YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO MET JEFFREY
EPSTEIN—PLUS YES, YOU ARE BEING CENSORED
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 in our lawsuit
Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. Shirley Weber, in her official capacity as Secretary of
State of the State of California (No. 2:22-cv-06894)
The hearing
will be on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. PT.
Our lawsuit
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 arguethat
the California Secretary of State violated our First Amendment right
by:
misus[ing] her authority under [California
Election Code Sec. 10.5] 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 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
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 (No.
1:23-cv-00552)).
Also in February 2023, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
against DHS for records of communication related to the work of the Election
Integrity Partnership (EIP) that could detail coordinated censorship
activities (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (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
against 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 (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
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 (No. 1:23-cv-00079)).
Fitton commented, The FBI was literally paying
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
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,
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 content on our Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).
In July 2021, we uncovered
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
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
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
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 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 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 orderedthat
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 (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 Eric Nagy with Board
Vice Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia, Board
Chair Bob Harvie, former
Director of the Commissioners’ Office of Public Information Larry
King, Chief
Clerk Gail Humphrey, and Health
Department Director 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 OfficerMargaret 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 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
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).
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
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 (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.
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.
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. 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 determined 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
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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