Judicial Watch Sues in Federal Court to Clean Up Pennsylvania Voter
Rolls

[WEEKLY UPDATE]

Judicial Watch Exposes Deep State Leaks to Washington Post

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Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a distinguished public servant, was briefly
national security advisor to President Trump until allegations
surfaced in the _Washington Post_ that he had been in communication
with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

Flynn’s lawyers alleged
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in
a November 1, 2019, court filing
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that
James Baker, the Pentagon’s Director of the Office of Net
Assessment, “is believed to be the person who illegally leaked”
the transcript of Flynn’s December 29, 2016, telephone calls with
the ambassador to David Ignatius, a _Washington Post_ reporter.

We went to court to uncover the details, and we now have received 143
pages
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of records from the Department of Defense that reveal extensive
communications between Baker and Ignatius.

The _Washington Post_ published
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Ignatius’ account of the calls on January 12, 2017, setting in
motion a chain of events that led to Flynn’s February 13, 2017,
firing as national security advisor, and subsequent prosecution for
making false statements to the FBI about the calls. U.S. Attorney John
Durham is reportedly
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investigating the leak of information targeting Flynn.

Citing “the government’s bad faith, vindictiveness and breach of
the plea agreement,” Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, moved in
January 2020 to withdraw
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Flynn’s
2017 guilty plea during the Mueller investigation. Flynn claims
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he
felt forced to plead guilty “when his son was threatened with
prosecution and he exhausted his financial resources.” Last week,
prosecutors provided Flynn’s defense team with documentation
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of
this threat, according to additional papers Flynn’s lawyers filed on
April 24, 2020, in support of the motion to withdraw.

We obtained the records in our November 2019 Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOD failed to respond to a
September 2019 request (_Judicial Watch v. Department of Defense_
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(No.
1:19-cv-03564)). We were seeking:

* All calendar entries of Director James Baker of the Office of Net
Assessment.
* All records of communications between ONA Director James Baker and
reporter David Ignatius.

The communications we requested occurred May 2015 through September
25, 2019.

The records we have received include an exchange
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on
February 16, 2016, with the subject line “Ignatius,” in which
Baker tells Pentagon colleague Zachary Mears, then-deputy chief of
staff to Obama Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, that he has “a
long history with David” and talks with him regularly.

In an email exchange on October 1, 2018, in a discussion
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about
artificial intelligence, Baker tells Ignatius: “David, please, as
always, our discussions are completely off the record. If any of my
observations strike you as worthy of mixing or folding into your own
thinking, that is as usual fine.” Ignatius replies, “Understood.
Thanks for talking with me.”

Here are Ignatius and Baker’s email exchanges by year:

* In 2015, Ignatius and Baker had a total of seven email
conversations to set up meetings or calls, two simply to compliment
one another and one exchange where Ignatius invited Baker to speak at
the Aspen Strategy Group conference.
* In 2016, Ignatius and Baker had a total of 10 email exchanges to
set up meetings or calls and two to compliment each other.
* In 2017, Ignatius and Baker had a total of 10 email exchanges to
set up meetings, one exchange where Ignatius forwarded one of his
articles, and one exchange where Ignatius asks Baker for his thoughts
on the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal), because Baker wasn’t available
on the phone.
* In 2018, Ignatius and Baker had a total of nine email exchanges to
set up meetings, four where Ignatius forwarded articles and one where
Ignatius asks Baker for tips on what to say at a quantum computing
conference where he was speaking.

These records confirm that Mr. Baker was an anonymous source for Mr.
Ignatius. Mr. Baker should be directly questioned about any and all
leaks to his friend at the _Washington Post_.

In a related case
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in October 2018 we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of
Defense seeking information about the September 2016 contract between
the DOD and Stefan Halper, the Cambridge University
professor identified
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as
a secret FBI informant used by the Obama administration to spy on
Trump’s presidential campaign. Halper also reportedly
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had
high-level ties to both U.S. and British intelligence.

Government records show that the DOD’s Office of Net Assessment
(ONA) paid Halper a total of $1,058,161 for four contracts that lasted
from May 30, 2012, to March 29, 2018. More than $400,000
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of
the payments came between July 2016 and September 2017, after Halper
reportedly offered Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos work
and a trip to London
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to
entice him into disclosing information about alleged collusion between
the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

Flynn’s attorney told the court
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that
Baker was Halper’s “handler” in the Office of Net Assessment in
the Pentagon.

In an interview
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with Lou Dobbs, I
discussed the possibility that Judge Emmet Sullivan would look at all
of this and throw the Flynn case out or that Attorney General William
Barr would cancel the prosecution. “Flynn was ambushed,” I say in
the interview. “He is the victim of a coordinated leak campaign.”

I know that President Trump is taking a good hard look
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at this. While the FBI is under renewed scrutiny
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over its disgraceful handling of the Flynn matter, it’s clear we
need to look closely at the Defense Department as well.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES CALIFORNIA TO STOP GOVERNOR NEWSOM’S INITIATIVE
TO PROVIDE $75 MILLION IN CASH BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS

Leftists at the federal and state levels aren’t letting this health
crisis go to waste, using it as a cover to enact their radical agenda.
As usual, California is taking the lead.

We just filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California, County of
Los Angeles, on behalf of two California taxpayers, Robin Crest and
Howard Myers, asking the court to stop the state from expending $75
million of taxpayer funds to provide direct cash assistance to
unlawfully present aliens (_Crest et al. v. Newsom et al._
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(No. 20STCV16321)).

Our suit alleges that California Governor Gavin Newsom overstepped his
authority and violated federal law when, without affirmative state
legislative approval, he took executive action to create the
“Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants Project” and provide
cash benefits to illegal aliens who otherwise are ineligible for state
or federal insurance or other benefits due to their unlawful presence
in the United States.

On April 15, 2020, Governor Newsom announced his new executive
initiative to provide direct assistance in the form of cash benefits
to illegal aliens. The initiative, known as the “Disaster Relief
Fund” or the “Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants
Project,” would spend $75 million to provide direct cash payments to
illegal aliens and cost an estimated additional $4.8 million to
administer. Governor Newsom’s executive initiative would provide
one-time cash benefits of $500 per adult / $1,000 per household to
150,000 unlawfully present aliens in California. These benefits are
not provided to U.S. citizens residing in the state.

Under federal immigration law, 8 U.S.C. § 1621(a), unlawfully present
aliens generally are ineligible for State or local public benefits.
Section 1621(d) requires a state legislature to enact a state law that
affirmatively provides for such benefits for illegal aliens:

> A State may provide that an alien who is not lawfully present in the
> United States is eligible for any State or local public benefit …
> only through the enactment of a State law … which affirmatively
> provides for such eligibility.

Our suit alleges that the California State Legislature has not enacted
any law that affirmatively provides that unlawfully present aliens are
eligible for the $75 million of cash public benefits announced by
Newsom.

The lawsuit seeks to enjoin California “from providing $75 million
of taxpayer funds to unlawfully present aliens in violation of federal
law and expending an estimated additional $4.8 million of taxpayer
funds as well as additional taxpayer-financed resources on the
administration of those payments.”

Governor Newsom has no legal authority on his own to spend state
taxpayer money for cash payments to illegal aliens. The coronavirus
challenge doesn’t give politicians a pass to violate the law. If
California politicians want to give cash payments to illegal aliens,
they must be accountable and transparent, and, as federal law
requires, pass a law to do so.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES PENNSYLVANIA TO FORCE VOTER ROLL CLEAN UP

Judicial Watch hasn’t let the coronavirus crisis slow down our
essential legal efforts to protect and promote clean elections. Our
legal team just filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania and three of its
counties for failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible
voters from their rolls as required by the federal National Voter
Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). According to Judicial Watch’s
analysis of voter registration data
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these
counties removed almost no names under NVRA procedures for identifying
and updating the registrations of those who have moved (Judicial Watch
v. Pennsylvania, et al
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(No.
1:02-at-06000)). The lawsuit also points out that the Commonwealth has
over 800,000 “inactive” registrations on its voter rolls. One
Pennsylvania county almost immediately removed 69,000 inactive names
earlier this year in response to a Judicial Watch letter.

In its complaint, Judicial Watch points out that the State’s
abnormally low number of removals under NVRA procedures designed to
identify voters who have changed residence indicates that it is not
removing inactive registrations as the law requires. According to data
the State certified to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), in
the most recent two-year reporting period:

* Bucks County, with about 457,000 registrations, removed a total of
eight names under the relevant NVRA procedures;
* Chester County, with about 357,000 registrations, removed five
names under those procedures; and
* Delaware County, with about 403,000 registrations, removed four
names under those procedures.

Judicial Watch also argues that an abnormally high percentage of
registrations compared to the population over 18 years of age is an
indicator “that the jurisdiction is not taking steps required by law
to cancel the registrations of ineligible registrants.” It alleges
that “[t]he registration rates for Bucks, Chester, and Delaware
Counties are high in comparison to other counties in Pennsylvania, and
high in comparison to other counties throughout the U.S.” As of
April 2020, Pennsylvania’s own data shows it has over 800,000
inactive registrations.

Other Pennsylvania counties have acted to avoid being sued by Judicial
Watch. On January 14, 2020, CBS Pittsburgh reported
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that
because of the threat of a lawsuit from Judicial Watch, Allegheny
County removed 69,000 inactive voters. David Voye, Elections Manager
for the county told CBS, “I would concede that we are behind on
culling our rolls,” and that this had “been put on the
backburner.”

Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections – that’s one reason
why we’re going to court to force Pennsylvania to follow federal law
to clean up its voting rolls. Pennsylvania must take the simple steps
necessary to clean from its rolls the names of voters, which number
over 800,000, who probably have moved away or died.

Judicial Watch is the national leader in enforcing the NVRA.

Recently, a federal court ordered
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the State of Maryland to produce complete voter registration records
for Montgomery County that include the registered voters’ dates of
birth. The judge found that Judicial Watch made “reasonable
justifications for requiring birth date information, including using
birth dates to find duplicate registrations and searching for voters
who remain on the rolls despite ‘improbable’ age.”

Judicial Watch recently filed a lawsuit
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against North Carolina to force the state to clean its voter rolls
that included over one million inactive voters. In December 2019,
Judicial Watch provided notice
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to 19 large counties in five states that it intended to sue unless
they took steps to comply with the NVRA by removing ineligible
registrations from their rolls. In addition to North Carolina and
Pennsylvania
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Judicial Watch sent letters to counties in California
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Virginia
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and Colorado
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In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld
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a voter-roll cleanup program that resulted from a Judicial Watch
settlement of a federal lawsuit with Ohio. California settled
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an NVRA lawsuit with Judicial Watch and last year began the process of
removing up to 1.6 million inactive names from Los Angeles County’s
voter rolls. Kentucky
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also began a cleanup of hundreds of thousands of old registrations
last year after it entered into a consent decree to end another
Judicial Watch lawsuit.

Despite successful litigation by Judicial Watch to bring counties and
states into compliance with the NVRA, voter registration lists across
the country remain significantly out of date. Judicial Watch’s 2019
study found 378 counties nationwide that had more voter registrations
than citizens old enough to vote, i.e., counties where registration
rates exceed 100%. These 378 counties combined had about 2.5 million
registrations over the 100%-registered mark. This is a drop of about
one million from Judicial Watch’s previous analysis
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of voter registration data in 2017.

Two federal lawsuits in one month to clean up nearly 2 million
“inactive” names from voter lists is something that only Judicial
Watch is able and willing to do – thanks to your support!

Until next week …





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