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| Hillary Clinton / Barack Obama Scandals |
For years, Judicial Watch has regularly monitored expenditures of U.S. Government funds by the president, members of the first family, and other VIPs receiving Secret Service protection.
FOIA requests to the U.S. Air Force and other agencies enabled Judicial Watch to determine that, to date, the total known travel expenses for various trips by the Obamas and Bidens are currently $70,563,336.75.
But the extraordinary lack of cooperation by the Secret Service has prevented Judicial Watch from gathering complete records of taxpayer-funded, VIP travel. These Secret Service records typically include records of expenses incurred for ground transportation, lodging, meals, and other related costs, as well as the accompanying Secret Service details. The lawsuit details:
The Secret Service has not made a determination on a single, travel-related FOIA request served by Plaintiff since July 21, 2014.
Judicial Watch asserts that the Secret Service has "a policy and practice of violating FOIA" requirements, Judicial Watch attorneys are asking the court to enjoin the Secret Service from continuing to withhold the requested records and other information from Judicial Watch for 19 current requests.
Prior examples of Judicial Watch FOIA requests that gathered travel cost information include:
A June 2015 trip by Michelle Obama to the UK and Italy which cost taxpayers $240,495.67 in travel expenses alone;
A March 2014 trip by Michelle Obama to China which cost taxpayers $360,000 in travel expenses alone;
An April 2015 single day trip to the Florida Everglades for Earth Day which cost taxpayers $866,615.40 in travel expenses alone;
And a February 2015 weekend ski trip by Michelle Obama to Aspen, Colorado, which cost taxpayers $57,000 in travel expenses alone.
State Department Rushed Approval for Hillary Clinton's Memoirs - We've been stonewalled for years on our Benghazi and Clinton cash Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits by the State Department. However, if you are Hillary Clinton, the State Department will rubber stamp your proposed, perhaps with sensitive information that should not see the light of day, in record time.
That's the conclusion from reviewing the documents we just released revealing that State Department officials ordered rushed approval of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's manuscript for her memoir Hard Choices. The documents show a key State Department official had concerns about the disclosure of classified information in the book concerning Iran and an effort to destroy draft copies of Clinton's book in State Department files and from State Department computer systems.
The documents were obtained from the State Department last month in response to a June 12, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the following:
The documents show the first Clinton book chapters were delivered to Director of the Office of Information Programs and Services John Hackett in February 2014. Hackett began pressuring his staff for approval on March 7. On March 10, Senior Reviewer Charles Daris urged reviewers at the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau to "turn these around as quickly as possible to meet the hopes and expectations of the author." That same day, State Department official Neil Silver writes: "The FOIA office is under great pressure to turn this around quickly. If you are tardy in your response, you may get a high-level Department official call.
On March 13, Daris emails show that the Near East staff was given three working days to respond to the book's chapter on Benghazi and that the State Department delayed sending the manuscript to the CIA for review at the request of former Clinton campaign staffer Ethan Gelber. Daris also documents that factual errors have been found in the Iran chapter and that the Maghreb desk has "comment" on the CIA in Benghazi.
The documents also show an effort to destroy copies of draft copies of the Clinton book, evidently because "revisions were in the works." A March 20 exchange with State Department official Paul P. Blackburn reads:
• Blackburn: I have just retrieved the two copies of the chapter portions Neil passed to the China and Japan desks (i.e., pages 53-73 of "Back to Beijing" and 87-119 of "Green Light.") In each case, I was assured that no reproductions were made, so I think we now have "all/all of the copies."
• Daris: Excellent, Paul. Please destroy them. Thank you. C
Hillary Clinton can get her book, despite disclosing classified material, approved in record time from the same State Department that is slow-walking and obstructing, over years, the release of the notorious Clinton emails about Benghazi and other scandals.
The desperate effort to destroy copies of the Clinton draft shows that any remaining drafts need to be uncovered and reviewed.
My guess is the American people, the courts, and law enforcement will be angry that yet more Clinton records, which included sensitive and potentially classified information, were destroyed.
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Tom Fitton is President of Judicial Watch.
Tags: Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch, secret service, cover-up, mode, President Obama, First Lady, Michelle Obama, travel costs, Hillary Clinton, State Department, rushed approval, Hillary Clinton's Memoirs, scandals To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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