[Header]
[[link removed]]


Election Integrity Court Battle!

New Judicial Watch Book _Rights and Freedoms in Peril_, Goes on Sale
October 15

[[link removed]]

Since the release of my most recent Judicial Watch book, _A Republic
Under Assault_, the Left has taken extraordinary steps to eradicate
American liberty, motivated by a radical ideology whose adherents
occupy the nation’s highest offices.

Now, in RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS IN PERIL: _An Investigative Report on the
Left’s Attack on America_
[[link removed]
_(Threshold Editions; October 15, 2024), I detail a long chain of
abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people
and call readers to battle for the soul and survival of America.

My team and I march you to the front lines, to where the progressive
movement threatens America’s most venerable institutions and
undermines the core principles that make this country a beacon of hope
to the world. The Left has declared war on everything from the rule of
law to a colorblind U.S. Constitution, border security, and government
accountability. Their anti-American agenda must be stopped to save our
country’s future.

In this book, I discuss:

* Planned chaos at the border
* Lawfare targeting Trump
* Diversity scams and party spoils — Kamala Harris and
“equity,” Critical Race Theory, DEI, DEI and the military,
reparations and Judicial Watch’s class action lawsuit
* The Covid coverup
* An election unlike any other
* The big lie about January 6th, and Ashli Babbitt

Politicized indictments, ruined elections, invasions, and compromised
politicians have placed our republican form of government in peril.
There is a way forward, but we must be diligent about understanding
the scope and detail of the peril.

COURT HEARS APPEAL OVER CHALLENGES TO COUNTING OF BALLOTS AFTER
ELECTION DAY

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held a hearing
[[link removed]]
regarding a lower court ruling on Mississippi’s election law that
permits absentee ballots to be received as late as five business days
after Election Day.

The Fifth Circuit heard the case on Tuesday, September 24. Here are
some highlights from the argument from Judicial Watch senior attorney
Russ Nobile and here is a link
[[link removed]]
to listen to a full recording of the argument.

Extending the counting of ballots five days after Election Day
established by Congress runs counter to federal law, invites fraud –
and undermines voter confidence.

Judicial Watch filed the civil rights lawsuit
[[link removed]]
challenging the Mississippi election law on behalf of the Libertarian
Party of Mississippi (_Libertarian Party of Mississippi v Wetzel et
al_
[[link removed]].
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:24-cv-00037)). The court consolidated the case we filed with
one filed by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi
Republican Party, and other complainants.

Our lawsuit argues:

> Under federal law, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
> November of every even-numbered year is election day (“Election
> Day”) for federal elections.
>
> Congress recently reaffirmed a single national Election Day when it
> enacted the Electoral Count Reform Act (“ECRA”).
>
> Under the recent Congressional amendments, no extension of Election
> Day shall be allowed unless there are “_force majeure _events that
> are extraordinary and catastrophic” that justify extension.
>
> Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding
> a single and uniform national Election Day, Mississippi extended
> Election Day by allowing five additional business days after
> Election Day for receipt of absentee ballots.
>
> No “_force majeure_ events that are extraordinary and
> catastrophic” currently exist in Mississippi to justify extending
> the ballot receipt deadline for the November 5, 2024, federal
> election for Presidential and Vice-Presential Electors.
We argued that holding voting open for five days past Election Day
violates the constitutional rights of voters and candidates:

> Counting untimely, illegal, and invalid votes, such as those
> received in violation of federal law, substantially increases the
> pool of total votes cast and dilutes the weight of votes cast by
> Plaintiff’s members and others in support of Plaintiff’s federal
> nominees.
Our complaint points out that, based on the reported numbers
[[link removed]],
as many as 1.7% of votes cast in Mississippi in 2020 were received
after Election Day.

In our appeal filings
[[link removed]],
we explain that the Mississippi law extending Election Day is
obviously at odds with federal law.

We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As
part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting
rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and
cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky,
among other achievements
[[link removed]].

Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads our election
law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting
rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements
in dozens of states.

In a similar lawsuit, in 2022, on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and
two other registered voters, we sued
[[link removed]]
Illinois for allowing vote-by-mail ballots (even those without
postmarks) to be counted if received up to 14 calendar days after
Election Day if the ballots are dated on or before Election Day.

In May 2024, we sued
[[link removed]]
California under the National Voter Registration Act
[[link removed]]
of 1993 (NVRA) to force it to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit,
filed on behalf of Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of
California, asks the court to compel California to make “a
reasonable effort to remove the registrations of ineligible
registrants from the voter rolls” as required by federal law
(_Judicial Watch Inc. and the Libertarian Party of CA v. Shirley Weber
et al__._
[[link removed]]
(No. 2:24-cv-3750)).

In March 2024, we, Breakthrough Ideas, Illinois Family Action, and
Carol J. Davis sued
[[link removed]]
Illinois
officials under the NVRA to force them to clean the State’s voter
rolls. (_Judicial Watch Inc., et al., v. Illinois State Board of
Elections, et al._
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:24-cv-01867).

FEDERAL JUDGE SETS JULY 20, 2026, TRIAL DATE IN ASHLI BABBITT $30
MILLION WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT

Following a hearing on September 20, Judge Ana C. Reyes of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia scheduled a trial date of
July 20, 2026, for the $30 million wrongful death suit filed on behalf
of the estate and the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed
in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by then-Capitol Police Lt.
Michael Byrd.

Discovery in the lawsuit has also commenced as the Court continues to
consider Ashli’s motion to retransfer the lawsuit to California
where it was originally filed earlier this year.

Ashli Babbitt, 35, owned and operated a successful pool business with
her husband Aaron. Ashli traveled alone from San Diego to Washington,
DC, to attend the Women for America First (aka Save America) rally on
January 6, 2021, at the Ellipse.

The wrongful death lawsuit
[[link removed]]
was
filed on January 5, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of California against the U.S. Government on behalf of the
family of Ashli Babbitt (_Estate of Ashli Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt,
et al. v. United States of America_
[[link removed]]
(No. 3:24-cv-00033)).

The lawsuit includes claims against the U.S. Government for wrongful
death, assault and battery, and various negligence issues.

Our complaint recounts:

> The shooting occurred at the east entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby.
> After demonstrators filled the hallway outside the lobby, two
> individuals in the crowded, tightly packed hallway struck and
> dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors and the right door
> sidelight. Lt. Byrd, who is a United States Capitol Police commander
> and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021,
> shot Ashli on sight as she raised herself up into the opening of the
> right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd later confessed that he shot Ashli
> before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even
> identifying her as female. Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in
> the air, empty, and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and other officers in
> the lobby.

***

> The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt.
> Byrd. Multiple witnesses at the scene yelled, “you just murdered
> her.”

> Lt. Byrd was never charged or otherwise punished or disciplined for
> Ashli’s homicide.
The lawsuit also alleges:

> Lt. Byrd, who is a (US Capitol Police) commander and was the
> incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli as
> she raised herself up into the opening of the right door
> sidelight.… Not one member of Congress was in the lobby, which was
> guarded by multiple armed police officers. Additional armed police
> officers were in the hallway outside the lobby and/or on the
> adjoining stairway. Ashli could not have seen Lt. Byrd, who was
> positioned far to Ashli’s left and on the opposite side of the
> doors, near an opening to the Retiring Room, a distance of
> approximately 15 feet and an angle of approximately 160 degrees.
> Sgt. Timothy Lively, one of the armed officers guarding the lobby
> doors from the hallway, later told officials investigating the
> shooting, “I saw him . . . there was no way that woman would’ve
> seen that.” Lt. Byrd, who was not in uniform, did not identify
> himself as a police officer or otherwise make his presence known to
> Ashli. Lt. Byrd did not give Ashli any warnings or commands before
> shooting her dead.
The DC district court also continues to consider Ashli’s motion to
retransfer
[[link removed]]
the
lawsuit to Babbitt’s home of San Diego where it was originally
filed.

Ashli Babbitt’s family is relieved that Ashli’s case is moving
forward to trial on all fronts. They seek justice and accountability
for Ashli’s violent and lawless death at the hands of U.S. Capitol
Police Lt. Byrd.

In April 2024, records
[[link removed]]
from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in a separate Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit showed that the FBI opened a criminal
investigation of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt after her killing and
listed four “potential violations of federal law,” including
felony rioting and civil disorder.

In September 2023, we received records
[[link removed]]
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
[[link removed]]
from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution declination memorandum
[[link removed]]
justifying the decision not to prosecute U.S. Capitol Police Lt.
Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt.

In January 2023, documents
[[link removed]]
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
[[link removed]]
multiple audio
[[link removed]],
visual
[[link removed]]
and photo records
[[link removed]]
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
[[link removed]]
of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the
shooter, Michael Byrd.

_ _
JUDICIAL WATCH PETITIONS SUPREME COURT ON BEHALF OF TEACHER FIRED FOR
CONSERVATIVE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Judicial Watch filed a petition for a _writ of certiorari_
[[link removed]]
to the United States Supreme Court challenging the decision by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the case filed on
behalf of Kari MacRae, a Massachusetts high school teacher who was
fired in retaliation for social media posts which decried woke values
such as critical race theory being taught in schools. The posts
predated her employment at Hanover High School. Judicial Watch argues
the Supreme Court should take up the case as the lower courts
misapplied the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.

We filed a lawsuit
[[link removed]]
for Ms.
MacRae against Hanover High School Principal Matthew Mattos and
Hanover School Superintendent Matthew Ferron in November 2021,
asserting a claim for First Amendment retaliation (_MacRae v. Matthew
Mattos, EL AL.
[[link removed]
(No. 21-cv-11917, 23-1817)).

MacRae was hired as a Hanover High School teacher on August 31, 2021
but was fired on September 29, 2021, 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.

“I got fired specifically for a social media post I made,” she
said. “That’s a violation of free speech,” MacRae told
[[link removed]]
the _Cape Cod Times_ in an interview published on October 13, 2021.

The lawsuit details that Mattos met with MacRae on September 24, 2021
to inform her that he was investigating the impact of six memes and
two TikTok videos that MacRae posted which were referenced in a
September 22, 2021, _Boston Globe_ article
[[link removed]].

On May 18, 2021, as part of her campaign for school committee member,
MacRae posted
[[link removed]]
a TikTok video which stated, in part:

> So pretty much the reason I ran for school board and the reason
> I’m taking on this responsibility is to ensure that students, at
> least in our town, are not being taught critical race theory. That
> they’re not being taught that the country was built on racism.
> So they’re not being taught that they can choose whether or not
> they want to be a girl or a boy. It’s one thing to include and
> it’s one thing to be inclusive. And it’s one thing to educate
> everybody about everything. It’s completely another thing to push
> your agenda. And, with me on the school board, that won’t happen
> in our town.
In a letter dated September 29, 2021, Mattos fired MacRae from her
position at Hanover High School, stating “I have determined that
continuing your employment in light of your social media posts would
have a significant impact on student learning at HHS.” Ferron
reviewed and approved Mattos’ decision to fire MacRae.

No Hanover High School parent or student had raised concerns about
MacRae’s employment at Hanover High School because of the social
media posts.

In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the
lower court’s decision which concluded that Hanover Public Schools
provided evidence of the potential for disruption, which justified
MacRae’s firing.

We argue that MacRae was fired for unrelated, pre-employment speech on
matters of public concern:

> Here, MacRae spoke as a private citizen on a matter of public
> concern before she applied to—let alone was hired by—Hanover
> Public Schools. Her speech was not at school because, obviously, it
> could not have been. Nor was it about the school district or its
> administrators, teachers, parents, or students. It was not even
> about the town. In fact, it is undisputed that MacRae’s speech
> falls squarely within the (Supreme) Court’s category of private
> speech on matters of public concern. Her speech added to the public
> debate on immigration policy, racism, and gender identity.
We note that our petition “raises a question of exceptional
importance for tens of millions of current and future public-school
teachers:

> There are approximately four million public-school teachers in the
> United States. There are also tens of millions of persons who aspire
> to be public-school teachers in the future. This case concerns
> whether those individuals have the same free speech rights as every
> other private citizen.
In a July 9, 2024, editorial
[[link removed]]
that calls for the Supreme Court to review the case, the _Wall Street
Journal_ Editorial Board states:

> Ms. MacRae says no federal appellate court to her knowledge has held
> that government employers can punish employees for speech unrelated
> to their jobs and which occurred before they were on the payroll.
>
> The First Circuit’s decision delineates no statute of limitation
> or limiting principle to employee speech that government employers
> can punish. A teacher could be fired for hanging a “Make America
> Great Again” flag at home. Political activity during college years
> could become grounds for dismissal. Workers who don’t agree with
> the left’s cultural mores may now have to self-censor in private
> life to avoid losing their jobs.
> Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
likes
> to say that his opponents aren’t only coming after him—they’re
> also coming after you. Ms. MacRae’s cancellation is a case in
> point that could use Supreme Court review.
Let’s cut to the chase: Kari MacRae was fired because she spoke out
against woke critical race theory before she was hired as a teacher at
Hanover High School. The firing was a blatant violation of her First
Amendment free speech rights. The Supreme Court should step in and
uphold the First Amendment.

In February 2021, Judicial Watch filed a civil rights lawsuit
[[link removed]]
on
behalf of David Flynn, the father of two Dedham Public School
students, who was removed from his position as head football coach
after exercising his right as a citizen to raise concerns about his
daughter’s seventh-grade history class curriculum being changed to
include biased coursework on politics, race, gender equality, and
diversity _(__Flynn v. Forrest et al_
[[link removed]
[[link removed]
_(No. 21-cv-10256)). The case was ultimately settled
[[link removed]]
with the Superintendent acknowledging in a letter “the important and
valid issues” raised by Flynn and specific changes in school
policies because of Flynn’s complaint.

In July 2021, we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit
[[link removed]]
on
behalf of Palatine, IL, tenured high school teacher Jeanne Hedgepeth,
who was fired by the suburban-Chicago school district where she had
worked for 20 years after posting comments on Facebook criticizing the
riots, violence, and shootings in Chicago in the aftermath of the May
25, 2020, killing of George Floyd. Hedgepeth made the posts on her
personal Facebook page while vacationing after the end of the school
year, just as some of the most severe violence was occurring. In her
posts, Hedgepeth recommended studying Thomas Sowell, whom she
described as a “treasure” and a “truth seeker,” and praised
political commentator and activist Candice Owens and talk show host
Larry Elder. She alleges that the firing violated her First Amendment
rights.

SOROS-TIED FACEBOOK CENSORSHIP BOARD MAY PUSH FOR CENSORING OPPONENTS
OF TRANSGENDER EXTREMISM

Facebook may be on the verge of a mass censorship operation on major
area of public debate – to help the Left! Our _Corruption
Chronicles_ blog looks
[[link removed]]
into it.

The Facebook (now Meta) censorship board stacked with leftists, many
with deep connections to leftwing billionaire George Soros, is
considering if social media posts complaining about transgender
females—biological men who claim to be in the wrong body and
identify as women—constitute hate speech, bullying or harassment.
This is relevant because the oversight board
[[link removed]],
as it is officially
known, determines which posts get blocked from the world’s most
popular social networking website which has an estimated 5 billion
users. Other topics recently considered by the board include whether
anti-immigration posts fall under hate speech since Meta has declared
that refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are protected against
“the most severe attacks” on its platforms.

Now the panel is preparing to examine a pair of 2024 posts reported
for hate speech, bullying and harassment multiple times but allowed by
Meta to remain on Facebook and its other popular social media platform
Instagram. Users appealed to Meta against its decision not to remove
the posts, but the California-based technology conglomerate determined
that neither violated its “community standards.” At least two
individuals reported the content to the oversight board, which
announced
[[link removed]]
recently that it is taking on the cases. In one a Facebook user in the
United States posted a video of a woman confronting a transgender
woman—a biological man—for using the women’s bathroom. “The
post refers to the person being confronted as a man and asks why it is
permitted for them to use a women’s bathroom,” the board writes in
its announcement. The other complaint involves an Instagram account
that posted a video of a transgender girl—a biological boy—winning
a female sports competition in the U.S. In the post spectators vocally
disapprove of the result and the athlete is identified as a boy,
“questioning whether they are female,” according to the censorship
panel.

Meta’s hate speech policy prohibits direct attacks targeting a
person or group of people based on protected characteristics,
including sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, but does not
include misgendering as a form of prohibited attack. “Misgendering
means referring to a person using a word, especially a pronoun or the
way in which they are addressed, that does not reflect their gender
identity,” the oversight board explains. Meta standards for bullying
and harassment were not met in either case because there was no
explicit call for exclusion and there was no “cognizable attack or
call for exclusion” in either social media post. One of the users
who appealed Meta’s decision to keep the posts on its platform
played the “transphobic” card and the other asserted that the post
attacks and harasses the transgender athlete. “The Board selected
these cases to assess whether Meta’s approach to moderating
discussions around gender identity respects users’ freedom of
expression and the rights of transgender and non-binary people,” the
panel writes, adding that both fall under its “hate speech against
marginalized groups and gender strategic priorities.”

It seems like the panel is fabricating terms to align with the
left’s political correctness on steroids. Not surprising considering
who sits on the censorship board, which Judicial Watch exposed shortly
after it was launched. For starters, the group of 21 is overwhelmingly
leftist and likely to restrict conservative views. Nearly half of the
members have ties to Soros, the wealthy philanthropist who dedicates
huge sums to spreading a radical left agenda that includes targeting
conservative politicians, erasing national borders and identities,
financing civil unrest and orchestrating refugee crises for political
gain. Some on the oversight board have made political contributions to
top Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Elizabeth
Warren and others have publicly expressed their disdain for former
President Donald Trump.

Among the panel’s standouts is András Sajó, the founding Dean of
Legal Studies at Soros’s Central European University and a board
member of his Open Society Foundations (OSF) Justice Initiative. Alan
Rusbridger, a former British newspaper editor and Oxford University
official, serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect
Journalists, which has received at least $750,000 from OSF. Afia
Asantewaa Sariyev, a human rights attorney, is the program manager at
Soros’s Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Sudhir
Krishnaswamy, an Indian lawyer and civil society activist, runs a
nonprofit called Centre for Law and Policy Research that focuses on
transgender rights, gender equality and public health. The group is a
grantee of a justice foundation that pocketed $1.4 million from OSF.
The list of Meta judges connected to Soros and the organized left
continues. Read more about it in a Judicial Watch report
[[link removed]]
published last year.

Until next week,





[Contribute]
[[link removed]]


[image]
[[link removed]]


RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS IN PERIL

_"When it comes to fighting for the American people’s ‘right to
know,’ no one holds a candle to Tom Fitton and his team at Judicial
Watch"_ - SEAN HANNITY

Tom Fitton returns with an exhaustive investigation into the
progressive movement’s efforts to dismantle the venerable
institutions of American rights and freedoms.

Order Tom Fitton's Must-Read Today!
[[link removed]]

[32x32x1]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x2]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

[32x32x3]
[[link removed]]

Judicial Watch, Inc.
425 3rd St Sw Ste 800
Washington, DC 20024

202.646.5172



© 2017 - 2024, All Rights Reserved
Manage Email Subscriptions
[[link removed]]
|
Privacy Policy
[[link removed]]
|
Unsubscribe
[[link removed]]

View in browser
[[link removed]]