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Archives for 2015

03/5/2015

Washington Examiner: Critics push back at Hillary Clinton’s email tweet

Read the full story: Washington Examiner

Critics of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email to conduct official government business are dismissing her tweet late Wednesday calling on the State Department to review the communications for release.

 

In a tweet circulated at 11:35 p.m., Clinton said: “I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review for release as soon as possible.”

 

But “if she wanted the public to see her email she would have complied with the law in the first place,” Daniel Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a nonprofit government transparency watchdog, told the Washington Examiner early Thursday.

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03/5/2015

Hillary’s Tweet is Meaningless

Statement from Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein:

“Secretary Clinton’s request last night that the State Department release the emails she selectively turned over is disingenuous and entirely inadequate. The State Department does not have access to all of her emails because Clinton went to such great lengths to house them on her private server.”

 

“This request does nothing to address the key questions of whether official communications were deleted or whether sensitive classified information was put at risk. Americans deserve a full investigation into whether evidence exists that official communications weren’t being reported for public records, but there may be no way to know for sure.”

 

“This is exactly why this kind of behavior is against the law. It belies the spirit of openness and transparency in government. It keeps the public in the dark, and it raises serious national security concerns.”

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03/4/2015

Statement from CoA Executive Director Dan Epstein on Hillary Clinton’s Private Email System

By using a private email system, Secretary Clinton violated the Federal Records Act and regulations regarding records management, and worse, could have left classified and top secret documents vulnerable to cyber attack by improperly removing federal records. This is an egregious violation of the law, yet it appears that because of her political stature, she is escaping the fines and other criminal prosecution that any other federal employee would face for such a violation.

The only reason to use a private email system for official government communication is to keep information from becoming public and covering your tracks. Sec. Clinton should have known that what she was doing violated the letter and spirit of the law. This isn’t a matter of poor judgment; this is a deliberate and orchestrated violation of the public trust that raises serious legal and ethical concerns.

The lengths that Clinton went to conceal her track record as Secretary of State – as she prepared to run for president – should be troubling to every major organization, political leader and individual who has fought for more openness and transparency in Washington since the Clintons were last in the White House. It is now incumbent on the National Archivist and the Attorney General to obtain these documents, and for law enforcement to determine whether any federal crimes occurred.

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03/4/2015

False Claims Act Should Apply To Chicago Transit Authority

Cause of Action is filing a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit asking it to reverse a lower court ruling that barred CoA from suing the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) under the False Claims Act.

In March of 2012, CoA provided the U.S. Department of Justice with evidence that CTA had for years intentionally over-billed the Federal Transportation Authority, defrauding taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars. The Department of Justice declined to intervene in the case, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted CTA’s motion to dismiss.

Congress passed the False Claims Act to stop fraud against the federal taxpayer. The core question in this case is whether that law also applies in the City of Chicago.

Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein released the following statement today:

“The taxpayers overpaid CTA by tens of millions of dollars, yet nothing has been done by either State or Federal authorities to recover the money. CTA was politically connected – its former Congressional appropriator, Roy LaHood, was Secretary of Transportation, its former General Counsel, Ron Rivkin, was the Department of Transportation General Counsel, and its former Board chairwoman, Valerie Jarrett, was a senior Presidential advisor when the fraudulent billing occurred and when the federal government did nothing to recover the funds wrongfully paid. Someone needs to speak up for the average taxpayer. This is why my organization is asking the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to allow our case to proceed so that CTA may be held accountable.”

 

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03/4/2015

Washington Examiner: Clinton’s private email may have jeopardized national security documents

Read the full story: Washington Examiner

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have endangered national security by receiving classified documents on the private email account she used to conduct government business instead of an official State Department account.

 

“Reports in the Associated Press and the Washington Examiner reflect that Mrs. Clinton had control over her own server hosting official agency emails, which contained relevant documents responsive to congressional investigations into the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya,” Daniel Epstein, executive director of the Cause of Action non-profit watchdog that often litigates on behalf of government transparency, told the Washington Examiner.

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03/4/2015

Daily Caller: State Department Refusing To Answer How It Handled Open Records Requests For Hillary Emails

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A specialist there told TheDC that CREW’s request was closed in May 2013. Asked what explanation was given for the closure, the specialist could not specify. TheDC followed up with Santulli to confirm that the organization did not receive notice that the request was closed. He maintained that CREW did not receive such a notice.

 

The likelihood that the State Department found no records responsive to CREW’s request raises questions over how the State Department searched for the accounts and the records and whether Clinton or her aides were contacted.

 

As previously mentioned, the State Department has avoided answering that line of inquiry.

 

“If they requested any of Secretary Clinton’s email communications it is the obligation of the chief information officer to search Clinton’s records,” Daniel Epstein, executive director of the government watchdog Cause of Action, told TheDC. “Any records that deal with official agency business, and those would all be agency records responsive to FOIA.”

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03/4/2015

Daily Caller: Hillary Could Be Prosecuted For Mishandling CLASSIFIED Information

Read the full story: Daily Caller

The State Department could not definitively say that the personal email account used by Hillary Clinton to conduct state department business did not transmit classified information…

 

“By using a private email system, Secretary Clinton violated the Federal Records Act and the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual regarding records management, and worse, could have left classified and top secret documents vulnerable to cyber attack,” Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein said in an email to reporters. “This is an egregious violation of the law, and if it were anyone else, they could be facing fines and criminal prosecution.”

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