OPINION
PAUL
L. FRIEDMAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
On
August 29, 2018, plaintiffs Gary John Byrne and the GJB
Project, also known as GJB LLC, filed an Amended Complaint
[Dkt. No. 51] - the third complaint that plaintiffs have
filed in this action. Now pending before the Court are
motions to dismiss the Amended Complaint from each of the
four defendants remaining in this case: Hillary Rodham
Clinton [Dkt. No. 57], John Podesta [Dkt. No. 58], David
Brock [Dkt. No. 59], and Peter Strzok [Dkt. No. 67]. Upon
careful consideration of the briefs, the relevant legal
authorities, and the entire record in this case, the Court
will grant each defendant's motion to
dismiss.[1]
I.
BACKGROUND
A.
Procedural History
Plaintiffs
initiated this civil action by filing a Complaint [Dkt. No.
1] on June 15, 2018, and then a Corrected Complaint [Dkt. No.
3] on June 19, 2018. The two initial complaints asserted
claims under state law and under the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1961 et seq., against fifteen
individuals and organizations. A number of the defendants
named in the initial and corrected complaints filed motions
to dismiss the complaints. See Dkt. Nos. 44-50.
Rather than responding to those motions to dismiss, however,
plaintiffs filed the Amended Complaint [Dkt. No. 51] on
August 29, 2018. In addition to shortening the factual
allegations, the Amended Complaint omits one cause of action,
removes a number of previously named individual and
organizational defendants, and identifies an additional
individual defendant.
The
Amended Complaint supersedes the Complaint and the Corrected
Complaint. The Court therefore dismissed as moot the seven
motions to dismiss that either targeted the superseded
complaints or were filed by defendants who are no longer
parties to this case. Byrne v. Clinton Found., et
al., 2019 WL 1330637 (D.D.C. March 25, 2019). As
plaintiffs have confirmed, only four identified defendants
remain parties to this case: Hillary Rodham Clinton, John
Podesta, David Brock, and Peter Strzok. See Response
of Plaintiffs to Order of March 25, 2019, Dkt. No. 76 (also
indicating that there are “numerous named unknown
defendants”). The motions to dismiss of these four
individuals are now before the Court.
B.
The Plaintiffs' Allegations
Plaintiff
Gary J. Byrne is an author and commentator who served as a
uniformed officer of the United States Secret Service during
the administration of President William Jefferson Clinton.
Plaintiff the GJB Project, “also known as GJB LLC,
” is identified as “the legal entity by which
Officer Byrne conducts his business affairs, ” but the
Amended Complaint does not otherwise attribute any action or
injury to the GJB Project specifically. See Amended
Complaint at 3. Defendant Hillary Rodham Clinton was,
inter alia, the Democratic Party's nominee for
President of the United States in 2016. Amended Complaint at
4. John Podesta was the chairman of Hillary Clinton's
2016 campaign. Amended Complaint at 5. David Brock is the
founder and leader of a number of the media organizations
previously named as defendants in this action, including
Media Matters for America. Id. at 3. Peter Strzok
was an FBI Agent who was part of an investigation of Hillary
Clinton that preceded the 2016 election. Id. at 6.
The
Amended Complaint alleges that Hillary Clinton and her
co-defendants conspired to form, and did conduct and direct,
a “vastly expanding criminal [e]nterprise, ”
Amended Complaint at 6, whose aim was “to destroy Byrne
and his business, ” id. at 8. The conspiracy
began “at least a few years before year 2016, ”
and “likely [continues] through the present
time.” Id. at 27; see also id. at 6
(“beginning at a time before 2016 and continuing
through at least year 2016”). In addition to the four
named defendants, Mr. Byrne describes an effort that includes
many named and unnamed non-defendant “Enterprise
Members” holding senior positions in the media, law
enforcement, and the intelligence community. See,
e.g., id. at 3-6. Mr. Byrne refers to this
group of defendants and non-defendants collectively as the
“Enterprise” and ascribes to them a “common
purpose to prepare a false and defamatory ‘dossier'
on [p]laintiff Gary Byrne, which they could disseminate
throughout the media and therefore harm [p]laintiffs.”
Id. at 26.
In
2016, Mr. Byrne published a book entitled Crisis of
Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His
Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They
Operate (“Crisis of Character” or
the “Book”). Amended Complaint at 8. The Book
purportedly describes “significant transgressions of
President William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodham
Clinton” that Mr. Byrne says that he observed during
his tenure as a Secret Service Agent in the mid-1990s.
See id. Mr. Byrne also testified on these matters
before a grand jury convened by Independent Counsel Kenneth
Starr and believes that the testimony he gave was
“instrumental in the impeachment of President William
Clinton.” Id. at 8. Mr. Byrne posits that
defendants “have sworn reprisal ever since, and have
sought payback against Byrne, utilizing [RICO] predicate acts
and defamatory per se tactics to destroy Byrne and
his business and, with Byrne and the other Plaintiffs [sic]
out of the way, provide a path to a second Clinton
presidency.” Id. at 8.
Mr.
Byrne identifies three causes of action. Count One alleges
that each defendant participated in the affairs of a RICO
enterprise through a “pattern of racketeering
activity” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c).
Amended Complaint at 25-30. Count Two alleges that this
pattern of racketeering activity was the result of a
conspiracy among all four defendants, which RICO
independently prohibits under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d).
Id. at 31.[2] Count Three is a “defamation claim
under Arkansas Law” against defendants Hillary Clinton,
John Podesta, and David Brock for violating Arkansas Code
§ 16-63-207(a)(1). Id. at 31-33.
1.
Count One: Pattern of Racketeering Activity
In
Count One, plaintiffs claim that defendants committed three
of the qualifying predicate offenses listed in 18 U.S.C.
§ 1961(1)(B). Amended Complaint at 25-30. First, Count
One alleges the predicate offense of bribery in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 201: “Hillary Clinton and John
Podesta, with the assistance of David Brock, bribed
independent contractors and government officials to provide
sources of false information about Byrne.” Id.
at 10. The Amended Complaint contains many variations on this
claim, most of them undifferentiated as to the sources or
recipients of any particular bribe. See,
e.g., id. at 4-5, 6-7, 9, 24, 25, 27,
33.[3]
Second,
Count One alleges the predicate offense of witness tampering
and obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C §
1512. The core of the obstruction allegation is that
defendants illegally “destroy[ed] inculpatory
documents” that were obtained by bribery and stored on
Ms. Clinton's email servers. Amended Complaint at 7-8;
see id. at 23 (alleging that Hillary Clinton and
John Podesta, among others, “destroyed thousands of
Enterprise emails . . . [and] emails containing classified
information”). Mr. Byrne claims that some of the
deleted files mentioned him and that the deletion of the
emails constituted obstruction of justice because it
“destroyed evidence under subpoena.” Id.
at 23. Plaintiffs also allege that Mr. Strzok took no action
with respect to the destruction of documents, id. at
10, and that he “corruptly conducted” interviews
and failed to take other investigative steps during the
investigation of Ms. Clinton that he supervised. Id.
at 23, 28.
Third,
Count One alleges the predicate offense of a Travel Act
violation under 18 U.S.C. § 1952. Plaintiffs claim that
defendants used “mail and facilities, e.g., the
Massachusetts safe house[, ] for conspiracy in interstate
commerce with clear intent to promote, manage, carry on and
facilitate . . . unlawful activity.” Amended Complaint
at 27-28; see id. at 4-5 (indicating that the
safehouse was used “to destabilize Donald J. Trump,
Sr., in his bid for the presidency, the destruction and
veiling of thousands of illicit Hillary Clinton electronic
mail transmissions, and [to] further the Enterprise
Operational Scheme”). Specifically, Mr. Brock is
alleged to have used “facilities in interstate commerce
(such as internet outlets and other media outlets)” to
disseminate “false information about Mr. Byrne”
allegedly obtained via bribery. Id. at 7.
2.
Count Two: Conspiracy to Engage in Pattern of Racketeering
Activity
Mr.
Byrne alleges that the defendants “did cooperate
jointly and severally in the commission of two or more”
of the foregoing racketeering predicate offenses and that
“[e]ach defendant agreed that a conspirator would
commit at least two acts of racketeering” in violation
of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). Amended Complaint at 31. Other
than this bare conclusion, however, the allegations do not
contain facts in support of the conspiracy claim beyond those
presented in the underlying racketeering activity claim.
See id. at 31. Most of those allegations about the
alleged racketeering activities ascribe an action to multiple
defendants without details on the nature of their agreement,
if any. See, e.g., id. at 10
(“Defendants Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, with the
assistance of David Brock, bribed independent contactors and
government officials to provide sources of false information
about Byrne.”).[4]
3.
Count Three: Defamation
Plaintiffs
allege that defendants Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and
David Brock, “individually and collectively, attempted
to destroy the reputation and business of Byrne and other
[p]laintiff with false statements in writing and on
television.” Amended Complaint at 32. Plaintiffs assert
this cause of action under Arkansas Code §
16-63-207(a)(1).[5] The essence of the claim is that David
Brock, in cooperation with a variety of individuals and
entities, defamed plaintiffs by questioning the accuracy of
Mr. Byrne's book Crisis of Character in a
variety of media formats.
The
Amended Complaint provides only brief excerpts of the
allegedly defamatory statements. See, e.g.,
Amended Complaint at 13 (“Enterprise members, including
David Brock, through its [sic] vehicle Correct the
Record and enabling libel ‘From the Desk of David
Brock,' defamed plaintiff by referring to Crisis
as ‘recycled gossip,' ‘debunked
lies,' and ‘Trump-esque conspiracy
theories . . . .”) (emphases in original);
id. at 14 (“[Non-defendants] directly and
falsely questioned Plaintiff's veracity and slandered him
on [CNN] . . . directly stating and otherwise inferring [sic]
that plaintiff was a criminal . . . .”). The
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