• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

The Fast and Furious operation by itself should have resulted in Holder’s resignation, but it is the cover-up that has prompted serious calls for Holder’s ouster.

On May 3, 2011, in a House Judiciary Committee hearing chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Holder testified: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Newly released documents show he was receiving weekly briefings on Fast and Furious as far back as July 5, 2010. It appears Holder lied to Congress. Judicial Watch sued the DOJ and the ATF to obtain Fast and Furious records. The Judicial Watch investigation continues.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Holder’s corruption and abuse of office, Fast and Furious is just the tip of the iceberg.

On February 23, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that DOJ lawyers would no longer defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as applied to homosexual couples. DOMA had passed Congress by a vote of 85–14 in the Senate and a vote of 342–67 in the House. President Clinton signed the act into law on September 21, 1996.

Judicial Watch filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the DOJ (including one on behalf of the Family Research Council) for records related to this pro-homosexual marriage decision. This failure to defend this federal law is unprecedented and raises serious questions as to whether President Obama and Eric Holder are upholding their oaths of office and following the Constitution’s command to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

The DOJ continues to stonewall the release of information regarding Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s participation in Obamacare discussions when she served as Solicitor General. In addition to forcing Judicial Watch to file a lawsuit to obtain this information, Holder’s DOJ thumbed its nose at Congress by failing to release this material to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Kagan’s judicial confirmation hearing. Holder continues to personally resist requests from Judicial Watch and Congress for additional information on this controversy. Kagan’s role in these discussions is especially significant now that the U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will consider challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare in Spring 2012.

New revelations emerged in 2011 about the DOJ’s Black Panther scandal. Judicial Watch uncovered evidence that the liberal special interest group National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) may have had an inappropriate amount of influence on the DOJ’s decision to drop its voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense. This comes on the heels of sworn testimony that the Civil Rights Division of the Holder DOJ makes enforcement decisions based upon race.

Most recently, Judicial Watch obtained shocking documents suggesting the Holder DOJ is conspiring with scandal-ridden Project Vote (President Obama’s former employer and ACORN front) to use the National Voter Registration Act to increase welfare voter registrations. One former ACORN employee (and current Project Vote Director of Advocacy), Estelle Rogers, is even helping to vet job candidates for the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Division! ACORN and Project Vote have a long record of voter registration fraud.

Seeming to affirm ACORN’s hijacking of the DOJ, Holder recently said in a speech that he plans to use “the full weight” of the agency in 2012 to attack states that are enforcing laws that protect against fraud in the voting booths. This speech ended the pretense that the DOJ is independent from the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign – as it repeated almost verbatim the partisan arguments made by the Democratic Party against voter ID laws.

Holder must go. Pick your reason – Black Panthers, race-based decision making, abandoning the Defense of Marriage Act, Fast and Furious killings and lies, or turning the DOJ into an arm of the radicalized left – but Holder must go.

President Barack Obama: President Obama makes Judicial Watch’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for a fifth consecutive year (the former Illinois Senator was also a “Dishonorable Mention” in 2006). And when it comes to Obama corruption, it may not get any bigger than Solyndra. Solyndra was once known as the poster child for the Obama administration’s massive “green energy” initiative, but it has become the poster child for the corruption that ensues when the government meddles in the private sector. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September 2011, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs and the American taxpayers on the hook for $535 million thanks to an Obama administration stimulus loan guarantee.

Despite the Obama administration’s reticence to release details regarding this scandal, much is known about this shady deal. White House officials warned the president that the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program was “dangerously short on due diligence.” Nonetheless, the Obama administration rushed the Solyndra loan through the approval process so it could make a splash at a press event. The company’s main financial backer was a major Obama campaign donor named George Kaiser. While the White House said Kaiser never discussed the loan with White House officials, the evidence suggests this is a lie. And, further demonstrating the political nature of the Obama administration’s activities, the Energy Department pressured Solyndra to delay an announcement on layoffs until after the 2010 elections. Despite the public outrage at this scandalous waste of precious tax dollars, President Obama continues to defend the indefensible and has refused to sack anyone over the Solyndra mess.

President Obama continues to countenance actions by his appointees that undermine the rule of law and constitutional government:

• Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct “community” organization ACORN. In July 2011, Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing organization which has a long history of corrupt activity. In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.In 2011, JW released a special report entitled “The Rebranding of ACORN,” which details how the ACORN network is alive and well and well-placed to undermine the integrity of the 2012 elections – evidently with the assistance of the Obama administration.

• Barack Obama apparently believes it is his “prerogative” to ignore the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law when it comes to appointing czars. According to Politico: “President Barack Obama is planning to ignore language in the 2011 spending package that would ban several top White House advisory posts.” Obama said this ban on “czars” would undermine “the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” In other words, Barack Obama believes he must ignore the U.S. Constitution to protect the U.S. Constitution. Many Obama administration czars have not been subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate as required by the U.S. Constitution. In 2011, JW released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive report on the Obama czar scandal, entitled “President Obama’s Czars.”

• In an historic victory for Judicial Watch and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama White House, a federal court ruled on August 17, 2011 that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service. The Obama administration now will have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under the law. The Obama White House continues to fight full disclosure and has stalled the release of records by appealing the lower court decision. Judicial Watch gave Obama a “failing grade” on transparency in testimony before Congress in 2011. Read the testimony in full, as well as additional congressional testimony during a hearing entitled “White House Transparency, Visitor Logs and Lobbyists.”

• In 2011, the Obama National Labor Relations Board sought to prevent the Seattle-based Boeing Company from opening a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) showing this lawsuit was politically motivated. Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing NLRB staff cheerleading for Big Labor, mouthing Marxist, anti-American slurs and showing contempt for Congress related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing, including email correspondence attacking members of Congress. And it starts at the top. Obama bypassed Congress and recess-appointed Craig Becker–who is connected to the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and ACORN–to the NRLB.

• Obama’s corrupt Chicago dealings continued to haunt him in 2011. Obama’s real estate partner, campaign fundraiser, and Obama pork recipient Antoin “Tony” Rezko was finally sentenced to jail this year, as was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is now set to serve 14 years for attempting to sell Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. The FBI continues to withhold from Judicial Watch documents of its historic interview of then-Senator Obama about the Illinois corruption scandal. The FBI interview was conducted in December 2008, about one month before Obama was sworn into the presidency.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: While Attorney General Eric Holder was busy attacking states seeking to protect themselves from uncontrolled illegal immigration in 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano presided over a campaign to bypass Congress and provide amnesty to millions of illegal alien lawbreakers, all in an obvious attempt to garner more Hispanic votes for Obama’s reelection.

At first, Napolitano’s campaign was begun in stealth. But in 2011 the Obama administration finally admitted that illegal alien amnesty is now the official policy of the United States of America, courtesy of Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to The New York Times:

The Department of Homeland Security will begin a review on Thursday (November 17, 2011) of all deportation cases before the immigration courts and start a nationwide training program for enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers, with the goal of speeding deportations of convicted criminals and halting those of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.

Don’t believe for a second DHS’s line that criminal illegal aliens won’t find themselves “outside the department’s priorities.” This is an outright lie.

In 2011, Judicial Watch uncovered documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) proving that immigration officials were urged to use “prosecutorial discretion” to dismiss deportation proceedings against a wide variety of illegal alien criminals — including those convicted of serious crimes such as sexual assault, solicitation of murder, aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, and kidnapping, as well as numerous drug charges.

And to highlight the depth of this amnesty scheme, consider the case of Carlos Martinelly-Montano, the drunk-driving illegal immigrant from Bolivia who killed a Catholic nun and severely injured two others in Prince William County, Virginia, on August 1, 2010. Napolitano ordered an investigation into Montano’s background but initially refused to release the agency’s findings — until Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit. On March 3, 2011, Judicial Watch finally got hold of the “cleaned up” version of the Homeland Security report (after a lengthy back-and-forth with DHS).

And what did Judicial Watch uncover? Montano should have been deported, but thanks to the illegal alien sanctuary policies of the federal government, local authorities and the courts, he was allowed back onto the streets.

Evidently, Janet Napolitano believes her agency may simply choose to ignore illegal immigration laws to help Obama get reelected. Moreover, the DHS seems more than willing to stonewall and obfuscate in order to conceal its questionable activities. As some key of members of Congress wrote Napolitano:

“This new [backdoor amnesty] policy undermines the rule of law and intrudes on the role of Congress to make the law, while denigrating the role of the executive to carry out the laws enacted by Congress.”

Napolitano’s attempt to rewrite immigration law on her own is an affront to constitutional government.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: What did Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discuss during all of those secret Obamacare meetings she held with Vice President Biden and Big Labor leaders? Obamacare waivers would be an excellent guess.

In September 2011, HHS announced an arbitrary cut-off to waiver applications, which had skyrocketed to 1,472 unions and companies seeking to get out from underneath the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul. At the time of the cut-off, approximately 50% of the waivers granted covered employees of unions, even though union workers represent about 12% of the total workforce!

From the beginning, HHS has kept these waivers shrouded in secrecy. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against HHS on December 30, 2010, and yet the agency refuses to explain to the American people how decisions were made regarding which organizations received or did not receive a waiver.

While HHS was disproportionately doling out waivers to unions, JW also obtained documents from HHS that provide new details on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote Obamacare. The total cost of this campaign, which notably targets Obama’s electoral coalition, could reach as much as $200 million over the next five years.

And this is how HHS describes the key to success for this campaign: “Health and program-related messages are processed by the target audience according to a particular reality, which he or she experiences. Attitudes, feelings, values, needs, desires, behaviors and beliefs all play a part in the individual’s decision to accept information and make a behavioral change.” In other words, the Obama administration is paying hired guns a lot of your money to manipulate American taxpayers into “accepting” the Obama way and “changing” their behavior.

This is certainly what HHS was trying to do with a series of three Medicare television advertisements featuring actor Andy Griffith. As Judicial Watch uncovered through FOIA, the Obama administration spent $3,184,000 in taxpayer funds to produce and air the advertisements on national television in September and October 2010. According to FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, the advertisements intentionally misinformed the American people.

And then there’s health care rationing. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), which is under the auspices of HHS, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for prostate cancer, be placed under a controversial “review.” After enormous public scrutiny, CMS relented and recommended the potentially lifesaving drug be covered by insurance. According to a Judicial Watch investigation, while the Obama administration claimed the cost of Provenge had nothing to do with their review process, records obtained by JW suggest otherwise (Medicare, the FDA, and private companies are legally prohibited from denying approval of a medical treatment based solely on cost).

And then there is Sebelius’s war on the Catholic Church and other “conservative” religious organizations. Sebelius’s HHS has written Obamacare regulations to punish long-held religious views that don’t comport with liberal ideology and would force hundreds of religious institutions to drop insurance coverage or risk running afoul of Sebelius’s pro-abortion Obamacare regulatory scheme.

The constitutionality of Obamacare may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. But in the meantime, Kathleen Sebelius has turned HHS into a political machine, using underhanded tactics to stack the deck in favor of Obamacare, while greasing Big Labor and other Obama political campaign allies.

When the Department of Homeland Security was launched after 9/11 and the Patriot Act was launched as a bill that would last only 4 years, many freedom loving Americans squabbled. Most turned to those rebels and told them to “shut up,” that it was necessary to protect America. Then we allowed the TSA to militarize our airports and treat us like cattle. Then came the unsecured and blatant violation of personal privacy when travelers data was being collected. And of course the full body pat downs of children and colonoscopies full-body scans.

Oh, but a little before the whole body scan debacle was of course the hush-hush hiring of Ex-Stasi Spy Markus Wolf by the DHS. Who better to know how to teach the government how to spy on its own citizens and invoke citizen to citizen tattle telling than an ex-East German communist?

Is it any surprise that in the years following Wolf’s tenure as a consultant to DHS prior to his death we have now seen programs develop out of DHS that include the government asking its citizens to report on their neighbors, and the institution of a secret police force called “Viper Team”. It’s rumored they great each other with a hearty, “Shield and sword!”

Don’t forget the vans with X-ray patrolling our streets as well…

But never fear, because we’ve been told all of this is temporary just until we destroy terrorism. Of course out of the other side of the governments mouth is the fact that they’ve told us that terrorism is a battle that we will wage forever.

So what we take from that is this: Janet Napolitano (audio, click to play) telling us that we will never again have pre-9/11 freedom in the United States. (The clip comes from the No Agenda Podcast, in which Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak dissect the modern media message.)

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

On April 14, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against DHS to obtain records detailing its investigation of Carlos Martinelly-Montano. This is the illegal alien who is charged with striking and killing a Virginia Benedictine nun in a drunk driving accident on August 1, 2010.

Judicial Watch obtained an internal DHS report on the Martinelly-Montano investigation in response to a previous lawsuit. But now we want to get our hands on all communications between the DHS and the Obama White House, as well as internal DHS records regarding the investigation and the report.

Specifically, here’s what we’ve asked for pursuant to a February 16, 2011, FOIA request:

• Any and all records of communications, contacts, or correspondence with the White House and/or Executive Office of the President concerning a report/memorandum prepared at the direction of the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, related to Carlos Martinelly-Montano, an unlawfully present alien charged with killing a Benedictine nun and injuring two others in a August 2010 drunk driving incident in Prince William County, Virginia for the period of October 1, 2010 through February 15, 2011.
• Any and all records of communications, contacts, or correspondence within the Department of Homeland Security concerning a report/memorandum prepared at the direction of the Unite States Secretary for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, related to Carlos Martinelly-Montano for the period of October 1, 2010 through February 15, 2011.

In a letter dated February 24, 2011, DHS indicated that it received Judicial Watch’s request on February 17, 2011. DHS was required to respond by March 17, 2011. However, to date, DHS has failed to produce responsive documents or indicate when a response is forthcoming. In other words, the typical Obama stonewall.

And why are we exploring contacts between the Obama White House and DHS over this report? Because of the suspicious manner in which DHS handled the report release. Let’s backtrack and I’ll show you what I mean.

On March 3, 2011, we obtained an edited “final” DHS report detailing the agency’s investigation of Martinelly-Montano. The DHS had promised a federal court that it would release the report earlier in the year. And, in fact, Judicial Watch received word via email from DHS that the document had been cleared and would be released per a court order.

But that’s when DHS pulled an “about face,” claiming the document was in “draft” form and therefore would not be released. (Reporting by The Associated Press suggests that DHS political appointees have improperly delayed FOIA requests on politically sensitive topics.) And then when we did get the “final” report last month, it was curiously dated November 24, 2010.

The report, which supposedly was produced for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, details the policies and actions of the Obama administration and local governments that allowed Martinelly-Montano, an illegal alien who committed a series of crimes, to remain on the streets despite being subject to deportation. Even in its edited form, the report confirms that the Obama administration decided not to detain the illegal alien after he served his jail sentence for drunk driving, and released him onto the streets.

But the suspicious manner in which DHS handled the release of this report definitely merits further investigation. There is no question the “final” report released to the public was edited and polished by DHS. This all smacks of a cover-up.

Of course, we know why the Obama administration has been playing the stonewall game. The facts show Obama’s lax approach to illegal immigration enforcement most certainly will lead to the deaths of innocents at the hands of illegal aliens. Illegal alien sanctuary policies led to the release of Martinelly-Montano and likely therefore the death of Sister Denise Mosier. That is something the Obama administration would rather you not know. But we also want to know who was involved in keeping the report from being released. That’s the reason for this lawsuit.

By way of review, Carlos Martinelly-Montano, who entered the country illegally as a child from Bolivia, allegedly killed Sister Denise Mosier and critically injured two other nuns while driving drunk in Prince William County, Virginia. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and drunk driving, but he never should have been on the road in the first place. Martinelly-Montano had previously been arrested in October 2008 for another drunk driving incident, and was placed in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Though he was scheduled for deportation, his hearing was delayed three times, and deportation never occurred. And now an innocent nun is dead.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) promised a federal court it would release the report earlier this year, but then later claimed that the document was in “draft” form, and therefore would not be released. (Click here to read some of the emails back and forth we had with DHS.)

Judicial Watch received the edited “final” report on March 3, 2011. The final report, which we were told by DHS was still being “worked on” last month, is dated November 24, 2010. This lying game shows the Obama DHS is thoroughly mendacious. The DHS report details policies and actions of the Obama administration and local governments that allowed Montano, an illegal alien who committed a series of crimes, to remain on the streets despite being subject to deportation.

Here is a detailed chronology of events as described in the report, which we received through a FOIA lawsuit we filed on December 2, 2010. As you’ll see, even though the Obama administration scrubbed the report, there is more than enough evidence of the amnesty and sanctuary policy agenda of the federal government, local authorities and the courts:

On December 7, 2007, Montano was convicted for driving under the influence (DUI) in Prince William County, Virginia and was sentenced to serve 30 days of incarceration. The judge in Prince William County, however, suspended all 30 days of the jail sentence with the result that Montano was not jailed for his offense. Local authorities did not seek to determine Montano’s immigration status nor did they contact ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].…

Almost one year later, on October 4, 2008, Montano was booked into jail in Prince William County and charged with another misdemeanor DUI. At the time of this arrest, the local authorities determined that Montano was an illegal alien. Thus, ICE lodged an immigration detainer against him. As a result of the immigration detainer, immigration officers took him into custody. On October 7, 2008, Prince William County officials released him from custody.…

[Rather than detaining Montano,] ICE agents determined that Montano was a candidate for the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program and … monitored his whereabouts using GPS technology.…

On April 27, 2009, as a result of the October 2008 DUI arrest, the Circuit Court of Prince William County convicted Montano and sentenced him to serve 12 months and 3 days in jail. However, the judge in Prince William County suspended 11 months and 13 days of Montano’s sentence. As a result of the judge’s decision, Montano served less than two weeks in Prince William County for his second DUI conviction.…

On May 7, 2009, after Montano served the portion of his sentence that had not been suspended, ICE took him into custody. Based on Montano’s compliance during his prior participation in the ATD program, ICE officers released Montano on the prior order of supervision (dating back to 2008) with the condition that he report to ICE on a regular basis.…

[While awaiting his deportation hearing,] Montano was charged on March 5, 2009, in Fairfax County, Virginia, with misdemeanor failure to appear related to driving without a license. Local officials dismissed this charge against Montano on May 5, 2009. County officials did not contact ICE. On April 27, 2010, a Manassas Park police officer cited Montano for misdemeanor reckless driving. There is no record indicating that Montano was booked or fingerprinted or that Manassas Park officials contacted ICE. On June 1, 2010, Montano was convicted for reckless driving and fined $500. Again, ICE was not contacted following the citation or conviction.

The documents clearly show that decisions made by the Executive Office for Immigration Review caused delays in the removal proceedings. Moreover, Montano’s immigration attorney successfully lobbied an immigration judge to delay Montano’s removal hearing on two occasions. The court ultimately scheduled Montano’s hearing for August 19, 2010, but it was too little too late. On August 1, 2010, while under the influence of alcohol, Montano was charged with crashing his car into another vehicle, killing one nun and critically injuring two others.

So, what excuses did the Obama administration come up with to explain this catastrophe?

The report concludes: “In 2008, when the decision was made to release Montano, fewer beds were available in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.” The report also points to government policies that allowed immigration officials “broad discretion” about how to use detention resources. The Obama administration used this discretion to release Montano in 2009, after he had served jail time for his 2008 drunken driving arrest.

Here’s what I told the Associated Press about this excuse-making:

“Most Americans expect illegal aliens to be caught and deported. To use the excuse that ‘We don’t have enough beds’ is so pathetic,” said Fitton, who accused the Obama administration [of having] a “neverending supply of reasons” it won’t detain illegal immigrants.

The “report” does not mention the series of other terrible Obama administration illegal immigration policies that continue to put illegal alien criminals on the streets.

In July 2010, the Obama administration announced it would not take legal action against “sanctuary cities” that prevent local law enforcement entities from freely communicating with federal immigration officials. In contrast, the Obama Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the State of Arizona from enforcing SB 1070, a get-tough illegal immigration law that mandates local law enforcement officers cooperate with federal immigration officials. The Obama administration ordered federal immigration agents to focus deportation efforts only on illegal aliens suspected of terrorist activity and those convicted of “violent” crimes.

None of these policies are going to do anything to deter illegal alien criminals from harming American citizens. In fact, they will almost assuredly make matters much worse.

Regarding the report, if this is the cleaned-up version, I can’t imagine what bombshells were included in the original version. Even in its edited form, this report is an embarrassment to the Obama administration and a clear indictment of Obama’s lawless approach to illegal immigration. An innocent nun lost her life because local police officers are not allowed—and Obama immigration officials couldn’t be bothered—to enforce and obey the law. This tragedy is a direct result of the Obama administration’s decision to undermine the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

This time it involves a Homeland Security (DHS) report detailing the agency’s investigation of an illegal alien who killed a Virginia nun in a drunk-driving accident in August 2010. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain the report, which was scheduled to be released by January 18, 2011. (At least that’s what DHS told Judicial Watch and a federal court.) However, the Obama administration now claims the report is in “draft” form and is therefore exempt from FOIA.

Here’s how all of this went down over the course of the last month.

On January 6, 2011, Judicial Watch received the following message in an email from the Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) assigned to Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit:

I have discussed this matter with the agency and have been advised that the requested report/memorandum has been processed and will be disclosed subject to redaction of certain personal/privacy information under FOIA Exemptions 6/7C. The agency hopes to disclose the material by January 18, 2011. Accordingly, you will receive and have an opportunity to review the release during the requested 30-day extension period. We can then discuss what, if anything, remains of the case.

Anything vague about the phrase “will be disclosed”? We certainly didn’t think so.

Sure enough, in seeking court permission on January 13 to get more time to answer Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, the agency likewise told the Court (The Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan) that “the report memorandum…has been promised and will be disclosed subject to redaction of certain personal privacy information.” Based on this representation, Judicial Watch did not oppose the request for more time. The Court, also relying on this representation that the report was set to be released in a week, granted the Obama administration’s request for more time.

However, following multiple attempts by Judicial Watch’s litigation team to obtain an update on the release of the report, Judicial Watch received the following email from the same Homeland Security AUSA on January 28: “The agency has advised of a delay in the release of the requested report…ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) clarifies that the current version of the report is still in draft form and that, while the final report will be released, Exemption 5 (deliberative process) will likely be asserted as to the draft report.” A subsequent email from Homeland Security noted that ICE “cannot provide a specific release date at this time” for the final report.

Then on February 11, 2011, Judicial Watch received a letter from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement FOIA officer Catrina M. Pavlik-Keenan confirming the fact that the report will not be released as promised: “After review of the draft document, I have determined that this draft document will be withheld in its entirety pursuant to Exemption 5 of the FOIA.”

Folks, this is just another example (albeit an especially egregious one) of the type of gamesmanship and lawlessness we face every day from the Obama administration. (See previous story.)

The Obama DHS seems anxious to cover up the ugly truth about Montano, a Bolivian national who entered the country illegally as a child, killed Sister Denise Mosier and critically injured two other nuns while driving drunk on August 1, 2010, in Prince William County, Virginia. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and drunken driving.

But this is not the first time the illegal alien was in trouble with the law. Montano had been arrested on two prior drunk driving charges. He was placed in the custody of federal immigration officials in 2008 and was scheduled for deportation, but was released on his own recognizance pending a deportation hearing that never took place. (Montano appears to be just another illegal alien to benefit from the federal government’s “catch and release” program.)

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano blustered over the incident and ordered an investigation on August 2, 2010, to determine why Montano’s removal process took so long. However, DHS initially refused to release the report documenting the results, prompting Judicial Watch to file its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on December 2, 2010. DHS then agreed to release the report before reneging last week.

One can draw a conclusion — an almost inescapable one — that the final DHS report on the illegal alien nun-killer contained damaging revelations. So now Obama appointees are scrubbing the report. As this report supposedly went to Secretary Napolitano, this scandal seems to go to the top. I think we have a cover-up in the making.

More than 230 Walmart stores nationwide launched the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign today, with a total of 588 Walmart stores in 27 states joining in the coming weeks. A short video message, available here, will play at select checkout locations to remind shoppers to contact local law enforcement to report suspicious activity.

The program:

The “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign—originally implemented by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and funded, in part, by $13 million from DHS’ Transit Security Grant Program—is a simple and effective program to engage the public and key frontline employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities.

So while standing in line with your inflatable lawn Santa, tampons, dog food, and waiting for your tires to be rotated, you’ll be treated to a freakish video of Napolitano doing anything but actually stopping terrorism, like securing the borders (9/11 began as an immigration issue with the hijackers here on expired visas), paying closer attention to the FBI watch list, and implementing effective security protocols at airports instead of get-lucky random searching.

If only the Department of Homeland Defense followed its own advice.

EMBARGOED 12-8-10 DHS IG Report – ACORN Grants

Contacted by Big Government about the report, incoming Chair of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Rep. Darrell Issa, had this comment:

It is really unthinkable that anyone would use the guise of public safety and helping victims of a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina as a calculating way to inappropriately obtain taxpayer dollars.  As the discussion over how to reign in government’s growth and spending moves forward, there couldn’t be a more important time to ensure that the grants awarded with taxpayer dollars meet rigorous criteria and are subject to vigilant oversight to ensure that grant recipients are not given access to taxpayer dollars under false pretenses.”

The key things in the DHS IG’s report were:

• “We concluded that the ACORN Institute should not have received these funds, did not fully implement and evaluate the program as approved, and could not substantiate all its grant expenditures.
• “The FEMA did not have sufficient oversight processes to prevent the award or to fully evaluate the use of the grant money.”
• The Technical Evaluation Panel that reviewed ACORN’s grant request recommended it not be funded but “FEMA overrode the panels’ recommendation and awarded the grant without documenting how it addressed the Technical Evaluation Panel’s concerns.”
• ACORN described an Urban Fire Initiative that did not actually exist until they requested the funding:  “the Urban Fire Initiative did not exist prior to the grant application, but was created specifically for activities funded by the FY 2007 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant.  Neither ACORN Institute nor the Urban Fire Initiative was involved in any of the above activities and events.”
• ACORN claimed partnerships with local fire departments but “there was no evidence of these partnerships were in place…”
• FEMA relied on “self certification” and “has no requirement or standard procedure in the evaluation process of the Fire Prevention and Safety grant applications to validate the legitimacy of significant claims and assertions used to qualify an applicant for the grant…”

In response to aSeptember 16, 2009 request by Issa and Senator Collins, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Inspections and Evaluations Division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released a report “detailing the results of its investigation of grant funds awarded under HUD’s Housing Counseling Program to ACORN Housing Corporation, Inc. (AHC) of Chicago, now operating as Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).”

“For continued approval as a HUD-approved housing counseling agency and for future awards consideration, AHC (now operating as AHCOA) must bring its operations into full compliance with applicable laws, regulators, and policies governing HUD’s Housing Counseling Program,” the OIG’s report recommends.

“The inability to fully support salary expenses allocated to the HUD grant raises serious concerns about the integrity of those charges, particularly given the millions of Federal and non-Federal dollars made available to AHC in FY 2008 and 2009.  Further, services procured from ACORN “associated” organizations failed to meet the required tests of ‘open and free competition’.  We recommend that HUD’s Office of Single Family Housing, Program Support Division consider placing AHCOA in ‘inactive’ status while its initiatives corrective actions to address the exceptions and recommendations in this report.”

The OIG’s findings included:

• HUD has awarded ACORN more than $19 million in housing counseling grants since 1995.

• ACORN received $3,252,399 in housing counseling grants between 2008 and 2009.  More than $2.544 million (nearly 80%) of the HUD grants were used to pay ACORN’s salaries.

• ACORN may have concealed fraud by destroying or failing to produce records.

• • “A determination could not be made as to what activities the employees performed or which grant to charge for those activities.  Consequently, HUD had no assurance that it did not bear more than its fair share of the costs incurred for salary expenses of AHC’s counselors.” (p.10).

• • “Availability of records impeded [HUD’s] attempt to trace AHC’s summary schedules of counselors’ salary expenses to the housing counseling activities that occurred[.]” (p.11).

• ACORN Housing received more than $27.269 million from other Federal and non-Federal sources.

• NeighborWorks, a congressionally chartered nonprofit, provided ACORN with $25,857,000 million.

• • “AHC’s caseload allocation methodology for salary expenses to the HUD housing counseling grants proved problematic in an environment of multiple funding sources and was unsupported.” (p. 11).

• • NeighborWorks grant funds were misappropriated as well. “The housing counseling service costs were either charged as salary expenses to the HUD housing counseling grants or as fees to the NeighborWorks’ NFMC [National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling] grants.  For counselors who provided services under both grants, reimbursement of their salary costs for HUD billing purposes was based on a percentage derived from the ration of HUD to NFMC cases as opposed to using the actual number of hours attributable to the HUD counseling grant.” (p. 11).

• “Also, missing was documentation of the actual activities to support the percentages of allocations to the HUD grant.” There was “the risk of inequitable charges when counselors’ time was split between HUD, NFMC, and/or other funding sources.” (p. 11).

• ACORN’s use of grants did not comply with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-122.

• • ACORN charged the government salary costs for employees after they were terminated (p.12).

• • ACORN charged 2008 salary expenses to a 2009 grant in violation of Article III and Article IX of the HUD grant agreement (p.12-13).

• ACORN violated 24 CFR Part 84 (federal procurement standards) when it obtained accounting and legal services, leased office space, and sought health care and retirement benefits from its affiliated nonprofits.  These services were obtained by ACORN without ensuring open and free competition as required by law.

• Because ACORN failed to comply with 24 CFR Part 84, § 84.43, which requires that “All procurement transactions shall be conducted in a manner to provide . . . open and free competition [without] conflicts of interest as well as noncompetitive practices”, ACORN’s self-dealing served to funnel taxpayer dollars to its affiliates (p.13).

• • Citizens Consulting, Inc., (CCI) an ACORN affiliate, provided AHC’s accounting and legal services and charged $345,174 to HUD.

• • “CCI’s services were essentially a sole source arrangement that lacked an ‘arms length’ basis for demonstrating cost reasonableness.’” (p. 14).

• • AHC leased office space from ACORN-San Jose, ACORN-Sacramento, Elysian Fields Corporation, and New Mexico Organizing and Support Center – all ACORN affiliates – and “Branch office leasing costs were charged directly to the HUD housing counseling grants” (p. 14).

• • AHC obtained health care benefits for its employees from the Council Health Plan and the Community Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), both were identified as ACORN-owned in Elizabeth Kingsley’s June 18, 2008 report on ACORN mismanagement. “The costs of both plans were billed to the HUD counseling grants” (p. 15).

• • ACORN’s retirement funds were managed by ACORN affiliate Council Benefit Association (CBA).  Costs of $460,630 in 2008 and $384,693 in 2009 were billed to HUD (p. 15).

• Unfortunately, ACORN’s money laundering is impossible to track: “Further, cost or price analysis and documentation to support the basis and justification for the services was not readily available.” (p. 13).