Clinton Advisor Sidney Blumenthal Attacks Mitt Romney as “Contemptible,” a “Mixture of Greedy Ambition and Hollowness”
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton connected to the Benghazi attack. Included is an email chain showing that Clinton slept late the Saturday after the Benghazi attack and missed a meeting that her staff had been trying to set up about sensitive intelligence issues, including the Presidential Daily Brief, on a day she was to make a slew of phone calls to foreign leaders.
Also included in the documents is an email from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, sent three days after the attack, describing then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as “contemptible on a level not seen in past contemptible political figures” and a “mixture of greedy ambition and hollowness.”
The documents contain an email passed to Clinton in the days following the Benghazi attack in which the father of alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl anguishes over the “‘Crusade’ paradigm” which he says “will never be forgotten in this part of the world.”
An email from former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Clinton expresses his concern about “Christian Dominionists who seek to turn [the military] into an instrument of their religious zealotry.”
Other emails show approval of an effort to blame an Internet video on the Benghazi attack that aired on the Al Jazeera network.
The new emails were obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of several court orders in two separate Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits for Clinton Benghazi material. (The court orders are dated July 31, 2015, October 9, 2015, and October 20, 2015.) The documents have been made public only because Judicial Watch’s litigation has forced the State Department to conduct additional searches.
The new Benghazi documents include email traffic showing that on the Saturday two days after the Benghazi terrorist attack Hillary Clinton slept past staff efforts to set up an intelligence briefing:
From: Hanley, Monica
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 09:17 AM
To: ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>
Cc: ‘[email protected]’ <[email protected]>
Subject: PDBDan will be at Whitehaven with the PDB at 9:30am this morning.
He has some sensitive items that he would like to personally show you when he arrives.
***
From: H [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:43 AM
To: Hanley, Monica R
Subject: Re: PDBI just woke up so I missed Dan. Could he come back after I finish my calls? But I don’t have the call schedule yet so I don’t know when that would be. Do you?
From: Hanley, Monica R [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:51 AM
To: H
Subject: Re: PDBA pouch with all of your call sheets and the schedule in en route to you. Here it is below as well.
Also in the pouch are a few read items, and an action memo authorizing the War Powers resolution for Tunisia that the office would like you to approve today. Ops can send a courier over to pick up the action memo later today.
12:00 UK FM Hague
12:15 Egyptian FM Amr
12:30 Israeli PM Netanyahu
1:15 French FM Fabius
1:30 Saudi FM Saud al-Faisal
2:00 Somali Former Transitional President Sharif
2:15 Libyan PM-elect Abu-Shakour
2:30 Turkish FM Davutoglu
3:00 Somali President Mohamoud (T)-Moroccan King is still pending.
-NEW CALL: King Juan Carlos of Spain called today and offered anytime today or tomorrow. His office relayed that it is a personal call inquiring after the status of the Embassies in the Middle East. We are working on a call sheet.
The State Department’s records include a September 14, 2012, email from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal to Clinton in which Blumenthal passes along a controversial article by his son Max and attacks then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney:
From: Sidney Blumenthal
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 10:48 AM
To: H
Subject: Re: m.guardian.co.ukMax knows how to do this and fearless. Hope it’s useful and gets around, especially in the Middle East.
Keep speaking and clarifying. Your statements have been strong. Once through this phase, you might clarify history of US policy on Arab Spring, what has been accomplished, US interests at stake, varying relations with Libya & Egypt, etc.
Romney, of course, is contemptible, but contemptible on a level not seen in past contemptible political figures. His menace comes from his emptiness. His greed is not limited simply to mere filthy lucre. The mixture of greedy ambition and hollowness is combustible. He will do and say anything to get ahead, and while usually self-immolating he is also destructive. Behind his blandness lies boundless ignorance, ignited by consistently wretched judgment. His recent statements are of a piece with everything he has done from naming Ryan to his welfare ads, etc.
Keep speaking…
xo
Sid
The Blumenthal email includes a link to an article by his son Max Blumenthal that suggests that American conservatives, Zionists and the Israel government were behind the Internet video that was falsely linked by Clinton and Barack Obama to the Benghazi attack. Clinton responded with an approving, “Your Max is a Mitzvah.” Another email shows that Mrs. Clinton wanted three copies of the Max Blumenthal Benghazi video article printed out. (Max Blumenthal is a leftist journalist known for his attacks on Israel and American foreign policy. In January, 2015, he is quoted calling American Sniper hero Chris Kyle an “unrepentant, sadistic killer.”)
In addition to Blumenthal’s attack on Romney, the newly released documents also include an email chain forwarded to Clinton from her former State Department deputy chief of staff Jacob Sullivan in which Robert Bergdahl, the father of alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, relates the death of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens to what the senior Bergdahl calls the “‘Crusade’ paradigm:”
Please convey our abiding condolences to everyone in the Foreign Service. Your service is most notable and almost invisible. Our Nation is stumbling through a very volatile world. The “Crusade” paradigm will never be forgotten in this part of the world and we force our Diplomats to carry a lot of baggage around while walking on eggshells.
Be very careful my friend!
I’m very sorry,
bob
After receiving the email from Mr. Bergdahl, Mrs. Clinton orders a response (which is not disclosed) be prepared.
The new documents also contain an email from former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Clinton concerning the Benghazi attack, in which he suggests the military is being compromised “Christian Dominionists” in the U.S. military:
From: Joe Wilson
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:27 AM
To: H
Subject: From Joe WilsonDear Hillary, …
Glen Doherty [CIA contractor killed in the Benghazi attack] was a fellow member of the Military Religious Freedom Advisory Board, which fights to ensure that our military is not further compromised by the Christian Dominionists who seek to turn it into an instrument of their religious zealotry, an army for Christ rather than for the defense of our nation. He was invaluable in helping us uncover several cases where religious indoctrination was taking place under the guise of military training….
“These new Benghazi emails are disturbing and show why Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration had to be forced to disclose them,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Hillary Clinton, despite knowing that terrorists were responsible for the attack, allowed her spokesman to go to the Arab world and blame an Internet film. Hillary Clinton trafficked in fantastical conspiracy theories that suggested both American conservatives and Israel were to blame for the Benghazi attack and jihadist violence in the Muslim world. And the crazed email from Sidney Blumenthal shows that she was taking direction on her Benghazi spin based upon attack-style presidential campaign politics. Finally, the ‘I just got up’ email shows that, smack dab in the middle of the Benghazi crisis, Hillary Clinton fell behind and may have not been fully briefed as she began an intense round of phone calls to foreign leaders.”
Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuits filed in 2014 and 2015 forced the release of these records.
The first lawsuit, filed on September 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)), sought:
- All records concerning notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.
The second FOIA lawsuit, filed on May 6, 2015, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00692), sought:
- All emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton regarding the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The timeframe for this request is September 11, 2012 to January 31, 2013.
As Judicial Watch chief investigator reporter Micah Morrison detailed last month, Sidney Blumenthal advised Clinton on Libya (and may have had business interests there). The JW report also disclosed how Hillary Clinton emailed classified information to Blumenthal in response to his lobbying for Amb. Wilson’s efforts to secure taxpayer financing for an energy project in Africa. Hillary Clinton’s contacts with Blumenthal, who was also a highly paid employee of the Clinton Foundation, should have been subject to State Department ethics reviews for conflicts of interest, as promised by Mrs. Clinton. For example, in January 2009, Hillary Clinton promised President Obama and United States Senate considering her confirmation that:
If confirmed as Secretary of State, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect upon this foundation, unless I first obtain a written waiver or qualify for a regulatory exemption.
###
Category Archives: Whistleblower
Death Benefits Still Not Paid for Benghazi
Family of American Killed in Benghazi Awaits Promised Funds
NYT > WASHINGTON — Family members of Glen Doherty, a C.I.A. contractor and a former Navy SEAL who was among four Americans killed in the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, said they felt a sense of closure when they were told last December that the agency had finally agreed to pay Mr. Doherty’s death benefits.
“It was such a great Christmas gift that all this hard work and time and energy that we put in was finally done,” said Kate Quigley, Mr. Doherty’s sister, of the family’s effort in fighting for the funds. “We felt like it was honoring his name and his legacy.”
But a year later, the Doherty family has yet to see any federal money. Bureaucratic delays continue, even as the C.I.A. and Congress are now in agreement that paying the death benefit is the right thing to do.
The family’s fight has been overshadowed by the politics and recriminations surrounding the House Select Committee on Benghazi, whose Republican members have sharply criticized Hillary Clinton for what they say was her failure as secretary of state to secure the diplomatic compound in which Mr. Doherty and the other Americans died.
Mr. Doherty’s family members say he did not realize that the life insurance package he was legally required to buy from a private provider as a C.I.A. contractor would not pay death benefits — beyond funeral costs — if the deceased had no spouse or offspring. Mr. Doherty was single and did not have any children.
“An injustice has been done in his name,” Mrs. Quigley said in a recent telephone interview. “Seventeen years, he devoted his life to protecting this country.”
In response to the Doherty family’s efforts, the C.I.A. has proposed changing one of its administrative policies to allow it to pay up to $400,000 in death benefits to Mr. Doherty’s family and to families of terrorist attack victims in similar situations. The change would be retroactive to April 18, 1983, when suicide bombers killed dozens of people at the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
The proposed policy, which is modeled after one adopted by the State Department for the 2014 fiscal year, would use C.I.A. funds rather than insurance money to pay the families, providing a stopgap for those otherwise unable to collect benefits.
After months of debating the particulars of the proposal, four congressional committees responsible for approving it have done so, but the House defense appropriations subcommittee has told the C.I.A. it must find money for the death benefits in a different part of its budget than the agency initially proposed. The committees are now awaiting the C.I.A.’s response, which they must all approve.
“We are involved in a little game of Ping-Pong here,” said Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has pushed for the rule change on Capitol Hill. “And I feel like we’re getting close, but I don’t want to take an eye off the ball.”
Mr. Lynch said that the rule change would most likely affect several dozen families. The C.I.A. declined to comment.
Mr. Lynch, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight national security subcommittee, introduced legislation in January to go further than the internal C.I.A. change and update what he and others called an outmoded law. His measure would amend the 1941 Defense Base Act, which requires overseas contractors — including those working for the C.I.A. — to carry disability and life insurance. But it allows death benefits only to surviving spouses or children.
Despite gaining the support of Senators John McCain of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, the legislation has found little traction on Capitol Hill, which Mr. Lynch said in an interview might be because of its relatively narrow focus.
Jerry Komisar, the president of the C.I.A. Officers Memorial Foundation, which offers financial support to the families of officers killed in the line of duty, said that the death benefit of up to $400,000, while modest, would provide a much-needed lift to families.
“The demands on C.I.A. officers to serve on some of these hazardous assignments is going up,” said Mr. Komisar, a former member of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service. “The more we do to help incentivize them the better.”
Over the past three years, Mrs. Quigley, 42, said she has made dozens of phone calls and news media appearances, as well as trips from her home in Boston to lobby lawmakers in Washington. She has also met with members of the Benghazi committee, who she said pledged support. (Jamal Ware, a spokesman for the committee, said its chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, has worked behind the scenes to help the family.)
My family have been trying to persuade me to look at a lawyer specialising in wrongful deaths and survival actions. But at times I just found it too much, particularly as there are so many law firms out there. I realise now that I probably shouldn’t have been so worried about getting the right lawyer involved, as it is so easy to do. A lot of law firms simply ask something like can you contact our wrongful death lawyers and you’ll hopefully get your lawsuit sorted. At one point, the family had been considering bringing a $1 million wrongful death suit against the C.I.A. and the State Department. But it decided not to press the suit after the C.I.A. agreed to the policy change. The family settled a separate suit against Rutherfoord, the insurance firm that sold Mr. Doherty his policy.
Mr. Doherty, who was 42 when he died, had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been hired by the C.I.A. to help with security and surveillance in Libya. According to Mrs. Quigley, her brother had designated a friend, Sean Lake, as the executor of his estate and did not know he would be unable to collect and distribute insurance benefits to the family as they had planned.
“The basic impetus of this is that this young man, a former Navy SEAL, agreed to serve us in a very meaningful way, in several very dangerous theaters,” said Mr. Lynch, who does not represent the family’s home district, but became involved in its efforts early on.
New America, Through the Lives of Farook’s Jihad
Coed: Tashfeen Malik is confirmed to be one of the suspects of Wednesday’s shooting at the Inland Regional Center, along with her husband Syed Farook.
Tashfeen —>>> 
Malik is believed to have pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a recent Facebook post, however the page is under a different name. Officials did not explain how they knew Malik wrote the post.
UPDATE:
Photos of inside Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s house have been released. Two photos show an unidentified female’s passport. The FBI is also officially investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. According to the FBI director, there is no indication that the couple was part of an organized terrorism group or network.
According to the Daily Mail, Farook clashed with Jewish co-worker Nicholas Thalasinos shortly before the shooting began, and was allegedly the target of disparaging comments concerning “his traditional Muslim appearance.” Thalasinos was one of the numerous victims.
Co-workers also divulged that the two men would frequently discuss religion and politics.
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From the Daily Mail,
Colleague Kuuleme Stephen said that when she had called Thalasinos at work he told her he was having a heated discussion with Farook about Islam who had told him Islam was a peaceful religion and that Americans do not understand Islam.
Thalasinos was known to be passionate about pro-Israel causes and regularly ranted about Islam on Facebook.
On September 11th, 2013, alongside a photo of a shirtless victim plummeting to his death from the burning World Trade Center, Mr Thalasinos posted: ‘On behalf of this guy… You can stick your Million Muslim March up your asses.’
Malik and Farook met on a dating site and had apparently been married for two years. They had a six month old baby who was dropped off at Farook’s mother’s house during the shooting.
Few details are known about Malik other than her age – 27 – and that she was Muslim. According to several sources, she was also a pharmacist and believed to be Pakistani. Her background is currently under investigation.
The 27-year-old was killed during a shootout with police yesterday, which consisted of 21 officers.According to neighbors, a multitude of Middle Eastern individuals were frequently visiting their house at all hours of the day, along with several unknown packages. One neighbor went on the record to say that they didn’t report the suspicious activity for fear of being labeled a racist and Islamophobic.
The above photo is an overhead view of the couple’s house. Police were led to the home from a tip and found the suspects in a dark SUV shortly after arriving. The couple quickly fled and a shootout ensued.During a Wednesday night investigation of the home, police allegedly found 12 pipe bomb-type devices.
A third person also fled from the shooting scene and was detained after an extensive search. It is not immediately clear if they played a role in the massacre.
Evidence suggests that the incident was not spur of the moment. Two handguns were recovered and traced back to her husband, both of which were purchases legally three or four years ago. Two additional rifles were purchased illegally around the same time, however the purchaser is unknown. Authorities suspect a former roommate bought them.
Evidence also shows that the couple was looking to continue on with their rampage. A bag full of “three rudimentary explosive devices packed with black powder and rigged to a remote controlled car “was found inside of the conference room and believed to belong to the couple. Law enforcement stated that the remote for the car was found inside the SUV where Farook and Malik were later killed.”
Her husband was described as a devout Muslim who began growing out his beard over the past year. Both shooters wore a GoPro camera during the shooting, yet there has yet to be mention of actual footage.
Trump and the Russian Mafia, Splain’n to do
Trump cant claim ignorance on this one.
Trump SoHo
At 45 stories, the Trump SoHo stands as the tallest building in SoHo, and one of the tallest in Manhattan. A five-star luxury condominium and hotel project between The Trump Organization and The Bayrock Group, the Trump SoHo exudes luxury at every turn.
Trump picked stock fraud felon as senior adviser
WASHINGTON (AP)— Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.
Portions of Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organization as early as 2003. Sater’s criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater’s criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.
But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump’s own office in New York’s Trump Tower, The Associated Press learned through interviews and court records.
Deeper dive from the Courthouse News:
MANHATTAN (CN) – The Bayrock Group and Nixon Peabody are among 35 defendants sued for $1 billion, whom 13 plaintiffs, including estates of Holocaust survivors, accuse of “the illegal concealment of Felix Sater’s 1998 $40 million federal racketeering conviction, and subsequent 2009 sentencing.”
The summons and notice in New York County Supreme Court contains few details. Three of the six pages of the document are taken up with names of the parties, their attorneys, and the charges.
The Miami Herald reported last year that the CIA helped Sater conceal his conviction for securities fraud while using him to track down Stinger missiles for sale in his native Russia. This was “a decade before he launched the celebrated Fort Lauderdale Trump Tower,” the Herald reported in a Sept. 8, 2012 article.
But the Trump Tower failed, and “a legal battle has ensued between burned investors trying to reveal Sater’s background and federal agents who say national security is at stake,” the Herald reported.
Prosecutors in that case asked to keep Sater’s record sealed, in the national interest.
Sater was fined $25,000 for his original $40 million stock swindle, did no jail time and was not ordered to pay anything in restitution, according to the Herald.
In the new summons and notice in New York, a string of investors want to hold Sater and his attorneys and businesses responsible. The document does not mention the alleged CIA connection.
It states: “Plaintiffs seek relief against those directly and vicariously responsible for the perpetration of perhaps a billion dollars or more of fraud based on the illegal concealment of Felix Sater’s 1998 $40 million federal racketeering conviction, and subsequent 2009 sentencing, as well as related and other unrelated relief, and declaratory relief against those persons, primarily financial institution, insofar as to affix by liquidating judgment thereof such liability is owed to them.
“‘Bayrock,’ as used herein, refers to that certain association of juridical entities including, for example and without limitation, Bayrock Group LLC, Bayrock Camelback LLC, Bayrock Whitestone LLC, Bayrock Spring Street LLC, and Bayrock Merrimac LLC, in the last ten years variously engaged in the businesses of financial institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, insurance fraud, litigation fraud, bankruptcy fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, human trafficking, child prostitution, statutory rape, and, on occasion, real estate.
“One of the overarching, dominant themes of those Bayrock lines of business has been the fraudulent concealment of the substantial degree to which it was owned directly or equitably by Felix Sater, who was represented at various times at least during the period 2002 to 2008 to be its Chief Operating Officer and at times as its Managing Director.
“Another overarching, dominant theme of Bayrock’s lines has been the fraudulent concealment of Felix Sater’s conviction for racketeering, to which he secretly pled guilty in 1998, admitting to participating in the operation of a pump-and-dump stock fraud, along with members of Russian and Mafia organized crime, which defrauded investors, many of them senior citizens, including Holocaust survivors, of at a minimum $40,000,000, now in today’s dollars some $150,000,000 of stolen wealth as measured by the ‘well managed account’ theory.
“The Estates of Ernest and Judit Gottdiener; Ervin Tausky, a natural person, and Suan Investments, a Gottdiener family holding company, are some of those victims, survivors of the Nazi extermination of the Jews of Hungary and federally protected crime victims of Mr. Sater’s racketeering, as such his creditors. They were defrauded of their rights to restitution and, because the government illegally concealed Sater’s entire case, their rights to sue him. The Gottdieners claim damages for the fraud on them against everyone responsible for the 15-year delay and deprivation of their civil rights.
“Insofar as Sater used Bayrock as a personal piggybank to skim millions upon millions of its assets and hide them out of the reach (for now) of these and all the other hundreds if not thousands of victims to whom he now is liable over $500,000,000 in RICO damages, and would not have been able to do so without the facilitation of his concealment frauds by others, the Gottdieners sue all those for the damage they caused.
“Among those are corrupt attorneys who used fraudulent and sham court processes to hide Sater and his frauds for their own gain, as many of them did so with the specific intent, inter alia, of raking in fees from him, essentially taking the Gottdiener’s and all the others’ money for themselves by keeping it out of the hands of the victims, where it should have gone; they are sued, inter alia, for vicarious liability of all damages caused and for forfeiture of all such fees. …
“Finally, as Sater admitted at his sentencing he knew no banks would lend to Bayrock if they knew about his concealed conviction, a judicial estoppel and admission against penal interest, lenders and investors who were fraudulently induced to provide $1,000,000,000 or so to Bayrock by this concealment ought to get their money back, so they are sued in declaratory judgment to fix the liability of Bayrock and all those liable to them through Bayrock to them.
“All defendants except as noted are sued for all liability, that is, for example only, Kelly Moore, who stood in Sater’s sentencing as his attorney knowing it was illegally hidden, hearing him admit that he had been using that illegal concealment to perpetrate bank fraud, and without privilege to do so committed fraud and other actionable wrongs in maintaining sham litigation to stop those who learned of this from revealing it for years, thus knowingly facilitating the cover-ups, shall expect to have plenary liability asserted against her by every Plaintiff in every theory for every cause in the scope of the overarching conspiracy. It is the express intent of Plaintiffs to assert all liability to the fullest scope of the state law vicarious liability equivalent of civil federal Pinkerton liability against everyone participating in any identifiable and well-pled conspiracy. Those who thought nothing of helping Sater and his co-conspirators defraud, the littlest senior citizens and Holocaust survivors or the biggest banks and lenders, who thought nothing of helping him and others steal those victims’ money, must be made to pay with their own.”
Here are the defendants: Bayrock Group LLC; Tevrik Arif; Julius Schwarz; Felix Satter; Brian Halberg; Salvatore Lauria; Alex Salomon; Jerry Weinrich; Salomon & Co. PC; Akerman Senterfitt LLP; Martin Domb; Craig Brown; Duval & Stachenfeld LLP; Bruce Stachenfeld; David Granin; Nixon Peabody LLP; Adam Gilbert; Roberts & Holland LLP; Elliot Pisem; Michael Samuel; Mel Dogan; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Does; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Camelback LLC; Bayrock Merrimac LLC; Bayrock Group Inc.; Tamir Sapir; Alex Sapir; Does; Walter Saurack; Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP; Kelly Moore; Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP; Nader Mobargha; Michael Beys; Beys Stein & Mobargha LLP; and Todd Kaminsky.Here are the plaintiffs: J Kriss; Michael Ejekam; Bayrock Merrimac LLC; Bayrock Group LLC; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Camelback LLC; E/O Ernest; E/Ojudit Gottdiener; Ervin Tausky; Suan Investments.
Under Obama, Inspector Generals are Stonewalled
Congress holds hearing for testimony from Inspector Generals. In early 2015, 46 IGs signed their name to a letter expressing concerns that agency officials systematically compromise IG independence by denying them full access.
In 2014:
AmericanThinker: AT News Director Ed Lasky has chronicled the shameful problems with Obama administration inspector generals for years, including the political pressures put on IG’s in almost every department of the administration.
A perfect illustration of this is former DHS IG Charles Edwards, who deliberately slowed investigations into wrongdoing at DHS, including the shredding of dozens of emails – an act that might send him to jail for obstruction of justice.
IGs: At Least 20 Investigations Slowed or Closed Due To Obama Admin
FreeBeacon: Numerous inspectors general say that at least 20 investigations have been slowed or closed due to government watchdogs not having access to needed documents or records under the Obama administration.
Dozens of interviews of people with firsthand knowledge of the years-long problem spoke of the tensions between the watchdogs and the administration.
The New York Times reports:
The Drug Enforcement Administration balked at turning over emails from senior officials tied to the raids, according to the department’s inspector general. It took nearly a year of wrangling before the D.E.A. was willing to turn over all its records in a case that the inspector general said raised “serious questions” about agents’ use of deadly force.
The continuing Honduran inquiry is one of at least 20 investigations across the government that have been slowed, stymied or sometimes closed because of a long-simmering dispute between the Obama administration and its own watchdogs over the shrinking access of inspectors general to confidential records, according to records and interviews.
The impasse has hampered investigations into an array of programs and abuse reports — from allegations of sexual assaults in the Peace Corps to the FBI’s terrorism powers, officials said. And it has threatened to roll back more than three decades of policy giving the watchdogs unfettered access to “all records” in their investigations.
“The bottom line is that we’re no longer independent,” Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, said in an interview.
The restrictions reflect a broader effort by the Obama administration to prevent unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information — at the expense, some watchdogs insist, of government oversight.
In recent years, inspector generals have increasingly said the Obama administration is making it more difficult to acquire information as 47 of the 73 government IGs sent a letter to Obama last year for stonewalling their investigations.
The press additionally has chastised the Obama administration for lack of access to records as well. In March 2015, the Obama administration set a record for withholding government information despite promising to lead the most transparent administration in history.