Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Barack Obama Presidential Library for Obama White House records about the 2016 “Russia Collusion Hoax.”
The records, which by law were not available under FOIA until five years after President Obama left office, are held at the Library, which is part of the National Archives system.
The lawsuit was filed after the Library failed to respond to a March 4, 2022, FOIA request for records of former Obama White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice regarding alleged efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and collude with Trump campaign and the alleged hacking of Democratic National Committee and/or Clinton campaign computer systems.
Years of partisan investigations, led by the FBI and Congress, into alleged Trump-Russia collusion turned up empty. It was later revealed that supposed evidence was fabricated and that the FBI improperly relied on political opposition research from Russian sources paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. One FBI attorney was convicted in the scheme.
On March 7, 2022, Judicial Watch submitted a second FOIA request to the Obama Library for Obama White House records about an infamous January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting between President Obama and Vice President Biden, Rice, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others.
Rice oddly memorized the meeting more than two weeks after the fact in an email written in the final hours of the Obama Administration on January 20, 2017, stating:
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book’. The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would, by the book.”
Observers have speculated that Rice seemed to be attempting to cover herself and others for potentially improper actions taken against Trump prior to his taking office.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a vehement anti-Trumper, also attended the January 5, 2017, meeting.
A December 2019 report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General added to the list of attendees at meeting: “On January 5, 2017, Clapper, then NSA Director Michael Rogers, Brennan, and Comey briefed the ICA [Intelligence Community Assessment] report to President Obama and his national security team.”
Comey also confirmed in a book that he briefed Obama at the January 5, 2017 meeting on his plan to confront President-elect Trump with the Clinton campaign “dossier:”
Obama did not appear to have any reaction to any of this—at least none he would share with us. In a level voice, he asked, “What’s the plan for that briefing?” With just the briefest of sidelong glances at me, Clapper took a breath, then said, “We have decided that Director Comey will meet alone with the president-elect to brief him on this material following the completion of the full ICA briefing.”
The president did not say a word. Instead he turned his head to his left and looked directly at me. He raised and lowered both of his eyebrows with emphasis, and then looked away. I suppose you can read whatever you want into a wordless expression, but to my mind his Groucho Marx eyebrow raise was both subtle humor and an expression of concern. It was almost as if he were saying, “Good luck with that.” I began to feel a lump in my stomach….
A Higher Loyalty, James Comey
The records we are seeking go to the heart of the Obama administration’s efforts to undermine the incoming president, Donald J. Trump, and tie up his new administration in a phony scandal.
And the Obama Library is part of the same National Archives system that is subjecting President Trump to unprecedented harassment about Trump White House record keeping practices.”
Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President
For more information click here.
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