Judicial Watch Sues for Records of Clinton State Department Protocol Officer

State Department Official Went to Fundraise for Clinton Foundation, Clinton Campaign

 
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it sued the U.S. Department of State for emails, calendar entries and other information in the electronic file of Dennis Cheng, who was Deputy Chief of Protocol for two years under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-00221)).
 
Cheng was deputy chief of protocol of the United States from July 2009-July 2011. Following his tenure at the State Department, Cheng joined the Clinton Family Foundation as director of development, and then in April 2015 became finance director of the Hillary for America presidential campaign.
 
Prior to joining the Clinton State Department, Cheng was finance director in New York for Mrs. Clinton’s successful campaign for Senate.
 
Judicial Watch filed the complaint after the State Department failed to respond to a December 21, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for:
 

[T]he PST file of Dennis Cheng. Mr. Cheng served as Deputy Chief of Protocol of the United States from July 20, 2009 to July 2011. A PST file is a Personal Storage Table, an open proprietary file format used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within Microsoft software such as Microsoft Exchange Client, Windows Messaging, and Microsoft Outlook.

 
While at the Clinton Foundation, Cheng raised $246 million in just over three-and-a-half years, July 2011-February 2015. A separate FOIA lawsuit by Citizens United found that Cheng communicated with Huma Abedin about a major Clinton Foundation dinner and other issues.
 
Previous Judicial Watch FOIA litigation uncovered the Clinton email scandal and ethics scandal, Bill Clinton’s conflicts of interest issues, and the pay-to-play scandal involving the Clinton State Department and donors to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaigns.
 
“Judicial Watch proved the Clinton State Department became a corrupt arm of the Clinton Foundation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Justice and State Departments seem to be still protecting Hillary Clinton. Judicial Watch is stepping into the gap and, though this and other ongoing FOIA lawsuits, aims to expose and hold the Clinton cash machine accountable to the rule of law.”
 

Interior Department Sells Oil Leases Next to Three National Monuments in Utah

DENVER—Today, the Bureau of Land Management sold oil and gas leases covering 51,400 acres of public lands in southeastern Utah, including parcels adjacent to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and in close proximity to Bears Ears and Hovenweep National Monuments. The three monuments are best-known for significant Native American cultural heritage, including high densities of ruins, rock art, and other artifacts.  

In response, the Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Greg Zimmerman:

“The Trump administration’s all-out assault on America’s public lands was on full display this morning in southern Utah. In its rush to drill everywhere, the Interior Department handed out leases on the doorstep of three national monuments that protect our nation’s natural and cultural heritage. At this rate, Americans visiting national parks and monuments in Utah will soon be met by a pumpjack at every park entrance.”

The 965 acre parcel next to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument received a winning bid of only $7 per acre. The 360 acre parcel near Bears Ears received a winning bid of $28 per acre, while a group of 13 parcels near Hovenweep sold for an average of $29 per acre. Click here for a complete list of winning bids.

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Learn More

• Photos: Drilling America’s Heritage
• Not in their wildest dreams: Trump administration granting energy industry wishes at a breakneck pace
• Oil lease bordering Missouri River Breaks National Monument sold for minimum bid of $2 per acre

For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. To speak with an expert on public lands, contact Aaron Weiss at 720-279-0019 or aaron@westernpriorities.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox.

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The Center for Western Priorities is a conservation policy and advocacy organization focused on land and energy issues across the American West

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3 Reasons Your Retirement

Is One Big Math Problem

Retirees concerned about running out of money often fret about how inflation can ruin their plans.

While that’s understandable, it’s also possible that their worries are misdirected.

“The No. 1 disaster that hurts people in retirement is not inflation,” says Brian Decker, a financial planner and founder of Decker Retirement Planning Inc. (www.Deckerretirementplanning.com).

“Instead, it is stock market crashes. In fact, a stock market crash can be so devastating that it can take you right out of retirement and put you in a situation where you have to go back to work.”

Put simply, it’s a matter of math and he says that math sometimes can be problematic for retirees for a few reasons:

• Percentages work against you. If the market takes a 50 percent tumble, the climb to just get back to break even is steep. “A 50 percent recovery would not do the trick,” Decker says. “You would need a 100 percent increase to get to where you were before the crash.” Think of it this way. If you have a $100,000 investment that loses 50 percent, that drops you to $50,000. A 50 percent recovery would just give you $75,000. And when you’re retirement age, you don’t have a lot of time to recover.
• Markets decline twice as fast as they rise. “One of the first things you will notice when you look at stock charts is how fast the market unravels,” Decker says. In the mid 1990s, the market went on a bull run, but it took a little more than five years for it to reach its peak in 2000, he says. By contrast, it took just 2½ years for it to lose 50 percent of its value.
• Market timing in general does not work. Some financial professionals advocate a “buy and hold” strategy, encouraging people to ride out the markets. One reason for that strategy is so you don’t miss out on the market’s best days, which can send your portfolio value soaring. “People may have seen charts outlining what the negative impact on your return would be if you miss those best days,” Decker says. “But the flipside of that is there is a positive impact on your return if you avoid the market’s worst days. You can’t miss all the worst days, of course, but the moral when it comes to market risk is that market timing in general doesn’t work.”

There are approaches retirees can take with their money other than planning to hang tight in the market with a “buy and hold” strategy, Decker says.

“For one thing, you want to have cash available that you can get to in case of an emergency or unexpected expense,” he says. “You also want some accounts where there is little to no risk to your principal.

“Finally, depending on how the math works out, you may or may not need to put a percentage of your money in investments that carry some risk. At our firm, for example, we use a strategy that takes advantage of market risk in both bull and bear markets. But it’s going to behoove anyone in or near retirement to sit down with your financial professional and work the math for your situation.”

About Brian Decker

Brian Decker, a financial planner and founder of Decker Retirement Planning Inc. (www.Deckerretirementplanning.com), has more than 30 years of experience in asset management and has worked for several brokerage firms. He became a fiduciary in 1995 and since then has created several investment models and honed his risk-management skills with a focus on investment models designed to make money in up or down markets. He has a degree in finance and marketing from the University of Washington.