Legal watchdog may seek sanctions against DOJ over hidden Russiagate documents

Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) President Kimberly Hermann said that they may potentially seek sanctions against the Department of Justice for hiding documents related to the Russiagate scandal.

"Absolutely," Hermann said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show when asked if sanctions were a possibility. "We're going to go back to the courtroom and then also refer these out to whatever agencies we need to, whether it's the bar admissions, or whether we're talking to Congress and let them do whatever it is that they can do there to hold these bad actors accountable." The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), under which the 2019 suit was brought, also allows successful plaintiff's to recover attorney's fees in some instances.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last month issued a press release stating that her office had “revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”

The record — bolstered by newly-declassified documents — shows that Obama was a central figure at key points throughout the Russiagate saga. Documents show Obama was personally briefed on the “Clinton Plan intelligence” in which Clinton sought to falsely link Trump to Russia, likely to distract from her own classified email server scandal. 

The report released by Gabbard also alleges the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment "glossed over" evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have instead favored (or at least fully expected) a Hillary Clinton victory nine years ago.

DOJ claimed there were only two pages related to Steele Dossier

In 2019, Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of Just the News CEO John Solomon that sought documents pertaining to whether the Steele Dossier was implemented into the intelligence community assessment that concluded that Russia was trying to help Trump win the election.

"We asked for any of these communications where they were talking about the Steele Dossier, between the CIA, between the DNI, between the FBI, and we were told that only two pages existed," Hermann said. "We now know in this recent release that not only did they exist, but it's very suspect as to whether or not they were intentionally hidden from us."

Hermann said the foundation would continue to investigate and look into the matter to determine how much was hidden when the DOJ responded to the FOIA suit. Given Gabbard's declassification of ICA documents, it would appear that the DOJ's response was untruthful. 

"These people need to be held accountable," she said. "The people who are behind Russiagate, the people who created these falsehoods [who] then hid them from the American public."

Hermann said this is similar to when former President Bill Clinton was held accountable after he prevaricated over having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

"Like we did back in the Bill Clinton days when he lied under oath, we continue to see this all the way through to the end, and get not only the truth out, but hold the people who have hidden that from us accountable, because we need people to stop doing this, and until punishment happens, they're going to keep doing it," she said.