Tag Archives: Subpoena

Featured, Government Accountability, Politics

Ash Carter Used Private Email for Months After Clinton’s Email Scandal Was Revealed

Leave a comment

Defense Secretary Ash Carter reportedly used his own personal email to conduct government business, even after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email was revealed.

Clinton’s email use was revealed in March 2015, and it eventually resulted in an FBI investigation into whether Clinton compromised national security by sending and receiving classified information on an unsecured network.

After filing a Freedom of Information Act request, CNN reported that it received 1,336 pages of emails sent and received from Carter’s personal address through Sept. 2015, and that “many of the emails had redacted information.”

The New York Times first revealed Carter’s use of private email for government business in December, noting that the extent of his use was not known, and that at the time it was believed that he continued it only two months after Clinton’s email use was revealed.

[SCANDAL: Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Fired Ambassador for Using Private Email]

While the reality was that Carter continued to use his personal email account for at least six months after the revelations regarding Clinton’s email were publicly scrutinized, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook insisted that Carter’s emails “show that he did not email anything classified and all of his work-related emails are preserved within the federal records system.”

“In December, when this issue first came up, the secretary took responsibility for his actions and publicly acknowledged that his previous use of personal email for work-related business was a mistake,” Cook said in a statement. “As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether.”

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Department of Defense on Friday questioning why the DoD has yet to respond to his committee’s inquiries, and threatening to subpoena Carter for answers.

[pull_quote_center]Now, three months after my initial request, it is difficult to understand why the department has not been willing to provide detailed answers, and the department has not asserted a valid reason to withhold that information from the committee. Please provide the information I requested as soon as possible, but no later than March 25, 2016 Otherwise, the committee may use compulsory process to obtain documents and communications that will answer the questions that were initially raised on December 18, 2015.[/pull_quote_center]

Follow Rachel Blevins on Facebook and Twitter.

Editor’s Pick, Election, Featured, Politics

Criminal Investigation Requested In Hillary Clinton’s Use Of Personal Email

6 Comments

The U.S. Department of Justice has been asked to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Clinton abused classified government information during her tenure as Secretary of State when she used her personal email to conduct government business.

The New York Times reported that two inspectors general asked for the investigation after a memo from June 29 to Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management, stated that Clinton’s private email account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.”

Clinton, who is currently a democratic presidential candidate, served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Her use of a personal email account on a private server for government business was revealed in March.

[RELATED: Breaking The Law? Hillary Clinton Used Private Email As Secretary of State]

As Truth In Media previously reported, Clinton insisted that she “opted for convenience” when choosing to use her personal email, and she has denied that the account contains any classified information.

“I fully complied with every rule I was governed by,” Clinton said. “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”

[RELATED: Fact Check: Holes In Hillary’s Email Story]

 The New York Times noted that the Justice Department has not announced whether it will open a criminal investigation into Clinton’s actions, and that her campaign is claiming that “any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted.”

The State Department is now reviewing 55,000 pages of emails, looking for classified information. The New York Times reported that in the 3,000 pages of emails released on June 30, two dozen emails were redacted and labeled as “classified,” after being reviewed by the State Department.

[RELATED: Benghazi Chairman: There Are “Huge Gaps” In Hillary Clinton’s Email Records]

In a statement from Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, he said that the State Department has “used every excuse to avoid complying with fundamental requests for documents.”

“Our Committee has tried asking personally. Our Committee has tried letter requests. Our Committee has tried public hearings with other agency employees. Our Committee has tried subpoenas,” Gowdy said. “While the tactics tried have varied, the results have not. Our Committee is not in possession of all documents needed to do the work assigned to us.”

In response, some State Department officials have said they “do not have the resources or infrastructure to properly comply with all the requests,” while others have said that they “believe that many senior officials did not initially take the House committee seriously, which slowed document production and created an appearance of stonewalling.”

[RELATED: Hillary Clinton Deletes All Emails, Wipes Server Clean]

Clinton was criticized in April when, after Gowdy claimed that she had been issued several subpoenas related to releasing her emails to the Benghazi Committee, she deleted all emails and wiped her server clean.

During an interview with CNN on July 7, Clinton accused Brianna Keilar of “making assumptions” regarding the subpoenas. “I’ve never had a subpoena, there’s nothing,” Clinton said.

Gowdy responded by releasing a copy of a subpoena sent to Clinton in March, and a statement where he claimed that while the Committee has “issued several subpoenas,” he had not intended to make them public.

“I would not make this one public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy,” Gowdy said.

Government Accountability, Police Accountability, US

Sheriff Accused Of Arresting Man Attempting To Serve Him With A Subpoena

9 Comments

Sanford, NC- An investigator has accused Lee County Sheriff Tracy Carter of having him arrested by deputies in response to trying to serve the sheriff with a subpoena, according to The Sanford Herald.

Robert Terry Wade, 71, stated in an affidavit that approximately two weeks ago he was attempting to serve Carter with a subpoena to appear in an upcoming trial stemming from a civil suit filed against Lee County and the sheriff’s department. The lawsuit, filed by Steven “Wayne” Thomas in 2010, accused Lee County deputies of using a stun gun on Thomas multiple times and breaking his jaw as he was being arrested.

According to ABC11, Wade had first tried to serve subpoenas to Carter and an unknown number of deputies at the sheriff’s department, but he was avoided. Wade said that when he went to Carter’s home to serve the subpoena, no one answered the door.

As he was about to leave, Wade alleges, Carter came outside and blocked Wade’s vehicle until deputies arrived to arrest him. “I tried to leave, but Sheriff Carter came and positioned himself behind my truck and blocked me in so that it was impossible for me to leave without coming into contact with him,” Wade claimed in his affidavit.

Wade was charged with trespassing and carrying a concealed weapon.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle granted a temporary restraining order noting that Carter and other members of the department “are obstructing or otherwise interfering with plaintiff’s efforts to serve subpoenas on potential witnesses in the upcoming trial.” In the order, Boyle stated that “Sheriff Tracy Carter and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office are restrained and enjoined from interfering in any way with [Thomas’s] efforts to serve subpoenas to any witnesses in the upcoming trial.”

“In the environment we live in now where police are under scrutiny for acting out and misbehaving you would think that a sheriff in North Carolina would comply with the law and accept simple service of a piece of paper,” said Kieran Shanahan, Thomas’s attorney.

Shanahan told ABC11 that “I don’t think a federal judge would have done such a thing if he didn’t also share my concern about a sheriff who’s confused between enforcing the law and thinking they are above the law.”

Attorneys for Carter stated in court documents that the sheriff has a “different take” on the incident regarding Wade, and said that subpoenas are supposed to be served to attorneys of defendants.

The upcoming civil trial, scheduled for June 2nd, stems from a lawsuit following a 2009 incident in which Thomas claimed he was assaulted by deputies while they were arresting him. Thomas had allegedly been behaving strangely after working with chemicals in a tobacco field and said that as his friend was driving him to seek medical care, Thomas exited the vehicle and ended up destroying a decorative fence on a woman’s property. When deputies arrived to arrest him, Thomas alleged that they used a stun gun on him at least eight times in under three minutes and broke his jaw while he was on the ground during the altercation.

Carter claimed in response to the suit that Thomas had assaulted deputies during the arrest. “Mr. Thomas assaulted one of my deputies (and) later in the incident, assaulted two more of my deputies. I believe my officers used a reasonable amount of force,” Carter said.