{"id":2067,"date":"2024-09-07T06:16:56","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T13:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2024-09-07T06:16:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T13:16:57","slug":"kamalas-brother-in-law-fleeced-taxpayers-for-billions-to-give-to-left-wing-groups-and-lawyers-new-york-post-8-24-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2024\/09\/07\/kamalas-brother-in-law-fleeced-taxpayers-for-billions-to-give-to-left-wing-groups-and-lawyers-new-york-post-8-24-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamala\u2019s brother-in-law fleeced taxpayers for billions to give to left-wing groups and lawyers | New York Post | 8.24. 24"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Clark S Judge and Daniel Huff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Biden\u2019s son, Hunter, may be the current world-class champ of presidential-family shady dealings, but not for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Kamala Harris wins the White House, her brother-in-law, Tony West, who is married to her sister Maya, is poised to claim the crooked crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Hunter, West learned his craft in the Obama years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then head of the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Division, he invented a new form of what 19th<\/sup>-early 20th<\/sup> centuries Tammany boss George Washington Plunkett famously called \u201cHonest Graft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was simple. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until 1977, Congress had to approve any settlement of a civil suit against the Federal government over $100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This preserved the Constitutional requirement that Congress control the government\u2019s purse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in that year, seeking relief from the burgeoning volume of suits to review, Congress removed the cap, handing the Justice Department a permanent blank check to pay settlements unilaterally, in any amount, out of an account known as the Judgment Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Run by the Treasury Department, the Judgment Fund\u2019s secrecy is so complete that our often-penetrated CIA might study it for lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limited data<\/a> released omits<\/a> recipients, the facts underlying the case, and often the lawyers involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By statute, attorneys\u2019 fees awarded need not be disclosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Government Accountability Office study concluded that \u201cno<\/a> one knows the number of claims processed by the federal government each year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, for three decades, the integrity of Justice\u2019s officials sufficed to prevent abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 2009, Tony West took over the department\u2019s Civil Division, the division that litigates and settles lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once West arrived, his deputy emailed colleagues asking \u201ccan you explain to Tony the best way to allocate some money toward an organization of our choosing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settlements became the vehicle for paying off political allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in late 2010, after a Supreme Court victory, DOJ lawyers were on the cusp of winning a decade-long fight against discrimination claims by 91 Hispanic and female farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s when West intervened and, as The New York Times<\/em> put it, \u201cengineered a stunning turnabout<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOJ agreed to a $1.33 billion settlement which included thousands of farmers who had never claimed bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal was made over the \u201cvehement objections\u201d of the department\u2019s career lawyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The<\/em> Times\u2019s<\/em> investigative report<\/a> described West\u2019s settlement as a \u201crunaway train, driven by racial politics . . . and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The projected settlement size ballooned to over $4.4 billion as additional plaintiffs were added, including Native American farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government\u2019s statistical expert was appalled: \u201c\u2018If they had gone to trial, the government would have prevailed . . . It was just a joke. . . . I was so disgusted. It was simply buying the support of the Native Americans.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This dirty deal also inflated the number of claimants, creating a $60 million<\/a> windfall for the plaintiff\u2019s lead<\/a> lawyer, a member of the Obama\/Biden transition team<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But West did not just bilk taxpayers. He shook down corporations, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a series of bank settlements, his team added increasingly aggressive provisions requiring the institutions to make nearly a billion dollars in mandatory donations<\/a> to Democrat-supporting activist groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donations were given double credit against required targets, incentivizing these payments over direct relief to victims of the housing crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

West\u2019s team specifically structured the terms to ensure that they would benefit only their political allies while leaving conservative groups ineligible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An internal email<\/a> shows West deputies rewording a settlement\u2019s donation provisions to ensure the bank could not select a \u201cconservative\u201d property rights organization as a recipient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, West grew even more brazen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2016 Volkswagen settlement required the company to fund a $2 billion White House electric car initiative that Congress had specifically rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largesse delighted liberal groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An email circulated saying they ought to build a \u201cstatue<\/a>\u201d to West and \u201cbow down to this statue each day after we receive our $200,000+.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this legal shakedown, California\u2019s attorney general at the time, Kamala Harris, was an active participant, cosigning<\/a> the agreements for her state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden-Harris Administration has continued West\u2019s \u201cHonest Graft\u201d tactics to reward political allies on the taxpayers\u2019 dime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, a billion-dollar settlement<\/a> with illegal immigrants claiming emotional distress was scotched<\/a> only after public outcry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even then, DOJ quietly agreed<\/a> to pay attorneys\u2019 fees to the ACLU lawyers in the long-running case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the Department agreed to pay $2 million<\/a> to FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for releasing their anti-Trump texts to Congressional investigators worried about political bias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair claimed a violation of the Privacy Act, but the messages were sent on their government-issue phones which contain clear<\/a> banner warnings that users lack any reasonable expectation of privacy.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOJ had ample basis to litigate this case to completion before surrendering hard earned tax dollars to the disgraced FBI agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This form of civic corruption is not<\/em> bipartisan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of his administration, President Trump\u2019s Attorney General banned<\/a> settlement slush funds, while one of the early acts of the Biden-Harris DOJ was to rescind<\/a> that ban.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats have used this year\u2019s convention to cry that Donald Trump is in this race only for himself, though not one of their many court cases against him charges misdirected government funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Tony West-invented, Biden-Harris operated \u201cHonest Graft\u201d machine pours taxpayer billions into left-wing activist groups, and West is said<\/a> to be Harris\u2019s White House counsel-in-waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunter Biden step aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new \u201cBig Guy\u201d is coming to town. Kamala, with the help of Tony West and his cronies, will show you how Honest Graft is really done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Huff is a former counsel to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.<\/em> Clark S. Judge is managing director of the White House Writers Group, Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Clark S Judge and Daniel Huff Joe Biden\u2019s son, Hunter, may be the current world-class champ of presidential-family shady dealings, but not for long. If Kamala Harris wins the White House, her brother-in-law, Tony West, who is married to her sister Maya, is poised to claim the crooked crown. Like Hunter, West learned his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}