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Biden Censorship Lawsuit
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Judicial Watch Sues for Audio/Visual Recordings
Related to Obama Chef’s Death
We’re still not being provided complete information about the death of
the Obamas’ personal chef Tafari Campbell in July 2023 in the Edgartown
Great Pond next to Obama’s sea-side estate.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA suit) against the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) for video recordings relating to the death (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(No. 1:23-cv-03194)). We recently uncovered the existence of a Secret
Service video tied to the incident in response to a separate public
records request.
On August 9, 2023, we submitted a FOIA request to the Secret Service, a
component of DHS, seeking copies of:
All audio/visual recordings (including dispatch calls, fixed camera
footage, internal USSS communications, and communications with other law
enforcement and EMS personnel), USSS emails, incident reports, witness
statements, investigative reports, and all other records related to the
death of Tafari Campbell on July 23-24, 2023, in the Edgartown Great
Pond.
Earlier this month, we received 40
pages of records from the Massachusetts State Police that
include a July 24, 2023, homicide/death
report written by Mass. State Trooper Dustin Shaw, listing the
details of the investigation into Campbell’s death. In the narrative
portion Shaw writes:
The following is a summary of my observations of the video footage provided
to me from this specific vantage point and is not intended to be an exact
depiction of the overall entirety of the surveillance footage from
[redacted] On Sunday, July 23, 2023, at approximately:
- 6:54
PM; two (2) individuals identified as CAMPBELL and [redacted] are observed
walking on the boardwalk from the area of the residence, toward the
shoreline of Edgartown Great Pond. Both CAMPBELL’S and [redacted]
appearance and clothing are consistent with prior descriptions. Once near
the shoreline, it appears that CAMPBELL and [redacted] obtain paddleboards
and paddles from a small alcove near the shoreline, and subsequently enter
the water.
- 7:40 PM; Secret Service Agent
[redacted] (Rescue Swimmer) is observed running from his assigned post
towards the shoreline of Edgartown Great Pond, utilizing his handheld
radio.
- 7:42 PM; Agent [redacted] observed
running from the shoreline of Edgartown Great Pond, towards the area of the
Command Post
- 7:43 PM; Agent [redacted] observed
running back to shoreline of Edgartown Great
Pond.
- 7:50 PM; USSS boat
launches.
- 7:57 PM; USSS vehicle/first responder
vehicle arrives to the area of the shoreline of Edgartown Great
Pond.
- 7:58 PM; First Edgartown Police
vehicle arrives to the area of the
shoreline.
- 7:59 PM; Second Edgartown Police
vehicle arrives to the area of the shoreline.
A request has been made to obtain a copy of the above-described video and
is pending its release as of the time of this report.
The records also indicate the presence of Barack Obama for a witness
interview in the death investigation. The records, which are heavily
redacted, indicate Barack Obama arrived at the emergency response scene via
motorcade. A short time later, a cold, wet woman, who was a witness,
arrived. The next morning, the eyewitness was interviewed in the Obama
residence, seemingly with Barack Obama again present. The State Police
records show authorities concluded “no foul play” in Campbell’s
“accidental” death.
(On October 24, 2023, the Daily
Mail obtained the initial 911 call as well as a follow-up
call made by Barack Obama's Secret Service agents after chef Tafari
Campbell fell off a paddle board into the Edgartown Great Pond on Martha's
Vineyard.)
In August 2023, we released records
from the Edgarton, Mass., Police Department that showed the Secret Service
reported Obama’s Personal Chef Tafari Campbell missing and that the body
was found using sonar. The records also detail that clothing was found
separate from the body and that he was not wearing a life vest.
But is the Secret Service hiding the video that can provide the public more
information about the death of Barack Obama’s personal chef? The Secret
Service’s involvement in this death investigation had been treated like a
state secret until we uncovered it. Strange.
Judicial Watch Sues for Records of FBI Payments Referenced in ‘Twitter
Files’
The First Amendment is in “first place” in the amendments to the U.S.
Constitution because of the importance of free speech for the functioning
of our republic. So, the Biden administration’s many efforts to control
what Americans say and think are blatantly unconstitutional and
wide-ranging – and expensive!
We just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the
Department of Justice for records of any payments made by the FBI to
Twitter (now known as X) (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:23-cv-03004)). The payments were disclosed in internal Twitter documents
(the “Twitter Files”) made available by Elon Musk to journalists.
In a December 19, 2022, report
on “Twitter Files,” independent journalist Michael Shellenberger
revealed an email which states the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million of
U.S. taxpayer money as “reimbursement for the time spent processing
requests from the FBI” from October 2019 to February 2021.
We sued after the FBI failed to respond adequately to a December 24, 2022,
FOIA request for:
All records documenting any payments made to Twitter, Inc. and/or any
employee thereof by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This request
includes, but is not limited to, all related purchase orders, expense
requests and approvals, and similar records.
All contracts or similar records documenting
the purpose or basis of any payment described in part one of this
request.
In a January 30, 2023, letter, the FBI claimed that it could “neither
confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request
pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(7)(E),” which refers to investigation
techniques.
In his December 19, 2022, report,
Shellenberger revealed an email dated February 10, 2021, in which an
unidentified Twitter employee tells then-Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim
Baker and then-General Counsel Sean
Edgett that “we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”
The email explains that Twitter’s Safety, Content & Law Enforcement
(SCALE) division instituted a “reimbursement program” in exchange for
devoting staff hours to “processing requests from the FBI.”
Baker and Edgett were
fired after Elon Musk bought the social media platform in October 2022.
(Prior to joining Twitter, Baker had been the FBI’s top lawyer under
James Comey.)
The notorious relationship between the FBI and Twitter includes millions in
taxpayer cash. The Justice Department’s and FBI’s cover-up of this
collusion shows they have something to hide.
We have just produced a four-part documentary, “Censored
and Controlled,” that details the coordinated effort by the
FBI and other government agencies and Big Tech to censor and suppress
information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19, and
election debates.
And we have been in the forefront of uncovering government efforts to
censor free speech and suppress opposition to its unconstitutional actions,
including the U.S. Government’s dissemination of its own disinformation.
For a deeper dive into the issue, here are some of the key lawsuits and
disclosures about the dire threat to free speech in America:
Recently, we sued
the U.S.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for
records concerning censorship of social media users.
In April 2023, we filed
two lawsuits against the Department of Justice and other federal agencies
for communications between the agencies and Facebook and Twitter regarding
the government’s involvement in content moderation and censorship on the
social media platforms.
In June 2023, we sued
DHS for all records of communications tied to the Election Integrity
Partnership. Based on representations from the EIP (see here
and here),
the federal government, social media companies, the EIP, the Center
for Internet Security (a non-profit organization funded
partly by DHS and the Defense Department) and numerous other
leftist groups communicated privately via the Jira
software platform developed by Atlassian.
In February 2023, we sued
the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation
between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social
media platforms to censor and suppress free speech.
In January 2023 we sued
the DOJ for records of communications between the FBI and social media
sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden
laptop story.
In September 2022, we sued
the Secretary of State of the State of California for having YouTube censor
a Judicial Watch election integrity video.
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 its 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 was 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.
In April 2021, we published
documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media
companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the
2020 election.
Most Biden Border ‘App’ Users Are Released, Including Those from
‘Hostile Nations’
The Biden administration developed a computer “app” to let illegals
into the country indiscriminately. This includes Russians, Chinese,
Yemenis, Afghans, Lebanese, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Iranians and
Uzbeks. Our Corruption Chronicles blog explains:
The situation along the Mexican border is worse than ever with yet
another record-breaking year for illegal immigration that ended fiscal 2023
with an appalling 2.48 million migrants, surpassing what was previously a
historical high of 2.38 million in 2022. In September, the last month of
the fiscal year, federal agents encountered a whopping 269,735 illegal
aliens constituting an all-time high for a single month and a substantial
increase over August when Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered
232,963 migrants. In an apparent effort to bury the magnitude of the border
crisis, the Biden administration released the year-end
statistics during the weekend and the ghastly figures have predictably
received anemic media coverage. So has a troublesome congressional report,
issued two days later, outlining how the Biden administration frees the
overwhelming majority of illegal aliens who use its CBP One App inside the
country, including those from “hostile
nations.”
The new year-end CBP data shows that the
Tucson sector in Arizona saw an unprecedented 109% spike in illegal
immigrants during the last month of the fiscal year compared to August and
a total 48% increase for 2023, from 251,984 last year to 373,625. The El
Paso crossing in Texas had a 39% boost in illegal immigration compared to
last year with 427,471 crossings compared to 307,844 in 2022. Texas sectors
located south of El Paso also experienced large numbers of illegal
immigrants, with Del Rio recording 393,226 and Rio Grande Valley 338,337.
California got bombarded as well with a 31% hike in illegal aliens in San
Diego and a 30% rise in El Centro. In what may seem like a bad joke, CBP,
the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 60,000-employee “unified
border entity,” writes this in the announcement accompanying the 2023
figures: “DHS continues to enforce United States immigration laws while
strengthening the consequences for those who cross our border
unlawfully.”
The 2023 stats include a section on the CBP
One mobile application that is also laughable because it describes it as a
key component of DHS’s efforts to incentivize lawful, safe and orderly
pathways into the U.S. since it was introduced by the Biden administration
in January. The app lets over 1,400 foreigners make appointments daily to
access ports of entry where federal agents determine admissibility. Through
the end of September nearly 278,000 individuals have successfully scheduled
appointments to present at a U.S. port of entry, according to the newly
released records. “CBP is continually monitoring and evaluating the
application to ensure its functionality and guard against bad actors,”
the agency writes in the document accompanying the fresh batch of
stats.
The reality is that DHS’s expanded use of
the CBP One app has led to the release of hundreds of thousands of
otherwise inadmissible illegal immigrants into the United States, records
obtained by a congressional panel show. Of the inadmissible aliens who
scheduled appointments through the controversial app 95.8% (278,431) were
issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) and released into the country on parole,
according to the information made public this week by the House Committee
on Homeland Security. This includes individuals from “countries of
concern” that made appointments through the app and were overwhelmingly
released into the U.S. Among them are Russians, Chinese, Yemenis, Afghans,
Lebanese, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Iranians and Uzbeks. Nearly all
the Russian, Afghan, Chinese and Iranian nationals who made CBP One
appointments were released in the U.S., according to the records. Most of
the Latin Americans were also freed into the country, including illegal
immigrants from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Venezuela that used the
app. “At a time when global tensions are rising, and our enemies are
growing bolder, releasing tens of thousands of these people into our
communities—especially when they have not received adequate, if any,
vetting—is irresponsible,” said House Committee on Homeland Security
Chairman Mark Green, an emergency room physician from
Tennessee.
‘Asking for Trouble:’ State Gives Illegal Immigrants Driver’s
License that Looks Exactly like Legal Residents’
Our border crisis is made worse by left-wing state and local governments
that reward and protect illegal aliens. Our Corruption Chronicles
blog has the latest.
This month Minnesota became the latest state to allow illegal immigrants
to get a driver’s license as part of a burgeoning national trend to
reward undocumented residents with government benefits. In all, 19 states
and the District of Columbia have passed bills that permit foreigners
living in the U.S. illegally to obtain driver’s licenses. Earlier this
year laws went into effect in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and a few
weeks ago Minnesota’s measure, known as Driver’s
Licenses for All, went into effect. Officials estimate that about 80,000
illegal immigrants
who were previously disqualified from obtaining the cards in the North
Star state will now be allowed to get them.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,
Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington are the other states that
let illegal aliens get driver’s licenses. Typically, candidates need only
to present a foreign passport or birth certificate or a consular card along
with evidence that they live in the state. Open border groups and their
leftist allies in local governments across the nation assert that granting
illegal aliens driver’s licenses benefits everyone because it makes roads
safer, therefore improving public safety. In New York City, officials cite
unspecified “data” that shows expanding driver’s license eligibility
to illegal immigrants improves road safety and lowers insurance premiums
for all. Besides “making our roads safer,” Illinois’ governor says
giving illegal aliens licenses decreases stigma and creates a more
equitable system for all.
Minnesota officials used similar narratives
to push through their legislation. The governor, Tim Walz, said ensuring
that drivers are licensed and carry insurance makes the roads more secure
for all Minnesotans. “As a longtime supporter of this bill, I am proud to
finally sign it into law, making our roads safer and moving us toward our
goal of making Minnesota the best state to raise a family for everyone,”
the Democrat lawmaker said in a statement when
he proudly signed the measure earlier this year. The state’s lieutenant
governor explained that the new law makes sure children and families “can
come out of the shadows” and that all residents have opportunities to
thrive, succeed, grow, and live their fullest lives. “From picking a
child up from school to driving to a doctor’s appointment, driver’s
licenses help us safely access essential services and navigate our
lives,” the lieutenant governor, Penny Flanagan, said.
Under the new law Minnesota’s Department
of Vehicle Services (DVS) is prohibited from asking driver’s license
applicants about immigration status or from placing any special identifier
on the card indicating immigration status. The state agency is also banned
from providing information to federal authorities for the purpose of civil
immigration enforcement. Additionally, Minnesota is taking extra steps to
assist illegal aliens obtain a license. Applicants can take the test in
nine different languages and the actual exam can be given orally by a translator in the person’s native language to assist those who have
difficulty comprehending the written test or who may be illiterate. Driving
manuals are also available in multiple languages as well as interpreters to
guide foreigners through the road skills test. It is not clear how much the
extra services will cost taxpayers.
It is important to note that earlier this
year Minnesota enacted a law that provides automatic voter registration for
those who apply for a driver’s license, even though the law requires U.S.
citizenship to vote. Granting illegal immigrants driver’s licenses
inevitably creates the risk that they may vote in an election since the
state will not distinguish between the cards issued to legal residents,
American citizens or illegal aliens. At least one state lawmaker finds this
concerning and points out that “allowing an undocumented immigrant to acquire a
driver’s license that looks exactly like a license used by a legal
Minnesota resident is asking for trouble.” Republican
House Member John Petersburg says there are no safeguards in the new law,
which means the potential is high for voting and state program
abuse.
Until next week,
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