FBI Document Dump to ACLJ on Clinton-Lynch Meeting: Comey Knew, DOJ Lied, and More Spin

More than a year ago, the ACLJ issued requests for public records to both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking documents concerning the June 27, 2016 tarmac meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The Obama DOJ failed to comply with FOIA, so the ACLJ took them to federal court. The then-Comey-led FBI responded to our FOIA request and indicated that it had "[n]o records responsive to your request."

As part of our litigation against the DOJ, we obtained more than 400 pages of responsive documents. Those DOJ documents confirmed that the FBI did, in fact, have responsive documents which it failed to produce to ACLJ. After we exposed the FBI's lie, the bureaucratic bureau reopened our case, and informed us that "records potentially responsive to your request may exist."

Nonetheless, and even after the FBI promised to search for responsive documents and respond appropriately, the FBI drug its feet and failed to produce any such documents in the timely manner required under FOIA.  Thus, we were forced to file a lawsuit in federal court to obtain access to them.

Several weeks ago, in a federal court-ordered filing in our lawsuit, the FBI agreed to turn over those documents to us by November 30th.

We have just received those documents consisting of twenty-nine pages. While the documents provide little information about the meeting itself, or how it came to be, they do contain several important revelations.

In a blog post by ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow, new and revealing information about the communications surrounding that tarmac meeting:

"First, an email under the subject line "Bill Clinton meeting?", dated June 28, 2016 (just minutes after the DOJ spin team began taking action to respond to the media firestorm surrounding the Clinton-Lynch meeting), senior DOJ officials first informed the FBI of the DOJ's attempts to 'deal with this' situation.  To be more precise, the AG's office was communicating directly with FBI officials about the matter 8 minutes after DOJ received the first media inquiry about the clandestine meeting.

Importantly, this email should have been—but was not—included in the DOJ's production of responsive documents on this topic.

This means that just like the FBI lied, the DOJ also withheld key documents about this meeting from us in clear violation of FOIA. This begs the obvious questions: was the DOJ intentionally hiding this information and, if so, why?"

The documents released also show a troubling pattern of behavior by Comey and top officials at the DOJ.  You can read the entire post and the disturbing details that have been unearthed here.

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C. and is online at www.aclj.org.

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SOURCE American Center for Law and Justice

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