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Judicial Watch

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SEE FITTON CNP (ginni)

NO MERRI

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Ginni groundswell met in its offices weds:

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5 MILLION ASHI PAYOUT 5 25?!

[### Docket for 21-1264

Supreme Court of the United States (.gov)

https://www.supremecourt.gov › docket › html › public](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1264.html)

Richard W. Driscoll, Driscoll & Seltzer, PC 2000 Duke Street, Suite 300. Alexandria, VA 22314 ... Party name: Judicail Watch, Inc., et al.

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AN 1 26

President Donald Trump and his administration have been hit with an onslaught of lawsuits since his return to the White House, but according Newsweek, on Friday they received some rare legal pushback from a conservative organization.

Per Newsweek's report, Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, alleging that the agency had failed to provide a timely response to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The group requested survey information pertaining to abortion-related research at a facility in Pittsburgh.

The request was initially submitted on May 30 of last year, and according to the filing, while it was acknowledged by HHS on the same day, the organization has not heard back about it since then. The nonprofit is looking to obtain "All documents and communications of officials in the Office of Extramural Research concerning the Final Research Performance Progress Report (FRPPR) for the GUDMAP program at the University of Pittsburgh (Project Number U24- DK110791-01)," as part of an investigation for fetal tissue research programs using federal funds.

"As of the date of this Complaint (Jan. 2, 2026), Defendant has failed to: (i) determine whether to comply with the request; (ii) notify Plaintiff of any such determination or the reasons therefor; (iii) advise Plaintiff of the right to appeal any adverse determination; or (iv) produce the requested records or otherwise demonstrate that the requested records are exempt from production," the lawsuit alleged.

Newsweek noted that this lawsuit is among many that the Trump administration has faced for its alleged failures to comply with FOIA requests in a timely manner. Judicial Watch, for example, also sued the Justice Department over allegations that its FOIA request for "records about the alleged transfer of fetal tissue" was not answered sufficiently.

“Americans have a right to know basic information about the taxpayer-funded abortion industrial complex," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement. "As long as the government continues to fund these gruesome projects, Judicial Watch will work to expose them.”

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/another-far-right-group-was-posting-conspiracy-theories-about-voter-roll-program-as-red-states-cut-ties

tpm 4 23

as Republican-led states pull out of a multistate voter roll program in response to Gateway Pundit-pushed conspiracy theories about the organization, a conservative nonprofit was apparently also part of fanning the flames.

Judicial Watch, a far-right legal advocacy group, published a white paper in early March boosting erroneous claims about the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan program designed to maintain voter rolls across state lines. 

The paper, which the non-profit reupped on their website Friday, sought to legitimize debunked claims made by the far-right website Gateway Pundit last year, which falsely argued that ERIC was founded by “left-leaning attorney David Becker” and funded by George Soros.

Judicial Watch claims that Becker had a “history of left-wing activism and unethical conduct,” and that ERIC “shares the vast amount of sensitive personal data it receives from member states with another liberal non-profit, the Center for Election Innovation and Research,” which they linked to the “Zuckerbucks” controversy, another election-related conspiracy theory.

Becker did help a handful of states launch the non-partisan program with a group called the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012, but Soros never directly contributed to ERIC.Becker has sat on ERIC’s board as a non-voting ex-officio member since its founding, but on March 14 he announced that he would be vacating the position due to the conspiracy theories about his role that were being pushed by the right-wing media.

The Judicial Watch report was originally published on March 9, three days after Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd (R) announced that his state would be withdrawing from the program alongside Missouri and West Virginia. That afternoon, former president Donald Trump attacked ERIC on Truth Social as well:

“All Republican Governors should immediately pull out of ERIC, the terrible Voter Registration System that ‘pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up,” he wrote. “It’s a fools game for Republicans…”

On March 10, Texas officials also signaled their interest in leaving the program, and they’ve since drawn up legislation to do so. Ohio and Iowa announced their departures on March 17.

ERIC executive director Shane Hamlin posted an open letter on March 2 trying to bat down misinformation about the program, but it didn’t stop what would become a wave of red state officials cutting ties with the program.

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https://www.axios.com/**2020/02/**23/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house

axios

the Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, assembled detailed lists of disloyal government officials to oust — and trusted pro-Trump people to replace them — according to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort who spoke to Axios.

Driving the news: By the time President Trump instructed his 29-year-old former body man and new head of presidential personnel torid his government of anti-Trump officials, he'd gathered reams of material to support his suspicions.

In reporting this story, I have been briefed on, or reviewed, memos and lists the president received since 2018 suggesting whom he should hire and fire. Most of these details have never been published.

The big picture: Since Trump's Senate acquittal, aides say the president has crossed a psychological line regarding what he calls the "Deep State." He feels his government — from Justice to State to Defense to Homeland Security — is filled with "snakes." He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.

Let's get to the memos.

1. The Jessie Liu memo: Shortly before withdrawing the nomination of the former D.C. U.S. attorney for a top Treasury role, the president reviewed a memo on Liu's alleged misdeeds, according to a source with direct knowledge.

Between the lines: The Liu memo is not the first such memo to reach the president's desk — and there's a common thread in Groundswell, a conservative activist network that's headed by Thomas and whose members include Ledeen.

Thomas has spent a significant amount of time and energy urging Trump administration officials to change the personnel inside his government. This came to a head early last year.

2. The Groundswell memo: The presidential personnel office reviewed Thomas' memo and determined that some names she passed along for jobs were not appropriate candidates. Trump may revisit some given his current mood.

Potential hires she offered to Trump, per sources with direct knowledge:

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What we're hearing: These memos created tension inside the White House, as people close to the president constantly told him his own staff, especially those running personnel, were undermining him — and White House staff countered they were being smeared.

3. The State Department memo: In one extraordinary incident last year, President Trump passed along another action memo to histhen-head of presidential personnel, Sean Doocey (since pushed to State and replaced with former body man John McEntee). People familiar with the January 2019 memo say it came from conservatives associated with Groundswell. Though nobody I’ve spoken to has claimed credit for it.

The bottom line: As the New York Times' Peter Baker wrote on Saturday, "in some of the most critical corners of the Trump administration, officials show up for work now never entirely sure who will be there by the end of the evening — themselves included."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-ginni-thomas-insane-hiring-memos-for-former-president-donald-trump

no lnx    Inside Ginni Thomas’ ‘Insane’ Hiring Memos for Trump

‘WRECKED’

Ginni Thomas’ suggested hires included known bigots and at least one suspected foreign spy, sources say.

Asawin Suebsaeng

Senior Political Reporter

Adam Rawnsley

Former Senior Researcher

Updated Apr. 02, 2022

Years before she became one of then-President Donald Trump’s most prominent coup supporters, Ginni Thomas was already notorious in his West Wing for, among other things, ruining staffers’ afternoons by working Trump into fits of vengeful rage.

“We all knew that within minutes after Ginni left her meeting with the president, he would start yelling about firing people for being disloyal,” said a former senior Trump administration official. “When Ginni Thomas showed up, you knew your day was wrecked.”

Ever since she became a welcome guest at Trump’s residences, Thomas—an influential and longtime conservative activist, and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—had perfected a proven formula of enthralling and manipulating the president’s emotions and mood. On multiple occasions throughout the Trump era, Thomas would show up in the White House, sometimes for a private meeting or a luncheon with the president. She often came armed with written memos of who she and her allies believed Trump should hire for plum jobs—and who she thought Trump should promptly purge—that she distributed to Trump and other high-ranking government officials.

The fire lists were particularly problematic, as they were frequently based on pure conjecture, rumor, or score-settling, where even steadfastly MAGA aides were targeted for being part of the “Deep State” or some other supposedly anti-Trump coalition, according to people who saw them during the Trump administration. The hire lists were so often filled with infamous bigots and conspiracy theorists, woefully under-qualified names, and obvious close friends of Thomas that several senior Trump aides would laugh at them—that is, until Trump would force his staff to put certain names through the official vetting process, three sources familiar with the matter said.

“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable.”

— one former Trump White House official

During the Trump years, these memos would astonish various administration officials, including those working in the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO). Some of these officials noticed that as the Trump term went on, the Thomas lists would increasingly feature a disproportionate share of names more suited to an OAN guest line-up than any functional government. (To be fair, well before Ginni Thomas became a recurring visitor, Trump would routinely hire people because they had entertained or excited him, via Fox and other cable-news appearances.)

Officials in the PPO regularly annotated the margins of Thomas’ hire lists, usually including a single line for each rejected name, explaining why the prospective hires did not work out. Some failed background checks, or suffered from security-clearance hold-ups. Other annotations noted that a specific individual was offered a job in the Trump administration, but turned it down for whatever reason.

Sometimes, the reasons for the White House’s preemptive rejection, despite Thomas and Trump’s best efforts, were more outlandish. According to a person who reviewed one of the Thomas lists, one annotation for a MAGA job candidate noted that that individual had made too many extreme or offensive jokes on social media that were still visible.

Another of these annotations claimed that one recommendation for a Trump administration position was, in fact, a suspected foreign-intelligence asset, or spy.

Thomas did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Over the years, some of the specific names that Thomas had compiled and pushed to Trump and his West Wing have trickled out into the press. Among them were Fox News personality Dan Bongino, and the Trump-adulating Sheriff David Clarke.

And according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Thomas had, unsuccessfully, advised the then-president to hire Frank Gaffney.

Gaffney, a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, has spent the past two decades embracing some of the more absurd conspiracy theories circulating in the far right. He has accused conservative anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of being a secret agent for the Muslim Brotherhoodand believes that American adversaries are working on secret electrical device-frying “electromagnetic pulse” weapons to zap America back to the pre-industrial age.

“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable,” said one former Trump White House official who had to personally deal with the Thomas-supplied memos and Trump’s fascination with them. “A lot of them were dripping with paranoia and read like they were written by a disturbed person.”

After Thomas departed, he would soon summon a variety of government personnel—West Wing brass, national security aides, lawyers, and other underlings, depending on proximity or the occasion—to inform them he’d just spoken to “Ginni.”

Trump would then identify an official— or, sometimes, he would rattle off a string of names—who he said needed to be sacked “immediately,” according to people familiar with the matter.

When they could get away with it, several of these Trump administration hands would slow-walk these Thomas-inspired firing directives, and wait until Trump invariably forgot about it, cooled off, and moved on to other fixations and gripes. Others would scramble to try to calm Trump down themselves, advising their boss to reconsider, telling him that a firing or a larger purge in the middle of the Trump term would make him look bad or attract negative media attention.

Thomas’ interactions with the Trump administration have taken on a new significance since the January 6th House Select Committee released text messages showing her urging Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election. Members of the committee are now seeking to interview Thomas, whose efforts to overturn the 2020 election included attendance at a “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall the day of the insurrection.

“Trump loved talking to Ginni so much because he loved hearing about who was a Never Trumper, or allegedly one. He loved people who would flatter him, [as Ginni would do],”said Stephanie Grisham, once a top White House aide to Trump who has since had a very public falling-out with the ex-president. “But also, his obsession with loyalty aside, he just loved to gossip—all the time. That’s something else he got out of his series of meetings at the White House with Ginni Thomas.”

In the text messages released by the committee last month, Thomas defended Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” lawyerwhose election conspiracy theories were so outlandish they earned her a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit, the scorn of rank and file Republican officials, and sanctions from a Michigan court. At the time, a number of Trump aides were trying to distance the president from Powell because of her increasingly outlandish comments about bogus election fraud. Thomas, however, urged Meadows not to yield to mainstream Republicans, according to The New York Times.

In her texts with Trump’s consigliere, Thomas also showed a fondness for Steve Pieczenik, a far-right pundit and onetime Tom Clancy co-author whose conspiracy theories and bogus claims were so far-fetched even InfoWars briefly booted him from appearing on the network. Before he began pushing the fake stories about watermarked fraud-catching ballots that earned Thomas’ endorsement, Pieczenik had pushed QAnon conspiracy theories, claimed to have arrested Pope Francis, and spun bogus stories about prominent mass shootings being false flags.

During the Obama administration, Thomas and Gaffney participated in a conservative messaging effort known as “Groundswell.” The group, an informal network of conservative journalists, pundits, and political operatives, routinely met at the offices of the right-wing activist group Judicial Watch to coordinate talking points opposing the Obama administration’s agenda and plot the ouster of allegedly moderate Republicans like Karl Rove from the broader conservative movement.

The revelation of Thomas’ texts with Meadows prompted the January 6th Committee to seek an interview with her, according to CNN, but that effort falls far short of the more legally compelling option of a subpoena.

In the meantime, Congressional Democrats are divided over how to handle Thomas’ cameo in the Jan. 6 scandal. Some, like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, have called for Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases while others like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for him to step down or be impeached.

But the lack of a Democratic supermajority in the Senate means neither of the Thomases are likely to have to give up their jobs just yet.

https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/msnbcs-chris-hayes-its-tom-fitton-who-ended-putting-donald-trump-arguably-most-acute-legal

// alex clinton sock drawer taylor branch pvt tapes

CHRIS HAYES (HOST): What is sort of remarkable, honestly, is that in most cases, Trump actually has kind of a fine-tuned antenna for just how close he can get to the line without crossing into outright easily provable crimes. That has saved him many times before. But this time, it appears that he stepped right over that line, the crystal clear line that his lawyers told him were there. And to understand why that finally happened, you have to look at who he's actually listening to. Because he was ignoring his highly qualified White House lawyers, Pat Philbin, Pat Cipollone, Eric Herschmann. Instead, he was reportedly taking the advice of this guy.

[...]

So that's a guy named Tom Fitton. He's like a second, third tier conservative activist. Head of the right-wing group, Judicial Watch. They've been around for forever. A somewhat ludicrous figure honestly. I put him in the, like, Ginni Thomas category of the American right. Imagine a more senior James O'Keefe on steroids [literally]. 

...

Now, I should note here, Tom Fitton is not a lawyer. He's just a dude with some big money right-wing donors, I guess. But he's been giving Donald Trump a lot of legal advice that the ex-president is actually listening to. Since as early as February, Fitton has reportedly been calling Trump, telling him it was a mistake to give the records from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives, that his team should have never let the Archives quote, "strong-arm" him into returning them. Fitton said the records belonged to Trump, citing a 2012 court case involving his organization that he said gave the former president authority to do what he wanted with records from his own term in office. He suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records. Trump, quote, "began obsessing over Fitton's arguments, complaining to aides about the 15 boxes that were handed over" and "even asked Fitton at one point to brief his attorneys." I'm sure that they loved that one. As one person close to the ex-president put it, quote, "The moment Tom got in the boss' ear, it was downhill from there." You know, it's like the Overstock guy or the Pillow guy. 

So Tom Fitton, professional right-wing scandal monger, appears to have facilitated the kind of black and white commission of an easily provable crime that Donald Trump on his own had so far managed to avoid.It's really an amazing feat, of all people, it's Tom Fitton who ended up putting Donald Trump in arguably the most acute legal peril he has ever been in. Well played. 

}:

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6 22

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ali-alexander-and-stop-the-steal-were-central-to-jan-6-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

no lnx twt pix

"I was the person that came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and then Congressman Andy Biggs,” GOP operative Ali Alexander said in a Dec. 28, 2020, Periscope video. “We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting, so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

The video, which was captured by investigative reporter Jason Paladino before it was deleted, highlights the role played by Alexander, his so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign, and far-right members of Congress in the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack launches its first public hearings June 9, and Alexander and “Stop the Steal” are likely to figure prominently in its findings. Alexander sat for eight hours of testimony in front of the committee on Dec. 9, and in April, a lawyer for Alexander said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation—a claim on which Alexander promptly threw cold water.

Right Wing Watch extensively covered Ali Alexander and the so-called Stop the Steal movement ahead of Jan. 6. Here’s what you need to know.

Who is Ali Alexander? What is “Stop the Steal”?

On Nov. 4, 2020, as mail-in ballots began to be counted and shifted the election in favor of Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump falsely declared that the ongoing efforts to count millions of outstanding ballots were an indication of fraud and that he had in fact won.

Hours later, Alexander publicly launched “Stop the Steal,” a campaign to get right-wing activists to discredit mail-in voting, disrupt vote-counting, and ​falsely accuse Democrats of stealing the presidential election. The campaign held its first rally outside Arizona’s state capitol building in Phoenix that evening, featuring Rep. Paul Gosar, who with a bullhorn in hand, addressed the crowd before introducing “Pizzagate” booster Mike Cernovich, who threatened imaginary anti-fascist activists. 

And so began months of “Stop the Steal” rallies featuring far-right members of Congress, QAnon and election conspiracy theorists, Christian nationalists, and far-right anti-government groups, all under the MAGA banner.

Ali Alexander and Roger Stone (Image Source: Twitter)]

Alexander, née Ali Akbar, has long worked in Republican politics, coming up under the tutelage of “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. He has connections to deep pockets, too: ​a PAC advised byAlexander received a $60,000 donation in 2016 from pro-Trump billionaire Robert Mercer​. These Republican connections have persisted despite his habit of noting when members of the media he criticizes are Jewish and despite associating with far-right figures like Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan and members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys.

Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” campaign wasn’t the first to go by that name. Longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone first popularized the phrase “Stop the Steal” during the 2016 presidential election. In 2018, Alexander,  Stone, and far-right commentator Jack Posobiec launched a “Stop the Steal” campaign during a ballot recount for Florida’s Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson. Pro-Trump activists from around the country descended on Florida to protest and spread misinformation, insisting that Democrats were trying to “steal” the election from Scott. It served as a dry run for the 2020 presidential election. Sure enough, in September 2020, Posobiec and Alexander discussed rebooting the campaign. 

What was their role in the lead up to Jan. 6?

Alexander served as the lead organizer for “Stop the Steal.” The campaign targeted Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia—battleground states won by Joe Biden and whose cities are home to predominantly Black and brown voters—holding rallies and spreading election disinformation on social media.

He called on figures he knew from his time as a member of the highly secretiveCouncil for National Policy and through his years in Republican politics to join the effort, including activistsAmy and Kylie Kremer, Jack Posobiec, Brandon Straka, Scott Presler, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, Ed Martin of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. He brought into the fold Trump’s short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump team attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood—who have since been disciplined for bringing false lawsuits alleging election fraud. Most joined the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement in a public capacity; others promoted the same messaging through their own organizations and organized behind the scenes.

Ali Alexander and other “Stop the Steal” activists at Dec. 15, 2020 press conference (Image from NTD livestream posted on Epoch Times YouTube channel.)]

Alexander welcomed extremists into the campaign’s ranks. Male supremacist Mike Cernovich, white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones were among the first to answer Alexander’s call. Alongside white nationalist Patrick Casey, Vincent James, and Baked Alaska, Fuentes galvanized crowds of white men to attend “Stop the Steal” rallies across the county, while Jones spread disinformation through his Infowars network, raised funds for the Jan. 6 rally, and brought a caravan of supporters to rallies.

On Nov. 14, “Stop the Steal” came to the nation’s capital. Thousands of Trump loyalists, conspiracy theorists, and members of far-right groups took to the streets. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and Madison Cawthorn—all recently elected to Congress—addressed the crowd alongside organizers. Radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones yelled unintelligibly into a bullhorn. Members of the Proud Boys hate group roamed the streets looking for fights and found them late in the evening.Fuentes’ America First group, ​a youth-focused white-nationalist outfit, commanded the crowd’s attention with chants of “America First.”

A second Dec. 12 rally was deeply steeped in Christian nationalist and violent rhetoric. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law, threatening a “much more bloody war”should he fail to do so.

While rallies brought the whole of the MAGA movement together, Alexander held regular Periscopes to spread disinformation and provide action items to Trump supporters.

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Alexander called on “Stop the Steal” activists to lobby the state legislatures of battleground states won by Joe Biden to ignore the election results andsend Republican electors to the electoral collegeto give Trump enough electoral votes.He called on state Republican legislators to declare the election fraudulent and threatened them with a primary challenger should they not.

By mid-December, right-wing activists and lawyers were focused on Jan. 6, the day Congress would certify the electoral votes. More than 100 House members and a dozen Senators committed to voting against certifying the election. Trump and the apparatus around him began to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial duty to block or delay Biden’s certification. “Stop the Steal” fed into that pressure, with “Stop the Steal” friend Lin Wood going as far as to call for the vice president’s execution.

On Dec. 19, Trump declared it “[s]tatistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election.” [~ his own # guy 1/6 hearing] He encouraged his followers to come to D.C.: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Alexander had already planned a Jan. 6 D.C. protest, but he began fighting his one-time fellow activists Kylie and Amy Kremer for control of the big Jan. 6 rally. The Kremers had used the “Stop the Steal” banner for their cross country bus tour and a competing December rally, much to Alexander’s chagrin. ProPublica reported that Katrina Pierson, whom the White House put in charge of the rally planning, “helped arrange a deal where those organizers deemed too extreme to speak at the Ellipse could do so on the night of Jan. 5.” That meant Alexander and his cohort were relegated to speaking on the evening of Jan. 5, while the Kremers took the lead on the Jan. 6 event held at the Ellipse.Alexander held that Jan. 5 rally and planned his own separate “wild” Jan. 6 protest on the east side of the Capitolbuilding to follow the main “Save America” rally.

Alexander spent weeks in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection calling for “rebellion,” starting chants of “victory or death,” and using rhetoric of the American Revolution and spiritual warfare to call for action should Congress certify the election of President Joe Biden. He engaged in violent rhetoric, appearing to even advocate for physical attacks against members of Congress who he said stole the election. 

The Jan. 5 rally served as the penultimate event of those calls. Speakers delivered Christian nationalist messages and veiled threats of violenceif Congress failed to reject Biden electors. Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox told rally-goers that the United States was on the brink of a revolution and that he would “take the first bullet.” Right Wing Watch reported at the time: 

Standing in front of a sign declaring “MARTIAL LAW NOW,” so-called Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander led the crowd in chants of “Victory or death!” Alexander told activists, “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate” and declared, “1776 is always an option.” [new boogaloo? less racist?] He said Stop the Steal activists were starting “a rebellion against the Deep State.”

What was Ali Alexander and the campaign’s role on Jan. 6?

On the day of the insurrection, Alexander took to Twitter early in the morning to declare it the “First official day of the rebellion.” Alexander was supposed to hold his “wild” protest by the Capitol, but it would never materialize.

Trump loyalists packed into the Ellipse, eager to stop what they saw as a fraudulent election. Speaking from the stage and wearing a bulletproof vest, Rep. Mo Brooks, whom Alexander had recently called a friend, told attendees that Jan. 6 is “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. … Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump told the crowd. He urged activists to march to the Capitol to make their voices heard. They did as they were told.

Leaving the rally at the Ellipse after Trump’s speech, where he was a VIP guest with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Alexander followed Jones through the Capitol grounds, past barricades, and up the Capitol steps. At that point—around 2 p.m.—the Capitol had already been breached.

“Democrats and Media ended the Republic and the people responded. Welcome to ‘duhhh’,” he tweeted an hour later.

Alexander emerged on One America News Network’s terrace overlooking the Capitol to record a video, posted on the “Stop the Steal” Twitter account by his associate Michael Coudrey at 4:26 p.m.—well after the violence had begun.

“I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this,” Alexander said, gesturing to the scene behind him. Trump loyalists were descending on the Capitol and up the Capitol steps. “This is completely peaceful, looks like, so far. And there are a couple of agitators that I obviously don’t endorse,” he claimed despite having seen what took place on the steps not long before. By the end of the video, Alexander was back to encouraging rebellion. “StoptheSteal.us is going to be the home of the rebellion against an illegitimate government.”

Right Wing Watch captured the video, which was later deleted.

Where is Ali Alexander now?

Ali Alexander went into hiding following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.In February, he briefly reappeared and said he had been plotting to restart rallies in March,abolish the media, and build a separate society for Trump supporters. He declared that “civil war” was the only outcome available to those who opposed Biden’s presidency.

But Alexander was kicked off Twitter and most mainstream social media platforms. He lost access to his Venmo, Cashapp, and Paypal. He turned to alternative social media platforms and briefly became a Bitcoin influencer. 

In October 2021, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued three subpoenas to Alexander, the Stop the Steal organization, and Nathan Martin, who worked with Alexander and reserved the Jan. 6 rally space. Alexander accused the government of “gaslighting” and blamed the violence on “agitators dressed in militant outfits.” Jan. 6, he said, was a government “psyop.”

In December 2021, Alexander testified for eight hours in a closed-door hearing andasked the House select committee to suspend reality. In a draft of his opening statement, which was leaked to the New York Times, he denied wrongdoing and passed the buck, placing blame for the violence on Katrina Pierson, Kylie Kremer, and Amy Kremer. 

In a lawsuit seeking to prevent the select committee from obtaining his phone records, Alexander confirmed to congressional investigators that ahead of Jan. 6, he had communicated with several GOP congressmen—Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs—as well as with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend and member of Trump’s inner circle.

In April, a lawyer for Alexander said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation. The following day, Alexander joined Alex Jones’ show to suggest he wouldn’t cooperate.He went on to call the effort to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol a conspiracy to “stop Trump from running in 2024” and “usher in a New World Order.”

A few days later, Alexander joined Alex Jones’ show again. He mused that “there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny.”

Tags: Alex Jones Ali Alexander Jack Posobiec

jig up wht pwr

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-supreme-court-is-finished-republicans-have-killed-it/

...They've turned the courts into a kennel for right-wing puppies, willing to sit there with floppy ears and their tongues out, panting and waiting to decide cases in favor of the billionaires who put them there. That's why there is a cottage industry of right-wing legal groups like Judicial Watch, Alliance Defending Freedom, Claremont Institute and the Center for Individual Rights, all of them funded by tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions in right-wing money. They make no bones about the fact that their job is to go out looking for plaintiffs to sue on behalf of big business and right-wing political interests to overturn laws they don't like. They have been behind the challenges to the Affordable Care Act and every anti-abortion lawsuit ever filed, not to mention suits against immigrant rights, civil rights, LGBT rights — you name it. And waiting in federal courthouses all over the country are Trump and Mitch McConnell's judicial poodles....

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seems to be showing up in trump death spiral?

Joseph E. DiGenova. peter s govt acct inst mercer

kinda schizophrenic? maybe that's why there's also Jud Confirm network. not anymore

new term: figleaf: FIRE hippie girlfriend theory; they trot out cheney secret task force as bona fides, non-partisan [what was the deal on that anomaly?]

see fitton and chris farrell, lots of conspiracy

klayman gone, oft cited by Bb and Dc

capt 12/16

html end  data-entry

https://www.csldf.org/2017/02/10/new-allegations-noaa-scientists-theyre-incorrect/

No lnx graf

New Allegations Against NOAA Scientists — And Why They’re Incorrect

February 10, 2017 By Lauren Kurtz

Judicial Watch, a conservative group, has used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to sue for the privileged email correspondence of nine climate scientists employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On January 27, 2017, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) filed a brief in the District of Columbia federal District Court urging the court to protect the communications between these scientists.

Why Do These Emails Matter?

In 2013, a leaked draftof an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stated that the rate of global warming had slowed between 1998 and 2012. Though the final report stated that “trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends,” climate contrarians latched onto the idea of a“pause” in warming to bolster their position: If global warming has stopped, there is no need to curb fossil fuel use or take any other action to combat climate change.

The hiatus was rebutted in 2015 when Thomas Karl and his colleagues at NOAA published a paper in Science based on updated, more accurate data that demonstrated that there was no pause in global warming. In fact, warming from 2000 to 2015 was at least as great if not greater than that of the last half of the 20th century.

Other researchers have corroborated Karl et al.’s conclusions. Most recently, a 2017 Science Advances study by Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, validated Karl et al.’s findings using independent data from satellites, buoys and free-floating Argo floats, and reached the same conclusions about the rate of global warming.

[

Global land/ocean temperature records from NOAA, NASA, Berkeley Earth, Hadley/UAE, and Cowtan and Way show no detectable sign of a “pause” in warming through to the present. Note that the old (pre-Karl et al.) NOAA temperature record is only available through the end of 2014.]

Soon after Karl et al. published their study, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology — who disputes the scientific consensus on climate change — subpoenaed the scientists’ documents and communications. He alleged that NOAA had readjusted historical temperature readings to suit the Obama administration’s political agenda, that the scientists had engaged in “suspicious” behavior, and that this had “broad national implications.”

NOAA supplied some documents to Smith, but refused to turn over the scientists’ confidential email correspondence.

In late 2015, Judicial Watch sued for the scientists’ emails under the Freedom of Information Act, a law designed to ensure transparency in government. Judicial Watch states it “is investigating how NOAA collects and disseminates climate data that is used in determining global climate change.”

The controversy over the Karl et al. study flared up again in early February 2017 when the Daily Mail published an article by David Rose — who has often inaccurately written about climate science — based on a blog post by retired NOAA scientist John Bates, who maintained that the study authors failed to disclose critical information about their data. Rose claimed that the authors exaggerated the rate of global warming and that the study was rushed into publication to sway the Paris Climate Accords. (Incidentally, Bates was administratively admonished and relieved of a supervisory position at NOAA at a time when Karl was in a leadership role; Bates denies that his complaints were driven by any animus.)

At a February 7 House Science committee hearing, “Making the Environmental Protection Agency Great Again,” Smith again attacked NOAA, accusing it of “falsifying data to justify a partisan agenda.” Conservative media outlets have seized on the Daily Mail story, using it as ammunition in their fight against climate science.

Bates, however, has since said in an interview with E&E News, “The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was.”

Irish Climate and Research Unit’s Peter Thorne, who worked on the underlying material for the Karl study but left NOAA before it was published, defended the study. “At no point was any pressure brought to bear to make any scientific or technical choices. It was insisted that best practices be followed throughout.”

CSLDF’s Involvement in the Case

CSLDF filed the brief in support of the NOAA scientists because we’re committed to safeguarding the confidentiality of communications between researchers. FOIA requests for scientists’ emails may ostensibly be made in order to verify research, but they can result in hindering research or intimidating scientists into downplaying risks or not publicly discussing their research.

These FOIA requests usually seek preliminary drafts, private critiques from other researchers, and the personal documents and email correspondence of scientists rather than the data, methodologies, or research results of scientific studies, which might help clarify or evaluate the science itself.

FOIA contains nine exemptions designed to protect certain categories of government records from indiscriminate release. Under Exemption 5, there is a deliberative process privilege for federal employees, including federal scientists, which allows them to withhold deliberative communications within or between federal agencies.

The purpose of this privilege is to encourage frank discussions between colleagues, protect against premature disclosure of proposed actions before they are finalized, and prevent public confusion that might result from the disclosure of proposals that were discarded and had no relation to the final decision.

What Happens Next?

Judicial Watch is scheduled to file its first legal brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by February 20. Additional briefs from the plaintiff and defendant are due in March and April; the NOAA scientists’ emails are being defended by the Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce (NOAA’s parent agency).

CSLDF is committed to protecting the scientific endeavor, especially defending scientists from legal attacks; we will continue to participate in and monitor this lawsuit.

— Renee Cho is a blogger for the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

==

jw fbk posts

https://www.facebook.com/JudicialWatch/posts/10154464575211943?comment_id=10154471842866943&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D

scrape fbk

President Donald J. Trump

Government Official

NRA - National Rifle Association of America

Nonprofit Organization

Tucker Carlson

Public Figure

Dan Bongino

Public Figure

Patriots United

Newspaper

Jim Jordan

Government Official

Diamond And Silk

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Fox News

==

chris farrell red dir judicial watch

...Bates:  Our borders, particularly the Southern border, have been very porous, long before the Obama Administration. However there has been news that it is not just illegal migrants seeking economic opportunity in America that they can't find in Mexico. Is there a concern now that some of these migrants are actually not Mexican or Latin American at all? And, in fact they might possibly be Islamic terrorists?

Farrell:  It is not a concern, it's a fact. The illustration of this is the case of Tampico, Mexico, a large commercial port on the Gulf of Mexico with a huge amount of freighter traffic and commercial shipping. On those vessels arrive persons from the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, many of them are Islamists. They arrive in the Port of Tampico for $1,500 a head. Mohammad becomes Manuel. $1,500 later that person has authentic, legitimate Mexican identity papers, birth certificates, and  drivers’ licenses. This would be all of the documentation they would need to establish their identity and take on a new life in Mexico. They are then moved through a series of camps. We know locations of three camps. We have heard from various sources that there are upwards of seven camps in the interior of Mexico where these folks receive language training, clothing, cultural history and mannerisms to help them integrate and appear Mexican. To live, breathe, walk, talk, and act as though they are natives of Mexico. From there they move north to our Southern border and into the United States. The example I use is one raindrop in an ocean of humanity washing up on our Southern shore. However, what is concerning is that this happens with some regularity and frequency. It is organized, deliberate and poses an enormous security threat to our country.

Bates:Does the Administration know this is happening? Clearly if Judicial Watch knows the Administration must know.

...

==

==

https://www.mediamatters.org/trump-impeachment-inquiry/its-own-precedent-fox-should-ban-joe-digenova

after a year that has seen Fox News battered by advertiser boycotts over the bigoted language common to its programming, the network's parent company held Thursday’s annual shareholder meetings embroiled in a new controversy over over the regurgitation of vile anti-Semitic tropes on its airwaves.

If Fox had actual standards like a normal news outlet, it would already have announced a permanent ban on future appearances by Joe diGenova, a Republican lawyer and frequent guest on pro-Trump Fox programs, in light of his Wednesday night interview.

During an appearance on Fox Business’Lou Dobbs Tonight alongside his wife and legal partner Victoria Toensing, diGenova downplayed impeachment inquiry testimony that day from State Department diplomat George Kent by arguing that Kent is a pawn of George Soros, a Jewish billionaire whose support of U.S. progressive causes and foreign anti-corruption, pro-democracy efforts has made him the frequent target of conspiracy theories steeped in**anti-Semitic trope**s.

According to diGenova’s bonkers, evidence-free theory, “Soros controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United States State Department,” has “corrupted FBI officials,” and is seeking to “run Ukraine” using that influence over the U.S. government to benefit his business interests.

DiGenova’s comments, suggesting that the Jewish financier is a shadowy puppet master controlling vast swaths of the federal government for his own dark purposes, are “right out of the propaganda mills of Hungary’s Viktor Orban and other rightist anti-Semitic movements in Eastern Europe,” as Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall noted. Indeed, they are so reprehensible that Fox has previously ruled that such remarks earn a lifetime ban from the network’s platform.

When Judicial Watch research director Chris Farrell said the “Soros-occupied State Department” had funded caravans of Central American migrants during an October 2018 appearance on Dobbs’ program, the network condemned his “rhetoric” and said he would not be invited back. (Dobbs himself did not react to Farrell’s statement and in fact undermined the network’s response; he has his own record of anti-Semitic Soros smears.) 

In the wake of diGenova’s comments, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called on Fox to “hold the same standard” on diGenova as on Farrell.

But Fox has done no such thing. That may reflect how Fox punishments tend to be based on a sliding scale reflecting both the level of criticism the network is receiving and the relative importance of the perpetrator. And diGenova’s role as a key player in the Sean Hannity Extended Universe of pro-Trump conspiracy theorists grants him a great deal of protection.

Farrell’s comments caused a firestorm for Fox because they drew attention in the wake of a murderous rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white supremacist who was obsessed with the idea that Jews were behind the caravans.

Farrell’s relatively low status as a sometimes guest made the calculus easy for Fox: By cutting him loose, the network’s PR team could head off the subject and forestall niggling questions about the Soros conspiracy theory’s pervasiveness on its airwaves. Meanwhile, pro-Trump hosts like Dobbs and Hannity could simply slot in Farrell’s Judicial Watch boss, Fox regular Tom Fitton, for future segments.

By contrast, diGenova is essential to Fox’s conspiracy theory machine. He and Toensing were deeply enmeshed in Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s scheme to help Trump’s reelection by running a shadow foreign policy effort in Ukraine. They have employed or been employed by leading players in the plot to smear Joe Biden and undermine the intelligence community's findings that Russia interfered in our 2016 election, all while making dozens of appearances on Fox News and Fox Business to detail the ins and outs of the twisted narrative they helped assemble (diGenova alone has made at least 65 appearances this year, according to Media Matters research).

Indeed, the best argument that diGenova didn’t engage in anti-Jewish animus on Wednesday is that he was simply acting in the interests of his client Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch with ties to Russian organized crime. Firtash, who retained diGenova and Toensing to prevent his extradition to the United States on bribery charges, has clashed with Ukrainian anti-corruption organizations supported by Soros.

Of course, that’s simply another reason Fox shouldn’t allow diGenova on its airwaves: He has an irreconcilable conflict of interest on the topics he discusses -- one that he hid from the network’s audience.

The network’s latest failure to take action hammers home the reality that there are no real rules at Fox.

==

https://www.mediamatters.org/judicial-watch/right-wing-media-tries-smear-former-ukraine-ambassador-marie-yovanovitch

no lnx vid many

Right-wing media tries to smear former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Despite grave Judicial Watch allegations about a “surveillance” campaign from right-wing figures, the facts so far point to mere tracking of a pro-Trump disinformation campaign

WRITTEN BY COURTNEY HAGLE

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BRENDAN KARET & ANDREW LAWRENCE

PUBLISHED 10/17/19 10:31 AM EDT

Representatives of right-wing group Judicial Watch have been claiming during appearances on conservative media shows that former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was “spying” on media figures close to President Donald Trump by monitoring public statements they made on social media regarding Ukraine.

Judicial Watch is alleging that Yovanovitch -- who recently testified to House impeachment investigators that Trump pressured the State Department to remove her over baseless allegations -- was “basically running a war room” by monitoring public statements regarding Ukraine made by figures in right-wing media like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump, Jr. The list also includes former Obama ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Judicial Watch also claims that the searches were looking for the following keywords: “Biden,” “Giuliani,” “Soros,” and “Yovanovitch.”

That Yovanovich would monitor public statements made by public figures is unsurprising given her recent testimony claiming that Giuliani had been criticizing her in the months before her ousting, and the people she allegedly monitored are connected to the smear campaign Giuliani was waging. He had accused her of privately criticizing the president and trying to protect the interests of Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The smear included accusations that Soros was funding a conspiracy to hurt Trump’s presidency and elect Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Yovanovich said she was “incredulous” about her removal and that it was based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives” -- claims that have been promoted publicly by conservative media figures.

The Washington Post reported that George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Ukraine, became concerned around October 2018 that Yovanovitch was the target of a “classic disinformation operation.” NBC News indicated that the State Department was concerned over the effort to oust Yovanovich, reporting that the agency “attempted to ring alarm bells” regarding Giuliani’s efforts to smear her:

The documents also show that Giuliani, through conservative writer John Solomon’s columns in The Hill, attempted to tie former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to the liberal donor George Soros as part of a massive conspiracy to take down Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.

...

When State Department officials saw the disinformation campaign, they attempted to ring alarm bells and strategized to correct the record, the documents show.

Yovanovitch, who has over 30 years of experience in foreign diplomacy, further testified that, as The Washington Post put it, “under Trump’s leadership, U.S. foreign policy has been compromised by self-interested actors who have badly demoralized and depleted America’s diplomatic corps.” The testimony of White House aide Fiona Hill confirmed Yovanovitch’s depiction of foreign policy under the Trump administration.

Still, Judicial Watch is attempting to push the narrative that Yovanovitch nefariously spied on Trump allies among right-wing media, appearing on the radio shows of Sebastian Gorka and Sean Hannity and Fox Business host Lou Dobbs’ prime-time show to spread the message. Some Fox News figures responded with paranoia regarding their own conversations.

Judicial Watch also shared its report on Twitter, announcing that it is “investigating if prominent conservative figures/journalists & persons [with ties] to @realDonaldTrump were unlawfully monitored by the State Dept in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee.”

Fox & Friends hosted Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who repeated that his “sourcing tells us that she was asking that folks like Rudy Giuliani, Don Trump Jr., a whole list of your colleagues there at Fox, be monitored on certain phrases.” Co-host Steve Doocy invited Fitton to “go ahead and speculate for a second” about Yovanovitch’s motives, to which Fitton replied, “It looks an awful lot like an enemy’s list to me.” Doocy noted that Yovanovitch is “keeping an eye on television, of all things,” and he called it “particularly disturbing that, you know, somebody in the federal government would be tracking people on TV.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 16 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): So what are you thinking [Yovanovitch] may have done?

TOM FITTON (PRESIDENT, JUDICIAL WATCH): Well, our sourcing tells us that she was asking that folks like Rudy Giuliani, Don Trump Jr., a whole list of your colleagues there at Fox, be monitored on certain phrases. And this is around March of this year. Biden, Giuliani, Soros and her own name, Yovanovitch. So the problem is that it's not legal for the State Department to do that type of monitoring, certainly overseas, of American citizens. And it may have been only social media posts but they still can't be tracking American citizens' activities like that. The project was so big, they sought help from D.C. and that's when someone in D.C. said hold on a sec. You can't be doing this. It's not legal.

DOOCY: And of course she testified behind closed doors, and the way they have set it up is that's all supposed to be confidential. It's supposed to be secret. And yet somehow not so secret to some newspapers.

FITTON: Yeah. The selective leaks of the secret star chamber type testimony is really deplorable, to use a turn of phrase. And I would like to see her full transcript so we can figure out whether members of Congress questioned her about this issue. You know, the State Department is aware of this, guys. And it's about time we get a fuller explanation as to why this ambassador, a career civil service person who had been placed as ambassador by President Obama, was so concerned about Biden and Ukraine and George Soros, who controversially was involved in Ukraine as well through his Open Society funding and foundations. Why were they monitoring the president's lawyer and his son?

DOOCY: Sure. And keeping an eye on people on television of all things. And I know you filed a Freedom of Information Act request so perhaps you will get the answer to it. But just, you know, go ahead and speculate for a second. Connect some dots. Why would she want to do that?

FITTON: Well, you know, it looks an awful lot like an enemy's list to me. And when you are concerned about an issue, you start searching on the terms you are concerned about. Biden, Ukraine, Soros. What was going on in March? What was it about those subjects that our ambassador was tasking her staff with tracking the social media postings of these figures, contrary to law and in a way such that people in Washington said you can't do it and you have to stop. There are issues here that are not just about why they were tracking it, but whether the rights of those being targeted were violated as a result.

DOOCY: And it's particularly disturbing that, you know, somebody in the federal government would be tracking people on TV.

FITTON: Well yeah I mean, it is social media posts. But look, you know, any of your viewers and you, Steve, do you want the government creating a file on you based on what your social media postings are? No, you don't. And sure enough the law doesn't allow it.

DOOCY: It does not.

On America First with Sebastian Gorka, Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell described Yovanovitch as an “absolute Obama partisan.” Farrell claimed that Judicial Watch has “very reliable information” that the State Department was “basically running a war room” by “documenting, capturing, archiving all the statements, publications, tweets, social media, anything that those folks put out was ordered to be compiled and monitored.” Farrell did not reveal what the reliable information was. He then claimed Yovanovitch’s action amounted to an “abuse of power” and he described it as a “political operative using their government position as leverage against their political opponents.”

On Gorka's radio show, Chris Farrell claims Yovanovitch was monitoring journalists

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Audio file

CitationFrom the October 11 edition of Salem Radio Networks' America First with Sebastian Gorka:

CHRIS FARRELL (JUDICIAL WATCH): Well, this is an ambassador, Maria -- I'm going to get her name incorrect -- Yovanovitch, I believe it is pronounced, although I am subject to Ukrainian slash Russian checks -- the -- who the -- an absolute Obama partisan, she's unabashedly so. She's complicit in this Schiff show trial, and the reason I say that is because her secret testimony is already in the hands of The New York Times and that of the internet all over, so, so much for the highly classified, confidential, behind closed doors testimony.

SEBASTIAN GORKA (HOST): Right.

FARRELL: When the New York Times is out peddling it five minutes after she goes in the door. Look, she had the Obama administration's back. She had Joe Biden's back, because we have very reliable information that she was conducting a, or had directed elements, bureaus within the State Department, to conduct a monitoring mission of about a dozen or so people that -- who were either close to the president or were reporters, editorial writers, perhaps even television and radio hosts who were identified as being close to President Trump.

And they were basically running a war room. They were documenting, capturing, archiving all the statements, publications, tweets, social media, anything that those folks put out was ordered to be compiled and monitored.

And at some point, somebody in the State Department said, “Hey wait a minute, those are US persons, you can't do that.” The State Department can't run a monitoring mission, a media war room on U.S. persons, particularly when they're targeting those persons and then using key words like “Biden" and “Soros" and “Ukraine" and “Giuliani" of all names.

And so, we're very interested in this, and yesterday, as we are wont to do, we filed a Freedom Of Information Act request with the State Department with some very specific language, looking for what the dear ambassador was up to and what those bureaus and departments and agencies within the State Department were doing with respect to this monitoring mission.

GORKA: So Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, recalled by President Trump, who tasked the State Department to monitor U.S. persons, journalists, that handful of names she asked to be monitored, did any of those include radio hosts that you've worked with in the past, Chris Farrell?

FARRELL: I have reason to believe that that's so, and, you know, when we nail down some additional details -- of course, when we also nail down some of the documentation from the State Department, your listening audience can rest assured that we will make it widely known across the land that this sort of unlawful activity, once we document it, that it was going on -- because you want to talk about an abuse of power, and a political operative using their government position as leverage against their political opponents, you're talking about the definition of corruption.

GORKA: So, let's be clear here, I don't want to sound didactic and like a pedant, but an ambassador running a foreign mission is there with a very specific job to do. They are the president's representative, an ambassador is the president's representative to that government, and runs that mission to establish and maintain the bilateral relations between the United States and that country, as long as they are running that embassy. Have you ever seen, in your professional history, the national security establishment or at Judicial Watch, an ambassador ever -- ever task Foggy Bottom, ever task the State Department to monitor the work, to monitor the statements, to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, Chris Farrell?

FARRELL: No, it's -- in fact, it's the polar opposite of what they should be doing. I mean, normally they're very busy checking the foreign press, and certainly the nation they're representative of, for anything that may be of interest in the, you know, to the United States, to our national interest, to our defense, to our political advantage. The lens of the telescope, or the microscope, is supposed to be turned around the other way.

But in this case, you know, it appears that bureaus in the State Department, like the Global Engagement Center, which has a kind of a weird Orwellian title --

GORKA: the GEC.

FARRELL: -- that they were running this sort of information operation, this -- but a collection one, not a -- not putting forth the position of the U.S. and advancing our goals and objectives, but instead, flipping it around and carefully tracking the comments, the tweets, the writings, the reporting of U.S. persons -- but in particular, not just with respect to Ukraine, but on this very controversial hornet's nest we've found ourselves in now, with respect to the Bidens, Mr. Giuliani's investigations, and the other thing I found curious was the involvement of Mr. Soros --

GORKA: Chris, can -- Chris, can you hold it right there on that cliffhanger? Can you stay with us for one more segment?

FARRELL: Sure. Certainly.

GORKA: Alright, the name has been mentioned. Media Matters, are you watching? Are you typing away? We mentioned George Soros, so wake up, because I want to see that transcript when we're done with the next segment, with Judicial Watch's Chris Farrell.

On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox correspondent Trace Gallagher reported on Judicial Watch's story, who claimed that the reporting comes after “news reports that Yovanovitch had an anti-Trump bias.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 16 edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight:

TUCKER CARLSON(HOST): America's former ambassador to Ukraine may have ordered government personnel to monitor journalists and allies of President Trump. Our chief breaking news correspondent Trace Gallagher has the latest on this breaking story.

TRACE GALLAGHER: Hi, Tucker. Yeah, at the center of this is Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine appointed by Obama and ousted by President Trump. Yovanovitch made headlines last week when she testified before the House Intel committee as part of the Democrats impeachment inquiry. Now, two sources with close knowledge of the situation confirmed to Tucker Carlson Tonight that in the spring of 2019 the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine requested that several journalists and people close to President Trump have their social media accounts monitored.

This happened following news reports that Yovanovitch had an anti-Trump bias. The list includes 13 people including our own Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, as well as Fox News contributor's Sara Carter and Dan Bongino along with Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump Jr. According to the sources, the monitoring lasted for at least a few days before stopping, because the State Department is not allowed to conduct this sort of monitoring of U.S. citizens obviously.

The conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch has now filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department. seeking, quoting here, "Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the monitoring of any U.S.-based journalists, reporter, or media commentator by any employee or office of the Department of State between January 1, 2019, and the present." Judicial Watch says they have information that indicated Yovanovitch directly ordered subordinates to target this list of people, Tucker.

CARLSON: Shocking story, I would say. Trace Gallagher, thank you.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs listed a string of conservative media figures Judicial Watch claims were being monitored, noting that “yours truly” was included. Dobbs concluded that the monitoring is “unlawful.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 14 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight

LOU DOBBS (HOST):A number of journalists, including myself have, well, when they asked the -- one ambassador to Ukraine, the ousted U.S. ambassador, Marie Yovanovich, had asked that we be monitored. Judicial Watch discovering all of that and uncovering our names today, including Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Fox News contributors John Solomon, Sara Carter, Dan Bongino, and yours truly. Others may have been targeted, including Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Sebastian Gorka.

The list goes on, and the -- well, the entire extent we don't know, but we do know this -- it would be unlawful to have done so, and we can't wait to hear which of my fascinating conversations may have been heard as a result. Not really that fascinating, but I had to say that.

Later in the same show, Dobbs repeated that Yovanovitch was “talking about monitoring me and surveilling me.” He asserted that he “take[s] that sort of as a badge of honor honestly” but expressed concern for his colleagues “who are less courageous than me.” His guest Ed Rollins agreed that the story is “absolutely unbelievable.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 14 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight

ED ROLLINS(FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): I’ve watched all day today people saying the president fired this ambassador, how outrageous. Every ambassador can be fired by the president. They are hired by the president, they are appointed by a president. If she was bad-mouthing the president as people said she was, she should be fired.

LOU DOBBS (HOST): You know what she was doing is -- as terrible as that is -- I mean, she was talking about monitoring me and surveilling me? I mean, I take that sort of as a badge of honor honestly, but my colleagues who are less courageous than me, you know, I feel badly for Sean Hannity, for example, who might be intimidated by such a thing. I'm kidding. I’m kidding.

ED ROLLINS: Certainly you are not intimidated, and if they wanted to know what you want to think, you have five hours a week on here and three times a day on Salem Radio. So, anybody who wants to know what you are thinking, saying, it's right there out in the public, and it's always very smart.

...

DOBBS: It's just amazing. Sean Hannity, John Solomon, I mean, the foremost reporting on this spygate has been coming from John Solomon, and Sean Hannity, and Sara Carter. It's crazy what she was doing.

ROLLINS: Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, and the public is going to know, and at the end of the day here, this thing is going to -- you know, again, they may put the 218 votes up tomorrow and impeach him, but they’re not going to basically put any evidence forward that he should get -- put out of office.

On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity claimed that if true, the monitoring is a “constitutional violation” that “would be something that you would expect in a third-world banana republic.” He added that Judicial Watch’s reporting shows Yovanovitch may have “violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons,” suggesting at times that the State Department was listening in on personal conversations.

Sean Hannity Tom Fitton surveillance claim

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Sean Hannity

Audio file

CitationFrom the October 15 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST):Well everybody starts sending me this tweet by our friend Tom Fitton over at Judicial Watch, and then I'm looking at the piece that they put out, an investigation that they're involved in, to find out if this Ukraine ambassador ordered State Department officials to monitor journalists and friends of the president, or people that are outspoken in terms of the president. In other words, illegal surveillance perhaps took place, I can't say for sure that this did. Certain figures in the media and elsewhere, private conversations that are being held between private citizens were being monitored, in an effort to find out information that could hurt Donald Trump -- that would be a constitutional violation. That would be something that you would expect in a third-world banana republic.

…

Judicial Watch has obtained some information indicating that this ambassador may have violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons, using State Department resources, and apparently, reportedly ordered the monitoring keyed to the following terms: “Biden," “Giuliani," “Soros," “Yovanovitch." And Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom Of Information Act request with the State Department, and continue to gather facts. All right, I want to stay very clear of anything that is not factual here, Tom Fitton.

TOM FITTON (PRESIDENT, JUDICIAL WATCH): That's right.

HANNITY: I've read the piece. Do we know this happened for a certainty? We don't know yet.

FITTON: Well, our sources say it did, and so the concern is, and this is the process, is that the government, and certainly the government abroad, our representatives abroad, can't use government resources to track even the public communications, like tweets or public comments by American citizens. And so, evidently that was going on in the Ukrainian embassy, using the search terms that you highlighted, "Biden," "Giuliani," "Soros" and "Yovanovitch." They then sought additional help to do that process, that project, from the State Department here in Washington, D.C., and that's when someone said "Well, hold on a second. You can't be doing this at all, you got to stop it. It's illegal."

And so, we don't know if they actually stopped it, we're not sure how long it went on for, but we do know that this target list is pretty darn accurate. I don't know if it's complete, but it included you, other Fox News personalities, and contributors associated with Fox, and other conservatives who are known for taking strong stances on social media, certainly allied with President Trump generally.

So, it's very curious that they would be concerned about these issues, Biden, Soros and Yovanovitch, way back at -- it looks like the date timeframe is back in March of this year, so it was before she was removed.

…

HANNITY: But this wasn't even really an issue at the time, was it? I mean, we were focused on many other things at that time, if I recall, and, you know, not the least of which I guess was the pending Mueller report. When did the Mueller report come out?

FITTON: The Mueller report came out around the same time, but the noises about Biden and Ukraine began around that same timeframe. I should go back and check. So, you have to wonder why it is -- we don't know why these individuals such as you made it onto that list.

...

FITTON: This is why the coup's taking place against President Trump, because they want to freeze any investigation of these issues, both in Ukraine and in China. They're targeting Trump, they're targeting president -- his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani now, and you can see that they were nervous about what others were saying about it. It looks like, according to our reporting, from -- from you on down, and it's just an incredible list, and you know, the idea that you would have illegal monitoring of not only all these Fox News journalists, I'm sure all the other media are rushing to your defense, Sean -- but the president's lawyer and the president's son, it ought to be concerning that this abuse was taking place. This is -- to me, this is just another extension of spygate.

HANNITY: It is -- if we have the powerful tools of intelligence, and by the way, this is not the first time in all of this process, in all of our coverage that I have been told -- you know, I have to go about my daily life, what am I supposed to do -- that this type of thing has happened to me, and I know to others. So, then the question becomes at what point do the American people step up and say we can't live in a country that denies fundamental constitutional rights to people, like is happening here. Because to me, we lose the country if the powerful tools of intelligence are turned on the American people.

We saw that with the General Flynn case. I mean, what happened in his case is they knew the whole conversation that had taken place, because they had raw intelligence, he had been unmasked, and they had the information when McCabe's -- and Comey, Comey bragging about taking advantage of the chaos, which he'd never do in the Obama or Bush administration, sending his FBI guys in, and his partner, the deputy director of the FBI, McCabe, is saying you don't need a lawyer. Well, that would deny him his Miranda rights, on that issue alone the case should be thrown out. But then, they went into his office knowing the full conversation, because they had unmasked and surveilled him, and they had raw intelligence on the whole conversation. So, they were setting him up, and he was immediately in a perjury trap, without even the benefit of a lawyer to tell him "Maybe you should clam up, here."

FITTON: Well, it's -- Sean, they're trying to remove a president based on allegations from an anonymous source, who it looks like may have illicitly shared classified information with the investigator, Adam Schiff. It's -- it's -- it's just another -- it's another variation of the theme, of the civil rights of those who are targeted taking a backseat to this power politics where they abuse the rule of law to change political results. It's a constitutional crisis we're in, and it's not because of any misconduct by President Trump. It's because of the misconduct of those investigating him, who were purporting to be concerned about his activities.

HANNITY: Yeah. What do you think -- I know you work with a lot of lawyers, I know you're not a lawyer yourself, but what do you think is the legal recourse if in fact such illegality happens, to citizens, even people like myself as a public figure, do I have a right to -- for recourse, or a path for recourse, in something like this?

FITTON: Well, there could be potential violations of the privacy act, that's -- that's an easy call. The other law that covers this is the Smith-Mundt Act, which prohibits the US government from propagandizing Americans or targeting, and, or targeting them, the State Department especially. So, you know, talk to any civil rights lawyer. They'll probably provide you all sorts of other claims you could pursue, when the government is illegally targeting you with a spy operation, even if they are just tracking your public comments.

And, you know, I guarantee you, all your listeners will be very nervous to know if this -- that -- if the government was tracking what they were doing, and keeping a file on them, which is what purportedly may have been going on here, and we're just trying to figure out what the scope of it was and how far it went, but it's just disturbing it took place at all, because the government's not allowed to do that. It -- because obviously, it's a chilling effect, and the law doesn't allow it because it's a chilling effect.

One America News Network’s Jack Posobiec, who pushed the Pizzagate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories and has ties to white nationalists, covered Judicial Watch’s reporting on the network, highlighting his inclusion. Reporter Stephanie Myers commented that Posobiec now has his “guard up” because it’s “like Big Brother watching you” and called on Yovanovitch to be “held accountable for this unlawful monitoring.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 16 edition of One America News Networks' OAN News

STEPHANIE MYERS (OAN ANCHOR): But first, Judicial Watch takes a look into former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who allegedly ordered the monitoring of journalists and those tied to the Trump administration. One of those people named was One America's Jack Posobiec. Jack is live in Washington, D.C. to give us the details on the probe. Good morning, Jack.

JACK POSOBIEC (OANN):Hey, good morning Stephanie. So we're now learning of course from Judicial Watch and our own One American News sources at the White House and within the administration about this list. Now Maria Yovanovitch, she's the former ambassador, in terms of contacts, the former ambassador to the Ukraine that had been recalled by President Trump. She herself had been appointed by Barack Obama and was seen as a holdover from her administration. Now just last week she testified against President Trump behind closed doors as part of this impeachment inquiry with the Democrats, so we're not really hearing very much what came out of that. However just days later, we see this report from Judicial Watch naming a list, apparently a watch list, that she put together at the embassy but then also reached back to her colleagues at State Department headquarters asking for more resources into what the report describes as monitoring of the people on this list which include myself, a number of other journalists, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and the list goes on. I found my name to be right at the very top of it and so we're not sure exactly yet what exactly the scope of this monitoring was, whether or not it was simply following on their on-air reports and tweets or whether or not it included something further with government resources.

MYERS: Right, and you mentioned some of the other people, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Guiliani, and again it's believed that Yovanovitch ordered the State Department to monitor those employees, including yourself, who may be allies of the president. What can you tell us about the investigation conducted by Judicial Watch?

POSOBIEC: So Judicial Watch so far has filed a Freedom of Information Act request. And we are gonna be following up as well with the privacy act requests -- for myself it's a privacy act request because it's actually records pertaining to myself that the government is holding. From sources that have reported back to Judicial Watch, they have essentially said that Marie Yovanovitch was looking for certain key words in reports or in tweets that she was tracking through the State Department, and having her own employees and members of the State Department track one of which, believe it or not was the word "Biden," which is very interesting because apparently this list may have been done as early as a year ago. So those of us who are covering this story, so One American News, we were certainly covering the story. I know I was making it certainly a highlight of my coverage. They've been noting that Joe Biden has had an issue, Hunter Biden has had an issue, for well over a year at this point. And that's something that even members of our own State Department were tracking it, certainly doesn't seem like something that was done in the course of official duties and unfortunately it smacks of the type of partisan political targeting that was done by members of the Barack Obama administration and now we're seeing hauled over into the Trump administration.

MYERS: I can only imagine, especially someone like you who was targeted, that you may have your guard up at this point and it's essentially like Big Brother watching you but can we expect Yovanovitch and other State Department officials who may have been involved in this to be held accountable for this unlawful monitoring?

JACK POSOBIEC: Well she's already been pulled from her State Department -- her at least ambassadorship post. She's still at the State Department but we would like to see -- I mean once the Freedom of Information Act request comes back out, I would certainly like to go to the House intelligence committee ,to the Senate intelligence committee to see if the lawmakers there -- and by the way in a bipartisan fashion because this shouldn't be something that's a partisan issue. The United States government should not be using state resources, national security resources for use against partisan political opponents. I myself was a former member of the intelligence community and believe me Stephanie, I would not dream of using any of those assets for my own personal gain.

MYERS: Yeah, we'll have to see if this is just the tip of the iceberg as more information unfollows. It almost seems like an onion and you're peeling back the layers so it's definitely an interesting development, especially since you were one of those names.

On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham invited Fitton on to discuss his report. Ingraham claimed that Democrats' efforts to “note [Yovanitch's] deep integrity” were “a bit premature.” Fitton insisted he has it on “solid gold authority” that Yovanovitch “illegally” monitored conservative personalities.

Video file

CitationFrom the October 16 edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle:

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): And last week, ousted US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors for ten hours. It was part of the impeachment star chamber against President Trump.

Now, most people didn't even know who she even was, but since she was there to hit Trump, the media and the Democrats were quick to note her deep integrity.

...

INGRAHAM: Well, it turns out that praise may be a bit premature. The group Judicial Watch is investigating whether prominent conservatives, including yours truly, were unlawfully monitored by the State Department in Ukraine.

Now, this was reportedly all done at the request of Yovanovitch herself. Joining me now, the man who first uncovered this, was Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. He is here with us now.

Tom, what's going on, what have you uncovered, what do we know?

TOM FITTON: Well, we understand that she had directed that a list of people, including you, Donald Trump Jr., the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani --

INGRAHAM: I feel so special.

FITTON: Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, other Fox News contributors --

INGRAHAM: Okay, all the cool kids.

FITTON: -- Be tracked. She wanted to know, the staff wanted to know, the social media postings of what you were saying about Biden, Soros, Giuliani, and her.

INGRAHAM: Why so defensive, you think?

FITTON: Well, because this supposedly happened back in March when noise started happening about whether she was a never-Trumper, and whether she was improperly protecting that crowd.

INGRAHAM: So, people have to understand this, this is a U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine at the State Department, and you have it on -- is this solid gold authority, Tommy? Solid gold?

FITTON: Is sure is. I wouldn't be here if it weren't.

INGRAHAM: So, so we were -- I mean, I completely trust, you know -- make sure that she was ordering or requesting that we be tracked. Now, who did the tracking? Do we know?

FITTON: Well, the staff was doing it and evidently it was a big project and they asked the help of the State Department here in Washington, D.C., someone took the request in, looked at what was going on and said, "Wait, you can't be doing this."

...

INGRAHAM:  I want to show the comment from March that might have triggered this on this show, from me, troublemaker always. Watch.

...

INGRAHAM: Well, she did get -- that was the first time I mentioned her.

FITTON: And around the same time, this list was generated, and it's an -- The concern is it is in violation of the law. The government can't be tracking people like this.

INGRAHAM: The liberals used to care about this. Going back to what I said in The Angle, liberals used to care about government police state-like behavior, deep state, endless wars. Do you see how they really are turned into these political pretzels by just their opposition to Trump. Like, nothing he does you could ever agree with, even a smidgen of it.

FITTON: And, you know, you are acting as a journalist, and your fellow journalists were also on this list. So, the left doesn't care that journalists were being targeted, according to our source, illegally, because you were critical of a U.S. official abroad.

INGRAHAM: What's the recourse? What's the recourse here? Any recourse?

FITTON: Well, the Privacy Act, you know, there are civil remedies, and frankly -- you know, look -- look who's being investigated. Wall Street Journal reports that Sessions gets a subpoena, the man who was sent a letter, Giuliani is being targeted. Violating the Privacy Act carries criminal penalties if you're found to have done it.

INGRAHAM:  I think my D.C. bar license is still pretty active. Get a little pro bono, I will represent myself, so, no problem.

FITTON: Well, maybe we can do it, too. But we're suing, we're asking under FOIA, we want the -- more information, and I want to know whether Congress is going to look at this.

INGRAHAM: Spit out the email, we want the emails. They don't like turning over their emails. They hide the emails. Alright Tom, thank you for doing this, and thank you for finding out about the surveillance.

==

frenetic? page 5 random

Russia Special Counsel Mueller Worked with Radical Islamist ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../russia-special-counsel-mueller-conspired- radical-islamic-groups-fbi-chief/

May 18, 2017 ... Judicial Watch had to sue to get the records and published an in-depth report on the scandal in 2013 and a lengthier, updated follow-up in ...

Obama High Crimes and Misdemeanors - Judicial Watch

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../obama-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors/

Oct 30, 2015 ... Congress needs to get its act together and consider the impeachment and removal from office the officials, including Barack Obama, ...

Judicial Watch Sues CIA for Documents on Dossier Leak to Senator ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../judicial-watch-sues-cia-for-documents-on- dossier-leak-to-senator-harry-reid/

Jul 6, 2018 ... News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing Mother Jones magazine, ...

Open Records Laws and Resources - Judicial Watch

https://www.judicialwatch.org/open-records-laws-and-resources/

Federal open records laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), provide access to government documents and public records. State “sunshine” laws ...

Judicial Watch Statement on State Department Release of Huma ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../judicial-watch-statement-state-department- release-huma-abedins-government-documents-weiners-laptop/

Judicial Watch Statement on State Department Release of Huma Abedin's Government Documents on Weiner's Laptop. DECEMBER 29, 2017. Email Print Text ...

Illegal Aliens Quietly Being Relocated Throughout U.S. on ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../illegal-aliens-quietly-relocated-throughout-u -s-commercial-flights/

Jan 19, 2018 ... In the last few days alone, groups of illegal aliens boarded planes at airports in Texas and Arizona accompanied by a taxpayer-funded ...

Rule

www.judicialwatch.org/.../documents/2011/usa-v-hlf-order-07012009.pdf

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat

Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North. American ... In their Motion, ISNA and NAIT ask the Court to (1) declare.

Judicial Watch: State Department Records Show Obama ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../judicial-watch-doj-records-show-obama- administration-helped-fund-george-soros-left-wing-political-activiti...

Apr 4, 2018 ... The records were obtained in a May 26, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. ...

Judicial Watch Sues Justice and State Departments for Uranium ...

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../judicial-watch-sues-justice-state-departments -uranium-one-records/

Apr 10, 2018 ... In July 2014, Judicial Watch released more than 200 Clinton conflict-of interest documents, including a record of a speech in Moscow in June ...

New Clinton Benghazi Documents- Judicial Watch

https://www.judicialwatch.org/.../new-clinton-benghazi-documents/

Apr 22, 2016 ... The documents reveal that the then-Secretary of State informed then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on ...

==

2011 acorn cite by vadum

ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials to implement new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes, the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average.

404

sorta

https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/03/acorn-operating-under-different-name/

==

acorn bs

https://web.archive.org/web/20141215022434/http://www.judicialwatch.org:80/blog/tag/acorn-tag/

Judicial Watch Sues HHS for Obamacare Navigator Records

APRIL 22, 2014 | SEE ALL PRESS RELEASES »

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on March 27, 2014, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to obtain records about controversial Obamacare navigators, including records about navigator qualifications and background checks (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department…

PRESS RELEASE

:{Records Reveal Former Top ACORN Operative Continues to Advise :(style="font-weight:400"):}:CFPB:{ Head, Other Officials on Housing Issues:(style="font-weight:400"):}:

OCTOBER 15, 2013 | SEE ALL PRESS RELEASES »

March 21 Letter from NHRC’s Dorpalen to CFPB Senior Advisor Calls for Extension of Home Affordable Modification Program; Obama Administration Extends Program Eight Weeks Later  (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Consumer Financial Protection Administration (CFPB) revealing that Bruce Dorpalen, the

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

U.S. $ponsors Event Featuring Ex ACORN Chief Trashing Whites

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

President Obama and more than a dozen U.S. government agencies participated in a Washington D.C. conference that featured a keynote speaker—a black activist who headed the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)—who made racist remarks about whites. It gets better; American taxpayers helped fund the annual event, put…

PRESS RELEASE

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Revealing ACORN Spin-Off Received HUD Grant Despite Federal Funding Ban

AUGUST 15, 2013 | SEE ALL PRESS RELEASES »

Top HUD official transferred more than $200,000 from ACORN spin-off AHCOA for activities of “former AHCOA affiliates”  (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revealing that on February 12, 2013, HUD Assistant Secretary for Office of…

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

Former ACORN Director Gets $445 Mil From U.S. Treasury

JUNE 07, 2012 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

The Obama Administration has given a former director at the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) nearly half a billion dollars to offer “struggling” Illinois homeowners mortgage assistance, a Judicial Watch investigation has found. It means the ACORN official (Joe McGavin) will go from operating a corrupt…

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

ACORN Offshoot Sues State For Not Registering Voters On Welfare

MAY 24, 2012 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

The Obama-tied community organization famous for operating fraudulent voter registration drives during the 2008 presidential campaign is suing a state for failing to offer voter registration services at public welfare agencies. New England United 4 Justice (NEU4J), a reincarnation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), has…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

ACORN Documents from the Federal Election Commission

JANUARY 18, 2012 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

ACORN Documents from the Federal Election Commission The following documents were obtained from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website and are in the public domain. The cases outlined below are examples of FEC’s apparent inability to thoroughly examine complaints. In each of these three complaints filed against ACORN, a number…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

Investigation of Federal Grants Awarded to ACORN from the Corporation for National & Community Service

JANUARY 18, 2012 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

On May 1, 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Corporation for National & Community Service (CNCS), asking for documents on grants given to ACORN. CNCS handles the programs and paperwork for national grants, including AmeriCorps grants. On June 1, 2009, CNCS produced documents. The…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

FBI ACORN Investigation Documents

JANUARY 18, 2012 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Missouri, workers from the “community organization” Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for violation of election laws and voter fraud.

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

DOJ Steers Countrywide Settlement Cash To Leftist Groups With Dem Ties

JANUARY 05, 2012 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

The untold story of the Obama Administration’s widely reported, $335 million discrimination settlement with Countrywide Financial Corporation is that, under a secret Justice Department program, a chunk of the money won’t go to the “victims” but rather leftist groups not connected to the lawsuit. The Department of Justice (DOJ) will…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

Party Politics at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

DECEMBER 12, 2011 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a lawsuit in April 2011, against Boeing, claiming that the company’s decision to open a Dreamliner production line in South Carolina was in retaliation against The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for a series of union strikes that reportedly slowed production…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

Federal Election Commission ACORN Documents

DECEMBER 09, 2011 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

Documents related to a 2006 complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about the Project Vote/ACORN collaboration during the 2004 campaign cycle. Includes the final draft version of a document by Brian Kettenring, Project Vote’s Head Organizer in Florida, which said that the ultimate goal of this campaign was…

INVESTIGATIVE BULLETIN

ACORN

DECEMBER 09, 2011 | SEE ALL INVESTIGATIVE BULLETINS »

The leftist Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and its affiliated organizations have been the subject of great controversy. Concerns have been raised about fraudulent voter registrations, intimidation tactics, involvement in the housing market meltdown, and a partnership with U.S. Census Bureau. Most importantly, Barack Obama has

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

ACORN Got DOJ Grant To Combat Juvenile Delinquency

DECEMBER 01, 2011 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

A Justice Department program that annually distributes hundreds of millions of dollars to combat juvenile delinquency is under fire for giving a famously corrupt leftist group—Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)—money that was fraudulently spent. It marks the latest of several controversies for the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice…

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

ACORN Behind Occupy Wall Street Protest

OCTOBER 05, 2011 | SEE ALL CORRUPTION CHRONICLES »

A famously corrupt leftist community organization with deep ties to President Barack Obama is largely behind the national movement to “end economic segregation” and social injustice in the United States.Best known as Occupy Wall Street, the rowdy protests have received quite a bit of mainstream media coverage around the world. Besides New…

==

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/06/08/judicial-watch-s-tom-fitton-says-pardon-may-be-warranted-paul-manafort-whether-he-did-anything-wrong/220404

DOBBS (HOST): Our first guest tonight says the Manafort indictment is overkill, another example of Mueller abusing his power, and an investigation that's become disastrous. Joining us tonight, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Tom, good to have you with us.

I mean, how many -- I mean, Manafort's going to set some sort of record as the most indicted man in political history. What in the world is -- what is gained by the Special Counsel adding to these charges, and making these extraordinary charges that have really nothing to do with the Trump campaign, that have nothing to do even with the modern era in American politics?

[...]

FITTON: If I were the president, I would look at this investigation as something requiring a pardon analysis, because I don't know whether Manafort did anything wrong or not, but I don't trust Mueller to figure it out. And I know that if he did anything wrong or not, he would never have been indicted but for his relationship with then-candidate Trump. So, if -- in those circumstances a pardon may be warranted.

Previously:

Lou Dobbs and Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton call on Trump to "just pardon everybody, you know, just have a field day"

Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton tells Hannity "It's fair to ask whether" Rod Rosenstein should "be fired, or in the least have to recuse himself"

Tom Fitton tells Tucker Carlson that Jeff Sessions should order U.S. Marshals to raid FBI offices

On Fox Business, Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton says Jeff Sessions can "unrecuse" himself from Trump/Russia probe

==

wacko

hmmn

http://winsipcuster.blogspot.com/2016/10/james-comeys-feud-with-joseph-digenova.html

quote by digen]

An Interview with Lowell P. Wigglesworth

by Fabian Colbachi CPW News Service

     The conservative Judicial Watch assembled a panel of five to review the recent developments in the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

     Moderated by Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, the panel included Paul Schweizer the author of Clinton Cash,Jerome Corsi,author of Partners In Crime: The Clinton's Scheme to Monetize the White House for Personal Profit,

Christopher J. Farrell, a member of the OSS Societyand Investigative Reporters and Editorswhose 1996 debate between Gary Webb and the Washington Post's Jeff Leen was moderated by the University of Missouri's Professor Emeritus of Journalism, Steve Weinberg, attempted to skewer Webb's reporting for the San Jose Mercury Newsand his book Dark Alliance.  Also on the panel was former U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. and founding partner of the K Street legal firm of DiGenova & Toensing, Joseph E. DiGenova.

new 9/17

https://www.ecowatch.com/silence-climate-scientists-2491043851.html

The Desperate But Effective Attempts to Silence Climate Scientists

By Jeremy Deaton

People play dirty when they can't win by playing fair. This is, more or less, the story of climate change denial in the U.S.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans are altering the climate, reaping changes with potentially catastrophic consequences. Climate deniers can't dispute the data. They can't win on facts. Instead, they impugn the credibility of scientists, a tactic which has proved both ugly and effective.

Right-wing groups are using open records laws to obtain scientists' emails, and then misrepresenting the content of those emails to question the integrity of researchers and cast doubt on their findings, all of which has a chilling effect on scientific inquiry. But scientists have earned powerful allies in the fight to protect their research—including, by a strange set of circumstances, the Trump administration.

"Climategate" led to a wave of harassment.

The current spate of invasive records requests back to "Climategate," a 2009 controversy that erupted when a hacker obtained more than 1,000 emails sent and received by climatologists at East Anglia university in the United Kingdom. Parts of some emails, taken out of context, suggested scientists had manipulated data to exaggerate the warming trend.

Climate deniers harped on the leaks to paint climate scientists as ideologically motivated and dishonest. Though an official inquiry into the matter exonerated scientists, the damage was already done. Their calls for universities to investigate climate scientists prompted institutional probes that hampered research efforts. Today, conservative advocacy groups point to "Climategate" when making open records requests.

"I think anyone who looks at the whole 'Climategate' manufactured controversy understands now that it's bogus, but that's the rationale that they've used," said Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit working to protect researchers threatened by legal attacks.

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E), a conservative think tank with ties to coal and oil companies, cited "Climategate" as the impetus for its "transparency project." In 2011, the group sued to obtain more than 10,000 emails written or received by Michael Mann, a researcher at the University of Virginia and one of the scientists implicated in "Climategate." The Virginia Supreme Court sided with Mann, who lamented the "coordinated assault against the scientific community by powerful vested interests."

That same year, E&E requested more than a decade of emails from University of Arizona climate scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes, another researcher ensnared by "Climategate." E&E's legal brief alleged there is a "climate scientific-technological elite" which has "behaved badly" in the past, a reference to "Climategate." In a gesture of surprising candor, E&E acknowledged that it was searching for emails to "embarrass both Professors Hughes and Overpeck," whom it characterized as "academic climate alarmists." That suit continues to this day.

The University of Arizona case volleyed back and forth between the trial court and the appellate court, which recently determined the trial court had failed to consider a statute that protects "unpublished research data, manuscripts, preliminary analyses, drafts of scientific papers" and other documents produced by researchers at Arizona public universities.

Now the case will go back to the trial court, which will reevaluate the records request in light of this statute. The ruling is a pyrrhic victory for researchers and the university, who must dedicate even more time and money to fighting off E&E. "That's basically as good as we could have hoped for," Kurtz said. Even when scientists win, they lose.

The lawsuit has taken a hefty toll on Overpeck and Hughes. Overpeck said he spent six weeks of his sabbatical sorting through 90,000 pages of emails, explaining the case was a "grave distraction" from his work and family. Hughes spent an entire summer collecting emails, failed to attend to his work and lost a research grant as a result.

These injuries are temporary. More worrisome is the long-term effect that records requests have on research. Hughes noted that, due to his involvement in the case, other scientists have been reluctant to email him. While Hughes is nearing the end of this career, he said that, were he a young man, he would "consider a different line of work or another institution."

Even if E&E loses in the trial court—and it most likely will—the group will have nonetheless succeeded in bullying climate scientists. This, rather transparently, was the point. If E&E had concerns about the empirical rigor of climate research, it could have scrutinized the findings of specific studies. Instead of interrogating the final product, it went after the hastily scribed emails exchanged between colleagues.

"I have taught, researched and administered in academia for more than 40 years and have not seen a time in which freedom of inquiry has been more needed, or more imperiled than it is now," Hughes wrote in a letter to University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan when E&E was working to obtain Mann's emails. "Nothing is more likely to quash the creativity of America's scientists than the ever-present ear of a hostile listener intent on finding, at all costs, the appearance of malfeasance. Nothing is more calculated to discourage research into topics that may challenge power interests."

Today, some states are enacting policies to protect scientists. Rhode Island and North Dakota recently passed laws guarding academic freedom. The Rhode Island statute specifically shields "drafts, notes, impressions, memoranda, working papers and work products" from open records requests. Kurtz hopes more states follow suit.

Climate scientists have an unlikely ally in the Trump administration.

At the federal level, the issue becomes more complicated. The legal protections that guard the emails of federally-funded climate scientists also shield government employees, including those working for the president. As a result, climate scientists have an unlikely ally in the Trump administration.

In 2015, the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch made a FOIA request to obtain the emails of climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Judicial Watch has a history of harassing opponents with records requests—most notably Hillary Clinton. Its president, Tom Fitton, claimed the NOAA documents requested would show "the Obama administration put politics before science to advance global warming alarmism."

"This case is interesting because it was actually started under the Obama administration, but the Trump administration continued it, I think, because the Trump administration recognizes that it's important to maintain these open-records protections," said Kurtz.

The administration, though leaky, is notoriously secretive. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who regularly antagonizes climate scientists, recently installed a $25,000 soundproof booth in his office. Pruitt has also been sparing in his use of email, in part, as a response to a 2014 open-records request that revealed his close ties with the fossil fuel industry. "The Trump administration, I don't think, is eager to be turning things over under open-record laws," said Kurtz.

The rationale for protecting scientists' emails from public disclosure is simple. FOIA was enacted to make government more transparent, but it also threatened to discourage open conversations among federal employees. Judges have interpreted the law to exclude these conversations from records requests—what's known as deliberative process privilege.

"The deliberative process privilege was designed to allow agency employees to have freedom to communicate with each other and toss around ideas and engage in devil's advocate debates and what-if arguments and really feel like they can be candid with each other," Kurtz said. "In addition, there's the rationale that people might toss out ideas that are later determined to be bad ideas and never implemented, and if you produce all those emails, it's really going to confuse the public."

The NOAA suit was settled in August."The trial court judge agreed that the emails in the NOAA case were exactly the sort of emails that this deliberative process privilege was designed to protect," Kurtz said. Judicial Watch declined to appeal to the ruling.

As with the University of Arizona case, the damage was already done. If Judicial Watch had concerns about the empirical rigor of the NOAA study, it could have scrutinized the data, the method or the results—all of which were publicly available. But, the group didn't want to debate the merits of the science. Its goal was more specific.

Invasive records requests undermine scientific inquiry.

A 2015 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that researchers in numerous fields—public health, environmental science, genetic engineering—face attacks from groups on both sides of the ideological spectrum. The report explains that "individuals and well-heeled special interests across the political spectrum are increasingly using broad open records requests to attack and harass scientists." It warned that such tactics can "can curb the ability of researchers to pursue their work,chill their speech and discourage them from tackling contentious topics."

With climate change, there is evidence that this is already happening.A 2015 study found that climate scientists frequently downplay the gravity of their findings in response to harassment. Authors wrote that, " in response to constant, and sometimes toxic, public challenges, scientists have over-emphasized scientific uncertainty, and have inadvertently allowed contrarian claims to affect how they themselves speak, and perhaps even think, about their own research." This erodes public understanding of science.

"We all lose when scientists self-censor due to continued harassment. We have a poorer understanding of the science and are less able to make good personal and policy decisions," said Michael Halpern, head of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Scientists will be more likely to keep their heads down and refuse to publicly engage or ask contentious research questions if they don't feel that their peers who are attacked are adequately protected."

How then do scientists balance privacy with transparency? Where is the line between confidentiality and obfuscation?

"We think it's totally appropriate to FOIA for funding information and conflict of interest information," Kurtz said. "When you're getting into research emails and candid communication, I think that's really harmful." She added, "Short of something where you have actual evidence of criminal fraud, I think those things should be protected."

FOIA is designed to give a window into the policymaking process, but science is already transparent. "When you're doing a peer-reviewed study, your peers are looking at your research and giving you feedback on it, and they are determining whether or not it is appropriate for publication," said Kurtz. Scientists must publish their data, their methods, their results, and they must disclose their source of funding .

"That sort of transparency is actually what you need to replicate the research, evaluate the research," said Kurtz. "That is not happening in the policymaking field where FOIA was originally designed to operate."

Because science is transparent, it is also self-correcting. Researchers can interrogate, criticize and improve upon each others' work. In 2013, Thomas Herndon, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts made headlines when he found a number errors in an influential study authored by two Harvard economists. The paper showed that economic growth slows down in countries with high national debt, and it was used to justify austerity measures following the Great Recession. Herndon, 28, published a paper which called attention to the errors and refuted its conclusions about national debt.

This is how research works. Researchers evaluate and attempt to replicate the findings of their peers. They have every incentive to prove each other wrong. Herndon's work earned him the acclaim of serious economists, weeks of fawning press coverage and a star turn on The Colbert Report.Any person who could do the same for climate research would be similarly celebrated.

If E&E, Judicial Watch or any other groups were to find and publicize flaws in peer-reviewed climate research, they would be doing a public service. But, overwhelmingly, the data show that humans are driving the warming trend. So instead, right-wing groups go after emails, looking to defame scientists.

"Scientific transparency is obviously important," Kurtz said. "What we want to preclude is scientists having to live in a fish bowl."

Reposted with permission from our media associate Nexus Media.

==

==

Conservative anti-Clinton group Judicial Watch announced a “special panel presentation” promising a “scandal update” on the Clinton Foundation and the emails of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Judicial Watch, itself a hub for baseless smears against the Clintons, invited to the panel two discredited Clinton conspiracy theorists known for making claims based on “bogus” data.

Judicial Watch To Hold A “Clinton Scandal Update” Panel On “Emails And The Clinton Foundation”

Judicial Watch To Host “Educational Panel Discussion” On The Clinton Foundation, Clinton Emails. Right-wing group Judicial Watch announced a “special panel presentation” they entitled “Clinton Scandal Update – Emails and the Clinton Foundation.” The panel is a response to “the revelations about the pay-to-play scandal” related to Hillary Clinton’s “email system and the Clinton Foundation.” From the September 22 press release:

In response to the revelations about the pay-to-play scandal tied to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s non-state.gov email system and the Clinton Foundation, Judicial Watch announced today that it will host an educational panel discussion: “Clinton Scandal Update – Emails and the Clinton Foundation.”

Panelists include the author of the New York Times best-seller Clinton Cash and President of Government Accountability Institute Peter Schweizer;Joe diGenova, former U.S. Attorney, Independent Counsel and founding partner of the Washington, D.C., law firm diGenova & Toensing;:{ and Chris Farrell, director of investigations and research at Judicial Watch. Moderator will be Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Judicial Watch, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[9/22/16:{]}:

Judicial Watch, Schweizer, And diGenova Frequently Peddle Clinton-Related Misinformation

Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch Is A Driving Force In Peddling Baseless Clinton Scandals. As a leading conservative activist group, Judicial Watch has repeatedly pushed a false narrative about Hillary Clinton’s emails to both the right-wing and mainstream press. Records obtained by Judicial Watch are used in the GOP Majority House of Representatives investigations into the Benghazi attacks and Clinton’s email server. Media outlets have also regularly used Judicial Watch’s baseless reports in stories about the Clinton family, often making misleading claims about Democrats and progressives. *Media Matters*, [10/2/15]

Judicial Watch Was Founded By A Clinton-Obsessed Conspiracy Theorist. Judicial Watch was founded in 1994 by Larry Klaymanwho, during the 1990s, filed at least 18 different lawsuits against Bill and Hillary Clinton accusing them of various conspiracies, and hundreds more against multiple governmental agencies, The Washington Post, and even his own mother. As The Week:{noted in 2013, Klayman pushed a conspiracy theory that “the Clintons orchestrated the murders of several of their associates in the 1990s,” which, in various iterations, has been repeated by right-wing media, notably with Trump confidante Roger Stone who accused the Clintons of murdering over 40 people. Klayman also believes President Obama is "our first 'Muslim' president" and “not even a naturalized U.S. citizen and thus is in the United States illegally.” :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[3/25/15:{, }:4/12/16:{]}:

Judicial Watch Reports Routinely Dupe The Media. Despite Judicial Watch’s long history of questionable information, media outlets regularly turn to them for damaging stories about the Clintons. In August 2016 Judicial Watch claimed that a Clinton Foundation official, Doug Band, emailed then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin, to allow a Foundation donor to speak to a “substance person” about Lebanon. The media repeated the story, alleging it raised “questions about whether [the Clinton Foundation] worked to reward its donors with access and influence at the State Department.” Judicial Watch and the media ignored the complete lack of evidence that any Clinton Foundation donors ever influenced State Department policy.:{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[8/10/16:{]}:

Peter Schweizer

Peter Schweizer’s Marquee Book Is Filled With Lies And Misinformation. Peter Schweizer, President of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), is also the author of Clinton Cash, a discredited anti-Clinton book often cited by right-wing media that purports to expose the corruption of the Clinton family. Schweizer’s book is filled with 20-plus errors, distortions, and fabrications including a false press release, political double-standards, the omission of key information (to which Schweizer admitted,) and taking quotes “badly out of context.” *Media Matters*, [4/30/15, 5/23/16]

Peter Schweizer’s Entire Career Is Full Of Errors, Retractions, And Questionable Sourcing. Peter Schweizer’s career features a long history of sloppy journalism and embarrassing mistakes. In 2005 he falsely accused then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of underpaying workers at a vineyard she owns. In 2012, Schweizer’s GAI claimed President Obama skipped half of his daily intelligence briefings, though The Washington Post Fact-Checker blog reported that GAI’s data was “bogus” and that under Schweizer’s standard, “Republican icon Ronald Reagan skipped his intelligence briefings 99 percent of the time." The Post’s fact-checker gave GAI’s claim “three Pinocchios.” *Media Matters*, [4/20/15]

Peter Schweizer’s Lies And Misinformation Have Been Cited By Donald Trump. Schweizer’s error-ridden Clinton Cash has been referenced by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to reinforce his lies about Hillary Clinton. Trump cited the book on June 22 to claim the Clintons personally benefitted from a uranium deal with a Russian company, Uranium One, headed by a Clinton Foundation donor. However, Time magazine noted Schweizer’s conspiracy theory was “based on little evidence.” *Media Matters*, [6/20/16, 6/20/16]

Joseph diGenova

Joseph diGenova Was An Early Benghazi Misinformer. In 2013, Joseph diGenova appeared on Fox News with his wife, Victoria Toensing, and alleged the Obama administration was threatening Benghazi whistleblowers to keep quiet. However, by that time Benghazi witnesses had already reportedly testified to the FBI, an independent review board, and spoken to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) regarding the events of September 11, 2012. DiGenova also pushed the falsehood that soldiers were “relieved of their duty because they insisted there be a military response” to the Benghazi attacks, even though a military response was ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. *Media Matters*, [4/30/13, 10/29/13]

Joseph diGenova Was Scolded By A Congressman For “Unseemly, Undignified” Investigative Conduct. In 1998, Roll Call reported that diGenova and his wife were excoriated by then-Rep. Bill Clay (D-MO) for their conduct in the then-ongoing Monica Lewinsky scandal:{. Clay lambasted diGenova for “becom[ing] so closely aligned with the President's critics and so personally identified with the scandal itself as to have relinquished the air of impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism required of leaders of a serious congressional investigation." Clay called their conduct “unseemly, undignified, unworthy of this committee, and generally detrimental to important Congressional functions." :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[4/30/13:{]}:

Joseph diGenova Led A Right-Wing Media Frenzy About Hillary Clinton’s Indictment. On the January 5, 2016, edition of The Laura Ingraham Show, diGenova predicted that Hillary Clinton would be indicted for her private email server within “the next 60 days.”Even though the FBI investigation was never a criminal investigation, right-wing media from Rush Limbaugh, to the Washington Examiner, and the Daily Mail ran with what Fox host Sean Hannity called an “overwhelming” case for Clinton’s criminal prosecution. On July 5, 2016 -- 182 days after diGenova’s prediction -- FBI Director James B. Comey announced that the investigation was closed and the FBI could not “find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.” *Media Matters*, [1/7/16; Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System, 7/5/16]

==

[poll to capt email]

eg chuck johnson troll

Among the 14,900 federal documents Hillary Clinton is said to have failed to turn over to the State Department in 2014 are some related to the Benghazi attacks, according to Judicial Watch.

The conservative watchdog group says that government lawyers admitted in court papers filed on Tuesday that the nearly 15,000 pages of Clinton records recovered by the FBI included some which “satisfied the [Benghazi-related] search terms.”

That suggests that Clinton withheld or deleted records which referred to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks which left four Americans dead.

Clinton has claimed that a team of her aides searched through her email account using search terms for a variety of issues, including Benghazi.

And though Clinton has claimed that she turned over all of her work-related records, the FBI says that a forensic sweep of Clinton’s server led to the recovery of nearly 15,000 more documents. It is unclear if all of the documents were emails maintained on Clinton’s server or if they resided somewhere else.The bureau transferred the recovered documents to the State Department on Aug. 5.

Amit P. Mehta, the federal judge overseeing the Judicial Watch lawsuit, ordered the State Department to begin releasing Benghazi-related records to the watchdog group by Sept. 30. All of the documents must be produced by Oct. 31, several days before the general election. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 30 to ascertain how many documents will be provided.

In a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit, a federal judge ruled that the State Department must start releasing deleted Clinton emails on Sept. 13. e State Department contacted The Daily Callerafter this article was published to dispute that the records in the Judicial Watch lawsuit have been definitively found to include Benghazi-related materials.

“As we have said, the Department agreed to search the materials we received from the FBI in response to several pending FOIA requests and, to the extent responsive records are identified, produce them,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.

“Using broad search terms, we have identified a number of documents potentially responsive to a Benghazi-related request. At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive. We also have not determined if they involve Secretary Clinton.”

MONDAY, AUG 22, 2016 05:00 AM PDT

Judicial Watch vs. Hillary: The conservative group has a long history of spreading Clinton lies

Right-wing strike force Judicial Watch is not letting up on Hillary's emails — the media shouldn't enable them

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/22/judicial-watch-vs-hillary-the-conservative-group-has-a-long-history-of-spreading-clinton-lies/

salon (but 2 wsj video ~ HC?! autoplay, fake news? dan henniger crook; trump arrogant blowhard idiot]

Back in the 1990s the political establishment made fun of Hillary Clinton for her comment that the press was missing the real story of “the vast right-wing conspiracy” that had been dogging her family throughout her husband’s presidency. Any mention of it provoked eye-rolls and knowing smirks among the cognoscenti, who were all absolutely sure that it was just more evidence of Clinton’s guilty conscience over something.

But she was right. And there was some real reporting on it even at the time although, as it was revealed, the Republicans would throw out another shiny object and the press pack would go running in the opposite direction like a herd of gazelles. So it was very difficult to get a handle on the whole story. For instance, this 1999 article by Jill Abramson and Don Van Natta in the New York Timeslaid out the previously untold story story of the small group of conservative lawyers who concocted the Paula Jones lawsuit and were instrumental in pushing the Monica Lewinsky matter, among other things. As it happens one of those lawyers was a fellow namedGeorge Conway, who was not yet married to Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, who is now Donald Trump’s latest campaign manager. The Drudge Report drove much of the scandal, and George Conway was believed to have been Drudge’s main source, most memorably the story about President Clinton’s alleged “distinguishing characteristic” which pundits and commentators gleefully discussed on television for months. It’s a small right-wing world after all.

The book “The Hunting of the President” and the new e-book “The Hunting of Hillary,” both by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, finally put together the overall narrative of what happened. But even at the time, it was obvious that there was a concerted effort, funded by millionaire GOP donors, to throw mud on the Clinton administration in an attempt to either get the president impeached or force him to resign. We all know how that ended.

One of the biggest players in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was an outfit called Judicial Watch, formed in the early 90s by a conservative gadfly named Larry Klayman. Klayman was a one-man wrecking crew who filed more than 18 lawsuits against members of the Clinton administration costing them millions of dollars in legal fees. The most notable of these was a $90 million invasion of privacy suit filed against Hillary Clinton and others on behalf of the “victims” of Filegate, one of the many scandals for which both Bill and Hillary Clinton were completely exonerated by two different independent counsels. The lawsuit was colorfully described at the time by Jacob Weisberg of Slate:

Klayman has found an opening to harass his political opponents, inflicting costly all-day depositions on Harold Ickes, [George] Stephanopoulos, James Carville, Paul Begala, and many others … Klayman asks administration officials about whom they date, where they go after work, whether they were expelled from school for disciplinary problems. One 23-year-old White House assistant was interrogated about a triple murder that took place at a Starbucks in Georgetown. Klayman videotapes these depositions, excerpts of which air on Geraldo when Klayman appears on the program, and publishes the transcripts on the Internet. This is in pursuit of a case about the invasion ofprivacy,remember … The ultimate goal of the Filegate suit appears to be to inflict this treatment on Hillary Clinton.

That was just one of many Judicial Watch lawsuits, including one in which Klayman sued his own mother for $50,000, that went nowhere. But they did achieve their true purpose, which was to damage reputations, smear political opponents and inflict huge legal fees on anyone who happened to be in the administration.

Klayman left Judicial Watch in 2003 and ended up suing them (naturally.) His recent activity has included a rare righteous lawsuit against the National Security Agency for spying on Americans, and accusations that President Obama is a Muslim who is trying to institute Sharia law. Just this month he added another name to the list of more 80 deaths for which he says Hillary Clinton is responsible. And yes, he’s representing two Benghazi families in wrongful death suits against her.

...?

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has continued its work without him. During the Bush administration they made a couple ofhalf-hearted attempts at bipartisan “watchdog” activity by submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for Dick Cheney’s energy task force members and the White House guest logs for lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The Obama presidency proved to be more fertile ground. Judicial Watch has accused the administration of creating dozens of “czars”that don’t exist, and has made a fetish out of lying about the Obamas’ travel expenses. This so-called watchdog group has engaged in some truly weird conspiracy-mongering. Via Media Matters:

Judicial Watch claimed that the Justice Department was helping to “organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman,” the Florida man who shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin. In reality, the unit of the DOJ was sent to Florida in order to defuse tensions in the community, and as the Orlando Sentinel reported, they “reached out to the city’s spiritual and civic leaders to help cool heated emotions.”

Judicial Watch claimed that the Islamic State (ISIS) had set up a terrorist camp in Mexico “just a few miles from El Paso, Texas,” facilitating the smuggling of terrorists into the United States. Conservative media outlets picked up Judicial Watch’s claim. Authorities in both the U.S. and Mexico rejected the group’s fearmongering.

This is the same Judicial Watch that currently has the press panting over every release of the Clinton State Department emails they’ve received from their FOIA fishing expedition, rushing on the air and to print based upon the organization’s **often erroneous and misleading press releases**. Tom Fitton, the organization’s current president and author of the book “The Corruption Chronicles: Obama’s Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government” proudly declared, “Judicial Watch has had more success investigating the IRS, Benghazi and Clinton email scandals than any House committee.”

Considering the outcomes of the IRS and Benghazi “scandals,” it would behoove the press to show a little skepticism. The history of this group is very clear. The first time it waged its campaign of character assassination against Bill and Hillary Clinton, it’s perhaps understandable that the press failed to recognize they were being manipulated by political operatives. The trumped-up Obama scandals added up to nothing as well. There’s no excuse for the media to fall for it again

==

Benghazi!— Breitbart CEO Bannon is part of a cabal that demanded the Republican Congress pursue endless investigations of the State Department response to the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. If you’re wondering why Congress has so far spent $6.7 million investigating the Benghazi tragedy, it’s partly over the fear that Breitbart News will marshal its resources to push members of the relevant congressional committees out of office if they don’t come up with a viable scandal to hang around the neck of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state when the incident happened. (Breitbart News is credited with havingcreated the pressure the forced the resignation of former House Speaker John Boehner.)

In 2013, Mother Jones exposed the agenda of Groundswell, a weekly planning meeting convened by the right-wing group, Judicial Watch. Bannon’s name was on the guest list for a May 8, 2013, meeting, and Breitbart News reporter Matthew Boyle and the late editor Mike Flynn were active on its listserv and participants in the messaging strategies on a range of issues at the time of the Mother Jones report. Others in the group, according to Mother Jones:

One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy; Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; Allen West, the former GOP House member; Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential Shirley and BanisterPR firm; and Max Pappas, a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

In one email message to the group, Boyle assures Groundswell members:

“I’m saying we can get pieces out fast on Breitbart. Whenever you have an idea, email or call me with a pitch and I'll do my best to get the story out there. Keep us on offense, them on defense. Even if the idea isn't perfect, I can help massage it to get there.”

Audio of one of the group’s meetings obtained by Karoli Kuns of Crooks and Liars reveals Boykin of the Family Research Council pushing the false Benghazi narrative of a State Department cover-up, suggesting that the message be conveyed toBoehner and Rep. Darryll Issa (R-Calif.), then chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that nothing short of the appointment of a special committee on the Benghazi matter would do; conspiracy theorist, Islamophobe and birther Frank Gaffney is heard saying that in a meeting the previous night, he impressed upon the speaker and the committee chair that “there’s a lot of restiveness on the part of folks like us, and some of their donors as a matter of fact…” In May 2014, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was appointed to lead the newly formed Select Committee on Benghazi.

Breitbart News stepped up to spin every small revelation into a false narrative of a gargantuan scandal. ...

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/5-manufactured-news-scandals-produced-and-promoted-breitbart-news-and-new-trump

==

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/01/new-fbi-docs-show-irs-tea-party-applications-to-black-hole/

new FBI Docs Show IRS Tea Party Applications To ‘Black Hole’

Photo of Ethan Barton

ETHAN BARTON

4:22 PM 08/01/2016

229131

Lerner, the IRS official who this month revealed the tax agency   U.S. Director of Exempt Organizations for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Lois Lerner waits to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on alleged targeting of political groups seeking tax-exempt status from by the IRS, on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 22, 2013. Lerner, the IRS official who this month revealed the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups asserted her constitutional right not to answer questions before a congressional committee on Wednesday.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants into a bureaucratic “black hole,” according to FBI documents made public Monday by a government watchdog group.

The documents describe how the IRS targeted the groups applying for tax exemptions beginning in 2010 and continuing beyond the 2012 election in a scandal that culminated in top agency official Lois Lerner’s retirement following a series of investigations.

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The IRS sent applications associated with the Tea Party to “Group 7822,” a special team apparently developed specifically to snare targeted organizations’ tax exemption requests, FBI narratives of interviews called “302s” obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch show. (RELATED: IRS Names Hundreds Of Tea Party Groups Subjected To Extra Scrutiny)

“The FBI 302 interviews with Cincinnati IRS employees reveal that the agency adopted a series of policies seemingly assuring that Tea Party and other conservative group tax exempt applications would not be approved before the November 2012 presidential election,” a Judicial Watch statement said.

The scheme’s full extent was shrouded in bureaucratic complexity. The IRS normally sorts tax-exempt applications into four categories, ranging from automatically-approved to automatically-declined.

The agency issued a document that ordered officials to look for groups connected with certain names, including the Tea Party, records show. IRS policy prohibited any groups associated with that document from being automatically approved.

But the IRS took an additional step for Tea Party applicants.

“The Tea Party designation [in internal IRS warnings] looks bad, especially since progressive cases were not included in these categories,” FBI documents show. “[Redacted] asked why progressive cases were not segregated similar to the Tea Party cases, but she did not get any satisfactory answers.”

All applications linked with the Tea Party were sent to Group 7822.

“Group 7822 was composed of 12 to 15 people and was simply a place for the Tea Party cases to be held in inventory while the agent waited to receive guidance from the Washington office,” one manager, whose name was redacted, said, FBI documents show. “There had been no precedence previously on these issues. If the case said it supports politics and political activity, it would be put into Group 7822.”

Another unnamed manager added: “DC is like a black hole.”

Increasingly delayed responses from Washington caused an enormous backlog, other IRS officials told the FBI.

“[T]hese new 302 FBI interview documents reveal for the first time just how carefully orchestrated the IRS program for silencing opposition to Obama’s reelection actually was,”Judicial Watch President Tom Fittonsaid in a statement. “Group 7822 was clearly the political equivalent of purgatory.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/01/new-fbi-docs-show-irs-tea-party-applications-to-black-hole

==

One of the issues looming large at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the movement's three-day confab held just outside Washington, DC, is the "scandal" over the IRS singling out tea party groups (and other nonprofits) for additional scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who spoke first on the main stage this morning, opened his speech with a jab at Lois Lerner, the ex-IRS official at the heart of the trumped-up controversy that has yielded no evidence to back up the right-wing claim that the White House sicced the IRS on tea partiers. (Lerner appeared for a second time before the House oversight committee yesterday, where she pled the Fifth Amendment.)

But Cruz's zingers paled in comparison to what Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, said at a panel titled "IRS Targeting Scandal: Protecting the Voice of the People":

People are dying in the streets in Ukraine. People being oppressed by the political regime. That's what the IRS was doing.

To refresh, at least 75 people were killed in the protests in Kiev, the bloodiest period in the country's history since the fall of the Soviet Union. Soon after, Russian military forces invaded and essentially seized the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine. In response, Western countries have imposed sanctions against people and organizations accused of challenging Ukraine's sovereignty. In short, it's a crisis of international proportions. The IRS controversy is not. This supposed scandal has, however, briefly resuscitated the flagging tea party, which may explain the movement's continued obsession with the issue.

==

Funding

In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from the Carthage Foundation and a further $400,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation. The year before the Scaife Foundation had given $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000.

In all, between 1997 and 2002, Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 (unadjusted for inflation) in 19 grants from a handful of foundations including. The bulk of this funding came from just three foundations - the Sarah Scaife Foundation, The Carthage Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. [1]

(This section needs to be updated.)

Controversy

(placeholder)

Personnel

Contact

Judicial Watch, Inc.

P.O. Box 44444

Washington, DC 20026

Tel: 888-JW-ETHIC

Fax: 202-646-5199

info@judicialwatch.org

Web:http://www.judicialwatch.org/

2009

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2009

Contact Information:

Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

  1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.
  3. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year's worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: "The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…" The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign's office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.
  5. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use." Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a "federal regulator," and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank's intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  7. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn't until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: "Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG's impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned 'full details' of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG." Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed "household help" ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the "Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington" list.
  9. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won't be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro's Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton's scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder's former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder's controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder's politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.
  11. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama's then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named "Senate Candidate A" in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama's seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. According to Reuters: "Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich -- later charged with trying to sell Obama's Senate seat -- at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor's aides about his desire to be appointed." Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.
  13. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration "lowlights" from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scheme to sell the President's former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that thePrivacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability.President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the ideaemerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President's bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: "The administration's central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption." Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors — this is Obama's "ethics" record — and we haven't even gotten through the first year of his presidency.
  15. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2009 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA's use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)
  17. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman's largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks -- tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA's offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, "Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills." When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, "cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file." The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha's nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: "Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military."
  19. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly "forget" to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow "forgot" about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making "campaign contributions" to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: "The reigning member of Congress' top tax committee is apparently 'wrangling' other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles...Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him." Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That's why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

Judicial Watch

wiki

Judicial Watch is an organization that describes itself as "a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law."[1] According to its mission statement, Judicial Watch "advocates high standards of ethics and morality in America's public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people."[2] In 2010 Judicial Watch released their list of "Washington's ten Most Corrupt Politicians." The list included Rep. Barney Frank, and President Barack Obama.[3]

Contents

[edit] History

Founded by conservative attorney Larry Klayman in 1994,[4] Judicial Watch came to public attention after filing 18 lawsuits against the administration of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton and figures in the Clinton administration. The organization received considerable financial support from prominent Clinton critics, including $7.74 million from conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.[5] This led Clinton administration officials to accuse Judicial Watch of "abusing the judicial system for partisan ends."[6]

However, in July 2003 Judicial Watch joined the environmental organization the Sierra Club in suing the George W. Bush administration for access to minutes of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.[7] After several years of legal wrangling, in May, 2005 an appeals court permitted the Energy Task Force's records to remain secret.[8][9]

In September 2003, Klayman left the organization to run for the United States Senate from Florida.[10] In 2006 Klayman sued Judicial Watch and its president Tom Fitton. The lawsuit charged Fitton misrepresented his academic and professional credentials upon hiring, and upon assuming his position engaged in false and misleading fund raising, misuse of donor money, failure to appoint an attorney as Chairman, failure to comply with a promised severance package to Klayman, and other actions which damaged Judicial Watch, the donors and Klayman. [11][12] The majority of Klayman’s claims have been dismissed, including all claims against Fitton and the other officers of the organization.[13] The only claims by Klayman that remain pending before the Court consist of allegations that Judicial Watch breached a severance agreement with Klayman. [14]

Judicial Watch has asserted several claims against Klayman.[15] On October 14, 2009, the Court found that Klayman breached the severance agreement by failing to pay Judicial Watch, $69,358,48 in unreimbursed personal expenses.[16] The remainder of Judicial Watch’s claims against Klayman, which include additional claims of breaches of the severance agreement and trademark infringement, remain pending before the Court as of October 5, 2010.[17]

In 2006 Judicial Watch sued the Secret Service to force the release of logs detailing convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House. This resulted in the release of a number of documents.[18][19]

In 2007 former donor Peter F. Paul sued Judicial Watch, accusing it of using his name to raise more than $15 million to support his lawsuit against Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton while doing little to advance his case.[20][21][22] All of Paul’s claims have been dismissed.[23]

[edit] Positions

The motto of Judicial Watch is "because no one is above the law."[2] The bulk of Judicial Watch's cases involve transparency in government and government integrity, and the organization has taken positions on a wide range of issues.[24] Judicial Watch supports:

[edit] Activities

According to David Corn, Judicial Watch uses litigation as its primary tool,[4] and its web page contains detailed information on current litigation matters.[24] Judicial Watch activities include:

Judicial Watch gained media attention when a judge in a separate lawsuit ordered the Department of Justice to releasing live video taken from relevant security cameras at The Pentagon on September 11, 2001. On May 16, 2006 the group released the videos from the two cameras on their website with hopes to "...put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77..."[31]

On June 20, 2007 the group released FBI documents related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the documents, dated September 21, 2001, Osama bin Laden himself may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.[32]

[edit] Funding

In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from The Carthage Foundation[33] and a further $400,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation. Both foundations are managed by Richard Mellon Scaife.[33] The year before the Scaife Foundation gave $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000.[33]

In all, between 1997 and 2002 Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 (unadjusted for inflation) in 19 grants from a handful of foundations. The bulk of this funding came from just three foundations – the Sarah Scaife Foundation, The Carthage Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.[33] According to MediaTransparency, itself a subsidiary of the progressive Media Matters for America, "Judicial Watch is essentially a tool of Richard Mellon Scaife, who provides almost all its funding."[33]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "About Us", Judicial Watch web site.
  2. ^ a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-mission_1-0) b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-mission_1-1) c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-mission_1-2) d(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-mission_1-3) e(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-mission_1-4) "About Judicial Watch - Our Mission", Judicial Watch web site.
  3. ^ http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/dec/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2009
  4. ^ a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-TheNation_3-0) b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-TheNation_3-1) Corn, David (2004-03-29). "Klayman Watch". The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/klayman-watch. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  5. ^ "Recipients by amounts granted by all Scaife foundations". Media Transparency. http://www.mediatransparency.org/scaifeaggregate.php. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  6. ^ Segal, David (1998-05-30). "Pursuing Clinton Suits Him Just Fine". Washington Post. p. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/klayman053098.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  7. ^ Bill Moyers Interview with Larry Klayman, Public Broadcasting Service, July 11, 2003.
  8. ^ Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Nat’l Energy Policy Dev. Group, et al., Judicial Watch web site.
  9. ^ Appeals Court Permits Energy Task Force Records to Remain Secret, Judicial Watch press release, May 10, 2005.
  10. ^ Joseph Farah, "Larry Klayman for U.S. Senate," WorldNetDaily, August 26, 2004.
  11. ^ Timothy Noah, Judicial Watch v. Judicial Watch, Slate, April 28, 2006.
  12. ^ United States District Court for the District of Columbia Civil Action No. 06-670 (Ckk); Larry Klayman, Plaintiff, V. Judicial Watch, Inc., et Al., Defendants; Memorandum Opinion, (December 3, 2007); United States District Court for the District of Columbia Civil Action No. 06-670 (Ckk); Larry Klayman, Plaintiff, V. Judicial Watch, Inc., et Al., Defendants; Memorandum Opinion, (June 25, 2009)
  13. ^ Klayman v. Judicial Watch, Inc., 628 F. Supp.2d 112, 118 (D.D.C. 2009).
  14. ^ Id.
  15. ^ Klayman, 628 F. Supp. 2d at 118.
  16. ^ Klayman v. Judicial Watch, Inc., 661 F. Supp.2d 2, 4 (D.D.C. 2009).
  17. ^ Klayman, 628 F. Supp.2d at 118.
  18. ^ The Jack Abramoff Scandal, Judicial Watch web site.
  19. ^ U.S. Secret Service Forced to Release More White House Logs Detailing Abramoff Visits, Judicial Watch website, July 7, 2007.
  20. ^ Kristen Lombardi, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Rides Again; Hillary haters go wild over campaign finance case, Village Voice, May 17th 2005.
  21. ^ "Battling the Clintons, and each other (Judicial Watch may tie up Peter F. Paul)", The New York Times, March 15, 2005, p. B3.
  22. ^ "Former Donor To Clinton Sues Judicial Watch," Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, February 8, 2007, p.5
  23. ^ Paul v. Judicial Watch, Inc., Civil Action No. 07-00279 (RCL) (D.D.C. Feb. 2, 2009) (memorandum and order granting dismissal with prejudice).
  24. ^ a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-litigation_23-0) b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-litigation_23-1) Litigation page, Judicial Watch web site.
  25. ^ Letter from Tom Fitton Re: Request for Investigation, Determination and Final Disposition of Awards Granted to Lieutenant (junior grade) John Forbes Kerry, USNR Judicial Watch web site, August 18, 2004.
  26. ^ Route, R.A. (2004-09-14). "Navy response to Judicial Watch request" (PDF). Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2004/navyresponse.pdf. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  27. ^ Route, R.A. (2004-10-04). "Naval response to FOIA request" (PDF). Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2004/jknavydocs.pdf. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  28. ^ By Blustein, Paul and Locy, Toni (1996-11-17). "To Gadfly of the Right, Clinton Administration Is Unsafe at Any Speed". Washington Post. p. A17. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/klayman111796.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  29. ^ Judicial Watch (2004-10-06). "House Majority Leader Should Step Down Over Ethics Lapse, Says Judicial Watch". Press release. http://www.judicialwatch.org/3844.shtml. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  30. ^ Judicial Watch (2002-07-26). "BUSH-CHENEY WHITE HOUSE OBSTRUCTS HALLIBURTON LAWSUIT". Press release. http://www.judicialwatch.org/2221.shtml. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  31. ^ "Defense Department Releases Two Videos of Flight 77 Crashing Into Pentagon". Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/flight77.shtml. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
  32. ^ "Judicial Watch Releases New FBI Documents: Osama bin Laden May Have Chartered Saudi Flight Out of U.S. after 9/11". Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org/6322.shtml. Retrieved 2008-01-04. 
  33. ^ a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-MediaTransparency_32-0) b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-MediaTransparency_32-1) c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-MediaTransparency_32-2) d(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-MediaTransparency_32-3) e(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch#cite_ref-MediaTransparency_32-4) "Recipient Grants: Judicial Watch". Media Transparency. http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=1122. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch"

Categories: Government watchdog groups in the United States | Political organizations in the United States | 1994 establishments

officbs bio

Tom Fitton

Tom Fitton is the President of Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption. Founded in 1994, Judicial Watch seeks to ensure government and judicial officials act ethically and do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American public.With 20 years of experience in conservative public policy, Tom Fitton has helped lead Judicial Watch since 1998 and overseen its tremendous growth and success in recent years.

Under Fitton’s leadership, Judicial Watch was named one of Washington’s top ten most effective government watchdog organizations by The Hill newspaper.Mr. Fitton provides Judicial Watch with strategic guidance and leadership on Judicial Watch’s comprehensive efforts to fight government corruption. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption, immigration enforcement, congressional and judicial ethics, and open government. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in TIME, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and most every other major newspaper in the country. He has also appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, C-SPAN and MSNBC.

Mr. Fitton has authored numerous articles such as “Judicial Activism Hurts our Courts,” “What Bill Clinton Knew About bin Laden,” “Following Terrorism’s Money Trail,” “Senate Abandons Judicial Nominees,” “Every Town is a Border Town,” “Obama’s Records Problem” and “Jesse Jackson Exposed.” Judicial Watch also publishes the monthly 375,000+ circulation Verdict newsletter and runs the cutting-edge Internet site JudicialWatch.org, which includes the oft-cited Corruption Chronicles blog.Mr. Fitton gained national attention as a political analyst, previously working for America’s Voice and National Empowerment Television. He is a former employee of the International Policy Forum, the Leadership Institute, and Accuracy in Media.Mr. Fitton holds a B.A. in English from George Washington University.

Paul J. Orfanedes

Paul J. Orfanedes heads Judicial Watch’s Litigation Department and has been with Judicial Watch since its inception. Paul is a distinguished civil litigator who has argued in front of the Supreme Court and in the federal appeal courts on behalf of Judicial Watch and its clients.As Director of Litigation, he has been a spokesperson for Judicial Watch with his legal commentary appearing in major radio and print media outlets. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of the Legal Department, Paul is Corporate Secretary and Treasurer of Judicial Watch. He is also member of the Board of Directors.Paul is a native of Illinois. He graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986. He received his Juris Doctorate from American University in 1990.

Tom Fitton

Christopher J. Farrell

Christopher J. Farrell joined Judicial Watch in 1999 as the organization’s Director of Investigations & Research, and has been a member of the Board of Directors since September 2003. ?Chris is a native of Long Island, New York. He was a Distinguished Military Graduate from Fordham University with a B.A. in History, whereupon he accepted a Regular Army Commission and served as a Military Intelligence Officer – specializing in Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence. Chris is a graduate of the Military Intelligence Officers Basic and Advanced Courses, the U.S. Army Advanced Counterintelligence Training Course, the Combined Arms Services Staff School of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Military Operations Training Course, and the Haus Rissen Institut für Politik und Wirtschaft in Hamburg, Germany. He is a specialist in national security matters, specializing in unconventional warfare and terrorism. Following command and staff assignments that included three tours of duty in the Federal Republic of Germany, and one tour at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Chris returned to civilian life as a contractor to the defense and intelligence communities. He also provided management and training consulting services to non-profit organizations, and was active in the establishment of a small, private, co-ed Christian high school where he both taught and served as director. Chris has appeared on numerous national TV and radio shows, and has authored dozens of articles. He contributed a chapter on terrorism to Dr. Irwin Redlener’s book “Americans at Risk” (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2006). Chris maintains a busy lecture schedule on both government corruption issues and intelligence matters. He served as a Senior Staff Associate of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Mailman School of Public Health (2005 – 2008). He is currently an adjunct professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.  Chris is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers; the Society of Professional Journalists; Investigative Reporters and Editors; the OSS Society; the National Military Intelligence Association; and is a constituent member of the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council. Chris serves as the Judicial Watch main representative to United Nations Headquarters in New York.

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Jason Aldrich is Judicial Watch’s longest standing employee having joined the organization in November of 1997. Since 2001 he has served as a staff attorney. Jason has extensive experience litigating Freedom of Information Act cases in federal court as well as Freedom of Information Law cases in New York State. Jason has been involved in several significant Judicial Watchcases, including theFOIA lawsuit that uncovered a scheme in President Clinton’s CommerceDepartment to offer seats on government trade missions in exchange for campaign contributions. Jason received his law degree from the Marshall- Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary in 1997, where he was an article editor for theWilliam & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. He received his undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Bates College in 1993. He is a member of the bars of New York, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Jason Aldrich

Lauren Burke

Lauren M. Burke joined the Judicial Watch legal team in September 2014. She has extensive trial experience and a background in government and public policy. Lauren worked for a large New England law firm and a boutique, full service law firm in Boston, MA where she was part of a strong litigation team that developed a cooperative legal group working in Massachusetts and Washington D.C. Lauren has litigated civil, commercial and criminal cases in federal, state, and administrative courts. Notably, Lauren argued against qualified immunity in a federal civil rights case and successfully defeated summary judgment in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts; arbitrated an award for compensation, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees in a Wage and Payment Act case on fraud and successor liability; negotiated a multi-million dollar settlement as lead counsel in an international trademark and patent rights case; was lead counsel in a consumer protection case obtaining favorable judgment and collaborating with the Massachusetts Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs for further prosecution; successfully resolved a commercial contract dispute in the international arbitration forum. Prior to embarking on a legal career, Lauren worked in government relations in both the public and private sectors in Washington, D.C. While pursuing a B.A. in politics from the Catholic University of America, Lauren worked at Judicial Watch in the development department. She received her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, MA where she worked as a certified prosecutor in Boston district court under Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Rule 3.03. She also worked for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services as an appellate attorney for indigent clients achieving remand or overturned verdict in 10 out of 12 appeals filed and argued. Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Lauren now resides and primarily practices in Washington D.C. She is licensed in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Lauren Burke

Michael Bekesha

Michael Bekesha joined Judicial Watch’s legal team in 2009 after receiving his law degree. Michael previously interned with Judicial Watch during his last summer of law school.

Since joining Judicial Watch, Michael has litigated dozens of freedom of information cases in both state and federal courts on behalf of Judicial Watch as well as individuals, media organizations, and other not-for-profit organizations.Most recently, Michael successfully forced the U.S. Department of Justice to produce over 42,000 pages of records that were being improperly withheld under a claim of Executive Privilege.

In addition to government transparency lawsuits, Michael has had extensive experience litigating accountability and integrity lawsuits in both federal and state court. Michael has challenged the delay of the employer mandate on behalf of a Florida orthodontist, challenged the Cook County Sheriff’s Office for failing to comply with its legal duties, and challenged the District of Columbia’s policy allowing Congressional employees to purchase health insurance on the “Small Business Exchange.” Michael also has represented a whistleblower in a whistleblower/First Amendment retaliation action under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and three police officers in a Section 1983 lawsuit for violations of their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, Michael has filed numerous amicus curiae briefs concerning a variety of issues, including Voter ID, illegal immigration, FOIA, and executive overreach. Michael has also drafted legislation and testified before state legislatures. Michael most recently testified before the State Government Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives concerning the impeachment of the Pennsylvania Attorney General.

Michael received his law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Law in 2009, where he was a member of the Journal of Dispute Resolution. He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Northwestern University in 2004 and is actively involved in Northwestern’s local and national alumni affairs. Michael has been published three times, most recently in the Administrative and Regulatory Law News in an article entitled James Madison Would Not Litigate FOIA Disputes: Fixing FOIA through ADR, and is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Michael Bekesha

Ramona R. Cotca

Ramona R. Cotca joined Judicial Watch’s legal team as a senior attorney in May 2013. For the last eight years prior to joining Judicial Watch, she worked as a litigator for a local boutique firm and then joined the national in-house litigation group for a Fortune 500 company. In her previous practice she represented corporate clients in a variety of complex civil litigation matters, including contracts, insurance, product liability, professional malpractice, real estate and wrongful death. Ms. Cotca has tried cases in local state and federal courts in the District of Columbia and Maryland, and has argued cases at the appellate levels, including the U.S. Court for Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Ms. Cotca is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and Maryland, as well as several federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.Ms. Cotca earned her Juris Doctorate and Masters of Arts in International Affairs from Washington College of Law and American University in 2004. She graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with high honors in 2001 and attended Oxford University in 2000. Ms. Cotca is also an active member in a number of professional legal organizations, including The Barristers, and sits on several boards. Ms. Cotca is fluent in Romanian.

Ramona R. Cotca

Chris Fedeli

Chris Fedeli joined Judicial Watch in 2012 as a senior attorney. Since joining, Chris has litigated multiple cases in state and federal courts concerning election integrity, ballot initiatives and referendums, and government transparency. In October, 2013, Chris argued thegerrymandering referendum case of Parrot v. McDonough before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Chris has also authored or co-authored several amicus briefs for Judicial Watch filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Chris was a senior associate at Davis Wright Tremaine in Washington D.C., where he represented clients in communications law litigation and regulatory proceedings. In 2009, the ABA’s Communications Lawyer published Chris’s articlecriticizing the FCC for its heavy-handed net neutrality regulations, which have since been overturned twice by the DC Circuit. Chris is a native of New Jersey. He received his law degree from Georgetown University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He is admitted to practice before the courts of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and several federal courts. During his career, Chris has been active in the Federal Communications Bar Association and the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Chris Fedeli

Paul J. Orfanedes

Paul Orfanedes heads Judicial Watch’s Litigation Department and has been with Judicial Watch since its inception. Paul is a distinguished civil litigator who has argued in front of the Supreme Court and in the federal appeal courts on behalf of Judicial Watch and its clients.As Director of Litigation, he has been a spokesperson for Judicial Watch with his legal commentary appearing in major radio and print media outlets. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of the Legal Department, Paul is Corporate Secretary and Treasurer of Judicial Watch. He is also member of the Board of Directors.Paul is a native of Illinois. He graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986. He received his Juris Doctorate from American University in 1990.

Paul J. Orfanedes

James F. Peterson

James F. Peterson, an attorney with broad experience in complex litigation, is a senior member of Judicial Watch’s legal team. His breadth of knowledge and experience have contributed greatly to Judicial Watch’s success as he has played a key role in some of Judicial Watch’s most significant cases. These include Judicial Watch’s case before the Supreme Court concerning Vice President Cheney Energy Task Force documents (Judicial Watch v. Nat’l Energy Policy Dev. Group) and many of Judicial Watch’s groundbreaking lawsuits seeking to compel the enforcement of the nation’s immigration law. Most recently, Mr. Peterson has worked closely with the Arizona State Legislature in its legal defense of Arizona’s “S.B. 1070” immigration enforcement law.Prior to joining Judicial Watch in 2002, Mr. Peterson was a member of the litigation practice of a large national law firm in Washington, D.C., representing business clients in federal and state courts and administrative proceedings. He also was in the litigation department of a major national trade association, representing the industry in complex tax and administrative litigation.Mr. Peterson is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law, where he was the Articles Editor of the school’s Civil Rights Law Journal. He received his undergraduate degree from Kent State University in Ohio. Mr. Peterson is an active member of the Federalist Society and other conservative organizations. He is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and numerous federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.

James F. Peterson

Robert Popper

Robert Popper joined Judicial Watch in September 2013 as a senior attorney and as head of Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Mr. Popper worked for eight years, five as Deputy Chief of the Voting Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, in which capacity he garnered numerous professional awards. Before that, Mr. Popper worked as a private attorney in New York City for 17 years, where his practice extended to a wide range of legal matters, including voting rights. Mr. Popper served as counsel in a successful constitutional challenge alleging racial segregation in the design of New York’s congressional districts, and successfully defended the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Popper is a published author on the topic of voting rights law. He developed a legal standard relating to gerrymandering that is widely cited by experts and was adopted by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. He has testified before the Missouri Senate Redistricting Committee and the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee; and he has spoken about voting rights to a conference of U.S. Attorneys at the National Advocacy Center, to state officials, and to countless local community representatives. Mr. Popper is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University Law School. He is admitted to practice in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Robert Popper

Christina Rotaru

Cristina joined Judicial Watch as a legal assistant in 2002. She holds a BA and a Master’s degree in English from the University of Bucharest, Romania. She also has completed coursework toward a PhD in English at the University of Maryland, where she taught writing and composition for ten years.

Christina Rotaru

David F. Rothstein

David F. Rothstein is a paralegal with Judicial Watch’s legal team. He has worked for Judicial Watch since 2003. David’s prior legal experience included working with both a small law firm and a large legal contractor. David has worked with courts in many different jurisdictions. David has utilized the broad-based knowledge that he has attained to assist Judicial Watch in its many legal victories in both state and federal courts. David is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government. David also has a law degree from the Columbus School of Law of Catholic University and is a member of both the District of Columbia Bar and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Bar. David has litigated Freedom of Information Act cases in addition to his paralegal dutie

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Judicial Watch is currently seeking interns for our 2016 Fall Internship Program to serve in the following capacities:

Legal Intern: Legal interns have the opportunity to work closely with our Legal Department on various federal lawsuits brought under the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the National Voter Registration Act as well as state lawsuits on behalf of taxpayers.  Over the course of 8-10 weeks, interns will assist Judicial Watch’s eight attorneys and two paralegals with legal research, brief writing, drafting FOIA requests and administrative appeals, document review and analysis, and a host of other key litigation responsibilities, as well as various other duties as assigned. Applicants are required to be enrolled in or have completed their first year of law school. If interested, please send a cover letter, resume, and a writing sample (no more than 10 pages) to Patrick Roy at proy@judicialwatch.org.

Investigations Intern:Investigations interns at Judicial Watch are introduced to the structure of government agencies subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  Investigations interns learn about the nine FOIA exemptions, and how to draft FOIA requests accordingly.  They also research the open records laws for state and local governments and use their findings to supplement requests at the federal level.  Once the interns in the JW Investigations Department have been trained on proper FOIA protocol, they are encouraged to explore key issues of personal interest and/or open investigations under Judicial Watch’s guidance. If interested, please send a cover letter, resume, and a 500 word writing sample to Patrick Roy at proy@judicialwatch.org.

Development and Fundraising Intern:Judicial Watch’s Development Department is seeking interns for its busy and growing fundraising development program to assist Development staff in the many day-to-day activities fundamental to raising over $21 million for one of the leading conservative non-profit organizations in America. Development interns will gain experience and understanding in all aspects of non-profit fundraising, from direct mail, internet fundraising, and foundation grants, to major and planned giving programs. Interns will assist with a variety of tasks including donor correspondence, telephone calls to donors, writing and sending acknowledgement letters, major donor research and foundation grant writing, as well as various other duties as assigned.  Interns will also gain a thorough knowledge about the importance of donor databases by assisting with data-entry, data clean up, donor coding and more. Interns must be politically conservative, detail oriented and willing to learn. If interested, please send a cover letter, resume, and a 500 word writing sample to Patrick Roy at proy@judicialwatch.org.

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