Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update | August 02, 2024

Secret Service Cover-Up!

Biden 9/11 Plea Deal Outrage
Secret Service Rejects Judicial Watch FOIA Requests About Assassination Attempt on Trump
Judicial Watch Sues for Records of CIA Personnel Deployed for January 6 Protests
Judicial Watch Asks Court to Order Justice Department to Turn Over Audio of President Biden’s Interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur
113 Non-Citizens Voted in DC Presidential Primary
Judicial Watch Files FCC Complaint Against NBC for Airing Obscene and Indecent Content from Olympics Opening Ceremony
As AG Kamala Harris Helped Man Become Nation’s First Undocumented Lawyer

 

Biden 9/11 Plea Deal Outrage

Surrender! The Biden Defense Department agreed to a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and two other top terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Jihadist terrorists and other American enemies are surely celebrating their comrades’ victory, made possible by the Biden administration’s surrender in court to the men responsible for helping murder nearly 3,000 Americans. America is less safe as a result of this Harris-Biden betrayal.

The Left has been opposing the timely prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for years. (Obama tried to shut down Gitmo, for example.) Judicial Watch representatives have been monitoring the proceedings in Gitmo, and our representative is there now as an observer. We can attest based on extensive experience that the process has been a circus from the get-go.

9/11 survivors and families — and all Americans — are rightly outraged by this miscarriage of justice.

We are America’s leading organization on issues related to the 9/11 attacks. We are running a longstanding monitoring project of the proceedings against the terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Our representatives have visited the facility at least 80 times to observe the proceedings.

For more than 20 years we have represented Lynn Faulkner, the husband of a 9/11 victim, in litigation now pending in New York federal court seeking to hold defendants accountable including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and others.

We have compiled the largest collection of government records pertaining to the spiritual leader of the 9/11 hijackers, Anwar al-Awlaki, through our investigations and litigation.

In July we reported that the Transportation Safety Administration, created after 9/11, has no idea how aviation security was affected when it plucked federal air marshals from their duties to help with the Mexican border crisis.

In June 2023 we reported that the U.S. has failed to properly remove millions who overstayed their visas, which at least four of the September 11 hijackers did.

In June 2021 we reported that four “forever prisoners” were released as part of a Biden administration initiative to clear out the top security facility that houses the world’s most dangerous Islamic terrorists, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In September 2020 we reported that it took nearly two decades after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil for every state to finally comply with a federal law requiring minimum security standards for driver’s licenses and identification cards.

In September 2015 we filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records of communications between the Office of the Secretary of State and the White House/Executive Office of the President following the capture and slaying of Osama bin Laden.

In June 2004 we submitted to the 9/11 Commission documents showing that Saudi Arabian nationals, including bin Laden family members, were allowed to fly out of the United States immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The documents represent the first admission by the government that the flights occurred at all. We are asking the 9/11 Commission to investigate and reconcile previous contradictory testimony about Saudis being allowed to leave the country.

And you can be sure we will also try to get to the bottom of this latest betrayal.

 

Secret Service Rejects Judicial Watch FOIA Requests About Assassination Attempt on Trump 

A real stench is rising out of Butler, PA, and Washington DC.

The United States Secret Service completely denied multiple FOIA requests for documents about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

On July 16, 2024, we filed three comprehensive FOIA requests seeking emails, videos, and advance survey security assessments, among other documents related to the assassination attempt.

The Secret Service produced not one record in response:

At this time, pursuant to Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(B)(7)(A), any potentially responsive records, if they exist, are exempt as disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. The citation of the above exemption is not to be construed as the only exemption which may be available under the FOIA.

We are pursuing the next steps in preparation for litigation.

The Biden Secret Service is in cover-up mode in its inexcusable and epic failure to protect former President Trump and other innocents. For Secret Service leaders to promise transparency to Congress while hiding every possible FOIA record from the American people is yet another indictment of this corrupt and failing agency.

We have more than 25 pending FOIA and open records requests with the Biden administration and local and state officials and agencies in Pennsylvania on the shooting.

Expect lawsuits to follow….

 

Judicial Watch Sues for Records of CIA Personnel Deployed for January 6 Protests

Judicial Watch just filed an important FOIA lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency for all records related to any shots fired inside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, and records of requests for CIA support, including bomb technicians and bomb-detecting dogs placed on standby or used in response to the massive protests in and around Washington, DC (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:24-cv-02172)).

We sued after the CIA failed to respond to our March 13, 2024, FOIA request asking the agency to produce records related to:

• Shots fired inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• A person being shot inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• Requests for CIA support or assistance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• Bomb technician support or assistance to any potential or actual bombs or explosive devices in response to the massive protests in and around the Washington DC area on January 6, 2021.
• Accelerant or explosives K-9s (bomb detection dogs) placed on standby or used in Washington, DC, in response to the massive protests in and around Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.
• Any after action reports concerning the events that took place in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.

In March, we received 88 pages of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) records from the Department of Justice in a FOIA lawsuit that show the CIA deployed personnel to Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.

The records include a series of text messages under the heading “January 7 Intel Chain” in which two separate references to participation by the CIA are made. One states that “two CIA bomb techs” are assisting with “a pipe bomb scene on New Jersey and D ST SE.” Another record references “several CIA dog teams on standby.”

We forced the Justice Department to admit CIA personnel were at the January 6, 2021, disturbance. Now the CIA should come clean on exactly what its role at the protests was.

We are extensively investigating (and litigation) January 6 issues.

In February 2024, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Aaron Babbitt, the late Ashli Elizabeth Babbitt’s husband, and Ashli Babbitt’s estate against the U.S. Department of Justice for all FBI files on Ashli Babbitt, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021.

In October 2023 we announced that we received the court-ordered 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.

In September we received records from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a component of the Department of Justice, in a FOIA lawsuit that detail the extensive apparatus the Biden Justice Department set up to investigate and prosecute January 6 protestors.

A previous review of records from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt.

In January 2023 documents from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, showed U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer expense at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In November 2021 we released multiple audio, visual, and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records included a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the shooter, Byrd.

In October 2021 United States Park Police records related to the January 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol showed that on the day before the January 6 rally featuring President Trump, U.S. Park Police expected a “large portion” of the attendees to march to the U.S. Capitol and that the FBI was monitoring the January 6 demonstrations, including travel to the events by “subjects of interest.”

 

Judicial Watch Asks Court to Order Justice Department to Turn Over Audio of President Biden’s Interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur

President Biden’s inability to perform his duties is being shielded from the public eye by Deep State agencies such as the Department of Justice.

One example of this is our legal battle for the infamous “Biden tapes.” In fact, Judicial Watch filed a reply brief asking a federal court to expeditiously rule in our favor and order the Biden Justice Department to produce within 14 days the audio recordings of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interviews of President Biden in the criminal investigation into Biden’s theft and disclosure of classified records. (Judicial Watch, Heritage Foundation, Cable News Network, Inc., et al v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-00700-TJK))

On March 11, 2024,we filed its FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a February 2024 FOIA request for records of all Special Counsel interviews of President Biden (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-00700)).

Although a redacted transcript of the Biden interview was released on April 15 in response to our lawsuit, the public has a significant interest in hearing the audio recordings “because an open question remains about whether Special Counsel Hur’s conclusion that President Biden should not be prosecuted for his mishandling of classified records [and] is supported by the evidence.”

The Biden Justice Department, in seeking to keep the audio recordings secret, asked the court to ignore precedent and rewrite FOIA law. The Biden agency: demands that a law enforcement/executive privilege exemption be rewritten to help Joe Biden; wants to change FOIA law to protect (after 50 years of being a politician) President Joe Biden’s privacy in his voice; and seeks to potentially end FOIA with a new argument that the possible “AI” alteration of the Hur recordings is reason to keep the recordings and any government record a secret from the public.

As we explain in our latest filing, the Justice Department continues to baselessly assert executive privilege; “doubles down” on its insufficient argument of “potential harm to unspecified and undefined ongoing investigations;” and engages in unsupported speculation on “concerns that the release of the audio recordings could reasonably be expected to chill cooperation with future high-profile law enforcement investigations.”

We state that, in its continued withholding of the recordings, the Justice Department wrongly argues that FOIA “allows for it to withhold the audio recordings that contain the voice of the President of the United States, who has been an elected federal officeholder for more than 50 years, speaking the same substantive information contained in the transcripts.”

Even though President Biden is no longer running for re-election, we state, “the substantial public interest in determining whether the Special Counsel “pulled any punches” (or even “swung too far”) when investigating President Biden remains.”

The Biden Justice Department wants to destroy FOIA in order to protect Joe Biden. In our 30 years of work, we have never seen such a dishonest assault on the people’s right to know. The Court can’t order the release of the Biden tapes soon enough.

The Heritage Foundation and a CNN-led media coalition lawsuits have been joined with our lawsuit.

On February 5, 2024, Special Counsel Robert Hur issued the “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.”

In the report, 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.

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.

 

113 Non-Citizens Voted in DC Presidential Primary

It’s a voting free-for-all in your nation’s capital. Aliens, legal AND illegal, are welcomed in the voting booths.

We received an Excel spreadsheet of names and other data from the District of Columbia Board of Elections revealing that 113 non-citizens voted in the June “2024 Presidential Primary.”

The alien voter information was produced in response to Judicial Watch’s July 3, 2024, D.C., Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for:

a. All public records that identify the number of non-citizens who voted in the June 2024 primary;

b. The wards in which they are located;

c. The party affiliation they registered as;

d. Any records that identify whether the non-citizens are lawfully or unlawfully present aliens; and

e. Records that identify the same information for non-citizens registered to vote who will be eligible to vote in the general election (i.e., including independents).

This spreadsheet updates data we received earlier through a pre-primary D.C. FOIA request (May 14, 2024) to the D.C.Board of Elections for records regarding the number of noncitizens registered to vote in Washington, D.C. under the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act. The data showed that at the time 583 foreign nationals were registered to vote in the June primary election. The records from the earlier FOIA request also confirmed that noncitizens can be election workers in the District of Columbia.

Based on the updated, post-primary data from the spreadsheet and from the D.C. Board of Elections website, the turnout rate in the primary among non-U.S.-citizen registrants was 19.3%, as compared to the turnout rate among U.S.-Citizen registrants of 25.9%.

The records we previously obtained include a Board of Elections meeting transcript that explains that noncitizens are not required to have an ID to vote. If they do not have proof of residence when they go to register to vote or vote for the first time they can still vote by “Special Ballot.” Also, prisoners are welcome to vote, according to a “Voting Guide for Incarcerated Residents.”

The fact that 113 foreign nationals voted in the presidential primary in Washington, D.C., is a national scandal, is an insult to every American voter, and may be a violation of federal law.

While federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections, there are at least two states and local jurisdictions in the United States that allow non-citizens who are legal permanent residents to vote in local elections. These include:

1. Maryland: Barnesville, Cheverly, Chevy Chase, Garrett Park, Glen Echo, Hyattsville, Martin’s Additions, Mount Rainier, Riverdale Park, Somerset, Takoma Park.
2. Vermont: Burlington, Montpelier, Winooski.

In May we received records from the District of Columbia, explaining to illegal aliens and other noncitizens how they can register to vote in local elections.

 

Judicial Watch Files FCC Complaint Against NBC for Airing Obscene and Indecent Content from Olympics Opening Ceremony

Haven’t we had enough public obscenities? And to see it on the world state of the Olympics is beyond the pale.

That is why Judicial Watch filed a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) complaint against NBC for airing obscene and indecent content from the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

The blasphemous Olympics’ Opening Ceremony that included, among other obscene and indecent acts, a man partially exposing himself around children, is patently offensive for any sensible American and requires immediate FCC action against NBC.

Our FCC complaint reads in part:

NBC and its various stations/outlets on TV, cable and Internet carried (and continues to make available) the Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 26, which included an adult male purposefully exposing (himself) in the presence of a child/children. This content is both obscene and indecent and, to make matters worse, was aired during viewing hours when it was likely seen by millions of children and minors.

The obscene/indecent content occurred during a portion of the ceremonies that mocked Jesus Christ and the Last Supper. The Olympics was forced to issue an apology over the content.

According to the FCC, “federal law prohibits obscene, indecent and profane content from being broadcast on the radio or TV.”  The FCC further states:

Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment.  For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.

Profane content includes “grossly offensive” language that is considered a public nuisance.

The FCC notes airing obscene or indecent content is a federal crime:

It is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time. It is also a violation of federal law to broadcast indecent or profane programming during certain hours. Under 18 U.S.C. Section 1464, “[w]hoever utters any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” Under 18 U.S.C. Section 1468(a), “[w]hoever knowingly utters any obscene language or distributes any obscene matter by means of cable television or subscription services on television, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or by a fine in accordance with this title, or both.” Likewise, under 47 U.S.C. Section 559, “[w]hoever transmits over any cable system any matter which is obscene or otherwise unprotected by the Constitution of the United States shall be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.” Section 73.3999 of the Commission’s rules, applicable to broadcast stations, bans the broadcast of obscene material and prohibits radio and television broadcasts of indecent material between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.

The Justice Department should also launch an investigation, especially given the use of children in this obscene and indecent NBC broadcast.

Any person can file a complaint about the NBC broadcast directly with the FCC: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/27646986117268-TV-Form-Descriptions-of-Complaint-Issues.

 

As AG Kamala Harris Helped Man Become Nation’s First Undocumented Lawyer

Kamala Harris’ outrageous support for illegal aliens goes way back to her days in California state office. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the details.

Years before her catastrophic failure as the Biden administration’s border czar, Vice President Kamala Harris helped an illegal alien become the nation’s first undocumented lawyer while she was California’s top law enforcement official. In a court brief filed during the illegal alien’s years-long legal battle to obtain a law license, then California Attorney General Harris wrote that “it is not a crime either to be present or to work in the United States without immigration status.” Even the Obama administration opposed an illegal immigrant practicing law in the United States and the Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged it, arguing that a 1996 immigration reform law precludes undocumented aliens from receiving commercial and professional licenses issued by states and the federal government. Accordingly, the California Supreme Court blocked the illegal immigrant’s license to practice law and the case went on for years until Harris intervened on the migrant’s behalf.

Though it occurred over a decade ago, the story resurfaced this week as part of the mainstream media’s love fest with Harris since she replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president. A Sacramento newspaper published a celebratory puff piece in which the illegal immigrant attorney, Sergio Covarrubias-Garcia, praises Harris for intervening to help him become a lawyer despite living in the U.S. illegally and being sentenced for reentering the country after being deported. Garcia was born in the Mexican state of Michoacán and first came to the U.S. illegally as an infant but lived in both Mexico and the U.S. until permanently moving to northern California at the age of 17. A court document obtained by Judicial Watch shows that he was convicted and sentenced after “pleading guilty to being an alien found unlawfully in the United States after previously having been removed.”

Garcia graduated from a public high school in a northern California farming town and reportedly earned scholarships to “prestigious universities,” but could not accept them “due to his status as an undocumented immigrant,” according to a biography published by a public university where he delivered an inspirational lecture. He enrolled at Butte Community College near his home and completed his undergraduate degree at the publicly-funded California State University Chico before graduating from Cal Northern School of Law, a private school in Chico. Garcia passed the California State Bar exam in 2009 but was prohibited from practicing law because he was an illegal immigrant. His case received a lot of media attention with open border groups and many of the state’s Latino legislators supporting him. The feds, on the other hand, rightfully litigated to stop the illegal alien from practicing law in the country.

Then Harris came to the rescue. She submitted a written brief to the court supporting Garcia’s case and provided a taxpayer-funded lawyer from the attorney general’s office to argue for him in front of the California Supreme Court, according to the recently published news story. Contradicting the Obama DOJ, Harris’s court brief said a license for Garcia would comply with state and federal policies that “encourage immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to contribute to society.” The legal filing continues to claim that “it is not a crime either to be present or to work in the United States without immigration status, and Garcia has never been charged with the crime of unlawful entry. In fact, Garcia has been forthright about his immigration status with federal officials and has been approved for a visa when one becomes available.” Keep in mind, this is our border czar.

Garcia, who is 47 years old, is of course “fully backing Harris on her campaign to become the first female president of the United States” and is eternally grateful to the former California Attorney General. “To know that the ‘top cop’ in California did not hate me for being undocumented and was supporting me and wanting me to achieve my dream, that was huge,” Garcia says in the article. One of the attorneys who represented Garcia and is currently the dean of the University of California Davis Law School confirms that Harris’s endorsement “made the difference” in the case and eventually led to Garcia obtaining his law license. “When the highest law enforcement officer of a state weighs in and says this is legal, this is permissible, this is possible, the Supreme Court of the State of California listens,” said the UC Davis Law Dean, Kevin Johnson. “She could have ducked and covered and tried to avoid any political controversy.” Harris took it a step further and even awarded the nation’s first illegal immigrant to practice law with a medal of valor.

Until next week,