Grassley Responds to Clinton Attempt to Change the Subject from Email Troubles
In advance of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s planned speech at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Senator Chuck Grassley made the following statement. Media reports have said that Clinton plans to attack Grassley in her speech about the decision to allow a full and robust debate at the grass roots about the direction of the Supreme Court. Clinton has not said whether she would renominate Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, if she wins the presidency.
“This is simply a blatant attempt by Secretary Clinton to politicize the Supreme Court and to change the conversation after a damaging story about her in The Washington Post. Her actions as Secretary of State are under investigation by Congress, two Obama-appointed inspectors general, and the FBI. And just today, The Post outlined serious concerns about email practices with regard to both national security and circumventing the people’s right to know through the Freedom of Information Act. Clinton aides refused to answer the State Department Inspector General’s questions about why the State Department issued a misleading response to a public interest group’s FOIA request that the Secretary did not use a private email address while she was Secretary of State. She refused to answer questions about her lawyer's coordination with other witnesses in the probe and whether she is helping pay the legal bills of the staffer who pled the fifth to avoid talking to congress. That staffer later received an immunity deal from the Justice Department. It’s no wonder Secretary Clinton doesn’t want to let the American people have a voice in the direction of the Supreme Court.”
The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Here are five key questions related to FOIA and federal records laws that Clinton and her attorneys should answer fully and completely.
1. If you (Secretary Clinton) did not intend to keep the government’s records in your email out of the FOIA process and out of government archives, then why did you wait almost two years before turning over the emails from your non-government server to the State Department?
2. If the State Department had not discovered those records and asked you (Secretary Clinton) to return them, when were you planning to do so?
3. The Foreign Affairs Manual authorizes only limited use of personal email for work purposes (5 FAM 723; 5 FAM 752.1; 12 FAM 544.3; In a June 28, 2011 cable from you also stated, “Avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts.”), but you used a non-government server extensively and as your only means of official email communication. Did anyone at State approve or authorize this deviation from the Foreign Affairs Manual and your own instruction to other State Department Employees? If so, who and on what authority?
4. How did you (Secretary Clinton) and your attorneys determine whether an email was a federal record or personal, and why did you fail to turn over the emails between you and General Petraeus, as well as between you and Sidney Blumenthal, about official State Department business?
5. Have you entered into a third-party fee arrangement or a joint defense agreement relating to the Committee’s investigation, or any other government entity’s inquiry, into your server, email arrangement, or related issues?
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Grassley, Feinstein to Convene Drug Caucus Hearing, “Is the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from the Impact of State Recreational Marijuana Legalization?”
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Co-chairman of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control, will hold a hearing entitled, “Is the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from the Impact of State Recreational Marijuana Legalization?”
In August 2013, the Obama Administration decided to effectively suspend enforcement of federal law on marijuana in states that legalized it for recreational use. But to disguise its policy as prosecutorial discretion, the Administration also announced federal priorities that it claimed would guide its enforcement going forward. These priorities include preventing marijuana from being distributed to minors, stopping the diversion of marijuana into states that haven’t legalized it, and preventing adverse public health effects from marijuana use. At the time, the Justice Department warned that if state efforts weren’t enough to protect the public, then the federal government might step up its enforcement or even challenge the state laws themselves. This put the responsibility on the Department of Justice to monitor developments in these states, develop metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of its policy, and change course if developments warranted.
But a report from the Government Accountability Office that Grassley and Feinstein requested found that the Administration doesn’t have a documented plan to monitor the effects of state legalization on any of these priorities. Moreover, according to the report, officials at the Department could not even say how they make use of any information they receive related to these priorities. Grassley and Feinstein are convening this hearing to explore this problem.
Hearing: “Is the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from the Impact of State Recreational Marijuana Legalization?”, Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control
When: Tuesday, April 5, at 10 a.m. Eastern
Where: 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
Witness List
Panel I
Benjamin B. Wagner, U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of California, Sacramento, California
Jennifer Grover, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability Office, Washington, D.C.
Panel II
Doug Peterson, Attorney General for the State of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Dr. Kathryn Wells, Medical Director, Denver Health Clinic at the Family Crisis Center, Denver, Colorado
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Administration too slow on certain anti-opioid measures, sends mixed message on marijuana
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Caucus on International Narcotics Control, earlier this month led the Senate to overwhelming passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act on opioid addiction. Prior to that, he led the bill through the Judiciary Committee. The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America recognized that without his leadership, the bill never would have passed the Senate. Grassley has urged the Obama Administration to re-instate the successful unused prescription drugs take-back program, which it discontinued in favor of other disposal methods, then later re-instated at the urging of Grassley and other senators. Grassley and fellow senators also urged the Administration to increase the legal caps on the patient limit for buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorders in June 2014. Today, the Administration is finally announcing a proposed rule on lifting the caps. Grassley made the following comment on President Obama’s anti-opioid abuse measures announced today.
“I don’t disagree with a lot of the policy coming from the President and his Administration on anti-opioid abuse. A lot of the same policy direction is reflected in the Senate bill. I disagree with how long it takes the Administration to settle and act on solutions. Better access to buprenorphine is something that could have happened a long time ago. The Administration also cancelled a drug take-back program that it’s now celebrating as a remedy. We need more leadership and faster action when people are struggling with life and death concerns. In the time something takes to make its way through the federal bureaucracy, many more people could have been helped.
“I also disagree with some of the Obama Administration’s drug enforcement priorities. In August 2013, the Administration decided to effectively suspend enforcement of federal law relating to marijuana in states that legalized it for recreational use. The Administration claimed it would keep track of and enforce certain priority areas, like keeping marijuana from minors, but a Government Accountability Office report that I requested exposed this policy as a sham. The mixed messages and misplaced priorities are troubling when so many experts find that people who are addicted to marijuana are much more likely to be addicted to heroin.”
A drug caucus hearing on the marijuana policy is scheduled for next week.
Correspondence between Grassley and four fellow senators and the Administration on buprenorphine is available here and here.
Correspondence on the Administration’s re-instatement of the drug take-back program is available here.
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