More Censorship Docs Uncovered!
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Records Detail Federal-State Censorship
Coordination in 2020 Election
We received
110
pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that
show state election officials in the days before and after the 2020
election flagging online content deemed “misinformation.”
They sent these online posts to the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a
DHS-funded nonprofit, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
(CISA), the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), and others.
The records provide more disturbing evidence of a conspiracy by federal,
state, and “private” actors to censor Americans on social media during
a presidential campaign
Judicial Watch obtained the records in response to our lawsuit
for records of communications between the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA), a division of DHS, and the Election Integrity
Partnership (EIP), which was created to suppress online election content
(Judicial
Watch Inc. vs. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No.
1:22-cv-03560 )). We filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District
of Columbia after DHS failed to respond to an October 2022 FOIA request.
The newly obtained records include a November 4, 2020,
email
report from CIS “Misinformation Reports” to Brian Scully, head of the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Mis-, Dis-,
Malinformation (MDM) branch, a division of DHS. The report originated in
the Washington State secretary of state’s office and states:
I wanted to flag the following tweet: [handle redacted]. There is no
evidence for the claim being made of a widespread mail-in fraud operation
to benefit Democrats in swing states.
The flagged tweet reads:
A note to ALL CONSERVATIVE media people projecting Trump victories in
swing states:
Yes, Republican turn out may be
strong!
Yes, that’s good news.
From a mail in state veteran: The Democrats
will wait to know how many votes they have to “find”, then, they will
magically appear.
On November 12, 2020, Scully sends an
email
with subject line “Hammer and Scorecard Tweets” to individuals whose
names are redacted and have a @gmail email address a @stanford.edu email
address respectively. Scully introduces the “program manager for the
EIP” at Stanford University and who is “a friend of Director Krebs”
(former CISA Director
Chris
Krebs).
The
Election
Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was initially
called the Election Misinformation Partnership, was created in the days
leading up to the November 3, 2020, election. It tasked staffers with
monitoring online election content 24 hours a day with a priority being
“disinfo that is going viral.”
On January 19, 2021, Scully receives
an
email with subject line “Draft: COVID-19 What to Expect and
60-Day Plan” from an individual with a @stanford.edu email address (whose
name is redacted):
[Redacted] and I wanted to pass along SIO’s [Stanford
Internet Observatory] vaccine misinfo what-to-expect and 60-day
plan draft whitepaper for your feedback, find it attached. Please feel free
to tear it apart -- it is mainly based on our experience with EIP and the
vaccine misinfo we've seen so far.
Two days later, a redacted sender from Stanford asks Scully to give
feedback on an attached document, “Virality Project Jan 19 Vaccine Weekly
Briefing,” which is not included with the responsive records provided to
Judicial Watch.
On November 2, 2020, a person at Facebook’s U.S. Politics and Government
Outreach whose name is redacted
replies
to “Misinformation Reports” at CIS, and CCs Scully, someone at CISA
Central, someone at CFITF (CISA’s Counter Foreign Influence Task Force)
and “[email protected]” with the subject “Facebook
post alleging submitting multiple ballots fraudulently.” The Facebook
official states: “On it now. Thanks!” regarding review of a social
media post reported by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. The Facebook
post is redacted.
A November 4, 2020,
email
from Facebook is sent to “Misinformation Reports” at CIS, Scully, CISA
Central, CFITF and “[email protected].” It states:
“Received and looking into this,” regarding review of a social media
post reported by a government official in Kentucky. The Facebook post is
redacted.
In a separate November 4, 2020,
email
regarding a social media post reported by a Kentucky government official, a
Facebook official writes: “Confirming that this has been closed out and
the SoS has been notified. Thanks!” The Facebook post is redacted.
Your Judicial Watch will continue to expose the government’s involvement
in what is an ongoing and unprecedented attack on Americans’ First
Amendment rights.
Judicial Watch Asks Court to Order the Release of the Audio of President
Biden’s Interview with Special Counsel Hur
The Biden administration wants to destroy the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) to protect Joe Biden.
Judicial Watch just
asked
a federal court to reject the Biden Justice Department’s request to
rewrite FOIA and that it ordered the release of the audio recordings of
President Biden’s interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur within 14
days.
This lawsuit has already forced the Biden administration to
confess
that the transcripts of the audio recordings have been altered and are not
accurate.
Judicial Watch filed the first FOIA
lawsuit
and is the lead plaintiff asking for the Biden audio recordings of his
interviews in Special Counsel Hur’s criminal investigation of Biden’s
theft and disclosure of classified records (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:24-cv-00700)). The lawsuit helped force the release of a redacted
transcript of the Biden interview.
The Biden Justice Department,
in
seeking to keep the audio recordings secret, asked the court to
ignore precedent and rewrite FOIA law. The Biden agency demands that a law
enforcement/executive privilege exemption be rewritten to help Joe Biden;
wants to change FOIA law to protect (after 50 years of being a politician)
President Joe Biden’s privacy in his voice; and seeks to potentially end
FOIA with a new argument that the possible “AI” alteration of the Hur
recordings is reason to keep the keep the recordings and any government
record a secret from the public.
We argue that the recordings should be released “because an open question
remains about whether Special Counsel Hur’s conclusion that President
Biden should not be prosecuted for his mishandling of classified records
[and] is supported by the evidence.”
Further, the audio would educate the public about “whether Special
Counsel Hur appropriately pursued justice by recommending to the attorney
general that criminal charges should not be brought against President Biden
concerning his mishandling of classified materials.” This question
“is of even more import these days because another special counsel (with
approval by Attorney General Garland) is currently prosecuting President
Trump for allegedly engaging in similar actions. In addition to
President Trump being both President Biden’s former political opponent
and the current Republican nominee in the upcoming Presidential election,
President Trump is the only former president or vice president to be
prosecuted for such actions.”
We also criticize the Biden Justice Department’s reliance on a case that
allowed the withholding of the audio of the dying cries of the Challenger
astronauts as simply “repugnant.”
On February 5, 2024, Special Counsel Robert Hur
issued
the “Report of the Special Counsel on the Investigation Into Unauthorized
Removal, Retention, and Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered at
Locations Including the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware Private
Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.”
In the report, Hur called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor
memory” and declined to charge Biden with a “serious felony:”
We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present
himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic,
well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct
interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many
jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to
convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president
well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of
willfulness.
Prior to the finalization of the report, the White House issued
a
letter to the Special Counsel’s office attacking the
report’s “treatment of President Biden’s memory,” and added
“there is ample evidence from your interview that the President did well
in answering your questions …”
The White House
admitted
to the court that the transcript of President Joe Biden’s testimony to
Special Counsel Robert Hur is not accurate and is missing “filler words
(such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’)” and words that “may have been repeated
when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and’)” which were sometimes
“only listed a single time in the transcripts.”
The Heritage Foundation and a CNN-led media coalition have recently been
joined with our lawsuit.
Judicial Watch Sues for ATF Records on Arkansas Raid that Led to
Shooting Death of Clinton National Airport Official
There was a concerning Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
(ATF) raid that led to death of an American citizen back in March, and
Judicial Watch immediately began investigating.
It led to our filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
against the ATF for records regarding the fatal shooting of Little Rock,
AR, resident and Executive Director of the Clinton National Airport Bryan
Malinowski (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:24-cv-01679)).
We sued on June 10, 2024, after the ATF failed to respond adequately to an
April 16 FOIA request for:
- All emails and text messages sent to and from ATF officials
regarding Little Rock resident Bryan Malinowski who died in an ATF raid on
March 19, 2024.
- All records related to the raid on the
home of Bryan Malinowski, including but not limited to, re-operational
briefing documents, raid plans, investigative reports, memoranda, warrants
and audio and video recordings.
Malinowski
died
following an ATF raid in March 2024. The ATF
only
produced heavily redacted search warrant court filings.
On April 22, 2024, Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,
wrote
a
letter to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, asking for details
about “the deadly pre-dawn raid conducted by ATF in Little Rock,
Arkansas, while executing a search warrant on the home of Bryan Malinowski,
a local airport executive.”
An
affidavit,
which was unsealed after Malinowski’s death and
produced
to us, alleged he unlawfully sold guns without a license. Malinowski’s
family lawyer and former federal prosecutor, Bud Cummins,
reportedly
described Malinowski’s gun sales as “a hobby and protected by the
Second Amendment.” In testimony before a subcommittee of the U.S. House
of Representatives, Cummins
testified,
“Malinowski never broke any laws selling the way he did, even when a
handful of weapons turned up at crime scenes later.”
Video footage of the raid recently released
by
X and the
Arkansas
Times, shows that Malinowski’s wife thought that the law
enforcement officers raiding their home were intruders.
The Biden ATF’s deadly raid on Bryan Malinowski’s home, in what was
essentially a licensing dispute, screams out for a thorough examination.
Slow walking the release of basic information about this raid suggests that
the ATF has something to hide.
Judicial Watch Sues over Deletion of ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ from
West Point Mission Statement
Judicial Watch just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Defense for records regarding the deletion
of the words “Duty, Honor, Country” from the United States Military
Academy at West Point’s mission statement (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No.
1:24-cv-01757)). “Duty, Honor, Country” is West Point’s motto.
We sued after the Military Academy failed to respond to a March 2024 FOIA
request for:
- All documents which form the basis upon which the decision was
made to remove the phrase “Duty, Honor, Country” from the United States
Military Academy Mission Statement, according to various reports (such
as
https://armedforces.press/report-west-point-to-remove-duty-honor-country-from-official-mission-statement/).
- All emails between the following USMA
officials and other email accounts ending in .mil or .gov regarding the
removal of “Duty, Honor, Country” from the USMA Mission Statement:
Superintendent LTG Steve Gilland, MG Lori Robinson, and BG Shane
Reeves.
In a March 12, 2024, “Message
from the 61st Superintendent,” Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven
Gilland announced the change, referencing the Army’s continued commitment
to “Duty, Honor and Country” and then announces the new mission
statement without explaining why the words themselves were deleted:
Duty, Honor, Country is foundational to the United States Military
Academy's culture and will always remain our motto. It defines who we are
as an institution and as graduates of West Point. These three hallowed
words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line
together across our great history.
Our responsibility to produce leaders to
fight and win our nation’s wars requires us to assess ourselves
regularly. Thus, over the past year and a half, working with leaders from
across West Point and external stakeholders, we reviewed our vision,
mission, and strategy to serve this purpose. We believe our mission binds
the Academy to the Army -- the Army in which our cadets will serve. As a
result of this assessment, we recommended the following mission statement
to our senior Army leadership:
To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps
of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army
Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation. [Emphasis in original]
Both the Secretary of the Army and Army
Chief of Staff approved this recommendation….
Given the woke virus infecting West Point, deleting the words “Duty,
Honor, Country” from its mission statement has sparked justified concern
about what the Army’s rising leadership is being taught at the United
States Military Academy. And the unlawful stonewalling of the release of
records about the issue makes matters worse.
Our lawsuits and FOIA requests on Critical Race Theory and other leftist
extremism are extensive.
In July 2023, we
exposed
records from the United States Air Force Academy, a component of the United
States Department of Defense, which included instructional materials and
emails that address topics such as Critical Race Theory, “white
privilege,” and Black Lives Matter.
In March 2023,
records
from the U.S. Department of Defense showed the U.S. Air Force Academy has
made race and gender instruction a top priority in the training of
cadets.
In June 2022, we
exposed
Critical Race Theory (CRT) instruction at the U.S. Military Academy, West
Point. One training slide contained a graphic titled “MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
IN THE USA.” [Emphasis in original]
Until next week,
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