Posted on 12/11/2016 11:04:01 AM PST by jazusamo
The First 100 Days An Anti-Corruption Agenda
JW Asks to Court to Allow Public to See Videos of Depositions in the Clinton Email Case
Obama Familys 2015 Hawaii Vacation Cost Taxpayers $4,823,206.88
Judicial Watch Work Applauded
The First 100 Days An Anti-Corruption Agenda
At our special educational forum on December 6, expert panelists offered specific recommendations to the incoming Trump administration and the new Congress for rolling back corruption and ushering in a new era of transparency in these areas: Freedom of Information Act reform, election fraud, pay-for-play politics, IRS targeting, immigration and border enforcement, executive order overreach, and more. You can view the complete video of the event here.
We had a tremendous line up: Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Edwin Meese III, former United States Attorney General and Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation; Mark Krikorian, Executive Director for the Center for Immigration Studies; Andrew McCarthy, Senior Fellow for the National Review Institute and former chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; and Ramona Cotca, senior attorney at Judicial Watch.
I moderated the panel and outlined the challenges for the new administration:
The big decision for President-elect Donald Trump now is what to do with the Clinton scandals. He promised to drain the swamp, and hes coming into a city that has a lot of park rangers for that swamp so its going to be a challenge. And, of course, now he has a Congress that is controlled by his own party, and so independent observers are going to be concerned that one party isnt going to be able to police itself well in terms of the legislative branch analyzing the executive branch.
There needs to be a serious investigation of what went on with the national security implications, the government records implications, the pay-for-play implications with the Clinton scandals. It wasnt just about Hillary Clinton. It was about President Obamas misconduct, the FBIs misconduct, the Justice Departments misconduct, the State Departments misconduct. Its also about crony capitalism and cronyism with our corporate culture, giving money, obviously, to the Clinton Foundation. And of course you had the foreign influence peddling that was going on as well.
Congressman Jordan spoke first and joined our call to continue the quest for real accountability:
And so our task in the 100 days, real simple: reform welfare, incentivize work, get rid of Obamacare, secure the border, and then focus on the things that are going to help our economy. But, ultimately, in the end, so many people were focused in this election on adherence to the rule of law and making sure the Justice Department is focused on justice and not on politics. And right now, we know its the opposite.
And so we have to continue the investigations because were either going to have equal treatment under law or were going to have a double standard. And thats why we need to hold people accountable. [IRS Commissioner] John Koskinen needs to be held accountable for his conduct. He was brought in to clean up with the IRS and he hasnt done so.
Jordan also announced the House Freedom Caucus planned to file a resolution today to force a vote on impeaching Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen. John Koskinen needs to be held accountable, Jordan said. Later today on the House floor, we will make the motion to impeach Mr. Koskinen. Jordan and his conservative colleagues in the House did offer up the resolution to impeach Koskinen. True to form, the House Republican leadership opposed this and joined with Democrats to table the effort and send it back to committee to die. Only 72 members of the House voted to hold Koskinen accountable through impeachment.
My hero Ed Meese focused on the Justice Department:
Theres a lot to be done about the Justice Department, about the whole government. For example, the first threat to public safety that needs to be corrected is the attitude of this administration, which has been hostile to police throughout the entire eight years of Obamas reign. And, as a result, the police officers feel both threatened and also disappointed.
The investigations of police officers and police departments by the so-called Civil Rights Division I think one of the things that the president ought to do, the new attorney general is to take the investigations of police out of the Civil Rights Division entirely. That is, quite frankly, the worst cesspool of liberal lawyers in the entire government. And thats something that absolutely has to happen.
Former prosecutor Andy McCarthys remarks reminded us just how much the rule of law suffered in the Obama administration:
We have to get back to the top two obligations of the executive branch, which are faithfully executing the laws and protecting the national security of the United States.
On the first, I was so glad that Congressman Jordan talked about Koskinen and the impeachment proceeding. I was actually proud to testify at that hearing. And impeachment, which gets everybody hackles up when the word gets mentioned, the framers thought impeachment was, as they put it, the indispensable tool that was given to Congress for purposes of reining in a rogue executive branch. And, you know, that was one of the main concerns that the framers had in drafting the constitution, to create a suitably, awesomely powerful presidency but yet be able to control it, particularly given the potential for illegality and damage done to the country.
The really tragic thing about the Justice Department in the last eight years is that weve gone from what we aspire the Justice Department to be, which is something that bolsters the rule of law, to what its become, which is something that realizes that the law can be used as a weapon and that the process is often the penalty.
Mark Krikorian, one of the leaders advocating for a rule of law approach on immigration, laid out an agenda to address the immigration crisis:
The contempt for the rule of law in this administration on immigration is just breathtaking. And theres a lot of things that the new administration can do right away.
First is just changing the climate, because the assumption really under this administration is that immigration law is something to apologize for, that really everybody in the world is kind of allowed to come here. Thats the way these guys look at it, and that is obviously going to change at noon on the 20th of January. Specifically, there are the executive orders and memos and directives and edicts that the president has used to govern. And it isnt just immigration. You saw it in EPA and health care and elsewhere, but with immigration specifically, this president basically has openly said, Congress wont give me what I want so Im just going to do it anyway.
In addition, Krikorian recommended immediate action in these areas:
Our own Ramona Cotca reminded us of the unfinished business of the past few years, particularly with regard to our Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuits concerning Benghazi and the IRS.
Were trying to get records on a particular subject, whether its IRS targeting or Benghazi. But then our suits spiraling into all this litigation thats happening because of the agencies not being forthcoming to the courts, and to us as a plaintiff, in telling us what theyre doing to search for the records, do they have the records, are the records being destroyed while we are pending in litigation? So thats been our experience so far.
Were going to continue doing what we have been doing It will be interesting to see if the culture actually changes from the agencies and also the attorneys representing the agencies.
As these patriots spoke, I couldnt help but reflect on the past eight years. Barack Obama was a disaster for the rule of law.
I want to be hopeful, but Ill join Ramona in waiting to see what we get in the new administration. I encourage you to watch the full discussion here.
JW Asks to Court to Allow Public to See Videos of Depositions in the Clinton Email Case
Off the Wall Ping!
Contact to be added.
A giant step to reducing corruption would be a simple IRS regulation, declaring that corporations and individual cannot deduct lobbying expenses and recipients have to pay taxes on ordinary income.
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