Victory: Court Rules AG Kris Mayes’ Office Broke Law
Judicial Watch Sues for Emails Between FOIA Officer and Top Health Officials
Victory: Court Rules AG Kris Mayes’ Office Failed to Follow the Law
Judicial Watch Sues for Records on New Jersey ICE Facility Breach
Chinese Man Gets $59 Million in Covid Relief, Launders Half to China
Biden Judge Rules Muslim Terrorist Has Right to Keep Hijab in Prison
Judicial Watch Sues for Emails Between FOIA Officer and Top Health Officials
Key decisions were made behind closed doors at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s federal health agency during the pandemic, and the American people have a right to know what was hidden from them.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for all email communications between National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) FOIA Officer Margaret Moore and top NIAID officials, including former Director Dr. Anthony Fauci (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:26-cv-01491)).
Moore is the “FOIA Lady” who allegedly taught David Morens, pandemic-era NIAID senior advisor to Fauci, “how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d” to cloak top NIAID officials’ communications from ever seeing the light of day.
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to respond to a June 4, 2024, FOIA request for all email communications between Moore (the “FOIA Lady”) and any of the following:
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci
NIAID Senior Advisor David Morens
NIH Bioethics Official Christine Grady
NIAID Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchincloss, M.D.
NIAID Deputy Director H. Richard Lane
EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak
In June 2023 the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, announced its investigation of “a potential violation of federal record keeping laws” by Morens at the NIAID. The subcommittee chair wrote: “In one e-mail you write that you ‘always try to communicate over gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly.’ You continue, ‘[d]on’t worry, just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.’”
As part of the expanding investigation into NIH records practices, congressional investigators began examining the role of FOIA processing officials in handling or advising on records requests involving senior agency personnel.
Moore came to congressional attention in 2024 during the subcommittee’s investigation into NIH communications practices and alleged efforts to avoid federal records disclosure requirements. In September 2024, the subcommittee sent a letter and subpoena to Moore regarding Morens’ communications. Her attorney informed Congress that she intended to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Morens was indicted for allegedly helping to conceal and destroy federal records, evading FOIA requests, and using personal email to hide Covid-related communications during the pandemic. The indictment references a March 2021 Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that uncovered many NIH communications, contracts and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Our FOIA lawsuits and investigations have uncovered much of what the public knows about many Covid-19 controversies:
In April 2026, we sued the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records and communications of its employees with other government officials regarding coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and related Covid-19 research.
In March 2026, we sued the U.S. Department of Defense (War Department) for records on funding proposals submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Biological Technologies Office was launched in 2014.
In June 2025, we sued the Defense Department for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit cited a December 2022 reportissued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited Covid-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.
In May 2025, we received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that revealed its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.
Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”
Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.
Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.
Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.
Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.
National Institutes of Health records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
Health and Human Services records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the National Institutes of Health’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
Health and Human Services records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international councils as high level commitment from China.”
Health and Human Services records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
Health and Human Services records showed the State Department and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding Covid-19 data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.
Health and Human Services records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
Health and Human Services records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.
Health and Human Services records showed that National Institutes of Health officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
Victory: Court Rules AG Kris Mayes’ Office Failed to Follow the Law
We’re shedding light on left-wing election shenanigans in Arizona.
The Arizona Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s decision that allowed Arizona State Attorney General Kris Mayes to hide documents about anti-Trump legal actions with a controversial outside left-wing group.
The decision cited failures by the Mayes’ office to both properly search for and justify the secrecy of records concerning its coordination with States United Democracy Center.
A spokesman for Mayes told a media outlet the office would not appeal the ruling.
We filed the lawsuit in February 2025 in Maricopa County Superior Court after the attorney general’s office failed to comply with a public records request seeking records about its dealings with the States United Democracy Center and theVoter Protection Program (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Mayes (CV 2025-005732)). The request included records concerning discussions about investigating electors or challenging the 2020 election involving Donald Trump.
The attorney general’s office produced only limited records in December 2024. It withheld additional documents, citing attorney-client and work-product privilege—but provided no explanations for the withholdings as required under Arizona law.
In its opinion, the Arizona Court of Appeals agreed with us about the withholdings and the failure of the lower court to consider our arguments:
At a status conference in May 2025, Judicial Watch asked the trial court to require the attorney general’s office to provide additional information regarding the assertedly privileged documents. The court declined to do so. It apparently concluded that the office had provided a sufficient index identifying those documents.
***
As noted, the attorney general’s office supplied Judicial Watch with an index of assertedly privileged documents that were otherwise responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. The index contained two entries. Those entries referred collectively to twenty-one emails and twenty-nine attachments that the office had withheld.
***
Here, the index provided by the attorney general’s office supplies no context about the withheld emails that would allow a court or any other party to determine if a privilege applies. The index therefore falls short … It follows that the office has not made a prima facie showing of privilege.… (existence of attorney-client relationship required to show privilege). We thus agree with Judicial Watch that the privilege log’s insufficiency prevented the trial court from adequately scrutinizing the office’s privilege assertions.
***
Judicial Watch additionally argues that the trial court erred by not analyzing whether the attorney general’s office properly redacted the names of States United employees “principally responsible for the engagement” from the engagement letter. The unredacted portions of the letter do not provide any context as to these employees’ roles within States United. Even assuming that they were attorneys and the office had validly claimed privilege, an attorney’s identity generally falls outside the privilege’s protections…. And, to the extent the office might have some valid basis for the redaction, neither the index nor the context of the letter itself supplies it.
***
We therefore conclude that the attorney general’s office has not met its burden of showing that it adequately searched its records … The office was not entitled to disregard Judicial Watch’s unambiguous records request in favor of its own, narrower interpretation.
***
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the trial court’s judgment and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
(A November 2024 report revealed correspondence between the Arizona attorney general’s office and the nonprofit States United Democracy Center in the lead-up to the state’s prosecution tied to Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.)
We are excited that the court has slapped back the unlawful secrecy about anti-Trump lawfare abuse by Arizona’s AG Kris Mayes. We are pushing hard in court for full disclosure about the details of what looks to be a conspiracy by the AG’s office to punish Trump supporters for exercising their fundamental rights.
In November 2026, we received records from the Michigan Department of Attorney General in a Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that show the state’s coordination with the nonprofit States United Democracy Center, which pushed indictments of President Donald Trump’s supporters, lawyers, activists, and Republican Party officials who disputed the 2020 election. Indictments of Trump alternative electors by Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel were thrown out by a judge earlier this year. The documents suggest a broad conspiracy by several states to prosecute Americans over 2020 election disputes.
In April 2026, we received records from the State of Nevada Office of Attorney General in a Nevada Public Records Act lawsuit that show the state’s close coordination with States United Democracy Center.
We continue to work to obtain records from Wisconsin.
Judicial Watch Sues for Records on New Jersey ICE Facility Breach
You’ll recall the day Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and three Democratic members of Congress breached the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in New Jersey.
We are seeking all audio and video from the scene of this incident, which could have easily escalated. The continued anti-ICE rhetoric from the radical Left is putting lives in danger.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeking audio and video recordings, as well as inter-agency communications, related to a May 9, 2025, breach (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:26-cv-01539)).
We sued after Homeland Security failed to respond to a November 2025 FOIA request for:
All audio recordings or video footage of the May 2025 incident at the Delaney Hall Detention Center in New Jersey during which public officials and other protesters attempted to enter the facility illegally.
All records of communication between any official or employee of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and any official or employee of any federal branch, department, or agency regarding the incident.
Baraka was arrested at the scene for trespassing and released hours later.
Representatives Rob Menendez Jr., Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver—also present with a group of protesters—entered the facility grounds when security gates opened to admit an ICE bus.
The Department of Homeland Security stated: “These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond a bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and detainees at risk. Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally enter detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility.”
In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that McIver “was charged in a three-count indictment for allegedly impeding and interfering with federal officers.”
In February 2026, we filed a FOIA lawsuit for video footage and photographs of the attack on ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, TX, on July 4, 2025 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No.1:26-cv-00331)).
In December 2025, we sued the Department of Homeland Security for records on migrants who entered the United States from 2020–2025, using arrest warrants and removal orders as proof of identification.
In November 2025, we sued Evanston, IL, Mayor Daniel Biss for records related to obstruction of federal immigration enforcement, as well as Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs for records regarding her office reportedly ordering state police and the National Guard to withhold cooperation from federal immigration enforcement authorities.
In December 2025 we pointed out that in just two states with “sanctuary” policies, nearly 9,000 criminal aliens were released from jails and prisons since January 20, defying Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers to deport them.
In October 2025, we reported on a Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF), established by Trump on the day of his inauguration to tackle a pandemic of transnational organized crime created by the Biden administration’s “disgraceful” open border policies, had made thousands of arrests and seized over 1,000 illegal firearms, 91 tons of drugs and $3 million in currency.
Chinese Man Gets $59 Million in Covid Relief, Launders Half to China
Are you at all surprised that when the government started giving out your tax dollars fraudsters saw an opportunity and acted? Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
Though it has been years since half a dozen laws were passed to dole out trillions of dollars in COVID-19 relief, fraud and corruption continue to plague the mammoth pandemic cash giveaway with a recent case involving a California man of Chinese descent who fraudulently collected tens of millions of dollars and laundered the proceeds to China. It is like a kick in the gut for American taxpayers, who continue to get fleeced all these years later by the pandemic measures—including the $2.1 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act(CARES Act) and $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—that were sold as necessary to provide economic relief to workers, families, small business, industry sectors and others affected by the 2020 public health crisis. The reality is that corruption is so rampant in all the pandemic relief programs that the Department of Justice (DOJ) created a special COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force (CFETF) a few years ago to crack down on scams and recover some of the stolen funds. Shortly after its creation, the task force exposed over $2 billion lost to fraud with more than 3,500 defendants criminally charged.
That was two years ago and the problem continues. In this latest case Bruce Jin of Los Angeles operated a sophisticated scheme that presented fake businesses as legitimate ones that sold personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to exploit emergency relief funds. Federal prosecutors say Jin stole $59 million in pandemic relief funds and transferred more than half of it to China using accounts at banks across the United States created with stolen identities. This month Jin was sentenced to 12 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in the amount of approximately $59 million, according to an announcement issued by the DOJ. “Unnamed members of the conspiracy, including some believed to be located in China, established thousands of accounts at banks across the United States using the personal identifying information (“PII”) of identity theft victims,” the agency writes, adding that from there, fraudulent claims were generated and paid to the accounts.
How could a years-long scheme that siphoned tens of millions of taxpayer dollars using the nation’s banking system avoid law enforcement detection? It is a question many have asked since Uncle Sam started handing out pandemic cash. Judicial Watch has investigated and reported extensively on the fraud, including government employees taking advantage of the lax oversight. A few years ago, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees were charged with stealing over a million dollars from pandemic relief programs to buy luxury goods, fancy cars, and travel. They easily withdrew the money by filing several false loan applications with two of the federal stimulus programs launched under the CARES Act. The disgraced federal employees used the illegally obtained pandemic relief funds to buy expensive designer clothes (Gucci), a fancy imported car (Mercedes-Benz), jewelry, trips to Las Vegas, manicures, and massages. The leftover cash was deposited into personal investment accounts. Each of the defendants submitted multiple fraudulent applications seeking at least tens of thousands of dollars in relief funds.
Even incarcerated felons have defrauded COVID relief programs from jail. A few years ago, a gang member serving 19 years in a California state prison operated a scheme that collected $25 million in pandemic unemployment benefits and another jailed convict used stolen identities to claim more than $1 million in unemployment payments. In the first scheme the 31-year-old inmate submitted millions of dollars in fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims using stolen personal information of other incarcerated individuals as well as other civilians. Of the $25 million in fraudulent claims the government actually paid out $5.5 million, and the money was used to buy vehicles, jewelry, and other items. In the million-dollar scam, another California state inmate collected pandemic unemployment relief money using the personal information, including Social Security numbers, of fellow prisoners and other individuals to submit fraudulent claims from his jail cell. In the claims the inmate wrote that candidates had lost jobs from businesses or were unable to find employment due to the pandemic. It was that easy.
Biden Judge Rules Muslim Terrorist Has Right to Keep Hijab in Prison
Islamic law is creeping into our society more and more these days. It’s in federal prisons now, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reveals.
In a troubling development, a terrorist front group that has gained tremendous influence by suing and lobbying to embed Islam in American public institutions has succeeded in getting the nation’s federal prison system to submit to Islamic law. The case involves the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical Muslim charity that was named as a co-conspirator in a federal terror-finance case involving the Hamas front group Holy Land Foundation. CAIR was founded in 1994 by three Middle Eastern extremists (Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad and Rafeeq Jaber) who ran the American propaganda wing of Hamas, known then as the Islamic Association for Palestine. For years CAIR has used the U.S. legal system and widespread pressure campaigns to influence various areas of American public life, most recently by strong-arming Maryland’s largest taxpayer-funded school districtto give students the day off in observance of a Muslim religious holiday known as Eid al-Fitr.
Now the extremist group that claims to advance Muslim civil rights is celebrating a huge legal victory that will impact a central component of the U.S. criminal justice system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FOB). The agency with over 33,000 employees oversees the custody of some 154,000 federal inmates throughout the country. The FOB as well as the state prison system bans hats and other head covers for security and safety reasons. A few years ago, a Somali Muslim woman, Muna Jama, was required to remove her hijab—a head scarf used as a symbol of modesty in the Islamic dress code—during booking and official prison identification photos were taken. Jama was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for conspiracy to provide material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has strong ties to al-Qaeda. Jama helped operate an online network that raised and disbursed money to al-Shabaab for jihadists plots, military operations and safehouses.
CAIR sued the BOP on the terrorist’s behalf, asserting that the prison system’s policy is unconstitutional and violates her religious rights. Forcing the convicted extremist to remove her hijab, photographing her uncovered and requiring her to carry that uncovered photo on an ID she must present throughout the prison everyday is a violation of federal law, according to the complaint. Jama’s faith requires her to always wear a hijab when she is in mixed-gender spaces outside of her immediate family, the court document states, adding that her religious beliefs are deeply rooted in Islamic texts and teachings. “Her hijab is a pillar of her religious practice and integral to her identity as a Muslim woman,” CAIR’s lawsuit reads. Appearing in public or being photographed without the and having that photo accessible to strangers is a serious breach of Jama’s faith and deeply humiliating, the group states. As a result, the convicted terrorist “has sustained damages, and has suffered and continues to suffer mental anguish, physical and emotional distress, humiliation, and embarrassment,” according to the complaint.
A Biden-appointed federal judge in Minnesota, Jeffrey M. Bryan, agreed and recently issued an order affirming the rights of incarcerated Muslim women to wear a hijab despite established security protocols banning all head covers. The judge also directs the FOB to destroy all of Jama’s booking photographs without her hijab, writing that “the retention of Jama’s uncovered photo further substantially burdens Jama’s religious exercise because the photo’s mere existence means a non-familial male could potentially view the photo, thereby violating Jama’s religious beliefs.” The case is the latest of many in which CAIR has altered the way American law enforcement agencies do their job. Years ago, an Atlanta jail caved into CAIR’s demand that Muslim inmates be allowed to wear hijabs. Under Obama CAIR got the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to purge anti-terrorism training curricula of material coined “offensive” to Muslims, a scandal uncovered by Judicial Watch and documented in an in-depth report. The terror front group also got several local police departments and the U.S. military to eliminate anti-terrorism training materials and instructors deemed anti-Muslim. At CAIR’s request, Obama’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, actually ordered the U.S. military to “scour its training material to ensure it doesn’t contain anti-Islamic content.”
Until next week,
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