ACLJ Obtains Documents on Eve of President Obama Leaving Office Showing Collusion with the Clinton Foundation on Attempted Closure of GITMO

Last night, less than 24 hours before President Obama left office, we obtained critical documents exposing collusion between President Obama’s State Department, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s senior staff, and the Clinton Foundation on the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO).

As we explained before:

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.” 

We filed a FOIA request demanding to know who this person was, and what, if any, job he was offered.  When the State Department refused to comply, we filed a lawsuit.

Just hours ago (at the 11th hour on the night before the next President is inaugurated) the State Department turned over the documents. These documents show that Brock Johnson was the “favor”.  Just over two weeks after the initial email from a senior Clinton Foundation official was sent to then-Secretary of State Clinton’s top aids – Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills – Brock Johnson began a job – classified as “critical sensitive” at the State Department.

His job: “Special Assistant to the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure.”  The job description states that he was to help the Special Envoy “in furtherance of President Obama’s order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”

Who is Brock Johnson: reportedly a former Obama Campaign operative, who while he was Special Assistant to the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure “helped shepherd deals with less conventional allies such as Palau.” Brock Johnson later tipped off Cheryl Mills about a “Significant FOIA” request in 2012 that requested information about “the number of email accounts of, or associated with, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or associated with Secretary Clinton.” The Inspector General found that the State Department then falsely stated that there were “no records responsive to your request,” when in fact numerous officials knew about Secretary Clinton’s private email address. To be clear, Johnson tipped off Cheryl Mills about the FOIA request that would have first publicly uncovered Secretary Clinton’s email scandal; instead the State Department covered it up for months longer. And Johnson obtained his job as a “favor” to the Clinton Foundation.

His direct supervisor: “CHERYL D. MILLS, COUNSELOR/CHIEF OF STAFF” to Secretary Clinton.

Not only was there no firewall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, “favor”s were being done – jobs were being offered.  But not just any job – the job of helping close GITMO.  In fact, Mr. Johnson was granted “interim clearance for access to classified information at the [redacted] level” less than two weeks after the “favor” email.

President Obama gave an “order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility” in direct violation of Congress’s oversight. Then Secretary Clinton’s staff colluded with the Clinton Foundation to do the foundation “a favor” by hiring Brock Johnson to help close GITMO.

This is exactly the kind of collusion between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department that is totally inappropriate. We suspected that this type of behavior was taking place and now we have proof.  It’s both troubling and unfortunate that the Obama State Department – under the direction of former Secretary Clinton – engaged in such activity and worse yet that both Secretary Clinton and the State Department went to great lengths to conceal this inappropriate action.

This is precisely why our efforts to unearth the truth are so critical. And it won’t stop today. The bureaucracy is doing everything within its immense and uncontrollable power to push forward its own agenda, to hide the truth from the American people – to further corruption.

Need more proof: the date for this document dump by the State Department in our lawsuit was January 19th. It was intentionally set at the last possible moment before President Obama left office.

We went to court, and now we’re getting answers.  It’s the only way to defeat the corruption.

We expect to receive more information on this case in the coming weeks.  We will not back down. We will demand the truth. We will hold the out-of-control bureaucracy accountable.