Today, Citizens United sent the following letter to U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup regarding Citizens United's ongoing COVID Origins related FOIA litigation.
Nearly four years after the now-discredited Russia collusion probe was formally closed, the Justice Department has released heavily redacted memos showing the FBI initially considered resolving concerns about Moscow targeting Donald Trump's campaign by simply giving the GOP presidential nominee a defensive briefing back in 2016.
The information was contained in a new release of documents in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative group Citizens United, which sought the interviews conducted by the Justice Department inspector general of key players involved in the Russia probe, including former DOJ official Bruce Ohr's wife and former Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
More than 90% of the 460 pages of documents released by the government were blacked out by redactions mostly requested by the FBI or the inspector general's office.
You can read the full production of documents here:
The memos' few visible text entries nonetheless contained valuable new nuggets that show how the FBI failed to stop the politically motivated and uncorroborated allegations that Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.
For instance, former State Department official Kathleen Kavalec provided new details to the DOJ IG about her fateful contact in October 2016 with former British MI6 spy Christopher Steele, the Hillary Clinton-funded author of the now-infamous and discredited Steele dossier that formed the basis of the FBI's request for a FISA warrant targeting the Trump campaign just a few weeks before Election Day 2016.
Congressional investigators learned about Kavalec's contact with Steele only in May 2019 after the probe ended, and they argued it raised red flags because Steele had broken his cover as an FBI informant by going to State and to news reporters to share details of his research.
Kavalec would later reveal to the Justice IG that Steele was upset that the FBI had not worked more quickly to process his allegations or create impact before Election Day.
"My sense was that he had shared information with the FBI, and he was frustrated," Kavalec told the DOJ IG investigators. "And he felt that they weren't acting on the information.
"I think there was a sense of frustration that people weren't, you know, responding to the information." Kavalec confirmed she relayed the information she got from Steele to the FBI.
This reporter broke the story in 2019 of Kavelec's contact with Steele, a development that delayed release of the DOJ IG's final report, which ultimately concluded the FBI engaged in misconduct and made serious errors during its investigation of the Trump-Russia allegations.
Another key nugget contained in the newly released memos comes from the transcript and investigator notes of the DOJ IG's interview with Lynch.
While most of the transcript is redacted except for expressions like "Um-hmm" and "Okay," a key section was left visible confirming that the FBI's concerns with the allegations of the Trump-Russia connection predated the formal opening of the Crossfire Hurricane probe on July 31, 2016.
Lynch testified that then-FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe — both of whom were later fired — pulled her aside earlier in the spring of 2016 to flag intelligence that then-Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page had contacts with Russian officials.
Lynch testified the contact occurred in "the late spring of 2016 when I had a pull aside meeting with Director Comey and Deputy Director McCabe and they provided me information ... about some efforts that may have been underway by Russian intelligence operatives to contact Carter Page."
"There was no action item presented and it was preliminary," she said later in the interview.
But the former attorney general's most eye-opening revelation came when she relayed what the FBI was thinking about doing to resolve the concerns about the Trump campaign.
"We talked about possibly providing a defensive briefing, but that was a preliminary discussion," she relayed during the interview. "... It was simply something that might happen down the road."
She confirmed the defensive briefing would have been given to Trump's campaign under the plan discussed with the FBI brass.
Many FBI experts, including former Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock, have long argued the FBI did not have solid grounds to warrant opening a full counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign in the middle of the 2016 election and that a preferred option based on FBI practices of the past would have been to give Trump a defensive briefing warning that his campaign might be targeted by Russia.
Remarkably — despite the explosive possibility that a presidential campaign might be targeted by a Russian influence operation — Lynch said she did not recall the FBI ever followed up on Carter Page.
"I don't recall a specific update on Carter Page," she told the investigators.
In fact, Lynch said she never recalled being briefed on Crossfire Hurricane or reading the FISA warrant application targeting Page and the Trump campaign that would be approved by a court at the FBI's request in October 2016, just weeks before Election Day.
The possibility that Comey and McCabe met with Lynch in spring 2016 to discuss Trump-Russia has been raised before, including briefly in the final DOJ IG report.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported in December 2019 that neither Comey nor McCabe could recall such a discussion.
"Comey told the OIG that he did not recall having such a conversation with Lynch, and that he did not think it was possible for such conversation to have occurred in the spring of 2016," Horowitz wrote. "He also said that he did not recall himself having any knowledge of Carter Page's existence until the middle of 2016."
David Bossie, president of Citizens United, told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show Tuesday night that Lynch's account furthered the concern that Trump was treated more hostilely than other Americans would have been in the same circumstance.
The FBI "hated President Trump more than they loved our country," Bossie said. "That is at the end of the day what this is about. This is the Obama administration, the Clinton cabal, and the out-of-control Justice Department wanting to destroy Donald Trump rather than treat him in the way that he deserved to be treated."
Longtime television news host Lou Dobbs, who highlighted many of the FBI failures in the Russia probe over the years, said the FBI's refusal to simply give Trump a heads-up about the Russia concerns and instead launch a three-year probe that consumed America likely changed the course of history.
"So much could have been quite different," Dobbs told Just the News. "For example, President Trump wouldn't be in the seventh year of a political persecution that started just about that time in the midsummer of 2016."
Citizens United filed an amicus brief today at the Supreme Court in Groff v. DeJoy. Gerald Groff thought working for the U.S. Postal Service would allow him to honor the Sabbath by worshipping at church and spending time with his family. The Federal Government said no. Citizens United asks the U.S. Supreme Court to restore important protections for religious employees. Stand with Citizens United and American workers to defend religious liberty!
After several executive agencies in the Biden administration were sued for refusing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests from conservative advocacy group Citizens United over the White House’s attempt to federalize elections, the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs finally turned over its first batch of requested documents. There’s one problem: More than half of the 54-page document is completely redacted.
“The Biden administration is the least transparent in history, and these absurd redactions are just the latest example. What are they trying to hide from the American people?” Citizens United President David Bossie told The Federalist.
As The Federalist previously reported, in March 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing hundreds of federal agencies to engage in a federal takeover of election administration. It also permitted federal agencies to work with “nonpartisan” third-party entities to get voters registered, yet left-wing dark money group Demos publicly admitted it’s worked with federal agencies, “in close partnership with the ACLU and other allies,” to advance the aims of Biden’s directive.
Such an order set off alarm bells among Republicans and good government groups, reminiscent of the widespread takeover of government election offices by Democratic activists and donors in the blue counties of key swing states during the 2020 presidential election. Through their infiltration of state and local offices, Democrats were able to conduct partisan get-out-the-vote operations and swing the election in then-candidate Biden’s favor. This order is a taxpayer-funded version of that effort, turning federal agencies — including those that dole out federal benefits — into voter registration hubs and partisan get-out-the-vote centers.
Citizens United wanted to find out more about it, which is why last June, it filed FOIA requests with the DOI and State Department seeking email and text messages that mentioned both the executive order and the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in election activities. When the agencies failed to comply, Citizens United sued. On Jan. 31, DOI sent its first round of documents per Citizens United’s request.
But the 54-page PDF sent to Citizens United is mostly redacted, save for logistical emails between White House staff and agency department heads. The plan and implementation scheme for the “Promoting Access to Voting” executive order itself are completely redacted.
In a cover letter sent with the documents, the Biden administration defended the redactions under U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), which allows agencies to withhold information under the “Presidential Communications Privilege” (exists to ensure “the President’s ability to obtain candid and informed opinions from his advisors and to make decisions confidentially”) and the “Deliberative Process Privilege” (“protects the decision-making process of government agencies and encourages the frank exchange of ideas on legal or policy matters”).
But according to Jason Foster, president and founder of Empower Oversight, a transparency and government accountability group that frequently files FOIA requests, these redactions are a prime example of the federal government’s blatant over-redacting and censorship.
“Federal bureaucrats do everything in their power to conceal information from the public,” Foster told The Federalist. “Whether it’s over-classification or improper redactions and stonewalling Freedom of Information Act requests, they instinctively err on the side of hiding information to avoid embarrassment, conceal misconduct, or cover up corruption. It’s up to Congress to reform the FOIA process, and in the meantime, it’s up to independent organizations to sue aggressively to force the federal government to comply with transparency laws.”
While good government groups can sue over improper redactions, this process can usually take about a year to uncover just one document from a series of files, those familiar with the matter said. Now that Republicans control the House of Representatives, however, they have the power to compel the federal government to produce non-redacted versions of requested documents, a Citizens United official told The Federalist.
During the 117th Congress, nine House Republicans wrote a letter to the White House raising concerns about the executive order, specifically regarding the fact that the order supplants the authority of the states to set election law and administer elections under the Constitution. When asked about the Biden administration’s secrecy over its elections directive, Freshman Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., who chairs the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs, echoed her colleague’s sentiments.
“Everyone should have concerns about this executive order and the involvement of any federal agency in our election process,” Hageman told The Federalist. “First and foremost, elections are the constitutional responsibility of the states, not our federal bureaucracy. This is yet another example of the federal government overstepping its authority and infringing upon states’ rights. Even if this order was well intended — and I have serious doubts that it was — it is unconstitutional.”
Hageman emphasized that the White House cannot get away with such extensive redactions of election-related processes.
“Large-scale redactions are not in the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act,” Hageman added. “This is one of the few tools we have to hold our government accountable. Are we to accept that the information is classified to such an extent that the document is unable to be coherently interpreted? Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the federal government cannot be allowed to continue to obscure and obstruct.”
Of particular interest in the 54-page document is a draft letter on page 32 from Indian Affairs Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland to White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, formerly President Obama’s national security advisor and “right-hand woman” who is known for her involvement in spying on the Trump campaign in 2015 and lying about it. In that role, she also spread lies about the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, helped Obama staffers target Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and turned a blind eye to the Biden family’s foreign business affairs.
One line in the draft letter reads: “The plan promotes voter registration and voter participation (REDACTED) and the Department’s agency action to achieve these objectives.” The redacted portion might point to a Hatch Act violation, a Citizens United official told The Federalist.
“These documents relating to the Biden White House’s efforts to turn the federal workforce into a partisan voter registration committee must be released to the public in their entirety,” Bossie said. “Congress must investigate this executive order to see if the Biden Administration is violating the Hatch Act on a massive scale.”
When asked why the Interior Department isn’t being transparent with the public about Biden’s federal takeover of elections, the Bureau of Indian Affairs referred The Federalist to the U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) exemptions in the cover letter sent to Citizens United.
CU-CUF-TPC File Amicus Brief in Biden v. Nebraska.
The amicus brief urges the Supreme Court to affirm the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals injunction striking down the Biden Administration’s student loan cancellation executive order on two grounds. First, the brief contends the loan cancellation directive is outside the authority granted to the Secretary of Education under the HEROS Act, which was enacted in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Second, if the Court finds that the loan cancellation order falls within the authority granted under the HEROS Act, the Court should revisit its non-delegation doctrine jurisprudence and strike down the loan cancellation authority granted under the HEROS Act as an unconstitutional delegation of Congress’ legislative powers to the Executive Branch in contradiction of the Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine.
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