Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update | April 07, 2023

OUTRAGE: Trump Abused

A Rigged Prosecution to Rig an Election
Judicial Watch Sues Biden Agency for Records on Censorship Meetings with Big Tech
Clean Elections Update: Judicial Watch Exposes Controversial ERIC
Judicial Watch Sues for Records on Biting by President Biden’s Dog
Who Is Alvin Bragg?
Biden Admin Lets Trans Immigrants Pick, Change Gender on Official Forms to Avert Harassment
Happy Easter!

 

A Rigged Prosecution to Rig an Election 

What a sad day for America. And what a blow to the rule of law and our republican form of government. President Trump and the American people were abused and victimized by New York Democrat politician Alvin Bragg, who abused his office to try to jail a man he must know to be innocent. This is an indictment about nothing based on non-crimes and politics. It is a rigged prosecution to rig an election. The courts must end this malicious prosecution before the nation is irreparably damaged. In the meantime, Congress must immediately investigate Bragg’s election interference and his political attack on Trump’s civil rights. Judicial Watch has already launched a series of Freedom of Information Act inquiries into this unprecedented attack on the American way.

 

Judicial Watch Sues Biden Agency for Records on Censorship Meetings with Big Tech

Judicial Watch is digging ever deeper into the unprecedented effort by the Deep State to censor what Americans are reading and writing on social media – a shocking shredding of the First Amendment.

We just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-00552)).

We sued after the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (a component of DHS) failed to respond to a December 2022 request for:

Records and communications of Jen Easterly, Director, CISA; Christopher Krebs, Former Director, CISA; Matt Masterson, Former CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor; and Brian Scully, CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor, regarding:

• CISA facilitated or hosted USG-industry meetings with Meta (@meta.com); Facebook (@facebook.com); Twitter (@twitter.com); Wikimedia Foundation (@wikimedia.org); Pinterest (@pinterest.com); LinkedIn(@linkedin.com); concerning election security;
• Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Meetings;
• Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Joint MDM Working Group Meetings; and
• Preparatory meetings with any employees of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Office of the Director of National Intelligence; National Security Agency; U.S. Secret Service; concerning any of the aforementioned USG-industry meetings and/or Coordinating Council Meetings.

On December 2, 2022, journalist Matt Taibbi used the social media platform Twitter to expose the “Twitter Files,” which include multiple mentions of the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency’s censorship activities.

A December 16 tweet thread includes:

37. Reports also came from different agencies. Here, an employee recommends “bouncing” content based on evidence from “DHS etc”

A supplemental tweet thread on December 18 reports:

2. In July of 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan tells Twitter executive Yoel Roth to expect written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), the inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats.
3. The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”
4. He then sent another note internally, saying the premise of the questions was “flawed,” because “we’ve been clear that official state propaganda is definitely a thing on Twitter.” Note the italics for emphasis.

A March 9 tweet thread includes:

3. But Twitter was more like a partner to government. With other tech firms it held a regular “industry meeting” with FBI and DHS, and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government: HHS, Treasury, NSA, even local police
4. Emails from the FBI, DHS and other agencies often came with spreadsheets of hundreds or thousands of account names for review. Often, these would be deleted soon after.
5. The same agencies (FBI, DHS/CISA, GEC) invite the same “experts” (Thomas Rid, Alex Stamos), funded by the same foundations (Newmark, Omidyar, Knight) trailed by the same reporters (Margaret Sullivan, Molly McKew, Brandy Zadrozny) seemingly to every conference, every panel.

Other “Twitter files” released by Elon Musk show that FBI pressure on “Russian disinformation” led to censorship:

San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan “[sent] 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” the evening before the release of the Post story.

The “Twitter files” show the FBI pushed Twitter to also censor countless Twitter users who tweeted concerns (and jokes) about election integrity just before the 2020 election.

In testimony before the “House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” Taibbi reported extensive collusion between Big Tech and government, at all levels – including the Biden White House, the Democratic National Committee, and federal, state and local law enforcement – all meant to stifle free speech and withhold information from the American people.

In May 2022, the States of Missouri and Louisiana sued President Biden and several federal employees in their official capacities for violation of the First Amendment.

In one of the depositions in the case, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Cyber Branch for San Francisco Division of the FBI, Elvis Chan, testified he and fellow officials had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election. The lawsuit also produced Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency meeting minutes that discuss its attempts to manage information being posted by social media contributors.

The Twitter Files also mention a report titled The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election, which was prepared by the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a left-leaning collective of organizations that worked with the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency on its censorship of online information during the 2020 election.

There is an unholy conspiracy in the Biden administration to censor Americans in collusion with Big Tech. This new Judicial Watch lawsuit shows the censorship abuse is furthered by unlawful secrecy and cover-ups.

As you know, we are heavily involved in countering government and Big Tech censorship. Buried within the Twitter Files are references and descriptions of meetings and communications we have been investigating through FOIA requests and lawsuits.

For example, we recently sued the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for records and communications maintained by its leadership, including Chairman Lina Khan, about Twitter and its owner Elon Musk. FTC document-demands to Twitter obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show onerous requests for all documents about Elon Musk and documents concerning Twitter’s work with journalists to disclose to the public the details about the government’s and Twitter’s censorship of American citizens. A House report titled “The Weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC): An Agency’s Overreach to Harass Elon Musk’s Twitter” details:

Twitter allowed … journalists, as part of their reporting on government censorship by proxy, to review internal communications and correspondence between Twitter employees and federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

[T]he FTC’s first demand in its letter sent after the initial installment of the Twitter Files did not concern what private user information may have been at risk. Instead, the FTC demanded that Twitter “[i]dentify all journalists and other members of the media to whom” Twitter has granted access to since Musk bought the company. The FTC even named some of the specific journalists – “Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, [and] Abigail Shrier” – with whom Twitter has engaged on the Twitter Files. The FTC also demanded to know any “other members of the media to whom You have granted any type of access to the Company’s internal communications” for any reason whatsoever.

In February, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against HHS for records on pressuring Big Tech to censor “COVID misinformation,” specifically with regard to any communications made between the Surgeon General’s communications director and social media companies — Twitter, Facebook, etc. — regarding COVID-19 vaccines. The Twitter Filesreveal how the pharmaceutical industry lobbied social media over COVID vaccine content.

Also in February, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records of communication related to the work of the Election Integrity Partnership that could detail coordinated censorship activities. One section of the Twitter Files calls the FBI “Twitter’s Subsidiary,” illustrated by an episode where Twitter, one day just prior to the 2020 election, received so many moderation (censorship) requests from the FBI that a Twitter executive congratulated staffers at the end for completing the “monumental undertaking.”

In January 2023, not long after the Twitter Files were made public, we sued the DOJ for records of communications between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Announcing the lawsuit, I said, “The FBI was literally paying Twitter to censor Americans just before the 2020 election … they are now covering up their misconduct.”

In November 2022, we sued the DHS for all records of communications between CISA and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which reportedly was active during the 2022 midterm elections. Among the news outlets flagged by EIP were websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Epoch Times and Breitbart. A week later, in a Senate floor speech, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) described revelations from theTwitter Files about Twitter and 2020 election interference, and other instances of Biden administration collusion with social media firms to censor and withhold information from the American people.

In September 2022, we sued the Secretary of State of the State of California for censoring a Judicial Watch election integrity video.

In April 2021, we published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In May 2021, we revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.

And in July 2021, we uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed thatFacebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

 

Clean Elections Update: Judicial Watch Exposes Controversial ERIC 

Judicial Watch has been looking into the controversial Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, lays out what we know in our Investigative Bulletin.

Republican-leaning states are bailing out of the reputedly non-partisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), and the media are in an uproar. National Public Radio declares that ERIC is a victim of a “far right … disinformation campaign.” The New York Times warns that ERIC is under attack from “election deniers.” The very “backbone of American elections is being upended,” says Politico.

Protesting “recent misinformation,” ERIC Executive Director Shane Hamlin posted an “open letter” in March saying that ERIC “is a non-profit membership organization created by state election officials to help improve the accuracy of state voter rolls and register more eligible Americans to vote.”

Until recently, ERIC was a 32-state organization with two distinct missions: clean up dirty voter rolls and increase voter registration. But over the past year, seven states have pulled out—Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, West Virginia, Missouri, Ohio, and Iowa—citing concerns over data security and the left-wing orientation of the organization. Florida withdrew in March, saying the group had rejected proposals that “would have eliminated concerns about ERIC’s potential partisan leanings, and made the information shared with ERIC more secure.” Other “red states might soon head for the exits,” warned the Washington Post, “causing the system to collapse—and making ballot fraud harder to detect next year.”

Here at Judicial Watch, we know whereof we speak when it comes to ballot fraud, voter registration, and cleaning up dirty voter rolls. Action by the Judicial Watch election integrity team has resulted in important reforms and the removal of over two million inactive voters from voting rolls, including more than 1.2 million in Los Angeles County, 550,000 in New York City, and 240,000 in Pennsylvania. You can read more about that here.

We took a close look at ERIC and found plenty of reasons for concern.

A new Judicial Watch white paper notes that on voter roll cleanups, ERIC does not actually require that member states “remove ineligible voters from their registration rolls.” States are only required to “initiate contact” with those voters. “ERIC claims to have identified 2,498,688 registered voters who relocated across state lines, 203,210 duplicate registrations, and 65,437 deceased registered voters,” the Judicial Watch study notes. But according to an independent analysis cited in the Judicial Watch white paper, “states that do not participate in ERIC had a higher rate of identifying and removing from voter registration rolls individuals who relocated out of a jurisdiction than ERIC member states.” It’s worth noting as well that powerhouse states California and New York—hardly bastions of right-wing reaction—have never been members of ERIC.

The leadership behind ERIC also is cause for concern. The Judicial Watch white paper notes that ERIC was founded by left-leaning attorney David Becker with $157,000 in grants from the George Soros-funded Pew Charitable Trusts. Soros’s Open Society Institute lists Pew as a “donor partner.” Becker went on to found CEIR, the Center for Election Innovation and Research, but remained active with ERIC as a non-voting board member. Last month, as controversy mounted, Becker announced he would not seek reelection to ERIC’s board.

Concerns over bias come into sharper focus when considering ERIC’s other chief mission, voter registration—long a major preoccupation of the Left. “Since its inception,” reports the Judicial Watch white paper, “ERIC has been far more successful at identifying unregistered voters than duplicate or invalid registrations. The organization reports identifying more than 60 million unregistered voters since 2012.”

“CEIR works closely with ERIC in managing state voter rolls,” notes the Judicial Watch report. In September 2020, CEIR received a $70 million grant from the Zuckerberg philanthropies for “voter education programs.” Much of that money was funneled to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, New York, and Arizona for voter mobilization activities—all (except New York) battleground states in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Research by Judicial Watch also raises concerns about data-sharing between ERIC and Becker’s Center for Election Innovation. “The large amount of sensitive data provided to ERIC by its member states and the role of the organization in maintaining voter rolls may violate a number of federal statutes,” the Judicial Watch study notes. While the Help America Vote Act secures electronic voter registration, there is “no provision in the statute that authorizes any state to outsource these obligations to a third-party entity.” The outsourcing by the states of voter registration list maintenance to ERIC may also violate the National Voter Registration Act, which protects from disclosure the identities of individuals who decline to register to vote. And the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act specifically shields from disclosure the kind of data provided to ERIC by member states to conduct list maintenance.

What’s wrong with ERIC? Add up the evidence: left-wing sponsors and affiliations, ineffective voter roll cleanup, robust voter registration efforts in swing states, sketchy data sharing practices—a “syndicate founded by leftists to manage voter registration rolls”— Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton calls it—disingenuous about its true motives and richly deserving of its coming collapse.

 

Judicial Watch Sues for Records on Biting by President Biden’s Dog

After we received a tip, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for records of any incidents of aggression or biting by President Biden’s dog Commander.

We filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the U.S. Secret Service, a component of Homeland Security, failed to respond adequately to a December 28, 2022, FOIA request (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-00612))] for:

Any records related to incidents of aggression and bites involving the Biden family dog, “Commander,” including communications between Secret Service officials in the Uniformed and Non-Uniformed Divisions involved in White House operations and the Presidential Protection Division.

The Secret Service acknowledged receipt of the request and wrote in a January 20. 2023, letter that it had found responsive records and was processing them. At the time of the complaint, however, it had not produced any of the records.

Acquired in December 2021, Commander, a pure-bred German shepherd, replaced another German shepherd, Major, which left the White House following a series of attacks on Secret Service and White House staff.

In April 2022 we released records detailing multiple attacks and damages to United States Secret Service (USSS) members by Major at both the White House and Biden’s lake home in Wilmington, DE. The documents reveal that a member of USSS who was attacked by the dog was displeased that White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki misled the press about the incident.

In August 2021, we uncovered records from the Secret Service revealing Biden’s dog Major was responsible for many more biting incidents than the Biden White House had publicly acknowledged.

One email noted that “at the current rate an Agent or Officer has been bitten every day this week (3/1-3/8) causing damage to attire or bruising/punctures to the skin.”

We already caught the Biden White House lying about their family dog attacking and injuring Secret Service and White House employees. Now it seems their new dog is also out of control and the Secret Service is hiding records about the issue.

 

Who Is Alvin Bragg?

Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, examines the career of Alvin Bragg, the New York district attorney who indicted Donald Trump. Here is his Investigative Bulletin report.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last week rocketed to global celebrity with his indictment of former president Donald Trump on charges related to a 2016 hush money payment. Trump’s lawyers immediately fired back. “He did not commit any crime,” the attorneys said. “We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

And so the stage is set for what will certainly be one of the biggest legal battles of 2023 and what legions of pundits are calling a historic case—the first indictment of a former president on criminal charges. Time will tell if the Trump case will end with a bang or slink off with a whimper—the actual charges have yet to be unsealed and the guesswork by the punditocracy indicates there might be slim jurisdictional and evidentiary grounds for the case, leading a judge to throw it out—but Alvin Bragg is not unprepared to do battle.

Bragg has been keeping a low profile since news emerged of the Trump indictment, cultivating a public image of a low-key, nose-to-the-grindstone prosecutor. His record paints another story. A Heritage Foundation study labeled him a “rogue prosecutor” with “dangerous” policies. His anti-Trump bias is extreme. He has proudly noted that “I’ve sued Trump more than a hundred times,” adding “I can’t change that fact, nor would I. That was important work.”

A son of Harlem and graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Bragg has deep roots in New York progressive politics and plenty of experience in Trump-related prosecutions. With early tours of duty at the Office of Attorney General of the State of New York, the New York City Council as chief of litigation, and the Southern District of New York as a federal prosecutor, Bragg in 2017 was appointed Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York. From there, he helped lead a lawsuit against the Trump Foundation that resulted in its closure and a $2 million fine.

Bragg ran for New York County DA in 2021 in a crowded primary field. He received a significant boost from George Soros and the political arm of Color of Change, an activist group supporting the progressive prosecutor movement. In May 2021, Color of Change endorsed Bragg and declared it would spend $1 million to support him—a game changer in the primary. A few days later, in an unmistakable signal of support, Soros donated $1 million to Color of Change.

Bragg came out on top in the primary and wiped out his Republican opponent in overwhelmingly liberal Manhattan. He was sworn in on January 1, 2022. In a nod to his progressive prosecutor constituency, Bragg appointed Meg Reiss to the powerful position of chief assistant district attorney, the number two post at the DA’s office. Reiss had held the title “Chief of Social Justice” in her previous job at the Brooklyn DA’s office.

Bragg and Reiss immediately ran into trouble.  Bragg’s “Day One” memo to staff, quickly leaked to the press, was straight from the progressive prosecutor playbook. Bragg announced that he would seek to reduce pre-trial incarceration and not prosecute (or seek lower-level charges for) such crimes as fare evasion, resisting arrest, burglary, store robbery, prostitution, and marijuana. The memo was met with a storm of protest, including from some of his Democratic Party allies. By the end of the month, Bragg backtracked, dropping some of the policies aimed at violent crime but keeping parts of the Day One framework in place.

As Manhattan DA, Bragg’s pursuit of Trump continued, but not without setbacks. In February 2022, two high-level prosecutors in the DA’s office, brought in by Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr. specifically to investigate Trump-related matters, abruptly resigned. According to news reports, the prosecutors—Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne—were focused on a possible prosecution of Trump related to inflated assets, real-estate evaluations, and bank loans. Bragg was said to have grown uneasy with the case. In his letter of resignation, Pomerantz criticized Bragg for his “decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time.”

Bragg persisted on other fronts, and in August he secured the conviction of the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allan Weisselberg, on charges of tax fraud and falsifying business records.

In December, Bragg convicted the Trump Organization on charges related to off-the-books pay to Weisselberg and others. The charges included tax fraud and falsifying business records—a hint of what might be coming in the hush money prosecution. Trump himself was not charged in the case. A lawyer for the Trump Organization said it will “certainly” appeal the conviction.

Bragg is also in pursuit of Trump ally Steve Bannon. In September, Bragg charged Bannon with fraud and money laundering in a scheme centered around fundraising to build a wall on the southern border. A trial date has been set for November. Bannon pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The view from here: Bragg is no kamikaze. The Pomerantz-Dunne episode and the Day One Memo debacle show a willingness to cut losses when the going goes bad. But it’s also clear that the DA sees the relentless pursuit of Trump to be a winner with the only political constituency that matters to him: liberal Manhattan voters. He’ll play the case aggressively to the end, convinced it is a winner for him on his home turf, no matter what the outcome.

 

Biden Admin Lets Trans Immigrants Pick, Change Gender on Official Forms to Avert Harassment

Remember the bureaucracy created after 9/11 to protect us from terrorist attacks? Under the Biden administration it has gone fully woke. Our Corruption Chronicles blog provides the latest example.

In the Biden administration’s latest move to accommodate the transgender population, the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration will accept the gender selection of foreign nationals on official forms even if it does not match supporting documentation. Additionally, foreigners requesting immigration benefits do not need to submit proof of gender identity when submitting a request to change genders. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) explains in a recent policy change that “benefit requestors may self-select their gender marker (in an initial filing or a subsequent change to a prior gender selection), without the need to provide supporting documentation or to match the gender listed on their identity documents.” And that the new policy “removes the prior requirement that benefit requestors submit proof of their gender identity to change gender markers or to update their selected gender marker to match other supporting documentation.”

Since the agency’s inception over a century ago, foreign nationals seeking to enter the country legally have, among other things, been required to provide a gender marker on immigration forms and support their gender identity with documentation from their birth country. More recently, inspired by the madness surrounding transgender rights, USCIS allowed legal immigrants to change their gender marker with “documentation about their gender identity to support the requested change.” Under the new policy no documentation is required, and immigrants can change their gender at will. “Removing evidentiary requirements regarding gender markers better ensures that all secure identity documents and biographic data are accurate, particularly for noncitizens who were unable to accurately state their gender in their initial applications or who may otherwise need an update to their gender marker,” USCIS writes in the new policy document, adding that “it also removes the burden imposed by requiring that requestors have to publicly discuss or provide documentation regarding the gender listed on their identity documents in order to obtain a benefit or service.”

The administration asserts that it changed a longtime federal policy to reduce barriers to travel, employment, services, and benefits for transgender immigrants. For those questioning how exactly the so-called “barriers” are being curtailed, USCIS explains that the revamped rule eliminates delays and prevents “discrimination and harassment due to inconsistent identity documents.” The agency did not reach the decision lightly and reveals that the policy change was made “in response to stakeholder feedback as well as recent changes made by a number of state and federal agencies.” Indeed, the new USCIS policy is part of a fierce governmentwide effort launched by the Biden administration to provide special accommodations to support those who identify as transgender, even though they make up less than one percent of the American population.

This includes the U.S. Census Bureau spending $10 million to research how to best add questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on surveys. The State Department is allowing all American citizens to select an X as their gender marker on U.S. passport applications. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the first federal agency to fly a transgender pride flag above its headquarters, will soon reveal its plan to “best serve LGBTQI+ Americans” based on a comprehensive study on “Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation” conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency. HHS is also using another “groundbreaking” taxpayer-funded study on how transgender Americans want to see themselves reflected on federal identifications. The Social Security Administration is eliminating a rule requiring transgender people to provide legal or medical documentation of their identity on official records. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, will promote greater equity and inclusion for members of the transgender community by providing the option to select an X gender marker during the initial intake process of filing a discrimination charge. The Department of Education will update federal student aid forms to include gender identity when applying for federal financial aid, which the administration asserts will inform the agency about barriers “transgender and non-binary students face in the financial aid process.”

 

Happy Easter!

“Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there.” ~ Clarence W. Hall

In this season Christians around the world are celebrating the resurrection of the Christ. There are no more powerful symbols of hope than the cross and the empty tomb. From me and mine, I wish you and yours all the joy of Easter! For those celebrating Passover, I wish you a Happy Passover, as well!

 

Until next week …