.

This all began in 2013 between Obama and Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch continues to carry the baton.

VOA: WASHINGTON— U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced a major shift in how the federal government plans to prosecute nonviolent criminals involved in drug crimes, with the aim of easing overcrowding in the nation’s prisons.

Holder outlined several policy changes in a speech to the American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco.

The attorney general said too many Americans go to prison for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason.  His main focus was low-level drug crimes that can often bring minimum mandatory sentences of five or 10 years in prison.

Holder says the federal government will now follow the lead of several states that emphasize drug treatment and community service programs as alternatives for non-violent drug offenders who are not associated with criminal gangs or drug cartels.

“Widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” he said. “It imposes a significant economic burden totalling $80 billion in 2010 alone and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

Hey SEALS, Turnover your Weapons

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Twisted priorities at the Pentagon, mandated by the White House and congressional budgets, then couple that with waste, fraud and abuse, ladies and gentlemen, our problems are much worse than can be defined.

Just WHOA…

SOCOM investigating Navy SEAL weapons shortages

STRIPES: WASHINGTON — The general in charge of U.S. Special Operations Command said Tuesday that he is looking into claims that Navy SEALs and other elite forces have shortages of key equipment.

Gen. Joseph Votel assured House lawmakers that the command will resolve any problems that it discovers in equipping special operators, such as a lack of service weapons, in preparation for increasingly common missions around the world.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and other House lawmakers raised the alarm earlier this month on supply shortages in the special operations community, causing soldiers to dip increasingly into their own pockets to purchase basic military gear such as helmets, global positioning devices and medical supplies.

Most concerning, according to Hunter, is SEALs are now asked to hand over their personalized weapons after returning from deployment so they can be handed off to other SEALs who are deploying.

“I look forward to talking to Navy Special Warfare Command about this specific issue and make sure we understand it,” said Votel, who was testifying to members of the House Armed Services Committee. “If there is something that we are contributing to that is impacting the readiness of our operators, we’ll certainly take immediate actions to kind of correct that.”

Votel said the issue might be related to maintenance and the high usage of SEAL weapons.

“These guys do put a lot of rounds through the weapons,” he said. “What we do try to do is ensure with that many rounds going through our weapons that they do have the right level of depot maintenance when they do come back from deployments or long training periods.”

Hunter, who wrote a letter in February to the Navy Special Warfare Command about the concerns, brushed aside the general’s suggestion.

“This is not a factor of too many rounds going through the weapon barrel, and then you just change out the barrel anyway,” Hunter said.

He said the weapons are the most important pieces of equipment for the SEALs. They put time into calibrating their weapons and applying optics and lasers, then are forced to turn them over for reconfiguration.

“I’ve had multiple SEALs at multiple times over the last six months come to me in San Diego … and tell me how things have changed dramatically from five or six years ago, meaning they don’t get weapons now to work up with for two years,” Hunter said. “They get their weapon when a guy comes back and hands over the weapon.”

The military has increased its reliance greatly on special operations forces since 9/11. As such operations hit a high mark, other reports of supply shortages have come up as well.

Last month, the nonprofit group Troops Direct reported the Marine Corps Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team deployed to Benghazi, Libya after the embassy attack there and lacked crucial equipment including sniper supplies and batteries.

Meanwhile, troops often have to buy their own medical equipment such as tourniquets, and shell out about $1,000 each for their own helmets or $500 for GPS devices, according to the group.

The shortfalls in SEAL weapons have surfaced, as the Navy Special Warfare Command budget increased by $11 million during the past couple of years, according to Hunter.

Rep. Richard Nugent, R-Fla., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he could not understand why the Navy would rotate SEALs’ service weapons and that he wanted answers.

“That’s the [weapon] you sleep with, the one you work with, so I will be interested to hear from Rep. Hunter the answer you come back with,” Nugent told Votel.

****

Lacking basic gear, special operators stuck buying their own equipment

STRIPES: WASHINGTON – Sean Matson, who recently left active-duty as a Navy SEAL, said the military measured his head four times – each time before deployment – with plans to provide him a more advanced ballistic helmet.

But the new helmet never materialized. During a deployment in Africa, Matson and six of his fellow SEALs each shelled out about $900 for updated helmets that held the lights, communications devices and batteries needed for their missions.

“There was never a clear solution to it, so guys were going out spending $800-$900 on their own ballistic helmet,” said Matson, who is now CEO of the military supply company Matbock.

Elite troops such as the SEALs are more and more forced to dip into their own pockets to purchase basic military gear such as helmets, global positioning devices and medical supplies, according to Matson and others involved in the military’s unofficial civilian-side supply network who came to Capitol Hill on Thursday.

House lawmakers have taken notice and said they will request an explanation from Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“These are the guys we assume have the best gear all the time,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine Corps combat veteran.

Hunter said special operations troops have been approaching him in his California district complaining about the inability to get needed materials and he has been investigating the issue.

Numerous individual instances point to a systemic problem in the military’s supply chain but a blind spot exists between Defense Department vendors and the troops who need the gear and supplies, Hunter said.

“It’s been impossible for me to find out how the money is getting stopped and why it is not going down to where it’s supposed to be,” he said.

Aaron Negherbon is the executive director of the nonprofit group Troops Direct, which ships needed and requested supplies – from boot laces to tablet devices — to servicemembers who cannot get it through their commands.

Less than two days after the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, Negherbon said he was contacted by the commander of a Marine Corps Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team that was being deployed there.

The commander told him the team lacked a variety of crucial equipment, including sniper supplies, he said.

“They came to us for…batteries because they didn’t have any of those … It is kind of like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Negherbon said.

He said troops often have to buy their own medical equipment such as tourniquets, and shell out about $1,000 each for their own helmets or $500 for a GPS device that they need for duty during a deployment.

“The question is, why can’t you get this?” Negherbon said.

Often the answer seems to be a higher command does not have the money budgeted or the equipment was approved but not available from vendors.

“That is a good thing, we know where the problem is but [those issues] are very profound,” he said.

A small group of House Republican lawmakers gathered Thursday to hear the concerns.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., an Air Force combat veteran, said the military has to weigh the concerns of supplying needed equipment with the desire of troops to always have the newest gear on the market.

Still, Kinzinger said the shortfalls in the supply chain could become a major issue if deployments ramp up again to the levels seen during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., an Army veteran, said the group should write a letter to Carter, saying they have serious concerns about supply breakdowns, including the inability of Matson and his fellow SEALs to get helmets capable of mounting lights, though the equipment was approved.

“If you’ve got a situation where unit is approved for an Ops-Core [brand ballistic] helmet and it’s not getting it, we need to understand what the problem is … that is unacceptable,” he said.