close X
12/28/2016

DC Circuit Holds Cause of Action Institute Federal Records Act Case on Clinton Emails Not Moot

Today, the DC Circuit held the Judicial Watch and CoA Institute cases against the Secretary of State and Archivist seeking to enforce their Federal Records Act duties as they relate to Hillary Clinton’s emails are not moot. 

The court held that because the statute requires the agencies to reach out to the Attorney General to seek record recovery, and because they have not done so, CoA Institute and Judicial Watch have not received everything to which they are entitled and, therefore, the cases are not moot.

CoA Institute Vice President John Vecchione -who argued the case before the circuit: “The DC circuit has reinforced the lesson that the government is bound to follow the law and that measures short of what the law requires to recover government documents can not be substituted as ‘good enough’.”

Read the opinion here.

News, Blog Learn More
12/21/2016

SiriusXM’s Kent Klein interviews CoAI Assistant VP Henry Kerner on Obama admin Hatch Act violations

henry_siriusxm

News Audio, News, Media Learn More
12/12/2016

FOX News: East Coast fishermen file appeal over cost of government-required ‘at-sea monitors’

East Coast fishermen file appeal over cost of government-required ‘at-sea monitors’

 

By Cristina Corbin | Published December 09, 2016

SEABROOK, N.H. – David Goethel built his life off the profits of cod, trolling the waters of New England for 30 years netting the region’s once-abundant signature fish.

“My slice of the American Dream was paid for from fishing,” Goethel said from behind the wheel of his 44-foot fishing trawler on a windy Friday afternoon in December. “Cape Cod house, two cars, four college educations – it all came out of the fish hole in this boat.”

But a controversial federal mandate is threatening to put him out of business, he claims. Read More

News, Media Learn More
10/31/2016

October Newsletter

Cause of Action Institute published its October newsletter today. You can read the newsletter here and subscribe to the newsletter here.  The October newsletter highlights:

  • our investigative report, Presidential Access to Taxpayer Information, describing recent IRS misuse and unauthorized release of confidential taxpayer information and the role of a detailee program in the Office of the White House Counsel that could be used to provide access to the protected information;
  • a request for investigation we made to the Department of Justice Inspector General after one of Hillary Clinton’s top supporters, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, made a substantial political donation to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; and
  • links to a recent op-ed about how EPA regulations affect the employment of millions of Americans, as well as several news articles covering recent CoA Institute actions.
Newsletter Archive, Newsletter Learn More
10/11/2016

The EPA Must Account For Its Actions (Judge Lechner op-ed)

ibd

ALFRED J. LECHNER, JR. – 10/07/2016
Federal regulation is the American economy’s silent killer. Every day, the vast bureaucracy in D.C. issues reams of red tape that stifle the creation of new jobs or snuff out good-paying jobs that already exist.

That is why my organization, Cause of Action Institute, has formally petitioned one of the most regulation-happy federal agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — to fulfill its statutory requirement to investigate the careers and opportunities it has crushed.

The Clean Air Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963, contains a little-known provision that enables individuals who have lost their jobs to ask the EPA to examine whether its regulatory actions were at fault. Upon receiving such requests, the agency must conduct an investigation and potentially hold public hearings. Congress specifically included this requirement to better gauge the impact of EPA regulations on the American job market.

Unfortunately, 50 years after the Act’s passage, the EPA has still not set up this process, much less given it teeth. As a result, Americans who wish to request an investigation have no idea where to start; this undoubtedly dissuades many from trying.

Equally concerning, the agency has failed to establish any rules to guide its actions. This enables the EPA to tilt the few investigations it does undertake in its own favor — or ignore requests entirely. [Read More…]

News, Media Learn More
10/5/2016

Editing the Facts of Terrorism to Fit Obama’s Narrative (Judge Lechner op-ed)

the-daily-signalAlfred J. Lechner Jr. | October 04, 2016  

In the early morning hours of June 12, an armed terrorist named Omar Mateen opened fire in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The next morning, Americans awoke to the news that 49 people had been murdered—the largest mass shooting in American history.

This heinous act left Americans, as well as the Orlando community, grieving and searching for answers. But for several days after the shooting, the Justice Department knowingly curtailed the release of information about the shooter’s motives. [Read More…]

News, Media Learn More
09/29/2016

September Newsletter

Cause of Action Institute published its September newsletter today. You can read the newsletter here and subscribe to the newsletter here.  The September newsletter highlights:

  • documents CoA Institute recently obtained through FOIA revealing a secret agreement between the IRS and the White House to exempt IRS rules from prepublication review;
  • details of our investigation into taxpayer reimbursements for luxury travel of a political appointee and cash payments to Iran; and
  • links to a recent op-ed Judge Lechner wrote about the spread of partisan politics into the Cabinet and to several press stories about recent CoA Institute activities.

 

Newsletter, Newsletter ArchiveLearn More