DC Police Produce 1,627 January 6 Bodycam Videos
Judicial Watch Obtains Records on Charlie Kirk Assassination Site
Case Closed? Judicial Watch Investigates Butler Assassination Attempt
Billions in FEMA Covid-19 Relief Went to ‘Large, Organized Fraud Schemes’
DC Police Produce 1,627 January 6 Bodycam Videos
Another victory in our search for the truth of January 6.
The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department released over 1,000 hours of body-worn camera footage in 1,627 videos from the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol event. The videos were released because of an April 2026 court ruling in a DC Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.
The videos are available via our website here and http://www.judicialwatch.org/january6bodycam
We filed the DC FOIA lawsuit in June 2024 after the DC Police denied an August 2021 request for all body-worn camera footage recorded by police officers responding to the January 6, 2021, events at and around the U.S. Capitol (Judicial Watch v. District of Columbia (No. 2024-CAB-003453)).
Earlier this year, a local DC court dealt a major blow to government secrecy by ruling that the DC Police could not broadly blur and censor the footage. Rejecting DC Police’s claim that it could withhold faces and voices of everyone except law enforcement—and its assertion that producing the footage would cost more than $1.5 million—the court held that any privacy interests were minimal and outweighed by the overwhelming public interest in disclosure. The ruling cleared the way for this release of bodycam footage that documents one of the most consequential events in recent American history.
The release of these previously secret DC Police January 6 bodycam videos is the result of a hard-fought victory for transparency by Judicial Watch. We encourage citizens, law enforcement, Congress and media to carefully review these videos so they can see more of the truth about January 6.”
We have conducted a massive, independent investigation into the events of January 6.
In April 2026, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to obtain records related to possible improper targeting of January 6, 2021, Capitol protesters, their supporters, and related nonprofits
In August 2025, we announced that the U.S. Air Force would finally provide full military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021. Babbitt was the only official January 6 homicide victim. The Biden administration had previously denied Babbitt and her family these honors in retaliation for being at the U.S. Capitol that day. This decision came on the heels of a massive, nearly $5 million Trump administration settlement to her family for wrongful death and other claims against the U.S. Government.
In July 2025, we sued the U.S. Department of Justice for records on accelerated January 6 prosecutions after Donald Trump was elected president in November 2024. The Biden administration, anticipating President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to issue pardons for January 6, 2021, defendants, is believed to have accelerated prosecutions in the final months of Biden’s term.
In March 2024, we received Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) records from the Department of Justice in a FOIA lawsuit that show the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deployed personnel to Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.
In October 2023, we received the declaration of James W. Joyce, senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for the Capitol Police, in which he describes emails among senior officials of the United States Capitol Police (USCP) in January 2021 that show warnings of possible January 6 protests that could lead to serious disruptions at the U.S. Capitol.
Judicial Watch Obtains Records on Charlie Kirk Assassination Site
We obtained 64 pages of records from Utah Valley University through a Utah Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) request detailing the university efforts to immediately pave over the site where Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk was murdered.
Utah State University Emergency Payment Request Form was placed with the vendor on September 11, 2025, one day after Kirk was assassinated. The invoice amount is $6,090.52 and the product description is “Clean up for shooting incident.” The name of the vendor is redacted.
On September 12, 2025, two days after Kirk’s assassination, the following text message exchanges took place:
Person 1: The cops just called me into the fountain. Area to get them some water. We’re not gonna need to cut out any sod. I don’t think I bet we can just wash it all down.
Person 2: Ok great news. Let me know and I’ll pass it along.
Person 1: Well, they’re done now. And there is still some stuff to cleanup. But I think we can get it cleaned pretty easy.
Person 2: Stuff as in blood?
Person 1: There’s still A [sic] Eight inch puddle ish
Person 2: Plugger
Person 2: <Grimacing emoji>
Person 1: <exclamation points emoji>
Person 1: Hell no
Person 1: You trying to splash stuff. The solution to pollution is dilution.
Person 2: Yea true. Just up the irrigation.
Person 1: I’ll just grab a hose and spray it, man
Person 2: Tonight?
Person 1: <exclamation points emoji>
Person 1: No, tomorrow. The FBI is still there. I guess.
Person 1 (writing on September 13): Lmk [let me know] when you wanna go
Person 2: By chance have any gloves
Person 1: Ehhh I’ll grab some
An individual involved in the paving work texts on September 14, “My guys are well trained in keeping quiet,” adding, “I think [redacted] is on it with your media folks.”
An individual texts on September 14, “UU has some barriers available… but they are bright red.” A second individual responds, “No thank you. Any other color.” The first individual replies, “I know. I thought the same thing <hysterically laughing emoji>.”
In response to our records request, Utah Asst. Attorney General Nichole Ferguson states:
With respect to the portion of the request seeking records related to the removal of evidence and/or materials from site of the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” UVU consulted the departments and personnel reasonably likely to have been involved in that work. Stacy Fowler, an assistant GRAMA Records Officer, consulted with the Utah Valley University Police Department (UVUPD) regarding this request and was told that UVUPD did not have control of the crime scene or involvement in the removal of evidence or materials from the site of the incident so they would not have responsive records … Because UVUPD did not participate in any aspect of the evidence removal process, a search of UVUPD emails and text messages was not conducted as it was not reasonably likely that the search would produce responsive records related to “the destruction and/or removal of evidence and/or materials from the site of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
We filed the GRAMA request on November 20, 2025, for:
All records related to the destruction and/or removal of evidence and/or materials from the site of the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025. Such records shall include but not be limited to UVU police/security personnel emails and text messages, reports, directives, contractor invoices and authorizations.
All records related to the paving operation that occurred at the site on the UVU campus of the Charlie Kirk assassination, including email and text messages between the university and contractors involved in the operation, estimates, invoices for the work, purchase orders, and all related records.
There is intense public interest in the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. These documents, some of which are unpleasant, add to the catalogue of public information about Charlie’s vicious murder.
Case Closed? Judicial Watch Investigates Butler Assassination Attempt
There are still too many questions about the day in Butler, PA, when Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump. And we are still on the case, as Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, details.
In November, the FBI closed its investigation of the attempt by Thomas Crooks to kill President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But Judicial Watch has not stopped looking for answers. What exactly happened in Butler in July 2024 before, during, and after shots were fired? A full picture of the Butler shooting is critical to understanding the attempt on the president’s life—and perhaps preventing future assassination attempts.
Last month, we obtained 48 pages of heavily redacted documents from the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The documents provide context to the Butler shooting story. One document is an interview of the first medic to reach Crooks on the rooftop. She pronounced him dead and noted that a SWAT team officer “checked the shooter’s right pocket and discovered a gray remote device with numerical push buttons and an antenna.” Other documents sketch FBI actions in the days after the shooting.
Judicial Watch has been relentless in pursuit of facts in the Butler case. We obtained numerous documents from local and state sources.
One request resulted in the production of bodycam footage from the Butler Police Department on the day of the assassination attempt.
Another request produced two photographs of shooter Thomas Crooks and included law enforcement emails about “sniper elements” deployed to protect the president. The sniper elements will “provide overwatch for the rally and would work in conjunction with the secret service counter-sniper unit,” noted a senior law-enforcement source.
In another legal action, Judicial Watch fought vigorously for the disclosure of a tape of a 911 call made by Crooks’ father. The tape “is another piece of the puzzle in the Butler assassination attempt on President Trump,” noted JW President Tom Fitton.
In July 2025, after the FBI ignored our FOIA request for all records related to Thomas Crooks, we sued in federal court. “No more delays and excuses,” Tom said. “The FBI should release what it has on the man who tried to kill President Trump.”
Nine months later, in April 2026, the FBI released 37 heavily redacted pages that noted local law enforcement warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously.” The documents arrived five months after the FBI closed its investigation and were the first records to be released by the bureau about the assassination attempt.
The FBI tells JW they are holding approximately 75,000 pages of documents related to the Butler shooting and reviewing only a few hundred a month for release. Why the delay?
“The American people deserve full transparency about Thomas Crooks, his contacts, and why key details about the case remain hidden,” notes JW’s Fitton. Our federal lawsuit against the FBI continues.
Billions in FEMA Covid-19 Relief Went to ‘Large, Organized Fraud Schemes’
Vice President Vance can’t move fast enough in his mission to root out fraud in federal spending. Our Corruption Chronicles blog lays out a corruption hotspot.
The famously incompetent government agency created by Jimmy Carter to provide the nation with disaster relief is involved in yet another scandal for doling out billions of dollars in Covid-19 aid that ended up being spent on fraudulent and wasteful causes that clearly did not qualify for the funding. It marks the latest of many transgressions at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which received nearly $100 billion in supplemental appropriations plus additional disaster relief funding to support its doomed pandemic response and recovery effort. Instead, the agency, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), executed the cash giveaway without bothering to implement effective controls, resulting in “large, organized fraud schemes,” according to a recently published audit conducted by the DHS Inspector General.
More than $13.5 billion in pandemic recovery awards went to ineligible recipients and unallowable or unsupported costs, investigators found. The disaster relief money flowed to the illicit causes because FEMA failed to implement controls to ensure the funding went to eligible recipients, follow its own policies aimed at ensuring pandemic funding was used for allowable costs and maintain consistent data collection and management processes to inform decisions and allocate resources. For instance, FEMA’s Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) and Funeral Assistance programs awarded ineligible recipients around $3.7 billion in potentially fraudulent or duplicate payments because it relied on state workforce agencies for the management of the programs despite repeated warnings from the Department of Labor (DOL) and the DHS IG that self-certifications are high risk and may lead to improper payments. Adding insult to injury, FEMA did not require state workforce agencies to report LWA fraud, hindering the efforts of its watchdog to recover stolen funds and combat future fraud.
FEMA’s faulty process for reviewing funeral assistance expenses allowed the disbursement of duplicate payments to multiple parties for the same decedent, investigators found. The disaster relief agency also failed to follow its policies to ensure pandemic funding was used for allowable costs under federal law. “We identified approximately $8.2 billion in unallowable or unsupported costs and an additional $1.5 billion in over-obligated funding that could have been put to better use during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the DHS IG report states. FEMA was also slow to take action to recoup improper payments once they were identified and the beleaguered agency paid applicants beyond the maximum reimbursement amount. In a multitude of instances FEMA applied inconsistent document review guidance, resulting in payments for unallowable costs related to the funeral assistance program. This is why the agency watchdog summarized its latest probe in a sentence that reads: “Key finding: Ineffective Controls Led to COVID-19 Funding Being Susceptible to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.”
It marks the latest of several embarrassing lapses at FEMA in recent years alone. Earlier this year Judicial Watch exposed an outrageous program in which New York City spent tens of millions of dollars in FEMA funds over just a few months to house and feed illegal immigrants. Judicial Watch had to sue FEMA for the records because the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for payment and funding allocation files, internal communications and directives, as well as policy and procedural guidelines involving the migrant project. The records show New York City received $188 million under the Biden administration from a federal shelter program administered by FEMA and the money was spent on around-the-clock security staffing at a converted Manhattan office building used as a migrant shelter, and daily meal delivery to migrants housed in 33 hotels—including major chains such as Ramada, Best Western, Wyndham and Courtyard/Fairfield—across New York City.
FEMA was rocked by two other scandals last fall that were exposed in separate investigations. In the first numerous employees were fired for consuming pornographic content on government issued devices during work hours. The individuals had access to critical information and intelligence and were entrusted to safeguard Americans from emergencies—and instead they were consuming pornography, a statement issued by then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem read. In the second scandal a DHS probe revealed that under the Biden administration FEMA singled out conservative disaster victims and withheld aid to survivors who displayed signs and flags the agency’s liberal workforce disagreed with. The agency charged with helping people before, during and after disasters systemically refused to visit the houses of politically conservative victims, the DHS inquiry found. These examples are just a few on a lengthy list chronicling transgressions at FEMA, which merged into DHS after the 2001 terrorist attacks and has been failing the American people since Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana gulf coast two decades ago, killing more than 1,800 Americans and resulting in billions of dollars in property damage.
Until next week,
