Clinton Foundation hit with racketeering lawsuit
Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation have been hit with a racketeering lawsuit in Florida court.
The lawsuit, filed by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, includes a
legal request to have the Florida judge seize the private server on
which Hillary Clinton and her aides hosted their emails while she served
as secretary of state.
Klayman has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Clintons and other prominent politicians.
The racketeering, influenced and corrupt organizations, or RICO, case
alleges the former first couple and their family philanthropy traded
political favors for donations or generous speaking fees for Bill
Clinton while his wife was the nation's chief diplomat.
"Negotiations by email about influencing U.S. foreign policy or U.S.
Government actions to benefit donors to ... The Clinton Foundation or
sponsors of speaking engagements would not be captured on a U.S.
Government email account because her emails would not be with a U.S.
Government official," Klayman said in court documents obtained by the Washington Examiner."Hillary Clinton deleted 32,000 email messages from her email
server that included her communications arranging, negotiating, and
agreeing upon speaking engagements by Bill Clinton in return for large
speaking fees and donations to The Clinton Foundation," the documents,
dated May 20, said.
Klayman pushed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
Florida to order a "neutral forensic expert ... to take custody and
control of the private email server and reconstruct and preserve the
official U.S. Government records relating to the conduct of U.S. foreign
policy during Defendant Secretary Clinton's term as Secretary of
State."
Hillary Clinton handed over 55,000 printed pages of emails to the
State Department in November of last year and reportedly erased the
remaining records off her private server.
Critics of Clinton's decision to forgo use of an official email
account argue the presidential candidate could have simply withheld any
incriminating messages from the batch she gave the State Department.
Her supporters have dubbed the quest for Clinton's State Department emails a partisan "witch hunt."
Klayman pointed to the litany of scandals involving missing records
that have followed the Clintons for decades, including the fact that
thousands of emails disappeared
during Bill Clinton's administration after White House officials
threatened internal computer experts who blew the whistle on the
"suppression."
"It's a perfect RICO case, it fits completely," Klayman said of the
lawsuit. "Our Congress doesn't even have the guts to subpoena her
documents. They'd rather get on Fox News. So we felt had to bring that
case. Somebody's got to do it."
Klayman said a major reason for his lawsuit involves the fact that
Cheryl Mills, then-chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, and the secretary
of state herself "lied to the lower court" in by claiming there were no
documents related to a pair of Freedom of Information Act requests he
filed in 2012 while knowing those records actually did exist on the
private server.
One FOIA, filed May 2012, pertained to allegations that Hillary
Clinton issued waivers for preferred companies to do business with Iran
despite strict congressional sanctions. The other probed a 2012 leak of
classified information about Israel and Iran to the New York Times and
was filed in June of that year.
Klayman said records on the Clintons' private server are "in imminent
danger of being lost" in court documents and urged the court to
intervene.
Clinton Foundation officials did not return a request for comment on the case.
The massive charity drew fire after a book by Peter Schweizer entitled Clinton Cash
suggested foreign governments and companies with interests before the
State Department donated to the foundation with the expectation that
Hillary or Bill Clinton would ensure they received preferential
treatment from the agency.
