Filing A False Report To Get The Preferred Narrative

On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the killing of Ashli Babbitt on January 6th, 2021.

The article reports:

Within a minute after firing the fatal bullet that struck Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd broadcast a radio report claiming shots were being fired at him in the Speaker’s Lobby and he was “prepared to fire back,” a federal lawsuit alleges.

The previously undisclosed radio dispatch is also contained on an audio recording obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times of the “OPS2” dispatch channel used by Capitol Police on Jan. 6.

Information on the recording is contained in a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 5 by Ms. Babbitt’s widower, Aaron Babbitt of San Diego. Mr. Babbitt, backed in his lawsuit by Judicial Watch, is seeking $30 million from the U. S. government for wrongful death.

According to the lawsuit, Mr. Byrd fired his Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, then announced that he was being fired upon and was ready to return fire.

“In fact, no shots were fired at Lt. Byrd or his fellow officers,” the lawsuit stated. “The only shot fired was the single shot Lt. Byrd fired at Ashli. He heard the loud noise of the gunshot. He saw her fall backward from the window frame.”

The article also notes:

The DOJ report absolving Mr. Byrd from culpability included numerous errors and incorrect statements.

The report says that after the glass in the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby was smashed out, rioters “were then able to reach through the broken glass and push the chairs off the top of the barricaded furniture.”

Video shot from the hallway does not show anyone toppling chairs from the makeshift barricade, either before or after Ms. Babbitt was shot.

The report quotes Jason Gandolph of the House Sergeant at Arms office saying he and several Capitol Police officers “attempted to keep the demonstrators from advancing toward the Speaker’s Lobby after the Capitol was breached.”

The article also includes a transcript of the Mr. Byrd’s conversation with dispatch. It also includes a timeline of the events related to the murder of Ashli Babbitt. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

 

As The Truth Slowly Leaks Out…

On Monday, PJ Media posted an article about recent audio released by former U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Tarik Johnson recorded on January 6th.

The article reports:

Last week, former U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Tarik Johnson announced his plan to release audio from the January 6 Capitol riot, which he says proves that the entire incident was a “set-up” and that the proof was covered up.

“I spoke to my lawyer and I told him what my plans are as it relates to releasing information on X about the J6 set-up and the cover-up that ensued after,” he wrote on X/Twitter last week. “I wanted to see what if any legal ramifications I’d be facing when I do. He stated he didn’t see any and if something arose we would deal with it together. So it’s a go!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Johnson continued, “With that said, I ask for everyone to be patient as I’m going to do this right and I have to make another post before I load the 12-hour radio run to my page. Additionally, I am not a tech person so I will also have to learn to load large documents and audio files from my computer to X so I’m going to need a little more time. I still have to work in the middle of all this and I’m dealing with family stuff at the same time but you have my word I will get everything done by next week. Hopefully by Wednesday.”

Johnson was concerned enough about his safety that he assured his followers that the data he was about to release was also in the hands of his attorney and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch.

The audio is posted at his Twitter account.

Please follow the link to read the entire article and access the recording. The truth is coming out slowly, but will eventually be out there for everyone to see.

Forgetting Their Oath

According to chron.com:

The CIA oath reads: “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” Schooled CIA employees know that the Constitution also defines the role of federal employees: “To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.”

On Friday, David Strom posed the following question at Hot Air:

Did the CIA work to rig the 2020 election?

The article notes that there are many ways to rig an election–illegal voters, fraudulent ballots, faulty voting machines, etc., but there is also the matter of spreading disinformation.

The article reports:

I couldn’t say if the 2020 election was stolen–there certainly were irregularities as there always are in elections–because any vote changes or illegal ballots have to be in the right place in the right numbers, and no evidence has been accepted by courts indicating that enough illegal votes to change the results were cast.

But certainly, the election was rigged. Lots of illegal changes to election laws were made without legislative approval, Big Tech censored conservatives based on phony claims, and the media colluded with outside groups to distort the truth or deny facts.

Among the riggers was the CIA, apparently. Not just former CIA agents, about which we already knew, but the CIA as an organization.

At least that is what has been asserted by Judicial Watch, and the evidence on its face supports that conclusion. So Judicial Watch is suing the CIA to force them to divulge what ought to be public information about events near the end of the campaign.

Note the statement “no evidence has been accepted by courts.” This may be the Achilles Heel in the indictments against President Trump. He may force that evidence to be heard in court.

The article concludes:

It issue is that letter that gave cover to Joe Biden when the Hunter Biden laptop, where 50 former intelligence officials claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.”

However deceptive this letter was, in itself, it was perfectly legal and I would oppose censoring it once it was published. It was a low-down dirty trick and it worked, but low-down dirty tricks are generally legal. Of course, media outlets should not have taken their claims at face value in the middle of a campaign, but that is a separate issue.

However, the wrinkle is this: because of the high rank these officials had the CIA had to preapprove the publication of the letter, and the CIA almost certainly knew the laptop was real (as the FBI also did, having had it a year). Further, there is substantial evidence that the CIA helped recruit further signatories for the letter, which would be a definite no-no. The CIA isn’t even supposed to be involved domestically, and certainly shouldn’t get involved in political campaigns.

Did those in the CIA violate their Oath of Office?

The Overall Impact Of The Witch-hunt

The government bureaucracy has been after President Trump since he came down the escalator in June 2015. The government has broken its own laws to manufacture false evidence, people in the Department of Justice have lied under oath, and generally speaking, many in our government have compromised the principles that have made this country great. On Saturday, The Hill posted an article about the negative impact the indictment of President Trump has on America.

The article reports:

First, it reinforces the view, shared by many conservatives, that our government delivers a two-tiered system of justice — one for people on the right and another for those on the left. Donald Trump, after all, is not the only public official found to have mishandled secret documents. Special Counsel Jack Smith claimed, as he brought the indictment: “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

History suggests otherwise.

Former President Bill Clinton was found to have taken audio recordings of his discussions while in the White House and kept them in his sock drawer after his term was up. Judicial Watch sued to access the tapes, claiming they should be considered part of the presidential archive. But a judge ruled against the conservative group, claiming she had no jurisdiction and that such demands could only be made by the National Archives and Records Administration. NARA declined to seek the tapes.

The article also cites Hillary Clinton and President Biden’s mishandling of classified information.

The article continues:

Second, the announcement of Trump’s indictment just happened to occur on the very day that members of Congress were shown an FBI document containing credible allegations that Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian company. Instead of burrowing in on claims from a trusted whistleblower that our president, as vice president, accepted payment from Burisma in return for helping to oust Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Biden’s Justice Department created a powerful distraction. 

This is unacceptable. The allegations against Biden are not far-fetched. We know for a fact that Biden pushed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, threatening to pull $1 billion in U.S. aid unless he did so. We know that because Biden actually boasted about it to a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.

…Third, Biden has talked a great deal about protecting our democracy and the sanctity of open and fair elections. Call me crazy, but Biden’s DOJ indicting his most likely 2024 campaign rival on charges that, as in the case of Hillary Clinton, might or might not justify prosecution, seems to qualify as election interference. The president is running for another term; polls show his prospects are poor.

When a sitting president is struggling to get his approval ratings above 40 percent, he is in trouble. An NBC News survey from last month showed that 70 percent of voters, and more than half of Democrats, do not want Biden to run.

Unfortunately, many Americans who get their news from the mainstream media have not idea how politically weaponized our Justice Department has become. Unfortunately, by the time they wake up to reality, equal justice under the law may be a thing of the past in America.

This Sounds More Like The Mafia Than Like The Government

On February 10th, Judicial Watch posted an article about the FBI’s handling of the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun being found in a dumpster in Delaware. It should be noted that if Hunter Biden is actually convicted on anything, it should be two gun charges–lying on his permit application and his gun being found in a dumpster.

The article reports:

Judicial Watch announced today that it received 487 pages of records from the United States Secret Service (USSS) related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun, reportedly disposed of in a dumpster in Delaware in October 2018. The records show agency officials discussing media reports of its alleged involvement with one finding it “odd” that the Secret Service was involved in the investigation when Joe and Hunter Biden were not receiving Secret Service protection at the time. Another official responds: “Maybe we were asked for a favor?”

The records show the agency alerted the Biden White House and crafted a public statement insisting it had “no involvement in this alleged incident” and refusing to provide any additional clarification to media inquiries.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether and how the Secret Service intervened for Hunter Biden in an incident involving a gun allegedly owned by him. In September 2022, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records or communications about the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter Biden found in a Delaware dumpster in October 2018 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-02841)).

Judicial Watch reported in December 2022 that the Secret Service repeatedly changed its position about whether it is in possession of records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun.

The article concludes:

In June 2020, U.S. Secret Service records showed that, for the first five and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled extensively while receiving a Secret Service protective detail. During the time period of the records provided, Hunter Biden took 411 separate domestic and international flights, including to 29 different foreign countries. He visited China five times.

Judicial Watch is also suing the DHS for Secret Service records on Hunter Biden’s travel and security costs, and suing the State Department for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Thank God for Judicial Watch.

 

How To Improve Election Integrity

On December 30, Tom Fitton posted the Judicial Watch Weekly Update.

The Update reports some good news about election integrity:

New York City Removes 441,083 Ineligible Names from Voter Rolls Thanks to Judicial Watch!

We just settled a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to take reasonable steps to clean its voter registration lists in the future.

We filed the lawsuit in July after the city failed to clean voter rolls for years. The lawsuit, filed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), pointed out that New York City removed only 22 names under federal law over six years (Judicial Watch v Valentine et al. (No.1:22-cv-03952)).

Our suit detailed how New York City’s “own recent data concedes that there were only 22 total” removals under this provision “during a six-year period, in a city of over 5.5 million voters. These are ludicrously small numbers of removals given the sizable populations of these counties.”

Moreover, the “almost complete failure of Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, and Richmond Counties, over a period of at least six years, to remove voters” under a key provision of federal law “means that there are untold numbers of New York City registrations for voters who are ineligible to vote at their listed address because they have changed residence or are otherwise ineligible to vote.”

The settlement details how the city responded to our notice about its voting roll deficiencies with a massive clean-up:

[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that, in February 2022, they removed, pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA, 82,802 registrations in Bronx County, 128,093 in Kings County, 145,891 in New York County, 66,010 in Queens County, and 18,287 in Richmond County, for a total of 441,083 registrations.

[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that going forward they intend to cancel registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1(B) in each odd-numbered year in the months following a federal election.

Specifically, the city also agrees to track in detail and report its voter roll maintenance efforts through 2025:

For both 2023 and 2025 … the [Board of Elections] will notify Judicial Watch … on or before March 31, by means of separate excel spreadsheets for Bronx County, Kings County, New York County, Queens County, and Richmond County, of the number of removals, including removals pursuant to … the NVRA, made during the previous two years.

The NVRA requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence. Among other things, the law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory (Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Inst. (138 S. Ct. 1833, 1841-42 (2018)).

This historic settlement is a major victory for New York voters who will benefit from cleaner voter rolls and more honest elections. We are pleased that New York City officials quickly acted to remove 441,000 outdated registrations from the rolls. We look forward to working together under this federal lawsuit settlement to ensure New York City maintains cleaner rolls for future elections.

We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.

Please follow the link above to read the entire post. There is some good news here about the future of America’s elections.

A Very Good Question

As our politicized justice department and New York’s political hack of an attorney general continue their microscopic search of anything President Trump has ever done and demand that every aspect of his life be made public, the University of Delaware has still not complied with Freedom of Information Requests by the Daily Caller and Judicial Watch to make President Biden’s Senate records public.

On September 14th, The Daily Caller posted the headline, “‘What Is Biden Hiding?’: Court Orders University Of Delaware To Explain Why It’s Still Hiding Biden’s Senate Records”

The article reports:

A Delaware court ordered the University of Delaware Aug. 23 to provide clarity on its move to keep President Joe Biden’s Senate records hidden. It’s the latest development in the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to make the records public.

The DCNF and Judicial Watch objected on July 27 to the university’s reasoning to not release the records. Now, the Delaware Superior Court is demanding the university provide further information justifying its move to keep the records out of the public eye.

“After all the lectures from the Biden administration on democracy and the rule of law it’s amazing that the President has a secret deal in place to hide his records from the public,” said DCNF Chairman Neil Patel. “We are happy that the court is pushing the University of Delaware to stop playing games and come clean.”

The DCNF and Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in July 2020 to obtain the records — which are housed in the University of Delaware’s library. The lawsuit came after the university denied both groups’ earlier attempts to FOIA the Biden records.

The article concludes:

The records sought by both the DCNF and Judicial Watch may contain information related to Tara Reade — who in 1993, while working in Biden’s senate office, accused him of sexually assaulting her. A copy of the complaint she filed on the matter and related documents to the alleged incident may also be included in the records, Reade has said.

In addition, the records could contain critical information related to Hunter Biden — the president’s son who is under federal investigation for his alleged tax and foreign lobbying violations and alleged involvement in a 2018 gun incident.

The University of Delaware declined the DCNF’s request for comment. The university was given a 30-day deadline to respond to the court.

The Superior Court of Delaware did not respond to a request for comment.

Why do I think that if the records are ever released they will either be incomplete or heavily redacted. We have lost the concept of equal justice under the law.

The Southern Border And The Drug Problem

On September 7, Judicial Watch posted an article about the amount of fentanyl currently coming into America through our porous southern border.

The article reports:

American federal agents have seized more than 10,500 pounds of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl along the Mexican border this fiscal year with one U.S. border region seeing an astounding 323% increase in the last three years. The most recent Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures also show that more than 148,000 pounds of methamphetamine, 54,000 pounds of cocaine, and 1,500 pounds of heroin have also been seized this fiscal year which ends in September. At this rate fentanyl is set to surpass last year’s seizures of 11,203 pounds, a stark reminder that illegal immigration is hardly the only threat along the southwest border.

CBP’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO) already shattered last year’s fentanyl record, snatching 1,108 pounds compared to 786 in all of 2021. The CBP division has about 1,800 federal agents, 240 aircraft and 300 marine vessels. The maritime and aviation law enforcement branch has also confiscated more than 151,000 pounds of cocaine, 51,000 pounds of marijuana 7,300 pounds of methamphetamines and 373 pounds of heroin this year. The record loads of fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. by Mexican drug cartels are especially worrisome because the synthetic opioid is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 more potent than morphine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the federal agency of around 10,000 charged with enforcing the nation’s controlled substances laws and regulations. “Fentanyl is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said recently. “From large cities to rural America, no community is safe from the presence of fentanyl.”

The agency also warns that Mexican drug cartels are driving up addiction among kids and young adults with “rainbow fentanyl,” pills and powder that come in bright colors and shapes similar to candy and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk. Just a few weeks ago, federal agents in the Nogales, Arizona port of entry seized more than 15,000 colored fentanyl pills “with the appearance of candy.” CBP Nogales Director Michael Humphries said the candy appearance is a trend that targets youth. Most of the nation’s 107,622 drug overdoses in 2021 involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the Centers of Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC). The DEA says the majority of fentanyl in the U.S. is supplied by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The article notes that San Diego is the epicenter of fentanyl trafficking in America.

The article concludes:

The U.S. government has long documented that Mexican drug cartels are the greatest criminal threat to the country. Federal authorities classify them as Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) and not even a global pandemic could slow them down. Cartels found a way to adjust to restrictions imposed by COVID-19 to flood the country with illicit drugs. Huge loads still reached communities around the nation as deaths and seizures rose sharply and Mexican TCO’s increased drug availability, according to the DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA). Nine Mexican TCOs have the greatest drug trafficking impact on the U.S., according to the DEA. Among them are the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels, Los Zetas, La Familia Michoacána, Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos. The TCOs maintain drug distribution cells in cities across the U.S. that report to leaders in Mexico and dominate the nation’s drug market. In a Homeland Threat Assessment the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explains that Mexican cartels pose the greatest threat to the U.S. because of their ability to control territory and co-opt parts of government, particularly at a state and local level. “They represent an acute and devastating threat to public health and safety in the Homeland and a significant threat to U.S. national security interests,” the DHS writes in the document.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. An open border is a continuing threat to everyone. An open border especially puts our young people at risk.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

This might be a red herring or it might explain a lot. I suspect we will find out in the next few weeks.

On August 8th, The Daily Caller reported the following:

‘Smoking Gun’: Biden Admin Sued For Not Releasing Docs Declassified By Trump On Russia Collusion Investigation

Might it be that those are the documents the FBI hoped to find?

The article reports:

A watchdog is suing President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (DOJ) for not releasing records related to the FBI’s defunct probe into ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government — even though the former president declassified the records.

Judicial Watch is suing the DOJ to obtain the records, as well as communications between DOJ officials and government employees on the declassification of the records. The lawsuit, which was filed on Aug. 1, comes after the conservative watchdog submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in February.

“The Obama-Biden Administration and Deep State spying on Trump and his associates is the worst government corruption scandal in American history,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement Monday. “And to make matters worse, the Biden DOJ simply refuses to release smoking gun documents about this corruption that the American people have an absolute right to see!”

Trump issued a memo on Jan. 19, 2021 declassifying materials in a binder that the DOJ gave to the White House in December 2020 on the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe. However, the binder’s materials never saw the light of day after the DOJ sought to issue redactions over privacy concerns, as detailed in a memo on Jan. 21, 2021 authored by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who told the DOJ he would return the records.

The article concludes:

“Well, you know, the swamp is pretty deep,” said Meadows in a July interview on the records. “But when we look at this, this particular president was all about draining the swamp. When he was running, that was more of a campaign slogan. When he got there, he realized that not only was the swamp very deep, but they would fight back.”

Judicial Watch is asking the DOJ to pay its attorneys’ fees and other litigation records while also producing the records in relation to its FOIA request.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the FBI. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond.

The swamp is deep and wide, and there are still some real questions about who actually is a member of the swamp although pretending not to be.

Pulling Back The Curtain On An Unhealthy Alliance

On Monday, The Epoch Times reported that a watchdog group called “Open the Books” had discovered that an estimated $350 million in undisclosed royalties were paid to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hundreds of its scientists, including the agency’s recently departed director, Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The article reports:

The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, constitute 40 percent of the total, he said.

“We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said.

“We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.”

Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency. Fauci is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Lane is the deputy director of NIAID, under Fauci.

The top five NIH employees measured in terms of the number of royalty payments that they received while on the government payroll, according to a fact sheet published by Open the Books, include Robert Gallo, National Cancer Institute, 271 payments; Ira Pastan, National Cancer Institute, 250 payments; Mikulas Popovic, National Cancer Institute, 191 payments; Flossie Wong-Staal, National Cancer Institute, 190 payments; and Mangalasseril Sarngadharan, National Cancer Institute, 188 payments.

Only Pastan continues to be employed by NIH, according to Open the Books.

The article concludes:

Open the Books is a Chicago-based nonprofit government watchdog that uses the federal and state freedom of information laws to obtain and then post on the internet trillions of dollars in spending at all levels of government.

The nonprofit filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking documentation of all payments by outside firms to NIH and/or current and former NIH employees.

NIH declined to respond to the FOIA, so Open the Books is taking the agency to court, suing it for noncompliance with the FOIA. Open the Books is represented in federal court in the case by another nonprofit government watchdog, Judicial Watch.

It is not news to anyone that many of the Covid guidelines coming from the National Institute of Health had a very tenuous relationship to science. It would be a good idea to follow the money and see if that money can be cut off as a means of influence.

The Swamp Runs Deep

The following is a Press Release put out by Judicial Watch on January 18, 2022. Note that none of this has been reported in the mainstream media:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) told Judicial Watch in a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that it has communications from Pfizer in an investigative file targeting Project Veritas. (In October 2021, Project Veritas, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, published two viral stories [here and here] about the Pfizer covid vaccine.)

On December 21, 2021, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request for:

All records of communications, whether by email (on .gov or non.gov email accounts), text message, or instant chat, between officials in the FBI, including but not limited to officials in the offices of the FBI New York Field Office on the one hand, and employees and representatives of Pfizer Inc. on the other hand, regarding Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and/or Project Veritas.

Email communications with Pfizer Inc. employees or representatives include but are not limited to those with the email domain “@pfizer.com”.

On January 6, the FBI denied the request for all “communications regarding Project Veritas between FBI officials and employees/representatives of Pfizer” the following reason:

The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A). 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A) exempts from disclosure:

records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information … could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings….

The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.

On January 10, the FBI denied the request for “email communications with Pfizer Inc. employees or representatives including email domains ‘@pfizer.com’ (On or after September 1, 2021),” stating: “Please be advised the FBI will neither confirm nor deny the existence of such records …”

On November 9, 2021, the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, participated in an online discussion in which Bourla states that he was working with the FBI regarding “dark organizations” that were “targeting” Pfizer.

“It is disturbing to see that Pfizer evidently has the Biden FBI at its beck and call to target journalists at Project Veritas,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This development is especially concerning coming on the heels of the FBI’s outrageous Ashley Biden diary raid on the home of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.”

###

The April 2022 issue of “The Judicial Watch Verdict” reports:

On January 10, the FBI denied the request for “email communications with Pfizer Inc. employees or representatives including email domains @pfizer.com (on or after September 1, 2021),” stating: “Please be advised the FBI will neither confirm nor deny the existence of such records…”

So much for transparency.

 

This Is Not Suprising

On Saturday, The American Thinker posted an article about the dwindling revenue going toward the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

According to Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton:

When one of the most recognizable nonprofits in the world loses 75% of its contributions over a four-year period, there are typically investigatory reports written into what has gone wrong. That isn’t the case with the Clinton Foundation. The Foundation received $62.9 million in 2016 but only $16.3 million in 2020, and very few people seem to have notice[d].

That is because most Beltway insiders know the Clinton Foundation’s primary purpose: to serve as a platform for Hillary Clinton’s political operation while lining the Clintons’ pockets by trading influence for money. That is why donations spiked when Hillary was secretary of state and most of the world thought she was destined to become president — and why they cratered after she lost.

The article continues:

It’s always been a political influence-peddling operation.  As Fitton notes, donations spiked when Hillary Clinton was riding high on the hog as President Obama’s secretary of state.  After she left office and lost the 2016 presidency to Donald J. Trump, she got “defunded,” big.  Trump cost the harridan a lot of baksheesh she had been counting on.  Issues & Insights has an excellent chart here demonstrating the trajectory along with a good editorial to go with it.

The Foundation, laughably enough, attributed the drop-off in donations to the pandemic.  Fitton shot that down with this:

This argument doesn’t explain the tens of millions the Foundation lost between 2016 and 2019 and ignores that charitable giving was up by 5.1% in America last year.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes a list of large honorariums paid to Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton for their speeches. Although the donations have dwindled, they are still coming in. The list of where the donations are coming from is very interesting. There evidently are some people who are betting that the Clintons still wield significant influence in American politics.

This Is Not Civilized

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $3.2 million in federal funds to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to achieve its goal of becoming a fetal tissue collection site that could quickly harvest the organs of full-term aborted babies, according to documents obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

That is gross.

The article continues:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $3.2 million in federal funds to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to achieve its goal of becoming a fetal tissue collection site that could quickly harvest the organs of full-term aborted babies, according to documents obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

Daleiden (CMP project lead David Daleiden), who conducted undercover investigations of Planned Parenthood’s alleged fetal tissue trafficking with biomedical procurement companies, elaborated:

Infants in the womb, some old enough to be viable, are being aborted alive and killed for organ harvesting, in order to bring in millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for Pitt and the Planned Parenthood abortion business it supports. People are outraged by such disregard for the lives of the vulnerable. Law enforcement and public officials should act immediately to bring the next Kermit Gosnell to justice under the law.

In May, CMP (Center for Medical Progress) released a video that alleged NIH uses taxpayer funds to sponsor experimentation at Pitt on aborted babies obtained from a local Planned Parenthood facility.

The article concludes:

“Pitt’s statement suggests the time between the abortion and collection is minimal,” Judicial Watch explained, adding the university also included a “racial target for harvesting of human fetal parts.”

“Of its planned aborted ‘subjects’ Pitt desired 50% to be minority fetuses,” the legal watchdog group said. “The proposal suggests that the ‘subjects’ be diverse because Pittsburgh is diverse, the U.S. Census Bureau shows the city of Pittsburgh is close to 70% white.”

In its grant application proposal, Pitt also gave a target goal of having “available a minimum of 5 cases (tissues and if possible other biologicals) per week of gestational age for ages 6-42 weeks.”

According to Judicial Watch, the documents show NIH had already granted Pitt at least $2.7 million for its human fetal tissue harvesting activities.

“These documents show taxpayer money is being used to turn the University of Pittsburgh [into] a one-stop human fetal tissue shop – from procuring the tissue from elective abortions, ‘subdividing’ the human remains, to distributing and shipping the harvested tissue,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

These are not the actions of a civilized society.

Information Americans Need To Know

Breitbart reported yesterday that Judicial Watch is suing the Biden administration for refusing to disclose information related to the Chinese coronavirus transmission, testing, and treatment of illegal aliens who are then released into the United States interior.

The article reports:

The government watchdog organization Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after they failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which sought coronavirus data records on illegal aliens the administration has continued releasing into the U.S. interior.

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks:

Any and all technical guidance provided to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement and/or any official or employee thereof regarding, concerning, or related to the transmission, testing, mitigation, and/or treatment of COVID-19 for undocumented immigrants who are in or are released from Department of Homeland Security and/or Customs and Border Patrol custody. [Emphasis added]

The article concludes:

For five months, the Biden administration has released tens of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. interior often without confirming that they are negative for coronavirus. In a number of cases, border crossers are put on buses and commercial domestic flights where they can bypass proof of a negative coronavirus test and have photo identity requirements waived.

In April, the New York Times reported that even as the Biden administration has put border crossers up in migrant hotels to quarantine, those border crossers regularly skip out on the quarantine and instead leave the hotels to continue traveling into the U.S. interior.

Most recently, former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Mark Morgan revealed that “few to none” of the border crossers arriving at the southern border who are subsequently released into the U.S. interior have received the coronavirus vaccine.

The case is Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services, No. 1:21-cv-01514 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Where is the concern for the safety of Americans? How does it make sense to require Americans to social distance, avoid crowds, wear masks, etc., while not enforcing the same restrictions on people who are here illegally?

An Administration That Does Not Enforce The Law

On Tuesday Judicial Watch posted the following in its Corruption Chronicles section:

States Say ICE Stops Issuing Detainers for Illegal Immigrant Convicts, Revokes Them for Dozens

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long complained about police in sanctuary cities that fail to honor its detainers, instead releasing serious criminals in the U.S. rather than turn them over to get deported. Now two states are suing the Homeland Security agency for failing to issue detainer requests for convicted felons in the country illegally, forcing local authorities to free them after completing their sentence rather than turning them over to the feds for removal. It seems that the tables have turned under the Biden administration, according to the lawsuit, filed this month by officials in Texas and Louisiana.

The states claim that ICE has reversed a Trump era policy and is not issuing detainer requests for dangerous illegal aliens imprisoned in their jurisdiction. “As a result, many convicted criminal aliens have been released to society after their sentences, contrary to Congress’s mandate that they be detained pending their removal from the United States,” according to their complaint, filed this month in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Victoria Division. Besides ICE, the defendants include the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and various officials at the DHS agencies. The lawsuit begins by stating that “the Biden Administration is refusing to take custody of criminal aliens despite federal statutes requiring it to do so.” Instead, the document reads, defendants “have issued and implemented unlawful agency memoranda that allow criminal aliens already convicted of felony offenses to roam free in the United States. Such aliens belong in federal custody, as Congress required.”

Adding insult to injury, officials in the Lone Star State reveal in the court document that the Biden administration has taken the extra step of revoking ICE detainer requests for a multitude of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies and serving sentences in prisons operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Many were found guilty in a U.S. court of serious drug offenses, including possession, manufacturing, and sale. “President Biden’s outright refusal to enforce the law is exacerbating an unprecedented border crisis,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “By failing to take custody of criminal aliens and giving no explanation for this reckless policy change, the Biden Administration is demonstrating a blatant disregard for Texans’ and Americans’ safety. Law and order must be immediately upheld and enforced to ensure the safety of our communities. Dangerous and violent illegal aliens must be removed from our communities as required by federal law.” In 2019 Texas housed nearly 9,000 undocumented criminal aliens at a cost of more than $152 million, according to the lawsuit.

In Louisiana ICE is not removing individuals subject to mandatory deportation, the complaint says, causing convicted felons incarcerated in state facilities to be released in local communities throughout the Bayou State. Louisiana, more than any other state, has greater risk due to the large number of local jails that are used to house detainees prior to removal, according to Attorney General Jeff Landry. “The President’s refusal to enforce the law only worsens an already dire border crisis,” Landry said. “Law and order must prevail; dangerous and violent criminal aliens must not be allowed to roam free in our communities.” Both states assert that the administration is violating binding agreements with DHS to assist in immigration enforcement and national security missions as well the Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and Administrative Procedure Act, which require the government to post proposed substantive rule changes in the Federal Register and allow the public to comment on them before enacting them.

For years ICE has slammed sanctuary cities nationwide for refusing to honor a local-federal partnership known as 287(g) that notifies the agency of jail inmates in the country illegally so that they can be deported after serving time for state crimes. Before Biden became president, ICE repeatedly issued statements reminding sanctuary cities and states that when law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets, it undermines its ability protect public safety and carry out its mission. The agency even launched a billboard campaign seeking the public’s help in capturing felons released by one state’s sanctuary policy.

The actions of the Biden administration are not contributing to public safety. The lawsuit is necessary. Hopefully the states will win their case.

 

Freedom Is Under Attack

The following is a Judicial Watch Press Release from January 29th:

Reminiscent of the Obama Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) witch hunt of conservative groups, a U.S. Senator who sits on the committee that oversees the tax agency is pushing it to revoke a student charity’s nonprofit status. The veteran lawmaker, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, says the conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, should lose its nonprofit rating because it held large events that could help spread COVID-19. In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig the senator describes the gatherings as “superspreader” events. He specifically mentions a Palm Beach, Florida winter gala at the Mar-a-Lago Club famously owned by former President Donald Trump.

“According to press reports and social media posts, many participants gathered and mingled indoors without wearing masks, in violation of Palm Beach County’s COVID-19 regulations,” Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS chief. The powerful chamber has oversight over the IRS, among many other government agencies. “In holding these ‘superspreader’ events, Turning Point USA knowingly exposed hundreds of young people and staff working at the events to serious risk of infection,” the letter continues. The legislator asks the IRS to review whether the group, which has more than 250,000 student members, should continue to enjoy its tax-exempt nonprofit status. “Established law has long held that an organization is not eligible for tax exemption under section 501(c)(3) if a purpose of the organization is contrary to public policy or is illegal,” the letter states, reminding the IRS commissioner of a three-part test established to determine whether an organization’s activities are consistent with tax exemption under the code.

The analysis includes determining whether the purpose of the organization is charitable, if activities are not illegal and whether the activities are in furtherance to the group’s exempt purpose and are reasonably related to that purpose. “Turning Point USA’s reckless decision to host potential ‘superspreader’ events, in open violation of local COVID-19 regulations, put children and others at risk, and was clearly contrary to the public good,” the senator tells the IRS commissioner. “Tax-exempt status provides a substantial benefit to charitable organizations and reflects the federal government’s endorsement of an organization’s activities. Organizations that knowingly put in danger minors entrusted to their care should not enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status. Accordingly, I urge the IRS to review whether it should revoke Turning Point USA’s tax-exempt status.”

Founded in 2012, Turning Point USA describes itself as a national student movement dedicated to identifying, organizing, and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government. The group’s founder, 27-year-old Charlie Kirk, was the chairman of Students for Trump, which aimed to activate a million new college voters before the 2020 presidential election. In a press release announcing the letter to the IRS, Whitehouse refers to the group as a “right-wing nonprofit” that “promotes far-right ideas to young people around the country.” The document, posted on the senator’s official website, further states that Turning Point USA “has cultivated close ties to President Trump and the Trump family.”

The senator’s push to repeal the conservative charity’s nonprofit status brings back memories of the Obama IRS singling out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt benefits. Judicial Watch launched an investigation and sued for records after an explosive Treasury Inspector General report revealed that in 2010 the IRS began using inappropriate criteria, such as lists of past and future donors, to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status. The illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months, according to the report, and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election. The IRS director at the center of the scheme, Lois Lerner, not only broke agency rules—as well as the law—to target conservative organizations she also lied to Congress to cover up the wrongdoing.

Please understand that under the Biden administration there is a real possibility that the government will be used to limit the rights of conservatives. This was done under the Obama administration, and many of the people in that administration are pulling the strings in the Biden administration. We are truly in danger of losing our freedoms.

He Probably Meant Well

The following is a post that appeared on the Judicial Watch website:

How The Barr DOJ Failed

“They’ve been protecting Hillary Clinton, they’ve been protecting Obama, they’ve been protecting the Deep State,” Fitton (Tom Fitton) stated last Friday.

Attorney General Barr’s resignation amidst a contested presidential election dominated last week’s political airwaves. On Friday, Fitton reminded viewers that “AG Barr or at least the Justice Department under AG Barr has been a black hole in terms of responding to Judicial Watch.” As Fitton reported, “they recently went to court to shut down all of our Clinton email investigations, discovery, and FOIA lawsuits – they don’t want us to do anything.”

Fitton believes that the Justice Department has turned a blind eye to scandals surrounding VP Joe Biden, especially material evidence discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop last year. The scandals, which he has described as “obvious criminal conduct,” were largely set aside by the Department of Justice, according to Fitton. “They [the DOJ] protected Joe Biden and interfered in the election by doing nothing about the Joe Biden scandals.”

Those defending the DOJ’s decision to not investigate the Bidens are, in Fitton’s estimation, misunderstanding the role the Agency plays in investigating corruption surrounding presidential candidates. While it is correct that the DOJ should not investigate candidates in a bid to influence the outcome of an election, Fitton believes that the Agency is doing just that – but in a different way: “this person is running for office and they get a get of jail free card.” Likening the policy to a game of Monopoly, Fitton contrasts this approach with that employed by the DOJ against President Trump, when “they specifically targeted Trump because he was running for office.

As Fitton concluded, “it doesn’t matter who the next AG is, I don’t expect any difference coming January. We just have to keep doing the work we’re doing. We can’t trust them to investigate Biden, so we’ll do it instead.”

The fact that no one in authority was charged in the overt violation of the civil rights of the people involved in the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team says a lot about the corruption in our federal law enforcement agencies. The fact that a senior administration official can totally mishandle classified information and pay no price while a sailor goes to jail for taking a picture of his workplace is disturbing. Somewhere along the line we have lost the concept of equal justice under the law. Until someone has the courage to clean out the agencies that are supposed to be working for all Americans–not just those of one political persuasion–our country will be in danger of becoming a banana republic. We are already hearing cries from some Democrats of investigating the President when he leaves office with the goal of arresting him. That shouldn’t happen in America. An honest justice department and related agencies is needed. Unfortunately, William Barr was not able to deliver that.

About That Voter Fraud Thing…

On October 16th, Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:

New Judicial Watch Study Finds 353 U.S. Counties in 29 States with Voter Registration Rates Exceeding 100%

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a September 2020 study revealed that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study found eight states showing state-wide registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The September 2020 study collected the most recent registration data posted online by the states themselves. This data was then compared to the Census Bureau’s most recent five-year population estimates, gathered by the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2014 through 2018. ACS surveys are sent to 3.5 million addresses each month, and its five-year estimates are considered to be the most reliable estimates outside of the decennial census.

Judicial Watch’s latest study is necessarily limited to 37 states that post regular updates to their registration data. Certain state voter registration lists may also be even larger than reported, because they may have excluded “inactive voters” from their data. Inactive voters, who may have moved elsewhere, are still registered voters and may show up and vote on election day and/or request mail-in ballots.

Judicial Watch relies on its voter registration studies to warn states that they are failing to comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to make reasonable efforts to clean their voter rolls. Judicial Watch can and has sued to enforce compliance with federal law.

Earlier this month, Judicial Watch sued Colorado over its failure to comply with the National Voter Registration Act. In Judicial Watch’s new study, 42 Colorado counties—or two thirds of the state’s counties—had registration rates exceeding 100%. Particular data from the state confirms this general picture. As the complaint explains, a month-by-month comparison of the ACS’s five-year survey period with Colorado’s own registration numbers for the exact same months shows that large proportions of Colorado’s counties have registration rates exceeding 100%. Earlier this year, Judicial Watch sued Pennsylvania and North Carolina for failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from their rolls as required by federal law. The lawsuits allege that the two states have nearly 2 million inactive names on their voter registration rolls. Judicial Watch also sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

“The new study shows 1.8 million excess, or ‘ghost’ voters in 353 counties across 29 states,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.”

Judicial Watch’s study updates the results of a similar study from last year. In August 2019, Judicial Watch analyzed registration data that states reported to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in response to a survey conducted every two years on how states maintain their voter rolls. That registration data was compared to the then-most-recent ACS five-year survey from 2013 through 2017. The study showed that 378 U.S. counties had registration rates exceeding 100%.

Judicial Watch is a national leader for cleaner elections.

In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a voter-roll cleanup program that resulted from a Judicial Watch settlement of a federal lawsuit with Ohio. California settled a NVRA lawsuit with Judicial Watch and last year began the process of removing up to 1.6 million inactive names from Los Angeles County’s voter rolls. Kentucky also began a cleanup of hundreds of thousands of old registrations last year after it entered into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit.

In September 2020, Judicial Watch sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

Judicial Watch Attorney Robert Popper is the director of Judicial Watch’s clean elections initiative.

The press release also includes a list of the counties with more voters registered than residents. Please follow the link above to see that information.

It is possible that a lot of the extra voters are simply people who moved or passed away and the Board of Elections was never notified. However, not maintaining accurate voter rolls provides a pathway for voter fraud. One of the tricks of people who want to fraudulently vote is to read recent obituaries and pretend to be a person that recently passed away—assuming that the relatives would not have had time to notify the Board of Elections. Cleaning up voter rolls should be a priority in every state. All Americans want their vote to count–not to be cancelled by a fraudulent vote.

Ukraine Seemed To Have A Very Interesting Role During The Obama Administration

There are two important things to note about the post below (I know it is long, but it is important to read the entire Press Release.). First of all, the monitoring continued after President Trump took office–who directed the embassy to do this? Why aren’t the people who did this in jail–they broke the law.

Yesterday Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:

Judicial Watch: State Dept Records Show US Embassy in Ukraine Monitored Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Journalists and other U.S. Citizens in Potential Violation of Federal Law

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 372 pages of records from the U.S. Department of State that confirm prior Judicial Watch reporting that the Ukraine Embassy under then- monitored, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020”, and George Soros.

The documents list the targeted persons as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul, Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma.

The emails show that Yovanovitch was aware of the social media monitoring program.

Additionally, a State Department contractor warned his colleagues that their monitoring of private citizens was potentially in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.

“These new documents confirm Deep State officials at the Ukraine Embassy seemed to set up an enemies list to help illicitly monitor and report on the social media postings of President Trump’s family and lawyer, as well as journalists,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The State Department hid these smoking gun documents for months.”

The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2020 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the State Department failed to respond to an October 2019 FOIA request for records tied to the alleged monitoring of President Trump’s family, lawyer, and journalists, as ordered by US Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00124). In October 2019, Judicial Watch began its investigation into the alleged monitoring, via CrowdTangle and other means, of journalists and persons linked to President Trump. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is alleged to have ordered State Department entities to conduct the monitoring:

This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” according to a senior State Department official. If the illicit operation occurred, it seems to indicate a clear political bias against the president and his supporters. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who has also led American embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by Obama in 2016. She was recalled by the State Department in May and remains a State Department employee in Washington D.C. 

An email exchange on March 27, 2019, titled “monitoring developing U.S. social media narratives on Ukraine” concerns the monitoring of major conservative social media and TV commentators on their commentary on Ukraine, as well as Marie Yovanovitch and George Soros’ involvement in Ukraine and the Clinton Campaign. The persons involved in the discussion include then-Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent; a digital media associate EUR/PD from the Kenjya-Trusant Group, the public diplomacy desk officer for Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; and other redacted State Department officials.

In the discussion, a redacted State Department official writes:

“Hi [redacted]

Thanks very much for your notes. He English-language Twitter search phrases we’re currently using for this issue are:

Yovanovitch

Yovanovich (common misspelling)

Ukraine Ambassador

Ukrainian Ambassador

Ukraine Soros

We are also monitoring the tweets of roughly 10 high-profile U.S.-based social media users  (verified accounts with large numbers of followers) who have already commented on this particular issue before, either on social media or television, to see if they have posted something new relevant to this issue that does not directly align with our search terms.

Happy to pass along that list of Twitter users if DC wishes, but even just keeping an eye on the search terms above during DC afternoon business hours would be a huge help so that Kyiv/Washington team members don’t miss out on new online narratives that are likely to generate new media inquiries.

I’m going to send around one more evening batch of social media content to Desk and Post colleagues in a few minutes on this topic.

Kent writes: “key thing is to get up to ramming speed from the get go.”

Other actual or proposed search terms include “Clinton campaign” and “Biden Burisma.” A redacted State Department Official writes on March 29:

We appreciate the crowd Tangle reports you have sent us. Can you confirm this tool in tracking content from the full list of influential social media users that [redacted] flagged (which included George’s suggestions as well)? Does this also track their posts if it does not include out key work “Ukraine?” We have seen some of these people comment obliquely without using the key words.

We appreciate the RSS suggestion, but we already have an effective automated search tool

[Redacted]

    • US Diplomats in Kyiv Yovanovitch and Kent + NABU;
    • Clinton campaign and Manafort 2016;
    • Biden-Burisma 2020;
    • Soros (ANTAC)”

On March 29, 2019, an email to Kent summarizing the monitoring activity shows that reports were set up at least twice a day. A redacted official writes to Kent: “I will have it set to recap at noon and 5pm. Will also try to have a separate report for you to provide info from the past 12 hours.

On May 15, 2019, a redacted Digital Media Associate for EUR/PD Keniya-Trusant Group warns the State Department of legal issues of monitoring private citizens:

Going to chime in here – so regarding the influencers, there are some legal implications of making a list of Facebook influencers of Twitter influencers since they are technically private citizens (even though they’re publicly on the internet) and we cannot compile them into a list and monitor what they are saying using a third-party application without their knowledge.  To see what they’re saying, you unfortunately need to use the old school way and manually go to their feeds and view that way.  Cumbersome but it’s in compliance with the Privacy Act of 1974.

Regarding automated emails, I’m not sure if you can set up feedback reports, I’ll look into that for you.

And on Instagram, shouldn’t be a problem to add the IG account. We would just need to create it as a separate list, which can then be added into the display.

I can take care of that for you if you’d like! On hashtags and influencers, I don’t believe CT has that capability unfortunately.

An email dated May 15, 2019, related to the use of CrowdTangle to monitor social media in Bosnia and Herzegovina indicates that the prohibition on monitoring US persons was understood:

[Redacted] – thank you so much. And now [sic] worries, I thought I have heard somewhere that that doesn’t apply to non-U.S. citizens, but wasn’t 100% sure, so thank you again for checking that for us.

I just went to our live display page and I don’t have any possibility of changing anything on it. The only option it’s giving me is to switch to Dark Interface <smile emoji>

Is there a way for someone to guide me through the process of adding the IG to our live display, and also, how to create the list adding the influencers we already know, which are not U.S.

citizens?

Later in the day, the redacted official in this chain writes: “Also, I’d like to correct something I said previously. Turns out I was incorrect on the influencers list. You can create lists of them so long as they are not U.S. Citizens. Happy to assist with that if you need and my apologies for giving you incorrect information.”

On March 27, 2019, at 3:50 pm a redacted public diplomacy desk officer writes:

Both [redacted] and I have talked with our fantastic social media team in our PD shop and they are familiarizing the team with our existing tools that will give them the reports they want and set this all up for them.

I’m happy to discuss more about these tools at our next meeting too.

This should greatly improve their ability to track and monitor stories/tweet, etc as it’s all automated these days.

Thanks!

At 9:11 pm, a digital media associate from the Kenjya-Trusant Group writes:

Great! Thanks so much. So I set up a Hootsuite Dashboard (which I can share with the team) and will have CrowdTangle searches set up that I can have sent to your inbox if you’d like.

Just let me know.

At 2:26 pm an email with the sender and recipients’ names reacted includes a list of individuals whose Twitter accounts were to be monitored, including the president’s s son and his personal attorney:

Hi [redacted]

Thank you! Below are some of the Twitter users with large followings whom we’ve seen tweeting on (and/or discussing on TV) Ukraine related issues over the past several days. They all have verified Twitter accounts that should be pretty easy to spot.

Sean Hannity

Laura Ingraham

Rudy Giuliani

Dan Bongino

Sebastian Gorka

John Solomon (of the Hill)

Jack Posobiec

Ryan Saavedra

Sara A Carter

Donald Trump Jr.

Michael McFaul

Lou Dobbs

Pamela Gellar

Thanks again very much,

At 8:08 pm on March 27 a Kenjya-Trusant Group member asks: “Would you be able to add those high-profile usernames with us too? Would be good to have as I set things up.”

On March 28, 2019, a redacted State Department official states, “P.s. Here is a sample of the monitoring report for U.S. social media (scroll down for specific tweets and photos). Make sure to click the link at the top to show photos”

A redacted State Department official emails a group of officials including Kent saying:

First I want to assure everyone that we understand the strain Embassy Kyiv and Ambassador for Yovanovitch are under. We definitely want to support Post and the EUR Front Office’s needs at this time. Full stop.”

The new records include an email written on March 28, 2019, with the subject line “Ukraine Twitter Report” features a “Rolling Two-Hour Twitter Digest” with the search “Most Recent Tweets in Yovanovitch, Yovanovich, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukranian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros (Saved Search)” The report includes tweets by numerous U.S. persons, including Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, Laura Ingraham, John Solomon, Sara Carter, Sean Hannity, Rudy Giuliani, and others. Many of the tweets have nothing to do with Ukraine and pertain to U.S. politics.

On March 29, 2019, Kent clarifies that the monitoring should focus on negative attacks on the work of the Department or Embassy and adds specific individuals who should be monitored:

I would suggest the direct recipient social media audience here includes [redacted] and me in the front office, for starters, as well as the desk. The attaboy (or attagirl) tweets in support of what we are doing are less of an issue to track, frankly, than the attacks…

The list of tweeters has many of the heavy hitting amplifiers we need to be aware of; Sara Carter should be added, since she often acts as an amplifying vanguard for issues that then get picked up on Hannity. Giuliani too.”

A redacted person responds to Kent: “Happy to add more people once we get the feed set up correctly. We will add Sara Carter and Guiliani to the list for monitoring.”

While leaving out the use of CrowdTangle, an April 1, 2019, email with all addressees names redacted has the subject line “Ukraine Twitter Report” and says, “Thank you so very much for alerting everyone to this issue. We appreciate you shutting down the automated report. [Redacted] We do not have, and have not had, any separate automated monitoring tools tracking specific individuals. We will continue to follow Ukraine-related news and commentary via simple internet searches.”

Included in the new documents are a CrowdTangle virtual training manual and a guide from CrowdTangle as to what “social listening” is.

On September 18, 2019, CrowdTangle, which had recently been acquired by Facebook, removed access to the platform “all Department users” effective October 2019.

On October 10, 2019, Congressman Devin Nunes told Sean Hannity on his program that, “What I’ve heard is that there were strange requests, irregular requests to monitor not just one journalist, but multiple journalists…” Hannity followed this statement by adding, multiple sources also told him that they, “believe there is evidence that government resources were used to monitor communications” of U.S. journalists and that Yovanovitch may have been involved. Yovanovitch was questioned on the issue during the impeachment proceeding in the House and seemed to deny any illegal monitoring took place.

In November 2019, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the State Department seeking documents related to a reported “untouchables list” given in late 2016 by Yovanovitch to Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. Lutsenko told The New York Times that Yovanovitch “pressed him not to prosecute anti-corruption activists.” Lutsenko reportedly said earlier the do-not-prosecute list included a founder of the Ukraine group Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC), which was funded by Soros foundations and the U.S. federal government, and two members of the Ukrainian Parliament who vocally supported the Soros group’s agenda.

Information We Need NOW!

On Saturday The Federalist posted an article explaining why U.S. Attorney John Durham, the lead prosecutor looking into the origins of the Russia probe and the spying on the Trump campaign, should release the results of his investigation before November. I will admit that I am more interested in seeing those in the intelligence community who broke the law held accountable than I am in seeing a report.

The article reports:

As reported by the Washington Examiner, several sources have indicated that “Durham may end up waiting until after November to reveal what he has found or to hand down indictments” because Durham does not want his investigation or any decisions to be viewed as “political.” This would be a mistake. There is no question that he should release his findings and issue any necessary indictments before the November elections.

The voters need to know if the investigations that went on in 2015 and 2016 of the Trump campaign and people associated with it were warranted. If those investigations were not warranted, those responsible need to be held accountable before the election. Anyone who has been following the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) releases by Judicial Watch has a pretty good idea of what went on. Unfortunately, Americans who depend on the mainstream media for their information have no idea of the information in the documents so far declassified and made public. It is totally unfair to ask voters to make a decision in November without giving them the information they need to make an informed decision.

The article notes:

Historically, the Department of Justice has refrained from taking any action for partisan purposes. As reported in Just Security:

Department of Justice employees are entrusted with the authority to enforce the laws of the United States and with the responsibility to do so in a neutral and impartial manner. This is particularly important in an election year.

The Memorandum further states (emphasis added):

As Department employees … we must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship.

Simply put, politics must play no role in the decisions of federal investigators or prosecutors regarding any investigations or criminal charges. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.

The article argues that that policy does not apply in this case:

While this policy makes sense overall, it does not make sense in this case for several compelling reasons. First, there is no evidence that Durham’s investigation is partisan in nature or that it is being conducted for partisan political purposes like the Michael Flynn and Roger Stone investigations. Durham’s investigation began long ago and well before Americans were seriously thinking about the 2020 elections.

Second, the purpose of Durham’s investigation appears to align with the department’s mission. Specifically, through his investigation, Durham is seeking to protect the integrity of the election process in the United States. More particularly, Durham is investigating whether one or more people were involved in a plot to sabotage a presidential candidate or to overthrow a duly elected president.

This is not a political issue that “benefits” one party or another. Rather, it is an investigation, the results of which will help Americans of all political leanings. Durham’s findings are vital for all Americans who care about democracy and the integrity of the election process. Americans deserve to know what happened leading up to the 2016 elections.

It’s time for Americans to learn the truth about what the Justice Department and the intelligence community did to undermine the campaign and presidency of President Trump.

This Isn’t Politics–It’s Illegal Activity

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about the information found in some recently declassified emails. The one thing we are learning from the recent release of newly declassified documents is that the documents were classified solely to protect those in the intelligence community who were breaking the law.

The article reports:

Donald Trump was president for only 24 hours when then-FBI supervisor Peter Strzok sent an angry missive to his boss. A colleague had given the new White House a counterintelligence briefing and hadn’t consulted on how to use the meeting to further the Russia collusion investigation.

“I heard from [redacted] about the WH CI briefing routed from [redacted],” Strzok wrote on Jan. 21, 2017, a day into the new Trump presidency after learning fellow agent Jennifer Boone had given the White House a briefing without his knowledge.

“I am angry that Jen did not at least cc: me, as my branch has pending investigative matters there,” Strzok added in his email to Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap. “This brief may play into our investigative strategy, and I would like the ability to have visibility and provide thoughts/counsel to you in advance of the briefing.

The article continues with the relevant timeline:

“When Strzok found out those briefings were already conducted without his knowledge, he got upset. Since the CI briefings apparently were no longer available as a subterfuge, soon thereafter Deputy Director McCabe reached out to Flynn directly to set up an interview appointment,” he added. “Director Comey admitted later they took advantage of the disorganization of a new administration to avoid the protocols that would normally be in place to control access to senior WH personnel like Flynn.”

The article concludes:

“Because Flynn was expected to attend the first such briefing for members of the Trump campaign on August 17, 2016, the FBI viewed that briefing as a possible opportunity to collect information potentially relevant to the Crossfire Hurricane and Flynn investigations,” Horowitz wrote. “We found no evidence that the FBI consulted with Department leadership or ODNI officials about this plan.”

Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, said the FBI’s conduct during the investigation reeked of politics.

“These documents suggest that President Trump was targeted by the Comey FBI as soon as he stepped foot in the Oval Office,” Fitton said.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is becoming obvious that many of the people in the intelligence community during the Obama administration considered themselves above the law and had no problem violating the civil rights of American citizens. Those people belong in jail. Hopefully that will happen someday soon.

This Could Get Interesting

The following Press Release was posted by Judicial Watch yesterday:

Judicial Watch: Appellate Court Hearing on Clinton Email Testimony Tuesday – Hillary Clinton Seeks to Block Court Order Requiring Her to Testify

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today announced that a hearing will be held on Tuesday, June 2, by teleconference, in U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s efforts to avoid testifying, under oath, about her emails. Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, also seeks to avoid giving testimony.

The appellate court is considering Clinton and Mills’ extraordinary request, known as a “petition for writ of mandamus,” to overturn an order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth requiring them to testify. 

Clinton argues she shouldn’t have to testify because she is a former, high level government official and that the case is moot because the FBI already tried to recover her emails from various sources when it investigated allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on the personal e-mail server she used at State. Judicial Watch argues neither Clinton nor Mills have demonstrated that they should not have to follow ordinary appellate rules to challenge the District Court’s order and that the case is not moot. Judicial Watch argues that the FBI’s effort was not exhaustive, as demonstrated by the discovery of some 30 additional Clinton emails late last year, among other developments, and that other emails may be recovered if State is required to look for them.

The hearing is in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit: 

Date:               Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Time:               9:30 am ET

Location:        Telephonic, oral argument can be heard on the court’s website 

This hearing comes in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). In 2014, Judicial Watch uncovered “talking points” created by the Obama White House showing that statements about the attack made on the eve of the 2012 elections by then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice were misleading, if not false. This FOIA lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015. 

On March 2, 2020, Judge Lamberth granted Judicial Watch discovery that includes taking testimony from Clinton and Mills, under oath, regarding Clinton’s emails and the existence of records about the Benghazi attack. In April, Judicial Watch and the State Department, which is represented by Justice Department lawyers, filed responses opposing Clinton’s and Mills’ request to overturn the order requiring their testimony. The lower court found that Clinton’s testimony was necessary:

The Court has considered the numerous times in which Secretary Clinton said she could not recall or remember certain details in her prior interrogatory answers. In a deposition, it is more likely that plaintiff’s counsel could use documents and other testimony to attempt to refresh her recollection. And so, to avoid the unsatisfying and inefficient outcome of multiple rounds of fruitless interrogatories and move this almost six-year-old case closer to its conclusion, Judicial Watch will be permitted to clarify and further explore Secretary Clinton’s answers in person and immediately after she gives them. The Court agrees with Judicial Watch – it is time to hear directly from Secretary Clinton.

In December 2018, Judge Lamberth ordered discovery into whether Clinton’s use of a private email server was intended to avoid FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. The lower court also authorized discovery into whether the Benghazi controversy motivated the cover-up of Clinton’s email. It ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

Who Are The Factcheckers?

On Friday, Judicial Watch posted the following under its Corruption Chronicles section:

The recently appointed Facebook oversight board that will decide which posts get blocked from the world’s most popular social networking website is stacked with leftists, including a close friend of leftwing billionaire George Soros who served on the board of directors of his Open Society Foundations (OSF). Judicial Watch conducted a deep dive into the new panel that will make content rulings for the technology company that was slammed last year with a $5 billion fine for privacy violations. The information uncovered by Judicial Watch shows that the group of 20 is overwhelmingly leftist and likely to restrict conservative views. More than half of the members have ties to Soros, the philanthropist who dedicates huge sums to spreading a radical left agenda that includes targeting conservative politicians. Other Facebook oversight board members have publicly expressed their disdain for President Donald Trump or made political contributions to top Democrats such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. As one New York newspaper editorial determined this month, the new Facebook board is a “recipe for left-wing censorship.”

Among the standouts is András Sajó, the founding Dean of Legal Studies at Soros’ Central European University. Sajó was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for nearly a decade. He also served on the board of directors of OSF’s Justice Initiative. Sajó was one of the ECHR judges in an Italian case (Latusi v. Italy) that ruled unanimously that the display of a crucifix in public schools in Italy violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision was subsequently overturned. Sajó’s deep ties to Soros are also concerning. Through his OSF Soros funds a multitude of projects worldwide aimed at spreading a leftist agenda by, among other things, destabilizing legitimate governments, erasing national borders and identities, financing civil unrest and orchestrating refugee crises for political gain.  Incredibly, there is a financial and staffing nexus between the U.S. government and Soros’ OSF. Read about it in a Judicial Watch special report documenting how Soros advances his leftist agenda at U.S. taxpayer expense.

At least 10 other members of the Facebook oversight board are connected to leftist groups tied to Soros that have benefitted from his generous donations, according to Judicial Watch’s research. Alan Rusbridger, a former British newspaper editor and principal at Oxford University, serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which received $750,000 from OSF in 2018. Rusbridger also served as a governor at a global thinktank, Ditchley Foundation, that co-hosted a conference with OSF on change in the Middle East and North Africa as well as understanding political Islam. Afia Asantewaa Sariyev, a human rights attorney, is the program manager at Soros’ Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Her research includes critical race feminism and socio-economic rights of the poor. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, an Indian lawyer and civil society activist, runs a progressive nonprofit called Centre for Law and Policy Research that focuses on transgender rights, gender equality and public health. The group is a grantee of a justice foundation that received $1.4 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018. Krishnaswamy’s Centre also received money from a radical pro-abortion group, Center for Reproductive Rights, generously funded by the OSF.

The list of Facebook judges connected to Soros and the organized left continues. Julie Owono is the executive director of a Paris-based nonprofit, Internet Sans Frontieres, that advocates for privacy and freedom of expression online. In 2018, Internet Sans Frontieres became a member of the Global Network Initiative, an internet oversight and policy consortium handsomely funded by Soros. Nighat Dad is a Pakistani attorney and the founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Pakistan that has received $114,000 in grants from OSF. Dad’s group also gets funding from Facebook Ireland. Ronaldo Lemos, a Brazilian law professor, served on the board of directors of the Mozilla Foundation, which collected $350,000 from OSF in 2016 and was also a board member at another group, Access Now, that also got thousands of dollars from Soros. Tawakkol Karman, a journalist and civil rights activist, sits on the advisory board of Transparency International, which gets significant funding from Soros’ OSF.

Rounding out the Soros-affiliated field on the new Facebook censorship board are Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Catalina Botero-Marino and Maina Kiai. Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark’s former prime minister, sits on the board of the European Council of Foreign Relations, which took in more $3.6 million from OSF in 2016 and 2017. She is also a trustee at the International Crisis Group which has collected over $8.2 million from OSF and includes George and Alexander Soros on its board. The former Danish prime minister is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board, which received approximately $325,000 from OSF in the last few years and the European Advisory Board of the Center for Global Development, which got north of half a million dollars from OSF in 2018. Botero-Marino is the dean of a Colombian law school called Universidad de Los Andes that obtained more than $1.3 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018, the records obtained by Judicial Watch show. Botero-Marino also sits on the panel of experts at Columbia University’s Global Freedom Expression Project, which gets funding from OSF, and she was a board member at Article 19, a group that got about $1.7 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018. Kiai is the director of the Global Alliances and Partnerships at Human Rights Watch, which accepted $275,000 from OSF in 2018. He is also a member of OSF’s Human Rights Initiative advisory board and was the founding executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, which got $615,000 from Soros in the last two years.

Others on the Facebook board have slandered President Trump in social media posts and donated money to high-profile Democrats. Taiwanese communications professor Katherine Chen’s Twitter account includes retweets of numerous anti-Trump and pro-Obama posts and articles. Nicolas Suzor, a law professor in Australia, retweeted a column implicitly comparing Trump to Hitler and Columbia University law professor Jamal Greene has made campaign contributions to Obama, Hillary Clinton and Warren. Pro-Trump impeachment Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who took a cheap shot at President Trump’s teenage son during the Brett Kavanaugh impeachment hearings, has also contributed money to Obama, Hillary Clinton and Warren. The new board has only a few token conservatives such as Stanford law professor Michael McConnell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The overwhelming majority of those making Facebook’s “final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed,” are leftists. They represent a new model of content moderation that will uphold “freedom of expression within the framework of international norms of human rights.” Facebook’s economic, political or reputational interests will not interfere in the process, the company writes in its introduction to the new board. Eventually the board, which will begin hearing cases later this year, will double in size. “The cases we choose to hear may be contentious, and we will not please everyone with our decisions,” Facebook warns.

Make no mistake–this is about influencing the November elections. Millennials get their news from social media. If they vote (they have a very spotty voting record) based on what they see on social media, then social media becomes very influential. If social media is censoring the news, controlling the narrative, the decisions made by voters who depend on it will not be based on facts.

Judicial Watch Uncovers The Beginning Of Obamagate

Yesterday, in their weekly update, Judicial Watch posted the text of the memo that was used to justify the spying on the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, and later the administration. The memo is redacted to continue to protect the guilty, but there is enough left to see what was going on.

Here is the memo:

The document is dated July 31, 2016. Here is the text of the “electronic communication”:

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Electronic Communication

Title: Crossfire Hurricane Date: 07/31/2016

Cc: [Redacted]
Strzok Peter P II

From: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
[Redacted]
Contact: Strzok Peter P II, [Redacted]

Approved by: Strzok Peter P II

Drafed by: Strzok Peter P II

Case ID #: [Redacted]

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE;
FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT –
RUSSIA;
SENSITIVE INVESTIGATIVE MATTER

This document contains information that is restricted to case participants

Synopsis: (S/ / ) Opens and assigns investigation

Reason 1.4 (b)
Derived from: FBI
NSISC-20090615
Declassify On: 20411231

[Redacted]

(S/) An investigation is being opened based on information received by Legat [Redacted]         on 07/29/2016. The text of that email follows:

SECRET/
[Redacted]

Title: (S/ / CC/NF) CROSSFIRE HURRICANE
Re: [Redacted] 07/31/2016

BEGIN EMAIL

(U/ /) Legat [Redacted] information from [Redacted] Deputy Chief of Mission

Synopsis:
(U/ /) Legat [Redacted] received information from the [Redacted] Deputy Chief of Mission related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server.

Details:
(S/ /[Redacted] On Wednesday, July 27, 2016, Legal Attaché (Legat) [Redacted] was summoned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) for the [Redacted] who will be leaving [Redacted] post Saturday July 30, 2016 and set to soon thereafter retire from government service, advised [Redacted] was called by [Redacted] about an urgent matter requiring an in person meeting with the U.S. Ambassador. [Note: [Redacted]. The [Redacted] was scheduled to be away from post until mid-August, therefore [Redacted] attended the meeting.

(S/ [Redacted]) [Redacted] advised that [Redacted] government had been seeking prominent members of the Donald Trump campaign in which to engage to prepare for potential post-election relations should Trump be elected U.S. President. One of the people identified was George Papadopolous (although public media sources provide a spelling of Papadopoulos), who was believed to be one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers. Mr. Papdopoulos was located in [Redacted] so the [Redacted] met with him on several occasions, with [Redacted] attending at least one of the meetings.

(S/ [Redacted]) [Redacted] recalled [Redacted] of the meetings between Mr. Papdopolous and [Redacted] concerning statements Mr. Papadopolous made about suggestions from the Russians that they (the Russians) could assist the Trump campaign with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton. [Redacted] provided a copy of the reporting that was provided to [Redacted] from [Redacted] to Legal [Redacted]. The text is exactly as follows:

(Begin Text)

(S/ [Redacted]) 5. Mr. Papadopolous [Redacted] also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama). It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team’s reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr. Trump’s cooperation.
(End Text)

(s/ [Redacted]
[Redacted]
(s/ [Redacted] Legat requests that further action on this information should consider the sensitivity that this information was provided through informal diplomatic channels from [Redacted] to the U.S. Embassy’s DCM. It was clear from the conversation Legal [Redacted]
had with DCM that [Redacted] knew follow-up by the U.S. government would be necessary, but extraordinary efforts should be made to protect the source of this information until such a time that a request from our organization can be made to [Redacted] to obtain this information through formal channels.

END EMAIL

(S/ / ) Based on the information provided by Legat [Redacted] this investigation is being opened to determine whether individual(s) associated with the Trump campaign are witting of and/or coordinating activities with the Government of Russia.

The article includes Judicial Watch’s reaction to the memo:

No wonder the DOJ and FBI resisted the public release of this infamous “electronic communication” that “opened” Crossfire Hurricane – it shows there was no serious basis for the Obama administration to launch an unprecedented spy operation on the Trump campaign. We now have more proof that Crossfire Hurricane was a scam, based on absurd gossip and innuendo. This document is Exhibit A to Obamagate, the worst corruption scandal in American history. This document shows how Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham are right to question the predicate of this spy operation.

What was done during 2016 and into 2017 was a purposeful effort to undermine the principle of a peaceful transition of power in a republic. This is a serious matter despite the fact that the press is working very hard to ignore it. If we cannot depend on the peaceful transition of power, we no longer have a republic. On that note, I would like to say that people do need to be held accountable, but the only way forward is to temper justice with mercy.

Very Interesting

On Monday, Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) for communications and other records of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and Deputy Director H. Clifford Lane with and about the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning the novel coronavirus (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department Justice (No. 1:20-cv-01149)).

The suit was filed after HHS failed to respond to an April 1, 2020, FOIA request seeking:

  • Communications between Dr. Fauci and Deputy Director Lane and World Health Organization officials concerning the novel coronavirus.
  • Communications of Dr. Fauci and Deputy Director Lane concerning WHO, WHO official Bruce Aylward, WHO Director General Tedros Anhanom, and China.

The time period for the request is January 1, 2020 to April 1, 2020.

Additionally, the DCNF requested and was granted expedited processing of its request.

In March 2020, Fauci praised the work of the WHO and their chairman, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying: “Tedros is really an outstanding person … I mean, obviously, over the years anyone who says that the WHO has not had problems has not been watching the WHO. But I think under his leadership they’ve done very well.”

In April, President Trump announced a halt to funding the World Health Organization. According to the president, the WHO put “political correctness over lifesaving measures.” Additionally, President Trump said: “The WHO failed in this duty, and must be held accountable,” adding that the WHO ignored “credible information” in December 2019 that the virus could be transmitted from human to human.

Daily Caller News Foundation Co-Founder and President Neil Patel said: “This virus has killed hundreds of thousands of people and turned the whole world upside down. We know that China and WHO could have done a lot more to prevent or reduce this catastrophe. We therefore have a legitimate and urgent news purpose for seeking these documents regarding U.S. officials’ communications with WHO and demand that the agencies in question stop stalling and start following the law that entitles us to this vital information.”

“It is urgent that the NIH follow transparency law during the coronavirus crisis,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is of significant public interest to learn what WHO was telling our top medical officials about the coronavirus that originated in China.”