Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update | May 16, 2025

Border Corruption Update

Justice Department Records Detail Biden Pressure on Special Counsel Hur
Five Million Names Cleaned from Voter Rolls Thanks to Judicial Watch
Corruption at Border Agency Still a Problem a Decade after Expose
DC Government Makes LGBTQIA+ Queer Training Mandatory

Justice Department Records Detail Biden Pressure on Special Counsel Hur

We received 49 pages of records from the Department of Justice detailing pressure by the Biden White House and Joe Biden’s personal lawyers on Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding the October 2023 interviews of then-President Biden in the criminal investigation into his theft, retention, and disclosure of classified records.

These records show how desperate the Biden gang was to hide the full truth about Biden’s failing memory and criminality.

We filed a July 2024 FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice for all communications about the Hur report with the Office of the White House Counsel and Biden’s personal lawyers (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-02179)).

We have several ongoing FOIA lawsuits about Biden’s document scandals and the related unprecedented partisan prosecutorial and judicial abuses of former President Donald J. Trump.

In April 2025, we uncovered Justice Department records showing White House staffers suggesting edits to transcripts of President Biden’s interview with Hur.

In February 2025, a federal court ordered the Department of Justice to declare whether it intends to continue denying our request for the full audio of the Hur interview. The Trump Justice Department has until May 20, 2025, to report its position on the release of the videotape.

In June 2024, the Biden administration was forced to admit that the transcripts of audio recordings of Biden’s interviews had been altered and are not accurate.

The new records include an October 18, 2023, letter, just a few days after Hur’s interviews of Biden, from the Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber and Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer to Hur, in which they express concerns about the release of the report:

At our meeting last Friday, we requested that you provide an overview of where matters stand in this case, particularly any remaining questions or concerns we should address. We also asked for the opportunity to discuss your expected report to the Attorney General at the conclusion of the investigation, including time to review it prior to its submission to the Attorney General. You advised us that you were not prepared to engage with these requests at that time but would take them under consideration.

***

Moreover, to the extent that your report touches in any way upon procedures in this or prior administrations for the handling of sensitive national security information, your report will also be read with intense interest in every foreign capital. It could affect the national security interests of the United States in ways that none of us can anticipate.

An October 31, 2023, email from Sauber to the Special Counsel’s Office documents the repeated efforts by the Biden legal team to review the report before its release. The letter states:

In our October 18 letter to you, we asked to have the opportunity to review and comment on a draft of the “confidential” report that you are required to write under the Special Counsel regulations. We also noted that we would follow up on the subject of the Special Counsel’s “final report” requirement more broadly.

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At a minimum, the report should adhere to the kind of product contemplated by the Special Counsel regulations. As discussed, in contrast to the detailed independent counsel reports setting forth a “full and complete” description of their work, the Special Counsel regulations contemplate only that the Special Counsel will “explain[] the prosecution or declination decisions.” … We support your faithful fulfillment of this requirement. But, consistent with the Department’s description of a “limited” and “summary” product, … , the report should be economical. It should include the factual information necessary to the charging decision, but facts or events that are not essential to the decision have no place….

In a December 15, 2023, letter Sauber and Bauer reiterate the request and also ask for access to the classification review of the materials found and the return of the records of a personal nature to Biden.

In a January 3, 2024, letter Sauber and Bauer again reiterate the request for a pre-release review and express concern that the final report provide an “appropriate public presentation” of the facts of the case.

Non-disclosure agreements signed by the president’s lawyers are included in the records.

On January 5, 2024, “RKHSC,” (Robert K. Hur, special counsel) sends an email to Bauer and others discussing “nondisclosure agreement and certification.” The non-disclosure agreement and certification state:

NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

1. This agreement applies to the review by members of the White House Counsel’s Office and personal counsel of the report of the Special Counsel’s Office.
2. Review will be limited to the following people: Ed Siskel (White House Counsel), Richard Sauber (Special Counsel to the President), Rachel Cotton (Senior Counsel to the President), Robert Bauer (personal counsel), and Jennifer Miller (personal counsel). This agreement refers to this group collectively as “counsel.”

CERTIFICATION

By this certification, I affirm to the Department of Justice that I have and will continue to adhere to the terms of the attached non-disclosure agreement …

I understand that Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, makes it a felony to knowingly and willfully make a materially false statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the Government of the United States.

On January 9, Bauer emails his and Jennifer Miller’s non-disclosure agreements and certifications to Hur and others.

In a February 5, 2024, letter to Hur, Sauber and Bauer outline their complaints about the draft report. The first concern they raise is the report’s characterization of Biden’s failing memory:

We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report, particularly one that in the first paragraph announces that no criminal charges are “warranted” and that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt.” If the evidence does not establish guilt, then discussing the jury impact of President Biden’s hypothetical testimony at a trial that will never occur is entirely superfluous.

In the February 5, 2024, “Report of the Special Counsel on the Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, Retention, and Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered at Locations Including the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware Private Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.” Hur called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and declined to charge Biden with a “serious felony:”

We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.

Prior to the finalization of the report, the White House issued a letter to the Special Counsel’s office attacking the report’s “treatment of President Biden’s memory,” and added “there is ample evidence from your interview that the President did well in answering your questions …”

We expect the Hur tapes will finally be released to Judicial Watch at any time now, so come back here for more details.

Five Million Names Cleaned from Voter Rolls Thanks to Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch is the leader in restoring integrity to our election system. In Investigative Bulletin, Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, provides an overview of our historic work.

Judicial Watch made history last month when new developments in landmark legal actions led to the inactivation, processing, or removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide. “Judicial Watch’s clean-up of over five million dirty names from voter rolls is a historic achievement for clean elections,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “I have no doubt that Judicial Watch’s election integrity heavy lifting helped stop the steal in 2024. But there are millions of more names to be removed from voter rolls.”

Clean elections matter. Dirty voter rolls—the presence of voters who have been disqualified from voting due to death or a change of address—create opportunities for fraud, opening the door to illegal votes swinging close elections. A key weapon in the battle for clean elections is the National Voter Registration Act. The NVRA directs the states to make “a reasonable effort” to remove from voting rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have been disqualified from voting due to death or change of residence.

Judicial Watch has been deploying the NVRA for years in courts across the land, pressuring state governments to clean up their voter rolls. Recent developments in cases in Kentucky and New York put Judicial Watch past the five million milestone.

In Kentucky, state election board officials reported that “roughly 735,000 ineligible voter registrations” have been removed from voter rolls, as part of a 2018 consent decree settling a Judicial Watch lawsuit. “Since the consent decree was entered,” election officials notes, “a lot has changed. The State Board of Elections has worked overtime to comply with the consent decree and to clean up Kentucky’s voter rolls.”

A lot has changed in New York City too. As part of 2022 settlement with Judicial Watch, New York City began removing the names of ineligible voters from its voting rolls. Following the settlement, New York removed 440,000 ineligible names. New data for March 2023 to February 2025 show the removal of another 477,000 names—a total of more than 900,000 names.

Judicial Watch has notched victories in election integrity cases across America. In Los Angeles, county officials confirmed the removal of more than 1.2 million names from voter rolls as part of a settlement of a 2017 Judicial Watch lawsuit. Judicial Watch legal pressure also resulted in election roll clean-ups in Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Judicial Watch continues to pursue cases in Illinois, Oregon, and California.

President Trump recognized the importance of election integrity efforts with a March 25 Executive Order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The sweeping order notes two key areas where Judicial Watch has long been a national leader.

One is voter roll clean-up under the National Voter Registration Act. “Maintaining accurate voter registration lists” through the NVRA and other federal laws “is a fundamental requirement in protecting voters from having their ballots voided or diluted by fraudulent votes,” the presidential order notes. It directs “the Attorney General [to] take appropriate action with respect to states that fail to comply with the list maintenance requirements” of the NVRA.

The presidential order notes a second area where Judicial Watch has long been active: fighting to ensure that Election Day remains just that—a single day. “Federal law establishes a uniform Election Day across the Nation for Federal elections,” the order says. But “numerous States fail to comply with those laws by counting ballots received after Election Day. This is like allowing persons who arrive three days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd.”

Judicial Watch has mounted numerous legal challenges to states seeking to stretch Election Day into Election Week or Election Month.

In Mississippi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with Judicial Watch. The full Fifth Circuit court declined to revisit the appellate panel ruling that ballots arriving after Election Day cannot be counted.

The appellate panel ruled that “Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors. Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm that this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”

In an Illinois case, Judicial Watch has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower court rulings that allow the state to count mail-in ballots as late as fourteen days after election day.

And in California, Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit to prevent state officials from transforming Election Day into Election Week. The Judicial Watch lawsuit was filed on behalf of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa to prevent state election officials from extending Election Day for seven days beyond the date established by federal law.

“Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and uniform national Election Day,” says the Judicial Watch lawsuit, “California modified and extended Election Day by allowing seven additional days after Election Day for receipt of vote-by-mail ballots.”

The lawsuit notes that late-arriving ballots can “change electoral outcomes in California.” Two of Rep. Issa’s Republican colleagues were leading on Election Night 2024 “but ultimately lost reelection due to late-arriving [vote-by-mail] ballots.

Issa called on California to fix its “broken systems of elections.” In California, he told Breitbart, “Election Day has become Election Month and ballots are counted until Democrats are declared the winner.”

 

Corruption at Border Agency Still a Problem a Decade after Expose

An agency we created to protect our borders is still hamstrung by corruption, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

A decade after a Homeland Security Advisory Council determined that “true levels of corruption within CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are not known,” a myriad of cases, including several in the last few weeks alone, indicates the problem is as serious as it was ten years ago at the nation’s biggest law enforcement agency. With more than 60,000 employees, CBP is the country’s frontline border conglomerate charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. The agency, which includes Air and Marine Operations and the U.S. Border Patrol, was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks to protect the American people and safeguard our borders. In its 20th anniversary celebration, CBP proclaimed that it continues to grow stronger, more dynamic and capable of taking on our nation’s most important challenges.

But corruption among its agents is persistent, inevitably compromising its critical mission of protecting the nation from potential terrorist threats. The problem is so serious that the agency conducted a widespread, multi-year study of corruption in CBP that includes “detailed information on its nature and prevalence in the workforce.” The probe found that only one quarter of one percent of the CBP workforce is corrupt—defined as engagement in criminal activity that involves the misuse of an agent’s official position for personal gain—but the impact has had “significant and damaging implications for CBP’s reputation, ability to execute its mission, and on employee morale,” according to investigators. Corrupt agents use knowledge, access, or authority granted by virtue of their official position to personally engage in criminal activity or to facilitate the criminal activity of others. In exchange, they receive material and non-material benefits or advantages such as money, goods, services, power, influence, or relationships.

In many of the cases officers either infiltrate CBP with the express intent of engaging in criminal activity or are recruited by drug cartels, officially known as Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), to do so. “They facilitate drug and human smuggling exclusively at the Southwest Border by failing to perform a function of their inspection or enforcement responsibilities,” the extensive probe found. Investigators documented that 173 employees were convicted or entered guilty pleas for corruption related activities. That includes drug smuggling, money laundering, illegal alien smuggling, fraud, theft, and misuse of government technology. The overwhelming majority of cases involved illegal activity in direct opposition to the CBP mission with national security implications and crimes occurred at dozens of duty posts in 19 states with Texas leading the pack, followed by Arizona. More than half of the crimes involved the illegal smuggling of drugs, migrants, and other contraband into the United State.

In recent cases that had not yet occurred when the study was published, a Border Patrol agent in El Paso, Texas was sentenced to 18 months in prison for soliciting bribes from illegal immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico in exchange for paperwork that would permit them to remain in the U.S. The disgraced federal agent, Fernando Castillo, made false entries in the migrants’ immigration file and printed the fraudulent documents. In another recent case a Border Patrol agent was sentenced to over seven years in prison after getting convicted of taking bribes to smuggle narcotics and migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border while on duty. The corrupt agent, Hector Hernandez, pleaded guilty to receiving bribes and attempted distribution of methamphetamine and admitted to using his official position to open restricted border fences to allow people to illegally enter the U.S. in exchange for cash payments. A CBP officer in San Diego, California was recently sentenced to 23 years in prison for accepting bribes to allow unauthorized migrants and vehicles containing methamphetamine and other illicit drugs to pass through the border into the U.S.

Less than halfway into 2025, at least six CBP agents have been criminally charged, four of them in the last few weeks. In February the FBI El Paso West Texas Border Corruption Task Force arrested a veteran CBP officer named Manuel Perez for human and cocaine smuggling over many years on the El Paso border. In March a CBP officer was sentenced to over four years in prison for accepting bribes to smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. In late April a jury convicted a Border Patrol agent of conspiring with Mexican nationals to allow “load” vehicles to pass through border crossings without inspection. Earlier this month three CBP officers in San Diego were indicted for allowing illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. through their inspection lanes at the San Ysidro Point of Entry.

 

DC Government Makes LGBTQIA+ Queer Training Mandatory

Your nation’s capital has taken a headfirst dive down the rabbit hole of leftist mania, as our Corruption Chronicles blog explains.

In the latest move to advance leftist policies in local government adjacent to the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia is forcing every department manager—and highly encouraging all employees—to undergo a special training on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (or Questioning), Intersex, Asexual, and more (LGBTQIA+). The course is titled “LGBTQIA+ Cultural Humility: A Space for Queer Life Training,” according to a memorandum distributed to “all District Government Personnel” by Charles Hall Jr., the director of the DC Department of Human Resources. “We’re excited to introduce a vital new training initiative from the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, designed to foster a more inclusive and understanding workplace,” the memo, which was obtained by Judicial Watch this week, states. “This training is MANDAORY for all managers and highly encouraged for all DC Employees to complete by July 30th. 2025.” It is worth noting that the directive specifically excludes the 13-member DC Council, which is comprised of representatives from each of the eight wards and four members elected at large.

Attached to the human resources director’s memo is a short video message from a “workforce specialist” at the DC Mayor’s Office of LGBTQA Affairs, which is dedicated to connecting LGBTQA residents with city services, advocating on behalf of policies that benefit them, providing grants to organizations that serve them and hosting events that enrich, promote and bring together the LGBTQA community. The workforce specialist, Rae Dyson, is a former Biden administration official and was recently hired by the DC Mayor’s office because her skills to empower individuals will be instrumental in leading trainings and expanding opportunities for DC’s LGBTQIA+ workforce, according to an announcement posted on social media. In the video attached to Hall’s memo Dyson introduces herself and promotes the new LGBTQIA+ training for all public employees, especially licensed health professionals who she says can receive two continuing education credits for completing it.

The training promises to go beyond surface-level awareness by delving into critical areas such as intersectionality, health disparities, legal protections and creating inclusive environments. Intersectionality is described in Hall’s memo as “understanding the complex interplay of various social identities.” The health disparities training recognizes and addresses the unique health challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community and the portion on legal protections will clarify relevant laws and policies for the demographic. Practical strategies for building a respectful and supportive workplace for all will be covered in the section dedicated to creating inclusive environments. “Why is this training important?” the HR memo asks. “By participating, you’ll gain valuable insights that will contribute to a more equitable and welcoming environment for your colleagues and the community we serve.” The HR document further states that the training “provides the tools necessary to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.”

Besides widespread corruption among elected officials, DC government is notorious for its excessive leftist policies, which are typically described as progressive in the mainstream media. A few years ago, the DC Council passed legislation allowing incarcerated convicted felons to vote and months later a jailed murderer won public office in a DC election that featured five inmate candidates from the same prison. DC also established a Council Office of Racial Equity (CORE) to tackle racism as part of a broader initiative to establish a racial equity framework across the entire DC government by, among other things requiring mandatory racial equity training for DC government employees as well as conducting racial equity impact assessments on council measures. A few years ago, DC’s Racial Equity Office ruled that installing an Abraham Lincoln Spirit of Freedom Emancipation Statue at the African American Civil War Museum would widen racial inequity.

With DC crime out of control, local leaders wasted over a quarter of a million dollars to promote the extremist Black Lives Matter movement after days of protests and riots, allowing artists, residents, DC employees and demonstrators to paint “Black Lives Matter” in 50-foot-tall yellow capital letters and the District’s crest, which resembles three stars above an “equals” sign, on 16th Street NW near the White House. Judicial Watch obtained records from the DC Department of Transportation that show it cost taxpayers $271,231 to repaint the Black Lives Matter slogan on a street in the nation’s capital.

Until next week,