Biden Border Crisis UPDATE!
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U.S.
Capitol Police Federal Court Filing Reveals Officials Were Aware of the
Potential for a Significant Disturbance on January 6
“Things are not always what they seem,” the ancient Greek aristocrat
Phaedrus said. “The first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a
few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” So, it goes with the
events of January 6, 2021.
Judicial Watch just received the court-ordered declaration
of James W. Joyce, senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for
the Capitol Police, in which he describes emails among senior officials of
the United States Capitol Police (USCP) in January 2021 that show warnings
of possible January 6 protests that could lead to serious disruptions at
the U.S. Capitol.
The declaration comes in a lawsuit
we brought under the common law right of access to public records (Judicial
Watch v. United States Capitol Police (No. 1:21-cv-00401)).
The suit requests:
Email communications between the U.S. Capitol Police Executive Team and
the Capitol Police Board concerning the security of the Capitol on January
6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1, 2021 through
January 10, 2021.
Email communications of the Capitol Police
Board with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of
Justice, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concerning the
security of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request
is from January 1, 2021 through January 10, 2021.
All video footage from within the Capitol
between 12 pm and 9 pm on January 6, 2021.
After an August 15, 2023, hearing,
in which U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes ordered
the Capitol Police to provide us more detailed descriptions of certain
emails that had been withheld, the U.S. Capitol Police filed a seven-page
“second
declaration,” which describes email discussions of evacuations
and relocations of people from certain buildings, arrests, and other
security matters.
The U.S. Capitol Police describe “situational security update” emails
at issue as follows:
a. A January 3, 2021 email, with attachment, from the USCP Deputy Chief
to a Board member and others at USCP and in Congress providing a detailed
“special event assessment” of anticipated protest activity in advance
of the January 6, 2021 Joint Session of Congress. The attached document is
marked on each page “For Official Use Only/Law Enforcement
Sensitive.”
b. A January 5, 2021 email, with map
attachment, from the USCP Chief to two Board members detailing a proposed
“bike rack” security perimeter for January 6, 2021, and proposing
further discussion.
c. A January 5, 2021 email, with map
attachment, from the USCP Chief to two Board members detailing a proposed
security perimeter for January 6, 2021.
d. A January 5, 2021 email, with social
media post and map attachments, from the USCP Deputy Chief to a Board
member and others at USCP and in Congress reporting “a significant uptick
in new visitors” to a “historical website” containing information on
Capitol system tunnels. The Deputy Chief describes proposed attempts by
unauthorized individuals to block members of Congress from entering the
Capitol building, through tunnels or otherwise.
e. A January 5, 2021 email from the USCP
Deputy Chief to a Board member and others at USCP and in Congress alerting
them to an online website soliciting information on high-level government
officials and their expected whereabouts on January 6, 2021, and linking to
the website’s article entitled Why the
Second American Revolution Starts Jan 6.
f. A January 6, 2021 email from the
USCP Chief to Board members and others at USCP and in Congress relaying
that the President had completed a speech at the Ellipse and that a large
group was preparing to approach the Capitol.
g. A January 6, 2021 email thread between
the USCP Chief, two Board members, and congressional staffers responding to
questions on the status of evacuations and relocations of certain buildings
on the Capitol Grounds on January 6, 2021, and relaying information on
crowds gathering near the Washington Monument and on Capitol Grounds on
January 6, 2021.
h. A series of four January 6, 2021 emails
from the USCP Deputy Chief to a Board member and others at the USCP and in
Congress providing four updates throughout the course of January 6, 2021.
These updates contain intelligence assessments, information on arrests,
coordination with other law enforcement agencies, crowd estimates,
scheduling of high-level government officials, threat and incident reports,
medical responses, and officer deployment status.
i. A January 7, 2021 email, with photo
attachment, from the USCP Deputy Chief to Board members and others in
Congress providing an update on the arrest and subsequent charging of an
armed individual found in a “suspicious vehicle” on January 6,
2021.
The U.S. Capitol Police describe “updates on police personnel issues”
emails at issue as follows:
a. A January 7, 2021 email from the USCP Chief to all Board
members and others at the USCP and in Congress providing an update on the
medical condition of a USCP officer following the events of January 6,
2021.
b. A January 7, 2021 email from the USCP
Chief to all Board members and others at USCP and in Congress providing an
update on the medical condition of a USCP officer following the events of
January 6, 2021.
c. A January 7, 2021 email from the USCP Chief to all Board members and
others at USCP and in Congress providing an update on the death of a USCP
officer following the events of January 6, 2021.
d. A January 8, 2021 email from the USCP
Chief to a Board member and others at USCP and in Congress concerning the
lowering of flags to half-staff in recognition of a USCP officer who died
in the line of duty on January 6, 2021.
e. A January 9, 2021 email from the USCP
Acting Chief to all Board members providing an update on when autopsy
results could be expected for a deceased USCP officer following the events
of January 6, 2021.
Another email is described under the
category of “updates about news media reports:”
A January 7, 2021 email, with attachment, from the USCP Chief to all
Board members and others at USCP and in Congress providing an anticipated
statement by the USCP on the events that transpired at the Capitol on
January 6, 2021.
On September 29, 2023, the Capitol Police filed a motion
to dismiss our common law right of access lawsuit that asks for
over 14,000 hours of video footage, arguing that the USCP has a sovereign
immunity exemption from lawsuits asserting a common law right of access to
public information. The latest filing goes further than prior Pelosi
Congress secrecy arguments in this litigation by newly asserting that even
if a lawsuit were allowed to go forward, all January 6 videos and emails
would be exempt from disclosure as “security information.”
We also received the January 7, 2021, resignation
letter of Steven A. Sund, chief of the Capitol Police on January
6, who left the position at the request
of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
It is urgent that the January 6 videos and related U.S. Capitol Police
emails be released to the American public. I would hope the next House
speaker takes a different approach than Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy and
affirms the public’s lawful ‘right to know’ – and stops working
with the Biden Justice Department to hide this January 6 evidence.
Your Judicial Watch is extensively investigating the events of January
6.
Last month we received records
from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a component of the
Department of Justice, in a FOIA lawsuit that detail the extensive
apparatus the Biden Justice Department set up to investigate and prosecute
January 6 protestors.
A previous
review of records from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution
declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt.
In January 2023, documents
from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, showed U.S.
Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer expense at
Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli
Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In November 2021, we released
multiple audio,
visual
and photo
records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the
shooting death of Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building.
The records included a cell
phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police
interview of the shooter, Byrd.
In October 2021, United States Park Police records
related to the January 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol showed
that on the day before the January 6 rally featuring President Trump, U.S.
Park Police expected a “large portion” of the attendees to march to the
U.S. Capitol and that the FBI was monitoring the January 6 demonstrations,
including travel to the events by “subjects of interest.”
We’ll be sure to keep you updated on this developing story…
UPDATE on Federal Court Hearing about FBI’s Records on Hunter Biden
Gun Scandal, FBI Refuses to Divulge Number of Records Due to ‘Ongoing
Criminal Investigation’
We were in federal court today for a hearing
in our FOIA lawsuit for records regarding the gun owned by Hunter Biden
that reportedly was thrown in a trash can behind a Delaware grocery store.
The FBI is refusing to disclose basic information about the records because
it alleges doing so would interfere with the criminal prosecution of Hunter
Biden.
The court hearing was before Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia.
In an August 2023 joint
status report to the court, the FBI claims it has completed a
search for records responsive to our FOIA request and is “currently
processing” the records but added that its “position is that the number
of potentially responsive records is exempt from disclosure … as this
case relates to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
We filed the lawsuit
after the FBI withheld records in response to a January 30, 2023, FOIA
request (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-00920)). We
are asking for:
All records, including investigative reports, telephone logs, witness
statements, memoranda, and firearms purchase documentation, related to the
reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter
Biden discarded in a Delaware trash receptacle circa October 2018.
All records of communications of FBI
officials regarding the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of the
firearm.
We argue that the Hunter Biden gun case “is indisputably of significant
public interest:”
It is also time sensitive. [Judicial Watch] has asked and Defendant has
refused to provide the number of potentially responsive records that need
to be processed in this case. Without this number, Plaintiff cannot
evaluate – let alone agree to – a processing time of 120 days. In
addition, because it appears as though Defendant will be providing
[Judicial Watch] with a “no number, no list” response at the end of the
120 days, it could be more efficient and economical for the parties to
simply commence summary judgment briefing and for Defendant to file its
opening brief in 60 days.
The FBI unlawfully hid records about its Hunter Biden cover-up and now is
using the compromised prosecution of Hunter Biden as an after-the-fact
justification for its cover-up. It is simply remarkable that the Biden
administration is invoking privileges – that are usually used to protect
national security information – to hide details of the FBI’s clean-up
operation about Hunter’s mishandling of his gun.
In February 2023, from a separate lawsuit, we released
records from the United States Secret Service that implicate the
FBI in the unusual action of helping Hunter Biden.
In response to a February 24, 2021, email
inquiry from Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger regarding the Secret
Service’s involvement in the investigation of the Hunter Biden gun
incident, the Communications Department asked for “more information or
documentation.” Schreckinger responded: “Sure thing. Agents visited
StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply and asked to take possession of the
paperwork Hunter had filled out to purchase a gun there. The FBI also had
some involvement in the investigation.”
In October 2020, The Blaze reported
that in October 2018 Hunter Biden’s handgun was taken by Hallie Biden,
the widow of then-presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Beau. In 2021,
Politico reported:
Hallie took Hunter’s gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery
store, only to return later to find it gone.
Delaware police began investigating,
concerned that the trash can was across from a high school and that the
missing gun could be used in a crime, according to law enforcement
officials and a copy of the police report obtained by POLITICO.
But a curious thing happened at the time:
Secret Service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter bought
the gun and asked to take the paperwork involving the sale, according to
two people, one of whom has firsthand knowledge of the episode and the
other was briefed by a Secret Service agent after the fact.
(The court hearing this morning led to an agreement that Judicial Watch
would consult with the DOJ/FBI over the next few weeks to try to come some
agreement in which Judicial Watch could get key records about the FBI’s
response to the “gun dumping” incident.).
Biden DHS Fails to Deport 99.7% of the 2.1 Million Illegal Immigrants it
Freed Inside U.S.
Border security, as the terror attack in Israel shows, is essential to the
freedom and safety of Americans. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has
the latest chilling
evidence that there is zero border security as the result of the
Biden invasion:
Besides shattering records for allowing enormous amounts of illegal
immigrants into the U.S. through the Mexican border, the Biden
administration has also failed to deport millions of migrants released by
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inside the country pending
removal proceedings. Between January 20, 2021, and March 31, 2023, the
agency created after 9/11 to safeguard the nation freed at least 2,148,738
illegal aliens into the United States, government figures obtained by
members of Congress reveal. Only 5,993 were actually deported, according to
a distressing report
released this week by the House Judiciary Committee.
Titled “The Biden Border Crisis: New Data
and Testimony Show How the Biden Administration Opened the Southwest Border
and Abandoned Interior Immigration Enforcement” the lengthy document
includes new data obtained by federal lawmakers from DHS that expose the
alarming state of immigration enforcement. Besides failing to remove
millions of illegal immigrants released inside the country, the records
show that a mere 6% of migrants were screened for fear of persecution when
seeking asylum. “The Biden Administration has removed from the United
States only 5,993 illegal aliens who were encountered at the southwest
border and who were placed in removal proceedings before an immigration
judge during that time,” the report states. “In other words, of the at
least 2.1 million aliens released into the United States since January 20,
2021, the Biden Administration has failed to remove, through immigration
court removal proceedings, roughly 99.7 percent of those illegal
aliens.”
The U.S. Border Patrol recorded a ghastly 5
million illegal immigrant encounters during the period examined by federal
lawmakers and an eye-popping 6.2 million since Biden took office. “More
than two and a half years into President Biden’s term, his
Administration’s border crisis continues unabated,” the report states.
“Publicly available information shows that encounters of illegal aliens
on the southwest border surpassed 100,000 for the 31st straight month and
total southwest border illegal alien encounters exceeded 2.2 million in the
first 11 months of fiscal year 2023.” The bad news continues.
“In August 2023, encounters of illegal
aliens at the southwest border skyrocketed to 232,972 and the unreleased
encounter numbers for September 2023 will reportedly shatter previous
records, exceeding 260,000 encounters in a single month,” the
congressional report says. As if those figures were not bad enough, more
than 1.7 million known “gotaways” have evaded Border Patrol and escaped
into the U.S. since January 2021, the stats show, with “untold numbers of
unknown gotaways avoiding detection during that period.”
As the illegal alien numbers keep rising and
records get crushed, the Biden administration insists the border is under
control with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas laughably proclaiming his
agency has made it very clear the border is not open, that crossing
irregularly is against the law and those who are not eligible for relief
will be quickly returned. That clearly has not materialized, figures
provided in the House Judiciary Committee report show. In fiscal year 2021,
the Biden administration released 310,379 illegal aliens at the southwest
border. The number more than doubled during the administration’s first
full fiscal year (2022) to 777,283. In the first 10 months of fiscal year
2023, Biden’s DHS released 929,496 illegal aliens encountered at the
Mexican border. It is important to note that as outrageous as the figures
are, they do not even include Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), which
immediately get transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS). The report reveals that between fiscal year 2021
through the end of July 2023 at least 341,802 UAC were transferred to HHS
shelters where American taxpayers spend a fortune to house, medically
treat, educate, counsel and entertain them.
Until next week,
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