Judicial Watch Asks Court to Unseal NIH Royalty Payments
Judicial Watch Asks Court to Unseal Royalty Payments to NIH Employees
Judicial Watch Sues EPA Over Biden’s $2 Billion Grant to Stacey Abrams
Judicial Watch Sues for FDA Commissioner’s Communications on Abortion Drug
Judicial Watch Africa Aid Agency Whistleblower Faces Retaliation Lawsuit
Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Among Biden’s Anti-Christian Policies
Judicial Watch Asks Court to Unseal Royalty Payments to NIH Employees
As they say, follow the money. That’s what we’re doing with government employees making decisions about your health. We want to see how much private companies pay federal health bureaucrats, but they’re fighting back.
We filed a post-hearing brief in a lawsuit on behalf of Open the Books urging a federal court to compel the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to release unredacted records showing royalty-related payments to government scientists, including former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Our October 2021Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeks full disclosure of NIH “Inventor Award” payments—compensation issued to federal employees for taxpayer-funded inventions licensed to private companies.
We argue that the NIH has improperly withheld these records based on speculative claims that disclosure could allow outsiders to “back-calculate” confidential royalty payments made by private industry to the government.
In a March evidentiary hearing before US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, NIH witnesses attempted to justify redactions by arguing that releasing inventor payment amounts could reveal private-sector royalty rates.
We contend that the government’s argument is based on unrealistic hypotheticals rather than actual data:
The evidentiary hearing was Defendant’s opportunity to prove that Inventor Awards could be used to back calculate royalty amounts. Of the 59,000 instances in which NIH redacted Inventor Awards … it did not back calculate a royalty payment from a single award. Instead, it offered on direct examination what appeared to be actual examples from 1985.… It became clear on cross examination, however, that the examples were not real instances of Inventor Awards and a royalty amount … but only hypotheticals. Dr. Kirby testified on cross examination that she “made up” the numbers … She also testified that the numbers were “all arbitrary numbers that [she] selected.” … Because it was only a hypothetical based on arbitrary numbers, Dr. Kirby did not have a real-life royalty amount against which to check her work.
In our brief, we argue that there are too many unknowns and moving parts for anyone to reliably “work backwards” to those private payments. The system is too complicated to figure out how much private companies paid the government just by looking at what scientists were later paid – or to guess:
[National Institutes of Health] witnesses failed to establish that back calculation is possible for any of the withheld Inventor Awards. Cross examination made clear that the agency’s witnesses offered only grossly simplified hypotheticals, not actual royalty amounts back calculated from actual Inventor Awards paid to real NIH employees and withheld from Plaintiff. These hypotheticals were devoid of the many variables—known only to NIH and perhaps the relevant licensee …
We are asking the court to order the release of the responsive, unredacted NIH “Inventor Award” records, arguing they are being unlawfully withheld.
Taxpayers have a right to see how money from taxpayer-funded inventions is distributed. Judicial Watch and Open the Books already forced disclosure of more than $1 billion in NIH royalty payments marked to inventors, like Fauci. It is head-scratching that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would allow this stubborn and unlawful secrecy to continue about payments to Fauci and others.
“Americans have a dual interest in the disclosure of these payments,” said Open the Books CEO John Hart. “Every taxpayer deserves to understand how private payments may impact decision making among public scientists and agency directors. Equally important, they are patients making some of life’s most personal decisions when it comes to health care. They are entitled to understand all the financial stakes in play as they receive guidance from public health officials.”
In earlier rulings in the case, Mehta rejected the NIH’s effort to broadly shield the royalty program using employee privacy claims, writing that “federal government employees have a limited privacy interest in information concerning their compensation.”
The court also emphasized the strong public interest in disclosure, noting that transparency regarding royalty payments could help the public assess whether inventors’ financial interests in licensed technologies “could potentially bias the design, conduct, or reporting of clinical research.” Mehta further concluded that the public interest in understanding these financial arrangements is significant, particularly where government scientists involved in taxpayer-funded biomedical research may receive payments tied to the commercialization of those technologies.
Over $2.685 billion was paid to NIH institutes or scientists – of which more than $1 billion was marked for inventors – between 2010-2023 from pharmaceutical companies and other private entities licensing government-owned patents. Those payments were obtained only after Judicial Watch and Open the Books forced the NIH to release previously hidden royalty payment records through FOIA litigation.
The disclosures include royalty payments connected to inventions developed across multiple NIH institutes, including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which was led for decades by Fauci and played a central role in federally funded biomedical research.
In February, we filed a separate FOIA lawsuit on behalf of Open the Books seeking records concerning whether statutory limits on royalty payments to federal employees are being effectively bypassed (American Transparency v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:26-cv-00432)).
That lawsuit seeks records including:
- Emails referencing royalty payments that may exceed the statutory cap
- Records concerning royalty payments placed in reserve when payments exceed statutory limits
- Internal guidance and procedures governing the NIH Public Health Service Technology Transfer Policy Manual
The records requested cover the period January 2020 through December 2025.
Federal law limits the amount individual government employee-inventors may receive in royalty payments to $150,000 per year. NIH scientists may receive royalty payments when inventions developed with taxpayer funding are licensed to private companies. These payments originate from license fees paid by pharmaceutical companies and other entities seeking to commercialize government-developed biomedical technologies.
OpenTheBooks.com, operated by American Transparency, maintains one of the largest independent databases of public-sector spending in the United States, promoting transparency by putting government spending records online for public review.
Judicial Watch Sues EPA Over Biden’s $2 Billion Grant to Stacey Abrams
As the Biden administration was collapsing in 2024, it lawlessly rushed out billions in cash to left-wing interest groups in a way that encouraged fraud and abuse. We’re suing to help expose this.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for records of the Biden administration’s $2 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant to the nonprofit Power Forward Communities, which is tied to failed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (No. 1:26-cv-01638)).
The taxpayer funds, awarded in April 2024, were from the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund program established under the Biden administration’s massive Inflation Reduction Act. The grant was awarded to finance so-called “residential decarbonization.”
Power Forward Communities, which was established in 2023, is a coalition of nonprofits which includes partners like Rewiring America, Enterprise Community Partners, and Habitat for Humanity. Abrams reportedly “played a pivotal role” in establishing the group, which in its first few months of operation reported just $100 in revenue.
In early 2025, following the start of the second Trump administration, the EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin ordered grants made via the National Clean Investment Fund be frozen due to an ongoing investigation into what the agency under Zeldin said were “serious concerns” that were raised “regarding self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and reduced government oversight.”
In February 2025, the Trump administration’s EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back. Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund as akin to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic,” because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over.
In March 2025, the grant payments were halted, while Citibank, the banking entity used to help move or transfer the grants, froze the payments after recommendation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Power Forward Communities was one of several nonprofits that filed a lawsuit against the EPA and Citibank to prevent the termination of the grants and have restored access to the funds. In March 2025, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkanissued a temporary restraining order blocking the EPA from canceling the grants. The judge also blocked Citibank, which holds the money on behalf of EPA, from transferring it to the government or anyone else.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in September 2025, found that the District Court had abused its discretion in issuing the injunction while ruling jurisdiction for such claims lay with the Court of Federal Claims and not the district court. The appeals court rescinded Judge Chutkan’s injunction and the funds remain frozen as the case is ongoing.
We sued after the EPA failed to respond to a February 20, 2025, FOIA request for all documents and communications regarding the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant to Power Forward Communities.
The Trump EPA team should disclose and expose every single document about this massive Biden corruption scandal.
Judicial Watch Sues for FDA Commissioner’s Communications on Abortion Drug
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records of communications and meetings of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner involving the abortion drug Mifepristone (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1:26-cv-01546)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the FDA failed to respond to a February 25, 2026 FOIA request for:
- All communications sent to, received by, or copied to the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, or to the Commissioner’s immediate office, that concern, refer to, or discuss mifepristone, RU-486, or any generic or branded form of mifepristone approved, regulated, or reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.
- All documents related to any meeting with the Commissioner of Food Drugs where mifepristone, RU-486,or any generic or branded form of mifepristone approved, regulated, or reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration was discussed, including, but not limited to calendar events, calendar invitations, talking points, PowerPoint presentations, written or audio recordings, and post-meeting summaries
The request asked that records be provided for the period April 1, 2025, to the present.
In response to pressure from pro-abortion activists, the Clinton Food and Drug Administration accelerated approval of the abortion pill in September 2000. Similarly, the Obama and Biden administrations took steps to make the controversial abortion pill more widely available in a way that undermined its “safe” use.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned earlier this month amid friction with the administration.
Pro-life advocates had called for his ouster. Makary reportedly slow-walked a safety review of the pill, which can be mailed to states that have limited abortion. Makary’s successor will inherit that review and the tricky politics associated with abortion.
For decades, Judicial Watch has investigated and exposed the dangers of the abortion pill pushed on pregnant mothers by the Clinton/Obama/Biden operations. The new FDA leadership needs to get its act together quickly, stop providing special treatment for the abortion pill, and ensure transparency to preserve the rule of law and the public health.
We have been instrumental in bringing the controversies surrounding the abortion drug to the public’s attention.
In October 2024, wet filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of Advancing American Freedom Foundation against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for FDA records concerning approval of the abortion drug Mifeprex (Mifepristone, formerly known as RU-486) and meetings between senior FDA officials, White House counsel, and foreign actors.
In March 2024, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in which it argued “the FDA violated its own unambiguous regulation and relied on pretext…. The FDA’s actions in 2016 and 2021 were arbitrary and capricious and violated the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”).” And, in 2021, using the Covid-19 pandemic as a tool, abortion proponents “sued the FDA to dispense with the REMS [risk evaluation and mitigation strategy] in-person medical visits as a prerequisite for obtaining Mifeprex and permit the drug to be mailed.”
Through a FOIA lawsuit Judicial Watch filed in 2023 uncovered at least six Mifeprex-related deaths between 2000 to 2002 that were detailed in Health and Human Services records.
Records produced to us in September 2023 included an “Annual Report for Mifepristone,” covering the period September 28, 2000, to September 27, 2001, produced by the Population Council/Danco Laboratories, LLC. The summary indicated that during the testing period 32 “adverse events were reported to Danco and reported by Danco to FDA in periodic reports.” (The existence of adverse event reports does not necessarily establish causation.)
Of the 32 reported adverse events, two were 15-day reports (the others were not serious and/or not unexpected). One of the 15-day reports was reported as “hemorrhage due to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and death.” [Emphasis added] The other was reported as “post-abortal parametritis/endometritis, adult respiratory distress syndrome and bilateral pneumonia.” This latter 15-day report and one case where fever was reported represent the total reports on the marketed drug suggesting infection. In addition, one infection was reported in the Population Council’s 200 mifepristone study and one death [Emphasis added] due to clostridium sordelli infection was reported in the Canadian study.
Judicial Watch Africa Aid Agency Whistleblower Faces Retaliation Lawsuit
Rooting out government corruption often requires brave federal employees to take a stand when they discover it. It’s not easy for them, as the experience of one of our whistleblowers illustrates.
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in a federal court hearing that its investigation of senior officials at the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) continues.
But one of our whistleblower clients faces a retaliatory lawsuit brought by the agency’s former president.
Our whistleblower clients have spent years courageously reporting corruption and misconduct at USADF, sharing information with the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG), members of Congress, and the Department of Justice. That information has since been borne out by federal criminal charges and damning reports from the Office of Inspector General for U.S. Agency for International Development and the Government Accountability Office.
We have been advancing its whistleblower clients’ work through multiple vehicles, including a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking USADF records related to those allegations. (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. African Development Foundation (No. 1:25-cv-02623)).
In an earlier hearing in that case, the DOJ stated publicly for the first time that it and the USAID OIG were investigating possible crimes committed by senior USADF officials. Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department charged Mathieu Zahui, the USADF’s chief financial officer, based in significant part on information from our whistleblower clients.
Zahui subsequently pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gratuities and making false statements to federal investigators.
During a status conference on March 30, 2026 before Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department confirmed that its investigation of USADF has not ended.
Our whistleblower clients continue to work with members of Congress to demand accountability. Senator Mike Lee recently led a coalition of senators urging the Department of Justice to expand its investigation and pursue additional prosecutions arising from USADF’s corruption.
Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna has also taken up the cause, writing to Attorney General Todd Blanche to request a broader review of fraud, corruption, and whistleblower retaliation involving senior USADF leadership. Congresswoman Luna specifically highlighted the firsthand account of our client, Jasmine Battle, noting that after Ms. Battle raised concerns about misconduct, she was terminated — and now faces civil litigation by former USADF President Travis Adkins in an effort to silence her.
That litigation is itself a form of retaliation. As we stated in its motion to dismiss filed on Battle’s behalf:
Travis Adkins presided over one of the most corrupt federal agencies in recent memory. During his tenure as president of the United States African Development Foundation, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee named him personally as potentially ‘complicit in, corrupt and potentially unlawful practices’ and placed a congressional hold on the agency’s funding. His own chief financial officer pleaded guilty to public corruption for acts that ran through every year of [Adkins’] leadership.
Jasmine Battle, a seasoned and well-respected administrative professional, whose career included working with former cabinet-level officials, witnessed this dysfunction firsthand, served as [Adkins’] assistant for seven months in 2022. What she saw troubled her, and she did what conscientious public servants are supposed to do. She reported it to Plaintiff, to the EEOC, and to oversight bodies like Congress. [Adkins], now under a microscope for what occurred during his tenure as president, is seeking to silence her. And now Battle finds herself in a seemingly partisan crossfire because she had the courage to be a whistleblower.”
Jasmine Battle did exactly what a public servant should do — she reported corruption and refused to stay silent. Judicial Watch is proud to stand with her and our other whistleblower clients as we continue to pursue full accountability at the US African Development Foundation.
Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Among Biden’s Anti-Christian Policies
This summer the celebration of America’s 250th birthday will recognize the importance of religious freedom. Joe Biden would not have done this, as our Corruption Chronicles blog illustrates.
A governmentwide anti-Christian effort launched under the Biden administration was much worse than previously imagined, and a new report published by a Department of Justice (DOJ) task force documents the alarming details of woke measures adopted by most federal agencies to conduct the mission that clearly targeted conservatives. This includes the Biden DOJ mandating the adoption of gender ideology throughout the federal government, illegally weaponizing a landmark civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination to allow men into women’s sports and intimate facilities, punishing faith-based homeless service providers who raised concerns about biological men entering women-only shelters and allowing federally-funded schools to facilitate “gender transitions” without disclosing education records to parents. In 2024 the Biden administration delivered a sucker punch on Good Friday, a solemn and sacred day for Christians, by announcing that Easter Sunday, a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, would be officially recognized by the government as Transgender Day of Visibility.
The flagrant examples go on and on with an extensive list of anti-Christian measures that even President Trump probably could not imagine when he signed an executive order in early 2025 to right the wrong. The order created a special Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias within the DOJ to protect the religious freedoms of Americans by ending the anti-Christian weaponization of the government. “The Founders established a Nation in which people were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by their government,” Trump’s order states, adding that the previous administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. The task force uncovered the Biden administration’s radical policy agenda and documented cases in detail in the recently issued 200-page report, which includes over 300 pages of exhibits and evidence illustrating how individual federal agencies discriminated against Christians. Besides the DOJ, they include key agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Health, and Human Services (HHS) as well as Homeland Security.
Examples of the “systemic culture” of anti-Christian bias include the FBI collaborating with the leftwing extremist group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to investigate, track and scrutinize Catholics who were wrongly labelled “potential violent extremists or domestic terrorists” based on their views on abortion, immigration, human sexuality and their preferred popes. A 2023 FBI memorandum included in the report asserts that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics are domestic-terrorism threats and suggests infiltrating Catholic churches as “threat mitigation.” The DOJ criminally charged numerous peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities. Among those charged and slapped with multi-year prison sentences was a Catholic priest, an 87-year-old woman, a 75-year-old grandmother and a father of 11 arrested after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee as part of a politically motivated persecution campaign by the Biden administration.
HHS, which is responsible for enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans, took multiple steps to discriminate against Christian families over their religious beliefs because Biden officials viewed their values as harmful to children with gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction. The agency prevented foster children from being placed with Christian families or Christian foster agencies that did not affirm the Biden administration’s policies on sexual orientation and gender ideology. The Department of Education issued excessive fines against Christian universities, pushed policies in which men were allowed into girls’ locker rooms and promoted ideological materials about gender identity to young children that fundamentally conflict with Christian tenets. The agency also allowed federally funded schools to facilitate gender transitions without disclosing education records to their parents. HUD made participation in its housing programs conditioned on compliance with the administration’s woke gender identity nondiscrimination requirements even if they conflicted with a provider’s religious beliefs.
Federally managed museums on the National Mall forced pro-life students participating in a peaceful demonstration to remove religious and pro-life attire or leave the premises and the National Park Service twice denied a Catholic organization access to a national cemetery where it planned to hold a quiet Memorial Day mass to honor fallen soldiers. “As our report lays out, the Biden Administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Chair of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.” Blanche confirms that no American should live in fear of being punished by their government for their faith.
Until next week,
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