Biden Administration Won’t Discuss Whether It Placed Gabbard on Terrorist List


 

President Donald Trump has nominated former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the next director of national intelligence. She appeared this week for a Senate confirmation hearing.

Meantime, we’re trying to get to the bottom of how the Biden administration treated her.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA ) lawsuit responses from the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis of Homeland Security show that the Biden administration refused to “confirm or deny” that Gabbard was targeted for surveillance under the Transportation Security Administration Quiet Skies terrorist watch program.

We filed the December 2024 lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard being targeted (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-03427)). The Transportation Security Administration is a component of the Department of Homeland Security. As noted in the December 11 court order, we sought to expedite the lawsuit.

We sued after Homeland Security failed to respond to three August 5, 2024, FOIA requests for records of Homeland Security Department and Transportation Security Administration officials regarding both Gabbard and its Quiet Skies program.

The Biden administration’s responses, all dated January 17, 2025, include a letter signed by a Homeland Security FOIA officer, informing us  that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) “conducted a search for records responsive to the FOIA request that do not tend to confirm or deny any individual’s status on or off a Federal Watch List and found no responsive records.”

Similarly, the Transportation Security Administration wrote: “TSA cannot confirm or deny the existence of records that would tend to confirm a particular individual’s status on or off a Federal Watch List, including Quiet Skies, which are protected by statute and therefore exempt from disclosure. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3). TSA conducted a search for records responsive to the FOIA request and, pursuant to FOIA and its exemptions, … is processing any responsive records that do not tend to confirm or deny any individual’s status on or off a Federal Watch List.”

Homeland Security reported it reviewed 506 pages of responsive records and produced 13 pages initially, which are redacted of any substantive information.

On August 4, 2024, it was reported that “several Federal Air Marshal whistleblowers have come forward with information showing that former U.S. Representative and Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is currently enrolled in the Quiet Skies program.”

On August 23, 2024, the House Oversight Committee wrote to David P. Pekoske, the administrator for the Transportation Security Administration, that Gabbard was added “to the Quiet Skies program on July 23, 2024 – one day after she criticized the Biden administration in an interview.”

Gabbard, who on November 13, 2024, was nominated by then President-elect Donald Trump to be the next director of national intelligence, subsequently confirmed the reports, asserting in a video she posted on X that she had learned that three air marshals were assigned to watch her every time she “traveled in the airport and on the flight.” Gabbard added, “TSA deployed explosive canine detection teams and a TSA explosion specialist.”

According to the DHS website, “Quiet Skies” is a “tool that allows the Federal Air Marshal Service to more efficiently deploy law enforcement resources to focus on travelers who may present an elevated risk to aviation security.”

We recently reported that the Transportation Security Administration, a federal agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation’s transportation system, has no idea how aviation security was impacted when:

[I]t plucked Federal Air Marshal Service agents from their critical duties to help with the Mexican border crisis. Air Marshals operate under the Transportation Security Administration, and in the last few years the agency has forced the highly trained aviation security specialists to assist Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with the onslaught of illegal immigrants entering the country under Biden’s disastrous open border policies.”

The Biden administration’s decision to place Tulsi Gabbard on a terrorist watchlist was abusive on its face. Given her pending nomination to director of national intelligence, we hope the Trump administration takes a different approach and provides more details on this scandal.
 

Anthony Fauci Received U.S. Marshals Protective Detail after Retirement

 President Trump ended Anthony Fauci’s security detail. “When you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off,” he said. “And you know, you can’t have them forever. So, I think it’s very standard.”

Fauci seems to have received the type of security reserved for a former president of the United States at obviously great expense.

Now we’ve uncovered a little-known fact illustrating the Biden administration’s eagerness to protect their covid czar.

We received 3 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that show Dr. Anthony Fauci was provided a U.S. taxpayer-funded protective detail by the U.S. Marshals Service after his retirement in January of 2023.

On January 20, 2023, Fauci retired as President Biden’s chief medical adviser and as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

An April 17, 2023, email from Marshals Service then-Associate Director of Operations Mark Pittella to Director Ronald Davis states that Fauci’s USMS detail is a “reimbursable agreement” that “was agreed upon and paid for” by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is NIAID’s lead agency.

We filed the September 2024 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to provide records requested in a June 2024 FOIA request (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (1:24-cv-02606)). Judicial Watch is asking for:

All records, including emails, email chains, email attachments, correspondence, memoranda, statements, reports, agreements, expenditures, invoices, reimbursements, expense reports, briefings, or other form of record, regarding government funds spent on USMS [U.S. Marshals Service] protection of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). This request also includes any requests or authorizations to initiate USMS protection of Dr. Fauci.

The U.S. Marshals Service is the enforcement and security arm of the U.S. federal judiciary.

In July 2023 it was reported that Fauci was “receiving [a] government-funded security detail despite his alleged retirement.” And while HHS reportedly “was set to end its protection of Fauci,” it was discovered that the U.S. Marshals had assumed protective responsibilities on January 5, 2023.

Open The Books reported on November 7, 2024, that Fauci received $15 million in taxpayer-funded security services after his retirement. The security detail began on January 4, 2023, and ran through September 20, 2024.

In an April 17, 2023, email, Pittella writes:

I asked some specific questions of JSD [Judicial Security Division] related to the chart they provided earlier today regarding our protection details and the number of personnel. Please let me know if you would like additional information regarding the numbers provided to each of the details. Thank you and have a nice evening.

If [redacted] and Dr. Fauci all have full portal to portal details, why [redacted]

[Redacted]

However, the actual number that makes up the detail depends [redacted]. While we would like to remain consistent on the details, the number of personnel we are able to assign [redacted].

For Fauci, the number of deputies requested at the time of the HHS [Health and Human Services] reimbursable agreement was [redacted]. This request was based on [redacted]. Since Fauci is a reimbursable agreement, the request for [redacted]deputies was agreed upon and paid for by HHS. JSD [Judicial Security Division] requested [redacted] to ensure the agency was funded for the appropriate number [redacted].

***

The number of deputies proposed for the Director’s detail is [redacted]. Currently, there are [redacted] assigned to his protection detail’ totaling [redacted]. With no changes to the posture, the total number assigned to fully staff the detail would be [redacted] personnel. With the Director’s request to [redacted] it has been proposed that the Director’s detail be staffed-up [redacted] personnel. Because this detail is staffed by JSD personnel, JSD would prefer to [redacted].

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted] only has DUSMs [Marshals] assigned to his detail. Is that enough DUSMs to properly provide security?”

Yes, [redacted]

This is the recommended number of personnel for this detail type based on JSDs protective detail model….

Overall there is disparity among the details with similar levels of protection, as it pertains to DUSMs assigned to each of those details? Why?”

The disparity is that we are not staffing the special details permanently.”

[Redacted]

This is what causes the disparity in numbers.

While JSD attempts to equally use resources so that each detail has a similar security posture across the board, without permanent personnel assigned, the numbers will continue to fluctuate.

Our FOIA lawsuits and investigations have uncovered much of what the public knows about Fauci and his former agency and the Covid-19 controversies:

• In July 2024, we sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for records of Fauci, various top officials, grantees, and contractors regarding efforts to subvert FOIA and other information requests about Covid issues.
• In June 2024, we sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for records from the Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) regarding after action reports, review of procedures, or studies concerning the preparation for and response to the Covid-19 pandemic
• In April 2024, we uncovered FBI records that showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”
• Emails between U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and top Facebook executives in 2021 regarding the censorship of user posts about Covid controversies showed Facebook leadership seeking to “better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.”
• Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.
• Records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
• HHS records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.
• Heavily redacted HHS records showed that just two days prior to FDA approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine a discussion was held between U.S. and UK health regulators regarding the Covid shot and “anaphylaxis,” with the regulators emphasizing their “mutual confidentiality agreement.”
• We obtained HHS records regarding data Moderna submitted to the FDA on its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, which indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.
• Heavily redacted records from the FDA regarding the Covid-19 booster vaccine detailed pressure on Covid booster use and approval.
• HHS records detailed internal discussions about myocarditis and the Covid vaccine. Other documents detailed adverse “events for which a contributory effect of the vaccine could not be excluded.”
• We uncovered HHS records detailing the extensive media plans for a Biden administration propaganda campaign to push the Covid-19 vaccine.
• HHS records revealed previously redacted locations of Covid-19 vaccine testing facilities in Shanghai, China. The FDA had claimed the name and location of the testing facilities were protected by the confidential commercial information exemption of the FOIA.
• NIH records showed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also showed National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
• Texas Public Information Act (PIA) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), James W. Le Duc, warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.
• HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed how a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
• Records obtained from HHS through a FOIA lawsuit related to hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19 revealed that a grant to EcoHealth Alliance was cancelled because of press reports that a portion of the grant was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
• NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
• HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”
• Our four-part documentary regarding the coordinated effort by the government and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates is available here.

FBI Issued Warnings of Domestic Extremists After Mar-a-Lago Raid

The FBI raid on President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was an incredible abuse of power based on false allegations. The raid was followed by the FBI distracting the public with a politicized document slyly tying President Trump and other critics to threats over this abuse. Who can trust the FBI at this point?

We received 8 pages of records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit which show the DHS and FBI warning law enforcement agencies that they should be prepared for a surge in threats from so-called Domestic Violence Extremists (DVEs) following the August 8, 2022, FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

We obtained the records through an October 2022 lawsuit filed after the Department of Homeland Security failed to comply with an August 2022, FOIA request (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Homeland Security (1:22-cv-03275)). Judicial Watch asked for:

All records of communication between any official or employee of the U.S. Secret Service and any official or employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the execution of a search warrant at the residence of President Trump on August 8, 2022.

A widely distributed August 13, 2022, email, from which the sender and recipients’ names are redacted, was sent to officials in FBI, ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), BOP (Federal Bureau of Prisons), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), State Department, and numerous other agencies, with the subject “Recent Violent Threats Against Law Enforcement” stating:

Colleagues, I wanted to provide you an update on the FBI’s response to the heightened threats against law enforcement following the FBI’s recent investigation actions in Palm Beach, Florida. Attached is a Joint Intelligence Bulletin that provides information on the potential threats posed by domestic violent extremists following this event.

To date we have received [redacted]. I wanted to thank all of you for your continued partnership and support of the Miami Field Office. [Redacted]. The safety and wellness of employees is my paramount concern. Let me assure you that FBI Miami will continue to work with your agencies to identify and monitor threats against law enforcement and will continue to communicate updated information as it becomes available.

If you have any questions, I encourage you to contact our counterterrorism ASAC [Assistant Special Agent in Charge] [redacted].

The message is signed by Special Agent in Charge Robert DeWitt.

A document titled “Joint Intelligence Bulletin,” dated August 12, 2022, is attached in DeWitt’s email. The opening paragraph states:

This Joint Intelligence Bulletin is intended to provide information on the potential for domestic violent extremists to carry out attacks on federal, state, and local law enforcement and government personnel or facilities. This Bulletin is being shared in light of an increase in threats and aces [sic] of violence, including armed encounters, against law enforcement, judiciary, and government personnel, in reaction to the FBI’s recent execution of a court-authorized search warrant in Palm Beach, Florida. It is intended to support the activities of the FBI and DHS and assist federal, state, local, tribal. and territorial government; counterterrorism, law enforcement, and court officials; first responders; and private sector security partners in effectively deterring, preventing, preempting, or responding to terrorist attacks against the United States.

An “Overview” section of the bulletin states:

The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in threats to federal law enforcement and, to a lesser extent, other law enforcement and government officials following the FBI’s recent execution of a search warrant in Palm Beach, Florida. These threats are occurring [redacted]. The FBI and DHS would like to ensure that law enforcement, court, and government personnel are aware of the range of threats and criminal and violent incidents….

The FBI and DHS are aware of an increase in recent threats and calls for violence against federal law enforcement, US Government, and judicial personnel in reaction to the FBI’s execution of a search warrant in Palm Beach, Florida on 8 August 2022. These developments highlight the heightened threat since 2020 by domestic violent extremists (DVEs) motivated by a range of ideologies, who have grievances against a variety of targets including law enforcement.

A footnote in the report defining “Domestic Violent Extremism” notes: “The mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism, use of strong rhetoric, or generalized philosophic embrace of violent tactics may not constitute extremism and may be constitutionally protected.”

Further along the report cites one of the purported threats, noting:

On 11 August 2022, Ricky Shiffer, Jr. [redacted] attempted to forcibly enter the FBI’s Cincinnati’s Field Office. When uniformed officers responded to Shiffer’s attempt to break a glass barrier, he fled the scene. A pursuit ensued, and Shiffer entered a standoff with FBI and law enforcement officers after firing multiple shots at responding officers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP), with FBI SWAT support, attempted to arrest Shiffer, resulting in his death.

A section of the report titled “Outlook” states:

In recent years, DVEs adhering to different violent extremist ideologies have coalesced around perceptions of government overreach and election fraud to threaten and conduct violence. As a result of recent activities, we assess that potential targets of DVE violence moving forward could include [redacted]. The threats we have observed to date, underscore that DVEs may view the 2022 elections as an additional flashpoint around which to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including federal law enforcement personnel.

A subsection titled “Past Behaviors Associated with Radicalization and Mobilization to Violence” notes:

A body of court documents and press reporting reveals several observable behaviors that may indicate radicalization and mobilization to violence by DVEs. It is important to emphasize that many of the mobilization indicators may also relate to constitutionally protected activities. It is important to look critically and contextually at the specific actions of the individual and their intent. Law enforcement action should never be taken solely based on constitutionally protected activities; on the apparent or actual race, age, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity of the subject; or any combination of these factors. Individuals are encouraged to contact law enforcement if-based on these indicators and the situational context·-·they suspect an individual is mobilizing to violence or engaging in violent extremist activities.

Some of the examples of such activities they include are:

• Unusual purchase of military-style tactical equipment (for example, body armor or personal protective equipment) in a manner that raises suspicion of planning violence;”
• Communicating directly with, or seeking to develop a relationship with violent extremists – or being contacted directly by them – for suspected criminal purposes;”
• Unusual acquisition of weapons or ammunition for suspected criminal purposes;”
• Unusual change in, or initiation of, physical or weapons training for suspected criminal purposes;”
• Producing, promoting, or extensively consuming violent extremist content online or in person, including violent extremist videos, narratives, media, and messaging for suspected criminal purposes;”
• Expressing acceptance of violence as a necessary means to achieve ideological goals (for example, communicating a desire for revenge against ideological opponents) and saying that nonviolent means are ineffective or unavailable;”
• Increasing or extreme adherence to conspiracy theories as justification of violence against ideological targets;”
• Attempting to radicalize others – especially family members and peers- to violence.”

We are in the forefront of the court battles for transparency regarding the Biden-Harris administration’s targeting of former President Trump and conservatives.

Judicial Watch recently sued the Defense Department for details of Army training materials that designate pro-life organizations or individuals as “terrorists.”

In May 2024, Judicial Watch uncovered a recording of a phone message left by an FBI special agent for someone at the Secret Service in the context of the raid on President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

In March 2024, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Energy for records about the retroactive termination of former President Donald Trump’s security clearance and/or access to classified information.

In August 2023, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for records of the Archives’ role in President Trump’s White House records controversy; whether it offered Trump a secure storage location other than the National Archives; and if the Archives consulted with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding the classification or declassification procedures of any of the alleged classified documents found at Trump’s Florida residence.

In June 2023, Judicial Watch obtained DOJ records that showed top officials of the National Security Division discussing the political implications of Trump allowing CNN to use closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage of the raid on his Mar-a-Lago home. The documents confirmed that the Justice Department had asked that Mar-a-Lago CCTV be turned off before the raid.

A separate Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration resulted in the release of records about the unprecedented document dispute between the Archives and President Trump. Click here or here to review the records.

In August 2022, Judicial Watch successfully sued to unseal the search warrant affidavit used to justify the unprecedented raid on the home of former President Trump.

In September 2022, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits against the DOJ for its records and the FBI’s records.
 

Judicial Watch Sues for Information on Qatar Funding U.S. Universities

We recently filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of the Zachor Legal Institute against the U.S. Department of Education for records concerning Qatar’s funding and operations of five U.S. universities – Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and University of Michigan (Zachor Legal Institute. v. U.S. Department of Education(No. 1:25-cv-00093)). We filed the lawsuit on January 14, 2025.

In February 2024, Texas A&M closed its campus in Qatar, following disclosures from a Judicial Watch lawsuit on behalf of Zachor that uncovered nearly half a billion in funding from the regime to the university.

Qatar has given or contracted nearly $6 billion to American universities since 2007, according to a February 2024 report. The money is said to have “enabled Qatar to have outsized influence in American politics and academia, efforts [that] have mainstreamed anti-Israel propaganda and silenced criticism about Doha’s longstanding ties to Hamas, the Iranian regime, and other terror groups.”

We sued after the Department of Education failed to respond to Zachor’s March 20, 2024, FOIA request for:

1. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

2. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of the Georgetown Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington, DC, Qatar, which is funded, in part, by grants from the United States Government’s Department of Education;

3. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Northwestern University’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

4. Inquiries, reports and memorandum of the Department of Education with regard to the funding and operations of Weill Cornell Medicine’s campus in Doha, Qatar;

5. Department of Education correspondence with Harvard College regarding grants, gifts and funding from Qatar Foundation and the government of Qatar; and

6. Department of Education correspondence with the University of Michigan, regarding grants, gifts and funding from Qatar Foundation and the government of Qatar.

Zachor is a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to combating the spread of anti-Semitism and has engaged in substantial activities to raise awareness of Qatar’s influence in the U.S. and around the world.  Qatar controversially has aligned itself with Islamic terrorists and extremists which has placed it at odds with the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies in the Middle East.

A March 2024 Judicial Watch Investigative Bulletin noted:

A metastasizing corruption scandal in Europe—dubbed “Qatargate” by the local media—has engulfed politicians from Greece, Belgium, and Italy, and shows no sign of slowing down. At the center of the case: allegations that Qatar steered $4.3 million in bribes to European Union officials to favorably influence policy toward the wealthy Mideast nation.

The Biden administration was intent on hiding the truth about how the Qatari government funds and manipulates American universities. The Trump Education Department should expose the details of this foreign influence operation as soon as possible.

Marc Greendorfer, president of Zachor Legal Institute said, “While we were disappointed with the opacity and obstruction of the prior administration, which seems to have had a policy of preventing the American people from knowing what terror-supporting foreign actors have been doing in our schools, we are thrilled to be working again with the incredible team at Judicial Watch. We know that with the combination of Judicial Watch and a new administration we will finally have the transparency this issue needs.”

Judicial Watch and the Zachor – with the assistance of Jennifer S. Riggs of Riggs & Ray, P.C. in Austin, Texas – previously spent more than five years successfully fighting the Qatar Foundation in Texas courts for information about the funding of Texas A&M. The records that were produced showed that over $522 million was given by Qatar to the state university from January 1, 2013, to May 22, 2018, including more than $485 million from the Qatar Foundation  In addition, because of Judicial Watch’s court victory, Texas A&M produced contracts that suggest Texas A&M provided an assignment of sensitive intellectual property to the Qatar Foundation.
 

Judicial Watch Sues for Details of Biden-Harris ‘Internet for All’ Boondoggle

The Left is good at spending your money but terrible at making anything happen.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce for details of the failed “Internet for All” initiative led by then-Vice President Kamala Harris (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Commerce et al. (No. 1:25-cv-00071). The lawsuit was filed on January 10, 2025.

Assistant General Counsel Brian DiGiacomo, also named in the suit, rejected our October 16, 2024, FOIA request to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a component of Commerce, for records regarding from certain named officials concerning implementing President Biden’s Infrastructure Law “Internet for All,” including:

• Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary
• April McClain-Delaney, Deputy Assistant Secretary
• Andy Berke, Special Representative for Broadband
• Sarah Morris, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Administrator

We also requested records about the “Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment” (BEAD), a component of the “Internet for All” initiative.

On October 4, 2024, The Wall Street Journal editorial board published an article titled “The Harris Broadband Rollout Has Been a Fiasco,” in which it reported:

The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project….

Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.

Take how the Administration is forcing providers to subsidize service for low-income customers … bidders had to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is rate regulation.

***

The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”

This broadband project is ripe for being shut down by Congress, President Trump and DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency). In the meantime, the Trump administration should disclose the details of this woke black hole for taxpayer dollars.

Until next week,