http://www.judicialwatch.org/6092.shtml
Dec 27, 2006

Judicial Watch Victory:Appellate Court Upholds Nearly $900,000 Award in Attorney’s Fees and Costs in Clinton Scandal FOIA Lawsuit

Clinton Administration Destroyed Documents Involving Illegal Scheme to Sell Taxpayer-Funded Trade Missions for Campaign Contributions

(Washington, DC) –Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. upheld the vast majority of a lower court award to Judicial Watch of nearly $900,000 in attorney’s fees and costs in a lawsuit related to the Clinton fundraising scandals (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Commerce, Appeal No. 05-5366) The fees were awarded on December 1, 2006, after a nearly decade-long court battle between Judicial Watch and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The scandal involved a scheme by Clinton administration officials to sell seats on taxpayer-funded trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign. When Judicial Watch began investigating the scandal, Clinton administration officials deliberately concealed and destroyed records regarding the trade missions to avoid releasing them to Judicial Watch. In fact, Ms. Nolanda Hill, a business partner and confidante of then-Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, testified at a dramatic court hearing during the litigation that the Clinton White House “instructed” Brown "to delay the [Judicial Watch] case by withholding the production of documents prior to the 1996 elections, and to devise a way not to comply with the court’s orders."

Ms. Hill also testified that Brown, who was killed in a plane crash during a trade mission to Bosnia, admitted to her that Hillary Clinton conceived of the scheme to sell trade mission seats. Specifically, the court heard testimony on how Brown allegedly complained about being “Hillary’s [expletive] tour guide.”

Clinton administration misconduct was so egregious that the Commerce Department took the unprecedented step of asking that a judgment be entered against itself in order to end the lawsuit prematurely and stop further revelations.

The court denied the Commerce Department’s request, ordered it to conduct a new search for trade mission records and authorized additional discovery into the illegal concealment and destruction of government records.

The lower court also noted that “…disclosures made as a result of this litigation spurred two Congressional committee investigations and a Federal Election Commission investigation into [the Commerce Department’s] alleged sale of foreign mission trade seats.

Further, the DOC revised its trade mission participant selection policy to explicitly exclude consideration of past political contributions and activities.” In addition, a criminal inquiry was launched by the Justice Department and FBI.

“We’re pleased the appellate court upheld the award and held the government accountable for its Clinton-era misconduct. Frankly, the Clintons still have a lot to answer for in this scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This is a vindication of Judicial Watch’s persistence in prosecuting this long battle to let the sun shine in on government corruption.”



Links to the details and documents of each cases will be found within the article. Main page link http://www.judicialwatch.org/litigation.shtml

Judicial Watch’s Chinagate investigation and related lawsuits.
Our Litigation

JW's Director of Litigation, Paul Orfanedes

Judicial Watch has filed more than 150 lawsuits against corrupt public officials, achieving numerous victories on behalf of the American people. This is what separates Judicial Watch from other watchdog organizations. Judicial Watch is willing to take action, to use the civil court system in order to achieve justice.

Thanks, in part, to its aggressive litigation, Judicial Watch was recently named one of the top ten most effective government watchdog organizations by The Hill newspaper.

The following links to summaries, updates, and relevant documents pertaining to Judicial Watch’s current litigation.

Current Cases

Illegal Immigration
• GARCIA v. CITY OF LAGUNA BEACH - Laguna Beach
• STURGEON v. BRATTON - LA Special Order 40
• KARUNAKARAM v. TOWN OF HERNDON – On August 17, 2005, The Herndon Town Council ignored the rule of law and voted to establish a "Day Laborer Site” on public property, a taxpayer-funded zone where illegal aliens can congregate in hopes that someone will offer jobs despite their illegal presence. Judicial Watch filed this lawsuit on behalf of a group of Herndon residents against the Town of Herndon.

• JUDICIAL WATCH v. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY - FOIA:Border Surveys


Terrorism
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY - Saudi Flights
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. FBI - 9/11/01 videotapes
• JOHN DOE v. AL BARAKA INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, et. al. - Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against over 100 Saudi Arabian and other entities for their financial and conspiratorial support for the attacks on America.

FOIA Requests
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. SECRET SERVICE - FOIA: Abramoff White House Visits
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY - Complaint filed after DOA's failure to respond to a FOIA request in regards to contracts awarded to Kellog, Brown and Root to restart Iraq's oil production.
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE - FOIA: NSA Surveillance Program)
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE - Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Department of Commerce in 1994, to obtain information about how the Commerce Department chooses participants on its overseas trade missions and its illegal campaign finance activity. This inquiry is what uncovered the current fundraising scandals, as Judicial Watch found that the Commerce Department and the White House were at the center of the illegal activity.
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION - Judicial Watch fights in court to gain access to abortion pill documents from the Clinton administration.

Whistleblower Protection
• JOHN VINCENT v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION - Defendants, acting under color of federal authority, have and are continuing to deprive Plaintiff of his First Amendment rights by refusing to grant him permission to publish written answers to questions posed to him by Ms. Judith Miller of The New York Times and/or by failing to specify any particular portion of the answers that allegedly are objectionable so as to allow Plaintiff to revise the answers to address Defendants’ alleged concerns.
• ROBERT G. WRIGHT, JR. v. FBI - The FBI has denied prepublication to Special Agent (SA) Wright's manuscript that details the FBI's own failure to take the threat of terrorism seriously and their efforts to thwart SA Wright's attempts to launch more comprehensive investigations into terrorists. The FBI has also retaliated against SA Wright by unlawfully releasing Privacy Act-protected documents.
• HAFIZ v. ABC, INC. - Defamation and Libel Lawsuit by Muslim FBI Agent.
Other Litigation
• STURGEON v LOS ANGELES COUNTY, ET AL. - In 1998, the state of California took over funding of all state trial court operations, including responsibility for payment of salaries and benefits to trial court judges. Los Angeles County, home to one of the largest trial court systems in the United States, continues to pay "local judicial benefits" to its judges to supplement the compensation and benefits they received from the state.
• JOSE J. BASULTO v. THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA and FIDEL CASTRO RUZ - This action arises out of an act of terrorism by the Defendants and their agents on February 24, 1996, in which two Cuban Air Force fighter planes ("MiGs"), intentionally shot down two unarmed, civilian planes of Hermanos al Rescate [or “Brothers To The Rescue” (BTTR) in English] in international airspace in an unprovoked aerial ambush, killing four BTTR aviators.
• ALEXANDER et al. v. FBI, et. al. - Judicial Watch is representing the plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed by White House employees of the Bush and Reagan administrations whose FBI files were wrongly accessed by the Clinton White House. The White House and FBI are being sued under the federal Privacy Act, while the individual defendants B Bernard Nussbaum, Craig Livingstone, Anthony Marceca and Hillary Clinton are being sued for common-law tort of invasion of privacy.
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE - Civil Action 97-2416. In October of 1997, Judicial Watch filed a fourth lawsuit against Commerce, this time seeking all documents produced by Commerce to the Justice Department, Congress, or any grand jury impaneled in any judicial district of the United States.
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE - Civil Action 97-0289. In November 1996, Judicial Watch filed a third lawsuit against Commerce, this time for information on all trade missions not covered by our earlier requests. Once again, the Commerce Department turned over some documents, but withheld others it claimed were privileged. All three of Judicial Watch's cases against the Commerce Department deal with issues of how participants on trade missions were selected and how illegal fundraising was conducted by the Clinton Administration.
• JUDICIAL WATCH v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE - Civil Action 96-2747. In October, 1996, Judicial Watch filed another lawsuit against Commerce, for additional information on its trade missions to Indonesia and on the activities of John Huang, Melinda Yee, the Lippo Group, and others involved in the campaign finance scandal.
Click here to view JW archived cases.