Judge Rules Against Obama on Fast and Furious Documents

Posted on January 19, 2016January 20, 2016 by Denise Simon

The wheels of justice are slooooow for sure, but Obama and Eric Holder lost their appeal and Fast and Furious documents must be released. That is all of those that are not national security sensitive. This could be interesting for Eric Holder and several others. Remember too that the approval for the weapons in straw purchases came from the U.S. State Department. Ahem…Hillary? Janet?

It has also never been officially determined how many south of the border were actually killed by Fast and Furious weapons, perhaps releasing the documents will give us more facts.

Update: ABC News: 5 of 11 guns found at El Chapo’s Mexican hideout came from AZ. One was a .50 cal rifle confirmed to be a Fast & Furious gun.

Judge rejects Obama’s executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records

Politico: A federal judge has rejected President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning probe that allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department’s public disclosures about its response to the so-called “gun walking” controversy undercut Obama’s executive privilege claim.

The standoff over the records led to a House vote in 2012 holding then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the records. The House later initiated a lawsuit to try to force disclosure of the files.

Jackson left open the possibility that some of the records could be held back from Congress because they contain sensitive information on law enforcement techniques or implicate foreign policy concerns.

The administration could appeal the ruling.

NY Judge Gives Victory Decision to U.S. Islamists

Posted on January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 by Denise Simon

Court Requires NYPD to Purge Docs on Terrorists Inside U.S.

Muslim community sued police over surveillance programs

FreeBeacon: The New York Police Department has been directed by a U.S. court to remove from its online records an investigation pertaining to the rise of Islamic extremists in the West and the threats these individuals pose to American safety, according to legal documents.

As part of a settlement agreement reached earlier this month with Muslim community advocates in U.S. District Court, the NYPD will purge from its website an extensive report that experts say has been critical to the department’s understanding of radical Islam and its efforts to police the threat.

The court settlement also stipulates that the NYPD make a concerted effort to mitigate the impact of future terror investigations on certain religious and political groups, according to a copy of the court documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has spearheaded the case since June 2013.

Legal experts and critics of the settlement maintain that it could hamper future terrorism investigations and view it as part of a larger campaign by Muslim advocacy organizations in the United States to dismantle surveillance programs encompassing that community.

Critics expressed particular concern about the case in light of a recent surge in attacks on U.S. citizens committed by individuals pledging allegiance to terror groups such as ISIS.

A key portion of the settlement focuses on the NYPD’s purported use of a document produced by the department’s intelligence division to examine how radicalized individuals make their way to the United States and carry out terror attacks.

The document, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” aimed to provide local law enforcement and policy makers with information about domestic terrorists and their operations.

As part of the settlement agreement, the NYPD will be forced to remove the publication from its database and vow not to rely on it in the future.

The NYPD and New York state government agencies included in the case “represent that they do not, have not, and will not rely upon the Radicalization in the West report to open or extend investigations,” according to the settlement. “Defendants will remove the Radicalization in the West report from the NYPD website.”

The settlement further affirms that the NYPD will be “committed to mitigating the potential impact” of future investigations on political and religious groups, such as those in the Muslim-American community.

While NYPD officials would not comment Thursday when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon, a spokesperson directed a reporter to a recent press release affirming the department’s commitment to upholding the court settlement.

The NYPD and relevant New York state agencies will “provide additional guidance to police officers as part of a settlement of lawsuits accusing the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups,” according to the Jan. 7 press release. “While the City did not admit to engaging in any improper practices, the changes represent an effort to provide more detailed guidance to NYPD personnel within the existing Handschu Guidelines,” which govern how authorities investigate political activities.

The NYPD confirmed that it would remove from its website the 2007 radicalization report.

The department will additionally incorporate into the guidelines “police policies against religious profiling” and insert an additional “provision for considering the impact investigations have on people who are not targets of investigations,” according to the statement.

John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, maintained in a statement that the settlement would not “weaken the [department’s] ability to fulfill its steadfast commitment to investigate and prevent terrorist activity in New York City.”

However, some experts have cast doubt on this statement, claiming that the decision to delete the anti-terrorism handbook will impact officers’ ability to understand how terrorists organize and operate in the United States.

Benjamin Weingarten, a writer and national security analyst who has covered the court case, said that local police departments should be relying more heavily on the now-banned counterterror analysis.

Referring to the recent shooting of a Philadelphia police officer by a radicalized individual who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, Weingarten noted that the assailant followed the “‘four stages of radicalization’ detailed in the NYPD report.”

The information about radical terrorists provided in “the NYPD’s analysis may have at the least led Philadelphia authorities to dig deeper and flag him,” he said.

The settlement further reflects a larger cultural shift in America that shuns terms such as “war on terror” and “Muslim terrorism,” Weingarten said.

“To pursue a see-no-Islam counter-jihadist strategy is not only absurd and contradictory on its face, but its a severe dereliction of duty—ignorance is not an excuse, and it represents a failure to do everything necessary to defend against an ideology that seeks to undermine the Constitution and subvert and destroy Western civilization again, according to Islamic supremacists themselves,” he said.

Stephen Coughlin, an attorney and intelligence officer, expressed concern about what he described as a widening attempt by local and federal authorities to redefine the nature of domestic counter-terror efforts.

“I am greatly concerned with the imposition of [the case] which, I believe, exists to replace counter-terror efforts,” Coughlin said. “This is a continuation of a purging of evidentiary based counter-terror analysis first initiated in 2011.”

The ACLU and Muslim community advocates initially filed the lawsuit following reports after the 9/11 terror attacks that the NYPD was running a domestic spy operation centered on the American-Muslim community.

The ACLU, which would not comment on record for this report, directed the Free Beacon to a recent editorial published in the Guardian celebrating the court decision.

“Bias-based policing legitimizes religious discrimination, It can pave the way to copy-cat approaches by other agencies and set the stage for hate crimes nationwide,” wrote Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security project, and Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York.

“We hope the settlement announced this week pulls our city and its police department out of a downward spiral by reaffirming core values and principles, ones just as necessary to a local police force as they are to a rational debate on civil rights and liberties nationally,” they wrote.

*** It goes back a long way, directly post 9/11.

Senator Session’s Book on Immigration and Green Cards

Posted on January 17, 2016January 17, 2016 by Denise Simon

Under Barack Obama, the United Nations is also the headquarters of who can claim a new identity, that of an American. The same does for Europe, the world is one big global citizen, loyal to nothing and fully borderless.

Hat tip to Chuck and Daily Caller:

Jeff Sessions Releases Book Of Charts Putting Immigration And Green Card Issuances Into Shocking Perspective

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions released a book of graphs and charts on Wednesday that helps put the U.S.’s relaxed immigration policies in shocking perspective.

“Record-breaking visa issuances propelling U.S. to immigration highs never before seen,” is the sub-title to the Republican immigration hawk’s “chart book.”

Sessions, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, asserts that the federal government will legally add 10 million or more “new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years.”

He also cites polls showing that a “stark” majority of Americans want lawmakers to reduce immigration rates, not increase them. Polls from Gallup and Fox show that Americans support an immigration reduction to an increase by a 2-to-1 margin.

Sessions’s chart book is aimed at providing readers an easy-to-understand frame of reference for immigration flows and green card issuances, past and present.

In one chart, Sessions compares the number of green cards that will be issued in the next decade to the population of the first three presidential primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Another chart entitled “Immigration Adds 1 New Los Angeles Every 3 Years,” which is based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics and population projections, shows that the 11.4 million immigrants will enter the U.S. over the next nine years. “Unless immigration reductions are enacted,” the immigration population will increase in size equal to the population of Los Angeles — 3.9 million — every three years, Sessions notes.

The number of green card issuances that can be expected over the next decade is also the equivalent of the combined population of seven of the largest cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, and Atlanta, Sessions notes.

Other charts include one which shows that the U.S.’s immigration population will grow to more than 700 percent of 1970 levels by 2060.

By then, the U.S. will have 78.2 million foreign-born residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1970, that number was 9.6 million.

And another chart takes aim at immigration from majority-Muslim nations. The U.S. has issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from those nations in the last five years, reports Sessions, citing statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.

Sessions’s “chart book” also includes stats on welfare usage rates for Middle Eastern refugees. According to a 2013 report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 91.4 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps. Nearly 70 percent — 68.3 percent to be exact — receive cash welfare assistance.

Other charts compare the U.S.’s immigrant population to other nations’.

“America Has 10 Million More Foreign-Born Residents Than The Entire European Union” and “U.S. Has 6 Times More Migrants Than All Latin American Nations Combined” provide the numbers.

While the U.S. has 45.8 million residents who were born outside of the U.S., the entire European Union has 35 million, according to a United Nations database. That despite the fact that the combined population of EU countries is 60 percent larger than the population of the U.S.

al Qaeda at Southern Border, Shurkrjumah an Informant?

Posted on January 15, 2016January 15, 2016 by Denise Simon

New State Department Intel Confirms Arab Smuggling “Cells,” Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico This week, Judicial Watch published another in our series of Pulitzer Prize-worthy reports the narco-terror threat, one of the many existential threats as a result of purposefully lax border security at the U.S.-Mexican reporter. I reprint the chilling report below from you from our Corruption Chronicles blog:

For more than a decade the U.S. government has known that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells,” according to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch that reveal among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new intelligence records were released as a result of an ongoing JW investigation into the critical national security threats on the southern border, specifically those created by Islamic terrorists teaming up with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and attack the U.S. In response to JW’s reporting in the last two years the Obama administration-through various spokespeople, including FBI Director James Comey-has vehemently denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in Mexican towns near American cities or entering the U.S. through the famously porous southern border. The State Department documents, which include substantial redactions supposedly to protect classified and personal information, contradict this. JW obtained them as part of an investigative series into Shukrijumah, an Al Qaeda operative also known as Javier Robles. In December, 2014 Shukrijumah was killed by the Pakistan Army in an intelligence-borne operation in South Waziristan. But before he died Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey’s studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities. For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, he crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. JW has reported that, as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico. The new State Department records show that U.S. authorities knew Shukrijumah was in Mexico because they say that the Regional Security Office (RSO) at the consulate in Ciudad Juárez used newspapers to distribute information throughout Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico about the Al Qaeda operative at the request of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in El Paso. This appears on page 17 of the documents, which are linked above in their entirety. Of interesting note is that the government uses an exemption that applies to classified information to continue to withhold some of the records when the entire file was already declassified back in September, 2014. Information about Middle Eastern terrorists entering the U.S. through Mexico appears in a September 2, 2004 cable-declassified 10 years later-titled “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT, A PROVEN CI TO USG IN THE PAST, REPORTS ARAB CELLS WITHIN MEXICO.” It explains that a reputable government informant went to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez and provided information pertaining to suspect Arab extremists who have been smuggled into the U.S. through the Mexican border. “The confidential source (SUBJECT) stated his family member, who is a human trafficker, knows the exact whereabouts of three Arabs who are currently being hidden in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico,” the State Department cable reads. “Although not absolutely positive, one of the three is likely Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, alleged to be a Saudi Arabian terrorist cell leader thought to be in Mexico. SUBJECT also provided information on two smuggling networks, “cells,” that specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States.” Many questions remain about the U.S. government’s relationship with Shukrijumah, but last spring JW obtained records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that indicate he was a Confidential Source/Informant for the government. Shukrijumah lived in South Florida’s Broward County and graduated from Broward Community College with a degree in computer engineering. Four months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks Shukrijumah fled the U.S. He was one of the suspected actors in a number of planned terror attacks in the U.S., including a plot to simultaneously detonate nuclear devices in several U.S. cities. Convicted terrorist Jose Padilla claimed to have trained with Shukrijumah to blow up U.S. apartment buildings using natural gas explosions. In 2010 Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States-including New York City’s subway system-and the United Kingdom, according the FBI. The plot against New York City’s subway system was directed by senior Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, the FBI says, and was directly related to a scheme by Al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States. A year earlier Shukrijumah helped plan a terrorist truck-bomb targeting Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in Chicago as well as the iconic Sears Tower. Two of his fellow conspirators-Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta-were arrested in 2014 for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. Karakrah got busted in Chicago on charges of making a false car bomb threat after leading police on a high-speed chase with an ISIS flag waving from his vehicle. Huerta, an illegal alien twice convicted for driving intoxicated, got nabbed in El Paso for drunk driving. Both Karakrah and Pedroza were released from custody in 2015 under highly unusual plea deals. The men formed part of a sophisticated narco-terror ring, exposed in a JW investigative series, with connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City. The operation includes an all-star lineup of logistics and transportation operatives for militant Islamists in the United State, drug and weapons smugglers for the Juarez drug cartel in Mexico, an FBI confidential informant gone rogue and two of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists. Shukrijumah was one of them and, though he’s dead, he is an important part of the puzzle and extremely relevant when connecting the dots in the narco-terror ring.

The crisis at the Mexican border – and the government’s lies about the worsening Islamist terror threat – could result in a terrorist attack calamity for the United States. But you can see that we can make a difference – as I’m convinced JW’s reporting flushed the al Qaeda operative out of Mexico and resulted in his demise in Mexico.

Judicial Watch Clinton Records Lawsuits Uncovers More Hidden Documents

As if the hidden Clinton email cache wasn’t enough, apparently, the Obama State Department recently found “thousands” of new records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. According to information provided to Judicial Watch by various Justice Department attorneys, the new documents appear to be “working” records in electronic format located on both “shared” and “individual” drives accessible to or used by persons identified as being relevant to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits on the Benghazi scandal and controversies from Clinton’s term at State. The State Department confirmed the new find in a court filing earlier this month as part of a FOIA lawsuit concerning records about Clinton aide Huma Abedin:

After State filed its motion for summary judgment in this case [on November 11, 2015], State located additional sources of documents that originated within the Office of the Secretary that are reasonably likely to contain records responsive to Plaintiff’s request. State has informed Plaintiff that it intends to search these locations, produce non-exempt portions of any responsive records, and file a supplemental declaration in support of its motion for summary judgment (which is presently stayed).

This is how the Washington Free Beacon reported on JW’s find:

The watchdog group Judicial Watch has been suing the State Department for years to turn over public records related to Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation, the employment arrangements of Clinton’s top aides, and her response to the Benghazi attack. According to the State Department, the newly found records are likely to include information relevant to Judicial Watch’s requests. Officials said they would need until at least Feb. 1 to review the documents.

In another modified limited hangout, the State Department admitted in another JW court case that the new records include the files of two of Clinton’s top aides:

The newly identified files that need to be searched in this case consist of office files that were available to employees within the Office of the Secretary during former Secretary Clinton’s tenure as well as individual files belonging to Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills.

The notorious Mills was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at State and Sullivan was her top policy advisor. Both now work on her presidential campaign. As best as I can tell, the Obama State Department is still withholding key facts. We still don’t where exactly these newly identified records are located; why they were not identified and searched previously; and how and when they were just identified. This is the statement we issued to the press about this new Clinton records scandal:

This latest find of Clinton records, at this late date, is astonishing. The State Department waited to last possible moment, as it did with the Clinton emails, to tell Judicial Watch and the federal courts about thousands of records that haven’t been searched, as the law requires. Who knew what – and when did they know it – about these new Clinton documents? These newly recovered Clinton records are a potential game changer – and will be of interest to the courts, Congress, and the FBI’s criminal investigation. It sure looks like more of the same in terms of Obama administration officials’ obstructing our FOIA requests, obstructing the courts, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice. Judicial Watch exposed this new cover up on the heels of a finding by State Department’s Inspector General that Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department thwarted specific Judicial Watch FOIA requests by lying about her email system with “inaccurate” and “incomplete” responses.

Despite this new obstruction, there was some success last week over our legal fight for all the emails of Huma Abedin, another Clinton State consigliere. We forced the State Department to agree to review and release under FOIA at least 29,000 Abedin emails over the next year. As Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported:

At a court hearing in September, a Justice Department attorney said State had no plans to process for release all of the emails submitted by Abedin and other top aides such as Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan. However, a legal filing Monday in a lawsuit brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch indicated State has acceded to a request to process all the emails Abedin turned over, except for news articles and summaries. “The parties have agreed that State will produce to Judicial Watch responsive, nonexempt records from within the recently received documents, excluding news clippings/briefings contained therein,” said the court filing (posted here). The schedule the two sides agreed to has the disclosure of the records overlapping significantly with Clinton’s presidential campaign and will have the State Department ramping up release of Abedin’s private emails just as the agency winds down its disclosure of Clinton’s messages.

So now a court will supervise the release of records the Obama gang had previously opposed. Though we all would have like to have the records released years ago, as opposed to within a year, you should know that the Obama operatives trying to protect Hillary Clinton’s quest for the presidency wanted us to wait three years! Looking back over this week, it’s remarkable that JW’s numerous lawsuits continue to make waves on the Clinton records issue. Mrs. Clinton is probably worrying about 150 FBI agents, investigating her potential crimes on her records scandal and her evident abuse of office to help out those funding the Clinton Foundation and her own bank accounts. But as JW’s work first led to the disclosure of both these scandals, you can see how JW is the key driver of the effort to hold her accountable for her corruption.

Until next week…

Tom Fitton President