Free Republic

Perhaps the subject of the terror attack on the US consulate in Benghazi will become more academic than political after the 2016 election denied Hillary Clinton the presidency. For now, though, documents continue to emerge that contradict the narrative created by Hillary and the Barack Obama White House about the nature of the attack. Yesterday, Judicial Watch received 54 more pages from its FOIA lawsuits and came across a bombshell buried in them. Notes of a State Department briefing for Congressional aides on the day after the attack show Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy acknowledging that the attack was not a...

The University of Michigan has not delivered documents requested from it in a Freedom of Information Act request despite depositing a check over a month ago. On Nov. 16, 2016, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed a FOIA request to the university regarding certain emails of U-M President Mark Schlissel. The university’s FOIA office received the request the next day, then on Nov. 28 requested a 10-day extension allowed under state law. On Dec. 12, the university said a full response to the FOIA request would cost $126 for 2.75 hours of labor. The Mackinac Center paid the university...

Judicial Watch today announced a hearing will be held Tuesday, February 7, 2017, regarding Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records held by the FBI containing text messages and emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stored on the equipment of Datto Inc., a commercial data management company, as well as FBI records about the device and what materials were recovered on it (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02369)).  The case is before U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss.At the previous hearing Tuesday, January 24, 2017, Trump administration lawyers for the FBI...

Since 2009, press access to the White House has been notably restricted, whistleblower prosecutions have spiked, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the federal government have reached an all-time high. In 2013, the Committee to Protect Journalists published a scathing report, written by former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr., on the Obama administration's obsession with controlling media coverage and burnishing its image.... The most immediate change was a sudden clampdown on unauthorized comments and interviews. The Obama administration made sure the word got out: The only people who talk to journalists are public affairs officers. In 2014,...

Welcome to the Central Intelligence Agency's Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Do UFOs fascinate you? Are you a history buff who wants to learn more about the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam or the A-12 Oxcart? Have stories about spies always fascinated you? You can find information about all of these topics and more in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room. Link goes to reading room.

Full title: Judicial Watch: U.S. Customs, Homeland Security Records Reveal Somalis Given Security Briefings, ‘Community Engagement Tours’ in Secured Areas at Major U.S. Airports Somalis Given Access to Sensitive Information (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 31 pages of records from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealing that the Department of Homeland Security has given Somalis “community engagement tours,” including security briefings, in secured areas at least three major U.S. airports – Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Columbus, Ohio. The records came in response to a May 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which sought records, documents and communications...

Documents release at link.

How our government is supposed to work is well-documented in the Constitution and in countless laws, judicial rulings, and civil traditions handed down to us since the United States was founded. Now while theory is fine, a more critical need of citizens is to know how our government actually works in the real world. To discover that, officials, reporters, and citizens simply must have free access to documents, media, and internal records of their government. This transparency or openness is key to running any free republic that’s truly accountable and responsive to the citizens who rule that republic. The...

Faced with a public records request from Mississippi Today for the state's contract with EdBuild, a legislative committee voted Tuesday to adopt a new policy mandating that all contracts it approves be confidential. The House Management Committee, which approves contracts entered into by the House of Representatives, voted 7-3 to pass the policy, which states "All contracts entered into by the House Management Committee shall be confidential and shall not be released to any person or entity, except as specifically directed by the House Management Committee only when the committee deems necessary for the execution of the contract." The action...

A federal judge said Monday that emails relating to Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state that were found during an FBI investigation of former Rep. Anthony Weiner could be subject to public disclosure as part of a pending lawsuit. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, presiding over a hearing one day before the presidential election between Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, scheduled a Nov. 29 hearing to discuss whether the FBI had provided the records to the State Department. FBI Director James Comey shook the presidential race on Oct. 28 when he informed Congress that agents had recovered the emails,...

Judicial Watch today released 296 pages of State Department records. They include 44 email exchanges that were not previously turned over to the State Department, notwithstanding Hillary Clinton’s claim that as far as she knew, all of her government emails were turned over. The emails, in the words of Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, “show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton [while she was Secretary of State] in potential violation of the law.” No wonder Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts, and Congress. In one exchange, from April 2009,...

On document 3 of 4, take a look at this: Pg. 68: Medical diagram of the entry and exit wound of the gunshot Pg. 135: "I then spoke with an unidentified male who stated the following: That the Whitewater case, which was being investigated in Washington and an individual involved in this, identified as Vince Foster, who had reportedly committed suicide was not, in fact, a suicide but a murder victim. He indicated that there was a van involved, no color given, with the first three numbers of the tag being '227'".https://vault.fbi.gov/vincent-foster/vincent-foster-part-01-of-04/view  

Only days before the presidential election, the FBI released a 17-year-old archive of documents from a long-closed investigation into Bill Clinton's presidential pardon of a fugitive financier, prompting questions from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign about its timing. The release comes amid the bureau's controversially timed review of emails from a Hillary Clinton aide. The 129 pages of heavily censored material were published Monday on the FBI's Freedom of Information Act webpage and noted by one of the bureau's Twitter accounts Tuesday. Earlier in October, the FBI unit published historical files as far back as 1966 about Donald Trump's father, Fred...

The clerk of Lincoln Township, Michigan — a small township near the tip of the Thumb — publicly criticized a citizen for filing a Freedom of Information Act request. The Huron Daily Tribune reports: Clerk Irvin Kanaski also called upon township residents at Monday night’s meeting to chide Arlene Schipinski for seeking the information surrounding a $1,100 private donation to the township’s legal fund. Kanaski said Schipinski’s requests cost the township $2,300 to $2,500 in legal fees, not counting the time he and Treasurer Patricia Weber put into handling the request. “This cost is more than double that of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A backup data device containing Hillary Clinton’s emails exists in the FBI’s possession. The FBI is now challenged to produce the long forgotten device. The FBI received a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request “VIA CERTIFIED MAIL” Wednesday from Judicial Watch. The existence of this device is generating behind-the-scenes frenzy in the Beltway as the FBI continues to get hammered over its investigation of the Clinton email scandal. FBI director James Comey conducted an investigation based on small partial email discoveries here and there. The fact that the FBI did not look at all of her...

Judicial Watch today released received responses under oath from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning her email practices. Judicial Watch submitted twenty-five questions on August 30 to Clinton as ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. The new Clinton responses in the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before Judge Sullivan was first filed in September 2013 seeking records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)). Judicial...

Although Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton may mot be happy with WikiLeaks’ release of emails coming from her and her staff, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t above doing the same thing herself. But unlike Julian Assange‘s group, she just doesn’t want her name associated with it. Newly-released Clinton emails confirm that the former secretary of state approved a plan in early 2015, shortly after her own email scandal broke, to fight fire with fire by publishing Republican lawmakers’ rejections of Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests for their own private emails. Although State Department emails are subject to FOIA...

Judicial Watch Targeted by Obama Administration Federal Contractor Tells Local Official to Keep Syria Refugee Plans Secret Judicial Watch Targeted by Obama Administration Three years ago we reported on videos produced by the Government Services Administration (GSA) that show senior GSA officials and staff participating in costumed playacting and parodies. Here’s a flavor: The Rocky Jog – With the Rocky movie theme blaring in the background, senior GSA officials lead employees on an extended jog through the corridors of the GSA’s New York office and the streets of Manhattan. The jog is initiated by Ben Kochanski, deputy regional commissioner,...

According to a report by the inspector general of the General Services Administration, Obama administration political operatives continuously slow walked open records requests and punished the legal group Judicial Watch for their activism. Judicial Watch has several FOIA lawsuits against the administration and in every case, the administration sought to delay complying with the requests, even going so far as to overcharge the group for fees related to the searches.

‘[O]ne email exchange occurring shortly before Secretary Clinton joined the Department [of State] that demonstrated a reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.’ – Office of Inspector General Report (Washington DC)—Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain records regarding an email exchange that took place before former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took office citing a “reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.” The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District...