Hearing on California Censorship of Judicial Watch YouTube Election
Integrity Video. We will be in court next week for a hearing before
U.S. District Court Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong on a Motion to
Dismiss brought by the California Secretary of State



[WEEKLY UPDATE]

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO MET JEFFREY EPSTEIN—PLUS YES, YOU ARE BEING
CENSORED

[Update]
[[link removed]]

HEARING ON CALIFORNIA CENSORSHIP OF JUDICIAL WATCH YOUTUBE ELECTION
INTEGRITY VIDEO

We will be in court next week for a hearing before U.S. District Court
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong on a Motion to Dismiss
[[link removed]]
brought by the California Secretary of State in our lawsuit _Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. Shirley Weber, in her official capacity as Secretary of
State of the State of California_
[[link removed]]
(No. 2:22-cv-06894)

The hearing
[[link removed]]
will be on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. PT.

Our lawsuit
[[link removed]]
states that the California Office of Elections Cybersecurity, which
Secretary of State Shirley Weber oversees, unlawfully caused YouTube
to remove our election integrity video on September 25, 2020.
Specifically, our lawyers argue
[[link removed]
the California Secretary of State violated our First Amendment right
by:

> misus[ing] her authority under [California Election Code Sec. 10.5
>
[[link removed]]]
> with the intention to interfere with [Judicial Watch’s] speech by
> monitoring [its] speech on social media, falsely assessing [its]
> speech as misleading, ignoring an express limitation on her
> authority while giving an overly broad interpretation to other
> authority, and using her close working relationship with and
> “dedicated pathways” at YouTube to have [Judicial Watch’s]
> video removed within approximately 24 hours.

At the time the complaint against Weber was filed, I said, “Smoking
gun documents
[[link removed]]
show that
California government officials, who were being advised by the Biden
campaign PR operation, caused YouTube to censor a key Judicial Watch
video just before the 2020 election. This egregious government
censorship and election interference violated our civil rights, and
our lawsuit aims to stop and expose the growing corruption of leftist
government officials colluding with Big Tech allies to attack the free
speech rights of Americans.”

California government officials don’t have the right to censor any
American, especially on sensitive election integrity debates just
before a presidential election. California’s censorship of Judicial
Watch is a violation of the First Amendment, pure and simple.

Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other direct
litigation, we continue to investigate and litigate the broad range of
censorship being conducted by the Biden administration and its fellow
travelers within state and local governments.

(On February 28 of this year, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]]
against
the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing
collusion between federal agencies and social media to censor and
suppress free speech (_Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of
Homeland Security_
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:23-cv-00552)).

Also in February 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]
DHS for records of communication related to the work of the Election
Integrity Partnership
[[link removed]]
(EIP) that could
detail coordinated censorship activities (_Judicial Watch, Inc. v.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security_
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:23-cv-00384)).

The Elon Musk ‘Twitter Files’ are the tip of the iceberg, as the
federal government ran a massive, secret censorship op against the
American people. That the DHS is hiding these censorship records in
violation of FOIA law shows the agency still has something to hide.

On January 13, 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]
the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for communications and
records of the Surgeon General’s Communications Director’s contact
with social media companies regarding COVID-19 vaccines (_Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services_
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:23-cv-00113)). Biden’s surgeon general was abusing his office
to pressure Big Tech companies to censor Americans. This lawsuit aims
to uncover the details of this government attack on the First
Amendment.

On January 11, 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
[[link removed]]
against the
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for records of communications between
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and social media sites
regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden
laptop story (_Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice_
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:23-cv-00079)). Fitton commented, The FBI was literally paying
[[link removed]]
Twitter to censor Americans just before the 2020 election! The FBI
seems to have interfered in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden by
encouraging Big Tech to censor Americans about the Hunter Biden laptop
and other debates. And to add to the scandal, they are now covering up
their misconduct.

In November 2022, we sued
[[link removed]]
the DHS for
all records of communications between the Cybersecurity and
Information Security Agency (CISA), a division of DHS, and the
Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was created to flag online
election content for censorship and suppression.

In May 2022, YouTube censored our video about Biden corruption and
election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video
[[link removed]],
titled “Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,”
was falsely determined to be “election misinformation” and removed
by YouTube, and our YouTube account was suspended for a week. Judicial
Watch continues to post its video
[[link removed]]
content on our Rumble channel
([link removed]).

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

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

TEXAS A&M APPEARED TO RECEIVE ALMOST $500 MILLION FROM QATAR REGIME

Why is a terrorist-aligned nation giving nearly a half billion dollars
to an American university?

We received records
[[link removed]]
from Texas A&M indicating that it received $485,811,921.33 in grants
and contracts from the Qatar Foundation.

There appear to be discrepancies
[[link removed]]
between what is listed in the gift reporting received from Texas A&M
and what was reported by the school to the federal foreign gift
reporting system. For instance, Texas A&M’s gift record for January
1, 2013 – May 22, 2018, only lists a total of $69,844.41 from the
Qatar Foundation, whereas the Department of Education’s database
shows a total of over $47 million for the same period.

The new information was released in a court victory
[[link removed]]
last month in litigation on
behalf of Judicial Watch client Zachor Legal Institute under the Texas
Public Information Act. Zachor fought for information about the
potential influence by the Qatar government’s funding of certain
Texas A&M University programs and a Texas A&M campus in Education
City, Al Rayyan, Qatar (_Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and
Community Development v. Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General_ (No.
D-1-GN-18-006240)).

The previously hidden records include a document titled “Qatar
Grants and Contracts” for January 1,2013 – May 22, 2018, lists the
funds received by Texas A&M as follows:

> ARAMCO
> $1,028,611.55
>
> QATAR COMPUTING RESEARCH INSTITUTE
> $121,643.84
>
> QATAR ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY RESEARCH
> $218,250.33
>
> QATAR FOUNDATION
> $485,811,921.33
>
> QATAR NATIONAL RESEARCH FUND
> $32,145,910.92
>
> QATAR UNIVERSITY
> $226,826.03
>
>
> $519,553,164.00

A second record is titled “Qatar Gifts,” which includes:

> Qatar National Research Fund
> $39,280.82
>
> Qatar Computing Research Institute
> $1,202,989.18
>
> Aramco Services Company
> $100,000.00
>
> Maersk Oil Qatar
> $1,536,230.88
>
> Ooredoo
> $524,918.00
>
> Qatar Biomedical Research Institute
> $3,000.00
>
> Qatar Foundation
> $69,844.41
>
>
> [$3,476,263.29]

Zachor Legal Institute is a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to
combatting the spread of anti-Semitism. Zachor made requests under the
TPIA for information about the funding or donations made to Texas A&M
by the government of Qatar and agencies and subdivisions of the
government of Qatar. Qatar controversially has aligned itself with
Islamic terrorists and extremists
[[link removed]]
which has placed it at odds with the United States, Israel and other
U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Zachor began asking in 2018 for information about Qatari funding of
Texas A&M research and how Texas A&M, a public university, was able to
establish a degree-conferring campus in Qatar without the Texas
Legislature’s permission or involvement.

In 2018, Qatar filed a lawsuit to prevent disclosure of its funding
information. Our attorneys countered in the courts that neither the
Qatari government nor any of its agencies are protected by exceptions
under Texas law and that federal law “expressly makes the requested
information public.”

In March 2023, Judge Amy Clark Meachum ruled in favor of Judicial
Watch and the Zachor Legal Institute and ordered
[[link removed]
the documents be made
public.

“Thanks to the determined and skillful work of Judicial Watch, the
country now sees the extent to which foreign governments are
interfering in American institutions,” said Marc Greendorfer,
President of Zachor Legal Institute. “Texas A&M’s apparent
sporadic and shifting compliance with federal reporting requirements
concerning gifts and grants from Qatar raises many questions as to why
the university seemingly failed to comply with reporting requirements
and whether additional information is not being reported. Zachor will
continue to pursue answers to these questions until every dollar is
accounted for.”

Now we know why terrorist-linked Qatar has fought us in court to hide
its financial support for Texas A&M – which we just found out is
nearly a half billion dollars.

JUDGE RULES IN FAVOR OF JUDICIAL WATCH CLIENT: BUCKS COUNTY, PA ACTED
IN BAD FAITH IN WITHHOLDING SCHOOL COVID SHUTDOWN DOCUMENTS – COURT
ORDERS COUNTY TO PAY $3,000

A Bucks County, PA judge ruled that the county acted “in bad
faith” in withholding records that are, by law, public from Megan
Brock, a parent we represented. She was sued by Bucks County to
prevent the release of documents related to COVID restrictions and the
re-opening of the county’s schools that she requested under the
commonwealth’s Right-to-Know Law (_County of Bucks v. Megan Brock_
[[link removed]]
(Nos.
2022-03083 and 2022-02979)).

In each of the two lawsuits filed by Bucks County, Judge Denise M.
Bowman ruled on April 28 that the county must produce records Brock
had requested under the Right-to-Know Law (RTK).

Judge Bowman also ruled that the county pay sanctions in the amount of
$1,500 in each of the lawsuits. This is the highest amount allowed
under the RTK.

The court conducted an in-camera review of the records requested by
Brock, found that more than half were not properly withheld by Bucks
County, and ordered the release of several records.

The court also considered evidence submitted by Brock to the Office of
Open Records which consisted of records that Brock obtained from
another request that should have been but were not produced in the
record searches in the lawsuits. The court agreed that these
evidentiary records demonstrated that Bucks County had failed to
“produce documents which clearly existed, fell within the RTK
Requests at issue, and were not protected from disclosure by
exemption.”

These court decisions are tremendous victories for the ‘right to
know’ of parents and citizens. Indeed, the Court recognized the bad
faith nature of the outrageous government lawsuits against our client
Megan Brock for daring to ask questions about crazed covid school
shutdowns.

On February 7, 2022, Brock sent an RTK request asking for all
electronic correspondence by Bucks Co. Director of Policy and
Communications
[[link removed]]
Eric
Nagy with Board Vice Chair
[[link removed]]
Diane Ellis-Marseglia,
Board Chair
[[link removed]]
Bob Harvie,
former Director of the Commissioners’ Office of Public Information
[[link removed]]
Larry King, Chief
Clerk
[[link removed]]
Gail Humphrey, and
Health Department Director
[[link removed]]
David Damsker from
8/10/2021 to 8/28/2021, on the buckscounty.gov domain. Also, all
communications about Bucks County Health Department School Guidance.

On March 8, 2022, Brock sent an RTK request asking for a copy of an
email sent to Acting Chief Operating Officer
[[link removed]
McKevitt
on 8/23/2021 on the buckscounty.gov domain, which contained the final
copy of the Bucks County COVID-19 Amended School Guidance, including
all responses.

On July 18, 2022, our local counsel, J. Chadwick Schnee, filed answers
to Bucks County’s lawsuits against Brock.

In July 2022, _National Review_
[[link removed]]
profiled Brock and Jamie Walker, parents of children in Bucks County
who led the fight to re-open the county’s schools during the COVDI
pandemic, “and then to keep schools open and opening close to
normal.” Brock and Walker “suspect county officials and two
Democratic commissioners had a hand in updating the county’s
guidance, and possibly overruling their own health director, a strong
advocate for in-person learning. They believe Pennsylvania governor
Tom Wolf’s administration coerced the county into adopting its more
restrictive Covid policies and its one-size-fits-all approach to
school reopening.”

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR ‘MANIFESTO’ OF THE COVENANT SCHOOL SHOOTER
IN TENNESSEE

Judicial Watch filed a public records lawsuit
[[link removed]]
for records about the March 27, 2023, shooting at The Covenant School
in Tennessee, including the reported “manifesto” written by the
female shooting suspect.

Our suit is against the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and
Davidson County in The Chancery Court for the State of Tennessee’s
20th District. We sued on behalf of retired Hamilton County Sheriff
James Hammond and the Tennessee Firearms Association, Inc. (“TFA”)
(No. 23-0542-III
[[link removed]]).

On April 13, 2023, the TFA submitted two open records requests. The
first request asked that the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department
(“MNPD”) produce copies of records or files and inspection of
“the ‘manifesto’ reportedly found in the home of Audrey
Elizabeth Hall on March 27, 2023.”

The second request asked that the MNPD produce copies of records or
files and inspection “all email communications of MNPD officials
regarding the mass shooting committed by Audrey Elizabeth Hale on
March 27, 2023, as well as MNPD officials’ text messages regarding
the same, and copies of the ‘manifesto’ reported left by Audrey
Elizabeth Hale in her vehicle.”

In a separate request on April 17, 2023, Hammond asked that the
Metropolitan Nashville Police Department for:

> 1. All MNPD criminal police reports documenting this incident to
> include but not limited to:
>
> a. Impound/evidence invoices
> b. Photographs
> c. Bodycam footage
> d. City/County/State and/or federal coroner information
> e. Suspect toxicology/lab results
> f. Audio of calls for service
> g. School video footage of suspect and officers
>
> 2. All MNPD Force Investigation Team (FIT) internal administrative
> investigations/reports regarding this incident to include but not
> limited to those mandated by The Manual of the Metropolitan Police
> Department of Nashville Davidson County, TN (the Department Manual)
> Title 1.130.050
>
> 3. All MNPD communications, to include but not limited to
> directives, orders, memos, emails and/or letters, concerning the
> release of the contents and/or copies of the aforementioned
> “manifesto” of the deceased female shooting suspect.
>
> 4. All MNPD communications between the Federal Bureau of
> Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and/or
> the Office of the District Attorney, Nashville (20th Judicial
> District) regarding the designation of the aforementioned multiple
> shooting at a Christian School by a self-identified transgender
> suspect as a “hate crime.”
>
> 5. All MNPD criminal and/or field intelligence reports and/or
> received complaints involving the aforementioned shooting suspect
> (Audrey Hale) dated from January 1, 2020, to the date of your final
> response to this records request.

The MNPD denied all three requests without identifying any underlying
criminal case or even a potential defendant.

The Tennessee Public Records Act states: “[a]ll state, county and
municipal records shall… be open for personal inspection by any
citizen of this state, and those in charge of the records shall not
refuse such right of inspection to any citizen, unless otherwise
provided by state law.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-503(a)(2)(A). The
lawsuit requests the Court allow prompt access to the requested public
records.

Tennessee authorities have cited no credible reason for hiding the
killer’s ‘manifesto’ about this deadly school shooting of three
young children and three school employees. Politics shouldn’t trump
transparency and the public safety. The public has an urgent right to
know the details of this manifesto. That a public records lawsuit is
required to try to access this key document is a scandal.

HEARING IN LAWSUIT FOR TEACHER FIRED FOR PREEMPLOYMENT SOCIAL MEDIA
POSTS

Judicial Watch never stops. A federal court hearing
[[link removed]]
will be held before Judge Denise J. Casper of the U.S. District Court
for the District of Massachusetts on Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in the
civil rights lawsuit we filed on behalf of Kari MacRae, a
Massachusetts high school teacher who was fired in retaliation for
posts on social media that predated her employment at Hanover High
School (_MacRae vs. Matthew Mattos and Matthew A. Ferron_
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:21-cv-11917).

Our filing laying out the First Amendment retaliation issues and
evidence uncovered through several months of discovery, including
deposition testimony, is available here
[[link removed]].

MacRae, who was hired as a Hanover High School teacher on August 31,
2021, was fired over several TikTok posts that were made months prior
to her hiring at the school. MacRae, who in May of 2021 was elected to
the Bourne School Committee, made the posts in her personal capacity
as a citizen and candidate for public office.

The evidence is that Kari MacRae was fired in retaliation for
exercising her First Amendment right to speak on issues of public
concern, like critical race theory and transgenderism in schools. She
deserves her day in court and the chance to make her case before a
federal jury.

U.S. FUNDS PROGRAM TO SUPPORT DISPLACED LGBTQI+ REFUGEES, ASYLEES

The transgender extremist movement is well-funded – with your tax
dollars. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog explains
[[link removed]].

> The U.S. will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars—and up to $1
> million—to support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and
> Intersex (LGBTQI+) refugees and asylum seekers in two or more
> countries. The goal, according to the Biden administration, is to
> create global coordination, advocacy, and knowledge-sharing on
> protecting and assisting refugees that identify as LGBTQI+. It is
> worth noting that the government’s official Notice of Funding
> Opportunity (NOFO) buries the real purpose of the allocation by
> classifying the grant as “Humanitarian Research.” The money will
> be disbursed by the State Department’s Bureau of Population,
> Refugees, and Migration (PRM). The U.S. is financing the initiative
> at the request of the United Nations (U.N.) to promote
> evidence-based decision making on priority protection, enhance tools
> to improve the agency’s performance and encourage other
> “humanitarian stakeholders” to follow recommendations.
>
> To receive taxpayer dollars nonprofits and institutions of higher
> education must submit proposals that respond to several research
> questions involving LGBTQI+ persons, according to the grant
> announcement.
>
[[link removed]]
> The first one is, “what are best practices for the ethical, safe,
> and confidential collection, management, and reporting of data on
> displaced LGBTQI+ persons?” The second question asks, “what are
> the experiences and needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer
> (LGBQ) women, trans men, and intersex persons in situations of
> displacement and in humanitarian contexts, and what are best
> practices for reaching and assisting them?” That is followed by
> “what is the intersectionality between the health (including
> mental health) needs of LGBTQI+ persons and displacement?”
> Finally, the State Department asks potential grant recipients
> “what are best practices for assistance to meet these health
> needs?”
>
> The U.S. was essentially directed to launch the project after a U.N.
> probe
[[link removed]
that
> displaced and stateless LGBTQI+ persons remain significantly
> under-identified and under-documented in humanitarian response
> efforts. The U.S. is already the U.N.’s largest donor to the tune
> of $12 billion, but the famously corrupt world body specifically
> called on Uncle Sam to invest in further research to identify best
> practices and develop guidelines on working with displaced and
> stateless LGBTQI+ persons. The U.S. government was also directed to
> undertake research on the intersection of health and forced
> displacement of LGBTQI+ persons and safer data collection methods.
> “The experiences of LGBTQI+ persons in displacement are not
> homogenous, and, as such, the best practices and policy responses to
> address their protection concerns and access to assistance and
> durable solutions will also not be homogenous,” according to the
> State Department, which stresses the need for the new program by
> revealing that most research overwhelmingly focuses on “the
> experiences of cisgender gay and queer men and trans women.”
>
> The U.N. also wants the U.S. and other countries to develop and fund
> language-appropriate training for government employees and
> contractors responsible for collecting data on LGBTIQ+ displaced
> people and develop safe and effective tools, including respectful
> engagement using the correct diverse terminology dictated by
> SOGIESC, an umbrella term for those whose gender identity, sexual
> orientation, or gender expressions differ from the mainstream. The
> acronym stands for sexual orientation, gender identity, gender
> expression and sex characteristics. The leftist world body also
> wants the U.S. and other countries to innovate region-specific
> methods to expedite pathways for LGBTIQ+ displaced people in hostile
> host situations, noting that LGBTIQ+ forcibly displaced people often
> experience compounded hostility in places of protection due to
> criminalization of consensual same-sex relations and social stigma
> in asylum countries. Therefore, the U.N. is ordering “accelerated
> asylum procedures” for LGBTIQ+ migrants and to avoid inappropriate
> lines of questioning and the use of stereotypical assumptions in
> interviewing techniques and credibility assessments.
>
> The U.S. has long accommodated members of this demographic by
> offering transgender illegal immigrants special services, including
> their own detention center. A few years ago, Judicial Watch reported
>
[[link removed]]
> on a New Mexico facility that offers transgender migrants hair and
> makeup classes, a recreation area, gym, television rooms, a lab and
> pharmacy. There are also meeting areas for trans detainees to
> consult with free legal services provided by advocacy groups.
> American taxpayers also furnish hormone therapy, which “is not
> cheap,” according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
> director.

Until next week …





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