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ACLJ Files Lawsuit Over AG Lynch’s Secret Meeting With Bill Clinton – Will Hold Obama’s Justice Department Accountable

By 

Jay Sekulow

|
November 2, 2016

7 min read

Executive Power

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I told you about the Obama Justice Department’s incompetence and corruption when, over four months ago, I called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s resignation.

I told you about General Lynch’s decision to hold a secret meeting on her airplane with former President Bill Clinton – just days before the FBI interviewed his wife, the former Secretary of State, as part of a criminal investigation, and just days before General Lynch announced the former Secretary of State would not be indicted. Here’s what I said in June:

Misconduct. Dishonesty. Impropriety. No matter what word you choose, Attorney General Lynch’s secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton was flat-out wrong. She’s clearly disqualified from participating in the investigations into former Secretary of State Clinton’s private email server.

And she must resign.

I’m leading our senior litigation team preparing to file legal demands and ethics complaints.  If the DOJ doesn’t respond and she doesn’t resign, we’ll be back in federal court.

As promised, we took action. We sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Obama Justice Department and the FBI, demanding answers on how such a careless and perhaps intentionally underhanded meeting was allowed to happen.

The FBI acknowledged our FOIA requests, and even granted our request for expedited processing by determining that we had shown our requests concerned “[a] matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.” The Justice Department remained silent.

Then, last week’s earth-shattering news hit that the FBI – a component of the Justice Department – was reopening the underlying criminal investigation.

And early this week, the FBI advised the ACLJ Government Accountability Project that “[n]o records responsive to your request were located.”  Hard to believe. What may be even harder to believe, though, is the fact that the Department of Justice completely ignored our lawful requests for records. Or maybe that’s just par for the course.

So today, we’re forcing their hand. We’re taking the Obama Administration to federal court. Again. We’re filing a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, to ensure true justice. If the corruption and flippant disregard for the law won’t stop, neither will our Government Accountability Project and neither will our lawsuits.

As we explained in our Complaint, we’re demanding records like this:

  • Any and all records containing the names of any DOJ official, staff or employee who participated in any discussion regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Any and all records, communications or briefings prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch or any other DOJ official, staff or employee, at any time, containing any discussion of or in any way regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Any and all records of any communication or briefing received by General Lynch, any DOJ official, staff or employee from Bill Clinton or his staff regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, regardless of whether the communication or briefing was received before, during, or after the meeting.  
  • Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee or any other person from June 13, 2016 to Sunday, June 26, 2016, containing any discussion of or in any way naming, regarding, involving or referencing Bill Clinton.
  • Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee after the meeting on Monday, June 27, 2016, between General Lynch and Bill Clinton at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, containing any discussion of ethics rules or DOJ Standards of Conduct governing attorneys in connection with the meeting or Lynch’s relationship with Bill Clinton.
  • Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee after the meeting on Monday, June 27, 2016, between General Lynch and Bill Clinton at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, containing any discussion of the press, responding to the press, or the content of any press release or public statements in connection with the meeting.

We told the court: “The Defendant [DOJ] has wholly failed to respond to Plaintiff’s FOIA request.” In fact, the Obama Administration’s failure to respond violated the statute in two ways. So we brought two Counts.  First, in Count I, we explained:

Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A), Defendant was required to determine whether to comply to Plaintiff’s request within twenty (20) days, excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays. Pursuant to this same provision, Defendant also was required to notify Plaintiff immediately of the determination, the reasons therefore, and the right to appeal any adverse determination to the head of the agency.

Then in Count II, we described the additional violation:

Defendant is in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(ii), in that Defendant has failed to make “a determination of whether to provide expedited processing,” which “shall be made, and notice of the determination shall be provided to the person making the request, within 10 days after the date of the request.” 

The bottom line of our lawsuit is this: The “Defendant is unlawfully withholding records requested by Plaintiff pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552.” The Justice Department’s answer to our suit will be due in about 30 days. We’ll let you know how they respond and keep you informed as our newest lawsuit progresses.

General Lynch has disqualified herself from this critical investigation. She has no business having any involvement in an FBI investigation of this magnitude. We will do, and are doing, everything we can to hold her accountable.

Today’s filing is our fourth major federal lawsuit filed against the Obama Administration over its corruption and failure to comply with FOIA – the law.  We’ve filed eight FOIA requests demanding information from: 1) the Obama State Department about the Iran lie, 2) the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components about its “jihad” word purge, 3) the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI over Attorney General Lynch’s secret meeting on a plane with former President Bill Clinton, 4) the FBI and the DOJ regarding its decision to censor the Orlando jihadist’s 911 transcript, 5) the State Department over its funding of an organization that was involved in an attempt to unseat Israel’s Prime Minister, 6) the Obama State Department over its inaction on the ISIS genocide against Christians, 7) DHS and its components over the wrongful granting of citizenship to potential terrorists, and 8) the State Department over apparent pay-to-play collusion with the Clinton Foundation.

We are currently in ongoing litigation against the Obama Administration over the Iran lie, inaction on genocide, collusion with the Clinton Foundation, and now the secret meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton. We are also winning in multiple federal lawsuits against the Obama Administration’s IRS over its unlawful targeting of conservatives groups.

The stakes are high. The American people deserve a Justice Department with integrity. We must demand accountability for corruption. If we don’t, a constitutional crisis is imminent. The corruption must have consequences.

Sign our Petition to demand a thorough and unbiased FBI investigation. Join us today.

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