"It is not every day in congressional investigations that we find a smoking gun," Goodlatte, R-Va., said Tuesday. "Here, we have it."
The Obama Justice Department struck up an unusual deal with prosecutors. Large corporations were forced to divert some of their settlement payments to outside groups that had no connection to their lawsuits.
"Republican lawmakers long have decried those payments as a ’slush fund’ that boosted liberal groups, and the Trump DOJ ended the practice earlier this year," Fox News reports.The funds could have been used to help Americans, but instead, Holder and Obama used to money to pad liberal causes. Conservative groups were more than overlooked, they were explicitly excluded.
"Aiding their political allies was only the half of it," Goodlatte said. "The evidence of the Obama DOJ’s abuse of power shows that... (his) team went out of its way to exclude conservative groups."
The Obama administration repeatedly discriminated against conservatives. The man who was deemed the next great American hope turned out to be a typical politician. He used his Justice Department to reward his friends and supporters.
"When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people ‐ not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power," current Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.
Obama was a smooth talker. People were so distracted by his honeyed words that they were tricked into thinking that he was an upstanding guy. The Obama administration was as corrupt as any other, perhaps more so, yet liberals remember him as an honest politician.
Goodlatte’s uncovered emails show that Justice Department officials complained about Holder’s process.
"Concerns include: a) not allowing Citi to pick a statewide intermediary like the Pacific Legal Foundation (does conservative property-rights legal services)," the official wrote under the title of "Acting Senior Counselor for Access to Justice."
"We are more likely to get the right result from a state bar association affiliated entity."
The Justice Department wasn’t supposed to involve itself in choosing recipients for its slush fund but it’s clear that they did.
"We are flattered that the previous administration would be concerned enough about our success vindicating individual liberty and property rights to prevent settlement funds from making their way to Pacific Legal Foundation," PLF CEO Steven D. Anderson said in a statement.
The groups who were lucky enough to be funded obviously expressed a different view of the scheme.
"Now that it has been more than 24 hours for us all to try and digest the Bank of America settlement, I would like to discuss ways we might want to recognize and show appreciation for the Department of Justice and specifically Associate Attorney General Tony West," wrote Charles R. Dunlap, executive director of the Indiana Bar, in a 2014 email.
He added that West "by all accounts was the one person most responsible...for the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts group receiving money."
"Frankly, I would be willing to have us build a statue [of West] and then we could bow down to this statue each day after we get our $200,000," someone crudely responded to Dunlap’s email.
Obama and Holder probably thought that their secrets were buried. Obama, in particular, has been sure to keep his name in the public’s eye. He’s even gone back to giving political speeches. It’s hard to believe that he would seek so much publicity if he knew his crimes were going to be revealed.