ACLJ Takes Legal Action to get to the Bottom of the Clinton Foundation Collusion with the Obama State Department

The saga of corruption continues.

As we reported last week, more State Department emails were publically released. And guess what they showed?

Clinton Foundation friends and donors got special treatment from the Obama State Department while Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State.

The American people deserve accountability from a lawless and corrupt Administration.

Earlier this week, our brand new Government Accountability Project delivered another round of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the State Department. By law, it must respond, providing detailed records that could expose any favors or potential pay-to-play corruption that may have occurred.

Our friends at Judicial Watch uncovered key emails that showed requests for special treatment. Our FOIA requests take the next step:  What happened next?

Here’s a summary of what we know.  In one set of emails, Doug Band, a senior Clinton Foundation official, forwarded a request for “a favor” for someone who apparently had joined former-President Bill Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon on an infamous trip to Haiti in 2009.  That person’s name was redacted.

“Important to take care of [redacted],” says Band.

Then Secretary Clinton’s top aide at the State Department, Huma Abedin, responds: “Personnel has been sending him options.” 

And in a different set of emails with the same players, we learned that the Clinton Foundation – on behalf of a businessman who had donated between $1 to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation – asked for access to the State Department’s “substance person” for Lebanon.

Abedin identifies the right State Department “substance person” as Assistant Secretary Jeff Feltman, and promises to “talk to him.”  Just 15 minutes later, Band responded:  “Better if you talk to him, Now preferable.”  And, if there was any doubt:  “This is very important.” Other portions of the email were redacted.

Why did the Clinton Foundation donor need access to the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon?  What resulted from that access?

As to the other email chain, what was the “favor” the unknown person asked for? Why did the Clinton Foundation official insist to State Department officials that it was “[i]mportant to take care of” that person?  What “options” had State Department “personnel” been offering that person, and why? What happened after the Clinton Foundation applied pressure for favors – apparently above and beyond the “options” he had already been offered?

As The Wall Street Journal put it:

The emails paint a picture of top Clinton aides at State eager to do favors for Clinton Foundation donors.

If true, it would expose immense corruption. The American people deserve to know.

Our FOIA request will help shed some light on the ever-expanding tunnel of emails, corruption, and scandal connected to Obama Administration.

Our FOIA request

seek[s] any and all records pertaining in any way to any action taken or not taken in connection with, as a result of, or as alluded to or referenced in the content of two email chains obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a FOIA request to the U.S. Department of State (DOS).

We requested records connected to the Clinton Foundation donor and businessman who desired – and was granted – access to the State Department Assistant Secretary tasked with Middle Eastern affairs. And we requested records concerning the “[i]mportant” “favor” Clinton Foundation heavyweight Doug Band pressured the State Department officials to grant.

We’ll take this to court if we have to. We’re already in court now against the State Department on their refusal to produce records regarding President Obama’s Iran lie.

In fact, we’ve filed numerous FOIA requests targeting the Obama Administration’s systemic abuse of executive power: Censoring words like “jihad” from our government lexicon and training materials; censoring an admitted jihadist’s 911 call transcript; funding efforts to unseat Israel’s head of state; and, political corruption tied to the FBI and Department of Justice’s investigation of the State Department email scandal.

We will continue our efforts to hold the Obama Administration accountable. I am leading a senior team of attorneys at the ACLJ, launching a new Governmental Accountability Project. We are taking legal action on these critical issues, but we need your help. 

Add your voice to the cause. Sign our petition below. And join our Government Accountability Project. Your voice matters.