Daily Caller: Hillary Could Be Prosecuted For Mishandling CLASSIFIED Information

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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.”

Washington Examiner: Transparency advocates condemn Clinton’s secretive private email account

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Advocates of greater transparency and accountability in the federal government blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday for using a private email account to conduct official business during the four years she was the nation’s chief diplomat. “The use of personal email is a strategic and intentional way for the former secretary to avoid transparency from Congress and the media,” said Daniel Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action. “Further, this act of secrecy by the former secretary raises serious questions given the numerous ethics concerns raised about Mrs. Clinton’s role as a cabinet official, as well as a political candidate.”

Nonprofit Quarterly: Missing Lerner Emails May Lead to Criminal Charges for Former IRS Chief

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In a Thursday evening meeting of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) J. Russell George told the committee that his office has been able to recover emails from more than 700 backup tapes secured from the IRS. In light of evidence that suggests some of the tapes may have been erased, and because it is unclear why the IRS delayed producing the tapes and asserted the data from the tapes was unrecoverable, the potential for criminal charges was mentioned…The IRS claims that it has cooperated in all investigations, producing more than 1 million pages of documents and almost 150,000 emails. However, many of the most important communications about Lerner’s conduct in the IRS scandal have come not from investigators and the IRS but as a result of nonprofit watchdog groups like Judicial Watch and Cause of Action submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to agencies other than the IRS—specifically, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the U.S. Justice Department/FBI.

Washington Examiner: Cause of Action presses IRS on taxpayer data shared with White House

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A government watchdog group fired another shot in its legal battle to obtain records of the unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information to White House officials when it filed a motion late Tuesday against the IRS inspector general. Cause of Action, a nonprofit oversight group, pressed the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration on why it had cited a law written to protect taxpayers against the government in an attempt to instead protect the government against the taxpayers’ inquiry.

Supreme Court Restrains The Government: A Financial Fraud Law Does Not Criminalize Undersized Fish

The Supreme Court today ruled that John Yates, a commercial fisherman, could not be prosecuted under a financial-fraud law [18 USC §1519] for catching undersized red grouper. Cause of Action, together with the Southeastern Legal Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, filed a brief in support of Mr. Yates arguing that upholding the conviction would mean a potential twenty year federal prison sentence for anyone who conceals evidence of a surfboard being used on a beach designated for swimming, throws away a bag of chips from a workplace restroom prior to an OSHA inspection, or discards an empty container of medicine purchased from a foreign pharmacy.

CoA and the other amici also noted that Captain Yates’ case raises troubling questions about the government’s inconsistent application of the law, given the multiple cases of document destruction by federal officials. For example, in 2011, during the course of an Inspector General investigation into NOAA’s Office of Enforcement, then director Dale J. Jones, Jr., actually shredded documents to conceal evidence.  Jones was not prosecuted—instead, he was given a different job. Similarly, Charles Edwards, former Department of Homeland Security Acting Inspector General, allegedly destroyed documents to impede a federal investigation. Edwards, too, was reassigned to another federal job.

According to Justice Ginsburg: “A fish is no doubt an object that is tangible; fish can be seen, caught, and handled, and a catch, as this case illustrates, is vulnerable to destruction. But it would cut [the law] loose from its financial-fraud mooring to hold that it encompasses any and all objects, whatever their size or significance, destroyed with obstructive intent. Mindful that…Congress trained its attention on corporate and accounting deception and cover-ups, we conclude that a matching construction…is in order: A tangible object….we hold, must be one used to record or preserve information.” Even the dissent, filed by Justice Kagan, noted: “That brings to the surface the real issue: overcriminalization and excessive punishment in the U. S. Code… [§1519] is a bad law— too broad and undifferentiated, with too-high maximum penalties, which give prosecutors too much leverage and sentencers too much discretion. And I’d go further: In those ways, §1519 is unfortunately not an outlier, but an emblem of a deeper pathology in the federal criminal code.”

Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein applauded the decision:

“We are gratified by the Court’s decision. The Supreme Court has today protected individual rights against arbitrary government prosecutions. The government’s conduct in this case was quintessential Executive Branch overreach because Congress never imagined, much less intended, that the law it passed to deter corporate financial scandals would be applied to fish. Further, this case stands for the principle that overzealous prosecutions should not be broadly applied to private citizens while taxpayer-funded government officials engage in unremediated violations. The rule in this case, requiring courts to read statutes in context and in the fashion Congress intended, will help numerous individuals stand up to government abuses of its authority.”

A copy of the Supreme Court’s decision can be found here. A copy of the Cause of Action, Southeastern Legal Foundation and Texas Public Policy Foundation amicus brief can be found here. Gus Coldebella of Goodwin Proctor was counsel of record for amici on this case.

Yates v US Amicus Brief by Cause of Action

TIGTA Undermines Taxpayer Privacy

Cause of Action is asking a federal court to grant its motion for summary judgment against the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Cause of Action is seeking enforcement of a prior court order requiring the government to produce records relating to the unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information to unauthorized White House officials.

Earlier this month, after being forced to admit that it had investigated unauthorized White House access, TIGTA asked the court to allow it to withhold documents under Section 6103 of the tax code. However, section 6103 is meant to protect taxpayers, not the government.

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

“Section 6103 was passed to stop White House and other officials from obtaining the tax return information of government critics and political opponents. TIGTA, however, has asked the Court to make the unprecedented ruling that the taxpayer protection law actually shields the identities of the government lawbreakers who requested or obtained tax data without proper authorization. Such a ruling would be both bad law and bad policy. Congress never intended such a thing when it passed the law. And, such a ruling will limit government accountability and encourage future abuse.”

Read the filings below:

The Hill: Group files suit for IRS records

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A government oversight group on Tuesday filed a motion in federal court to force the Obama administration to release thousands of records linked to the IRS’s targeting of conservative-leaning groups. Cause of Action is seeking the enforcement of a prior court order requiring the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to produce more than 2,500 documents. The group argues that TIGTA continues to protect the White House by denying the disclosure of the records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).