"In 1997--three years after the Clinton health care plan was defeated..."
By Jacob Sullum
May 31, 2016 | 8:22pm
The last time she lived in the White House, Hillary Clinton was in charge of a health care task force that met in secret under a veil of lies. That episode highlighted the haughtiness, deceit and disdain for transparency that continue to cause trouble for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, as illustrated by the recent inspector general’s report on her email practices as secretary of state.
When President Bill Clinton picked his wife to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform in 1993, critics sued the first lady, arguing that her participation made the task force subject to the public-meeting and open-record requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The administration successfully argued that Mrs. Clinton, who was not a government employee, nevertheless should be counted as one in this context, making the transparency requirements inapplicable.
There remained the issue of the working groups advising the task force, which supposedly consisted entirely of government employees. That turned out to be a lie.
In 1997 — three years after the Clinton health care plan was defeated, in no small part because of the perception that it had been written behind closed doors without public input and debate — US District Judge Royce Lamberth rebuked the administration for its “outrageous” and “reprehensible” deception concerning participants in the working groups, many of whom were private parties with a stake in the outcome.
“The executive branch of the Government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court,’’ he wrote. “It is clear that the decisions here were made at the highest levels of Government.”
Lamberth had previously criticized Clinton et al.’s “preposterous,” “incomplete” and “inadequate” responses to the plaintiffs’ requests for relevant information, which had made the discovery process “difficult, drawn-out, and contentious.” He ruled the defendants had “improperly thwarted plaintiffs’ legitimate discovery requests” by raising “meritless” objections.
Two decades later, Clinton’s old habits of entitlement and obfuscation are coming to the fore again. “Voters just don’t trust her,” the New York Times notes, citing a recent survey in which 64 percent of respondents said Clinton is not “honest and trustworthy.” Her response to the email controversy shows why.
When Clinton was appointed secretary of state, the report from the State Department’s inspector general says, departmental policy clearly stated that officials should avoid using private email services for work.
Clinton decided that rule, which was aimed at promoting security and the preservation of records, did not apply to her, and throughout her tenure, she relied exclusively on a personal email system, communicating via a server in the basement of her house in Chappaqua, NY.
Continued....
http://nypost.com/2016/05/31/hillarys-long-record-of-lying-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark/
= new reply since forum marked as read
US District Judge Royce Lamberth rebuked the administration for its “outrageous” and “reprehensible” deception concerning participants in the working groups, many of whom were private parties with a stake in the outcome.
“The executive branch of the Government, working in tandem, was dishonest with this court,’’ he wrote. “It is clear that the decisions here were made at the highest levels of Government.”
In 1993:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/837/454/2377066/
Lamberth had previously criticized Clinton et al.’s “preposterous,” “incomplete” and “inadequate” responses to the plaintiffs’ requests for relevant information, which had made the discovery process “difficult, drawn-out, and contentious.” He ruled the defendants had “improperly thwarted plaintiffs’ legitimate discovery requests” by raising “meritless” objections.
Judge Royce Lamberth is one of the judge's who recently agreed to Clinton SoS staff depositions in the FOIA cases:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/second-federal-judge-grants-legal-discovery-into-clinton-use-of-private-email-server/2016/03/29/4ca38de8-f5c6-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html
and then there's this:
Report to the Chairman, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives
April 2001
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01446.pdf
This isn't the first time providing all the emails was a problem for the Clintons
and then there's this:
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?1997cv1288-359
"Mills’ totally inadequate performance of duty directly led to all the adverse criticism the White House suffered in this document production fiasco."
Judge Royce C. Lamberth, April 3, 2008.
Yep, that's the one and the same Cheryl Mills messing around with the production of Lewinsky emails, etc ... with findings and remarks by the same judge in 1993, 1997 and 2015-16
So history is repeating itself here and the Clintons think Americans are dumb enough to fall for it again ... and by the looks of the polls, they're right!
Meanwhile, the poor poster who raised this is a bum who will be banned June 16th for pointing it out.
Let me point this out: I think Americans and the good people at DU.com deserve better than Trump or Clinton. And another set of deceptions and lies that's been going on for 25 years from Hillary isn't going to change my mind.
but if this isn't resolved before the Convention or soon after then the Repubs have their knives sharpened and will take her down, either after the Convention (if she wins) or after Inauguration if she manages to win over Trump.
None of us want to see that happen. It will harm the party and harm the country which is not is such great shape these days. This is why we Bernie supporters feel that he must stay in as long as he can, and that he wins CA and does well enough in NJ so that he has the creds to be the Back Up if she falls. If it comes apart after the General Election...then we are in for some rough times.
As you say:
The emails are hurting her. The above will really damage her. These are not nice people - they're going to do it to her whether they're accurate or not.
Between now and June 16th. hopefully someone will figure out how to defend against that because after the 16th, we're probably not going to be able to talk about it.
That's what really scares me.
