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10. In keeping with this Court's December, 1998 orders, I also
sought
unsuccessfully to ensure that the Department put proper
procedures in place to
turn over all responsive documents to Judicial Watch, as
appropriate. I
suggested to top Commerce officials that, if the OGC were to
remain
substantively involved in the decision-making process to release
or withhold,
that the re-search procedures must include a systematic and
consistent means
of resolving any conflicts which might arise between FOIA
officers and OGC
determinations. I believed this was significant because the
first search
procedures had no "check and balance" safeguards to ensure that
conflicts
between FOIA Officer and OGC determinations were resolved
appropriately;
all final determinations were made by OGC attorneys/advisors,
often absent
discussion with or knowledge of FOIA Officers. In other words,
Commerce
FOIA officers, such as Brenda Dolan, might send a document to
OGC with a
FOIA Officer determination for release, but OGC would improperly
treat this
FOIA Officer determination as a recommendation only and assume
final
authority to determine whether to release or withhold documents.
At times, the
OGC determinations were at odds with my FOIA Officers'
determinations and,
in those cases, the OGC would, in effect, "overrule" improperly
the FOIA
Officers' determinations and unilaterally withhold documents.
This practice
occurred without any objective, independent internal review to
adjudicate the
conflicting determinations. Also, given the Court's criticism of
OGC's conduct in
the first FOIA searches, I believed it would contravene the
spirit and intent of
the Court's orders to allow Judith Means and Barbara Fredericks
to participate
in the second FOIA search without an independent entity
evaluating their
release/withhold determinations. In January 1999, I thought I
had partially
succeeded in my efforts to institute procedural safeguards for
the second
search when I received a phone call at home from CFO/Assistant
Secretary
Gould, my immediate supervisor. Assistant Secretary Gould called
to inform
me that Secretary Daley, after reading relevant portions of this
Court's
decision, had decided and instructed that Judith Means should
not be involved
in the second Judicial Watch FOIA search ordered by this Court.
However,
despite Secretary Daley's "orders" to the contrary, Ms. Means
did continue to
participate substantially and substantively in the second FOIA
search. Ms.
Fredericks effectively controlled the second search, despite
representations
that the second search would be spearheaded by the Chief of
Staff's office.
11. Additionally, I initiated several discussions with Commerce
Inspector
General Johnnie Frazier, who had served as one of Frank
DeGeorge's
Assistant Inspectors General, to alert him that the re-search
procedures
needed procedural safeguards to ensure that the second search
results were
not flawed like the first search results. Given Mr. Frazier's
"monitoring" role in
the second search, I recommended to him that, before he
sanctioned and
"signed-off" on the new procedures, he and his staff should
ensure that they
contained a consistent methodology for resolving conflicting
determinations
made by FOIA Officers and OGC attorneys/advisors. Also, I
suggested that the
procedures contain a means to determine when such conflicts
arose so that
FOIA Officers would at least be able to learn whether the OGC
had determined
to release or withhold the documents they forwarded. Mr. Frazier
informed me
that he would not "second-guess" OGC's decisions to withhold
certain
documents. Further, while Mr. Frazier agreed that instituting
such safeguards
would be a good idea, his office did not ultimately require that
such safeguards
be instituted prior to "signing off" that they were sufficient.
I had similar
discussions with other officials, including officials in the
Chief of Staff's office,
suggesting and requesting that they require that such "check and
balance"
safeguards be built into the second search procedures, but to no
avail.
12. I am aware that, during the second search, OGC staff
reported to the FOIA
staff that certain documents responsive to Judicial Watch's FOIA
request which
were to have been under OGC's control had been "lost" and could
not be
located. The FOIA staff suggested to OGC staff that they look
for the "lost"
documents in the OGC safe, but OGC staff maintained that the
documents
were not there. The FOIA staff then initiated an intensive
search for the "lost"
documents, and learned subsequently, while they were searching
for these
"lost" documents, that the OGC had, in fact, found the "lost"
documents in the
OGC safe. In sum, inasmuch as procedures for the Court-ordered
second
search did not vary substantially from those used during the
first search; and,
inasmuch as no systematic, consistent procedures were ever
instituted to
ensure that all documents FOIA officers determined should be
released were,
in fact, released by the OGC; and inasmuch as the OGC
participants whose
behavior the Court admonished during the first search continued
to play a
material and substantial role during the second search, I
believe that the Court
and Judicial Watch have no assurance that the OGC allowed the
release of all
FOIA-releasable and responsive documents required by the Court's
December
1998 order.
13. I have spoken with George Grafeld, a career civil servant
and colleague
who formerly worked for the Office of Business Liaison under its
former
Director Melissa Moss. (Ms. Moss, when deposed by Judicial Watch
for a
deposition presented to this Court, was asked to name OBL staff
members
during her tenure as OBL Director. Under oath, Ms. Moss, failed
to name Mr.
Grafeld and Lyne-Marie Griffin, a career civil servant,
notwithstanding that both
Mr. Grafeld and Ms. Griffin were, in fact, OBL staff members
under Ms. Moss's
tenure.) Mr. Grafeld told me that during Ms. Moss's tenure, he
saw computer
diskettes in OBL that were labeled "contributions/trade
missions." Mr. Grafeld
said he knows that these diskettes were never handed over to
Judicial Watch
or the Court in this FOIA case. Ms. Griffin also saw these
diskettes, according
to Mr. Grafeld. Mr. Grafeld also told me that when he worked at
OBL, he
learned of letters from Melissa Moss to trade mission
participants which
referenced contributions they made to the Democratic Party in
order to go on
the trade missions at issue in this case. Mr. Grafeld told me he
had discounted
these stories about Ms. Moss's fundraising letters until he saw
press reports of
Nolanda Hill's testimony about the Moss letters that Secretary
Ron Brown
showed her. Mr. Grafeld believes these letters were created from
information
that came from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), working
in
conjunction with the White House. Further, he believes that the
letters were
taken by a Commerce OBL employee, Jose Ceballos, to be printed
at an
outside print shop owned by Mr. Ceballos' uncle in the
Washington, DC
suburbs. Mr. Grafeld also reported that he saw a colleague at
OBL, Twanna
Smith, working on what he understood were these kinds of
letters, although he
was not allowed to see them.
14. According to Mr. Grafeld, Melissa Moss tasked certain OBL
employees,
including Ms. Griffin, to enter names, including "political"
names, into
computers at OBL. Ms. Moss restricted access to the room where
information
was being entered into the computer, and Mr. Grafeld was not
allowed to even
be in the same room as the computer on which Ms. Griffin was
inputting
names. Mr. Grafeld reports that John Ost, a former Commerce OBL
employee
and political appointee, also worked on this project which
eventually grew to
40,000 names. From reading Mr. Ost's deposition to this Court, I
learned that
he admitted to receiving faxes from the Democratic National
Committee
(DNC) with the names of some donors, and he said that he gave
them to
Melissa Moss in response to Judicial Watch's FOIA requests. I
also
understand that these documents were never produced. Mr. Ost
later left the
Commerce Department (where Mr. Grafeld believes he earned
approximately
$45,000 per annum) to work for the DNC (where Mr. Grafeld
believes he
earned approximately $120,000 per annum). According to Mr.
Grafeld, Kathy
Kellogg also participated in the "names" project in OBL and
warned Mr.
Grafeld to mind his own business when he inquired about the
names being
compiled. (Ms. Kellogg died in the tragic plane crash along with
Secretary
Brown, OBL Deputy Director Gail Dobert, and others.) Mr. Grafeld
reported to
me that Ms. Moss was intent on developing the list of names
using information
provided by political appointees and various agencies within the
Commerce
Department, including the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau
refused to
provide information to OBL, citing privacy laws prohibiting the
Census Bureau
from sharing the data requested. Ms. Moss then instructed Mr.
Grafeld to
devise a way to obtain names from Commerce agencies via computer
without
the agencies knowing about it. Mr. Grafeld told her that this
could not be done.
Ms. Moss became upset with Mr. Grafeld and ultimately, Ms. Moss
initiated a
Reduction-In-Force ("RIF") in OBL which resulted in Mr. Grafeld
and Ms. Griffin
losing their jobs in OBL, leaving only political appointees
working in OBL.
15. Mr. Grafeld told me, referring to Judicial Watch's
allegations that
Commerce Department trade mission seats were sold in exchange for
campaign contributions, that "(Judicial Watch Chairman and
General Counsel)
Klayman is right on target" but that he believes that the trade
mission issues
were "only the tip of the iceberg -- that the really big money
went towards
Presidential access." Mr. Grafeld indicated to me that he
believes that Ms.
Moss was asking for political contributions in exchange for
seats on
Commerce Department trade missions, likely at the direction of
Hillary
Rodham Clinton, but that documents showing this illegal activity
had "left the
building." In fact, there were effectively no security
procedures at the
Commerce Department to ensure that sensitive and secret
documents and/or
any documents which might evidence criminal activity stayed in
the building.
The purported letters referenced by Mr. Grafeld and Nolanda Hill
could easily
have "left the building" absent sufficient procedures to secure
them.
16. In my role as Commerce FOIA Director, I have reviewed
Commerce
Department documents showing that Commerce Department officials
offered
to contact White House official Bruce Lindsey concerning the
vetting of
participants, such as James Riady of the Lippo Group, in trade
mission events
led by late Secretary Brown. I have also reviewed Commerce
Department
documents which show that Commerce officials did coordinate with
White
House official Doris Matsui concerning potential participants in
trade mission
activities, and that Commerce Department officials considered
support for the
President and Democratic Party during their review.
17. I participated in Commerce Department meetings concerning
the selection
of trade mission participants prior to March 2000 when I moved
to NOAA.
While criteria for selection of participants were developed
after the Brown
Administration in an attempt to address public perceptions of
politicization of
trade missions, the current process still lends itself to
subjective determinations
in many respects.
I swear under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and
correct. Executed
on July 7, 2000 in Litchfield Beach, South Carolina.
_____________________ Sonya Stewart
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