A Clinton Foundation whistleblower is receiving bipartisan support after the FBI raided his office last month despite legal protection.
The home of ex-FBI contractor Dennis Cain was searched after he shared documents alleging misdeeds by the Clintons and their philanthropy with Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who passed the files along to Congress.
Cain reportedly has dirt on the Uranium One deal, the foundation, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Republican lawmakers are demanding answers from the Justice Department about the raid.
Dems, GOP condemn FBI raid on whistleblower
The Daily Caller broke the story last month that 16 feds kicked in the door of Cain’s Maryland home on Nov. 19. The agents rifled through Cain’s personal belongings for six hours despite protection granted him by Horowitz, who had already passed along the files to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees over the summer, lawyer Michael Soccaras said.
The documents showed that the Justice Department failed to investigate possible wrongdoing involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, and that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller did not investigate possible crimes involving the Russian company Rosatom that bought the Canadian mining company Uranium One, according to a document that the Daily Caller reviewed.
But liberal and conservative lawyers and watchdog groups told the Daily Caller that Cain was following federal whistleblower law and questioned whether the raid was necessary, legal, or even constitutional.
“This isn’t how we should be treating whistleblowers who are coming forward with information about high-level wrongdoing,” Nick Schwellenbach, the investigations director for independent watchdog group the Project on Government Oversight, told the Daily Caller. “It sends a very strong message that you will be treated as a criminal even though what you’re trying to do is expose crime or a potential crime.”
“Extremely troublesome” actions
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions first asked U.S. Attorney John Huber to open an investigation of alleged conflicts of interest involving the Clinton Foundation last year. The foundation has been accused of arranging “pay to play” schemes like that involving Uranium One, which was sold to a Russian company as the foundation received millions in donations from Russian entities with a stake in the sale, and while Hillary Clinton was sitting on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which approves foreign business deals with national security implications.
Apparently hoping to find information on this, federal magistrate Stephanie A. Gallagher issued a court order last month for the raid, but relevant documents have not been made available to reporters. However, several lawyers have expressed concern that the Justice Department was dishonest about Cain’s status as a whistleblower when asking for a warrant and said that the documents justifying the raid should be released.
“If they did not fully advise the court of his whistleblower status, then I would find that to be extremely troublesome,” said Cleta Mitchell, a conservative attorney who specializes in ethics law. “The main question is whether or not they properly informed the court that this individual is a whistleblower and that he had gone through the procedures to receive whistleblower status.”
Stuart Baggish, a Texas defense lawyer, noted that the search could be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, arguing:
If the search warrant for Mr. Cain’s property was based on an affidavit that purposely or recklessly omitted his whistleblower status, like my client’s case against the Smith County Sheriff [in Texas], the search could be ruled unreasonable and hence a Fourth Amendment violation.
Continuing support
Cain has also received backing from Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who asked in a Nov. 30 letter to the FBI whether they knew about Cain’s whistleblower status before raiding his house. Grassley, who gave the FBI a deadline of Dec. 12, also asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to explain whether the bureau knew that Cain already handed over documents to Horowitz and whether they took other documents during the search.
He asked Horowitz to provide updates on “the FBI’s treatment of Mr. Cain’s disclosures.”
The raid comes as Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) claims that three whistleblowers have handed him “hundreds” of pages of evidence of wrongdoing by the foundation, including alleged quid-pro-quo schemes with donors when Clinton was Secretary of State.
Meadows, leader of the House Freedom Caucus and chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, is set to lead a hearing next week about the investigation into the foundation.
No comments: