Contempt Before Investigation Quotes

In the sciences...if anyone advances anything new...people resist with all their might; they speak of the new view with contempt, as if it were not worth the trouble of even so much as an investigation or a regard; and thus a new truth may wait a long time before it can win its way." Goethe

an F minus.” I had to agree. I was upset over Mrs. Clinton’s performance, and was even considering bringing the matter before the Washington grand jury for possible indictment on perjury. But proving that someone knowingly lied when they said “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” is extremely difficult, especially if that person is the First Lady. What was clear was that Mrs. Clinton couldn’t be bothered to make it appear as if she were telling the truth.

In the many different scandals of the Obama administration, from Benghazi to Hillary Clinton’s emails, how has Judicial Watch succeeded so often in exposing the truth when Congress has failed? Part of it is the hard, focused, and dogged work of our investigators and the skill, professionalism, and tenacity of our lawyers, as well as our other staff who help support and run one of the most effective citizens’ groups in the country. But it is also because FOIA is a straightforward tool that quickly gives Judicial Watch access to the federal courts in order to ensure compliance with our record requests to ensure transparency. Congressional investigations, when committees bother to conduct them, are political by nature. Their effectiveness is often hindered by committee members of the political party whose president is in the White House in order to protect the president, their party, and their political allies. Congress today relies on the Justice Department to enforce subpoenas issued by committees that are intended to force executive branch compliance with requests for information and witnesses. With a politicized Justice Department, which has been the hallmark of the Obama administration, there is no effective enforcement of such congressional subpoenas. A sorry example of this is the refusal of the Obama Justice Department to enforce the contempt citation against Lois Lerner for refusing to comply with a subpoena for her testimony before the House Committee investigating the IRS scandal. The administration was not about to go to a judge for an order compelling Lerner to testify and reveal what she knew about the administration’s targeting of conservative organizations.

In an apparent effort to retaliate against and undermine the credibility of ATF Agent John Dodson, a whistleblower who exposed Fast and Furious, the Obama Justice Department leaked investigative information to the media. Shortly before Holder was held in contempt, President Obama invoked executive privilege to shield Fast and Furious documents from disclosure.46

file to my right is Brian Gant’s. I open the package, remove the thick sheaf of papers, and begin to read them carefully. Gaines was born in 1966. He was first convicted of aggravated rape at the age of nineteen. He served ten years and was paroled in February of 1995, just two months before Brian Gant’s mother-in-law was murdered. I find the section that contains Gaines’s parole records. They show that in February of 1995, he moved in with a woman named Clara Stoots. As I look at Clara Stoots’s address, an alarm bell goes off inside my head. I grab Brian Gant’s file and quickly locate a copy of the original police report of the murder. I’m looking for the mother-in-law’s address. When I find it, I begin to slowly shake my head. “No,” I say out loud. “No.” Clara Stoots’s address in April of 1995 was 136 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. Shirley LaGuardia, Brian Gant’s mother-in-law, lived at 134 Old Oak Road, Jonesborough, Tennessee. At the time of her murder, Earl Gaines was living right next door. I dig back through Gaines’s file, curious about one thing. At the bottom of the stack are several booking photos of Gaines. I fold my arms on the desk in front of me, drop my head onto them, and start slamming my fist onto the desk in anger and frustration. As little Natalie first told the police—Gaines looked very much like Uncle Brian. Chapter Fifty-Nine Anita White walks unannounced into my office an hour and a half later wearing a smart, navy blue pant suit but looking a bit frazzled. She sits down across the desk from me without saying a word. I’ve called her a couple times since our conversation at the restaurant the morning they arrested Tommy Miller, but she hasn’t answered and hasn’t returned the calls. I wonder whether she’s looking for another apology from me. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” I say. “I’ve been out of the country.” “Vacation?” “I took a few personal days, but I worked the entire time I was gone.” “Really? On what?” “It started with the forensic analysis of Judge Green’s computer. Our analyst found out that someone had hacked into the judge’s computer not long before he was killed. He investigated, like all good TBI agents do, and found that the computer the hacker used was located in another country.” “And what country was that?” “Canada.” The look on her face is almost, but not quite, smug. There’s a gleam in her eye that tells me she knows something that I don’t. I can tell she’s dying to spit it out, but first she wants to enjoy her little game. “Canada’s a big country,” I say. “Yes, and Vancouver’s a big city.” The thought germinates in my mind and begins to grow quickly. Vancouver. Canada. Judge Green. Computer hacker. What do they have in common? It dawns on me suddenly, but I’m afraid to be too optimistic. What has she learned? How far has she taken it? “Talk to me,” I say. “When I saw the Vancouver address, I remembered the case against the pedophile that Judge Green threw out on a technicality. So I got online and looked it up. David Dillinger was the witness that the judge held in contempt that day. So I started doing my job. I checked with airlines at the Tri-Cities airport and found out that David Dillinger flew back here three days before Judge Green was murdered.