President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will defend against efforts to unseal a draft Whitewater indictment against “Crooked Hillary,” despite repeated promises to “lock her up” on the campaign trail.
“Push to unseal the draft Whitewater indictment against Hillary Clinton gets court date,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted on Wednesday.
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Archives and Records Administration in 2015 for the draft indictments of Hillary Clinton from the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s, and later sued for the records when the government refused to release them, McClatchy DC reports.
According to Judicial Watch:
The draft indictments relate to allegations that Clinton provided false information and withheld evidence from federal investigators to conceal her involvement with the defunct Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, the collapse of which lead to multiple criminal convictions. Clinton provided legal representation to Madison Guaranty as an attorney at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. Clinton’s Rose Law Firm billing records, long sought by prosecutors, were found in the private quarters of the White House shortly after an important statute of limitations had expired.
The National Archives argues that the documents should be kept secret, citing grand jury secrecy and Clinton’s personal privacy.
Judicial Watch attorneys argue that since an “enormous amount of grand jury and other information from the independent counsel’s investigation of Clinton has already been made public, including a January 5, 2001 Final Report of the Independent Counsel and a 206-page “Summary of Evidence Memorandum” detailing the potential charges against Clinton, there is no secrecy or privacy left to protect.”
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit will hear oral arguments in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit, and the Trump administration is expected to fight to keep the documents secret.
“Why on Earth is President Trump’s Justice Department defending Hillary Clinton by keeping information about her well-known corruption secret? Who is running the store at the Justice Department?” Fitton questioned. “Tax dollars are wasted as the Deep State rolls along in its frantic efforts to protect Hillary Clinton. President Trump should demand to know why his agencies are defending Hillary Clinton.”
It’s certainly not the first time Judicial Watch has called on the president to take action against Clinton as he promised on the campaign trail.
Judicial Watch called the president out last month after it obtained emails sent through Clinton’s private server that contained classified information, as well as documents that outlined her admiration for North Korea and former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, insider politics involving donors, and other political favors.
Judicial Watch requested the records via FOIA from the State Department in 2015, and released 1,606 pages of documents – including 91 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department – on Aug. 2.
“Pay to play, classified information mishandling, influence peddling, cover ups – these new emails show why the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s conduct must be resumed,” Fitton said last month. “The Trump Justice Department and FBI need to reassure the American people they have finally stopped providing political protection to Hillary Clinton.”
